I have learned more about how to connect with targets at long range by driving a spotting scope than I have shooting, no question about it.
Yes, you need to be a solid shooter to be able to consistently break clean shots.
If you haven't compensated for wind, you might as well not take it off safe.
There is no better experience than watching bullets fly downrange through quality optics with high magnification or resolution.
Being able to see at least impacts, but preferably vapor trail or the actual bullet in optimum lighting conditions (sun behind you), will really show you how your bullet behaves in the flowing soup of the wind.
I've been actively driving a spotting scope since I was 19. I'll be 42 this year. Just spent the weekend driving a spotting scope, binos, and LRF for 2 days, and I'll be doing it again soon enough.
After we get dialed in during my courses, I like to partner teams up, or get on a shooter's rifle and put them on my spotting scope behind me so they can see bullet trace or flight path behavior and impact after flying through the wind from their own gun.
When someone first tells you to hold .5 to 1 Mil into the wind off the target, it feels so wrong, and the tendency is to not trust them, to still stay on the target. Getting behind the spotting scope will make the light bulb come on very brightly. "Ohhhhhhhhh...."
My first rounds on target now in good wind will be either edge of plate, or off the plate with the correct mil hold based on my total analysis of the wind effects I see, from my position, to mid-range, to 2/3-3/4 of the way to the target. The more indicators I have, the better. Kestrel, wind flags, mirage, vegetation, tree tops, whatever I can see gets quickly factored in and I shoot the conditions as close as possible to the readings.
Yesterday, I took some video during my DM Course shooting steel. We had shifting winds, with shifting speeds, but they weren't too bad. The biggest thing you will see on wind deflection is often the BC of the bullet. With 6.5 mm, I don't really have to hold much wind, even at moderate speeds. We had a wind from the right pretty much the whole time on that part of the range, so you have to start favoring right and holding right edge of plate with a .308 even in the 400yd distances and farther. With 6.5 Grendel, I could stay basically in the center out to 400yds, then favor slightly at 500, a little more at 600, and at 1000yds, I was 1.3-1.5 Mils when I made my hits on the little silhouette.
You can see vapor trail in my video at 600 and 500yds: