u/typ0ninja

Hi there,

I got lucky enough to land a steam controller shortly after release and having the keyboard mapping available to the 4 underside buttons has been life changing.

...Fortunately or unfortunately, my partner has also fallen in love with it for the same reason (we both prefer to not deal with the stick click buttons at all). I don't have the heart to steal back my sc2 when we are gaming together, and their sc2 reservation wont be around till 2027.

To add to the complexity, I primarily play games on linux, so having to boot up the old windows machine to do key remapping etc is pretty annoying on some other devices (I have one of those MMO button pad things I have to do this for). Valve being linux first with the deck/sc2 was a big QoL for me.

I have looked at several of the gamesir offerings, the g7 pro and tarantula mainly and am considering them but im not a huge fan of the non-symmetrical stick layout of the g7, and not sure about the ergonomics and build quality of the tarantula. I also keep seeing the Vader 5 mentioned. Was also considering the victrix bfg pad(additional benefit being I can swap in 6 button claw grip for fighting games, though im mostly a leverless player).
I don't know how reliable the Victrix lineup is as i've heard conflicting reports but have never had first hand experience with their products. I have been semi burned by razer at least twice, though I do still use their mmo mouse atm. Razer controller is a hard veto due to the way the drivers etc work and their terrible linux support.

I sorta just feel overwhelmed with whats available and nothing quite seems to fit my needs as well as the SC2. I am probably defaulted to the G7 pro regular 1000hz one(can also just grab it from best buy instead of waiting on the mail), but the xbox style stick layout is a big turn off. I also see the gamesir stuff so often I worry its like viral reddit marketing corpo canvasing, but if they are just that good I'm down (especially if linux is a first class citizen with their drivers that is infinite good will).

I live in the US, central Texas area.

platform: PC/steam (on linux) with a "would be nice" PS5 support.

My price range is: hopefully like ~110 usd or so, but I would go to like 250+ (victrix range) for something that is just really really good and hits every box, I have a programmer job and I just want something really nice with as few compromises as possible even if im getting gouged on price a bit.

Must haves:

1. TMR sticks (my ps5 controller died so fast im done with them forever)
2. Underside Buttons (preferably 4) that I can use steam input to map to keyboard keys. In particular granblue relink makes you hold the stick click to open the map, but G key opens it instantly. Anything that I can't do this with is instantly out.
3. Gyro support in steam: I didn't think I would care about gyro until I tried it and now I don't want to live without it
4. reasonable durability, (my regular PS5 controller has been a pretty bad experience, a year or two in, the battery degraded quickly and the stick drift set in fast) also have had pretty bad experiences with several razer products in past.
5. decent dpad (doesnt have to be great just not garbage) see: fighting games
6. High quality wireless connection to computer either via bluetooth or w.e dongle/puck or what have you

Almost must have, but will give it up if everything else is perfect:
- symmetric layout ala SC2/PS5

Would be really nice:

1. key customization in linux/not tied to some proprietary windows software (I realize this probably does not and probably will never exist)
2. decent latency and wireless performance(1000 hz would be nice but SC2 is like 250hz iirc and it doesnt bother me)
3. I keep seeing the mechanical switch vs membrane buttons, and given how picky I am on leverless switches, this sounds amazing in a controller to try.
4. My partner has pretty small hands and anything larger than ps4 they have trouble using for longer periods, this is even true of SC2, though the touchpads make it look bigger than it actually is in practice imo. Was hoping maybe they would even like a smaller fit better than SC2. A friend used "PowerA Nano Enhanced Wired Controller for Xbox Series X|S" which was surprisingly small so was interesting in possibly finding something this size.
5. purely aesthetic but: just a flat color instead of covered in gamery stuff, the g7 pro 8k are not to my taste at all with the gold and esports branding all over them.
6. PS5 support (lowest priority, and would only be if I ended up using it at my arcade locals or at friends houses)

Additional context/games we play:

- Don't really care much about FPS/competitive shooter level features (1000hz sounds great but even that is prolly overboard), if I wanted to play fps id be on mouse and keyboard (though the gyro has been realllly really really cool to mess with)
- Mostly will be playing coop action games together on the couch, hooked up to the TV computer.
- strong fighting game support would be cool, but I suspect picking a controller for this would be different than for action games(ie the victrix bfg 6 button for claw grip) and a large emphasis on d-pad quality. But if the features aligned, all the better.

Games this is for:
granblue relink(I need the bottom buttons back so bad)
Claire 33 (that parry timing!)
NIOH 1/2/3
the Tales games series (tales of arise, versperia etc etc)
a bit of elden ring now and again (though souls like games are usually a bit slower than my preference)
code vein
beasts of reincarnation
wu kong
devil may cry
monster hunter
pragmata
FF7 remake
Crisis Core remake (my partner has loved crisis core since the PSP days)
Team ICO stuff
Metal Gear Solid series of all ages: all of the Kojima ones.

Thank you all for any help or guidance with all this, I appreciate your time and expertise! I think I am likely asking for something that doesn't exist but I figured I would ask here before giving up.