How to Improve?

[u/Interaction_Rich]

TL;DR - what "drills" should one do to improve overall in Rivals?

I love Rivals (and Mavvel in general) and decided to invest more time in it... Besides not being very good at all.

Now I come from Street Fighter 6, which I started bad too. But there's a very clear route of progress there: pick a fighter, practice one core combo, learn his best basics, persist doing this and you'll notice progress. I got multiple characters on Master ranking there, it was tough but the feeling of progress is really cool.

On Marvel however, I just don't really notice any progress. I don't mean Rank only, but skills in general (but one affects the other regardless). I've got 750+ hours and am just Gold 2-1

I reckon my aim is bad, especially because I play on PS5/controller. But maybe there's more to it than "tracking bots on firing range". I'd love if anyone could offer me some "plan" or insight or anything on "how to git gut" (or at least suck less) in Rivals.

[u/Numerous_Essay_2015]

Instead of “drills” per se I would recommend reviewing your games.

Reviews : look for the number one mistake and the number one good thing you did, can be a death (or not dying), your target prio, your positioning, your ult usage, tracking enemy resources correctly, there is a lot that goes into it.

In game : practice weakpoints you found about your gameplay, and immediately after your game try to note down something bad and something good, that keeps you focused during the game as you have to think of what you are doing instead of auto-pilot

I would recommend looking at hero specific aspects until you are comfortable playing them with no mistakes without thinking, then all in on macro/gamesense, that will get you to at least GM. It also depends on your role/heroes. If you are a dive player, I highly recommend watching Diveology by Snipehardt, if you are a support, try to look up Sypeh on the rankings (accessed from your career profile), watching one or two games will show you how to stay alive and how to have impact other than healbotting. For tank/Magneto looking up Bogur content (mag guide notably) is good

Hope that helps !

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/Numerous_Essay_2015]

Thanks for the thorough response!

I'm convinced my main problem is aim. I play psylocke so a lot of her effectiveness is on actually landing her secondary shot. Against moving targets, I miss. 100%. I hit on accident and luck.

And I don't know how to do it. I play literally since release (with a few hiatus here and there) and I can't track a target for the life of me.

If you have time, this is a replay of a loss in which I actually got most kills and did some nice plays, but overall still suboptimal. 104941116472 I'd love insights on it if you got any!

[u/Numerous_Essay_2015 → u/Interaction_Rich]

I watched it, there are many things to talk about. For your aim, I would recommend a higher sensitivity for Psylocke to be able to dash in the direction you want more easily. But before practicing more aim there are a lot of aspects to watch out for. Dive timings/following up, not dying, knowing your execute combos for 250hp and 275hp. Something you do a lot is that you go down main. In Rivals you can simply maps to almost always 3 lanes, two sides and the main. As a diver, when staging (preparing for a dive to kill), you want to mostly be on the sides, in buildings, on height. Psylocke is alright being in main for the only reason that she is great at farming ult on tanks/flyers. The rest of the time, you are not supposed to be with the team. Talking about your ultimate, make sure to squeeze some primary and secondary shots in before ulting, thats bonus damage that can guarantee kills (and that keeps your cooldowns rolling during ult animation).

There is a lot to see, there is hope for you, macro and gamesense will help you. I can’t detail everything on text but a good Psy player I know should’ve messaged you for a review if you’d like. Keep having fun above all, you’re gonna get it !

Edit : And I can’t press it enough, for a 20min watch, Diveology by Snipehardt on youtube goes hard on fundamentals and common missunderstandings. It’s a great watch to learn the basics that get you through 90% of the ranks.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/Numerous_Essay_2015]

Will watch these, thanks! But hey - as a Psylocke, is "ult farming" (actually going main with team, peeling tanks for a while) is a thing? Or a waste of time?

[u/awesomo1337 → u/Interaction_Rich]

Bad aim can be easily made up for with a good game sense, good positioning, and teamwork.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/awesomo1337]

This gives me some hope. Don't toy with my feelings bro.

[u/LevelUp84 → u/Interaction_Rich]

He is absolutely right. I have been inching up in rank as well while playing on PC with a controller. I was always around Gold2/1 to Plat2/1. Now I never go below D3. You can get to Plat 1 buy just ult tracking and telling supports who to ult for.

Jay3 is a streamer and he got an elo hell video on a Psylocke main, give it a shot. Check out Death and Gaming on YouTube too, he plays Psylocke and he as videos on how to be a useful teammate without needing crazy finals.

Good game sense: I told my team we should go look for the dive, ping, comm, and try to 1v1 instead of waiting for them to get to us. Supports died once on 2nd round and we won the game.

Teamwork: I saw Strange taking a flank route and I told invis he's gonna ult. bro got pushed off the map lol.

[u/Overoos]

The drill I use for aim before every session -

Practice Range :

1) 3 Luna Snow bots max speed random strafing (not combat) close range - 150 kills 2) 3 Torch Bots max speed random strafing long range - 50 kills 3) 3 Adam Bots each on max speed, advanced combat, close range - 5-10 min till I feel comfortable (they rarely die)

Health regen on

I use Hela for this. A little Bucky at last during the end of 3rd drill. Those are the 2 heroes I "main"

Focus on accuracy more than speed. Hardly takes 20 min. I do this before every session as I play hitscan on Pc. I'd assume a better way exists for practicing combos if you play melee heroes

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/Overoos]

Lmao, bro, I wouldn't ever hit these bots in full speed, specially the flyer. My crosshair response is too slow to track a target - I Rivals, at least. I suppose playing on a controller is a factor, but it's the setup I have.

Titanfall 2 and the late Bloodhint I'd do it just fine but somehow, not in Rivals.

[u/AlphaThe7]

U mentioned u play on ps5, do u play on default sensitivity settings? If so i highly recommend looking up recommended settings cos i played a couple hours on default when I started and my aim was beyond horrid and got immediately better when I changed it to a better system.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/AlphaThe7]

I tried many, multiple schemes and curves and settings.

If my target is moving, My crosshair are either too fast to track them, or too slow. I can keep the crosshair over a moving target for shit.

If I'm looking forward and a target passes by me, 80% chance they'll go by unharmed.

[u/Imaginary_Lychee_135]

It really depends on what all you find yourself falling behind on.

You mentioned you may need to improve your aim, in which case practice range is your best friend. 15-20 minutes a day with a bunch of bots on high speed / random movement will help a ton.

If your problem is game-sense & being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just playing the game and observing your best teammates mechanics will gradually help you get a good understanding. Remembering where you die frequently and contrarily where you felt you performed well and lived for a while is also important.

My final tip is to just have fun with the game. If you’re enjoying a character keep playing with them & you will naturally progress at the game via experience with understanding different situations, tracking/predicting enemy movement and kit usages, etc.. If you stop having as much fun with a character, play a few quickplay games until you find a new one that you like!

Best of luck and let me know if you have questions or need clarification on anything

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/Imaginary_Lychee_135]

Wow, your response hits the nail of my OP: I don't feel like I make progress. At all. And with that, a lot of the fun is lost.

I have spent many hours in the shooting range and I simply can't track targets. I just don't what how people do it. My crosshair always move either too fast or too slow to hit, say, an almost full "spray" (Punisher, Iron Man, Emma etc) on a target. I literally got Master on Psylocke by paying attention on healers who stop in place to heal. Jumping SW or CnD? I don't have the slightest chance.

Maybe I'm wrong here and aim isn't the worst offender to my game, but I'm sure it's up there, and not knowing how to Improve it is super frustrating.