Valorant Counter Strafing and Walk Peeking Guide

by MxChamp24

Hey everyone, my name is Dragonmar and welcome to another wonderful post of mine. I’ll writing today about one of the cornerstones of aiming in Valorant, and that is about peeking corners. When it comes to peeking corners you have a few options. You either counterstrafe or you walk-peek. Both have value, both have flaws, lets talk about it. As always, i’ll include a video link to the source of the written guide! Enjoy!

The Video

What is Counterstrafing?

• Counterstrafing is the act of “Countering” your movement by pushing the opposite key to the direction in which you are currently moving in order to stop instantly. A successful counterstrafe not only gives you first-shot accuracy but also makes your movement silent.

ex: strafing left by pressing “A” and stopping your movement by pressing “D”

Why is Counterstrafing important?

• In order to catch enemies off guard, take good fights, and ensure first-shot accuracy you’ll have to Counterstrafe. Whenever you turn a corner, you are automatically at a disadvantage since the enemy holding that angle will see you first, meaning you’ll need first-shot accuracy to greatly increase your chance at winning the aim duel.

What is Walk-Peeking

• Walk-Peeking is when you use your walk key(Shift, Ctrl, Alt) to walk silently and turn corners/peek.

Why is Walk-Peeking important?

• Walk-Peeking allows you to constantly move your hitbox as your turn corners. One of the disadvantages of a counter-strafe is that your movement will be stopped when you start shooting. Walk-Peeking allows you to continue on your given path of movement, greatly reducing your enemies chance of tracking your body and hitting a headshot.

Which should I use, and when?

• Counterstrafe can be used 100% of the time at the highest level of play without losing anything from not walk-peeking. It’s simply superior.
• The BIGGEST downside of walk-peeking even with a counterstafe in it is that you are SLOWER then when you just counterstrafe. Making you a MUCH easier target.
• When I am clearing uncommon angles I tend to walk-peek them instead of swinging with a counter-strafe. The reason for this is that I prefer to keep moving past these spots as quickly as possible, remaining completely silent. Because I don’t “expect” enemies here, if I see an enemy i’m generally far enough out of a normal headshot angle from continuing to move that I will still have a great opportunity to win the fight. I also walk-peek almost exclusively when I aim clearing angles WITH teammates.
• Any aim-duel where I know where an enemy is ahead of time I will counter-strafe to peek that corner. I want 100% accuracy, and because I know their location, I can also pre-aim with 100% certainty of hitting a shot.

If Counterstrafing is so much better, Who would use walk-peeking?

• Noobs
• If you are starting out, struggling to rank up, and feel like your first shot always misses I would highly recommend walk-peeking.
• Because enemies at your rank will not have the best aim you can use the great walking accuracy of Valorant to your advantage.
• Simply walk around your corners, keeping your crosshair fixed at headshot level, and take your enemy by surpise.
• How to progress to counterstrafing
  • You can easily progress to fully counterstrafing by first walk-peeking and then incorporating a counter strafe into it.
  • Instead of just walking around corners, you can walk and instantly counterstrafe when you spot an enemy.
  • This will slowly train you away from needing to walk first, and lead to perfect counterstrafes
  • Ex: Hold Walk -> Peek -> Shoot, then: Hold Walk -> Peek -> Counterstrafe -> Shoot
• Suddenly, you completely stop walking at all and have great movement speed when peeking corners.

Close Angle Fights Can Be Won With Crouching

• Ever notice that it can be insanely hard to react to someone when they first swing around a corner? Yeah, close range fights can tough, especially when an enemy is pre-aimed where your head will be when you turn that corner.
• My advice is to crouch-peek that corner. Being able to get down and under where a normal crosshair will be placed will allow you to have the upperhand, even if its for a split second.
• Think about it, how many times when you are holding a close-angle are you aiming at waist level? Exactly!
• Note: This really doesn’t work well at long range. Your hitbox is already so small that you actually crouch and make it easier to be killed.

How Can I Practice my Peeks?

• Riot knocked it out of the park with the practice range. You can easily practice your peeks and strafing with the bots, or the stationary dummy. The speed at which the bots move isn’t important, all you need to focus on is your first-shot accuracy.

Conclusion

• Walk-Peeking is like training wheels for newer players, and greatly helps them keep their shots MUCH more accurate while training them to fully counterstrafing
• Counterstrafing is much more difficult because of the increased movement speed as opposed to walking. However, in every other aspect it is superior. You need speed to take on good players as they will punish slow movement. You strafe silently, and you have 100% first-shot accuracy.

If you have any questions, please let me know! It’s hard to explain aim without showing it firsthand so I tried my best! If you have a specific scenario in mind or are having other problems let me know in the comments below!