I didn’t think changing my mouse to a gaming mouse would make a difference, but it really does seem to make a difference. I think my reaction, response and aiming are now better when playing OW.
Youll find this is true with most peripherals. Upgrading from a mediocre keyboard, mouse, monitor, or headset to a good one will make you pretty immediately aware of how bad the old one was.
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Eh, I’m not sure about this one.
Mice, mousepads, monitors, and headsets do make a difference, I agree.
But keyboards? I’m inclined to say no. An office keyboard did exactly just as good as a “gaming” keyboard did, in my experience.
Well, yes and no. Good hardware can help, that only goes up to a point. After that, hardware will only help if you’re good enough to make use of it.
I could be given a 2 dollar musical item and a 200 dollar one, and I’m quite sure I’ll sound better on the 200 dollar one. But give me a 200 dollar one and a 200000 dollar item, and frankly… you probably won’t notice much difference, because I’m not good with music.
Gaming keyboards often are focused about good mechanical design and sturdy reliability. The biggest selling point for me when it comes to a keyboard is how reliable the “travel” of the key presses are. I like keyboards that have that old school feel (not too squishy and not too short) and you hear the clicks nicely.
As far as maximing your performance with a mouse goes, I have additional tips in my performance guide in the technical support forum:
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Wait until you get a gaming chair.
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The biggest “easy” improvements novices will get is actually through better hardware, though, so it’s more complicated than it seems on the surface. Of course it won’t give them game sense or aim, but their basic mechanics will be less hindered by latency, frame time inconsistencies and hardware faults.
That’s what I said. If you give me a cheap item, even if I’m not very good, the limitations will still show. If your hardware is giving you 60 frames sometimes, and 15 at others… well, that instability will hinder just about anyone. Just like a 2 dollar musical item will show to be junk even if someone as unskilled in music as I am. But if you’re getting a stable 60, then a 120 stable rig may not show all that much improvement. Just like a 200 dollar violin and a 200000 dollar one won’t show any difference for me, because I can’t use either very well.
Depends on how bad the first one was.
Obviously everyone’s experience is different, but my hand stopped hurting after long sessions when I switched to mechanical. The overtravel does wonders.
The 3 most frequently used Cherry switches in keyboards are “red”, “brown” and “blue”. Tactile feedback (clickiness) is zero with red, medium with brown and very clicky with blue.
I think red is awesome for navigation but for other action keys and typing text it feels like pressing against a sponge (basically a spring without a click that activates when pressed down about 2mm deep). For this reason my typical go-to switch is brown that does a decent job at everything (navigation/actions/typing).
With a typical rubber-dome office keyboard you often get a relatively strong tactile feedback (not great for navigation) without the annoying loud clicks of a blue cherry switch.
It is not as noticeable, but a high quality mechanical keyboard with good keys is going to be better than a membrane office keyboard for $10. Key presses require more consistent force and have more consistent actuation times which means your actions are more consistent and responsive as well.
As with most talents, if you have the luxury for better gear, buy it. But if you don’t, don’t let it discourage you, because true talent will always shine through with bad gear. Even sinatraa was tearing it up on 60hz before he was convinced by his teammates in selfless to upgrade.
If your left wrist (assuming it’s a wrist thing) ever gets really bad, maybe consider the Razer Orbweaver. The switches wear (get kind of gummy over time requiring lube) and the wrist/palm rest glue leaking is annoying, and the CTRL/Space clicks (instead of keys), but if you have medium to large hands the ergonomics of the device might save your wrist.
My wrist has been doing much better the past couple years, but 2016-17 the Orbweaver was the only reason I was able to still keep playing OW. (I had 2 mechanical keyboards at launch, too.)
Re: OP, I think my order of what matters is as follows…
- Surface (adequate, flat surface, n.b. 50cm/360 here)
- Mouse (shape + weight is everything, sensor is almost irrelevant)
- Mouse pad
- Monitor (only matters for precision aim, mostly about comfort for me)
- Keyboard (more for comfort than aim, though for m+kb osu! silver switches are everything)
- Chair (arm rest not in way, height is correct for desk)
Upgrading out of a 60hz monitor is the biggest upgrade of all
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Nah it’s not a wrist thing, the pain is in my knuckles and fingers- it’s from bottoming out membranes hard over a long period of time. Mechanical overtravel does wonders, as does tactile feedback but I seem to do ok when I borrow MX red keyboards.
I have considered the orbweaver for additional mousepad space though.
Pfft
laughs in laptop keyboard
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I’ll take a high refresh rate monitor with the frames to match over any of those other peripherals upgrades.
A high refresh rate is such a huge advantage it feels like pay to win. The difference is massive.
Gaming keyboard really focus only a few aspect, and only a few of those aspect matter base on the genre you play.
- Disabling Windows Key - huge selling point for many gamer that accidentally die due to hitting the windows key.
- Key Presses - old keyboard was only able to send in a certain number of key press at a time, causing additional keypress to be dely. This is heavily noticeable in RTS, MMOs, and rhythm games where you’re constantly pressing a lot of keys at once all the time. You don’t really notice it that much in FPS game.
- Travel Time - the actual amount of travel to register a keypress. Honestly, you won’t find it much different than current thin keyboards. Only difference these days is the amount of pressure used to press the key.
- Macros - MMORPGs heavily make use of these, until modern MMORPGs started implemented built-in macro system. These days, people use Macros from gaming keyboard more for productivity work.
The rest are more for fun gimmicks. Media control, RGB lightning, phone stand, etc.
PS: I love RGB lightning per gaming profile since I use to to let me know which profile has loaded, and the common keys I often use in those game with colour coding.
That sucks. 
Yeah, the Orbweaver is probably not going to help with that issue.
I loved the Orbweaver for the extra room (50 cm/360 here lol), which meant it was much more ergonomical than a full size. But I switched to a 60% keyboard (Ducky One 2 Mini) a few months back (clicks on the Orbweaver started dying after 3 years of heavy use) and it’s alright… leaves just enough room to still be comfortable.
Performance-wise, I think I’m better on the 60% (with Silver switches). Doesn’t matter so much in FPS, but silvers are so much better for m+kb osu! than any other mechanical switch I’ve tried (brown, blue, red, razer silent tactiles).
It’s a very good upgrade but often requires updating other hardware too because 144FPS requires about 3x faster hardware than 60FPS at the same graphics quality.
It might be possible to skimp on the GPU by lowering the graphics quality but the same can’t be done with the CPU and sometimes memory and motherboard.