A well-known “Call of Duty” pro has a new shooter and inadvertently showed how dependent he is on aim assist.
Who is it about? Kris “Swagg” Lamberson is an American eSports player, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer who professionally plays for FaZe Clan. He is one of the biggest streamers of Call of Duty and had an average of 3,700 viewers on Twitch over the past 3 months (via Sullygnome).
Swagg primarily plays Call of Duty: Warzone, but also the multiplayer of various spin-offs. Across the different titles of the series, he has accumulated thousands of hours of playtime. On Twitch alone, he was live with Call of Duty for over 8,000 hours, with 7,400 of those in Warzone.
In his streams, he stands out for his strong gameplay. He regularly achieves many kills and is overall considered a strong player. On YouTube, he also showcases strong weapon loadouts – meaning which weapons are currently meta in Warzone and how you should play them.
Pro shows accidentally that he can’t aim without aim assist
Which shooter was Swagg playing? On June 10, Ubisoft released a major update for the tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege. The game is now called Siege X and comes with several changes, including a new permanent mode, an overhaul of the sound, new destructible environment objects, and the return of the unranked mode. For the festive release of the major update, some streamers who typically have nothing to do with Rainbow Six also played Siege X, including Swagg.
This is what happened in the shooter: The CoD pro had significant problems aiming. Swagg only managed to place his reticle on an opponent with great effort. The gameplay feels like watching a novice shooter rather than a pro player (via Twitch).
Aiming without aim assist requires skill
Why does he aim so poorly? As a CoD pro, Swagg is accustomed to playing with a controller. Most professional players in Call of Duty rely on controllers, as aiming is supported by a strong aim assist. Aim assist is a targeting aid that only controller players can use, automatically pulling a player’s reticle towards an opponent.
However, Rainbow Six: Siege has no aim assist. Players must aim entirely on their own, even with a controller. This requires practice and controlled handling of the sticks. However, Swagg is not used to playing without aim assist and therefore struggles to move the reticle accurately. He practically cannot aim well without aim assist.
However, Swagg also realized that he had problems without aim assist and said after his failed aiming attempts in the stream: “There’s not even a bit of aim assist here, Bro, so daaaamn, I really shoot terribly, I have no control over my stuff. […] I’m an aim assist main.”
Swagg is not the first CoD pro to realize that he can’t shoot that well without aim assist. World Champion Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro also hit his limits – and he even tried it with mouse and keyboard: Call of Duty: World Champion wants to prove that aim assist is not a huge advantage – Goes completely wrong
