Replacing Ninja Squid

[iTwAsLucK]

[QUOTE="HBSF° Hinichii.ez.™, post: 51815, member: 1731]This statement is very much so untrue. Super Jump is an amazing tool, when mastered. You probably haven't explored it enough.[/QUOTE]

Note: I didn't say it was worthless. I said you should rarely be using it.
Definitely worth being "mastered" for the few rare instances that you do use it though, I agree with that.


Edit: can't quote properly, so w/e.. : (

 

[Kaliafornia]

The only thing about ninja that sucks, negative aspects aside, it gets hard countered by echolocator. Once teams become a thing, everyone and their will have at least one echolocator on there team. I'm sure some teams will run more than one of those bad boys to. In the higher rank lobbies(like A), they go up pretty often. I do love ninja squid, but echolocator is getting more and more popular by the day.

Also, if you aren't runnin tenacity, special saver really is the only other ability that does something useful for specials. So even if you don't die a lot, you can get more mileage out of it, then the other abilities that have to do with specials.

I totally get ya there and for any other weapon user I agree. My main point was just as an E-liter user its likely opposition knows where I am anyway and are trying to avoid me or sneak around my held position. Only if the scenario happens that I don't defend my team well enough, miss shots of charging enemy coming at me, miss splat bombs at enemy, ninja away and get splat due to echolocator (who I probably should have killed before he charged up) well I figure at that point I deserved to get killed because I threw/failed my team. That scenario doesn't happen nearly enough for me to justify it.

What about Special Charge Up (10% rate)? Seems more useful to a player who doesn't die often then Special Saver (15% when you do die).

This statement is very much so untrue. Super Jump is an amazing tool, when mastered. You probably haven't explored it enough.

Agreed. I only take issue with SJing into the thick of battle without stealth, then its an almost guaranteed kill. Especially in Tower. So many of my kills in Tower come from people SJing to the Tower without Stealth, even in A rooms.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

What about Special Charge Up (10% rate)? Seems more useful to a player who doesn't die often then Special Saver (15% when you do die).

Initially, I thought that ability would be good. But its rather sub par. You need about 179 points to have your special available and each one of those only shaves 11 points off the top. With saver, even though it only kicks in when you die, does do a bit more in comparison. imho if you want to call your special up as much as possible, you would be better off picking up the saver in this case. As it stands, I think tenacity is the only ability worth picking up, if you want more specials.

 

[Kaliafornia]

Initially, I thought that ability would be good. But its rather sub par. You need about 179 points to have your special available and each one of those only shaves 11 points off the top. With saver, even though it only kicks in when you die, does do a bit more in comparison. imho if you want to call your special up as much as possible, you would be better off picking up the saver in this case. As it stands, I think tenacity is the only ability worth picking up, if you want more specials.

Ah didn't do the math on that but it makes sense, especially if you did die and your saver was more than half. Not to mention most of the weapons with high fire rate enough to fill special quickly are short ranged and while that combo of Special Charge might be effective for an aerosprayer in Turf, it wouldn't be competitively.

 

[WaifuRaccoonBL]

Whats your average K/D ratio? I used to like using them too then as I moved up ranks I realized I really wasn't dying all that much so they aren't as useful. Might come in handy in modes like Tower where splat probability is higher.

I don't know about average, but I know I can get at least above 10 kills a match and my highest is 19, which I got twice, and a couple of 18s. I usually die 5ish times.

I have since switched out one of them for a special charge up outfit. So my set is now Tenacity, Special Charge Up, and Special Saver. I like to keep at least one handy for two reasons.

1. I can't always be sure I won't die.
2. Specials can leave you vulnerable, so being able to save some while being killed in the middle of it can help.

With all that said, I don't like my subs on my Tenactiy and Special charge up weapons.

 

[UnLucky]

Ah didn't do the math on that but it makes sense, especially if you did die and your saver was more than half. Not to mention most of the weapons with high fire rate enough to fill special quickly are short ranged and while that combo of Special Charge might be effective for an aerosprayer in Turf, it wouldn't be competitively.

You absolutely need to have your bar at least halfway filled for Saver to be better than Charge. Even if it's "just" 11 points off your bar, that's still 6% that's active all the time. Saver is like 12-16% if your bar is completely full when you died, so take half of that if you're only halfway.

So like, if you ever die below 50%, say, right after you used your special, then Charge or Tenacity is way better. Or as others have said, if you just don't die all that much to begin with.

 

[Hitzel]

I like using Opening Gambit, Recon and the invisible squid jump. I believe in a competitive setting, recon will be A GREAT assistance in figuring out where the team is, and with the invisible squid jump I can jump wherever I am needed without fear.

Opening gambit is self explanatory, I believe rollouts are crucial to establishing an aggressive playstyle against the enemy.

This build is on my to do list for Recon abuse.

*Edit*

I'm not a Sniper, but I've been using an unrolled Super Jump + Recon Squelcher build and it's really fun.

That much Quick Super Jump is REALLY fast lol. You only need +2

 

[Njok]

Nice i was actually thinking about the recon + super jump and came here to see if anyone had tried it yet. And it seems you guys have. Awesome. So is it usefull?

I imagine it's not in TC, but in SZ i can see it working great. Clear enemy team out, place beakon, jump to spawn and check what routes they are taking, choose murder victim(s), jump back to beakon and go :D

It just sounds freaking awesome but i am not too sure if it will actually work that good. Anyone care to share some experience with that?

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Nice i was actually thinking about the recon + super jump and came here to see if anyone had tried it yet. And it seems you guys have. Awesome. So is it usefull?

I imagine it's not in TC, but in SZ i can see it working great. Clear enemy team out, place beakon, jump to spawn and check what routes they are taking, choose murder victim(s), jump back to beakon and go :D

It just sounds freaking awesome but i am not too sure if it will actually work that good. Anyone care to share some experience with that?

In theory, its a neat concept. In practice, isn't nothing amazing.

 

[Psycho_Wendigo]

Alright I recently dropped Cold-Blooded in favor of Recon, but reading this thread, that may have been a stupid move, is this correct?

 

[Njok]

Not stupid imo. Just a choice which you prefer. If no one echo locates a whole match you feel silly with your cold blooded as well. At least Recon you have control over how much you use it.

That said, when everybody and their mother IS echo locating, than cold-blooded is just pure gold.

 

[Vexen]

Honestly I think haunt is rather pointless unless you have teammates near by, recon on the other hand seems to have a much more useful ability and doesn't end until after you leave your spawn point. It also gives the location to ALL of your opponents and not just the person that splatted you. This ability of course is much more suited for turf wars instead of splatzone or tower control.
Honestly people saying that cold blooded is situational don't seem to understand it, it's so valuable to be able to have a shorter duration of being tracked by pointsensor and echolocator in turf wars and in splatzone where knowing the opposing teams location is is so important. You could end up blindly walk into an ambush you're not careful. Which brings me back to cold blooded, having it reduces the time of being 'tracked' so that you can go "oh you echolocated me? that's cute, lets pretend to fall back for a sec and then go back when it runs out."

 

[JJ the Splattershotter]

The only thing about ninja that sucks, negative aspects aside, it gets hard countered by echolocator. Once teams become a thing, everyone and their will have at least one echolocator on there team. I'm sure some teams will run more than one of those bad boys to. In the higher rank lobbies(like A), they go up pretty often. I do love ninja squid, but echolocator is getting more and more popular by the day.

While this is an excellent point, I would argue that Echolocation is not enough of a factor to justify abandoning Ninja Squid. During the instances where Echolocation is not in effect, the difference between having Ninja Squid and not having it is extreme, and you're going to get detected with Echolocation whether you have Ninja Squid or not, so why not take advantage of the benefits that Ninja Squid offers while you can?

 

[Hitzel]

In theory, its a neat concept. In practice, isn't nothing amazing.

We won't know that until party teams. The whole benefit of Recon is being able to communicate what you see to your teammates.

 

[cool6012]

The nerf to ninja isn't too bad, just get some swim speed up and your fine... unless RNGesus hates you that is. Haunt is really situational and rely's on your teammates to actually follow up and kill them; so imo its not worth it.

Personally out of all three I would go for cold-blooded since everyone and their grandmothers have echo's and once team ranked releases in august you can bet that the opposing team will all most always have at least one person with an echo.

 

[Njok]

The nerf to ninja isn't too bad, just get some swim speed up and your fine...

For me, that is actually the whole point why it is bad. You need to waste a main or 3 subs just to counter the penalty on swim speed.

If you don't care about that it's still pretty good, i agree. I still use it on some maps as well.

By the way, has anyone ever paid attention if you get notified like with echo, when enemy uses haunt or recon? If not, that might make me consider those more.

 

[TheMH]

I'm not sure about Turf Wars, but it Splat Zones and Tower Control Ninja Squid doesn't seem too be valuable at all to me anymore. There is so much chaos going on in these modes, I rarely see someone profit from being sneaky. The speed penalty finishes it off, as it's vital to get to the center quickly in these modes. Cold-Blooded is the ability to go with at the moment and I'm sure it's just a matter of time until we will see it getting nerfed to 50%.

 

[Vexen]

I'm not sure about Turf Wars, but it Splat Zones and Tower Control Ninja Squid doesn't seem too be valuable

It isn't, the person that killed you is going to be around where your teammates will be able to see anyway so it isn't like they're gaining valuable info like echolocator and point sensor can by locating multiple enemies

 

[cool6012]

By the way, has anyone ever paid attention if you get notified like with echo, when enemy uses haunt or recon? If not, that might make me consider those more.

Not for recon, but when your haunted you're surrounded by the same icon that you get from point sensors and echolocators.

 

[Charlight]

Ninja squid is still fun to use, but as others have said - definitely give Recon a try. I'm so used to looking at my gamepad and calling out to friends on skype everytime I die now that I can't wear a shirt without Recon anymore.