🌌☾ᏉᎬᎶᎪ☽⭐
Inkster Jr.
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2024
- Messages
- 18
- Pronouns
- He/Him But Any Is Fine
- Switch Friend Code
- SW-4725-2886-6488
Hello, I've been thinking of something lately.
Throughout Splatoon 3, we've been allowed the luxury of 11 main weapons, one to fit every single class currently. Many weapons can be slight stat changes to one another, most prevalent in shooters, while others can create gimmicks that give their weapon something new, but Splatoon 3 is a very special case as I think almost every weapon offered can be considered an "anti-weapon" to their class.
The way I define an "anti-weapon" is that of a weapon which breaks a core fundamental within their class to become an entirely new thing. The thing you'd probably associate with said class can sometimes be completely absent with them, or sometimes a common trend with the class as a whole is broken, regardless of gimmick, so in today's little ramble, I want to talk about Splatoon 3's weapons, and what core feature they break to become their anti-weapon.
Chill Season 2022:
Chill Season gave us the introduction of the Splattershot Nova, Big Swig Roller, and Snipewriter 5H, the first 3 classes of the franchise fittingly getting a new toy, and this is where the fun begins.
Splattershot Nova:
Okay I lied we're not actually at the fun part yet. As much as I'd like to keep on theme the Splattershot Nova breaks that immediately by being a shooter with slight stat changes and also notoriously bad shot RNG. It's so bad in fact that it's tied with Aerospray for having the most likely chance that the first shot you fire won't be at the center reticle, at 10%. From some dubious sources (my friend's "Dude trust me bro"), Nova is supposedly intended to get more accurate the longer you fire the weapon, which if that is the case would classify it as an anti-weapon in my eyes, but after searching Inkipedia and back, this claim doesn't seem to be true. Who knows maybe it's prophecy for a Nova buff. To the 5 people who actually main this weapon, keep dreaming.
Big Swig Roller:
With that slight disappointment out of the way, the Big Swig Roller. This is a very confusing weapon, as it seems to want to be considered a beginner weapon but at the same time has some questionable attributes that call into question that very thing. Swig breaks 2 core attributes right off the bat, being its horizontal flick and the paint. This thing paints fast, but the true nature comes in the fact that it's the first roller in the franchise that doesn't offer a one shot kill with its flick, being that its horizontal deals only 70 damage. 70 is no doubt a very respectable number, but in terms of Rollers that barely matters since the time it takes you to get a flick or two out, your opponent can likely wipe you off the face of the earth. Need I mention that the Sploosh-O-Matic and the .52 Gal kill in only 20 frames? That is as fast as it takes the Bamboozler to charge. Aside from the flimsy horizontal, your true defense comes in the vertical flick, which is where we come back to the whole "confusing weapon part." Sure it's still a one shot, but you need to keep in mind that its hitbox is ever so slightly smaller than the rest of the rollers, which makes me go from thinking that it's a beginner weapon, to one that is intended to be more skillful.
Now even though it breaks the idea of rollers having powerful one shot options in both its flicks, and the idea that it paints a whole lot more than Rollers up to this point have (discounting Dynamo since that needs to be fixed and Flingza because despite the respectable vertical it gets outpainted by Swig), there's also a third point to bring in Swig's favor, being its roll. If you're an experienced player, this doesn't really matter to you, as the rolling part of the roller rarely comes into play outside of a quick superjump camping kill tool, but for Swig, I can at least say that while it's not the burst paint that the horizontal flicks offer, it can still paint really well surprisingly. Take Dynamo's roll, and remove all the bad things about it, and you basically get Swig. Slightly larger paint coverage than Dynamo, moves slightly faster than the Splat Roller and Flingza Roller, and only takes half the ink cost to do so (all rollers before Swig used 6% of your ink tank per second to roll. Swig uses 3%). You have to actually try to run out of ink when rolling with Swig, and even if it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, I'm happy for Swig since it has that one funny party trick up its sleeve.
Snipewriter 5H:
Tonights episode: The writer's barely disguised Snipewriter glazing. Just kidding I'm not gonna gush about the weapon, but I do have to talk about it though so, catch 22.
Precision. The thing chargers are known for. One tap on your skull and it's back to respawning for you. It's a very hard thing to balance a sniper rifle in gaming so it's amazing to see that Splatoon managed to do it via limited range and very visible lasers for people to respect you at all times.
Now pick up the Snipewriter and throw out a majority of the thee sentences I just detailed for you. The mere idea of storing multiple fully charged shots ready to go breaks the core fundamental of precision and the need to charge each shot, as now instead of needing to charge another shot immediately after firing, you already got another one to go, and another, and another, until that 5th shot. The Snipewriter combined with its 5 shot charge and Splatterscope range makes this one of the most forgiving chargers the class has to offer, but by no means does it make it easy. Precision is still required to some capacity, but instead of being an end all be all shot, you have weaker shots in general to go for broke and nail 2 in a row, or chip an enemy once from the sidelines and have your teammate take them out. Funnily enough, the low damage of the shots compared to other chargers makes this probably the most healthy of the long ranged offers from a gameplay perspective, as instead of being dead on arrival with a single shot, you still get a chance to live, along with the Snipewriter also opening up your team via chip damage, though you can always say screw that, and nail another good shot provided you have decent aim.
Another cool thing to note about the Snipewriter is its deceptively high aggression. If you're not the one playing the weapon you might be confused, but despite the range, since it can have multiple shots at any given moment without need to charge in between those shots, it can essentially chase people down. This also makes it very good at defending itself provided it can charge up before someone approaches as instead of missing and now needing to hail marry your charger tap shots, you already have 4 other 68 damage tap shots to go should you miss the first shot.
Sizzle Season 2023:
We're skipping Fresh Season 2023 since that one introduced special weapons, which is not the topic for today. We got our two new weapons to discuss.
S-BLAST '92:
Ah, Blasters. Massive AoE bombs that used to be considered shooters until Nintendo finally realized that was stupid. Despite being monsters at range Blasters are very prone to being rushed down thanks to their dubbed "blindspot," which is the distance between the Blaster player and explosion where the AoE cannot intercept an enemy, meaning to defend, a Blaster must either hit a direct on their opponent, or spark them to death if they're feeling really ballsy and have time to kill. The S-BLAST breaks the core fundamental of a blindspot by introducing its 2 modes of fire. A short range mode when jumping, and a long range mode when using the weapon normally. Unfortunately the travel time of the long range mode has seemed to eat all of its AoE, which probably explains why the short range mode is so large (Clash Blaster radius, if you will). Despite its long ranged mode now having equivalent AoE to an infrared sensor, it has another trick up its sleeve by breaking its jump RNG. Due to its two modes, provided correct inputs you can jump to your heart's content with certainty knowing that your shot is going directly where you want it. Congrats S-BLAST, you removed the need for a nerfed Intensify Action (though maybe still run a bit for the short ranged mode since despite the massive AoE, its RNG does not go down over time compared to other blasters and shooters so, unfortunate).
Painbrush:
Shocking how it only took 3 games for the brush family to also count to three. Brushes in general are a very free class, tied down by their range and need to break your fingers. Painbrush all things considered is not an anti-weapon, as while it comes with a whole new thing to revolve around being its windup, I would consider that more of a gimmick rather than something that breaks a core of the weapon. You still can play it like a brush, but the difference is that EA was behind the wheel and now everything you do is a 23 frame microtransaction.
"Do you wish to use a weapon that's the equivalent of playing an EA game? The Painbrush is here. You want to swing the brush? Pay 23 frames. You want to roll with the brush? Pay 23 frames. You want to get out of rolling and attack someone nearby? Pay 23 frames. Were you about to throw your Wave Breaker or use Missiles and capitalize on it? Pay 23 frames. The game will take your microtransactions proudly andyou will be none the wiser."
Drizzle Season 2023:
This was the season where I think the developers genuinely locked in, not with just the maps but the weapons too.
Dread Wringer:
After all the new types of sloshes and spirals, the Dread Wringer is a return to form for the sloshers with normal globs, but what if we did the impossible? What if we made our slosher bisexual?
Attract two genders like you do sloshes and you get the Dread Wringer, which breaks the core fundamental of sloshers having good AoE but no supportive paint. Add another slosh to the mix and now you have twice the paint to go around, and enable teammates in ways your normal slosher could never. Sure you could argue the Explosher does the same but the difference is that where the Explosher is a backline and is also terrible at defending itself, the Dread Wringer can hold its own when painting. It's even got a consistent 90 damage hit with the two sloshes that the Explosher just doesn't have unfortunately. I also cannot stress this enough; Dread is a genuine return to form for sloshers. There's no Sloshing Machine spirals, no Bloblobber bubbles, no Explosher uhh, exploshes? It's simply normal slosher globs the likes of your regular Slosher and Tri-Slosher. Dread can even whip them which still makes Tri-Slosher the only regular globbed slosher to lack this aspect.
Still really wish it got good kits though. Dread could've been so much more.
Heavy Edit Splatling:
Heavy Edit goes against the core fundamental of being overshadowed by chargers :)
Okay but for real though even if this is merely a slight stats change, the idea of a splatling that decides it can fire faster is still very fun. There's not much I can say about it since it's just good. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk HEdit players.
Okay actually just one more dip the fact that this thing on a full charge can kill in 12 frames is nuts. I love that.
Fresh Season 2024:
We're skipping Chill Season 2022 since that season introduced ableism and my saddest disappointment (DFlux made me cry). At least Fresh came swinging.
Recycled Brella 24 MK I
We finally got a new brella, and all it took was killing Splat Brella and giving the one buff it needs to be good to another weapon making the possibility nigh impossible for it now. You're not here for damage though you're here for protection.
The protection is a lie. Recycled goes against the core fundamental of brellas by having a weak shield. If you thought Undercover was weak you haven't seen Recycled. 100HP is very little, and even though it can be increased by launching the shield, Undercover still wins because it has ever so slightly better multipliers against select stuff. So with that being said what does an anti-brella do? Well for starters, the idea of protection isn't lost, just new in a not so obvious way. Instead of protecting against sustained fire, the Recycled Brella's shield becomes a parry of sorts thanks to its weak HP and fast recharge. This thing recharges so fast that you can take a charger shot, dodge one, and then have another shield ready to block another. Pair that with great paint coverage, and you have a brella that wants you to dance alongside its shield at speeds not seen before.
Undercover might be able to play at similar speeds, but what makes Recycled special is the fact that you can give your opponents two things to worry about, not to mention the freedom from your shield can lead to some silly plays. Overall, Recylced being given a parry instead of a true shield turns the idea of a brella on its head so hard that I can't help but respect the vision.
(Make the shield 3% faster when launched and my heart belongs to you Nintendo.)
Douser Dualies FF:
"A dualie without dodge rolls is like an angel without wings."
- Some Splatoon player, probably
But that's the core fundamental Dousers break. These things have some good strafe speed when firing, okay paint, and really good poking distance at the cost of a single roll. It does benefit Dousers to have the longest dodge roll out of all the Dualies, though its usage definitely leans into using it for defensive situations. Despite that you can absolutely use it aggressively. Despite having less range the roll distance compliments it along with the longer range once you do get moving again. You know how some people refer to Dualie Squelchers as "A shooter that can dodge roll?" Dousers is that concept turned to 11 because your main special feature comes in your standard fire rather than your turret mode, and I think that is extremely special for this weapon.
Sizzle Season 2024:
Our final season and my god the two new classes finally get something new.
Wellstring V:
Wellstring is such an interesting case because this doesn't just break the core fundamentals of the class, but the communities knowledge on weapon roles in general. We as a community love to classify things as a frontline, midline, and backline, but rarely do we ever acknowledge flc's teachings in the fact that these roles are not set in stone, as while a weapon can thrive when played in a certain, it's not the end all be all for it. For our time playing the game we've been stuck to this triangle of roles that when this thing rolled around, people referred to it as a backline when that is far from the truth. This single weapon being here breaks the mold and sheds light on a 4th role, kiting.
Thanks to the inverse charge the Wellstring can play as a frontline with the oneshot and first ring concentrated AoE, a midline with a little more charge put into it, and a backline that spams spread out AoE. This thing can do it all. Tri-Stringer can also make an argument that it too is also a kiting weapon, but Wellstring takes that and dives off the deep end with it. Anything your opponents do, you straight up have an answer to. Are they far away, charge up and throw out your AoE and damage. A little closer? Concentrate said AoE into a threatening oneshot explosion. Rushing you down? Now that's a oneshot opportunity waiting to happen. The Wellstring demands respect if you wanna take it out, as going in without a plan is means for you going out early.
I'll never forget that the community thought it was dead on arrival with the kits only to realize the main weapon is just crazy strong.
Mint Decavitator:
Oh the Decavitator. Ship propeller damage along with a dentistry pun. Did you know that the game considers splatana lunges dodge rolls? It's not important to this I just thought I'd throw that out there for your enjoyment.
The Decavitator throws the idea of a splatana on its head by breaking the core fundamental of having two modes of swing. The lack of a vertical slash opens up a very weird angle for this weapon as to compensate, this thing hits like a truck. As much drip as the other splatanas have, they do not come close to the aura a Decavitator has when revving up a charge slash. You know you're in trouble when you hear it and it can be heard a mile away. It's justifiable since this thing can flat out delete an entire team with ease provided they're close enough thanks to the wide hitboxes it offers. In addition it's also got the longest lunge of all the splatanas, having you majestically ski your way to whatever unfortunate soul is close enough.
As fun as this sounds you often hear this thing get compared to a roller rather than a splatana and that's because it plays very similarly to those compared to its 2 cousins in the same class. The lack of a vertical is a negative that does haunt this thing more than you'd expect, and its general stats lead to it being very clunky, but I guess being bulky was part of the bill. Let's talk tempo for a moment.
Tempo is how fast it takes something to take affect. Zooka has a very fast tempo being that it fires 3 shots that can instantly turn the tide of battle, while Wave Breaker has a very slow tempo with its waves taking a bit to come out and the commitment to countering it being very minimal. Now Splatana Wiper is a very fast tempo weapon with its speed and swings being something enemies have to take note of immediately, while Splatana Stamper is slightly slower with its tempo with its swings, though it can be a little faster via the charge slashes. The Decavitator is all over the place with its tempo. One moment it's very slow, having slower base swings than even Stamper, while the next moment its tempo is extremely quick with the charge slashes and their range being very extreme. Sometimes you might not even see it coming. All of this to say that while Decavitator is cool in its own right, its design to make it an anti-weapon is more or less a negative to turn the game on its head when you pick it up.
That isn't to say it's a bad weapon since this thing is still very good. Just that it's huge change and compensation lead to it being even wackier than what I think was intended.
Post Game:
A lot has happened in this game. A lot of weapons have been given to us that are very cool in their own right. 8/11 weapons fitting my criteria is still a lot, and I'm glad that this was the direction Nintendo took the weapons as it offers some of the most coolest weapons we've seen up to this point. I can only wonder what they'll do for Splatoon 4's new main weapons.
So that's what I've been thinking about anyway. What do you think about these weapons? Do you think they go against the core fundamentals that their class established up to this point, or did another weapon do it first? Take some time to think about your weapons. Perhaps there's a lot more to them then you initially thought. I've been Vega, and I'll see you in my next ramble.
Throughout Splatoon 3, we've been allowed the luxury of 11 main weapons, one to fit every single class currently. Many weapons can be slight stat changes to one another, most prevalent in shooters, while others can create gimmicks that give their weapon something new, but Splatoon 3 is a very special case as I think almost every weapon offered can be considered an "anti-weapon" to their class.
The way I define an "anti-weapon" is that of a weapon which breaks a core fundamental within their class to become an entirely new thing. The thing you'd probably associate with said class can sometimes be completely absent with them, or sometimes a common trend with the class as a whole is broken, regardless of gimmick, so in today's little ramble, I want to talk about Splatoon 3's weapons, and what core feature they break to become their anti-weapon.
Chill Season 2022:
Chill Season gave us the introduction of the Splattershot Nova, Big Swig Roller, and Snipewriter 5H, the first 3 classes of the franchise fittingly getting a new toy, and this is where the fun begins.
Splattershot Nova:
Okay I lied we're not actually at the fun part yet. As much as I'd like to keep on theme the Splattershot Nova breaks that immediately by being a shooter with slight stat changes and also notoriously bad shot RNG. It's so bad in fact that it's tied with Aerospray for having the most likely chance that the first shot you fire won't be at the center reticle, at 10%. From some dubious sources (my friend's "Dude trust me bro"), Nova is supposedly intended to get more accurate the longer you fire the weapon, which if that is the case would classify it as an anti-weapon in my eyes, but after searching Inkipedia and back, this claim doesn't seem to be true. Who knows maybe it's prophecy for a Nova buff. To the 5 people who actually main this weapon, keep dreaming.
Big Swig Roller:
With that slight disappointment out of the way, the Big Swig Roller. This is a very confusing weapon, as it seems to want to be considered a beginner weapon but at the same time has some questionable attributes that call into question that very thing. Swig breaks 2 core attributes right off the bat, being its horizontal flick and the paint. This thing paints fast, but the true nature comes in the fact that it's the first roller in the franchise that doesn't offer a one shot kill with its flick, being that its horizontal deals only 70 damage. 70 is no doubt a very respectable number, but in terms of Rollers that barely matters since the time it takes you to get a flick or two out, your opponent can likely wipe you off the face of the earth. Need I mention that the Sploosh-O-Matic and the .52 Gal kill in only 20 frames? That is as fast as it takes the Bamboozler to charge. Aside from the flimsy horizontal, your true defense comes in the vertical flick, which is where we come back to the whole "confusing weapon part." Sure it's still a one shot, but you need to keep in mind that its hitbox is ever so slightly smaller than the rest of the rollers, which makes me go from thinking that it's a beginner weapon, to one that is intended to be more skillful.
Now even though it breaks the idea of rollers having powerful one shot options in both its flicks, and the idea that it paints a whole lot more than Rollers up to this point have (discounting Dynamo since that needs to be fixed and Flingza because despite the respectable vertical it gets outpainted by Swig), there's also a third point to bring in Swig's favor, being its roll. If you're an experienced player, this doesn't really matter to you, as the rolling part of the roller rarely comes into play outside of a quick superjump camping kill tool, but for Swig, I can at least say that while it's not the burst paint that the horizontal flicks offer, it can still paint really well surprisingly. Take Dynamo's roll, and remove all the bad things about it, and you basically get Swig. Slightly larger paint coverage than Dynamo, moves slightly faster than the Splat Roller and Flingza Roller, and only takes half the ink cost to do so (all rollers before Swig used 6% of your ink tank per second to roll. Swig uses 3%). You have to actually try to run out of ink when rolling with Swig, and even if it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, I'm happy for Swig since it has that one funny party trick up its sleeve.
Snipewriter 5H:
Tonights episode: The writer's barely disguised Snipewriter glazing. Just kidding I'm not gonna gush about the weapon, but I do have to talk about it though so, catch 22.
Precision. The thing chargers are known for. One tap on your skull and it's back to respawning for you. It's a very hard thing to balance a sniper rifle in gaming so it's amazing to see that Splatoon managed to do it via limited range and very visible lasers for people to respect you at all times.
Now pick up the Snipewriter and throw out a majority of the thee sentences I just detailed for you. The mere idea of storing multiple fully charged shots ready to go breaks the core fundamental of precision and the need to charge each shot, as now instead of needing to charge another shot immediately after firing, you already got another one to go, and another, and another, until that 5th shot. The Snipewriter combined with its 5 shot charge and Splatterscope range makes this one of the most forgiving chargers the class has to offer, but by no means does it make it easy. Precision is still required to some capacity, but instead of being an end all be all shot, you have weaker shots in general to go for broke and nail 2 in a row, or chip an enemy once from the sidelines and have your teammate take them out. Funnily enough, the low damage of the shots compared to other chargers makes this probably the most healthy of the long ranged offers from a gameplay perspective, as instead of being dead on arrival with a single shot, you still get a chance to live, along with the Snipewriter also opening up your team via chip damage, though you can always say screw that, and nail another good shot provided you have decent aim.
Another cool thing to note about the Snipewriter is its deceptively high aggression. If you're not the one playing the weapon you might be confused, but despite the range, since it can have multiple shots at any given moment without need to charge in between those shots, it can essentially chase people down. This also makes it very good at defending itself provided it can charge up before someone approaches as instead of missing and now needing to hail marry your charger tap shots, you already have 4 other 68 damage tap shots to go should you miss the first shot.
Sizzle Season 2023:
We're skipping Fresh Season 2023 since that one introduced special weapons, which is not the topic for today. We got our two new weapons to discuss.
S-BLAST '92:
Ah, Blasters. Massive AoE bombs that used to be considered shooters until Nintendo finally realized that was stupid. Despite being monsters at range Blasters are very prone to being rushed down thanks to their dubbed "blindspot," which is the distance between the Blaster player and explosion where the AoE cannot intercept an enemy, meaning to defend, a Blaster must either hit a direct on their opponent, or spark them to death if they're feeling really ballsy and have time to kill. The S-BLAST breaks the core fundamental of a blindspot by introducing its 2 modes of fire. A short range mode when jumping, and a long range mode when using the weapon normally. Unfortunately the travel time of the long range mode has seemed to eat all of its AoE, which probably explains why the short range mode is so large (Clash Blaster radius, if you will). Despite its long ranged mode now having equivalent AoE to an infrared sensor, it has another trick up its sleeve by breaking its jump RNG. Due to its two modes, provided correct inputs you can jump to your heart's content with certainty knowing that your shot is going directly where you want it. Congrats S-BLAST, you removed the need for a nerfed Intensify Action (though maybe still run a bit for the short ranged mode since despite the massive AoE, its RNG does not go down over time compared to other blasters and shooters so, unfortunate).
Painbrush:
Shocking how it only took 3 games for the brush family to also count to three. Brushes in general are a very free class, tied down by their range and need to break your fingers. Painbrush all things considered is not an anti-weapon, as while it comes with a whole new thing to revolve around being its windup, I would consider that more of a gimmick rather than something that breaks a core of the weapon. You still can play it like a brush, but the difference is that EA was behind the wheel and now everything you do is a 23 frame microtransaction.
"Do you wish to use a weapon that's the equivalent of playing an EA game? The Painbrush is here. You want to swing the brush? Pay 23 frames. You want to roll with the brush? Pay 23 frames. You want to get out of rolling and attack someone nearby? Pay 23 frames. Were you about to throw your Wave Breaker or use Missiles and capitalize on it? Pay 23 frames. The game will take your microtransactions proudly and
Drizzle Season 2023:
This was the season where I think the developers genuinely locked in, not with just the maps but the weapons too.
Dread Wringer:
After all the new types of sloshes and spirals, the Dread Wringer is a return to form for the sloshers with normal globs, but what if we did the impossible? What if we made our slosher bisexual?
Attract two genders like you do sloshes and you get the Dread Wringer, which breaks the core fundamental of sloshers having good AoE but no supportive paint. Add another slosh to the mix and now you have twice the paint to go around, and enable teammates in ways your normal slosher could never. Sure you could argue the Explosher does the same but the difference is that where the Explosher is a backline and is also terrible at defending itself, the Dread Wringer can hold its own when painting. It's even got a consistent 90 damage hit with the two sloshes that the Explosher just doesn't have unfortunately. I also cannot stress this enough; Dread is a genuine return to form for sloshers. There's no Sloshing Machine spirals, no Bloblobber bubbles, no Explosher uhh, exploshes? It's simply normal slosher globs the likes of your regular Slosher and Tri-Slosher. Dread can even whip them which still makes Tri-Slosher the only regular globbed slosher to lack this aspect.
Still really wish it got good kits though. Dread could've been so much more.
Heavy Edit Splatling:
Heavy Edit goes against the core fundamental of being overshadowed by chargers :)
Okay but for real though even if this is merely a slight stats change, the idea of a splatling that decides it can fire faster is still very fun. There's not much I can say about it since it's just good. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk HEdit players.
Fresh Season 2024:
We're skipping Chill Season 2022 since that season introduced ableism and my saddest disappointment (DFlux made me cry). At least Fresh came swinging.
Recycled Brella 24 MK I
We finally got a new brella, and all it took was killing Splat Brella and giving the one buff it needs to be good to another weapon making the possibility nigh impossible for it now. You're not here for damage though you're here for protection.
The protection is a lie. Recycled goes against the core fundamental of brellas by having a weak shield. If you thought Undercover was weak you haven't seen Recycled. 100HP is very little, and even though it can be increased by launching the shield, Undercover still wins because it has ever so slightly better multipliers against select stuff. So with that being said what does an anti-brella do? Well for starters, the idea of protection isn't lost, just new in a not so obvious way. Instead of protecting against sustained fire, the Recycled Brella's shield becomes a parry of sorts thanks to its weak HP and fast recharge. This thing recharges so fast that you can take a charger shot, dodge one, and then have another shield ready to block another. Pair that with great paint coverage, and you have a brella that wants you to dance alongside its shield at speeds not seen before.
Undercover might be able to play at similar speeds, but what makes Recycled special is the fact that you can give your opponents two things to worry about, not to mention the freedom from your shield can lead to some silly plays. Overall, Recylced being given a parry instead of a true shield turns the idea of a brella on its head so hard that I can't help but respect the vision.
(Make the shield 3% faster when launched and my heart belongs to you Nintendo.)
Douser Dualies FF:
"A dualie without dodge rolls is like an angel without wings."
- Some Splatoon player, probably
But that's the core fundamental Dousers break. These things have some good strafe speed when firing, okay paint, and really good poking distance at the cost of a single roll. It does benefit Dousers to have the longest dodge roll out of all the Dualies, though its usage definitely leans into using it for defensive situations. Despite that you can absolutely use it aggressively. Despite having less range the roll distance compliments it along with the longer range once you do get moving again. You know how some people refer to Dualie Squelchers as "A shooter that can dodge roll?" Dousers is that concept turned to 11 because your main special feature comes in your standard fire rather than your turret mode, and I think that is extremely special for this weapon.
Sizzle Season 2024:
Our final season and my god the two new classes finally get something new.
Wellstring V:
Wellstring is such an interesting case because this doesn't just break the core fundamentals of the class, but the communities knowledge on weapon roles in general. We as a community love to classify things as a frontline, midline, and backline, but rarely do we ever acknowledge flc's teachings in the fact that these roles are not set in stone, as while a weapon can thrive when played in a certain, it's not the end all be all for it. For our time playing the game we've been stuck to this triangle of roles that when this thing rolled around, people referred to it as a backline when that is far from the truth. This single weapon being here breaks the mold and sheds light on a 4th role, kiting.
Thanks to the inverse charge the Wellstring can play as a frontline with the oneshot and first ring concentrated AoE, a midline with a little more charge put into it, and a backline that spams spread out AoE. This thing can do it all. Tri-Stringer can also make an argument that it too is also a kiting weapon, but Wellstring takes that and dives off the deep end with it. Anything your opponents do, you straight up have an answer to. Are they far away, charge up and throw out your AoE and damage. A little closer? Concentrate said AoE into a threatening oneshot explosion. Rushing you down? Now that's a oneshot opportunity waiting to happen. The Wellstring demands respect if you wanna take it out, as going in without a plan is means for you going out early.
I'll never forget that the community thought it was dead on arrival with the kits only to realize the main weapon is just crazy strong.
Mint Decavitator:
Oh the Decavitator. Ship propeller damage along with a dentistry pun. Did you know that the game considers splatana lunges dodge rolls? It's not important to this I just thought I'd throw that out there for your enjoyment.
The Decavitator throws the idea of a splatana on its head by breaking the core fundamental of having two modes of swing. The lack of a vertical slash opens up a very weird angle for this weapon as to compensate, this thing hits like a truck. As much drip as the other splatanas have, they do not come close to the aura a Decavitator has when revving up a charge slash. You know you're in trouble when you hear it and it can be heard a mile away. It's justifiable since this thing can flat out delete an entire team with ease provided they're close enough thanks to the wide hitboxes it offers. In addition it's also got the longest lunge of all the splatanas, having you majestically ski your way to whatever unfortunate soul is close enough.
As fun as this sounds you often hear this thing get compared to a roller rather than a splatana and that's because it plays very similarly to those compared to its 2 cousins in the same class. The lack of a vertical is a negative that does haunt this thing more than you'd expect, and its general stats lead to it being very clunky, but I guess being bulky was part of the bill. Let's talk tempo for a moment.
Tempo is how fast it takes something to take affect. Zooka has a very fast tempo being that it fires 3 shots that can instantly turn the tide of battle, while Wave Breaker has a very slow tempo with its waves taking a bit to come out and the commitment to countering it being very minimal. Now Splatana Wiper is a very fast tempo weapon with its speed and swings being something enemies have to take note of immediately, while Splatana Stamper is slightly slower with its tempo with its swings, though it can be a little faster via the charge slashes. The Decavitator is all over the place with its tempo. One moment it's very slow, having slower base swings than even Stamper, while the next moment its tempo is extremely quick with the charge slashes and their range being very extreme. Sometimes you might not even see it coming. All of this to say that while Decavitator is cool in its own right, its design to make it an anti-weapon is more or less a negative to turn the game on its head when you pick it up.
That isn't to say it's a bad weapon since this thing is still very good. Just that it's huge change and compensation lead to it being even wackier than what I think was intended.
Post Game:
A lot has happened in this game. A lot of weapons have been given to us that are very cool in their own right. 8/11 weapons fitting my criteria is still a lot, and I'm glad that this was the direction Nintendo took the weapons as it offers some of the most coolest weapons we've seen up to this point. I can only wonder what they'll do for Splatoon 4's new main weapons.
So that's what I've been thinking about anyway. What do you think about these weapons? Do you think they go against the core fundamentals that their class established up to this point, or did another weapon do it first? Take some time to think about your weapons. Perhaps there's a lot more to them then you initially thought. I've been Vega, and I'll see you in my next ramble.
