Mouse Grip Styles – Palm vs Claw vs Fingertip Grip

If you have played around enough time with your keyboard and mouse you might have noticed that not everybody holds their peripherals like you.

This realization usually strikes when watching some pro tournaments in CS:GO, or Apex and you notice that all the pros hold their mice and keyboards differently.

Even though keyboard placement might be more pronounced the biggest differences can be observed in the way everyone holds their mice.

Everybody will have their unique spin on holding their mouse but 99% of the people can be integrated into 3 categories of mouse grips: palm grip, claw grip, fingertip grip.

What Are the Differences Between Types of Mouse Grips?

Palm grip

You can consider yourself a palm grip user if when you grab your mouse you place your entire hand on the back shell, letting your hand rest fully on your mouse. This means your entire palm is making contact with the mouse, therefore the name of the mouse grip style.

palm grip

This grip style is overall very stable and is well suited for precision tracking but lacks flexibility since for most motions you will need to move your entire arm.

Claw grip

If you place only the bottom of your palm on the back hump of the mouse and arch your fingers over your mouse buttons you are most likely a claw grip user. This grip style allows for greater precision and faster flicks but will be less stable than the firmly planted palm grip.

claw grip

A hidden issue of a tense claw grip could be the fact that in time your fingers might get tired from being arched all the time over your clicks at a steep angle. Make sure to always do stretches and keep your hand as relaxed as possible during gameplay.

Fingertip grip

Lastly, if you hold your mouse just with the tip of your fingers with your palm floating above the mouse you are a fingertip gripper (who would have guessed right?).

A dead giveaway that you are a fingertip gripper is the fact that you hate when mice touch your palm (that’s me) since that means you can’t move the mouse around inside of your palm for those adjustments as much as you want. Small flat mice are your best friend!

fingertip grip

The biggest advantage of fingertip gripping your mouse is the fact that you have the highest precision since you can adjust your aim with your fingers, while the biggest downside is that you have the lowest amount of stability since your contact points with the mouse are only your fingers.

In a way the fingertip grip has the highest skill ceiling since it will take you the longest to learn how to control your mouse properly, but once you do you will be deadly in any FPS game.

Why Knowing Your Grip Is Important

At this point, you might be wondering what is the point of discussing things like claw vs palm grip or claw vs fingertip grip, etc. The short answer is that your mouse grip actually dictates the way you aim, what aim scenarios you excel at, and what kind of mouse you will be aiming best with.

Of course, you can excel at all types of aim with all 3 mouse grips but generally speaking it is widely accepted in the aimer community that with certain grips you can do certain tasks easier.

For example, smooth tracking scenarios are easier with a palm grip because of its stability while scenarios where you need to make a lot of micro-adjustments are favorable towards fingertip grippers.

The biggest impact of your grip is on the type of mouse that will feel most comfortable to use. Generally, a good palm grip mouse is a pretty large ergo mouse since it can accommodate placing your entire hand on it.

Claw grip mice have pronounced humps in the back which allows you to have the bottom of your palm sit nicely on the mouse.

Meanwhile, fingertip grip mice are small mice that are rather short and flat which allows the user to move the tiny mouse around in their hand with their fingers for extra adjustments.

DO NOT frantically try to switch your grip style just because you think you would do better with a fingertip grip! With enough mouse control no matter the grip style you have, you will be able to execute any type of complex aiming scenario while on the other hand, your grip style will forever shape the type of mice you will enjoy the most.

Learning other grip styles does have its perks though, so if you have mastered mouse control with your “native” grip then you can do some experimenting – until then sit tight and practice mouse control!

Mouse Recommendations for Different Grips

Since we have mentioned that different grips work with different mice, let us give you recommendations for a couple of mice for each grip so if you are looking for an upgrade you look in the right direction.

Palm grip: Logitech G PRO X Superlight, Xtrfy M4, Glorious Model D/D-, G-Wolves Skoll/Skoll mini, Glorious Model O.

Claw grip: Endgame Gear XM1r, CoolerMaster MM711, Razer Viper/Viper Ultimate/Viper mini, Xtrfy M42, G-Wolves Hati S, Kone Pure Ultra, Logitech G PRO X Superlight.

Fingertip grip: Xtrfy MZ1, G-Wolves HSK, Glorious Model O-, Razer Viper Mini, G-Wolves Hati S, Xtrfy M42, Pwnage Ultra Custom Wireless Symm/Xenics Titan.

About The Author

Chris (vile_is_dead)

Custom Windows ISO enjoyer, FPS optimizer, and aim improvement enthusiast. Will disassemble all of his peripherals (and sometimes PC parts) to mod them even if all of them work perfectly fine. Discord/Twitter: vile_is_dead

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