Changing Triple-Inkstrike

[isaac4]

I've been playing Slosher for a good while and I've been thinking a lot about how dull using Tri-Strike can feel. It's definitely not a bad special and learning how to throw them in specific ways to have them all land around the same time is fun but having a main and sub that wants to push ahead with a special that works best when you're backed away doesn't feel great. So I thought of a few ideas ideas on how the special could feel better and work with frontline weapons without making it too strong or taking away what works well for other weapons like Z+F Charger.

The first and most obvious change would be to let you swim during the special. Being able to swim with Zooka makes it so much more fun than it would have been if the special forced you to walk and that would apply to Tri-Strike as well. My main concern with that though is that Tri-Strike can be thrown extremely far, being in it's range for less than a second can kill you, and it goes through walls and ceilings. Slightly decreasing swim speed when you have the special active and reducing some of it's range since you're able to reposition now with it now should help deal with that.

I also want to let the strikes paint the floor of where they land. It wouldn't be anything big, maybe the same amount of paint from an Angle Shooter but since the special is on a good amount of weapons that fight up close such as Ttek, Slosher, and Neo Splash, I want the option to trap an opponent who's closer to you and force them to paint their feet to get safe. I don't think it would make it too good either since the time to detonate is the same and unless it's your last strike, you can't hurt them with your main weapon after. I also thought about making the strikes deal 30 damage if you make direct contact with them when they land to give more of a reason to back off and have the special be more useful in team fights but that might be way too much for a special that focuses on displacement.

My final change would be to make strikes weaker when going through walls and ceilings. They would still damage you but wouldn't instantly kill like they do normally. I think just being able to swim and reposition should make up for that since you'll have more areas to throw them in making it less predictable where they'll be for the enemy team.

That's it for the most part. I was also thinking of making the special meter deplete faster so you can't just stall tower easily but I think I've changed enough as is. I definitely want to know if these changes would be good or bad for Triple-Inkstrike and what could work better instead. This is my first time doing something like this for any special so there's a chance my ideas don't work well with all the weapons the it's is on or the maps themselves.

 

[chaotik0]

i kind of like strikes how they are right now, they just gave them to weapons that don’t want it.

i think the less damage through walls and floors is a bit unnecessary though, it was a cool part of the special that only even did anything on very specific parts of certain maps. plus if i throw it on the side of idk like mahi snipe does it deal less damage on the snipe side because thats technically a wall and floor? plus the strike comes from above that doesn’t even make sense.

strikes are displacement and these changes seem to want to make it be better at fighting while weakening some of its other strengths, which leads to a few problems. first, think about how bad line marker is. but it’s able to do so much, paint your feet, locate, deal chip damage at a long range how could that possibly be bad? it’s because each thing it can do needed to be toned back because of the amount of stuff it has rather than the value of the stuff it has combined. i think the fighting types of changes to strikes don’t combo well with what it does best right now, and will just make it be just kinda good at displacing and fighting at once. funnily enough the buff you said probably wouldn’t make it too good for fighting that it would actually do this i think it mainly makes up for a weakness, it’s mainly the nerfs i don’t like. and im just talking about the design behind the changes. also being able to swim with the strikes is not as big as a buff as people think, and definitely not enough to be scared to make all those nerfs. the slight nerf to the range kinda makes sense but i would rather not be able to swim but still have the range, even when using shot or slosher. i also think it can still be used good with those weapons well it’s slightly unrelated so maybe i will save it for when someone actually asks for help using it

that might have been a bit harsh, maybe i should have talked about the good things first lol. being able to paint a small amount and damage on contact does make you need to be very careful near the strikes immediately instead of right before they activate. it isn’t impossible to treat them the same as before, but instead harder which is good design. it also incentivizes throwing them on top of snipe spots too. but, some weapons that are probably unfairly countered by this buff, like dynamo which is already a terrible weapon, are not going to be able to deal with it as good as other weapons (shooters). it’s still not too bad, just a bit of a concern. this change kind of helps a weakness and i don’t think it’s too powerful. it makes a like mid/high mid tier special able to keep up with others a bit better. now that i just said this i am realizing the parts i don’t like are the nerfs. the first reason is because of what i just said, and the second reason is they seem to only exist because of the fear of how powerful swimming with strikes would be, when it wouldn’t be actually that bad, it would just be a nice little addition that makes it easier to get away if someone is threatening you, because realistically if you need it to reposition you probably popped special in a bad spot in the first place. one last thing, the meter depletion change. tower control will always be doomed to tower stalling and GG options and i think making the special worse entirely for that is kind of harsh.

i do like how you are trying to make it not too broken, but in this case it was too careful. also i think it’s more fun to make fun ideas that might be overtuned and then discuss toning it back if necessary with everyone. this is also how i think they should be treating their balance patches instead of being way too safe and making a bunch of insignificant buffs that don’t do really much at all. anyway sorry for ranting on about all this i have a problem.

 

[Grushi]

I wish you were able to swim with it, but with a swim speed nerf like trizooka, since I do like that you can punish bad positioning with it, so it should still be a bit slower imo.

But recently the change I'm starting to want the most is a slight paint nerf, I think it paints too well, and very fast, which is basically turning it into zones cheese the sequel. Everytime I see a slosher in comp or solo they always use their strikes on retake to paint the zone, which on their own can be painted over by some weapons, but that basically requires the entire enemy team to look at the zone and paint it, which is very easy to take advantage of. You also get really dumb strats like the six strikes combo from slosher + zf charger which is basically a guaranteed cap everytime and pencil + bombs getting thrown at the zone at the same time as the strikes.
I don't think specials painting is a big problem, but strikes paint too well, too fast, and are safe to use, so on zones it makes using the special very boring and flowcharty, and forces your team to have good painting weapons to contest it, which already have an advantage in this mode

 

[isaac4]

i think the less damage through walls and floors is a bit unnecessary though, it was a cool part of the special that only even did anything on very specific parts of certain maps. plus if i throw it on the side of idk like mahi snipe does it deal less damage on the snipe side because thats technically a wall and floor? plus the strike comes from above that doesn’t even make sense

That's true actually. Not something I considered but it would be an issue with how the special works to begin with.

strikes are displacement and these changes seem to want to make it be better at fighting while weakening some of its other strengths, which leads to a few problems. first, think about how bad line marker is. but it’s able to do so much, paint your feet, locate, deal chip damage at a long range how could that possibly be bad? it’s because each thing it can do needed to be toned back because of the amount of stuff it has rather than the value of the stuff it has combined. i think the fighting types of changes to strikes don’t combo well with what it does best right now, and will just make it be just kinda good at displacing and fighting at once. funnily enough the buff you said probably wouldn’t make it too good for fighting that it would actually do this i think it mainly makes up for a weakness, it’s mainly the nerfs i don’t like. and im just talking about the design behind the changes. also being able to swim with the strikes is not as big as a buff as people think, and definitely not enough to be scared to make all those nerfs.

Good point, even if this is all in an attempt to make Tri-Strike work with the more aggressive weapons it's on, it's still a displacement special first and foremost. I was also trying to give a few more weaknesses since Nintendo seemed to take away the ability to swim so that the counterplay against strikes would be to kill the user while they're vulnerable. I was trying to balance the special with the idea that letting you swim with it might make that vulnerability not an important factor anymore, but that might not be completely true now that I think about it. Unlike Zooka, strikes can't instantly kill anyone chasing them so the idea of taking care of the strike user while they can't fight back is still there.

that might have been a bit harsh, maybe i should have talked about the good things first lol. being able to paint a small amount and damage on contact does make you need to be very careful near the strikes immediately instead of right before they activate. it isn’t impossible to treat them the same as before, but instead harder which is good design. it also incentivizes throwing them on top of snipe spots too. but, some weapons that are probably unfairly countered by this buff, like dynamo which is already a terrible weapon, are not going to be able to deal with it as good as other weapons (shooters). it’s still not too bad, just a bit of a concern. this change kind of helps a weakness and i don’t think it’s too powerful.

No worries, I didn't actually think it was harsh. There's a lot of important points being made and it's good to hear a different perspective on this.
Glad that the idea of having the strikes paint and damage on contact doesn't sound too insane lol
I really thought it sounded cool and would let teammates have a bit more of an advantage if they're pushing in with your strikes.
I did think about how easily shooters could ignore it though but I think that's more of a shooter problem since they can deal with most specials in the game better than any other weapon class.

one last thing, the meter depletion change. tower control will always be doomed to tower stalling and GG options and i think making the special worse entirely for that is kind of harsh.

Yeah, GG specials can't be completely fixed in TC without reworking the whole mode. I also decided not to go with it because it would go against the idea of being able to swim and use it in different spots. If the special meter depletes too fast you won't get many chances to take advantage of swimming with strikes anyway.

 

[isaac4]

I wish you were able to swim with it, but with a swim speed nerf like trizooka, since I do like that you can punish bad positioning with it, so it should still be a bit slower imo.

But recently the change I'm starting to want the most is a slight paint nerf, I think it paints too well, and very fast, which is basically turning it into zones cheese the sequel. Everytime I see a slosher in comp or solo they always use their strikes on retake to paint the zone, which on their own can be painted over by some weapons, but that basically requires the entire enemy team to look at the zone and paint it, which is very easy to take advantage of. You also get really dumb strats like the six strikes combo from slosher + zf charger which is basically a guaranteed cap everytime and pencil + bombs getting thrown at the zone at the same time as the strikes.
I don't think specials painting is a big problem, but strikes paint too well, too fast, and are safe to use, so on zones it makes using the special very boring and flowcharty, and forces your team to have good painting weapons to contest it, which already have an advantage in this mode

Damn, I completely forgot about Tri-Strike painting zone lol
I feel like making the paint after it detonates slightly worse seems like a reasonable nerf but it probably wouldn't be able to stop ZF Charger and Slosher from using strikes to instantly retake zone. If the maps allowed you to get around the enemy team to kill the strike users more easily, that might be a good way to deal with that but this is Splatoon 3 and we have maps like Brinewater zones to work with.