We all want to be better, but most of us barely move forward in terms of in-game skill. This series of guides will try to teach you ways to improve the most important aspects of your solo-based in-game skills in CS:GO.

Today we will start with what is probably most important skill of them all: Aim. We all see it constantly in highlights clips and fragmovies and it is not hard to see why: It is impressive to see the crosshair glide from one target to the other to win a round basically on its own. Near-perfect precision and unbelievable speed make good aim a sight to behold, but...

How do I become an aim god? This is the question we will try to answer today.

But first, what exactly is needed to have good aim? There are multiple factors that can make you a great aimer, and the most obvious is the "snapping aim".

Snapping Aim

Snapping aim is defined by the exertion of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal, and everything in-between, movement of your mouse to flick onto a target. The target can be close or far from your crosshair, and good snapping aim is achieved by being able to do quick, yet precise, movements with the mouse/crosshair all across the screen.

Like almost every skill, snapping aim is especially easily trained in an offline environment, with maps made to maximise the amount of training you get in a certain amount of time. Such maps are "training_aim_csgo2" or its alternative version "training_aim_csgo2_dark" submitted by user "nope" on the Steam Workshop, as well as "Aim Botz - Training"made by user "uLLeticaL". There are obviously many more fitting training maps out there, so do not be afraid to use them as well, but be sure to choose maps that give you the possibility to cram a big amount of aiming exercise in a small time frame in order to maximise your productivity, which will boost your progress.

If you try to actually get better on these maps, instead of cheating yourself and trying to get a highscore or a similar distraction, you will soon see progress, which, after all, should define success for you. Soon, after you have acquired a minimum of speed and precision, it is practical to go online and practice your aim online as well as offline, by expanding your program with game modes such as (free-for-all) deathmatch (FFA DM), as well as Arena 1v1. If you actually enjoy these gamemodes and if they are really effective changes from person to person, so be sure to monitor your behaviour during said exercises. If you get mad during FFA DM, you can try to disable the in-game sound and put on some relaxing music. Keep in mind that your score does not matter, only the progress of your snapping aim does.

Tracking Aim

Tracking aim is especially useful against moving targets on fights that tend to go longer than usual (long-range pistol round duels, for example) and flanking since it is defined by the player keeping his crosshair on the (head of the) target while the target moves.

Considering that you want to practise your aim against moving targets, it is reasonable to practice against moving targets. This can be done via the aforementioned maps in the snapping aim paragraph, but I would especially recommend using the "Aim Botz - Training" map, since the bots like to move quite unpredictably. I like this map in particular since it gives you so many ways to configure the bots. And no, this is not a planned/paid plug.

Once you got a few speed variants down on this, or a similar, map, you can also try to jump online and mix it up. Deathmatch normally does not give you much to work with, since you will almost always be facing one, or more, ready enemies at pretty much any time. 1v1 Duel servers may fit better since you will at least not get shot in the back once you take a duel. Once again, try to not to cheat yourself and do these exercises consciously in order for them to be as effective as they can be.

Crosshair Placement

This may surprise a few of you, but crosshair placement can sincerely help you with your aim. If you have less space where you need to manoeuvre your crosshair through, you will have less room for errors to appear. Good crosshair placement is to have your crosshair at head level in an area you are possibly encountering an enemy in, especially useful if you have to move to a different area and you have to deal with height differences in where the enemies might be. This goes for vertical as well as preaim/crosshair placement on the horizontal for corners and places where enemies might stand and wait for you to peek, enabling you to prefire them.

This is, what a surprise, also easily done offline on maps made specifically for this purpose. God bless CS:GO's Workshop community! For you to improve your crosshair placement you will need so-called prefire maps, like the "Prefire Practice" maps from the workshop user "Yesber", or different maps with the same purpose: To teach you common prefire spots as well as crosshair placement in general.

You should ignore the timer, at least in the beginning, and actively concentrate about where your enemies will be instead of how good you are doing during practice. If you have the most common maps down and you feel like your crosshair placement has improved, you can jump into deathmatch, where you also should think about the needed crosshair placement when you change position or simply move around.

Conclusion

You should always try to get the most out of you by doing what works the best for you. Some people may not need the extra steps with the offline maps, some don't need any training in certain aspects at all except for some good old deathmatch. If you start by thinking about the aspects where you are still lacking in skill or if you watch a few demos to see how you died, you should be able to pinpoint the aspect that needs the most attention and you should work from there.

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