Getting Comfortable with Aiming at Vertical Targets
VALORANT and Counter-Strike 2 are both tactical shooters (also known as tac shooters) as they are commonly referred to by the community. The common denominator among games in this genre is that they mainly rely on horizontal aim. Within the tac shooter genre, player movement is pretty limited, time to kill is very low, and the maps featured in the pool rarely offer much verticality or “high-ground” in contrast with games such as Overwatch or Apex Legends. Due to these aforementioned reasons, the mouse movements players find themselves making recurrently in tac shooters are mainly horizontal, which is why most VALORANT and Counter-Strike players struggle with vertical adjustments.
So, now that we’ve discussed the cause, let’s break down why this is an issue worth addressing, even if you just play Counter-Strike or VALORANT. First, and this applies to all components of aiming, training one aspect of aim will transfer over to your overall mechanical aptitude. This is something generally referred to as “mouse control.” Improving your mouse control means building up your fine motor skills as a whole, and improving your performance across the board in categories of aim. Think of this as an equivalent of a “mind to muscle” connection in the gym.
Furthermore, if you restrict yourself to a play-style where you are only comfortable with horizontal mouse movements, you won’t find much success playing other FPS titles. Though you may be comfortable in tac shooters, as soon as you attempt to transition to other games like hero shooters or arena shooters, you will find yourself struggling with the amount of vertical aim required of you due to aspects such as player movement, map layout, and a higher time to kill.
Now that we have established the benefits of training for verticality, let’s jump into some targeted practice that will help you efficiently train this aspect of your aim. This featured task is very straightforward; you will spawn in front of a wall and be prompted to track a dynamic target moving vertically in quick, evasive motions until the minute runs out, without letting go of your left mouse button. Track the target as accurately as possible, ideally on the edge of the target, as that gives you room to account for any direction changes. Work on your reactivity, rather than predicting the movements of a target thatr can change direction unpredictably without rhythm!