The crosshair

Your crosshair has one job: to show you where your first bullet will go. Everything else (odd shapes, long lines, effects) can distract you or cover an enemy's head at range.

That is why strong players almost always use simple, small crosshairs. Not because a small crosshair makes you aim better on its own, but because it lets you see your target and pushes you to be precise.

Three choices really matter.

Shape. The two most common are the dot (a single dot in the center) and the short cross (four short lines, with or without a center dot). The dot is the cleanest; the cross helps some people "frame" the target. Try both and pick one.

Size. Small enough not to cover a distant enemy's head, big enough to always see it. If your crosshair covers the whole head at long range, it is too big.

Color and outline. Pick a color that stands out on every map: many players use cyan, green, yellow or bright pink. A thin dark outline helps on bright backgrounds. Avoid red: it blends in with enemy highlights.

VALORANT can make your crosshair expand when you move or shoot, to show that your shots are less accurate. It sounds useful, but many players turn it off, for two reasons:

• a crosshair that changes shape is distracting right in the middle of a duel;
• you have to learn to stop before shooting and to manage recoil anyway: you learn that better by watching where your bullets land than by watching your crosshair grow.

If you are just starting out, you can keep the movement error on for a few weeks until counter-strafing becomes a habit. Then turn it off.

The game lets you export and import a crosshair with a code: handy for trying another player's settings or saving your own.

Copying a pro's crosshair is fine as a starting point, but remember they have a different monitor, resolution and eyes. What matters is that you can clearly see the crosshair and the enemy's head.

And as with sensitivity: once you find a crosshair that works, stop changing it. Ten minutes of picking colors every week will not make you aim better.

A crosshair is right when you forget you have it: you always see it, but you never think about it. A few signs tell you something is off.

• You lose track of it on some maps or areas (bright backgrounds, snow, sand, strong lighting): change the color or add an outline.
• It covers the head of distant enemies: make it smaller or shorten the lines.
• It distracts you in tense moments because it changes shape or flickers: turn off the movement and firing error indicators.
• It makes you shoot too early or too late because you are unsure where the center is: a center dot helps many players.

Test it on every map you play, not just your favorite: a color that stands out on a dark map can vanish on a bright one.

There are four mistakes we see most often, especially in the lower tiers.

Changing your crosshair after every bad match. The crosshair was not the problem: it was almost always your positioning or the moment you fired. Changing it just adds one more thing to get used to.

Huge crosshairs or ones full of lines. They help you "see the crosshair", but they cover exactly what you need to see: the enemy's head at range.

Colors that blend in. Red and some oranges blend in with enemy highlights; white disappears on bright backgrounds.

Copying this week's popular pro crosshair every week. Trying one is fine, but the final choice should be yours, made with the tests in this chapter.

The rule that sums it all up: small, visible, stable. Then think about where you keep it, not what it looks like.

Some agents have abilities with their own reticle (for example special weapons from ultimates, or abilities thrown along a trajectory). In those cases the game shows a different indicator, and your normal crosshair comes back as soon as you switch back to your gun.

You do not need to change your crosshair for each agent or gun: consistency matters most. What is worth checking, once, is that your crosshair stays visible inside your teammates' abilities: in smokes, colored walls, areas lit up by explosions. If you lose it there, a stronger outline usually fixes it.

The perfect crosshair is useless if you keep it in the wrong place. What matters most is not which crosshair you use but where you keep it while you play: at head height, on the edge of the corners enemies can come from. That is crosshair placement, the subject of the first chapter of the mechanics part.