Aiming guide

[OldschoolGaming_YouTube]

I just wanted to create this thread for the few out there that might be a bit late to the party as I was.

 

So, I always thought I was pretty good at aiming in this game, having the right lead for each ship and the right elevation of the sight for the angle the ship is sailing. But I have mainly played DDs and cruisers so aiming long distance haven't really been something I do that much. But a while back Flamu (Yea, I know.... That guy...) did a pretty great aiming guide video, how to delete smoked up ships etc using minimap circle and lock on to something near by. I think PQ also mentioned this in many of his videos.

 

So, I have started to use the little circle on the minimap (the one that tells you where you actually aim) and I aim with that circle instead of the actual sight in the game and my hits just starts racking up more and more. So I started to compare my aim I took with the regular sight in the game and then looked at the minimap at where the little circle was, and I realized that my "regular" aim was usually pretty of, even tho I was quite confident in how well I aimed. So now I aim more with the little circle then I do with the real sight and its Amazing.

 

Suddenly I get hits on ships I never would have gotten hits on before, like a DD that gets spotted for a brief moment far away at start of the game. I aim in using circle, put the circle on the direction line of the enemy ship, guesstimate the lead and shoot and couple of seconds later a couple of hits, maybe even break a module or start a fire on the DD, so suddenly our DD has a great advantage in the upcoming knifefight. And the coolest thing about this type of aim is that you can use it in so many situations, for example:

 

1. A low HP BB goes dark heading for their spawn to heal up, you use his last known position and take a lead and suddenly you get a blind kill (usually players dont maneuver as much when they go dark, they sail in straight line away from the action)
2. Cyclone is a perfect situation. Enemy ships gets spotted by a teammate far away but he is withing the 8 km radius, so you see enemy ships last known position and it gets updated for you on the minimap, but you can't see him in the game in front of you. Then just use circle, take lead and shoot, don't know how many kills and citadels I have gotten like this, and I never "saw" the ship.
3. I even started to use it in my DDs when an enemy DD smokes up, sometimes if he shoots you can just track his shells and use that to aim for. But sometimes its a low HP torp boat, then you just use his last known position on the minimap and then you track that position with your shells back and forth in the line he can travel in the smoke and then you get hits.
4. A target is behind big islands or obstruction so you can't really see him or have line of sight but he is spotted by someone one your team, then you just put the circle on the minimap on his ship on the minimap and shoot and score many hits and fires, perfect to deal with bow in radar cruisers at caps. Extra great if you have the traffic light mod that shows if hes moving forward, back or stationary, then you just lead him in that direction. But mods are considered "Cheats" by many even tho most of the player base use them. This is specially effective for ships with lofty shell arcs like Wooster, Colbert, Marceau etc.

 

Some things that are good to do to make all this work is to maximize the size of the minimap so its easier for you to see the circle and the ship icon for the aim. and also activate "Last known position" in the settings.

 

As I said, this is probably old news for most so this is aimed more at the newer players. But I thought I was good at aiming but after using this method I hit way more and get more fires and kills. And you will get reported and als accused of being a cheater for playing like this, but its just a next level skill that most Super unicum's use on daily basis.

 

Now I wish I had some good pictures to showcase what I mean by all this but I will try and fix that and maybe even a short video.

[lup3s]

The circle is most useful for the vertical aiming, not the horizontal (lead) aiming ?

 

I rarely use it except when shooting ships in smoke or over islands (i.e. no direct line of sight).

[Karkong_the_Impaler]

5 hours ago, lup3s said:

The circle is most useful for the vertical aiming, not the horizontal (lead) aiming ?

 

I rarely use it except when shooting ships in smoke or over islands (i.e. no direct line of sight).

Play more Colbert...

[Gnirf]

7 hours ago, OldschoolGaming_YouTube said:

 

1. Cyclone is a perfect situation. Enemy ships gets spotted by a teammate far away but he is withing the 8 km radius, so you see enemy ships last known position and it gets updated for you on the minimap, but you can't see him in the game in front of you. Then just use circle, take lead and shoot, don't know how many kills and citadels I have gotten like this, and I never "saw" the ship.

I try myself to do that, problem is maybe that I am too old with some worn out tendencies in the arm/hand so i  have a insensitive way of moving the mouse, i.e. I adjust too much. Can anyone make any suggestions, as the sensivity works fine in other normal circumstances. I have a XTRFY Gaming mouse wireconnected ofc if that is of importance. Sometimes it works but I think there is too many times it just will not be placed where I want and yes I have a large minimap.

[Yosha_AtaIante]

4 minutes ago, Gnirf said:

I try myself to do that, problem is maybe that I am too old with some worn out tendencies in the arm/hand so i  have a insensitive way of moving the mouse, i.e. I adjust too much. Can anyone make any suggestions, as the sensivity works fine in other normal circumstances. I have a XTRFY Gaming mouse wireconnected ofc if that is of importance. Sometimes it works but I think there is too many times it just will not be placed where I want and yes I have a large minimap.

A heavy mouse can help with that. Some have adjustable weights. The heavier the mouse the easier it is to make precise movements and in a game like wows you dont need to move it quickly anyway

[Gnirf]

12 minutes ago, AtaIante said:

A heavy mouse can help with that. Some have adjustable weights. The heavier the mouse the easier it is to make precise movements and in a game like wows you dont need to move it quickly anyway

OK, Thx I will look into it, it is normal mouse (light)weight I think but sadly XTRFY suits my hand ergonomicwise especially as I play so much, and also is an excelsheetproducer at work (Group.Fin.controller) so that aspect takes overall first place. but if you have any suitable brands to look for I am more than happy to see if I can try them. Will not buy anything without physical testing because of my situation as described. 

[Estaca_de_Bares]

Isn't there a video of some streamer who was asked to play a battle with an opaque, oversized minimap so he had to purely aim with the circle? If I remember that video correctly, the larger the minimap, the more precise the corrections that could be done to the aim (provided that the mouse is heavy enough) because the ships' and circle's icons didn't (don't?) scale up as much, if at all. The problem is, obviously, to become accustomed to such settings.

 

Anyway, regarding its use in cyclone and against bow-in ships at the start of the match, for a 10-ish seconds shell flight time, with the second largest stock minimap, I tend to score hits if I put the circle slightly touching the point of the enemy's icon and make small corrections depending on where I see my shells fall compared to the black puffs of friendly hits on the same target. Granted that the first salvo aimed like that is more prone to miss or overpen at best, but that's my rule of thumb for such scenarios, which assumes an average target sailing (nearly) full speed, i.e. 27-32 knots at TX. Same "distance" against a target that you notice is reversing? Centre the circle on the icon's flat stern and correct from there.

 

Salute.

[OldschoolGaming_YouTube]

1 hour ago, Gnirf said:

I try myself to do that, problem is maybe that I am too old with some worn out tendencies in the arm/hand so i  have a insensitive way of moving the mouse, i.e. I adjust too much. Can anyone make any suggestions, as the sensivity works fine in other normal circumstances. I have a XTRFY Gaming mouse wireconnected ofc if that is of importance. Sometimes it works but I think there is too many times it just will not be placed where I want and yes I have a large minimap.

I have the same issue myself, have barn doors as hands and a small Logitech G603 mouse. It IS hard but with some practice I get better and better at it.

 

Wish I could find my old mouse again that was really wide and big and I could rest my whole hand on it.

[Karkong_the_Impaler]

12 hours ago, AtaIante said:

A heavy mouse can help with that. Some have adjustable weights. The heavier the mouse the easier it is to make precise movements and in a game like wows you dont need to move it quickly anyway

If you move your mouse over the target you see the atrocious things the inbuilt aim assist does to your aim when you watch the minimap.

Especially when a target vanishes due to line of sight isues while you aim at his hull. Suddenly your reticle is far behind him without you moving the mouse one bit.

 

I believe precision is only useful up to a certain level, then dispersion takes over. And even the most accurate ship (Tiger '59), you also need to factor in the enemy movement and the flight time, so you miss shots where the more shotgun type ships still hit stray shells.

Colbert especially has another issue that you can't lead far enough with that auto aim at long ranges....

[lup3s]

13 hours ago, Karkong_the_Impaler said:

Play more Colbert...

 

I'm not sure what you meant with this ?

 

If you have trouble leading enough, zoom out 1 or 2 times ? (or am I misinterpreting this :) )

[Karkong_the_Impaler]

4 minutes ago, lup3s said:

 

I'm not sure what you meant with this ?

 

If you have trouble leading enough, zoom out 1 or 2 times ? (or am I misinterpreting this :) )

If you show an enemy the golden shower of love, often you are better off using the minimap to lead the target instead of the binocular view

[OldschoolGaming_YouTube]

1 minute ago, Karkong_the_Impaler said:

If you show an enemy the golden shower of love, often you are better off using the minimap to lead the target instead of the binocular view

This is how I do, and it works great. Much better than trying to aim ingame. I dont have Colbert but I have Wooster and Marceau and especially that ship its great when you go low on HP then you can just park around an island and still burn down close enemy BBs with those lofty shells without ever getting spotted.

[lup3s]

16 minutes ago, Karkong_the_Impaler said:

If you show an enemy the golden shower of love, often you are better off using the minimap to lead the target instead of the binocular view

 

I would disagree, but each his own preference ofc :)

[Karkong_the_Impaler]

10 minutes ago, lup3s said:

 

I would disagree, but each his own preference ofc :)

Please, I really don't mind you disagreeing, I would even love to hear your opinion.

 

With colberts slow shells I notice very often how far off my aim is when I look at the minimap and sometimes the aim on the minimap jumps very much with just a very small movement with the mouse as you enter and leave the aim assist area.

You can even use that to shoot farther than your 12.8km range when you zoom out and just use the minimap, then you can still lead your target where the binocular won't go.