Ranking up and hitting higher difficulty level patterns

[Dinglesberry]

So, I recently came back to FFR.. I used to think i was pretty decent at the game back in the day. Then I looked at my PA....

Since I've been playing, I've really been focused on ranking, I think the ranking system is amazing, excellent work done on it, it's a huge part of what makes FFR the best rhythm game for me, I have friends who play osu but it doesn't compare.

That being said, since the tournament especially, I have been much more focused on PA rather than just combo. I sort of had a moment where I realized that the only time you get goods are when you aren't accurate or your fingers stumble.

I'm curious now, how much of a weight does difficulty level have in ranking? For example, I'm rank 2000~, and I can usually sdg low 60 songs or so, perhaps I can AAA but I have difficulties being consistent for long songs, I suppose that's another matter though.... Would it be better to focus on getting more accuracy on songs I'm comfortable with, or having worse PA on higher difficulty songs? I suppose to get into the sub 1000 ranks, you would need to be able to sdg 70+ songs regardless, so I suppose the best way to improve long term is to work on speed with high level songs.

That leads into my main question: how do you practice the patterns that begin appearing in higher difficulty songs? For example a song i like to practice with is buzzards, but my best is like 38 goods because of the super fast rolls and random "spam" notes - i feel like I can barely read them, or move my fingers fast enough... Is it a matter of playing on a higher speed mod (or at least until you can comfortably see the patterns)?


Tl;dr whats the best way to improve your ability to read and to play some of the faster, "spam" patterns that begin to emerge at the 70+ tier songs, in order to break into d5+?

Any tips, songs you played with and such would be greatly appreciated, amigos.