Doing nothing but pure DM and MGE won't make you better. It'll make you aim better thats for damn sure but dont let your gamesense fall short in place of good aim and knowing when to do what.
Best way to get better is to play PUGs(and with better players if you wanna improve alot but you need not fuck around in these times)

Also, alot of MGE and DM is somewhat beneficial, but if you play MGE and only play a certain style that alot of people consider 'playing gay' isn't near as beneficial to you as improving in uncomfortable situations so you are better prepared for when they happen in a match.

also, goodluck and remember fun exist too

those are solid numbers bro, fuck the haters.

Really, if you are playing 3+ hours of dm-mge a day, yes your dm will improve, but you may begin to hate yourself after a week. If you just keep playing the game, while making A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO IMPROVE YOU AIM you will get better.

This means pubbing, training maps, PUG.NA, or even MGE / DM. Go into the server with the goal of improving your aim on your mind. Whenever I DM, I coast, and just end up holding W and running into spam without focusing on what I'm supposed to be doing, and that's why I'm terrible.

And if all else fails, just switch to Soldier.

Four hours of DM a day would certainly help your aim, but I can imagine you'd burn out of that regimen fairly quickly. If you're really worried about your DMing abilities, just DM/MGE/whatever an hour before your matches/ scrims. You're in iron, where it's expected for people to be learning the ropes of competitive.

But DM isn't really the most important thing. The important thing will come with time and research, and that is gamesense. Especially in lower divs. I played all class backup in steel forever ago, and was absolute garbage at aiming. I still carried my own weight because I only picked fights I knew I could win.

generally playing against people who are slightly better than you will cause you to improve the fastest

scrims are the best way to improve followed by pickups
demo reviews are good for every class - although it is better to get a mentor at lower levels than to review them yourself imo
dm is good up until a certain skill level (right around mid IM I think) at which point you might as well be playing a pub because basically everyone you are playing with is worse than you
if you can play mge against someone you find a good match for you whether it be scout v soldier or scout v scout I think that is a lot better than playing DM
playing mge in general has a lot of dead time so I would say dm is better than mge when you are playing with randoms

generally you want to be INGAME (scrimming or pugging) for at least 2.5 hours if you really really want to get better and that's really the important part

I don't know if I would recommend PUG.NA, considering even if he does get picked he'll probably get smashed and not learn much. Mix would be better. Good tips about being sure to focus on actually improving while DM'ing.

I main pocket, but here's my 2 cents. SOAP DM and MGE are helpful, but won't really help with your gamesense. Scout is one of the classes where DM is probably more important, but IMO the best way to improve is pugging and scrimming often. Getting out there and playing gives experience, which by far is the most helpful method.

You may have low damage numbers now, but it might not because of bad DM. Are you constantly overextended or too far back? Is everyone on your team comming enough? Do you try to work together as an actual team and not as skilled individuals?

Also, scouts aren't necessarily there to have high DPM. They simply get frags on weakened enemies, cap points and guard the flank. Demos and soldiers are the ones that do a ton of damage.

if i've figured out anything about practicing dm, it's not do it for longer than 2 hours or else i might go crazy and end up slicing myself up, but that's probably just me

and maybe the problem isnt your dm; it might just be your gamesense
just remember not to pick 1v1s and you'll be fine

try watching more scout demos of people like enigma
you might also be able to figure out some aim gimmicks, too

edit: just realized around 6 other people said the exact same thing i did, so i'll try to help with some stuff
just add me and we can mge sometime if you want to
i could also go all ruwin mode and try to teach aim theory but really, you should learn that through experience

its all in the jeans

http://i.imgur.com/F21Sevm.png

hmmm

where arctic joe at

NEWBOTS

put on your weights and enter the time chamber

sv_cheats 1
host_timescale 3
Scout vs. Scout

three hours of 2x speed ultiduo a day and you'll be a dm god in no time

just an fyi on taking advice from rainy, he suggested that you should watch demos at 600% so you can learn the game faster.

If you can stand playing dm for 4 hours a day then I'd say do that.
Otherwise Finding a mentor/Demo reviews/Scrim/Pug/Dm(for as long as it's bearable) are all things you can do to improve. If you're in iron the most important thing might be getting the basics of the game down.

Tf2 is an FPS, it doesn't matter if you're doing the "right" thing if you miss all 6 shots. I think a lot of new players are stuck with the idea that gamesense is the most important thing. It's certainly important but the biggest difference between IM and Invite is dm. The strats don't really improve, the execution does.

I don't even know how you can come up with a number. He just has to be productive with his time.

Play the game - don't overthink things. Don't play too much, 2-3 hours a day of TF2 should be more than enough over a decent period of time.

Watching your demos is one of the most important things. A good extension to this is knowing when to pick fights, knowing when to play the heal beam, etc. Good decision making is an important asset when playing any class. Talking with your team about your game is also a good idea; ask them what they think you should be doing. It may not necessarily be what you SHOULD be doing, but discussing your play with your team is extremely important so you are all on the same page. Working on avoiding damage (especially initial damage on rollouts) while still being in a position to be useful is probably one of the most useful assets, as you don't delay your critheal and can be aggressive earlier.

I would agree working on dm is probably a good idea, but you can just play pugs/ring for teams and eventually aim good that way.I guess if you can't readily get "decent" pugs or ring for some other teams/more scrims, then dm is the next best thing I suppose. dm'ing for more than an hour a day for me would make me want to stab myself, though, but that's by the by. There are plenty of people with good gamesense that I know/knew that were able to play in a way where their "weaker dm" was practically a non factor.

EDIT: I personally have never focused on "improving aim" in the time I have played TF2. I just played the game with the aim to have fun, thought about the game a lot, and watched a lot of my demos and other players. Just be confident in yourself and click on the other dude; you may miss sometimes, but fuck it at least you are trying. Confidence is the biggest factor in taking duels that may not favour you (e.g. low hp, no overheal, small/confined area vs soldier, etc)

EDIT2: fwiw sheep plays/played fuck all dm/mge, but he's a robot so I guess that's probably irrelevant

i can tell you that my scout dm has significantly dropped from when i stopped playing dm/mge for at least two hours a day

dm is nice, but i'd think you'd build up your aim in mge since it's in a 1v1 situation

i've realized in dm i always end up cleaning up kills from other fights, which really doesn't help my overall aim in the end point

you shouldn't completely rely on mge as a guideline to how good your dm is, but it will force you to aim since it is a 1v1 scenario

even if you get 20-0'd in mge, as long as you slowly get better by learning from each experience, your dm will eventually improve

it just takes time and effort

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/18435/collection-of-resources-tips-for-6v6

This basically brings everything together.

i thought pug.na was dead?

Alright, here goes my attempt to reply to you guys. First and foremost, thank you all so much for the replies!

You’re totally right, and I should have specified in my first post that I still scrim for my team, ring for any team I can, and any iron/steel pugs I can find, I should have mentioned that the DM+MGE was in addition to scrims/games!

As far as MGE goes, I definitely wouldn’t play the “gay” sit back and pistol to death and sit back and spam approach, id try to play it like id play an actual 1v1 in game. Thanks for the reply!

They aren’t god tier invite numbers, its not good enough! Strive for 400 DPM, gotta carry the team.

I don’t actually mind DM, but that’s because im bad enough that unless I get rattled, there’s usually someone I strive to kill, which has kept me going so far. Overall, I pay almost nonstop attention to improving, but I feel im not playing enough/putting myself in situations to improve it. Also, isn’t pubbing bad due to bullet spread messing with aim?

Soldier, that could work, although I feel id be bored of shoot feet get kills, id have to go pro, use the skill enhancer. (Plz Stream more)

I feel that the DMing for an hour before matches and scrims hasn’t been enough for me, I haven’t been satisfied enough with my DM ability, or the consistency in my aim, and it’s been costing me. I do realize im Iron, but the goal is to make it past that.

My gamesense is one of the strengths to my game, according to my team at least, but its not enough for me to get by, as my DMing ability isn’t there to let me get by even on gamesense alone. Furthermore, My team overall doesn’t do a ton of damage, so I need to output more damage than simple clean up.

It sounds like DM should last me awhile then haha, don’t think im hitting mid IM DM ability for quite a while. Demo reviews have gone alright so far, really the biggest thing that anyone is commenting on is how im missing shots or not doing a lot of damage on shots. I am trying to get a PUG group together, but time is always an issue. Id do TF2centers, but the number of off classes and stupidity I run into is enough that its almost not worth it for the good ones I play.

Yeah…id probably get shit on harder than I already do in DM haha, which is Mix?

Im trying to get as much playing time I can, but this training is in addition to those.

Ive been told that positionally im sound, I don’t think my team calls damage enough, but I think we work together pretty well. The team damage output is probably whats affecting my frag count the most, but im getting used to everyone calling me and my scout partner for low kills.

I don’t believe that gamesense is the issue, according to my team its not, I just cant find a consistency to my game. Luckily, DM doesn’t drive me insane, because I used to play maps like turbine and sawmill, just to DM people at the center of the map.

I will certainly take you up on that MGE offer, and Ruwin was a genius, so aim theory would certainly be interesting and helpful!

Well… The logic is sound, faster speed allows for shorter demo time, shorter demos allow for more demos to be watched, round that out with training in the time saved? That could work haha

You’ve hit the nail on the head of my problem really, sometimes I’ll miss 5/6 shots, or 4/6 shots and end up doing 20-40 damage in that clip, aim is my problem, so DM was my suggested way of rectifying that problem.

Our teams got a real problem in the demo sense, 50% of us always watch our demos together, the other 50% don’t watch them at all. That said, if I send them this post, it might do something about that. My teams also working on getting those 3 in mumble as much as they’re on steam, since it gets our team together and helps our cohesiveness. I do recall ruwin saying on the I46 team, that even when they weren’t tf2ing, they were almost always in mumble or playing other games together.

I feel I need to get my DM ability at least to a point where I CAN feel confident about consistently winning 1v1s.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be a robot at tf2? Just be a flat out machine decimating everyone.

Best of luck to you and your team at I52!

its good to hear that doing DM when you play it for dm does have a positive upside and that heavily affected your scout game! I plan out putting in the time in effort, that’s for sure, nice to hear you think im on the right track!

That’s insanely helpful, thank you!

A way I've amused myself while trying to work on my aim is just going onto an instaspawn turbine server or whatever and doing nothing but trying to get ambassador headshots. I'm not sure if it completely translates over to scout, but it is a fun, easy way to relax.

I typically try to avoid twitch-aiming as much as possible for hitscan classes; with hitscan classes I think the ideal is to move the mouse as little as possible and as smoothly as possible while aiming. Don't overtrack, etc.

I enjoy playing ctf_turbine from time to time as it allows me to just relax. some may argue that pubbers are bad for you and they probably are but it can be a nice change of scenery from mge 1v1's if you are getting demoralized or just need a "pick me up"

this said I believe that 2 hours of very good practice is much better than 30 hours of shitty practice

Continue being bad and play 4,000hours you will still play bad.
First something may be wrong in SETUP

1. SETUP
2. PRACTICE

thats the rule.

120hz+ Monitor
300fps
Not bugged mouse (learn from that list https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZzbKDmFOqsP_ut2RdctD01OEbZzbXol6HLwqVkSmZcg/)

As long you have all that and are confortable, without major problems, just practice
Being U G C shitty dont help tough.
play fps, you can be good without that, but that helps alot in high%

whilst 120hz monitors help? you DM better i guess? I dont think they are necessary to still be good.

Everyone else has said what I'd say, and probably a lot more eloquently than I would have.

There's a little game I play in my head whenever I'm scrimming or playing DM. Every time I die, I try to figure out why exactly I died. If I can figure out why I died, then I should be able to come up with a solution for how to avoid falling into that trap the next time. Keep in mind that there are some situations you should never put yourself in. This is a team sport; don't try to be a one man army and carry.

When practicing your aim, don't fire as quickly as you can. Instead, take your time and try to make every shot hit. Dying doesn't matter when you're playing DM or MGE; what matters is becoming more accurate.

And because it can't be said enough, don't force yourself to play DM for long periods of time. Make sure you get at least a little bit in every day, but don't burn yourself out.

2.5 hours is a good scrim night or a mediocre scrim night and one or two pugs and ultimely your last point is the most important part in my opinion scrims are the most productive followed by pickups so you want most of your time to be spent there

I've heard from multiple people that they got a lot better (at aiming) when they upgraded monitors. (With hitscan that is)

It will help with your aim, but it won't necessarily make you a good player.