If you want to improve, you need to work on several things :
- Solo aim practice
Go to a custom game against bots. Set cooldowns on low as you wish, remove annoying cooldowns from bots to avoid getting CC’d all the time.
Practice against different bots. You’ll see people telling you to go against Ana’s because her hitbox is one of the hardest to hit, which is true, but you’ll end up getting used to her hitbox / movements and hers only, so you should diversify your targets.
Do NOT rush in with headshots only. One important thing for the brain is to get a signal every time you actually hit someone. If you go for headshots only, every body shot won’t register and you won’t know whether you hit or not.
It’s important for your brain that each actual hit gives you a feedback.
Then when you get better results you can move to headshots only, but that should always come second.
- Aim practice against actual players
I think this is important. Bots are a good mean to improve, but they move according to predictable patterns, that are sometimes weird. If you’re good against bots, maybe a lot of your shots would miss against actual players (due to strafe spam, etc…) or actually hit whan they would have missed a bot, due to the weird moving.
It’s important to practice against actual players. I like to do this in Arcade mode (FFA or 1v1’s).
FFA is really good as it’s just mechanical and you get to face different characters, and 1v1 gets you used to punishing opponents’ mistakes.
- Improve game sense
This is done by several means.
First, do not one-trick. Playing and trying to learn different characters / roles gives you understanding of said role / character, and how to play with / against it. At some point, you’ll be able to predict the likely moves of your opponents.
One-tricking can improve your rank, but you won’t improve at the game itslef as much as if you diversify your picks.
Second, if you can record your games, then do it and spectate them with / without a coach. Try to determine why you die, why you can’t take point, why you lost point so fast, etc…
Third, watch streamers, get a coach. A lot of well ranked streamers give really good advice, they share their knowledge, etc… You can try and find out about things by yourself, but if you’re open to criticism you can go for that. If you focus on following their advices during games, you will improve eventually.
Fourth, get some sleep and have a good rythm of life. Some people will laugh, because they underestimate how important that is.
To get better you need to spot your mistakes / be able to analyze them / have good enough reflexes to improve. It is important that you take care of yourself. Don’t no-life everyday before your screen.
Take pauses, it’s a good way to keep your focus. If you feel like you’re not focused anymore and get stressed / annoyed from it, go rest / do something else. You’ll most likely just tilt if you keep playing and start playing worse by worse.
Stretch, care about your back. It’s a good way to keep your focus.
Any physical stress is a distraction from the game and thus hinders your improving. Plus, video games can be really hurtful to hands / back, so be careful about your posture.
I think that’s a decent summary of what you can do, surely not exhaustive but good enough imo.
Remember, improving is all about the mindset / efforts you’re ready to put in.
Also, if you play on potatoe computer, then getting good setup with high FPS (in game and on screen) is definitely a plus.
I play with good computer but only 60 FPS screen, and it’s sometimes really tiring. If you can go for 144Hz screen and corresponding setup, then go for it, it changes life.