These controllers, for those who may have never held one, place paddles underneath the grips of the gamepad, and you can create custom button mappings so that you never have to take your thumbs off the joysticks to perform actions like jumping, reloading, or switching weapons. There are other brands out there, like Battle Beaver Customs, and some officially licensed third-party pro controllers from like the likes of Razer and Nacon. But Scuf has become pretty much the Kleenex of the category — and for good reason. The company has built a name for itself creating well-made devices with a variety of color options and various customizable tiers. The latter lets you customize the button mappings, while the tools let you tweak mechanical aspects of the controller, like the how far down you have to press a trigger button before it activates and kicks back to its original position. The newest Scuf device, however, may be the first controller the company has made that has a chance of rivaling the Xbox One Elite as the best, most feature-packed pro gamepad on the market. For me, the Xbox-style layout is an appreciated touch, making the controller much more comfortable to hold. Yet the biggest and most impactful feature the Vantage offers is instant remapping. This may be the primary selling point of the entire device for those who really like to tinker with button layouts and remapping combos. For instance, when playing Destiny 2, I kept jump and slide to the two most prominent back paddles, while the reload and switch weapons functions were remapped to the sax buttons. There was a learning curve involved, but once I really got into the groove of using all four of xbox one scuf controller extra buttons as intended, I felt my playing improve considerably. Being able to jump, switch to a new weapon, and reload almost simultaneously and without removing my thumbs from the joysticks has been critical in helping me squeeze out victories xbox one scuf controller particularly tricky situations. The final benefit you get with the Vantage is easy customization. Normally, you have to tinker with some tools, pry off parts, and do other laborious manual operations on the controller to switch out thumbsticks, change trigger action, and so on. With the Vantage, almost every part of the controller can be easily accessed, thanks xbox one scuf controller the removable faceplate and the custom base, which Scuf built from the ground up. First and perhaps most importantly is that I have been completely unable to get the Bluetooth to work. And I have been unable to figure out how to fix that. So each day that I go to turn on my console, I have to use my old DualShock 4 controller, and then activate the Vantage once the console has come to life. I notice this mostly with in-game menus and, more annoyingly, when trying to sprint in games like Destiny 2 and Fortnite, as my sprint function will lock up when the controller registers anything other than forward pressure on the thumbstick. The Final Verdict Are these issues enough to sink the controller entirely. As for the durability issues and that thumbstick drift, I can say that Scuf does provide up to a 180-day full warranty on the controller, so you can always talk to support, send it in, and get a new one. The paddles are also under a one-year warranty, which is nice. The company was able to send me a set of replacement paddles, though I am still not sure what exactly caused the thumbstick drift and whether it will return. In that sense, the Vantage, for all its bells and whistles, may cater to a small market: gamers with the money to spend on a device that may not be measurably better than existing options and is plagued by too many problems to justify its cost.
