does cooler meta suck?

[chaotik0]

maybe im wrong, but cooler meta is starting to look kinda bad. there are only 3 good cooler weapons and the best one outclasses all other backlines. and cooler is the only good support special in the game, so no diversity in terms of support or backline. but, with the emphasis on fighting, multiple frontline and midline options are looking very favorable. also cooler allows slower weapons to catch up a bit. however, with cooler you have to super win multiple team fights to get just a little bit done, because by the time you are done fighting, nope, they are all back again. with how terrible these maps are sometimes it can be absolutely devastating. if there is anything i am wrong about or if there are details i missed i would love to be informed!

 

[Xaer Blight]

So, as a Div 8 low-level player, I can see where you're coming from. However, I will say, in my opinion it is pencil that makes cooler meta feel awful. Pencil completely outclassing every other cooler weapon now, as well as every backline in the game is what hurts this meta to me. But in every category other than support and backline, cooler meta thrives. There has been more weapon diversity in this meta than we've seen since Splatoon 2 rock-paper-scissors meta, which is an amazing thing, especially after goimg through quad shooter, crab meta, and the transition to now. Cooler meta is a good thing, with the only real problem being the special charge imo. What makes it suck is pencil.

 

[Suchi]

I think cooler helps the meta more than hurts it. It's nowhere near as bad as support specials in Splatoon 1 & 2 (bubbler/ink armor). The problem right now is pencil like xaer said as well as the fact there isn't really another support special on the level as cooler. Ink Storm getting buffed to have Regen makes me think the devs know this and are trying to offer new options for support specials, but only time will tell if they follow up further on this.

 

[Tessaract]

Cooler could also stand to be toned back a little, mostly the special saver but maybe the super jump to a certain extent. It would probably still be run on almost every comp, but might not be as centralizing as it is currently.

If pencil is nerfed and we get more cooler options (either new kits or buffing dynamo/H3), it should hopefully feel less meta defining and oppressive.

 

[Xaer Blight]

I think cooler helps the meta more than hurts it. It's nowhere near as bad as support specials in Splatoon 1 & 2 (bubbler/ink armor). The problem right now is pencil like xaer said as well as the fact there isn't really another support special on the level as cooler. Ink Storm getting buffed to have Regen makes me think the devs know this and are trying to offer new options for support specials, but only time will tell if they follow up further on this.

They need to follow up further if they want to change support. Rain was a good change, but not enough displace cooler. Bubbler is still a tragedy despite the move from crab meta, Wave breaker is honestly more of a displacement special than support, Screen hurts people, vac has a nuke but is pretty easy to deal with, and chumps doesn't do enough

 

[Hitzel]

On paper this meta should be less healthy than Splat 1. That game had imbalanced gear because of Quick Respawn, but it didn't directly affect weapon diversity because you could wear Quick Respawn and Stealth Jump on any weapon you want to.

Compare this to Splat 3 where the meta-defining Quick Respawn comes from a special, and therefore specific weapons. Now you can't run QR with whatever you want. You have to run a specific special, and therefore specific weapons. This contributes towards pencil being a problem as people have already explained.

That all being said, not all weapons synergized with QR equally in Splat 1. If a weapon was bad at wearing QR and didn't have a second gear archetype to turn to, it kinda became unplayable. There was still a squeeze on weapon diversity because of QR. It's not as bad as pencil, but it was there. The meta was still deep and comp play was still awesome despite how much of the game was cut away by QR being imbalanced.

This makes me think that, while our current situation has big problems, if we use Splat 1 as a baseline we're not as far away from being in a good spot as we think. In other words, I don't think Cooler meta necessarily "sucks" inherently, it's just currently implemented poorly (mostly because of pencil).

 

[Suchi]

They need to follow up further if they want to change support. Rain was a good change, but not enough displace cooler. Bubbler is still a tragedy despite the move from crab meta, Wave breaker is honestly more of a displacement special than support, Screen hurts people, vac has a nuke but is pretty easy to deal with, and chumps doesn't do enough

Yeah that's what I mean. Cooler doesn't really need a nerf, it's more that the other specials need to be stronger.

 

[underlashes]

I like seeing certain weapons become more competitively viable with a cooler on their team but I'm really tired of seeing and playing pencil everywhere lol.

 

[a hot mess]

hey nicky i wanna bang your chatgptussy till you data leak

 

[lilycove]

my take is that cooler meta is fine (playing the game more is good, special saver should be nerfed a bit tho) but pencil meta sucks ***

 

[missingno]

I certainly understand the appeal in a faster and more aggressive meta, but it leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. Obviously I don't like that one special becomes literally mandatory for every comp, but also I'm kinda biased as a backliner who likes a more defensive playstyle.

 

[QuagSass]

as a backliner and more importantly, a splatling player, cooler meta suuucks. Almost every match I have to use Edit, which is awesome, but also by doing that I subject myself to getting bullied by pencil with no way to poke back. If I switch off of Edit, I still have to deal with getting bullied by pencil, because that thing has splatterscope range and bigger hitbox for some unholy reason.
Cooler may allow slower weapons to catch up, but those slower weapons do not include splatlings. My beloved splatlings have pretty much completely died off this meta and only the Nautilus is left as a reminder of what once was.
I also play Octobrush besides splatlings and man I do enjoy not being able to shark because of cooler revealing my location :)

At least I'm low-level so the meta isn't as prevalent and splatlings can still get stuff done, but pencil remains a plague here as well and I want it dead.

I suppose cooler meta is fine overall tho, my own biased opinion aside. It enables a lot of front- and midlines. I just happen to play weapons that aren't having a good time in it. They could probably tone down some of the buffs cooler gives, make it not as desirable. And also kill pencil :) /hj
Give it a painting nerf and/or range nerf or something.

 

[Lisku]

yes

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

I feel like most things have already been said but I would like to point out that cooler is basically the only answer to zooka right now. Which makes it even more required than it already was.

 

[chaotik0]

I feel like most things have already been said but I would like to point out that cooler is basically the only answer to zooka right now. Which makes it even more required than it already was.

yeah in that sense its being used like it was back in inkjet meta and that's cool. but, now that cooler is a lot stronger since all those buffs, it isn't just that it counters zooka, zooka is needed to counter it. if that special wasn't so broken what would we have to take care of the entire enemy team being able to fight for absolutely free, while also having insane mobility buffs making it harder to fight against them. so yeah i see zooka as half the reason why cooler is good but this is the other half.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

yeah in that sense its being used like it was back in inkjet meta and that's cool. but, now that cooler is a lot stronger since all those buffs, it isn't just that it counters zooka, zooka is needed to counter it. if that special wasn't so broken what would we have to take care of the entire enemy team being able to fight for absolutely free, while also having insane mobility buffs making it harder to fight against them. so yeah i see zooka as half the reason why cooler is good but this is the other half.

I like how OnePotWonder put this.

If Crab, Inkjet, and Booyah were a game of “rock-paper-scissors”, Zooka would be “gun”.

Cooler is also gun. We brought guns to a knife fight.

 

[a hot mess]

If Crab, Inkjet, and Booyah were a game of “rock-paper-scissors”, Zooka would be “gun”.

OH YEAH BABYYYY FEAR THE GUN

 

[Aiko.Octo]

IMO, the ideal meta:

- Has several viable strategies and weapon comps
- Rewards high levels of skill in a variety of areas, rather than rewarding skill in one or two areas disproportionately.

and... I feel like cooler meta is neither of those things.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

IMO, the ideal meta:

- Has several viable strategies and weapon comps
- Rewards high levels of skill in a variety of areas, rather than rewarding skill in one or two areas disproportionately.

and... I feel like cooler meta is neither of those things.

It's definitely not the first one, but I think most metas accomplish the second. What areas do you think cooler meta rewards more than others?

 

[Aiko.Octo]

It's definitely not the first one, but I think most metas accomplish the second. What areas do you think cooler meta rewards more than others?

I mean, I'm a very non-expert just going off of vibes and feelings and limited experience, but it's mostly that since cooler is so powerful, it feels like it rewards your cooler-weapon player's ability to get special as fast and as often as possible disproportionately more than anything else (and secondarily everyone else's ability to protect that player). You may be particularly skilled at survivability and mobility but those skills are overshadowed by instant respawn and going zoom. Thoughtful planning and tactics feel secondary because tactic #1's step one is 'get cooler.' Maybe you're really good at stealth and sneaking up on the enemy, but everyone can see you anyway with those buff-arrows so you don't get to utilize that skill. At the end of the day, the thing that is most likely to win you games is going zoom, so It feels like if you're not going zoom you need to be worrying about what you need to do to go zoom more than anything else.

And of course those other skills still matter; they're still important and useful and can make a difference, but a skill that is useful to have is not the same as a skill that will decide if your team wins or loses the majority of the time. I dunno, maybe it doesn't actually play out that way for most people (I'm sure it plays out differently at different levels too) but it just seems that anything that puts too much emphasis on one strategy can greatly limit the variety of skill expression that can be done, and that's boring :C