CS GO: Beginners Tips

Tips for how to practice shooting
Beginners

Step 1: Sensitivity/Mouse Control

1) Make sure that your mouse and it's sensitivity is set at a level that you are comfortable with, and allows you to move the mouse accurately. If a small amount of wrist movement sends the mouse moving several feet in-game, then you have your sensitivity set too high. If you want to figure out how to get a true 1:1 mouse movement to on-screen cursor movement (or as close to 1:1 as you can get) I suggest using this website that phoon put together: worthless information about your worthless mouse It includes things like the MarkC mouse fix and is a great read to help you understand about your mouse and in-game sensitivity.

If you want the short and sweet version, try this: Set m_rawinput 1 in your autoexec.cfg file, make sure in the Windows Mouse Properties on the Pointer Options tab, that you have Pointer Speed as 6 out of 11 (the center tick mark) and have the Enhance Pointer Precision box unchecked. I would then also load the MarkC Mouse Fix for your OS.

NOTE: By using m_rawinput 1, CS:GO should bypass your OS and get the input from the mouse directly. There has been some debate about whether or not m_rawinput 1 or 0 have any real difference. I leave this up to you and what type of "feel" you get when using the mouse. I also recommend doing the additional tweaks and registry fixes in order to eliminate any possibility of the OS interfering with your mouse's input and introducing any lag. As the old adage goes, "Better Safe Than Sorry".

I also recommend making sure that you are able to rotate a minimum of 120 degrees if you move from the center of your mouse pad to one side of your mouse pad (assuming you have a large/x-large gaming mouse pad). Some people recommend 180 degree turn being the minimum turning distance, but I find that if you need to perform a 180 degree turn, chances are that in most situations you are already going to be dead before you make the turn anyway. Good in-game awareness (e.g. watching the radar, team communication about enemy location/contact, clearing angles before moving past them, etc...) and a good set of headphones will help you avoid needing to do a 180 degree turn the vast majority of the time.

Step 2: Bullet Control

2) Now that you have set your mouse up to be controlled with fine precision and accuracy, lets get into the bread and butter of the game: bullet control

Spraying is the close #2 way to get yourself killed in a fire-fight, with crouching being the #1 way (especially against non-advanced players, but I'll get more into that soon).
I suggest loading up de_dust2_se [Maps Workshop Link]. Simply toggle open the console and type: map de_dust2_se and then hit enter. Once it loads, toggle open the console again and type: bot_kick This will kick all the bots from the map.

To get the gun you want to practice with, do the following: In console type: sv_cheats 1 and then hit enter. Now type: give weapon_weaponnamegoeshere and hit enter. For a list of the weapon give commands, I say to cheat and use the info in this bind script located on the gamebanana website. For example, to get an AK47 you would type: give weapon_ak47 I would also go ahead and type sv_infinite_ammo 2 in to console as well. This will give you infinite ammo, but you can still use the whole clip up and be forced to reload, whereas using a value of 1 lets you just continuously spray (which is what we DO NOT want).

Now that you have the weapon you want and unlimited ammo, you want to type another command in to the console, which will help you better see where your bullets hit and how close they are together. Go to the console and type sv_showimpacts 1 and hit enter. This nifty command will also show you if you can spam a box or wall by allowing you to see the bullet impact beyond the wall it hits, if it is indeed spammable, but that is another lesson for another day. Also go ahead and type weapon_debug_spread_show 1. This adds yellow brackets around the crosshair that accurately show the possible location a bullet could go when you fire. As you will notice it grows larger (more inaccurate) when you move or jump, and slightly smaller (more accurate) when you crouch.

Now, I suggest we do a little single tap (tap shooting), double burst, triple burst, and 6 shot spray control training, but first I would suggest going right up close to a wall, maybe 20 feet away and fire off a full clip and just watch the weapon dance and the bullets go everywhere. If you want to save yourself some time and effort, here is a website with a collection of GIFs showing all the spray patterns. You will want to click on the link labeled "C" under the weapon you want to learn. It is going to show you the actual pattern you need to mimic with your mouse in order to control the spray.

I would learn these patterns and ultimately work your way up to controlling a full clip of spray and being able to direct it into one point. But for now, lets focus on single tap (tap shooting), double burst, triple burst, and 6 shot spray control training from close, medium and long ranges.

Rules To Follow

Spray, Burst, and Single Shot Tapping Distances in CS:GO
Rule #1: Always aim for the head (*this does not apply to shotguns which tend to do better by aiming at the chest).

Rule #2: Never, ever shoot before your shot is a guaranteed headshot.

Rule #3: Always move the crosshairs back to head height once you are done firing (i.e. controlling recoil).

Rule #4: All weapons have recoil, and this recoil takes some time to reset or calm down. Firing again before the recoil resets will cause your next shots to be inaccurate regardless of where you think you are aiming.

Rule #5: Keep moving. While your recoil is resetting, move. Once it resets, do a strafe-stop and fire again.

What is Strafe-Stopping?

In case you don't know what it is, this is where you are moving using the A or D key (going left or right, on the off chance you are using a different key setup that I do). If you are going left (the A key in this example), when you want to stop very quickly, release the A key and tap the D key very quickly. The same works for moving forward. To stop quickly you let go of the forward key and tap the back key. You will notice (if you are using a dynamic crosshair, or have sv_cheats 1 and weapon_debug_spread_show 1 enabled in console) that your player stops instantly and your crosshair shrinks down instantly as well. At this very moment is when you want to fire and then start moving again.

This is a very complicated ballet of hand and eye movements that must occur, and most people struggle with learning this. This truly is what separates most of your advanced players from the rest of the field. When this is performed right, it can look like you never stopped moving at all, and will incur claims of cheats or hacks from the players who you just headshot. There are videos about this out and about on Youtube, but I tend to like WarOwl's personally Sidestep Shooting CSGO 101 Tutorial.

Step 3: Pros and Cons and Weapons

5) Go and put in countless hours of Deathmatching (or DM'ing). I suggest getting 100 kills with the AK47 and 100 kills with the M4A4. If you enjoy AWPing, then I would throw in 100 AWP kills as well. Try and push for at least 100 kills per DM session per weapon. It will be hard at first, but just remember the following: You will die. People will spawn behind you and kill you without warning.

DO NOT let that bother you or frustrate you. Your goal when DMing is to get headshots and headshots only. Sure, if someone jumps out and surprises you, do a 6 shot spray and send that SOB straight back to respawning. Otherwise, just focus on moving, strafe-stopping, getting the headshot, and then start moving again. I would also highly recommend jumping into a 1v1 or Arena server as well. It is just like a DM server, but you are pitted against one other player. You can choose what weapon you prefer (AWP, Rifle, or Pistol) as well as Flashbangs (i would recommend against that at this time) and then you play on AIM maps. This teaches you to learn twitch reaction shots, strafe-peeking, and strafe-peeking shots, and the importance of making every shot count. If you would prefer a way to practice offline, sozu has a great video explaining how, and includeds the maps and config files in the Youtube description.

Crouching/Ducking:
As I mentioned, crouching is the #2 way to get you killed. Let me further clarify that it is the #2 way to get you killed against a non-advanced or regular player. Crouching is more of an advanced move, and I will get more in depth as to why that is in a moment, but first, lets break down the Pros and Cons of crouching .vs. standing.

Pros of Crouching: Slight increase of accuracy.
Cons of Crouching: Lack of movement and slower movement acceleration/speed, hitboxes are grouped closer to each other and making the hittable area wider and easier to hit.
Pros of Standing: Ability to move and faster movement acceleration/speed, hitboxes are spaced further apart from each other and making the hittable area slimmer and harder to hit.
Cons of Standing: Slight decrease of accuracy.

After reviewing these Pros and Cons, lets see exactly how much of an increase you truly get by crouching. I already mentioned this in the previous section, but here are the instructions for seeing the accuracy of a weapon.
Start an offline map without any bots. Once the map loads, open up the console and type the following:
sv_cheats 1
weapon_debug_spread_show 1
Now close the console.

You should now see the yellow brackets around your crosshair. Any area within these yellow brackets is the possible area in which a bullet will land when the gun is fired. As you will notice if you look at the area size when comparing different pistols, rifles, SMGs, etc... is that each weapon has a different potential bullet accuracy area. Now crouch. How much does the box really, truly shrink? Not that much at all for the vast majority of weapons (with the Deagle being the main exception).

Now, knowing that crouching really doesn't provide a benefit to the vast majority of the weapons, why would you ever want to crouch? As an advanced tactic against advanced players.
For the sake of this argument, when I talk about advanced players I am referring to players who attempt to land a headshot before trying to tap, burst, or spray you down. When they come around a corner or peek an area, their cursor is lined up right where your head should be, thus increasing the chances of them killing you first by dinking your dome.

Now, as a CS:GO beginner, you will not be facing many advanced players, but more regular players. Regular players are the players who run around and tend to look/aim their crosshair at the ground. When the come up upon an enemy, they then try to move their crosshairs upwards to fire, and usually only make it to the stomach or chest area before firing.

Now, if you as a player crouch one of these regular players, you are taking the smaller and more separated hitbox area of your player, and bringing all the hitboxes closer together and making them wider, not to mention putting your head hitbox right at the stomach/crotch area. This means that not only did you just make yourself easier to hit, but you put your head hitbox, the most valuable hitbox to defend in the game, right where their first few bullets usually hit, giving them a distinct advantage.

This means you DO NOT want to ever, ever, ever, crouch a regular player.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, crouching/ducking is an advanced technique, and it is to be used against advanced players. You know an advanced player is going to be going for the headshot, so if you crouch-slide around a corner, you now have the advantage of being able to get a headshot on that player first, before they can get one on you. The same theory works in a firefight up close. You are spraying, they are spraying... and you crouch. They now have to drag their recoil down even further to try and goosh your head, while you can let your guns recoil merely continue to move upwards, hitting them in the head.

Against an advanced player, crouching gives you an advantage, provided you know WHEN to use it. This means that crouching is something you SHOULD NOT be doing every single time.

Step 4: Smokes, Flashes, incendiary, and Grenades

This sounds really simple and obvious, but in fact is something very, very complicated that I see most people not doing properly.
Let me break down my statement. When I mention grenade control, I mean learning the different physics of the grenades, as well as the timing/effects required to trigger them to work. Here are a few examples:

HEs and Flashbangs both blow up at the same distances.
You can curve the flight path of grenades. The WarOwl has a great Video Tutorial on Grenade Physics to help teach you. It comes in handy for doing certain tricks when using/controlling them.
You can bank molotovs/incendiary grenades off of walls/boxes but cannot bounce them off the ground.

You can affect how quickly a smoke grenade will go off by the angle that you throw it at the ground. For this concept, imagine a level aim as being 0 degrees, with aiming up as being positive (+) angles and aiming down being negative (-) angles. Using slightly negative angles (somewhere in between -1 and -10) while running forwards can cause it to hit the ground several times very quickly and go off quickly. On the other hand, using extremely negative angles (-45 to -90) will cause more bounce and thus take longer to go off. The same goes for positive angles. More airtime equals more delay before the smoke grenade goes off. You can also vary the time by the amount of forward or backwards moment you are using (or lack thereof if standing still).
As far as use, there are several:

Learn how to throw the vast majority of your flashbangs as "pop" flashes. This means that when they "pop" (explode), your opponent has an almost zero percent chance to see the flashbang before it goes off. This does two things: 1) It doesn't give away your position early, and 2) it gives you the element of surprise. Grenade physics will help greatly with this, as well as practicing with HE grenades since you can see where it explodes, as well as see a small cloud of smoke that will linger in the air for a few seconds. Hone this skill as it is a great ability to have.

Learn what angles your or an opponent must have in relation to viewing a flashbang exploding in order to get blinded. adreN from Curse has a great video explaining this and Using Flashbangs.
Don't just learn to throw grenades forwards, learn to throw grenades behind you strategically as well. This might mean sneaking into a certain position unbeknownst to the enemy and then smoking the doors behind you. To your enemy it would appear to be a defensive smoke which might draw them in closer to your ambush since they think you are behind it. The same goes for decoys. Throw a decoy at your feet. 9 times out of 10 people know its a decoy and will assume you are trying to draw their attention to it, so they will look elsewhere. Learn to throw flashes in locations behind you that will not blind you but will blind your opponent. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me during a rush when I am alone in a site.

Learn the time it takes for people to rush from spawn to common areas. Then use "pop" flashes or HE grenades to disrupt them getting in to position, or to apply damage/allow for a pick.
DO NOT waste your grenades needlessly. It is one thing to set up a smoke/flash/HE/molly/incendiary grenade to help delay a push/rush that you might expect. That is helpful and can also cause your opponents to become predictable if they expect you to do it every round. However, if you are smoking an area off, then throwing in your flashbangs/HEs/decoys without even knowing the enemy is there, you just wasted several game changing advantages, as well as a nice little chunk of change. Save those nades! Use them to assist teammates with mid-round holds/pushes or site takeovers/retakes.

Learn grenade placement "tricks", and if there are several different ways to throw them, learn those as well. This way, if you use a certain smoke to push an area for a few rounds, and then you find your opponent expecting you to do something a certain way when you throw it, its real easy to perform a "fake" by using a different method of throwing it, having a small delay (enough for the opponent to start rotating) and then push a different area of the map.

Practice immediately switching to the weapon you plan on using after throwing a grenade. This will let you equip that weapon faster than if you let the game auto-switch for you at the end of the grenade animation. I suggest jumping into an offline map, turning on sv_cheats 1, sv_infiniteammo 1, and then either buy or use the give weapon commands to give yourself a few different grenades and practice, practice, practice switching to your weapon immediately after throwing a grenade to help create an engram so that you do this automatically when playing.

Use this simple scripting trick to switch back to another grenade quickly: bind "*keygoeshere*" "use weapon_knife; use weapon_flashbang" What this does is automatically switch to your knife and then immediately to your flashbang (or whatever item you put in the script) when you press the key you have bound it to. This means that you can throw a flash, and immediately press the bound key, and then press mouse1 again to throw it. Trust me, this is much faster than trying to press QQ.
All in all, just be wise in your grenade use and make them as effective as possible at all times. When used properly, they can dramatically shift the game to your favor.

Step 5: ECO Rounds

What are ECO Rounds? An ECO round is where you are playing as cheaply as possible due to your economy (i.e. not having enough money to make a full buy of Armor, Primary weapons, Grenades, and Kits (if CT side)). This usually means that you will NOT BUY ANYTHING AT ALL and will instead just run with your default weapons, no armor, no grenades, and no kits (if CT side).

The first ECO round that you will encounter will be the 2nd round. If you lose the first round (a.k.a. the Pistol round), then you will be ECO'ing rounds 2 and 3 in order to have the money to make a full buy for round 4. The trick to winning ECO rounds is to work as a team, set up good crossfire exchanges that occur up close, and hopefully get a kill, even at the cost of a trade. If you play passive, eventually one of your opponents will get aggressive and give you a chance to kill them. Your primary goal during an ECO round is to GET A PRIMARY WEAPON from the other team so that you can somewhat equalize the round in regards to overall tactical advantage.

If you win the first round/pistol round, then you will be Anti-ECO'ing, meaning you have the tactical advantage due to having Armor, Primary weapons, Grenades, and Kits (if CT side). The trick to winning an Anti-ECO round is to play passive, make sure that all exchanges take place from a distance, especially since you have the distance advantage with your weapons. Set up crossfires and angles that take place where your opponent has to be out in the open if at all possible. Your primary goal during an Anti-Eco round is to NOT DIE.

Other times that an ECO or Anti-ECO round might take place is 17th and 18th rounds of a match, which take place after the pistol round of the second half, or any time that you and your teammates are not able to buy fully. Now, I designed this guide to be more for the individual, and not for a team, so I will give you this simple hard and fast rules for knowing whether or not to ECO:
As a CT everyone should have over $5000 to make a full buy. As a T everyone should have over $4500 to buy.

If one person saves, everyone should save.
Remember that this is a team game, and you live and die as a team. Trying to buy while everyone else saves is only going to cause you and your team to lose additional rounds. Very rarely does buying while everyone else saves win you a round. It can happen, but the chances are slim to nil. It is much easier to save and lose a round possibly getting some lucky kills as a team, than it is to constantly having to ECO because people keep half buying (buying only part of the equipment you need) or force buying (having to buy because everyone else is buying, and thus having to do a half buy).

An easy way to help eliminate the chance of having to ECO is to constantly monitor your money by using the Scoreboard. As soon as a round ends, bring up the Scoreboard and see how much money everyone on your team has. If you are short on money, but you see a teammate has extra money for this round, enough to afford you a primary weapon, then ask them to drop you a primary weapon. Vice versa is true as well. If you see that someone doesn't have enough money to buy a primary weapon, but another teammate does, ask that teammate to drop for the other teammate.
As I mentioned, this is just a brief synopsis on ECOs and Anti-ECOs for the individual player, so be sure to check out the many in depth guides and tutorials on CS:GO's Economy.

Find me and Follow me

Well, that's it. Wanna see me play? Find me on YouTube Enjoy guys try these and have fun! PEACE OUT!!!

[kai斗]

thanks,十分感谢，来自十年后的新手;-)

[BG_Travis]

gg

[aku]

gg

[Tanaphon Pinkaew]

Thank you

[Cheer'.EIL]

o.o

[cannonfodder Garth]

Thx. Just started playing again after several years of grownup stuff, and most of this was new to me. Will try to change my gaming after reading this.

[K.Taiki]

this is still complicated with how long it is 4 beginners maybe try to sum it up and make it a little less complicated?

[P3RSISTANCE]

can't read it feet hurt

[MC.jizzles™]

can someone just summerize this my way too lazy to read this

[Horny Sandwich]

it kinda gets annoying when every round people ask for guns in comp but im not the best person or even THAT good ill be honest but a tip, if somone is better with a weapon that you can buy do it and trade with them so they can get kills