I land in a similar ballpark for tac shooters, so I also ended up with a slightly faster pad than I used to enjoy now that I have lighter mice and lower sensitivity overall.
I ended up with this Venus in the 1000x500 as a desk mat and I love it. Some people might prefer that pad in the Pro version as it has a more plush base, but the LGG pads are very high quality.
In different parts of the world probably the best made pads are typically Artisan or LGG, but there are certainly other options that are well made and still good options like the Strider.
Kind of boils down to preference, price/shipping and availability.
I haven’t used a mouse pad or mat at all for 15 years or more. Maybe because I just never looked hard enough to find the right one. One day, I just decided to use my desktop as an experiment, and it’s been working really well for me.
The only drawback is that it eventually wore the finish off my desk in that area.
But if I ever get a new desk, I may not be able to adjust. This one just happened to have the perfect surface I think. It’s not slippery, and it’s not rough either.
I should try it on my uplift desk. On the ikea desk that I ended up using for 17 years or so, it also behaved funny like the light was registering odd with the sensor or something. I also want the uplift desk to last hopefully until I retire, so hopefully a mouse wouldn’t beat it up too badly if it worked and felt good.
My strategy these days buying mice is to just get 2 or 3 Cooler Master MM531 mice when they’re on sale for like $10 each and replace them as needed. I can typically get a year of use out of one before the scroll wheel goes. The idea of paying $50-$100 for a mouse that likely will have the same wearing out issue with the scroll wheel chills me to the bone lol As for mouse pads, since i game from my couch I needed something rigid so I got 2 of those metal ones a few years ago that I just put a cheap $1.00 neoprene mouse pad on top of. Works for me.
When I got our xbox earlier this Fall, and using the controller was hurting my hand to begin with I was looking at possibly doing something like a couchmaster cycon to use keyboard and mouse. I’ve seemed to get past whatever I was doing with holding the controller that was causing my hands to hurt though.
