My personal 'rule of thumb' tier list

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Please enlighten me on the part of your post I did not respond to.

I meant hari, the only person who quoted the whole thing and had something to say. Your post wasn't here when I was still typing that out.

 

[Grafkarpador]

yessir! yessssirrrrr!! yezziirrrryy!
On-topic? ok. I still think dynamo is underrated. If we are including tower control into this tier list now, I think that dynamo isnt as good. It isn't good if you are constantly attacking the tower, as you are easy pickings for any attentive hostiles.

yo, dynamo is legit on tower control as far as I could see. You either stay on the ground and take out anyone who's only paying attention to the tower or you're on the tower and constantly flick ahead like a ballin' battle ship cruiser.

Obviously a lot of the opinions of players in C rank about the splat zone metagame will not be correct when compared to somebody in A rank. But that does not mean you shouldn't take them into consideration and give them a proper response. Instead of saying they are wrong because "lol you are C rank" actually explain in detail how they are misunderstanding the meta.

Also to C rank players, please refrain from listing "sprinkler can even kill" as a pro for inkbrush. Just. Don't. (although I have noticed that if you kill a dummy in the training area and place a sprinkler in it, it will die insanely fast once it respawns. So maybe placing one under someone super jumping can be a thing.)

I agree and would like to posit a general idea: how about we lead a discussion like open adults and don't judge ideas by the status of the person they're coming from, but rather if they are argumentatively sound or could be counter argued otherwise? Do you really have to prove yourself A rank worthy to be taken seriously and be able to get good ideas for strategies?

 

[Mister Chippy]

Just want to throw in my two cents as an A+ player who primarily uses the Rapid Blaster Deco, it's nowhere near that bad. The big reason I see so many people fail with it is because they try treating it like the normal Blaster and just bunny hop around and get into fight and then when they lose those fights because they are using a weapon with a rather long TTK that requires amazing accuracy at closer ranges they blame in on the weapon instead of blaming themselves for taking those terrible fights in the first place.

The Rapid Blaster is a suppression tool. It's meant to be spammed into congested or tactically important areas to soften/mop up any enemies unlucky enough to be there. It requires good knowledge of various weapon ranges and good positioning to use effectively, and if you want to actually win head on fights at non-optimal range with it that's a lot of work, but it's actually not hard at all to use effectively. You just need to learn it's range and focus on being the biggest nuisance possible.

Also in Tower Control it's ****ing brain-dead broken. While you are alive any enemy who gets on the tower is dead. They actually need to chase you down and kill you because if you are even in the same part of the map as the tower they cannot take it. It's super easy to take advantage of this by positioning yourself well so you're sure to get some weak hits on any enemy who comes at you so you can finish them up with a direct hit or leading them into a trap you set with your secondary.

 

[micahclay]

The Inkbrush is not great (or necessarily even good), but it is better than it is given credit.

 

[Typhlosion09]

I guess this makes me a low-mid tier player just like in smash 4. The N zap is still my most comfortable weapon
I'm at A rank at the moment, just to let you know

 

[Hope]

Just to let people know, being A+ 99 with your low tier weapon does not instantly make it high tier. Amsa beat m2k in smash with Yoshi but did that make him high tier? It's how your weapon compares to all the other ones that matters.

 

[Hitzel]

Just to let people know, being A+ 99 with your low tier weapon does not instantly make it high tier. Amsa beat m2k in smash with Yoshi but did that make him high tier? It's how your weapon compares to all the other ones that matters.

There haven't been any high-level games of Splatoon yet anyway so yeah, A+ game's aren't that big of a deal.

 

[River09]

A+ just means you're above average. I've made it to A+99 but there are still lots of people in that rank. It doesn't determine your skill level or anything but that said being in A+ does mean you probably are better than a player in B but not by a significant amount. Any player can make it to A+ with a low tier weapon but the meta is still developing and we don't have any clear cut garbage weapons so anything can work if you put in the time.

 

[Agosta44]

A+ just means you're above average. I've made it to A+99 but there are still lots of people in that rank. It doesn't determine your skill level or anything but that said being in A+ does mean you probably are better than a player in B but not by a significant amount. Any player can make it to A+ with a low tier weapon but the meta is still developing and we don't have any clear cut garbage weapons so anything can work if you put in the time.

It's the same thing as VR in Mario Kart Wii. 9000+ signified you were good. 9000-9500 you're above average. 9600-9999 means you're extremely good. Being able to maintain A+60 or higher means you are a significant factor in your teams wins.

 

[SquiddiamFancyson]

To be fair someone may be stuck at a lower rank than they deserve and not everybody has the hours to keep balancing out their bad teammates with skill so that their points are a net gain. Ultimately your rank is a reflection of you + 3 others and there are plenty of B- and B players that shouldn't be there, but got carried by good teams. Likewise there are some amazing B's that get let down a lot. I spent a lot of time there (currently A- 82) and honestly my skill is about the same as it was in B. The only difference is that now I have competent teammates that capitalise on areas I take or options I open. I think the A- to A climb will be far easier because of this. Rank is not an accurate reflection of skill.

 

[Grafkarpador]

To be fair someone may be stuck at a lower rank than they deserve and not everybody has the hours to keep balancing out their bad teammates with skill so that their points are a net gain. Ultimately your rank is a reflection of you + 3 others and there are plenty of B- and B players that shouldn't be there, but got carried by good teams. Likewise there are some amazing B's that get let down a lot. I spent a lot of time there (currently A- 82) and honestly my skill is about the same as it was in B. The only difference is that now I have competent teammates that capitalise on areas I take or options I open. I think the A- to A climb will be far easier because of this. Rank is not an accurate reflection of skill.

It's a statistical measure telling that under the influence of your play, the teams you are in more often win than they lose, no matter the team composition (because those get switched up all the time). If your performance is over the average of the rank you are in, this will translate into the ratio of wins and losses you score over the big scheme of things. The higher your competence, the faster you will climb. It might happen that on a small scale you lose a bunch of times because of statistical flukes like the opposite teams performing over the average or your team performing under the average a couple of times, but if you were really performing over the average and your and the opposite teams average out to be average, then you will naturally climb the rank faster than you drop the rank if you play more and get a better sample size. Of course this is reversed if you perform below average, and you are "stuck" at the rank if you perform exactly average (or you only climb slowly if you are just slightly above average).

[/semantic satiation]

 

[SquiddiamFancyson]

It's a statistical measure telling that under the influence of your play, the teams you are in more often win than they lose, no matter the team composition (because those get switched up all the time). If your performance is over the average of the rank you are in, this will translate into the ratio of wins and losses you score over the big scheme of things. The higher your competence, the faster you will climb. It might happen that on a small scale you lose a bunch of times because of statistical flukes like the opposite teams performing over the average or your team performing under the average a couple of times, but if you were really performing over the average and your and the opposite teams average out to be average, then you will naturally climb the rank faster than you drop the rank if you play more and get a better sample size. Of course this is reversed if you perform below average, and you are "stuck" at the rank if you perform exactly average (or you only climb slowly if you are just slightly above average).

[/semantic satiation]

I completely agree with what you're saying, but what I'm getting at is that it can take a while for the bad luck and skill to balance out to true potential, and with the game being new and as well as players either playing turf war or alternative games, there's plenty of players that can keep up with A+ rank skill wise that aren't there yet due to being slowed down by a multitude of reasons, one being teammates of inferior level and another being time spent playing. Over time, I agree with you that the ranking system will be more indicative of true skill but right now, the drawbacks of being on a team when the game is A) new and B) team dependent means it's going to take a bit longer before "I'm A+ therefore I'm qualified to comment and your not" becomes anything close to an acceptable argument. Even then, it sounds like elitism to me and I disagree with the notion, but I just wanted to attempt to debunk it since I'm already seeing members shot down by others with inflated egos. I'm not directing this at anybody in particular, but it's already becoming a needless issue.

 

[Mister Chippy]

I completely agree with what you're saying, but what I'm getting at is that it can take a while for the bad luck and skill to balance out to true potential, and with the game being new and as well as players either playing turf war or alternative games, there's plenty of players that can keep up with A+ rank skill wise that aren't there yet due to being slowed down by a multitude of reasons, one being teammates of inferior level and another being time spent playing. Over time, I agree with you that the ranking system will be more indicative of true skill but right now, the drawbacks of being on a team when the game is A) new and B) team dependent means it's going to take a bit longer before "I'm A+ therefore I'm qualified to comment and your not" becomes anything close to an acceptable argument. Even then, it sounds like elitism to me and I disagree with the notion, but I just wanted to attempt to debunk it since I'm already seeing members shot down by others with inflated egos. I'm not directing this at anybody in particular, but it's already becoming a needless issue.

Potential doesn't mean qualification though. There are plenty of players out there who have the potential to become A+ some day, but as of this moment most of them aren't currently qualified to give advice like they will be when they reach it. The grind involved in getting to A+ is not actually gaining the ranks, it's gaining the skills required to get the ranks. Once you're qualified to reach A+ it actually takes very little time whatsoever. I know from personal experimentation that it takes maybe 4 hours to get from B+ to A+. If someone isn't able to make the climb that quickly it means that they currently aren't really able to make the climb at all and they need more experience. The differences in ranks can be quite stark, especially the jumps from B+ to A- and A+ to A+99.

Also you should never blame teammates for holding you back. Ranks are not really representative of your skill at playing with your team, they're representative of your skill at carrying them. It's like blaming the weights for being too heavy for you to bench them. In all the games I've played I've lost very, very few where I feel my team was so terrible there was nothing I could have done to carry them. Almost always my losses are either due to me not playing well enough or an enemy playing fantastically.

 

[SquiddiamFancyson]

Potential doesn't mean qualification though. There are plenty of players out there who have the potential to become A+ some day, but as of this moment most of them aren't currently qualified to give advice like they will be when they reach it. The grind involved in getting to A+ is not actually gaining the ranks, it's gaining the skills required to get the ranks. Once you're qualified to reach A+ it actually takes very little time whatsoever. I know from personal experimentation that it takes maybe 4 hours to get from B+ to A+. If someone isn't able to make the climb that quickly it means that they currently aren't really able to make the climb at all and they need more experience. The differences in ranks can be quite stark, especially the jumps from B+ to A- and A+ to A+99.

Also you should never blame teammates for holding you back. Ranks are not really representative of your skill at playing with your team, they're representative of your skill at carrying them. It's like blaming the weights for being too heavy for you to bench them. In all the games I've played I've lost very, very few where I feel my team was so terrible there was nothing I could have done to carry them. Almost always my losses are either due to me not playing well enough or an enemy playing fantastically.

With respect I'm not promoting blaming teammates for losses, because that's a really unhealthy mentality that's going to stop you from improving. It is however a legitimate reason for it taking a while to climb the ranks, especially when you're in a blatant firefight that only requires teammates looking at the map to observe, and yet they repeatedly super jump to you regardless without stealth jump. That happened more times than I can count and led to a ton of deaths that allowed people to capture the zone, (before tower control) or maintain it for a longer time than they would have if my allies had been more sensible. You must be an amazing player if you can seriously carry a team where 2+ of your side are bad, assuming you're against 3 or 4 competent opponents.

My point was that whilst there's a lot of whining going on and a ridiculous amount of blaming others for their own incompetence, it's also true that ranked is designed in a frustrating way where you can be held back from climbing for reasons beyond your own potential. Even when this is the case, I completely agree with you that it's important to reflect on what you could have done and where you made mistakes. For example, in B I thought if I got more kills than deaths I was making a great contribution, but because of this I wasn't holding important areas and as such enemies got through when I could have prevented it, and I died a lot by being confrontational. Sometimes you do lose to amazing players that's true; I think there's amazing players in every rank though, and I'm pretty sure I've encountered B- players before that are comfortably A+ 99 now.

Ultimately, I think it's the arrogance of some people here that's getting to me. This game is young, nobody is brilliant at it yet, and we don't even have proper team communication. We shouldn't be telling people they don't have the right to contribute to discussion just because they're not A+ 99. They should be more respectful of players at the top, and they should be less arrogant instead of stating their opinions as facts, but I intensely dislike the signs of elitism I'm already observing in some people.

 

[Kaliafornia]

Just to let people know, being A+ 99 with your low tier weapon does not instantly make it high tier. Amsa beat m2k in smash with Yoshi but did that make him high tier? It's how your weapon compares to all the other ones that matters.

But there is nothing concrete that defines high tier at this point. Just people's opinions hence why this thread is titled "my personal"... There is no one weapon that destroys all others 100% of the time. It's all about the skill of the player really. Skills > Weapons.

 

[Hitzel]

It's a statistical measure telling that under the influence of your play...

Not really. I mean, it is, but at the same time it's not

This is a team-based shooter we're talking about, and the teams that are really capable of dominating in a team based shooter and going to be made of players who work together as a single unit, understand each other very well, have specific strategies and tactics practiced with one another, etc. A team of "individually skilled" players randomly thrown together are never going to be able to out-perform that consistently. Teams are what's important. It's also why solo queue is considered a joke compared to party teams in online gaming in general.

While there is always a solo queue "meta" and you can do things that are going to help you win on average over time, those things are almost always sub-optimal and simply abuse the fact that both teams are disorganized. It's rare that any of it will ever work in a real match. Meanwhile, the member of a strong team is going to be a flat out better player because of his/her ability to win as a team, but can't (and shouldn't bother) bringing those things into a solo queue match because there isn't a chance in hell that random's will be able to be good teammates with it.

So why am I saying this? While it's true that an individually skilled player can earn a well-deserved high rank in solo queue, people that can't earn that same rank aren't necessarily worse players because they are quite possible capable of being way better in real matches instead of sub-optimal solo queue. An A+ in solo queue means that the player is strong enough to get A+. Being "stuck" out of A+ means nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. You can't infer anything from it. Period.

It's not that I think you disagree with this, I'm just stating this to the general public. People will defend what they like, and people feel the need to defend Splatoon's ranking system (that doesn't deserve defending) to the point where they will down people's ranks in lieu of what they could do in party teams, which is flat out naive.

 

[Mister Chippy]

Snip

I'm gonna disagree with you here, just a little.

I fully agree that being in A+ does not mean you're a good player when put in a 4v4 team scenario. I'm A+ and I suck, and I'm sure not gonna make any waves once lobbies are released.

However I have to disagree with saying that the ability to reach A+ isn't going to be at all indicative of someone's skill once lobbies roll out. I've played competitive team based shooters before and while not all pubstars were pros, all pros were pubstars, period. The skills that let you work together with teammates also teach you how to pick apart disorganized teams by yourself, and that's ignoring the insane mechanical skills most pros have that keep almost every other player from ever hoping to beat them in a fair fight. Any player who is good enough to work with a team to outsmart and outplay another coordinated team is gonna be able to dismantle four randoms basically singlehandedly.

Not all individually skilled players are actually good, a team of 4 pubstars is probably gonna fail, and splatoon's ranked system is kinda ****ty, but I will be incredibly surprised if anyone on a top team is unable to easily maintain the highest possible rank in it anyways. Being A+ may not make you super good at the game, but if you are super good at the game you should be able to make A+.

 

[Hitzel]

However I have to disagree with saying that the ability to reach A+ isn't going to be at all indicative of someone's skill once lobbies roll out.

I didn't mean to imply that, of course an A-rank player shows promise, especially as a main slayer. I'm simply saying that a player's lack of A-rank is not evidence of them being a poor player.

I get that vibe a lot when people are talking about Splatoon's ranking system in general and I feel the need to put my foot down.

 

[Hope]

But there is nothing concrete that defines high tier at this point. Just people's opinions hence why this thread is titled "my personal"... There is no one weapon that destroys all others 100% of the time. It's all about the skill of the player really. Skills > Weapons.

You obviously don't understand tier lists lmao.

 

[Kaliafornia]

You obviously don't understand tier lists lmao.

There is no hard tournament data yet. Therefore everything is just being based on opinion.

The key factor of a "tier list" assumes equal skill of each player along with the general POTENTIAL of success of the weapon for the masses and also how many people are using it. I am simply pointing out the flawed logic and elitist undertones of how people are trying to push this "tier discussion" as the gospel truth of bad weapon vs. good weapon and good player vs. bad player, when this is just all based on "potential" and popularity anyway. As I've said earlier if we are just taking effort vs. payout I agree with the list, but at the end of the day the list is irrelevant and you guys are getting WAYYY too hyped defending it. Calm down.

I'm not saying tier lists aren't useful but a "high tier" weapon with a low skill user will not out preform "low tier" and a highly skilled user. At the end of the day none of it really matters as like I said skills trump a tier list anyway. You can continue being salty with your high tier weapon when a low tier weapon user wipes you out.