Valorant movement and tracking: stopping, jiggle peeks and moving targets
In Valorant the gun decides when your aim counts: shots fired while moving go almost anywhere, and stopping is nearly instant. That changes what movement-related aim training should look like compared with CS2 — and what “tracking” even means in this game. This guide lays out the mechanics, the differences, and a drill plan that uses Valorant’s movement physics rather than generic target motion.
The numbers that shape a fight
- Speed. Agents run at roughly 6.75 m/s, walk at about half of that and crawl while crouched. Because the run speed is the same for everyone, an enemy strafing across your screen at 10 m covers about 38° per second — the angular speed your tracking has to keep up with.
- Stopping. Releasing the movement key brings an agent to an accurate stop within a few frames. Tapping the opposite key still helps you stop on a precise spot, but it is not the hard requirement it is in CS2.
- Accuracy while moving. Rifles and pistols fired at a run scatter far outside the crosshair; walking is better but still not reliable at range; crouching is the most accurate stance. The safe pattern is stop → shoot → move, with the stop landing before the trigger pull.
These figures are community measurements, not values published by Riot; they are what AimFinder’s Valorant movement profile reproduces in the drills below.
Valorant vs CS2: what actually differs
| CS2 | Valorant | |
|---|---|---|
| Run speed | 250 u/s with a knife (≈ 6.4 m/s), slower with rifles | ≈ 6.75 m/s for every agent, whatever the gun |
| Stopping | Long deceleration: a counter-strafe tap is mandatory for a clean stop | Near-instant: release the key and you are still within a few frames |
| Shooting while moving | Rifles are inaccurate above a walking pace | Rifles and pistols are heavily inaccurate; only shotguns and close SMG fights tolerate it |
| Typical peek | Wide swings and shoulder peeks | Short jiggle peeks: repeated 20–40 cm strafes to bait a shot |
| Sensitivity scale | 0.022° per mouse count, values around 1–3 | 0.07° per mouse count, values around 0.2–0.6 |
The practical consequence: in CS2 a lot of “aim” misses are really counter-strafe misses, whereas in Valorant they are timing misses — you shot a few frames before you stopped, or while the enemy was mid-jiggle. Both look like bad aim in the kill feed; neither is fixed by changing sensitivity.
What “tracking” means in Valorant
Sustained tracking while spraying — the CS2 spray-transfer kind — is rare in Valorant outside Odin and close-range Phantom fights. Three other kinds matter far more:
- Pre-tracking a jiggle. An enemy peeks, retreats and peeks again. Keeping the crosshair on the head through those 20–40 cm strafes, then firing the instant they commit, is the single most common tracking task in the game.
- Tracking through your own movement. Holding the crosshair on a target while you strafe to a new position — then stopping and firing. Your own motion adds a second velocity to compensate.
- Re-acquisition after a direction change. The enemy reverses without warning; the fast re-catch is a reaction and a small flick, not a smooth pursuit.
Sensitivity comes first
Movement drills teach your hand a gain — degrees per centimetre. Practising them at a sensitivity you are about to change teaches the wrong one. Settle the number first with the 10-minute test or a couple of replays, then build movement habits on top of it. If your swings systematically fly past the target, read the overshooting guide before anything below.
A 15-minute drill plan with Valorant movement
In the aim trainer, tick Realistic Valorant movement: moving targets then strafe at agent speed, stop almost instantly and jiggle instead of gliding, and the strafe drills use Valorant stop physics for your own movement.
- Grid Shot, 60 s — warm the hand up at your settled sensitivity.
- Follow the Ball, 2 runs — pre-tracking a jiggling target. Score on time-on-target; the ball’s abrupt reversals are the jiggle peeks you will meet in matches.
- Counter-Strafe One-Taps, 2 runs — strafe, stop, tap. Shots only count when you are nearly still, exactly like a Vandal, so this trains the stop-before-trigger timing that decides most Valorant duels.
- Strafe & Track, 2 runs — you move, the ball moves, your crosshair stays on it. The hardest habit in the list and the one that transfers directly to re-peeking a fight.
- Moving Targets, hard tier, 1 run — commit to one decisive swing on a reversing target, then a single correction.
Every run is scored and saved to your history, so a week of this plan shows whether your time-on-target and hit rate actually moved. If they plateau while your flick bias in replays is still large, go back to the sensitivity step.
Habits to carry into matches
- Stop, then shoot. Let the stop finish before the click; the difference is a few frames and it is the whole game for rifles.
- Jiggle to see, commit to shoot. Use short peeks to gather information and bait; when you decide to take the fight, swing once and stop on the head.
- Keep the crosshair at head height while moving. Tracking through your own strafe only works if the vertical component is already correct — the drills score your placement error for exactly this reason.