Sub Weapon Synergy Tier List

OnePotWonder

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Jan 31, 2024
Messages
871
Location
Marooner’s Bay
Pronouns
He/Him
Switch Friend Code
SW-2068-8904-6306
I felt compelled to think about which weapons would work best with my favorite sub weapon and rank them on a tier list.

Ink Mine Synergy
1732902772109.png


Each tier should be fairly self-explanatory, but I'll give some explanations.

Excellent tier weapons fit all of the specifications of a good Ink Mine weapon, with the right combination of range and mobility along with damage combos to optimize their ability to place and play off of their mines. And, of course, none of them actually have the sub.

Strong tier weapons fit two out of three specifications of Excellent tier weapons, and only aren't in the highest tier due to weaker combos, lower mobility, or just the fact that they prefer other sub weapons. The exception is Inkbrush, with its unique relationship to Mines.

Decent tier weapons can function fine with Mines, but would almost always prefer something else.

Damage Combo Only tier weapons combo off of Mines' damage, but don't want the sub over other options for various reasons. Most obviously, many of the weapons in this tier want a sub to enhance paint, or help cover a paint weakness, which Mines cannot do.

Not Good tier is the last tier where weapons can glean some use from Mines, and the sub wouldn't be a kit killer as long as said kit had a strong special it could spam. These weapons only have one good trait for Ink Mine each or prefer nearly anything else over it.

Worthless tier contains the few weapon whose kits Ink Mine would instantly kill, either having none of the traits good for Ink Mine weapons or virtually no damage combos (literally none in the case of .52).

There are a few interesting quirks when it comes to this list. The most obvious is the two Gals being split between Top and Bottom tier, another is there being fewer weapons Mines are completely worthless on than work perfectly with it. The heaviest distribution of weapons lands around the middle of the tier list, which just goes to show how Ink Mine is balanced; the sub is decent on anything, rarely a kit killer and rarely better than other options. Even many of the weapons in Excellent tier would prefer other subs like Splash Wall or bombs. Mines are stuck in this awkward middle ground between the best and worst subs in the game, never terrible, but never what a weapon actually wants. I find this pretty interesting.

As for the obligatory balance idea, here's how I would buff Mines to put them closer to the level of other subs:

Ink Mine
Direct damage increased from 45 to 60
Ink cost reduced from 60% to 55%

The first change gives a lot of weapons in Decent and Not Good tiers much better damage combos, and would push a lot of weapons upward in terms of synergy with the sub. Though, the new damage number would uproot the Damage Combo Only tier and actually lower the synergy on some of its weapons, as well as a couple in Strong tier. However, this change would also cut the Worthless tier in half by giving .52, Aerospray, and Splat Roller worthwhile combos. The second change is a quality of life enhancement to leave weapons with more ink after using the sub, which is good for weapons like Brella.

Feel free to come up with your own lists down below.
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day.
 
Last edited:

QuagSass

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Jan 30, 2024
Messages
281
Location
The Chicken pen
Switch Friend Code
SW-4841-6661-0032
I'm kinda interested in your reasoning for Naut here. I think I see the vision, but I would like to hear why you think it has excellent synergy with mines. And also why Edit is in Not Good tier.
 

OnePotWonder

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Jan 31, 2024
Messages
871
Location
Marooner’s Bay
Pronouns
He/Him
Switch Friend Code
SW-2068-8904-6306
I'm kinda interested in your reasoning for Naut here. I think I see the vision, but I would like to hear why you think it has excellent synergy with mines. And also why Edit is in Not Good tier.
It's simple enough. Naut plays in forward positions and its mid-fire recharge makes deployable subs like Ink Mine particularly good for it compared to on other weapons. It can combo off of the damage and enjoys the location effect. It can usually get in fine even with the Point Sensor on its vanilla kit. Ink Mine just seems like a great fit and gives it some much-needed defensive utility.

While Edit also plays a bit more forward than other splatlings to place the mines in good spots, it's the only splatling to not combo two shots with the mines' damage. It also doesn't mind having an expensive bomb compared to other splatlings, making Ink Mine even less appealing for it when there are more good options. It can work with the sub, but probably prefers anything else that isn't Dart or Mist.
 

Vidknight

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Mar 26, 2024
Messages
162
Pronouns
He/Him
I know a good bit about curling bomb so I created a tier list for synergy Don't really feel like explaining right now. But I will later (Hopefully)

my-image.png
 

OnePotWonder

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Jan 31, 2024
Messages
871
Location
Marooner’s Bay
Pronouns
He/Him
Switch Friend Code
SW-2068-8904-6306
Curling is pretty good on Painbrush though, is it not? Gives the weapon a movement tool that doesn’t require a second of startup.
 

Vidknight

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Mar 26, 2024
Messages
162
Pronouns
He/Him
Curling is pretty good on Painbrush though, is it not? Gives the weapon a movement tool that doesn’t require a second of startup.
This is the reason why I shouldn't do tierlists at nighttime lmao. Painbrush does have great synergy with the weapon it just that I forgot to put it in a higher tier. I haven't played the weapon in 5-6 months and I seen like 2 painbrushes in solo queue during that time frame so I simply forgot everything about the weapon, but yea I would place it in the "Would work wonders" tier.
 

Mili

Full Squid
Joined
Jan 30, 2024
Messages
53
Pronouns
he/him
Switch Friend Code
SW-6426-7546-0600
@OnePotWonder Wonderin' why ink mine's good with inkbrush but not octobrush
I'm not sure if this is the reasoning OnePotWonder had in mind when making this list, but Inkbrush is much better at putting ink mines in awkward spots for the enemy team compared to Octobrush who does a lot less sneaking around, and is more reliant on sharking, I feel octobrush appreciates pokes more than deployable subs, , while inkbrush's mobility allows it more freedom on putting deployable subs in more spots than other weapons.
 

youre_a_squib_now

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Jan 30, 2024
Messages
909
Location
eastern time
Switch Friend Code
SW-8478-8105-6114
I know a good bit about curling bomb so I created a tier list for synergy Don't really feel like explaining right now. But I will later (Hopefully)

View attachment 13625
Why nautilus so high? It would much rather not lose its charge to throw the curling because it would have to charge back up to swim in it, at which point it would already be painted over.
Or it could use the curling to go in without charge. Not sure I need to explain why that's a bad idea.
 

Vidknight

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Mar 26, 2024
Messages
162
Pronouns
He/Him
Why nautilus so high? It would much rather not lose its charge to throw the curling because it would have to charge back up to swim in it, at which point it would already be painted over.
Or it could use the curling to go in without charge. Not sure I need to explain why that's a bad idea.
You are on the mark with naut. I realize now after looking at the other weapons in the tier it can follow up well with curling and get a pretty quick kill or enhance its mobility pretty well. While nautlius can't really follow up on it to well and it doesn't really need much of an escape tool since it can defend itself pretty well. So guess I'm moving naut to "eh..." and while we're at it hedit to "It can work".
 

isaac4

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Jan 31, 2024
Messages
705
Pronouns
He/Him
my-image (52).png


Normally, my process for determining main/sub synergy is a lot more complicated and takes longer than just a few days but I made this as a rough idea of what I thought would work best with Fizzy.
Obviously, Fizzy isn't bad on anything but the sub enables some weapons much more than others.
For example, Slosher would be much better with Fizzy than Machine due to just being a stronger main weapon but Slosher doesn't need Fizzy as much as Machine does.
Worse ink efficiency plays a huge factor here but Machine also focuses more on mobility and chip damage so having the paint and damage from Fizzy really helps the main play to its role better.
I'm open to changing things around since I know a lot of these might be inaccurate (I don't play most of these weapons anyway).
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom