Competitive Gear Meta

[Aelo]

Basically what the title says.

I was watching InkStorm 3 last Weekend and I saw this guy Yugo with Damage Up gear (Legendary Cap and Squidforce Tee) but he was exclusively using the 52. Gal. He could have used those slots for something better, right? But he was doing amazing nonetheless. And he was not the only one rocking Damage Up gear.

My question is, why? Does Damage Up play an important role in the current Meta?
Are there tier lists regarding which abilities are better than others?
And why exactly are competitive player using Damage Up as a viable option in Tournaments like InkStorm instead of other more useful abilties?

 

[ThatsSo]

A .52 without damage is borderline useless. Especially in a competitive environment where defense stacking is even more common.

 

[Holidaze]

Iirc, any gun does not decrease the number of shots needed to kill when running damage up. Damage up for guns, I would assume is only for the subs and specials. i.e. Any bomb to increase lethality, and splash walls to increase damage on impacts. For Specials, Ink strike and Killer wail kill faster with damage up, as you're able to take a few hits from each before actually dying. Damage up I would mainly use for other weapon types, due to it changing the number of hits it takes to kill, or charge time.

@ThatsSo,-edit- this is wrong, fixed in a later post. Even if you were to run Damage up to counter Defense up, if there were equal number of mains and subs for both, Defense up would still win, due to it having a higher % per sub and main, so why run a counter, when you're still going to lose that.

 

[ThatsSo]

Yeah, you guys are right, someone go tell Yugo and literally every competitive 52 gal main that two random guys on squidboards have better game knowledge than them.

 

[Njok]

Killer wail kill faster with damage up, as you're able to take a few hits from each before actually dying.

I didn't know that, thanks for the tip. I hate it when people always survive my killer wails.

splash walls to increase damage on impacts.

true, but i still prefer bomb range up so i can throw them further. but that's just my opinion, i know that most people prefer having the splash wall close to them.

 

[Charlight]

Iirc, any gun does not decrease the number of shots needed to kill when running damage up. Damage up for guns, I would assume is only for the subs and specials. i.e. Any bomb to increase lethality, and splash walls to increase damage on impacts. For Specials, Ink strike and Killer wail kill faster with damage up, as you're able to take a few hits from each before actually dying. Damage up I would mainly use for other weapon types, due to it changing the number of hits it takes to kill, or charge time.

@ThatsSo, Even if you were to run Damage up to counter Defense up, if there were equal number of mains and subs for both, Defense up would still win, due to it having a higher % per sub and main, so why run a counter, when you're still going to lose that.

Certain guns such as the .52 gal increase shots to kill according to defense up.

Damage up for bombs, splash walls, inkstrikes and killer wails is literally useless, it's mainly used for chargers and weapons with variable shots to kill.

Damage up and defense up are not a 1 to 1 exchange, defense up are less effective than damage ups. Iirc, 4 damage up subs counter 2 defense up mains in regards to the .52 gal, but I could be wrong on the exact numbers.

 

[VideoGameVirtuoso]

Basically what the title says.

I was watching InkStorm 3 last Weekend and I saw this guy Yugo with Damage Up gear (Legendary Cap and Squidforce Tee) but he was exclusively using the 52. Gal. He could have used those slots for something better, right? But he was doing amazing nonetheless. And he was not the only one rocking Damage Up gear.

My question is, why? Does Damage Up play an important role in the current Meta?
Are there tier lists regarding which abilities are better than others?
And why exactly are competitive player using Damage Up as a viable option in Tournaments like InkStorm instead of other more useful abilties?

Considering the other exclusive headgear abilities, which are Opening Gambit, Last Ditch Effort, Comeback, and Tenacity, having another Damage Up stacked is not a rare sight.

The .52 Gal is countered by one sub of Defense Up, I believe. At high level play, Defense Up becomes common to see the more the playstyle warrants exposure, especially in large, open areas of the map. Damage Up definitely plays an important role in the meta, especially with weapons which had damage nerfs, such as the E-Liters and Splattershot lineup.

As far as I am aware, abilities and tier lists regarding them have been inconsistent since game launch. However the more common stackable abilities in Ranked Battles consist of Swim Speed Up, Run Speed Up, Damage Up, and Defense Up. Occasionally you may see Ink Recovery Up on chargers or the Dynamo lineup.

The reason why one would consider Damage Up instead of other abilities is if you have an aggressive playstyle, and you rarely miss when you do focus out opponents. It also gives you some security when engaging them.

 

[Aelo]

Iirc, any gun does not decrease the number of shots needed to kill when running damage up. Damage up for guns, I would assume is only for the subs and specials. i.e. Any bomb to increase lethality, and splash walls to increase damage on impacts. For Specials, Ink strike and Killer wail kill faster with damage up, as you're able to take a few hits from each before actually dying. Damage up I would mainly use for other weapon types, due to it changing the number of hits it takes to kill, or charge time.

@ThatsSo, Even if you were to run Damage up to counter Defense up, if there were equal number of mains and subs for both, Defense up would still win, due to it having a higher % per sub and main, so why run a counter, when you're still going to lose that.

I knew that the 52. Gal was affected by Defense Up, because it made the gun require 3 hits, instead of 2, to kill. I can't remember if this happened when using a Defense Up sub or main.
I also knew that Damage Up was specially useful fro increasing the base damage of stuff like Bombs (Burst Bombs are the best example) but I didn't know that it could affect Specials, or that it made the Splash Wall lethal enough to be used as a projectile (I have never thrown a Splash Wall directly at an enemy before, should try that) Do you have a source or something that can certify that all this is true? Have you tested this yourself?

Snipers and Blasters are the ones that benefit the more from Damage Up. Still, Defense Up can increase the number of hits a gun needs to kill, when Damage Up can only COUNTER this, making defense up a superior ability and Damage Up only useful to counter what Defense Up is achieving.

Also, what you said is not so true. Yugo's set had a Damage Up main and 3 Damage Subs. This would mean that the opponents had to run a set consisting of almost pure Defense Up abilities to counter him, and at high competitive play, I doubt that players will go for a full defensive set intead of running other more useful abilities when they know that they will be spending too many slots just to survive one more shot than normal.
Plus, for opponents not running Defense Up, I guess Damage Up would be useful to still 2 shot people with the 52. Gal from far away, since range also affects a weapon base Damage.

 

[Holidaze]

Yeah, you guys are right, someone go tell Yugo and literally every competitive 52 gal main that two random guys on squidboards have better game knowledge than them.

Rude, I'm just speculating, why would your jimmies be rustled over that?

Certain guns such as the .52 gal increase shots to kill according to defense up.

Damage up for bombs, splash walls, inkstrikes and killer wails is literally useless, it's mainly used for chargers and weapons with variable shots to kill.

Damage up and defense up are not a 1 to 1 exchange, defense up are less effective than damage ups. Iirc, 4 damage up subs counter 2 defense up mains in regards to the .52 gal, but I could be wrong on the exact numbers.

-Edit- (I may have read this wrong, correct me if I did.)
I wasn't aware of damage up increasing the shots it takes to kill for guns, In terms of guns, I've actually only used Custom / Splattershot Jr,, and to some extent the Tentatek / Splattershot, thanks for the tidbit of information. In regards to the subs n main abilities, It's close to being a 2:1 ratio, Damage up nearly doubling over Defense up.

I knew that the 52. Gal was affected by Defense Up, because it made the gun require 3 hits, instead of 2, to kill. I can't remember if this happened when using a Defense Up sub or main.
I also knew that Damage Up was specially useful fro increasing the base damage of stuff like Bombs (Burst Bombs are the best example) but I didn't know that it could affect Specials, or that it made the Splash Wall lethal enough to be used as a projectile (I have never thrown a Splash Wall directly at an enemy before, should try that) Do you have a source or something that can certify that all this is true? Have you tested this yourself?

Also, what you said is not so true. Yugo's set had a Damage Up main and 3 Damage Subs. This would mean that the opponents had to run a set consisting of almost pure Defense Up abilities to counter him, and at high competitive play, I doubt that players will go for a full defensive set intead of running other more useful abilities when they know that they will be spending too many slots just to survive one more shot than normal.
Plus, for opponents not running Defense Up, I guess Damage Up would be useful to still 2 shot people with the 52. Gal from far away, since range also affects a weapon base Damage.

Damage up increases "All" sources of damage. It even says so in the game when you read the damage up ability. Have I tested using damage up on splash walls? No. Does the splash wall deal damage? Yes, so the damage coming from splash wall will, if I'm correct in this, increase when damage up is used.

I also should have mentioned that I haven't been watching the competitive scene, so literally, I don't know jack when it comes to competitions, some hot plays, or even the players. Like the only one I know, would be some guy named DUDE.

 

[Leronne]

bomb range up does not increase how far a splash wall goes. The wall has a set distance it goes no matter how many bomb range ups you use. It's already been mentioned before but damage up does not lower the amount of shots you need to kill, but defense up can increase it. The .52 becoming a three shot is absolutely horrible. Using one main and 3 subs (which somewhat equates to 2 main) is a standard for the weapon, because it counters 2+ defense, which is the minimum of what most people run if they plan on using defense up. also damage up is borderline useless on killer wail and inkstrike. The only weapons that can make use out of damage up are weapons with burst bombs, blasters, chargers, rollers to some extent and the .52. Most other shooters aren't affected by defense up as much as the .52 (unless you're running like a crap ton of it).

 

[polysaw]

yugo runs 3 mains worth of damage up because that's how much damage up is needed for a 52 gal to counter any number of defense ups (meaning that he would be able to splat anyone in two shots no matter how much defense up they have). if he didnt run damage up, a single defense up perk would raise his time to kill from a 2 shot to a 3 shot, which is a crucial difference at high levels of play.

 

[SquiliamTentacles]

Iirc, any gun does not decrease the number of shots needed to kill when running damage up. Damage up for guns, I would assume is only for the subs and specials. i.e. Any bomb to increase lethality, and splash walls to increase damage on impacts. For Specials, Ink strike and Killer wail kill faster with damage up, as you're able to take a few hits from each before actually dying. Damage up I would mainly use for other weapon types, due to it changing the number of hits it takes to kill, or charge time.

The key rule is: Does the projectile/whatever have a fixed damage (Always does the same damage unless the projectile fell a good bit) or a variable damage (Changes depending on range / charge time / close to area of impact) Things like shooters, splatlings, sloshers, sprinklers, 1-shot blasters splash walls all have fixed damage, and damage up does not decrease the uses to splat. Things like rollers, chargers, Rapid Blasters and all bombs have variable damage, and Damage up can decrease the uses to splat. (Even then, some variable weapons have damage caps, like the Bamboozler and Rapid Blasters can only do 99.9 damage at a maximum.)

That being said, Damage Up is not useless on weapons with fixed damage. It can counter defence up (like the .52 Gal). Also, on some weapons, like the L-3 D, Damage Up can bring foes to about 99.9 damage, which means that if your opponent has already taken a tiny amount of damage (most likely from stepping in enemy ink), you can skip one of your shots.

 

[Holidaze]

The key rule is: Does the projectile/whatever have a fixed damage (Always does the same damage unless the projectile fell a good bit) or a variable damage (Changes depending on range / charge time / close to area of impact) Things like shooters, splatlings, sloshers, sprinklers, 1-shot blasters splash walls all have fixed damage, and damage up does not decrease the uses to splat. Things like rollers, chargers, Rapid Blasters and all bombs have variable damage, and Damage up can decrease the uses to splat. (Even then, some variable weapons have damage caps, like the Bamboozler and Rapid Blasters can only do 99.9 damage at a maximum.)

That being said, Damage Up is not useless on weapons with fixed damage. It can counter defence up (like the .52 Gal). Also, on some weapons, like the L-3 D, Damage Up can bring foes to about 99.9 damage, which means that if your opponent has already taken a tiny amount of damage (most likely from stepping in enemy ink), you can skip one of your shots.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[SupaTim]

From what I can tell, the competitive meta is:
Swim Speed/Run Speed stacking
Quick Respawn/Stealth Jump
Damage Up
Defense Up

 

[MrL1193]

Damage up and defense up are not a 1 to 1 exchange, defense up are less effective than damage ups. Iirc, 4 damage up subs counter 2 defense up mains in regards to the .52 gal, but I could be wrong on the exact numbers.

Yes and no. Damage Up and Defense Up actually do cancel each other out perfectly when used in equal amounts; however, there are a few aspects to their interaction that can cause confusion. For one thing, because their effect on damage is percentage-based, they actually have to have different percentages of effects in order to cancel each other out. So, for instance, if you have enough Damage Up to increase your damage by 25% and you hit with a series of attacks that normally would deal 100 damage, you'll deal 125 damage instead. However, if your opponent has exactly the same amount of Defense Up (in terms of number of main and sub abilities), it will block only 20% of the damage, but that will drop the amount of damage you deal right back down to 100 (because 20% of 125 is 25).

However, the real reason that people frequently claim that Damage Up "beats" Defense Up is far simpler than all that. Simply put, a tie between Damage Up and Defense Up (in terms of amounts) is a win for a .52 Gal, because that means that it retains its 2HKO. In order for Defense Up to win out, it has to not only match the opponent's amount of Damage Up but also surpass it by a certain amount in order to reduce the .52 Gal's damage by ~4%, and due to the fact that each additional main or sub of an ability is less effective than the previous one, that margin by which Defense Up has to surpass Damage Up (in number of main and sub abilities) becomes larger and larger as Damage Up and Defense Up are stacked.

I doubt that players will go for a full defensive set intead of running other more useful abilities when they know that they will be spending too many slots just to survive one more shot than normal.

You'd be surprised. It's actually not uncommon for .96 Gal users (of both versions, though the Deco is far more popular) to stack Defense Up, sometimes even throwing in Ink Resistance Up to further increase their survival chances. Some .52's and Tentateks also run moderate to high amounts of Defense Up, although they're far less common than Defense Up .96's. (Moderate amounts of Defense Up are often more a counter to Tentateks than to .52's, since speed-based Tentateks usually run little to no Damage Up.)

That being said, Damage Up is not useless on weapons with fixed damage. It can counter defence up (like the .52 Gal). Also, on some weapons, like the L-3 D, Damage Up can bring foes to about 99.9 damage, which means that if your opponent has already taken a tiny amount of damage (most likely from stepping in enemy ink), you can skip one of your shots.

While you can do that with a variety of weapons, to be honest, the Bamboozler is the only one for which I'd really consider it worthwhile in and of itself (due to how fast you can fire off those 99.9 damage shots). With other weapons (such as the L-3 D and the Rapid Blaster), the main motivation is usually the blast damage from Burst Bombs or Blaster shots, with the 99.9 damage thing just being an added bonus.

 

[SquiliamTentacles]

While you can do that with a variety of weapons, to be honest, the Bamboozler is the only one for which I'd really consider it worthwhile in and of itself (due to how fast you can fire off those 99.9 damage shots). With other weapons (such as the L-3 D and the Rapid Blaster), the main motivation is usually the blast damage from Burst Bombs or Blaster shots, with the 99.9 damage thing just being an added bonus.

I know the burst bombs are the main reason to run damage up on the L-3 D, I just mentioned the L-3 D because it would likely make more sence to players who don't understand the damage up stuff.

 

[Nagastrike]

Basically what the title says.

I was watching InkStorm 3 last Weekend and I saw this guy Yugo with Damage Up gear (Legendary Cap and Squidforce Tee) but he was exclusively using the 52. Gal. He could have used those slots for something better, right? But he was doing amazing nonetheless. And he was not the only one rocking Damage Up gear.

My question is, why? Does Damage Up play an important role in the current Meta?
Are there tier lists regarding which abilities are better than others?
And why exactly are competitive player using Damage Up as a viable option in Tournaments like InkStorm instead of other more useful abilties?

While Damage up doesn't decrease a guns shots to kill due to coding in the game, It can counter people using Defense up to Increase shots to kill. It also affects your bullets that aren't direct hits. One last quick tip is that RBS (Rapid Blaster Syndrome) Can help certain weapons with Damage Up. By making them stand in a puddle of ink, you give them damage. That in turn, can make certain weapons kill faster with Damage Up.