Crosshairplacement is, in short, placing the crosshair (before you see an enemy) in such a way that you don’t need to move the crosshair when an enemy peeks you. They peek you (or you peek them), you are immediately ready to fire, as your crosshair is already on them.
Novice
Head height
The first point to crosshairplacement is to keep your crosshair at head height. For most guns and situations you want to aim for headshots. The goal of your crosshairplacement should then be to click their head without the need to move your crosshair after seeing the enemy.
The crosshairplacement is too low, and we have to adjust before shooting.
The crosshairplacement is at head height, and we can shoot immediately.
Accounting for reaction time
As humans are not able to react instantly, we need to account for our reaction times. When choosing where we put our crosshair, we should calculate where the enemy will be when we are able to react. This is, we need to put our crosshair not exactly where the enemy can pop out, but further out, to allow us to react in time.
The crosshair is too close to the corner, so we are not able to react and have to adjust before shooting.
The crosshair is placed a bit wider, so we have time to react when the enemy peeks.
Intermediate
Tracing the corner
When we peek a wall where there is a wide area (not just one single spot) an enemy may be, we can trace the corner. This is simply holding the crosshairplacement at a position where we are able to react, and accounting for our movement. Usually this means holding a bit wider out than if you were just holding the angle against an enemy push.
gif-tracing-sweeping
Crosshairplacement when peeking an enemy/ Pre aiming
When we are the peeker and we assume the enemy is holding a spot (standing still), we generally want to pre-aim exactly where we expect them to be. To be able to have good crosshairplacement in these situations, we need to know the maps very well, so that we can put our crosshair in the correct spot before spotting the enemy. We need to know every spot on the map to be able to do this well.
We know logs is a common spot to hold. We prepare our crosshairplacement so that it lines directly to head height of the player when we peek.
One way to effectively practice preaiming is by using YPRACs prefire maps for each competitive map, such as YPRAC inferno. Bots spawn in common spots and your task is to clear them out one by one, without taking damage.
Anticipating how the enemy will peek
Another aspect of how you should place your crosshair is how you anticipate that the enemy will peek, and how you plan to react to each scenario. Lets say you anticipate that the enemy will shortpeek you, you place your crosshair tight, but then he wideswings instead – what is your plan for this scenario? Holding a too tight angle, you will be at a disadvantage if the enemy swings wide, and you don’t have any plan other than flicking to them. However holding a tight angle if you are holding through a crack may cover this weakness, as they will go past your angle if they wideswing you.
As we have cover for wide peeks, holding a tight angle can be a good idea. Be aware that these spots are very common and preaimed/ prefired a lot. This type of angle is extremely good for awpers.
Advanced
Transitioning crosshairplacment
Crosshairplacement is much more than just having the crosshair at head height. In different situations we need to place our crosshair in different places. This leads us to another aspect of crosshairplacement that many players seem to struggle with. That is the transitioning between different spots your crosshair should be. For perfect crosshairplacement, the transitioning period should be minimal, so that we can seemlessly switch between pre-aiming spots and holding for enemy peeks etc. There will always be a transitioningtime, but we should work to minimize it.
The transition between holding for push and setting up for the prefire is too long and wide. As seen from the picture we have to flick far if an enemy peeked during this time.
Angle merging
Angle merging is the concept of alligning multiple angles when deciding where to put your crosshair. Proper angle merging includes moving and aligning your playermodel such that you are ready for peeks from multiple different spots at the same time, or multiple different types of peek, such as covering both a wideswing and a crouchpeek as an awper.
In the following example an enemy may have pushed up close on the right side in addition to the original halfwall peek. We place the crosshair to allign for both of these peeks.
