Nerfs/Buffs?

[Raxel920]

Are there any weapons that you feel are too over/underpowered? Something giving you a harder time than it should in Salmon Run? What would you nerf or buff, and how?

I feel like Bamboozler has too much of a high range uncharged, and can easily be spammed. I would just bump back the range a bit.

Flyfish is just awful with other bosses swarming, and it can be hard to get the bombs in sometimes. I would either turn down the number of missiles shot, the number of squids targeted, or turn up the time the buckets are open.

 

[Dark Sage Walker]

Many of the weapons I wanted to see buffed are already getting buffs come October 11th. Really looking forward to the that! We got the nearly necessary Tri-Slosher nerf already. But what about others? Here are some of my thoughts.

Heavy Splatling - Gee, I wonder if the guy who loves the Heavy Splatling has any ideas on how to make it better? The thing I want to see buffed is the movement speed while charging and firing. The Mini is already receiving that boon, now we need it on the Heavy! Also a slight damage buff would be appreciated but not necessary.

Dual Squelcher - I think that in order to make this weapon better it needs to exist.

Dynamo Roller - For the love of Callie, what did they do to this weapon? I know it was strong in Splatoon 1, but they might as well have broken its knees with a baseball bat in part 2! A slight damage increase and a slight increase to effective range would be a good start for this king of a bygone era.

Carbon Roller - This weapon just doesn't feel right in this game. I think it needs a buff to it's OHKO range. Not a big one, but enough for it to feel like it did in the first game.

Flingza Roller - My biggest complaint about this weapon is the slow speed of the vertical swing. Improving the speed of that swing, even at the cost of some range, would make the weapon exponentially better!

Toxic Mist/Splash Wall - These weapons could stand with a buff to their ink recovery time. In other words, how long it takes from the time you throw the weapon until the time you can recover ink again.

Squid Beacons - I think that these just need to cost less to use. A slight durability increase couldn't hurt either. But the best thing they could do with the Squid Beacons is to have some kind of non-intrusive pop-up for your allies so that they know you placed a Beacon or three. Might make it more likely that your allies would use them.

Inkjet - I think they crippled the Inkjet too much with the last nerf stick beating. I say either give it back it's wider explosion radius or the OHKO radius.

Cuphead - I have tricked you. You can't fix something that is already perfect. :D

 

[Elecmaw]

The newest patch coming out already deals with a lot of the complaints i had with the game- mid-range weapons are finally getting a much needed buff to deal with the short-range meta we've got going on. Finally we're gonna get some more variety rather than everyone using RG and Splattershot.

The only thing I'd really add is to buff chargers, particularly partial shots so that they can some more utility to them. As it is chargers are getting pushed aside by the Heavy and Jet, and i fear it's only going to get worse because the Hydra looks like it's going to have an amazing set.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

Toxic Mist/Splash Wall - These weapons could stand with a buff to their ink recovery time. In other words, how long it takes from the time you throw the weapon until the time you can recover ink again.

Either this or drop how much ink they consume. For toxic mist in particular, you throw the think, and you don't have enough ink left to actually attack or do much. It's highly situational at the moment.

I know a lot of people complain about those with toxic mist not throwing it enough, but the only time I felt I really got a lot out of mist was when I ran a ton of sub saver up on the splash-o-matic, so I was able to get hyper-aggressive with it. In the case of the rapid pro, jet or blaster, I just don't have enough ink left over after I throw it to make it a regular part of my game.

Usually, I use it in rainmaker to stall the carrier or make jump short cuts not possible. Otherwise, I only use it when my teammates are in much better killing position than I am, and it's a good way to assist. But more often, it's more helpful for me to blast my rapid pro as aid than throwing mist. Don't need to slow down people who are dead.

 

[Berry]

Bombs. The explosive 30 minimal tick damage leads to more kills just barely even within the range.

This isnt going to work in high level play, but I forsee sub power up becoming out of hand in solo queue, due to how much range it adds when you arent even clearly next to a bomb.

A simple answer is get bomb defense, but we've technically fell into this scenario already in splat 1.We all know what happened to attack and defense up in the lifespan of splat 1. Special power up needs effort to get working and sub does not as long as you have a tank.

Personally, I'd lower the tip damage to 20.

 

[BBGrenorange]

I still hate the RNG on the .96 Gal. It should be a 2-hit kill, and sometimes it takes me as many as 4 or sometimes even 5 shots to kill someone.

 

[ThatOneGuy]

Dynamo Roller - For the love of Callie, what did they do to this weapon? I know it was strong in Splatoon 1, but they might as well have broken its knees with a baseball bat in part 2! A slight damage increase and a slight increase to effective range would be a good start for this king of a bygone era.

Dynamo would still be pretty bad even with a buff like that. The thing that sucks about dynamo now is that it doesn't cover as nearly as good as it used to, and the new sub and special on it are rather situational. Sprinklers are pretty much always useful to have to keep map control going in one area, however a mine just isn't the same. A mine needs you to grab the map control in order to use it (which the dynamo can't do as well anymore), and setting a mine doesn't guarantee you for making it useful. It's only if your opponent steps on it where it'll do you some good. Echolocator, sure a very powerful special, was great pretty much every time you popped it. Free markers on the enemy team for 8 seconds, what a deal. Then you get stingray in splat 2, which has potential. But it requires much better positioning and mindfulness than echolocator ever did.

The only weapons I would buff after that:
E-Liter
Reasoning: The weapon is honestly a joke when not played on it's previous home, Moray Towers. And even then, it just doesn't have enough range to justify having to wait so long anymore, as the splatterscope barely gets outranged by it, with a much faster charge. And it doesn't help that the E-Liter lost a great kit as well, further nerfing the weapon into oblivion.

Carbon Roller:
Reasoning: To those who say this weapon is inconsistent, I'd say you're wrong. Because this weapon is extremely consistent at getting two hit kills, which ultimately ruins the carbon roller. There's no reason to be running this especially with the splat roller running around with it's much more reliable one shot potential, and much better kits. This is a similar case to the E-liter, having a great kit and main weapon in splat 1, where the devs ultimately took away in splat 2. However, I feel like if they just give the carbon it's old horizontal flick back, and it actually kills up close, carbon can actually be a threat again.

Splash-o-matic:
Reasoning: It just feels so weak to compete with weapons in a similar category of short range shooters, like the .52 gal, the N-Zap, and the ever meta splattershot. Sure, while the weapon isn't meant to be a mid range slayer weapon like the .52 or splattershot, it surely should have some support capabilities right? Unfortunately, no. The only thing the weapon has going for it is the great accuracy when on the ground. Which is great for fighting. Oh wait, the weapon is a 4 shot. Nevermind. You're not going to win many engagements if the enemy have a weapon that out damage you at the same or even greater ranges.

Well, let's see if this weapon can support, and with it's abysmal spread (Since there's no rng in the shots), the weapon isn't that good for paint coverage. Maybe it's kit is really good? Not really, after the inkjet nerf and having toxic mist cost 70% of your tank, the weapon still requires a high skill floor to be successful. Maybe it's speed is better than the N-Zap and that's why you would use it. Try again. The N-Zap has faster strafing speed when firing, and with 1.4.0, it will have the same swim speed. So why even bother using the splash o matic, the skill floor is too high (especially on a weapon class where the skill floors are relatively low) for most people to be interested, the weapon's stats are pathetic, and it doesn't help a team much better than any of the much easier to use alternatives.

Also did you know that this weapon got NERFED going into splatoon 2? Yes I typed that correctly : N-E-R-F-E-D
On what aspect you may ask, ink consumption. From 0.7 -> 0.8 ink per shot. You know what other weapon has 0.8 ink per shot?

THE N-ZAP
They need to honestly call the splash o matic a poor man's N-Zap.​

 

[sammich]

the brella is getting buffed already with slightly stronger hits (meaning it should no longer take 4-5 hits to splat when we're not at point blank), and a slight speed buff to the brella itself which could make a world of difference in how useful the brella itself is (which at this point is not terribly much).

wish they would fix the ink spread when a bomb hits your brella, too. it should completely protect the area behind you from the blast, but in its current state, bombs still tend to end up damaging you by surrounding you with enemy ink, to the point where it's far better just better to swim away than actually use the shield.

also, nearly all chargers could use a slight charge speed buff to make up for the massive number of obstacles that make a joke of the weapon class's supposed range advantage.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

Splash-o-matic:
Reasoning: It just feels so weak to compete with weapons in a similar category of short range shooters, like the .52 gal, the N-Zap, and the ever meta splattershot. Sure, while the weapon isn't meant to be a mid range slayer weapon like the .52 or splattershot, it surely should have some support capabilities right? Unfortunately, no. The only thing the weapon has going for it is the great accuracy when on the ground. Which is great for fighting. Oh wait, the weapon is a 4 shot. Nevermind. You're not going to win many engagements if the enemy have a weapon that out damage you at the same or even greater ranges.

Well, let's see if this weapon can support, and with it's abysmal spread (Since there's no rng in the shots), the weapon isn't that good for paint coverage. Maybe it's kit is really good? Not really, after the inkjet nerf and having toxic mist cost 70% of your tank, the weapon still requires a high skill floor to be successful. Maybe it's speed is better than the N-Zap and that's why you would use it. Try again. The N-Zap has faster strafing speed when firing, and with 1.4.0, it will have the same swim speed. So why even bother using the splash o matic, the skill floor is too high (especially on a weapon class where the skill floors are relatively low) for most people to be interested, the weapon's stats are pathetic, and it doesn't help a team much better than any of the much easier to use alternatives.

Also did you know that this weapon got NERFED going into splatoon 2? Yes I typed that correctly : N-E-R-F-E-D
On what aspect you may ask, ink consumption. From 0.7 -> 0.8 ink per shot. You know what other weapon has 0.8 ink per shot?

THE N-ZAP
They need to honestly call the splash o matic a poor man's N-Zap.​

I believe the patch is going to move the N-Zap and Splash into the small weapons (aero and the like) speed category. I'm interested to see what that kind of change will do for them.

 

[Dark Sage Walker]

Dynamo would still be pretty bad even with a buff like that. The thing that sucks about dynamo now is that it doesn't cover as nearly as good as it used to, and the new sub and special on it are rather situational. Sprinklers are pretty much always useful to have to keep map control going in one area, however a mine just isn't the same. A mine needs you to grab the map control in order to use it (which the dynamo can't do as well anymore), and setting a mine doesn't guarantee you for making it useful. It's only if your opponent steps on it where it'll do you some good. Echolocator, sure a very powerful special, was great pretty much every time you popped it. Free markers on the enemy team for 8 seconds, what a deal. Then you get stingray in splat 2, which has potential. But it requires much better positioning and mindfulness than echolocator ever did.

You have a good point there. The kit the Dynamo comes with is nothing special as it stands. Perhaps the Gold Dynamo Roller will fix that, but for right now I am giving this weapon a skip. Except in Salmon Run where you can OHKO Cohocks by rolling over them and Steelheads with a well placed vertical swing. It's a thing of beauty I tell ya!

 

[Flareth]

The Tenta Brella. Good God, this thing. At least it can ink?...

My main issue with it is that it takes so damn long to fire the thing, and longer still to whip the shield out. One might argue that it's to offset the fact that it splats instantly within a certain range... but what good is a 1-hit splat when you're gonna die before you can even pull the trigger? It reminds me of the H-3 Nozzlenose in a way, where using the weapon demands perfect accuracy, lest you resign yourself to death.

At the very least, I think the initial shot and shield should come out quicker. Could make the ink spread a little tighter, but I doubt that'd help much.
*Daily reminder that I'm in the business of breaking, not balancing, weapons, so forgive me if this would be a bad idea.

 

[Flopps]

Though it's not out yet, and not even developed, I think that they should buff the Carbon Brella, or the Carbon Roller version of the Splat Brella. The Splat Brella Shield barely covers your body, so just imagine the Carbon Brella's shield.

Also, I think Auto-bombs need an ink consumption nerf. Too many Auto-bomb spammers.

 

[iced potato]

I love the Splash-o-matic, the Neo was my favorite shooter for Turf War in Splat1, but in Spla2n the current one feels so underwhelming to use, so I can't wait for the patch and the Neo to release with it's better kit (Burst bombs and Suction-Bomb Launcher). I kinda like that it's a combination from the original and Neo from Splat1.

Should the Aerosprays take more points to get their specials up?

 

[Dark Sage Walker]

The Tenta Brella. Good God, this thing. At least it can ink?...

My main issue with it is that it takes so damn long to fire the thing, and longer still to whip the shield out. One might argue that it's to offset the fact that it splats instantly within a certain range... but what good is a 1-hit splat when you're gonna die before you can even pull the trigger? It reminds me of the H-3 Nozzlenose in a way, where using the weapon demands perfect accuracy, lest you resign yourself to death.

At the very least, I think the initial shot and shield should come out quicker. Could make the ink spread a little tighter, but I doubt that'd help much.
*Daily reminder that I'm in the business of breaking, not balancing, weapons, so forgive me if this would be a bad idea.

I believe that this is among the buffs that are being passed around with the patch on Wednesday. Hopefully it makes the Brella class weapons more user friendly. I love them personally! But I have to admit that they could use some work. In the case of the Tenta Brella, a lot of work.

 

[The Salamander King]

Jet Squelcher needs to have a higher shot velocity.

 

[Ulk]

Splattershot: The most obvious choice and long overdue. We saw what happened. They hoped to fix it by taking its Jetpack away, and everybody just switched to the vanilla Splattershot. It's still by far the most dominating and overused weapon out there. There is no way around nerfing the main weapon any more, especially since the counterplay method of Splatoon 1, meaning using defense up to make it a 4HKO, no longer exists. I suggest they finally take the step of making it a 4HKO weapon entirely with a pretty massive damage nerf. If they understandably don't like to do so, then they need to give it an actual weakness. Either it needs a massive mobility nerf until it has actually bad mobility, or it needs an inkspread nerf until its spread is actually bad. Alternatively softer but constant and progressive nerfs to each and every single one of its aspects.

It seems they are right now attempting to buff everything in order to not have to nerf this weapon. I'm hoping I'm very wrong about this, because this is as idiotic as it gets. The absolute majority of problems in Splatoon 2 were caused due to the unnecessary and overkill buffs they've given out ever since the Splatoon 1 to Splatoon 2 transition. I wouldn't look forward to them breaking more with that method.

NZAP: Not too long ago the Splattershot's closest rival, even if not quite as dominating yet. They're planning a buff to this weapon that may change that in the future though. But it's the exact same story as the Splattershot here.

Inkjet: We've already established that this weapon got a bit too much of an overkill nerf. This weapon's concept is all about the "risk vs reward" principle. Before the patch it had too much reward and too little risk. Now it has too much risk for too little reward. I think the sweetspot in rebuffing this weapon lies within increasing its offense. It shouldn't be made safer, it should just be a little more rewarding, and that includes higher hitbox size and damage distribution.

Jet Squelcher: The Jet Squelchers primary problem is and always has been the rising competition that constantly pushes it further and further into absolute redundancy. Not only did the countless buffs create new competitiors like the Rapid Blaster, but it already has a growing competition in the game that keeps getting superior, leaving the Jet Squelcher with absolutely nothing but its range behind. The Splattershot Pro for example is now receiving a massive buffs. And even beforehand, the Splattershot has received treatments like this that the Jet Squelcher was even more in need of. Its higher range is its only major advantage left, and with how they constantly buff the competition, that advantage is worth less and less as other long lange shooters become better and better while the Jet Squelcher receives nothing. They should either buff the Jet Squelcher's range (maybe with an additional initial velocity nerf) and entirely put it apart from the Splattershot Pro and alike, or they should apply the Splattershot Pro buffs to the Jet Squelcher as well.

Other noteworthy weapons like the Tentabrella are receiving buffs very soon, so I can't really say much about them at this point.

 

[sammich]

I love the Splash-o-matic, the Neo was my favorite shooter for Turf War in Splat1, but in Spla2n the current one feels so underwhelming to use, so I can't wait for the patch and the Neo to release with it's better kit (Burst bombs and Suction-Bomb Launcher). I kinda like that it's a combination from the original and Neo from Splat1.

Should the Aerosprays take more points to get their specials up?

they really need to buff the brella's block-box a bit. i seriously just got killed by a roller standing square in front of me while my brella was out because they did a 180° and the roller nudged just to the side of the brella

 

[ThatOneGuy]

Splattershot: The most obvious choice and long overdue. We saw what happened. They hoped to fix it by taking its Jetpack away, and everybody just switched to the vanilla Splattershot. It's still by far the most dominating and overused weapon out there. There is no way around nerfing the main weapon any more, especially since the counterplay method of Splatoon 1, meaning using defense up to make it a 4HKO, no longer exists. I suggest they finally take the step of making it a 4HKO weapon entirely with a pretty massive damage nerf. If they understandably don't like to do so, then they need to give it an actual weakness. Either it needs a massive mobility nerf until it has actually bad mobility, or it needs an inkspread nerf until its spread is actually bad. Alternatively softer but constant and progressive nerfs to each and every single one of its aspects.

True this. Splattershot has been up there for way too long. However, I feel like a nerf at this point would just be ruining to the community's tastes, as a good half main this weapon religiously. The only nerf I could really see them doing is to ink coverage, but even that's somewhat of a long shot.

I believe the patch is going to move the N-Zap and Splash into the small weapons (aero and the like) speed category. I'm interested to see what that kind of change will do for them.

My problem with this is that it doesn't give the splash any attributes to use over the N-zap, as the kit on the vanilla right now is mediocre, and the vanilla N-Zap has been meta for a couple months now. Because the N-Zap and Splash will be at the same speed tier, but the N-Zap will have much more to offer which is pretty ridiculous. Maybe new kits for the splash will be good, as splat 1's suction rush was a key identity to the weapon. Other than that, the splash will be in the N-Zap's shadow unless it gets mega buffs.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

My problem with this is that it doesn't give the splash any attributes to use over the N-zap, as the kit on the vanilla right now is mediocre, and the vanilla N-Zap has been meta for a couple months now. Because the N-Zap and Splash will be at the same speed tier, but the N-Zap will have much more to offer which is pretty ridiculous. Maybe new kits for the splash will be good, as splat 1's suction rush was a key identity to the weapon. Other than that, the splash will be in the N-Zap's shadow unless it gets mega buffs.

I don’t disagree at all. Toxic mist vs suction comes down to personal preference, but I don’t really like the ink jet on it. Especially since the TTK Splattershot has it. A different special could have gone a long way for me.

 

[Ulk]

True this. Splattershot has been up there for way too long. However, I feel like a nerf at this point would just be ruining to the community's tastes, as a good half main this weapon religiously. The only nerf I could really see them doing is to ink coverage, but even that's somewhat of a long shot.

Yes, the development team has always put the Splattershot under protection from nerfs, constantly trying to find ways around nerfing it. And even when they were pushed to the point of having to nerf it, the worst they did to the actual main weapon was the -1 damage nerf that did absolutely nothing.
The optimal time to nerf it properly was before the Splatoon 2 release. They missed that time window. I don't have a good feeling about them trying to find other ways now. If they're indeed trying to buff everything else, despite most of their work consisting of fixing their own buffs because they almost always get out of control, I don't see this ending well at all. And this is sadly far more likely than them eventually getting to the conclusion that the Splattershot needs to be taken down a notch.