Now one of the hardest things to do in Call of Duty or any FPS game is to win a gunfight when someone surprises you.

In a perfect world we would always get good audio and have great crosshair placement to predict where our enemies will be, but the reality is this just isn't possible all the time.

Sometimes we're going to get caught in a bad situation, yet the best controller players in the world are still able to win these gunfights, and their ability to move their crosshair quickly and accurately to a target makes all the difference.

When I first started playing Call of Duty again after 10 years I would constantly get surprised in gunfights and lose them because I couldn't accurately move my aim to the target.

I would get my aim close and put up a good fight, but with how fast the time to kill is in Call of Duty, close just doesn't cut it.

Well recently I've been doing a deep dive into target switching or flicking on controller and I wanted to share this tip with you.

Okay if I'm in a situation where I want to move my aim from point A to point B, the movement of my thumb can really be broken down into two steps.

The first step is a big movement to get my crosshair close to the target, and then step two is a series of small adjustments that I make to get my aim on target.

Now to give ourselves the best chance to win a gunfight, we want this big motion to be as accurate as possible.

Because remember time is against us in most of these situations because we are typically reacting to an enemy that has surprised us.

So let's break down this big movement even further to see if we So I downloaded a program that allows me to visualize the analog stick movements of my controller.

You have time on the horizontal axis and position on the vertical axis.

And if I flick my thumb to a new position, the visualizer shows us that there are basically three distinct parts of this action.

If we call the center of the thumbstick the origin, well there's an initial attack which is my thumb getting to the peak position away from the origin, there's a sustain which is how long my thumb stays in that position, and then there's the stick to go back to the origin.

And what's interesting about this is I can move my thumb different ways to get from point A to point B.

Let's look at two of them.

Now the first way looks like this.

You can see there's a long attack, followed by a little bit of sustain, and then there's a long release.

And this is what my thumb looked like during that flick.

And now I'm going to switch targets a different way, and I want to see if you can spot the big difference.

So the second time I completely let go of the thumbstick, which shortened the release.

And I think I was able to get to the target a little bit faster, although there probably is a little bit of error in this testing.

But what's really interesting about this second method is when you release the thumbstick, your crosshair basically stops immediately in place, so in certain ways it's a little bit easier to control your flicks, because as soon as you take your thumb off the thumbstick, your crosshair just stops.

Now obviously the downside to taking your thumb off the thumbstick is like I mentioned earlier, there are two main components of flicking.

So after the big thumb motion to get close to the target, you're more than likely going to need to make some micro-corrections, or start tracking your target if they're moving.

But what I'm finding is that you can pretty much release all the pressure you're applying to the thumbstick, and you can still keep your thumb in contact with the top pad, so you're able to quickly make any adjustment you need, you know, after you let the thumbstick spring back into place.

Now I wanted to share this with you because this just isn't something I was really consciously aware of until just a few weeks ago.

And recently I've been really focusing on my release when I practice my target switching.

I don't necessarily think there's a right or wrong method between slowly releasing the tension of your thumb, or just completely letting go.

So I encourage you to see what works best for your playstyle.

But I think just being more consciously aware of how you're letting the thumbstick go back to the origin makes it so you can be more accurate in your flicks.

Okay, so now we're going to shoot some bots.

And what I like to do is I like to break up my practice into long range and short range.

And we're going to practice our long range first.

And I just go up into the top of this tower here, and I basically shoot bots.

And for the first part of the drills, I'm going to practice starting in a hip fire and then going to an aim down sight situation.

So I'm just going to put my center dot at the entrance's hanger, and then locate a bot.

And then basically, you know, flick my aim as fast as possible from the hanger to that bot.

Do the same thing here, aim at the hanger and then flick over to the bot.

And you don't have to pick the hanger.

You just want to pick, basically, some place of the map that you're aiming at.

For instance, it could be this logo right here.

And then, you know, try to get to your bot target as fast as possible.

So right here, I'm going to aim at this door and then flick my aim down to the bot.

Right here, I'm just going to look at this entrance here.

Okay, so instead of looking at the logo here, maybe I'll look at this broken plane.

I'll look at this door here, flick down to the bot.

And you just want to make sure that you're picking targets to the left and to the right of each bot and above and below each bot so that you can practice flicking in all different directions.

And then once you kill enough bots where you are starting from a hip fire and then going into an ADS, you then want to practice starting in an ADS and then shooting the bot.

So for instance, if I want to shoot this bot here, maybe I'll look at this line and then flick my aim over.

Same thing.

So right there, I just looked at the door and then flicked my aim over to the bot.

Door to the bot.

You can go from one of these windows to the bot here.

This is this window right here to the bot.

Down from this door to the bot.

From the hanger to the bot.

And yeah, you just want to basically repeat this as many times as you want until you feel like you've gotten a good bit of practice with it.

And now we're going to move on to some close range practice.

Okay, so for close range, I like to run over to this part of the map in like the back corner because the bots do spawn in pretty quickly over here.

And what I'm going to do is basically I'm going to get close to the bots and I'm going to start with my aim looking at a target and then switching my aim to the bot as quickly as possible.

I'm going to start off from a hip fire stance first.

So I'll look at this sign and then flick my aim over to the bot.

And then to kill this bot here, I'll look at this sign, flick my aim over to the bot and look at this road sign, do the same thing.

And then once you do enough of those, you'll start looking at a target while aim down sight and then flicking your aim to the bot.

I'll look at this tree here, shoot the bot.

This box here, shoot the bot.

Look at this electrical box, shoot the bot.

Look at this sign, shoot the bot.

Run out of ammo.

Look at this tree, shoot the bot.

We'll look at this tree again, shoot the bot.

Oh, and if you're curious about what controller I'm using, I'm now partnered with Battle Beaver.

I've been wanting to work with them for a very long time because I think they have the best custom controllers out there in terms of performance.

They offer smart buttons for the triggers, the bumpers, the face buttons, and even the touch pads.

And this converts the regular squishy buttons of a normal controller into mouse click buttons.

And this reduces the activation point so that the game will register your input sooner.

You can also replace the normal L3 and R3 buttons with a snap action switch, and that activates faster and is easier to press than the normal stock button.

Now the smart face buttons feel great when you press them, but if you don't play claw, you can also add back buttons to your controller.

And there are a ton of different placement options that you can choose from so that you can grip your controller comfortably while you're playing and not worry about having to take your thumbs off the analog sticks.

This is a major reason why I prefer back buttons to paddles, because there's a lot more flexibility on where you place the buttons.

If you're interested in picking up a new Battle Beaver controller, you can check out the link in the description and use code DreamStrike for 10% off.

Now, even though target switching will help you get more kills in Call of Duty, there's actually another aiming skill that's even more important.

And mastering this skill will help you consistently win more gunfights.

And you can check out what this skill is in this video right here.