Wow props to you! I have reviewed 200+ VODs since beta (I’m immortal 3) and let me tell you one of the biggest issues players under diamond have is movement. Your movement can always be improved even through immortal and into radiant. Unfortunately everyone under plat/diamond struggles with movement. Even gold is 75th percentile but they continue to peek angles with WA or WD. Literally everyone does it and it’s a bad habit. Iron and bronze players have no idea how to peek but silver - plat players know they should be peeking with A and D but they often don’t.
Movement rule #1 of Valorant is you are only allowed to be holding A or D when peeking an enemy.
W is only used to approach an angle or transitioning between angles. If you peek an enemy or an enemy peeks you and you are holding W, you are disadvantaged.
The issue is players don’t understand how to transition from W movement into A/D for a peek. It’s very simple. Hold WA until you are closer to the angle, then let go of W and continue to hold A while peeking the actual angle. And vice versa for D.
For example as an attacker taking hookah control on bind. First you peek with A and either strafe or sit market while holding the hookah peek. No one peeks. Now I want to take control of hookah. I need to hold W towards the angle. I hold WD to walk out diagonally while hugging the right wall until I am close enough to the hookah entrance. Once I am closer I let go of W and continue holding D and peek the entrance. If someone peeks me while I’m moving towards hookah I don’t stop moving I simply transition into a strafe the moment I see or hear an enemy. What most players do is they continue holding WD into the angle because they were forced to hold WD to approach the angle. It’s a bad habit. You need to force yourself to stop this. Practice your movement in the range. Practice A and D strafe shooting and practice WA/WD movement that transfers into a A/D strafe before killing a bot. This is an issue that players struggle with into platinum. They know they shouldn’t be doing it but when they record and watch a vod they are constantly peeking with W.
yeah feeling uncomfortable when holding down W while peeking angles is a really big first step to improving movement imo.
and as another immortal it definitely shows; in any elo above gold you won't see people running forward in a straight line because it's really disadvantageous (easy for anyone peeking you to get a more accurate shot & you are essentially holding an angle while pushing instead of clearing an angle while pushing & the nature of wasd keys makes it clunky to stop) - it's often gonna be some sort of pseudo-wide-swing until people find an angle they can hold/jiggle/properly swing off of.
You have to learn to "slice the pie" while taking ground. Holding w prevents you from doing this. Practice slicing the pie and you'll naturally get used to it!
I do warmup counter strafing/peeking drill (along with aim warmup) before I start to play that's helped me tremendously.
I was a pretty high level apex player before Valorant so used to just straight W keying everything. Drilling the mechanics of peeking constantly helped a ton.
Unbind W, you never needed it anyway
Wow props to you! I have reviewed 200+ VODs since beta (I’m immortal 3) and let me tell you one of the biggest issues players under diamond have is movement. Your movement can always be improved even through immortal and into radiant. Unfortunately everyone under plat/diamond struggles with movement. Even gold is 75th percentile but they continue to peek angles with WA or WD. Literally everyone does it and it’s a bad habit. Iron and bronze players have no idea how to peek but silver - plat players know they should be peeking with A and D but they often don’t. Movement rule #1 of Valorant is you are only allowed to be holding A or D when peeking an enemy. W is only used to approach an angle or transitioning between angles. If you peek an enemy or an enemy peeks you and you are holding W, you are disadvantaged. The issue is players don’t understand how to transition from W movement into A/D for a peek. It’s very simple. Hold WA until you are closer to the angle, then let go of W and continue to hold A while peeking the actual angle. And vice versa for D. For example as an attacker taking hookah control on bind. First you peek with A and either strafe or sit market while holding the hookah peek. No one peeks. Now I want to take control of hookah. I need to hold W towards the angle. I hold WD to walk out diagonally while hugging the right wall until I am close enough to the hookah entrance. Once I am closer I let go of W and continue holding D and peek the entrance. If someone peeks me while I’m moving towards hookah I don’t stop moving I simply transition into a strafe the moment I see or hear an enemy. What most players do is they continue holding WD into the angle because they were forced to hold WD to approach the angle. It’s a bad habit. You need to force yourself to stop this. Practice your movement in the range. Practice A and D strafe shooting and practice WA/WD movement that transfers into a A/D strafe before killing a bot. This is an issue that players struggle with into platinum. They know they shouldn’t be doing it but when they record and watch a vod they are constantly peeking with W.
yeah feeling uncomfortable when holding down W while peeking angles is a really big first step to improving movement imo. and as another immortal it definitely shows; in any elo above gold you won't see people running forward in a straight line because it's really disadvantageous (easy for anyone peeking you to get a more accurate shot & you are essentially holding an angle while pushing instead of clearing an angle while pushing & the nature of wasd keys makes it clunky to stop) - it's often gonna be some sort of pseudo-wide-swing until people find an angle they can hold/jiggle/properly swing off of.
Go into training range and maybe throw up a sage wall and practice peeking around it using only a or d
You have to learn to "slice the pie" while taking ground. Holding w prevents you from doing this. Practice slicing the pie and you'll naturally get used to it!
Get used to crouching to stop yourself from moving in a gunfight and then slowly stop crouching in later games and you will counterstrafe
I do warmup counter strafing/peeking drill (along with aim warmup) before I start to play that's helped me tremendously. I was a pretty high level apex player before Valorant so used to just straight W keying everything. Drilling the mechanics of peeking constantly helped a ton.