Okay, so say I go down to 2* maps and learn the HR/DT mods right now for those maps. DT is exactly what is sounds like, doubling the speed of the song I am playing on, and HR does this, "Hard Rock (named after the hardest difficulty of the DS game Elite Beat Agents) decreases hit circle size by 1 tick while increasing the overall difficulty, approach rate, and the HP drain by 2 or 3 ticks of their original value up to a maximum of 10. The difference in AR is often hard to notice except when used on maps with an original AR of 7 or greater, as it will push the AR to the maximum value of 10. Hard Rock can be a very difficult mod (especially on insane maps) as it not only demands higher cursor accuracy, it also requires the ability to read lightning-fast approach circles. Additionally, this mod flips the map on the X axis, so that elements that were at the bottom of the map are now at the top and vice versa."
Neither of those two mods creates new patterns for my eye to learn, so in a game where recognizing patterns to match with rhythms is extremely important, I don't see a reason to learn HR/DT until I've gotten to a point that I recognize most difficulty level patterns (including stream length, stream speed, jump distance, etc.) since at each difficulty level, new patterns are introduced. While you could make the argument that I could learn these patterns on lower songs, easier difficulty songs have less notes than hard songs, so it would take longer to run into the tougher patterns on these easy songs. While HR/DT seem like EXTREMELY valuable tools for improvement, I don't see much worth to doubling speed of a song of increasing AR/decreasing circle size if you can't recognize the patterns in the first place. I'd rather learn the songs nomod up to whatever wall I hit, then go back and learn DT/HR on songs that I enjoyed playing nomod.
Neither of those two mods creates new patterns for my eye to learn, so in a game where recognizing patterns to match with rhythms is extremely important, I don't see a reason to learn HR/DT until I've gotten to a point that I recognize most difficulty level patterns (including stream length, stream speed, jump distance, etc.) since at each difficulty level, new patterns are introduced. While you could make the argument that I could learn these patterns on lower songs, easier difficulty songs have less notes than hard songs, so it would take longer to run into the tougher patterns on these easy songs. While HR/DT seem like EXTREMELY valuable tools for improvement, I don't see much worth to doubling speed of a song of increasing AR/decreasing circle size if you can't recognize the patterns in the first place. I'd rather learn the songs nomod up to whatever wall I hit, then go back and learn DT/HR on songs that I enjoyed playing nomod.