immo players probably play the game more than lower elo players, including swift

also confirmation bias

again, i'm not arguing which rifle is better, i'm saying that using the vandal helps you improve better by emphasizing crosshair placement, first bullet accuracy (by lieu of the guaranteed one-tap), and good movement options

everything the phantom is better at (recoil, accuracy while moving, fire rate) makes the user more inclined to use the phantom those ways (crouch spraying, run and gun, spamming).

your clip is a situation where the phantom is much better than the vandal. it would be much harder to get the spam kills with the vandal. however, a newer player or a lower rank wouldn't understand that's the situation where you should use the phantom's better abilities and would spray all the time, which would hamper them if they want to improve

just to set the record straight i think the phantom is actually a better rifle than the vandal

prx aware

i like good kid :c

hoping someone will pick up moh

when chronicle roasted babysasuke

imo no
it should be based on knowledge of teams, if you know more than you should be better at it

this just has a bunch of false answers and red herrings, which i think is bad design as evidenced by everyone having a high number of guesses

i only got the one about bonkers because ur name brought it to mind

honestly this one is kinda mid bc there are so many similarities between a lot of these players

woah hold up

https://strawpoll.com/ajnE16NwBnW

https://strawpoll.com/40Zm4VdQ2ga

nd ur making posts about him sit down lil bro

lets goooo happy birthday :) good to see you friend

#bleedblue

this makes me wonder if people even read the post (tl;dr is just a joke)

sorry ily cloudberry

not the point im not arguing with which rifle is better, title is bait
the post is intended to say that you should use the vandal because it teaches better habits that will benefit you in the long run
the ceiling for crouch spraying and spamming thru smokes is significantly lower than good movement and shooting decisions

Demon1 went to DSG

one of these is not like the others

imo you should be using the vandal up until at least gold/plat and maybe even all the way up to immo

it teaches you the right fundamentals that are the ethos of valorant, whereas with the phantom you can succeed (get kills) by crouch spraying
using the vandal makes two-tap strafes necessary to improve at gunplay and overall improves your movement, as well as the importance of your first bullet accuracy

tl;dr be an aspas, not a boaster

idk but i don't think frost is a high bar to beat

nooooo :( goodbye i liked your threads

as alecks said, it's more like "see you soon" not a goodbye

could but idk about surf, i thought he looked good on jett but i'm not sure about his raze. obviously not a problem if primmie is primary duelist, but that would mean surf would play senti and thus jitboys or sscary would be forced to flex on double controller maps. i think jitboys is currently the second best player after primmie, so i would prioritize putting him on a comfort role, and he played a LOT of senti before

i remember valyn had a really good aim guide
other than that i would actually say taking care of yourself outside of valorant is important, not just talking abt sickness
i noticed that i actually play better when i take breaks, it helps you reset and not get stuck in habits or trapped in the cycle of queueing

other than that i would just say record games and vod review them. if you don't have a good duo, look for one, it will make games much more enjoyable and better

not sure. i think laz is quite good as he can also frag, but he plays a lot of senti/viper which doesn't fit into talon rolewise.

crws is a decent igl i think but he unironically is the most inconsistent player ive ever seen

either top frags with 1.6 rating or botfrags at 0.78

y0y ❤️

ok but there aren't that many good thai initiators, and probably one of talon's best options

i can't be the only one thinking that talon could make a giga banger team?

-ban
-governor
+sscary/sultan if signings are true
+cgrs

move jitboys to senti, primmie to primary duelist

u have never seen the guy who hates on xccurate?

no... that's not the logic i had. i thought ns were overrated, not that they were bad. i only mentioned the ascension final because of how close it was and to contrast the amount of glazing ns is getting to how much i would assume boom would get i they had won the finals. i have other reasons for doubting spg—for example, i think their macro is just alright and margaret specifically looks weaker compared to other players. dambi also is a player that would be significantly impacted by the neon nerfs, just like spike

ever since the iteration of the bleed roster that won ascension came together, they only dropped one game. i don't think dropping one game and dropping none is that different. personally, i didn't know about the core being well known, i heard more about names like free1ng, stew, yoman, etc even though i did hear persia getting thrown around a lot too. i also think that margaret is just okay as a sentinel player, and i don't know enough about francis to determine how good of an igl he is compared to other t1 teams.

again, this post wasn't about whether or not they would be okay in t1, though. i think they will be fine, all i'm saying is that people have them overhyped in tier lists and pickems

even so, do you think this team will be better than t1, prx, drx, geng, etc especially with some teams looking quite good recently (dfm, global?) all i'm saying is they may be undefeated since jan but they also have never faced a true tier1 team

what's the most amount of rounds the losing team can get to still be called a stomp

for me its 13-6 or less both maps

yeah, but with the changes some people had bleed in top 5 apac. all i'm saying is that you can't really see if teams are good enough if they don't play t1 teams, and ns haven't. but people are putting them over other teams that are looking good rn

i don't understand why people are glazing ns so much it reminds me of people having bleed top 5 pacific. not saying they're bad, but people are acting like nongshim are locked for apac top 4 even though they barely won ascension. if boom won the last two ot rounds, you can't convince me people would glaze boom as hard

imo francis is pretty good, persia is excellent, margaret and ivy are both alright, dambi is fine but heavily overrated

read the intro... its not about whether teams would make those changes but rather the minimal changes necessary to make a team top 4

yeah i'm definitely regretting that now, i just thought mazin was significantly better than people gave him credit for. i do agree that raafa actually looks decent as an igl

tw: allat

tl;dr: not enough gamemodes, nerfing agents/pongs makes game more unfun and harder for new players

right now, i think valorant is a game too focused on the competitive balance and not concerned enough with the casual playerbase. since i do both (watch pro valo and play a good amount), i think i am somewhat qualified to comment on how i ENJOY both the playing and viewing experience.

to be honest, i really enjoy watching professional valorant, especially with co-streamers like sliggy who can explain both macro and micro well. however, as a player, i find that i am losing interest and autopiloting when i play. i started in iron and grinded up to plat, and somewhere along the way i lost the drive to improve, especially when its just the same comp game over and over again while trying to deal with throwers, manchild ragers, e-daters, and smurfs. since there is no variety in game type (literally spike rush is the least competitive gamemode we have bring back replication rito).

how is this related to the ping change and agent nerfs?
the problem i have is that ping changes and agent nerfs all punish players who have been playing the game for some time. while obviously there needs to be changes made for agents that are obviously broken, like beta raze or old jett, i think they have nerfed some agents too hard. i think they could make minor changes to agents that would not impact pro play significantly but also keep agents being fun. for example, why are jett knives 8 ult points now? why does jett only have one updraft? i feel like if you kept one of these two changes it would change how jett is played but also keep the agent more fun. now you lose the ability to do stuff that you could do in the past (double updraft kills), which makes the experience of playing jett worse.

its the same thing for pings. pings are also very useful for stuff like pinging the kj lockdown location so that you have the exact elevation to sova ult. people are already talking about non-us servers having trouble with comms without pings. but more than that, changing how pings work is a quality of life DECREASE that makes the game more unfun to play AND hurts new players who are learning the ropes.

same thing with some agent nerfs. for example, skye nerf was probably necessary because of the double controller meta. but now i find skye is just unfun to play. you have to be careful with the flashes, the dog can't pivot while jumping, ult is now 8 points, etc. now, you've just made skye more unfun to play when really only the flashes needed to be changed.

finally, people, including riot, think ults are way stronger than they actually are. a lot of players, especially newer ones, more carefully use their ults especially since they get that dopamine rush from brim ult kills or chamber op. imo, making some ults 9 points (like viper ult or kj lockdown) also inherently makes the game more unfun to play because you are decreasing the tools players have rather than tackling the actual problem that makes an agent "broken".

curious as to what else you disagree with

already said zander marved was an overcook

why? disregarding bias, he had an absolutely horrid year with bleed, where he did not show individual ability. this is on a team where zest looked far better than him, and even deryeon had his moments. now in the offseason with eg, he looks alright, but not amazing. he's playing a lot of vyse, which i'm not sold on, and it's not like he was shitting on everyone. he's definitely a good senti, obviously an upgrade from apoth, but not A material.

i'd put spike as a mid-top B. I haven't seen enough of his gameplay at a high level to determine whether or not he is going to be one of the best in the region but he looks good right now. plus, neon got nerfed, which was his most impactful agent imo. i thought his initiator play looked alright, but not amazing.

i feel like people don't talk enough about how aimstyle affects roles, and its part of the reason i am a little worried about paper rex's role switch. i think generally the best players in the world have an aimstyle that fits their class. yay's peak in 2022 was a big part due to chamber and jett, where he held angles or methodically peeked, which complemented his calm aim style. it's the same for less, as a sentinel/viper player, the calm aim and amazing crosshair placement lets him win so many first engagements lurking or on the weak side. (this is part of the reason i actually think demon1 on sentinel would go craaaaaazy). take another cracked aimer like alfajer. even when he played sentinel, i felt his aimstyle was actually based more on his movement and rapid flicking, and i think this is also a big part of why alfa on raze works well. i can't see less playing raze and having the same effect without changing how he aims.

how does this affect jingg?
i feel like jingg's aimstyle is very much that of an entry duelist. imo his first bullet accuracy isn't that great compared to other top aimers, like primmie. oten he does 200-240 damage (bodyshot -> headshot or bodyshot -> bodyshot -> headshot) where he controls the recoil so that the second or third shot is the headshot. now that he's playing some killjoy/cypher, i think his aimstyle is not optimal for this role. not saying that they can't find success with it, but it has the same worries that paper rex has always had. when they shoot better than other teams, they just shit on them. but at the top levels of competition where everyone is a cracked aimer, he might struggle.

unironically mazin looked okay as a shooter on mibr, especially on viper. his controller play was overall solid, although his initiator SUCKED. i feel like hes better than most people give him credit for, but he's still not good. brazil has an igl drought and id honestly like more teams to try paper rex no igl style.

raafa could be ok too, he looks fine just not the solution

i don't think he's looked good recently and his performance at the tixinha invitational was downright horrid. they were playing without zap though and he did alright in ascension, so i could see moving him up to low B

forgot abt yay, put him in B.

i swear nismo was igling. or do you mean 2023 m80?

yeah i def overcooked, zander clears marved rn

i agree with this, but then i can't really see a "star player" that can just win rounds and bring the team together. i think nature is better than people give him credit for, but if you keep him who is popping off? maybe yay if he goes back to form? icy? derrek? the team is just kinda mid and unless you can find a strong fragger in these roles supa and yay are gonna have to shoulder most of the burden.

this list is the MINIMAL amount of changes that need to be made, and i think adding tactical depth and a strong fragger solves both problems neatly

i think im optic biased but marved looked good on 2023 sen too i think he has promise esp as a second caller

i couldn't see a consistent star player on 100t like tenz, aspas, kk/smoggy, woot/riens/benjy

if marved could recreate iceland grand finals it would mesh everything

i think i overcooked tho, just nostalgia pilled

if we got 2024 marved it would be a downgrade

the idea here is based off of current form. while kc looked amazing at kickoff (marteen cracked), they slumped HARD later. narrate was the only one still showing crazy, map defining and map winning moments like the 1v5 vs navi or the lotus clutch vs sentinels even as the team failed to perform. thats what makes him an s tier player imo as he is one of the most impactful fraggers with good util.

its the same argument with verno. in his 9 games with nrg, he has been the highest rated player on his team 7 (!!) times. i get that its offseason, but the impact kills and his individual form is so crazy rn that i have to give him S. he also just looks good, especially with util and gamesense outside of raw aim

eh i think hes fine, looks good as a system duelist entry but the fragging is definitely inconsistent

changes are made according to what is possible, if not plausible. this means making teams that make logical sense (for example not adding texture to mibr) but making moves that could possibly happen even if they almost certainly won't

these are in my mind THE MINIMAL CHANGES NECESSARY to make top 4 champs

mibr
-xenom
+pancada

100t
honestly could do no changes
-zander
+marved

sen
no changes

loud
-vinny
-dgzin
-tuyz
+cortezia/lukxo when old enough/pollo
+sato
+mazin

furia
-khalil
-raafa
+rglmeister (mibr why did u drop him)/pollo
+mazin

shift rgl to senti or pick up pollo

leviatan
no changes

g2
no changes

kru
no changes lmao kru always makes champs
ok fr
-adverso
+kingg

c9
why the fuck did you drop rossy
-neT
-mitch
+rossy/verno
+add3r/poised

basically if add rossy, also add3r
otherwise verno/poised

nrg
no changes

2g
-silentzz
-lz
+sato/pollo and move gobera back to duelist
+rglmeister

eg
-nature
+valyn/johnqt/boostio literally any excellent fragging igl why does this team need so much help potter my goat

forgot to move trent, an earlier reply convinced me he was at least B

list is based on current form, and i can't give ethan S after '24 nrg. he definitely has a crazy ceiling as a support as seen on eg, but i would argue that he's looked a lot shakier as of late. thing is, i can't really think of any super impactful flash inis either. i thought forsaken and heat were very good on kayo. by my definition, i guess he deserves s tier since he doesn't have any big competitors, but imo the flash initator role is very weak atm. its just that ethan doesnt look like an S tier player by the eye test as of late, but maybe its because im being blinded by how good verno looks

i can definitely see trent in B, upon review i do think his individual season was better than i thought it was. however, i still think cauan had an excellent season on such a poor team and often carried most of their games. winning maps for your team is what makes an S tier player, his INDIVIDUAL form was excellent. trent was just very inconsistent and had some stinker maps, although he was better than i thought he was.