For a long time I absolutely couldn't stream. At all! Regardless of BPM, anything past 15-20 circles killed me pretty much. Now I can basically get through most songs that have kinda long streams like maybe 20-40 circles then it goes back to jumps n stuff. So keep in mind I'm not all that great, yet. But some things have clicked that might help others who also had the frustration of failing at streams and not knowing how to fix it.
BTW play more is legit advice, but it seems to be used a lot by people who couldn't be bothered elaborating. From what I understand what people should say, or what they might mean but don't say, is that you should play LONGER sessions, play a A LARGER VARIETY of maps, play with SPECIFIC INTENTION to improve any given skill, and play more songs that are just about at the limit of your comfort zone/skill level. You'll never improve by always playing maps you can FC without breaking a sweat. Well, you might, but I think it'll take a while.
This is what I found: (please note that some of these might seem unrelated to streaming specifically, but they still do probably help with it).
1)
Tapping with pointer finger and ring finger made triplets and streams WAY easier, somehow. I don't know why. Triplets used to be the absolute bane of my existence, and they still are to some degree, but it's much more managable now than before I switched to this style. I used to tap with pointer and middle fingers, for almost the whole time I've played Osu, and after the switch everything was so much easier. This could definitely be just me though, so take this with a grain of salt. Also, I watch BeasttrollMC and a bunch of other high level players a lot and I noticed that he is REALLY good at streaming, even compared to players of seemingly comparable skill level. I saw that he taps with his index and ring fingers. So maybe there's actually something to it further than just his preference?
Side note: I bind my keys to E/G, so I can rest my hand close to the keyboard at a bit of an angle. Makes it a ton easier for me than when I used Z/X or Z/C. Also an added bonus is that I can stretch the lifespan of my keys by changing the key bindings every once in a while.
2)
Take a day or two break from the game every two or three weeks. You'll come back to Osu kind of rusty for the first 20 minutes or something but then you'll play way better (in my experience).
3)
Obvious one, download streaming maps of various BPMs and difficulty. Those ones that are only the stream for 2-3 minutes with basically no break are cool and all, but I find that actual maps that happen to have a lot of streams in them are much better than those practice maps. Yes, there are many practice stream maps that have jumps and sliders and stuff mixed in to give you a break, and those are great, but I'm only saying I had a lot of difficulty with the endless stream practice maps, and didn't feel like I was progressing with those at as nice as a rate as the other types of stream maps.
4)
Turn up your effect volume, and turn down your total volume to the point where you can hear the beat of the song, the sound of successful hits in-game, AND the sound of the key strokes on your keyboard. This way, you have multiple sounds giving you feedback on your performance. The effects in-game only sound if you hit the note, so that's no help to you if you're missing them and you don't know what speed you should be tapping versus what you are actually doing. That's where turning down the max volume of the game helps, because hearing your keyboard too tells you what your fingers are actually doing. This may seem weird and useless, but to me it definitely helped, and was gave me much more reliable feedback than the timing bar down the bottom of the screen (if you have that thing enabled anyway).
5)
Know where your comfort zone is. Personally I find it easier to stream or burst 180-200 BPM than 120-150 BPM. This is probably because I haven't built up very great finger control yet to handle slower streams, and so the 'let your fingers have a spasm' strategy feels easier to me. But that's how it is.
Because I know where I can do streams most easily I practice those first in a session, then over time start going with slower and slower stream maps until I start completely failing. My theory is that if I do this enough I'll develop control to handle a much wider range of BPMs, and THEN I'll think of going up in speed once I've gained confidence.
6)
This might seem very weird but I found that it's kind of motivating and humbling at the same time. Play songs that are WAY WAY WAY outside your skill level (for me 6 star and above) that are very streamy, like Honesty, and play them with No Fail and Half Time. If you're like me, you'll bomb it hardcore, and get maybe 50% with many many fails, but it'll give you the chance to experience patterns that more skilled players face, specifically in this case really long streams in between hard jumps and tech. With the Half Time you'll probably be able to hit some of the streams, but you'll probably fail a lot to be honest. But that's the point! For me, it's very humbling to see just how good the top players are when I can't even pass a song that's about half the speed of what they're playing, but also it's motivating as all hell because I can kind of see that with enough devotion to the game, I could get to that skill level.
Another reason to do this is that the streams in these harder maps move around a lot more than easier stream maps, so with the HT you have some chance of hitting them and you can practice accuracy with your cursor, which I consider am individual skill under the umbrella of streaming.
Obviously this shouldn't be the bulk of your stream training, it should be more of a measuring stick for yourself to see your improvement in what should be the hardest streaming you'll attempt.
-----
And there you have it. If this helps you in any way that's awesome, I'll be glad. If you disagree or think I'm completely wrong anywhere let me know anyway, I could use any feedback, because getting better at this game is way more fun than plateauing or getting worse.
BTW play more is legit advice, but it seems to be used a lot by people who couldn't be bothered elaborating. From what I understand what people should say, or what they might mean but don't say, is that you should play LONGER sessions, play a A LARGER VARIETY of maps, play with SPECIFIC INTENTION to improve any given skill, and play more songs that are just about at the limit of your comfort zone/skill level. You'll never improve by always playing maps you can FC without breaking a sweat. Well, you might, but I think it'll take a while.
This is what I found: (please note that some of these might seem unrelated to streaming specifically, but they still do probably help with it).
1)
Tapping with pointer finger and ring finger made triplets and streams WAY easier, somehow. I don't know why. Triplets used to be the absolute bane of my existence, and they still are to some degree, but it's much more managable now than before I switched to this style. I used to tap with pointer and middle fingers, for almost the whole time I've played Osu, and after the switch everything was so much easier. This could definitely be just me though, so take this with a grain of salt. Also, I watch BeasttrollMC and a bunch of other high level players a lot and I noticed that he is REALLY good at streaming, even compared to players of seemingly comparable skill level. I saw that he taps with his index and ring fingers. So maybe there's actually something to it further than just his preference?
Side note: I bind my keys to E/G, so I can rest my hand close to the keyboard at a bit of an angle. Makes it a ton easier for me than when I used Z/X or Z/C. Also an added bonus is that I can stretch the lifespan of my keys by changing the key bindings every once in a while.
2)
Take a day or two break from the game every two or three weeks. You'll come back to Osu kind of rusty for the first 20 minutes or something but then you'll play way better (in my experience).
3)
Obvious one, download streaming maps of various BPMs and difficulty. Those ones that are only the stream for 2-3 minutes with basically no break are cool and all, but I find that actual maps that happen to have a lot of streams in them are much better than those practice maps. Yes, there are many practice stream maps that have jumps and sliders and stuff mixed in to give you a break, and those are great, but I'm only saying I had a lot of difficulty with the endless stream practice maps, and didn't feel like I was progressing with those at as nice as a rate as the other types of stream maps.
4)
Turn up your effect volume, and turn down your total volume to the point where you can hear the beat of the song, the sound of successful hits in-game, AND the sound of the key strokes on your keyboard. This way, you have multiple sounds giving you feedback on your performance. The effects in-game only sound if you hit the note, so that's no help to you if you're missing them and you don't know what speed you should be tapping versus what you are actually doing. That's where turning down the max volume of the game helps, because hearing your keyboard too tells you what your fingers are actually doing. This may seem weird and useless, but to me it definitely helped, and was gave me much more reliable feedback than the timing bar down the bottom of the screen (if you have that thing enabled anyway).
5)
Know where your comfort zone is. Personally I find it easier to stream or burst 180-200 BPM than 120-150 BPM. This is probably because I haven't built up very great finger control yet to handle slower streams, and so the 'let your fingers have a spasm' strategy feels easier to me. But that's how it is.
Because I know where I can do streams most easily I practice those first in a session, then over time start going with slower and slower stream maps until I start completely failing. My theory is that if I do this enough I'll develop control to handle a much wider range of BPMs, and THEN I'll think of going up in speed once I've gained confidence.
6)
This might seem very weird but I found that it's kind of motivating and humbling at the same time. Play songs that are WAY WAY WAY outside your skill level (for me 6 star and above) that are very streamy, like Honesty, and play them with No Fail and Half Time. If you're like me, you'll bomb it hardcore, and get maybe 50% with many many fails, but it'll give you the chance to experience patterns that more skilled players face, specifically in this case really long streams in between hard jumps and tech. With the Half Time you'll probably be able to hit some of the streams, but you'll probably fail a lot to be honest. But that's the point! For me, it's very humbling to see just how good the top players are when I can't even pass a song that's about half the speed of what they're playing, but also it's motivating as all hell because I can kind of see that with enough devotion to the game, I could get to that skill level.
Another reason to do this is that the streams in these harder maps move around a lot more than easier stream maps, so with the HT you have some chance of hitting them and you can practice accuracy with your cursor, which I consider am individual skill under the umbrella of streaming.
Obviously this shouldn't be the bulk of your stream training, it should be more of a measuring stick for yourself to see your improvement in what should be the hardest streaming you'll attempt.
-----
And there you have it. If this helps you in any way that's awesome, I'll be glad. If you disagree or think I'm completely wrong anywhere let me know anyway, I could use any feedback, because getting better at this game is way more fun than plateauing or getting worse.