So when I setup my PC at home, and started playing D2, I started with the old xbox 360 controller. something about it felt off to me? Like the deadzone was cranked too high and I couldn't get a good feel for the sensitivity. Because I'm playing in a living room KB/M wasn't really an option, so I decided to try something different. I have a steam controller, so I plugged it in.

Long story short: it takes some tweaking, but it's pretty great, and I want all controllers to copy some stuff from it. And the reasons are probably not what you'd expect.

If you haven't see the steam controller, it's really a controller designed to let you play games designed for KB/mouse on the couch. IT has one analog stick, 2 track pads, 4 buttons, 2 paddles and 4 triggers, and gyro. That Gyro seems like a throway thing, but it's key to the whole kit.

Even though it's through steam, you can get it to work through battle.net with some workarounds. It's a bit annoying, but once you do the setup once it works well enough. The concepts in the steam controller though are things I want brought into all future controllers. This comes down to 2 things.

1. A dedicated controller interface. You really customize the shit out of this thing, which is interesting. So for example, in the PC version it has three seperate buttons to switch to each weapon, or keys to scroll through the three weapons, which maps poorly to a controller. But it's pretty easy to create a system that uses holds or double taps that can emulate the fairly elegant Destiny controller solution. It's then pretty easy to share or download other ones.

2. THE GYRO MAKES AIMING SO MUCH BETTER. It's hard to explain, but having the gyro lets you perform *fine* grained aiming, while you can snap to targets with the track pad. It would work wiell with analog sticks also (splatoon player swear by this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0ep2tJk8f0&t=54s )

The big downside for D2 is that you give up a lot of stickiness, though the hitboxes are generous. It's got a definate learning curve as you learn to coordiate aiming with your thumb and the *the whole controller* at the same time. But it feels incredibly crisp as you learn it. You can snap around like you have a mouse lock right onto heads. I'm not quite ready for PVP yet, but at this point I feel better at PVE with it (Players heads have smaller hitboxes, and my brain sometimes just goes back to stick mode).

So yea, if you have a steam controller give it a shot. And hope that in the PS5/ XBOne 2 they include Gyros in the controllers. It's good!