Improving your aim is a straightforward way to make yourself stand out from everyone else. This guide will set you on the path to becoming an aiming connoisseur, providing you with why you should use an aim trainer as well as any resource you might need along the way.
What if I said you could dramatically improve your rank by just putting thirty extra minutes a day into your aim, would you believe me? Chances are you have lost a round, and if your aim was just a tad better, you would have changed the outcome. You cannot rely on just mechanics and game-sense to carry you to victory.
Improving your aim is a straightforward way to make yourself stand out from everyone else. This guide will set you on the path to becoming an aiming connoisseur, providing you with why you should use an aim trainer as well as any resource you might need along the way.
If you are closer to a beginner level, then this guide is perfect for you, but even if you are Radiant in Valorant, Grandmaster in Overwatch, or Global Elite in Counter Strike, an aim trainer will provide benefits to you. I will explain why aim trainers are useful, as well outlining some common misconceptions within the community.
To quote Theodore Roosevelt,“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty.”
While playing an Aim Trainer like Kovaak’s or Aim Lab should not be painful, it will take effort and it will be challenging. However, if you want to improve, you are in the right place.
With Aim Lab and KovaaK’s becoming increasingly popular, it is as important as ever to know when and why you should use an aim trainer.
There are different aiming types that apply to things like Aim Lab and KovaaK’s, here I will mention two examples throughout this guide.
First we have Clicking, most dominantly used in games like Rainbow Six Siege, Valorant, and Counter Strike Global Offensive. Second is Tracking, most dominantly used in games like Overwatch or Apex Legends.
Using Overwatch as an example, there is both clicking and tracking within the game, characters like Zarya, Soldier 76 and Tracer are mostly tracking based, while McCree and Windowmaker would be more clicking based.
Like how a professional athlete would focus on certain muscle groups to make the sport easier, an FPS player can use an aim trainer to work on their aim mechanics. Aim training is never a bad idea. This will be a simplified way to improve your aim, as well as how to get started.
Two scenarios where an aim trainer is recommended:
1.You are a beginner when it comes to PC First Person Shooters
While developing the skills related to aiming are important, you should still spend a lot of time in your game of choice, as you might lack the other vital skills to improve.
2.You want to improve aspects of your aim in relation to the game you play with isolated practice
I will give baselines for both beginners as well as links to game specific guides provided by Voltaic[EM1].
The game specific scenarios are only available for KovaaK’s, as this is the aim trainer with the most resources available to help you on your journey.
Before that though, it is important to first start with good sensitivity and DPI. As of 6/10/2021, it is recommended you use 1600 DPI, explained here. Long story short, 1600 DPI provides the least amount of input lag for your mouse and going higher than 1600 does not have a noticeable effect.
People often think that Aim Training will instantly translate, and while it can, it's way more effective with deliberate practice.
This means that you will deliberately try to identify mistakes during your training and try to fix them. It also means you are critical of your own gameplay, which is done through analyzing your own footage. This is usually done through analyzing your own VODs, coaching yourself, or getting coached.
Then you need structure and a routine to work on what you need the most. And that applies to more than just Aim Training, of course!
The screenshot above is from a video by Battle(non)sense, with the link above providing more insight.
The difference between 400 and 1600 DPI is around 8ms on a Razer Deathadder v2, but with any modern mouse you will find similar results. If you truly want to get to that next level, any small change will make a difference.
Below are recommended sensitivity ranges for your game, start with the lowest recommended value, and increase your sensitivity as needed.
Tracking
20-40 CM/360
Apex Legends recommended sensitivity .65 – 1.3.
Overwatch recommended sensitivity 2.17 – 4.33.
Clicking
30-60cm/360.
CSGO recommended sensitivity .43 - .89.
Valorant recommended sensitivity .13 - .28.
What is CM/360?
Centimeters per 360 refers to a real measurement of how you have to move your mouse to do a 360 degree turn in-game.
This is a combination of your mouse DPI, and in-game sensitivity to provide a universal measurement for mouse sensitivities.
If you are interested in learning more about sensitivity converting, and finding your CM/360 you can do that here.
As previously stated, the following guides are for KovaaKs FPS Aim Trainer.
Game Specific Routines provided by Voltaic: Aim Training Routines for any level of FPS player, starting with Bronze and going all the way up to Astra. This document will outline what scenarios to start with, as well as when you should move up.
Fundamental Aim Training Routines for KovaaK’s FPS Aim Trainer
This is an example of what a good routine looks like, since the goal is to mirror things in overwatch there are several scenarios that would mimic inside of the game.
For example, Plaza High Ground Sparky and Plaza Low Ground Sparky both mimic being on high and low ground respectively.
Ground Plaza Spark v3 OW involves fast strafes, mimicking Tracer blinks and instantaneous movement acceleration.
You could find yourself worried about changing your sensitivity, and rightfully so. If changing to one of these sensitivities is a drastic change for you do not be worried, the ranges listed above are perfect because not only do they work for the average player, but they also are also averaging from top aimers within their respective games.
Some might find themselves suddenly worried about changing their sensitivity, no matter how big or little the change might be. One of these reasons might be muscle memory, but contrary to popular belief there is plenty of evidence showing that muscle memory is not as important as we once thought.
Changing your sensitivity does not ruin your aim.
Changing your sensitivity, while it is not recommended you do it often, simply requires a certain amount of readjustment depending on the sensitivity change. Even using a sensitivity randomizer can lead to an opposite effect.
When you change your sensitivity, while it is not recommended you do it often, simply requires a certain amount of readjustment depending on the sensitivity change.
“There is also an irrefutable wealth of anecdotal evidence within the aim training community of players changing their sensitivity constantly, even using sensitivity randomisers, all without a noticeable long term penalty to their aim. It is even often suggested to try changing your sensitivity to overcome plateaus in improvement as a new sensitivity can give you a fresh starting point to improve from.” From “Why ‘Muscle memory’ is seen as a meme in aiming”
If you find yourself at a plateau, consider changing your sensitivity a bit.
An aim trainer is just like going to the gym. You create a workout routine to isolate certain muscles and you can isolate certain aiming types within Kovaak and Aim Lab. Like most parts of life, you get out what you put in and there are many aspects that will be very apparent to you when you first embark on your journey. For some it might even be intimidating, because regardless of your skill level, an aim trainer will expose your weaknesses.
Back to the gym analogy, it is important to think about things like overtraining or playing too much to the point of diminishing return. Undertraining would look something like ignoring a weakness that you know you have.
Since an aim trainer will expose your weaknesses, it is important to understand that it is perfectly fine. You must start somewhere; you cannot walk into a gym and bench press 450 pounds your first time. You might have to start with ten pounds, and you might have to do that weight for a week before you can move up and that is perfectly fine.
Why do you want to improve your aim? This is an important question because it should highlight the type of aim you should work on. If you primarily play something like Counter Strike, or Valorant, improving your micromotions or your click timing might be ideal, but if you play something like Overwatch or Fortnite, you might need to do more tracking scenarios.
It is important that you know that aim is only a part of several other skills involved with First Person Shooter games, aiming mechanics cannot carry you to the top of whatever game you are playing. You can have Shroud’s aim, but that doesn’t mean you can be the best in Fortnite if you don’t have build and edit mechanics to go with it. Even if you have aim like TenZ, you won’t be the best player in Valorant if you don’t know how to use utility and know the angles across the map.
Remember, aim training does not improve all FPS skills. It can only improve aim-related skills like mouse control, strafe aiming, and hand eye coordination. It cannot help you improve your in-game decision making, positioning, or game knowledge.
With battle-royale games especially, there is a lot of downtime. Landing, looting, moving to a circle, or even holding an angle. You have a lot of time spent in the game, but not focused on just your aim. From anything to a warm up tool to isolating a particular aiming style you need to work on, aim trainers can be a great tool to improve your skills, but only the skills that require aiming!
While this is a guide for specifically aim trainers, I want to mention a few things to think about regarding your performance.
Keep an eye on all these aspects of your life and you will start seeing better results in-game!
[1] Voltaic is a multi-purpose community centered around mutual self-improvement in shooters with a focus on aim and talent discovery.
