Time: 01:24:58 CET 16:24:58 PST 19:24:58 EST 08:24:58 Seoul 07:24:58 Beijing
BLOGS
How to become a better cs player
You can find this guide on gotfrag, too.
HF :)
Playing Smart
Almost 99% of the players who ask professionals for help say, “How do I make my aim better????” That is the wrong question to ask. Aiming is not a hard thing to do, you are just moving a cursor to someone. You’ve been moving cursors all your life, whenever you are on a computer. Aiming is the easy part. Fragging is the hard part. Most articles I’ve read usually say something like your skill is 50% aim and 50% smarts. Wrong - more like 90% smarts and 10% aim.
Angles
Knowing your angles is probably the most important part of CS. I’ve also seen this written in many articles, but none have actually explained what knowing your angles means. You need to know every corner of every map; you need to know how much of each corner you need to peek to be able to spot someone; and you need to know what corners to peek first to avoid being shot from somewhere else. This all obviously comes from experience. One common mistake I see is not knowing the difference between defending and attacking. When defending bombsites, whether you are on the offense or defense, being closer to your opponent is always best. The closer you are to them, the bigger their models appear - just like in art and in real life. The bigger their models are, the earlier they will appear on your screen. If they are further away, then obviously their model will be smaller, which means that their point of view will arrive quicker than if they were at pointblank range. Being close will give them almost no time to react. Now obviously, when attacking bombsites, I think you should always take the far route. What I mean is when you are approaching a site, you should be checking all corners from as far away as possible. This also decreases the chances of you being seen from a player in another position. The closer you are to one angle, the closer you are to every other angle. Being further away allows you to check every angle without fear of being shot from somewhere else.
Counter-flashing
I am a firm believer that almost every map is advantageous for the defensive side. The defenders are always far more stationary than the attackers. Obviously the offensive team must flash in order to take a site, because the defenders could be hiding anywhere, and the flashes are a must in order to buy time to find them. However, the attacking team must flash first. I believe this is one of the main aspects that separates top teams from other teams. If you think about it mathematically, the defenders always have the edge. The attacker must flash first; the defending player will then counter-flash; his oppponent will either be blind, or have to flash again, in which case the player guarding the bombsite still has another flash to throw, while the other team has none. This will also buy enough time to get a teammate on the defensive side to rotate (who has more flashes), which cancels out the usual number advantage by the attackers. Also, the offensive players give away their positions by flashing, which leaves them open to be hit directly by multiple HE nades. If a team can properly anticipate the timing of a rush and where their opponents are, they should always be blind less than the attacking team, thus giving them the upper hand. Counter-flashing is something not many young teams and inexperienced players do; all they can think about is camping in their spot and trying to headshot the entire team, which will pretty much never happen against a good team because you will be blind, and they won’t. If a team takes your site using flashes, and you die without using all of yours, you played it wrong. I consider CS just like playing poker - position is everything. You always want to act last, which is what the defending players do. In poker you always want to be in late position, preferably on the button (the dealer position) because you get to watch what everyone else does first, and then act upon it. You are given information before you act, whereas the attackers should have no information to act upon, unless you decide to be tricky and give them incorrect information.
Don’t Play Scared
I see so many teams, some of my teams included, who totally shut down when they play a team that is supposed to be better than them. They play scared. When you play scared, you bait. Baiting is what beats teams on the offensive side. If you allow an opposing player to pick, reset, pick, reset, pick reset, you are going to lose the round every time. Like I said above, they have position on you. Most likely they are going to get the first pick; your teammates need to capitalize this and frag the player. YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO NOT TRADE FRAGS. If a defender frags someone, he must be fragged in turn as soon as possible. You cannot stand there and watch your teammate get shot at. Do something - at least spam, but you should be running out and trying your hardest to kill the defensive player. Think of it as fragstealing. I bet back when you were a newbie you used to cry about getting your frags stolen. Frag stealing is teamplay. At every opportunity you have to “steal” a frag, do it. You cannot let a defender who has exposed himself get away alive, especially if he has taken out a teammate. DON’T BAIT! After that player is fragged, this should open up an entire new lane to attack from, because obviously that player was guarding it for a reason. For example, a player is AWPing middle from the defending team's spawn on inferno. You are doing a 3/2 split on A or something, and he picks one of your players middle. What do you do? You don’t just stop because you are scared, you run out there with him and try to frag the guy. He should be fragged nine times out of ten, or at least be so low that he has to fall back and then you can nade him. Now you have all of left mid to attack the site from, which counters what I wrote above regarding counter-flashing, because there are more openings than the defensive team has time or enough flashes for. Winning on the offensive side is totally dependent on your team’s ability to trade frags, or even better, getting the initial pick and capitalizing. Always remember to treat scrims like matches, and matches like scrims. The only difference is there should be no criticizing in matches, just “nice try.”
Communication
Communication on both sides is key. On the defensive side you must tell your team EVERY time you spot someone, hear a flash, hear a nade, or whatever. If you are alert enough, you can eventually figure out the location of every opponent on the map, or at least the majority of them. This is when you flank. If five attackers nade hut, and the defending inner players call it, the outside player can flank and probably take out the majority of the team. It also obviously helps tell your team when to rotate. On your opponent’s save rounds, make sure to not over-rotate, ALWAYS leave one player guarding the other bombsite. A sneak plant can give the other team an opportunity to buy on a round that they otherwise would not have; controlling the other team’s money is essential to controlling the game.
Pushes
Pushes on the defensive side are extremely useful. Although above I pretty much said the opposite, they are good for catching your opponents offguard. This works especially well against lesser experienced teams, because at best all they have done is dry runs of their strats, and as soon as you pick one player off the rest of them will fall apart. If your team has a very organized push that frequently works, I strongly recommend using it on your first gun round. It makes the other team scared; the next round they will probably waste flashes to counter your push, giving them less flashes as a whole, which I explained the importance of above. When attempting a solo push, your main goal is to catch one or two enemies sleeping, fragging them easily hopefully without using any nades and losing much health. A very common mistake made by players is to keep pushing after getting that initial frag. This is wrong. As a defensive player, you do NOT want to trade frags if you don’t have to, as it is too risky to keep pushing. When pushing, you should be falling back after that first set of frags, as if you had never decided to push at all. This way you are ensured that you do not trade frags, and it is just as though you had started the round 5v4 or 5v3, which will disrupt the other team's strategies drastically and give them almost no chance to win. If you trade frags, it opens a hole in the map, and your team loses a player. Don’t be selfish when you push, get what you came for and get out.
Training your opponents
Much like in poker, you can train your opponents to do something. If you play passively 5 rounds in a row, chances are your opponents will take note of that and try to do something to counter that. This is when you do something totally different, and play extremely aggressive. Keeping your opponents guessing is extremely advantageous. It makes them scared, which causes people to make mistakes, change their strats, and bait.
Risk assessment
Just like in everything, there are risks that you have to know when to take and when not to take. Pertaining to CS, it mainly focuses on peeking. You have to know when you should peek and when you should not peek. If there is a low risk of being fragged and a high probability of you getting a frag, then you should peek. This sounds easier than it really is, because your judgment could be off or tweaked by something the other team does. You need to be able to collect enough information via sounds, communication, and what you personally see to know if it is safe to peek or not. Obviously it is much riskier to peek from a place like the A site than it is the pit on inferno. The more opponents facing you, the less you should think about peeking. That is why communication is so important; with proper communication everyone should be able to correctly analyze on their own when to peek and when not to peek, leading to successful site holds. Just like in poker, it is more effective to bet into one opponent than into multiple opponents, because an increase in opponents increases their chances to hold something (which corresponds to the flop). Sort of like an increase in your opponents in counter-strike means an increase for you to be spotted, headshot, or whatever.
Attitude
There needs to be a serious attitude adjustment in many players. Whining on mm1 or mm2 during scrims does not help anyone, not even yourself. It pretty much makes everyone hate you. If I think the other team is cheating, I will never say a word to them, no matter how blatant it is. I pretty much tell myself that they are not cheating. I can’t see their point of view when they frag me - maybe they had a better angle than me? When someone I am playing with cries and cries about how the other team is cheating or how BS they are, all it does is make me hate them. It also puts the idea into your teammates’ heads, and then every time that player hits a nice shot, the guy HAS to be cheating. Everyone stops trying, everyone starts worrying about the player they think is cheating, and you start losing real bad real fast. It also boosts the other team’s confidence. I know when some idiot says I cheat it makes me think I’m good, and momentum is a powerful thing in CS. There is nothing you can do about cheating. Whining about it makes your team look immature, which leads to trash talk by other teams, which in turn frustrates your team, and causes all types of disaster. All complaining needs to be erased from your head; if that is all you do no one will want you on their team no matter how good you are. This is the number one reason teams die.
Knowing Smoke Grenades
Everyone knows how to use smokes on the offensive side, but they can be extremely useful in defending as well. Smokes should be placed in small areas where the smoke has little room to go so it is very thick. Alley on train is an excellent place for this, you can always see the offensive players seconds before they can see you. When they are in the middle of the smoke, they can see nothing but gray, and you can easily distinguish their models through the smoke.
Following Simple Instructions
During the freezetime at the beginning of every round, all talking on the mic should stop, and nothing should be said on mm2 except for your money every round. I don’t care how badly you got bs’d or if you are up 50-0, TYPE YOUR MONEY. Do not buy until it is established that everyone has enough, and if not who is dropping who a gun; there is more than enough time for this. Misbuys can cost your team several rounds and put you at a severe money disadvantage for the entire half. If you have 4.5k and one player it has 16k, it makes absolutely no sense for you to buy your own gun. Keeping money evenly distributed among players increases your buy rounds dramatically. On your save rounds, stop buying deagles unless you are instructed to do so. You will probably get enough frags to win the round 1% of the time, it’s not worth it. During freezetime, please listen for your strat caller to call something. If he calls nothing, do whatever you consider the default setup. Don’t just rush B because he didn’t call anything.
Aim Process
I believe it was bootman who said that the best way to improve your aim is by playing deathmatch with an AWP and a deagle. I honestly think this is the worst thing to do to improve your aim, unless you are strictly an awper. I do advise, however, playing deathmatch. You need to find your style, I found mine by playing TONS of deathmatch. I know when to tap, I know when to burst, I know when to spray. I never have to think twice about it. It all comes from experience, but like I said in the beginning, I think it's more about the process of fragging than it is about your actual “aim,” which I consider the process of moving your crosshair to the enemy. Most people can do this pretty easily. I’m pretty much always tapping my AK from mid to long range, sometimes even close range, and on my colt I usually spray close to mid range, and burst long range. When an opponent is crouching or in an area where it is hard for them to move (hut door of nuke), I always strafe and burst to counter their increased accuracy while crouching. When I am in a situation like I just mentioned, I always tap. The two best ways of improving your aim process is deathmatching and watching point of view demos of top players. Always note their shooting METHOD, not how good their aim is. Their aim is usually not what nets them the frag.
This guide was written by Justin "bair" Kohlhepp
Source: http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/31230/
copied by me
:EE
By Jaroslav 'Souledge-' Onoprienko
Feb 9, 2006 14:19
You can find this guide on gotfrag, too.
HF :)
Playing Smart
Almost 99% of the players who ask professionals for help say, “How do I make my aim better????” That is the wrong question to ask. Aiming is not a hard thing to do, you are just moving a cursor to someone. You’ve been moving cursors all your life, whenever you are on a computer. Aiming is the easy part. Fragging is the hard part. Most articles I’ve read usually say something like your skill is 50% aim and 50% smarts. Wrong - more like 90% smarts and 10% aim.
Angles
Knowing your angles is probably the most important part of CS. I’ve also seen this written in many articles, but none have actually explained what knowing your angles means. You need to know every corner of every map; you need to know how much of each corner you need to peek to be able to spot someone; and you need to know what corners to peek first to avoid being shot from somewhere else. This all obviously comes from experience. One common mistake I see is not knowing the difference between defending and attacking. When defending bombsites, whether you are on the offense or defense, being closer to your opponent is always best. The closer you are to them, the bigger their models appear - just like in art and in real life. The bigger their models are, the earlier they will appear on your screen. If they are further away, then obviously their model will be smaller, which means that their point of view will arrive quicker than if they were at pointblank range. Being close will give them almost no time to react. Now obviously, when attacking bombsites, I think you should always take the far route. What I mean is when you are approaching a site, you should be checking all corners from as far away as possible. This also decreases the chances of you being seen from a player in another position. The closer you are to one angle, the closer you are to every other angle. Being further away allows you to check every angle without fear of being shot from somewhere else.
Counter-flashing
I am a firm believer that almost every map is advantageous for the defensive side. The defenders are always far more stationary than the attackers. Obviously the offensive team must flash in order to take a site, because the defenders could be hiding anywhere, and the flashes are a must in order to buy time to find them. However, the attacking team must flash first. I believe this is one of the main aspects that separates top teams from other teams. If you think about it mathematically, the defenders always have the edge. The attacker must flash first; the defending player will then counter-flash; his oppponent will either be blind, or have to flash again, in which case the player guarding the bombsite still has another flash to throw, while the other team has none. This will also buy enough time to get a teammate on the defensive side to rotate (who has more flashes), which cancels out the usual number advantage by the attackers. Also, the offensive players give away their positions by flashing, which leaves them open to be hit directly by multiple HE nades. If a team can properly anticipate the timing of a rush and where their opponents are, they should always be blind less than the attacking team, thus giving them the upper hand. Counter-flashing is something not many young teams and inexperienced players do; all they can think about is camping in their spot and trying to headshot the entire team, which will pretty much never happen against a good team because you will be blind, and they won’t. If a team takes your site using flashes, and you die without using all of yours, you played it wrong. I consider CS just like playing poker - position is everything. You always want to act last, which is what the defending players do. In poker you always want to be in late position, preferably on the button (the dealer position) because you get to watch what everyone else does first, and then act upon it. You are given information before you act, whereas the attackers should have no information to act upon, unless you decide to be tricky and give them incorrect information.
Don’t Play Scared
I see so many teams, some of my teams included, who totally shut down when they play a team that is supposed to be better than them. They play scared. When you play scared, you bait. Baiting is what beats teams on the offensive side. If you allow an opposing player to pick, reset, pick, reset, pick reset, you are going to lose the round every time. Like I said above, they have position on you. Most likely they are going to get the first pick; your teammates need to capitalize this and frag the player. YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO NOT TRADE FRAGS. If a defender frags someone, he must be fragged in turn as soon as possible. You cannot stand there and watch your teammate get shot at. Do something - at least spam, but you should be running out and trying your hardest to kill the defensive player. Think of it as fragstealing. I bet back when you were a newbie you used to cry about getting your frags stolen. Frag stealing is teamplay. At every opportunity you have to “steal” a frag, do it. You cannot let a defender who has exposed himself get away alive, especially if he has taken out a teammate. DON’T BAIT! After that player is fragged, this should open up an entire new lane to attack from, because obviously that player was guarding it for a reason. For example, a player is AWPing middle from the defending team's spawn on inferno. You are doing a 3/2 split on A or something, and he picks one of your players middle. What do you do? You don’t just stop because you are scared, you run out there with him and try to frag the guy. He should be fragged nine times out of ten, or at least be so low that he has to fall back and then you can nade him. Now you have all of left mid to attack the site from, which counters what I wrote above regarding counter-flashing, because there are more openings than the defensive team has time or enough flashes for. Winning on the offensive side is totally dependent on your team’s ability to trade frags, or even better, getting the initial pick and capitalizing. Always remember to treat scrims like matches, and matches like scrims. The only difference is there should be no criticizing in matches, just “nice try.”
Communication
Communication on both sides is key. On the defensive side you must tell your team EVERY time you spot someone, hear a flash, hear a nade, or whatever. If you are alert enough, you can eventually figure out the location of every opponent on the map, or at least the majority of them. This is when you flank. If five attackers nade hut, and the defending inner players call it, the outside player can flank and probably take out the majority of the team. It also obviously helps tell your team when to rotate. On your opponent’s save rounds, make sure to not over-rotate, ALWAYS leave one player guarding the other bombsite. A sneak plant can give the other team an opportunity to buy on a round that they otherwise would not have; controlling the other team’s money is essential to controlling the game.
Pushes
Pushes on the defensive side are extremely useful. Although above I pretty much said the opposite, they are good for catching your opponents offguard. This works especially well against lesser experienced teams, because at best all they have done is dry runs of their strats, and as soon as you pick one player off the rest of them will fall apart. If your team has a very organized push that frequently works, I strongly recommend using it on your first gun round. It makes the other team scared; the next round they will probably waste flashes to counter your push, giving them less flashes as a whole, which I explained the importance of above. When attempting a solo push, your main goal is to catch one or two enemies sleeping, fragging them easily hopefully without using any nades and losing much health. A very common mistake made by players is to keep pushing after getting that initial frag. This is wrong. As a defensive player, you do NOT want to trade frags if you don’t have to, as it is too risky to keep pushing. When pushing, you should be falling back after that first set of frags, as if you had never decided to push at all. This way you are ensured that you do not trade frags, and it is just as though you had started the round 5v4 or 5v3, which will disrupt the other team's strategies drastically and give them almost no chance to win. If you trade frags, it opens a hole in the map, and your team loses a player. Don’t be selfish when you push, get what you came for and get out.
Training your opponents
Much like in poker, you can train your opponents to do something. If you play passively 5 rounds in a row, chances are your opponents will take note of that and try to do something to counter that. This is when you do something totally different, and play extremely aggressive. Keeping your opponents guessing is extremely advantageous. It makes them scared, which causes people to make mistakes, change their strats, and bait.
Risk assessment
Just like in everything, there are risks that you have to know when to take and when not to take. Pertaining to CS, it mainly focuses on peeking. You have to know when you should peek and when you should not peek. If there is a low risk of being fragged and a high probability of you getting a frag, then you should peek. This sounds easier than it really is, because your judgment could be off or tweaked by something the other team does. You need to be able to collect enough information via sounds, communication, and what you personally see to know if it is safe to peek or not. Obviously it is much riskier to peek from a place like the A site than it is the pit on inferno. The more opponents facing you, the less you should think about peeking. That is why communication is so important; with proper communication everyone should be able to correctly analyze on their own when to peek and when not to peek, leading to successful site holds. Just like in poker, it is more effective to bet into one opponent than into multiple opponents, because an increase in opponents increases their chances to hold something (which corresponds to the flop). Sort of like an increase in your opponents in counter-strike means an increase for you to be spotted, headshot, or whatever.
Attitude
There needs to be a serious attitude adjustment in many players. Whining on mm1 or mm2 during scrims does not help anyone, not even yourself. It pretty much makes everyone hate you. If I think the other team is cheating, I will never say a word to them, no matter how blatant it is. I pretty much tell myself that they are not cheating. I can’t see their point of view when they frag me - maybe they had a better angle than me? When someone I am playing with cries and cries about how the other team is cheating or how BS they are, all it does is make me hate them. It also puts the idea into your teammates’ heads, and then every time that player hits a nice shot, the guy HAS to be cheating. Everyone stops trying, everyone starts worrying about the player they think is cheating, and you start losing real bad real fast. It also boosts the other team’s confidence. I know when some idiot says I cheat it makes me think I’m good, and momentum is a powerful thing in CS. There is nothing you can do about cheating. Whining about it makes your team look immature, which leads to trash talk by other teams, which in turn frustrates your team, and causes all types of disaster. All complaining needs to be erased from your head; if that is all you do no one will want you on their team no matter how good you are. This is the number one reason teams die.
Knowing Smoke Grenades
Everyone knows how to use smokes on the offensive side, but they can be extremely useful in defending as well. Smokes should be placed in small areas where the smoke has little room to go so it is very thick. Alley on train is an excellent place for this, you can always see the offensive players seconds before they can see you. When they are in the middle of the smoke, they can see nothing but gray, and you can easily distinguish their models through the smoke.
Following Simple Instructions
During the freezetime at the beginning of every round, all talking on the mic should stop, and nothing should be said on mm2 except for your money every round. I don’t care how badly you got bs’d or if you are up 50-0, TYPE YOUR MONEY. Do not buy until it is established that everyone has enough, and if not who is dropping who a gun; there is more than enough time for this. Misbuys can cost your team several rounds and put you at a severe money disadvantage for the entire half. If you have 4.5k and one player it has 16k, it makes absolutely no sense for you to buy your own gun. Keeping money evenly distributed among players increases your buy rounds dramatically. On your save rounds, stop buying deagles unless you are instructed to do so. You will probably get enough frags to win the round 1% of the time, it’s not worth it. During freezetime, please listen for your strat caller to call something. If he calls nothing, do whatever you consider the default setup. Don’t just rush B because he didn’t call anything.
Aim Process
I believe it was bootman who said that the best way to improve your aim is by playing deathmatch with an AWP and a deagle. I honestly think this is the worst thing to do to improve your aim, unless you are strictly an awper. I do advise, however, playing deathmatch. You need to find your style, I found mine by playing TONS of deathmatch. I know when to tap, I know when to burst, I know when to spray. I never have to think twice about it. It all comes from experience, but like I said in the beginning, I think it's more about the process of fragging than it is about your actual “aim,” which I consider the process of moving your crosshair to the enemy. Most people can do this pretty easily. I’m pretty much always tapping my AK from mid to long range, sometimes even close range, and on my colt I usually spray close to mid range, and burst long range. When an opponent is crouching or in an area where it is hard for them to move (hut door of nuke), I always strafe and burst to counter their increased accuracy while crouching. When I am in a situation like I just mentioned, I always tap. The two best ways of improving your aim process is deathmatching and watching point of view demos of top players. Always note their shooting METHOD, not how good their aim is. Their aim is usually not what nets them the frag.
This guide was written by Justin "bair" Kohlhepp
Source: http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/31230/
copied by me
:EE
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