Thoughts on this take? Is it a truth people should accept or am I just coping because I use my arm to aim

I'm also thinking the same goes with mouse, higher sens + wrist/finger aim is objectively better than lower sens and arm aim

Yeah comfort is king, but like how tablet is objectively better than mouse (thoughts on this take as well?), wrist/finger aim is objectively better than arm aim

And yes I am aware that there are top players that have big areas use their arm to aim just like how there are top players that use mouse

Considering 3 players in the top 10 are mouse players and most of the non-casual player base is tablet players, I don't think anyone can actually prove tablet is better than mouse.

Osu is the only pc game I know where most people use a tablet to aim. Its pretty abnormal to use a tablet as an aiming device considering tablets are designed for drawing, not aiming.

Also arm aim is king. Just ask any professional fps player and they will tell you not to use high sens + wrist aim. See the below video at 0:48

As a player who uses both arm and fingers to aim, I think that I'm confused

As a wrist player, I’d say it’s all about comfort and anyone got a good mouse recommendation for a small hand person?

Fxjlk wrote:

Considering 3 players in the top 10 are mouse players and most of the non-casual player base is tablet players, I don't think anyone can actually prove tablet is better than mouse.

Osu is the only pc game I know where most people use a tablet to aim. Its pretty abnormal to use a tablet as an aiming device considering tablets are designed for drawing, not aiming.

Also arm aim is king. Just ask any professional fps player and they will tell you not to use high sens + wrist aim. See the below video at 0:48

I'm not sure how much that video applies to osu, I feel like osu aim is a lot less precise and a lot more faster, and it's only confined to a specific area, although I don't play any fps games so I can't say anything on them.

Now that I think about it, it might just be that smaller area and wrist/finger aim is better specifically if you want to aim fast, which in osu is better because higher star aim gives more pp. If that's not your concern then I can't really see how a smaller area and wrist/finger aim will help.

The fact that so many people prefer tablet over mouse as an aiming device in osu might also point towards that fps aim and osu aim is different in some way, maybe the mouse is better for fps because it's more stable and has a wider range of movement which you need for the 3d environment, while you can be faster with tablet?

Anaxii wrote:

As a player who uses both arm and fingers to aim, I think that I'm confused

I use my arm and fingers as well, is it even possible to aim well using arm only with tablet, I'd love to see someone not move their fingers at all lol

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

I'm not sure how much that video applies to osu, I feel like osu aim is a lot less precise and a lot more faster, and it's only confined to a specific area, although I don't play any fps games so I can't say anything on them.

Now that I think about it, it might just be that smaller area and wrist/finger aim is better specifically if you want to aim fast, which in osu is better because higher star aim gives more pp. If that's not your concern then I can't really see how a smaller area and wrist/finger aim will help.

Osu is a faster game and less precise than fps games? I disagree. Many shooters have moments where extremely fast and precise movements are required. There may be less movement overall but fast aim is a huge advantage in a lot of popular fps games. In these situations low dpi doesn't make you slower, your arm can move faster than your wrist and there is no speed disadvantage to using arm aim.

The video applies to osu because wrist aim is bad in fps games so this also applies to mouse players in osu. If you are a tablet player this also applies to you and having a large tablet with full area and mostly arm aim is the way to go.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

The fact that so many people prefer tablet over mouse as an aiming device in osu might also point towards that fps aim mechanics and osu aim mechanics are different in some way, maybe the mouse is better for fps because it's more stable and has a wider range of movement which you need for the 3d environment, while you can be faster with tablet?

Nah the reason why tablet is popular is probably because osu has a large anime/art community and because the game osu was originally based off also used a stylus for aim. Most of the original top players used tablet. This started the trend of using a tablet for aim and its remained ever since.

I dunno. I played both full area and small area before and I can't tell much difference

I don't understand either what you mean by 'objectively'. You're not referring to quantitative data of any sort. Everyone plays differently, no matter how similar they seems at face value. Pen tablet is the norm is because it mimick the original game on Nintendo DS aside from touchscreen, and it's already become the norm for the majority of players

Small area is objectively better for fast movement which is the current meta, top 3 players are speed/speed AIM crackheads and they just fit in the meta perfectly, if meta was CS 6+ AIM bigger area players would sweep

Fxjlk wrote:

Osu is a faster game and less precise than fps games? I disagree. Many shooters have moments where extremely fast and precise movements are required. There may be less movement overall but fast aim is a huge advantage in a lot of popular fps games. In these situations low dpi doesn't make you slower, your arm can move faster than your wrist and there is no speed disadvantage to using arm aim.

Idk how it is in fps games but I'd argue that in osu using a smaller area and primarily wrist/finger movements maybe doesn't necessarily increase the speed you can aim (unless you start reaching the human limit or something), but it makes fast aim easier to control.

What I'm about to talk about is also the main reason I think smaller area + wrist/finger aim is better, which I probably should've talked about in the main post. Another thing is that this is mostly just based off of my personal anecdotal experience, so idk if it applies to anyone else, but I am making the assumption that it does because this is a generalisable theory.

When I play I tend to try and aim very cleanly, without any wasted movements. This includes cleanly snapping onto things like bursts. If you watch Mrekk and Lifeline play, you can see how well they snap onto bursts and things even though they are aiming at mach 2 speed. I personally had a lot more trouble with this, and originally I just chalked it up to a mix of skill issue and slippery tablet surface (which I'm pretty sure are still both factors, especially the skill issue one). But I had kind of an epiphany when watching a Zoomer replay, with his big ass tablet area, wobbly ass aim and similar aim mechanics to me, that maybe my troubles were in some part due to my mechanics.

My theory is that if you are aiming with your arm with a bigger area, to change the direction and speed of the mass of your arm over a larger distance is gonna require a bigger change in momentum than if you had to only change the direction and speed of the mass of your hand over a smaller distance, and I think these larger changes in momentum is harder to control than smaller changes in momentum when aiming quickly, because you are trying to control more force. Like if you had to swing around a stick or something, you'd have a lot easier of a time controlling a lighter one than a heavier one.

It may not be a huge or even noticeable difference when just taking into consideration the small difference in mass (maybe it's not right to use just mass here, because your arm muscles can presumably exert and control more force than your wrist muscles, but I'm guessing like the force/mass ratio would be in the favour of wrist) and distance compared to if you were to aim with a 5kg pen or something, but I personally feel like this could be a significant difference, enough to label wrist aim + small area objectively better than arm aim + bigger area, but maybe this is all insignificant to the point it wouldn't be helpful labelling one thing as objectively better than the other.

I'm guessing that this is possible to generalise to fps games too, like if you had to aim hella fast like in the aim trainer gridshot minigame you'd rather use a lighter mouse and higher sens than the opposite, just that in the wider context of actually playing an fps the other benefits of low sens/arm aim would outweigh this, but I have a 0.8 kd ratio in krunker.io after like 100 hours so I'm speaking out of my ass here.

Fxjlk wrote:

The video applies to osu because wrist aim is bad in fps games so this also applies to mouse players in osu. If you are a tablet player this also applies to you and having a large tablet with full area and mostly arm aim is the way to go.

Does it though? In the video you gave the guy says 4 things about how wrist aim is worse than arm aim. Going through them one by one:

1. Wrist aim can hurt your wrist
I agree that this applies to osu as well, the reason I choose to aim with my arm is because I hurt my wrist by wrist aiming lol

2. Less range of motion
I'd argue that this is less applicable to osu, as long as you can hit the four corners of your screen comfortably your range of motion is good enough, so having a smaller range of motion wouldn't matter if you have a higher sens

3. With arm aim you can focus on making precise motions
I'd argue that you don't need that much precision when playing osu then playing an fps game, to the point that it's not really a huge nerf to your precision when using wrist aim. Again, I don't play fps games so idk how precise you need to be, but watching fps gameplay does look hella precise to my untrained eyes

4. Something about wide angles
Honestly I have no idea what this is about lol

Fxjlk wrote:

Nah the reason why tablet is popular is probably because osu has a large anime/art community and because the game osu was originally based off also used a stylus for aim. Most of the original top players used tablet. This started the trend of using a tablet for aim and its remained ever since.

Not sure if I fully buy this. First, in a game where people try lots of different things and sometimes go to strange lengths to get any sort of advantage or increase their comfortability by just a bit, I feel like the fact that tablet has been such a mainstay does say something about it's viability, especially when compared to fps games where I'm sure there'd be even more playing around and trying things, but tablet is non-existent. Second, I do believe tablet has an objective advantage over mouse, the advantages being no mouse drift, easier aiming/better muscle memory because of absolute tracking, and it's lighter (similar to the reason I think wrist aim > arm aim). I do agree though that what you said did play a huge role in popularising tablet.

Nanofranne wrote:

I don't understand either what you mean by 'objectively'. You're not referring to quantitative data of any sort. Everyone plays differently, no matter how similar they seems at face value. Pen tablet is the norm is because it mimick the original game on Nintendo DS aside from touchscreen, and it's already become the norm for the majority of players

By objectively I mean that if were to compare these two things in a theoretically scientific or objective manner (without actually doing any science or maths because I can't be bothered), maybe we could find that one thing is straight up beneficial compared to another thing.

Of course everyone is different and will play best with different things, but if we were to generalise the osu population into a single theoretical person then maybe that person would be better off with tablet then a mouse, and better off with a smaller area than a bigger area because those things have objective advantages.

Like I'm guessing you agree that using a wooting keyboard is objectively better than clicking with your mouse even though at the end of the day what's best for you is what you prefer most.




I'm on a wall of text streak

KS Wicher wrote:

Small area is objectively better for fast movement which is the current meta, top 3 players are speed/speed AIM crackheads and they just fit in the meta perfectly, if meta was CS 6+ AIM bigger area players would sweep

So you're telling us that a full area player can't be in the top 3?

Anaxii wrote:

KS Wicher wrote:

Small area is objectively better for fast movement which is the current meta, top 3 players are speed/speed AIM crackheads and they just fit in the meta perfectly, if meta was CS 6+ AIM bigger area players would sweep

So you're telling us that a full area player can't be in the top 3?

nah, what im saying is smaller area is objectively more optimal for speed and speed aim that is the meta rn
and larger ones are objectively better for precision take xootynator for example, she is sweeping almost every cs7 map

KS Wicher wrote:

Small area is objectively better for fast movement which is the current meta, top 3 players are speed/speed AIM crackheads and they just fit in the meta perfectly, if meta was CS 6+ AIM bigger area players would sweep

In the same spreadsheet you will find this:

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

When I play I tend to try and aim very cleanly, without any wasted movements. This includes cleanly snapping onto things like bursts. If you watch Mrekk and Lifeline play, you can see how well they snap onto bursts and things even though they are aiming at mach 2 speed.

There are two components to aim:
1. Speed
2. Control

If you increase tablet area without changing your grip at all then you increase control at the cost of speed. However most players that use a small area have a tight grip and/or drag to increase control at the cost of speed. These players are masters at controlling their grip and drag pressure which gives them godlike control even at mach 2 speed.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

My theory is that if you are aiming with your arm with a bigger area, to change the direction and speed of the mass of your arm over a larger distance is gonna require a bigger change in momentum than if you had to only change the direction and speed of the mass of your hand over a smaller distance, and I think these larger changes in momentum is harder to control than smaller changes in momentum when aiming quickly, because you are trying to control more force.

That's true but with a bigger area you require less control to stabilize your aim and so you can use looser grips and less dragging which will allow you to use faster movements than you would with a smaller area. Being able to use more of your arm with larger areas will increase the force you use because you can accelerate the pen with both your arm AND your wrist. This means you don't have a momentum disadvantage because even though you need to travel more absolute distance, you have more muscle fibers engaged in moving your arm.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

Like if you had to swing around a stick or something, you'd have a lot easier of a time controlling a lighter one than a heavier one.

This is a bad analogy. A better comparison would be swinging a pen with your wrist stuck to the table vs swinging a light stick with your whole arm.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

It may not be a huge or even noticeable difference when just taking into consideration the small difference in mass (maybe it's not right to use just mass here, because your arm muscles can presumably exert and control more force than your wrist muscles, but I'm guessing like the force/mass ratio would be in the favour of wrist) and distance compared to if you were to aim with a 5kg pen or something, but I personally feel like this could be a significant difference, enough to label wrist aim + small area objectively better than arm aim + bigger area, but maybe this is all insignificant to the point it wouldn't be helpful labelling one thing as objectively better than the other.

Why do you guess that the force to mass ratio is in favor of the wrist? I would thing think they are either similar or that arm is better because its less specialized and has less range of motion.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

I'm guessing that this is possible to generalise to fps games too, like if you had to aim hella fast like in the aim trainer gridshot minigame you'd rather use a lighter mouse and higher sens than the opposite, just that in the wider context of actually playing an fps the other benefits of low sens/arm aim would outweigh this, but I have a 0.8 kd ratio in krunker.io after like 100 hours so I'm speaking out of my ass here.

Again, speed is nothing without control. Lighter mice are objectively better but lower sens or a large tablet area allows you to use your whole arm in a way we are naturally supposed to control objects.

You use your arm/shoulders to control your larger movements and your wrist and fingers to control smaller movements.

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

2. Less range of motion
I'd argue that this is less applicable to osu, as long as you can hit the four corners of your screen comfortably your range of motion is good enough, so having a smaller range of motion wouldn't matter if you have a higher sens

This is applicable to awkward aim. I've found it easier to hit weird patterns with a lower sensitivity

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

3. With arm aim you can focus on making precise motions
I'd argue that you don't need that much precision when playing osu then playing an fps game, to the point that it's not really a huge nerf to your precision when using wrist aim. Again, I don't play fps games so idk how precise you need to be, but watching fps gameplay does look hella precise to my untrained eyes

You actually do need precision when playing osu. Precision helps with consistency so you can aim at mach 2 speed while also keeping control of your aim

DM FOR MUTUAL wrote:

Not sure if I fully buy this. First, in a game where people try lots of different things and sometimes go to strange lengths to get any sort of advantage or increase their comfortability by just a bit, I feel like the fact that tablet has been such a mainstay does say something about it's viability, especially when compared to fps games where I'm sure there'd be even more playing around and trying things, but tablet is non-existent. Second, I do believe tablet has an objective advantage over mouse, the advantages being no mouse drift, easier aiming/better muscle memory because of absolute tracking, and it's lighter (similar to the reason I think wrist aim > arm aim). I do agree though that what you said did play a huge role in popularising tablet.

90 percent of people don't want to think about what peripheral to use or what area/dpi to use. They look at the best players and just copy them. This is why tablet is such a mainstay.

Mouse drift only really matters for certain maps and its something that occurs over time. The effects of it on aim is overblown and If you can adjust your aim it really doesn't effect gameplay. Mouse might be a bit heavier but if you are comparing weight of a pen + whole arm vs a mouse + whole arm, its not much different.