improvement enjoyer goes aim grinding (s3 edition)

[hollow gust]

my shit is a little messed up but not to the point its limiting me yet strong on the yet

[dawn plinth]

I can also play with it. but I just feel tension lingering in my forearm. so I could probably still improve but I think its a teeny tiny bit limiting

[hollow gust]

I dont really feel stiff or tight but my ftip tension is kinda bad but I think thats just due to the fact I havent trained specifically that type of aiming

I did have pretty stiff fingers but its better now

[amber bough]

does sound like you gotta rest up my dude
lmk how the consultation goes, kinda curious as well

probably not, the only friend i have that plays BF is all the way in germany so no reason for me to shell out that much for a game

[dawn plinth]

are you referring to me as your friend ?

but yeah understandable.

[amber bough]

two friends* 😌

mostly apex/cs/valorant for me so not really looking for a new big shooter to play unless other people are playing as well

looking forward to getting thru the backlog of singleplayer games that I have on Steam next year, though, hopefully

i wanna see if I can translate my aim training to those games lmao

[amber bough]

140 Minutes: PokeSwitch Advanced

• gotta stop overthinking this, I hit Master by flicking as fast as possible and hitting as much of my initial flicks as I can, so that's what I should focus on
• next time, more emphasis on Novice. Played 15 runs today, but I think I need more, or at least need to make sure my flicks are at a certain level before progressing
• I think most of my PokeSwitch benchmark PBs are after really long sessions. usually feel my shoulders, arms, and wrist feel really burning up during reps. not overexerted, but definitely feeling it, similar to when doing some cardio.
• overall, just gotta be faster. faster flicks, and faster micros, this scen doesn't feel like the type that I can push naturally, I really gotta come in with the mindset of forcing myself to be faster, if that makes sense.
• PB on benchmark, +2 energy from 787 to 789

some TSK Strafes tomorrow

[haughty pecan]

W!!!!

[dawn plinth]

huge! do you care to share your progress from your tracking sheet? I feel like you have been really consistent lately? like 1-2 energy EACH day on average?

[amber bough]

clawing my way up thru sheer willpower

i've been doing benchmarks 4x a week though past couple of weeks though so yeah. been tunnel visioning too much so needed space away from benchmarks to actually get better

trying to do days 1-3-5-7 for benchmarks, so alternating between S3 and non-S3, except for weekends

and Saturdays for the scen I'm trying to push, which is ShiftTrack

[amber bough]

100 Minutes:TSK Ultimate Horizontal, VT KvKs S3

• some TSK Horizontal at 35 cm. As expected no PBs and pretty far too, but I'm hoping it's good wrist smoothness practice, which I desperately need more of
• for the second half, tried my hand at S3 benchmarks. I think I was gold/plat prior to grinding. Was able to get a few up to Diamond, but 1 bullet popcorn with targets that small is just way too brutal. this is the kind of popcorn I remember scarring me when I tried aim training for the first time a few years ago.
• overall pretty humbling, but fun. PGTI Easy was hard, but managed to scrape through by raising my sens way up to 30cm
• ran out of time by FuglaaXYZ, just extended my session by also scraping by to Diamond by raising my sens

looking to do some angleshot for tomorrow

[amber bough]

spammed some beants for 50 minutes, up to 137 now. great tension management scen, I feel like I should spam this to help with pokeswitch

[amber bough]

110 Minutes: AngleShot Advanced

• around 30 mins of superbAim S2 Easy Pasu to start, followed by VDIM on 47cm (hard variant and normal benchmark runs at 53cm)
• flicking faster works, just need to manage my tension budget better. fast flicks with slightly early tension releases are good for smoother landings + easier time reading target movement
• really leaning more and more towards the opinion that hard variants are not good for some people, including myself. think it applies to static more than other cats but overall as well. builds bad habits and destroys confidence at times. especially with this scen where I want to flick relatively fast and trust my micros a little more
• cloverrawcontrol or any small control scen is gonna go a long way for this scen, I think
• PB on benchmark, +3 energy from 789 to 792

some TSK Strafes tomorrow, wanna do all the benches there

[old laurel]

I'm also on the same team!
I much prefer grinding novice/entry scenarios over hard/elite versions.

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: TSK

• TSK Strafes (Intermediate 100% + 3 Pre-Advanced)
• VSK (Intermediate 100% + 4 Pre-Advanced)
• Smooth Mini Bench (Chiffon - not increased difficulty)
• VSK Centering was pretty fun. Decel variants in particular were throwing me off. good scen imo
• that leaves Mili as the only bench on the TSK Community benchmarks I haven't tried. I have 2/3 of TSK Static uncompleted, but it's enough for me to get a rank. might eventually try it again, though it does numb my brain playing it 🥴

hopefully some shifttrack tomorrow if I have energy

[dawn plinth]

120 minutes... I wish I could play kovaaks. I miss it

[amber bough]

yeah been doing pretty long sessions for the past month or two, really forcing the issue here 😂. doesnt feel like the focus is waning too much, more of the fact that I should be attending to other priorities as well

[amber bough]

out on a trip or smth? or are you resting cos of your injury

[dawn plinth]

yeah. it was getting better over the last 2 weeks but not great. so I said to myself to stop for at least 3 days completely

[amber bough]

i see, yeah good idea

[old laurel]

Get well soon 🙏

[amber bough]

yeaih it tends to be hit or miss, at most, maybe if I feel myself going on autopilot and need to lock in

[dawn plinth]

I sometimes like to play a hard variant before going into the real bench. not for training but for 1. waking up if I was mindless. 2, going from hard to normal bench always makes the bench feel easier. but yeah. I dont train much on the hard variants

[amber bough]

yeah, and thats what the vdim playlists so as well, so i used to do it a lot. there are times though where the hard variant breaks my rhythm and/or my confidence so ive started to move away from it

i think of course it depends per person, but i think static especially, people have to be wary of hard variants 😅

[dawn plinth]

yeah has been a while since I used them in this way. currently no idea what my structure is. when I tried getting controlsphere s5 I just played some variants that are not in vdim and thats it. and after that just some not voltaic related scens like smoothsphere

[amber bough]

sounds like it’s fine, we’re at the stage where we have a bit of an idea what we need to play to target weaknesses 😅

[dawn plinth]

haha I dont 😄

actually because of the injury been more aware of my "other" bad habits. for example one day I realized I always raise my elbow which gives me tension near my elbow. so I worked on focusing on dropping that for 2 days. than my overall tension dropped slightly. which made me then realize I also "square" my wrist. so raising the pinky side..... so working on that. its quite hard to shake. its like relearning to aim again 😄

I think when I thought I was using little tension for tracking and such that was genuine. but just because the other tension (I mean built up tension) from my bad form masked everything 😄

been working on that in bf6 though. since its less intense because of shorter engagements than an actual kovaaks scen... well of to my 30 min (!!!!) of 1hp exercises I go

[amber bough]

while youre at it, you can check your overall ergonomics while sitting (desk height, posture, etc)

[dawn plinth]

yeah I thought it was on point. but maybe not

[amber bough]

monitor height and angle

[dawn plinth]

that being said. I have one really bad habit in ergonomics. I sit cross legged on my chair a lot. thought I had the right desk height for that

[amber bough]

heading to the US for quite a while next month, but i wanna keep grinding so i think ill use a shitty laptop with an igpu if it comes to it 😂

[amber bough]

while aim training? it feels like such a relaxed position

[dawn plinth]

Everything 😅

[tulip pike]

oh my god what is that sound

i feel like im getting a wet willy

[amber bough]

kinda just winged sound effects LMAO, u got a reco for me?

i dont dislike it though

[amber bough]

210 (55+155) Minutes (bruh): ShiftTrack Advanced

• spent almost an hour on forkrawcontrol. not really part of the shifttrack session, so took a break before getting back to it.
• 45 cm for training, 53 to 62 for benchmark
• overadjustment still a problem
• centering needs work. maybe just one centering scen, leaptrack, and then straight to benchmarks for next session
• focus for this session was engaging the wrist for direction changes, and making adjustments to these as accurate and quick as possible. this helped with both overadjustments and centering quite a lot.
• went way over time, but I felt myself getting into the groove slowly, and my wrist was still feeling pretty good. feeling sore now that it's ended, but i don't really feel the overexertion, at least right now. focus was also alright, though it did lapse at some parts
• PB on benchmark, and +6 (!) energy from 792 to 798

will be pushing this again tomorrow, but will emphasize centering and leaptrack instead of VDIM. will rest if I'm feeling some soreness in my wrist tomorrow, but feels fine right now

[rare tiger]

Stop breaking things! :C

[limber wadi]

owo broke

[rare tiger]

Stop breaking things! :C

[amber bough]

200 Minutes: ShiftTrack Advanced S3

• 43cm training, 53-62cm for benchmark
• sens scaling on TSK Centering - 360 Turn, and then LaserTrack Advanced in AL
• overadjustments, also just overshooting, possibly due to too much tension
• wide angle tracking might be more important than centering
• next time, LaserTrack Elite (not sure if the kvks version by fork is harder, if so, need to do that. the AL Advanced version is a little too easy relative to shifttrack) as well as wide angle tracking. hoping lasertrack is enough centering practice
• definitely went overboard this time around, but averages just kept climbing, and i /really/ wanted that PB. consistently getting 2.9k-3k now, with a couple of close calls with PB.

[limber wadi]

Elite is harder than the Advanced version (not aimlab) i have uploaded

[amber bough]

i see, maybe i just gotta run high sens on AL LaserTrack Elite then

[limber wadi]

i think u can get away with a pretty low sens on that one

if u get lucky on strafe timings

[amber bough]

i run between 53-65 depending on what im feeling, which already feels pretty low

hoping I get my centering down and get it done

[amber bough]

100 Minutes: Viscose Easier Benchmarks

• tried to clean up scens and try getting Seal Complete, but still off in 3 scens -- SmoothBot Invincible Goated 75% (good practice for shifttrack), air voltaic easy invinsible 4 80% (need to really be clean with reading here), and 1w3ts pasu (somewhat close to static, need to flow better between targets)

[haughty pecan]

Push those!! You’re literally like a couple hits off those

Easily pushable

[amber bough]

used a black microfiber cloth to wash/clean and now my hien has stains, this shit is tragic. hoping I at least dealt with the dead spots 💔

time for the ac+ to make a comeback for a day

[amber bough]

this is me pushing it 😭 ill come back to it next time, hopefully I can close it out

ngl glass pads looking kinda nice now, especially with the designs 😂 getting carried away here even though I'm definitely a cloth guy

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: QuakeTrack Advanced (43-47cm)

• VT TensionTrack Novice (PB), Med (PB), QuakeTrack Med (PB) to warmup. also did some Close and Far variants of QuakeTrack Advanced, but no PBs there
• lowered sens from 43cm to 47cm while on the AC+ for comfort (washed my Hien so it's still drying up). couldnt do well on far bots otherwise. going back to 43cm after this though
• too much predicting and overadjustments, especially on short strafes. was also too snappy but not applying enough tension on short strafes
• even just a quick warmup of SYW would help here, I think
• some subpar stretches of speed matching on close, too. hoping this gets solved when I go back to 43cm
• overall averages were around the same, maybe slightly lower. overall not too bad of a session even though I didn't get close to my PB
• PB on Med benchmark

[dawn plinth]

DONT DO IT!

just DONT DO IT! its not worth it

stay on cloth

just buy something with a better value than artisan...

[haughty pecan]

Get a corepad

[amber bough]

tbh enjoying the artisans so i might try the zero next. the durability of glass pads is just tempting

[amber bough]

when i google corepad, only mouse skates come up

[dawn plinth]

same

[dawn plinth]

you would have to relearn quite a lot of stuff though. And then you think, hmmm if the pad would just be a tad slower/faster/smoother/rougher. so you cop for the next one and the next one. but instead of spending 40€ you spend 100+ each time...
if you found a cloth pad you enjoy stay with that. if you want to try try. you are in EU right? could borrow you my singularity if you want to just try if it is something for you in general.
but the downsides are not neglectable. I am just at the point were I physically cannot endure texture under my arm even with a sleeve. But I always was someone sensitive to stuff like that... If it would bother me this much playing on cloth I would do it again.
but thats just my 2 ct.

Honestly if you want to try I could borrow you my singularity. we can share shipping. just give me until my next pad (yeah I know...) arrives

[dawn plinth]

also if you enjoy the zero the La Onda Blitz might be worth looking into. for me the surface was way better. I even have one lying around.... if you decide to try the singularity I can try to send that with it (you could even keep that as it is too slow for my liking)

[amber bough]

not EU, all the way in south east asia 😂 but thanks for the input though!

i started with tac-fps's, so I really started from the super slow pads like the qck heavy, but now i keep going faster and faster

I don't know if I can go all the way to glass, though, because I still do need that stopping power

but it would be fun to experiment

[haughty pecan]

My bad i meant infinitymice mousepad

[amber bough]

85 Minutes: Control

• Some Whisphere and forkrawcontrol Novice and Med
• Hien felt pretty muddy, and I had to fight and use tension to get some half-decent micros going. Didn't really feel like I got into the session, but at least got some reps in. Hoping it's just soap residue so I wiped it down with a damp microfiber cloth and will let it dry for a day or two

ordered some obsidian skates as well to see what the hype is about; first time ever using non-stock skates xd

[amber bough]

artisan zero lookin real nice rn, maybe next year though, this hien isnt even 6 months yet

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: PopShot Advanced

• threshold method (max 10 reps each) - Novice, Novice Hard, Med, Med Hard, then Adv the rest of the session
• leading my shots a little more, prioritizing reading trajectories a little more. coach ben calling it pretty much a linear scen was kinda validating how I would play this scen sometimes, so I leaned into that
• gotta be more dynamic with my target prioritization, especially when forcing myself to farm clusters
• cant tell if it's mental but really not feeling the hien after washing it
• most important thing was I realized that I lacked the confidence to try and chase targets that were moving downwards, which is weird because I'm being ballsy enough to try and click-timing targets that were max speed from just bouncing from the floor. I think in general, I've always struggled with targets moving away from my crosshair (i.e. I have to flick parallel to the direction the target is moving), and fear of missing those kinds of shots is stunting my improvement
• best not to overthink flick speed. trying to be smooth just causes me to hesitate. maybe when I'm satisfied with other aspects of the scen
• PB and Master (2nd) on benchmark, +7 (!) energy from 798 to 805. Master energy reached!

really been digging control/rawcontrol scens so probably forkrawcontrol/garfrawcontrol/viscose benches tomorrow

Sheet Check - priority is currently getting ShiftTrack to GM

[amber bough]

160 Minutes: Control

• some control, and some S4 scens
• i swear my hien feels different after washing it, and it's throwing me off so much; a couple of dead spots, and overall just feels kinda sluggish and inconsistent. im pretty sad abt it because it's just 4 months old, so will keep trying on using it in case it's all just in my head
• went over time because I got pretty frustrated about the complete lack of PBs, so cleaned up some S4 scores. had a tough time getting some novice scens to max energy

[amber bough]

washed it again in case it’s still soap residue

[limber wadi]

i just use water to clean my mousepad

[amber bough]

might have to do the same moving forward. i hope i can still salvage my hien 🙁

[amber bough]

the hien was definitely the problem because i hit this on my crusty old aqua control+. i have to apply so much more tension to be smooth though compared to the hien. i hope i can get it back to its former glory

[limber wadi]

woah i wonder who made that goated scenario

[haughty pecan]

https://tenor.com/view/dexter-doakes-staring-suspicious-memes-gif-9038143639402170425

I know who made it I just can't prove it

[amber bough]

https://tenor.com/view/doakes-dexter-dexter-doakes-gotcha-found-you-gif-14688017774431904057

[dawn plinth]

huge

[amber bough]

ac+ will always have a soft spot in my heart, insane value for its price, and even regardless of it

[amber bough]

180 Minutes (90+90): ShiftTrack Advanced

• again, 43cm training, 53-62 for benchmark
• Wide Angle Tracking and LaserTrack Novice/Med/Elite
• washed my hien one more time with only water in case it's still soap residue causing the muddiness, and it seemed to have help, though the dead spots are still a bit there
• scores are stabilizing, so I think I can go back to calling it a skill issue instead of blaming my mousepad
• got to try out some obsidians halfway thru the session, but the PB came before that. I think it offset some of the muddiness of the pad, so I'm happy with the purchase
• emphasis still on fast and accurate adjustments to direction changes. focus during these changes is to the wrist, and need to make sure I'm not overflicking
• next time, same routine but mixing in some ShiftTrack variants. need to go back to more vod reviewing as well instead of benchmark spam
• some runs where I'm almost nova pace for 30 seconds, so good signs there as well. just gotta take care of nerves and we got it
• a couple of moments where I was predicting and it cost me points too
• PB on benchmark, and +2 energy from 805 to 807. literally 2 points from ShiftTrack GM 😂 it is what it is

some static tomorrow, a bit concerned with how it'll turn out with all the mousepad shenanigans. did some static yesterday as I was trying desperately to figure out what was wrong and the scores were not pretty

[amber bough]

95 Minutes: QuadShot Advanced

• it all starts from a good initial flick, so focused on that
• de-rusting + getting used to the feel of obsidians. didnt get close to PB, but at least scores weren't too horrible, and average was almost the same as last time I played this bench
• i want to underflick well, but speeding up my flicks is more impt right now to get myself back into it
• some ww2t/1w2t next time, just wanted to get back into the swing of things

more static tomorrow, maybe some DM static

[haughty pecan]

WE HIT AURORA!!

[haughty pecan]

YOURE NEXT

[amber bough]

beaaaast

that dotts score is real nice

[haughty pecan]

frrrr

[amber bough]

95 Minutes: DM Static S1 L1

• focused mostly on the third category. goal was ideally at least master, but Hexaclick and 1w3ts were too much
• for some scens, it made scens that the pokeball had lower thresholds than the clicking version, but the others were just straight up fucked
• focus was really just on raw speed while still maintaining fluidity and slowing down just enough to farm clusters more effectively

some leapswitch tomorrow

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: LeapSwitch

• VDIM variants, with heavy focus on tracking and regen variants. skipped the hard variant altogether as usual
• focus on reading, as well as fingertip/wrist control at the top of arcs
• for switching scenarios, need to get tracking down so that it's mostly subconscious, so that my focus can be directed towards target prioritization. can get a steady pace going when spawn abusing, then switching gears to farming a cluster of 2 or 3 targets
• grinded Adv benchmark for quite a bit since I tend to have decent scores after hitting Master on a benchmark
• PB and Master on Med benchmark (13/18), +5 Med Energy from 832 to 837. PB and Jade on Adv benchmark (still at 807)*

some chill smoothness/angle smoothing tomorrow to help prep for pushing shifttrack on the weekend

[amber bough]

150 Minutes: Smoothness

• Angle Smoothing Benchmarks, TSK Ultimate
• spent the first half of the session on Angle Smoothness, particularly on the far and close variant.
• went a little crazy on the time, but wanted to push for Intermediate complete on TSK Ultimate, and some scens were difficult for me to push
• wrist is fine, but fingertip tension on vertical scens is unnecessary and needs to be reduced

some steadytrack tomorrow, but taking a break if my wrists feel sore from the 2.5 hour session from today

[rare tiger]

I know, Stevy sucks at coding.

[amber bough]

i like the duration of strafes (i.e. how long it takes to go from side to side) of hewchy's vai more, but the decreasing size on 4rk's version feels better for practicing centering/smoothness

[amber bough]

90 Minutes: SteadyTrack Intermediate/Advanced (43->45cm)

• did advanced VDIM. I think it's still too difficult for me rn, gotta switch to intermediate for the start of the session
• control + reading just sucks. lots of wiggly lines where im not actually matching my movement to the bot's
• I think I need max energy on intermediate scen before I move forward to advanced. just fumbling around on the adv version
• been using too much tension, and predicting accel too much instead of reading
• more controlsphere to warmup next time, as that's what I did when I hit Master on this scen

more control tomorrow, maybe I can get some rankups on the viscose benchmarks

[amber bough]

100 Minutes: Viscose Benchmarks

• no PB, really still struggling with my mousepad. sometimes it feels like it skips ahead or veers a little off course randomly, but it still might just be lack of wrist/arm control
• whisphere is a struggle, but whisphere 80% is too easy to use as practice for it. maybe i can look for a variant in between

[amber bough]

gonna stop bitching and buy a new ac+ so i dont have an excuse anymore

[amber bough]

and then there were two

300 Minutes (120+60+60+60): ShiftTrack Advanced

• LaserTrack Entry, Med, Adv, Wide Angle Tracking Advanced, VDIM Variants (except reactive and hard)
• 2 hr initial session, then 1 hr sessions, with long breaks between each. Grinded like crazy today, but I wanted GM so badly. wrist doesnt feel too bad either, but that should be enough strain for the day
• overflicking and too much tension
• threw some GM and Nova pace runs, which really caused me to spiral into gambling mode for a GM run. took a while for me to snap out of it
• went back to lasertrack elite and got another PB then went back to ShiftTrack. I tried my best to mimic the tension management in LaserTrack (50cm) for ShiftTrack (59cm). lower sens on shifttrack, but it's slower and smaller so it kinda evens out.
• Nova is doable if I can center and speedmatch with less tension (I think I run out of gas, which is what causes me to fall of in the second half along with nerves), but it's time to move on for now given how many hundreds of runs I've done on this
• overall, maybe could've done some more lasertrack to try and get GM faster instead of benchmark spamming, but we still take this result overall
• PB and GM (2nd) on benchmark, +4 energy from 807 to 811

taking a break tomorrow if my wrists feel even a little bit sore.

s/o @limber wadi wouldn't have stumbled onto lasertrack if you didnt port it to KvKs 🙏

[rare tiger]

I know, Stevy sucks at coding.

[limber wadi]

HUGE PB

[amber bough]

lasertrack was definitely the key practice scen for me for shifttrack

[limber wadi]

really fun scenario, hoping vertical collision detection gets added soon so it doesnt stick to the ceiling

[amber bough]

for kvks? it doesnt seem to be a problem in AL

[limber wadi]

kvks

[amber bough]

i see i see

[amber bough]

100 Minutes: DartSwitch Advanced (45->51cm)

• reading and stability way more important than transition speed
• gotta minimize tension so tracking is better. lots of times where this feels more like a control than a reactive scen
• some more fingertip and wrist control like last time would be a great idea
• spawn farming occasionally also helps, as new spawns tend to move linearly at the start
• PB on benchmark, +4 energy from 811 to 815

gonna try to revisit valorant benchmarks tomorrow and see if I can get at least a couple of scores to immortal

[dawn plinth]

huge!!! congrats on the second GM!!!

[amber bough]

105 Minutes: VT AL Valorant Benchmarks

• focused on Diamond scores, couldn't get any to Immortal right off the bat, will probably require some dedicated effort to reach Immo complete. got a bunch of scens to Asc at least
• good practice for flicking and tension management, should probably spend more time on these benches

[amber bough]

thanks thanks, was quite a grind for this second one, I can't imagine it gets any easier 😂

[haughty pecan]

YESSSSS

LETS GET ASCENDENT COMPLETE

If we’re touching GM scores in regular szn aimlabs you’re bound to easily get immortal complete

[amber bough]

hoping thats the case, will require some pushing though

[amber bough]

115 Minutes: WideShot Advanced

• adjustshot to help with wide flicks while without being too rigid with tension. got this one to Immortal with a bit of pushing
• also some cA static (x-flick, ww2t)
• neglecting accuracy in the speed variant. need to maintain at least 95% even with speed to help with forcing myself to keep good technique.
• really gotta be conscious of pushing pace. was hard stuck at 130 shots until i really forced myself to flick faster
• got close to PB once, but just fell short. need more practice on wideflicks, though fluidity was also holding me back a bit

will try to mix in some static as warmup for each day to try and get just a bit more static reps in, as it's still falling behind even with a dedicated day per week

[amber bough]

125 Minutes: VT AL VAL Benches

• worked on getting a few scens up to Immo. have warmed up a bit to the VAL benches from a couple of days ago so results were a little better. Got the following scens to immo:
• fourshot adaptive - needed better underflicking, while making landings smoother and engaging my fingertips more as targets become smaller
• dotts - not much to say here, pretty easy
• floatshot - treating this like static, fast flicks and efficient clusters
• angleshot - kinda like pasu, but slower, so even more reason to speed up flicks instead of flowing. almost half the session, but finally hit immo when I was able to kick the habit of trying to double-click/chase targets
• widereflex - two of my weaknesses combined (ww, reflex). slowing down from a flick to a fast glide helped with smoother landings. took a while to get the right speed in, and also needed to take an extra moment to read where the target spawned instead of blindly flicking.

fourshot adaptive is a great scen for my weaknesses, keeping it in the back pocket along w/ sixshot ultimate

Sheet Check: 10/21 now. Some VertTrack tomorrow, iirc 4rk mentioned it's similar to smooth your vertical so might try that one out

[haughty pecan]

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: VertTrack Advanced (40cm->35cm)

• Smooth Your Slope, VertTrack Intermediate, Med Hard, Med Reactive
• reading on direction changes need work
• hit a PB when I switched to 35cm. Having a hard time with stability and reactions at 40 currently
• weirdly enough, I feel like raw control scens would help here because it's really the direction changes that throw me off. I struggle to read the new direction and catch up to the bot every time
• PB and Jade on benchmark*

[amber bough]

125 Minutes: ControlTrack Advanced (39cm->36cm)

• sped up sens to help keep up with accel and direction changes
• some revolcrawcontrol novice and whisphere to warm up
• overadjustments, predictions, and bad reading ruining runs. also accel reading and smoothness. i guess everything is bad 😂
• trying to minimize the tension I'm using, but contrary to what matty recommends, trying to be a little more snappy with direction changes. i guess "snappy" is still slow by normal standards, so maybe it's fine. arm for overall tracking, wrist for direction changes
• cycled through normal and hard variants from novice to advanced (minus advanced hard). emphasis on advanced precision and med hard. maybe some med reactive as well next time
• PB on benchmark, +4 energy from 815 to 819

[amber bough]

80 Minutes: BoltSwitch Intermediate/Advanced (52cm)

• some whisphere to warm up
• threshold method on VDIM, skipping hard variant
• 1st try Master. taking this as a good sign that I've improved quite a bit over the past 2 months that I haven't played this scen
• fingertip control holding me back when i switched to advanced. I think I need to spend a lot of time on the tracking variant
• also need smoother landings for adv. I can't make accurate micros otherwise
• PB and Master (13/18) on Med benchmark, calibrating at Jade for Adv benchmark*

some more val benchmarks tomorrow, maybe

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: VT VAL Benchmarks

• AngleShot Micro to Immortal
• spent most of my time on Microshot, but closest I got was 900. need to be faster with my micros here
• app is down so no screenshot

[amber bough]

150 Minutes: VT VAL Benchmarks

• had some time to kill so grinded out some more val benchmarks
• 17/21 iirc? leaving peekshot, microshot, angletrack, and peektrack. havent tried the tracking ones, hoping those go down quick. Peekshot and Microshot are the true problems most likely. Grinded those quite a bit today but still struggling, esp on microshot

[amber bough]

20/21 btw, microshot requires quite a bit of pushing (~900/1000). I think break today as I went pretty hard yesterday

[amber bough]

not related, just wanted to post this here

[amber bough]

130 Minutes: TempoSwitch Intermediate

• threshold method on VDIM scens leading up to this one
• struggling to make micros after the fast flicks
• highest scores that I get seem to be from just flicking as fast as I possibly can, but I can't seem to progress. trying to slow down my flicks a little for smoother landings, but can't seem to find and stay in that sweet spot
• definitely hard-stuck with this scen. I think I need to spend some time with novice and novice hard to get more comfortable, and smoothen out my landings without sacrificing initial flick speed too much
• benchmark spam getting nowhere as well. maybe some other speed-oriented non-static scens instead of this one

[amber bough]

110 Minutes: Anima Micro v2 Benchmarks

• micros are something I struggle with a lot, so great benchmark, should've worked on this much earlier
• tried to get everything to Molecule Complete, but ran out of time
• flowing/zeph method is good for pasu, but I still do need to learn snappy micros, otherwise I fele like I'll just keep hitting the same wall

floatshot tomorrow

[amber bough]

125 Minutes: FloatShot Advanced (47cm->52cm)

• threshold method on VDIM, but switched back to intermediate as I wasn't really getting scores that I was satisfied with on the bench
• really need to push pace and farm clusters, but gotta start with easier variants (med, med hard). at least 800 on med hard before I can go back to adv benchmarks, I think
• target prioritization is more important than speed. need to force clusters, especially when there are targets moving away, "breaking" the cluster
• no PB, closest I've gotten is 640ish

[amber bough]

115 Minutes: 4rk Control Scens, rA S4 port by thundah

• switching back to the hien because I miss the speed
• strafetrack easy humbling me here, took 30 minutes to reach valour. run was almost choked, really good pace at the start but barely made the threshold
• overall just really playing different scens as I feel myself plateauing on most of the scens I'm playing, and I'm getting nowhere spamming even the "good" practice scens like controlsphere and whisphere
• focus for today was control scens and overall tracking to prep for ControlTrack tomorrow

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: ControlTrack Advanced (36cm)

• 30cm 4rk's controlsphere s5 far novice to start. really good scen for me to get into it.
• novice-novice hard-med-med hard-adv precision-adv - threshold method (10 reps max), then revisited med hard and adv precision a lot, especially med hard, as the score seems to roughly correspond with adv
• trying to reincorporate the smoother movements that matty mentioned in his vid when doing control
• falling behind in speed matching (maybe too scared of overflicking and direction changes?), and lackluster stability
• tried reactive and even the med is too schizo for me. maybe novice? mostly fine with the flow of the session today, though
• better discipline with not mindlessly spamming benchmarks, isntead emphasizing easier scens to actually learn movement patterns and control
• PB and Master (4th) on benchmark, +6(!) energy from 819 to 825*

some popshot tomorrow

[dawn plinth]

good stuff

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: PopShot Advanced (47cm)

• threshold method on novice -> novice hard -> med -> med hard -> adv, except it's max 30 runs and goal after 10 runs is just getting to 425, which is the goal for GM
• like last time, trying to be more conscious of target prioritization and actually going for downwards moving targets (see notes from 8/15)
• pressing down into my hien for some more control was super helpful too, but eased up on it as I warmed up into the session
• started falling off when I started resetting too much. really gotta limit resets to first 5 seconds, otherwise it messes with my mental
• PB by 6 points. not much but it's honest work. no VOD because my recorder crashed whoops
• PB on benchmark, +1 energy from 825 to 826

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: Misc. Tracking Scens

• focus on reading over pure prediction
• some superbaim s2 tracking (~10 reps each)
• getting 4k on Smoothbot (Viscose Benches easy) was a lot of rng of not getting weird angles like the bot going straight through or right above you. got it though so we'll take it
• a couple of seal scores cleaned up - smoothbot, pgti, air voltaic easy invincible 4 80%

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: QuakeTrack Advanced

• some predicting ruining runs
• overflicking. i think i still get scared of lagging behind too much so I let my crosshair skip forward, a weakness that I've had since the very start
• once I got into the groove, main issue was probably still short strafes and the far bot. a little too much benchmark spam again towards the end
• PBs in Med (max energy), Med Hard, and tensiontrack novice and med
• GM scores several times, but no PB. averages up, though
• PB and 899 energy on Med benchmark, +8 energy from 837 to 845 (no change to Adv)

[amber bough]

210 Minutes: Aimerz+ Precision, TSK

• went overboard today and wrist is feeling it a bit. hopping on TSK was a mistake LMAO

[amber bough]

125 Minutes: SmoothSwitch Advanced (55cm)

• threshold method (min 5 reps, max 10 reps): Novice, Novice Hard, Med, Med Hard, Adv. WR on Intermediate Hard, only 700 entries but we still take those, at least until someone cracked puts me in my place
• mixed in some advanced tracking and regen variants as needed, and went back to Med Hard when I felt myself going on autopilot in the advanced version.
• accel reading disappearing midway through run. need to stop my mind from going on autopilot
• need to reduce tension, but keep just enough to have control
• Overall, simple scenario. Main focus is Accel Reading, while secondary focus is Smooth Switching (get it) via glides instead of flicks
• PB on Med benchmark, +3 energy from 845 to 848
• PB and Master (5th) on Adv benchmark, +6(!) energy from 826 to 832

focusing on consistency on easier tracking scens as opposed to lucky runs on more difficult ones has definitely helped overall. key realization so far is that my basic mechanics are lacking, so emphasis has to be on that instead of banging my head against the wall with smaller/faster targets. viscose benchmarks really drove this home, so s/o to the goat

[amber bough]

95 Minutes: rA S1 Tracking

• air is hard 🙁 usually had to run pretty high sens, otherwise could not keep up with the direction changes
• max 10 reps before moving on, then just came back to scens not yet on Emerald
• air angelic and fuglaaXY Reactive left to hit emerald for

time for controltrack again tomorrow

[amber bough]

160 (70+90) Minutes: ControlTrack Advanced

• threshold method (max 10 reps) - novice-novice hard-med-med hard-adv
• spent a lot of time on med hard, but couldn't get a PB, so switched on over to the med reactive and hard precision variant I was struggling with reading at these difficulties.
• kept coming back to med hard as I was getting really bad scores on adv version
• overshooting a lot - using way too much tension, and not smooth enough on direction changes. these need to be the focus next week
• started lower but ended higher in terms of scores. played the bench a bunch but felt good about how I approached today's session regardless
• a combination of **smoothbot **for long strafes and **rawcontrol **for short ones would be good practice for this scen. using that as warmup for next week
• PB and max energy (899) on Med benchmark, +3 energy from 848 to 851
• PB on Adv benchmark, +2 energy from 832 to 834

stonks

[amber bough]

125 Minutes: QuadShot Advanced

• DM 1w4ts to warmup, followed by 30 mins of sixshot ultimate
• swapping in and out of quadshot advanced
• micros were too slow, and pace usually killed by slow decelerations in flicks due to lack of confidence. I think sixshot ultimate targets are too small for me to do it that early in the session, need to dedicate maybe first 30 mins on "easy" scens
• focus has to be on fast, confident flicks. everything will follow from that
• matched my PB, at least. static is so difficult for me to improve at, but I gotta keep a strong mental if I want to push this category. maybe good idea to cycle through the DM static levels to try and push my pace through smaller and smaller targets
• forgot about fourshot adaptive valorant, good scen to spam next time

[amber bough]

150 Minutes: Static

• FourShot Adaptive VALORANT, Sixshot Ultimate, and cA x-axis. no PBs, but averages up by a bit
• getting dizzy with wide-flicks, but hopefully getting better with controlling them

[amber bough]

will be in the US, bringing my crusty ass laptop to see if a shitty igpu can handle kovaaks on 30fps 😂. otherwise ill see yall in like 6 weeks

[dawn plinth]

what you doing in the US?

[amber bough]

visiting my sister, mostly. I don't have enough vacation days left at work so I'll be working half the time as well 😂

[amber bough]

getting unstable 60fps, vsync might unfortunately be the play

[amber bough]

found a gaming laptop i can borrow, just gotta get a mousepad at a best buy and we’re back in business LMAO

[dawn plinth]

lets go

[amber bough]

static bootcamp commences

[amber bough]

25 mins of dm static. scores not even higher than median, but im just happy to be getting some reps in

[amber bough]

using some crappy 60hz monitor with hella ghosting. might be kinda helpful in that im focusing more on perfect initial flicks. staying on DM static level 1, but max 30 minute sessions

[haughty pecan]

[amber bough]

a bit of static every couple of days, getting closer to median

a week till i go home, can’t wait to make up for lost time

mexican food do be hitting though

summary from what little static i’ve done

• definitely been using mice too large for my hands to claw previously. makes sense because i palmed back then
• skates can make a qck heavy feel pretty damn fast
• i think matty’s static fluidity video deserves a rewatch. a little too rigid with my approach/pace throughout a run
• still not confident about how much shakiness is acceptable with flicks. minigod says a bit of shaking is fine, but some people really emphasize not having any at all. leaning towards the former, at least for wide flicks

[amber bough]

back at it

140 Minutes: xyz Smoothness S2, VT KvKs S3 Precise Tracking

• mostly trying to get back into the swing of things, trying not to go too difficult on the scens
• focus is on maintaining good fundamentals. basic stuff such as proper reading, trying to use more of my fingertips, tension management
• Vertical Easy Virtuoso Complete
• Smoothbot Voltaic Jade
• voxTS 2 Large (Viscose BM) Seal

[amber bough]

135 Minutes: Tracking - Smoothbot, AL Official Benches

• more random tracking scens today, still trying to focus on easier scens/slower targets
• cleaned up tracking med of AL benches, though cant get skytrack to max energy. Too difficult for me. Interesting to note that I don't really have anything to go on for that scen other than that locking in makes me score higher. i guess my subconscious needs more bandwidth to process how my character's movement affects how I need to track
• PB on smoothbot (viscose med bench), but not enough for cerulean
• reading/predicting still the main area of improvement throughout the session

[dawn plinth]

Welcome back

[amber bough]

good to be back 🫡

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: SmoothSwitch Advanced

• some forkrawcontrol and more smoothbot variations to warmup
• as with previous session on SmoothSwitch, focus is on accel reading and smooth switches
• cycling through difficulties, max 10 reps. no PBs on any of the benchmarks, but got close on intermediate a couple of times. accel reading falls off throughout a run sometimes. a bit more focus on tracking and regen variants next time

static tomorrow

[old laurel]

Static mentioned

[amber bough]

https://tenor.com/view/war-vietnam-ptsd-shell-shock-moment-gif-3022747568394546158

[amber bough]

90 Minutes: Static

• just warmup with DM Static S2 L1 1w2t, then Sixshot Ultimate the rest of the way
• some DM static level 1 on bardpill is pretty good warmup, maybe should make bardpill as standard warmup again
• got up to 126K for sixshot, but no PB. focus is on smoother landings while still trying to speed up flicks as much as possible for far targets.
• some suboptimal pathing costing me a few targets too
• forgive the deep fried audio, still setting up my new pc

[amber bough]

95 Minutes: ControlTrack Advanced S3

• cycling thru difficulties as usual
• runs are pretty "streaky", so to speak. need to be able to recover and get back on target when I'm whiffing much sooner
• lots of runs where I'm GM pace first half, then fall off. I think I'm using up too much tension, and running out. I can see this from the random jerky motions that happen sometimes
• PB on Med benchmark (no change)
• PB on Adv benchmark, and +3 energy from 834 to 837

[amber bough]

140 Minutes: Voltaic KvKs S3

• thought I could get Diamond complete within the session, but bouncing targets and wide flicks are tough 🙁
• evasive switching in particular was hard to get to Diamond

[amber bough]

90 Minutes: QuadShot Advanced

• cycling through difficulties; first time touching quadshot intermediate in five months 😬
• trying to strike a balance between maintaining accuracy and being aggressive with clusters, which is mainly how I get higher scores in this scen
• also gotta speed up flicks, but still need smooth landings
• main focus is on better/cleaner initial flicks. slowing down intentionally whenever these get sloppy
• also not flicking after the click fast enough
• no PB, but matched PB in Advanced at least

[amber bough]

130 Minutes: PokeSwitch

• really just gotta flick as fast as possible without running out of tension by the end
• warming up with easier difficulties and larger targets is especially important
• PB and Master (6th) energy on benchmark, +2 energy from 837 to 839

[amber bough]

80 (Yesterday) + 125 (Today) Minutes: QuakeTrack Advanced

• cycling through Tension Track Novice, Med, QuakeTrack difficulties, then close and far variants as needed
• no real breakthroughs, just gotta be more consistent and I can push the score further
• focuses on reading (not predicting too much + identifying long strafe vs short strafe profile as quickly as possible), proper tension management, and not overadjusting
• PB on benchmark, +4 energy from 839 to 843

trying some angleshot tomorrow

[rare tiger]

Stop breaking things! :C

[limber wadi]

Stop breaking things! :C

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: AngleShot Advanced

• have to engage my fingertips more, but a little hard to do without deviating from my usual claw grip with the base of my palm resting on the mouse
• some cloverrawcontrol easy in the middle to help with micros
• need faster micros, and need to trust in them more instead of trying too hard to be "smooth" or putting too much time into target confirmations
• i have this really old bad habit of not flicking directly to moving targets, because the crosshair tends to block my view. still doing it every now and then
• less mistakes and faster micros, and GM is possible
• PB and Master (7th) on benchmark

likely dartswitch tomorrow

[amber bough]

185 Minutes: DartSwitch Advanced

• cycling through difficulties
• focus on smoother landings (better tension management) and control (better reading) when cleaning up bots.
• I think I gotta nolife DartTrack and really up my score there. air is hard 🙁
• PB and Master (8th) on benchmark, +2 energy from 843 to 845

[amber bough]

mickey mouse top 25 🙏

[amber bough]

130 Minutes: ShiftTrack Advanced

• 40/45cm on LaserTrack, then cycling through difficulties of shifttrack. played other variants like far+thin, wide angle tracking every now and then.
• 53-62cm on actual shifttrack scen
• bad speed matching/centering and predicting costing me points. I'm taking long strafes for granted. maybe some 30cm lasertrack?
• weird bot movements during profile changes is also rough. need to react faster and use my wrist more, I think
• several GM runs and a couple of close calls, but no PB. averages went up tho, and a bunch of PBs on other scens
• PB and Max Energy (3rd) on Med benchmark, +3 Med energy from 851 to 854

more static tomorrow

[stark creek]

doing great man

[amber bough]

thanks man, hope the grind's going well on your end as well

[stark creek]

always, let’s keep at it brotha

[amber bough]

135 Minutes: WideShot Advanced

• DM Static S2 and some cA static to start, focused a bit on wide wall scens
• it's so easy to get sloppy with wide flicks or flicks in general during static, really had to anchor myself to high accuracy runs instead of trying to go for a PB every time
• as fun as cA static is, I think most of the scens there are still too difficult for me. need stuff like DM static to get better at flicking
• matched PB for today -- static is hard 🙁 clip also gone because insights capture seems to have an issue with my PC rn

leapswitch tomorrow

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: FloatShot Advanced

• fast confident flicks and micros. no overthinking, except maybe to focus on target prioritization and chaining
• changed my sens after my first PB and it threw me off for almost the rest of the session xd
• be more deliberate about where I'm placing my crosshair instead of fully depending on micros
• on the other hand, gotta make sure to not rely too much on crosshair placement either. not only is it too slow, but I'm giving the bot more time to change directions enough to make the crosshair placement incorrect
• some nasty overflicks; i fix this and i can probably get at least a couple more targets down
• PB on Med benchmark, +3 energy from 854 to 857
• PB and Master (9th) on Adv benchmark, +3 energy from 845 to 848

ok now leapswitch tomorrow

This leaves static as my only category below 800 energy. I promise I'm trying my best, static is just like that 😭

[stark creek]

https://tenor.com/view/tai-lo-gif-7790910211250344374

gm before master are you kidding me

[amber bough]

im master already LMAO just not master complete

that would be hilarious though

[stark creek]

o LOL

[limber wadi]

he is embracing his inner jade

[amber bough]

i genuinely am jade complete though

just repping the best rank in voltaic

[amber bough]

(20S) + 105 Minutes: LeapSwitch Advanced

• 20 minutes of static at the start of the day, gonna try to make it a habit
• slightly faster flicks
• cycling through difficulties (Novice-Novice Hard-Med-Med Hard-Adv) some tracking and a bit of speed variant whenever scores stagnated
• really need to lock in on target prioritization, then steadily improve when it comes to actually tracking the bot
• PB on Med benchmark
• PB and Master (10th) on Adv benchmark

[stark creek]

i want your consistency bro 😭🔥

[amber bough]

i see you speedrunning S5 bro you aint slick 😂

i appreciate it tho, thanks

[stark creek]

nah it’s just luck bro

how often do u do kovaaks bench’s?

[amber bough]

idk im not really pushing S5 so it's whenever i feel like they would help me with something im working on -- also mostly novice/med

General Note: slowly catching up with uploading vods, up to august 31 now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn5PrB1gP3k

[amber bough]

(20S) + 100 Minutes: JetTrack + TempoSwitch Intermediate

JetTrack

• focus on reading, not predicting too much, and identifying long strafe vs short strafe profile. thinking of it as Air QuakeTrack helps a lot
• PB and Master (14th) on benchmark
  TempoSwitch
• gotta flick as fast as possible while saving fingertip tension for tracking bots
• also gotta slow down and farm clusters fluidly, just like static/pokeball
• PB on benchmark. couldn't get that last target for Master

[amber bough]

(25S)+130 Minutes: PopShot Advanced

• cycling through difficulties
• trailing the target a little too much instead of flicking to where it'll be
• need to remove unnecessary movements, but also emphasize micros instead of just fully parking my crosshair and clicking. linked vod probably had the cleanest technique, and I think this should be what I strive for when hitting a GM run instead of going full ape
• no PB for today; closest I got was around ~360. I think I gotta stay on intermediate and intermediate hard some more until I can hit 425 consistently on those difficulties

[amber bough]

aim training paying off (i play hades on roller)

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: SteadyTrack Advanced

• cycling through difficulties as usual -- some air angelic hard when scores started to stagnate
• need to be smoother and round out corners more instead of trying to treat it like reactive
• farm long strafes, dont let short strafes completely fuck me over. nothing new
• big PBs since I last played a few months ago. both SteadyTrack and ControlTrack at 865 energy, so not sure which to prioritize for GM -- probably steadytrack as it feels more fun and less rng
• fumbled PB incredibly hard. need better tension management and awareness of wrist positioning so I maintain a good range of motion less choking
• PB and Master (11th) on benchmark*

boltswitch tomorrow maybe

[amber bough]

130 Minutes: BoltSwitch Advanced

• cycling through difficulties, some tracking and regen variants to supplement
• need to read targets better and remove unnecessary movements
• try to flick fast while using as little tension as possible and still getting somewhat smooth landings. it's reactive tracking, but i'm slowing down my glides/flicks too much
• a little bit of spawn abuse is good xd
• regen seems to help more than the tracking variant, but will continue to play both
• PB and Master (12th) on benchmark. energy actually overtook DartSwitch just barely, might switch to prioritizing this for GM over DartSwitch

frogshot tomorrow

[amber bough]

80 Minutes: FrogShot Intermediate

• cycling through difficulties, with a bit of cluster variant mixed in, though I don't think that variant helped too much
• speed up flicks, but still emphasize deceleration/smooth landings
• dont be too afraid of missing. 80-85% is the sweet spot for a PB run
• issue isn't tension AND choking, it's tension due to choking. I'm getting nervous towards the end of runs, so I start tensing up way too much for fear of making a mistake. when that happens, i start making mistakes and/or run out of tension. probably why "use less tension" usually works as advice; it helps people remind themselves to relax and not change up their approach mid-run
• PB and Master (15/18) on benchmark

had some time, so some TempoSwitch as well

35 Minutes: TempoSwitch Intermediate

• messed with my sens, and got it when I switched to 41cm. Apparently needed that higher sens to better use my wrist to clean up bots
• PB and Master (16/18) on benchmark

guess which the last two scenarios are

Which is my most played category? The answer might surprise you

https://tenor.com/view/clueless-aware-twitch-forsen-emote-gif-25354609

[limber wadi]

is it static

[amber bough]

it is indeed static 🥲

[old laurel]

Whispers: metronome

[amber bough]

https://tenor.com/view/heresjhonny555-gif-17140204686577388089

[amber bough]

60 Minutes: VertTrack Advanced

• some strafes feel bordering on reactive sometimes, not too motivated to push this especially since I already have ShiftTrack, so stopped at 60 minutes
• PB on Med benchmark, PB on Adv benchmark

with that, I've played through all of the AL S3 benchmarks after coming back from my break

60 Minutes: VT KvKs S4

• SmoothBot Intermediate, PreciseOrb Intermediate, Plaza Intermediate Jade

some quadshot tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmJFBscIasw

[rare tiger]

I know, Stevy sucks at coding.

[amber bough]

not sure what's causing it but the vods look horrendous -- maybe it's the visuals... oh well

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: QuadShot Advanced

• split into two 60-minute sessions, as static is tiring af. first session was DM S2 L3 + Sixshot Ultimate (up to 132k now). second session was threshold method on VDIM Advanced Static.
• tried to keep bench runs to just 10 consecutive at a time to keep myself locked in
• focus was on being explosive, accurate, and smooth with flicks, minimizing the tension needed to stop the flicks and micro accurately.
• lowered my tension by a LOT, to the point where I don't feel like I'm running out of gas anymore. on the other hand, lowered my sens by a LOT as well, from 63->75cm to compensate for the loss of control. it just kinda clicked towards the end, where I was consistently getting 1300-1360 scores. These don't feel like outlier runs either, accuracy is usually in the 95-97% range. just gotta be able to find this groove faster and more consistently
• 1w2t perfected felt like it helped a lot, especially when I was more deliberate with clicking + flicking, pausing on the current target to reorient myself when needed
• PB on benchmark, +2 energy from 848 to 850. It's not much, but it's honest work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjKh3zbgkCU

some rA S5 tomorrow, maybe?

[amber bough]

110 Minutes: rA S5

• tried to play on high to average sens. 30cm for most of entry and 40-45cm for intermediate
• pretty unique scenarios. i like the VTP popcorn gauntlet
• Entry - Platinum Complete
• Intermediate - Precision Tracking - ~Valour-ish

[amber bough]

oh baby a triple!

160 (90+70) Minutes: SteadyTrack Advanced

• cycling through difficulties, some air angelic hard here and there as well
• aside from previous notes (smoother turns, farm long strafes, better control on short strafes), reading was subpar at the start, lots of wasted movements. took some time to warm up
• lots of time spent on intermediate hard. if I can’t hit 2950 on that, then I definitely can’t hit 2950 on advanced
• rough micros (play more air) and not committing to long strafes (be more confident) ruining runs
• noticed other people had higher sens, so decided to raise mine as well from 45 to 54cm
• PB and max energy (4th) on Med benchmark
• PB and Grandmaster (3rd) on Adv benchmark, +5(!) energy from 850 to 855

youtube.com/watch?v=kpy2W_R_kpc&feature=youtu.be

that brings all 3 tracking subcats to GM. switching on over to pokeswitch as it's the next lowest category besides static, while I steadily keep working on static whenever I can

smoothswitch tomorrow, though

[amber bough]

two consecutive GM scores? in my progress thread? it's more likely than you think

130 (95+35) Minutes: SmoothSwitch Advanced

• cycling through difficulties
• not good reading, esp with sudden acceleration
• tracking better is more important than switching. however, at some point I need to start speeding up my switches even just a tiny bit
• lots of med hard, tracking and regen variants
• fingers started hurting a bit so took a break and came back, and got GM on the second session
• PB and 899 (5th) on Med benchmark, +2 energy from 857 to 859
• PB and GM (4th) on Adv benchmark, +8(!) energy from 855 to 863

with this, Adv energy (863) finally overtakes Med energy (859)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE4aKZjhXS8

light or rest day tomorrow, wrists are feeling the grind, need a break. if ever, viscose bm's tomorrow

[rare tiger]

It didn't break, it's a feature :^)

[limber wadi]

YELLOWWW

[amber bough]

banger pic

[dawn plinth]

jeez

what is going on!

GG!!!!

inspirational !

closer to GM score than Master on advanced! lets go

[amber bough]

just grinding the best i can 🙏

[amber bough]

100 Minutes: FloatShot Advanced

• rested yesterday, and a bit shorter than the usual 2 hour session today. cant push my wrist too hard
• cycling through difficulties. emphasis on intermediate hard (easier version than adv), and adv clusters (trying to be faster with target acquisition and micros)
• again, not thinking much, just fast flicks and trying to be the right mix of confident and careful. also switching back to easier versions when I feel myself getting sloppy or start losing confidence
• med hard version at 819 now, probably the biggest PB of the session. good signs
• PB on benchmark, +3 energy from 863 to 866

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf8R-7dF_s0

[dawn plinth]

Dude. What is going on

[amber bough]

idk either, but I am a big fan of the modified matty threshold method that I do to improve/scorefarm/whatever you call it

all i know is im just gonna keep grinding, whether the results come or not

success is just a byproduct type shit

[dawn plinth]

Yeah. Ever since I went back to playlists but this time made by myself it's going better as well. Also somewhat threshold methoding

[amber bough]

easier variants are truly the way

[dawn plinth]

Doesn't work for me

[amber bough]

really? really is different for different people

i do novice-novice hard-med-med hard-adv - 10 reps or PB. if I dont PB in two straight scens (e.g. med and med hard), I switch it up and do a variant, then come back to the scens I couldn't PB in

[dawn plinth]

Like I get better at easier scen but transferring it to advanced is really a problem for me. I think controlsphere advanced s5 is a bit of a bad example. I feel like the advanced scen loses the readability somehow. It's just not harder just bad.... Feels like a diff scen almost

[amber bough]

so it's always 10 reps max unless it's adv and I PB, in which case i let myself get 10 more reps in

ahh i see

so even med hard is far from advanced?

in aimlabs s3 med hard is a lot closer to advanced than it is from med

which is why it's great practice for me

then starting with novice helps a lot with warming up and recalling fundamentals

[dawn plinth]

I usually do 3 novice, 3 inter, 5 advanced.
Depending on the scen I also put in novice hard or slower speed variants. But my PDIM playlists are still work in progress

[dawn plinth]

I feel like maybe you can check to sanity check me? But I play other hard stuff but with controlsphere advanced s5 the deceleration is unreadable for me

[amber bough]

yeah inter is too far from adv imo, i think you gotta include inter hard in there, or at least another level in between

i can try during the weekend, but I'm very unfamiliar with S5 so take my findings w a grain of salt

[dawn plinth]

Yeah for controlsphere I do 70%, 80%, 90% speed of the advanced

[dawn plinth]

Actually that's a good thing imo. You are fresh and unbiased

[amber bough]

i guess this works, yeah. maybe what you need is more back and forth between scens

instead of going 70-80-90-100, coming back to slower scens when you feel yourself getting sloppy

or plateauing

so if i were to do it the sequence of sets might look like 70-80-90-80-90-100-90-100

[dawn plinth]

Just run it like 3 times each and let me know what you "feel"

[amber bough]

yeah actually ykw ill try it rn. hopefully im not too washed with it

[dawn plinth]

Yeah I'm not playing so much anymore so I try to keep it simpler

[amber bough]

you got a share link?

i guess that's the other thing, ive really been going hard at it recently 😅

[dawn plinth]

But also have more variety so there is not only controlsphere in there anymore..I have a overcommitment issue which leads to brain afkness

[dawn plinth]

Of what?

[amber bough]

the variants

[dawn plinth]

I just ment check controlsphere s5 inter 3 times and advanced 3 times

[amber bough]

ahh i see

[dawn plinth]

And see if these also feel like almost different scens to you

[amber bough]

they still feel very similar, though yeah the jump in difficulty is way too high for me to play them next to each other

wonder if you can try inter/inter hard/adv instead of nov/inter/adv

[dawn plinth]

Hmm. So it's just a new thing

[amber bough]

im getting 3.5 on inter and 2.3 on adv 😂

[dawn plinth]

Yeah I keep novice in because I get PBS from time to time and get somewhat high on the leaderboard

[amber bough]

nah thats fair LMAO

[dawn plinth]

That's actually good imo for just starting it cold

[amber bough]

i really do recommend trying mixing in the hard variants if you have the time to mix them in, really smoothens out the difficulty curve. overall hope you find what works for you though 🙏

ive been burning 2 hours a day on aim training so i think it's a lot easier to see the score gains in my case

[amber bough]

there truly is no escape

launched kovaaks and fell down a slippery slope; resting tomorrow again, shoulders are sore from static

[dawn plinth]

haha. sorry

[dawn plinth]

its definetly playlists. playlists help me so much in general. its a bit more work beforehand. but when I try to do what others often recommend "choosing a scen and just learning/pushing it" I overfocus and neglect other stuff too long.
So 3 focused playlists on what I currently want to achieve seem to be the sweet spot rn for me

[amber bough]

aall good got some reps in static 😂

[amber bough]

i see, carry on then; whatever helps you get conscious, deliberate reps in. the how changes, the why remains the same

(try baking in inter hard in them playlists 😈)

[dawn plinth]

It might already be in there not sure. Wasn't at my PC today to check

[amber bough]

140 Minutes: BoltSwitch Advanced

• cycling thru difficulties, with some regen and tracking variants mixed in. Couldn't PB in BoltTrack advanced
• need to push switch speed at least a tiny bit more
• more importantly, though, floor on how quickly I can kill bots has to be much higher. too many cases where I struggle with a bot and it costs me several seconds
• some air would help for sure. need to use fingertips more
• lots of close calls, but ultimately no PB. probably need to spend more time with bolttrack advanced and boltswitch med hard
• spammed too much today, needed that 2 hour hard cap

[stark creek]

you have built in AI in your bloodstream i just know it

[amber bough]

ill take that as a compliment, thanks 🙏

[haughty pecan]

Lets gooo

[amber bough]

90 Minutes: Viscose Benchmarks

• cleaning up scens + the ones that got replaced
• air pure is still a bitch
• tried my best to emphasize blending of fingertip and arm control in the switching scens
• Seal Complete, Celadon Complete

[amber bough]

180 (90+90) Minutes: SteadyTrack Advanced

• subpar reading, especially during direction changes
• bit rng based, but floor has to be higher. med hard and air angelic hard should help
• went on autopilot towards the end of the first session, music helped with locking in. played other variants I usually skip to help keep the session fresh
• PB during first session, several close calls in second session. Was on AC+ instead of my Hien cos I forgot to swap my mousepad, but scores didn't seem to change that much. makes sense cos the two are somewhat close to each other in terms of feel
• PB on benchmark, +1 energy from 866 to 867

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Mhix5GpmA

[stark creek]

holy fuck this dude is getting gm scores already

[amber bough]

135 Minutes: PokeSwitch Advanced

• cycling through difficulties
• good self-benchmark to have is that the med hard version should be pushed to at least 200 points ahead of my current adv PB. overall played more of the easier versions this time, but still not enough. probably a good idea to go out of my way to push intermediate version to max energy as well if I wanna break the plateau.
• again, just trying to flick as fast as possible without running out of tension
• maybe not emphasizing clusters enough? should play more cluster-oriented scens to help push the ceiling
• PB towards the end of an extended session, which is normal for pokeswitch days, less than a target's worth of PB, but we'll take it
• I already know my micros are slow, but I don't really know how to improve on that. working around that weakness has yielded more results than trying to directly tackle it, historically.
• PB on benchmark, +2 energy from 867 to 869

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhouOP8xx1E

[amber bough]

already is quite the stretch, but thanks! also congrats on master, insane grinding

[stark creek]

i’m excited to see you grind the adv kovaaks scens

[amber bough]

may or may not happen, we'll see 🙏

[stark creek]

why not??

[amber bough]

time constraints 😂

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: Pokeball/Static

• DM 1w3ts Pokeball, Lvl 1-7, ~10 reps each. Emerald for all of them, pretty much. Elite is out of reach for today.
• some Setsunai's Static benchmark afterwards. Seraphic Copmlete (max rank easy difficulty)

[amber bough]

any day with a static PB is a good day. never taking this for granted 🙏

115 Minutes: QuadShot Advanced

• one run-through of DM Static S2 L1 to start
• threshold method (max 10 reps) of VDIM Static I, skipping thru quadshot variants. However, max 10 reps of quadshot advanced before switching to a variant (10 reps or PB), then going back to the benchmark.
• emphasizing reorienting myself, especially when I get shaky or sloppy with my flicks
• still trying to lower tension as much as possible so I can dedicate more to micros, while also being as explosive as possible post-click
• running through the variants was pretty useful, though noticed wide flicks getting a little sloppy when I go for cluster/speed/pulse variants. still worth it though
• DM static helping a lot. the more I can get my initial flicks to be accurate, the faster and more fluid my micros can be
• PB on benchmark, +2 energy from 869 to 871. Adv Quadshot now has higher energy than Med version lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoRzdJg_wQM

xyz smoothness s2 horizontal tomorrow to prep for shifttrack

[dawn plinth]

Let's go! Static pb

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: Precision Tracking

• xyz Smoothness S2 Horizontal (Virtuoso Complete) - locked at 40-45cm to emphasize wrist and fingertip smoothness
• Aimerz+ Precise Tracking Diamond Complete (only needed two more scens, Smoothbot pauer glider and deceptive tracking) - locked at 40-45cm to emphasize wrist and fingertip smoothness
• VT S3 - Smoothbot Voltaic Jade - fast bots make me dizzy so didn't spend too much time here
• VT S5 - SnakeTrack Intermediate Master - a scen i really enjoy despite all the slander it gets for being too easy/cheesable, but maybe it's because i enjoy raw smoothness

ShiftTrack tomorrow

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: ShiftTrack Advanced S3

• forgot to run lasertrack at 30cm like I was supposed to. instead did 40/45/50 for 5/5/10 reps of lasertrack novice/med/elite and cycled through shifttrackdifficulties
• 53-62cm for ShiftTrack. starting at 53, and slowly raising to 56/69/62 when I plateau
• idk if it's because i came from a workout but arm movements moving towards the center tend to be very very jittery
• lots of overshooting. maybe a little too much tension? adjustments could also be faster and less overflicky
• no real new insights though. just gotta keep on working on centering, speed matching, and minimizing lost points from direction changes
• PB on benchmark (59cm), +4 energy from 871 to 875

popcorn/popcorn adjacent/dynamic scens tomorrow to prep for popshot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6A47TFabUM

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: Jade Palace Ground Benchmarks

• saw vt gen arguing about it so gave it a shot
• as usual, i think advanced/top players aren't very good at calibrating which scores and scenarios are good for novice and intermediate levels (viscose benchmarks is probably one of the few exceptions). this is especially true for reactivity, and so i really noticed it here. you can't just put lower score thresholds for diamond and say diamond players should grind a relatively difficult scen, especially if you're trying to emphasize reducing flick blindness
• overall not bad, though some Easy scens are a little too difficult for me so grinding them would just lead to me building bad habits, as someone that has a lot of trouble with flick blindness

[stark creek]

flick blindness?

[amber bough]

not being able to see the target and its movements because you're flicking too fast (e.g. during direction changes). applies mostly to reactive tracking

[amber bough]

130 Minutes: PokeSwitch Advanced

• landing initial flicks is highest priority. if not enough flicks are landing, gotta slow down/use less tension to stop.
• started getting sloppy and needed to go back to being deliberate with my flicks, similar to static where I try to take a small moment to reorient before flicking to the next target. lines need to be more accurate
• PB on everything but Advanced, pretty much. I think I just gotta keep grinding Med and Med Hard, while trying to emphasize relying on my micros less and less
• not farming clusters well enough either. maybe some 1w6t pokeball from DM static would help?
• PB on Med benchmark, +4 Med Energy from 859 to 863

some dynamic tomorrow and PopShot the next day

[amber bough]

135 Minutes: Bounceshot (S4), Popcorn (S5)

• mostly just spamming. focus was on target prioritization and chaining
• Jade on both benchmarks

[amber bough]

115 Minutes: PopShot

• was trying too hard to be on pace for PB that accuracy was low and I had a hard time warming up into the scen for med hard
• focus has to be on accuracy, and really slowing down pace. I can hit GM with 65 or even 60 shots as long as I slow down and actually line up my shots.
• to help force this, lowered my sens to 52cm. Quality of runs definitely improved, but a little too late
• PB on Med benchmark, +2 Med energy from 863 to 865

I think I wanna push this, so more popshot tomorrow

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: PopShot

• focus was on high accuracy, slow movements, and putting slightly less emphasis on chaining. 60 shots should be enough for GM
• a bit better results today, focusing on cycling thru difficulties but spending way more time on Adv benchmark, probably at least half the session on it
• PB on Med benchmark, +1 energy from 865 to 866
• PB on Adv benchmark, +2 energy from 875 to 877

enough popcorn for now, Jade Palace ground tomorrow to prep for some QuakeTrack

youtube.com/watch?v=MP3exF1wQrI&feature=youtu.be

[amber bough]

110 Minutes: Jade Palace Ground Fundamentals, Easy

• focus on reading and really hammering not over-predicting into my head and my wrist
• got a few jade scores before getting stuck at ground plaza sparky v3 ow

QuakeTrack tomorrow

[amber bough]

(from yesterday)
210 (90+120) Minutes: QuakeTrack

• main focus is identifying which profile the bot is on
• rough speedmatching
• fast adjustments during long strafes, slow adjustments during short strafes
• not enough reading, too much autopilot.
• short strafes and far bots still the main struggle, just gotta spam far variant + close strafe scens
• a couple of close calls but no pb. lack of PB getting to my head, just gotta chill and keep grinding

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: SmoothSwitch

• no need to flick fast, smoother landings are more important
• need more emphasis on tracking and regen variants
• no PB for today on Adv

110 Minutes: e1se Tracking Routine

• this was pretty fun for me, I do not remember the last time I tracked a bot
• very easy ground routines, but with high score reqs
• Beginner - Master Complete
• Beginner+ - Master

[amber bough]

145 Minutes: ShiftTrack

• lasertrack + difficulty cycling
• some misreads (thinking the bot strafed but actually didn't)
• just gotta focus on improving centering and wide angle tracking
• I think I need way better scores on lasertrack elite and med hard variant if I want to get Nova on this
• too much time on easier variants at this point, maybe cap at 5 reps for everything except lasertrack elite and advanced+adv variants
• i wonder if I'm using up too much tension?
• no PB on Adv for today. small PB on LaserTrack Elite, at least

[amber bough]

115 Minutes: VIscose Benchmarks

• knocked down quite a few cerulean scores. no bueno on whisphere despite half an hour of grinding, though. control hard 🙁
• 20cm really good for me for the reactive scens with big targets. even higher might be worth exploring.

[amber bough]

155 Minutes: BoltSwitch

• one or two bots costing me runs. floor has to be higher
• a couple of decent runs, but no PB. went overboard as well, should've limited the session to 2 hours
• BoltTrack Elite and advanced regen variants should be the go to for practice

[dawn plinth]

I really dont get whisphere and smoothbot. smoothbot especially. I dont like it

[amber bough]

whisphere i can write off as a skilll issue, smoothbot is just straight up unfun when it flies directly over your head and messes up your run

[dawn plinth]

Tbf exactly that moment is a good training situation 😀
But I don't like it as well 😀

[amber bough]

it's good practice and it ruins runs score-wise, both can be true, yeah 😂

[amber bough]

120 Minutes: Viscose Benchmarks

• more viscose med benches
• main focus was on proper tension management and not slacking on my flicks
• Whisphere (focus on target reading) and voxTargetClick 20% Small (focus on chaining and proper target prioritization) left to get Cerulean Complete

[dawn plinth]

Damn your sheet looks balanced !

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: Viscose Benchmarks Med

• Whisphere - focus on target reading, and keeping nerves in check
• voxTarget Click 20% Small - clean flicks and steady micros. go for a clean 95 instead of a sloppy one
• for both scenarios, what helped the most was removing unnecessary movements, and being deliberate with each motion
• Cerulean on both, bringing me to Ceruluean Complete

haven't really been as steady with aim training lately, might take it easy for a bit. break from S3 as well since ive been plateauing, will mostly just be playing kvks and maybe AL official benches if ever

[limber wadi]

ive been focused on playing the game more and spending time trying to translate my aim ingame, occasionally ill hop on and run a couple scenarios or one of my playlists to warmup if i feel like it

[amber bough]

i want to do the same eventually, but hoping to get some more grinding in before that point. not like aim training is getting boring, but there are other games waiting to be played 🙏

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: Viscose Benches Med

• trying to get a few Lavender Scores
• cloverRawControl Easy - Lavender- came down to learning bot movement pattern, staying calm, and not overflicking
• PGTI Voltaic Easy - Lavender - as the category suggests, needed to blend control, particularly between arm and wrist. the rest came down to not slacking on target reading
• skipped Reactive because all of the closest scens to Lavender were gauntlet scens, and I was not in any mood to torture myself at the moment, plus all of them were recently played so I doubt I can push them much. in hindsight, maybe could've tried the alternative scens instead
• 1w3ts reload - PB - usual static pointers. deliberate, clean flicks, and taking moments to reorient when the flicks got sloppy. solid PB, but not enough for Lavender

[amber bough]

75 Minutes: Viscose Benches Med

• more viscose benches today
• Polarized Hell Easy 20% Slower - Lavender - tbh feel like this is a little bit rng for me, just praying for long strafes. need to be more consistent with short strafes
• FloatTS Angelic Easy - Lavender - proper tension management, switching between arm and wrist/fingertip quickly
• Pasu Angelic 20% Larger - Lavender - pretty much just Floating Heads with occasional strafes to ruin your runs. focus was on not trying to double click/chase targets and just keep going
• Floating Heads Timing 400% Larger - just good flick hygiene, very similar to static technique but with the added element of linear clicking allowing for click timing to help me out with hitting targets

sens distribution on evxl is very cool

PGTI doesnt make sense tho lmao why is the median outside the IQR

[tender gyro]

This should be fixed now, I was incorrectly merging the data previously

[amber bough]

oh damn thanks goat, appreciate everything you've done here
overall benchmark leaderboard was a fantastic update as well 🙏

[amber bough]

still alive, tho it might be a very long time before i do this regularly again, if at all. not hitting gm sucks, but goal was to hit it before 2026

i do be lurking tho so yall better keep grinding 👀

[dawn plinth]

I wondered where you were. Take your time. Enjoy life

[old laurel]

Bro remembered his password! 🤣

[amber bough]

not doing too bad! just switching priorities for now, right back at you. keep going 🫡