Pasu is my favorite scenario type in aim training.
Pasu requires an almost perfect balance between accuracy and speed, and demands adept smoothness and target reading skills. It is such a valuable scenario because it disciplines you into being deliberate with your shots. In Pasu, every shot counts, just as it would be in real games like Overwatch and Quake.
On top of that, probably the most useful skill that pasu teaches is what I call unfocused aiming. This means that you will reach a point in these scenarios where you have learned the target movement so well that you don’t need to look at the target you’re about to go for, and instead, you can freely scan the rest of the map for potential targets. This is easier said than done, and it takes hundreds of hours just playing pasu types to get the technique right. This video will go into detail about all the different components that come together to make a great pasu run.
Noteworthy Players
Some great players to visually learn from for this scenario type are:
For this tutorial specifically, I’m not going to have a numbered list of things that I want to explain. We’re just going to go through everything I can say about the scenario in one big discussion. First, I want to discuss some of the most common mistakes, pitfalls, and bad habits that players from all the different levels easily fall into when they do pasu runs.
Common Mistakes and Bad Habits
Tracking for too long / Lack of Confidence
One of the worst habits that I see many early pasu players fall into is tracking the bot directly for a short while and then taking the shot. I think most players do this so often because one—they’re not confident in their knowledge of pasu bot movements or two—they’re not confident in their overall target reading abilities. The longer you track the bot usually depends on skill rank. Lower ranked players with less experience in pasu type scenarios might fall into this bad habit more easily and track the bot for longer periods of time.
I see this all the time in pasu vod reviews.
Not many people are going to want to hear this, but the obvious fix would be to keep on grinding the scenario. Get your runs and hours in, boys.
Once you become more familiar with the way pasu bots move, you will be more confident taking riskier shots, and you won’t need to hold your shots for too long when you acquire the target.
The general advice for pasu type scenarios is to track the bot for the most brief period as possible before taking your shot. It should be at least a half of a second, optimally even less, and remember, this comes with time. The more you run pasu, the easier it is to read the bot movements and naturally, the less tracking you feel the need to be doing.
Additionally, you shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes as you start out. My rule of thumb is 80% accuracy or above for most of the popular pasu scenarios, like the original 1wall5targets_pasu, but if you’re a beginner or your target reading skills need work, maybe set the bar at 75% or above and then improve from there.
Overreliance on Pasu tracking variants
On a side note, I feel that a lot of these problems with tracking pasu bots too much comes from the advice that playing pasu tracking scenarios will supplement dynamic clicking pasu maps. While the advice itself is true, many players transfer over the techniques used in those other categories, hurting their dynamic clicking scores in the process. Pasu track and PasuTS variants will help you become more familiar with the ways that pasu bots will most often move, but they will not teach you how to perform the right dynamic clicking technique. They’re a different category entirely, and you should remember that as you use them.
Lack of Deliberate Clicking
Returning to my point about accuracy, the main reason why most players suffer in terms of accuracy on pasu types is because they’re not applying deliberate clicking.
Deliberate: meaning in a way that is cautious, careful, and without hurry.
First, don’t interpret “deliberate” as intentionally being slow. It’s more like trying to make every shot count.
Let’s look at pasu_small reload by MadBadMan, one of the greatest aim training players in the world.
Notice how he is taking advantage of the extra shots with almost spam-clicking on the targets. The result is rather poor accuracy, but this fault is made up with MBM’s godlike speed. Now because I said that MBM was one of the greatest players, you might think that I’m trying to showcase proper technique.
WRONG.
Even though I have a huge amount of respect for MBM’s achievements, I don’t believe that this is the best way for new players to learn pasu. MBM has famously stated that he doesn’t believe in reading bot movements. Even for players at an intermediate to advanced level, MBM’s style of aiming is extremely difficult to replicate. Speaking specifically about his pasu_small reaload run, because the scenario lacks accuracy scoring, MBM’s score does not suffer from a lack of deliberate clicking.
In my opinion, the best way to improve deliberately clicking and making sure every shot counts is by playing these smaller, harder scenarios, actively trying to be smooth and not waste shots.
For those of you new players who tend to spam-click in pasu scenarios, if you’re just trying to copy MBM, I challenge you to do it well, but if you’re doing it out of mere beginner habit, stop it, smoothen out, and learn to read bot movements.
A far stronger pasu player to learn from is ejenic, whose smooth transitions between targets and excellent, careful clicking has earned him many strong scores in pasu scenarios.
Speed
Now, one of the most difficult things to get right in most dynamic clicking scenarios is speed, or rather, the frequency at which you eliminate targets. This is where pacing comes in. In static clicking, pacing should be dynamic rather than rhythmic. This is because all your opportunities to string together hits are fixed as soon as they present themselves. This is what allows you to change your speed on the fly. There is no rhythmic pattern of hits that you need to maintain because the bots don’t move.
In pasu specifically, the back and forth swaying motion that pasu bots fall into can be seen as a kind of dance. There is a rhythm to it, and just as I had instructed for my popcorn tutorial, your hits should feel slightly more rhythmic than in static clicking. This is how most pasu god scores are earned. However, many players are able to establish very good rhythms at the start of the run, but are ultimately unable to maintain the same speed by the end of the run.
Some general advice for finding the right rhythm is to directly watch your shot timing. Unironically, scenarios that put your timing to the test like Reflex flick or pressure static scenarios will help you to time your shots better in pasu. Floating dots timing 400% or voxtargetswitch click also will be beneficial.
Make use of pasu reload scenarios, since if you are forced to reload too often, it means that your rhythm is too fast for you to keep up throughout the whole run. On the other hand, if your scores are rather low and your accuracy is really high, like somewhere near 90 or 95 percent, your rhythm is too slow and you should challenge yourself to speed up more.
Poor Roadmapping
The last bad habit that I will go over in this part of the video is poor roadmapping. When I say “roadmapping,” I mean the path which you take throughout the map to eliminate all the bots. Too many players simply go through pasu, run by run, without even giving a thought to how they’re moving through the targets. It is not just about picking the next closest target to the one you just eliminated.
A really good way you can view roadmapping is by putting together a string of targets really quickly in your mind that will eventually lead your crosshair to a safe location on the map. By safe, I mean that it will not be uncomfortable for you to move to your next few targets. For pasu specifically, the only real dangerous spots on the map are all on the edges, specifically the right and left sides. The top and bottom of the map can be risky, but it is still fairly easy to read bot movements because all they will lose is their verticality.
Think controlsphere and air angelic. Both of those variants feature bots that will sometimes ride the floor of the map. Just try not to pick targets in those two areas for too long, as it will handicap your speed. As for the left and right sides of the map, these are the most dangerous areas that you want to try to map yourself away from. This is because, upon hitting the wall, targets will lose their horizontal component of movement, but may continue its normal pattern in the opposite direction of the wall. The bot can hits the wall and starts riding the wall either up or down, sometimes swaying slightly in the opposite direction of the wall and then come immediately back.
This little sequence is what has cost me so many runs in scenarios like Pasu Voltaic and the original pasu simply because it is such an accuracy killer.
As an essential roadmapping tip, never chase one bot for an extended period of time. Bots that hug the left and right sides of the map can be very difficult to hit, but if you miss your shot, do not try for it again. Move to a safer area of the map, and restart your pathing. Essentially, what this means is that you should be making extensive use of peripheral vision, always scanning the map for another cluster of targets or a safe location to steer yourself towards.
Tips and Tricks
For this second half of the tutorial, I will be going over various tips and tricks that could improve your pasu scores across the board, as well as supplemental dynamic clicking scenarios that will directly help you to improve and prepare for harder pasu variants.
Prediction
First, I want to note that the pasu bot profile movements are really set in stone, and pretty much all of the most popular pasu scenarios move in the same ways, give or take some differences in speed. This scenario is something that you really need to get your hours on in order to truly learn how to do it.
It is common advice in pasu to try and completely avoid predicting the bot movements. I want to make this statement differently.
You should be able to predict where a bot is going to travel on the map, as in you should be familiar with pasu bot movements in general. What you should not be doing is placing your crosshair way ahead of the bot and simply waiting for it to cross based on a prediction that it will continue to move in that direction.
Pasu bots can easily juke you if you do this.
“But Matty, why in your own vods on Youtube does it look like you are doing just that, placing your crosshair ahead of the bot?” Good question. What makes me confident that the bot isn’t going to juke me and break my crosshair’s imaginary ankles? Many of the shots I take here are leading, meaning that they are slightly ahead of where the bot is moving. It does seem as if I’m trying to predict exactly where it’s going to go, if you watch closely, those shots are not prediction.
Target Viability
Most of these bots that I lead shots with are chosen specifically because I trust them not to change direction. This is target viability. Like I said earlier, you should have the knowledge to be able to predict pasu bot movements. This knowledge includes realizing that once a pasu bot changes its direction, it probably will not change direction again for a short while.
Recognizing that a pasu bot in my peripheral vision has changed direction is what gives me the confidence to prioritize that bot and lead my shot with it. Obviously, this is really really difficult to pull off consistently.
Part of judging target viability efficiently involves multitasking both the shooting and the roadmapping components of your runs.
Basically, this means that you must try to hit shots while not directly looking at the targets you’re going for. Note, this does not mean autopiloting. Autopiloting means playing a scenario while not being completely focused on the scenario.
What I’m stressing here is the ability to split your focus between two different activities in your runs. Sometimes, pasu bots can form clusters that you can easily eliminate and gain free hits. There comes a point after farming pasu so much where you can confidently deal with these clusters while simultaneously scanning the map for targets that have recently switched direction. After finishing up the cluster, as well as other free nearby bots, you should move towards the bot that you judged as viable and eliminate it first before continuing on a new roadmap.
Practice Suggestions
Clearly, this is a lot. Pasu is really like juggling, where you have to be aware of things like timing, target viability, and roadmapping, while quickly moving through targets and clusters on the fly. Of course, all of this strategizing is what makes me think of pasu as one of Kovaak’s most valuable scenarios. It isn’t simply clicking on the dots faster and watching a number go up. There is a lot of thought that can be put into this. Also, it just takes practice. You will automatically learn how to do these things as long as you consistently put hours into pasu runs. It’s also why I made an entire routine dedicated to pasu-type dynamic variants, which you can find in my Discord.
Although it collectively seems difficult, I find that the best way to develop all of these skills is to select increasingly difficult practice scenarios, in which you will try to isolate and perfect each of the individual components to a great pasu run.
Toonsclick rAim is a good place to start. The reason why Toonsclick is difficult is because it features bot movements that are faster, more randomized, and overall more sporadic than your usual pasu scenario. This scenario challenges your judgment of target viability and your ability to maintain a steady rhythm. It will often punish you for trying to go too fast or not establishing patterns of hits. These movements are simply too quick for you to be able to trust in tracking the bots. It all comes down to reading the map rather than trying to read individual bot movements. As you play Toonsclick in preparation for pasu scenarios, you will notice how the scenario depends entirely on how efficiently you use your eyes to scan the map for the easiest next target.
1w4t Pasu Raspberry Grandmaster is another extremely difficult scenario. First thing you will notice here is that the bots really gravitate toward the vertical poles of the map. They often collect at the top of the map, which is also the most common area where most pasu runs lose their momentum, and players get stuck. The goal here is to pick your targets carefully and stay clear of the danger zones, specifically the top of the map. It is possible to pull off consistently, and it will most definitely aid you in your pasu runs. Additionally, the bots in this variant go much faster than normal pasu and are far more evasive, which means this scenario is a good place to practice deliberate clicking. Having to reload several times in a single run probably means you need some more time in this one.
One thing players often forget when doing dynamic clicking is that smoothness wins over snappiness. In pasu, you should be fast, but you shouldn’t be trying to replicate the fast flicks of the bardoz method.
Part of the reason for this is that it makes it much harder for you to roadmap your next shots. The faster your flicks are and the more jittery you move, the harder it will be to actually read bot movements. Take reactive tracking as an example for this theory. Many players get overwhelmed by the quickly changing movements of Close Fast Strafes Invincible and Air scenarios. Try a hard Air variant for yourself. You will notice that the more shaky your aim and corrections onto the bot are, the harder it is to recover through reading bot movements. The constant flicking and jittery corrections make it difficult for your eyes to focus smoothly on the bot.
Being smooth rather than snappy will allow your eyes to more easily scan the map and determine which targets are the best to go for. It will also help your target reading skills across other categories. Probably the best scenario to practice smooth and precise clicking is Star Clicking MadBadMan’s Edition. Note: this is a very advanced scenario, and I wouldn’t recommend it much for newer players, but its value is tremendous for practicing click timing and transition smoothness.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for this tutorial. A lot of my personal success in pasu comes from the fact that it is one of if not the first real scenario that I played when I started my aim training career. By “real” scenario, I mean that’s not tile frenzy or ascended tracking. Of the 1600 or so hours that I have in Kovaak’s, maybe a few hundred were spent solely in pasu variants. I hope that this information encourages you to have faith in your hours, trusting that your time spent grinding these singular scenario types will benefit you in the end.
Thank you all for watching. Stay tuned for more Kovaak’s runs and tutorials. Follow my Twitch, and as always, happy dot clicking!