I increased it to 80/60 because I genuinely thought it deserved it for how hard the long range is to hit. When it had 2.2 radius it was a bit crazy though so I decreased it to 2.0 rather than decrease the damage to make it hard but still worth it. I can maybe figure out a way to change how the drop off scales to make it not uniform but I still really don’t like the idea of having it be one shot more for a weapon that frankly struggles miserably to get that indirect anyway, even with the radius increase. It may seem like it’s not a big deal but with how unreliable most blasters are, it’s a huge deal not knowing whether you’re getting a two shot or three shot for a weapon that slow
I thought you removed the damage buff, apparently I made that up.
Also, I had a realization or two while i was writing this, so here's what I wrote, and I'll argue with my past self later in the post.
The long range indirect shouldn't be hard but worth it; that's what the direct is for. Weak long range aoe is a very intentional weakness of the weapon. The issue right now is that it doesn't feel like it does anything at all for the most part. It should be buffed into a state where it feels useful, so that there are situations where long range aoe is the preferred choice, but not in a way that makes it rewarding to do so,
especially not more than range blaster.
Giving the blast extra radius that does less damage would give it a bunch of extra utility. It would be great for finishing people off, and it would let it poke around corners a little bit.. It wouldn't be the best at those things However, I do agree that the 50 damage radius should get a slight increase, because it's next to impossible to hit right now, so 2.0 is probably fine for that. I also think buffing the 70 damage radius would be helpful, as it would make the burst combos more consistent, and it would make two indirects more consistent if one of them is close. It also would make its paint not quite so abysmal for being 210p.
You could also think of it this way. It already has a worse clash/luna blaster indirect and worse range blaster direct, so i'm giving it a worse rapid blaster indirect as well.
blast radius (units) / damage
| Max damage | 50 damage* | Min damage |
| 7.1 | 1.0 / 70.0 | 1.8 / 50.0 | 1.8 / 50.0 |
| suggestion | 1.4 / 70.0 | 2.0 / 50.0 | 2.3 / 40.0 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While writing this out, I remembered about
this video, so I rewatched it. And it lined up with my personal experience, which is that the weapon isn't very consistent because it can't get much value if it isn't hitting directs, due to the very small long range explosion. The inconsistency of the combos isn't something I thought about, but after watching the video I definitely remember being frustrated not being able to finish off kills.
After looking at your change and thinking about it, I couldn't really find any problems with it. Rewading a good indirect is good, and 80 damage fixes a lot of the combo consistency issues. But I didn't see any problems with mine either; a larger but weaker blast would give it a way to poke around corners and it would also fix a lot of consistency issues. So I concluded that these were two valid approaches to balancing the weapon. And I tried to think about their advantages and disadvantages and I couldn't decide between them. But then I realized: why not do both?
I present:
| Max damage | 50 damage* | Min damage |
| 1.0 / 80.0 | 2.0 / 50.0 | 2.4 / 38.0 |
Black is Splatoon 3 7.1, red is Riibalanced 2.1, green is my idea from the first half of this post, and orange is the idea I'm proposing right now. The graph should hopefully help show how it combines the good parts from the red and green curves.
It could also end at 2.5/35.0 if you want nicer numbers, but I felt like 2.5 might be a bit too much.
I thought 80 damage was insane at first because it would make the burst combo too easy, but after watching the video I remembered just how hard hitting 65+ damage is, and hitting 75+ damage with the buff would be the same difficulty, so this is fine. The only part about this change that would make s-blast worse compared to its current state (in riibalanced) is that the 65 damage threshold is slightly harder to reach, but it's still almost as big as the old blast radius, so I think it's fine. It's a burst combo, so it shouldn't be
too easy anyway.
I already explained a lot of the advantages of the lower damage part of the radius above, so I won't rewrite all of those, although (since you seem to dislike the potential for a 3-shot) I will additionally point out that getting a 2-shot is actually
easier with this change, despite the damage reduction. In 2.1, you have to hit two shots from 2 units or less (because those are the only shots that do damage). With the change,
this will still kill every time, but now there is
also the option to have one shot be further than 2 units away, if the other one was closer, making the 2-shot more consistent.
Your argument that not knowing whether you'll get a two shot or three shot is "a huge deal" reminds me of douser dualies. Granted, they aren't nearly as slow as s-blast, but I think it's still a useful comparison. Close to their max range, you don't really know whether you're going to 4 shot or 5 shot, because of the falloff damage. Does this mean that it would be better if you couldn't hit falloff shots? Of course not. Having the option to go for a 5 shot at slightly longer ranges is a good thing for the weapon. The same thing applies for s-blast. Having the option to 3-shot will always be better than not having that option. I do understand that it might be hard for players to tell how much they've damaged players, but you could say the same thing about most weapons. It will come with experience.
This change buffs s-blast more than either of the other two changes, because it is essentially doing both buffs. Because of this, I actually think '91 should stay at 210p. Partly because the explosion paint should probably be buffed along with the explosion itself (otherwise it would look super weird, although it doesn't have to be buffed by much), partly because something like a booyah bomb should be a reward for staying alive a while, and partly because this buff is probably going to be
really good. As Chara mentioned, the weapon requires a lot of time to be put into it, but this would make it actually worth the investment, and I think if someone decided to push it they could do very well, which is how weapons like this should be. I don't want to
overstate how good this will be though. It'll still require that investment; you'll still have to hit directs to get good value. It's just that it'll be slightly more forgiving if you miss or in situations where a direct isn't an option.
I'm aware that I mostly focused on '91 here because it's the better kit, but I'm fairly confident that one won't get changed, whereas i don't even remember what kit '92 has and it might get changed again anyway once I start actually looking into the kits. It'll have a hard time being better than '91 though so I don't think i need to worry about it too much.
(I considered putting a thing here about how even though i spent a long time writing this please feel free to rip my idea to shreds, but i couldn't figure out how to word it and also, i knew you'd do it anyway. thank you so much for that, i cannot tell you how much i appreciate it)
