DzNutsKong
Kinda Nuts
wake up babe weekly dznutskong thread just dropped
I've been talking on Discord with a bunch of people from this website and a lot of them seem to want my main nerfed. While I don't even think Nintendo will nerf it since it's far from the best-performing weapon in JP's scene, I've seen a few ideas thrown about and I think it's an interesting topic regardless.
First off, though, I don't even disagree with this weapon being nerfed. I'm mostly of the opinion that nerfs shouldn't happen unless they're absolutely necessary for a meta's health and if that was all there is too it, then I would honestly say nothing in the game needs a nerf. I wouldn't blame a single one of you for ending it there and concluding that nothing in the game needs nerfs. Snipewriter would have been an example of what I'm talking about up until recently because you could argue it used to have an unhealthy chokehold on the game's backline role but experimentation has gone up recently and things like Area Cup show it's far from mandatory.
For a lot of people, though, that's not the end of the story. Some will still say that it's a problem for a weapon to be overtuned, which Decav definitely is. I've felt it more recently than anywhere else from having to explain to people how to play against a Decavitator since most of the explanations I've had to give have been weirdly backwards and long-winded compared to how I would have to play around them, not to mention the big kill streaks the weapon is often capable of. All I usually have to do is either swap to sharking a bit more or swap to being a little more watchful while zoning but neither of those are that bad compared to my opponents needing to exploit specific things in very specific ways. I wouldn't blame someone for thinking it should be nerfed right out of the gate for all of this.
There are plenty more reasons someone could have for wanting a weapon to get nerfed, and I could definitely say more on the topic of whether or not Decav specifically deserves it, but the point of this thread isn't to get into any of that. I think most of us could agree that Decav would be fine with at least a small nerf and most people who disagree could at least understand where those people are coming from. The point of this thread is to discuss what I think would be an ideal or likely course of action if Nintendo were to nerf the weapon. Will be going over everything in a list.
220p Big Bubbler / Big Bubbler nerf
If you want the Decavitator nerfed, then this is not the solution you're hoping to see. Big Bubbler is undeniably a strong special but most of the disliking for it comes from how it works as a main weapon. I'm lumping these two together because your special is obviously going to be a massive part of your gameplan and nerfing the ability for Decav to spontaneously hold out a bunch of important space would be a decent hit. These two would be effective for further pushing the weapon away from being an absolute top tier, but I don't think we should be nerfing weapons just because they're top tier and there would be like at least a half dozen other weapons that would need to be hit in this case as well.
Making the one-shot hitbox smaller
This nerf is a reasonable one. It'd likely making big kill streaks and sharking in general not as straightforward and would give shorter-ranged weapons a less difficult matchup against it. However, I'm not sure if this would end up happening with Nintendo, at the very least within Splatoon 3. I'm not sure if Nintendo has ever nerfed a weapon in a way that has forced them to change a weapon's animations but if you slow the gameplay down a bunch, the huge particle effects are pretty accurate to how long the weapon is since it stretches out when swung with its cap off.
Also, being a bit easier to connect shots with is kind of a part of this weapon's design. This weapon was a pretty big highlight for Nintendo to release and I have to imagine they knew that going in. This was one of their only two new weapons as a part of their final seasonal update with a big shiny new weapon class. If you make a weapon like this super difficult, then wouldn't that be a bit of a bummer? Imagine not being a super big Splatoon fan, turning on your Switch because there's a new sword since you liked Splatana Wiper, and the Decavitator feels difficult to use on top of you being rusty with the game. I can't imagine that being a very pleasant time.
It's been a year since then, so that factor of the argument is gone, but a big part of the Decavitator's design is still focused on its one-shot. It kind of has to be for it to be more interesting from a casual standpoint. If you don't have as big of a one-shot then the dash is the big thing this weapon has going for it, but this dash is still pretty blatantly worse than a Dualie's and everything else about the weapon is still worse than the other swords. It has by far the worst range and is by far the slowest of the three. There's still a lot of nuance about it that would still leave it pretty cool in a more competitive setting for reasons that should be obvious to most readers, but we are in the minority of overall Splatoon fans at the end of the day.
However, maybe Nintendo's fine with changing all of that during Splatoon 3 if the animation stuff isn't an issue, it definitely becomes irrelevant when the next Splatoon game drops and maybe Nintendo would still think there'd be enough distinguishing Decav from other weapons in the eyes of a more casual player. I still think this could happen and it wouldn't be a bad change if it were to happen, but I have reason to believe we're not getting this.
Making the charged projectile smaller
This comes from a pretty similar place as the last one but I think it's a bit more likely to happen. It would help in making its zoning against shorter-ranged weapons a bit worse since it would now be possible for these weapons to kite the Decavitator's shots out and outmaneuver them with their generally stronger mobility. It would also be a pretty light tap on the nose for its painting even if it would still use uncharged shots for this anyways.
This would be a really nice change. Decav's strongest matchups by far are against those that it outranges and it plays into all of the things that make the Splatana weapon class so good by maintaining its flexibility. This would give every weapon at least something to do in the Decav matchup and would work to make being consistent with the weapon a little bit harder, plus hopefully removing some really stupid "checkmate" scenarios I've found my opponents in even if those were never common and kind of relied on my opponents misplaying to begin with.
Notably, this would avoid every issue mentioned in the previous idea. You might say that the animation of the sword itself requires the projectile to be so big, but not really. As it stands the projectile is actually even wider than the one-shot itself which doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if it wasn't, even if the projectile was a bit smaller than the one-shot, there are plenty of instances in other Nintendo games where an animation might imply that a hitbox starts and ends at certain points where it shouldn't, and the same could easily be done here for a projectile. There's really nothing stopping someone from Nintendo saying the sword functionally starts and stops making its projectile at different points in a swing in a way that makes the projectile a little bit thinner.
Making its charged shots vertical
I saw this either on Squidboards or from Discord a while a back from one of our community's members a while ago. Long enough ago to the point where I forget who and where. Pretty uncommon request but I'm going over everything here so it's worth talking about. This would play to similar things as I discussed in the last point, obviously. Charge shots would be a lot thinner and easier to kite, shorter-ranged weapons would have something against this weapon, and the aforementioned animation problem wouldn't be a thing here.
However, this idea completely sacrifices this weapon's playability if you're not a competitive player in the same way that I mentioned would be possible from Nintendo's point of view earlier. This weapon would become much, much more difficult, and again the weapon would remain much slower than Stamper with the only benefit being the bad Dualie roll. There would still be some nuance between this weapon and those, but why would a casual player ever want to play a weapon that very distinctly feels worse than multiple others?
It doesn't end there because the weapon would lose much of its purpose in competitive play as well. The dash is still nice, as is the paint output, but this would come with the weapon becoming just difficult as if not even more difficult than Stamper. All of Decav's current weaknesses in its lack of speed and range would begin to shine and it would no longer be worth running over Stamper in any capacity. It's already in stiff competition with Stamper at top level as is and this is even with one of the strongest kits it could possibly have.
That aside, one thing that's kind of cool to me about the Decavitator is that it technically has no way to hit around cover. The dash lets you peek around corners which is important but the only other weapons in the game without any kind of ledge poking or shot falloff are literally Chargers and that's it. Even things like Shooters can arc their shots. Removing that little limitation from Decav would remove a pretty big distinction from it and the rest of the Splatana class and I'm not a fan of that.
Ultimately this would technically fix the problem of Decav being overtuned but not in an ideal way. We could easily say to remove its one-shot hitbox and force it to combo someone every time it uses a charged attack and as harsh as it sounds, I would see both ideas similarly.
Nerfing multiple things to buff its dash's speed
This idea was more of a rework than anything else, but I'll lump it in with the rest of this thread. Let's say, for example, that you were to go ahead and nerf its paint output, range, attacking speed, one-shot range, and whatever else in exchange for making its dash both move faster and have fewer active frames. That's the basic idea behind this one although I'm not a huge fan of it.
The big reason for this is that a part of what I love about Decav as a weapon is that it's able to mix the ideas of a shorter-ranged weapon with a slower, "heavier" one. Every other short-ranged weapon has some kind of focus on agility with Splat Roller being the most notable exception. This one technically has that focus on agility, but it's through an added movement option that in itself is also slow. Mistakes of yours are very easy to punish in a similar way to other slower weapons and the agility isn't to the degree of other shorter-ranged weapons, but the range isn't even close to most other slower weapons.
Removing this aspect of the Decavitator would make the weapon a lot less interesting to me. Still fun probably, but in a game where several of our newer weapons don't feel super distinct, I don't think we should be making this weapon more like a Dualie.
Smaller idea rapid fire
I think you get the idea of my dos and don'ts from what all I've already said by now. However, there still is more to discuss. I'll go over some other simpler nerfs Nintendo has given to other weapons quickly here since I won't have as much to say about them. Worth mention that I haven't heard anyone discuss these.
And that's all I can think of! Hope this was an interesting read. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have something to add to this!
I've been talking on Discord with a bunch of people from this website and a lot of them seem to want my main nerfed. While I don't even think Nintendo will nerf it since it's far from the best-performing weapon in JP's scene, I've seen a few ideas thrown about and I think it's an interesting topic regardless.
First off, though, I don't even disagree with this weapon being nerfed. I'm mostly of the opinion that nerfs shouldn't happen unless they're absolutely necessary for a meta's health and if that was all there is too it, then I would honestly say nothing in the game needs a nerf. I wouldn't blame a single one of you for ending it there and concluding that nothing in the game needs nerfs. Snipewriter would have been an example of what I'm talking about up until recently because you could argue it used to have an unhealthy chokehold on the game's backline role but experimentation has gone up recently and things like Area Cup show it's far from mandatory.
For a lot of people, though, that's not the end of the story. Some will still say that it's a problem for a weapon to be overtuned, which Decav definitely is. I've felt it more recently than anywhere else from having to explain to people how to play against a Decavitator since most of the explanations I've had to give have been weirdly backwards and long-winded compared to how I would have to play around them, not to mention the big kill streaks the weapon is often capable of. All I usually have to do is either swap to sharking a bit more or swap to being a little more watchful while zoning but neither of those are that bad compared to my opponents needing to exploit specific things in very specific ways. I wouldn't blame someone for thinking it should be nerfed right out of the gate for all of this.
There are plenty more reasons someone could have for wanting a weapon to get nerfed, and I could definitely say more on the topic of whether or not Decav specifically deserves it, but the point of this thread isn't to get into any of that. I think most of us could agree that Decav would be fine with at least a small nerf and most people who disagree could at least understand where those people are coming from. The point of this thread is to discuss what I think would be an ideal or likely course of action if Nintendo were to nerf the weapon. Will be going over everything in a list.
220p Big Bubbler / Big Bubbler nerf
If you want the Decavitator nerfed, then this is not the solution you're hoping to see. Big Bubbler is undeniably a strong special but most of the disliking for it comes from how it works as a main weapon. I'm lumping these two together because your special is obviously going to be a massive part of your gameplan and nerfing the ability for Decav to spontaneously hold out a bunch of important space would be a decent hit. These two would be effective for further pushing the weapon away from being an absolute top tier, but I don't think we should be nerfing weapons just because they're top tier and there would be like at least a half dozen other weapons that would need to be hit in this case as well.
Making the one-shot hitbox smaller
This nerf is a reasonable one. It'd likely making big kill streaks and sharking in general not as straightforward and would give shorter-ranged weapons a less difficult matchup against it. However, I'm not sure if this would end up happening with Nintendo, at the very least within Splatoon 3. I'm not sure if Nintendo has ever nerfed a weapon in a way that has forced them to change a weapon's animations but if you slow the gameplay down a bunch, the huge particle effects are pretty accurate to how long the weapon is since it stretches out when swung with its cap off.
Also, being a bit easier to connect shots with is kind of a part of this weapon's design. This weapon was a pretty big highlight for Nintendo to release and I have to imagine they knew that going in. This was one of their only two new weapons as a part of their final seasonal update with a big shiny new weapon class. If you make a weapon like this super difficult, then wouldn't that be a bit of a bummer? Imagine not being a super big Splatoon fan, turning on your Switch because there's a new sword since you liked Splatana Wiper, and the Decavitator feels difficult to use on top of you being rusty with the game. I can't imagine that being a very pleasant time.
It's been a year since then, so that factor of the argument is gone, but a big part of the Decavitator's design is still focused on its one-shot. It kind of has to be for it to be more interesting from a casual standpoint. If you don't have as big of a one-shot then the dash is the big thing this weapon has going for it, but this dash is still pretty blatantly worse than a Dualie's and everything else about the weapon is still worse than the other swords. It has by far the worst range and is by far the slowest of the three. There's still a lot of nuance about it that would still leave it pretty cool in a more competitive setting for reasons that should be obvious to most readers, but we are in the minority of overall Splatoon fans at the end of the day.
However, maybe Nintendo's fine with changing all of that during Splatoon 3 if the animation stuff isn't an issue, it definitely becomes irrelevant when the next Splatoon game drops and maybe Nintendo would still think there'd be enough distinguishing Decav from other weapons in the eyes of a more casual player. I still think this could happen and it wouldn't be a bad change if it were to happen, but I have reason to believe we're not getting this.
Making the charged projectile smaller
This comes from a pretty similar place as the last one but I think it's a bit more likely to happen. It would help in making its zoning against shorter-ranged weapons a bit worse since it would now be possible for these weapons to kite the Decavitator's shots out and outmaneuver them with their generally stronger mobility. It would also be a pretty light tap on the nose for its painting even if it would still use uncharged shots for this anyways.
This would be a really nice change. Decav's strongest matchups by far are against those that it outranges and it plays into all of the things that make the Splatana weapon class so good by maintaining its flexibility. This would give every weapon at least something to do in the Decav matchup and would work to make being consistent with the weapon a little bit harder, plus hopefully removing some really stupid "checkmate" scenarios I've found my opponents in even if those were never common and kind of relied on my opponents misplaying to begin with.
Notably, this would avoid every issue mentioned in the previous idea. You might say that the animation of the sword itself requires the projectile to be so big, but not really. As it stands the projectile is actually even wider than the one-shot itself which doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if it wasn't, even if the projectile was a bit smaller than the one-shot, there are plenty of instances in other Nintendo games where an animation might imply that a hitbox starts and ends at certain points where it shouldn't, and the same could easily be done here for a projectile. There's really nothing stopping someone from Nintendo saying the sword functionally starts and stops making its projectile at different points in a swing in a way that makes the projectile a little bit thinner.
Making its charged shots vertical
I saw this either on Squidboards or from Discord a while a back from one of our community's members a while ago. Long enough ago to the point where I forget who and where. Pretty uncommon request but I'm going over everything here so it's worth talking about. This would play to similar things as I discussed in the last point, obviously. Charge shots would be a lot thinner and easier to kite, shorter-ranged weapons would have something against this weapon, and the aforementioned animation problem wouldn't be a thing here.
However, this idea completely sacrifices this weapon's playability if you're not a competitive player in the same way that I mentioned would be possible from Nintendo's point of view earlier. This weapon would become much, much more difficult, and again the weapon would remain much slower than Stamper with the only benefit being the bad Dualie roll. There would still be some nuance between this weapon and those, but why would a casual player ever want to play a weapon that very distinctly feels worse than multiple others?
It doesn't end there because the weapon would lose much of its purpose in competitive play as well. The dash is still nice, as is the paint output, but this would come with the weapon becoming just difficult as if not even more difficult than Stamper. All of Decav's current weaknesses in its lack of speed and range would begin to shine and it would no longer be worth running over Stamper in any capacity. It's already in stiff competition with Stamper at top level as is and this is even with one of the strongest kits it could possibly have.
That aside, one thing that's kind of cool to me about the Decavitator is that it technically has no way to hit around cover. The dash lets you peek around corners which is important but the only other weapons in the game without any kind of ledge poking or shot falloff are literally Chargers and that's it. Even things like Shooters can arc their shots. Removing that little limitation from Decav would remove a pretty big distinction from it and the rest of the Splatana class and I'm not a fan of that.
Ultimately this would technically fix the problem of Decav being overtuned but not in an ideal way. We could easily say to remove its one-shot hitbox and force it to combo someone every time it uses a charged attack and as harsh as it sounds, I would see both ideas similarly.
Nerfing multiple things to buff its dash's speed
This idea was more of a rework than anything else, but I'll lump it in with the rest of this thread. Let's say, for example, that you were to go ahead and nerf its paint output, range, attacking speed, one-shot range, and whatever else in exchange for making its dash both move faster and have fewer active frames. That's the basic idea behind this one although I'm not a huge fan of it.
The big reason for this is that a part of what I love about Decav as a weapon is that it's able to mix the ideas of a shorter-ranged weapon with a slower, "heavier" one. Every other short-ranged weapon has some kind of focus on agility with Splat Roller being the most notable exception. This one technically has that focus on agility, but it's through an added movement option that in itself is also slow. Mistakes of yours are very easy to punish in a similar way to other slower weapons and the agility isn't to the degree of other shorter-ranged weapons, but the range isn't even close to most other slower weapons.
Removing this aspect of the Decavitator would make the weapon a lot less interesting to me. Still fun probably, but in a game where several of our newer weapons don't feel super distinct, I don't think we should be making this weapon more like a Dualie.
Smaller idea rapid fire
I think you get the idea of my dos and don'ts from what all I've already said by now. However, there still is more to discuss. I'll go over some other simpler nerfs Nintendo has given to other weapons quickly here since I won't have as much to say about them. Worth mention that I haven't heard anyone discuss these.
- Nerfing its attacking speed - I know I just said how important it is that this weapon stays slow but please don't. This has only ever served to make things feel worse to play with and to mess with muscle memory. It's not like the weapons is overpowered or shutting things out of the meta so we shouldn't be reaching for last resort solutions like this.
- Nerfing its paint output - I feel like this evades the issue people have with this weapon while only serving to make it fit onto less comps. We don't have a lot of weapons in this game that exist to round out comps as is and I don't like the idea of removing that, plus a big part of the Splatana class as a whole is how flexible they are.
- Nerfing its ink consumption - Would nerf its zoning but not its sharking. Funny enough this would probably end up hurting the Charcoal Decavitator more of the two kits. They both like Quick Respawn, but Charcoal Decavitator runs it more often of the two while also always needing Special Power Up on every kit. I don't think Mint Decav would mind running a few slots of Main Saver even if it'd unambiguously be a nerf.
- Nerfing its range - This would only work to improve its matchup against some shorter-ranged weapons and does absolutely nothing against the rest. Not a good idea.
And that's all I can think of! Hope this was an interesting read. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have something to add to this!
