languid tartan
If you want to work on your raw aim mechanics, aim training in Aimlabs/Kovaaks is the better choice.
Do note however that Valorant is a shooter with not a lot of "active aim", given that your positioning and crosshair placement does a lot of heavy lifting in that game. Doesn't mean however that you won't benefit from a bit of training to sharpen up some skills.
glacial rivet
or atleast you can use aimlab for warmup, even pros do that.
quiet lance
You can aim train for every fps (or most at least) game and benefit a lot from it.
Even if its valo, maybe there is not much "active aim" in the game as vorkot said, but it is still there, and in some situations, especially duels, aim training can help u a lot.
There is a lot of pro players that benefit from aim training, PRX jinggg for example, EG Demon1, FNC Derke and others who are crazy players and can pop off with their aim and show you some crazy actions.
While there is also players who maybe dont aim train that much (or even none) and focus on their game sense (and probably in terms of aim, they benefit the most from learning and remembering all the angles on all the maps and using it to perfect their crosshair placement) and can show u some crazy strats and are aware of what is going on on the map - FNC Boaster (im not 100% sure about his aim training experience, he mightve done some) - no more examples needed for this one, this guy perfectly sums it up here.
Using aim trainers to warmup might be good, but from what ive seen, most (i would like to say every, but that might easily be wrong) pro, if uses aim trainers to warmup, after it - still always plays a dm/tdm to warmup in-game, and kinda transfer his aim trainer warmup to his in-game performance.
From playing dms/tdms you will get better, especially you might understand the guns better and other mechanics of the game (movement for example), but aim training - in terms of aim - will give u its not even close to playing dms benefits (if u approach it correctly, with learning proper techniques etc. - kinda whole other topic).
To sum it up - if u want your aim to get better - aim training will give u most benefits - but playing dms/tdms for some - might be enough - imo there is maybe a couple individuals in the world who without aim training might have a great aim that could outperform other players at their - top - level who aim train.
latent thicket
You can aim train for every fps (or most at least) game and benefit a lot from i...
So how should I know if I should or shouldn’t aim train?
sterile sand
U asked aimlab or deathmatch. Just do both
10 minute aimlab then 1 or 2 dms sounds like good warmup
I recommend valorant ramp warmup routine, read about it on #resources
When people say dont do aimlabs im pretty sure they mean dont do gridshot or dont train “too much” of aimlab instead of ur main game, which i agree.
But 40minutes a day or warmup routine can ONLY help
Regarding ur aim
Prx jingg, eg demon1, tenz, prx something, all aimtrained in a trainer
And im sure there are a lot more
Btw using the range can also be the same as aimtraining, there a LOT of ways to use the range creatively to simulate aim training, but on the trainer its a lot easier to train
Yay also aimtrained btw
languid tartan
So how should I know if I should or shouldn’t aim train?
If you don't care about training your aim mechanics, then you dont. Otherwise you do.
Aim trainers are significantly better to help you seperate + focus on aim mechanics. Doing it in-game will be suboptimal due to a variety of reasons, although not impossible.
quiet lance
So how should I know if I should or shouldn’t aim train?
noone knows what is the best way to improve overall aim + mechanics in the game for everyone (i will add something to that at the end), people try to find what is working for them / what worked for top players at given game. In my opinion, the best way that I can think of, to train both active/passive aim/ your aim weaknesses and mechanics of your main game is:
using an aim trainer with proper scenarios/routines, which cover your aim weaknesses and help you improve, and play some kind of insta spawn/ffa or anything like that mode in your main game, that will give you a better understanding of mechanics in game (even playing ranked will help you improve mechanics/aim but in a lot smaller percentage than things ive said before - but in ranked you will probably learn a lot of gamesense, knowledge, strats and tactics etc.).
Ask yourself a question - what do you want to improve at (e.g. better overall mouse control - start aim training) - and from everything we just covered here - choose, try out some routines, maybe something will work better for you. Remember that everyone is different and there is no way to find anything optimal for everyone, you can just find something that is optimal on average to everyone. You will always find a routine that is great for A player, bad for B player and C player is only playing ranked and is better than A and B player combined. Find your secret and work yourself around it. Nothing more I can say.