Aiming is a significant part of every FPS game. It is the reason why they are so addictive. Being able to click heads, perfectly track enemies, and impress your friends is the reason I am here. Aiming in video games motivated me to become a top 1% player.
Now, after dozens of hours of aim training and thousands of hours of practice in the most competitive FPS games like Apex Legends, CS:GO, Valorant, Call of Duty, and Overwatch, I am here to pass my information to the next generation of aimers.
If you are ready to take your aim to the next level, keep reading.
1. Start Aim Training
The biggest one of them all. Aim training. Aim training WILL make you an aiming god. That’s just a fact. Look at players with more than 200 hours in Kovaaks or Aim Lab. They dominate lobbies.
But Yaron, shouldn’t I play the game? Is it better? Well, let’s say you are playing Apex Legends for 15 minutes. You hop into a match. You loot for 2-3 minutes. You find a squad. You manage to kill them, that’s great! You keep looting for another 2-3 minutes, and you die in the next gunfight.
How much did you actually aim? Really practiced on your raw aim? Less than 20 – 30 seconds. Now imagine playing Kovaaks for 15 minutes. You basically get 15 minutes of pure aiming practice. That’s the difference.
And I am not even talking about the ability to isolate specific aiming skills, being focused solely on aiming, and more. Read more at Are Aim Trainers Worth It?: The TRUTH.
You’ve probably seen “I’ve aim trained for 30 days” videos, and you can clearly see the benefits. So start now. If you are looking for where to start, check out The Complete Aim Training Guide: The Godlike Aim Journey.
You will work on every aspect of your aim and become the aim god you deserve to be. There are no cheat codes for improving your aim. It is down to your dedication to sit down and practice. So let’s ensure the time is 100% spent effectively and aim train instead of mindlessly playing the game.
By the way, if you are looking for the best Aim trainer FOR YOUR NEEDS, check out Best Aim Trainer: Kovaaks VS Aimlab.
Consistent aim training is the fastest way to improve your aim. Since aim trainers provide the tools to be able to be fully focused and dedicated to the practice, they are the ideal environment for improving your aim.
2. Learn Crosshair Placement
You’ve heard this time and time again. But there is a reason why you are hearing about Crosshair placement time and time again.
Crosshair placement is having your crosshair head height aiming at places where enemies might come from. Good crosshair placement eliminates any need for micro adjustments and aim correction, leaving less room for error and faster time to kill overall.
Stop aiming at the floor. I’ve never seen an enemy suddenly pop out from the floor.
You have to consciously think about your crosshair placement. Actively think about it while gaming until it is in your blood and nature. It will take time. But it is worth it.
I do not think about my crosshair placement, and it is near perfect at all times. They say it takes 21 days to learn a habit. So let’s form a new habit. For the next 21 days, I want you to actively think about your crosshair placement.
Make sure it is head height, place your crosshair on common angles, and where enemies might come from, like doors, windows, common spots, etc.
It will be hard, and you will slip sometimes, and that’s totally okay as long as you are right back on track.
A professional Valorant player says that he has one of the worst aim skills in the esports scene and that his crosshair placement is near perfect, which is why he can demolish everyone.
I promise you that having good crosshair placement even in high TTK games like Apex Legends, PUBG & Warzone will transform your aim to the next level.
3. Lower Your Mouse Sensitivity
Your mouse sensitivity is probably way too high. Go to Gaming Smart Sensitivity Calculator, put your game in the Covert To & Covert From, and choose your DPI & sensitivity.
Take a look at the Cm/360 which basically means how much you should move your mouse to do a complete 360. So, for example, if you have 25cm/360, you have to move 25cm for a full 360.
Take a look below to compare yourself to the majority of eSports players.
As I have said in my BEST Sensitivity For FPS Games article, lower is generally better. You are probably playing on a way too high of sensitivity. You can learn more here.
If you found that you are playing with a sensitivity that is way too high (lower cm/360), check out How To Find Your Perfect Sensitivity.
But in a nutshell, use the pro players’ average eDPI (DPI * In-Game Sensitivity) as a starting point. To get the pro players’ average sensitivity, use prosettings.net, go to your game and use the average sensitivity and DPI.
Then adjust it as you play with it. It will initially feel awkward, but it is 100% worth it.
You might also be interested in BEST Mouse Settings For Gaming Guide With Pro Players Analysis.
Lower mouse sensitivity is superior to high mouse sensitivity as lower mouse sensitivity allows for more precise mouse movements and micro-adjustments, which result in a better overall aim.
4. Improve Your Setup
In a perfect world, everyone’s setup is the same, and the field is equal. But this is not an ideal world, and one can have an advantage with the right setup.
If someone is playing with a 60 FPS, non-gaming mouse without a mousepad against someone with 240FPS with a 240hz monitor, the best gaming mouse and the smoothest mouse pad in the world. The latter clearly has the upper hand. Massively.
We are not making the rules, but we must work with what we have. That’s why I recommend investing in your setup to get every advantage. But since it can be pricey, I’ve narrowed it down to the three most essential peripherals for gaming, in my opinion.
- Gaming Mouse – Probably a no-brainer, but I think it has the most impact on your performance. Having a good gaming mouse that properly tracks your mouse movements without any smoothing, angle snapping, or inconsistencies. I recommend the godly Logitech G Pro. (Review)
- Gaming Monitor – I can’t describe the feeling of switching from a 60 Hz monitor to a 144 Hz monitor or even 240 Hz (144 Hz vs 240 Hz vs 360 Hz). Totally game changer. I recommend getting the famous BenQ ZOWIE XL2456K.
- Gaming Mousepad – This might go under your radar, but your mousepad matters. It can be pretty significant for your gameplay, and I recommend not using cheap knock-offs from eBay that cost 1$ as they are very inconsistent (Cheap vs Expensive Mousepads). Instead, I recommend getting the non-brainer pick SteelSeries QcK.
Of course, there are gaming chairs, desks, keyboards, headsets, and more. To learn more about having the best setup, check out My Gaming Setup For 2022 And My Recommendations.
Since gaming is not an equal field, having a good setup can have an advantage. Therefore, ensure you invest in a good, high-quality setup that compliments your playstyle. The most recommended peripherals to invest in are a gaming mouse, monitor, and mousepad.
5. Stay Present & Focus
Being focused while gaming is critical for your gaming development and improvement. Without proper focus, you won’t learn a thing.
I came across the concept of presence when I read EG Chance’s Quake Bible. “You may only compete at your peak performance when you are committed fully to the present moment.”
Often referred to as being in “the zone,” staying present helps significantly with improvement and gaming performance.
As EG Chance said, it is hard to describe exactly how to get into “the zone.” “You either get it, or you don’t.” Basically, you have to become one with the task. Focus only on gaming. Make sure there are no interruptions, and there is nothing on your mind.
If you have to study, your wife is mad at you, or you have problems at work, you can’t expect yourself to play at peak performance. Your mind will often wander, causing you not to stay present and impacting your performance.
You don’t have to think about your in-game actions. You just do whatever is needed to accomplish the task. You have to be 100% in the gameplay to get peak performance. This is huge, and many people auto-pilot when gaming. Being focused will help you stand out and improve your performance.
Meditation can help if you are having problems with being focused.
Check out How To Improve Your Focus While Gaming.
Staying present and being focused while gaming is critical when improving your gameplay. You may only compete at your peak performance when you are committed fully to the present moment.
6. Understand Shooting Techniques
There are different shooting techniques you must get familiar with if you want to improve your aim.
There is spray control, tap firing, prefire, tracking, flicking, and more.
- Spray Control – This is especially true in Valorant and CS:GO. You must learn recoil patterns and how to spray correctly to hit your shots. Practice spray control in the practice range.
- Prefire – The act of shooting before even seeing the target. You prefire common spots so you would leave no room for plays for the enemy. The only play is to surrender. Make sure you prefire common angles.
- Flicking – I would not recommend often flicking, as it is the product of surprise and an instinct of our body. You don’t actually go into the match and flick between targets. You do it unconsciously when needed. It can be practiced by an aim trainer. How To Improve Your Flicking: Master Flick Shots.
- Tracking – The art of “gluing” your crosshair to a target. Primarily used in high TTK games like Apex Legends, Overwatch & Halo. It can be practiced by an aim trainer. How To Improve Your Tracking Aim.
- Tap firing – Mostly used when engaging in long-range fights in tactical shooters like Valorant or CS:GO. Do not spray if it is a long-range fight as the spray is very hard in these games to hit effectively—tap tap tap.
- Crosshair Placement – We discussed this technique above, but it is probably the most crucial technique you must master.
Now, we are heading to the movement techniques that involve shooting.
- Strafing – The art of ADAD. Going left and right in a gunfight will tap the enemy’s head. So you are basically impossible to hit. Very useful in tactical shooters and tracking heavy games like Apex Legends.
- Jiggle peeking – As you would imagine, you jiggle and quickly peek and go back to throw off your opponent’s reactions. Peek, repeek until they die.
- Wide peeking – You peek widely and throw off the opponent’s aim, as they won’t expect you to go that far as most players peek and stay very close to their original position (close to the wall, door, etc.).
- Shoulder peeking – peeking with only your shoulder to get quick information on the enemy’s position. It is tough to react to a good shoulder peek.
The first step is being familiar with the different kinds of shooting \ movement \ peeking techniques out there.
Don’t try and implement them all and once, but try to implement them one by one. Then, slowly but surely, you will rule every technique out there. I recommend watching a Youtube video or reading a guide if you have trouble with specific techniques.
To improve your aim, you must be familiar with and master different types of aiming and movement techniques like prefire, spray control, tap firing, strafing, wide peeking, jiggle peeking, and more. Therefore, it is recommended to watch Youtube videos on such techniques to master them.
7. Don't Tense
Tensing up while aiming is a sure way to get a shaky and jittery aim. (How To Fix Shaky And Jittery Aim). So one of the fastest ways to improve your tracking aim and improve your smoothness is to relax your hand while aiming.
Not only will holding your mouse tightly impact the smoothness of your aim, but it will also tire your hand muscles as they are constantly flexed.
How to prevent it? First, consciously think about it and try not to tense your hand while aiming. This is the same as with crosshair placement. Keep an eye on it while gaming; eventually, it will be better.
You will fight against it throughout your aim improvement journey as tensing up in stressful situations is human nature. But consciously thinking about it is the way to go. You can even imagine your mouse is made of sugar or something similar.
Second, work out so your hand muscles won’t be tired very quickly. Working out has many benefits, and many even say it can improve your gaming performance, but I will get into it later.
Third, try different settings to reduce the tension. Try to reduce your sensitivity or increase it and see how it feels. Try and change your mouse grip and see how it feels. (The Best Mouse Grip: Palm vs Claw vs Fingertip)
If you are tense because you often get stressed in clutches or while you play, I recommend you look at How To Be Calmer And Reduce Stress While Gaming (Pro Mindset).
Tensing your hands while aiming will negatively impact your performance as it will cause your aim to be shaky and jittery. Therefore, to smoothen your aim, you should relax your hand and be calm while aiming.
8. Warm Up
The power of warming up is enormous. Let’s go back to the example of hopping into an Apex Legends match. You loot for a few minutes, engage in a gun fight, and keep looting. You’ve basically purely aimed for about 30 seconds in 15 minutes. That means it can take a few matches to completely warm up your aim.
We don’t want that. We want to ensure we are warmed up when we hop into a match. Playing cold feels worse. Your performance is worse, and the overall feeling is very clunky.
So why not invest 10-15 minutes in warming up and play better than ever? Laziness? Not under my watch. If you are on SweatyGaming, I want to see the sweatiness.
There are two different warming-up techniques, each with pros and cons.
Aim Trainer
Warming up in an aim trainer is an excellent choice as it will quickly warm you up due to the intensity and the focused method of aim training. You are 100% focused on aiming for 10-15 minutes. After that, you will be sharp in no time.
The downside of aim trainer as a method for warming up is that you are not warming up everything that is gaming correlated like sprays, movement, and specific techniques that are engine based.
In-Game
On the flip side, warming up in-game also has the crucial benefit of warming up your whole game mechanics. That means you will sharpen your movement, sprays, and everything you can’t work on in an aim trainer.
The downside of this method is that you are limited only to what your current game offers. Some games do not have good custom matches or deathmatches that you can warm up in. So it all depends on your game of choice.
I warm up in Modern Warfare as they have excellent custom-match lobbies with settings to mess around with. Learn more at Warzone BEST Warm-Up Routine.
To learn more about warming up, check out The Complete Warm-Up Guide: How To Actually Warm Up For Gaming.
Every FPS gamer should warm up before they play. After not playing for a while, your body becomes cold, stiff, and unprepared to perform at peak levels. To play at peak performance and play more consistently, warm up before every gaming session.
9. Improve Game Sense & Movement
But Yaron, I want to improve my aim, not game sense or movement…
Aiming is one part of gaming (probably the most fun to master, therefore, you are here). But if you lack your game sense or movement skills, your aiming skills will also be impacted.
If you have good aim but are constantly making bad decisions, you will die many times and lose fights. Of course, you may blame it on your aim since you didn’t one-tap your opponent to death, but the real problem is other parts of your gaming arsenal.
DO NOT NEGLECT GAME SENSE AND MOVEMENT.
You can take your aim to a new level with proper movement and game sense. Especially with movement. Jiggle peeking, strafing and counter strafing, sliding and slide canceling, and so on.
Make sure not to neglect other parts of your gaming skills just because they sound less fun to work on. After all, it all comes together.
The issue with game sense when it comes to aim is that you will often get into bad situations, which you can get out of if you hit some lucky, unique shots. You will find yourself missing this kind of shots and dying, only to blame your aim.
But your aim is not the problem. So make sure to invest in game sense and movement as well.
For movement, I recommend watching Youtube videos or copying pro players’ movements. Practice movement and new techniques in deathmatches or custom matches.
For game sense, I recommend watching pro players and challenging their decisions, and understanding their actions. For example, why did he do that? Why did he rotate? Why did he run away? Doing so will teach you a lot about game sense and how the best of the best think.
Check out my How To Develop Pro Game Sense: Fastest Method to learn more about game sense.
Many players underestimate the power of game sense and movement during their aim improvement journey. However, lacking in one of these areas can be detrimental and can also impact your aim. Therefore, it is recommended not to neglect game sense and movement.
10. Take Care Of Your Body
Now we are heading into less fun stuff, but that is powerful nonetheless. Being healthy and fit will do wonders for your aim. It will improve your ability to focus, which we already said how important it is [Flow in gaming: literature synthesis and framework
development ].
You will manage your stress better so you won’t tense up often. You will be more alert, and you will react faster. (How To Improve Your Reaction Time: Faster Reflexes). You will be calmer, you will feel better, and the list really goes on and on, and I didn’t even cover 1% of the benefits.
Ideally, you want to have these in check:
- Sleep – You have to sleep well and be well rested to perform at peak levels.
- Healthy Diet – You are what you eat or what you digest. Eat healthily, and you will feel healthy. Therefore, you will perform better.
- Drink Enough Water- Do I really need to tell you why you should drink enough water?
- Work out – It will make you feel better, it will improve your ability to focus, and you will perform better as a result.
- Meditate – It will clear your mind and make you sharper for gaming.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, but I highly recommend taking care of your body and mind for gaming and the benefits of your life outside of gaming. It will do wonders for you.
Taking care of your body will improve your gaming performance. It will enhance your ability to focus, reduce negative emotions, improve sleep quality, and much more. All of these will help with your gaming performance.
11. Stay Consistent
Consistency is everything. All of this is worth nothing if you are unwilling to put in the work and practice.
The most important thing is to stay consistent, keep practicing, and keep grinding. eSports players have thousands of hours under their belt. Everything in life comes with grinding. However, it is worth it.
I am not saying that you must put in thousands of hours to get results. What I am saying is that you have to be consistent and make practice a part of your routine. You can shorten the amount of practice needed with effective training. (How To Aim Train Effectively: Actually Improve Your Aim).
You will get results with consistent practice (15 minutes every day is better than 2 hours on the weekend). Even 20-30 minutes every day of practice \ aim training is enough to improve your aim significantly.
But the key is ensuring you are consistent with your practice and fully dedicated to it. Make sure you focus on the task and that nothing else is on your mind.
As with everything in life, results come with hard work. So make your wounds your work and start working on your aim.
I am, again, referring to The Complete Aim Training Guide: The Godlike Aim Journey.
Final Words
Thank you for reading, and keep on slapping! I hope to see you slaying in my matches!
You might also like How To Get Good At Gaming FAST – By A Top 1% Player.
To improve your aim, it is highly recommended to start aim training every day, master crosshair placement, take care of your settings and setup, learn different shooting techniques and stay focused while gaming.
