Swing Him. Just Swing Him, Bro. Please, for the Love of God, Just Fight Him, Bro! JUST FIGHT HIM, BRO, PLEASE

Imagine downloading a 54GB video game about shooting people. Then, installing a kernel-level anticheat system to provide the fairest environment possible for shooting people. After that, booting up the game about shooting people and picking a character designed to shoot people. Then, buying the best gun possible for shooting people. Running to a site on the map where you will have to shoot people. And then, last minute, deciding — nah, I do not feel like shooting people. I’m going to hide in a corner and watch other people shoot people. Cue Valorant.

BRO. WHY? YOU INSTALLED THE GAME. JUST SHOOT THEM, BRO! JUST SHOOT!!

I love Valorant. Only a Valorant player would get scared aiming a gun at someone because they might get shot by another person aiming a gun at them.

‘Valorant’ is ‘Counter-Strike’ for your eboy kid brother

Valorant is a tactical 5v5 first-person shooter by Riot Games. It’s Counter-Strike for your Gen Z niece. Imagine if CS had more simplified gunplay and a bunch of attractive, queer-coded women flinging abilities at each other. Congratulations, you now know what Valorant is. You can get started right now. And you’ll probably die like 15 times during your first match.

Valorant stresses a lot of people out because it has a permadeath system each round. One life, make it count. On the one hand, it’s ridiculously rewarding to clutch up on a round. Imagine one-tapping three clueless enemies and defusing the Spike (erm, bomb) in overtime. Or holding down a site against two opponents, repositioning constantly around your enemies, outsmarting them enough so they hesitate and fail to stop the bomb — Spike, I mean Spike — in time. And then hearing said queer-coded girl make fun of your dead enemies. Yeah, Valorant slaps.

But high reward comes with high risk. Many players struggle significantly with performance anxiety during the game. In fact, low self-confidence tends to hold players back from getting better at Valorant.

Please trade me. Please trade me. for all that’s holy. trade. me.

I play Jett. She is one of the best duelists in the game. My job, as a duelist, is not so much to duel people as to force confrontation. I entry a site to help my team defeat defending enemies, giving us the opportunity to either plant the Spike or defuse it. Good Jett players do not fear death; you must be as confident as possible to win games. But new players commonly fail to match my energy.

Here’s an example. Let’s say I’m about to aggressively contest space on a bomb site being held by enemies, or “entry.” I call for utility. Then, I ask a player to throw a blind to help disorient enemies and move them out of angles, thus aiding my ability to contest the space. I then clear angles enemies are likely to be at (“common angles”) and use my movement ability to entry site. I maneuver around walls and objects, tripping up my opponents. Maybe I get one. Maybe I get two, even. For the sake of my ego, let’s say I get two. I’m her.

I then reset and look at my map. At this point, good players are already in there, watching where I go and setting up a bomb plant. But with new players? The rest of my team is still hanging around, just barely moving their feet. Not ready to trade my death for another kill. Not ready to follow up on the space I’ve obtained. Why? Because they’re scared to fight people. Because if I die, they might die, too. Oh, no! (;_;) So, it’s better if I do all the hard work.

Ow, my back. Everyone is so heavy!

Want to get good? die

I get why new Valorant players are scared to fight people. The permadeath system is punishing. You quickly learn that dying without doing much makes you a bad teammate. And it sucks feeling like you threw your life away and did nothing but swing out of cover and get one-tapped by someone with “amazing aim” (read: holding the exact angle where your head will be).

The thing is, the only way to get good at a challenging, hard, stressful, and intense game like Valorant is to fail a lot. I used to be a scared little baby hiding in corners, maneuvering around the map away from my team and catching enemies off-guard. This made my K/D look nice, but it held me back significantly from ranking up. I was terrible at actually fighting people in a direct, face-to-face confrontation. You need to be comfortable taking a 1v1 with another player in order to get better at Valorant. Because in the game, you don’t always get to pick the fights you take; sometimes, fights come to you.

So, fight them, bro. Fight them. Swing that dude holding the angle. Join up with your teammate rushing a site and fight with them. You’ll learn over time when to dial down your aggression. The most important thing is to learn how to be confident in the first place.

Anyway, I got better at Valorant by doing all the advice that a literal talking banana named Woohoojin put out. Hooj, as his fans call him, has a practice routine designed to help new players improve their mechanical skills at the game — and build that confidence to just swing people and take fights. In short, his advice is to take as many opportunities as possible in Competitive to fight people in a skillful way, i.e.: aim for the head with proper strafing movement. Practice, be confident, shake off that learned helplessness, and keep trying. You’re going to die. A lot. And then, you won’t. You’ll get better at the game. And you’ll feel like a more competent and capable person for it.

Admittedly, I soured on Woohoojin’s coaching after he reportedly misled his audience about his actual rank in the game. Even Hooj’s own coach, CHARLATAN, eventually addressed the controversy and weighed in on whether Woohoojin reached a high rank. But honestly? I still think the talking banana Valorant guy is one of the best coaches out there. Dude got me out of ELO hell and into lobbies with Platinums, Diamonds, and Ascendants, and that’s all that matters for me.

Thanks, banana man, for making me shoot 19-year-olds without hiding from them. And to everyone else, please stop hiding in the game built around shooting people. Go play something else if you’re that nervous about dying.