If you’ve played Counter-Strike, you’ve dabbled in Quake, or you’ve tried Apex Legends out for size, you should be at home with bunny hopping.
Bunny hopping is all about gaining velocity and using air-strafing to travel from one location to another. Some games actively discourage it, like Call of Duty. But others, like VALORANT, embrace it.
But how exactly do you bunny hop?
Practice makes perfect when it comes to learning the art of bunny hopping.
Understanding air-strafing is essential to the craft. This is jumping (or falling) and moving your mouse in a direction while pressing the corresponding strafe key—A for left, D for right.
Once you’ve got air-strafing down to a tee, you can start practicing your bunny hops. Bunny hopping is the act of combining a left (A) air strafe with a right (D) air strafe in quick succession.
To do this, jump and press A while simultaneously pointing your mouse to the left of your mouse pad. Then, jump, press D, and move your mouse to the right side of your mouse pad. You then rinse and repeat, jumping from left to right and building up speed. You can also use W to bunny hop, combined with either A or D.
When bunny hopping, you should consider saying goodbye to your space bar and binding jump to your scroll wheel. It’s much easier to sequence your bunny hops and time them correctly when you’re scrolling. Scrolling up and down are both acceptable, but down is generally the way to go. But if you’re a Jett main, because of the nature of Glide, it’s best to stick with the space bar.
You can also bunny hop silently by jumping and immediately holding the shift key before strafing left or right. This can come in handy in certain situations.
And what’s the point of bunny hopping?
The momentum you gain from bunny hopping on the spot is barely worth mentioning in VALORANT. But in certain scenarios, it can be worth taking into consideration.
If you want to move around the map as fast as possible and get to a spike site before your enemy, you should avoid bunny hopping. It might even slow you down if you make a mistake.
But if you want to brute force your way through Brimstone’s Incendiary, Phoenix’s Hot Hands, or Viper’s Snakebite, bunny hopping could save you a few extra seconds.
If you find yourself in an unfortunate situation and you’re forced to reload in the middle of a gunfight, bunny hopping from side to side could also save your life. There’s nothing wrong with confusing your enemy and throwing their crosshair off-kilter.
Which agent is best suited to bunny hopping?
Raze gains the most out of bunny hopping. Bouncing off of Raze’s Blast Pack and immediately bunny hopping when you hit the ground will give you a quick burst of speed. You can then add a second Blast Pack to the mix and shoot across the map. The same goes for her ultimate ability.
The same momentum can also be gained with agents like Jett and Neon. After dashing with Jett or sprinting with Neon, try bunny hopping for a burst of speed and a few extra steps.
