ThatOneGuy
Inkling Commander
First of all, no blaster nerfs. Just by that, it's a decent patch.
Secondly, I'm glad they're finally giving a notable buff to the dynamo, but many people have been saying we want the good painting back. But, any buff to the dynamo is welcome.
However, the nerf to the N-Zap, or tickle, isn't going to make the N-Zap any less viable.
"Oh no, Instead of getting my special in 190 points, I have to cover 210 points of turf. That's a whole 20 more frames of shooting the ground before I get ink armor. I might have to run special charge up now, whatever should I do?"
Seriously though, you N-Zap mains got lucky. You see the most prevalent team compositions are with two N-Zap 85s on the same team. That's right, it's not just one, but TWO ON THE SAME TEAM.
It's bad enough that it's on almost every team, but having the premier team composition of this 2.1 meta be two N-Zaps is ridiculous. First of all, it makes any other weapon that can paint reliably (weapons like the Splattershot Jr, or the Splat Brella), completely irrelevant. After all, why put time and effort into learning the splat brella, when you can do just as well or better with an N-Zap in just a couple of games.
Also, with all the paint an N-Zap pours, there will be an ink armor for every 30 seconds of the match. Which by itself can win a team fight, let alone stacking it with a friend. And since the N-Zap can spam ink armor better than any other weapon out there, it makes: The splattershot jr even more irrelevant, the .96 gal and tri slosher only used for combat, the gold dynamo even more dead than it should be, and the vanilla squiffer is still not, even with this metagame defining special.
"What's the problem with all this ink armor?" "I like to be protected from everything"
First of all, it makes powerful and slow weapons even more useless. It's not like those weapons weren't struggling without ink armor everywhere anyway. The E-Liter and Dynamo were meta. In splatoon 1. With ink armor: your precise aim, mechanical skill, and prediction will only net you some damage that they'll recover before you can charge up your 1 shot attack again. Just because their teammate used ink armor from their spawn. It's not like the enemy even outplayed you. The N-Zap player on their team was painting the floor (Which is probably the easiest thing to do in this game) and pressed the right stick. No aim required. Your "misplay" was that you aimed correctly with your E-liter and hit an unaware target.
Now, if ink armor had more to it than "Press the right stick and watch all your teammates & you tank a blow" it would be a bit more balanced just because there's barely any commitment to it. With stingray and inkjet, you need to aim at your targets and use them in the appropriate situation. With Baller, Bomb Laucher, and Bubble Blower, you need to direct where the explosions are going to go and make sure you're not overextending too much with them. With tenta missles, you can fire them anywhere, but like stingray, it's really vulnerable upfront, and you need to lock on targets. And finally, with ink storm and splashdown: ink storm you at least need to direct where the storm is going and throw it correctly (be careful about walls that can obstruct your predicted throw.) And with splashdown, sure you can use it as a panic, and it has the same amount of button inputs as ink armor (with one). However, splashdown at the very least, requires you to be smart about your positioning. You can't use it in your spawn or far away from enemies.
What can ink armor do? You can use it anywhere you like, with no drawbacks in terms of effectiveness. If you use it as a panic, it will sometimes work if you have special power up, allowing you to armor yourself quicker. And if you die while using it as a panic, your team still gets ink armor anyway. So it doesn't matter if you kill the ink armor user after they failed to use their special correctly. And guess what? It's been the most prevalent special in competitive since the game's release. (Even though it's the easiest to use) Which feeds an awful mentality of using what's the easiest instead of actually mastering a weapon.
I hope you guys like another month of ink armor spam. I can't wait for 2.3.0
Secondly, I'm glad they're finally giving a notable buff to the dynamo, but many people have been saying we want the good painting back. But, any buff to the dynamo is welcome.
However, the nerf to the N-Zap, or tickle, isn't going to make the N-Zap any less viable.
"Oh no, Instead of getting my special in 190 points, I have to cover 210 points of turf. That's a whole 20 more frames of shooting the ground before I get ink armor. I might have to run special charge up now, whatever should I do?"
Seriously though, you N-Zap mains got lucky. You see the most prevalent team compositions are with two N-Zap 85s on the same team. That's right, it's not just one, but TWO ON THE SAME TEAM.
It's bad enough that it's on almost every team, but having the premier team composition of this 2.1 meta be two N-Zaps is ridiculous. First of all, it makes any other weapon that can paint reliably (weapons like the Splattershot Jr, or the Splat Brella), completely irrelevant. After all, why put time and effort into learning the splat brella, when you can do just as well or better with an N-Zap in just a couple of games.
Also, with all the paint an N-Zap pours, there will be an ink armor for every 30 seconds of the match. Which by itself can win a team fight, let alone stacking it with a friend. And since the N-Zap can spam ink armor better than any other weapon out there, it makes: The splattershot jr even more irrelevant, the .96 gal and tri slosher only used for combat, the gold dynamo even more dead than it should be, and the vanilla squiffer is still not, even with this metagame defining special.
"What's the problem with all this ink armor?" "I like to be protected from everything"
First of all, it makes powerful and slow weapons even more useless. It's not like those weapons weren't struggling without ink armor everywhere anyway. The E-Liter and Dynamo were meta. In splatoon 1. With ink armor: your precise aim, mechanical skill, and prediction will only net you some damage that they'll recover before you can charge up your 1 shot attack again. Just because their teammate used ink armor from their spawn. It's not like the enemy even outplayed you. The N-Zap player on their team was painting the floor (Which is probably the easiest thing to do in this game) and pressed the right stick. No aim required. Your "misplay" was that you aimed correctly with your E-liter and hit an unaware target.
Now, if ink armor had more to it than "Press the right stick and watch all your teammates & you tank a blow" it would be a bit more balanced just because there's barely any commitment to it. With stingray and inkjet, you need to aim at your targets and use them in the appropriate situation. With Baller, Bomb Laucher, and Bubble Blower, you need to direct where the explosions are going to go and make sure you're not overextending too much with them. With tenta missles, you can fire them anywhere, but like stingray, it's really vulnerable upfront, and you need to lock on targets. And finally, with ink storm and splashdown: ink storm you at least need to direct where the storm is going and throw it correctly (be careful about walls that can obstruct your predicted throw.) And with splashdown, sure you can use it as a panic, and it has the same amount of button inputs as ink armor (with one). However, splashdown at the very least, requires you to be smart about your positioning. You can't use it in your spawn or far away from enemies.
What can ink armor do? You can use it anywhere you like, with no drawbacks in terms of effectiveness. If you use it as a panic, it will sometimes work if you have special power up, allowing you to armor yourself quicker. And if you die while using it as a panic, your team still gets ink armor anyway. So it doesn't matter if you kill the ink armor user after they failed to use their special correctly. And guess what? It's been the most prevalent special in competitive since the game's release. (Even though it's the easiest to use) Which feeds an awful mentality of using what's the easiest instead of actually mastering a weapon.
I hope you guys like another month of ink armor spam. I can't wait for 2.3.0