No mechanical keyboards will not make you play better. In no way, shape or form are they more superior to any other keyboards.

I actually get higher accuracy using scissor switches (laptop keys) than using my BlackWidow or CM QuickFire.


BUT.... what they can do is help you achieve better stamina, accuracy and speed AFTER you've accustomed yourself to that particular switch or even keyboard model.

Okay let's take a look.

RED SWTICH:

These were mainly popularized by some of the top osu players such as lewa and Cookiezi. What happened after that? Everyone thought they could stream 250bpm using one of these red switch babies. Wrong! Like i said, the power is in your fingers, not the keyboard.

When you press down a red switch key, it feels dull but light, making a little 'thud' as it hits the bottom. These switches are the lightest out of all 4 popular types which is why people get these for stamina. But just because lewa has 101% accuracy does not mean that you will get a boost in accuracy. I actually find these switches harder to achieve SS than with laptop switches or even blue switches. Being too light has its own cons.

BLUE SWITCH:

Basically everyone who doesn't care or give a crap about switches gets blue switches because Razer, being one of the bigger brands, makes all their keyboards use blue switches. rrtyui had these before he switched to red, so did Cookiezi and a couple of hundred other thousands of people. BUT many still use these switches such as Niko and (i think) WWW.

Pressing down on these switches are incredibly satisfying. Not too light, not too heavy. Half way down while you're pressing, you will hear a clear and audible click, as well as pressure alleviating from your fingers. Only bad thing is these are quite loud so your parents will probably kill you for using these all night. Stamina wise, I can't tell a difference between these and reds, but it'd be stupid to say that reds give a slight head over stamina than blues. But these feel more accurate.

BLACK SWITCH:

I call these the 'hardcore' switches. Mainly used by ThermalTake, black switches were pretty much unheard of until the whole "mechanical keyboard" hype. These aren't really popular but they aren't unused. Tom and Jesse are some prime examples (unless they changed...). I think too many people underestimate them, labelling black switches as "hard to use and stamina draining". Which is kinda true...

These switches are just like reds, except 2 times harder to press down, but at the same time, springing up faster allowing faster streaming (newtons 3rd law). Please don't neglect these black switches... for me it's actually easier to achieve higher accuracy as opposed to any other switches.

BROWN SWITCH:

Only hipsters get this. I don't know of any pro's who use them (i've seen one korean player use these) so I guess osu has decided that there's only 3 main switches. I got to use my friends brown switch CM Quickfire for a week since I was curious.

These switches resemble blues, but lighter and much less of a sound, minus the satisfying click. I can see why these are unpopular. They feel cloggy and jammed, terrible for osu, maybe alright for shooters. A combination of being too light + having a pressure release point half way makes these really unstable to use, unless you've been using only browns for a long time, and my accuracy dropped dramatically both seen in the hit error and the score accuracy.



So moral of the story.

It's your fingers, not the keyboard.

I can use this as a guide.

About time someone write up a "demystifying mech kb" post. It'll be useful to those who wanna buy mech kb for the wrong reasons.

As for the brown switches, they're just harder to use for osu because it requires the player to learn "touch typing by fingers" vs blue's "touch typing by ears." For people who don't bottom out each keypresses minus the "noise," brown is just prefect! I own a CM Quickfire TK Pro Brown and I'll not trade it for other types. (But then again I'm not a pro so what're my words worth)

Loves wrote:

I don't know of any pro's who use them (i've seen one korean player use these) so I guess osu has decided that there's only 3 main switches.

I don't know how you define "pro" but your sample size maybe too small. You can see a good number of players owning brown switches in this thread.

What the heck am I doing here.

As a note towards red switches, they do take a bit getting used to but having used both reds and blues, my conclusion was then that it was only a matter of getting used to either of them. However, what made me stick to reds was mainly about it's linear qualities where a lighter touch on fast streams was more easily doable using reds than with blues where the tactile touch requires more force. For any beginner I'd recommend using blue switches, just to get into general streaming techniques and developing stamina; Reds are so light and the shortcuts available are so many, inexperienced players may sometimes focus a bit too much on just executing a certain amount of clicks per minute, rather than something that has to do with rhythm.

I also tried brown switches quite a lot, and I honestly think they're better than blue switches. The tactile feel can easily be ignored with a firm enough input and makes it much similar to red switches. I also noticed how this tactile feel can be advantageous for players that enjoy quick streaming but still want to get that extra tactile feeling for control, without it being as noticeable as with blue switches.

Switching between types of mechanical keyboards has positive or negative effects depending on how much time was put into getting used to that device and foremost the streaming technique being used by that player. One week is not enough. 2-3 months would probably give the best results (with the risk of confusion between switching keyboards and general skill increase for that player).

All blabbering aside, I agree with your main point. Thanks for sharing this with us

browns are bad?!?!?

Noobsicle wrote:

browns are bad?!?!?

For me, not for others. It's all a matter of what you want and how you feel.

For me, reds are the best because I've got low stamina but fast fingers

Brown Switches 4lyfe

They're the best switches for accuracy

Loves wrote:

So moral of the story. It's your fingers, not the keyboard.

(wtf is that conclusion from that whole chunk of information)

For me Blue switches and Red switches are probably the best of all

Black switches are widely used by gamers who have strong finger and knows their stuff

Brown switches are used by people who don't want to make noise and want the tactile feedback

I am a touch typist so brown is also out of the question for having that needless feedback
Black may kill my stamina but I don't know, let me build up my stamina before trying that
When I use my keyboard every presses are deliberate so reds and blues are the best option for me

As kriers mentioned, it's a matter of getting used to the switches. Usually I'd go against people buying multiple types of switches when they are happy with what they have

WWW uses red switches for as long as I've seen his youtube plays.

I switched to browns yesterday as a friend had one for sale (Nothing wrong with it, he just wanted reds). Had been using reds for 5-6 months previously, tried blues at various LANs.

Hated blues. Liked reds. Am in love with browns. Can definitely recommend them if you don't bottom out when you play!

I used blacks for about 8 months, changed to reds for about 4 months because people told me I just needed time to get used to them. After that I changed back to blacks and gained the speed I missed back. When I used reds 220bpm stream were "easy" relative to blacks but after another few months of using blacks I'd say they're just as hard now. I'm gonna try and get my hands on other switches (blue/browns maybe topre) when I get money to see how they compare. When/if I can get them I'll make a feedback thread like this.

Let me fix this thread for you

Loves wrote:

RED MASTER RACE

RedOsmium wrote:

WWW uses red switches for as long as I've seen his youtube plays.

He is alternating between switches (he has all types) depending on his mood.


As to black switches the author forgot about SteelSeries which let their Black-switch keyboard pretty early and it was quite popular. Since I have 2 MX Blacks in my keyboard now I can say that it's easier to stream consistently, helps with acc on slow or optimal BPMs. Good for finger workout.


We should remember that the difference in performance between Cherry MX switch varieties is scarce compared to the difference between rubber dome and any Cherry MX keys..

Of course it's fingers which are doing the job, keyboard helps slightly. But that "slightly" in this game is everything.

Assuming that someone owns all types of keys, wouldn't it make sense that using blacks at first to build stamina then switching to reds afterwards would offer the best results?

I personally used reds from from a membrane keyboard, and the light actuation force felt extremely weird. After i got used to it though, I saw a significant increase in speed and accuracy. I guess its personal preference, but reds seem to take longer to get used to.

Philantropist wrote:

Assuming that someone owns all types of keys, wouldn't it make sense that using blacks at first to build stamina then switching to reds afterwards would offer the best results?

Didn't quite work for me, as reds just didn't have the correct feeling, probably on a personal preference base though. I bottomed out far too easily and was use to the re-actuation force of blacks I guess. Personally prefer blacks or browns right now (don't know why browns are good, I don't bottom out though on streams which is nice.)

It's quite easy to mod your keyboard and insert different types of switches, if anyone is interested in that PM me and I can give some advice. It's much cheaper than buying new keyboards...

what about green, clear, white, and yellow switches

Saint wrote:

what about green, clear, white, and yellow switches

All red circlejerk kids will hate on Greens for being to heavy
Clears are my favorite due to the amount of customization you can do and it will still be a good switch, but still quite unpopular (Maybe I'll go over these)
White are basically a blue switch with a different stem
Yellow switches are the rarest of cherry switches, you can't even find them anywhere

Saint wrote:

what about green, clear, white, and yellow switches

green is really heavy man

Cherry doesn't make yellow switches.

Too be honest I sometimes think this whole obsession over mechanical keyboards is kind of dumb, because mechanical keyboards are made for typing, not for mashing on to them to try to pass Image Material.

What this game really needs are arcade microswitch buttons modified for osu (smaller with less space between keys), as those are actually made to take a beating and to register very precise keystrokes.

I made my own arcade button mod and I think it would be really really good for osu if you could get the buttons into the shape of keyboard keycaps or something similar. I might make a thread about it later.

jesus1412 wrote:

I used blacks for about 8 months, changed to reds for about 4 months because people told me I just needed time to get used to them. After that I changed back to blacks and gained the speed I missed back. When I used reds 220bpm stream were "easy" relative to blacks but after another few months of using blacks I'd say they're just as hard now. I'm gonna try and get my hands on other switches (blue/browns maybe topre) when I get money to see how they compare. When/if I can get them I'll make a feedback thread like this.

I'd advise you to get your hands on a couple of dark grey switches (linear 80g) and see what happens. Would be kind of interesting to see if you improve with those or not.

http://tigerimports.net/sunshop/index.p ... il&p=13708

http://tigerimports.net/sunshop/index.p ... il&p=13709

Tempting.

Dark grey and browns are the ones I want to try.

Gonna list more KB's that look like a good try if I find them

http://www.amazon.com/CM-Storm-QuickFir ... B00EHBECAW

Hard to justify paying 130$ just for trying, I would look into keyboard modding if you're at least a little comfortable with electronics (it's not as hard as it sounds)

Cherry MX Clears are actually really good for osu I think, even if nobody here cares about them. They are like browns but without the muddy/cloggy feeling as described in the OP. Only downside is that they seem to break faster and they're heavier.

Purple wrote:

Hard to justify paying 130$ just for trying, I would look into keyboard modding if you're at least a little comfortable with electronics (it's not as hard as it sounds)

Cherry MX Clears are actually really good for osu I think, even if nobody here cares about them. They are like browns but without the muddy/cloggy feeling as described in the OP. Only downside is that they seem to break faster and they're heavier.

Which is why you can make ergo clears or even panda clears (Black spring in a clear, heavier than original clear spring) and yet another reason why I think these switches are amazing.