Hi my name is jaydoubleup, I've previously finished top 20 in ML and peaked in top 10 under the tag MACH5 SPEEDRACER.

As a long-time enjoyer of movement shooters, Combat Master may be the most movement-reliant FPS I have ever played. However, I've noticed that there are few resources available that teach how to optimize one's movement and play ML at a high level. I'm creating this guide to give a breakdown of the essentials in mastering CM gameplay, as well as examples of weapon builds and loadouts geared towards ML that not only play good, but also look good.

If you liked this guide, feel free to check out my channel for my other CM content. Just compilations/clips at the moment, but may begin creating instructional CM videos.

The MOST important setting to toggle is "Auto-stand after slide" under your Controls settings. This will make you maintain your sprint after sliding, which you'll soon learn is possibly the most important mechanic for movement.

Secondly, I would recommend setting your FOV (under Graphics settings) to 100, as this will increase your perceptual vision and situational awareness, helpful for both movement and gunfighting.


Make sure to turn on "Auto-stand after slide" in your Controls settings


Recommended Keybinds
Keybinds are personal preference, but I personally bind slide/crouch to CTRL to mimic most other FPS games, and as it allows me to keep my fingers on the WASD buttons for directional sliding (which I will further explain in the following section).

My lethal equipment (dart) bind is set to my scroll wheel button, similarly because it keeps my WASD fingers free and provides me with more control in aiming the dart.



The final recommendation is to install a crosshair application on Steam. With bullets being hitscan, having a crosshair is basically essential to compete with other high ranking players in ML (and they'll all being using one as well).

The TTK (time-to-kill) in Combat Master is extremely low, and now lower than ever with the addition of the Hollow Point perk. Therefore, it's crucial to master your movement to make yourself as difficult to hit as possible, starting first with directional sliding.


Directional Sliding
Master directional sliding in CM and you will make yourself near unhittable - it's that simple.

To input a directional slide, hold W+A (forward+left) or W+D (forward+right) before inputting crouch to slide - this will make you slide diagonally forward. Make sure to hold W the whole time as this will allow you to maintain your sprint after sliding, if you have "Auto-stand after slide" toggled in settings.


Grounded directional slides

To slide in any other direction, point your camera approximately 45 degrees from the direction you want to slide to, before inputting your directional slide.

Mastering this might take some time, and I would recommend just going into the firing range as shown in the GIFs below and practice sliding in every direction. Note that it helps to have a high sensitivity for these movements - I personally use 40 but this is just my preference and a sensitivity of 20-35 should also be okay.


Hop into training range and try practicing sliding in a circle


For more advanced players, try practicing sliding backwards in a cross shape


Jump Sliding
To input a directional jump slide, just input your jump button before slide. It should look the same as a grounded directional slide, just with a jump included.

Jump sliding will make your character model more difficult to hit vs. grounded sliding, and so it's generally recommended when engaging in a close quarters gunfight.

There are two things that make directional sliding so good: 1) it has a fast animation that is difficult to hit (especially when sliding downwards), and 2) it cancels all current momentum, allowing you to completely switch directions with ease.

Here is what directional sliding with a speed build (more on speed builds at the bottom) looks like to someone else, and try to imagine having to shoot at this.




Slide Shooting
The last step to mastering sliding is to incorporate shooting at the same time. As far as I can tell, sliding does not penalize accuracy at all and ADSing while sliding will maintain 100% accuracy, allowing you to shoot the enemy with full accuracy while making yourself a difficult moving target. This mechanic should be self-explanatory, but take some time to get comfortable with it in the firing range first. Slide shooting is the best offensive movement tool you'll have and very versatile.


An application of slide shooting in-game

Strafing
The second best mechanic for making yourself unhittable in CM is strafing. To strafe, simply hold left or right while ADSing. The speed of your strafe will be entirely dependent on the Aim Movement Speed stat of your weapon build (for more on this see Optimized Speed Builds section), so consider prioritizing this stat in your builds.

One thing to note is that you should let go of W (forward) while strafing as this will slow down your strafe speed. The only exception is if you are using the Hunter perk in your third perk slot, as this allows you to maintain maximum aim movement speed while ADSed and moving forward.

Also important to note is that strafing while shooting has the added benefit of cancelling your weapon recoil.


Strafing on a max aim movement sniper


Enemy POV of strafing on a max aim movement sniper


Mantling & Momentum Transfer
To mantle in the game, all you need to do is move forward while looking in the direction of the object or ledge you would like to mantle. What's unique about mantling in CM is that you will maintain your full sprint momentum after mantling. By using this game mechanic, you can basically treat your mantle like a second jump and scale buildings/obstacles very quickly.

The best map to practice this on is Caribbean, as seen below. Once you have a feel for the mantle timing and momentum transfer, scaling the houses and buildings on maps should almost feel secondhand.


Caribbean is a good map to practice mantling

Thankfully, aiming in CM is pretty straightforward. All bullets are hitscan, sliding and jumping do not affect accuracy, and all weapons in the game have fairly precise hipfire. However, there are two simple mechanics you can incorporate to instantly benefit your accuracy in the game.


Burst Hipfire (Automatic Weapons)
Automatic weapons generally have a similar hipfire pattern, in that they will always have a steep dropoff in hipfire accuracy after the second or third bullet. You can burst/tap fire your weapon to mitigate this, as seen below.


Burst hipfiring will make you more accurate


Instant Scoping (Snipers)
There is no game where quickscoping is easier than in Combat Master. To demonstrate this, try clicking ADS any frame before inputting left click and you'll see that your shot will always be 100% accurate. Note that this also works with a canted ADS, and the benefit of canted ADS is that there is no scope animation to block your view. For this reason, I personally keep my canted ADS binded to one of my mouse buttons to make it easy to press.


Instant scoping


Instant scoping (canted ADS)

Masters League gives you infinite sprint stamina, which means your weapon's sprint speed stat completely determines how fast you can get around the map, making it possibly the most important stat to prioritize in builds. While weapons can have different base sprint speed stats, I generally try to aim for a net total of +30% in sprint speed for ARs/SMGs and +20% for sniper rifles.


Why Speed Builds?
Given the low TTK of this game, making yourself a difficult target to hit is important for winning gunfights. Other than the movement mechanics mentioned earlier, the simplest way to achieve this is using a faster build. Even aside from this, however, speed builds allow you to make jumps that you otherwise wouldn't be able to on each map. This can be especially useful in Search & Destroy, as you can take routes that the enemy team wouldn't expect, allowing you to take them by surprise for easy first bloods or entry kills.

Take, for example, this route on Caribbean that I used to get three kills in an S&D round:




Sample Weapon Builds (Sniper / AR / SMG)
Without further ado, below are some weapon builds I use that are competitive for ML:

Sniper - R7000 Skeleton

• Key Stats: +25% sprint speed, +200% ADS speed, +14% aim movement speed, +50% hipfire accuracy

Sniper builds generally go in two directions, depending on whether you use the No Stock attachment or not. While I personally like to use No Stock because of the speed/handling stats, it also completely neuters your hipfire accuracy and you would need to compensate with instant scoping (refer to Aiming & Sniping section). Meanwhile, this build strikes a balance and is able to maintain strong hipfire accuracy (will usually hit the target from around 20m out), while still being quite fast.

When building your own sniper, I would recommend prioritizing sprint speed, aim movement speed, hipfire accuracy (if uncomfortable with instant scoping), and ADS speed (mainly for feel).

Assault Rifle - M4

• Key Stats: +40% sprint speed, +17% fire rate, +74% aim movement speed
  
• Two shots to kill from 25m (with Hollow Point weapon perk)

The Straight 20-Round Mags on the M4 may be the most underrated attachment in the game. It gives a whopping 15%(!) sprint speed and 22% aim movement speed. The price of having only 20 bullets might be intimidating, but having the Hollow Point perk will help to balance that out as it slows down the fire rate and makes each bullet count for 2x damage. The build may seem to have low range, but this is easily compensated for with Hollow Point again, giving it a more than sufficient two shots to kill from 25m.

At +74% aim movement speed, this is also a great build to pair with the Hunter perk.

SMG - MP5

• Key Stats: +52% sprint speed, +25% aim movement speed, +55% ADS speed
  
• Two shots to kill from 22m (with Hollow Point weapon perk)

My fastest build, and believe me when I say it is absolutely rapid. With the Lite 15-Round Mag, I'm using the same build philosophy as the M4, using Hollow Point to cancel out the negatives of the low mag count. With the speed and handling stats, along with being two shots to kill out to 22m, this build can be a force to be reckoned with especially in S&D.

When building your own AR or SMG, the weapon stats I would prioritize (in order) are as follows: sprint speed, fire rate (to compensate for Hollow Point fire rate nerf), aim movement speed, ADS speed, hipfire accuracy. While still helpful, hipfire accuracy can be compensated for using burst/tap firing, while fire range can be compensated for using weapon perks. IF you do not have Hollow Point weapon perk unlocked, then I would recommend prioritizing fire range over fire rate, ADS speed, or hipfire accuracy.

Perks
In my view, Sonar and Overcharge are arguably the two most useful perks in the game, though the issue is that both of them are second slot perks. Therefore, competitive loadouts in ML will usually follow either one of the two archetypes:

• Sniper or AR/SMG with Sonar perk
  
• Sniper and AR/SMG with Overcharge perk

From there, deciding which third slot perk to use will depend on the stats of your weapon builds. If using builds with strong aim movement speed, Hunter is usually recommended. Sprint Reload is also a favorite of mine when using speed builds as it lets me keep sprint pace while reloading, even while mantling or climbing.

And now for your first slot perk, my recommendation would be either EOD or Quick Heal (particularly for S&D). It's also recommended to keep at least one loadout with EOD at all times to be able to counter grenade launchers / impact grenades.


Sample Loadouts