Splat Rollers - Over powered?

[Thunder]

I recently played the test fire and most people said the roller is over powered. My thoughts:

- Good tactic to cover ground quicker and go in the heat of battle with.
- Unlike the rest of the weapons, this one requires you to get up-close and personal with people to get kills

What are your thoughts about the roller? OP, or just over hyped?

 

[Greninja'd]

I don't think it's over powered. Since it is a melee weapon, any gun will probably take out the roller since the roller can't shoot.

 

[D_Neon]

The one thing I do want to say about it is that hiding in ink to jump out and ambush people as they come to cover it seemed very hard to respond to. There were points where an enemy had been camping a specific area that they'd covered and then just hid in the ink. The only way to respond to it was to use bombs but they could just as easily respond in kind.

Personally I found it incredibly annoying to play around in that unless I was using the roller I found that I needed to stay back and completely cover the area I was about to move into if there was a person doing this on the enemy team.

 

[Endymion]

It's a glass cannon.
Pros: Insta kill upon enemy touch+covers wide areas
Cons: Slow to counter other weapons, and pretty much easy pickings for charger users.

 

[RespawningJesus]

It is not over powered. Far from it. People who say it is just need to remember to take them out from a distance. All of their ink goes behind them, so your territory should be safe for the most part, giving you plenty of room to breath. If they do want to attack you from a bit more distance, they need to come to a complete halt to take a swing. Plus rollers don't like walls.

If your team does not have rollers, and the game mode is turf war, you need to hunt those enemy rollers down and keep sending them back to spawn so that they can't do a whole lot of damage. Hell, I would say that people should focus them down anyways. Easy targets, and you limit a good source of their ink that their team can spread.

 

[Undr]

The rollers specialty is ambushing opponents while ideally avoiding conflict entirely in favor or applying constant coverage pressure. As DAK said, (and has mentioned many times on these forums already) pushing back the big "ink" threats like rollers should be a primary strategy. Rollers are only strong if the opposing team allows them to be.

That said this does remind me a bit of the early days of Melee. Ganondorf for a short while was considered the best character in the game. Top players who had learned to Wavedash and were the most skilled could take the raw power of Ganondorf and dominate. The roller is the same. It is the strongest weapon in terms of base stats. It one hit kills in most situations and it can do so while laying a LOT of ink. But once the meta settles and people become more aware of how to play, the weapons will likely even out.

• Backpedaling away from rollers while shooting.
• Learning to run away from disadvantageous situations.
• Using supers such as the Bubble. (hilarious against multiple rollers btw)
• Reacting to retreating rollers by laying ink down at their feet.

These are all simple ways to level out rollers. It's only natural for these things to go unused in the first three hours of playtime.

 

[RedML51]

Some nice analyses in this thread so far.

The roller happens to be easy for new players to use, and also very effective against new players who lack the knowledge of how to properly combat them.

Verticality is key to taking on rollers, I think. They have little way to get to you if you're standing on top of something, and you can take them out quickly and easily.

 

[Flying_Tortoise]

The roller happens to be easy for new players to use, and also very effective against new players who lack the knowledge of how to properly combat them.

This. I never had trouble with rollers, only when I didn't see them jump from a high platform onto me.
Once ppl get better they'll see how to deal with them. Every weapon set was called OP during the demo not even joking, tbh this just shows that every weapon set is very well balanced (this with the 3 hours of play), I experimented with every weapon. It also shows that OP is used too often lol

 

[ChainALM]

Agreed. The roller is insanely strong, if you let it.
And in the first three hours of game play, yeah, people are going to let it.

I think once we get the full game, and gear and weapon stats/loadouts become available, we'll really see a change in people's perceptions.
Or, at least I hope so. I was absolutely garbage with my time with the Splat Charger/Sniper Rifle. Felt more like a liability to my team than a helping hand.

 

[Crazykonga]

It looks OP at first but it's really easy to take these roller users down as soon as you're getting a little good at the game: I played with splatter jr. during all the time, won and MVPd on 90% of the games I played. Of course it's powerful, but you just need to dive in your ink, move back a little bit, get out and kill him quickly. The shield is one very useful special weapon as well since you can activate it just before being crushed by a roller, and kill him easily just after that.

 

[LittlestMinish]

This all being said, I don't know if we've discussed the counter-play that a roller can make use of to outplay the normal gunners:

• Don't fight them. You spread ink faster and do better at cutting off an enemy offensive.
• When facing off with a splatterer, then swim back, refill your gauge while swimming around the nearest corner. Drop a bomb (suction or otherwise), It'll either cut them off or kill them. When ambushing, preempting an attack with a bomb to cut off an escape route could be important.
• Dueling rollers is a thing. Not only are they good at undoing what the opposing roller just did, the better and more timely roller always wins a 1v1, that means they can seek out an neutralize a roller without being gibbed along side them, giving them 3 free seconds before a roller can come and try to undo your hard work. 3 seconds is a lot of ink.

Overall I think people are relegating this weapon to just "noob weapons" or something, while I think there will be ways this thing is king, such as in flanking.

 

[Swagger Magee]

The one thing I do want to say about it is that hiding in ink to jump out and ambush people as they come to cover it seemed very hard to respond to. There were points where an enemy had been camping a specific area that they'd covered and then just hid in the ink. The only way to respond to it was to use bombs but they could just as easily respond in kind.

Personally I found it incredibly annoying to play around in that unless I was using the roller I found that I needed to stay back and completely cover the area I was about to move into if there was a person doing this on the enemy team.

I did not get a chance to play the demo :( But can you see the enemy team while they are traveling in the ink? If so, I think people will learn to react to it as time passes making it a more balanced item.

 

[Gold-skyward]

I did not get a chance to play the demo :( But can you see the enemy team while they are traveling in the ink? If so, I think people will learn to react to it as time passes making it a more balanced item.

You can't actually see them except while they're moving, you can see waves.
And obviously while they're jumping.

 

[Swagger Magee]

Oh ok so once we adjust to seeing the wave forms it should be easier to react to the ambushes ^.^ I think that having 2 splat rollers on each team, while keeping one as a flex pick depending on the map and team comp, would be ideal since they can cover the map in as much paint as possible at the beginning of the match and regroup after 20 seconds or so with the rest of the team to try to move forward into enemy lines.

 

[Draayder]

As other people have also said, I think it's a great weapon and stomping people who aren't very good or confident yet. Ranged weapons can stop it pretty easily if the roller doesn't get the jump on them. It's still a great weapon for turf wars however, just for the amount of space it can cover, it only takes a roller or two a few moments to suddenly change the lead.

 

[Swagger Magee]

Sounds like I'm going to commit to killing enemy rollers and protecting my own then. ^.^

 

[suavevillain]

Nothing OP about them people gotta learn to adjust and we can upgrade weapons and gear in the full game it won't be hassle to deal with any class really.

 

[SirWhynus]

What people don't seem to understand as far as I'm concerned is that the maps can be used as a counter to the roller themselves. Jump onto a box to relieve yourself of being squished. Also keep in mind that in inkfights (lol gunfights, inkfights. No? Sorry) If you just cover the area around your prey in ink, they can't move. That'll force them to have to ink the area back, and that's enough time for you to take them out. Also, you can simply jump over them. It's still a really good weapon to me, But I want to main the brush.

 

[Cheezey Bites]

The roller is inkredibly easy to spot on the real-time map, which means that they lack the element of surprise unless they go out of their way for it (ie. sitting in squid form in the ink). If you splat far enough ahead of you you'll probably splat them before they get up and flick the attack down in that case, and even if you don't they'll be spending valuable time hiding rather than spreading ink like they do so well.

The map is very important in this game.

 

[DingDongMcDork]

Also keep in mind that in inkfights (lol gunfights, inkfights. No? Sorry) If you just cover the area around your prey in ink, they can't move.

This actually doesn't work. Now, I'm not saying that rollers are OP, I think they are very well balanced, but since the roller paints where you are heading, you can completely ignore whether or not there is your team's ink on the ground or not.
But you made a good point, just go on a crate or another high place and that's game. That or you can just backpedal, just keep your distance in general. Paying attention to the gamepad minimap can also screw them pretty badly.