How to practice and warm up your spray
Do you find yourself with bad or inconsistent aim? Maybe it's the way you practice it! Try these helpful tips and watch your aim improve!
One of the most essential elements to Counter Strike is ability to control a spray. There are two main parts in spraying, one is cross-hair placement and the other is your ability to control recoil. On top of those, another overlooked skill is when to spray, burst and tap a gun to land hits the quickest before your enemy lands his. Over time, in certain situations where you burst, you will be able to spray longer till you don't have to think about the pattern you are spraying and it becomes muscle memory. If you are newer to Counter Strike, at mid and long range combat situations burst firing is your best option. As you learn how to control recoil through practice strategies I will explain, you will be able to land more hits in a spray than resetting your aim every time for burst firing. Before I go over how to master spraying, let's start with cross-hair placement.
The most said advice in cross-hair placement is "aim for the head." When I review demos for lower level players I always see their cross-hair in bad positions. The purpose of correct cross-hair placement is so you do not need to adjust your aim a long ways to have an accurate first shot. The longer it takes you to adjust your aim, the more time the enemy has to land shots on you. At all times, your cross-hair should be in a position that either predicts where an enemy might be or at head-level toward a position they might come from. To develop this muscle memory, which is important, ask yourself constantly, "Is my placement useful, or am I aiming at nothing? If I were to see an enemy, how far will I have to adjust my aim for my first shot?" In order to determine if your crosshair position is useful comes with game sense. A good example of missplaced crosshair comes from the following position:
Catwalk from Terrorist side on Dust II. A lot of newer players have their cross-hair pointing at the ground as they run across it. In no situation should you ever be aiming at the ground. Especially if there are no smokes covering your position, you are taking a gamble from multiple angles and will have to adjust greatly if you see an enemy. If you know Middle and CT are clear, aim head level toward Short A. As you approach Short (all the ground around the stairs area) you will want to place your cross-hair about 1 centimeter off the edge at head level, till you clear the corner by the boxes. As you continue to clear each spot, place your cross-hair head level aiming behind Short stairs before moving to that position so when you go to peek that spot, or show yourself to that position, your cross-hair is already aiming at that your enemy ready to fire. This is called "pre-aiming". A very important skill to learn because as you climb the ranks, you will have less and less time to react and adjust your cross-hair to enemy positions. If you are always looking at the ground or never put it in a useful place then you will not be able to keep up with the reaction time of players in higher ranks. The ability to pre-aim common angles come with playing the game a lot, there will be many of them to learn. Pre-aiming also works with defending a certain angle. If you are expecting an enemy to fly out wide around a corner, place your cross-hair a little farther off the wall than normal to be able to react quicker when he comes around. If you are expecting a tight angle or for someone to shift-walk around a corner, place your cross-hair close to the wall so you do not have to adjust your aim very much to fire.
An essential tip for sensitivity in aiming/spraying; If you cannot do 180 degree spin in 1 swipe then your sensitivity is most likely to low. If you can do a 360 degree spin in one swipe your sensitivity is probably too high. Finding that balance is personal preference and takes a lot of deathmatch hours to find the perfect sensitivity. Popularly amongst great Counter Strike players they have lower sensitivity to be able to control recoil a little easier. Although this is not a necessity to good recoil control, that is just their personal preference. The most important thing about sensitivity is finding one you are comfortable with, not adjusting to a certain setting because that's what your favorite professional player uses. Also, once you find a sensitivity you are comforable with, keep it. Changing your sensitivity often will lead to inconsistent results in spraying.
The most important part of spraying is to stand still while firing. If you move while spraying, the pattern becomes unpredictable and you will miss every shot. 'Counter-strafing' is a concept that if you are moving left, release your "A" key and quickly tap "D" in order to stop your movement. After tapping "D", you can start your spray. Vice-versa for moving to the right. You can use this when turning corners or while pre-aiming a poistion. On an empty server, practice counter-strafing at popular angles and common pre-aim positions. Until you master this concept, you can try a form of it called 'shift-shooting'. Shift-shooting is great especially for guns like the Deagle, a gun that you must be stopped in order to hit any target but need to remain mobile so you are not an easy target. Release all keys and hold shift to slow-down your movement by a large fraction, shoot, then keep moving behind cover. The goal in shift-shooting is to stabilize only when you are about to shoot, otherwise be moving around staying a difficult target for your enemy. With rifles, you can initially practice counter-strafing this way but as you move up in ranks you will need to counter-strafe because of the importance of an accurate first shot. Eventually you will develop muscle memory to counter-strafe without thinking about it.
The other half to effective sprayng is the ability to control a guns recoil. I'm sure you have read or heard the best way to practice is spraying at a wall in an empty server. This can give you experience in controlling recoil, but there are maps in the Steam Workshop specifically designed to help spraying with multiple weapons. Before learning to all-out spray, train your mind to aim for the head at each enemy you see.
Aim Botz Training Map - Click Here
The link above I've provided is the most common and helpfull tool in teaching muscle memory to aim for the head. If you are looking to truly improve your aiming capability, spend 45 minutes to an hour each day on this map getting headshots. It is also a great tool for warm-ups, I usually spend 15 minutes aiming at the head before playing any matches or till about 200 kills. Developing this muscle memory will serve a greater purpose for you than spraying at a wall because you are teaching your brain where it is correct to fire your first shot.
After you have that down, its now time to master the rest of the pattern. It is important to note that if you are not very good with spraying, continue to burst and tap fire at mid and long ranges till you have the pattern down better. At lower Matchmaking ranks, you will beat more enemies out by landing accurate shots in bursts than trying to get lucky on a spray-down. As you increase in ranks however, your ability to spray at mid-ranges will help you trememdously.
Recoil Master Weapon Practice - Click Here
This link will help you spray with any gun you wish to become more accurate with. I use this map to warmup if I feel like my aim is inconsistent that day. More importantly, this is an easy guide to build muscle memory when doing all-out sprays. Your ability to not lock your eyes on your cross-hair during a spray and become more concerned with where the bullets are going will help you become more accurate and aware of when to spray and when to burst. Spending 30-45 minutes a day practicing the pattern for all guns will help further develop that muscle memory. This method is more effective than spraying at a wall because of the ghost cross-hair feature. You can visually see where you crosshair should be at while spraying, so you can learn how to control that guns recoil much faster.
The key to mastering sprays is persistance. You won't perfect it in a day, two days or even a week. But, you will see improvement in your spray the more you correctly practice it and the more you play. The only way to improve this fundamental is devoting time to practice it. So, get out there and kill those bots!
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