Practicing a Class Competitively

I was reading around this section for tips and strategies to learn from and read one post stating that if you wish to get better at a class competitively, then practicing in scrims and pick-up games is the best way to practice. 

I was wondering, though, should you play a class you're terrible at in scrims to get better competitively or would it be smarter to play in a pub for awhile and getting decent to good at it before playing it in pick-up games?

I imagine if you're a poor Soldier or Scout (Like myself), you would only be damaging the team in pick-up games and causing for really bad matches.

So basically, should you practice a class in scrims that you're new at in order to get good, or should you only practice in scrims when you're good to become great? Would teams mind having a poor class on their team if they were trying to learn how to play them?

Well, I'm wanting to sharpen up my core class skills, so I did a search for servers with the following parameters-

*no crit
*no damage spread

Then I filtered the servers to ones below 50 only, then I arranged them into max player capacity (Ignoring those >24 and ideally around 16 max). What you should have is a select few servers that are most likely able to improve your skills as scout/ soldier/ whatever class you play, because only good/ decent players will frequent them (normally).

imo, practice in good pubs, get some experience, then start scrimming along with it.

Nothing wrong with saying

Infusions (would like to play sol this pug but am really bad, pick me last)

in your vent status for a spug. I've done this a few times for classes which aren't my main.

if you want to improve on scout/soldier, do what cascade and numeror said, as they are both 100% correct. for soldier i would alos suggest ammomod, a game mode that helps you practice your aim by giving you extra health (1200 as solly, 800 as scout), and unlimited ammo with no reloads and lets you 1v1 duel anoth player.

but ammomod is more for soldiers demos, for solly and scout too, try this dm server. instant respawn, 6v6, random spaws arounf the mid cap of a map (usually badlands). 2 scout, 2 demo, unlimited soldier limit (keep in mind it's 6v6)

ammomod ip : 67.202.71.165:27015 provided by apolexy industries

dm server ip: 97.107.136.68:27015 the #doinwork guys are admins, pretty sure it's their server too.


hope this helps.

If you're just starting as that class or are really bad at it it would probably be a better idea to at least get a handle on it before playing with the big kids. I guess it depends where you are at. On one hand you might improve faster by playing against better players but on the other hand you might become stagnant as you don't understand the basics.

You should just play. 

Course, do let people know you're not pro level yet, especially around here.

They'll rage at you something awful, even in PUGs.