Is this mouse grip the best for CS2 & VALORANT?

I went over an amazing thread that Dr. Hwu put together where he broke these grips down. We take a look to see what his findings were and I add all my thoughts as usual!
I do actually think this grip style is awesome and worth trying if you are curious. I feel like there are interesting advantages that could be fun to play around with especially if it suits your current setup preferences.
Dr.Hwu's Thread: / 1780632077840568553
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[@iamPod]

The similarities between the kinesthetics of playing an instrument and gaming are strikingly similar. I play classical guitar and piano and the rules for healthy technique for both can be translated to mouse grip. In class. guitar, your right hand should sit in a relaxed position that resembles a loose claw grip. With piano, proper wrist posture is closest to the grip discussed in this video: floating freely and straight, but relaxed. Obv it isn't a perfect 1:1 conversion of techniques, but I think it is close enough to be significant. Having proper technique with an instrument allows more efficient and accurate movement along with preventing injury from long term practice, kinda similar to what's important for gaming as well.

[@Rose-ng2zp]

this is the content i've been looking for, please continue to do content like this on mechanics, the scientific side of it and all the nerdy stuff. I really really love learning about this, I also do research on the side and these videos are super helpful for me too

[@catsdaug]

even tho we can observe this kind of grip from photos and short clips, it may be difficult to know exactly how players operate with it. I played with the grip for few months, and I kind of doubt that players with this grip rest their palm on the mouse and putting pressure on it. to me, this grip provide a more stable and smooth motion when you are constantly doing large horizontal movement, which is a major thing playing low sens CS. I also feel like it offers better micro-adjustment after the large horizontal movement, because you are kind of manipulating the tension with your fingers, without the wrist sometimes at an awkward situation.

[@ArsonistGhost]

where do they rest on their mouse then? unless theyre always hovering w their mouse this is the logical solution to rest on your palm

[@catsdaug]

@@ArsonistGhost yes they are hovering, only controlling the mouse with fingers while anchoring with their forearm or elbow, at least that's my guess. some part of the palm may touch the mouse, but it's just mere contact, without putting pressure on the mouse. you can try to play with the grip resting your palm on the mouse, now wiggle your wrist, it's uncontrollable.

[@snusson4405]

for me it is 3 things first of which you talked about more: 1. The sensor being further back adds stability 2. Button height lowers as you grip the mouse higher 3. Moving from wrist centric motions to arm centric motions is more seamless. Especially when comparing to grip styles that really plant the base of wrist to the pad. I've found that middle hump mice work great with this style. Hiking the back of your palm a little up on these kind of mice doesn't add too much distance between the pad and the base of wrist (Similar concept as low button height but for the back of your hand).

[@FeintMotion]

Frod, tr1p, Fisker and Hyper are some legends that also used this grip and stance. It was far more common in the Golden Age of esports as sensors, mousepads and LAN setups combined to prevent the effective use of lower sensitivities while limiting the amount of surface area that could be dedicated to mousing.

[@hicheurnassim7319]

I tried this grip a year a go and I can confirm it's the goat grip, but very hard to master, the gist of it is when you switch from arm aiming to wrist aiming to do the micro correction you plant your wrist on the mousepad and you lose time few milliseconds for this transition to happen, but if you're wrist is planted on top of the mouse not the mousepad there's no transition so it's way better, but unfortunately tracking with the wrist hovering is very hard to learn.

[@Fwuuck]

I've been using this method of mouse grip since like 2014 for TF2 and early CSGO, but I didn't know how to explain it. Too bad I'm ass at the game lol.

[@Solvvvv]

Nice shoulders Dan u been working hard in the gym I see

[@ddkesports]

Thanks, been consistent again these last few months!

[@AXEONyo]

Shiftable sensor position on Y axis should be a thing - again modifies distance from wrist

[@Terra101]

This is what needs to happen next for mice. But sadly the big mass have not realized the importance of sensor positioning yet, just like they didn't understand the importance of mouse weight until pretty recently. But now everyone knows lighter mice is better. The argument of low sensor position = more stability is the same as saying a very heavy mouse is better because it gives you more stability, yes but actually no. I really hope manufacturers catch onto it soon, I see G-wolves have started to place their sensors correctly, so that's a good start. Articles like this from doctors who do not play with a mouse is very damaging tho. I hope we don't go backwards because of this now, placing the sensors awfully low ala MM710 and Aerox 3. Buy the Aerox 3 and see how your micro corrections feel, then try a mouse with correct placement like the GPX, HTX, NP01, XM2, G403, MM720, M800 Ultra. Go back and forth and focus on finger and wrist aiming.

[@seuas]

Wats the best optimal built mouse ?

[@Swingpassfromthecorner]

I've been using this grip for about 9 months (inspired by Twistzz) and I love it. It was cool seeing Donk come up in the last few months with a similar grip aswell. Interestingly for me i found theres much LESS static friction than my old grip because my old grip (relaxed claw) had skin contact with my pad (artisan Zero) which was messing me up particularly in high stress clutch situations. Tbh if you have good grip suited to your hands there won't be much downward pressure for me personally I needed a glossy mouse cause i have dry hands. I won't lie though my flicks were pretty shit for the first couple of months it took some adjustment.

[@glashausAimz2]

if the sensor is too far back the range of movement just feels very limited, while i simultaneously lose my anchorpoint on the pad. i think that hover gripstyle is a good case for what works for them may not necessarily work for you.

[@Cyn4de]

thank you so much for this amazing video, solved a big problem for me,

[@zoneland4219]

do you use fingertip grip on val? a few days ago i switched to fingertip from claw and it doesnt seem to be working very well for me on valorant.. not sure if im doing something wrong, or if its just not good for valorant.. could it be related to my gear? or do i just need to keep aimtraining using fingertip to get better at it? because it seems to work well on aimtrainers and other games but it just doesnt translate on valorant

[@Bovineicide]

I've recently found that claw grip mice hurt the living shit out of my index finger and I had to switch back to my dav3. No negative impact on my aim though lol. This style of grip feels impossible for me with my hand size though

[@smaksauce2672]

what I'm curious is, doctor hwu mentioned in that post, more control comes from your wrist being closer to the sensor, wondering if mice conpanies use this information. And that seems like a drawback of fingertip grip and finger tip mices.

[@glashausAimz2]

i think that the control in regards to those mentioned players comes from the sensor position closer to the wrist. there are players with far better control that dont use this weird gripstyle. if you asking for a mouse that incorporates sensor positioning in their design. i think the storm breaker has an adjustable sensor.

[@Terra101]

He is wrong sadly, and it saddens me that this information is spread as some sort of truth now, especially with this dr assuming that the sensor position has anything to do with why these players use these grips. We need to first ask the players why they use it.

[@neartheend666]

Depending on the aiming scenario I either raise or lower the back part of my palm. But also you should consider CS pros using this weird grip to reduce friction, when most of them play on Zowie GSR/ GSRSE. Pretty much noone uses new "popular" speed or glass mousepads or sleeves. They still play 4:3 1280x , when it's been proven that 2k/4k increases visibility (but benq zowie sponsors tournaments so they're stuck with xl2566k). I definetly wouldn't look at pro players for gear suggestions.

[@owlfury-beast]

I actually think there's a correct answer to this dilemma :) And it seems that you've worked it out yourself. It's quite a simple approach: When doing small precise adjustments you may leave the base of the palm on the pad. It's also a bit more ergonomic since you're not putting any muscle into use and the wrist deviation from neutral is minimized. Meanwhile for short bursts of tracking lifting off (hovering) is a smart thing to do since it prevents your palm from sticking to the mousepad haha. And also makes that direct connection between forearm and sensor. What I personally experienced myself is that I used a G400 for a long time while hovering since it was just very large. I then struggled so hard to find a fitting mouse since I thought that large ergos like the EC1-A were not big enough for my average hands. Oh the surprise when I realised that you can put the base of the palm on the pad and most mice on the market now fit 😅 Hovering also caused some wrist pain for me, especially when using claw grip. I read somewhere that having fingers flexed and wrist hovering at the same time produces insane amounts of muscle strain. That was probably the cause.

[@SphinX_CS]

Great video. When the sensor is closer to the wrist, the sens is effectively lowered for wrist movements(smaller arc size), whilst staying the same for arm movements. Great for higher sens aimers for more control in my opinion.

[@ddkesports]

Thanks! Yeah, actually, after making this video, I decided I would try to experiment with this again for fun.

[@SphinX_CS]

@@ddkesports Oh nice. I might give it a go. I've had an on and off issue, where clicking increases the friction a lot for a split second, making tap duels and micro adjustments harder. Maybe this will be a work around. 🤷‍♂

[@Terra101]

Putting the sensor lower for control is like making your racing car slower to make it easier to not drive off the road. The sensor should be placed about parallel to where you put pressure with your thumb for it to feel correct. Think of the sensor as a pencil that points straight down into your mousepad 90 degrees. In the same way you want to grip your pencil with your thumb, you want your sensor to line up in the same way. This is the reading point of your mouse, (tip of the pen) and to get your hand and finger movements to feel correct in game you want to pinch inbetween where the sensor sits on the mouse, just as that was a pencil that you're holding. This is very natural to us because we already know how to make fine movements with a pencil. This will translate in-game as if you were to hold your crosshair as a pencil between your fingers, very natural and correct feeling. Imagine if you had bad hand writing and instead of getting better at writing, you figure it's your fingers and wrist that makes the bad hand writing (it's kinda true) but it attacks the problem in the wrong end. First of all, you want to place the pen in the correct position, then you want to train your hand writing (aim in this case). You would not try to glue the pen onto your forearm to try to remove your bad hand writing by taking your hand and wrist out of the equation, although doing this would give you more "stability" with your hand out of the equation, you would lose a lot of potential if you were just to train your aim with your hand and wrist in the first place. I think sensor closer to wrist only really makes sense if you're a heavy arm aimer and you pretty much don't use your fingers or wrist at all, then you wouldn't really want those in the equation anyways.

[@Terra101]

@@ddkesports As someone who has thought about the sensor position issue pretty much everyday since 2019 trying to figure it out, experimenting with it in aim trainers and in game, it actually hurts to see that low sensor positioning now is spread as some sort of truth of how they are supposed to be placed. Could you read my other reply in this thread and say what you think? I could try to explain this further to you when I wake up tomorrow if you want to.

[@steve73885]

​@@Terra101how do I pin this for myself because this is 100% the truth!

[@TheMiojox]

I'm super tall and I have abnormally big hands. My mouse is big and still feels uncomfortably small for this... Any tips on mouse brands that could help me?

[@quakeplusplus]

I wonder how having tilted grip and sensor distance from the wrist play into each other. Intuitively further away the sensor and more rotated the mouse relative to your hand the more it messes with your aim unless you take the time to start adjusting for it automatically.

[@shintenshin6686]

am so newb to ask this can this affect aim training with aimlabs or kovaaks ?

[@alangeorge4053]

I feel like they are compensating for their lack of control instead of training that said weakness in my opinion

[@tinychamberz]

fingertippers stand up!

[@HaloDaycare]

You are very handsome brother

[@FaZe-StyL]

This is the grip I always use😈 Twistzz

[@cipicm]

damn you be looking big. quake players be like

[@gussy1z]

I always assumed this is just to avoid wrist pain

[@st4my721]

if i remember correctly clawz uses the same grip

[@WisdomPowerCourage]

No, clawz has contact between his lower palm and the pad. Just look closely at videos of his mouse cam

[@ConcreteKingzOG]

I could never use this grip with my hand i fingertip intellimouse 3.0 and it feels like a kinzu. Mouse

[@otysafiry]

Big hands.... my hands don't contort that way for claw grip to work XD

[@KerberosVal]

This grip scientifically speaking gives carpal tunnel. Please value ur health over elo.

[@TMV_Should_Oil_Up_As_Promised]

Well you can do both but yes this aint good

[@KerberosVal]

@@TMV_Should_Oil_Up_As_Promised u don’t need to grip it like this t fingertip or claw grip for the same mobility, this is just an awful grip

[@zoneland4219]

isnt wireless mouse bad for fps games? why are both your mice wireless?

[@ddkesports]

Wireless tech has been good enough for competitive play since 2017-2018ish. You'll also find that probably 95% or more of pros will be using wireless at LAN these days. In particular, the Logitech gpro wireless is used by more than 50% of pros on LAN.

[@zoneland4219]

@@ddkesports interesting.. i didnt know that. thanks.

[@b0ssdc1]

What kind of band is that you using?

[@ddkesports]

It's the Whoop band

[@b0ssdc1]

@@ddkesports I tought so, do you have knowledge about something like that but cheaper?

[@rat.1]

looks painful

[@filosavage7475]

Doesn't tenz also grip like this

[@ddkesports]

I don't think so. He did try the grip for a little bit, though, afaik.

[@vladimirotes5470]

coping due to 30%lg+ unreachable threshold