Patch 8.1.0 discussion

[Vidknight]

Patch notes link: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/59461/~/how-to-update-splatoon-3

This is a thread to discuss the patch notes releasing tomorrow

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

I like literally all of the changes they made this patch. Do I think it's missing stuff? Yes, but I think this is the first time I can say that there were no negative changes at all.

 

[sevenleaf]

slight nerf to reefslider zone cheese

i do hope the changes to brella actually work out for it. brellas are cool and i wanna see them more. maybe now's a good time to try out sorella brella like i keep saying i will

 

[Azhdarcho]

Y’know, I never would have called for it, but the change to how quickly gear disappears after a splat is something I will enjoy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shot at dead peoples’ clothes.

 

[TOD13]

"Made it easier to place Squid Beakons and Big Bubblers close to elevation differences."
SQUID BEAKON BUFF/UPGRADE (buffgrade? i like buffgrade) LET'S GOOOOOOO
Octobrush: "Slightly expanded the collision detection with players for the ink flung when swinging the brush to make it easier to hit opponents.
HELL YEAH OCTOBRUSH BUFF

 

[Tinybitt]

Aerospray buff

also nooooo more harassment to chargers from brushes help

 

[Vidknight]

Dumping all my thoughts here

The main weapon buffs I'm happy with. There are some buffs to weapons that struggle like dynamo and Swig.
Buffs to weapons that are close to good like the brushes, dousers, and s-blast.
Blaster and Recycle buffs might do something I don't know.
Clash and Aero buffs are something. Honestly I don't think it's going to do much but its appreciated

Also changes to brella and decavs these are good changes not much opinion.

Overall the main weapon buffs are real good. I don't really think there is any main weapons that needs a nerf as oppose to weapons needing a buff.

The special weapons though. Um well... they tried?

Reef got a slight buff which is good! and they gave it a nerf also, why exactly? I guess because they are scared of reef becoming broken. I mean the buff and nerf won't really change too much about the special in my eyes since the problem for me at least is the endlag and how long it is.

Ink vac the special will actually paint both the wall and the ground which is great it was something the always bother me when I played vac

I'm going to struggle with this chump buff since I died more times than I like to admit to chumps. But this buff will also make it so that it's more threatening to the enemy team and they will have to deal with it faster.

Zooka and Jet doing less damage to bubble. As someone who plays a bubble weapon these specials were never really the thing bubble had to fear it was usually tri strike, or reef slider. But my guess is that this change to make it so that bubble will actually be a counter pick to these specials. except again tri strike.

Kraken buff make the charge attack 5 frames faster. along with that the PFS buffs to Krak-on and Blob deco. It seems like they want kraken to be played more I guess don't know why but that what it looks like.

Other QOL changes I like

The x rank displaying top 3,000 to top 50,000 I like it

"pressing Down will not send the Booyah! signal for a short period immediately after a player is defeated". This was the symbol of embarrassment for me and also makes me look like it was a sarcastic booyah so this is also good

Photo mode changes. I don't really use photo mode much but, cool!

"In Clam Blitz mode, made it so that when a player throws a clam or power clam into the goal right before it closed on their screen, the count will progress and the goal will open up again even if at that point the goal was already closed on other players’ screens, so long as it is within a certain amount of time since the goal closed." . THANK YOU I can't tell you the amount of times I had matches where on my screen we score and the clam disappear but, the basket still closes for.

And lastly the best thing in this entire patch "Adjusted the player’s position when leaving Grizzco in Splatsville to make it harder to accidentally reenter Grizzco by keeping the Left Stick tilted.". This brings a tear to my eye.

 

[missingno]

As always, the changes they did make are positive.

As always, the changes they didn't make...

 

[isaac4]

I'll just try to organize my thoughts here.

• Why is Aerospray getting a paint buff? It doesn't really matter but it's just a weird choice if their goal was to make the weapon better.
• Clash getting a movement buff is very funny but it makes sense. Still not going to help the weapon very much.
• I'm not sure how good the continuous fire rate buff is for S-Blast. It's nice but I usually swim in between my shots anyway. I guess I'll just have to check for myself when the update is out.
• Slider paint nerf is nice but I would have preferred if they just deleted it instead.
• The Super Chump buff is actually really nice. If there's third kits I really want to see the special on more weapons.
• Big Bubbler is going to be a problem if they keep buffing it like this. It's not like Zooka and Inkjet were good against it either so reducing the damage from their shots by 67% is INSANE??
• Blob Deco barely being 190p now is very funny.

Overall, I'm disappointed and definitely not looking forward to the future Big Bubbler buffs they'll do for the next patch.
I haven't had too much time to think about it though and we don't have the update until tomorrow so my opinion might change.

We still haven't gotten a Zooka fire rate nerf though.
I guess they just want Big Bubbler to be the counter instead of changing Zooka itself.

 

[isaac4]

And lastly the best thing in this entire patch "Adjusted the player’s position when leaving Grizzco in Splatsville to make it harder to accidentally reenter Grizzco by keeping the Left Stick tilted.". This brings a tear to my eye.

I honestly never expected them to change that but I'm really glad they did lol

 

[OnePotWonder]

The damage Jet and Zooka do to Bubble was reduced to 67%, not by 67%.
As a Recycled Brella player, I am happy with the patch. I may pick up Dynamo again due to the Very Good paint buff. The QoL is immaculate, and the future looks promising (as someone who plays none of the strong midline options). The Reefslider rebalance is lovely, especially with the nerf to its paint cheese. The Chump buff is nice, except I don’t play anything with the special, unfortunately. The S-BLAST buff will likely go hard, and I can’t argue with the Carbon buff. No complaints about what they did change.

 

[MandatoryCatalyst]

Wait, so is the "Shortened the time until a match is deemed no contest when another player is disconnected immediately after starting a match" line referring to the initial minute of the game being the area of time in which the game will close if there's a DC being shortened, or is it referring to the 10 seconds it takes from DC to game close?

And on the balance changes uhhh. Didn't change any weapons I play so. WIN! Everything else uh. no opinion

 

[chaotik0]

i am dumping all of my initial thoughts here and since its a lot ill be nice and try and make it take up less space. also there are some actually good changes here, but i think we are missing a lot of what needed to be done.

Spoiler: main weapon thoughts

for the main weapons there are some great changes and some that might not change anything

im excited for s-blast firing faster, dynamo having better paint, carbon better damage, douser better ink efficiency
s-blast, carbon, and douser are so close to being actually really good and im hoping this is enough! also dynamo deserved this buff for so long, im so glad it finally got it! all of these weapons are going to be so much more fun to use itll be epic

recycled brella having an even faster shield recovery is either going to be insane or change nothing, i need an expert recycle player to weigh in on that (where grushi at). the shield is still going to die quick but there is going to be more and more often, and even if thats not the best change it could have gotten i think its pretty cool still. idk if its going to be just like the aerospray change though where its already so fast it might not change much but idk 1/3rd of a second is like A LOT??

big swig minimum horizontal damage from 35 to 40 is might be pretty good too. it'll make the two shot consistency from hitting a horizontal and vertical swing better at max horizontal range. it's still might not be enough, but swig is fun and it being better at fighting is what it needs

aerospray can already paint so well that i cant see a paint increase doing much for the weapon, especially since its at the same range. it might make it really good at painting over people while fighting so maybe it becomes a bit of a better teammate to fight with? thats the most i see being affected though.

blaster is already fast and now less white ink frames will make it have less downtime. not undeserved but also im not sure how much this is going to do. will be pretty nice though
clash blaster fans celebrate!! you can now walk slightly faster YEAAHHH (this will not change anything in the slightest)
the inkbrush and octobrush changes are probably only going to help people struggling to use the weapon have an easier time. so thats only going to affect lower levels unless this buff is better than it seems

overall most of these changes are probably only going to affect the game casually, making some of the weaker weapons easier to use but there are some changes here that might actually push some weapons into being strong options (the 5 that i first listed have the best chance i think)

Spoiler: special weapon thoughts

the special changes are interesting to say the least

reefslider zones cheese nerf, but damage radius buff! i like this change a lot because it makes the lame part of the special worse and a different part of it better. it will be easier for teammates to follow up on a good reefslider. i think this is a good change, but i think 5% might not be enough (we will have to see) for the paint decrease and there still hasnt been many changes to make it easier for the user to well.. use it (without just dying at the end of it).

ink vac paint specifically to surfaces the shot wasnt initially shot onto is not going to do barely anything unless you accidentally messed up the zones cheese and it hit the side of like a block in the zone instead of on the zone. this sucks im ngl and its sad because this could be such a cool special if they made the right changes.

super chump got a speed buff LETS GOOO!!! this is going to make it a lot easier and faster to follow up on chumps and this is just really cool and good and i like it im a big fan of this. will it be enough? probably not until stronger options get nerfed idk maybe cds will be meta in turf war again

the trizooka and inkjet changes are more like changes to bubbler, and i like the idea they are going for but i dont think enough was done to make this affect anything too much. bubbler was already ok against these two specials, and its great that its better against them since they are pretty strong, but other specials that are way better against the bubble didnt get any changes so its still going to be melted by tri strike and hammer for example. i think rewarding specific actions and strategies and changing what is favored specific interactions is a cool way to balance but bubble might not be good enough on its own to be worth it, and zooka is still so strong that the bubble might not be able to stop it. we will have to see.
ALSO THERE WASNT AN ACTUAL NERF TO TRIZOOKA CMONNNNN

a lot of people have been saying kraken is annoying, but all this change did was make it worse, not less annoying or more fun to fight. kraken is already not that great a special too so i really dont like this change. they said they wanted to create differentiation between the use of charge attacks and jump attacks, but a better way to do this would be making the jump attacks better since they kinda suck. maybe making jumping not slow you down as much in the air or something.

THE ONLY PFS CHANGES WERE THE TWO WORSE KRAKEN WEAPONS IN THE GAMMMMEEEEE WHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

some bad changes some good changes, but i feel like we are still missing the changes we really need like to zooka and cooler

the rest of the changes are quality of life like fixing brellas AGAIN and i think theyre pretty good. the last thing that was said in there notes was this:

and im hoping that means pencil will be rightfully dethroned as the best cooler option. i also hope they dont do too much nerfing because in some cases i think there are a lot of things that desperately need buffs more than the stuff that needs nerfs (unlike pencil though). btw how has it taken so long for any nerfs to pencil to even happen?? and they still havent happened yet???? anyway i just hope no big stamper nerfs

i think this is a 6.5/10 patch but that might be better when i get to actually play. we wont be able to see what changes overall for a while but i am hopeful! some of the changes they made might actually be significant, some might just make things better or more fun casually and im excited for those. but, some things got changes that dont matter or just suck, and it feels like we are missing stuff that we really needed that we havent gotten for a long time. although that could mean they make absolutely amazing changes to them when they do get around to it idk.

also no mention of a new season yet, they still cant decide if they wanna end content updates huh

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

the inkbrush and octobrush changes are probably only going to help people struggling to use the weapon have an easier time. so thats only going to affect lower levels unless this buff is better than it seems

I think the buff is better than it seems. From my very (very) limited experience on it, sometimes at the further side of its range the shots hit kind of inconsistently. Like, it'll hit sometimes and not others even if neither of you moved in between and you were looking straight at them the whole time. So this should make it better at killing when it's not quite as right up next to you.

 

[vitellary]

the dousers buff might honestly be insanely huge, those numbers are pretty big and the burst bomb kit genuinely does run into ink problems a lot so being able to fight more after a burst bomb is a BIG deal. that's pretty much the only change relevant to me though. snipewriter lives to see another 6 weeks (i really gotta learn that weapon)

 

[isaac4]

My thoughts on this patch have gotten a lot more positive just a bit over an hour since I posted my first thoughts but I still don't like the direction they're going with Bubbler.
They seem to be insistent on trying to make it one of the main counters against Zooka but they could also just nerf Zooka??
It just doesn't make sense to me honestly.

 

[McSquid82]

I know it's low tier, but it looks like they'e trying to make the Aerospray the best painter it can possibly be. I think with this latest change it might be back to where it was at the start of S2, if not even a little better because of the ink consumption buff. It will probably be farming both of its specials even faster because of this now, but it looks like that's exactly what the developers seem to want it to do. I just wish it could do something more than just paint really well and spam specials though.

 

[QuagSass]

no cheeky Edit damage buff

Where is the joy in these devs' lives? The whimsy? The silly?

but fr, these patch notes are pretty banging, even though pencil still lives

 

[Grushi]

recycled brella having an even faster shield recovery is either going to be insane or change nothing, i need an expert recycle player to weigh in on that (where grushi at). the shield is still going to die quick but there is going to be more and more often, and even if thats not the best change it could have gotten i think its pretty cool still. idk if its going to be just like the aerospray change though where its already so fast it might not change much but idk 1/3rd of a second is like A LOT??

I have been manifested.

So at first I didn't think much of this change, recycled already gets shields back so fast I didn't think this would matter much, but thinking about it I think it's better than I gave it credit for.
As is, your shield regens in 2.5 seconds, so this should bump that to around 2.2 seconds. It's not that much, but I think it will be noticeable.

This essentially just gives recycled more shields to dump in fights. Most of your engagements go:
"launch shield > follow shield to get in position > your shield gets shredded most likely > shoot and start fighting"
What this buff does is give you another shield to use while actually fighting at the end, which sounds decently impactful. You'll be able to stall better, to move a bit more, get one or two shots off, and even your paint gets buffed by like 2%. It also reduces the punish window after you launched a random shield, which is pretty nice.

Also, this buff pretty much confirms that the shield will remain at 100HP, which I'm fine with, giving recycled a bunch of weak shields to use is a cool way to lean into its gimmick. I don't think this is enough long term, but along with the lag fix, maybe?
I'm hyped for this change though!

 

[electronvolt]

DYNAMO ROLLER BUFF LET'S GOOOOOO

(also big swig buff) That reduction in time scattered gear and weapons stay should be good. The number of times I've shot at a roller, only to realise it was from an already splatted player... And that "ink from swim form -> inkling form disappears quicker" might give me a chance to spot short-range weapons before I get splatted.

Douser dualies buff is interesting, I did find them a bit ink hungry when I had a go with them. I'm also glad ink vac will ink walls and ground. (Will they apply this to bombs and blaster shots whic iirc don't behave like that?)

We can fast forward the xp gaining animation now!? And they've sorted out that thing where you send the wrong signal because the function of the button changed while you were pressing it? AND they've made it so you don't immediately walk back into Grizzco after leaving because you were still holding forward? Peak patch notes.

(Seriously though, the focus on QoL changes is great to see.)