Valorant - Why The Guardian Is The Best Gun
I was actually silver 2, having unironically not made a new account and through the guardian is a rifle in Valerian that costs 2250. I do 195 on a headshot and it also fires high penetration rounds. There are already a lot of guides online about game sense and other aspects of the game, so I'm going to focus more on guardian-specific points in this article.
Just for some context, I didn't have any CS experience coming into Valoret, and in Episode 2 I unironically placed Silver 2. After trying to use real guns, I found it quite difficult to use the Vanderbilt phantom, and I found myself just losing duels, so I started using the guardian and owning the guardian.
For example, the guardian only provides a lot of benefits for you and your team. You have more money to spend on you and your teammates, which can provide a huge economic boost for your team. It also means you can buy the guardian almost every round. For example, in this game, we won this eco round even though the opponents were on a full buy because I forced bought a guardian.
Even if we lost a round, I wouldn't be putting my team at an economic disadvantage because I could still buy the guardian. For my next round, the Guardian also has a longer zoom than other rifles, which means you can more confidently contest longer range fights like mid and descent or a lot of angles on breeze.
I found that this is really helpful because I don't have the mechanical precision to out-end people at longer ranges with the vandal and phantom, and this really makes up for that. The biggest benefit of the guardian is that using it forces you to perfect your crosshair placement. When you use the van door phantom, you can afford to be lazy with your crosshair placement because of your ability to spray and correct your shot.
With the guardian, you don't have this luxury, and you have to learn how to place a crosshair so that you kill them with the first shot. I found my cross replacement improved really quickly when I used only the guardian, and I actually went from silver to diamond three in one season. Crosshair placement alone is probably one of the most important mechanics in the battery.
Your opponent can have the best recoil control in the world, but if you have better crosshair placement than they do, you usually win the duel. Another advantage of the guardian is that you have faster and more consistent multi-kill potential. Since you are just one tap away, you can consistently kill multiple enemies rather than spraying and confirming the kill before moving to the next target.
A lot of people say just use a phantom in one tap, but I find that the tapping recoil reset is easier to work with on the guardian than the vandal. The Guardian is also a high-penetration weapon. I don't think this is a super important aspect of the Guardian, but it does let you shoot through some wars that other rifles can't.
For example, it can help you destroy killjoy alts or get some sneaky warbangs. There are some disadvantages to the guardian, though, the obvious one being the inability to spray. This is one of the biggest disadvantages of the guard because shooting through smoke, especially with a phantom, is very strong.
Another disadvantage of the guardian is that it is very slow at breaking sage wars. It actually takes more time to shoot down the wall with a guard than to walk up to it and knife it. In terms of gameplay style, personally, I play the game a little bit differently to how most people play. Just a disclaimer: this is what I do and it works for me.
I buy a lot. Over 70 of my guardian kills are from ads. This is because, after a certain distance, their heads are too small and they won't have the precise aim required to headshot them. It's not really a specific distance, but when I realize I'm not comfortable with hip-firing ads, the idea is that you can aim for long distance precision, but you still have the hip-fire for close-range flicks.
Another thing to take note of is that you need to pace your shots and make them count. If you're missing a lot of shots, slow down. It makes a really big difference not spamming the guardian. Obviously, if you're spamming a box or a wall, go ham. But remember, since you only have a few bullets, you have to really put more effort into predicting where they are and where the head might be.
Something I do on defense a lot of the time is hard peak and angle. For example, mid-on ascent or long and bind. This is something you have to be really careful about because if they pre-fire you or out aim you, you instantly turn the round into a 4v5 instantly. Even if you get one pick and you die, it's not really worth it, so you have to be really confident about getting at least two picks.
At the very least, you're essentially throwing it around, but if you can manage to do this, you can single-handedly win rounds for your team. Something a lot of people ask me is, what do you do if they rush you? You just need to put your crosshairs where the head's going to be, usually wide, and let them key into your bullets.
Just remember, the more you use the guardian, the more your crosshair placement will improve. This alone was enough to make me keep using the guardian. This is super helpful, especially for players who are struggling with the aim mechanics of Valorem. Something a lot of people say is that the gun's not cracked, you're cracked, but you need to understand that I have this aim and crosshair placement because of the guardian.
Regarding warm-up, I don't use any aim training software like Covax or Aimlabs. I'll usually do two or three deathmatches before hopping into a comp game. If it's the first game of the day. I'll do a spectrum running gun just to wake up in muscle memory, otherwise it's just guardian only and deathmatches aren't too comfortable.
These are my current settings and crosshair if they change. Just remember, though, that copying my crosshair and sensitivity won't make you magically play better. Pick a sensitivity that isn't stupid. You'll get comfortable with it. Instead of changing sensitivity all the time, I just use a crosshair that is visible since I sometimes have problems seeing a dot crosshair.
That's it for all my guardian tips. I am planning to make a crosshair placement article. If you'd like to see it, please subscribe and tap the bell icon.