Osu! How to Get Good at the Game Guide

Osu! How to Get Good at the Game Guide by loopuleasa

First off, I’ve been playing this game for over a year now and along the way I’ve picked up on a few things that may be helpful to others out there looking to improve.

I’ll continue to apply these methods, because they’re intuitive and they make sense, and I hope they’re useful to you too.

“Play more” isn’t enough

That’s right, that’s the first advice people give around, but that’s just a brute force approach. Naturally the more you struggle with something and muscle through, the more you’ll train but that’s missing the point. Playing the game is obviously the way to get good at it, but the way you should be doing is by what some athlethes call “efficient training methods”.

Being smart in the way you play is the key at getting better, fast.

Challenge yourself

A lot of fun in this game comes from the challenge. I’ve seen plenty of people stagnate at a rank because they found a difficulty range that they can play and they never try something harder ever again. It’s good to know your limit and try to push it. You’ll be satisfied when that happens, and that means you’ll progress.

Don’t be afraid to go higher and higher and surprise yourself.

Don’t try maps you can’t get high accuracy on

Spamming keys without a clear purpose is the number one way of becoming shit and inconsistent at the game. You need to move up in small difficulty steps and what’s important is at each step you clear the map with 93%+ acc at first. For today’s standards, getting 98-99% acc or more is what you should be aiming if you want to be good at the game, regardless of the map you play. This is done by paying attention to the keys you press and developing a sense of rhythm along the way.

Be meticulous, and try to improve your previous plays in accuracy.

Don’t focus on PP, focus on accuracy

Your skill isn’t directly dependant to your performance points. If you want to play for the late game, you’ll get way farther if you improve yourself as much as you can and let the pp amass naturally as you get better.

Accuracy seems to be the best route you can take to reach that step.

Don’t retry maps more than 3 times

This has to do with developing your consistency and trying not to be farmed. I’ve seen plenty of high rankers that retry maps over and over with DT to get those sweet, sweet scores, but when you open up a multi lobby with them and put them to play maps they never played before, they usually fall flat.

The bottom line is: If you can’t full combo a map in 3 tries, you probably don’t deserve PP from that map.

Avoid mods like DT and HR until there’s nothing left to play

That’s right, these mods should be reserved for the people in the global 10k as an unlockable or something, because it’s making people do stupid shit on their way. DT especially. For HR, you simply try to play a map with HR and you fail after the first 10 notes because you don’t have a keen sense of rhythm. For DT, people abuse the hell out of that and that hampers their progression down the line. Avoid these mods, unless you are running out of ways to challenge yourself. There are plenty of difficult nomod maps out there you should master first.

If you ever want to enable DT, try a faster map then.

If you ever want to enable HR, play a harder map with higher OD then.

Don’t fall into a single AR habit

This is a mistake I did, and I played about 99% AR9 maps this entire year, and now I’m catching up on AR8, AR9.5 and AR10 maps to hone my reading, and let me tell you, it does wonders to your consistency, especially the lower ARs. Trying ARs like 7 or lower is a pretty difficult thing to do for most people today that cannot read, but it is a useful skill to have.

If you’re lacking consistency, you probably tuned your eyes too much to a single AR, and you need to switch in order to be more focused on the rhythm itself, instead of the objects that appear.

Set milestone maps and try to work towards them

If you find a map that either you like the song a lot or you love the way it plays, but it’s clearly way out of your league, then put a memento there and try to keep that map as a goal. This will keep you motivated to improve. You don’t need to play that one map over and over again, instead improve yourself on other maps that you can play reliably and go harder and harder until you reach that level.

If you want to play a map really really badly, some day your wish will come true if you keep at it.

HD is good for you

Hidden can be a really annoying mode to try and master, but I have to say out of all the methods I tried this one was a huge boost to my consistency, reading and rhythm sense. It can be worthwhile to try it when you are ready, and you’ll be rewarded. The biggest reward for me was the fact that it got me closer to the music.

It never hurts to enable hidden, unless it makes you unable to play the map.

Try to always improve your snapping

Snapping means getting towards your next circle as fast as you can. Your aiming hand needs to be tensed and really snappy, while your tapping hand has to stay calm and relaxed. Snapping is good for you, especially when a fast song section is coming up, you will be ready for it.

Try to be aware of the fact that even though the song is slow, you should always try your best at snapping to the notes.

EDIT: Studies from Kynan Lab have shown that snapping to every single note is not necessary. Instead, snapping to the start of a pattern properly is what people should be striving.

Try to avoid cursor dancing

Cursor dancing can reverse some training you’ve done in the past by making your aim all over the place. It’s good fun when you do it from time to time when the song asks for it, but try not to overdo it.

Fact: Cursor dancing makes everyone cringe when you miss.

Streams are hard, especially if you aren’t in sync with the rhythm

First off, if you are failing streams that means that you cannot control the rhythm and you should probably practice a slower map with streams in it. Your tapping hand needs to be relaxed and focused on the notes in the stream, and accuracy is more important than you think when it comes to streams.

Use the rhythm to your advantage, and keep your streaming hand relaxed.

Try paying attention to pattern starts more

Each pattern has a start, and if you’ve encountered it many times over, if you time the start right the rest should follow easily. Especially true for streams.

Once you understand when a pattern starts, you can flow with it easily.

Knowing how to alternate is good for you

Alternating, even if you don’t do it all the time, is a skill set you should have down the line. There are some song sections that become much much easier and in-tune with the rhythm if you know how to alternate.

You have two fingers, and you should be utilizing both.

Focus on the music and rhythm above everything else

This is a rhythm game at the end of the day, and music is the key here. Always try to look for maps with music that you like to listen to, because that will keep you engaged in the game and it will prevent getting you burned out. If you can play a map as well with music as without music, then something is clearly wrong. You’re not utilising your ears fully.

Music is fun and it’s your best friend in this game.

If you are unsure what you should be improving, here are the skills this game demands:

• Aim – Moving your cursor to the map objects.
• Accuracy – Hitting the note as close on the rhythm as you can.
• Reading – Comprehending what you should be doing next and where you should be moving.
• Speed – Refers to the BPM limit you can reach while still maintaining high accuracy.
• Stamina – Closely related to speed, managing to survive hard or lengthy sections of the song without feeling fatigue.
• Consistency – How reliably can you get good scores on a wide variety of maps?

Pick one of them, and find maps and methods that you can use to boost them.

I mentioned that you need to focus on things you’re bad at, and for me, this is the route I took ever since I began playing the game:

1. Learning to follow sliders
2. Getting A on easy and normal songs.
3. Getting A on hard songs
4. Managing to hit triplets
5. Managing to do medium sized jumps
6. Learning to snap to the circles as best as I can
7. Getting A on insane songs
8. Managing to do cross-screen jumps
9. Managing to FC maps (PP comes here)
10. Learning to hit doubles
11. Learning to do short bursts of streams
12. Learning switching fingers at slider ends (basically the beginning of learning to alternate)
13. Learning to do medium length stream sections with high accuracy (PP comes here)
14. Learning to do maps with HD (PP comes here)
15. Learning to alternate slider heavy sections
16. Learning to alternate jumps
17. Learning to tap with my non-dominant finger
18. Learning to alternate full time
19. Learning to follow streams with HD on
20. Learning to reliably pass complicated patterns with high acc and HD

Now, this is what I’m currently focusing on improving:

• deathstreams and stamina
• my singletapping speed on fast maps
• high acc HD on 5star+ maps (PP comes here)
• learning rabbit jumping and fast jumping reliably
• properly snapping all the time dead center in the circle
• learning not to miss stream jumps
• getting FCs with HDHR (PP comes here)

I don’t intend playing anything with DT, since I don’t like how sped up music sounds, but that’s just me. In reality DT is good for you if you want to become a speed freak, just don’t neglect your acc.

That’s all, hope it was helpful.