Do you really need esports gear?

If you’ve been playing competitive games like CS:GO, Dota 2, Overwatch and PUBG, you’ve probably thought of buying esports gear like a gaming mouse, keyboard, or headphones. Many professional players invest in expensive esports gear, so it is important. In this story, I explain how different types of esports gear is important for professional players.

Esports gear isn’t that expensive, and it is very much necessary. Firstly, it’s not like other sports like football, cricket, basketball and others require gear of their own when playing in a competitive environment. They too have equipment like cricket bats, helmets, shin guards, and shoes used by the players. Just like these sports, the gear used in esports also comes in many budgets.

So if you’re serious about esports and don’t have that big of a budget, you still have many options. In fact, we have buyer guides for monitors, keyboards, mice, headphones, and chairs that come under affordable budgets. And no, just because something has RGB Lighting doesn’t necessarily make it suitable for use in esports. But yes, a lot of esports equipment feature distinct design elements but that’s mostly just for aesthetics.

Equipment used by sports players is necessary for their performance and protection.

Gaming Headphones

Headphones are what you use to hear in-game audio, and in many esports titles a good set of gaming headphones can make or break a round. Sound is a very important element in esports games like CS:GO, PUBG, and Fortnite. For example, let’s say you’re playing CS:GO. With quality headphones having good positional audio, you’ll be able to hear when the bomb is getting defused, understand the difference between enemies coming from A Short and CT Spawn, and even hear grenades bouncing.

Good gaming headphones include drivers that are great at positional audio, a quality microphone for communication, closed back design for noise isolation, and a comfortable design. Here’s our buyer guide on the best budget gaming headphones to buy under 5000 INR.

Gaming Monitor

The monitor is where you see everything happening. It’s one of the most underrated things for competitive esports but gaming monitors can be a little confusing. There are important differences to understand between monitors meant for casual gaming & immersion, and the ones solely meant for esports.

Gaming monitors meant for competitive esports have a big impact on the game’s smoothness, can make it easier to spot enemies, and even make things like recoil control more comfortable. They could also have other advantages like switching profiles and lower blue light for longer sessions. But the most important is the panel, specifically its refresh rate and response time.

Refresh rate basically refers to how many times the image will refresh on your screen per second. Most monitors have a refresh rate of 60Hz, which is normal and will be fine for pretty much everything. Gaming monitors tend to have higher refresh rates like 120, 144, or even 240 in some really good esports centric monitors (like the BenQ Zowie XL2546 Monitor I reviewed recently).

There are also 60Hz monitors with lower response times, wider aspect ratios, etc. but remember that if you’re going to be buying one for esports, refresh rate is really important. Here’s our buyer guide on the top 5 gaming monitors to buy with a budget of 15,000 to 25,000 INR.

Gaming Keyboard

Keyboards are also another primary source of input and gaming keyboards do offer certain advantages for esports players. The switches are responsible for registering what you press on when you use the keyboard, and so gaming keyboards tend to have mechanical switches that reduce response time, increase accuracy, and make it easier to game on.

Many gaming keyboards also have a wrist rest, have TKL (tenkeyless) designs, come with additional keys, and other features depending on the price range and who is it meant for. A mechanical gaming keyboard is also popular among programmers, writers, and other people who rely on keyboards for their work.

While you could probably still do okay with a decent affordable keyboard from Logitech, it’s good to invest in a reliable gaming keyboard if you’re going be playing at a serious level. Here’s our buyer guide on the best budget gaming keyboards to buy under 4000 INR.

Gaming Mouse

A gaming mouse is very important, especially in FPS games where aiming accuracy matters the most. There are several key characteristics that make gaming mice stand out from regular mice including accurate sensors, reliable switches, extra buttons, and the design.

The sensor is the heart of the mouse, this is how the mouse tracks the movements your hand makes. A good gaming mouse has reliable sensors from brands like Avago & Pixart with an incredibly low response time through having a polling rate of 500-1000Hz. Without a good sensor, your accuracy will be severely affected, especially when you have a sudden encounter with an enemy and flick towards them. This is a top priority especially in games like CS:GO, PUBG, Overwatch, and others.

Reliable switches are also important, because you just cannot afford a misclick during intense moments, like when trying to clutch 1v5 in CS:GO. As for extra buttons, they’re very helpful in MOBA games like Dota 2 as you can map actions to them for quicker use.

Budget Gaming Mice like the Logitech G102 start at around 1500 INR, and this should be a priority especially if you’re into esports.  Here’s our buyer guide on the best gaming mouse to buy on every budget!

Gaming Chairs

The chair is where you sit while playing. This is often an overlooked factor and I don’t think many understand the importance of ergonomics and being comfortable while playing competitive games for a long time.

Gaming Chairs make it much more comfortable to sit for those longer gaming sessions. You don’t necessarily need a gaming chair by the way, so even a comfortable office chair will be miles ahead of what most people use. Higher end gaming chairs have insane comfort levels and some of them pass the 180 degree ‘But can you do this’ test popularized by PewDiePie.

Here’s our buyer guide on the best budget gaming chairs to buy with a budget of 5,000 to 15,000 INR.

Apart from all this, a gaming rig is also important as its responsible for pumping out the high frame-rates needed for optimal competitive play.

That concludes this story explaining different types of esports gear and why they are important. Thanks for reading, let us know down in the comments if you have any doubts or suggestions!