Hello, in this video I will show you how to improve your aim in Apex by using Counter-Strike:Global Offensives custom maps. I will first explain why we'd want to do that, then show how to set up CS:GO for practicing, next, go over some general aiming concepts and then finish with an explanation of the actual aim practice drills. Look at the description to skip to specific parts of the video.
The problem with training your aim in Apex is that you only got a shitty practice mode, with very large targets that are not moving very fast.
You can of course try to practice your aim in normal matches where you'd have real targets, but how much time is spent actually aiming in a normal match? Not very much, you first have to queue, choose your legend, drop, loot, and then run around. If you want to really train something, you want to be able to do it constantly and repeatedly.
The lucky thing though is that CS:GO uses the same game engine as Apex. Aiming and movement in general feel the same. Of course the actual weapons aren't implemented and there is no sliding or sprinting. But through some configuration settings at least the basic case can be simulated very nicely.
Also, CS:GO is already a very competitive and moddable game. There is a large community that want to improve their aim, and there are a bunch of custom maps that are entirely dedicated to this purpose.
So, how to do it? First, this guide assumes that you're unfamiliar with CS:GO and the steps we're about to take. If that's not the case, adjust them to your preferences. You might for example want to disable changing your crosshair in CS:GO if you're attached to your current one.
Before you start the game, locate CS:GO's directory on your hard drive and extract the zip in the description into the csgo/cfg/ folder.
This zip contains scripts for different aim practice modes, and they also contain settings so that CS:GO more closely resembles Apex.
You can edit the file "apex_usersettings.cfg" with any text editor and change any of the values in there.
You actually have to edit this file if you changed Apex' default field of view of 90 to some other value, so set the value in that file to the the same as in Apex. Without that, your training in CS:GO actually doesn't help you in Apex.
Then, go to the workshop link in the description, login to your steam account and subscribe to the map, which will make it available for you to play. I will mainly show you how to use this map to practice, but there are a bunch of others which you may like more.
You could look around in the workshop a bit if you want, search for the game mode "training" and sort by most popular all time.
Now you can start the game. The first thing you want to do is go into the settings and change your resolution and mouse sensitivity to be the same in CS:GO as it is in Apex. This makes sure that everything you train in CS:GO directly translates to Apex.
To start practicing your aim, click on the play button in the top left, select "Workshop Maps" from the dropdown, select the just recently subscribed "Aim Botz" custom map and click "Go". Use "Custom" when the game asks you for a mode.
From the technical side, you're ready to practice. But first we should talk about some important concepts.
The first thing you have to know, before you start practicing, is that there are essentially three different modes of aim that you all do during a game, but each requires a slightly different skillset, which is why it makes sense to practice them individually.
Of course, all aiming is just moving your crosshair over your screen, so when you get better at one, you automatically get better at the others.
The first mode is "normal" aim, or what I call targeting aim. That means just moving your crosshair over to some point on the screen with perfect accuracy. This is the default mode which you do when running around or when first seeing an opponent.
The second mode of aim is flick aim. That means almost instantly moving your crosshair from one position to another to get a fast hit in. You mostly do this with slow firing weapons, like the peacekeeper, wingman or longbow. The advantage of it is, while less accurate than the slower targeting aim mode, that it is less affected by the opponent's change of direction, as you are instantly aiming to the place where they currently are. The difference to the targeting aim mode is that the focus of targeting is perfect accuracy, while the focus for flicking is fastest speed. Even though flicking is less accurate than targeting, when you use it while an enemy is dodging, your overall accuracy actually improves.
The third mode of aim is tracking. Tracking means perfectly following a target on your screen with your crosshair. This is what you do with fully automatic weapons in Apex, like the R99, R301 or the Spitfire. The difference to targeting and flick aim is that your main focus here is maintaining an exact speed of crosshair movement.
Tracking and targeting aim depend on each other in a large amount. For example, when you're trying to use an R301 to kill an opponent, you first use targeting aim to get your crosshair on him. Then you use tracking aim to stay on the target. When your enemy suddenly changes direction though, you use targeting aim again to get your crosshair back on him. Then, you resume tracking.
Now you can think about what aim mode you think you personally need to practice most. It's normally a safe bet, though, to practice targeting and tracking aim the most, because flicking is just a faster version of targeting aim.
The second concept you want to employ is tracking your progress. When improving on something, it's always important to know if what you're doing works, and seeing your progress also motivates you. This can of course be measured in Apex by seeing how much damage you deal and how many kills you get in a round, but that varies per match and is not very accurate. In this map, you can nicely track your progress with the "aim botz challenge", which is supposed to be a highscore, but you can also use the stats it generates to track your progress. Just set a kill count to reach, kill that amount of bots, and it will show you how many kills per minute you did and how many shots it took you per kill.
You can copy this info out of the chat and save it somewhere, maybe create a graph of it. You want to increase the amount of kills per minute and reduce the amount of shots needed per kill. You can do this for all the drills we're about to be doing.
The third and most important thing when practicing is relaxation. I will go over this in the first drill, as it's easier explained with an example.
Let's finally start training! I've collected a few different aim practice drills, each mainly helping with a particular aim mode. Let's start with targeting aim and the first, probably most important, drill.
Press F9 to enable one shot headshot mode. It changes your crosshair to one used in Apex, enables right-click reddot and makes headshots kill instantly. Also disable three of the four directions, like so. Now you can just aim from head to head and kill the bots. Sometimes choose targets that are close together, sometimes choose targets that are farther apart. For example, you could choose to only hit the targets on the furthest right or left only, like this. This drill helps you for the initial aiming onto a target as well as just general accuracy. There are a few very important things, though, to look out for during this drill.
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Move your crosshair in a straight line from head to head. I'm exaggerating now, but you don't want to move in any squiggle lines or around corners. Just a line as straight as possible. If you don't do this, you will at one point not be able to go faster or be consistent with your aim.
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Don't overshoot! You don't want to move your crosshair onto the head, over it, and then have to move your crosshair back again. If you do this, you will actually engrave the wrong distances in your mind, and you will always overshoot and have to compensate.
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First move your eyes onto the target that you want to aim at, keep your eyes locked on it, and then start moving your crosshair over. Never look at your crosshair, only look at the target that you want to shoot. If you don't do this, you will not be able to get very fast at aiming.
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Now, arguably the most important thing, that I've mentioned before, is relaxation, which I will explain now. When you are just standing somewhere and looking in a direction, all the muscles in your arm, shoulder and breast should be completely relaxed. There should be no movement at all. Then, when you start your aiming attempt, you only want to move the muscles that are actually needed just for this specific movement. It should basically be no effort at all. Then, when you are done with your aiming attempt, you return to the base state, complete relaxation, again.
If you don't do this, you will probably notice how you get tenser and tenser, and will have to stop after a few minutes. But if you actually relax between each aiming attempt and only use the muscles necessary, you can do this for half an hour, or longer if you really want to.
But it's not only important for endurance, it's also important to prevent injuries and stiff muscles. As if that wasn't enough, when you play the game, you don't aim all the time, so you naturally relax. So when you practice without relaxation, you actually practice for something that you don't do in game.
So, guys, relax! Make it a conscious effort. Relax your muscles. Aim. Relax. Aim. Start slow and then slowly go faster when you get the hang of it. As soon as you get any stiffness in your arm or shoulder, just go slower again and relax. I really can't stress this enough.
Press F9 to enable one shot headshot mode. Also, have one side open and remove the inner walls. Now just strafe around the bots and deliver headshots. This mainly practices getting your crosshair onto a target that is strafing. It actually doesn't matter if you're strafing or the target is strafing.
Remember that the important points from drill #1 apply here, too, so move your crosshair in a straight line; don't overshoot; look onto the target and then move your crosshair; and relax between aiming attemps.
Press F10 to enable many-shots-to-kill mode. You want to use the M249 for this mode, as that weapon together with the F10 settings simulate roughly the time-to-kill of an R99 on a full-purple shield target in Apex. Enable the whole arena and remove the little waist-high wall around you. Set the speed of the bots to 1 and press the topmost big random button.
Now just spray on the targets and try to hit as many shots as possible. You can make this harder by increasing the speed of the bots or by only aiming at their heads. This drill practices your ability to stay on moving targets that are trying to dodge you, for example when you use full-auto weapons.
Press F10 to enable many-shots-to-kill mode. Use the M249 as your weapon. Enable the whole arena and remove the little waist-high walls around you.
Now, just keep strafing around the targets, in different distances, sometimes close, sometimes far. Try to change directions while strafing and still keep your crosshair perfectly on the target.
This drill practices your ability to stay on a target that moves in a straight line, or the ability to stay on a target while you're dodging yourself.
Press F10 to enable many-shots-to-kill mode. Use the M249 as your weapon. Enable the whole arena and remove the little waist-high walls around you. Set the speed of the bots to 1 or 2 and press the top random button.
Now you want to use your strafing to your advantage. When the bots move to the left, you also want to move to the left. When the bots move to the right, you also want to start moving to the right.
This makes it easier for you to shoot targets that are trying to dodge, but are not shooting back at you, as you mostly don't even have to move your crosshair. Of course, if they are shooting back, they will also have an easier time aiming at you, as you do while aiming at them.
This drill improves your ability to kill targets that are unaware of your presence, for example targets that you are flanking.
Press F10 to enable many-shots-to-kill mode. Close the arena so spawns only happen on two sides of it.
Now repeat moving your crosshair between two heads of the bots. Start slow and go faster and faster. Don't go faster than you can reliably hit, but try to push yourself. You can vary the difficulty by moving closer or farther away and the distance of aiming by adjusting your angle.
This drill will make your flicking more accurate, for example for shooting with weapons like the wingman or the longbow.
Press F11 to enable shotgun practice mode. Close the arena so only short range spawns happen and set the speed to 3 (or any other speed) and enable random movement. Use the XM1014 as your weapon.
This mode makes perfect shotgun hits kill the bots instantly, and off-center ones not. Now just flick to your heart's content and try to kill the bots in one shot.
This drill simply improves your flicking with shotguns.
That concludes the list of different aim practice drills. You can play around with the map's settings so they fit you better and you can also create your own drills.
What you could for example do is remove the top barrier and jump on the waist-high wall. This adds some verticality to the aiming.
In real matches, you're mostly aiming in the horizontal plane, as most firefights feature left-and-right strafing, but of course a decent number of firefights also include people jumping on or off buildings or cliffs and so on, especially when Pathfinders or Octanes are involved, so you may want to practice your vertical aiming as well.
This is the end of the main part of the video. If you want to see more guides like this, subscribe to the channel. All of my videos will feature a single topic and be devoid of filler and get straight to the information, like this one.
The next guide will just be a short one on how to move around the map faster by sliding, which most of you probably already know, but the guide will formalize the whole concept. After that I will either make a beginner movement guide for people new to FPS games and Apex or an already advanced tactical positioning guide. Let me know which one you want to see most!
Also, if you like positivity and a friendly learning environment, I would appreciate it if you could check me out on Twitch.tv/AzzuriteTV, a link is in the description.
Well, I hope you liked the video, and see you guys next time!