Goodbye Old Meta (Patch 2.7.0 is Insane!)

[Blue24]

The accuracy buff on 96 brings tears to my eyes. I ran Saver-Dmg-Ink(main) with rest being swim speed. I was satisfied with my mobility and got kraken quickly enough. LOVE LOVE LOVE .96 now. I concur with Dudes position on that at least.

I LOVE the Burst Bombs on CJS now. The large area it covers imo guarantees kills more of weakened enemies from your tiny bullets. The mobility of CJS allowed me to play unusually aggressive but safe...which now is changing my opinions a little about dual.

Pro is impressive and as expected feels like an instant popular.

Splash-o-matic a weapon I never use was fun and easy to pick up.

 

[LupusFreak]

Here's the distances of not fully charged shots of the Splat Chargers and E-Liters:

Spoiler: ...woomy :(

*NFC = Not Full Charge, FC = Full Charge
*The farthest you can shoot without a full charge.

From left to right: Splat Charger NFC, Splat Charger FC, Splatterscope NFC, Splatterscope FC

From left to right: Splatterscope FC, E-Liter 3k NFC, E-Liter 3k FC, E-Liter 3k Scoped NFC, E-Liter 3k Scoped FC

From left to right: Squiffer FC, Splatterscope NFC, Bamboozler FC

Side note: It takes 2 Ink Saver (Sub) main slots and a full tank to throw 3 burst bombs.

 

[Airi]

The special gauge has actually ended up not being that bad. I'm using the Tempered Dynamo a lot tonight and I've barely noticed any increased drop in my special gauge. So it doesn't really seem to be that bothersome unless you're always getting splatted. :P I've noticed a small difference when using the Inkbrush though. I'm definitely getting my specials much quicker now than I was in the past since we only lose 40% now. x)

It actually feels like the swim speed nerf is actually slower than Ninja Squid. o.o It's probably not and just feels that way since I don't actively use Ninja Squid anymore. So I'm not used to how slow it makes you anymore. xP I'm really liking the buff to the Hydra. It was the first thing I tried when the update finished. I can take out five and nearly six of the test dummies in the Training Area. I could only take out four - sometimes five - before the patch so that is actually really nice for a fully charged Hydra. If a team is packed together, the Hydra can easily move through all four of them now.

 

[Lonely_Dolphin]

Welp I was pretty much the only Slosher during the entirety of my ranked/squading session, and heck the only other one I saw was not even using the Soda but the vanilla, so it looks like I'll still be a special snowflake lol. The Soda Slosher is really, really legit though like dayum! Once the rust wore off and the familiarity came back to me I was doing so hawt!! Scores like 7-1, 17-5, 12-1 and 18-6 became commonplace by the end of my session!

Firstly, the buffs are real! Before I didn't even know a Slosher hit hindered movement, but now it's quite noticable and naturally makes getting that second hit easier, so much so that I'm hardly missing the Burst/Slosh combo from the vanilla. That on top of it's improved speed in terms of killing, ink spreading, and mobility, I can actually get into head on firefights against the other faster weapons in it's range tier like Splattershots and .52s and consistently come out victorious. That's absolutely huge for me as I love being agressive and engaging in direct combat, and it's actually when I realised how much better the Slosher is at this that I started getting those great scores in my session.

Now more specifically on the Soda variant, the kit is amazing, I mean obviously, but combined with the Slosher the overall weapon is pretty much the jack of all trades! Great offensive and defensive capabilitys and can do any range from short to long and even behind walls n corners leaving no where to hide! Like Burst Bombs, Splat Bombs can also help secure kills in tandem with the Slosher. It was so satisfying whenever I got that perfect 100 damage splat, though yeah defense can hinder this unless they've walked in your ink, but at the same both attack methods still work perfectly fine independently. Even with the Inkzooka's large point requirement, the Slosher spreads ink even faster than before and the Soda falls into the 40% special reduction category so I've been consistently getting it frequently. Additionally, the kit doesn't need any specific abilitys so you're free to use whatever tickles your fancy, and for me, that's a bunch of Ink Saver Sub to turn myself into a grenadier!

Needless to say, I absolutely love this weapon! I couldn't even put it down to try out the other new ones so I don't have much to say about them yet haha! I can say this though, the Soda Slosher is is definitely replacing the vanilla as my main Slosher, and L-3 Dolphinose I'm sorry to say but the Soda is very likely gonna replace you as my overall main weapon!

 

[xXShadeXx]

The burst bomb changes are quite interesting I do have to say. The area it inks is larger than I thought it'd be. I tested the chargers in the testing room, but saw no noticeable changes (at least for me) right now. I feel I slightly overreacted a bit to the changes, but I guess I'l have to wait till a map pops up I use eliter on shows up to test more.

Welp I was pretty much the only Slosher during the entirety of my ranked/squading session, and heck the only other one I saw was not even using the Soda but the vanilla, so it looks like I'll still be a special snowflake lol. The Soda Slosher is really, really legit though like dayum! Once the rust wore off and the familiarity came back to me I was doing so hawt!! Scores like 7-1, 17-5, 12-1 and 18-6 became commonplace by the end of my session!

Firstly, the buffs are real! Before I didn't even know a Slosher hit hindered movement, but now it's quite noticable and naturally makes getting that second hit easier, so much so that I'm hardly missing the Burst/Slosh combo from the vanilla. That on top of it's improved speed in terms of killing, ink spreading, and mobility, I can actually get into head on firefights against the other faster weapons in it's range tier like Splattershots and .52s and consistently come out victorious. That's absolutely huge for me as I love being agressive and engaging in direct combat, and it's actually when I realised how much better the Slosher is at this that I started getting those great scores in my session.

Now more specifically on the Soda variant, the kit is amazing, I mean obviously, but combined with the Slosher the overall weapon is pretty much the jack of all trades! Great offensive and defensive capabilitys and can do any range from short to long and even behind walls n corners leaving no where to hide! Like Burst Bombs, Splat Bombs can also help secure kills in tandem with the Slosher. It was so satisfying whenever I got that perfect 100 damage splat, though yeah defense can hinder this unless they've walked in your ink, but at the same both attack methods still work perfectly fine independently. Even with the Inkzooka's large point requirement, the Slosher spreads ink even faster than before and the Soda falls into the 40% special reduction category so I've been consistently getting it frequently. Additionally, the kit doesn't need any specific abilitys so you're free to use whatever tickles your fancy, and for me, that's a bunch of Ink Saver Sub to turn myself into a grenadier!

Needless to say, I absolutely love this weapon! I couldn't even put it down to try out the other new ones so I don't have much to say about them yet haha! I can say this though, the Soda Slosher is is definitely replacing the vanilla as my main Slosher, and L-3 Dolphinose I'm sorry to say but the Soda is very likely gonna replace you as my overall main weapon!

Oh cool. It's great to know all this for when I do decide to pick it up. I was going to buy that as well as the the new zink I think it was. But I knew all the new weapons would be all over the place, so I stuck with my splatterscope and 3k eliter the entire time I played. So many brushes and rollers and TTK, and inkstrikes.

Overall I can say that for right now, I over exaggerated with the update, as it hasn't effected how I play...yet.

 

[Cyan]

Welp I was pretty much the only Slosher during the entirety of my ranked/squading session, and heck the only other one I saw was not even using the Soda but the vanilla, so it looks like I'll still be a special snowflake lol. The Soda Slosher is really, really legit though like dayum! Once the rust wore off and the familiarity came back to me I was doing so hawt!! Scores like 7-1, 17-5, 12-1 and 18-6 became commonplace by the end of my session!

Firstly, the buffs are real! Before I didn't even know a Slosher hit hindered movement, but now it's quite noticable and naturally makes getting that second hit easier, so much so that I'm hardly missing the Burst/Slosh combo from the vanilla. That on top of it's improved speed in terms of killing, ink spreading, and mobility, I can actually get into head on firefights against the other faster weapons in it's range tier like Splattershots and .52s and consistently come out victorious. That's absolutely huge for me as I love being agressive and engaging in direct combat, and it's actually when I realised how much better the Slosher is at this that I started getting those great scores in my session.

Now more specifically on the Soda variant, the kit is amazing, I mean obviously, but combined with the Slosher the overall weapon is pretty much the jack of all trades! Great offensive and defensive capabilitys and can do any range from short to long and even behind walls n corners leaving no where to hide! Like Burst Bombs, Splat Bombs can also help secure kills in tandem with the Slosher. It was so satisfying whenever I got that perfect 100 damage splat, though yeah defense can hinder this unless they've walked in your ink, but at the same both attack methods still work perfectly fine independently. Even with the Inkzooka's large point requirement, the Slosher spreads ink even faster than before and the Soda falls into the 40% special reduction category so I've been consistently getting it frequently. Additionally, the kit doesn't need any specific abilitys so you're free to use whatever tickles your fancy, and for me, that's a bunch of Ink Saver Sub to turn myself into a grenadier!

Needless to say, I absolutely love this weapon! I couldn't even put it down to try out the other new ones so I don't have much to say about them yet haha! I can say this though, the Soda Slosher is is definitely replacing the vanilla as my main Slosher, and L-3 Dolphinose I'm sorry to say but the Soda is very likely gonna replace you as my overall main weapon!

The Soda Slosher sounds really great then! I'm happy about that, since it's something I want to pick up and use myself, and its set is too good to be ignored. Hopefully it stays low key so it maintains the Low Special Depletion status. I'll probably use it alongside the Deco, which also has the Low category. I'm probably going to pick up the Berry, Wasabi and Fresh Squiffer too, I want to have numerous weapons I can main, but I'm still trying to figure things out.

I've updated the game and bought the weapons (total cost went over 100k), and have had a quick look at the weapons and changes, and I was surprised at how much ink spread the Seekers have now. The Burst Bombs seem to have a painting radius similar to the Suction Bombs, so they could very well be used to trap opponents and use your main weapon to get the splat. I'll be trying everything out later, where I'll catch 30mins or so of Arowana/Bluefin RM and 3hrs of Blackbelly/Hammerhead TC. Will report my findings later per weapon frequency and how effective I find each.

 

[Lonely_Dolphin]

The Soda Slosher sounds really great then! I'm happy about that, since it's something I want to pick up and use myself, and its set is too good to be ignored. Hopefully it stays low key so it maintains the Low Special Depletion status. I'll probably use it alongside the Deco, which also has the Low category. I'm probably going to pick up the Berry, Wasabi and Fresh Squiffer too, I want to have numerous weapons I can main, but I'm still trying to figure things out.

I've updated the game and bought the weapons (total cost went over 100k), and have had a quick look at the weapons and changes, and I was surprised at how much ink spread the Seekers have now. The Burst Bombs seem to have a painting radius similar to the Suction Bombs, so they could very well be used to trap opponents and use your main weapon to get the splat. I'll be trying everything out later, where I'll catch 30mins or so of Arowana/Bluefin RM and 3hrs of Blackbelly/Hammerhead TC. Will report my findings later per weapon frequency and how effective I find each.

Despite also having a great set, the Slosher Deco stayed very low key. I think it's safe to say the Soda Slosher will be in the same boat, so we shouldn't have to worry about it's special reduction, but only time will tell!

Bursts Bombs paint radius is actually the same as Splat Bombs which is still pretty darn legit. So much so that while Burst Bombs as a Sub may be overall nerfed, the Burst Bomb Bomb Rush is greatly buffed. I had just got done playing a few Splatzones matches and jeez were they dangerous! Caps the zone pretty much immediately, leaving plenty of time to start targeting players. I had no other options but to evacuate before I got cornered.

Also worth noting, I'm still seeing plenty of Dynamos, E-Liters, and .96s, heck my last game had 4 vanilla E-Liters in it, so I definitely don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon, to the dismay of some! :p

 

[Leronne]

Also worth noting, I'm still seeing plenty of Dynamos, E-Liters, and .96s, heck my last game had 4 vanilla E-Liters in it, so I definitely don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon, to the dismay of some! :p

I pretty much knew from the get go that these weapons would still be about as common as always. Unless a weapon is nerfed so badly to the point where it's completely useless, people won't simply just drop one of their mains. They'll just adapt to the nerf and find a new way to effectively use said weapon. And besides the dyamo's swim speed nerf, most of the nerfed weapons pretty much just got buffs.

 

[Blue24]

Welp I was pretty much the only Slosher during the entirety of my ranked/squading session, and heck the only other one I saw was not even using the Soda but the vanilla, so it looks like I'll still be a special snowflake lol. The Soda Slosher is really, really legit though like dayum! Once the rust wore off and the familiarity came back to me I was doing so hawt!! Scores like 7-1, 17-5, 12-1 and 18-6 became commonplace by the end of my session!

Firstly, the buffs are real! Before I didn't even know a Slosher hit hindered movement, but now it's quite noticable and naturally makes getting that second hit easier, so much so that I'm hardly missing the Burst/Slosh combo from the vanilla. That on top of it's improved speed in terms of killing, ink spreading, and mobility, I can actually get into head on firefights against the other faster weapons in it's range tier like Splattershots and .52s and consistently come out victorious. That's absolutely huge for me as I love being agressive and engaging in direct combat, and it's actually when I realised how much better the Slosher is at this that I started getting those great scores in my session.

Now more specifically on the Soda variant, the kit is amazing, I mean obviously, but combined with the Slosher the overall weapon is pretty much the jack of all trades! Great offensive and defensive capabilitys and can do any range from short to long and even behind walls n corners leaving no where to hide! Like Burst Bombs, Splat Bombs can also help secure kills in tandem with the Slosher. It was so satisfying whenever I got that perfect 100 damage splat, though yeah defense can hinder this unless they've walked in your ink, but at the same both attack methods still work perfectly fine independently. Even with the Inkzooka's large point requirement, the Slosher spreads ink even faster than before and the Soda falls into the 40% special reduction category so I've been consistently getting it frequently. Additionally, the kit doesn't need any specific abilitys so you're free to use whatever tickles your fancy, and for me, that's a bunch of Ink Saver Sub to turn myself into a grenadier!

Needless to say, I absolutely love this weapon! I couldn't even put it down to try out the other new ones so I don't have much to say about them yet haha! I can say this though, the Soda Slosher is is definitely replacing the vanilla as my main Slosher, and L-3 Dolphinose I'm sorry to say but the Soda is very likely gonna replace you as my overall main weapon!

What abilities exceled for you with soda?

 

[Award]

Also worth noting, I'm still seeing plenty of Dynamos, E-Liters, and .96s, heck my last game had 4 vanilla E-Liters in it, so I definitely don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon, to the dismay of some! :p

It think the eliters were popular yesterday (and for a while) because everone who mains them was going in to check out how bad the nerf is and how to handle it :)

Honestly the eltier effect is weird. I ran 2 dmg mains, and 2.2 swim speeds. I found ink guzzling was obnoxious now due to the need to full charge, BUT that also indicates I was full charging more due to the charge speed buff. But I was also missing a lot more shots, and the swim speed nerf meant dodging and weaving CQC as a makeshift bambi was a lot less effective :(

I think the two worst effects of the nerf are, especially combined with muscle memory, I tend to release the trigger just before full charge, which now causes a guaranteed missed shot. IMO they needed more leeway in this, because anybody releasing fast is going to be likely to get it JUST a bit early. Again this affects scope more than non-scope where muscle memory is trained in based on zoom. I was wrong that it removes the eliter from midrange play. It's the opposite. It almost forces the eliter INTO midrange play *OR* being a perch sniper, but not being able to reliably be both because of a giant hole in your charge/range ratio. They tried to fix the stacked damage use reducing charge time, but they did it weird by creating a LITERAL hole in range in which you are physically unable to shoot, but is difficult to place just WHERE That distance comes in. Instead it still ohko's on partial charge in midrange, but there's this gap between the end of the uncharged shot and the full charged shot where you physically can not shoot, but can not visually identify if the squid is in that range or not. This is a broken feature vs the linear charge before. Not good, long term. The only way around having the "unknown range" is to remain a perch sniper and fire ONLY full charges (not viable in high ranks at least without voice), or to effectively never use full charges and shoot from the midrange. At which point, why not use splatterscope or bamboozler? This is a WEIRD problem.

The other problem that might actually be even more serious is, since we all know eliters had WAY too much turf covering potential and special charging ability, they've now solved that problem. The worst turfer on your team just got a lot worse. That uncharged shot reduction means it's substantially harder to contribute anything meaningful to turf control and/or charge your special. Thank goodness everyone else on my solo teams prioritizes map control in RM! </sarcasm>


On the flip side, Hydra as an unstoppable beast now....so at least that's good!

 

[yokokazuo]

It think the eliters were popular yesterday (and for a while) because everone who mains them was going in to check out how bad the nerf is and how to handle it :)

Honestly the eltier effect is weird. I ran 2 dmg mains, and 2.2 swim speeds. I found ink guzzling was obnoxious now due to the need to full charge, BUT that also indicates I was full charging more due to the charge speed buff. But I was also missing a lot more shots, and the swim speed nerf meant dodging and weaving CQC as a makeshift bambi was a lot less effective :(

I think the two worst effects of the nerf are, especially combined with muscle memory, I tend to release the trigger just before full charge, which now causes a guaranteed missed shot. IMO they needed more leeway in this, because anybody releasing fast is going to be likely to get it JUST a bit early. Again this affects scope more than non-scope where muscle memory is trained in based on zoom. I was wrong that it removes the eliter from midrange play. It's the opposite. It almost forces the eliter INTO midrange play *OR* being a perch sniper, but not being able to reliably be both because of a giant hole in your charge/range ratio. They tried to fix the stacked damage use reducing charge time, but they did it weird by creating a LITERAL hole in range in which you are physically unable to shoot, but is difficult to place just WHERE That distance comes in. Instead it still ohko's on partial charge in midrange, but there's this gap between the end of the uncharged shot and the full charged shot where you physically can not shoot, but can not visually identify if the squid is in that range or not. This is a broken feature vs the linear charge before. Not good, long term. The only way around having the "unknown range" is to remain a perch sniper and fire ONLY full charges (not viable in high ranks at least without voice), or to effectively never use full charges and shoot from the midrange. At which point, why not use splatterscope or bamboozler? This is a WEIRD problem.

The other problem that might actually be even more serious is, since we all know eliters had WAY too much turf covering potential and special charging ability, they've now solved that problem. The worst turfer on your team just got a lot worse. That uncharged shot reduction means it's substantially harder to contribute anything meaningful to turf control and/or charge your special. Thank goodness everyone else on my solo teams prioritizes map control in RM! </sarcasm>


On the flip side, Hydra as an unstoppable beast now....so at least that's good!

Ya I'm not much of a fan of the way the range was shortened for the 3K... I'm hoping that I can get used to it soon though.

 

[Award]

Ya I'm not much of a fan of the way the range was shortened for the 3K... I'm hoping that I can get used to it soon though.

What makes it awful is that they've created a conundrum, and they did it to solve a problem that everyone, including eliter mains, wanted solved, but they did it in a way that causes new problems, at a time when they've buffed other weapons and added new ones to the point that it magnifies everything wrong with this process.

They INCREASED the range of the regular chargers on full charge, but decreased the uncharged range on all chargers (but slightly increased charge rate on eliter.) That means the range gap between splatterscope and unscoped eliter is very small now. Yet the eliter still takes longer to charge and consumes more ink. The uncharged eliter shot is now the SAME distance as the charged splatterscope shot, but the weapon swims faster and has more mobility. The case for using eliter over splatterscope is basically reduced to preferring the kits, or the max range - but that implies perch sniping. It's enforcing the roles of weapons in a game where it's now the ONLY weapon with an enforced role.

I don't disagree that the "I only need 80% charge to ohko near full range because I'm a cheating savescummer and have 5 dmg up mains!" needed to end. But they could have instead made it so only a full charge ohko's but any other shot was capped like bamboozler or luna so it's ohko on weakened enemies, but not enough to kill them otherwise. That would have ended most of the dmg up stacking salt. But this weird "soemwhere between your undefined maximum range and some distance before that, your shot will simply cut off and hit nothing, but you'll never reliably know where that is on any given shot" is a disaster, and the only advantage to put up with it is you get a slightly longer range than a splatterscope for 20% more ink?

I'll probably continue to run eliter simply because I spent the time learning it, and at this point it'll be a hipster weapon, so why not. But in terms of practical competitive terms, there's very little appeal to the eliters now that can't equally be done with a splatterscope cheaper and faster. Eliter is reduced to a boutique weapon that's fun to wield but offers nothing but some extended range at the cost of everything else.

If Pack 2 has Unleaded Eliter it had better well come with splash walls or disruptors to make up for this travesty.

 

[yokokazuo]

What makes it awful is that they've created a conundrum, and they did it to solve a problem that everyone, including eliter mains, wanted solved, but they did it in a way that causes new problems, at a time when they've buffed other weapons and added new ones to the point that it magnifies everything wrong with this process.

They INCREASED the range of the regular chargers on full charge, but decreased the uncharged range on all chargers (but slightly increased charge rate on eliter.) That means the range gap between splatterscope and unscoped eliter is very small now. Yet the eliter still takes longer to charge and consumes more ink. The uncharged eliter shot is now the SAME distance as the charged splatterscope shot, but the weapon swims faster and has more mobility. The case for using eliter over splatterscope is basically reduced to preferring the kits, or the max range - but that implies perch sniping. It's enforcing the roles of weapons in a game where it's now the ONLY weapon with an enforced role.

I don't disagree that the "I only need 80% charge to ohko near full range because I'm a cheating savescummer and have 5 dmg up mains!" needed to end. But they could have instead made it so only a full charge ohko's but any other shot was capped like bamboozler or luna so it's ohko on weakened enemies, but not enough to kill them otherwise. That would have ended most of the dmg up stacking salt. But this weird "soemwhere between your undefined maximum range and some distance before that, your shot will simply cut off and hit nothing, but you'll never reliably know where that is on any given shot" is a disaster, and the only advantage to put up with it is you get a slightly longer range than a splatterscope for 20% more ink?

I'll probably continue to run eliter simply because I spent the time learning it, and at this point it'll be a hipster weapon, so why not. But in terms of practical competitive terms, there's very little appeal to the eliters now that can't equally be done with a splatterscope cheaper and faster. Eliter is reduced to a boutique weapon that's fun to wield but offers nothing but some extended range at the cost of everything else.

If Pack 2 has Unleaded Eliter it had better well come with splash walls or disruptors to make up for this travesty.

I used to main the kelp splatterscope so I've thought about going back to it, but I'll probably stay with the custom 3K scope. (One of the reasons I switched to it was because of the longer range and it still can reach a decent amount farther than the splatterscope)
I'm still thinking about whether it is worth it for 2 damage ups. I would probably need it up close, but it may be useless at midrange...

What I think might have worked best was if they nerfed the close range damage decently, but kept the longer range damage the same (or maybe a small nerf) and kept the range the same.

 

[Award]

I used to main the kelp splatterscope so I've thought about going back to it, but I'll probably stay with the custom 3K scope. (One of the reasons I switched to it was because of the longer range and it still can reach a decent amount farther than the splatterscope)
I'm still thinking about whether it is worth it for 2 damage ups. I would probably need it up close, but it may be useless at midrange...

What I think might have worked best was if they nerfed the close range damage decently, but kept the longer range damage the same (or maybe a small nerf) and kept the range the same.

I haven't experimented with damage ups with the new one. Just going based on the OLD one I found 2 was needed for a reliable 2-hit with "almost zero charge" at squiffer range which is why I tried to keep it in. Midrange I would think the same applies, but to get to midrange now you'd need a big enough charge that, with the reduced range, I'm not sure yet where the ohko starts or not.

Nerfing the close range damage wouldn't really matter much. It's already slower than a bamboozler's double shot, and more immobile than a squiffer/bamboozler and therefore the hardest of all chargers to pull off anything at close range. The scope comes with a built in mobility nerf to start and the 10% swim speed nerf goes in for a kill on close range. The only reason you'd be using it close range is if the enemy backed you into a corner (or you're on the tower due to a worthless luna teammate that won't ride. Not that I've see those, mind you ;) ), And in those situations it's hard enough already (and custom has a huge handicap compared to vanilla) - so I think close *AND* far got nerfed. Close due to the swim speed and ink utilization, far due to the range thing. And then you lose more of your special charge when your close range fails to work due to nerfed evasion with the swim speed. It's literally weaker at every range except full charge, where it got a slight buff in terms of getting there 6% faster.

 

[Lonely_Dolphin]

I pretty much knew from the get go that these weapons would still be about as common as always. Unless a weapon is nerfed so badly to the point where it's completely useless, people won't simply just drop one of their mains. They'll just adapt to the nerf and find a new way to effectively use said weapon. And besides the dyamo's swim speed nerf, most of the nerfed weapons pretty much just got buffs.

Yeah I figured this would probably be the case again as it was with the last major patch, although for me personally this one is gonna affect what weapons I do or don't use, for example the vanilla Slosher and L-3D failling to the wayside while their Deco and vanilla variants respectively see more play from me.

What abilities exceled for you with soda?

Ink Saver Sub definitely! The weapon can easilly afford the heavy ability investment, and it's totally worth being able to throw Splat Bombs constantly as well as two of them at once! The latter is especially useful with Inkzooka, since your tank gets filled upon activation, thus giving you two free bombs on top of the Inkzooka! I also use Ink Recovery Up and Swim Speed Up, simply great abilitys in general!

It think the eliters were popular yesterday (and for a while) because everone who mains them was going in to check out how bad the nerf is and how to handle it :)

Honestly the eltier effect is weird. I ran 2 dmg mains, and 2.2 swim speeds. I found ink guzzling was obnoxious now due to the need to full charge, BUT that also indicates I was full charging more due to the charge speed buff. But I was also missing a lot more shots, and the swim speed nerf meant dodging and weaving CQC as a makeshift bambi was a lot less effective :(

I think the two worst effects of the nerf are, especially combined with muscle memory, I tend to release the trigger just before full charge, which now causes a guaranteed missed shot. IMO they needed more leeway in this, because anybody releasing fast is going to be likely to get it JUST a bit early. Again this affects scope more than non-scope where muscle memory is trained in based on zoom. I was wrong that it removes the eliter from midrange play. It's the opposite. It almost forces the eliter INTO midrange play *OR* being a perch sniper, but not being able to reliably be both because of a giant hole in your charge/range ratio. They tried to fix the stacked damage use reducing charge time, but they did it weird by creating a LITERAL hole in range in which you are physically unable to shoot, but is difficult to place just WHERE That distance comes in. Instead it still ohko's on partial charge in midrange, but there's this gap between the end of the uncharged shot and the full charged shot where you physically can not shoot, but can not visually identify if the squid is in that range or not. This is a broken feature vs the linear charge before. Not good, long term. The only way around having the "unknown range" is to remain a perch sniper and fire ONLY full charges (not viable in high ranks at least without voice), or to effectively never use full charges and shoot from the midrange. At which point, why not use splatterscope or bamboozler? This is a WEIRD problem.

The other problem that might actually be even more serious is, since we all know eliters had WAY too much turf covering potential and special charging ability, they've now solved that problem. The worst turfer on your team just got a lot worse. That uncharged shot reduction means it's substantially harder to contribute anything meaningful to turf control and/or charge your special. Thank goodness everyone else on my solo teams prioritizes map control in RM! </sarcasm>


On the flip side, Hydra as an unstoppable beast now....so at least that's good!

I still need to try it for myself, but from the against E-Liter viewpoint, I'd say they're still pretty great, just not as great! Honestly I think the main improvement here is herp derp Burst Bomb'ing the ground being far less potent and much riskier, to the point where each of the few times they tried it against me last night I punished them for it. At the same time the Burst Bombs must still be respected especially with their increased damage and turf spread so they still serve their keep away purpose.

 

[TacoOfDestruction]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but if you use at least 3 mains and 2 subs of special saver on a 40% loss weapon you will lose none of your special gauge, I can see this becoming extremely useful for some weapons, like the areospray, as you'll be able to get inkstrike small the time, although a pretty big negative is that you are to invest a lot of ability slots in it.

 

[Award]

I still need to try it for myself, but from the against E-Liter viewpoint, I'd say they're still pretty great, just not as great! Honestly I think the main improvement here is herp derp Burst Bomb'ing the ground being far less potent and much riskier, to the point where each of the few times they tried it against me last night I punished them for it. At the same time the Burst Bombs must still be respected especially with their increased damage and turf spread so they still serve their keep away purpose.

Yeah I think the burst bomb mains gave the eliters a bad name though which is why this draconian patch against eliters is pretty grotesque. I don't disagree with anyone being relieved that the improvement against ground spamming burst bomb eliters is a big improvement, they were a problem for me as well. As is a means of eliminating the damage up stack chargers from getting away with 80% ohkos at near full range. As a non-dmg stack eliter, in a fair fight the scummers would get me before I could get them.

The problem is, my complaints come all from the main gun - I main custom primarily, there never was a burst bomb issue there, and self defense has to come exclusively from a double-partial charge shot from an already slow to move weapon, like it's a slow, bulky bamboozler. Custom got all the nerfing from the vanilla without any recourse from burst bombs to fall back on (throwing beacons at enemies is no substitute :p ) I'm afraid people will "adapt" to throwing burst bombs differently to offset the nerf, but it leaves the custom out in the cold that got nerfed close range (swim speed), nerfed mid-long range (20% less range) and nerfed special (swim speed affects kraken.) Worse, uncharged, scope now has the same range as unscoped. The 6% charge speed increase is nice and all but the Custom Scope got hosed for every single possible confrontation except a prepared full charge against an unsuspecting enemy.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but if you use at least 3 mains and 2 subs of special saver on a 40% loss weapon you will lose none of your special gauge, I can see this becoming extremely useful for some weapons, like the areospray, as you'll be able to get inkstrike small the time, although a pretty big negative is that you are to invest a lot of ability slots in it.

That is going to be absolutely horrendous to contend with special spammers! I can see lots of builds of just special safer on inking weapons that just do nothing but hit specials all match long. This is starting to feel like an IMBALANCE patch. :(

 

[Cyan]

I'm in love with the Soda Slosher. It's a beautiful weapon, can't really fault its sub or special. So far I've tried everything bar the Dynamo and Bamboozler, and I have to say the Wasabi, Berry and Soda stand out most for me. Each one offers a great variation on their counterparts, and help give me diverse strategies to employ. The Wasabi is a fab weapon with Inkstrike (not too many Inkstrike weapons are decent) and is definitely something I can use in Ranked quite happily. The Berry is a very nice addition to the SSPro series (a series I hope to main, so I can switch between all 3 at will). At the moment, I'm using Splash Mob Retro Specs, Splash Mob Shirt and Tie (Triple Swim Speed Subs) and the Strapping Reds for the Soda Slosher. I prefer to get more sloshes than bombs, so Ink Saver Main is a better ability for my money. At the moment I have 5 Ink Saver (Main) abilities, I need to reroll my Retro Specs for all 3 subs of Ink Saver, and I'm seeing fairly positive results from the Soda, there are times where I do poorly K/D wise, but generally I'm keeping a 1:1 ratio and sometimes doing significantly better (Just went 8-4 on Blackbelly TC against 2 .96 Decos, 1 .96 and I can't remember the other weapon :P). A very fun Slosher and a huge improvement over the Sloshing Machines, will not miss those 2 at all, way too unforgiving and too high a learning curve to succeed in S/S+ matches.

 

[Cuttleshock]

What abilities exceled for you with soda?

I know you didn't ask me, but I wound up composing this post anyway, so...
What I ran on the Soda was (tentatively, but to emulate my Tri play-style and aim for assassinations where possible; this weapon loves to sneak up below snipers and take them out), (just a couple of Subs of which already allow me to recharge my Inkzooka with very little trouble by the time I reach the front if I'm downed with it full. I admit, though, that I only originally had it because my best-fitting gear all seemed to have one or two Subs of it), (as a slosh plus splash damage from a bomb precisely splats with no Damage investment if the opponent also has no Defense, I figured that was a nice benchmark to keep; besides, I tend to like pushing the damage of the regular Sloshers and SMs) and , which, with one Main and one Sub, gets an extra slosh post-bomb (possibly two overall, but the Sub gives an additional attack). I was definitely considering going for a two-bomb set, but, to my disappointment, I realised that I don't have a single item with both as a Main and a Sub, so was just short, whatever combination I tried. I would like to see if I can fit a Main in there in future, as I not infrequently couldn't quite send bombs where I wanted to.

 

[blu]

It seemed like the splat bombs were using more ink consumption than I was used to when I tested the Wasasbi Splattershot, and then my Jr. to see if I was imagining it. It was probably just me since the patch notes don't state any such changes to splat bombs nor ink consumption of such weapons.