Having way too much trouble in Splatzones

[CrazyDude]

I wouldn't discount Echolocator (I get kills aaaaaaall the time because I echo and murder enemies that try to hide in ink) as an important to get special, but I agree that it doesn't really do much for the purposes of tenacity. What would you probably suggest for head gear main with echo, though? I don't really think that any of the headgear only options besides tenacity are worth it, but I'm not really sure about any of the stat buffs either...

Always pick up Ink Saver (Main) , Swim Speed up and Ink Resistance for your main slots...you can't go wrong with them and they always help you in every situation! Meanwhile Tenacity is basically useless if your team is already on the winning road and a bit overkill if you have Ink Saver anyways.

honestly I'm just happy there is two different modes for ranked and non ranked.
It gives players more incentive to play both which is nice, not all online games with ranked have that

also as you play ranked no matter your weapons you can really build tactics to stop the "campy" players. stress is more of a get used to it kinda thing, but I understand why because most people play to relax

Yeah,I think Splatoon is nice in Turf Mode because it's kinda fun and relaxing at the same time...and you get a good amount of points/money even if you lose. Meanwhile you have two extreme sides on ranked. If you are on a winning streak and you are one who carries the most ,then you're like : hell yeah,I rock that shiiiit...so you kinda enjoy it,especially in close cases. But...if you lose most of the time,you get no points and you feel like the time is wasted for nothing...

 

[Zonderion]

I get where you're coming from, the lack of communication can definitely be a limiting factor. I can believe that I've been getting lucky so far with my matches, I think the longest losing streak I've had is 4 matches in a row, and that caused me to rank down from B to B-. I'm a B+ right now and that was the only time I ranked down. So maybe I'm just getting the good luck here, but I don't think that's completely true. Although I do remember one particularly bad player with a B- rank that used the paintbrush and held their team back every time.

Anyway, I've played against teams that were flattened by my team, and then been placed with those exact enemies the next match and won against my previous team. My philosophy is never to blame the teammates, so I'll always be biased against the luck of the draw argument, but if all your teammates are going super negative like you said and you're the only one going positive, then something clearly went wrong that match.

I tend to try to step back and figure out what I did wrong when I lose a match, and usually I can come up with a few alternate ideas that would've given me a better shot at winning. A good example I have from today is when I played blackbelly skatepark with the custom jet squelcher. I was holding up my spot great and in the end I went 12-2 or something along those lines, but my team ended up losing. What was happening is that the enemy had chargeshots camping out my team and getting them before they could get anywhere. I was in a position to flank and take out those chargeshots, but I never did. Had I tried to flush them out with the kraken or something, I probably could've won, it was a pretty close match in the end, I believe the enemy team won in overtime. I had my kraken charged the entire time but never really saw a good opportunity to use it and never did. So I figure the wasted potential of me not using that special is what cost me the match.

In the end, I agree with your point about players struggling to figure out what roles to play without voice chat. In turf war I often watch teammates switch indecisively between paths waiting to see what other players will do, and that ends up costing precious time that could be spent painting efficiently. It wouldn't be hard for nintendo to map something like "Going defense" or "going offense" on the left and right of the d-pad either. From my experience though, even if a team is struggling to find its roles, playing defensively will generally produce better results than going on offense. Maybe it's because I'm in the minority with that mindset and I balance out my teams with it, I can't know for sure just by speculating, so I'm going to try playing around with all sorts of weapons and roles in splat zones tomorrow.

So yeah, I hope this post didn't come off as pretentious or anything, and best of luck in your future splat zones matches guys. Maybe we'll all be on the same team one time and really give some guys the ol' what for :)

Very will put! Your post came off as intended, with lots of respect and a different view point. I appreciate that very much.

I tend to play very defensive as well, hence why I like the longer range weapons. However, I feel that when we are getting dominated, (even when I'm the anchor) that if I don't step in, we'll continue to get killed. Sometimes this works if I can get a kill or two, but other times, I typically get double teamed and die w/o any contribution. Am I being too impatient? Regardless if we lose, should I just stay the anchor?

I like your advice to look at different ways of improving and I'll try to do that. I'll add you tonight and maybe we can play a few games.

 

[PremiumFootwear]

I wouldn't discount Echolocator (I get kills aaaaaaall the time because I echo and murder enemies that try to hide in ink) as an important to get special, but I agree that it doesn't really do much for the purposes of tenacity. What would you probably suggest for head gear main with echo, though? I don't really think that any of the headgear only options besides tenacity are worth it, but I'm not really sure about any of the stat buffs either...

Don't worry, I think echolocator is great. It's one of my favorite specials in turf war, I was just referring to its compatibility with tenacity. Echolocator is awesome because it refills your ink and allows you to continue firing for essentially twice as long as normal, so if an enemy is expecting you to hide or squidify, you can simply use that and continue laying down fire as they try to advance. As far as headgear specials go, CrazyDude is right. Ink saver main is super useful, especially if you want to play the anchor role or hate that moment when you run out of ink and have to duck away. I believe the main slot ability is 3x as strong as the sub abilities too, so having that in the main slot over tenacity would have a much more universal application.

I personally think sticking with something like that is kind of boring though, and love the moments where my gear abilities shine and give me a distinct edge. Like with cold blooded, that makes the echolocator effect something like 75% shorter

Though I just barely made it to rank C, here's what I've learned in my many ranked battles, both winning and losing.

Stick to weapons you are familiar with. I am most comfortable using rollers, and though I do pretty great with the shooter and charger in the single player campaign mode, I'm terrible when it comes to online play. So I stick to my rollers in ranked, no matter what. Maybe once I practice with other weapon types in Turf Wars, I'll feel more comfortable trying different weapons in ranked.

I think the other biggest thing you should know when it comes to going into ranked battles is know which maps you do well in, and which you don't. I've realized that I'm terrible at Arowana Mall when it comes to ranked battles. Using a roller is just not very ideal for that map, and I usually just get brutally owned. So whenever that map is one of the ranked maps, I avoid playing so I don't end up in what I know will be a losing match for myself. Try to stick to maps you know you do well on, and that should help increase your chances of winning. The better you do in a ranked battle, the better your team does.

You should totally try out all of the weapons in turf wars. I always play turf wars with different weapons just for the practice, because I want to be good at a variety of them. As you said, some weapons suffer on certain maps, and the roller on arowana is a good example. Arowana is actually one the maps right now, so I'm going to try ranked with a roller and see if I can find a way to make use of it there. There has to be something it can do lol. I hope. I think the jet squelcher and elitr 3k suffer on urchin underpass as well, just to throw out more examples.

I disagree with the sticking to maps you do well on philosophy, on the grounds that if you train yourself to avoid these maps, then you'll never be able to develop good winning strategies for them. Every map has a weapon that shines on it, while most of the weapons are only average on it, and a few are limited. Generally training yourself with a strong secondary will allow you to do okay with most of the map setups. I normally use the jet squelcher, but if I see urchin underpass I'll use the splattershot jr sometimes.

All of that said, it is only a game, so simply do what you find fun! I personally love using the elitr 3k on arowana mall for example. It's unrivaled there, it has enough range to hit anyone camping on the other platforms, and very few other weapons can match it. They'll have to be closer to get to you. That is an awesome feeling.

Very will put! Your post came off as intended, with lots of respect and a different view point. I appreciate that very much.

I tend to play very defensive as well, hence why I like the longer range weapons. However, I feel that when we are getting dominated, (even when I'm the anchor) that if I don't step in, we'll continue to get killed. Sometimes this works if I can get a kill or two, but other times, I typically get double teamed and die w/o any contribution. Am I being too impatient? Regardless if we lose, should I just stay the anchor?

I like your advice to look at different ways of improving and I'll try to do that. I'll add you tonight and maybe we can play a few games.

Sounds good! I think that's a question I have to ask myself often. I lost that match on Blackbelly because I decided to hold onto the anchor role and not go after the enemy. But if I had pursued them and died, then that would have been even worse. This is actually why I like using the regular jet squelcher, it is a strong weapon for the anchor role that has the ink strike special. So I can be holding down my area the entire time, and then use the ink strike to flush out enemies and support teammates. If I know the enemies are camping out my team, I can use the ink strike on them to get them out of there, and maybe even pick a few off myself if they get too close to me. This setup has worked really well for me overall. The only times I find myself losing significantly with it is when I can't get to a good spot for the anchor role. For the record, I had the custom jet squelcher on that match on blackbelly, so my special was the kraken.

 

[missingno]

Splat Zones really isn't worth it, it's just teammate luck.

Not at all. Let's assume you're not the worst player in the room, at least I hope you're not. So besides yourself, you have 3 teammates and 4 opponents. The odds are 4 in 7 that the worst player is on the other team. The 'luck' is entirely in your favor, they will get screwed more than you do. Sometimes you may get a bad match, but over time the law of averages will even out to give you more than a 50% win rate so you can rank up.

And this is only really the low ranks. Once you do climb out of there, everyone knows what they're doing. Nobody gets to A rank without deserving it.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Splat zone isn't the place for wannabe lone wolf players :)

 

[PremiumFootwear]

I'm chronicling my kraken roller adventures on arowana mall today in splat zones, My starting rank was B+ 20, I ended at B+ 0. My first match was a close loss in overtime, I personally went 12-6 and succesfully held the anchor role. Match two, we won by knockout and I went 10-6 with a slightly more developed strategy. Just for fun, let's throw in my other maps too. Lost in overtime on blackbelly skatepark by 60 points, I went 11-5. Lost a second match in overtime on blackbelly skatepark by 19 points, I went 7-8. That match was much closer, and my team consisted of one other roller, a kelp splatterscope, and a splattershot pro. I don't really remember my teams from the first three except that there was the same kelp splatterscope and two splattershots of various types.

So, after playing these few matches, I want to say that the roller isn't as bad on arowana mall as I thought it was going to be. What I did on that map is hold the back hallways, I spent most of my time on the enemy hall, splashing down on the hill by swinging the roller. I would often go back and check the hall to see if any enemies were coming, if they were I would pop out, ambush, and kill them. Then repaint the hall. I also put several beacons on the hall hiding behind the potted plant there. When I got my kraken special, I would charge down into the zone, kill any enemies, swim up onto the opposite side, and clear out that back hall if enemies were there. Often they were. So I played a sort of risky aggressive anchor role and it paid off the second match once I got the hang of it.

On blackbelly, I couldn't really think of one particular thing I should be doing, so I was sort of all over the map. I would go up to the upper area that overlooks the halfpipe and place 3 beacons there before moving on. My teammates used these often, and if I saw the enemy clear them out I knew they were camping and dealt with them. I used my kraken to clear out the middle, including the top platform, and also cross the map to check on the other side. I tried not to go directly into the zones, and more of less splashed them from the side before getting back to the same ol. My goal was to keep as much of the map painting my color as possible while clearing out the enemy whenever they tried to camp. I was very mobile and it worked decently. But that strategy is very unrefined and needs more work. I couldn't get the enemies if they were camping from their base area for example, and that hurt me and my team because it made it hard to control the zones.

All in all, I played a sort of passive-aggressive roller, and it worked okay. It was my first time using the roller in ranked, so I figure as I use it more I might get better at it. I did lose most of the matches, but they were pretty close losses excluding blackbelly 1. My strategy on arowana was a lot stronger though, so that may be why I did better on that map. After playing these matches, I want to say that my k/d spread was not a big deal. The last match on blackbelly kind of proved that. It was probably the most exciting and closest match I played, and I went negative in the end. So don't just assume you're doing poorly if you went negative, and don't assume you did well if you went positive. There's always more to it than just that.

I'm going to use the roller some on the next set of maps as well. I hope my strategies come in handy for roller users like Kimmorz, since I normally don't use the roller and go for different options.

 

[The Salamander King]

So I play a lot, but I've never managed to get above a C+ in Splatzones. I use a Custom Jet Squelcher (Burst Bombs, Kraken) and I've noticed I'm pretty much the only one who uses it, but I almost always do well with it. My average KdR is almost always at least 3/1, and I can use the splat bombs to neutralize a territory really well. I honestly feel like I'm almost always the best one on my team, and almost always my entire team has a KdR of .5/1 and it's just really frustrating. Do you use the Custom Jet or know anyone who does? What type of weapon do you use and why? Any other suggestions or am I just getting really unlucky with my team? I sometimes win 5+ matches in a row, and then lose, lose, lose until I rank down...

I pretty much main the Custom Jet. It's an amazing weapon if you can abuse it's range.

 

[KnightMB]

I use an unconventional strategy to win at splat zones. I gear up to respawn as fast as possible. I use haunt + ink resistance. My goal is to disrupt the other team as much as possible. If my other team mates take advantage of it, it's always a non-stop winning streak. Mainly, I make sure to keep the zones changed and basically work backwards into enemy territory to disrupt with my Aero + Kraken weapon. I respawn and SJ back into play so fast, it's always a constant "push" against the other team. I know it has worked well when I've been splatted about 20 times at the end of the match even if I splatted the other team just as many times. I've gone matches where I was splatted +20 times with 0 enemy splats and we still win a knockout because I am keeping the other team in so much chaos they can't focus on controlling the zones. :)

I've been splatted deep in enemy territory only to respawn and SJ back so quickly, I end up splatting the same person that got me earlier before they even get out of their own territory.