ball point pens are awful to write with. I hate them... fountain pens are worth a try if you haven’t ever written with one.
Gel pens for me.
I think cursive is a useful skill to learn, just out of principle. Some things were a mistake to eliminate and I think eliminating cursive was one of those mistakes.
I typically use some kind of pilot point pen.
Excepting in Yeshiva where I wrote out an entire book of the Torah using the equivalent of a fountain pen.
But that has nothing to do with the point. Cursive was invented to prevent tears and blots from repeating picking up and putting down a quill pen.
With all manner of modern pens (starting with the lowly ball point), cursive became unnecessary.