ok so ive been in GPS assisted mode basically since i started and i want to change that. i can fly fine, no crashes in like 8 months, decent at getting the shots i want. but i feel like im kind of just pointing the drone at stuff and letting the flight controller do everything interesting.

my buddy who flies fpv keeps telling me to just switch to atti mode and practice but honestly that terrifies me. i have a park near me with a big open grass field so i have space, i just dont know if i should start in atti on my mavic or buy a cheapo freestyle quad to bash around or what. also i dont have a simulator set up yet. is the sim thing actually necessary or is it one of those things people say you need but you can get by without

basically looking for a realistic path from where i am to being actually skilled rather than just competent i guess

sim is 100% not optional if you actually want to build real muscle memory without destroying hardware. Liftoff or Velocidrone, either one, just get one and fly it for like 20-30 minutes a day for a month before you touch atti mode on anything real. i know it sounds boring and people skip it but the guys who skip it are also the ones posting crash videos.

as for atti vs buying a freestyle quad ? both honestly. atti mode on your mavic is a good intermediate step because it removes gps hold but the drone is still stable and has some resistance. a proper freestyle quad in acro is a completely different thing, thats where you really learn to fly but the crash rate for beginners is high. if you have the budget a cheap 3 inch whoop to fly in a gym or your garage is honestly the best investment for pure skill building. low stakes crashes, tight spaces, builds your spatial awareness fast.

i went through exactly this like a year ago. what helped me most was just picking one maneuver at a time and drilling it until it was boring, then moving to the next one. started with just hovering in atti mode without drifting, then slow figure 8s, then trying to hold a fixed point while orbiting manually. didnt try anything fancy until the basics felt automatic. the sim helped me get over the initial panic of no gps hold but tbh even 10 mins in the field taught me more than an hour on the sim just because the stakes feel different when its real