I've also been one to change my sensitivity a lot when I was doing bad and always legitimately did better afterwards. For a while I thought it was because the sens was better but when I kept changing in a cycle I realized since I was unfamiliar with the sens I had to focus more on hitting shots instead of relying on muscle memory. I don't think you did better after changing it because of placebo but rather because you had to focus on aiming more because you didn't have any muscle memory to back you up.

If I went from 9" to 14" I started focusing more on the crosshair and individuals rather than being aware of people and letting muscle memory take over. I think of accel similarly along these lines. Yes, it helps you at all distances but I'd want to never get used to it because the lack of muscle memory is what would help with accel the most imo. Sounds weird saying that though. I'd personally stay away from accel unless you're playing games that are drastically different in terms of what is needed from your mouse movement.

what mouse are you using...maybe you're experiencing negative accel w/ the mouse due to a flawed sensor or you're using the wrong pad for your mouse (laser mice skip on certain pads).

I compiled sensitivity data from invite/prem players a while ago
For invite/prem soldiers the average sensitivity was ~7.6"/360. And assume a bell curve distribution around that...it goes as low as ~2"/360 to as high as ~14.

For invite/prem scouts the average sensitivity is around 15"/360 but the median range is grouped from 8-14". Bell curve distribution from as low as 5.6" to as high as 35" (wtf).

If you're completely lost its likely best to start from the median ranges there and figure out your own preference.

around 20-30cm works pretty good for pretty much any game you'll play. If you cannot adjust to sensitivities and have to insist on changing it constantly then there's some mental block you gotta get rid of. I have days where I change my sens and it doesn't take too long to adapt.

How does your computer performance fare in most games? Could be an issue, too.

I'd recommend you find a threshold in which you can change your sens between different values. I used any sens between 3-4 (400dpi) in game and modify accordingly, might help if you find yourself not happy with your settings.

There is a sweet spot for sensitivity being between about 8-14 inchs. Bloodsire has said this, along with a few other people. If you take a look at any top level scout, their sensitivity is pretty much around the 11-12 inch range. I'm not saying you should copy them, but it's definitely something to look into, and if you're stuck for ideas I would suggest trying this out.

There are exceptions, such as b4nny, but you should base your sensitivity around what feels most comfortable, not what class you play. I personally play with an 11 inch 360 and can rocketjump and do 360's just fine. I'm also a scout/sniper main.

Edit: It seems other people have said this as well, I did not realize that. At the very least, I can emphasize their point.

11in 360 is what i use because I palm grip, have my entire arm from the elbow down resting on my desk, and have a huge mousepad.

If you claw grip on a dirty, small mousepad and are resting your wrists on the corner of the desk then of course you should adjust your sensitivity accordingly

Personally, I went from the latter to the former and I just went from a 5 in to 11 in just because that was what took the same amount of muscle effort to go the same distance

The setup all comes down to personal preference, and intrinsically that will affect your sensitivity

It's all personal. I have a small-ish Kone Pure Military resting on top of a rather large SteelSeries QCK+ which I lay my entire arm on. I play at 21 inches per 360, because anything else doesn't feel 1:1 to me, I played on 17 inches for a long while, but that ended up feeling a little off, so I retried everything and 21 inches (400DPI at 2 sens) just felt right.

i quit caring about what the perfect sensitivity was and have been using 6in/360 as a scout main for like 3 years

it honestly really does not even matter what you use as long as you can line up your shots and kill people.

but if u honestly need a low sens just hover around 11-15 inchs for scout preferably 12 inches IMO

Are you left handed?

If you want a range of sensitivities to constrain a max/min sens.
Play scout, start with a really fast sens and try to keep your crosshair over a moving or stationary bot target whilst running or jumping around, keep lowering your sens until you find the fastest sens where you can do this comfortably. You can have this as your upper bound on sens.

Play any class, scout/solly demo. Start with a really slow sens and keep your crosshair, or targets off the screen and try to flick quickly to said targets (or between targets). With a really slow sens this will be uncomfortable to do, keep raising your sens until you find the lowest sens that's comfortable for doing this. You can have this as your lower bound.

I'd recommend playing around your lower bound, but then experiment with your sens using these 2 exercises and try and find an optimum.
When you've chosen something, don't fuck around with it for a while, try and develop a muscle memory for that sens.
Don't think about how you're aiming or how your sens should be in actual games and just think about what you should be doing ingame. I've always found that I aim way better if I'm not concerned with whether I'm hitting shots and am concerned about what my team and I are doing with respect to positioning etc.

4.3"/360 :Z