5 Reasons why the Splat Roller is NOT overpowered!

[SuperAliceinWonderland]

So we all got a taste of Splatoon this weekend with Splatfest and one of the loudest reactions is everyone's feelings about the Splat Roller. People have already taken to various places to declare the roller as OP and unfair, for example:




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(Taken from Kotaku)

I thought I would share a couple of reasons I think the Splat Roller isn't OP and maybe some reasons to this reactions

We've barely played the game

Splatfest lasted 3 hours total and I'm willing to bet a lot of people didnt have the chance to play all three sessions due to work/school/life. Even the hardcore fans who did get to play all 3 hours, their teammates were no doubt different each time and many of our teammates were playing their first match when we were on our 10th or 20th. Even then, 3 hours is a not enough time to develop a really concrete understanding of strategy in the game. We may have learned some neat tricks and had some ideas but we were still wrestling with the controls. pace and mechanics.



The roller is comfy and easy to use

Of the 4 weapons available , the roller is by the far the easiest one to use. Everyone knows how to walk around in a 3d game, and the roller is literally just press fire and walk forward. You don't have to worry about aiming, positioning or even looking in front of you that much. You will when the game comes out and people become more experience but it wasn't generally necessary during splatfest. To top it off, the roller is just fun to use right away, it's satisfying putting a huge streak of ink right in the middle of enemy territory. Not to mention rolling over people is a very satisfying way to get a kill.

Only two levels have been played

Nintendo said during the direct that levels will come in pairs and change every 4 hours. They stressed the importance of choosing the right layout for the two paired maps and its possible warehouse and saltspray are just good roller maps overall. I don't think the advantage is that huge but it could be there. I do think a much more important factor in making the rollers seem OP is the fact that we don't yet know the best camping spot for the sniping type weapons or great places to ambush. Combined with points 1 and 2 it makes sense the roller would dominate early on partly due to map ignorance.

Splatoon is a team game

Competitive team games usually have team members taking crucial but equally important aspects to win the game. I think squads in the future will need at least 2 rollers per team but other snipers and shooters will be just as a crucial as rollers. A team of only rollers will be at a huge disadvantage. Since we have only played randoms and lobbies arn't even coming soon. Teamwork coordination will be very difficult in a game that is essentially based around team play. So we cant use coordination to deal with the rollers glass cannon like a normal team would

Rollers is a new style of play and we don't know how to react yet

If you were to play a mmo deathmatch, you might think a healer is OP since they can make other team members harder to kill. In the early days of a particular CoD using no gear and just a knife to run around a shiv people quickly dominated the early months because people didn't know how to use it. I remember when I first played Melee my friend refused to play me when I play Marth because according to him countering was too unfair and couldn't be worked around.

Those are just a few of my thoughts on the roller situation, feel free to discuss if you think the my reasoning is flawed or other reasons the roller is not as OP as people are saying! Thanks!

 

[Ellocus]

I completely agree. It's easy to use and is effective against people who aren't very experienced and don't know how to beat them easily. As soon as I got comfortable with the controls, rollers walking towards me were no trouble at all.

Map knowledge will surely be a big factor too. Once I had some more awareness of where the enemies could approach from, I could easily camp out choke points with my charger, making rollers attempts to reach me almost laughable.

They definitely do still have a hug role to play though, as they are fantastic at ground coverage in any flat area and are also strong, if you can get the drop on enemies. I think the balance of the weapons was fantastic actually. We will see how this changes with different ability combinations (Roller + bubbler would be a scary sight).

 

[Kayeka]

People that think the roller is a new style of play obviously never had to deal with the W+M1 Pyro. And much like the W+M1 pyro, the roller can be defeated using the mystical art of walking backwards and shooting.

The roller has a vital role on the team, but I think that a team that brings more than one of them will be at a severe disadvantage against a team that brought weapons that can actually win a fight.

 

[sabersmasher]

I played mostly roller during the demo, and my thoughts were, that it's really just useful for covering large amounts of areas quickly. If people actually ran away from the person with the roller and shot at them, the roller would be quickly splatted. And the roller has to be aware of any snipers, which can quickly take them out and the roller can't do much about

 

[Radi]

I can agree with pretty much everything that has been said in the first post. All of those are viable points as to why the Splat Roller isn't overpowered. The Splat Roller is more of a double-edged sword than anything else really.

 

[JbrockPony]

I'll admit I was part of the #RollerOP Cult, but I ended up adjusting. I started to notice that rollers have a hard time infultrating my ink areas since they slow down and take damage. With that said, it makes them a easy target for close-mid ranged shots.

I often use the squid form as a footsie tech to juke back and forth in combat versus rollers, which I notice not many people take advantage of that to retreat when things get rough.

LOL @ the melee marth thing. Yeah, the meta hasn't even been developed yet so we'll see how things go. So far I feel like things are balanced for the most part. Some weapons have higher learning curves than others (Looking at you sniper..).

 

[Ellocus]

People that think the roller is a new style of play obviously never had to deal with the W+M1 Pyro. And much like the W+M1 pyro, the roller can be defeated using the mystical art of walking backwards and shooting.

The roller has a vital role on the team, but I think that a team that brings more than one of them will be at a severe disadvantage against a team that brought weapons that can actually win a fight.

I feel "easy to learn, difficult to master" most applies to the roller. Someone completely new to the game can have a serious impact, but I found myself and others using the roller quite often seemed to forget they have a squid form or ranged attack and just tried to charge the enemy. It will be important to learn when you can try and run down an opponent or when you should use your range attack or even when you should turn and run.

 

[Kayeka]

It will be important to learn when you can try and run down an opponent or when you should use your range attack or even when you should turn and run.

Well, that part is easy. Run them down when they are distracted, use your range attack when they are turning your way and you haven't run them down yet, and run away when they so much as catch a glimpse of you.

The thing with rollers is that they can't push. They do a great job covering ground that's secure, but lose in a fight against pretty much everything else, and their ambushes can be defeated by throwing a splat bomb towards any suspiciously enemy-coloured spots. Having a team that's great at painting ground isn't any good if it results in being pushed back to your spawn area.

 

[iiGGYxD]

Roller is pretty basic / easy to use and effective. I was a little salty at turning corners only to die instantly to a roller, what did I learn? Always watch corners. Against rollers you want elevation. They have few options if you are standing on an object above them. That and just out-ranging them if you know their position is the best strategy to defeat them. Just like any game we will learn how to beat what is seemingly OP now and another OP weapon stat boost etc..will pop up. Just the life cycle of any multiplayer game.

 

[Lyn]

5 Reasons the Splat Roller is Overpowered

1. No
2. No
3. No
4. No
5. Absolutely not

 

[Trieste Sp]

I agree with all your points. Rollers seems to be OP but it isn't. It's just the majority of people who've played it don't know how to deal with the weapon. Backpedaling away from rollers while shooting. Learning to run away from disadvantageous situations by jumping back into your ink and escape. The Bubble is very useful against multiple Rollers. You can just stand right in front of them and shoot.

 

[Nukichuu]

I had no problems fighting against a full Roller Team. People who say its op just dont know how to deal with it

 

[suavevillain]

People shouldn't judge balance of any game based off 1-3 hours. Rollers aren't op their role is suppose to be tank like lol.

 

[DarkGreenInkling]

LOL the tweets. This game hasn't even come out yet and people are already saying that the roller is OP. I'm jealous at the people who got to do the global testfire while I was out in the Dominican Republic for a week.

Just like Smash, its not the character or the item, its the player. Your reaction time is slow lol. But the roller is awesome nonetheless. It spreads a lot of paint on the ground so other teammates don't have to do much work, and it doesn't use too much ink either. Plus if you're a defensive kind of player, then the roller can work for you.

 

[Emitan]

Haha I'm one of the quoted tweets in the article.

By the time the article was posted I had completely changed my mind. Roller players are pretty easy prey for splattershot players. If they approach you, just go into your ink and run away and shoot from range. Rollers are great for claiming turf but they're actually not a very good combat weapon.

 

[SkyBlue]

eh, I feel the regular splat roller isn't op, and will likely get dropped for the dynamo roller. Slower, but can deflect enemy ink..that's going to be something else.
I don't think any weapon will be Op though.

 

[Vayu]

Eh, I just jump over Rollers when they get too close, and retreat fire and abuse squid form for mobility.
Granted it isn't something that works if you run into the roller, as they can always just shake off their rollers, it has to be close enough so that they can't repsond to the jump.

 

[SuperMii3D]

To win in a Roller v Roller fight, you merely jump. and hit the opposing roller from above. Thats how you avoid the THKO that occurs whenever two rollers run into each other.

 

[Emitan]

To win in a Roller v Roller fight, you merely jump. and hit the opposing roller from above. Thats how you avoid the THKO that occurs whenever two rollers run into each other.

The hitbox doesn't extend upwards? Makes sense but I never thought of that!

 

[Kayeka]

In a roller vs roller fight, the first player to remember how to use the splash wins.