In online FPS games, it often feels like every opponent has better aim. While you’re struggling for a body shot, they effortlessly land headshots. The good news is that aim is a skill you can improve, and this article will teach you how.
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Get the Right Gear
Before we dive into the individual tips to improve your aim, let’s first discuss your equipment. You’ll often hear pros say that you can achieve a high level regardless of what gear you use. While there’s some truth to that, better gear still provides you with an objective, tangible advantage, especially in the FPS genre.
For instance, a high refresh rate monitor combined with a powerful PC provides a smoother, less blurry image that allows you to see the action with clarity. In some situations, you can even spot the enemies earlier because the monitor refreshes frames faster.
However, I must acknowledge that PC gaming can get expensive, so if you’re on a budget, just try to get the best hardware you can afford. The good news is that you can find a high refresh rate monitor for as little as $130, like this Acer Nitro 27-inch IPS 200Hz monitor. While it only has a 1080p (FHD) resolution, the 200Hz refresh rate is excellent for competitive gaming.
Acer Nitro KG273 27-inch Full HD 200Hz IPS Gaming Monitor
$130 $150 Save
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The Acer Nitro KG273 X1bmipx is a 27-inch Full HD gaming monitor featuring a 200Hz IPS panel and AMD FreeSync Premium. It’s a budget-friendly option for competitive gamers that punches well above its weight class.
In addition to a good monitor and PC, you’ll need a decent gaming mouse. A gaming mouse with a high-quality optical sensor ensures accurate tracking, so your aim won’t be influenced by external factors like mouse acceleration and inconsistent tracking.
You might also want to consider a wireless option, as a cord can drag across your table and slightly affect your aim. Personally, I find a cord very distracting, as it tugs at my mouse during quick sniper flicks.
Let’s also touch on the mouse’s polling rate, which refers to how many times a mouse reports its position to the computer. For example, a polling rate of 1,000Hz means the mouse reports its position 1,000 times per second.
While a high polling rate is nice to have, it’s not essential—1,000Hz is good enough, and 2,000Hz is great, but something like 8,000Hz is just a marketing gimmick and isn’t even supported in many games.
Perhaps the most important factor is that your mouse has a comfortable shape. Most competitive gamers also prefer lightweight models, as they allow for faster movements with lower sensitivity. Fortunately, you can now choose from numerous affordable models that check all the important boxes, like the Pulsar Gaming Gears X2H, Ajazz AJ159 APEX, and Attack Shark R6.
Pulsar Gaming Gears X2H
The Pulsar Gaming Gears X2H is a wireless, lightweight gaming mouse featuring a highly precise PAW3395 sensor, optical switches, and support for polling rates up to 4,000Hz. It offers a budget-friendly alternative from a reputable brand known for its high-end gaming mice.
Note that good mouse skates (which you can find on sites like Amazon and AliExpress) and a quality mousepad can also help with smooth gliding.
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Keep Your Mousepad Clean
It doesn’t matter how smooth your mousepad is if it’s covered in dust. Dust, dirt, and pet hair create uneven friction, causing your mouse to glide inconsistently and less smoothly. Dust can also accumulate along the edges of your mouse skates, worsening the issue (though high-quality skates with rounded edges are less affected).
This problem can be easily solved by cleaning your mousepad regularly. I give mine a quick wipe-down with a clean microfiber cloth at least once a day, usually while waiting in queue for a match.
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Lower Your Mouse Sensitivity
While mouse sensitivity is a highly personal setting, some casual gamers use a sensitivity that’s too high, often leading to overshooting and imprecise corrections. Lowering your sensitivity even slightly gives you finer control, making it easier to land precise shots.
While a higher sensitivity setting can still work in fast-paced games like Fortnite and Valorant, where action and character movement are quick, you’ll benefit from a lower sensitivity in traditional shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield. However, avoid lowering the sensitivity so much that you can’t turn the camera quickly enough to fight an enemy directly behind you.
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Relax Your Arm
One of the best tips I’ve learned while playing guitar is to relax my arms and hands. Interestingly, this simple tip has also improved my aim. This is because it’s easy to tense up during fast-paced FPS combat, but when the muscles in your hand, wrist, arm, and shoulder tighten up, your mouse movements become significantly less accurate. Make a conscious effort to relax each muscle in your arm, take deep breaths, and avoid getting tilted if you’re losing.
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Find Your Perfect Grip Style
Just like you need to work out your preferred mouse shape, it’s equally important to find the optimal mouse grip style. The claw and fingertip grip are quicker and more precise than the palm grip, so that’s what I recommend. However, think of these grip styles as guidelines, as you can make slight adjustments to create a hybrid style that works best for your hand and mouse.
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Optimize In-Game and Monitor Settings
Another technical tip that’ll improve your aim is to ensure that your PC and monitor are set up correctly. Disable mouse acceleration in Windows, disable mouse smoothing in games and turn on raw mouse input if the game supports it. Additionally, configure your gaming monitor to ensure the best, smoothest image possible with minimal latency.
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Adjust Your Crosshair
A clearly visible crosshair that stands out against the game’s environment helps you aim more precisely and increases your chance of landing headshots. Regardless of the game, there’s likely an abundance of various crosshair customization options that let you dial in the perfect crosshair.
There’s no universal crosshair that works for everyone, evident from the fact that professional gamers use vastly different crosshairs. That’s why you’ll have to experiment, either by trying crosshairs favored by pros (which can be found online) or by creating your own.
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Master Counter Strafing
Strafing refers to the technique of moving your character sideways, which makes it harder for your opponents to hit you. While some games allow for relatively precise aiming while moving, like Marvel Rivals and Apex Legends, others will penalize your aim when moving, such as Counter-Strike 2. If you play the latter, you must learn how to counter strafe (e.g., pressing right while moving left) before you start shooting, as this will quickly bring your character to a stop, allowing you to shoot with better accuracy.
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5
Keep Your Crosshair at Head Height
Time and time again, I see people aiming at the floor while taking a corner, which is a habit that sets them up for failure. Keeping your crosshair at the typical height of an opponent’s head helps you land more headshots naturally.
This is because you’re minimizing the amount of adjustment needed to land a headshot when you encounter an enemy. For example, when you’re taking a corner in Call of Duty, think about where the opponent’s head would be if they’re standing behind cover, and keep your crosshair at that level, and I guarantee that you’ll kill more enemies.
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Don’t Just Aim Horizontally
In many games, enemies largely move horizontally in most games, which often leads to focusing your aim more on the horizontal aim and neglecting vertical aim. This tendency gets reinforced during aim practice, as targets in the shooting range often appear at your height, offering little opportunity to practice vertical aiming.
However, this oversight can be detrimental to your aim, especially in situations where enemies jump or crouch or in hero shooters where some characters can fly or jump to high altitudes. To overcome this issue, make a conscious effort to aim vertically. Train your hand to move not just left and right but also up and down.
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Rule Out Real-World Factors
Caffeinated beverages like G Fuel are often marketed to gamers for a good reason. A study published in Scientific Reports suggests that caffeine supplementation can enhance reaction times and improve shooting accuracy. This is further supported by another study from Physiology & Behavior.
However, excessive caffeine consumption can lead to side effects such as jitters and shaky hands—clearly not ideal for aiming. To avoid this, limit your caffeine intake to the 3mg per kg of body weight recommended in the studies, less if you’re prone to caffeine jitters.
While caffeine helps, proper nutrition and hydration can also have an effect on your aim. I don’t want to sound like an obnoxious health coach, but optimal nutrition and hydration ensure that your body has everything it needs to perform at its best.
Eating something before a match can also enhance focus, though this is largely a matter of personal preference. Some gamers prefer playing on an empty stomach, while others feel more focused after a small snack. Personally, I find it easier to concentrate if I eat something beforehand.
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Maintain a Good Posture
A good posture for gaming is surprisingly important for optimal aim. I’m not referring to the traditional advice of keeping your chin up and back straight, though that is also important for overall health. Instead, I’m talking about where and how to position your arm.
If you look at pictures and videos from esports tournaments, you’ll notice that many pros prefer to rest a part of their forearm on the desk and use it as a pivot. This improves stability and mouse control while also reducing fatigue. Your chair’s armrests can be a good place to position your elbow to further improve comfort and stability.
However, keeping your forearm on your desk requires more desk space, as your mouse will need to sit further back. If that’s an issue, try angling your keyboard and pushing your monitor further back.
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Practice, Practice, Practice
Every step I’ve mentioned so far pales in comparison to this one—if you want to see significant improvements in your aim, you have to train frequently and consistently. Before you say it, playing a match isn’t considered aim training. The primary objective in a match is to apply what you know and compete to win. Although your aim might improve somewhat during a match, the focus isn’t on developing that specific skill.
Set aside 15 to 30 minutes each day for focused aim drills to build consistency and gradually improve your aim. Ideally, you should perform these drills in the game’s engine, as this allows you to become accustomed to the feel of different projectiles and special abilities.
However, there are also specialized aim trainers available that can improve individual aspects of your aim, like flick shots and tracking. Even non-FPS games like osu! can strengthen your overall hand-eye coordination, reaction time, and precision, which in turn can indirectly improve your aim.
Now that you’ve learned a bunch of new tips to improve your aim, it’s time to put them to the test. While achieving laser-precision accuracy requires hours of practice, there are several things you can do to see instant improvement. Combine these techniques with consistent training, and you’ll become a top player in no time. Good luck!
