HLTV Rating 3.0 Explained: How CS2's Pro Rating Works (2026)

HLTV Rating 3.0 is a single number that sums up how much a player helped their team in professional CS2 matches. It blends six parts: kills, damage, survival, KAST, multi-kills and Round Swing, with kills and damage adjusted for economy. A rating of 1.00 is average over a CS2 event, and higher is better.

This guide covers what goes into Rating 3.0, how Round Swing and eco-adjustment work, what counts as a good number, and how it differs from Leetify Rating and FACEIT Elo. It is current as of October 2026, including HLTV's small accuracy update in early October. For the wider picture, see our CS2 stats explained guide.

What is HLTV Rating 3.0?

HLTV.org is the main news and stats site for professional Counter-Strike. Its rating is the stat most fans quote when they argue about the best player at an event or in a year. HLTV introduced Rating 3.0 in August 2025, replacing Rating 2.1, per HLTV.

The older 2.0 system, launched in 2017, brought in KAST, damage and a reworked Impact score. Rating 2.1 then adjusted the averages for CS2 and started punishing saving. Rating 3.0 goes further. It drops Impact and replaces it with two new pieces, Round Swing and a Multi-Kill rating, and it adds eco-adjustment so cheap kills count for less.

HLTV calculates the rating from the pro matches it covers. It is not a stat for your own matchmaking games. For those, you need a tool that reads your own demos or match data, such as our CS2 stats lookup.

What goes into HLTV Rating 3.0?

Rating 3.0 has six sub-ratings, up from five in 2.1, per HLTV. HLTV groups them into output, which is what you produce, and cost, which is what your team loses when you die or go quiet.

HLTV describes KAST as "a proxy for round-to-round consistency" and Multi-Kills as an "explosivity modifier", per its October 2025 adjustments article. Rating 3.0 also raised the assist threshold to 40 damage, up from 25, and added trade denials and failed trades to the sub-ratings.

How much does each part count?

HLTV tuned the weights in late October 2025. Kills rose from 12% to 25% of the rating, and Round Swing fell from 40% to 33%, though it is still the largest single part, per Dust2.us. KAST and Multi-Kills lost some weight, because they overlap with kills. HLTV also restored a 60-40 balance between output and cost, the same split Rating 2.0 used.

How does Round Swing work?

Round Swing asks one question: how much did this player change the odds of winning the round? HLTV builds a win probability for every moment from the map, the side, both teams' economy, bomb status and how many players are alive, per HLTV.

When a kill moves that probability, the credit is split. The player who gets the final hit gets a share, but so do players who dealt damage, threw the flash that set it up, or traded a teammate. A 4K against unarmored pistols earns less swing than the same 4K in a full-buy round.

• Zero-sum: one team's gain is the other team's loss, so a player who saves is treated the same as one who lost the clutch.
• Shown as a percentage: most players land between -1.5% and +1.5% per round over a season, while HLTV listed donk near +3.79% and ZywOo near +3.69% in 2025 when 3.0 launched.
• End-of-round credit: leftover swing after a won round is shared for clutches, kills, defuses and surviving, per HLTV.

What changed in the October 2026 update?

HLTV called it a small accuracy update, not a new version. It refreshed the win probability data with recent CS2 matches, added Cache-specific data now that the map is back in competitive play, and stopped kills from producing negative Round Swing. Kills in the last seconds before the bomb is unstoppable no longer add swing, and stand-ins no longer earn swing for rounds they did not play, per Critical Hits.

What is eco-adjustment in HLTV Rating?

Eco-adjustment weights each duel by how hard it was to win. HLTV groups weapons by price, from starter pistols up to snipers, and checks the historical win rate of each matchup. A harder duel earns more kill points, and an easier one earns fewer, per HLTV.

HLTV's example: on the T side, a rifle-versus-rifle kill is worth about 1.10 kill points, while killing a player holding a starter pistol is worth about 0.54. The same logic applies to deaths, damage and KAST. Match pages and scoreboards now have a toggle that shows eco-adjusted stats, so you can see the difference for yourself.

What is a good HLTV rating?

HLTV sets the average at 1.00 over a CS2 event. Anything above that means a player did more than an average pro at that event, and anything below means less. HLTV does not publish official labels such as "good" or "elite", so be careful with charts that claim fixed cutoffs.

A few things help you read the number fairly:

• Sample size: HLTV says Rating 3.0 is tuned for events, not single maps. One map can swing hard, especially after a big clutch.
• Role matters: entry fraggers, AWPers and support players produce different stat shapes, so compare players in similar roles.
• Opposition: a 1.20 against top teams is not the same as a 1.20 against weaker ones.

Want to see how pros stack up? Our CS2 pro comparisons page lines players up side by side.

How is HLTV Rating different from Leetify Rating and FACEIT Elo?

These three numbers measure very different things, so they do not convert into each other.

Leetify Rating is also built on win probability and is zero-sum, so all players in a match add up to zero. Leetify calls -2.09 to +2.09 average and above +5.12 great, per Leetify. FACEIT Elo, by contrast, is a skill rating that moves with wins and losses based on your team's expected chance to win, per FACEIT Support. It is not a per-match performance score at all. Our FACEIT levels guide covers that ladder in detail.

Can you get an HLTV rating for your own games?

No. HLTV only rates the professional matches it covers. You can, however, track the same building blocks in your own games: kills per round, average damage per round, KAST and how often you survive. Watching those trends over 20 or more matches tells you far more than one great night.

If you play Premier, pair those stats with your CS Rating. Our CS2 Premier rating guide explains how that number moves.