How to Improve (Part 2): Player Roles and Shooting Tips - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Player Roles

In competitive CS:GO games, each player in the 5 man team is assigned a different role. This is mostly the case when playing the terrorist site however it can also be applicable to the counter terrorist side. To improve your gameplay, it's best to pick the role that's most suited to your set of abilities. These roles are:

1. Entry Fragger - As the name suggests, the entry fragger is the person at the front, the first person to enter bombsites or any situation. Usually the entry fragger flashes into places first and their objective is to get as many kills as possible before inevitably dying. These players are expected to die and relay information to the other players.
2. Play Maker - The play maker is usually the player with the best aim. Their goal is, after the entry fragger dies, their goal is to get the bomb onto the bombsite and secure the bombsite once the bomb is planted.
3. Support/Strat Caller - The strat caller/support player is the player with the greatest knowledge of grenades, strategy and good communication. They should know the projectiles of different grenades and all the important locations to grenade. Their goal is to get the bomb onto the bombsite using smokes and flashes to aid his team and prevent them from dying. Also, they should know where the enemy is through the information provided by the awper and entry fragger, enabling them to determine which strategy is best to get the bomb planted. All the whilst captaining the team with excellent communication skills.
4. Awper - Otherwise known as the sniper, these players need an extremely good aim and reaction times to pick kills from the enemy team. Their primary objective is to relay the information they see from the other side of the map to the strat caller so their team can make plays.
5. Lurker - This player needs to have great knowledge of rotations and good positioning. The lurker is the one that positions themselves behind the enemy team and cleans up all the kills.

Shooting Tips

There are multiple methods of shooting your enemy. These are 1 tap, 3-4 bullet burst and spray fire. However each method is dependent on the situation. Knowing when to use which method of shooting is the greatest asset to improving you aim and overall gameplay. When to:

• 1 Tap Fire - In this situation where the enemy is very far from you, the best way to shoot is 1 tap firing. This is because multiple shots stray off from the target due to recoil as a result the shots fired will not hit the enemy. To 1 tap fire it's simply aiming you cross hair, preferably at their head, repeatedly tapping on the mouse to fire (not holding down the shoot button at all).

• 3-4 Bullet Burst fire - At this distance from the enemy, the optimal way to shoot is through 3-4 bullet bursts. This is because at this distance from the enemy, the first 3-4 bullets are rather accurate as there is less recoil the closer you are to the enemy. To 3-4 bullet burst fire, hold down the shoot button for a short period of time before releasing the button.

• Spray fire - In this situation, where the enemy is close to you, the best method of shooting is to spray since the enemy is close, there is much less recoil and almost every bullet will hit the enemy. To spray, just hold down the shoot button until the enemy is dead.

Spray Patterns

To make your spraying accurate it's vital to know the spray pattern of the gun you are using, in this case I will show you how to control the spray of the AK-47.

As you can see, when you spray not all the bullets go straight to where you want them to go but instead, they follow a default spray pattern. On the left if the spray pattern for the AK-47, on the right hand side is the controlled spray pattern. To control the spray and make your aim more accurate, you want to move your mouse accordingly in the opposite direction to the default spray pattern. As a result, this will counteract and center all you bullets towards the center of your cross hair hence more accurate firing and less opportunity for your enemy to kill you.

Jason Chen