summarize this video please? With every martial skill, you are a forgemaster honing your talent, much as any blacksmith
would a blade.
Back during the dewy dewy slopes of 2019, before the state of the world could be summed
up like this, I made a new years resolution for 2020 to reach the peak of my gaming potential
as a player.
And so I began my quest to become this Apex Gamer, forged in the fires of these hellish
times; first becoming a Master in 2020 and now, At long last, Grandmaster in 2021.
Finally, Mouse Mastery was within my reach.
You see, Through my two-year journey of becoming a Mouse Miester, I've come to view the spectrum
of gaming prowess through a radar chart comprised of four distinct, key elements.
Execution, to which the Mouse Mastery skill falls under, Traversal, Awareness, and Decision-Making.
While I’ll touch on these later on, there is no question that anyone who has mastered
all four of these Gaming aspects has become the Ascended Gamer we all aspire to be.
We’re talking Colonel 100 from Battlefield Friends, we’re talking Doom Guy levels of
badass; we’re talking Master Chief in the books, We’re talking Jack Cooper from Titanfall,
we’re talking Darth Revan, we’re talking Omni-man from Invincible, we’re talking
about some real Astartes status shit, we’re talking Doomguy, we’re talking about Samus
to get some female representation in here, we’re talking abo-- I’m not going to pretend
that I’ve reached the pinnacle of an Ascended Gamer, but I do walk the path to try and become
one, with evolving my aim to be that of a GrandMaster’s as my first goal to that end.
I made that goal for myself way back when I first joined the Aim Training Community
Voltaic on Discord and saw that Aimer7, whose guide I had been following up until that point,
was himself a Voltaic Grandmaster.
At the time, the highest ranks achievable were Master, GrandMaster, and Ascended, with
the unique ‘Eclipse’ role being given to anyone who was the best at every single
benchmark scenario.
So how did I get to this here?
Through what I will now trademark as the patented One Punch Man Method.
You have to keep training, no matter how hard it gets.
1 to 2 hours of Aim Training every day, while streaming content of your choice to a second
monitor.
You do this everyday, no matter what, even if the show you’re watching isn’t that
good.
Even if your watching reruns; even if your Hulu Premium subscription expires and now
there’s ads like every 30 seconds.
You do this, all this, and that’s how you become a Grandmaster.
There is one important detail to add, however.
You see, the key to successfully watching movies and TV while you train, is learning
how to actively put effort into the scenario at hand even while being consciously distracted
by whatever else you’re doing.
Not only is this very much doable and ‘exactly’ how I worked my way up from above average
to Grandmaster, this transfers incredibly well in-game; where you can confidently hit
your shots while being focused on the multitude of other things going on like dodging incoming
fire or scanning for a follow-up target or even a third-party.
The drawback here, as you might guess, is that you won’t train as effectively as you
would without any distractions present in the same amount of time.
For me, personally, though, I could never, ever have put in anywhere close to the 2000+
hours I have in Kovaaks without streaming shows or videos while I trained.
‘You’ might be able to listen to nothing but the pings of Kovaak’s for thousands
of hours on end, but that ain’t me.
I like to enjoy every training session, and so combining aim training with my favorite
shows is the perfect way to do that and spend the time where I watch media also honing my
aim.
Also, being hyper-focused 100% of the time during aim training has its own drawbacks,
too, chief of which is that it makes translating your Kovaaks performance into in-game performance
quite difficult.
A good analogy would be spending all your time at the rifle range to become a pro shooter,
and then being dropped into an active warzone with solely those skills at your disposal.
Not ideal.
Regardless of whether you train in Kovaaks hyper-focused or distracted with music and
media, the single best way to integrate your trained aim into ingame performance is to
make sure you play your game immediately after each training session.
Without this, the bridge of difference between your Kovaak Aim and in-game aim will gradually
expand, and you’ll be found lurking through the Kovaak Steam Discussions board talking
about how Aim Trainers don’t help ingame.
What’s most important for consistent improvement is that at least 60 minutes of your time each
day is dedicated to actively Aim Training.
It’s actually preferable to break up your aim training into different blocks of time
rather than doing it all at once, so no worries if it’s only 10 minutes every here and there
throughout the day, it’s the total daily sum that counts.
Unfortunately, a lot of people feel like they start to regress after a certain point even
if they’re actively training each day.
Thoughts of ‘genetics’ and ‘talent’ begin to flood the mind, but the only obstacle
here is the mental block that keeps you from continuing.
These periods are natural and experienced by everyone at different points.
I experienced one for over a month soon after becoming a Master, but I just kept trucking
with my Grandmaster aspirations.
Although it seems like you’re no longer getting better, what’s really occurring
is the compression of your ability, a shrinking of the difference between your lowest to highest
scores.
Compression is a good thing, even though it doesn’t feel like it as you’re going through
it, as it solidifies a new foundation for future periods of expansion where you’ll
be breaking highscore after highscore.
While sometimes during compression your high scores don’t only plateau, they also regress,
your lowest scores do improve during these periods, increasing the floor of your ability
overall.
Regression in particular occurs when you have to unlearn bad habits to relearn new ones,
even just subconsciously.
The most important thing is to not get discouraged during these periods and look towards the
expansion and subsequent personal bests that will follow soon enough after.
So let’s get into the peripherals.
This section is probably the one I most wish I knew before ever starting Aim Training,
as it could’ve easily saved me hundreds of hours of frustration.
Let's start with the mouse.
I use the Logitech Pro Superlight, and have since it first launched.
Before then, it was a slow, inevitable transition to lighter and lighter mice as I went from
the original Razer Deathadder at 121 grams, to the beefy Razer Basillisk Ultimate, (107g),
to the Razer Viper Ultimate at 74 grams, and lastly to the Superlight at 62 grams.
At the start of all this I made a big deal about wired vs wireless mice that in hindsight
wasn’t that important.
The drag of the wire is definitely noticable, definitely affects aim and definitely is super
annoying for your mouse to run into, but I think with all the bungie cords now available
that mitigate that problem by suspending the cable in the air with your game the difference
between the two is far less significant now.
Modern Wireless mice are also now just as fast if not faster than wired mice so it really
is a matter of preference these days.
The ergonomics of your mouse actually play a bigger role than I initially realized, though.
For instance, the Razer Viper Mini was lighter than the Razer Viper Ultimate, but it was
an ergonomic nightmare for me with how small it was, so the slight reduction in weight
wasn’t at all worth it and I ran right back to the Ultimate.
The ideal goal would be to find the lightest mouse that is still ergonomically comfortable
for you to use.
If you need more stopping power on your mouse, there are a myriad of other ways to get it,
from changing your mousepad to your posture, that don’t require you to sacrifice having
a lightweight mouse.
Monitors are second only to mice as the peripheral that influences your aim the most.
I’m currently gaming on a 27”1440p HDR, 240hz Gsync monitor, which I personally do
consider to be the best monitor that has ever existed at the time of writing.
For Aim Training purposes, a 1080p monitor with as fast a refresh rate as possible would
be best, though I play all fps games at 1440p for the heightened visual clarity of distant
objects while not ADS’ing.
Don’t worry about response time either, as while theoretically important, there’s
simply no standard method or scale that every company uses, and so trying to compare monitor
response times is largely pointless.
The faster the refresh rate, however, the less overall input lag in mouse movements,
the clearer each target in motion becomes, and the smoother each movement feels.
I do know a guy though, legendary on the Voltaic discord in fact, who games solely on a 60hz
monitor.
Rumors have it that he’s trained this way for so long he no longer sees beyond 60fps,
in game or in real life.
Make of that what you will.
As for mousepads, I don’t think they’re as important, at least when you initially
begin aim training.
I went from gold to grandmaster on a desktop mousepad designed for office work.
Then, when I finally got my first gaming pad like a week after hitting Grandmaster, I did
worse for a day or two until I got used to it, and then saw the benefits.
Compare this to upgrading the refresh rate on your monitor; where its normal and in fact
expected for you to break your high scores once you begin aim training on a faster refresh
rate.
What a good mousepad helps with is additional, pixel-perfect precision and glide, but until
you reach a certain point of personal precision yourself, it doesn’t really matter as your
mouse won’t go anywhere near the exact position you want it to until you have greater mouse
control from training.
Definitely worth picking a good gaming mousepad up, but I’d make sure to get your actual
mouse and monitor in order first before worrying about if the mousepad is holding you back.
The last main peripheral for aim training is your chair.
Your Gaming Throne, if you will.
Steering clear of the gaming vs office chair debate, the main things you want to look for
is good height adjustability, arm rests that you can remove, and a chair that supports
good posture while gaming.
I personally have gone through like 5-6 chairs trying to find the one I felt was ‘the one’
and this lead me to the Secretlab Titan series.
No wings on the seat or back to dig into your thighs and shoulders for literally, *literally*,
no reason; wide range of height adjustment, and the microfiber option I chose has made
it the most comfortable gaming chair I’ve ever used.
I remove my right armrest so I play angled towards my desk, having my right arm rest
fully on the desk instead.
The most important thing though is height adjustment, since this affects your gaming
posture the most since you can’t adjust the height of most desks.
If your shoulder starts hurting during gaming sessions, the chair’s probably too high,
and if the area around your elbow hurts instead, it’s probably too low.
A good rule of thumb is to have your belly button near level to your mousepad and adjust
from there; trying to have your arm angled 90 degrees from your body.
A quick addendum here for the interested: Sleeves.
Gaming sleeves.
For those looking into wearing them, the most important feature of the gaming sleeve is
that it keeps a consistent glide no matter the temperature, moisture or movement on the
X versus Y axis.
In the summer’s heat, for instance, the bare arm is prone to sticking to the mousepad.
Avoid sleeves that won’t offer a consistent glide, catching if you move diagonally or
vertically, or sleeves with less friction moving side-to-side than up-and-down.
Pure Nylon and Polyster sleeves seem to work best, and try them inside out as well if there’s
some sort of coating on the outside layer.
Now we move on to the externals outside of Kovaaks that can affect your aim training.
First off is a big one.
Sleep.
The importance of sleep for aim training isn’t a meme by any stretch.
Sleep is when your brain hardwires what you’ve learned into aim training for future use.
While you refine your skill in your waking hours, it can only be built upon while you
sleep.
I don’t think a lack of sleep will ruin the potential results of a training session,
but the results will definitely be delayed.
Finger weights, Therapy Putty, and hand-stretch exercises all serve as great tools to avoid
injury while training.
I actually did find some benefit to using finger weights for the first half of my training
session then taking them off for the remainder.
They make you much more mindful about where your finger placement on the mouse is, and
provides more feedback on each micromovement of your fingers and mouse while aim training.
They’re also expensive though so I wouldn’t get them just for aim training and nothing
else.
As for Therapy Putty and Hand-stretch exercises, these should be used before and after each
session to keep your hands and fingers from cramping up and locking over time after holding
your mouse for so long.
While the Voltaic community has resources available on hand exercises, I personally
recommend Grip Strengtheners as well.
The goal is to avoid injuries like RSIs and Carpel Tunnel while training so you don’t
waste weeks of progress sulking over your injuries and being unable to train.
Been there, done that.
Not fun.
The final external on this list is tDCS, or Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.
We’re venturing into dubious waters now because tDCS devices can be potentially dangerous
when misused, and with the given lack of comprehensive research due to its relative newness, it’s
not for the faint of heart But I was curious and used it so lets talk about it.
What tDCS devices can offer you when used correctly is unprecedented.
Forget supplements and Placebo effects, you objectively think faster, react faster, learn
faster, and can increase your mood for those times you really, really don’t feel like
training.
Depending on where you place the nodes of the tDCS device on your head determines the
effects, as it's that part of the brain that’s most stimulated by the eletric current.
They absolutely do work, as I can attest to the Brain Driver’s performance personally,
but as with Finger Weights, I wouldn’t recommend them just for aim training.
They’re medical devices originally designed to treat mental health, so they start at around
100 USD for a legitimate one that won’t potentially possibly fry your brain.
They also don’t necessarily enable you to do anything you couldn’t already do, they
just make the synapses in certain regions of your brain fire more frequently.
If you’re a transhumanist or a mad-science type you can try it... but for the average
aim trainer it is by no means necessary or needed.
So we’ve got our gaming sleeve strapped up, we’ve got our therapy puddy smelling
like Morning Gamer and we’ve done our hand-stretches.
Now it's finally time to boot up the PC and begin our aiming session.
But before you click twice on the Kovaak’s shortcut in a rapid succession, almost like
a double-click, if you will, you’ve got to make sure you’ve set your rig up for
success.
First off, turn off any antivirus running in the background.
This chews into your CPU performance and system latency.
Trust me, you’ll perform better with it off and it’s plenty safe provided you aren’t
pirating media or visiting shady streaming sites to watch the latest Rick and Morty season
while the antivirus is disabled.
Next is to check for any background tasks eating up your precious resources.
Open up Task Manager either by right clicking your task bar or the Windows Start Icon, and
click the CPU Percentage so that you see in descending order which tasks are taking CPU
resources.
If you’ve yet to disable your antivirus, you’ll probably see it at the top of this
list.
Any unnecessary apps that take up resources should be closed.
If you try to ‘End Task’ of any process you shouldn’t, Windows will warn you about
instability and allow you to cancel.
You can also go into the Details tab in Task Manager and set Explorer.exe to ‘Realtime’
priority so that your mouse movement is prioritized over everything else, though this is a personal
preference and has to be done on each start-up.
There’s also a software decision to make.
Many gaming mice come with an associated software program like Razer Synapse or Logitech G-Hub.
You can choose to have this software running with mouse profiles while training and gaming,
or you can have your mouse set to on-board mode with a stored sensitivity.
This is a matter of preference, but I prefer onboard mode myself, with the software either
still running minimized in the background or exited out of entirely.
Finally, you may wish to use a sensitivity randomizer.
By keeping your sensitivity in a constant flux within a certain range, you force yourself
to always have to microadjust rather than just going through the motions.
I personally used a sens randomizer for about 6-8 months, and it only took an initial month
or so before I stopped noticing entirely.
While the benefits are still being discovered, if you want to make sure you’re getting
the most out of each training session, a sensitivity randomizer can definitely help.
If you’re interested, check Voltaic’s Resources on discord and download it from
there.
So here we are in Kovaaks now, raring to train.
If this is your first time in Kovaaks, the online scenarios list may appear a little
overwhelming; but it is this wealth of different scenarios by different authors with different
backgrounds, modified and tweaked over time by a community of dedicated aim trainers,
that makes Kovaaks still the best Aim Trainer out there to date.
No matter your problem, no matter your area of improvement, there’s not just a scenario
for you, there’s probably a playlist, too.
It’s just a matter of finding them.
For this there’s guides.
Community guides.
From the catalyst of Aimer7’s guide to the Voltaic Fundamentals routines for each benchmark
rank, guides will help you not only to find the scenarios you’re looking for, but help
you understand what you’re looking to get out of the scenarios you train in.
You shouldn’t go into a scenario with no real idea of what you’re supposed to be
doing or improving upon.
The Voltaic Fundamentals for your respective rank are a great place to start, though.
If you’re new or haven’t done any Voltaic Benchmarks, sharecode (Description below)
will bring you to the Bronze Fundamentals.
Play these to see where you’re at.
If they seem too easy for you, (Description below) is the next level up.
I already mentioned some of my favorite Kovaaks Scenarios in a previous video, like Axis Tracking,
but I’ve discovered a few more additions to the list since then that I figured I’d
mention here.
3D Switching is another scenario like Axis Tracking that increases your confidence tracking
and switching for targets moving in awkward angles, only the angles are even more awkward
than Axis Tracking, given the added 3d depth they move in.
It’s basically the next step up from Axis Tracking, so if you’ve gotten good at that
or are looking for extra angles practice, 3d tracking is a great fit for you.
We also have Narrow Strafe, where the bot moves fast and changes directions sporadically,
all the while crouching and jumping in a narrow space in front of you.
While this scenario is unquestionably difficult, it also translates amazingly well into high
TTK Movement Shooters like Apex or Overwatch, where opponents will attempt to move just
like this to juke you out.
It’s akin to a high-skilled player trying to juke you out, minus any mirroring they
might do in response to your own movement.
The scoring of the scenario prioritizes focusing on the head.
One last scenario I recommend is SYW (Smooth your Wrist).
This comes in several versions, with ‘fixed’ and ‘thin’ versions being more difficult
than the standard, but they all have the exact same concept.
This is all about being able to smoothly glide your mouse back and forth, keeping pace with
the bot.
don’t jitter around the bot constantly microadjusting, but rather smoothly glide along with it using
your mouse in one smooth motion back and forth.
The last thing I’m going to talk about in this video is motivation.
No matter how well you train or how many hours you put into it, burnout is the true enemy
of progress.
It’s always better to lightly train over time than go ham a few times then burnout
for days or weeks.
It’s important to have specific goals to go along with your lofty ambitions as they
create a path to the summit of your success.
These goals must be attainable along the way.
Something simple like a pledge to break at least one personal best a week, or to become
more proficient at a difficult scenario.
Goals help make training more enjoyable, and enjoying the process of refining your abilities
is the easiest way to avoid burnout.
So yeah.
These are all the things I’ve learned and have helped me along my way to becoming a
GrandMaster.
Make sure to stretch out your hand before each training session to avoid injury, set
goals along the way to your ultimate ambition, focus on training every day rather than how
much you train per day, constantly challenge yourself as you train, and push through any
periods of compression, understanding that even if your highscores aren’t improving
you’re still improving overall.
I figured by this point, once I reached GrandMaster I mean, that I’d be done with aim training
entirely and want to walk off to focus on other things on the path to an Ascended Gamer.
But it’s so habitual by now that whenever I feel like watching a video or show I get
the urge to train, and missing days makes me feel some-sort-of-way, kind of like going
to the gym almost daily and then suddenly stopping.
Also, at the start of the video I mentioned a 4-way Radar Chart that determines the prowess
of any Gamer.
Execution, Traversal, Awareness, and Decision-Making.
I’ll make an in-depth video covering this radar chart some point, but for now I’ll
give an example of its usage.
Your execution skill determines how well you can execute whatever it is you’re doing.
If you’re trying to flank someone, the execution skill determines how effective that flank
will be.
The traversal skill determines your ability to get into position to make that flank.
The Awareness skill determines how well you can see various flanking opportunities for
the flank, and the Decision-making skill determines how and when you intend to flank.
Each of these areas can be improved in innumerable ways and scale with each other, meaning improvement
in one area can translate into slighter improvements in others.
By exploring different genres, you can more readily improve upon different areas.
For example, strategy games can help with Decision-making, and action games like Mirror’s
edge can help with traversal.
Aim Training really only improves your ability to execute, with some extension into overall
awareness of your peripherals.
And even then, there’s far, far more to being able to execute than just being able
to aim well.
Fighting games, for instance, are all about executing the right techniques at the right
time, and have nothing to do with aim.
The path to becoming an Ascended Gamer requires venturing outside the genres you’re most
comfortable with to gain experience that you can take back and apply into your favorite
game.
So long as you’re challenging yourself you’ll always be expanding your potential, no matter
the game you play.
Anyway, that’s it for me.
Thank you so much for watching, be sure to subscribe, and this is Void Hunt, signing
out.