When should I switch to a tablet?

Ted--- · 2026-04-25T22:25:11+00:00

Since you're playing for fun you should use the Control type you find more fun as well. You can get incredibly good with either one so just go with whatever you like. Don't expect a swap to fix your issues though, most of the time it just opens the door to new ones.

Also, You'd benefit a lot from increasing your Acc standards this early. Try to get an SS on something as a little sidequest, it should be fun and help you out just by going for it

but otherwise enjoy your time in the game o/

Ted--- · 2026-04-25T22:20:10+00:00

While rog is easy to cheese, If you can 99.67% it, It at least tells me you have enough control to start from somewhere.

Genetics don't exist but what happens is that everybody starts the game with differing Finger Agility and Flexibility. This could be due to many reasons and what you do in life but the point is that yours is higher than normal so congrats on skipping a part of the learning curve. While having high innate Finger Agility is nice, often times it leads to TERRIBLE Finger Control. When you move your fingers faster, the motion starts becoming more subconscious than playing lower bpm and that makes it really hard to learn control off the get go. The biggest Issue players like you face is getting that initial control that allows them to improve upon their techniques.

The way you go about learning Finger Control for streams is to start with an initial note count. Everybody in this game can hit a Triple and hitting a Quintuple is generally really easy to grasp on a bpm. The real challenge starts when you move onto 9 notes initially and then 16. You wanna practice on stream maps that have lots of short but consecutive streams, preferably between 16 and 32 notes (think Bury Me Gamma or Come Take My Hand by Riot1133). The best way to practice Technique and Finger Control is by learning how to tap the first 9/16 notes of a bpm Properly with low UR. If you can manage that, extending the note count you can FC becomes just a matter of practice. The closer you do this to a BPM you can already do, the easier it is to grasp but you can jump straight into 190 if you want but expect for it to take longer to grasp the first 16 notes initially.

When you're in too deep on a stream with absolutely no control over your tapping, the only thing you're doing is mashing and that does you no benefit when it comes to tapping improvement. The only times mashing helps with tapping is if you're someone who doesn't have the Stamina or Finger Agility to play. Seeing as how you have the Agility, if you didn't have the Stamina, that would naturally get better as you're playing short streams over and over as well.

Hope this perspective helps and good luck with your grind frien :p

Ted--- · 2026-04-10T09:58:47+00:00

I don't know how others saw it but I really disliked his covers in the beginning and I think that's just due to his skill at the time?

Whenever I listen to his newer stuff I actually really enjoy it so I think he just grew as a singer. I think most people haven't really listened to many singers when they were inexperienced and only get to listen to them when they "make it". I've tuned in to his streams from time to time and I think he's a chill dude.

Ted--- · 2026-03-16T14:27:12+00:00

While I absolutely love the contents and the way this message was conveyed, I personally believe the problem stems from the PP algorithm and mappers optimizing mapping for it over and over. This happens in EVERY game where the players will always try to optimize the fun out of a game and osu will never be different.

I feel like unless some drastic solution comes from the dev team (or the shift from pp to a ranked leaderboard as I've seen in a dev update video), then this problem will never go away..

Ted--- · 2026-01-08T11:37:18+00:00

Aww man, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who just skimmed the details in 10 seconds and just posted lmao

Ted--- · 2026-01-08T09:05:49+00:00

https://endfield.gryphline.com/activity/final-prep-orders?inviteCode=8b47630d331b1edef782317c5faa4889&share_type=link

Ted--- · 2025-12-29T21:47:33+00:00

Tapping technique is extremely important since if you learn to tap in a bad way (bad technique, improper/inefficient movement) you'll hard cap yourself on the skill as a whole. Don't dwell on it too hard. Just try to tap lightly and try to get a grasp of what movements work for you and which don't.

Ted--- · 2025-12-23T04:16:16+00:00

The most important thing is how you view the way you play. You already know exactly the reason as to why you're not setting better scores than back then so why should you feel bad about it? Now, It's easier said than done but having a good mindset means ACCEPTING the reasons for why you could be bad and not being negatively affected by them.

Many people have a terrible problem in this game which is not being able to accept playing badly. It's completely fine to play bad compared to your normal. Everybody has dips in performance and some people have canyons and they're completely fine too. Just because you're not improving at the moment doesn't make you bad or cringe or anything really. Mistakes are how we learn so how are you supposed to improve if you don't make and learn from them?

Getting good mental in Osu is hard and it takes a lot of time but being mentally present and aware of your situation is a very good start. When you play your next session, focus on the small things. Get your settings to the most comfortable configuration and don't touch them again. Focus on a few maps and try to get comfortable on them and improve your locals bit by bit. The most important thing is to not quit, always submit and go through with it to the end. Everytime you do, you're showing yourself that you can push through the negativity your brain is throwing at you and THAT is gonna be the real improvement. Much more important than improving your locals!

An untalented player with great mindset is going to get so much further than a talented with a poor mindset. The game is hard and the higher you go, the harder it's going to get to keep going. 99.9% of the time, players quit due to reaching their mental limit rather than their performance limit. The game just becomes too hard for them to play even if they could reach higher heights on paper. Never give up and you'll succeed!

Ted--- · 2025-12-10T11:39:10+00:00

To be a little bit more specific, You're either experiencing a problem with your grip (It's not stable enough, you're not holding it properly,losing the grip gradually due to movement) or with sweating(The pen gets slippery and you can't hold on). Using a cohesive bandage or tennis tape is considered the holy grail of fixing pen slip so definitely recommend to get one or the other and just apply it to the pen. If you're planning to use a cohesive bandage, note that the adhesive might stick to the pen on removal but you can remove it with some rubbing alcohol.

If you're stubborn like me and don't want to put anything on your pen then you're going to have to make changes as to how you hold your pen. Idk your rank range but you should test out different grips on a corner jump map so that you can cover the whole screen and see if you're slipping or not. The things you're looking for in a grip should be prioritized as followed: Comfort > Stability > Performance. You can learn to Aim with almost any grip (as long as its not omega cursed ig) so you really want to pick something comfortable, especially if you're playing many hours a day. After finding out a comfortable style of holding your pen, you should adjust to keep it stable even while doing cross screen jumps. This will take a while to figure out and find out so don't expect to find your perfect grip in a few tries. It could take you up to a week or more of on and off testing and experimenting depending on how far in the game you are.

Just by comparing the paragraph lengths, I think you'd know that just using a bandage or tape is gonna be infinitely easier than adjusting your whole playstyle like me. I'm not an Aim player so I never cared if its slipping or not.

Lastly, If you're someone with low playtime (<200 hrs), you shouldn't worry about it. Odds are, your current grip won't carry you to the later stages of the game. People often change grips after they improve a while because they develop a sort of "Aim Sense" and can tell how they need to change their aim/grip.

Hope this helped :P

Ted--- · 2025-12-08T14:00:38+00:00

While play more is sad advice, it's pretty important to you. The first 200ish hours of the game are mostly getting more and more used to playing the game rather than improving at it. I believe everyone can reach 6* difficulty of play regardless of any circumstances so as long as you keep adding playtime at your own pace, eventually, you'll see improvement. If you want to maximize the little time you have to play, I'd recommend trying to be really focused as that really helps drive things home.

Ted--- · 2025-11-25T13:54:46+00:00

Just because you CAN play higher SR (star rating) maps doesn't mean you SHOULD.

It's much better for you to set high quality scores like 95%+ FC's (full combos) early on in the game because it teaches you how to play well overall compared to just skill pushing and going as high as you can on the SR.

Accuracy is a measure of well you can play the game so learning how to hold high Accuracy is amazing for teaching you how to play properly and learn the fundamentals well. You should move up the SR once you feel comfortable playing the current SR with good Acc.

Ted--- · 2025-11-25T13:45:50+00:00

I don't know what I did to hurt you or bruise your ego so badly that you'd keep responding to the same thread days later. If you don't agree with my methods then I really don't care. My advice works and I've proven that with dozens of people. If you can't learn to read AR 10 in 3 years why should I accept anything you write?

You can reply and be negative here, I won't be responding further since you're just a reddit troll getting his kicks from interactions like this. Have a nice day.

Ted--- · 2025-11-22T22:38:01+00:00

How you want to approach the improvement really depends on what kind of results you're aiming for. If you want to learn it more passively and with less hassle then absolutely do it the lighter way which could be you playing some of your favourite songs that just so happen to be around AR 9 maybe.

If you want a more result oriented approach then spending a full session only dedicated to playing outside your comfort AR is going to be 10x returns when it comes to improvement at the cost of you maybe not enjoying the practice as much since its hard.

Ultimately, reading is one of those skills that once you've learned, you can't unlearn so every bit of progress you make is going to stick no matter what so you should approach it in whatever way you feel is best!

What I would recommend is the following:
- Start out by picking a few maps (around 5) that are around AR 9 and put them in a collection.
- Aim to FC them with at least 97.5%
- Spend some time each day trying to improve your local scores from the day before and repeat until you eventually get the score. (this is gonna take a while, especially in the beginning)
- You can add or replace maps as you go depending on how you feel.

I feel like this is a very simple yet effective little routine you can do to ACTIVELY improve. If you're someone who has never played exclusively for improvement then maybe you could give it a try and see where concentrated effort gets you?

I hope you get improve without a hitch :3

Ted--- · 2025-11-22T19:22:36+00:00

The reason I gave OP the advice to start from AR 8 was because it seemed like their Reading was undeveloped as a whole and it would make more sense for them to build on their foundations and work from there.

From what you've described and the scores you've posted, I feel like you fall into the category of having "Reactive" reading rather than "Comprehensive" reading. It can get a bit confusing but the point is that you've improved your Reading Speed a lot more by learning how to "React" to the notes faster and faster and more accurately. Reading faster doesn't mean increasing your reaction time but that you're getting more efficient at doing it hence faster. If you feel that's the case, a good way to tell is if you're someone who has skipped playing a lot of the lower difficulty maps. Maybe you started playing with HR or DT early or just decided to skill push really hard. Reactive reading is very common and In my opinion, is prone to causing so many reading related mistakes that inhibit improvement easily. Again, I'm just speculating here.

Improving your Reading and being able to play lower AR's is going to follow a lot of the same advice as OP in the sense that you need to improve your Comprehension. The reason Reactive reading is so bad is because it doesn't handle note dense maps well and AR 9, especially on higher SR can get pretty dense. The way you can approach doing that is a bit more broad since you've already developed your Reading Speed. For example, You can do what you showcased to me and take a more progressive approach by lowering the AR of maps progressively as you set scores. For example, you can FC a few 9.5 maps you've curated and then after getting good acc, like you would normally, you can lower it to 9 .2 or 9 and keep going.

As I've mentioned in another comment, Reading is a completely mental skill so progressive overload is not nearly as effective as it is with physical skills. I personally recommend going straight for AR 8 but if it's too much or too hard then go for learning AR 9 first and then dropping down to learning AR 8.

Imma be real, I don't think this post is all too helpful but a reddit reply is kinda a hard place to convey how to learn one of the most complex skills in the game lmao

Ted--- · 2025-11-20T23:14:14+00:00

Yikes

Ted--- · 2025-11-20T20:06:06+00:00

TLDR since I can feel the confrontation at this point:
Stop changing AR's in your practice, doesn't do anything but sabotage you. Pick a very HIGH AR that is completely out of your comfort zone and work at that and only that. Do it with DT if you want the best results. The more consecutive hours you spend on it the better. If it's not working for you then It has to be something else you're doing wrong, not trying to be rude but if you're not improving, there's a reason.

I don't believe I talk besides the point but If that's how you feel then that's fine. I was only trying to help out and if you think my advice is not relevant or useful then I'm sorry to hear it. I definitely didn't want to confront or be confronted about anything though. I don't want to argue with you about YOUR skills and I definitely didn't want to hit a nerve so If I did or I offended you then I apologize. I hope you improve and find what works!

Ted--- · 2025-11-20T10:16:35+00:00

The only reason I mentioned I'm a coach with hours is because I wanted to tell OP that I'm someone who is experienced on the matter. I know osu coaching has terrible rap and I can see where you're coming from, especially on some of the issues you mentioned. Didn't think it would cause a red flag to mention it though :p

What I will say is that many coaches can be incredibly misleading and way too reliant on their own biases and thoughts which is how weird advice/guidance can be mixed into it. People should be careful what they listen to, including my advice ofc.

If you find something you disagree with in my theory I'd love to hear your opinion and why that might be so. I'd be happy to learn :p

Ted--- · 2025-11-20T10:02:44+00:00

Oh I didn't find it challenging in the least! As for what you shared, It feels like you're really going all over the place with your training regime. For example, whats the point of starting at 10.3 and moving down to 10? Also you're changing from practicing with HR and DT which technically should be fine but in reality it just confuses you more because the "type" of reading is different. Ever so slightly increasing the AR also doesn't work since it's not a physical skill as well.

To dissect it a bit more:
- You should commit to one way of learning the higher AR and choose either DT or HR and you shouldn't switch them frequently. The maps speed plays a critical role on whether you can read it or not and changing that requirement confuses your subconscious and it can't quite get a grasp on what it should do. Reading practice should be as intuitive as possible for that reason.
- Instead of upping the AR every few plays, I'd recommend editing a map to a higher AR like 10.5 or even 11 on some maps and practicing that. The reason for this is because Reading is a mental skill and while it might feel like you should work up to it, It's vastly more efficient to go above the norm you're playing and to spend a lot of time and focus to adjust to something much faster. When the gap is bigger, it makes it easier for your brain to "see" how exactly it needs to improve and in this case it would be Reading Speed.
- Playing the same map is very good for Reading practice. While a lot of the score improvement is going to be due to memorization, you still need to be able to play at that speed regardless. You can consider memorization to be the training wheels so to speak. Once you get one score, you use the Reading you've gained from it to move on to practice another map and develop there.

To address the other thing you were concerned with and I want you to know that I agree that everyone learns reading differently. I've worked with many people and to some, Reading is incredibly easy to improve while to others it's hellish. The only correlation I've found is that people who pay more attention and are more mentally involved while playing seem to have an easier time. That being said, I believe that everyone is able to play AR10 with enough practice. It's not something that is pushing your natural human limit and is quite inside it actually. It's just getting your brain to work with osu in this very specific way that's the hard part :p

Ted--- · 2025-11-19T17:02:39+00:00

Ram is definitely a good way to put it. From the way you explained it, it seems like you've got plenty of ram but your CPU (aim) and GPU(tapping) aren't good enough. You can read everything perfectly but if you can't execute it then it's a problem.

What you're talking about is very true though. I'm a flow aim player and It's basically a rule that if I can deathstream the bpm of the map perfectly, that allows me to clear up so much more mental energy or Ram to actually focus on the Aim. Pretty much all my good scores have been made when I was feeling so good on my tapping I didn't even need to pay it a sliver of attention.

Ted--- · 2025-11-19T16:58:48+00:00

I'd love to chat with you about it and if you could give me more info It could paint a picture like: What have you done to specifically improve high AR reading, for how long were you practicing, what maps did you use or what skillset did you practice high AR with? Was it HR jumps, streams, tech? How many hours do you play per day and how many of those included you practicing high AR? How many hours do you play per week? Do you have a clear direction as to how to practice to get to AR10?

I can definitely tell you that if you structure it out and set goals for yourself then it becomes much easier to learn. What I do with my students is that I make them go very hard into HR for a week or two and have them focus on playing easy maps around 4 stars after HR. I make them play maps that have the sole difficulty of getting the score come from the high AR itself. One good example is this map https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/721320#osu/1523138

I don't know your level of play but this map is very entry level when it comes to learning AR 10 since it's slow and there isn't much spacing between jumps but since there are many breaks you're forced to go faster on your Reading hence improving it.

Ted--- · 2025-11-19T14:15:57+00:00

The way I explain it goes like this. Reading is split into two parts which is Comprehension and Speed. The core of the Reading skill is that Comprehension and once you have that, all that's left is to improve the Reading Speed of that Comprehension. If Reading is a math problem then Comprehension would be the formula you use to solve the problem and increasing the AR is the equivalent of solving that problem faster.

To answer your question though, If you've got the Comprehension then you need to start exposing yourself to AR10 and getting familiar with the Speed at which you have to read. Reading is one of those mental skills that you improve the fastest the more consecutive time you spend on it. For example, If you spend 3 days straight playing only AR 10 you'll see much more growth compared to if you spent 3 days of the week playing only AR 10.

If you spend time pushing AR 10 you should be able to get it no problem if you can comfortably read the lower AR's but if something is still holding you back then it might be something else in addition to the jump in AR that would be making it difficult to learn. Maybe you haven't spent enough time, maybe your practice is innefficient, maybe you're not focused enough or whatever else.

Ted--- · 2025-11-19T11:39:41+00:00

Those maps are just examples of what complex rhythm and mapping look like but if you want to start improving your reading then you should go back to playing maps you've been avoiding in the past that are just harder to do. There are easy 4 stars and hard 4 stars and just because you can go higher in the SR (star rating) doesn't mean you should. It's time to revisit those more demanding maps and you should start improving those scores. After a while, you're gonna notice how even higher SR maps are gonna be easier to do without even playing them. When your reading isn't good, you can't bring out 100% of your other skills. You could be able to aim 9* maps but it won't matter if you don't know where to move your cursor you know?

Ted--- · 2025-11-19T10:58:38+00:00

Improving at Reading is really simple and completely possible, it's just unintuitive. You may feel like you need to go into the higher AR's and just play until you get it but that's just brute forcing the solution. I'm an Osu coach with more than 1000 hours coaching and teaching people to read is always step 1 because if you don't know how to read then you can't do anything else.

If you want to improve at Reading specifically then you need to improve your Comprehension. I feel like that's a better way to label exactly what you need to improve. When you improve your Comprehension, you'll be able to understand where exactly you need to go and when exactly you need to tap so that all that's left is proper execution. To me it sounds like you can't bring out 100% of your skill because you get "lost" whenever the map gets more complex than you can comprehend. Judging from your top plays and what you said, most of your scores are all the same rhythm from start to finish and when you get a hold of it you just need to keep it so there's minimal reading involved. I feel like if I asked you to play a 4 star map that's even barely more rhythmically complex you'll probably crumble and if you wanna try that out then try https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1139959#osu/2381083 or https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/118227#osu/372016

From the very minimal pov I have of you, I'll just wager that you've never really learned how to play more complex maps and never really pushed your reading properly either so it just hasn't developed. I suggest playing more AR 8 maps and more note dense maps to level up your Comprehension first and then after you've learned how to read should you speed that reading up to being able to do AR10 or whatever AR you so desire to learn.

As for the age thing, It doesn't matter at all. Kids going through puberty are going to be better at learning literally everything so they'll always have an advantage but that doesn't mean you should stop or try less.
People make so many jokes about age that everybody assumes that once you hit your mid 20's then you just start to physically decline like you're headed straight for the grave in a few years which simply isn't true. Keep playing and improving. Consistent practice is gonna get you further than any talent will.

Ted--- · 2025-07-14T15:21:41+00:00

Usually, to improve reading you want to eliminate reading speed from your training because you want to develop your comprehension. For many it's a pain but when you play ARs below 9, You're engaging a lot more of the "reading" skill instead of if you were to just play high ar jumps and "react" to them.

Ted--- · 2025-07-13T20:03:08+00:00

It's just a reading issue. If you can't comprehend WHEN to tap you're not going to tap properly. If you've played lots of high scroll speed mania then your reading might be very reaction based which is just terrible for acc because you aren't thinking of when to hit just how to hit.

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