In this post, Delinx gives you four practice routines that should help you as you seek to improve your aim in CS:GO.
As is the case in so many computer games, the most basic actions are almost always the most important.
When it comes to CS:GO, the action of aiming is fundamental to the success you will have in the game. And yet, how often do you give thought to your aiming during the game itself?
This post will help you think more carefully about how you aim and offers a number of tips that should help you as you look to rank up in CS:GO.
If you’re looking for more advice on aiming and other areas, then consider booking a coaching session with Delinx.
General Principles of Practice
This practice routine should be viewed as a guideline: a template for you to work on skills you need the most.
It’s built on the idea of breaking down something complex into simple aspects so all of them can be analyzed and practiced individually.
An effective practice always follows three important rules: focus on one fundamental skill at the time; create a consistent and realistic environment; make sure you adjust difficulty.
Let’s take aiming as an example. Aiming consists of a variety of skills such as:
- Mouse movement to the general area of the target
- Speed of mouse movement
- Consistency of mouse movement speed
- Initial accuracy of large mouse movement
- Micro adjustments on a specific part of the target
- Speed of micro-adjustments
- Accuracy of micro-adjustments
- Tracking and accounting for your movement and the target’s
- Ability to recognize and use the ideal moment to shoot
- Repositioning of the mouse on the mousepad
- Keeping a neutral wrist angle to prevent locking
How many of those things can you keep in your head right now? Would you be able to keep them all in your head while playing on a Deatchmach server, would you be able to analyze and apply tweaks to them?
Unless you are extraordinarily gifted, the answer is no. That’s why practicing all of them at the same time is not the best idea. Automation is the main enemy of improvement.
Once you become somewhat automatic in a skill, your improvement rate slows down dramatically. In order to counter this, you need to develop practices which push you outside of your comfort zone and allow the space to improve.
This practice routine is set up for you to complete offline on a map called AIM_BOTZ. In the course of the routine, you will make 1000 kills and you can complete it in around 25 minutes. If you complete it daily, you will notice improvements to your aim within one or two weeks.
The routine consists of the following four steps:
1) Warm Up
The first step of routine should allow you the chance to warm up before more challenging exercises.
Just go ahead and headshot 250 bots. There is a catch, though: before each of your shots, you need to make sure it’s 100% going to hit your target.
You will need a bit of extra time to do some micro-adjustments before each shot, and that is completely normal. Find the sweet spot of being 100% accurate while aiming quickest you can but remember to prioritize accuracy over speed in this exercise.
This exercise will help you to warm up, practice micro-adjustments, practice trigger discipline, and timing.
2) Practice Quick Mouse Movement
This exercise is very similar to the warm up exercise but this time, instead of making accuracy your main priority, focus on the speed of your mouse movement.
Try moving your mouse as quickly as you can in-between targets before taking time to adjust to their heads, as well as trying flick-shotting (flick shots are quicker than conventional aim because you rely on your reaction to land shot straight after initial flick without micro-adjustments).
It will feel uncomfortable or even unpleasant to move your mouse quicker than you usually do, your hand might feel stiff and tense: don’t worry – it’s normal.
To improve your speed you need to get out of your comfort zone and get familiar with the sorts of faster movements you normally don’t do. In time, it will become your natural speed and accuracy will follow.
This exercise will help you to increase the speed and accuracy of mouse movement, improve your spatial awareness and consistency of flick shots and other reaction-based shooting.
3) Practice Precise Mouse Movement
In this exercise, you will need to follow a list of conditions before you are allowed to get a kill.
Aim from head to head in a precise and smooth single motion, focus on moving your crosshair in a straight line with consistent speed, and try to stop your crosshairs precisely on the middle of the target’s head without over or under flicking.
If your mouse speed were inconsistent, you stopped mid-movement or over aimed then simply skip the current target without killing it and proceed to repeat those steps while aiming at the new target. By doing this, you will have 250 kills only when you successfully completed this action for 250 times.
You will likely need to aim much slower than usual to follow those conditions and that’s completely normal. Go as slow as you need and with time your speed will improve.
This exercise will help you to make your mouse movement more effortless, precise and smooth, and allow you to track targets more easily.
4) Practice Tracking
In this exercise, you will work on your ability to track enemy heads (locking on the enemy head) while moving yourself or onto moving target.
There should be two parts to this exercise: first using a rifle and second using a pistol to allow you to practice with different movement speeds.
Pick your weapon of choice, aim at the enemy head and start strafing left and right combining long and short strafing. While doing it try your best to keep your crosshair preciously on the centre of target’s head at all times.
After few seconds of movement while keeping your crosshair on targets head, do a counter-strafe and shoot the target in the head. If you find counter-strafing too difficult, then stop fully before taking a shot.
This exercise will help you to acquire smoother mouse movement and improve your micro-adjustments speed and precision. It will also make mouse movement more effortless, which will improve your crosshair placement by making it less of a distraction.
Good luck!
By applying the principles discussed here to skills you wish to improve you can develop your own exercises, and by doing that you can improve any skills within or outside the game.
Good luck and always do a hard practice instead of just practicing hard!
