How to Play, Complete Introduction
Counter-Strike has been around since 1999, but every week new players log onto the Global Offensive servers. I hope this post will help those players get into the game quickly and enjoy its competitive nature from the start. Have a browse through, try some things, find what works for you. The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the game whether you’re playing competitively or just for laughs. Obviously, this piece isn’t really aimed at experienced players, but if you’d like to give some extra tips in the comments they’re totally welcome.
You need to find a sensitivity that works for you. I generally suggest a complete mouse swipe should be around 120 degrees. Remember, if someone is behind you, you’re dead anyway. You really just need to worry about what’s in front of you. A lower sensitivity increases your accuracy as it takes more momentum to perform the same action. Think of it like an open heart surgeon using mechanical robot arms to make precise cuts. The machines reduce the impact of each motion so the doctor has greater control.
The mouse pad you decide to use is very critical. When I first started playing I used a DKT cloth fat pad. The cloth pads offer some resistance so as to help curb your movements and reduce your mistakes similar to our discussion of a low sensitivity above. Nowadays, I need to use a low resistance slick pad due to a wrist injury. Slick pads offer little resistance so flick shots become very easy. Each style has a benefit, so experiment and find out what works for you. Since control is so important for new players I recommend a cloth pad if you are just starting out.
Now, as far as set up goes, it doesn't matter what position you play in as long as you play from the wrist and play the same way every time. Do you play with shoes on? Always keep your shoes on. Just find a position that works and stick with it.
The best advice I can give you is to play from the wrist. What I mean by this is to make sure you don't use your arm or hand to move the mouse. Keep your arm still and focus on wrist movement. Your wrist is infinitely more agile and reactive than you arm, and by using one pivot point you can be more consistent. Consciously think to yourself as you practice "Play from the wrist". Additionally, use your finger tips to control recoil.
Settings
There’s a lot of discussion about what the best rates are. Rates are Counter-Strikes network settings. A tic is a game measurement unit for a send/receive updates per second. The more tics, the more accurate the game play. This is why you want to play on a 128tic server. CS:GO seems to cap out at around 128. I’ve never seen it go above 122 personaly, but some people report it theoretically maxes out at round 128.
When you fire your gun in Counter-Strike your client sends the data to the server, but the server always gets final jurisdiction. If they compare data, and the server over rides your hit, then what you think is a hit will be a miss. There are many times when you’ll shoot someone and see blood, but then the client reports 0 damage. This occurs because blood decals are client side. Your client believes you scored a hit, draws the blood, and sends the packets to the server to be checked. If the server rules a miss, then the player takes 0 damage. This is why you want your client’s perception of the world to be as close to the server’s perception as possible. It is more beneficial to suffer slightly warping player models rather than smooth interpolated models. The goal for competitive play is to always have the lowest possible amount of client side interpolation. So we set our cl_interp value to 0.
By setting it to 0 the game will automatically set the interp to the lowest possible value allowed by the server.
Next we want as many updates per second as the server will possibly give us. So set our cl_updaterate to “128” and our cl_cmdrate to “128”. You can use higher values, it won’t matter. Any time you use a higher value the server will default you to the highest values allowed. The same goes with rate, which is the size of the packets. You want as much information as possible so I set this to “128000”. Again, this will default to the highest amount a server will allow. You can never have too much of a good thing!
(edit: In the first edition of this guide I forgot the command is no longer cl_rate, but simply rate. So "rate 128000" without the quotes is the correct command)
You can find your config.cfg in the cfg folder within the game directory. Edit it with notepad or any other editor. Just be sure you have “hide file extensions for known file types” turned off so that you can make the file extension .cfg and not end up with config.cfg.txt.
You can also type these commands into the console, or make another config called autoexec.cfg. Just for safe measure I like to write a line at the end of my config.cfg that says “exec autoexec.cfg”. This way, I know the autoconfig executes no matter what. Hell, you can even put these commands in your launch parameters with +’s. So your launch options would look like this “-console +cl_rate 128000 +cl_cmdrate 128” etc.
Edit: Since I've gotten such good feedback on this guide I want to add this little gem:
Bind f "use weapon_flashbang"
This command will allow you to pull out your flash by pressing "f". You can set the key to whatever you want. You can even create a button for every nade. This way, when you are flashed you don't need to cycle through all your nades to find the counter flash. With a quick bind you can instantly put the flash in to your hand and desperately click mouse1 as fast as you can and toss a counter.
Movement
Movement is more important in Counter-Strike than your ability to aim or react. Nine times out of ten when a player makes a shot, dies, and starts screaming into his mic, “But I was right on him!” he failed because his movement was off. All the rifles have a movement penalty. You need to trick the game into believe you are completely still when you fire.
Stutter Step
The stutter step, also known as the stop shoot, is a technique that pro players use to own everyone. A lot of pros I know use it, and don't even know they are using it because it is so built in to their habits. Basically, when you are strafing to peek a corner, you tap the opposite directional movement key to completely halt your momentum. Think of it as cancelling out you momentum. This is a very quick tap. If you hold the key down too long you’ll start momentum in the opposite direction instead of coming to a complete halt. If you do it fast enough it looks like you're not even stopping. Go into a server by yourself and practice stop shooting at walls. Shoot a square into a wall, and focus on getting your stutter step shots into that square. When you master the technique you will be able to juke back and forth with ease while firing perfectly accurate shots.
Peeking Corners
Never, ever, walk around a corner. If you walk around a corner your opponent will see you infinitely sooner than you will see him. The only exception to this rule is when you are AWPing. Always use full speed to check a corner. CS won’t play a foot step sound until you reach a certain speed. When you do this technique properly you can peek at full speed without making a sound.
Lanes
There are "safer" lanes in every single Counter-Strike map. There's a way to move where you only expose yourself to one angle at any given time, while at the same time playing the inside lane. When I say play the inside lane, I mean always be on the inside of the threatening corner. ALWAYS. The only exception to this rule is if you are walk peeking with an AWP but that's a separate thread entirely.
An example of an inside corner is hugging the left wall as a T pushing A long on Dust2. The reason you always hug the inside corner is that a peeker has to fully expose his body to peek you. This gives you more time to make the frag. A lot of newbies run up the outside lane thinking they can see a defender first, but they're just going to get shot by a peeker’s left eye ball.
Crouching
As a new player unbind crouch. A lot of newbies over use this as a go to panic button. You need to practice your stutter step peeking and evasion. Just completely unbind crouch for a month or so to get over this bad habit. Now, in the future you use it when you have NO OTHER OPTION. Imagine you are caught completely flat footed, well crouch is there to save your life. Also, when peeking a corner always start off standing. When someone pushes you immediately crouch. This way, you have an opportunity to throw off someone's head shot. Granted, this isn't as practical as using mobility to peek/unpeek, but when caught in a jam this can be a very effective way of defending.
Mobility is more important!
Expansion on this concept
"Now, Waffles", you may ask, "Why do I see Pros ducking constantly? Should I not do what the Pros do?" Well, first of all, we're not pros and we suck, so yes and no. There's currently a bug in CS:Go where crouching is not lag compensated. This means that if I shoot your face off, and then you duck, when the server goes back in time to calculate my head shot, it does not appropriately factor in your crouch/standing position. Crouching can literally save your life. This is why every single time one of you newbs runs around a corner, crouch slides, and kills me on a 64 tick match making server, a single tear trickles down my face. At the professional level these highly trained nerd gods DO NOT MISS VIRTUALLY EVER. So lateral movement will only carry them so far. None of them miss head shots, so they're constantly crouching against each other.
Watching C9 Hiko[www.twitch.tv] move is a beautiful experience. Notice how he perfectly pixel peeks corners for momentary frames, perfectly shoots, and immediately slides laterally to a new position. His play pretty much is the perfect example of how to use these movement concepts.
Other movement
It goes without saying but run with your knife out when leaving spawn. In Source, pistols had the same run speed as knives and grenades, while the scout moved even faster. This is no longer true in CS:GO. Even with a flash out you run slower than with a knife. If I see you running with a gun out in spawn I will TK you.
Guns and shooting, aka how to play CS
I’m not going to go into an in-depth guide to each weapon. In CS there are certain viable options and others never will be. In CS:GO we have way more viable options, but most roles are perfectly filled by the ones mentioned below.
Pistols
The Deagle was the most powerful pistol in the game. I just realized I never updated this section after the dawn of the 2 day deagle. The 1.23.13 update made the deagle amazing, but it has since been nerfed. The Deagle is too inaccurate and it is not worth trying to use. A player with a Deagle is shooting a random number generator at his opponent. Better to go with the p250/CZ or FiveSeven.
The CZ I'll admit, I hate the CZ. Maybe it's because I'm old fuddy duddy but I do not feel like a fully automatic pistol is appropriate for CS, but while it's currently broken we might as well abuse it. Abuse it so hard Valve has to change it! Think of the CZ as a combination AK/Shotgun. You need to get up on your opponents, and gank them. Play close, hidden positions, and surprise your enemy.
The P250 was my new Deagle replacement. I find it to be infinitely more accurate and enjoy how rapidly you can fire it with minimal recoil. Pretend you are playing Quake with this gun. It’s almost always perfectly accurate, even at full speed, and when aimed accordingly can definitely win rounds. It’s not as effective as the Deagle, but cheap enough that you can also buy a grenade. With the recent boost in glock and p2000 power I'm not sure what role the P250 will fill.
The FiveSeven Is kind of like a P90. It excels at close range, and can destroy people as you run around on roller skates. The p250 and p2k are better at long range, but if you are holding a site by yourself, such as B on D2, I cannot recommend this enough.
The Dualies are like an MP5, 30 bullets and deadly accurate. Against opponents lacking head armor this gun will ace rounds. If you want to do a pistol round buy and don’t fancy yourself in need of a grenade go with the dualies and rock faces.
The Glock is awesome. I prefer it over the USP. Many players disagree, but I like having the back up ammo in the clip to make multiple frags. Just shoot it fast. 9 times out 10 on T side pistol round I go glock armor. Just shoot it at the face as fast as possible while juking and hope for the best.
The USP is kind of a jerk. Why? You’re holding a site as a CT and every one of it’s 12 bullets is critical. Shoot the USP slowly and don’t panic. If you panic, you’ll only get one entry frag. It is your responsibility to get at least two.
SMGS/Shotguns
On eco rounds, those rounds when a team is saving, you should always go for an SMG or shotgun because they give you more money per kill. If you win pistol, you want to use rounds 2 and 3 to build up a money bank. Players who buy AKs on second round are idiots and should be scolded appropriately. The SMGs are better against opponents lacking head armor than rifles. The P90 is the Jesus of the SMG family. If you can afford it, do it. If you didn’t get a kill, or are saving for an AWP, an MP7 can be a good choice. The MP7 doesn’t hit as hard as the P90, or have the back up reserve of ammo, but it tears through attackers at close range fairly well for its cost.
I highly recommend using the Mag7 (CT) or the Sawed off shotguns (T). Basically the shot guns are designed for you to steal a gun on eco rounds. Buy one of the two listed above and hit up a close corners encounter point. The best example I can possibly give you is inside lower on train. If you turn the corner after jumping the rail you have a 75 percent chance of 1 shotting a CT getting in to position. This will grant you with a free M4. Grab the M4, win the rounds.
Oh yeah, never buy the Bizon. Ever. I’m not joking, unless you are European. Those guys seem to make it work.
Rifles and recoil control aka how to play CS:GO
Alright. Here’s the meat of it. I used to tell new players, there’s not as much recoil as you think there is. It used to be the golden rule of CS. Nowadays, this isn’t very true. CS:Go rewards timing control more than direction control. Yes, you can still predict a spray, however it is widely more unpredictable than before. For this reason you are better off firing in incredibly small controlled bursts. With the AK always try for 2-3 shot bursts at long/medium range, and with the m4 you can get away with 3-5 shots.
Check out n0thing's amazing, hyper informative
spraying tutorial here.
When spraying notice the “T” shape to the spray. After it moves down a bit it then starts introducing horizontal sway. Use this to “cut” off an opponents head when you’re in a jam. A lot of new players start off spraying at the feet, and eventually wait for the tip of the “T” to eventually grant a miraculous head shot. Don’t be this kind of stupid. Start off aiming at the neck, and then pull down slowly while accelerating your recoil mitigation as you go. Pull down slow, finish fast and to the left. If you need to compensate right for leftward drift, you've been spraying too long. The recoil becomes exponentially more inaccurate as you go. Study this detailed website for recoil patterns[twowordbird.com]
Remember, your recoil also decreases exponentially. This means an insanely brief delay in firing equates to almost complete recoil depletion and an accuracy reset.
Now in CS:GO the Sig and the Aug are viable options due to their new found reduced recoil, high damage output, and improved scope.
AWPing and Autosnipers
The AWP is a special beast and I could write an entire column on it. Basically, a lot of the advice written here goes out the window when using an AWP. The peekers advantage is reversed. A defending player watching a corner with an AWP has an extreme advantage. I’ll go in depth in to peekers advantage in a little bit. When AWPing, defensive positioning is key.
When running around the map with your awp leave it unzoomed. Obtain a target, zoom, and shoot, all in one motion. Flip back to your pistol to unzoom the AWP and repeat the process. When you master the flick shot technique you’ll be able to kill anyone instantly who dares to disturb you. Remember, zoom and shoot all in one motion. Some people put a marker on their screen so they can see the crosshair unzoomed, but I believe this is for scrubs. Once you get good at centering you won’t need a marker. When aiming the AWP aim it from the hip, center your target, and in those few frames between zooming and shooting make your final corrections. With practice it will look like one fluid motion.
Or you can just camp a corner pick your mouse off the pad and fire when someone crosses your screen. Seriously, this actually works.
Use your walk key when stutter stepping with the AWP to break yourself with more control. For some reason the AWP floats more in CS:GO than in Source and by using walk when stutter stepping you can help reduce it and ground yourself more firmly when firing.
The walk-peek is an AWP technique to gain an entry frag. When you walk with an AWP zoomed, you actually see players around corners before they see you. This is the only time you want to walk around a corner.
Machine Guns aka Negev
Now the Negev is probably worth the money. Imagine a fully automatic shotgun that never needed to take breaks between shots or reload. That’s the Negev. In close quarters it makes for a hilariously good time. Feel free to invest in this bad boy and put the fear of God into your opponents. Just shoot it. Don’t worry about the recoil so much. With 150 bullets coming out a second in point blank range focus on quantity over quality. The other machine gun is terrible.
Grenades
Decoys are dumb. Decoys are only useful in such specific situations that you would be better off spending the money on a flash which ALWAYS has utility. The order of priority for grenades ALWAYS should be
1. Smoke
2. Flash
3. HE
Smoke over flash? ARE YOU MAD? No, and I'll tell you why. Flashes win encounters, but smokes win rounds. Controlling space is VERY important. It's so important I cannot properly articulate it. Always go for a smoke over a flash. Hell, when you're backed against the wall you can always fake flash with your smoke. It's more important to die for an awesome smoke and take a site than it is to flash and make a frag.
Also, defensive smokes are God's gift to CT side eco rounds.
If you want to get really tricky throw your nades while running backwards for extra floating. This way you can drop some awesome flash bangs.
What about Molotovs?
At our level, molotov grenades are priced out of our general tool kit. They require high level team play to be highly effective, as you can use them to zone out your opponents and push them into your team mates' loving embrace. For 800 bucks, you better not screw it up. For example, using molotovs at B on inferno you can zone players out of new box or oranges. I don't recommend using them unless you are playing with organized players who understand how to combine them with team play to secure sites.
If you're playing defense you'd be better off stopping a rush with a smoke, because armored attackers can run right through a molotov with only 20-30 hit points of damage. No one survives running through a smoke grenade.
Strategy and tactics
Get aggressive. The peeker in CS has an advantage. Peekers advantage means you’ll see the defender before he’ll see you. This is true in all situations except when peeking against an AWP already in position. Make people react to you. You never want to be reacting to others. By playing aggressively you get to dictate flow. Now, if someone knows where you are you need to readjust immediately or push them. Think of it like Judo, you need to use your opponent’s momentum against him. So let’s say I unpeek a corner, and you’re coming after me. I’m going to wait until the very moment you step in and begin to come around the corner, then, the very moment you’re moving to engage, I’m going to come out on you. By sweeping into someone’s turn I’ve now caught them flat footed and can finish them off. This is a very important lesson. Aggress into aggression.
To gain peeker’s advantage as a defensive player stutter step back and forth while covering an area. This way, you’ll be peeking into an advancing player granting you an advantage, and even more importantly it reduces the probability you will be prefired! If you aren’t peeking 75 percent of the time, that’s 75 percent more time you aren’t getting prefired in the face.
Prefiring means to begin shooting into a location before you’ve peeked the corner. It’s basically moving and shooting in a single action. If someone’s location is known, they cannot out-react a prefire, and they will perish. Do not be afraid to prefire known hiding spots.
Learn the encounter points. They’re obviously specific to each map. Once you figure it out learn how to flash push into encounter points so you can take extra ground and set yourself up for a play.
When playing a defensive angle, it is infinitely valuable to play a passive angle. What does this mean? Alright, let me set up a scenario. You’re on A site as a CT on dust2 watching catwalk. You’re behind the food crates. You should not be peeking at the catbox. Instead, position yourself so you are aimed a little bit to the right of catbox. This way, a T player peeking the catwalk corner will not see you in the site. It is only upon him stepping up catwalk and beginning his approach that you are visible. Now, he has no where to go, and he is caught by surprise. Even better, you didn’t get peeked. A passive angle is one where you do not engage corner to corner, but rather let your opponent clear his peek spot before engaging. This is easier to demonstrate in video and perhaps I will set up some video tutorials later.
Baiting
Let your team mate fire from one corner while you set up an ambush on the other. Your team mate goes passive, and then when your opponents charge him you can pick up the frags. This is the easiest play to set up and the most effective.
Teamwork
Let me set up a scenario as an example. The bomb is planted on A site on inferno. You and your team mate are CTs trying to retake the site against a single terrorist. Should you split up and one person go attack from truck side and the other player from arch side so you surround the site? Or should you both pick a side and go together?
9/10 players will chose the first option. They are all wrong and bad. See, people believe that surrounding your enemy is the appropriate response. Unfortunately, Sun Tzu never played CS. If you chose to surround your opponent you have now granted him two 1v1 scenarios. Each engagement happens independently and he has a high chance of victory. If you chose the second option you’re now engaging at the same time. This is a 1v2 scenario at the point of engagement. In the worst case scenario your opponents kills your team mate and you kill him. This is known as an effective trade.
If you are the terrorist in this scenario you need to push out, get aggressive, and kill one of the rotating players before they can link up. Ideally, you can force a 1v1 engagement on each one of them.
Watch AdreN youtube videos for being more intelligent and advance player, suggested by million of players in the world of Counter Strike.
Counter-Strike has been around since 1999, but every week new players log onto the Global Offensive servers. I hope this post will help those players get into the game quickly and enjoy its competitive nature from the start. Have a browse through, try some things, find what works for you. The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the game whether you’re playing competitively or just for laughs. Obviously, this piece isn’t really aimed at experienced players, but if you’d like to give some extra tips in the comments they’re totally welcome.You need to find a sensitivity that works for you. I generally suggest a complete mouse swipe should be around 120 degrees. Remember, if someone is behind you, you’re dead anyway. You really just need to worry about what’s in front of you. A lower sensitivity increases your accuracy as it takes more momentum to perform the same action. Think of it like an open heart surgeon using mechanical robot arms to make precise cuts. The machines reduce the impact of each motion so the doctor has greater control.
The mouse pad you decide to use is very critical. When I first started playing I used a DKT cloth fat pad. The cloth pads offer some resistance so as to help curb your movements and reduce your mistakes similar to our discussion of a low sensitivity above. Nowadays, I need to use a low resistance slick pad due to a wrist injury. Slick pads offer little resistance so flick shots become very easy. Each style has a benefit, so experiment and find out what works for you. Since control is so important for new players I recommend a cloth pad if you are just starting out.
Now, as far as set up goes, it doesn't matter what position you play in as long as you play from the wrist and play the same way every time. Do you play with shoes on? Always keep your shoes on. Just find a position that works and stick with it.
The best advice I can give you is to play from the wrist. What I mean by this is to make sure you don't use your arm or hand to move the mouse. Keep your arm still and focus on wrist movement. Your wrist is infinitely more agile and reactive than you arm, and by using one pivot point you can be more consistent. Consciously think to yourself as you practice "Play from the wrist". Additionally, use your finger tips to control recoil.
SettingsThere’s a lot of discussion about what the best rates are. Rates are Counter-Strikes network settings. A tic is a game measurement unit for a send/receive updates per second. The more tics, the more accurate the game play. This is why you want to play on a 128tic server. CS:GO seems to cap out at around 128. I’ve never seen it go above 122 personaly, but some people report it theoretically maxes out at round 128.
When you fire your gun in Counter-Strike your client sends the data to the server, but the server always gets final jurisdiction. If they compare data, and the server over rides your hit, then what you think is a hit will be a miss. There are many times when you’ll shoot someone and see blood, but then the client reports 0 damage. This occurs because blood decals are client side. Your client believes you scored a hit, draws the blood, and sends the packets to the server to be checked. If the server rules a miss, then the player takes 0 damage. This is why you want your client’s perception of the world to be as close to the server’s perception as possible. It is more beneficial to suffer slightly warping player models rather than smooth interpolated models. The goal for competitive play is to always have the lowest possible amount of client side interpolation. So we set our cl_interp value to 0.
By setting it to 0 the game will automatically set the interp to the lowest possible value allowed by the server.
Next we want as many updates per second as the server will possibly give us. So set our cl_updaterate to “128” and our cl_cmdrate to “128”. You can use higher values, it won’t matter. Any time you use a higher value the server will default you to the highest values allowed. The same goes with rate, which is the size of the packets. You want as much information as possible so I set this to “128000”. Again, this will default to the highest amount a server will allow. You can never have too much of a good thing!
(edit: In the first edition of this guide I forgot the command is no longer cl_rate, but simply rate. So "rate 128000" without the quotes is the correct command)
You can find your config.cfg in the cfg folder within the game directory. Edit it with notepad or any other editor. Just be sure you have “hide file extensions for known file types” turned off so that you can make the file extension .cfg and not end up with config.cfg.txt.
You can also type these commands into the console, or make another config called autoexec.cfg. Just for safe measure I like to write a line at the end of my config.cfg that says “exec autoexec.cfg”. This way, I know the autoconfig executes no matter what. Hell, you can even put these commands in your launch parameters with +’s. So your launch options would look like this “-console +cl_rate 128000 +cl_cmdrate 128” etc.
Edit: Since I've gotten such good feedback on this guide I want to add this little gem:
Bind f "use weapon_flashbang"
This command will allow you to pull out your flash by pressing "f". You can set the key to whatever you want. You can even create a button for every nade. This way, when you are flashed you don't need to cycle through all your nades to find the counter flash. With a quick bind you can instantly put the flash in to your hand and desperately click mouse1 as fast as you can and toss a counter.Movement
Movement is more important in Counter-Strike than your ability to aim or react. Nine times out of ten when a player makes a shot, dies, and starts screaming into his mic, “But I was right on him!” he failed because his movement was off. All the rifles have a movement penalty. You need to trick the game into believe you are completely still when you fire.
Stutter Step
The stutter step, also known as the stop shoot, is a technique that pro players use to own everyone. A lot of pros I know use it, and don't even know they are using it because it is so built in to their habits. Basically, when you are strafing to peek a corner, you tap the opposite directional movement key to completely halt your momentum. Think of it as cancelling out you momentum. This is a very quick tap. If you hold the key down too long you’ll start momentum in the opposite direction instead of coming to a complete halt. If you do it fast enough it looks like you're not even stopping. Go into a server by yourself and practice stop shooting at walls. Shoot a square into a wall, and focus on getting your stutter step shots into that square. When you master the technique you will be able to juke back and forth with ease while firing perfectly accurate shots.
Peeking Corners
Never, ever, walk around a corner. If you walk around a corner your opponent will see you infinitely sooner than you will see him. The only exception to this rule is when you are AWPing. Always use full speed to check a corner. CS won’t play a foot step sound until you reach a certain speed. When you do this technique properly you can peek at full speed without making a sound.
Lanes
There are "safer" lanes in every single Counter-Strike map. There's a way to move where you only expose yourself to one angle at any given time, while at the same time playing the inside lane. When I say play the inside lane, I mean always be on the inside of the threatening corner. ALWAYS. The only exception to this rule is if you are walk peeking with an AWP but that's a separate thread entirely.
An example of an inside corner is hugging the left wall as a T pushing A long on Dust2. The reason you always hug the inside corner is that a peeker has to fully expose his body to peek you. This gives you more time to make the frag. A lot of newbies run up the outside lane thinking they can see a defender first, but they're just going to get shot by a peeker’s left eye ball.
Crouching
As a new player unbind crouch. A lot of newbies over use this as a go to panic button. You need to practice your stutter step peeking and evasion. Just completely unbind crouch for a month or so to get over this bad habit. Now, in the future you use it when you have NO OTHER OPTION. Imagine you are caught completely flat footed, well crouch is there to save your life. Also, when peeking a corner always start off standing. When someone pushes you immediately crouch. This way, you have an opportunity to throw off someone's head shot. Granted, this isn't as practical as using mobility to peek/unpeek, but when caught in a jam this can be a very effective way of defending.Mobility is more important!
Expansion on this concept
"Now, Waffles", you may ask, "Why do I see Pros ducking constantly? Should I not do what the Pros do?" Well, first of all, we're not pros and we suck, so yes and no. There's currently a bug in CS:Go where crouching is not lag compensated. This means that if I shoot your face off, and then you duck, when the server goes back in time to calculate my head shot, it does not appropriately factor in your crouch/standing position. Crouching can literally save your life. This is why every single time one of you newbs runs around a corner, crouch slides, and kills me on a 64 tick match making server, a single tear trickles down my face. At the professional level these highly trained nerd gods DO NOT MISS VIRTUALLY EVER. So lateral movement will only carry them so far. None of them miss head shots, so they're constantly crouching against each other.
Watching C9 Hiko[www.twitch.tv] move is a beautiful experience. Notice how he perfectly pixel peeks corners for momentary frames, perfectly shoots, and immediately slides laterally to a new position. His play pretty much is the perfect example of how to use these movement concepts.
Other movement
It goes without saying but run with your knife out when leaving spawn. In Source, pistols had the same run speed as knives and grenades, while the scout moved even faster. This is no longer true in CS:GO. Even with a flash out you run slower than with a knife. If I see you running with a gun out in spawn I will TK you.
Guns and shooting, aka how to play CS
I’m not going to go into an in-depth guide to each weapon. In CS there are certain viable options and others never will be. In CS:GO we have way more viable options, but most roles are perfectly filled by the ones mentioned below.
Pistols
The Deagle was the most powerful pistol in the game. I just realized I never updated this section after the dawn of the 2 day deagle. The 1.23.13 update made the deagle amazing, but it has since been nerfed. The Deagle is too inaccurate and it is not worth trying to use. A player with a Deagle is shooting a random number generator at his opponent. Better to go with the p250/CZ or FiveSeven.
The CZ I'll admit, I hate the CZ. Maybe it's because I'm old fuddy duddy but I do not feel like a fully automatic pistol is appropriate for CS, but while it's currently broken we might as well abuse it. Abuse it so hard Valve has to change it! Think of the CZ as a combination AK/Shotgun. You need to get up on your opponents, and gank them. Play close, hidden positions, and surprise your enemy.
The P250 was my new Deagle replacement. I find it to be infinitely more accurate and enjoy how rapidly you can fire it with minimal recoil. Pretend you are playing Quake with this gun. It’s almost always perfectly accurate, even at full speed, and when aimed accordingly can definitely win rounds. It’s not as effective as the Deagle, but cheap enough that you can also buy a grenade. With the recent boost in glock and p2000 power I'm not sure what role the P250 will fill.The FiveSeven Is kind of like a P90. It excels at close range, and can destroy people as you run around on roller skates. The p250 and p2k are better at long range, but if you are holding a site by yourself, such as B on D2, I cannot recommend this enough.
The Dualies are like an MP5, 30 bullets and deadly accurate. Against opponents lacking head armor this gun will ace rounds. If you want to do a pistol round buy and don’t fancy yourself in need of a grenade go with the dualies and rock faces.
The Glock is awesome. I prefer it over the USP. Many players disagree, but I like having the back up ammo in the clip to make multiple frags. Just shoot it fast. 9 times out 10 on T side pistol round I go glock armor. Just shoot it at the face as fast as possible while juking and hope for the best.
The USP is kind of a jerk. Why? You’re holding a site as a CT and every one of it’s 12 bullets is critical. Shoot the USP slowly and don’t panic. If you panic, you’ll only get one entry frag. It is your responsibility to get at least two.
SMGS/Shotguns
On eco rounds, those rounds when a team is saving, you should always go for an SMG or shotgun because they give you more money per kill. If you win pistol, you want to use rounds 2 and 3 to build up a money bank. Players who buy AKs on second round are idiots and should be scolded appropriately. The SMGs are better against opponents lacking head armor than rifles. The P90 is the Jesus of the SMG family. If you can afford it, do it. If you didn’t get a kill, or are saving for an AWP, an MP7 can be a good choice. The MP7 doesn’t hit as hard as the P90, or have the back up reserve of ammo, but it tears through attackers at close range fairly well for its cost.
I highly recommend using the Mag7 (CT) or the Sawed off shotguns (T). Basically the shot guns are designed for you to steal a gun on eco rounds. Buy one of the two listed above and hit up a close corners encounter point. The best example I can possibly give you is inside lower on train. If you turn the corner after jumping the rail you have a 75 percent chance of 1 shotting a CT getting in to position. This will grant you with a free M4. Grab the M4, win the rounds.Oh yeah, never buy the Bizon. Ever. I’m not joking, unless you are European. Those guys seem to make it work.
Rifles and recoil control aka how to play CS:GO
Alright. Here’s the meat of it. I used to tell new players, there’s not as much recoil as you think there is. It used to be the golden rule of CS. Nowadays, this isn’t very true. CS:Go rewards timing control more than direction control. Yes, you can still predict a spray, however it is widely more unpredictable than before. For this reason you are better off firing in incredibly small controlled bursts. With the AK always try for 2-3 shot bursts at long/medium range, and with the m4 you can get away with 3-5 shots.
Check out n0thing's amazing, hyper informative
spraying tutorial here.
When spraying notice the “T” shape to the spray. After it moves down a bit it then starts introducing horizontal sway. Use this to “cut” off an opponents head when you’re in a jam. A lot of new players start off spraying at the feet, and eventually wait for the tip of the “T” to eventually grant a miraculous head shot. Don’t be this kind of stupid. Start off aiming at the neck, and then pull down slowly while accelerating your recoil mitigation as you go. Pull down slow, finish fast and to the left. If you need to compensate right for leftward drift, you've been spraying too long. The recoil becomes exponentially more inaccurate as you go. Study this detailed website for recoil patterns[twowordbird.com]
Remember, your recoil also decreases exponentially. This means an insanely brief delay in firing equates to almost complete recoil depletion and an accuracy reset.
Now in CS:GO the Sig and the Aug are viable options due to their new found reduced recoil, high damage output, and improved scope.
AWPing and AutosnipersThe AWP is a special beast and I could write an entire column on it. Basically, a lot of the advice written here goes out the window when using an AWP. The peekers advantage is reversed. A defending player watching a corner with an AWP has an extreme advantage. I’ll go in depth in to peekers advantage in a little bit. When AWPing, defensive positioning is key.
When running around the map with your awp leave it unzoomed. Obtain a target, zoom, and shoot, all in one motion. Flip back to your pistol to unzoom the AWP and repeat the process. When you master the flick shot technique you’ll be able to kill anyone instantly who dares to disturb you. Remember, zoom and shoot all in one motion. Some people put a marker on their screen so they can see the crosshair unzoomed, but I believe this is for scrubs. Once you get good at centering you won’t need a marker. When aiming the AWP aim it from the hip, center your target, and in those few frames between zooming and shooting make your final corrections. With practice it will look like one fluid motion.
Or you can just camp a corner pick your mouse off the pad and fire when someone crosses your screen. Seriously, this actually works.
Use your walk key when stutter stepping with the AWP to break yourself with more control. For some reason the AWP floats more in CS:GO than in Source and by using walk when stutter stepping you can help reduce it and ground yourself more firmly when firing.
The walk-peek is an AWP technique to gain an entry frag. When you walk with an AWP zoomed, you actually see players around corners before they see you. This is the only time you want to walk around a corner.
Machine Guns aka Negev
Now the Negev is probably worth the money. Imagine a fully automatic shotgun that never needed to take breaks between shots or reload. That’s the Negev. In close quarters it makes for a hilariously good time. Feel free to invest in this bad boy and put the fear of God into your opponents. Just shoot it. Don’t worry about the recoil so much. With 150 bullets coming out a second in point blank range focus on quantity over quality. The other machine gun is terrible.
Grenades
Decoys are dumb. Decoys are only useful in such specific situations that you would be better off spending the money on a flash which ALWAYS has utility. The order of priority for grenades ALWAYS should be1. Smoke
2. Flash
3. HE
Smoke over flash? ARE YOU MAD? No, and I'll tell you why. Flashes win encounters, but smokes win rounds. Controlling space is VERY important. It's so important I cannot properly articulate it. Always go for a smoke over a flash. Hell, when you're backed against the wall you can always fake flash with your smoke. It's more important to die for an awesome smoke and take a site than it is to flash and make a frag.
Also, defensive smokes are God's gift to CT side eco rounds.
If you want to get really tricky throw your nades while running backwards for extra floating. This way you can drop some awesome flash bangs.
What about Molotovs?
At our level, molotov grenades are priced out of our general tool kit. They require high level team play to be highly effective, as you can use them to zone out your opponents and push them into your team mates' loving embrace. For 800 bucks, you better not screw it up. For example, using molotovs at B on inferno you can zone players out of new box or oranges. I don't recommend using them unless you are playing with organized players who understand how to combine them with team play to secure sites.
If you're playing defense you'd be better off stopping a rush with a smoke, because armored attackers can run right through a molotov with only 20-30 hit points of damage. No one survives running through a smoke grenade.
Strategy and tacticsGet aggressive. The peeker in CS has an advantage. Peekers advantage means you’ll see the defender before he’ll see you. This is true in all situations except when peeking against an AWP already in position. Make people react to you. You never want to be reacting to others. By playing aggressively you get to dictate flow. Now, if someone knows where you are you need to readjust immediately or push them. Think of it like Judo, you need to use your opponent’s momentum against him. So let’s say I unpeek a corner, and you’re coming after me. I’m going to wait until the very moment you step in and begin to come around the corner, then, the very moment you’re moving to engage, I’m going to come out on you. By sweeping into someone’s turn I’ve now caught them flat footed and can finish them off. This is a very important lesson. Aggress into aggression.
To gain peeker’s advantage as a defensive player stutter step back and forth while covering an area. This way, you’ll be peeking into an advancing player granting you an advantage, and even more importantly it reduces the probability you will be prefired! If you aren’t peeking 75 percent of the time, that’s 75 percent more time you aren’t getting prefired in the face.
Prefiring means to begin shooting into a location before you’ve peeked the corner. It’s basically moving and shooting in a single action. If someone’s location is known, they cannot out-react a prefire, and they will perish. Do not be afraid to prefire known hiding spots.
Learn the encounter points. They’re obviously specific to each map. Once you figure it out learn how to flash push into encounter points so you can take extra ground and set yourself up for a play.
When playing a defensive angle, it is infinitely valuable to play a passive angle. What does this mean? Alright, let me set up a scenario. You’re on A site as a CT on dust2 watching catwalk. You’re behind the food crates. You should not be peeking at the catbox. Instead, position yourself so you are aimed a little bit to the right of catbox. This way, a T player peeking the catwalk corner will not see you in the site. It is only upon him stepping up catwalk and beginning his approach that you are visible. Now, he has no where to go, and he is caught by surprise. Even better, you didn’t get peeked. A passive angle is one where you do not engage corner to corner, but rather let your opponent clear his peek spot before engaging. This is easier to demonstrate in video and perhaps I will set up some video tutorials later.
Baiting
Let your team mate fire from one corner while you set up an ambush on the other. Your team mate goes passive, and then when your opponents charge him you can pick up the frags. This is the easiest play to set up and the most effective.
Teamwork
Let me set up a scenario as an example. The bomb is planted on A site on inferno. You and your team mate are CTs trying to retake the site against a single terrorist. Should you split up and one person go attack from truck side and the other player from arch side so you surround the site? Or should you both pick a side and go together?
9/10 players will chose the first option. They are all wrong and bad. See, people believe that surrounding your enemy is the appropriate response. Unfortunately, Sun Tzu never played CS. If you chose to surround your opponent you have now granted him two 1v1 scenarios. Each engagement happens independently and he has a high chance of victory. If you chose the second option you’re now engaging at the same time. This is a 1v2 scenario at the point of engagement. In the worst case scenario your opponents kills your team mate and you kill him. This is known as an effective trade.
If you are the terrorist in this scenario you need to push out, get aggressive, and kill one of the rotating players before they can link up. Ideally, you can force a 1v1 engagement on each one of them.
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