The mouse is probably the most important weapon in a gamer’s arsenal allowing you to navigate those virtual worlds and battlefields. One might consider the mouse to be a tool that allows gamers to put their thoughts into actions inside a game and that is why it is a no-brainer that the mouse is one of the most crucial aspects that determine how well you play a game and how good you perform.
As for simple PC users, what matters the most in a mouse is basically the comfort it provides but for gamers, it is so much more including the ergonomics, design, shape, features, grip, buttons, switches, aesthetics, and many more.
Out of all these, perhaps the grip factor plays a big part in determining your skills in games.
The way you grip your mouse might just change the way you win games and might even help you improve your skills too. Nonetheless, there are mainly three types of mouse grips that gamers typically use which include the fingertip grip or tip grip, palm grip, and claw grip. Other than that some pros tend to develop their own grip style and in those cases, you also have a hybrid grip which is essentially a combination of two or more of the primary grip styles.
The Three Essential Grip Styles
The Claw Grip
Even being much less popular than the palm grip the claw grip has surely and steadily made its way into the world of gaming as one of the best mouse grips for rifle users in FPS games. The name itself is enough to understand what a claw grip looks like. In a claw grip, the hand of the gamer sits on top of the mouse and the fingers curl up to form a shape that resembles an actual claw.
While using this mouse grip the user’s hand has very few contact points on the surface of the mouse and the hand stays arched up all the time which also makes the claw grip one of the most tiring grip styles to use.
Claw grip mice are designed to be a bit short with a small body and a gentle back arch which allows the user to easily have full control of the mouse for fast gliding and flicking movements. If you’re a gamer then you should get the best claw grip mouse which will improve your gameplay. In all honesty, the claw grip can be considered a hybrid of the two other primary grip syles which are the palm grip and the fingertip grip.
The claw grip takes the bests of the two grip styles and combines them into a single style. It retains some of the control that a palm grip o ers and some of the agility that a fingertip grip provides. Overall speaking the claw grip is a much better choice over the palm grip if you need to improve on speed as this style is great for flicking and quick gliding actions while keeping better control than the tip grip.
The Palm Grip
Without a shadow of a doubt, the palm grip style is the most common one among all the other mouse grip styles. Most people who have ever worked on a computer must have used this type of grip style. Whether you are an office employee, teacher or just someone who uses your PC at home, the palm grip is always the best choice because of the comfort it provides while handling with a mouse.
The palm grip requires you to just rest your hands on top of the mouse surface in a relaxed and comfortable way. This grip not only involves maximum contact of the palm with the mouse just as the name suggests but allows provides extra support.
Mice that are meant to be specifically used with a palm grip have a steep or arched back. Such mice are long and are usually wide to allow palms of all sizes to easily fit on the surface of the mouse and thereby provide maximum comfort and support.
Unfortunately, palm grip is not always the preferred grip for all gamers irrespective of the fact that this grip style allows is the most comfortable. Nonetheless, the palm grip is the best grip style one can use for FPS gaming that involves accurate aiming and precise tracking.
Since the palm grip style causes you to use your arm for movement instead of the wrist, it allows for better gliding and tracking movements which is the ideal thing while aiming in an FPS game like Valorant or CS: GO. Unfortunately, the use of the arm and forearm instead of the wrist with this grip style also makes gamers suffer when it comes to agility and quick, rapid, and sharp movements like flick shots.
Fingertip Grip
The most aggressive and extreme of all the mouse grips is the tip grip which involves the least number of contact points between the surface of your palm and that of the mouse. The only thing that you use to control a mouse in this grip style are the tips of your fingers and as a result, the tip grip can heavily improve reaction time and turn out beneficial for the rapid flick movements.
Fingertip mice generally are very light in weight and have flat back arches all in a short body. This grip style heavily relies on the movements of your wrist and thus is the most tiring grip of all three. While speed is guaranteed with this style, precision and accuracy are not so much. This type of grip style is suitable for MMO and RTS gaming where speed is of the essence.
Conclusion
Every style of grip has its own distinct advantage and disadvantage and each one of them allows a gamer to differently manipulate and control the mouse. If you are able to identify which grip style you use and the one that suits you the most then you might tap into your inner skills and make adjustments accordingly to improve your reaction speed, accuracy, and level of comfort while using a mouse in-game which thereby allows you to always have a competitive edge over your opponents.
