I played OSU! for the first time today (totally failed) but then started consistently getting C ranks. What really is the use of OSU! for practice? Hand-eye coordination?
I’ve heard people say it helps warm up the hands and improve reaction times. I tend to doubt it has much of any impact on accuracy though.
It helps warm you and your movement up.
Increase and warm up your reaction time.
Making you more aware to what’s happening on the screen.
and at least slightly trains your muscle memory. Even though it doesn’t translate well into Overwatch at all. But this way your muscle memory will “wake up” so your muscle memory might tend to remember stuff in Overwatch better than before.
I played osu! a lot before Overwatch. I think the only thing that actually came over from it was just hand eye coordination. You can have good reaction time in osu! but that doesn’t mean you will know what to do in this game. It helps you warm up your hands and wrists but doesn’t help you aim in the slightest.
I don’t believe OSU can help you with aim, after all aiming on a 2D plane is much different from aiming in a 3D environment, and that is before we get into mouse sensitivity discrepancies.
To show you what I mean, go into the training room and aim directly above your character’s head. Then move the mouse from left to right. Then lower the cross hair and at every interval move the mouse from left to right across the screen.
Notice how the same movement changes how far the crosshair moves depending on how far you are looking up? This is the difference between moving the mouse in a 3D space. By contrast, a 2D plane is always the same.
I do think OSU can help with visual acuity and can even help prevent tunnel vision, because in OSU you have to look ahead to see what you are going to be doing next while still doing the thing you are supposed to be doing.
I used to get really bad tunnel vision before I started playing OSU, but now I find myself paying much more attention to the kill feed, even in the middle of a team fight.
I wouldn’t say focus, more like processing speeds and reacting. I can get pretty sweaty and or fatigued doing 4-5 star mouse only before I hop into comp. It’s a great way to get loose, especially if you’re a dps.
After a few days with OSU! I’ve come to a few conclusions about what it can and can’t help with.
It helps with:
- Concentration
- Looking ahead (tracking kinda)
- Patience
It doesn’t help with:
- Aim
- Strategic thinking
While rhythm games aren’t really my thing I do have a problem staying focused and OSU! helps with that quite a bit as you can’t turn your brain off and play it for the most part, at least when you start playing.
If you want Osu to actually transfer over to Overwatch and other 3D games you’re better off playing Shoot the Beat. It’s Osu but in a 3D environment with support for all your beatmaps.