Artisan

Where can I find those in the US and what are their surfaces like?

steelseries qck heavy

this.
(but be prepared to ~2 weeks strong smelling of it)

I heard the surface of those pads wears out pretty quickly though. Is this still true?

I dunno how quick 'quickly' is but I'm loving mine and would consider it well worth it if I have to buy a new one every two years or so.

i just bought a new one, and i hope that it will wear out soon. :P

the heavy is much better in that regard than the older qck and qck+. the extra height helps in not grinding the surface down to quickly, it still wears down but it's not too bad especially considering its price.

i flip the pad atleast once because i don't need even half that size, your mileage might vary :)

Mionix Alioth320... Trance of lvl^tv recommends it c:

Steelseries Experience I-2

I swear I've posted this same response to like 100 of the same topics now...

maybe you should read the op before posting, he asked for a large cloth pad, the i-2 is anything but that.

sorry, I saw "need mousepadLOLOLOLLOLOLO" and instantly posted icemat.

1.) Yes, please read OP.
2.) I own two Icemats, don't need a third.
3.) Read OP.

Thanks, that is all.

It's you spin, you used to play on an icemat from time to time, right ? give zowie G-TF / P-TF a go then, I believe it provides the best glide you can get out of a clothpad, i haven't used an artisan pad yet tho.

Yeah, I used to play on an Icemat. I've actually come to appreciate a little friction so I don't necessarily need it to be completely frictionless.

O look it's this thread again.

Artisan Kai G3
QcK+/Heavy

Everglide Titan / Razer Goliathus speed

Best cloth pads imo for both mouse tracking a feeling for the hand. Feels like silk.

Also last a while. On the negative sie of things friction depends a little on the moisture of the air. The higher the humidity, the higher the friction of the pad.

I asked almost same here http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2040597

And I bought Artisan Kai G3 Value Edition and It's fucking awesome =) First it felt a bit too low friction / slippery but untill it broke in (or mosuefeet broke in) it has great amount of control too. It also feels very smooth now despite it being quite rough surface.

But yeah if you want silk feeling on hand then go goliathus speed or something.

Well I just recently snagged a Razer Kabuto for my laptop and I tried it out for gaming and I kinda really liked it so I was looking for something very similar. It feels pretty silky, but it also feels like it's got decent stopping power. Hard to describe. I'm wondering if its a similar surface to either the Speed or Control versions of the Goliathus.

Yeah goliathus speed has really silky touch. It's also used by most of QL pros.

I might give that one a shot. Seems to be one of the most reasonably priced and it's recommended by some here. Although it seems to be a little difficult to get a hold. The Artisan pad sounds awesome, but a little on the expensive side.

Artisan Kai G3 Hard

icemat !!!

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2048211#pid2048211

icemat !!!

You, sir, are positively retarded.

icemat?

icemat!

No, just Australian

diabz. Australian for retard.

Irony.

Allsop Raindrop !

Artisan kai g3

hey guys, i really need a new pad so i figured i'd just use this topic

so, i'm using an old DA 1.8, it has g5 hyperglide feet on. dont ask why, that's what i had at home. they actually work great, bigger than normal ones, and not hard at all to put on lol.
i use 44cm/360 with normal accel or 24cm with no accel so normal size is enough.

ok, for one i got the steelseries 5L. it's a hybrid plastic/cloth pad. it's good imo, consistent, doesnt wear. but for me it's too much friction, too much effort to move, track, dont like it. :\
other one i got is razer destructor, plastic. now this is rly good as well, good glide, low friction. problem is: it wears off, and/or kills mouse feet... so now it has parts where it glides well, and parts with high friction. that makes it awful sadly....

well.. what options do u think i have ? heard a lot of good things about goliathus speed. but ive never actually used a cloth pad, so dunno how the friction compares to those 2 i currently own ?
also heard good things about icemat(steelseries i-2), but seems way too expensive for me right now.

all in all, i need low friction, somewhat durable so glide remains consistent, and affordable...
advice ? thanks !

icemat will never wear down (durable) - the glide will always remain consistent. also, it is not that expensive when having in mind that you'll never have to buy another mousepad.

but it has some downsides too:
- not everyone likes the touch of glasss
- it gets dirty, you would have to clean it with a can of water and a cloth pretty often
- it kills your glides off pretty fast, so that you would have to buy new ones every 2 months

fox uses an icemat (very famous quake player)

try a zowie G-TF, it's my fave and i have tried about 20 different or so :p

thx for the input man
i dont rly care for how it feels to the touch nor having to clean it... but the need to change glides all the time, big con :(

btw, any difference between steelseries i-1 and i-2, other than size ?
i will consider buying 1 for a 'lifetime'

still could use some input regarding how goliathius friction compares to 5L, destructor, or other pads.
also read a lot of controversy about golathius speed vs control...
which 1 has lower friction ? i dont get it lol.

cheers

the goliathus control has hypocritically less friction than the speed one.

the only difference between the i-1 and i-2 is the size.

and I once changed from Destructor to Goliathus Speed and it really felt different. It was so long ago that I don't remember that well anymore. The Goliathus Speed is fairly similar to the Puretrak Talent, but worse. The Puretrak Talent is a lot more durable.

Hypocritically? I have no idea what you mean by that. I know some users here say the speed has more friction than the control but I strongly disagree with that.

Back when i used an abyssus i was SO desperate that after my zowie G-RF wore out ( mainly due to constant scraping thanks to abyssus narrow bottom ) and became inconsistent i tried many other cloth pads, including the qck+ fnatic edition which is jitter free according to my testing, it provides a VERY low amount of friction but it is also uncomfortable at the same time, i don't know why, but something about its fabric makes my wrist feel sticky which is annoying.

Goliathus speed is said to be pretty similar to qck fnatic so i'd suggest everyone to stay away from that pad. Puretrak talent is very fast during the first week of usage but after that it becomes too slow for my taste, especially if you use a kinda heavy mouse like explorer 3.0, it absorbs humidity very easily too imo, making feel it VERY slow until you put in the oven or something. ( don't laugh, i've tried it and it works :p )

Glass pads like corepad magna and icemat/steelseries experience are totally overrated imo and too small anyway for my sens.

I finally settled on getting the QcK Heavy. It was kind of a tie between that or the Artisan pad. I'll have it later this week. Hopefully I like it because it cost me like 3x more than my old pad that I was perfectly happy with.

Bad choice really, this mousepad is overrated, it makes a lot of mice to skip when doing fast flicks.

What mouse do you use?

Currently using a WMO. Seeing as how you think that mouse is shit, I'll probably end up liking the QcK Heavy.

What mice skip on it?

Pretty much all of the razer mice, DA/abyssus/salmosa/DB but wmo aswell but less frequently, the LoD is high on the QcK with the wmo and the control ain't perfect.

Overall, this pad is really overrated, you should have bought something else imho, but I hope it's gonna be good enough for you.

i really do not understand where you're coming from...

mx300/g1/g3/salmosa and now xai all track fine, never had a mouse skip on me with the qck heavy.

I'm fairly low sens with no accel whatsoever and it does lose track when doing fast movements. It didn't lose track when doing the very same movements on another generic mousepad though. The QcK just happens to be shit and I have 2 different QcK here, it's the same on both.

If you haven't experienced that yourself, it's just because you aren't as low sens as I am.

I'm currently 26cm/360 so when it gets here tomorrow I'll do some random testing as I have WMO, MX518, Salmosa, and a DB. I don't typically move the mouse fast enough in game to make the WMO skip so it actually works really well for me. I love the shape.

The wmo was actually not skipping much compared to the other mice on the QcK but I didn't like the feeling of the wmo on the QcK anyways, it somehow felt inconsistent.

Anyways, hope you won't go through the same problems as I had but if you do, at least you'll know that is the pad. :>

Alright, fair enough. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately there are no perfect mousepads out there, much like perfect mice. It's almost like having to search for the least of all evils that work for you.

i'm 25-27cm aswell, with some added accel (0.1/400dpi) lately. so yea, it's probably that, guess i'm lucky to be in the range where stuff like that does not happen to me.

im using 36cm/360° without accel on my qck heavy with 3G sensor and red-LED.
I had to go to unplayable low sens to make it skip.

It is playable for me. :>

what is it then?

Dunno exactly, I'm not really into measuring like everybody seems to be.

What I can tell you is, I have 6/11 in windows, 5 in razer drivers and 1.2 in game.

That doesn't really tell us much unless someone reading this happens to have Razer drivers installed and will actually measure it out for us.

sens 5/10 = dpi/2 basically. Never seen a razer driver work differently, it's just a multiplier < 1 when it's not on 10.
so that would be around 38-39 cm if it's a 1800 dpi mouse and yaw.pitch have not been tweaked

That seems to be just right.

That's not very extreme tho, and many mice should be cappable of it without skipping.
BTW, since when was the Diamondback actually known for having superior tracking abilities?

Yep, many mice track just fine, even the the ones I'm complaining about.. but not on the QcK.

Never had a problem with my old DB whatsoever and that's the mouse I've won my 2 ESWC with. :>

QcK is my favourite

anyone know if its still possible to get the funcpad or a suitable replacement?

Certain retailers in the US have them, dunno about elsewhere. Check here

Ok, so I got my QcK Heavy today and played a few games. I was kinda hoping to really like this thing, but there's random pros and cons that I didn't expect. Currently I'm using a WMO on it. The most annoying this is this weird little anomaly where my tracking goes farther than it should when lifting the mouse. It did this sometimes on my Allsop Raindrop XL, but it was rare. Seems to happen almost every other time I'm resetting my mouse on the QcK heavy.

Pros:
Tracks very well, my overall aim especially lg feels more solid.
Very comfortable with that extra foam on the bottom.
Definitely big, almost too big. I'm using maybe a third of the pad.

Cons:
Weird tracking issues when resetting the mouse.
Almost too big. Considering a smaller mousepad.

Any ideas, explanations, or suggestions on the tracking issue?

Lifting the mouse.

That's what I meant by "inconsistent control" and "high LoD". :/
I don't think there is anything you can do but change the mousepad.

Wow, that's bullshit, because other than that I'm liking the pad.

What mousepad would you recommend that doesn't have a high LoD? I'll give this pad at least a couple of weeks or better before I just throw in the towel.

Well I had that LoD issue on the QcK only with the wmo, the others were just fine regarding the LoD but the malfunction speed is definitely lower than other mouse pads.

I haven't used any other mouse pad yet (well not since I have the QcK), in fact I'm still using the QcK right now. I ordered the puretrak talent a week and half ago and I'm still waiting for it.

If you haven't made your choice on anything else by then I'll tell you what about the puretrak. Until then I can't really recommend any specific pad.

Oops, actually I've tried the Golathius Alpha Control and it had a very high LoD with my diamondback too, a problem I haven't heard about with the newer mice. The surface doesn't feel like smooth cloth and but some plastic shit, I hated it and instantly sent it back after 10mins of use.

eh you must give mousepads at least 3 days - 1 week to see how they really perform (and then don't spread false opinions over the inet)

I had a Goliathus, I was playing very long with it and I still remember how I hated it on the start and how I fell in love with it after a week.

Some shit with Puretrak. If I remember right, the surface was VERY fast at the begin, while it's pretty slow now. Matter of what you prefer, the ultra-fast surface was a kill-off for me at the start.

Both pads are basically comparable. The Talent is a tad too big & too thick for me, the Goliathus was by far sufficient. Also, the Talent 'absorbs' humidity, so that it can get EXTREMELY slow which I absolutely don't like (sweaty hands), so that I have to to turn it 180 degrees every game. What the Talent is much better at however is durability.

If I have to overuse a mousepad to wear off the surface to make it a decent mousepad, then you have a wrong concept of what a good mousepad is, and this one is absolutely shit.

what you just wrote is retarded because pretty much every pad performs differently when its surface is brand new <-> when it's slightly used. the latter applies until a pad is totally worn out, so guess what, you will find yourself using the latter for 99% of the pads lifetime.

need some examples?

1) read again what I wrote about the talent
2) the goliathus had an uncomfortable touch at the beginning.
3) the qck is similar, in how much the surfaces changes in the first couple of weeks, to the talent.

It doesn't look worth arguing with someone that thinks being forced to use a mousepad with a terrible feeling and a high LoD for a week or two just to make the pad useable isn't making it a bad mousepad.

No seriously, I'll say it again, you have the fucking wrong concept of what a good mousepad is.

And for the record, I don't have any different feeling on my 6months old QcK now than when I just bought it nor do I recall having the same shitty feeling I had with the Goliathus when my QcK was brand new.

Yeah, I'm starting to noticed that the WMO does have an inherent high LoD. I saw it rarely on my Allsop, but it was more apparent on the QcK. Switching back to the Allsop made me realize it even more. Looks like I need to maybe learn how to lift the mouse more.

Yeah well I'd probably change the mouse if I were you instead of getting used to lift the mouse higher every time you have to replace it, it's a pain in the ass and a waste of time while playing.

Did you try the DA ? As far as I can tell this is a wmo like and it doesn't seem to have this LoD issue.

The DA is too wide for my liking and the side buttons are exactly where I like to put my thumb. I do like the sensor though. I'd be using my Salmosa right now if it weren't for the overhanging buttons on the side.

That tracking thing probably has to do with the angle of the sensor when you reset the mouse, I remember having it for a few days when I had my wmo then for a few hours when I had my 3.0. Never had it since then so I guess I somehow found a sweet spot.

Either that or I'm still having to wait for the pad to completely smooth out and flatten. Maybe that's what causing some of my issues.

Artisan HIEN Kai.g3.

Get it you won't regret it. I have yet to see a person who has. I know I haven't and I've been through atleast a dozen different pads. This one is the best. Straight from Japan.

Itīs a nice pad but has too little friction for me.

I personally don't like it. Feels like my old Steelpad 4D from a decade ago

Isnt that a plastic pad?

Yes

He would like a clothpad mate :)

I know...which is why I'm saying the Artisan isn't that good in my opinion and feels like an old hard pad

Okay I've just about had enough of cloth pads with my Xai being my favourite mouse now. I'm after a Hard pad, I use ~45cm for a 360 so the pad needs to be large, yet, most I see are small-medium.

Thinking about buying the Qpad Heaton XL, its large enough I think. Any other large pads exist though? 9HD looks too small for my sensitivity.

That's probably the biggest non cloth mousepad you will ever find imho, if anything smaller bothers you, you should try this one out indeed.

Qpad Heaton pro = 435 x 365 x 4 mm
Steelseries 9HD = 270 x 320 x 2 mm

The difference between the two is huge.

I had the same problem - couldn't find a really large hard pad. Finally found the QPAD Heaton and it's great... Highly recommend it - but it is a little pricey. Price was worth it for me since it stopped me buying a different pad every week trying to find one that I liked...

Artisan best pad ever!

Ok, so after 2 months of use I have come to a final opinion of the QcK Heavy. In short: it is AWESOME!

Like all new things, you have to give it time and adjust to it. I have to say that this is pretty much the perfect pad for me. It's got definitely more room than I need. It's thick so it's nice and comfy. It's grip is amazing so it never moves (although I'm sure the extra weight helps with that). But what really makes this thing shine is the glide. It's like the perfect mix between friction and smoothness. It doesn't feel like a grainy friction at all. Its like it's just enough resistance for what I like, but it doesn't feel like it hinders my precision at all. I just really like this pad and I think I will be using it for some years to come. My biggest grip when I first got this pad was the LoD. Well, I guess I got used to it, because it just simply doesn't bother me anymore.

Picking up a Puretrak Talent later this week maybe. My old crappy mat is wearing out, and with my 59cm/360 the size of the Talent is a huge plus.