DHS Hurricane 3 Neo: The Complete Amateur Guide & Review

[navuzor]

FWIW with the plastic ball it doesn't seem like tackiness is a great tradeoff. Coefficient of friction is always between materials, and it's not linear. The rubber and ball interface have load and speed sensitivity, so a large % change at low load and low speed might not be very much at all at high load and high speed.

I'm sure you always get more friction with tackiness because tackiness is adhesion ie: increased load sensitivity at low load and a much higher friction at low load, but what it also does is linearly (or maybe nonlinearly in the case of TT balls, I don't know) decrease the output normal energy, because part of it "sticks" to the rubber.

In the cell ball days I feel like it was a fine tradeoff because the extra spin especially in touch shots was worth it, but the speed tradeoff seems much higher than the spin benefit in rallying and even finishing shots. I've stopped looking for "rubbers which are as tacky as they used to be".

There was a recent discussion on that very topic that I found very interesting

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/modern-rubbers-are-killing-the-rotation-in-the-topspin-play.39731/

It looks like the equipment is converging towards the "new" hybrid concept of very grippy barely tacky with hard sponges, from both sides, the eur/jap and chinese sides. I remember someone making a comment in one of the discussions that the newer batches of Hurricane are basically hybrids now. I see their point now.
What rubbers are you looking into these days @Archosaurus ?

 

[Archosaurus]

There was a recent discussion on that very topic that I found very interesting

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/modern-rubbers-are-killing-the-rotation-in-the-topspin-play.39731/

It looks like the equipment is converging towards the "new" hybrid concept of very grippy barely tacky with hard sponges, from both sides, the eur/jap and chinese sides. I remember someone making a comment in one of the discussions that the newer batches of Hurricane are basically hybrids now. I see their point now.
What rubbers are you looking into these days @Archosaurus ?

My current sheet of H3 blue sponge is almost indistinguishable from D09c. It's not tacky basically at all. It'll lift the ball for maybe 0.1s. Whenever I hit with D09c there's zero adjustment whatsoever. I'm sure there's differences but it's shockingly close just at a surface level.

I'm deciding to stop EJing a bit and just stick with H3 and G-1 for now, but I'm still experimenting with the backhand rubber. I wanna find something a bit cheaper as well. So I've got H3 soft, H8-80 and Mantra-M on the list. Who knows when any of those go on the blade, though. Maybe next year. I'm happy with H3 on the forehand and I'm just gonna stick with it because its weaknesses are basically not relevant at all at my play level.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Maybe next year. I'm happy with H3 on the forehand and I'm just gonna stick with it because its weaknesses are basically not relevant at all at my play level.

The weaknesses were very relevant based on the video you posted the other day - you don't accelerate through contact with the ball at all, so rubbers like H3 will definitely exacerbate the problem of so many of your forehands going straight into the net.

 

[victormanriquey]

The weaknesses were very relevant based on the video you posted the other day - you don't accelerate through contact with the ball at all, so rubbers like H3 will definitely exacerbate the problem of so many of your forehands going straight into the net.

Yes H3N or H3 needs this to work.

And indeed @navuzor thats the new trend, I wouldnt go as far as to call the new H3N hybrid but the overall market is definitely moving towards this, it's because of the new meta, less time, more speed/power, more backhand, tackiness and spin lose relevance. For us amateurs this doesn't necessarily apply though, our rallies are not as fast and powerful, so there is often still time to pivot or play a spinny archy loop at the regional levels

Where I do see it applying is as we get older and with normal life, I for sure notice that playing more backhands and less pivots allows me to play at full power longer, so depending on how tired I am after the day, I take the tradeoff

 

[Archosaurus]

The weaknesses were very relevant based on the video you posted the other day - you don't accelerate through contact with the ball at all, so rubbers like H3 will definitely exacerbate the problem of so many of your forehands going straight into the net.

Sure, I'd land 1 or 2 more a game if I used something softer; and then I'd never learn to consistently accelerate through the ball because I'm just letting the rubber *barely* fix the issue. I'd rather just use what I know and fix the issue.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Sure, I'd land 1 or 2 more a game if I used something softer; and then I'd never learn to consistently accelerate through the ball because I'm just letting the rubber *barely* fix the issue. I'd rather just use what I know and fix the issue.

Rubber doesn't "teach you" or "force you" to do things - its one of the biggest noob traps in thinking online.

How can you learn how to do something when you miss 90% of the time and never get the positive feedback loop?

 

[Archosaurus]

Rubber doesn't "teach you" or "force you" to do things - its one of the biggest noob traps in thinking online.

How can you learn how to do something when you miss 90% of the time and never get the positive feedback loop?

What makes you think my hit rate would even go up with an equipment change, apart from the occasional lucky net shot that barely made it over? It's not the rubber swinging at the ball.

 

[K.K]

What makes you think my hit rate would even go up with an equipment change, apart from the occasional lucky net shot that barely made it over? It's not the rubber swinging at the ball.

+1 on @ThePongCommenter comment. with an easier to play rubber you get more balls on the table and get more rallys = more repetition, better feel for the right timing and then more confidence.

you need to choose rubbers according to your level not the other way around

 

[Archosaurus]

+1 on @ThePongCommenter comment. with an easier to play rubber you get more balls on the table and get more rallys = more repetition, better feel for the right timing and then more confidence.

you need to choose rubbers according to your level not the other way around

I can rally for 40, 50 balls in drills. Maybe 30 if they're loops. You act as if I haven't tried "easier rubbers" and became disappointed when they didn't see and decide how to hit the ball for me.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

What makes you think my hit rate would even go up with an equipment change, apart from the occasional lucky net shot that barely made it over? It's not the rubber swinging at the ball.

Of course fixing your stroke and accelerating through the ball would be the best way to increase your hit rate, regardless of equipment. However, since you're so far off of a proper stroke, and need to learn to actually "crack"/hit through the ball, trying that with a very hard rubber initially will make it very hard to ever establish the consistent feeling of doing that which is how you learn and improve.

You're not even close to needing to worry about bottoming out a softer rubber.

 

[K.K]

I can rally for 40, 50 balls in drills. Maybe 30 if they're loops. You act as if I haven't tried "easier rubbers" and became disappointed when they didn't see and decide how to hit the ball for me.

material decisions are not made within basic drills but in open game/match scenarios, the moments when the game get’s uncomfortable. there you decide if a setup fits your game.
a softer setup will always be easier to hit the ball on the table, because they are not as dependent on the right contact, angle and pressure/timing. so no, you need to do the stroke yourself, but if it lands on the table or not is the questions to ask and here softer rubber can help

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I can rally for 40, 50 balls in drills. Maybe 30 if they're loops. You act as if I haven't tried "easier rubbers" and became disappointed when they didn't see and decide how to hit the ball for me.

Think of it this way:

You need to fix your forehand stroke (if you ever want to get better). It is very incorrect and will not perform well with any type of rubber.

So, provided the above:

When trying to learn the new and improved forehand technique you need to learn, a softer rubber will be easier to get the proper repetitions you need to develop the new feeling. Once you get that figured out you can start moving your way up to harder rubbers, but just using a harder rubber hoping it will magically "teach/force you" to do the right thing, is just a way to end up never being able to consistently develop the feeling since your error rate will be so high during the learning process.

 

[Archosaurus]

Of course fixing your stroke and accelerating through the ball would be the best way to increase your hit rate, regardless of equipment. However, since you're so far off of a proper stroke, and need to learn to actually "crack"/hit through the ball, trying that with a very hard rubber initially will make it very hard to ever establish the consistent feeling of doing that which is how you learn and improve.

You're not even close to needing to worry about bottoming out a softer rubber.

I'm not *trying* to hit through the sponge at all in any of the videos I've posted. My opponent has major issues blocking heavy spin and slow shots so we're working on that. You're right though that it's not the right shot for most of those returns which are high and mild.

Of course once in a while I'll hit a 70%~ power shot because it's there for me, I think the latest videos have one or two.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I'm not *trying* to hit through the sponge at all in any of the videos I've posted. My opponent has major issues blocking heavy spin and slow shots so we're working on that. You're right though that it's not the right shot for most of those returns which are high and mild.

Of course once in a while I'll hit a 70%~ power shot because it's there for me, I think the latest videos have one or two.

So you're trying to hit every forehand straight into the net because your opponent wouldn't be able to block it if you did your proper loop? Come on man...

Hitting through the sponge doesn't make it become heavy and slow...

 

[victormanriquey]

If I may give my opinion here:

- Choosing harder rubbers to 'force' you learn the proper stroke mechanics using the body first and how to hit-brush is fine provided that the equipment doesn't make it too hard for you. It can be a bit hard initially, but not too hard, otherwise it has diminishing returns. I would not advice to learn on a 41 H3 rubber, better use a 39 H3N or Rakza Z for example. Age and practice also matters here, sometimes this path may not make sense for senior players.

- Choosing softer rubbers is also perfectly fine, provided that you don't forget that in the short term you may get a boost in winning, but medium-long term your technique is what needs to improve. Often in this path, as the player develops, they upgrade to harder rubbers to get more power later, provided that their technique moves forward.

- Also important to remember than FH and BH need different things, and each player natural talents, skills, and playstyle matters a lot. There is no one size fits all.

Final bit: the important part is not to be in the extremes, both are bad, making it impossible for yourself so you don't improve or making it too easy so you become lazy, equipment should be more in the middle. At the end of the day, the role of equipment is to either make you win more later or make you win more now, depending what your goals are at the moment (and ideally both). And technique is still leading, good technique can handle 80% of gear, not viceversa

 

[Archosaurus]

So you're trying to hit every forehand straight into the net because your opponent wouldn't be able to block it if you did your proper loop? Come on man...

Hitting through the sponge doesn't make it become heavy and slow...

Yes. He can't get a single normal shot back even in drills. Although his specific issue in games is anyone who loops slow to him will usually get him to pop it out, and the people around his (our) level don't really loop with power anyway. Even the division 5 guys barely do.

I'm not hitting through the sponge, if that's what you're implying. Like, almost at all.

7:48 in "2026-09-23 sets B" is more like a normal shot, although that's still pretty brushed.

EDIT: 2:28 in the video is about what my "normal" shot is like. I feel it's still pretty brushed, but it has some sponge.

EDIT: And no, I'm not claiming "if I want to" I will just hit everything. I'm sure those videos have a few really bad returns that I try to put away and still net them because of my tendency to brush more than hit either way.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Yes. He can't get a single normal shot back even in drills. Although his specific issue in games is anyone who loops slow to him will usually get him to pop it out, and the people around his (our) level don't really loop with power anyway. Even the division 5 guys barely do.

I'm not hitting through the sponge, if that's what you're implying. Like, almost at all.

7:48 in "2026-09-23 sets B" is more like a normal shot, although that's still pretty brushed.

EDIT: 2:28 in the video is about what my "normal" shot is like. I feel it's still pretty brushed, but it has some sponge.

EDIT: And no, I'm not claiming "if I want to" I will just hit everything. I'm sure those videos have a few really bad returns that I try to put away and still net them because of my tendency to brush more than hit either way.

Ok. You can blame your practice partner all that you want, the fact is very simple - your stroke is still completely incorrect even if you were trying to hit a lower spin ball that is more manageable for your partner. You confuse hitting through the ball with adding power, they are not the exact same thing. You could still hit through it (that doesn't mean powerfully or with great spin), but you try to brush everything even high slow balls and your timing is wrong too.

I had the same discussion with Zezima a while back and he argued to high heavens against my recommendation to switch from H3 to T19, and then about a year later came back to say that he loved T19 and had improved significantly in his time using it to relearn certain strokes. So take that for whatever it is worth.

 

[Archosaurus]

Ok. You can blame your practice partner all that you want, the fact is very simple - your stroke is still completely incorrect even if you were trying to hit a lower spin ball that is more manageable for your partner. You confuse hitting through the ball with adding power, they are not the exact same thing. You could still hit through it (that doesn't mean powerfully or with great spin), but you try to brush everything even high slow balls and your timing is wrong too.

I had the same discussion with Zezima a while back and he argued to high heavens against my recommendation to switch from H3 to T19, and then about a year later came back to say that he loved T19 and had improved significantly in his time using it to relearn certain strokes. So take that for whatever it is worth.

Could you quote to me the part where I said my aim is to give my partner a lower spin ball that is more manageable to him? I'm pretty sure I specifically said that the aim is to give a slow high spin ball, and that it's pointless to give shots with more overall quality because he's not ready for it and it's literally not the aim of the practice in any way.
Of course sometimes I'll go for them just for personal enjoyment; not that they always hit.

You think you're sneaky when you keep shifting the goalposts but I'm not just gonna let you do that. If you want someone to shit on, find another guy.

I'm happy that it worked out for Zezima, he has improved a ton since earlier in the year too. I liked T05FX a lot when I briefly used it, but the cost is too high for me personally, it's hard to justify.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Could you quote to me the part where I said my aim is to give my partner a lower spin ball that is more manageable to him? I'm pretty sure I specifically said that the aim is to give a slow high spin ball, and that it's pointless to give shots with more overall quality because he's not ready for it and it's literally not the aim of the practice in any way.
Of course sometimes I'll go for them just for personal enjoyment; not that they always hit.

You think you're sneaky when you keep shifting the goalposts but I'm not just gonna let you do that. If you want someone to shit on, find another guy.

I'm happy that it worked out for Zezima, he has improved a ton since earlier in the year too. I liked T05FX a lot when I briefly used it, but the cost is too high for me personally, it's hard to justify.

I'm not *trying* to hit through the sponge at all in any of the videos I've posted. My opponent has major issues blocking heavy spin and slow shots so we're working on that.

Ok so I read that as "I'm not trying to hit through the sponge at all in the videos I posted" and your partner has issues blocking heavy spin and slow shots so you're working on that separately of the video. My bad.

I have no goalposts to shift or desire to "shit on" you. But it does seem like you have a lot of pre-loaded excuses. It's why you post videos with the disclaimer that you "had been playing for 3 hours already and were too tired to play properly".

Taking the partner and his training goals out, everything that has been said to you by myself and others in this thread stands, and it seems like you're more interested in justifying why your forehand stroke is broken in all the videos you've posted, rather than accepting that there might be a better tool you could be using to re-learn, and that using your current rubber isn't going to "force you" to learn the right technique if that hasn't happened yet.

 

[Archosaurus]

Ok so I read that as "I'm not trying to hit through the sponge at all in the videos I posted" and your partner has issues blocking heavy spin and slow shots so you're working on that separately of the video. My bad.

I have no goalposts to shift or desire to "shit on" you. But it does seem like you have a lot of pre-loaded excuses. It's why you post videos with the disclaimer that you "had been playing for 3 hours already and were too tired to play properly".

Taking the partner and his training goals out, everything that has been said to you by myself and others in this thread stands, and it seems like you're more interested in justifying why your forehand stroke is broken in all the videos you've posted, rather than accepting that there might be a better tool you could be using to re-learn, and that using your current rubber isn't going to "force you" to learn the right technique if that hasn't happened yet.

It's context. You're not there with me for 4-5 hours to see everything I did. Even today when we did manage to film most of it, we couldn't get all of it. You just keep putting words in my mouth and assuming what things mean. You gotta stop that.

Could you (in the chit chat thread) reply to the video and tell me what's broken about the timestamps I posted? Those shots would go through a Division 2 player in Australia, or about 2000 - 2100 USATT. If that's "broken" then I think you have much higher ambitions than I do and maybe are used to only playing at a semi-pro/pro level.

EDIT: And if you mean the slow loops are broken, then yeah, sure, I'd have to agree. I do a lot of cartwheel and gecko-pose shit especially on the followthrough. I can't get any whip from anything because I lean in too much too early. I just don't know almost anything about doing shots like that.

I try to avoid them although I want to develop one to be able to play defensive players easier and because sometimes it seems like a better shot against a low ball that fell a bit more in front of me than I expected. I don't really have problems looping chop and those shots look like my normal shot but just more vertical and a bit lower followthrough. I've tried that against lighter backspin shots but I always just grab the ball and fling it out.