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I only became a full-time PC gamer a few years ago, and in that time, I've slowly been developing my mouse aim in all the competitive FPS games I enjoy. I've used aimtrainers, I've mucked around with DPI settings and mouse weight, but I made a fatal error. I ignored my mouse pad.
I've played thousands of hours of Hunt: Showdown at this point, and even if I have a 5-star rating (out of a possible six), I'm still looking to improve so I win more firefights and land slicker headshots. When I hit a plateau recently, I had no idea that a $50 mouse pad at Amazon was all I needed to take me to the next level.
I review all sorts of gaming hardware, so I have no idea why I completely ignored how in-depth mouse pads go these days. The technical rabbit holes you can fall down while searching for a gaming PC, VR headset, or controller, I can understand. But how much could a mouse pad really impact things, I asked myself.
As it turns out, mouse pads have so much depth to them that they can completely upend your FPS aim. In general, they've been getting larger in size recently because the current pro tactic is putting DPI settings lower and going for larger sweeps and flicks. But the material, the weave, the thickness - it can all help you cater to the specific type of FPS game you play, and I had no idea.
There are faster pads which help your mouse glide across their surfaces, which is excellent for faster twitch-shooters where you're constantly switching direction and generally being as speedy as possible. Then there are slower pads which will add more friction to the mix, making control and precision easier, but will eliminate glide.
My problem was that, without realizing, my mouse mat had become worn down thanks to extensive use, and the slick surface I had on it to begin with had been eroded. Little did I know that it was on the slower end of the mouse pad speed spectrum to begin with and, with age, my playing surface was almost fighting my every mouse flick.
Hunt: Showdown is the main shooter I play. It has old Western-style weaponry, which means you need control and accuracy for single-fire shots, but the speed to move around like a Dishonored speedrunner when you're not aiming down sights. There's no need to worry about tracking a target while firing like in Apex Legends, but when every headshot in the game is lethal, there's a lot of quick reflex aiming involved, so you really need a mix of both speed and control when it comes to your gaming mouse, and your mouse pad.
Thankfully, SteelSeries has a range of mouse mats designed for exactly this conundrum. The SteelSeries Qck Performance pads come in three variants, and when we reviewed them recently, we immediately put them at the top of our mouse pad leaderboard. There's a speed, balance, and control option for you, and by opting for the middle option, I got the best of both worlds.
My first match-up using this pad, I played as a solo, taking on teams of three. I scored 10 kills, essentially wiping the server clean by myself, and I immediately felt the difference from the super worn and slow pad I had been using. Changing my playing surface has undoubtedly been the biggest difference maker in my setup recently, and I'm now slightly obsessed with maintaining it so I hold onto that "new" feeling for as long as possible.
Admittedly, you don't actually need to spend as much as $50 to get a good mouse pad. There are loads out there, and I can say from experience this is a rabbit hole worth diving head-first into, so you get the right one for you. Either way, if you've been in an FPS funk lately, maybe your mouse pad is the thing holding you back.
Want to head down some more PC-shaped shopping rabbit holes? Take a look at the best CPU for gaming, the best RAM for gaming, and the best graphics cards.
