Counterpoint: arcade sticks are fun to use.

Broski: "Pads are possibly the lightest and most portable devices you can choose from" Whips out my Haute42 Board Mini I've been hiding between my ass cheeks: "Heh!"

Pad’s most gigantic pluses for the vast majority of people asking this question is that you already own one or more of them, you’ve been using one your entire life, and it is the most intuitive option for your brain. Very few people have booked a flight for their video game career.

Broke: I play leverless because of the shrotcuts Woke: I play leverless because I jumped on accident too much

Title should be : "Why i think carrying a pad might be the best"

To be honest pad just really hurts my hand for long sessions, if I could overcome that I'd play pad.

Clearly the optimal control scheme is 2 sticks, with 1 mapped to LP/MP/HP on the up inputs and LK/MK/HK on the down

"If you think sticks look cool, by all means get a stick" - I'm so glad you mentioned this. If you're new and you're ambivalent to input methods, think about what's optimal and convenient. But if some controller out there lives rent free in your head you have permission to go buy it. It'll be fine. By the time the difference in optimization is a major factor in your performance you'll have a lot more experience and you'll know what you want, and by then you'll have definitely gotten your money's worth out of any controller you're infatuated with right now.

Stick just makes more intuitive sense for how my brain percieves the motion inputs as shapes rather than directions. Like, leverless is a sequence of key presses and releases, but stick is physically drawing a quarter circle or a Z. This also makes it easier to mirror the motions for P2 side as it's just a mirror of the same shape on stick but on leverless I'm using a different sequence of finger movements.

Having used all 3 input methods I can say that the biggest advantage of leverless is how quickly and comfortably you can go from advancing forward to blocking. It's instant. The benefits of the SOCD tricks are pretty overstated IMO (for SF6 at least, Tekken SOCD KBD is amazing).

I'm a crusty old stick boomer and I switched to pad for SF6. Me personally, I would recommend a pad with several characteristics. A good d-pad, I recommend Saturn style pads. 6 face buttons and importantly (which is quite rare), 10 *unique* buttons. Most pads with 6 face buttons, the rightmost facebuttons (i.e HP/HK) are *duplicates* of LB/RB for a total of 8 buttons. Some pads however will allow you to incorporate L3/R3 giving you 10 unique buttons across the face and triggers/shoulders. This is important as you can now have 4 macros on the triggers/shoulders instead of 2. Very useful in SF6. For example you can now have PP, KK, DI and Parry on the triggers/shoulders. Or, if you were a dirty SOCD cheater, you could map directions to the spare shoulder buttons for SOCD shenanigans. The Xbox/PS4 (not Switch) version of the Power A wired fightpad is an example of this which ime is a very cheap and durable pad. Also look at 8bit-do.

In case anyone has forgotten: Uma won Capcom Cup with an Arcade Stick. Stick players stay on top 😎

I don't that's heretical. Brian_F has been banging the pad=leverless>stick drum for over a year now. Never got a frenzy worked up

I've tried all 3 over the years and I'm currently favouring levellers, for no reason other than I'm old and the pad quickly causes me pain now. I built my own button box with those Brook boards, that's a fun project in itself. Recently grabbed a Haute42 T16 and I'm really enjoying it. I still like pad a lot. It's purely a comfort thing for me though.

I'm not about to disagree with most of what you've said, since I think most of what you've said is true, and I am a bit biased given I have been playing Stick for like 16 years, but I want to put forth the idea that there is an ergonomic/accessibility argument to be made for new players to learn arcade stick in certain situations. To be clear, I've played on pad and leverless for a few years each as well and I can pretty definitively that Stick is the most comfortable for me and it isn't close. Context: I have wrist pains due to a genetic quirk and long story short, I have to make adjustments to how I use a computer and mouse and a variety of other everyday things to do what I enjoy doing. Pads require a harder grip for me and doing most of everything with my thumbs can be downright painful sometimes. Leverless have a similar issue where the way I feel I need to splay particularly my movement hand out like a piano player and make heavy use of my pinky and ring ringer to do more complex inputs is extremely uncomfortable after more than 45 minutes. Levered controllers let me make use of my shoulder and elbow for movement, with smaller movements being very linear motion of my fingers (I use two fingers to "plink" a forward dash on stick for example), it just causes a lot less issues for me personally. Some of that could be that I've just been doing it much longer so the muscles I use for it are more developed and so it compensates for that, but I think making the blanket statement of "New players shouldn't learn stick unless they think it looks cool" kind of misses the point of different control styles all together. When it comes to getting new people in to the scene, I agree that telling everyone "just play stick" like we used to is dumb and bad for a variety of reasons, but the conversation shouldn't now be "just play leverless" or "just play pad" or "which of these is good and which is garbage", it should be "Try out the ones you can and pick the one that suits you the best." Variety in Comfort and Accessibility at the most basic entry point is how we get people to join the community,

Two pads won't necessarily feel the same either. I don't know if pros bother doing repairs on their pads or just buy new ones; but I personally replace my dpad's membrane every once in a while when it starts wearing out. Two pads can feel different due to different amounts of wear on the dpad membrane (or even having different types of membranes). I don't suppose that should matter much, tho.

After playing Leverless and trying stick, I have WAY more fun on stick, which for me makes me play better. I think pad and leverless are objectivley better in terms of persomance but I do think people underestimate the fun factor.

I recently switched from stick to pad just because I couldn't be bothered to plug back in my arcade stick after playing SF6's World Tour, and Grand Bruise in GBFVSR. It felt awkward to use in ranked at first, but I got used to it eventually.

I got an arcade stick because I couldn’t get on with d-pad and my dual sense analogues kept developing drift. Yeah, it’s heavy and unwieldy but it’s durable and - most importantly - really fun to use.

Broski, I want to know your opinion on a specialised custom control key rebinding for a pad. I'm a pad enjoyer but D-Pad qcf/qcb inputs have always been inconsistent for me, I wanted the precision of leverless movement with the comfort and convenience of pad. So using Steam's rebinder, I mad R1 into D-Pad right, and L1 into D-Pad left. D-Pad down remains down. Flicking the right stick in any direction does DI and fllicking (or holding) the left stick in any direction is Parry. I experimented with X for Jump but in the end I put it back to D-Pad up. Some people think it sounds crazy but honestly its a surprisingly good set up! I recommend trying it for the content!

the only problem with pads (or atleast the ds4 pad in specific) is how fast they break, I had 2 and they died very fast cause it would read downback as down or just back and I would get hit by a low and explode

I'm kinda surprised you didn't go over in-game experience, I think there are a lot of valid discussions to be had about ergonomics for pads, especially ones like the 8Bitdo Neogeo pads, that are designed specifically for fighting games, and the way modern games are being designed around the conceit that most players use a pad, it's definitely something worth talking about. when i got into fighting games via DBFZ, i tried and absolutely despised a regular controller, and opted for a stick as soon as i got the money, but a lot of my friends who got into fighting games because of Strive and SF6 prefer/stick to pad. As I mentioned, there are controllers designs specifically for fighting games too, that modify designs to accommodate them - I can never go back to a regular controller's d-pad after the Neogeo pad, there are controllers that have microswitched d-pads which are way better, and some are even modular and let you swap the right analogue stick out for the extra 2 buttons that make a standard 3x3 layout (assuming you're not playing a game like Strive, or Modern in SF6, which are all but designed to work on pads). Also, one of the two biggest reasons for sticks being preferred over pads (the other being the obvious motion inputs) is having a finger ready for every button, especially for combo strings, and these days that's not even a problem. Games like SF6 and Strive are designed so where combo strings are never so tight, compared to something like SF4 that almost demands an absurd level of dexterity and muscle memory to pull off something like a Focus Attack cancel off of a Shoryuken into an Ultra. As somebody very much into controllers, it's a super interesting discussion, and I love exploring the more off-beat controllers that somehow still work fine for fighting games. At the end of the day, it comes down to comfort, preference, and experience, and since multiple top FGC players have won majors with controllers, dating all the way back to MVC2, controllers are not going to be overshadowed any time soon. (though i will also say, as somebody that's staunchly all-button, while a joystick isn't as optimal, it does have a very distinct "feel" to it that can't be replicated, and imo is my preferred control scheme over all-button for non-fighting game 2D/arcade games)

Nothing beats being able to have your trusty pad wherever you are. I play SF6 on both PC and PS5, theres no hassle to switch, I use dual sense on both. If I'm going to a friend, traveling abroad, no matter what i know I'll have a dual sense handy. Plus, I use Dpad so there's no accidental input for me, never understood why people complain so much about it.

Pad has one huge downside that single-handedly forces me to take long breaks from fighting games. Street Fighter destroys the rubber under d-pad from aggressively inputing dp motions and I'm kind of sick of replacing it every half a year. An entirely new controller may last up to a year, but still.

The only SOCD trick I do is holding down and tapping both forward + up twice = double QCF enabling you to do easy light/medium links into supers

Is switching the left and right analog sticks standard among other top players too?

I'm liking the video just for having "SOCDz nuts" in the video comment.

You made solid good points. I have a question though. I've noticed that ps5 L2 and R2 triggers are wayyyy too sensitive. How can I change that ?

On the issue of accessibility of specialist controls: I live in Brazil, and I started playing Street Fighter 6 when it was released. As I played in arcades as a child, I decided to buy an arcade stick. But I wanted the best parts for my contoller, so I started buying them online and they all had to be imported (the ones I found in Brazil were extremely more expensive and there was no way to be sure they were original pieces). Well, in the end, by the time all the parts arrived and I had my arcade stick controller ready, I had already been playing with a PS4 controller for months and was already so used to it that it was no longer worth switching to the arcade stick. But at least the arcade stick it looks really nice and will make a nice piece of decoration.

Hey Broski. I've been playing SF on arcade sticks since 2011, but I don't get enough opportunities to go to majors or even locals. The few times I have managed, I agree with all the negative points given for them! It sucks ass! Even worse if your stick doesn't have a carrying handle (like my new one). I really don't see myself learning any SOCD stuff in order to get a competitive edge. I'm nearing 31 years old, and I bet I could learn, but it's just a matter of willpower, I guess lol. Plus, I fairly recently bought a stick, like just before sf6's release... But damn, do those pads with 6 face buttons look tempting sometimes. My biggest mental hangup with pad is not having my buttons lined up in order of strength. And Modern controls break my brain. Your points outside the game for pad might just convince me to get one though... Good video, man.

I always had trouble with inputing directions and motions (especially fast) with a dpad. Maybe my thumbs are not made to have the required articulation, i don't know. Switching to leverless has basically eliminated that problem for me. After a short (an hour or two) adjustment, i input directions on leverless both faster and more consistent than i ever did with a dpad even with over 100 hours of practice. This alone makes leverless for me the superior controller.

If you told me in 2009 that stick would generally be considered the "worst" of the controllers and the argument would be between a glorified keyboard and a d-pad controller for what is best, I'd have laughed quite a bit at you. But here we are. You can pry my stick from my cold dead hands, though. It might not be optimal, but I like it.

The cool thing about leverless is that most of them use hotswap mechanical switches. Even the razer kitsune supports 3rd party switches. Just keep a handful of those whenever you go to a venue. Also, I think the thinness of a leverless shouldn't be underestimated. They're as thin as most tablets, so you can cram them easily in the laptop compartment of most book bags. With a pad, you'd need a special carrying case or you risk damaging the sticks.

i didn't get grandfathered in to them but personally speaking switching to arcade stick improved my game considerably because i have stupid giant hands and i feel considerably more precise on them than i did with pads. as for why i haven't switched to hitbox beyond that? well uhhh money mainly lol. i do plan to eventually

Fight Sticks are my preferred input method just due to the ergonomics of using it. Pad makes my hands hurt like hell after a play session and I've never had that issue during a whole year of playing Stick versus a decade of playing pad and feeling pain every session

I made an in depth tutorial covering SOCD Dash, SRK, crosscuts, sonic booms for pad vs Hitbox. Glad to see this tech getting pushed out as well as the swapped analog portion that makes it extremely viable.

I love the music you use in your video intro/outros. idk if anyone else has mentioned it. Is it from a game or did you make it yourself?

11:09 Using this method of holding three directionals is essential for DP into lvl3 on leverless imo (hold fwd, pres n hold down for diagonal input, press back for down input, release down and back, press punch for dp, repeat for super cancel).

The part about things breaking at an event is really important imo. It's happened to me a couple times; once being my very first EVO in 2014 during pools. I was using arcade stick and was able to borrow someones, then i had to borrow a third person's because i had to eventually play the person i borrowed from first, lol. Back then, arcade sticks were the norm. Nowadays i would have trouble borrowing one since leverless and pad took over. Same reason why i avoid getting used to some 13 or 16 button leverless. If that thing has issues and i have some overly unique layout, then im gonna play poorly if i have to borrow someone's standard build. At home, none of this matters. But if you're paying good money to travel to events even as a casual like me, then it's worth considering. A stock 1st party Pad is undoubtedly advantaged here and multiple other areas, despite it being the option i choose the least.

The only reason you should choose arcade stick is either if you're used to it or if you just prefer how it feels. I've always played with controllers and recently picked up a stick and it does feel massively different than a controller. Sure it may not be easier but some people might just prefer how nice it feels etc.

Newer Leverless designs such as the ABMX from JasensCustoms have drop in microswitches, so if your button isnt functioning it is very easy to swap that microswitch and be back in the action within minutes.

And to play old games such as MvC2 or third strike? What is the best in that case?

My back always appreciates playing with DS. You can lie down, stand up. sit down or enter quasimodo mode while playing. Great vid!

One thing that pad is better for is doing z inputs and super inputs from crouch normals. I was using the Hori Fight Commander because the PS5 controller's dpad was a no go. Other than that, everything has been easier for me since switching from pad to leverless. That said, I love to hear your logic. You are way better and know much more than me, so I am sure I will learn something.

Not sure how often you read comments Broski but this is something that I have always wanting to express. All your points are good, I would love to actually use pad myself. I have used all controllers listed in here (also keyboard) and I stick with Leverless for ONLY one reason... Dashes. I'm a 38 year old player, I have used pads since I was 5 year old child, even having fighting games on pad, but I was never able to get use to the dashes. Maybe for you is something so easy and intuitive that you don't think about it anymore, but I played for years and years and I still hate the feeling of dashing on pad. Unfortunately all my favorite fighting games uses dashes and they are so crucial that I stick with Leverless at the moment. All the inconvenient that you mentioned are true, and I hate them, would love to use pad, but if in more than 30 years didn't learn to dash in pad, not sure If I have the patience for more years doing it, I prefer the struggle of everything else in Leverless against the pain of not having dashes.

With the multiple direction socd; You could just as easily hold down back (1 on numpad notation) with the dpad and right (6) on the analog.

11:10 Pressing 3 directions on a leverless isn't just for niche situations. Getting down+forward+up for fireball or forward+down+up for DP are consistent and widely useful because of the speed of not having to release anything. Also a snackbox micro or something is wider than a controller, yeah, but it's also way flatter.

After using a controller for a long time, the only reason I ever wanted a stick or leverless (recently grabbed a haute M16 I think it's called) is because it looked fun af. The buttons looked clicky clacky like my keyboard, and I like

I think the form factor argument can go a few directions. For casuals/hardcore audience (but non pro), smaller leverless's like Snackbox, Haute42 pads, etc, are honestly more portable than controllers because of their form factor. Being flat means it fits comfortably into pockets and flat into backpacks with other stuff in it. It just depends on how you're choosing to carry it and where. I agree though that for competitors, where you really do want one of the higher quality leverless controllers, like a Kitsune (the smallest one I can think of with this quality), or even bigger ones like Hitbox, or a Vitrix, then pads are definitely way easier to handle.

As someone who is both prone to RSI and has had several injuries to my wrists and hands hitbox has been a life saver. No way I could play as much as I do on stick or pad. Also - regarding repair a lot of the smaller form factor hitboxes - all the stuff based on flatbox - are just using keyboard switches. You could easily carry extra - I would if I was a tournament player. They're like less than 10 dollars for 10.

Well, the SOCD inputs with three directions are still quite useful. Brian’s video that you mentioned goes into this specifically. Also, my Hypercube by TSRACT is probably the lightest controller I’ve ever held.

I play analog on pad but I use d pad for certain inputs like super and down down anti airs. I can’t play on d pad only cause it hurts my fingers.

I use to play on pad 2010s (playing SF4) but switched to stick to mainly play KOF XIV and XV now SF6. also grew up playing on arcades.

I'll be honest as someone who only got into fighting games with SF6 I kinda regret not giving Pad a fair shake. I started out on keyboard which made the transition to leverless fairly natural but I am essentially learning both a new genre and a new controller whereas if I just went with Pad I would be able to use a control set that I have more or less decades of experience with. And the more I play the game the more I think having a stick available for certain inputs would be really nice.

I gave up on pad and moved onto keyboard and then to leverless because pad just kept hurting my thumb after too long and I didn't feel precise. Also I use a Haute42 g16 weight of the controller is a complete non-issue. I haven't used a pad for a fighting game in months and and just thinking about it again makes my thumb hurt. I'm never going back as long as I can help it.

This is the Fahrenheit vs Celsius of the fighting game world, I swear to god

19:00 wouldn't the event itself have a few to lend? Especially if the tournament is on PS5

I like a square gate stick over pad for: Spinning pile drivers Claw/Guile Ultras in SFIV Kof Supers - especially tiger-knee supers like Leona V-Slasher. SNK hops I'm sure leverless is better, but it just makes every input feel like entering a cheat code. I need pad for SF6, tho - i gotta have DI/DP on shoulders.

While there are plenty of heavy ones, I just weighed mine on a food scale and my leverless is 20g lighter than a DS5. (It's a jfedor style flatbox.) It's one circuit board, 12 keyswitches, and 3d printed plastic. (No wires to freak out TSA.) "I can get a replacement at Target" is a really solid argument, though.

there's like an inconsistency between the face buttons and the triggers though, i hate it, it makes timing awkward for me since i'm a arcade stick user.

For me personally I find the arcade stick the most comfortable to play for long sessions out of the three input methods, and I didn't grow up in arcade or anything. I can't get used to leverless with my left hand and on pad it just doesn't always feel comfortable.

I use an xbox controller because I'm used to it for playing for over 15 years now. I also have a custom xbox controller though the paint is messed up now so i have to get it replaced soon

I honestly would play pad, since it fits right in the hands and is a great option. But, I can't press two face buttons at the same time with pad. If someone have some tips, I would appreciate

pads life expectency is bad though, i had a sanwa stick that i used for literally 8 years, and i had to replace the switches on the joystick once(a 10 dollar part that takes a minute to fix). My fighting game friend goes through a pad every 6 months. I play leverless now, and i expect my current controller to last for 5+ years.

A Haute 42 g16 is 360g / 16mm in height. It's easier to drop and forget in my backpack than my PS5 controller. It's a almost the same footprint but a lot flatter and rectangular. It's also cheap, in a tournament you could easily carry two in your backpack without sweating.

i started with pad then switched to stick, and from an ergonomic stand point, it was a blessing. took a few weeks to get used to and it was great, overall improved my inputs and made playing my game at the time (3rd strike) much easier now it broke and ive been playing 6 with pad and honestly, its been pretty good. the dpad feels better in this game for some reason, maybe because its less strict. still miss stick tho

Playing on pad really hurt my thumb. I couldn't move the joystick fast enough so I had to use the D-pad, and that was on a DualShock 4. I got horrendous blisters. I am now a keyboard player.. I own an all-button box, can't use it because the buttons are too heavy.

I am 34 yrd, and I used to grow up in arcade environments. I know how bulky and heavy the arcade stick is, plus it is tricky to do down down input with stick. But I just do not have the time and energy to unlearn arcade stick and learn another input devices in fighting games😢

holy shit!! i seriously had no clue you played pad broski

have you customized your controller or do you just have a default dualsense?

I use duel sense (ps5 controller) and i love it. i mapped the touch pad to di and I haven't looked backed . The dpad has pretty glairing issues tho, with input bleeding on the cardinal directions. (unintentional jumps) and the triggers are very spongy and activate at diff points depending where you place your finger. i just ordered a battle beaver with modded buttons i hope it solves my issues.

so i only use pad but i think i will slightly push back on the both direction clean up being as good on pad. even if you can use the right stick, it still seem way more akward then leverless. I also think leveless is slightly better for changing direction such as left and right but i havent mess with it myself. That said I do full heartly agree witht he replacement thing and it being smaller and more portable. I do feel that is undervalue.

underrated benefit: you can play standing and lying down, even with your hands tied behind your back

What about using four fingers for movement instead of just a thumb? It makes certain things more consistent, like Cammy's instant divekick.

I Wonder if that Left / right analog swap works on Xbox series X / S

the most important factor which kinda seems ignored here is comfortability? box controllers in melee became popular because they are purported as much more comfortable for many players compared to the gcc. sticks and leverless controllers have very similar layouts, making switching between them trivial if necessary, whereas pad has a completely different system that may be really uncomfortable for players. a lot of emphasis is placed on travel, even though many players will rarely or never go to tournaments, but everybody needs a comfortable controller layout

You can do the same stuff on PS4, change the analog sticks, under the accessibilty option on settings.

i think comfort and personal preference are the #1 reason to use any input method, but I disagree with you on what you said about stick being "useless" i think it heavily comes down to comfort, preference, and what you find intuitive. for me, when i was starting out, i was very bad at doing motion inputs, and clean inputs in general on the D-pad on my controller, I found myself much more consistent doing inputs on the analog stick because i could "feel" them out. For that reason I got a stick, and it instantly improved my play significantly. The feedback of using a stick genuinely helps my play and do inputs. for a similar reason, I'm strongly encouraging my buddy who's trying to learn FGs to get a hitbox, because he likes playing rivals on aether on KB more than pad.

Can i really trust the opinion of a filthy analog stick enjoyer tho? Great vid, broski Also in defense of arcade sticks: both the evo champ and capcom cup champ won it all on arcade stick! And they're fun as hell to use

one huge advantage for gamepads that I can think of: they are silent. that matters both in-game and outside of it (opponents can't listen to your button presses or your significant other not getting annoyed by your mashing). on the flipside, leverless wear and tear is really low and they can be super resilient if you ask me. I know this is entirely anecdotal, but until now I changed one Sanwa button on my leverless built in 2010 (!), it costed me like 15 euros (because I couldn't order just 1 button, I had to order 5). friends who play on pad had been constantly replacing them throughout the years.

My biggest gripe with leverless is that since the movement is all buttons you need time to release the button for a direction which can make blocking certain things a lot harder compared to pad however this small gripe aside I definetly prefer hitbox. SOCD definetly enables a lot of things I feel pad does not enable.

I play on the stick I’m just use to it. I know it’s not the best input but learning another input seams like.a lot of work

Pad can actually do the 3 directional inputs at once, holding left with one and and down-right with the other will achieve the same result as hitbox. Standard SOCD dp uses 3 inputs, holding left+down+right to get a clean down input, imo not very niche at least on leverless.

My Haute42 16 button is stupid portable. I'm also an MnK player for pretty much all games except fighting games, so leverless agrees with my brain more. Strive on controller is pretty solid for me, but the six button layout of SF6 has given me trouble, what little I've played of it on controller, so I went from a cheaper arcade stick to a cheaper leverless and am very happy I did

I love pad that hori one is really good I use the 8 bit doo six button pad

Or if you have a fightpad that you can't find at a Target, then they're so small you can carry two of them in case one malfunctions.

Dpad hurt my thumb so badly to the point where i got and then popped a blister on my left thumb. I think it's good to take into account comfort as well as what's optimal.

i played with all 3. PS5 Pad, Qanba Obsidian stick and razer kitsune leverless and oh boy arcade stick is my fav. im not old enough for being nostalgic about it too. IMO its just the most fun of all the ones u can use. and i love modding them. Switching buttons, switching levers and modding levers is just fun

Depends on the pad. I've gotten used to playing pad over the last few years, and I have major issues with the dpad on PS controllers.

I play on keyboard (basically leverless) because my thumb starts to hurt if I play on controller for more than 30 minutes. As my first fighting game, it was hard to keep the buttons straight too. It made a lot more sense to me to have punches on one row and kicks on the row below that. It would be hard to give up being able to instantly reverse directions or charge attacks, too I've thought about how difficult lugging a keyboard around would be if I ever went to an event. I don't even know if I could plug into a console, I've never tried. That's a big plus for controller

I have yet to watch the video but ill come back to this comment once I have. I honestly think that its VERY dependant on what type of fighting game you are playing and what characters you tend to play. I tend to play a lot of scrambly 3/4 button anime games, rekka characters and characters that dont have DPs, so I like pad for its symmetry (dont have to worry about p1/p2 side differences) and intuitive binds for macros (triggers for dash / throw / burst etc). I dont actually get all that much out of playing on leverless even though I own all 3 controller types. You really can make a case for pad vs leverless imo, not so much stick unless you play tekken. Sidenote, my thumbs start hurting if I block too long :^) edit: bit into the video and I will say one negative about pads is pads tend to massively degrade in quality after a while, and you cant really repair them. Usually if something starts to wear out you just have to buy a new one. This is less of a problem with high quality controllers, but they tend to be expensive enough that you're basically just shuffling around cost of replacement and how long its going to last. Otherwise I mostly agree, pad is just a better QOL choice.

Iono man I just got a snackbox and that thing fits in my back pocket. On flights it fits in a briefcase pouch

I play pad in sf6 however I also decided I would learn arcade stick on a different character as I wanted to slow down my inputs and make them more intentional as I tend to mash my inputs when I play something I'm used to like pad. Also I wanted to try it and it's very satisfying

I play on all-button controller but I’ll give another benefit of pad that you didn’t mention. When playing at a tournament, there is no guarantee that you will have access to a comfortable chair and table to rest your stick or hit box on. I personally do not like resting my hit box/all button on my lap and prefer a nice elbow height table. Holding a pad in your hand solves this issue. Thanks for the video!

Haven't watched the whole video yet but like all the pros use pad. Love your vids. Keep up the good work

I play on all three depending on the game, sf6 is the best on an arcade stick, modern sf6 on a pad, t8 hitbox, the biggest problem of the hitbox is the speed of releasing the direction button, and sliding methods is a bed because you lose grip, the second one is buffering the moves is slow in neutral(test back+hk cammy cancel in supper in neutral), the third one is the playing right side, fourth, the speed of fatigue hits you faster on the hitbox, constant buffering in neutral slows down our execution, on an arcade stick you can buffer non-stop without getting tired by spinning super every second, fifth some trials are extremely hard on the hitbox compared to the arcade stick, I suggest doing all the trials on two sides, six back and forward hit neutral, which means that we lose block, this is mostly small problem when blocking the cross, e.t.c

I live in Germany and even here it was really expensive and difficult to get a good leverless controller until razer came out with the kitsune. That thing is available but also costs an arm and a leg. But pad really hurts my hands, so i bought a razer. If i had the choice, i would use a pad. Before that I built a leverless myself, but even importing good parts from i.e. junkfood arcade was incredibly expensive. I think i paid around 100$ on import fees alone.

Also, we now have dualsense edge as well. Which makes padding even better. I think is tournament legal, but not sure

First the set vs Mena, now pad’s strongest defender. Broski stocks are up

As someone that plays on all three types of controllers, I find stick to be the most comfortable especially at home for both old and modern games. For travel pad is a no brainer. Modern games bridged the gap between all three anyways.