/cs/ - Counter-Strike

>do you spray, burst or tap at close range?
In CS:S I trained myself to be exclusively tap or burst depending on what was needed that very moment, but spraying was always a no-no. Unfortunately, CS:GO right now seems to favor spraying at close ranges more than previous games. Really the best answer I can give you is "do what feels right." Maybe spend a week forcing yourself only to tap, and then spend a week forcing yourself to only spray. Etc. Compare results.

>Is crouching any good at Nova-DMG level?
Here's my view on it - crouching is bad for two reasons:

1) If you play against people with mediocre/moderate aim (stomach/chest level) then crouching more often than not results in giving them a free headshot. You are more likely to survive if you remain standing and get a headshot on them first.
2) Crouching by design is restricting your movement. If you remain standing at all times, it becomes easier to weave in and out of gunfire and cover when needed.

Some pros use a combined system where they shoot while standing, move, crouch, shoot, then go back to standing, shoot again, move again, etc. Giving your opponent a moving target that is constantly changing size as well. Usually though if one of you hasn't died by the time the crouching phase is over, someone is going to just retreat and engage somewhere else.

Strangely, if you are facing opponents with good aim (headshots only) then crouching can actually save your life once in a while instead of getting you killed.

>What do you do when a guy is in front/really close to you? Spray in his chest or aim for the head?
I guess you need to define exact distances. If we are talking completely point-blank, then I'd say aiming for the collar-bone/neck region would influence the next few bullets to travel higher and into his face.

For short range distances I typically find myself aiming at the chest and compensating for recoil, with my 3rd or 4th bullet typically ending up at headshot level. If I am missing really hard, then I'm usually emptying the whole mag and waiting for the left/right sway of the top of the recoil to eventually pass over their head and end the fight. In that scenario though, the only reason I would win is because my opponent sucked even harder than I did.

>Should I aim to spray people down (I have the pattern pretty well laid out) or burst/tap them? Or do I just try to burst/tap and then panic and spray?
First reply was about close range, so I can only assume you mean long-range for this question? I've only seen spraying being useful at long-ranges ONCE in my life, and it was because it was a top-level pro with PERFECT pattern compensation. The simple way to put it is that the farther you are, the less useful spraying can be, and vice versa. Again though, "do what feels right." If you think you can be the new God-Emperor of spray patterns, by all means go for it. In my case though, forcing myself NOT TO PANIC and maintaining the taps or bursts usually gets me better results.

>I know about counter-strafing, but when you're walking forward should you quickly press the walk backwards key too to tackle the movement just like you do with counter-strafing?
That's a good question. I don't know for certain, but I have a sneaking suspicion the answer is "yes."

>how the FUCK do you guys manage to strafe-shoot? I usually get tagged before I manage to move to the side. How does it actually work?
Most of the time if it looks like someone shot you while in a full strafe run, what happened was they they stopped their movement, fired, and continued running so quickly that after lag compensation and interpolation your client thinks he just never stopped running. The exception to this are certain guns like the Tec-9 and Five-Seven that are astonishingly accurate while at full running speed. With perfect aim and slow tapping discipline, a Tec-9 user can get nothing but headshots while never stopping for anything.

If you are instead referring to stutter-stepping (also called "ADAD spam") when you mean you get tagged before you manage to move, it more or less means you didn't move at the right time, or your opponent is too good for you to be dodging his bullets. By design, if you get tagged, you're not supposed to get far. Also remember that tagging a player with a pistol out won't slow them down as much as a player with a rifle out.