Are 'Damage Up' and 'Defense Up' useful/useless?

[theBrokenFox]

[account deleted]

 

[NotAPerso]

Both damage up and defense up are weapon dependent abilities meaning their usefulness depends on which weapon you are using. So a blanket statement on their usefulness is that they are both useful if you are using a weapon that would heavily benefit from them.

As far as usefulness on Tri-Slosher goes, 1 sub of damage up may secure a two hit splat if you are slightly higher than an opponent but that is the only situation it will help in and stacking any more damage up would be a waste.
Defense up is significantly better on mid-long range weapons and Tri-Slosher is too short range to benefit so it's best to invest in other abilities.

 

[theBrokenFox]

[account deleted]

 

[binx]

It's true that Damage Up depends a lot of the weapon you are using, but I kinda disagree for Defense Up. To be more specific, it doesn't matter as much. Anyway, Defense Up and Damage Up counters each others. So, when you don't know what your opponents weapons and stuff will be, it's hard to say if it will be very useful or not.

For example, would you take a bucket, a .52 or a blaster, having a lot of Damage Up will still be annoying for snipers, who tend to put lots of Damage Up to kill faster. But this won't do much against .96, who will still kill you in two hits.

I never really played Defense Up so I'm not an expert, but I can say this is quite popular in S+ random games, especially for .96 users.

About the Tri-Slosher, I wouldn't play Damage Up. I think Swim Speed is good, Ninjasquid can be tried, Special Charge Up is popular like for the Jr (and some other Bubbler weapons). But everything depends of your playstyle.

 

[NotAPerso]

What about the aame question for te Slosher? If not damage up, then what abilities are my best options?

Standard Slosher benefits a great deal from damage up if you often use "burst canceling" since burst bomb then slosh is much faster than two sloshes and you don't have to be as accurate on the first hit.
Here are the recommended minimums: 1 damage main and 1 sub allows for far hit burst bomb then slosh to kill, 1 main 3 subs adds the ability to kill 3 defense main with a near hit burst bomb and slosh.
Maximum effectiveness is 1 main 6 subs worth of damage up to counter most defense users.

It's true that Damage Up depends a lot of the weapon you are using, but I kinda disagree for Defense Up. To be more specific, it doesn't matter as much. Anyway, Defense Up and Damage Up counters each others. So, when you don't know what your opponents weapons and stuff will be, it's hard to say if it will be very useful or not.

For example, would you take a bucket, a .52 or a blaster, having a lot of Damage Up will still be annoying for snipers, who tend to put lots of Damage Up to kill faster. But this won't do much against .96, who will still kill you in two hits.

I never really played Defense Up so I'm not an expert, but I can say this is quite popular in S+ random games, especially for .96 users.

About the Tri-Slosher, I wouldn't play Damage Up. I think Swim Speed is good, Ninjasquid can be tried, Special Charge Up is popular like for the Jr (and some other Bubbler weapons). But everything depends of your playstyle.

While technically true that defense up" works" for every single weapon not all weapons benefit equally. The most effective builds of defense up come at a really high opportunity cost because you are absolutely required to sacrifice running other abilities and on many weapons those other abilities would be more effective more often (many people argue that all weapons would benefit from other abilities over defense but those people don't understand how defense up would benefit any weapon).

Mid-long range weapons benefit the most because they can out range other weapons more easily and playing at the outer edges of range is much safer.
I'll give examples to make my point.
Damage up charger fires at .96 gal Deco and misses first shot, 96 Deco presses toward charger while charger shoots a short charge that hits, defense up with 96 Deco survives the shot and is as range to kill charger before charger can run.
In that same situation if it was a krak-on roller the outcome would've been either both survive but charger is still in position to destroy teammates, or charger pulls off second quick charge shot that finishes off the krak-on before it can do anything.

.52 gal and .96 gal Deco are in a fire fight, the .52 gal gets one hit and .96 Deco pulls away to avoid but gets hit a second time and barely survives with defense up, .96 Deco repositions and hits two shots while outranging the .52 gal.
Shorter range weapons might survive the escape but would still have to enter the .52 gal range at a risk to secure the kill.

In most situations that a short range weapon could get close enough to kill they are still at significant risk to die regardless of how many defense up they stack and thus quick respawn is much more effective to be stacked on them.

 

[binx]

It's interesting to compare with the Quick Respawn indeed, and helps to explain why defense up is popular for .96 (deco).