how do you feel about the Jr.?

[Masked_Katz]

if you've seen me on the forums, you know how much I love the Jr., and there's no particular reason I just feel like the whole kit comes together and feels perfect to me. I'm in the process of creating a team with some friends, where we are going to try to make the most out of weapons we are passionate about yet aren't exactly the most popular picks, such as the Jr.

However, I'm in a few competitive Splatoon circles to get advice and socialize with those who are knowledgable about the game on a deeper level, and lately I've seen a lot of disdain for the Jr. due to the stereotypes associated with it, whether it is reserved for new players or those who only play around the splat bomb via its bigger ink tank. This has been really disheartening because I genuinely enjoy it for all of its strengths and weaknesses, even its range turns out to be what I'm most comfortable with.

I wanted to ask somewhere that is frankly more diverse and not as quick to judge, what do you think of the Jr. and those who main it? Does it have a place in higher level play and is it realistically possible to build a good or respectable career using it? Or do you think it earns the bad rep it gets and is designed to stay to only go so far? No other weapon feels nearly as 'natural' to me as this weapon, but I'm trying to learn to like the Splattershot and other shooters just in case; any advice or suggestions is appreciated!

 

[DChachouke]

I never played it (I quite frankly almost never play shooters. I can play some of them but the get stale very quick for me),so what I'm about to say is VERY subjective, but I thought you might want to hear any kind of opinion you can get.
From what I've seen, it did have some kind of place in S2's meta not only due to the ink tank capacity giving it the sub spammer reputation it still has today, but also ink armor which was quite broken at the time. These two together and you'd have a support that wasn't even seen for the main weapon. AlthoughI do remember its kensa kit being quite goodaswell, not considered as "braindead" as the vanilla;
I'm not so sure what it became in S3. I'm pretty sure it fell off heavy, mostly due to the fact that bubbler is actually much more balanced than ink armor, so it cannot carry the main weapon as much. It did keep its sub spammer reputation though. The fact that it's the beginner weapon by excellence probably isn't helping much either, and I imagine the devs want to keep it as a very beginner friendly weapon, which might hold it back from any ever so slight meta changing buffs. I'm not sure about how viable the custom kit is either. Torpedo IS a sub that is well respected, but with a weaker special, I don't think it's any better than the vanilla kit ???
Overall, unless it gets any important buffs (either to the main weapon or its kit/s), it's likely bound to say a pretty low tier weapon, especially since vroller is usually a much more viable bubbler weapon.
However, I am of the belief that there is never truly a skill ceiling to any weapon, and that the reason they aren't played much is mostly cause the amount of skill, efforts, time and such required to make it work at higher level would be so high that pretty much no one finds it's worth it.
TL:DR : I think you can take any weapon to higher levels, you just have to expect a much, much, much steeper learning curve than some other weapons, so much so that you may find yourself at a point where progress you make feels almost completely stagnant. It's up to you whether or not you have the passion and time it takes to push the weapon further than it ever has been.

 

[Mx_Diva]

I love Jr. He's our big wet He/They boy! i'm so progressive even my weapons have pronouns.

 

[Alphine_Agnitio]

Both of JR's kits are fine, having tried to add both to my weapon pools though I think the big problem is the weapon mainly devolves into bomb spam which starts to not work as well the higher skill level you go(and double splat bomb spam on JR is a meme at best)

The aim rng isn't as bad as something as Aerospray to where you're getting no kills ever and I like the vanilla kit as a Tower Control pick specifically(can easily roll Splat Bombs off the tower to catch people running up to it + Bubbler is a good emergency button to give you a few more seconds worth of points), Custom JR for modes like Clam/Rainmaker cause Torpedo/Wave is good for flushing players out, but its still enough that you can't reliably take fights and assume you'll trade because sometimes the rng just murders you.

Its a fun weapon with a synergistic kit at least which is a lot more than I can say for some of the extremely weak and unsynergistic kits(ex, Custom Explosher)

 

[Grushi]

I need to preface this by saying that the vanilla junior was my most used weapon in splatoon 2, I have like half a million turf inked on it, so believe me, no matter what I say, I can't deny that junior is fun! And s2 junior was very much the more braindead of the two, so there's that going for me haha.

Now I don't really like junior in this game still. I just think this weapon's playstyle gets very linear at higher levels, it's usually: paint safely > throw bombs to displace people on plat > paint further > throw bombs near the zone > run forward > pop big bubbler near zone > throw bomb at your feet > paiiiiiiiint > hooray zone got capped. (it's pretty similar in tower control)
I'm very much exaggerating but as much as I don't like that playstyle, it's the only thing that works at higher levels since junior just isn't good enough at fighting, it really just has its mobility going for it. Like between a splattershot and a junior with similar skill levels and aim, the splattershot should win that 1v1 like 70% of the time. And even then the "bubble in zone" strategy can get shut down pretty hard if your opponents are willing to adapt

So we rarely see it at top level if ever, but I still think it has some merit in comp: it can paint really well and can throw a lot of bombs, which I think makes it really good if your team plays weapons that don't have bombs, and struggle at painting. Then you can enable your comp pretty well, even if you don't get a very strong special (though it does counter zooka spam pretty well!)

But like at the end of the day don't listen too much to people's opinions since a lot of them are thinking of top level comp, and at lower levels anything can work if you're willing to dedicate your time to it, so try it out! Nothing like real practice I guess

And also like, half the weapons in this game are hated by some portion of the community, so don't take it too personally! Speaking as a tent main

 

[zyf_]

i love jr i love jr i love jr i love jr i love jr i love jr i love jr

however in high level comp bubble is ridiculously hard to use correctly

that being said--who cares about other people's judgements of your weapon?? i think .52 players are cringe but i literally have one on my team cuz
well
weapon strong

w's > "style points"

also i think jr has to be pretty aggressive in this game so it's pretty fun imo, I actually like it better than in splatoon 2 even tho i eventually had to drop it lol
you're definitely not limited to spamming bombs and in fact you're quite likely to get punished for it eventually

my first...8 videos? are all on jr and i dont think i had the purely lame bomb spammy style
and i dont think i was that mechanically good back then so maybe that inspires you in an achievable way

 

[isaac4]

Personally, I hate dealing with Jr's and find them really annoying to fight but I don't look down on people who play it because it's just a weapon in Splatoon 3, nothing worth hating on someone for. I think Jr players who bomb spam are just doing their best to be playing to the strengths of the weapon and its larger ink tank, since the better you get as a player, the better the players you face will be at dealing with your weapon and taking advantage of its weaknesses. The bomb spam and passive playstyle is so common because it works well for the weapon and you shouldn't worry what others will think about it
You can play it however you want but you should know that if you want to take the weapon to high level, it can end up being a very frustrating task. People choose top tier weapons in high level because of how reliable they are and the reward for being good at them is much higher than other weapons. If you're okay with knowing that when you're pushing into that level of comp, you'll be doing much more work than the other team for the same win then I say go ahead and try it. Playing Jr. won't really hold you back earlier on anyway so you'll get to grow and improve with your team.

 

[Dessgeega]

The problem with Jr is that the weapon itself sucks in direct fights. You've got a lot of neat perks but your accuracy doesn't exist. Of course the weapon can win fights in the hands of a skilled player, but that same player would probably do just as well with something else.

The Jr isn't bad at all, but the mediocre specials and fighting ability doom it when it comes to competitive play where people just latch onto whatever's most busted at the moment, Dominant Strategy and whatnot.