Splatoon 2 Tier Lists, The Metagame and Tournaments

[Burst{N.A}]

Metagame

• You know how people complain about how USA follows what Japan does all of the time? The meta is so stale here. What do we have? Splattlings, Blasters, Enperry Dualies, Tteks, and Rapid Blasters. I'm not saying use everything and be all different, but other weapons can work as well, and new weapons don't really get time to shine until people "understand" them in solo-Q. On their OWN. We need to help each other out just a bit more, we need to grow this community to the best of our ability. Using what's easy all of the time WONT be beneficial.

Tier Lists

• Tier lists are very niche, and aren't paid attention to like that, but I still want this to be heard. Not only are tier lists are all over the place and are usually made by one person's opinion, I find it unfair to put a weapon at "low tier", and then be seen as utter garbage for not being versatile in all modes. It's true, some weapons are only good in certain maps and certain modes, and have a hard time in some others. That doesn't make the weapon purely bad. That's why we need to rank weapons in a specific manner: Modes and/or Map Variants. Yes, people can determine these with a bit of common sense, but we need to actually organize weapons like this it so that way people can see what's good in what. Some weapons aren't viable rn, and that's okay, but this will help determine if some weapons really ARE not viable. That is the next step we need in tier lists, for us to all work on tier lists together and making things more specific.

Tournaments (For lower tiers)

• We need to normalized tournaments that exclude overused weapons (X tier? S+) to give other weapons light. It would also be a great idea to make tournaments and scrims where you only use newer weapons. This would help determine if weapons are actually good for the meta. In general, basically, I feel like this community could benefit on taking the Smogon approach (Smogon is a competitive pokemon system that make tier lists on usage and host tournaments for specific tiers.)

 

[Weavile]

Yeah does kind of suck seeing the same things all the time, on the bright side there was a time you had to have one or even two N-zap 85's on a team to succeed,long ranged weapons were almost never seen and triple Tri teams reigned surpreme. So in my opinion the metagame was a lot better than it's earlier stages. Still at least the two best specials right now need more skill to use them to their best potential and not just press a button and not get killed.

 

[Marsha]

I mean, I can kinda understand both sides of the meta argument, tbh.

On the one hand, people should be able to use whatever they want in a game and not be sneered and jeered at because the weapon they use is "low tier" and therefore treated as garbage. There are plenty of people out there who are actually pretty good at using those "low tier" weapons, and those weapons in fact feel comfortable for them to use. And contrary to popular belief, it's not always because those weapons are actually easy to use.

On the other, though, is the fact that often, "low tier" weapons usually don't perform well across all maps or modes, like you said, and on top of that, a lot of weapons have weaknesses that, once an experienced player figures them out, are fairly easy to punish. This is why weapons that can score kills and do their job almost regardless of the individual player's skill or the map/mode tend to be higher-tier. Even if people know how to deal with them, they still pose a pretty big threat.

I do support the idea of lower-tier tournaments and a map/mode based tierlist system, though. I'm very tired of seeing "X or S/S+ rank only," like the vast majority of people are in those ranks. The problem with applying that to the meta, though, is that in tournaments there are usually circulations of maps, and in regular gameplay there are two maps at a time that remain unknown until you're about to start the match. So many times I've looked at the ranked spread and thought "wow, x weapon would be really good for that map but using it on that other map would be suffering."

 

[Burst{N.A}]

Yeah does kind of suck seeing the same things all the time, on the bright side there was a time you had to have one or even two N-zap 85's on a team to succeed,long ranged weapons were almost never seen and triple Tri teams reigned surpreme. So in my opinion the metagame was a lot better than it's earlier stages. Still at least the two best specials right now need more skill to use them to their best potential and not just press a button and not get killed.

true true

 

[Ketatnet]

You know how people complain about howl USA follows what Japan does all of the time? The meta is so stale here. What do we have? Splattlings, Blasters, Enperry Dualies, Tteks, and Rapid Blasters.

I agree that parroting Japan is stupid, however "We need to use more weapons" is not the answer. The problem with taking Japanese metagame and c/p'ing it is that it results in a lack of critical thinking, not that it kills variety. Whether the meta comes from somewhere else or not there will always be a top and bottom tier. That's just the nature of competitive games and forcing weapons with clear weaknesses for the sake of variety into competitive matches wont help anything. Blindly following Japan's strats hurts critical thinking and meta development because it limits our scene from picking and theorycrafting with a purpose. When it comes to most players thought process on weapons and team comps you typically see either "Japan runs it, it must be good!" or "We need variety for the sake of variety."

Tier lists are very niche, and aren't paid attention to like that, but I still want this to be heard. I find it unfair to put a weapon at "low tier", and then be seen as utter garbage for not being versatile in all modes. It's true, some weapons are only good in certain maps and certain modes, and have a hard time in some others. That doesn't make the weapon purely bad. That's why we need to rank weapons in a specific manner: Modes and Map Variants. Yes, it's a bit of common sense, but we need to actually organize weapons like that, it would work out. A general tier list is important, but that is the next step.

This is a bit of a nonissue if you ask me, or at least a very small one, but the main problem with making tier lists in a game like this is how viable strats vary by maps and gametypes. Do you make a list by all maps/gametype, multiple for each gametype, map specific? It just isnt a very efficient way to communicate viability in this game if you ask me.

Some of these already exist, but we need more like them. We need to normalized tournaments that exclude X tier and S+ tier weapons, to give other weapons light. It would also be a great idea to make tournaments and scrims where you only used newer weapons.

All I really care to say regarding this is, you play to win :shrug:
Truly competitive teams are going to use and abuse the strongest comps and strats. See above regarding variety being a nonissue.

 

[BBGrenorange]

In a game of this nature there’ll always be some weapons that are better than others, and players will naturally gravitate towards those weapons because they want to win.

Complaining (not entirely sure if this thread is a complaint or what tbh) about it isn’t going to change that, and there are still a decent number of competitively viable weapons for players to choose from.

Also last time I checked nobody is ridiculed for using low-tier weapons. What people ARE sometimes ridiculed for is being bad at the game.

Just let people play the weapons they want and enjoy the game lol.

 

[Burst{N.A}]

I agree that parroting Japan is stupid, however "We need to use more weapons" is not the answer. The problem with taking Japanese metagame and c/p'ing it is that it results in a lack of critical thinking, not that it kills variety. Whether the meta comes from somewhere else or not there will always be a top and bottom tier. That's just the nature of competitive games and forcing weapons with clear weaknesses for the sake of variety into competitive matches wont help anything. Blindly following Japan's strats hurts critical thinking and meta development because it limits our scene from picking and theorycrafting with a purpose. When it comes to most players thought process on weapons and team comps you typically see either "Japan runs it, it must be good!" or "We need variety for the sake of variety."

This is a bit of a nonissue if you ask me, or at least a very small one, but the main problem with making tier lists in a game like this is how viable strats vary by maps and gametypes. Do you make a list by all maps/gametype, multiple for each gametype, map specific? It just isnt a very efficient way to communicate viability in this game if you ask me.

All I really care to say regarding this is, you play to win :shrug:
Truly competitive teams are going to use and abuse the strongest comps and strats. See above regarding variety being a nonissue.

I never meant to say that we should just blindly play bad weapons, but we need to go and show potential for others, there are more than 10 weapons that are good and that can work in this game. I will admit that the higher used weapons are easier to throw in a team comp than others, but some of these harder to use weapons are getting flack for no reason, like the entire charger class, and just specials in certain modes.

 

[Burst{N.A}]

No, people make fun of people when you use certain weapons like Inkbrush for example. If a team is having a scrimmage, sometimes it will end JUST because of weapon use, because people think they're joking. I never meant to really say that "USE EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T META", but it would be nice for non-meta weapons to have a place to be used, similar to Smogon (a competitive pokemon ruleset) and if people learn it there more, it would be easier to understand. (Gonna have to edit what I'm trying to say a bit).

 

[Weavile]

One of the things that always peeved me is that people judge people's skill depending how meta their weapon of choice. Like someone would say their a better than a TTek player solely because they use the 4k or the other way around. Competitive players want the best weapon so they can win, so they chose the weapon they feel it's best. Others want to use the weapon they want to use. If a Clash Player didn't do well in a battle it's not because they're using the clash, it's because they didn't play the objective, they lost fights that needed to be won, didn't cooperate, was unaware etc. Both Meta preachers and meta haters are pretty toxic to both the Casual and Competitive communities of Splatoon, Smash, Street Fighter etc.

 

[Mar$el]

Use whatever you want but be good enough at it to be able to play it at a competitive level. pK played e4ks in tournament, and others like dynamon and squirt have been playing dynamo even when people said it was trash (not entirely sure about dynamon I'm just assuming). Yes some weapons are easier to play than others and have more payout at a lower cost but in general I think people should be more open to people being good at other weapons. I think this is improving in general lately but still not amazing. For me I haven't watched a ton of competitive streams as I used to and the meta is so divers it's hard for me to decipher what exactly the meta is. From what I can tell dualies are very prominent in jp but a lot of na is still hung up on rapids and stingray backliners. I notice a lot of weapons becoming more prominent like charger and I know inkjet has been very prominent for months (which is odd cause meta specials used to change like every 2 months). Meta has gotten a lot less defined lately but there are still weapons that are considered trash tier (like the inkbrush) that can be played at a fairly high level. At the very very top level your weapon choices are absolutely gonna matter a ton but in terms of like the general luti community as I like to call it, you can play whatever you want as long as you're good enough at it.

 

[Daxxie]

I never really understood the meta based on area until the Japanese Splatfest removed them from the pool, in that time I saw a lot of Clash Blasters to the point that some matches would have multiple on each team, and honestly a more diverse range of weapons than I usually see. Now that the Splatfest is over I'm back to seeing Nzaps and Dualie galore.

What are the meta weapons in NA anyway, for a clearer understanding.

 

[Weavile]

I never really understood the meta based on area until the Japanese Splatfest removed them from the pool, in that time I saw a lot of Clash Blasters to the point that some matches would have multiple on each team, and honestly a more diverse range of weapons than I usually see. Now that the Splatfest is over I'm back to seeing Nzaps and Dualie galore.

What are the meta weapons in NA anyway, for a clearer understanding.

Mostly TTek, Enperries, Heavys, Splat Chargers, Rapids, Custom Dualie Squelchies, Custom Jet, Blasters, Splat brella and Slosher Deco.

 

[Burst{N.A}]

I never really understood the meta based on area until the Japanese Splatfest removed them from the pool, in that time I saw a lot of Clash Blasters to the point that some matches would have multiple on each team, and honestly a more diverse range of weapons than I usually see. Now that the Splatfest is over I'm back to seeing Nzaps and Dualie galore.

What are the meta weapons in NA anyway, for a clearer understanding.

Ttek, Enperry, Charger, Nzap, Rapid Blaster/Pro. Specials? Inkjet in everything, sting ray in tower, and baller in clam blitz. That's a good basic start. Meta isn't that bad, it's just players need to diversify their weapon pull and their team comps just a bit in my opinion.

 

[The Salamander King]

Basically, the way I see it now is that most weapons are "viable" but there are almost always much better options for the role. TTek, Emperries, and Custom Blaster are the best slayers, so they get played over all others most of the time.

Also, can someone tell me why Heavy isn't seen as much anymore? It was (and always has been) seen as the better Jet. Why all of a sudden is CJS played more? I'd argue that Heavy has more advantages than CJS, like much better painting and moving speed.

 

[Daxxie]

Basically, the way I see it now is that most weapons are "viable" but there are almost always much better options for the role. TTek, Emperries, and Custom Blaster are the best slayers, so they get played over all others most of the time.

Also, can someone tell me why Heavy isn't seen as much anymore? It was (and always has been) seen as the better Jet. Why all of a sudden is CJS played more? I'd argue that Heavy has more advantages than CJS, like much better painting and moving speed.

Stingray & Burst Bombs? I've got no idea.

 

[Mar$el]

Basically, the way I see it now is that most weapons are "viable" but there are almost always much better options for the role. TTek, Emperries, and Custom Blaster are the best slayers, so they get played over all others most of the time.

Also, can someone tell me why Heavy isn't seen as much anymore? It was (and always has been) seen as the better Jet. Why all of a sudden is CJS played more? I'd argue that Heavy has more advantages than CJS, like much better painting and moving speed.

Actually you really don't see either anymore. The classic cjs heavy charger backliners has shifted more into things like explosher, cydra (a super good pick), actually still chargers, and the occasional rapid pro. As of now I'd say the giants are charger and cydra in terms of backlining.

Also to add to the pool of slayers, you have tetras, and the occasional dapples (not very much anymore though). Dualies are very very strong rn with their dodge rolls, mvp obviously the enperries, but tetras following behind them.

Also worth a big shoutout are the custom dualie squelchers which are hard not to come by in a team comp. A very strong flex weapon and very popular right now.

 

[ϛ(°³°)/`]

Actually you really don't see either anymore. The classic cjs heavy charger backliners has shifted more into things like explosher, cydra (a super good pick), actually still chargers, and the occasional rapid pro. As of now I'd say the giants are charger and cydra in terms of backlining.

I typically play backliner weapons, particularly the Heavy series, and it’s been that way since the first game. I usually dismissed the Hydra as inferior given that it sacrifices a ton of mobility and efficiency for a tiny bit of extra range and a 3 hit splat at a full charge (which I argued wasn’t worth the load up time).

How wrong I was. The Custom Hydra is unbelievably reliable at securing kills at max range, usually not succumbing to falloff damage-induced 4 hit splats. Armour is always great, especially as a backliner, and even the mines are useful for keeping tabs on flanks and clearing your feet if an enemy paints around you. The only thing that might have been nicer would be Beakons, but even then they might see better use on the Ballpoint Nouveau with a Comeback/QSJ/Sub Power set.

 

[chubbypickle]

i know this is a bit off topic but my main weapon has beakons and why is it that players in rank x don't have any idea how to jump to them? this is no joke i always have them everywhere and they don't get used, i actually see them all the time swimming from spawn. So because of this i find that the huge advantage they have gets wasted.