The best map to practice your spray
This is a review of the CSGO training map called Recoil Master – Spray Training. The map is only made for spray training and does this job very well. You can get stats about your performance and configure settings to optimize your training.
When entering the map you see a spray wall in front of you. On the right side, you have different tools and modes that can be turned on and off. On the left, you have settings to adjust some specific settings related to the tools and modes. I will go through each tool, mode, and setting to show how they can be used to benefit your spray training.
If you look down you see three buttons. One reset button clears bullet holes, reloads your weapon, and resets the spray pattern. One to show impacts and one to lock movement. I recommend locking the movement since it places you in the same position and distance to the spray wall.
When you finish a full spray, a green lamp turns green and a sound indicates that the spray is finished. The sound cue allows your brain to connect the length of the spray with your auditory system.
A great way to start with spray practice is to master the first 10-15 bullets. Here infinite ammo will save you time from reloading all the time which makes the practice more smooth and more effective.
At the end of the post, you find a spray practice routine you can implement directly into your weekly practice.
Let’s go through all the useful stuff.
Ghosthair
The ghosthair generates a green dot which you can follow with your crosshair while spraying. This helps you learn the spray pattern of the weapon by creating a moving illustration of the recoil. You can activate three ghosthair modes on the left side panel:
- Active only – shows only one dot that moves bullet by bullet
- Full pattern – shows the full recoil pattern which you can follow shot by shot
- Active + next two – shows the current and next two dots
What is ghosthair great for?
I found that practicing with a full pattern makes the most sense at the beginning because it’s easier for the eyes to track the next bullets. When using the other two ghosthair modes I found to be less accurate. The lower accuracy is not a bad thing as it opens up for the brain to adapt to the errors it makes which facilitate learning. How much time you should put into each mode depends on your time available, motivation, and skill level.
Ghosthair is a great tool to improve your spray as it allows for various ways of practice and eye-tracking your aim. But ghosthair practice is not what’s going to improve your spray alone. When you spray at an enemy in a competitive match you want your eyes to follow the bullets and not the crosshair. You only watch the crosshair movement with your peripheral vision.
When practicing with ghosthair I suggest that you also focus on the proprioceptive feedback you get from your hand movement. This means that you put mental focus into how your hand movement feels when spraying. The proprioceptive feedback provides a valuable way for the brain to connect the movement with your body and nervous system.
T-target
When T-target is on you get a target to shoot at. This also provides stats about your performance. After you finish a spray you find stats about that specific spray in the lower-left corner. The stats you find in the middle of the screen is the average performance from all your sprays. The stats include hit percentage, number of sprays, and distribution of the hits to the head, chest, stomach, and legs. You can use the stats from each practice to track your progress
When you practice with T-target I recommend turning ghosthair off to let your eyes follow the bullets instead of the green dot, as you would in a competitive match. Shoot the reset button on the right-side panel if you want to reset the stats.
Multi-target
The multi-target can be used to get stats about your spray transfer technique if T-target is turned on. Multi-target can also be useful to practice counter strafing. Here you can move sideways between two targets while timing the headshots with a counter strafe.
Moving target
With moving target set to on, you find that the target moves from side to side. This is a great way to practice spray tracking. This helps you improve the way you spray at a moving target as you often do in a competitive match. Also here, I recommend turning on T-target to get stats about your performance.
Autospray
When autospray is turned on you can hold down the trigger and it will show you a perfect spray. The autospray can be useful if you want to visually study the spray. Try watching the autospray with different bullet time slow motion settings. This might be beneficial to memorize the spray pattern
No spread
You can turn on no spread to disable the randomness of the spray. This gives you the same pattern each time which is a little easier to control. You don’t want the majority of your spray practice to be with nospread since you want to get used to the randomness which is a part of competitive matches. Instead, use nospread to really dive deep in a spray to understand it from its core values.
Spray practice routine
First, pick the weapon you want to practice with, then follow the instructions below:
- Perform 20 full sprays with ghosthair and full pattern mode on
- Perform 10 full sprays with ghosthair and active only mode on
- Perform 10 full sprays with ghosthair and next two mode on
- Perform 20 full sprays with T-target on shooting at chest height
- Perform 20 full sprays with T-target on shooting at head height
Conclusion
The Recoil Master – Spray Training map is a valuable map to improve your spray skills. The map offers various ways to practice and lets you dive deep into the details of the chosen weapon spray. Unfortunately, the map does not provide full information on the spray pattern for all weapons which could be a useful feature for a future update.