Sorry for the long and rambly response, I literally have the inability to write anything concisely.
goose7849 wrote:
its almost as if i've gotten worse at tapping and finger control as i play more actually. it's really frustrating because when my tapping hand gets tired i'll go do relax on 4 and 5 star maps til it's okay, and i can hit almost everything. so clearly my aim is decent, but the whole tapping skill is really far behind it.
This doesn't really relate to your finger control problem, but I'd just thought I'd point it out. Thinking your aim is good and your tapping is holding you back because you can play high star maps with relax is kind of a misconception. Literally everyone will be able to play maps a few stars higher with relax than what they can usually play, because just putting your cursor over the notes is a lot easier than having to put your cursor over the notes and having to tap them. Relax isn't actually that indicative of your true aiming ability, because flinging your cursor to every note and precisely placing your cursor over every note so you can tap them consistently and at the right time are fairly different. This doesn't necessarily mean the idea that "so clearly my aim is decent, but the whole tapping skill is really far behind it" is false, maybe your aim is actually cracked and you're hitting 4 star jumps with ease but you can't play anything because stacked notes trip you up every time, idk. It just means that relax isn't really that relevant to your ability to aim without it, or at least not as much as you probably think.
goose7849 wrote:
i've tried messing with offsets since my unstable rate is actually insane, it was 504 once on a map i passed with like a C lmao, which has helped a little i think.
Not really sure what this means. Sorry if I'm somehow misunderstanding and you know all this, but the lower the unstable rate the better. What counts as a good unstable rate depends a lot on the map you're playing, but for me, anything above 200 generally sounds kinda bad. Not sure if this applies to 3 star maps though. Either way, 504 sounds really bad, so it's no wonder you got a C.
Changing your offset will only help if your unstable rate is already good. People generally only recommend playing with your offset once you're unstable rate is consistently good, because changing it before that point won't really change the accuracy you get, but if you changed it incorrectly your future self will have to deal with it after wondering why their accuracy is so bad. And in most cases, 0 is the correct offset anyway.
goose7849 wrote:
and i've been doing finger control practice maps and very slow stream practice maps, etc for about a month now just to try and build the muscle memory
Very epic, keep doing this. Don't know why you feel like you're getting worse. Maybe you're doing something wrong and building bad habits like mashing, or maybe it just feels like that because your expectations are increasing faster than your actual skill and it's just your imagination. Either way, there's always dips and slow points in the ever-increasing improvement graph.
From my experience, I didn't really encounter anything too funky with finger control until 4 star maps, at 3 stars it was pretty much just simple bursts for me. I see you full alternate, which might be why you're struggling with the finger control associated with bursts. Learning to hit bursts while not tapping with the same finger twice in a row is very hard, even for players can hit bursts completely fine otherwise.
If you haven't already, try starting all bursts on the same finger. You might even find it easier to start odd numbered bursts with one finger, and even numbered bursts with the other. A lot less muscle memory to learn if you just do everything the same way.
If that doesn't work out and you want to stick to being a full-alt chad, outside of practicing bursty maps, I'd suggest practicing consecutive bursts even when you're not playing the game, like on a table or on your legs. Never seen anyone else suggest this, but it really helped me when I learned to fully alternate. Maybe it helps you.
Reading is also probably part of the issue, most things not to do with your physical ability is somewhat of a reading issue. No idea how you can get better at reading bursts outside of playing more, maybe use a skin with see-through hit circles if you somehow aren't already. AR probably doesn't have anything to do with it, your brain might just have trouble looking at notes and figuring out finger movements.
It might also be that you could be bad with accuracy in general, not just finger control. If that is the case, I'd suggest looking into ways to increase your ability to tap precisely not associated with finger control, like focussing really hard on timing your hitsounds/key-taps with the music.