Playstyles

While it's true that all MOON (Mouse-Only) players exclusively use the mouse buttons to click, they employ a variety of clicking styles and grips. These styles can affect comfort, consistency, and the execution of certain skills. For example, some styles may be suited to speed and streaming, while others offer greater precision for timing and aim-intensive patterns. However, because hand size, physical characteristics, and personal preference vary between players, no single style is universally considered superior.

Clicking Styles

Singletap (Single-click)

Singletap is the oldest clicking style in both MOON and the wider osu! community. The player uses a primary mouse button (typically M1) to play most 1/2 patterns, commonly referred to as jumps. For denser 1/4 patterns, commonly known as streams, the player alternates between both mouse buttons (M1 and M2). Although singletapping has declined in popularity throughout the broader osu! community over the past decade, it remained the dominant style among MOON players for considerably longer. Today, pure singletap is relatively uncommon, with many players instead adopting hybrid techniques.

Hybrid

Hybrid players do not adhere to a single clicking style. Instead, they switch between techniques depending on the map, pattern, or what feels most comfortable at the time. A hybrid player may change their approach based on spacing, rhythm, or fatigue. Hybrid is currently the most common clicking style among MOON players.

Full Alternate

Full Alternate is a clicking style in which the player alternates between the primary and secondary mouse buttons regardless of pattern type. Unlike perfect full-alt, most player still have a preferred starting button, sometimes referred to as a dominant finger. As a result, although the player alternates consistently, certain patterns -- such as triples -- are typically initiated with the same mouse button each time.

Perfect Full-Alt

Perfect Full-Alt is a variation of full alternating in which the player alternates perfectly from one object to the next without resetting their alternation. Unlike standard full-alt, there is no preferred starting button or "dominant finger"; every hit determines which button is used for the next object. As a result, the starting button for any given pattern depends entirely on where it occurs within the ongoing alternation sequence.

Singletapping is generally regarded as the easiest clicking style for new players to learn and is often associated with achieving stable accuracy. At the other end of the spectrum, Perfect Full-Alt is typically considered the most difficult style to master, as maintaining uninterrupted alternation throughout a map can require significantly more consistency and coordination. Despite these differences, all major clicking styles are considered completely viable, and each is represented by accomplished MOON players. As a result, there is no widely accepted "best" clicking style.

Mouse Grips

In the FPS (First-Person-Shooter) community the following naming convention is widely used:

You count the amount of fingers you place on the left side, top side and right side of your mouse and write the three numbers down in order. For example "122" means, thumb on the left side of your mouse, index and middle finger on top, ring and pinky fingers on the right side.

The most common grips are:

122 (clicking M1 and M2 with index and middle fingers)

It is by far the most used mouse grip. It is also the MOON equivalent of the "index middle" keyboard playstyle.

131 (clicking M1 and M2 with index and ring fingers )

It is far less used than 122. It is also the MOON equivalent of the "index ring" keyboard playstyle.

The main reason why 131 is used in FPS Games is that you do not need to take a finger of M1 or M2 to access your mouse wheel which can be very important in games like Apex Legends with heavy mouse wheel usage. Since osu! does not have such use case, 122 is by far the more dominant grip style.

Playstyles beyond Mouse-only

ClickX

ClickX players use only one mouse button (M1 or M2) and one keyboard key (K1 or K2). It is the mouse equivalent of the tapx playstyle.

Quadratap

Quadratap players use M1, M2, K1, and K2 to hit patterns. Quadratap Perfect Full-Alt is seen as an extremely difficult playstyle to master.

MOON hybrid styles

Examples of MOON hybrid styles include:

• Keyboard for streams, MOON for jumps.
• ClickX for streams, MOON for jumps.

For further reading, refer to the osu!wiki. It features a more complete list of other playstyles, including non-mouse playstyles and playstyles for other osu! gamemodes.