The best way to see trend for altitude excursion is to look at the end of the 100ft pointer on the altimeter. It shows trend much faster than VSI, which has quite a lot of lag.
Unless you're flying something big that has its VSI fed from the IRS. I remember flying steep turns with a 737-300 sim in the MCC course and an assessment. Maintaining altitude was a doddle with an eye on the VSI. Never tried it in a real (large) aircraft, though.