Hope for the Future of Crab Tank

[OnePotWonder]

Time for the second half of the Crab Tank discussion. In my previous post, I covered Crab Tank's sad state as the most kit-screwed special in the whole of Splatoon 3, being on some of the fewest kits in the game, half of which were completely outclassed. Today I'm going to share my ideas for resuscitating the glorious special, bringing it into the limelight once again so it can show its true glory.

This begins with nerfing Zooka. For the simple reasons of nobody liking it and it being the only special stronger than Crab Tank. 20 extra frames of startup, indirect damage reduced to 50, and direct damage reduced to 180. Should be adequately rebalanced, and Crab Tank will resume its role as one of the first things one wants on a team comp. Now we can begin.


The first thing I'd like to do is fix the outclassed Crab Tank options, firmly and creatively.

In order to fix Splattershot Pro, I will obviously be buffing Angle Shooter. The sub now deals 60 damage on a direct hit, and 20 damage from contacting its trail. This not only fixes the sub for literally every weapon that has it, but it also gives Splattershot Pro a strong combo with it.
That was the easy part.

Fixing L-3 Nozzlenose is difficult due to the weapon's weaker sub. The Nozzlenose main will be buffed to have no midair shot spread, as well as slightly more range and less end lag. Curling Bomb will be buffed to deal 45 contact damage, thus being a combo with two shots from the main weapon rather than three.

The L-3 is small potatoes compared to the last problem weapon, however. Splatana Stamper Nouveau is hopelessly outclassed by its other kit due to the polar opposition of its sub weapons on the tier list. Toxic Mist will need to be buffed; I was thinking of giving it a slow damage-over-time effect, around 20 DPS, but that helps the other Mist weapons much more than nStamper.


Next, I have some ideas for new Crab Tank kits. Quite a lot of them, actually:

XXL Big Swig Roller - Torpedo & Crab Tank
Bamboozler 14 mk IV - Ink Mine & Crab Tank
Acid Goo Tuber - Curling Bomb & Crab Tank
Cola Slosher - Splash Wall & Crab Tank
Custodial Dread Wringer - Autobomb & Crab Tank
Remastered Mini Splatling - Suction Bomb & Crab tank
Fried Dualie Squelchers - Point Sensor & Crab Tank
Recycled Brella 24 mk III - Burst Bomb & Crab Tank
Rapid Blaster Pro Tek - Splash Wall & Crab Tank
Pertinent Inkbrush - Sprinkler & Crab Tank
Wellstring D - Squid Beakon & Crab Tank
Fluoride Decavitator - Fizzy Bomb & Crab Tank

You will likely recognize a few of these as returning or reference kits, however I also took some creative license.


Finally, I’d like to suggest a small buff for the special; increasing its movement speed in ball form by 20%, allowing it to reposition a bit quicker.

Feel free to share your own ideas about saving Crab Tank in the comments, or any kits you want to see.
With luck, we'll at least get an Angle Shooter buff in the next patch, making Splattershot Pro viable.
As always, have a wonderful day.

 

[Babab]

Moooooooore damaaaageee

 

[QuagSass]

Midfire charge? On Mini? The splatling that fires for 1,4 seconds?
Interesting choice. I guess I could see it being helpful in fights
Although giving it a mechanic that can eat through your ink really quickly while also giving it Suction Bomb feels a bit. Near-sighted.
Mini would get 2 full charges after a Suction Bomb. Perhaps an ink-efficiency buff would be better? Or something more mobility focused.

 

[NeoXVIII]

The kits are pretty rough at a first glance tbh, though I do really like the Big Swig, Dread Wringer, Recycled Brella, and Decavitator kits though.

Not sure how I feel about the buffs/nerfs. They feel a bit heavy handed but it might be what we need, shrug.

what if the crab strafed faster with run speed? probably wouldn't do much but full run speed is so fun.

 

[vitellary]

very much not a fan of >50% burst bomb. why do people actually care about double burst at all? i feel like it's the kind of thing where it SOUNDS bad, ohh noooo you get to throw so much AoE hitboxes out there aaahh, but i have NEVER encountered a situation in-game where double burst felt like too much to deal with. burst exists to be a cheap option that lets you finish fights you would otherwise struggle to finish, if you want to kill your entire ink-tank to deal that reliable damage then that should be an option to you. it's on a majority of ink-hungry weapons for that reason

vSplash is good because it can farm crabs better than anything else, nerfing its burst bomb doesn't change that; and vStamper is good because toxic mist is a nothing sub, nerfing its burst bomb doesn't make the nouveau kit feel any better. forcibly increasing diversity by just making some weapons have less options and making them less fun than before is not a good approach to this

 

[OnePotWonder]

very much not a fan of >50% burst bomb. why do people actually care about double burst at all? i feel like it's the kind of thing where it SOUNDS bad, ohh noooo you get to throw so much AoE hitboxes out there aaahh, but i have NEVER encountered a situation in-game where double burst felt like too much to deal with. burst exists to be a cheap option that lets you finish fights you would otherwise struggle to finish, if you want to kill your entire ink-tank to deal that reliable damage then that should be an option to you. it's on a majority of ink-hungry weapons for that reason

vSplash is good because it can farm crabs better than anything else, nerfing its burst bomb doesn't change that; and vStamper is good because toxic mist is a nothing sub, nerfing its burst bomb doesn't make the nouveau kit feel any better. forcibly increasing diversity by just making some weapons have less options and making them less fun than before is not a good approach to this

I'm not nerfing Burst Bomb because of double Burst; it practically doesn't exist. I'm nerfing it because it's too much of a universally good sub and it needs some form of weakness which inherently cannot be built into it in any reasonable way other than its ink cost.

L-3's buffed Curling Bomb and nStamper's buffed Toxic Mist should be comparable to Splash and Stamper's nerfed Burst Bombs.

 

[missingno]

I'm just not understanding the premise that Crab supposedly isn't good right now. vSplash and EditN are extremely strong, and vDualie and StamperN are reasonably good high tiers that see play. Of all the specials to downplay, why Crab?

 

[OnePotWonder]

I'm just not understanding the premise that Crab supposedly isn't good right now. vSplash and EditN are extremely strong, and vDualie and StamperN are reasonably good high tiers that see play. Of all the specials to downplay, why Crab?

I never said it isn’t good. It definitely is, even if the options for it are limited. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be better, though; it’s probably the best special in the series in term of design, and having half of the weapons it’s on be outclassed and all but one of the rest have poor synergy with it isn’t exactly star treatment.

 

[cipsbsndj]

I'm not nerfing Burst Bomb because of double Burst; it practically doesn't exist. I'm nerfing it because it's too much of a universally good sub and it needs some form of weakness which inherently cannot be built into it in any reasonable way other than its ink cost.

L-3's buffed Curling Bomb and nStamper's buffed Toxic Mist should be comparable to Splash and Stamper's nerfed Burst Bombs.

I feel like a better way to nerf Burst Bomb’s ink efficiency is through nerfing its white-ink frames. Right now it takes about a second to begin recover ink after throwing a burst bomb, so making it take more than a second to begin post-burst ink recovery would make throwing a burst bomb more of a commitment, while still keeping it as the cheap option it’s meant to be.

Or it could cost 50% of a standard ink tank, as that’s still relatively cheap, and would also make it a commitment to throw one. I personally think burst bomb doesn’t need any nerfs, but if that’s going to happen, I feel like these are slightly more fair ways to go about it.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I feel like a better way to nerf Burst Bomb’s ink efficiency is through nerfing its white-ink frames. Right now it takes about a second to begin recover ink after throwing a burst bomb, so making it take more than a second to begin post-burst ink recovery would make throwing a burst bomb more of a commitment, while still keeping it as the cheap option it’s meant to be.

Or it could cost 50% of a standard ink tank, as that’s still relatively cheap, and would also make it a commitment to throw one. I personally think burst bomb doesn’t need any nerfs, but if that’s going to happen, I feel like these are slightly more fair ways to go about it.

I personally don’t like nerfing subs through white ink frames. It’s one of the reasons I like Ink Mine so much; it has practically none. It’s very annoying to have to wait a full second after using a sub weapon before you can recover the ink you spent on it.

Honestly trying to nerf Burst Bomb for the purposes of this post is really difficult. But there just isn’t any way to buff Toxic Mist on Stamper or Curling on L-3 to let them compare to it.

Perhaps I just need to think a bit harder. In the meantime, I’m removing the Burst Bomb nerfs and compensation.

 

[cipsbsndj]

I personally don’t like nerfing subs through white ink frames. It’s one of the reasons I like Ink Mine so much; it has practically none. It’s very annoying to have to wait a full second after using a sub weapon before you can recover the ink you spent on it.

Honestly trying to nerf Burst Bomb for the purposes of this post is really difficult. But there just isn’t any way to buff Toxic Mist on Stamper or Curling on L-3 to let them compare to it.

Perhaps I just need to think a bit harder. In the meantime, I’m removing the Burst Bomb nerfs and compensation.

I feel like there are some good ways to buff Toxic Mist, the idea you initially brought up of making the mist cloud do gradual damage wasn’t bad, and there’s another idea of making it so that the effects of standing inside a mist cloud will linger on an opponent for about 1-2 seconds after stepping out of the cloud, or they could make the sub cost less ink to use. Idk if any of these changes would make the StamperN better than the vStamper, but they might make it a more viable option.

However, while Curling Bomb is at a fine spot where it is now, they really should’ve given the vanilla kit Burst Bomb, considering it’s the perfect sub for it (even tho I like the current L-3 D kit, Burst/Crab would’ve been perfect on the vL-3). Curling Bomb fits with a more aggressive playstyle for L-3, giving a quick swimmable line of paint, working well with Ultra Stamp. Meanwhile, Burst Bomb fits with a more supportive style for L-3, providing long-range chip damage for teammates, working great with Crab Tank. The two current kits feel so miss-matched, and that can’t really be helped through balance changes. I do like the idea of buffing the damage of being hit by the curling tho.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I feel like there are some good ways to buff Toxic Mist, the idea you initially brought up of making the mist cloud do gradual damage wasn’t bad, and there’s another idea of making it so that the effects of standing inside a mist cloud will linger on an opponent for about 1-2 seconds after stepping out of the cloud, or they could make the sub cost less ink to use. Idk if any of these changes would make the StamperN better than the vStamper, but they might make it a more viable option.

However, while Curling Bomb is at a fine spot where it is now, they really should’ve given the vanilla kit Burst Bomb, considering it’s the perfect sub for it (even tho I like the current L-3 D kit, Burst/Crab would’ve been perfect on the vL-3). Curling Bomb fits with a more aggressive playstyle for L-3, giving a quick swimmable line of paint, working well with Ultra Stamp. Meanwhile, Burst Bomb fits with a more supportive style for L-3, providing long-range chip damage for teammates, working great with Crab Tank. The two current kits feel so miss-matched, and that can’t really be helped through balance changes. I do like the idea of buffing the damage of being hit by the curling tho.

Hence my vexation. If the end goal is to make Mist as good as Burst, it's nearly impossible to do so without nerfing Burst or making Mist the most annoying sub in the game. Because sure, we could make mist a sticky DoT that costs less than half the ink tank, but would that make it better than Burst? Maybe, but not on Stamper.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, it's nearly impossible to nerf Burst Bomb in a way that makes it worse on Stamper. Sure, I could lower its close AoE damage to 30, but that only kills its combos if an opponent is running Sub Defense Up. It also does nothing against Splash, nor would reducing its splash damage to 20; (doesn't mean I don't want these changes, though).
And then Curling Bomb pretty much dooms vL-3 to be the worse kit forever. The only way to make it a better combo sub is to increase its contact damage as I have in the post, and it's nowhere near enough.

It's quite frustrating to have a third of the game's Crab Tank kits be doomed to be outclassed. Especially since they have Crab Tank.

 

[missingno]

In a game with this many weapons, they can't all be top tier. I think you're too fixated on the fact that some Crab kits aren't great, but, like, that's true of every special. The fact that Crab does have four extremely strong kits is more than a lot of other specials.

 

[OnePotWonder]

In a game with this many weapons, they can't all be top tier. I think you're too fixated on the fact that some Crab kits aren't great, but, like, that's true of every special. The fact that Crab does have four extremely strong kits is more than a lot of other specials.

I think you’re badly overestimating the quality of the current Crab Tank kits. It does not have four extremely strong kits. It has two very good kits, two very outclassed kits, and two hopelessly bad kits. When would you ever use Stamper Nouveau over the original? Where does a Splat Dualie work better than a Splash? And note that this is a top tier special weapon, by the way, not your Reefslider or Tenta Missiles. Zooka has five good weapons that are genuinely good; Inkjet has three, and that’s not counting Sorella Brella. The only special you could argue being worse off is Zipcaster, with only three decent options, but it’s on vStamper; the best weapon in the game.

Crab tank is on three frontline weapons which naturally don’t synergize with the special due to playing at a very different range value. It’s on two midline slayers, one of which has Angle Shooter and the other Toxic Mist, the two worst subs in the game, which renders them easily outclassed. The only “extremely good” Crab Tank kit is a mid-range splatling with a Splat Bomb.

Don’t try to undermine my desires on the grounds that Splatana Stamper Nouveau is an extremely good kit.

 

[missingno]

I'm gonna use ProChara's tier list for reference here. Might be slightly out of date, but I think this is good enough to get a general picture of what's viable. Best reference I could find for now.

Spoiler: ProChara's 8.0 tier list

All of these weapons see regular play in competitive. Yes, vStamper is good, but that doesn't mean StamperN doesn't see play too. In fact, having a second good kit means that your Stamper player can flex to Nouveau if you need a Crab in your comp, having options in your back pocket is great.


I went ahead and counted up the representation of specials on A-tier weapons or above, and it looks like Crab Tank is even better than I thought:

5 - Triple Inkstrike
5 - Trizooka
4 - Crab Tank
4 - Tacticooler
3 - Big Bubbler
3 - Inkjet
2 - Kraken Royale
2 - Wave Breaker
2 - Killer Wail 5.1
2 - Splattercolor Screen
1 - Booyah Bomb
1 - Ink Storm
1 - Ink Vac
1 - Super Chump
1 - Triple Splashdown
1 - Ultra Stamp
1 - Zipcaster
0 - Reefslider
0 - Tenta Missiles


And if we make the cutoff S-tier or above, Crab Tank is actually tied at the top:

4 - Crab Tank
4 - Triple Inkstrike
4 - Trizooka
3 - Tacticooler
2 - Killer Wail 5.1
2 - Splattercolor Screen
1 - Big Bubbler
1 - Booyah Bomb
1 - Ink Storm
1 - Kraken Royale
1 - Wave Breaker
1 - Zipcaster
1 - Ultra Stamp
0 - Ink Vac
0 - Inkjet
0 - Reefslider
0 - Super Chump
0 - Tenta Missiles
0 - Triple Splashdown


If you want to talk about specials that don't have enough good kits, I think you need to talk about every other special in the game first.

 

[OnePotWonder]

If you want to talk about specials that don't have enough good kits, I think you need to talk about every other special in the game first.

I should need not remind you that Crab Tank is a top 5 special. Of course most of its kits are at the top of the tier list; it carries half of them. Stamper Nouveau and Splat Dualies, to be exact. Sure, both of them are in S tier, but that doesn't shake the fact that vStamper and Splash both perfectly fill their respective roles, and are above them on the list.

Viability and relative quality are two very different things. If you look at ProChara's 8.0 tier list video, I distinctly recall him saying when he was placing nStamper, something along the lines of: "I don't know why you'd pick this over the vanilla kit, but it's still a Stamper with Crab Tank so it goes here."

Perhaps I'm unusual in some way, but when a weapon has a second kit that's distinctly better, I see no reason to use the worse one.
Same idea when it comes to a weapon you pick for its special. If you want a short-range Crab Tank option, why pick Dualies over Splash?

Yes, Crab Tank has four "good" options. It only has two weapons you would actually use, though. Class favoritism aside.

 

[isaac4]

I should need not remind you that Crab Tank is a top 5 special. Of course most of its kits are at the top of the tier list; it carries half of them. Stamper Nouveau and Splat Dualies, to be exact. Sure, both of them are in S tier, but that doesn't shake the fact that vStamper and Splash both perfectly fill their respective roles, and are above them on the list.

Viability and relative quality are two very different things. If you look at ProChara's 8.0 tier list video, I distinctly recall him saying when he was placing nStamper, something along the lines of: "I don't know why you'd pick this over the vanilla kit, but it's still a Stamper with Crab Tank so it goes here."

Perhaps I'm unusual in some way, but when a weapon has a second kit that's distinctly better, I see no reason to use the worse one.
Same idea when it comes to a weapon you pick for its special. If you want a short-range Crab Tank option, why pick Dualies over Splash?

Yes, Crab Tank has four "good" options. It only has two weapons you would actually use, though. Class favoritism aside.

I get what you're trying to say.
I personally believe that it's okay for a weapon to have a kit that outclasses the other since it's very unlikely that both of them will be competitively viable while being distinct enough to fill different roles but that reason shouldn't be because of poor balancing (thanks Toxic Mist).
It's especially bad for Crab since there's not enough weapon kits with the special to begin with.
I think this is just an issue that could be fixed with good sub balancing and 3rd kits.

 

[missingno]

Sure, both of them are in S tier, but that doesn't shake the fact that vStamper and Splash both perfectly fill their respective roles, and are above them on the list.

I think this is a needlessly reductive view of how these weapons play.

Dualie is not Splash, not at all. Dualie's job is much more skirmish-oriented, poking at and baiting the enemy team. It wants to threaten and displace opponents with a lethal bomb as opposed to directly chipping them with Burst, and of course it does the dualie thing of zipping around and being obnoxiously hard to hit.

For StamperN, the Crab is its role. If you're looking for a Crab on your comp, and you have a player who's good at Stamper, here's a very strong main weapon with a very strong special. Yes, vStamper is really really really good, but that doesn't mean StamperN never gets played. As I said, the ability to flex with it is actually a good thing. It's also far from the only main weapon to have both kits played. Does the rise of nSplash mean vSplash is bad now?

And again, even if you still want to write off both of these weapons, then you should be writing off everything else tiered below them and counting how many other specials are even worse off. Even two Crabs is still better than half the specials in the game.

 

[OnePotWonder]

And again, even if you still want to write off both of these weapons, then you should be writing off everything else tiered below them and counting how many other specials are even worse off. Even two Crabs is still better than half the specials in the game.

Reefslider has four good kits. Wave Breaker has five. Ultra Stamp has six.

You keep ignoring me or not caring when I say the only reason Crab Tank has most of its weapons so high up on the tier list is because it’s a top five special weapon. Even if I counted Dualies, (the main reason I don’t being that it’s a skirmisher that will get at most two Crab Tanks per game unless it sits back and plays like Splash,) Crab would only be on three viable weapons compared to the bottom tier specials’ four apiece minimum.

If you want to play Ultra Stamp, you have two distinct Fizzy Bomb kits, two Burst Bomb kits, Splatana Wiper, Wellstring, even Sploosh or Inkbrush if you so desire; those two aren’t nearly as unplayable as the worst Crab Tank weapons. Wave Breaker has five distinctly good options with zero role overlap.

Imagine a world where Nintendo overnerfed Crab Tank at the end of crab meta, dragging it to bottom tier alongside Wave Breaker. All of its bad kits including nStamper would be bottom of bottom tier meme weapons.

Kindly stop forgetting how the quality of a special affects the viability of its kits. Specials aren’t equally balanced; your tier list is a wholly inaccurate metric for how good each special’s kits. You could also try thinking, that worked for me.

What on earth do you have against Crab Tank?

 

[missingno]

I count zero Reefslider kits, two Wave kits, and one Stamp kit at A-tier or above. I don't know what kits you're claiming are better than vDualie or StamperN, but if they're not being played in the meta, they're not.

I don't have anything against Crab Tank. I play Edit Nouveau! I just don't understand why you're downplaying a special that is extremely well-represented in the meta right now.