Counter Strike Source Tips and strategies

mlakrid

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Here are my tips and strategies which have worked for many many many times.

1) First and foremost, always buy a Kevlar vest at a minimum, when you have plenty of cash ALWAYS but Kevlar vest and helmet.

2) LEARN the keystrokes for buying the items you want, know the costs of the items, and build the save keys for your auto-buys.


3) Buy different guns, learn which you prefer, and learn how to use it, not all guns are the same, some are very effective when fired quickly, others are not, and always buy the one which fits your play style best.

4) If you are just starting out, and you don’t have aiming down, get a good SMG or shot gun along with your gun, and use cover to your advantage, use a wall or doorway and hop out, fire, retreat.


5) Along the same line as #2 use smoke, flash and regular grenades as efficiently as possible. Use cover smoke your area, flash if you see a group of people coming, followed by a grenade, most inexperienced players will stop dead in their tracks, and a well placed grenade will kill them or hurt them very badly, SO..make sure you don’t flash yourself, and follow your flash with a well placed grenade. REMEMBER the closer to someones feet the grenade lands the more damage it will deal (93 Dmg is my personal best)

6) About grenades, if you don’t know how to aim with one, DON’T USE THEM. It will only get your teammates mad, and if FF (friendly fire) is on, I have found out from personal experience, your own teammates would rather kill you then be flashed again…use bots, and make your PC a server and play vs bots first, before using them in-game.

7) Use many smaller teams to flank your opponents, when you use voice comms, it is best to use several smaller teams, and flank your opponents, have a small team 2 or 3 people guard a major choke point, with all members holding smoke, flash, and grenades, and time them 2-3 seconds apart, by the time the last flash has worn off, the team who went to flank your opponents should be taking fire from both sides.

8) ALWAYS use hotkeys, make several hotkeys, figure out what weapons you use the most, so that you do not have to scroll to change weapons, one second can mean the difference between life or death.

9) Along with using hotkeys, use hotkeys for different nades, know which are which, these can save your life, or at the very least help you take an enemy to the grave with you, helping your teammates in the process.

10) Use your flash nade key as SOON as you get flashed and throw it in the direction you were flashed from and then turn your vision into the wall, the seconds you are blind can be over-run by your own flash from someone coming towards you, and most people will retreat instead of taking a chance of dying from being flashed themselves.

11) ALWAYS, ALWAYS, buy extra ammo… I can NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH… I don’t know how many times I have outlasted most of my other teammates, only to find out I did not pick up another weapon, and then run out of ammo, especially with shotguns…. L

12) AND THE LAST tip: NEVER, EVER, be the first person through a choke point, you will take all of the fire directly, and only end up counting up your deaths, I prefer being third, the first person almost always dies, the second person makes the person or persons on the other team retreat, and you get to help clean-up!

If you like this thread, and it helps you, do what the siggy says!
 
A few small things to add.

- WRT buying, use the B key as well as the short-cuts that CS:S has built-in.

I.E. B + S == Kevlar, grenade, defuse kit and m4a1 for CT or everything cept defuse and adding an AK for the T.

- I always disuade people from using a noob gun when starting out. The best way to learn is to keep trying. One of the hardest guns to aim with is an AK. Buy it, use it, learn it. If you can kill effectively with an AK, you will be able to kill with most weapons.

Trick is short strafe, stop, pop, short strafe, stop, pop. If not, you die.

- Don't worry about learning ALL the guns. You only ever need to learn maybe 6 or so tops. The Desert Eagle is your friend. LEARN IT. The M4A1 and AK 47 are the most used and most effective. LEARN to use the pump-shotty and the MP5 (very cheap gun). That should be it basically. The others are not required. For sniper, Scout and AWM are perfect :)

- Communicate with your team-mates. Yes, most pubs are full of retards who don't know how to communicate, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't :)

- Learn how to rush effectively. I disagree with Mal that you should never be the first through a choke point. I am a pretty fast player and I usually do my best to be at a point before the enemy and the majority of times, I am able to. You take a position like that, lots of dead enemies and usually easy victory since you gain a numerical advantage.

- Learn how to play the game with common sense. If the map has a bomb, and you are a CT and the bomb is dropped. GUARD THE BASTID. The enemy has to get it. No point in chasing the enemy down only to be on the opposite side of the map when its planted. Glory == wins and wins alone. That is how I play. Its a team game. If you don't like the team concept, you can always play solitaire.
 
Thanks...

One quick question (and something that has tripped me up in some games), is this all done on the keyboard, or on both keyboard and mouse? I can touche type, when I have both keys on the keyboard. When I have to move the other hand elsewhere, aka can't keep my hands in touch type position, I have found hunting and pecking to be a bit slower however :eek:

mlakrid said:
6) About grenades, if you don’t know how to aim with one, DON’T USE THEM. It will only get your teammates mad, and if FF (friendly fire) is on, I have found out from personal experience, your own teammates would rather kill you then be flashed again…use bots, and make your PC a server and play vs bots first, before using them in-game.

I guess that means no grenades at first then... :D In other games I have been able to aim some things, that well others seem wholly incapable of ever figuring out :D But until it's seen, there really is no way to judge this. Thanks for the tip

Sazar said:
- Communicate with your team-mates. Yes, most pubs are full of retards who don't know how to communicate, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't :)

Of course if they're new to the game, they might be spending all their time trying to find their way around the keyboard... Perhaps it won't be as complicated as I'm thinking it might be on first glance to learn all the key positions, and then train my fingers to go there... We'll see. Course that is also where practice helps...
 
Son Goku said:
Thanks...

One quick question (and something that has tripped me up in some games), is this all done on the keyboard, or on both keyboard and mouse? I can touche type, when I have both keys on the keyboard. When I have to move the other hand elsewhere, aka can't keep my hands in touch type position, I have found hunting and pecking to be a bit slower however :eek:



I guess that means no grenades at first then... :D In other games I have been able to aim some things, that well others seem wholly incapable of ever figuring out :D But until it's seen, there really is no way to judge this. Thanks for the tip



Of course if they're new to the game, they might be spending all their time trying to find their way around the keyboard... Perhaps it won't be as complicated as I'm thinking it might be on first glance to learn all the key positions, and then train my fingers to go there... We'll see. Course that is also where practice helps...

Great questions I had several when I first started plaing as well...
First your mouse hand should never leave the mouse.... EVER... except if you are at the beginning of the map and buying using hot keys... some servers have a ZERO buying time, so you can move as soon as you pop in... these are NOT the norm, but you just need to know they are out there...

NEXT, NO you only need ONE hand... use a set of keys where your secondary hand (the non-mouse) is set on a row of keys which you feel comfortable with (that you dont have to look at either (IF possible) I use the arrow keys, and the number pad, My setup:
"move forward": up arrow key
"move backward": down arrow key
"strafe left": left arrow key
"strafe right": right arrow key
"squat": ctrl key (next to arrows)
"jump": insertkey/0 (on num pad)
"USE": key Del key (above arrow keys)
number keys are almost always setup for weapons by default I like to have my favs input here, in order of use (I havent done that since my last steam download) I need too re-do it...

as for grenades, they are very easy to aim, same as a gun with one exception, the will bounce back at you if aimed too high or too far left/right from the atrget and there is a wall or window opening etc in the way, thats where the flash greandes can be especially troublesome.

Sazar gave me the tip on using the bots, and they have helped me immensely! USE THEM, they are easier to kill and are very predictable, but once you play with people alot you will find out, that they are too...

The bots help with another issue... knowing the map layouts... you can have the bots set to "easy" and they will stand there for a second or two, giving you time to aim and pop a HS and keep walking till you find another... Learn the hiding "camping spots" and grenade and flash them often....

@ Sazar, I dont wait to be the first one through choke point on certain maps, but CS_office is the perfect example, if I am playing T's I will rush the library, but NOT the garage, unless I know the people I am playing with will watch my 6... too many times the people there have said lets rush the garage, then they have me open the door, toss my flash/nade/smoke, try and pick some people off, only to be overrun by CTs because after the initial barage to slow them down they have retreated, not telling me they were doing o, leaving me to wound them or kill 1/2 and then get killed myself, because I have no backup...

It got rather annoying...

Son Goku, ONE MORE THING, I CAN NOT stress this enough....
On servers which have FF (friendly fire) watch you you get shot by, sometimes this is NOT by accident. I had to kill my own teammate THREE times because he would blast me for 35 life with the .50 pistol everytime we came on the map, and he wasnt just doing it to me...

THESE type of people only learn if they get the same type of treatment back... the next round I bought the auto-shotty, aimed, and held down the trigger, so that as soon as the buying was over he got 2 shots = DEAD.

He started talking to the entire team saying I was TK = team killing.
When I pointed out that he shot me in the back as soon as each round started, my other team mates joined in, and helped kill him enough times that he disconnected, and joined the CTs... I found it rather amusing..
 
Sazar said:
A few small things to add.

1 - I.E. B + S == Kevlar, grenade, defuse kit and m4a1 for CT or everything cept defuse and adding an AK for the T.

2 - I always disuade people from using a noob gun when starting out.
Trick is short strafe, stop, pop, short strafe, stop, pop. If not, you die.

3 - The Desert Eagle is your friend. LEARN IT. The M4A1 and AK 47 are the most used and most effective. LEARN to use the pump-shotty and the MP5 (very cheap gun).

4 - Learn how to rush effectively. I disagree with Mal that you should never be the first through a choke point. I am a pretty fast player and I usually do my best to be at a point before the enemy and the majority of times, I am able to. You take a position like that, lots of dead enemies and usually easy victory since you gain a numerical advantage.

5 - Learn how to play the game with common sense. If the map has a bomb, and you are a CT and the bomb is dropped. GUARD THE BASTID. ...Its a team game. If you don't like the team concept, you can always play solitaire.

Nice tips... my responses to your comments in order:
1) I didnt realize they had built in key buys like that NICE.. I need to learn those
2) what is a noob gun? is there such a thing? what I was trying to say is there are many weapons that many verterans use because they are fast to put lead in the air and if you use them effectively (have the timing down to avoid missed shots) they are great to use... 228 for example
3) love the eagle I buy it on either team... I am supposing you mean the .50 pistol...
4) See my post on the reasons I dont like to rush the garage on CS_OFFICE in the previous post
5) I 100% agree with one exception, if it is dead even 3Ts vs 3 CTs the Ts seem smarter at times and will re-group before advancing on the bomb... I have tried camping the bomb only to be taken out by a group of 3-4 Ts coming to get the package back... with NO help from teammates... I agree with you it SHOULD be a team concept some people dont get that, and in real life would get killed very easily... the guys who really have to do this do it by the numbers... and use percentages to know their losses or chance at success, you should apply that same reasoning to this game, and you will be a better tactician for it...

@ Son goku, you are correct PRACTICE, PRACTICE, the nice thing about CSS is that it doesnt take long to play one full round....
practice with bots if you are really stressed for time, learn the maps well and learn to be very patient when pulling the trigger, a few well placed shots kill MUCH faster than holding the trigger down...
 
mlakrid said:
Great questions I had several when I first started plaing as well...
First your mouse hand should never leave the mouse.... EVER... except if you are at the beginning of the map and buying using hot keys... some servers have a ZERO buying time, so you can move as soon as you pop in... these are NOT the norm, but you just need to know they are out there...

NEXT, NO you only need ONE hand... use a set of keys where your secondary hand (the non-mouse) is set on a row of keys which you feel comfortable with (that you dont have to look at either (IF possible) I use the arrow keys, and the number pad, My setup:

OK, thx. It helps if one doesn't have to move their hand all over the keyboard while in combat :laugh: It's one thing I've found to be a pain with some FPS in the past, as well time is involved in moving the whole hand (and looking down at the keyboard to see one lands their fingers back on the right keys), vs. just moving the fingers themselves. Ideally of course, one can spend the whole time looking at the screen, and can operate everything through the sense of touch alone.

One thing about that also, albeit from a martial arts perspective. When for instance we do pushing hands, or actually it's more sticking hands (taking Tai Chi), generally speaking the operative word there is to stay in contact with the opponent at all times. If the opponent breaks contact, push... There's also a very practical reason for this.

As long as we're in contact, it's possible to feel what the opponent is doing (which my teacher's sifu refers to as "listening" albeit it isn't necessarily through the ear). If they move their foot, or create a suble shift in their body weight, then if one is in contact and has enough feeling, it's possible to feel that they have done this/train one's self to be able to get a signal when they do. For them, the goal is to become more subtle/leave less of a signal, so it's harder for their opponent to feel when they're comming. For one's self, the goal is to up one's level of feeling, so it's more difficult for them to advance undetected.

Also, when one isn't relying on their eyes, or doesn't have to shift the focus of their eyes somewhere else (for instance to see what they're doing, or where one should move), but can do it through feeling itself, it's possible to react much more quickly. If they break contact, no longer has the advantage of making use of that sense, and if one actually has to look and all, it's invariably going to slow one's reaction time down, at a time they could advance unawares... It's also the old adtage of the hand being quicker then the eye...

On the keyboard or whatever, if one can do everything from the sense of feel alone, without having to take the eyes off the screen, same thing I would gather, and also why touch typing (in part) is faster then the hunt and peck method...

Sazar gave me the tip on using the bots, and they have helped me immensely! USE THEM, they are easier to kill and are very predictable, but once you play with people alot you will find out, that they are too...

The bots help with another issue... knowing the map layouts... you can have the bots set to "easy" and they will stand there for a second or two, giving you time to aim and pop a HS and keep walking till you find another... Learn the hiding "camping spots" and grenade and flash them often....

Makes sense... Trying to aim something one has never used can bring up a few surprises. Which reminds me of one rather stupid one. When Diablo II xpack first came out, just about everyone and their dog started making firewall sorces, because it does a lot of damage. People couldn't aim the stupid thing :laugh: I litterally had to use my chargadin to knock the monsters back into their firewall for them. If they were lucky, they hit one monster with that thing, and sometimes none, despite the screen being loaded with monsters. It was a lot of mana to miss all monsters ROFL I of course had used the skill (though no where near as much as they did) back in Diablo I days, and got a chuckle outa the whole thing, to say the least :D

thx for the other tips and all :)
 
Last edited:
mlakrid said:
Nice tips... my responses to your comments in order:
1) I didnt realize they had built in key buys like that NICE.. I need to learn those

They are there and they really help :)

I am typically only ever used B + S or B + D for the awp combo.

2) what is a noob gun? is there such a thing? what I was trying to say is there are many weapons that many verterans use because they are fast to put lead in the air and if you use them effectively (have the timing down to avoid missed shots) they are great to use... 228 for example

Auto-sniper (or auto-hax as it should be called) and auto-shotty as well as dualies. Those guns have a ridiculous rate of b.s. spewing out the nozzles and are the worst guns to learn how to play with mainly because it requires 0 skill to use any of them.

That is the pure definition of a NOOB weapon.

3) love the eagle I buy it on either team... I am supposing you mean the .50 pistol...

Yes, thats right. On the LORD server (even with their ridiculous lag lately) I have most of my kills with a deagle because I force myself to use it :D

If you can aim with a deagle or an ak, you can aim with anything.

4) See my post on the reasons I dont like to rush the garage on CS_OFFICE in the previous post

It's a team concept. Naturally if your team is too stupid for something like this, move to a different server. Pubs are an easy way to be noobified or hacked to death so pick and choose.

5) I 100% agree with one exception, if it is dead even 3Ts vs 3 CTs the Ts seem smarter at times and will re-group before advancing on the bomb... I have tried camping the bomb only to be taken out by a group of 3-4 Ts coming to get the package back... with NO help from teammates... I agree with you it SHOULD be a team concept some people dont get that, and in real life would get killed very easily... the guys who really have to do this do it by the numbers... and use percentages to know their losses or chance at success, you should apply that same reasoning to this game, and you will be a better tactician for it...

You have to know and understand the map and understand how to use the radar. If you know where your team mates are, you can easily extrapolate what points are potentially covered. You also should never camp right next to the bomb if you can help it.

Its very easy to cover a lot of room in a small space if you know what you're doing.

Also, remember, there is an audible cue when someone picks the bomb up.

I don't play nearly as much as I used to but I am still fairly decent and small things make a huge difference between you being a decent player and a crappy noob lol.
 
Also, if you are playing with a bunch of noobs and retards, quit the server.

Don't lose brain-cells.
 
hehe, I guess too many new players can be a pain :eek: And I say that, even though I would come in as a new player, (albeit not as much a n00b as some people I've seen, I would hope)... There are new players, and then there are eternal n00bs that can be something else Ack!!!

I still need to pick this up sometime when I get the money, perhaps along with WoW as some people I've played on b.net with before, have moved on to play that so I don't see them around much anymore...
 
Tuffgong4 said:

Well thats a wealth of information if you just started playing...

the only thing I question is if the knifing to the back thing is true?

one secondary atack with the knife to the back is fatal 100% of the time?

I will have to try it

:)
 
counter-stike... ahh the good old days. gets boring now no? when u play too much hehe
 
I see mlarkid playing once in a while these days :) on the Lord server.

Getting better teh kurgan :D

You need to practise awping before you awp on a server IMO. Your technique is not good enough in a close proximity environment.

You have to learn to abuse the games quirks. The best way to do this is to learn to use your quick-switch like there is no tomorrow. If you have ever spec'd me, you will notice how I keep switching between weapons, its all practice.

You also have to learn spots, corners and the like to be able to pick people off.

Key thing, learn to jump, zoom in before you land and be ready to fire soon as you hit teh ground. Unlike other weapons, you can't straffe and shoot with the AWP. You HAVE to be stationary to get a good shot off and this is what separates people with crap AWP skills from the good ones.

Essentially once you learn how to shoot with it, jump-straffe, zoom before you land, snap off a shot at target, quick-switch back while jump-straffing back to original spot (or wherever) after the shot.

Should take a second or so, maybe less.

I have pins in my right thumb right now so my skillz are weak, but I can still shoot lol. The awp is not my preferred weapon but I use it if I have to. Some of the guys on the server, like Frost and Saved and Salival are really good with the weapon.
 
Sazar said:
You have to learn to abuse the games quirks. The best way to do this is to learn to use your quick-switch like there is no tomorrow. If you have ever spec'd me, you will notice how I keep switching between weapons, its all practice.

You also have to learn spots, corners and the like to be able to pick people off.

Perhaps this is a question to ask mlakrid, as he might well know what I'm refering too. But with the suggested rapid switch of weapons, will the game servers penalize one for doing this?

I ask this, because Blizzard has started doing this on b.net. They took servers off of DII to move over to WoW, do nothing about the about absolute flood tide of spam bots that spam all kindsa items for sale on ebay or whatever, that have entered games or whispered peeps in games to make the screen scroll insesently. But, to deal with load, rather then address them, they started penalizing players themselves, if they switch weapons, auras, join games (like runs) without sitting in each 5 mins, etc... Just about everyone I have played with, had gotten "Realm Down" temp banned, for "playing too fast" or whatever; enough to make anyone leary about any fast switches to deal with probs. I thought they were gonna get me for havign to rejoin get get body, doing the ubber bosses... I know this isn't a thread about them, but after getting that treatment in the past, best to know ahead of time...

Do these Lord servers do this to players, so that fast weapon switches as saz is suggesting will get a temp CD key or IP ban? Or are their servers less eager to auto-do this to players?
 
Nope... they havent and they won't .... what Sazar is reffering to is a quick switch or auto switch where you change from the weapon you just had to the "previous weapon" it does work really well, if you dont have it setup it can be a pain... because then you have to scroll or use the number keys and then hit the left click like you were actually going to fire the weapon...

just do a google for quick weapon switch counter strike and you will find TONS of scripts...

Im at work so I cant look it up for ya...
 
I use my middle-mouse button (click) for quick switch.

I don't use any scripts whatsoever, not even key binds.
 
OK, thanks guys...

I've been given the temp ban, by some auto-script on their servers, from just baal running for instance before, and playing as most people do; ever since they started that :eek: Not often, but enough to make me skiddish...

/breaths a sigh of relief

Course, I don't have a middle mouse button (unless one counts pressing the mouse wheel as one) on my MX500, so not sure what mouse Saz is using. I guess this could be assigned elsewhere, if one needs. And on the mouse, almost seems a quicker place to put it, then on the keyboard. Good idea :)
 
Sazar said:
I use my middle-mouse button (click) for quick switch.

I don't use any scripts whatsoever, not even key binds.

How exactly do you have it setup Sazar?

Also, Im with Son, I have a mouse wheel... do you still use that?

Let me know Im interested... :D
 

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