Pazizmix
Inkling
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2022
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- Pazizmx
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Howdy. Call me Paz.
If you missed my first post looking at the Range Blaster build, ProChara, an experienced and popular competitive Splatoon player posted his builds for all to enjoy and take a look at. He posted minor explanations in the information bubble, but as someone who admittedly spends too much time looking at loadouts and theorycrafting builds I want to expand on his choices.
Today we look at his Explosher Build. A somewhat recent development in the 1.2 meta as an Anchor/Support option, it's typically picked to pressure backline weapons because of it's ability to harass without line of sight and/or punish slower team compositions. It's stellar combination of long range sloshes and Point Sensor allow you to take positions you normally wouldn't able to encroach your effective range at odd angles.
The Breakdown
1.3 Ink Saver Main - 8 sloshes to 11 from full tank. 4 sloshes to 6 after using a Point Sensor from full tank. One full slosh after using Point Sensor twice in a row from full tank, though I doubt you would double up on Point Sensors often.
1.2 Swim Speed Up - 1.73 Units per Frame to 2.14 UPF. This blows right past the base lightweight UPF of 2.02.
1.1 Special Charge Up - 200P special gauge down to 180P.
0.1 Special Saver, Quick Super Jump, Ink Resist - the value sub trio imparting the benefits:
19AP (1.3) imparts the same amount of sloshes as the max 24AP benefit from LDE, the only difference is what's left in the tank, 11.22 sloshes vs 11.98 sloshes. The 5AP difference not quite reaching 12 sloshes is a result of abilities scaling logarithmically, in other words, benefits from abilities get weaker as you stack them more.
Stealth Jump is something of a preferential or situational choice. The Explosher certainly has long range, but not so much that it wouldn't be ideal to occasionally jump closer to the front lines. I expect the heavy investment into Swim Speed Up well past any of the common break points of simply negating the heavyweight penalty is making up for the in ability to take riskier jumps by helping you get to where you need to faster. Being able to maneuver in and out of skirmishes better on a weapon that does not want to be pressured by any mid to close range weapon is also a great boon to have.
All of this doesn't mean that it's an objectively better choice to not run LDE and SJ. You don't need to look much further than his Explosher Build 2 where he runs both in order to accomplish a different objective with Explosher, and that's simply to help soften negative game states that are likely to occur when faced with a quicker more aggressive team.
Being able to Ink Storm more often is of course a good thing not only to "refil" your tank, but also to put down paint and chip damage that compliments the Explosher's sloshes extremely well. The value subs are tossed around on just about any well rounded build for the bonuses I listed in "The Breakdown" section.
Conclusion
ProChara's Explosher build, particularly the Ink Saver Main and Special Charge Up, is great example of what I think the objective of any one ability should be doing at a bare minimum in your build, hitting clean, compelling and convenient thresholds. I know people will probably look at the "Pure" (1.3) of Ink Saver Main and run with it as a justification to make their own builds with "pures" but it ignores the fact that these abilities choices hit very specific break points, and well, everything else in the build.
About my only critique of the build is that you can probably get away with less Swim Speed Up, as you only need three Subs worth (9AP) or a Main to completely counter act the heavyweight penalty, and bring you back up to a bonus similar to the swim feel of the inherent bonus from a lightweight weapon. My guess is that he just didn't find any other compelling options, and having more speed on a slower moving weapon with heavy animation commitments to it's Main is not a bad thing.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and would love to hear your thoughts. What I got right, what I got wrong, or if you want me to expand on something a bit more. Take care.
If you missed my first post looking at the Range Blaster build, ProChara, an experienced and popular competitive Splatoon player posted his builds for all to enjoy and take a look at. He posted minor explanations in the information bubble, but as someone who admittedly spends too much time looking at loadouts and theorycrafting builds I want to expand on his choices.
Today we look at his Explosher Build. A somewhat recent development in the 1.2 meta as an Anchor/Support option, it's typically picked to pressure backline weapons because of it's ability to harass without line of sight and/or punish slower team compositions. It's stellar combination of long range sloshes and Point Sensor allow you to take positions you normally wouldn't able to encroach your effective range at odd angles.
The Breakdown
1.3 Ink Saver Main - 8 sloshes to 11 from full tank. 4 sloshes to 6 after using a Point Sensor from full tank. One full slosh after using Point Sensor twice in a row from full tank, though I doubt you would double up on Point Sensors often.
1.2 Swim Speed Up - 1.73 Units per Frame to 2.14 UPF. This blows right past the base lightweight UPF of 2.02.
1.1 Special Charge Up - 200P special gauge down to 180P.
0.1 Special Saver, Quick Super Jump, Ink Resist - the value sub trio imparting the benefits:
- Lose only 41% of your gauge on being splat, rather than 50%
- 3.27 total super jump time, from 3.63, a time save of 0.36 seconds, while also lowering the frames you are vulnerable to attack from 80 to 58. In a 60FPS game like Splatoon, that means you are only out in the open for a little under a second rather than 1.2 seconds.
- Helps you walk in enemy ink a bit better and hopefully save your membrane from the unfortunate position your ambitions have landed you in. It also Lowers DPS while in enemy ink from 18DPS to 12DPS, adds 10 frames before you start taking damage, and lowers the max damage you take from enemy ink from 40 to 38.
So interestingly, no LDE or Stealth jump. LDE does indeed provide an absurd value proposition to the Explosher, and it almost seems almost like a mistake not to run it. However, with Point Sensor being a cheap utility based sub arm, and the Exploshers absurd main weapon, it's just as compelling a choice to run a healthy amount of Ink Saver Main for a consistent bonus as long as you are fine with missing out on the Ink Recovery Up.
19AP (1.3) imparts the same amount of sloshes as the max 24AP benefit from LDE, the only difference is what's left in the tank, 11.22 sloshes vs 11.98 sloshes. The 5AP difference not quite reaching 12 sloshes is a result of abilities scaling logarithmically, in other words, benefits from abilities get weaker as you stack them more.
Stealth Jump is something of a preferential or situational choice. The Explosher certainly has long range, but not so much that it wouldn't be ideal to occasionally jump closer to the front lines. I expect the heavy investment into Swim Speed Up well past any of the common break points of simply negating the heavyweight penalty is making up for the in ability to take riskier jumps by helping you get to where you need to faster. Being able to maneuver in and out of skirmishes better on a weapon that does not want to be pressured by any mid to close range weapon is also a great boon to have.
All of this doesn't mean that it's an objectively better choice to not run LDE and SJ. You don't need to look much further than his Explosher Build 2 where he runs both in order to accomplish a different objective with Explosher, and that's simply to help soften negative game states that are likely to occur when faced with a quicker more aggressive team.
Being able to Ink Storm more often is of course a good thing not only to "refil" your tank, but also to put down paint and chip damage that compliments the Explosher's sloshes extremely well. The value subs are tossed around on just about any well rounded build for the bonuses I listed in "The Breakdown" section.
Conclusion
ProChara's Explosher build, particularly the Ink Saver Main and Special Charge Up, is great example of what I think the objective of any one ability should be doing at a bare minimum in your build, hitting clean, compelling and convenient thresholds. I know people will probably look at the "Pure" (1.3) of Ink Saver Main and run with it as a justification to make their own builds with "pures" but it ignores the fact that these abilities choices hit very specific break points, and well, everything else in the build.
About my only critique of the build is that you can probably get away with less Swim Speed Up, as you only need three Subs worth (9AP) or a Main to completely counter act the heavyweight penalty, and bring you back up to a bonus similar to the swim feel of the inherent bonus from a lightweight weapon. My guess is that he just didn't find any other compelling options, and having more speed on a slower moving weapon with heavy animation commitments to it's Main is not a bad thing.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and would love to hear your thoughts. What I got right, what I got wrong, or if you want me to expand on something a bit more. Take care.