QuagSass
Inkling Commander
Earlier this week I was playing Salmon Run with my teammates and we talked a bit about how bad I am with Dualies (I'm getting better, I promise!) During the conversation our captain told me that he couldn't wait for the devs to release a heavyweight Dualie just so I'd be forced to learn how to properly use one due to my self-imposed duty as a heavyweight weapons enjoyer. Then we kinda joked about how Gloogas are probably the closest to a heavyweight Dualie we'll ever get in Splatoon. It made me think about heavyweights and how some midweight weapons feel like heavies.
These are heavyweight mains in the game:
Dynamo Roller
E-liter 4K/E-liter 4K Scoped
Hydra Splatling <3
Explosher
Tenta Brella
Wellstring V
It's not a long list, which begs the quest: What makes a heavyweight a heavyweight? Why is something like the Tenta Brella a heavy but the Gloogas aren't?
To me a heavy weapon isn't just one that's slow and ink-hungry with big meaty damage numbers slapped on them. A heavy weapon is also the best at something within their class, regardless of how useful that actually is. Often this "something" is also one of the refining traits of the class. Dynamo Roller has the strongest swing, E-Liter has the most range, Hydra Splatling has the highest DPS etc.
The only one that kinda breaks the rule is Explosher, but even that had the highest potential damage per slosh until the Dread Wringer came along and tied it. Explo also just kinda feels the least "heavy" to me. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing, enlighten me Slosher experts. Either way, the weapon paints well enough and does enough damage to justify slapping the heavyweight penalties on it.
There's a couple weapons that feel like a heavyweight due to a combination to endlag, power and ink-efficiency but aren't. I'd like to go over a couple of them here.
So, why aren't Glooga Dualies heavy? They have the highest damage of any Dualie and that's a very common trait in heavies. But that's not a very "Dualie-like" quality. Dualies are fast, scrappy little peashooters that zip around and attract enemy attention. Even the Dualie Squelchers do this and Dousers to some extend. Dousers actually feel like the most heavy Dualie in some aspects. It's like the theoretical heavyweight Dualie was split into two different weapons. I'm not sure if a heavyweight Dualie could be a thing. It'd have to feel like it's the best at dodge rolling somehow while also being slow. Like a strange combination of Dousers and Tetras. I'd be down to hear some ideas from you Dualie folks.
Painbrush is a weapon that I thought was a heavyweight when it first came out. It certainly looks and feels like it. A mostly metallic brush with a large hitbox and a noticeable windup really felt like a homage to the Dynamo Roller in a way. Brushes and Rollers were once the same class, so it makes sense. Painbrush has more range and does more damage at the cost of sliding slower than the other Brushes. That last bit I think is why it's is not a heavyweight. It's not the best at sliding, in fact it can't start sliding as freely as the other Brushes due to it's windup. It does more damage when it bumps into someone while sliding, but that's not really something that Brushes try to do. It's also swung slower than the other Brushes, yet another strike againts it's potential heavyweight status.
Unlike with Dualies, I could see a heavyweight Brush being a thing. In fact I have two ideas on how to make it work:
Idea 1: Give it noticeable windup like with Painbrush, but make it swing really fast. The same speed as Inkbrush is probably as fast as you could go, but give it Octobrush damage so it feels faster. Would probably have swing ink in a narrower area make it more balanced.
Idea 2: Let it slide longer than the other Brushes. Inkbrush consumes 7.5% of it's inktank per second while sliding. The theoretical heavy Brush could consume 5% or something. Give it Inkbrush's enemy ink immunity and Octobrush's speed so this feels like a worthwhile defining trait of the weapon.
You could probably even combine these two ideas somehow. I think there's potential for a heavy Brush.
Range Blaster is an interesting case in that it has all the makings of a heavyweight weapon. It's ink hungry, it does a lot of damage, it had the biggest blast radius until it was nerfed. In an alternate dimension, the Range Blaster is a heavyweight.
I do sometimes wonder why, though I'm sure you Range players are happy it's not heavy. My guess is that while it's now tied for largest blast radius, it's old radius wasn't that much larger to begin with. When the radius did get nerfed I both heard people say that it didn't change much and that it did change things. That to me feels like the radius difference was neglible amongst the Blasters. Range was good at poking behind cover, but it wasn't overwhelmingly the best at it. Other Blasters could also do it just as effectively, barring some exceptions.
Range Blaster also deals a very standard amount of damage within the class. Both of those things combined with the fact that Range was not the longest range Blaster by the time weapon speed tiers were added to Splatoon 1 ultimately led to the weapon being cast as a midweight. Honestly Range is an honorary heavy in my eyes. I enjoy it a fair bit more than other Blasters.
But those are my thoughts on some midweights that don't quite feel like it. I'm sure there's more out there that I'm missing, but these were the ones that jumped out to me first. I was originally going to talk about lightweights as well, but uhhh. I don't care about lightweights >:)
Talk about them yourself.
Might write up an analysis on the actual heavyweights at some point as well. I really haven't been talking about them as much. Do you guys even know that I love heavies?
These are heavyweight mains in the game:
Dynamo Roller
E-liter 4K/E-liter 4K Scoped
Hydra Splatling <3
Explosher
Tenta Brella
Wellstring V
It's not a long list, which begs the quest: What makes a heavyweight a heavyweight? Why is something like the Tenta Brella a heavy but the Gloogas aren't?
To me a heavy weapon isn't just one that's slow and ink-hungry with big meaty damage numbers slapped on them. A heavy weapon is also the best at something within their class, regardless of how useful that actually is. Often this "something" is also one of the refining traits of the class. Dynamo Roller has the strongest swing, E-Liter has the most range, Hydra Splatling has the highest DPS etc.
The only one that kinda breaks the rule is Explosher, but even that had the highest potential damage per slosh until the Dread Wringer came along and tied it. Explo also just kinda feels the least "heavy" to me. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing, enlighten me Slosher experts. Either way, the weapon paints well enough and does enough damage to justify slapping the heavyweight penalties on it.
There's a couple weapons that feel like a heavyweight due to a combination to endlag, power and ink-efficiency but aren't. I'd like to go over a couple of them here.
So, why aren't Glooga Dualies heavy? They have the highest damage of any Dualie and that's a very common trait in heavies. But that's not a very "Dualie-like" quality. Dualies are fast, scrappy little peashooters that zip around and attract enemy attention. Even the Dualie Squelchers do this and Dousers to some extend. Dousers actually feel like the most heavy Dualie in some aspects. It's like the theoretical heavyweight Dualie was split into two different weapons. I'm not sure if a heavyweight Dualie could be a thing. It'd have to feel like it's the best at dodge rolling somehow while also being slow. Like a strange combination of Dousers and Tetras. I'd be down to hear some ideas from you Dualie folks.
Painbrush is a weapon that I thought was a heavyweight when it first came out. It certainly looks and feels like it. A mostly metallic brush with a large hitbox and a noticeable windup really felt like a homage to the Dynamo Roller in a way. Brushes and Rollers were once the same class, so it makes sense. Painbrush has more range and does more damage at the cost of sliding slower than the other Brushes. That last bit I think is why it's is not a heavyweight. It's not the best at sliding, in fact it can't start sliding as freely as the other Brushes due to it's windup. It does more damage when it bumps into someone while sliding, but that's not really something that Brushes try to do. It's also swung slower than the other Brushes, yet another strike againts it's potential heavyweight status.
Unlike with Dualies, I could see a heavyweight Brush being a thing. In fact I have two ideas on how to make it work:
Idea 1: Give it noticeable windup like with Painbrush, but make it swing really fast. The same speed as Inkbrush is probably as fast as you could go, but give it Octobrush damage so it feels faster. Would probably have swing ink in a narrower area make it more balanced.
Idea 2: Let it slide longer than the other Brushes. Inkbrush consumes 7.5% of it's inktank per second while sliding. The theoretical heavy Brush could consume 5% or something. Give it Inkbrush's enemy ink immunity and Octobrush's speed so this feels like a worthwhile defining trait of the weapon.
You could probably even combine these two ideas somehow. I think there's potential for a heavy Brush.
Range Blaster is an interesting case in that it has all the makings of a heavyweight weapon. It's ink hungry, it does a lot of damage, it had the biggest blast radius until it was nerfed. In an alternate dimension, the Range Blaster is a heavyweight.
I do sometimes wonder why, though I'm sure you Range players are happy it's not heavy. My guess is that while it's now tied for largest blast radius, it's old radius wasn't that much larger to begin with. When the radius did get nerfed I both heard people say that it didn't change much and that it did change things. That to me feels like the radius difference was neglible amongst the Blasters. Range was good at poking behind cover, but it wasn't overwhelmingly the best at it. Other Blasters could also do it just as effectively, barring some exceptions.
Range Blaster also deals a very standard amount of damage within the class. Both of those things combined with the fact that Range was not the longest range Blaster by the time weapon speed tiers were added to Splatoon 1 ultimately led to the weapon being cast as a midweight. Honestly Range is an honorary heavy in my eyes. I enjoy it a fair bit more than other Blasters.
But those are my thoughts on some midweights that don't quite feel like it. I'm sure there's more out there that I'm missing, but these were the ones that jumped out to me first. I was originally going to talk about lightweights as well, but uhhh. I don't care about lightweights >:)
Talk about them yourself.
Might write up an analysis on the actual heavyweights at some point as well. I really haven't been talking about them as much. Do you guys even know that I love heavies?
