OnePotWonder
Inkling Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2024
- Messages
- 914
- Location
- Marooner’s Bay
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Switch Friend Code
- SW-2068-8904-6306
We all know .52 Gal one way or another. It is often recognized as the most hated weapon in the game; it has an incredible kill time for its range, a Splash Wall that it loves to use aggressively to take space, a global range displacement special that it rarely follows up on itself, and a patch history of net zero despite it being the most overpowered top tier the series has ever seen at the end of Splatoon 2.
Let's first remove the elephant from the room. Is .52 Gal overpowered? Yes! This weapon's stats are beyond incredible and the main reasons it isn't being seen in the meta are because its special isn't very mainstream, and top-level comps rely a lot on weapons having damage combos with one another. Current .52 Gal does need nerfs, that's certainly true. But I would argue the baseline design of the weapon is better than that of other similarly-ranged shooters for a few reasons, the first of which being the main thing shooters are hated for.
Unlike Splash-o-Matic, N-ZAP, and even Splattershot these days, .52 Gal is not a special spammer. Even if the weapon plays to output as many specials as possible, its Killer Wails won't put a speck of paint on the ground unless they splat an enemy; the polar opposite of the Triple Inkstrikes that T'tek and Neo Splash farm for their team. Add on to this that .52 Gal has Splash Wall as its sub, and you have a shooter that actually paints a reasonable amount of turf over the course of a match, because it relies entirely on its main weapon to do so.
Without the same paint as other shooters, the weapon understandably has higher fighting and slaying power, but that's also handled better than with a shooter like Splattershot. The weapon reaches its minimum accuracy (a 25% chance to miss) in 8 shots, just over a second of firing. Splattershot takes 24 shots to reach the same minimum accuracy, therefore twice as much time. If a .52 Gal misses its first few shots, it will struggle to hit follow-up shots much more than something like a Splattershot. The N-ZAPs are even worse, taking 48 shots and nearly four seconds to reach minimum accuracy. And also note that .52 Gal has a higher angle of spread and longer range than those other shooters, meaning misses are significantly less likely to hit the target accidentally.
One last note; this swift accuracy falloff also compounds the weapon's lower paint, since it has to be more aware of its chance to miss and can't afford to switch from painting straight to fighting. It gives the weapon more downtime than similar options.
A brief point to touch on is .52 Gal's lower mobility than its competition. Unlike N-ZAP and Splash, it's Middleweight, not Lightweight. More importantly, it has a lower strafe speed than every other short-range shooter, which combines with its speedy accuracy falloff to make "hold-forward syndrome" almost always a death sentence. The weapon requires a level of cognitive function to play at the lowest levels.
The last thing to cover is .52 Gal's namesake; its 52 damage per shot. Because this number is barely higher than the 50 damage required to splat in two shots, a .52 Gal will practically never splat an enemy with falloff damage, as it will be reduced to a slow three-shot splat that also has terrible accuracy even without jumping. Combine this with its Splash Wall and you have one of few shooters with the main weakness its class is supposed to have: Line of sight requirement. Weapons like Splattershot, Splash-o-Matic, and N-ZAP all have decent falloff and/or lethal bombs, reducing their supposed line of sight weakness to an inconvenience at most.
This near-threshold damage also makes .52 Gal's damage much easier to heal from than other shooters', making the weapon easier to escape from than other options with more generous damage numbers.
So at a glance, .52 Gal just seems like this overpowered, super easy killing machine. It has a faster time to splat than every other shooter, even including Sploosh-o-Matic, and more range than more than half of them. It excels at punishing even the smallest mistakes. But the thing is, it draws from a lot of other stats to have that level of power.
I'll be frank, the point of this post isn't to convince you that .52 Gal is a good weapon. I've made it clear that yes, I do think the thing is overpowered. It is terrible to fight with an overtuned defensive sub weapon that can easily make up for its accuracy weakness, and that it can spam with the help of its high ink efficiency and free ink refill of a special weapon. But it's not THAT bad; not compared to its competition. I've compared it to the same three weapons this whole time for a reason.
.52 Gal doesn't spam bombs, mindlessly hold forward while shooting, or avoid engagements in favor of charging special. .52 Gal is a purely confrontational true slayer weapon that has no more reason to spend time painting than a Splat Roller. It's not a jack-of-all trades; it's predictable. Add onto that the weapon's slimmer margin of error without its sub than other options, and you have a weapon that isn't nearly as bad as the other short-range shooters in the meta.
For those curious, here's how I would nerf .52 Gal to put it in a balanced spot. I would shamelessly play the weapon if it were to receive these nerfs. (I will continue to shamefully play the weapon without them.)
.52 Gal
Fire rate decreased from 6.67 to 6 shots per second
Ink consumption increased from 1.3% to 1.9% per shot
Splash Wall
Base HP decreased from 800 to 600
HP decay per second decreased from 15% to 12.5%
The fire rate nerf enhances the weapon's weaknesses without dampening its strengths. A one frame kill time difference doesn't mean much, but an 11% fire rate nerf does put a damper on the main weapon's paint output. The ink consumption increase reduces the weapon's overtuned ink efficiency, a class-wide problem that isn't unique to the weapon. The Splash Wall rework makes the sub easier to break when focused by opponents, but last longer when ignored, rounding out the sub's strengths and weaknesses.
Overall, these nerfs keep .52 Gal's identity intact while taking the edge off of its overtuned stats.
Thank you for your prolonged attention. Feel free to discuss .52 Gal below if you feel so compelled.
No, I wasn't expecting to defend this weapon's design either. But I've gotten so sick of bomb spam shooters that I'm willing to support nearly anything able to counter them.
Here's hoping you don't run into me online, for your sake. Even if you do, have a wonderful day.
Let's first remove the elephant from the room. Is .52 Gal overpowered? Yes! This weapon's stats are beyond incredible and the main reasons it isn't being seen in the meta are because its special isn't very mainstream, and top-level comps rely a lot on weapons having damage combos with one another. Current .52 Gal does need nerfs, that's certainly true. But I would argue the baseline design of the weapon is better than that of other similarly-ranged shooters for a few reasons, the first of which being the main thing shooters are hated for.
Unlike Splash-o-Matic, N-ZAP, and even Splattershot these days, .52 Gal is not a special spammer. Even if the weapon plays to output as many specials as possible, its Killer Wails won't put a speck of paint on the ground unless they splat an enemy; the polar opposite of the Triple Inkstrikes that T'tek and Neo Splash farm for their team. Add on to this that .52 Gal has Splash Wall as its sub, and you have a shooter that actually paints a reasonable amount of turf over the course of a match, because it relies entirely on its main weapon to do so.
Without the same paint as other shooters, the weapon understandably has higher fighting and slaying power, but that's also handled better than with a shooter like Splattershot. The weapon reaches its minimum accuracy (a 25% chance to miss) in 8 shots, just over a second of firing. Splattershot takes 24 shots to reach the same minimum accuracy, therefore twice as much time. If a .52 Gal misses its first few shots, it will struggle to hit follow-up shots much more than something like a Splattershot. The N-ZAPs are even worse, taking 48 shots and nearly four seconds to reach minimum accuracy. And also note that .52 Gal has a higher angle of spread and longer range than those other shooters, meaning misses are significantly less likely to hit the target accidentally.
One last note; this swift accuracy falloff also compounds the weapon's lower paint, since it has to be more aware of its chance to miss and can't afford to switch from painting straight to fighting. It gives the weapon more downtime than similar options.
A brief point to touch on is .52 Gal's lower mobility than its competition. Unlike N-ZAP and Splash, it's Middleweight, not Lightweight. More importantly, it has a lower strafe speed than every other short-range shooter, which combines with its speedy accuracy falloff to make "hold-forward syndrome" almost always a death sentence. The weapon requires a level of cognitive function to play at the lowest levels.
The last thing to cover is .52 Gal's namesake; its 52 damage per shot. Because this number is barely higher than the 50 damage required to splat in two shots, a .52 Gal will practically never splat an enemy with falloff damage, as it will be reduced to a slow three-shot splat that also has terrible accuracy even without jumping. Combine this with its Splash Wall and you have one of few shooters with the main weakness its class is supposed to have: Line of sight requirement. Weapons like Splattershot, Splash-o-Matic, and N-ZAP all have decent falloff and/or lethal bombs, reducing their supposed line of sight weakness to an inconvenience at most.
This near-threshold damage also makes .52 Gal's damage much easier to heal from than other shooters', making the weapon easier to escape from than other options with more generous damage numbers.
So at a glance, .52 Gal just seems like this overpowered, super easy killing machine. It has a faster time to splat than every other shooter, even including Sploosh-o-Matic, and more range than more than half of them. It excels at punishing even the smallest mistakes. But the thing is, it draws from a lot of other stats to have that level of power.
I'll be frank, the point of this post isn't to convince you that .52 Gal is a good weapon. I've made it clear that yes, I do think the thing is overpowered. It is terrible to fight with an overtuned defensive sub weapon that can easily make up for its accuracy weakness, and that it can spam with the help of its high ink efficiency and free ink refill of a special weapon. But it's not THAT bad; not compared to its competition. I've compared it to the same three weapons this whole time for a reason.
.52 Gal doesn't spam bombs, mindlessly hold forward while shooting, or avoid engagements in favor of charging special. .52 Gal is a purely confrontational true slayer weapon that has no more reason to spend time painting than a Splat Roller. It's not a jack-of-all trades; it's predictable. Add onto that the weapon's slimmer margin of error without its sub than other options, and you have a weapon that isn't nearly as bad as the other short-range shooters in the meta.
For those curious, here's how I would nerf .52 Gal to put it in a balanced spot. I would shamelessly play the weapon if it were to receive these nerfs. (I will continue to shamefully play the weapon without them.)
.52 Gal
Fire rate decreased from 6.67 to 6 shots per second
Ink consumption increased from 1.3% to 1.9% per shot
Splash Wall
Base HP decreased from 800 to 600
HP decay per second decreased from 15% to 12.5%
The fire rate nerf enhances the weapon's weaknesses without dampening its strengths. A one frame kill time difference doesn't mean much, but an 11% fire rate nerf does put a damper on the main weapon's paint output. The ink consumption increase reduces the weapon's overtuned ink efficiency, a class-wide problem that isn't unique to the weapon. The Splash Wall rework makes the sub easier to break when focused by opponents, but last longer when ignored, rounding out the sub's strengths and weaknesses.
Overall, these nerfs keep .52 Gal's identity intact while taking the edge off of its overtuned stats.
Thank you for your prolonged attention. Feel free to discuss .52 Gal below if you feel so compelled.
No, I wasn't expecting to defend this weapon's design either. But I've gotten so sick of bomb spam shooters that I'm willing to support nearly anything able to counter them.
Here's hoping you don't run into me online, for your sake. Even if you do, have a wonderful day.
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