by thelewa
What is the first thing people wonder when they see certain players on osu!? Some wonder if they play with a mouse or a tablet. Some wonder what kind of keyboard they use. These are all important for sure, but there is one thing that many seem to put off to the side.
How exactly do they hit these circles?
There are two categories that people divide clicking styles into: singletapping, and alternating.
First off: "singletapping". As the name suggests, this clicking style is all about clicking whatever you physically can with only one finger. Usually, this means that you click every circle that has been mapped with ½ beat snap with one finger, and then use two fingers for circles that have been mapped in ¼, also known as streams.
This is the most commonly used clicking style, mostly because it is the easiest to grasp. Transitions from ½ beats to ¼ beats will be easier because all you need to do is add another finger into the mix instead of speeding up your clicking tempo. Many also report that "snapping" into circles is easier while singletapping. "Snapping" means stopping on each circle for a small amount of time in order to ensure that you really hit the circle. It's a rather advanced technique that only becomes relevant on high level maps. This phenomena occurs simply because the player is more familiar or comfortable with this style.
While singletapping can be easy to grasp, the downside is that your maximum speed in ½ patterns is very limited. This can obviously be improved with practice, but is difficult in comparison to alternating. However, many well known players, such as JAKACHAN, WubWoofWolf, and even Cookiezi can reach very high singletapping speeds..
Secondly: "alternating".This is a clicking style in which you alternate between two fingers for most, if not all circles. No matter what tempo the circles are mapped in, the player will alternate. Less experienced "alternators" might reset their alternating on sliders, but they are still considered to be alternating even if they favor one finger more than the other.
Alternating as a clicking style is not used nearly as much as singletapping. The reasons for this are anyone's guess, but the most common explanation in the community is "because it's harder". While the actual difficulty factor of alternating can be argued about for god knows how long, let's focus on the actual merits of alternating.
When alternating, the upper speed limit for ½ patterns is how fast you can move your two fingers. In theory, this means that the speed limit for ½ patterns for alternating players is twice as high as it is for singletappers. This is not exactly how it works in practice, but the speed limit is still quite a lot higher. This is the main reason as to why people alternate. The downsides of alternating, however, are the difficulty in transitioning from ½ patterns to ¼ streams and the difficulty of learning the style perfectly.
As to what style a player should play with: why not both? Use singletapping for maps that you can singletap, and alternate on maps that are too fast for singletapping. This is the way most high-ranked players play the game, and those guys aren't ranked up at the top for nothing.
—thelewa
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