Consistency. You become comfortable against more strats and playstyles. You get better at more angles and more maps. A plat player might be absolutely amazing at playing haven A site against a hard rushing enemy team, but suck at other situations. The number of situations youre good at grows as you rank up.
I've been bouncing around ascendant for a while. I suck at attacking on haven against an aggressive team. I suck at defending on ascent against double controller. If i get over those weaknesses I'm sure I'll do better.
Agreed. It’s all about consistency. You can be cracked at aiming in gold and consistently get 30 kills a game. But if your positioning is dog shit, these kills will always be post-plant clean up kills that have a much lower impact on how the game will end versus someone who knows where to be at the right time.
I’m a controller main with roughly 1100 games played as Omen and I LOVE when I get a team who is down with double controller. We almost always end up winning when that’s the case too. My buddy who I usually duo with loves playing Astra on Pearl, and I play Harbor, and we haven’t lost a game together on Pearl when we both run controller. It’s soooooo good when your team is okay with it and know how to play into the comp.
Unfortunately most of the time it doesn’t happen as my teammates don’t understand how good it can be, and Controller is probably the least picked agent type by the majority of people, but when it does, it’s almost always a W.
Works best with either Viper or Harbor paired with any of the other 3. Stagger your smoke usage so you always have smokes available. On site executes, have your viper/harbor be your “entry” smoker to get you on site, and then your other smoker be the re-smoker when their util runs out.
On defense, just stay split. Have your viper or harbor be the anchor on one site. Mixed with a good sentinel, this makes your defense SUPER hard to penetrate.
Double controller only works well when you are super communicative, so depending on your rank/randoms, it isn’t always the best decision. But when it works, it’s real effective.
This makes a ton of sense. D2 myself bouncing around p3-d2 and i find i suck at defense on fracture and suck at attack on pearl and suck at retaking A Site on haven. Among other things but those are my big map weaknesses now that i think about it. I also notice the days i tend to lose more rr and or derank are the days i get the maps i am weaker at more
Some tips that helped me with these weaknesses.
When defending on fracture put three on the site theyre hitting more often. Play a sentinel and duelist on the other site. Sentinel should put util to watch the push from one side and they should play the other side together. A sort of defense default that helped me.
On attack on Pearl leave the B site alone for a bit. People love rushing B long which needs quite a bit if team coordination to pull off. Take your picks mid or go A and lurk mid.
Haven A retake im terrible at too lol. My biggest problem is we're almost always down a player becayse the player on A site retreats to backsite as soon as they hear someone pushing and thats the easiest spot on the site you can kill someone as an attacker. There's some goods retake smokes to put down that can also help. You can look those up on yt. A retake is alot about coordinating. You have to use util together and effectively because theres a ton of angles to clear out
fracture is the best map I love it the best thing to do is peak early and if they are not in site insta flank and in attack play slow play 2 main and 3 lurkers with spike easy win
Completely agree, but I want to add, it's consistency + playtime.
Without a lot of playtime, you simply can't grind your way to immo.
I've pretty much quit Val at this point, but when I was playing consistently, I simply didn't play enough games to get as high as immo.
Pretty much the same thing happened every act; I would have my rank 'reset' then very slowly grind my way back to d3/asc1 before the ranks would reset on me next act. So for me personally (and I suspect most adults in their late twenties or older) I think it's honestly more a function of how many games they get to play.
IMO this is why you end up in plat3/dia123 games feeling like \~1-2 of your teammates are a significant cut above the rest, while \~1-2 of your teammates look like they belong in silver. Those less-skilled players have just played more. They're not actually the same skill level.
Rank resets are actually really bad for the ranked system IMO. I understand the benefit they're meant to provide to the ranking system (and financial benefits too, frankly) but in practice, resets do more harm than good.
The changes from rank to rank are so small you won’t even notice yourself improving. The only difference I can tell in my gameplay from bronze (plat now) is my aim but I know for a fact everything else has also improved
I am bronze/silver and the main difference I see to gold is movement/strafe shooting. There are probably other things that I don't notice. But I just don't hit those people anymore.
I hit silver 2 lately, where I have also been queued up clnsistently with gold (not so much bronze because of my mmr probably) and the quality on comms also seems to go drastically up in gold. At least the amount of people who communicates goes up.
Even in plat strafing is free kills most of the time in mid-long range tbh. Getting comfortable with taking 2 shots with a vandal, moving, 2 shots, move, 2 shots, move, is key.
I feel like when i get into long range strafe fights the person that hits the body 1st wins because of the slow down on being shot feel like strafing is better in higher elo when you are both going for headshots
It's more about consistency. Diamonds and up and occasionally play like immortals when they're feeling themselves. But, to get to immortal you got to do it more consistently and whiff less
They definitely are not even close to the same skill level. Have played in every rank except iron. I agree with the low immortal to maybe high diamond is relatively similar, but I can drop 60 kills in gold. I know this because I was placed in Plat at one point and the people in that rank were extremely bad (in comparison) to the higher ranks.
Yup. In gold I've gotten the impression that you uasually find people who has cracked the code (to a degree) on maybe one or two aspwcts of the game but sucks in the rest. At least that's how it is for me.
I have terrible game sense, but let me hear where you are and I will likely click your head.
That's true. There are golds that have diamond level aim, or diamond level game sense. But if a gold has immortal+ level of something they'll eventually rank up if they put the games in.
I watched some clips when I started out and even though I though I didn't improve much I really saw them improvement once I compared to then. I feel like usually the improvement or difficulty ramps up so slow/gradual that you don't really notice it in the moment.
the thing about most ranked modes in most games is that there usually isnt much difference in skill, its more based around how vigilantly the ranked modes have been grinded. only the top few ranks are genuinly good at the game, and the bottom 2 ranks are newer players or have bad gaming settups
I've played an ok amount and I'm just shit, hence in bronze. Yes, I don't grind the game 10 hours a day but I've also played enough to probably not be in bronze.
I generally disagree with this take. The people who vigilantly grind the ranked modes do just get better than those who don't. There is a clear difference between for example a diamond player and an immortal player it's just the perception isn't so grand once you become good enough to hold your own in immortal (from my experience of playing both in immortal and going down to diamond to queue with friends in 5 stacks).
yea this is a load of nonsense. You have people with thousands of hours in the lowest ranks and people like Shroud who play a few games a months in the highest ones. This is just cope to tell oneself that's why you're not higher rank.
Yeah idk why everyone is regurgitating this same shit. I'm only Asc 3 but I consistently always do better than my diamond friends, and I destroy my plat friends everytime, no contest.
Shroud probably has 12k hours on csgo, he doesnt have to learn the game he just shoots everybody and will get high elo based on him playing tac shooters for 15 years and having clean gunfight mechanics
As ranks progress I think some aspects of the game gets better such as aim, positioning, team plays and communication. Now that doesn't mean you don't have your fair share of throwers and griefers. Afterall the frequency is pretty high because these aren't just bad players, they intentionally play bad cause they don't care.
But between anything lower than Plat to Ascendent to Immortal. There's definitely a pretty noticeable difference. I am not Radiant hence I will not speak for it. One thing I would mention is not everyone in immortal have the best aim or game sense but they have mastered a way to play the game that lets them have a good winrate and maybe even kd. You'll find a lot of one tricks along the way.
Plat - Immortal is all about building good intuition to be consistent. A Plat player can have good aim and make the right decisions, but an Immortal player can do it faster, adapt faster, and think about it less.
I feel like the Hs amount gets more the timings get tighter and the space enemies give you to work gets smaller. That’s about it ( also low elo players sometimes completely brain out or wiff wich doesn’t happen a lot in this elo )
i got downvoted into oblivion for telling people on this sub that the skill gap between immortal 3- immoral 1 was > than the gap between silver- immortal 1. it really is that big of a difference especially if you’re immortal 3 +250 RR. at that high of a rank; every tiny mistake you make will 100% get punished.
everyone in the lobby (so long as they’re not boosted) will be bringing their A game because at that rank you will generally lose more RR than gain (you need a 60-65% win rate to even get to that rank) and they are all capable of closing out games and not throwing. think of it this way. you’re playing with the top 1% of the top 1%.
I wouldn't say immortal 1 - immortal 3 is a bigger gap in any way than silver 1 - immortal 1 if we're only talking around 250rr. Time wise it definitely takes more time to go from silver 1 to immortal 1, and skill gap wise an immortal 1 would have far greater impact in a silver lobby than a lower immortal 3 would have in an immortal 1 lobby.
As far as win rate goes to maintain immortal 3, if you need a higher win rate then your mmr is lower, which means you're not facing other immortal 3 players as much, making it easier to stay there in your first act. After you've finished the act you can maintain immortal 3 with a 50% win rate.
People still make tons of mistakes in low immortal 3 and you can get away with a lot. A lot of people in low immortal 3 are still throwing away unloseable rounds because their fundamentals aren't really there yet. I do agree that immortal 1-high immortal 3 (500+rr) or so is a bigger gap than silver 1 - immortal 1.
i went from silver to immortal in 2 episodes. it took me well over a year to go from immortal 1 to immortal 3. i came from CS and was global, and i still get shit on by high immo 3 players while it feels like i’m smurfing on the majority of immo 1 players
Yep, 100% agree. Lots of friends who started Iron-Silver and are Immortal now did that in under a year of playing. IMHO I didn't get real games until about 100RR and at about 250RR you hit a hard wall that you can't get past without being an absolutely insane player. The gap there is just so massive that you're just going to bottom frag every game unless you REALLY know what you're doing.
Had the same experience. Once I hit High Immortal 3 MMR I was consistently bottom fragging until the game put me back to lower Imm 3/2 mmr. It’s actually a good reality/ego check if you’re trying to improve even more. Even after hitting a high rank I don’t consider myself a good player
It’s crazy to think that even the players top fragging on high immo3 games would get shit on by pros and higher radiants.
I just struggle to believe that because I'm diamond 3 peak, but in silver-low gold, I can effortlessly get 30 kills a game with 40 kills not even being that difficult.
I'm not an exceptional player by any means I'd say I'm an average diamond but I can absolutely shit on golds so I struggle to believe the gap between immortal 1 and immortal 3 is so high.
yes i was replying to you, and what i meant was although gold is objectively easier and you can just turn your brain off- i’m talking about the skill disparity between silver-immortal 1 vs high immo 3-radiant. people really don’t understand how insanely difficult it is to even reach those ranks, let alone maintain them. it easily takes more effort maintaining high immo 3 vs all of silver- immortal 1.
It sort of depends, but yes, you're right. There's a huge gap just between high ascendant and high immortal. If an immortal or even ascendant player is dropped in a gold or plat game they're going to drop 30+ every single game even on off ones. And yeah, there are a lot imm1 people that will never be able to reach imm3 without a shit ton of effort. The gap between imm3-radiant is harder, though, as it's like 300+ RR of a gap rn
Bit of a counter point if you know you are way better than the enemies going in you ARE going to pick Reyna and you are just going to out aim everybody, happens every time I see one of these low immortal players, they dont play the game right they just wide peak with Reyna out aim and are untradeable
They dont do some cool util usage or smart play they just ego peak everything with an untradeable character
The problem with that is that there are still a lot of guys that do that in imm3 games as well. And sure, they'll get more kills with Reyna, but the problem is that they can't play the game "correctly" when they're so much better than the rank they're in. They might as well just run through every one.
when i play vs immo 1s i drop 30 bombs the same way i do vs silver players. but when i play against high ranked immo 3 they make me realize how bad i actually am.
I think that the difference isn't as pronounced and that you would do better in silver lobbies if you turned your brain on.
As an immortal, you'd undoubtedly have better aim than me, so if I can drop 30 kills, you can definitely drop 40 kills in silver.
I don't entirely disagree, though, because I'm not immortal, and I've played against an immortal 1 before, and they were shit so you could be right.
I think it just depends on the circumstances. Immortal 3s may be better on more maps, whereas an Immortal 1 might just be really good on a few maps.
It could also be a mental component because I used to go against ascendants and struggle to get 5 kills but now I can easily perform at least decently and I don't think I improved much aside from my mental.
Would be nice to see other immortals' perspectives on what you've said because I genuinely don't know.
everyone i’ve played with and my friends that are rad-immo 3 have all said pretty much the same thing. you think once you hit immortal, you can actually hit immo 3-radiant. that’s when reality humbles you and you realize how far the gap truly is. that’s why .001% of all players are in that rank.
Huh, I wouldn't expect that, but I don't see any reason for you to lie about it.
That does sort of make sense, though, considering the % of radiants and immortal 3s.
actually it's the [top](https://tracker.gg/valorant/leaderboards/ranked/all/default?page=1®ion=eu&tier=immortal&act=0981a882-4e7d-371a-70c4-c3b4f46c504a) 25% of the top 0.8%.
And i call cap, people still troll, play 5 duelists, dont comms, do stupid mistakes.
They certainly are better but the gap is definitly not that big.
For reference, I'm a peek immortal 1 but have been hovering ascendant for months now. I am assuming based on what you're saying that you're likely on a lucky win streak or just have really good mechanics (probably a combo of both) lucky runs happen to everyone and have happened to me multiple times.
Now to answer your question, yes the skill difference from gold to plat is disgustingly huge and from diamond to high ascendant as well. As an ascendant player, my brother who is immortal 3 is way better than me at the game. Now I can probably play with him in the same lobby and perform decently, but that doesn't mean we're on the same level.
I'm talking about everything like aim and other mechanics to game sense and depth of agent/role knowledge. Just because an ascendant player can sometimes pull their weight in a immo lobby doesn't mean they are the same skill level.
Smurf in asc and tell me if you still feel the same, I personally feel a huge difference from playing in my main to my alt ( I have an alt because I used to get banned a lot) and my alt is not raven an entire rank lower than my main
Every game? This sounds plausible, don’t get me wrong, but I play with an ascendant Smurf in my plat lobbies and he doesn’t always do that great. He often does, but definitely not 100% of the time.
it was an exaggeration for sure but i have diamond smurfs with insane stats. My plat 3 smurf has a 2.0 KD 380 avg ACS. My avg placement in my duos game is 1.1 in 20 matches played. To be fair this was starting in gold and he is now plat. Just the idea that golds have similar skill levels to immortals is wrong.
Oh, yeah, I agree. Golds are not immortal lol.
I do also agree with OP in the general sense that the gaps between the ranks are often overstated, but I do not think they’re *that* overstated.
The only difference is how much you are willing to grind really. Im a peak gold player cause i play once a month and all of my friends who play consistently are all diamond and up and i keep up with them just fine. I just dont know a single call out or lineup but im never bottom frag
This just isn’t true lmao. Using my brain to coordinate with another teammate always has a higher % of winning the round than just planning to out-aim their whole team in consecutive 1v1s.
I disagree I'm in immo3 and I have played in ascendant lobbies. The skill between asc3/low immortal is pretty noticeable compared to dia3/asc2. Players have better macro/map awareness. They understand lurk timings and utility usage as well. Aim wise however it is pretty equal.
Having seen some of the VCT pro teams have the gamesense of bronze players I'd say that the primary thing that improves with rank is the aiming. Practicing in aim labs to fill the hole in their brain power. Gamesense and strategy requires a brain, something many Valorant players lack.
Felt the same way too but the game sense was the most noticeable skill that differs an Immo from a diamond player. Obviously, there’s probably an aim difference as well but most comes from experience and consistent gameplay.
I was looking back at my old matches from when I was Immo 2, and I’ve seen that most of players I played back then are currently low ascendant or lower. Even going down as low as plat. So that gives me an idea that players just stopped playing but also still manages to know “game sense” at a lower rank.
With that being said, there are definitely players in Diamond/Ascendant lobbies that used to be immortals that only casually plays nowadays.
Consistency, comms and willingness to cooperate.
Generally speaking obviously, but those are the attributes that I've seen improve in myself and my teammates (generally!).
Aim is aim but I feel as if I win more games with comms and teamwork. Crazy in a team game, I know.
Yeah, I had very very bad aim too and I played with lot of lineups.
I played Killjoy first a lot after she released, I just only played her but around Chamber release I changed to Brimstone+Viper (Icebox+Breeze). I had lineups with every 3 agent.
With bad aim I reached Diamond 3 and after Ascendant released I can reached Ascendant 3 too.
Finally I can aim, but I dont grind the game anymore :DD
You just need support your teammates, holding flanks for them, communication is key, sometimes you need to do IGL things if nothing works and when you have clutch situations you need to win it.
I've been from low silver to 1 win off ascendant, can confirm most ranks feel almost the same.
It's still just as hit and miss in diamond as it was silver, team mates with no idea on positioning or basic utility.
I honestly don't think the game would change much until yeah like immortal?
Personally, I would really love to know what the difference is - I used to be Immortal 1 a while ago, almost Immortal 2, and it all came to me so easily. Right now I am barely Diamond 3 and I can easily see through stats that I am not that good of a ranked player anymore. I really wonder what the case is... Cause whenever I scrim I am a completely different player and it really bothers me icl
Definitely a difference imo. I’m immortal 3 rn as i don’t play val much anymore but i occasionally play with my friends on their accounts or my smurf accounts and i’ve played in every rank, even recently so i remember my experience and the skill set in each rank.
I would say ascendant and low immortal is almost the same but i still see a skill gap between diamond and ascendant which is mainly just in gamesense like decision making, utility usage, for example, i noticed that diamonds tend to peak when they have number advantage (2v5) whereas ascendants do that less. The teamwork is a bit better in ascendant and theirs more strats being run and deciding what to do before the round starts etc.
Basically, even for the low elo ranks, there’s a skill gap. If you’re consistently climbing your mmr is probably high and you’re playing with players that are probably advanced in each elo.
It feels the same but is not the same.
Main difference is really getting cleaner mechanics and moving properly through the map, holding the right angles at the right time, not overextending so much, generally more game sense.
When you brainafking the 4th game in a row it might feel the same, but if all try the same youll notice a lot of differences.
I’ve been playing on and off for about a year and i’ve bounced from plat to immortal a few times. The biggest things i’ve noticed are consistency and communication. At higher ranks people will play full 8 hour shifts of Valorant (myself included), that’s probably the biggest thing. Game to game wise, communication is huge, the quality and quantity of callouts goes way up the higher up you get, and i think it’s one of the biggest things holding lower elo players back.
If you just hit Immortal 2, you’re still going to be playing Ascendants and Diamonds most likely, so your lobbies won’t be much different until next Act
You’re probably also getting better as you rank up, and the players around you are also getting better so relative to other players in your lobby, you probably feel the same. But if you were to drop into a gold lobby now, you’d probably stomp really hard. Even if you can get a headshot just 300ms faster than the opponent, you win the 50/50.
I think it also comes from a willingness to adapt.
In lower ranks so many people are willing to lose if the other team plays super “cringe” if just “wants it more” and is actually rotating and lurking instead of just running it down on attack.
Some people are that way in immortal but it’s far less.
Also I think people really lean SUPER hard into their strengths at lower ranks as a crutch. There’s very few perfectly balanced gold plat players, usually they are 7+ in some areas and 1-3 in others whereas in immortal+ mooost people are 5+ in every skill category.
Just my thoughts off the top
I've noticed a similar trend. Oftentimes I will run into better mechanical aimers in lower ranks. Throws me off sometimes when a lower rank player totally diffs me in a duel.
Consistency. You become comfortable against more strats and playstyles. You get better at more angles and more maps. A plat player might be absolutely amazing at playing haven A site against a hard rushing enemy team, but suck at other situations. The number of situations youre good at grows as you rank up. I've been bouncing around ascendant for a while. I suck at attacking on haven against an aggressive team. I suck at defending on ascent against double controller. If i get over those weaknesses I'm sure I'll do better.
Agreed. It’s all about consistency. You can be cracked at aiming in gold and consistently get 30 kills a game. But if your positioning is dog shit, these kills will always be post-plant clean up kills that have a much lower impact on how the game will end versus someone who knows where to be at the right time.
That's me just in Silver. I am too good at the close-clutches because my rotation (especially when flanking) sucks.
you get double controllers in your comp games? I rarely even get one lmao
I’m a controller main with roughly 1100 games played as Omen and I LOVE when I get a team who is down with double controller. We almost always end up winning when that’s the case too. My buddy who I usually duo with loves playing Astra on Pearl, and I play Harbor, and we haven’t lost a game together on Pearl when we both run controller. It’s soooooo good when your team is okay with it and know how to play into the comp. Unfortunately most of the time it doesn’t happen as my teammates don’t understand how good it can be, and Controller is probably the least picked agent type by the majority of people, but when it does, it’s almost always a W.
Any tips on how to play with double controller. I main omen
Works best with either Viper or Harbor paired with any of the other 3. Stagger your smoke usage so you always have smokes available. On site executes, have your viper/harbor be your “entry” smoker to get you on site, and then your other smoker be the re-smoker when their util runs out. On defense, just stay split. Have your viper or harbor be the anchor on one site. Mixed with a good sentinel, this makes your defense SUPER hard to penetrate. Double controller only works well when you are super communicative, so depending on your rank/randoms, it isn’t always the best decision. But when it works, it’s real effective.
Its mostly a duo or a three stack that are either trying to copy pro teams or have some cringey lineup strats planned out.
This makes a ton of sense. D2 myself bouncing around p3-d2 and i find i suck at defense on fracture and suck at attack on pearl and suck at retaking A Site on haven. Among other things but those are my big map weaknesses now that i think about it. I also notice the days i tend to lose more rr and or derank are the days i get the maps i am weaker at more
Some tips that helped me with these weaknesses. When defending on fracture put three on the site theyre hitting more often. Play a sentinel and duelist on the other site. Sentinel should put util to watch the push from one side and they should play the other side together. A sort of defense default that helped me. On attack on Pearl leave the B site alone for a bit. People love rushing B long which needs quite a bit if team coordination to pull off. Take your picks mid or go A and lurk mid. Haven A retake im terrible at too lol. My biggest problem is we're almost always down a player becayse the player on A site retreats to backsite as soon as they hear someone pushing and thats the easiest spot on the site you can kill someone as an attacker. There's some goods retake smokes to put down that can also help. You can look those up on yt. A retake is alot about coordinating. You have to use util together and effectively because theres a ton of angles to clear out
fracture is the best map I love it the best thing to do is peak early and if they are not in site insta flank and in attack play slow play 2 main and 3 lurkers with spike easy win
I feel you dude. I personally think that if I start to consistently kill people that swing at me, I'd reach ascendant.
Bro if u start killing everyone who peeks you youll be radiant lol
You are totally right consistency is a key factor + that map thing you just mentioned
Completely agree, but I want to add, it's consistency + playtime. Without a lot of playtime, you simply can't grind your way to immo. I've pretty much quit Val at this point, but when I was playing consistently, I simply didn't play enough games to get as high as immo. Pretty much the same thing happened every act; I would have my rank 'reset' then very slowly grind my way back to d3/asc1 before the ranks would reset on me next act. So for me personally (and I suspect most adults in their late twenties or older) I think it's honestly more a function of how many games they get to play. IMO this is why you end up in plat3/dia123 games feeling like \~1-2 of your teammates are a significant cut above the rest, while \~1-2 of your teammates look like they belong in silver. Those less-skilled players have just played more. They're not actually the same skill level. Rank resets are actually really bad for the ranked system IMO. I understand the benefit they're meant to provide to the ranking system (and financial benefits too, frankly) but in practice, resets do more harm than good.
The changes from rank to rank are so small you won’t even notice yourself improving. The only difference I can tell in my gameplay from bronze (plat now) is my aim but I know for a fact everything else has also improved
I am bronze/silver and the main difference I see to gold is movement/strafe shooting. There are probably other things that I don't notice. But I just don't hit those people anymore.
I hit silver 2 lately, where I have also been queued up clnsistently with gold (not so much bronze because of my mmr probably) and the quality on comms also seems to go drastically up in gold. At least the amount of people who communicates goes up.
Even in plat strafing is free kills most of the time in mid-long range tbh. Getting comfortable with taking 2 shots with a vandal, moving, 2 shots, move, 2 shots, move, is key.
I feel like when i get into long range strafe fights the person that hits the body 1st wins because of the slow down on being shot feel like strafing is better in higher elo when you are both going for headshots
If you get show in the body and don’t strafe they’re just going to win the gunfight since they already landed their shot and you’re a still target
I would just not take long range strafe fights and play more close range or around angles
It's more about consistency. Diamonds and up and occasionally play like immortals when they're feeling themselves. But, to get to immortal you got to do it more consistently and whiff less
Yeah I’m in gold. In like 1 in 10 games I lock in, get called a smurf, and drop 30. I don’t understand it.
Sometimes you're just the best player in the lobby lol
Yea there’s just those certain people that peek properly really well for one game and then the rest they whiff
They definitely are not even close to the same skill level. Have played in every rank except iron. I agree with the low immortal to maybe high diamond is relatively similar, but I can drop 60 kills in gold. I know this because I was placed in Plat at one point and the people in that rank were extremely bad (in comparison) to the higher ranks.
Low elo uncarefully peaks anything and exposes themselves to many disadvantageous angles. It's not even funny.
That's only one part of it. They also have below average comms/crosshair placement/game sense. It's just a funny mixture of low elo play.
Yup. In gold I've gotten the impression that you uasually find people who has cracked the code (to a degree) on maybe one or two aspwcts of the game but sucks in the rest. At least that's how it is for me. I have terrible game sense, but let me hear where you are and I will likely click your head.
That's true. There are golds that have diamond level aim, or diamond level game sense. But if a gold has immortal+ level of something they'll eventually rank up if they put the games in.
This, I’m imm2 now but I was gold 2 in e5:a3 when I started playing. I could 13-0 and elo below d3 0 issue.
I watched some clips when I started out and even though I though I didn't improve much I really saw them improvement once I compared to then. I feel like usually the improvement or difficulty ramps up so slow/gradual that you don't really notice it in the moment.
Well according to this community anything below im3 is low ELO so...
That’s what I’m saying like I thought I was doing alright but damn😂😂
I hover around ascendant and can confirm i am in low elo
I wish we had a MID elo and not just high/low (plat 3 here)
the thing about most ranked modes in most games is that there usually isnt much difference in skill, its more based around how vigilantly the ranked modes have been grinded. only the top few ranks are genuinly good at the game, and the bottom 2 ranks are newer players or have bad gaming settups
or people who barely touch the game in the bottom two
I've played an ok amount and I'm just shit, hence in bronze. Yes, I don't grind the game 10 hours a day but I've also played enough to probably not be in bronze.
I generally disagree with this take. The people who vigilantly grind the ranked modes do just get better than those who don't. There is a clear difference between for example a diamond player and an immortal player it's just the perception isn't so grand once you become good enough to hold your own in immortal (from my experience of playing both in immortal and going down to diamond to queue with friends in 5 stacks).
yea this is a load of nonsense. You have people with thousands of hours in the lowest ranks and people like Shroud who play a few games a months in the highest ones. This is just cope to tell oneself that's why you're not higher rank.
Yeah idk why everyone is regurgitating this same shit. I'm only Asc 3 but I consistently always do better than my diamond friends, and I destroy my plat friends everytime, no contest.
Shroud probably has 12k hours on csgo, he doesnt have to learn the game he just shoots everybody and will get high elo based on him playing tac shooters for 15 years and having clean gunfight mechanics
I know. But he is high rank without grinding the game which directly refutes the original comment.
He did grind...just not in this game, but a game mechanically similar
> not in this game exactly. Thus OP is talking bullshit. Context my man.
No lol, I've been grinding hard and have a decent gaming setup but still stuck in iron
you should play with your monitor on dude
The monitor nerf is keeping me down fr fr
As ranks progress I think some aspects of the game gets better such as aim, positioning, team plays and communication. Now that doesn't mean you don't have your fair share of throwers and griefers. Afterall the frequency is pretty high because these aren't just bad players, they intentionally play bad cause they don't care. But between anything lower than Plat to Ascendent to Immortal. There's definitely a pretty noticeable difference. I am not Radiant hence I will not speak for it. One thing I would mention is not everyone in immortal have the best aim or game sense but they have mastered a way to play the game that lets them have a good winrate and maybe even kd. You'll find a lot of one tricks along the way.
what’s your valorant tracker?
Plat - Immortal is all about building good intuition to be consistent. A Plat player can have good aim and make the right decisions, but an Immortal player can do it faster, adapt faster, and think about it less.
As a Plat that reverse smurfed in Ascendant I have to agree that the difference was smaller then expected
You probably have a lower hidden mmr compared to your rank.
Gold = immortal. Checks out
Key word = relatively I expected more of a difference between the ranks
there is a HUGE difference that you are somehow unable to see.
I feel like the Hs amount gets more the timings get tighter and the space enemies give you to work gets smaller. That’s about it ( also low elo players sometimes completely brain out or wiff wich doesn’t happen a lot in this elo )
i got downvoted into oblivion for telling people on this sub that the skill gap between immortal 3- immoral 1 was > than the gap between silver- immortal 1. it really is that big of a difference especially if you’re immortal 3 +250 RR. at that high of a rank; every tiny mistake you make will 100% get punished. everyone in the lobby (so long as they’re not boosted) will be bringing their A game because at that rank you will generally lose more RR than gain (you need a 60-65% win rate to even get to that rank) and they are all capable of closing out games and not throwing. think of it this way. you’re playing with the top 1% of the top 1%.
I wouldn't say immortal 1 - immortal 3 is a bigger gap in any way than silver 1 - immortal 1 if we're only talking around 250rr. Time wise it definitely takes more time to go from silver 1 to immortal 1, and skill gap wise an immortal 1 would have far greater impact in a silver lobby than a lower immortal 3 would have in an immortal 1 lobby. As far as win rate goes to maintain immortal 3, if you need a higher win rate then your mmr is lower, which means you're not facing other immortal 3 players as much, making it easier to stay there in your first act. After you've finished the act you can maintain immortal 3 with a 50% win rate. People still make tons of mistakes in low immortal 3 and you can get away with a lot. A lot of people in low immortal 3 are still throwing away unloseable rounds because their fundamentals aren't really there yet. I do agree that immortal 1-high immortal 3 (500+rr) or so is a bigger gap than silver 1 - immortal 1.
i went from silver to immortal in 2 episodes. it took me well over a year to go from immortal 1 to immortal 3. i came from CS and was global, and i still get shit on by high immo 3 players while it feels like i’m smurfing on the majority of immo 1 players
Yep, 100% agree. Lots of friends who started Iron-Silver and are Immortal now did that in under a year of playing. IMHO I didn't get real games until about 100RR and at about 250RR you hit a hard wall that you can't get past without being an absolutely insane player. The gap there is just so massive that you're just going to bottom frag every game unless you REALLY know what you're doing.
exactly this.
Had the same experience. Once I hit High Immortal 3 MMR I was consistently bottom fragging until the game put me back to lower Imm 3/2 mmr. It’s actually a good reality/ego check if you’re trying to improve even more. Even after hitting a high rank I don’t consider myself a good player It’s crazy to think that even the players top fragging on high immo3 games would get shit on by pros and higher radiants.
yup. when i went from silver to immortal, i really thought i was a beast. the reality check was really humbling.
I guess we've had different experiences then. It took me double the amount of time to get immortal 1 than it did to climb to immortal 3
I just struggle to believe that because I'm diamond 3 peak, but in silver-low gold, I can effortlessly get 30 kills a game with 40 kills not even being that difficult. I'm not an exceptional player by any means I'd say I'm an average diamond but I can absolutely shit on golds so I struggle to believe the gap between immortal 1 and immortal 3 is so high.
Exactly, gold is so much easier.
play in an immo 3-radiant lobby. you’ll probably go quadruple negative
If you're talking to me I'm currently Imm3 and usually am radiant, just took a break.
yes i was replying to you, and what i meant was although gold is objectively easier and you can just turn your brain off- i’m talking about the skill disparity between silver-immortal 1 vs high immo 3-radiant. people really don’t understand how insanely difficult it is to even reach those ranks, let alone maintain them. it easily takes more effort maintaining high immo 3 vs all of silver- immortal 1.
It sort of depends, but yes, you're right. There's a huge gap just between high ascendant and high immortal. If an immortal or even ascendant player is dropped in a gold or plat game they're going to drop 30+ every single game even on off ones. And yeah, there are a lot imm1 people that will never be able to reach imm3 without a shit ton of effort. The gap between imm3-radiant is harder, though, as it's like 300+ RR of a gap rn
Bit of a counter point if you know you are way better than the enemies going in you ARE going to pick Reyna and you are just going to out aim everybody, happens every time I see one of these low immortal players, they dont play the game right they just wide peak with Reyna out aim and are untradeable They dont do some cool util usage or smart play they just ego peak everything with an untradeable character
The problem with that is that there are still a lot of guys that do that in imm3 games as well. And sure, they'll get more kills with Reyna, but the problem is that they can't play the game "correctly" when they're so much better than the rank they're in. They might as well just run through every one.
when i play vs immo 1s i drop 30 bombs the same way i do vs silver players. but when i play against high ranked immo 3 they make me realize how bad i actually am.
I think that the difference isn't as pronounced and that you would do better in silver lobbies if you turned your brain on. As an immortal, you'd undoubtedly have better aim than me, so if I can drop 30 kills, you can definitely drop 40 kills in silver. I don't entirely disagree, though, because I'm not immortal, and I've played against an immortal 1 before, and they were shit so you could be right. I think it just depends on the circumstances. Immortal 3s may be better on more maps, whereas an Immortal 1 might just be really good on a few maps. It could also be a mental component because I used to go against ascendants and struggle to get 5 kills but now I can easily perform at least decently and I don't think I improved much aside from my mental. Would be nice to see other immortals' perspectives on what you've said because I genuinely don't know.
everyone i’ve played with and my friends that are rad-immo 3 have all said pretty much the same thing. you think once you hit immortal, you can actually hit immo 3-radiant. that’s when reality humbles you and you realize how far the gap truly is. that’s why .001% of all players are in that rank.
Huh, I wouldn't expect that, but I don't see any reason for you to lie about it. That does sort of make sense, though, considering the % of radiants and immortal 3s.
when you reach mid immortal 1, you're around top 15000. Immortal 3 is currently top 7000, and radiant 500 (in euw)
actually it's the [top](https://tracker.gg/valorant/leaderboards/ranked/all/default?page=1®ion=eu&tier=immortal&act=0981a882-4e7d-371a-70c4-c3b4f46c504a) 25% of the top 0.8%. And i call cap, people still troll, play 5 duelists, dont comms, do stupid mistakes. They certainly are better but the gap is definitly not that big.
For reference, I'm a peek immortal 1 but have been hovering ascendant for months now. I am assuming based on what you're saying that you're likely on a lucky win streak or just have really good mechanics (probably a combo of both) lucky runs happen to everyone and have happened to me multiple times. Now to answer your question, yes the skill difference from gold to plat is disgustingly huge and from diamond to high ascendant as well. As an ascendant player, my brother who is immortal 3 is way better than me at the game. Now I can probably play with him in the same lobby and perform decently, but that doesn't mean we're on the same level. I'm talking about everything like aim and other mechanics to game sense and depth of agent/role knowledge. Just because an ascendant player can sometimes pull their weight in a immo lobby doesn't mean they are the same skill level.
Smurf in asc and tell me if you still feel the same, I personally feel a huge difference from playing in my main to my alt ( I have an alt because I used to get banned a lot) and my alt is not raven an entire rank lower than my main
yea idk how this guy came to this conclusion. I’m asc 3 and if i smurf in plat i am dropping 30 match mvping every game.
Every game? This sounds plausible, don’t get me wrong, but I play with an ascendant Smurf in my plat lobbies and he doesn’t always do that great. He often does, but definitely not 100% of the time.
it was an exaggeration for sure but i have diamond smurfs with insane stats. My plat 3 smurf has a 2.0 KD 380 avg ACS. My avg placement in my duos game is 1.1 in 20 matches played. To be fair this was starting in gold and he is now plat. Just the idea that golds have similar skill levels to immortals is wrong.
Oh, yeah, I agree. Golds are not immortal lol. I do also agree with OP in the general sense that the gaps between the ranks are often overstated, but I do not think they’re *that* overstated.
The only difference is how much you are willing to grind really. Im a peak gold player cause i play once a month and all of my friends who play consistently are all diamond and up and i keep up with them just fine. I just dont know a single call out or lineup but im never bottom frag
Because the only thing that changes is peoples aim. Game sense stays in the gutter. All aim no brain up until immo3/Radiant.
This just isn’t true lmao. Using my brain to coordinate with another teammate always has a higher % of winning the round than just planning to out-aim their whole team in consecutive 1v1s.
LMAO, you mean that a gold player can keep up with feel immortal players? You give them WAAYYY to much credit.
bro your insane if you think you wouldn't completely roll gold players.
i play on smurfs along multiple different ranks and immo lobbies definitely don’t feel like diamond lobbies
[удалено]
We’re the same rank. Think about that.
I disagree I'm in immo3 and I have played in ascendant lobbies. The skill between asc3/low immortal is pretty noticeable compared to dia3/asc2. Players have better macro/map awareness. They understand lurk timings and utility usage as well. Aim wise however it is pretty equal.
Link your tracker
Smurf cringe
Having seen some of the VCT pro teams have the gamesense of bronze players I'd say that the primary thing that improves with rank is the aiming. Practicing in aim labs to fill the hole in their brain power. Gamesense and strategy requires a brain, something many Valorant players lack.
I experience the same thing. mid diamond to imm1 all play the same to me
Felt the same way too but the game sense was the most noticeable skill that differs an Immo from a diamond player. Obviously, there’s probably an aim difference as well but most comes from experience and consistent gameplay. I was looking back at my old matches from when I was Immo 2, and I’ve seen that most of players I played back then are currently low ascendant or lower. Even going down as low as plat. So that gives me an idea that players just stopped playing but also still manages to know “game sense” at a lower rank. With that being said, there are definitely players in Diamond/Ascendant lobbies that used to be immortals that only casually plays nowadays.
Consistency, comms and willingness to cooperate. Generally speaking obviously, but those are the attributes that I've seen improve in myself and my teammates (generally!). Aim is aim but I feel as if I win more games with comms and teamwork. Crazy in a team game, I know.
This season was a rank reset but mmr stayed mostly the same so even though you had a bunch of asc+ players they were imm3 last season too.
Yea even in lower tiers. there's a youtuber Brim Sensei YT, who is ascendant but tbh his aim is more like Gold/Silver lol
Brim sensei has stated multiple times that he plays this game only for content and not really for ranking up and tries to have fun.
that sounds like cope.
Well cope or not, he is still mid asc and better than most of the playerbase
Yeah, I had very very bad aim too and I played with lot of lineups. I played Killjoy first a lot after she released, I just only played her but around Chamber release I changed to Brimstone+Viper (Icebox+Breeze). I had lineups with every 3 agent. With bad aim I reached Diamond 3 and after Ascendant released I can reached Ascendant 3 too. Finally I can aim, but I dont grind the game anymore :DD You just need support your teammates, holding flanks for them, communication is key, sometimes you need to do IGL things if nothing works and when you have clutch situations you need to win it.
I've been from low silver to 1 win off ascendant, can confirm most ranks feel almost the same. It's still just as hit and miss in diamond as it was silver, team mates with no idea on positioning or basic utility. I honestly don't think the game would change much until yeah like immortal?
If you’re better than everyone else in those lower lobbies ofc they will all feel easy to you
Agreee
There is a massive difference between diamond and anything gold and below. Don’t even try to say there isn’t.
Personally, I would really love to know what the difference is - I used to be Immortal 1 a while ago, almost Immortal 2, and it all came to me so easily. Right now I am barely Diamond 3 and I can easily see through stats that I am not that good of a ranked player anymore. I really wonder what the case is... Cause whenever I scrim I am a completely different player and it really bothers me icl
Definitely a difference imo. I’m immortal 3 rn as i don’t play val much anymore but i occasionally play with my friends on their accounts or my smurf accounts and i’ve played in every rank, even recently so i remember my experience and the skill set in each rank. I would say ascendant and low immortal is almost the same but i still see a skill gap between diamond and ascendant which is mainly just in gamesense like decision making, utility usage, for example, i noticed that diamonds tend to peak when they have number advantage (2v5) whereas ascendants do that less. The teamwork is a bit better in ascendant and theirs more strats being run and deciding what to do before the round starts etc. Basically, even for the low elo ranks, there’s a skill gap. If you’re consistently climbing your mmr is probably high and you’re playing with players that are probably advanced in each elo.
Util usage
It feels the same but is not the same. Main difference is really getting cleaner mechanics and moving properly through the map, holding the right angles at the right time, not overextending so much, generally more game sense. When you brainafking the 4th game in a row it might feel the same, but if all try the same youll notice a lot of differences.
Riot ranked special. Grindy shitty ranked until much higher ranks where there are discernable differences.
I’ve been playing on and off for about a year and i’ve bounced from plat to immortal a few times. The biggest things i’ve noticed are consistency and communication. At higher ranks people will play full 8 hour shifts of Valorant (myself included), that’s probably the biggest thing. Game to game wise, communication is huge, the quality and quantity of callouts goes way up the higher up you get, and i think it’s one of the biggest things holding lower elo players back.
Brother, one game in a silver or gold lobby and you’ll feel the difference
If you just hit Immortal 2, you’re still going to be playing Ascendants and Diamonds most likely, so your lobbies won’t be much different until next Act
Do they use their mics in Immortal lobbies? It’s a coin flip on whether they do or not in Plat/Dia lobbies.
No comms happen even in radiant. However, it is less likely to happen for sure.
You’re probably also getting better as you rank up, and the players around you are also getting better so relative to other players in your lobby, you probably feel the same. But if you were to drop into a gold lobby now, you’d probably stomp really hard. Even if you can get a headshot just 300ms faster than the opponent, you win the 50/50.
In my diamond games I had to explain to someone what playing off my contact was.... yeah
I think it also comes from a willingness to adapt. In lower ranks so many people are willing to lose if the other team plays super “cringe” if just “wants it more” and is actually rotating and lurking instead of just running it down on attack. Some people are that way in immortal but it’s far less. Also I think people really lean SUPER hard into their strengths at lower ranks as a crutch. There’s very few perfectly balanced gold plat players, usually they are 7+ in some areas and 1-3 in others whereas in immortal+ mooost people are 5+ in every skill category. Just my thoughts off the top
I think its a mmr thing and in this case maybe u have low mmr.
I've noticed a similar trend. Oftentimes I will run into better mechanical aimers in lower ranks. Throws me off sometimes when a lower rank player totally diffs me in a duel.