Does lowering mouse sensitivity improve aim?

[mako]

Almost all the pros do it, does it really improve your aim?

[Cooperal]

Yes.

A newbie would be forgiven for thinking that the trick was to master the highest sensitivity they could. A high sensitivity causes you to make many near misses due to having to stop your wrist more precisely. It leads to making many readjustments after the first attempt which wastes precious time. This disadvantage is amplified at longer ranges because your crosshair skips more pixels, making their tiny heads and moving targets unreasonably difficult to follow. It all takes time that you can't afford.

The real trick is to play at a low sensitivity where you practically never have to fall back on fluke twitches. It's a lot easier to get your aim right first time and follow heads. If you pre-aim where you expect the enemy to be, even sprayers won't have their close range advantage.

You want as much control as you can get without sacrificing your ability to turn comfortably (small mousepads not ideal). You only want a little higher for FPSs where targets move to quick (like unreal tournament) or where specific aim isn't demanded. I'd still describe the sensitivity for those as "medium".

[YOUR MOM IS FREE TO PLAY]

yep, low sens is so much better

[FAYAFOX]

Do it. I'm by no mean a good CS player but after I reduced my mouse sensitivity I saw a dramatic improvement in perfomance...especially getting those damn headshots lol

[JellyPuff]

actually, it all comes down to personal preferences, while my sensitivity in CS:GO is rather low (between 1,3 and 1,5 - i'm still testing here and then), most ppl will prefer between 1,9 and 2,3.

some are very skilled on insane high sensitivity. all a matter of taste and practice.

but unlike many other shooting game, your basically dead when attacked by anything not in your line of sight, so lowering it improves overall performance, but make you more vulnerable to surprise attacks from behind. (unless it's a n00b sprayer, you'd be dead anyways, so focus on what's in front of you)

[mako]

Ive seen some of the pros swipe their mouse at arm's length to turn a full 180 degrees. is this the right sensitivity?

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by TechnicolourPhase:

Ive seen some of the pros swipe their mouse at arm's length to turn a full 180 degrees. is this the right sensitivity?

you have to figure it out yourself. :/
trial 'n error, until you feel comfortable and satisfied with your aim.

[mako]

Well i'm playing with the default sensitivity, it's working for me so far and got me as far as nova 4. but it just seems like im missing something. I hear it's easier for you to line up your crosshair to an enemy's head with a low sensitivity but I fear that the sudden change of sensitivity would affect the performance in my games since I'm used to small mouse movements and I'm an entry fragger too so I'm expected to do quick snaps between opponents.

[Bonbon]

1.72 is my magic number and i have always played on a low sensitivity on most games i play

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by TechnicolourPhase:

Well i'm playing with the default sensitivity, it's working for me so far and got me as far as nova 4. but it just seems like im missing something. I hear it's easier for you to line up your crosshair to an enemy's head with a low sensitivity but I fear that the sudden change of sensitivity would affect the performance in my games since I'm used to small mouse movements and I'm an entry fragger too so I'm expected to do quick snaps between opponents.

if you're playing on that sensitivity for that long, you should stick with it.
but it's up to you, just lower it and scrim a bit with friend-o's to see how it goes with lower sensitivity.

[mako]

Originally posted by CreamPuff:

Originally posted by TechnicolourPhase:

Well i'm playing with the default sensitivity, it's working for me so far and got me as far as nova 4. but it just seems like im missing something. I hear it's easier for you to line up your crosshair to an enemy's head with a low sensitivity but I fear that the sudden change of sensitivity would affect the performance in my games since I'm used to small mouse movements and I'm an entry fragger too so I'm expected to do quick snaps between opponents.

if you're playing on that sensitivity for that long, you should stick with it.
but it's up to you, just lower it and scrim a bit with friend-o's to see how it goes with lower sensitivity.

Yeah I just changed it from 5 to 1.9 and it DOES improve my aim :). I'll need some time to get used to it though but I guess I can practice with this cooldown on competetive

[Hegemon]

Yes, changing sensitivity to low will improve your aim, if you have "shaky hands". I used to play with 5 sens, but when I get panicked i shaked the mouse and every bullet was a miss.

May I suggest few things:

1. Lower your sensitivity
2. Check if your mouse has its own sensitivity. For example DeathAdded has its own. I'm playing with 2.1 CS:GO sensitivity, and 1800DPI mouse sensitivity. You should tweak them both.
3. Don't hold tight the mouse when you're playing and shooting.

[Crash]

I play with sensivity 1 and mouse accel 1.6 so i can turn 90 degrees by moving my hand from the wrist, to make a 180 i have to move the mouse super fast or make 2 90 degrees turns :p

[mako]

Originally posted by Crash:

I play with sensivity 1 and mouse accel 1.6 so i can turn 90 degrees by moving my hand from the wrist, to make a 180 i have to move the mouse super fast or make 2 90 degrees turns :p

Doesn't that hurt your arm though?

[Doge]

Originally posted by Crash:

I play with sensivity 1 and mouse accel 1.6 so i can turn 90 degrees by moving my hand from the wrist, to make a 180 i have to move the mouse super fast or make 2 90 degrees turns :p

CS is a game of muscle memory, if you play with acceleration, you never going to improve ingame, and all your shots will be very random.

[Deadly Chicken XoP']

It also depends on your mouse dpi and acceleration so 1.3 for one person is not the same as 1.3 for another.