Peeking is the art of quickly moving your player in and out of cover to gain information on enemy locations or bait-out shots from an enemy sniper. Either way, peeking is an essential skill to learn to take your VALORANT gameplay to the next level.
Angle Advantage
When peeking, the closer your player model is to a wall relative to the enemy, the sooner they can see you before you can see them. This is simply an unavoidable reality in FPS games.
With this in mind, it is always best to peek as far away from a corner as possible to minimize the angle advantage for you and your enemy.
Keep Your Crosshair at Head Level
Headshots are the fastest way to put an opponent down in a tactical FPS game like VALORANT. Players must always keep placing their crosshairs at head level to score easy kills with headshots.
You must remember to keep your crosshair at head level whenever you are peeking corners or even when you are just running around the map in VALORANT. If enemies suddenly jump out or are holding an angle you are peeking, all you will have to do is click.
Why You Should be Peeking
In VALORANT, you need to either see or hear enemies to be able to report enemy information to your teammates. It is often a bad idea to be hiding close behind cover since enemies can sneak up on you by simply walking.
A better way to gain information while keeping yourself safe behind cover in VALORANT is by peeking.
You are most vulnerable in VALORANT when you are out in the open. Boxes and walls are placed in such a way as to provide cover for players. These are not random boxes in the open for you to enjoy looking at. They are there to stop bullets from knocking your head off.
Most walls and boxes in VALORANT are large enough to hide your player model completely. We need to learn how to use them to our advantage.
How to Peek in VALORANT
Jiggle Peeking
Jiggle Peeking is when you show only a small part of your player model (often the shoulders) to bait a reaction from the enemy. Players often react to any movement they see on screen. By jiggle peeking, you can gain information by using the sound cue from where the enemy is shooting from while keeping yourself under safe cover.
Jiggle peeking can also be used to bait out Operator players. The Operator has longer wait times between each shot, so you can use this time window to get yourself into a better position or take some shots yourself.
- Stand close to a corner.
2. Quickly Press the “A” button to strafe left
3. Quickly follow up with the “D” button to run back into cover.
Remember that the goal is the bait out a shot from the enemy. Therefore, showing2 that only a part of your player model is good. You do not have to see the enemy you are trying to peek at – you want to know if they are there.
Wide Peeking
As the name suggests, this type of peeking exposes your player model more to the enemy since you will be away from cover. This peek is often used in tandem with a teammate in a double peek situation where both of you peek together, but your teammate takes a tighter angle while you go wide.
This peek is a great technique when you have a good idea of where the enemy might be holding an angle. You can catch them off guard with a double peek.
- Stand close to a corner:
2. Hold the “A” Button to strafe wide:
This peek needs good communication between you and the teammate you will execute this peek with.
Crouch Peeking
This type of peeking originated back in CSGO, but players will find that this technique does not translate well into VALORANT. Movement in VALORANT is simply different from CSGO.
Still, this is a good tactic to throw your enemy’s aim off since they will most likely be aiming at head level.
To Crouch Peek simply:
- Hold the “Crouch” button
2. Strafe Left by holding “A” while holding the “Crouch” button.
Jump Peeking
This is the most advanced type of peeking on this list. True to its namesake, this peeking technique requires players to run at full speed and then jump and turn around 180 degrees from a corner. This is a great technique because it can often throw off your enemy’s crosshair and bait-out shots while staying relatively safe behind cover.
- Run at full speed towards the corner you want to jump peek off of:
2. Jump close to the corner and quickly follow up by swiping your mouse towards the direction you want to turn away from. At the same time, hold the corresponding movement key. In this case, we swipe our mouse to the left and hold “A” to turn left.
You need to press Jump+Directional Key+Swipe all at the same time.
Just a Quick Peek
Peeking is a special skill for any VALORANT player. You can gather information on enemies by peeking while keeping yourself safe behind cover. You can even coordinate with your teammates to peek together and score easy kills on unsuspecting enemies.
As you get better at peeking, you can start to incorporate some quick burst shots at common holding spots and hopefully score a quick kill in the process.
