Counter-Strike: Source Tips

[McCoy]

Here is a little guide I put together for all you CS:S newbies out there. Hope it helps a bit with your aiming, evading, and planning strategies.

-@-Aiming--
Always aim high. That way you can adjust your aim a little bit to rest the crosshair at head level.
Never spray and pray. Praying gets you nowhere. Spraying gets you dead. Always use short bursts (unless you are up in his face).
Make sure you don't leave your crosshair at leg level. You have to have shots that at least hit the chest or higher. Remember, that headshot gives you a sense of achievement.

-@-Evading--
When an enemy shoots you down to 20 or lower health get out of there and try and flank or just plain run away from the fight. Make sure you don't try and do it Rambo. You have to think evasively.
When someone evades you, evade them. This will keep them on their toes and guessing about your position. When doing this make sure you hold down shift to walk and silence your steps.
Look out for He Grenades. They might not kill you suddenly but you are better off not becoming 20 health and lower.

-@-Tactics--
(Note: you should use thses strats on De_Dust2 or any other DE map.)

 

[Xendance]

Always aim high? I've always been told to aim low so the recoil would plant a headshot.

 

[Dekstar]

I always spray and pray. Aiming is for sissies.

 

[Asus]

I agree with those 2 tips.
I always aim at head level. Generally I use an AK and I do not spray at all with that gun unless I panic. Always 1 or 2 bullets. M4 is different for me. Hardly ever just do 1 bullet. Usually a patterned burst or spray. But getting headshots with just a couple bullets is awesome for efficiency. So for me AK (no spray) > M4A1. Can take out a lot more guys from different directions since you are not needing any extra bullets (time).

Of course with most other guns I spray. But I make sure it's all going into their chest/head or I fail.

I find it odd that most people run around with the crosshairs looking at the ground. Can they not stand it in the center of the screen? Do they feel it is in their way when looking around? Looking down to adjust for recoil I guess is OK if you spray all the time with the main rifles. But you completely waste your first non-recoiled bullet which could have hit them somewhere more damage prone. And if you are using a rifle, it could have been a 100+ dmg bullet to the head (the dmg number I hit most often is somewhere around 106-110 for 1 headshot with an AK).

I don't think my aiming is actually that great. Often I'll miss my first shot. But knowing how to move or strafe in a very elusive way helps a lot.

 

[Dekstar]

real tip:
If you do strafe-stop-shoot, then what I suggest is actually strafe-stop-strafe a tiny bit in the opposite direction. This should (not 100% sure if it does) make the crosshair go down quicker, because you're compensating for the crosshair when you were moving the other way.
If that doesn't happen, then at least you'd stop quicker instead of sliding a bit like CSS tends to do.

 

[McCoy]

Listen these are tips i picked up and they work better than anything I've ever heard of. Just try them out.

 

[Dekstar]

Listen these are tips i picked up and they work better than anything I've ever heard of. Just try them out.

One problem I see with your 'aiming high' strategy, while you say it works, doesn't recoil usually force your second shot higher than your crosshair? This means for every burst you do, you're only really hitting with one or two bullets, and while it's better to hit the face, you still need to be very good to aim at the head as it's such a small target.

The general idea is to allow recoil to aim up for you and hit the head from the chest area. These are the two spots that do most damage.

Everyone's CSS is different though.

 

[Xendance]

One problem I see with your 'aiming high' strategy, while you say it works, doesn't recoil usually force your second shot higher than your crosshair? This means for every burst you do, you're only really hitting with one or two bullets, and while it's better to hit the face, you still need to be very good to aim at the head as it's such a small target.

The general idea is to allow recoil to aim up for you and hit the head from the chest area. These are the two spots that do most damage.

Everyone's CSS is different though.

Thats what I said...?

 

[Dekstar]

Thats what I said...?

No, you said:

Always aim high? I've always been told to aim low so the recoil would plant a headshot.

I however went into more detail about it. For all we know you could have meant 'Aim for the leg' or 'aim for the foot'. Which is actually where you should aim when crouching and spraying at someone firing.

 

[Solaris]

I don't know, I don't play source.

But in 1.6, the best had the bullet spread patterns memorised and could spray and get head shots from long distances.

 

[bbson john]

One problem I see with your 'aiming high' strategy, while you say it works, doesn't recoil usually force your second shot higher than your crosshair? This means for every burst you do, you're only really hitting with one or two bullets, and while it's better to hit the face, you still need to be very good to aim at the head as it's such a small target.

The general idea is to allow recoil to aim up for you and hit the head from the chest area. These are the two spots that do most damage.

Everyone's CSS is different though.

I assume that you mean aim low by aiming at enemy's chest at medium range or at their legs at distant range. As I have seen, some very newbies aim so low that the crosshair is far below enemy's shadow. This generally takes a lot of time for both coarse and fine adjustment before the player can shoot accurately at the enemy. As for your low aiming, it is okay on common rifles that this shooting style can ensure 20%-33% headshot, depending on the gun you are using, as well as the movement and aiming site you carried out. Even if you missed the head, at least you can inflict a great deal of damage as 1-2 shots have already planted on the enemy's torso.

But if you want to be a real pro, and not limiting yourself as a common shooter, you have to aim high. Since aim low relies so much on recoil, which is random. Probability is not always on your side, thus we cannot always count on that. More importantly, recoil headshot happens on the second to the fourth shot. Enemy can, too, inflict a great deal of damage on you in the course. Or even kill you if he is a pro. So you must not rely on recoil. You have to depend on your own skill. Aim high provides you the least fine adjustment for headshot. You can kill your antagonist as long as you see him. This can prevent receiving recoil-headshot and greatly reduce the chance of getting pro-headshot or awped. Meantimes, you can retain most of your health since the enemy is less likely to hit, injure, you within such momentary crossfire.

To aim high, memorise the head position. And, reduce the mouse sensitivity. Remember, what you can do unto others, they can do it unto you. The solution is to seek for the highest skill, 1-shot-1-kill.

 

[Dekstar]

very true, bbson. There are other tactics that further those techniques, like covering fire, pre-fire etc.
Possibly the best skill you can get in CSS is being able to aim at head-height along any wall. The second best skill is most likely being able to adjust your crosshair's distance from the wall depending on your personal reaction time. too many times I've seen good AWPers become shit because their crosshair is too close to a corner, and they are severly mis-judging their own reaction time.

Covering fire is pretty much like bbson said. If you're caught off-guard and need to get behind a wall quick, no matter which range you're at, you can aim at someone's feet/lower leg, spam as much as possible and strafe behind the nearest cover. Firing like this when running will frighten the enemy (as they won't really want to get hit), and might score you a few chest shots in the process.

And as always, sound sound sound. It increases your reaction time and tactical skills.

 

[Qonfused]

Headphones are a must for CS:S.

 

[The Brick]

Headphones are a must for CS:S.

I doubt I will prefer my new headphones (Sennheiser hd 280 pro) over my 5.1 speakers. Atm I really do prefer my speakers because the headset that I got today was doa :frown:

 

[Qonfused]

I'm aware of your setup, but I seriously stand by my headphones. You will hear things you've never heard before. Maybe your massive speakers are as good as they get, but... eh, I'm still skeptical.

 

[The Brick]

I'll find out soon enough when I get a working pair, prolly somewhere next week. It's not so much the detail or the ability to hear soft sounds, but the main advantage I have with my speakers is PERFECT positioning. I can hear everyone, everything, everywhere perfectly. I seriously doubt that'll be the case with my headphones, it's much easier to get perfect positioning with nearfield speakers. But I picked the headphones that were known to be the best for positioning audio, so who knows.

 

[Asus]

I agree, headphones seem to work the best for me too. I can pin-point soft sounds a lot easier with them than my 2.1 or my previous 5.1 setup. The whole experience may not sound as nice or dynamic, but distance and direction become very obvious and it's easier for me to pick up on all the sound clues. And as far as direction and footsteps, you just turn your guy in-game until the sound is coming from directly in front of you and is not stronger on one ear or the other. You can keep him centered even as the guy keeps running. Of course then people think you are walling...
But it was really handy in regular CS since you could shoot through walls.

 

[The Brick]

Imagine you're facing two enemies, one to your right and one to your left behind corner. While you're shooting the first, you can hear the guy walking around the corner from the left. I can tell exactly when he will show up and jerk my aim towards headheight (where the spray pattern is) at the corner, I usually get those kills. This is really the advantage of the speakers I have, I can hear everyone walking around me while I'm focusing on somewhere else. And yes, I can hear footsteps from 5 meters away through ak fire.

 

[Qonfused]

Eh. Stereo headphones do a superb job of direction. Just because they're "2.1" doesn't mean you're not going to be able to tell direction and distance. I guess it's ultimately up to your ears to decide which is better. I've been playing CS:S with stereo headphones for two years and the amount of servers I've been banned from for "wallhacking" is countless.

 

[The Brick]

We'll see. I doubt I will be disappointed but I also doubt the positioning capabilities will be as good as my speakers.

 

[McCoy]

Headphones just seem to enhance the experience (don't ask me.) just because they are attatched to your melon.

 

[Unfocused]

Do you use the "headphones" setting in the audio options when playing with headphones on? Cause I find the sound better when it's set to "speakers", even when I'm using headphones.

 

[Qonfused]

I have it set to speakers as well.

 

[Asus]

Yeah, I don't change that option.

 

[McCoy]

Everything sounds blunt without headphones, and I like sounds crisp and sharp :O

 

[The Brick]

I currently have the Sennheiser HD 280 pro, and I'm not really impressed by the positional capabilities at all. But this is mostly because of software not doin it rite. I can't get acceptable settings. I have to choose between a good surround stage, but blurry sounds and no clear pinpoint positioning (headphones setting). Or have a pretty crappy surround stage, but clear positioning for things in front of me (2 speaker setting). It's a tough choice cause I need both. And I had both with my speakers. Damnit. Still trying different settings and researching other options. I'm nowhere near satisfied yet.

 

[McCoy]

That sucks brick. I don't know what my speakers are, as I don't really care about sound as long as it is maxed out, as my speakersettings for CSS are high.