Vpns usually make your ping worse sinse your input gotta go to the vpn server or something like that then gets sent to the game server which makes your ping way higher than usual
i suggest if your using wifi switch it to using LAN which will give you the best ping possible if you cant then you could optimize your wifi settings in your pc to a get a bit better result heres a vid
https://youtu.be/GOwRQbtTh0Y?si=3f8QltRUeYOgtP1k
(Make sure to put your wifi somewhere cool too heat will make it perform worse thus higher ping and lag)
And also using a dns is really good too either Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 or Googles 8.8.8.8
To know which one is better for you, you can test them in command prompt or powershell with this command
Type in them: ping 1.1.1.1 (or) ping 8.8.8.8 separately. you will se somthing like this
Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=57
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=57
Ping statistics for 1.1.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 10ms
i suggest do it 10 times for each 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 and see which one had better Average= (lowest ping) over all
ones you did you gotta apply one of to your wifi connection or lan connection like this video
https://youtu.be/pHedApAE12g?si=7nTz4CRQPEtcKHZD
if 8.8.8.8 was better for you instead of 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 type 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
and if your ping is still really $hitty then maybe just maaybe its better to buy a modern wifi with 6 GHz or even 5 GHz band
TP-Link Archer AX21 (AX1800) (the cheapest ive found idk maybe you'll find better)
TP-Link Archer AX55 (AX3000)
Netgear Nighthawk AX12 (AX1800)
Tenda AX3000 Gaming Router
Linksys EA7500 Max-Stream AC1900