What's your claim to your rank?

[Cuttleshock]

I use the expression as in 'claim to fame' - in other words, why do you have the rank that you do, or, otherwise, why do you think you should have a higher one (if you have the unfortunate experience of being stuck in a rank in which you outplay opponents consistently but still lose a lot)? Name your best or a couple of your best traits in playing.

For example, you might be relatively poor at playing the objective, but your consistent shots with a charger keep you in your rank. Or you could be fantastic at turf control and mobility, even if you can't consistently take out opponents on your own. Alternately, you could be an all-rounder who generally matches the skill level required of your rank.

In my case, I find that a disproportional amount of splats I get come from Splat Bombs (when I'm using them). Generally, my Sub weapon usage is my strong suit, and my ability to get bombs where I want them to land seems to outdo that of most S-rankers; even if I'm not using Splat Bombs, I still help take enemies out with Burst Bomb splash damage or consistently support teammates with the non-offensive Subs. If I don't have enough ink to use my Sub or am on my own and lack an offensive Sub, I tend to be sub-par in combat.

 

[Hero of Lime]

My rank is S+. What got me here was LOOOOOOOOOOOTS of play time under my belt. In the days leading up to my break into S+, I played so many ranked battles. For those of you who don't know, when you are in the high S rank range, you get very few points per win, at least that's how it was when I first got to S+.

For my strengths, in Splatzones, I am very reliable to keep the zone under our control. It's what I focus on the most in zones battles, which is why I usually don't get many splats in that mode. However, since I am not super offensive, zones can be hard to win if the enemy team is really solid, and has the weapons to keep mine back. So zones can be a 50/50 kind of mode for me.

Rainmaker is a mode I do very well in, mainly due to my nature of focusing on flanking in that mode. Certain maps like Walleye and Triggerfish are my favorites in rainmaker for that very reason. And unlike zones, I am a more offensive player, willing to get down into the middle and pushing the RM.

As for weaknesses, Tower control is just a mode I'm not quite good with. I will admit, I hate being on the tower, not because I want to ignore the objective, but because it's super stressful, especially since you can't rely on your teammates to cover you properly. I help preserve my main account's ranking by keeping away from TC. I plan to get a lot of practice on my alt.

 

[EBJustin]

I have been residing in the S+ rank for quite some time. What got me here was the Dynamo Roller as I learnt how to master the weapon. Nowadays, I can play a lot of weapons, but the class I main is the Charger weapon class. I played for a long time to get me here with constant solo queue matches and occasional squads. I like that I have improved tremendously over the course of 9 months. Sometimes of course my team doesn't always make the best decisions and I end up carrying, but that's fine because it happens. If we lost? I probably contributed to the loss in some way or another. I really hope that aside from attempting developing a dominant individual presence that I may be able to help the team out with the objective as well, as I really love to focus on the objective.

 

[TeaBee]

For me, I play more like a bodyguard or Assassin. I sneak in areas that players don't suspect and splat them including spawn deaths (well if you count splats around the center of the stage or not near the enemy spawn point). The bad part about sneaking is that your team mates either super jump or huddle close to you. As for the bodyguard part, I either help flank, throw bombs, or bubble a team mate who's in a pickle. The weapon I mostly use is the Splattershot Jr. Oh and I also try to be a diversion, which I really need to work on. I used to have an S+ rank, but now I'm back to an S average. The modes I mostly play on are Splat zone and Tower Control. I'm trying to get better with Rainmaker. On the brightside, at least I'm getting some decent cash from rank matches.

 

[StaffofSmashing]

I feel as if I'm an S+ roller. However, I'm better than S ranks but since there's this huge jump in skill form S to S+, I feel as if I lie somewhere in there for now. I say that because I'm a lab monster. I know almost everything about the roller. How much of you knew there was a way to kill someone frame 1 on their super jump guaranteed? You'll have to find out.

 

[Aristeia]

Currently in S, but I spent quite a bit of time floundering in S+ before I finally lost it.

My Splatoon journey has been something of a Mega Man-style rollercoaster ride for me. I am terrible at reading the meta and determining what works best, because I play off of what feels right to me more often than what is actually good. Because of this, I learned long ago to just go with information I find on the Internet, work really hard to perfect it, and stick to what I'm good at, only branching out occasionally.

Through this I found several things. Firstly, that I am much better with close-range weapons than long-range ones. Chargers and Splatlings are a complete mystery to me, but I love Rollers and short, fast Shooters.

I also found that my talents lie in 1v1 combat rather than working as a team. Splatoon is my first shooter, but there are a myriad of skills required to be good at the game that transfer over from being good at platformers, which I am VERY GOOD at...reading terrain and using it to my advantage, and expertly maneuvering my own character around my ink. I am not the most accurate shooter, but when I can flank you in a flash and execute some of the tightest splatterhopping you can imagine, aim is secondary to the pure scare factor of encountering me without backup. I've been known to deftly evade multiple attackers at a time, isolating each combat into its own mini 1v1 and ripping off successful strings of badass splats.

The most important thing that I have learned is that rank is relative and that you NEED to put time into the game to succeed.

I've played for nearly 800 hours, which isn't a lot based on what I've seen, but it certainly isn't minute. Sometimes I can go into a game against S+ players and still remain a whirling indomitable hurricane of my pure willpower...other times I fumble around and lose to A+ players. The point is to have fun and to make your own journey epic. Currently I'm the captain of a competitive squad, and that experience has helped me greatly in what I consider my next big hurdle; reading all 8 players of a game and managing a match in a teamwork sense as opposed to an individual sense.

 

[Anaru]

I just get lucky and get good teammates a lot. I try to be Octobrush and play really stealthily, since that's the funnest way for me to play and it's the way I'm best at. I love doing stuff like beacon jumping to my own location and making me jump right over a person, so then I fall down and kill them after they walk past me. And I just flank and try to use sneaky routes/hiding spots to kill, and of course I focus on the objective a lot. But I'm really awful at aiming.

 

[Ryuji]

I'm S+ because I practically play nothing else but ranked. I love all the modes whether it's rainmaker, tower control, or zones. That said, there are certain maps which I don't like to play on. I'm quite proficient with short to mid range weapons and I play aggressively. I try to focus on the objective as much as possible.

I initially struggled in S rank after the patch which added S and S+ rank, being stuck in it for a good few months. But I realized there were still ways in which I could improve. So I reevaluated my playstyle and found my weak areas. After a long struggle, I finally succeeded. I was pretty happy.

Ultimately though, I could still improve despite being S+ rank. I want to get max eventually, but still struggling to get there. There are definitely things I could do better.

 

[SurrealSquid]

I honestly have no clue. Sometimes, I completely crush everyone in sight and do sick plays, other times, I catch myself blindly rushing in and being a complete idiot at aiming.
I´m S+ rank, which I managed to keep since March (I first reached it in October, but I dropped out of it a few times).
I have no kind of weapon preferences, though I avoid the ones I´m horrible at (like sloshers), and I sometimes play awesome with one weapon and completely suck with it the next day (like the splatterscope and e-liters. went 10-0 with the custom e-liter 3K scope the other day but couldn´t do anything with it the next).
But one thing I found I´m bad at is strafing. I struggle to keep my aim steady while running around opponents, and I must be very predictable because they manage to shoot me a lot even when I have a lot of run speed and something like a Mini Splatling equipped. I definitely need to work on that.
I get disappointed by myself too at times. When we lose and one of my teammates did incredibly well while I did barely anything, I just feel sorry for them. In such situations, I try to find mistakes in my playstyle, and most of the time I do horrible because I get impatient and nervous when say, the enemy takes the lead in the last minute or gets a single-digit push going right at the start. That´s another thing I have to work on.
All in all, my skill level really depends on my mood. I can be S+ level when I feel good and confident (like during a winning streak), but play like a B rank when I feel bad (during losing streaks).
So yeah, I don´t really know where to put myself. Sometimes, I feel like I don´t deserve my rank, other times, I feel like I do.

 

[sammich]

i'm an S ranked squiffer, got within just a few points of S+ the other day but couldn't make the jump quite yet.

while sometimes i can get overwhelmed or play too riskily, i'm able to pull a lot of tight shots and knock out key opponents whose absence lets our team advance. i tend to do alright in rainmaker and in tower control (until i get tired of it, which happens faster than with other modes), but splat zones really depends on the stages and the weapons i'm against (i tend to have trouble with dynamos and splatlings who ink a zone incredibly fast and challenge/surpass my range).

i'm also pretty good at getting uncharged and half-charged splats against those who don't expect it.

 

[AlphaOmegaSplatter]

A rank, I got close to hitting S once, but I went on a losing streak. My claim to rank is that I don't play much ranked any more, but when I do, I use Heavy Splatling Deco for RM, Luna Blaster or Octoshot for TC, and anything the map fits for SZ.

 

[Xehias]

I'm currently S+ rank, but I constantly drop back down to S. In S, I can easily get back up and end up carrying most matches—seems like every time I rank down, the rotation is ideal for me to recover using my Krak-On.

But I had a long, long period of floating in S rank before I was able to reach S+ for the first time. I'm not quite sure how, but at some point something clicked and I managed to make it to S+. My best performances are with the Dynamo Rollers (vanilla and Tempered) and the Krak-On. Depends on the map and mode which one I'll pick. If it's not a rotation that favors either of these weapons, I just try to use something else and fail horribly most of the time.

 

[Nero86]

Currently at rank S on 50~70, long time I don't change ranks. I feel comfortable at it but I feel I reached a plateau and need to understand more of my own mistakes.

 

[Award]

why do you think you should have a higher one (if you have the unfortunate experience of being stuck in a rank in which you outplay opponents consistently but still lose a lot)?

Why do I get this odd feeling that line was written with me in mind even without knowing I'd visit this thread? :P

My claim to S rank is namely that I have two accounts at S rank, and my third has come within less than 20p of S rank before the game seemed to do the above and keep me locked forever in A flat with wildly ridiculous lopsided matches despite that I'm pretty consistently outplaying opponents and teammates alike in at least 2/3 of matches on that account and in the top 3 most others. (Knock wood the last time I played I had more good teams than bad teams and ended up gaining points, but not what I should have had, and did have before a series of really imbalanced matches brought me down to where I started before moving upward again.)

Also these days I pretty much play squads-only on my S accounts, and as I generally play with S+ and S friends, the lobbies are generally all S+ and S, and generally play at the same level as everyone else - some matches the hero, some matches the weak link, other matches par for the course. So given my apparent parity with other players in S/S+ lobbies and my S accounts, I'd say S is where I belong. I don't believe I'm an S+, though sometimes when I'm doing well against S+'s (or forced to play exclusively against the Top 100 in a darned splatfest) I start to wonder if maybe I really COULD be an S+, but I just don't believe I have that win 3 of every 4 matches stamina S+ requires even if the game would give me competent teams :) Well...MAYBE if I had competent teams.....but that's like wishing for a dynamo that shoots at carbon speed.... :P

Generally I'm an all rounder, you can see from my mains list I'm very flexible with roles. Sometimes with some weapons (chargers) the role is determined by the weapon, but I'm sometimes hyper aggressive, I try to be objective focused - I'm a great RM runner - TC I can hold my own but that's more weapon dependent. If I take a great turfing weapon I focus a lot on turfing, if I take a charger or something...I still seem to focus on turfing as nobody else ever seems to :P I try to adjust to what's needed in the match except for when "EVERYTHING" seems to be needed.

My weaknesses in generally I think are not always adapting fast enough to disastrous setups - I.E. by the time I figure out how to counter what's falling apart it's fallen apart too far, and lack of consistency in aim sometimes, though I have a feeling more of that might be lag induced than I tend to recognize. Same with short ranged weapons where no matter what I do my opponent seems to be just out of range even though I swore they shouldn't have been. Also in solo queue I have a bad habit of overestimating my team (believe it or not!) I'll see three of them approaching an enemy controlled tower/rm/zone, so I assume they can bring that situation under control while I can take a flank route and disrupt the rest of the opposing team -or my team gets the tower or RM or zone with only one or two squids against them so I move forward to help forge a path for them, only to discover that somehow I missed the text that apparently they LOST the objective, to one or two squids, almost as soon as they claimed it and it's now deep inside our base and moving to KO and my whole team is dead. Should I have been more alert? Yes. Was I wrong for trusting the competence of 3 squids to take 1-2 out while I scurried ahead to be their vanguard....apparently :P Mostly I'm just insufficient at carrying bad teams and outthinking how enemies can abuse the fact that we rarely have more than 2 living squids on our side - and that costs a lot of wins.

 

[Cuttleshock]

After an ultimately balanced session with both Range Blasters (that is, I went from S 41 to S 39, so equal number of victories and losses), I've determined that I cannot aim. So how am I steady in S? I think I've been playing the objective effectively despite my lack of coverage potential (this session stretched between TC and SZ) and, at least somewhat consistently, preventing flanking opponents. If my alternate skills are good enough to make up for a pathetic hit rate, I think that I've really got to do some painful but beneficial Charger practice to boost my overall capabilities.

Why do I get this odd feeling that line was written with me in mind even without knowing I'd visit this thread? :p

Ahaha... well, A) you visit all threads in Competitive, and B) I'm sure that you're not the only player holding that sentiment. But, like, yes, I was thinking about you.

 

[Dessgeega]

I achieved my S rank by being irritating to my opponents. Piles of quick respawn and good reaction times against attacks that aren't directly in my face means I either dodge a lot of specials and bombs and fire that come my way, or I'm back in position fast enough that my death didn't matter. I tend to draw the ire of chargers, and if they're trying (and usually failing) to take me out for long stretches then that means they aren't targetting my teammates. Couple that with good zoning ability and a dogged focus on the objective, and that's how I got this far.

My downside is that I can't "carry" due to aiming poorly under extreme pressure. If the enemy team's highly aggressive compared to mine, I may not get the chance to do my thing. Still, all I need is 1 or 2 really combative teammates to go for the throat and things usually work out.

 

[yokokazuo]

I am currently S+, but I'm currently staying on the low side and somewhat recently got to it. Rainmaker is generally my weakest mode, but I think I've been improving in it more. I'm not quite confident in it enough yet to do too many solo rainmakers yet though and I got to S+ mainly through Tower Control and Splat Zones which I think I am a lot better in.
I used to be in S rank for quite awhile, but I had started to watch Rezbit's videos to learn more techniques and tips with the custom 3K scope which I think is what helped me make it into S+ rank.
Currently I see my skill level as kind of a mix between S and S+ since I just got into it and I am on the low side. While I haven't ranked down yet, I have gone down to S+0 before going back up again. I also have taken a bit of a break from Splatoon so I'm not sure if I am as good still and feel a little rusty at times.

 

[Xelor]

C-

Honestly I don't know how I managed to get A other then I believe random groups of good players carried me up to A my aim is horrible I am terrible with subs I superjump and fall off to my death a lot and sometimes completely forget the objective And easily let myself get ambushed fomr behind/ side.

And yet somehow I still am In A

 

[Peachfanclub]

For the longest time I was at a measly C- because I'd just never played Ranked Battles. Six months ago I played a few rounds of Tower Control, only to stumble at my already low skill level, but that was it.

I discovered SquidBoards just last weekend, giving me the inspiration to take up Ranked Battles. After getting off to another rocky restart in Rainmaker, today I jumped from C- to C+ in about two hours. Right now I'm sitting at the doorstep to B-, just one win away from ranking up (I've been here before). My vibe meter shot up faster than it had in any session I'd played, ever.

Playing the way I have been, I would say I'm an A, but I can see myself easily achieving the S rank.

 

[Green Waffles]

I'm S+









I die to sprinklers on a regular basis <_>






Also the E-liter and the sprinkler had a baby last year.
You may know it as hydra splatling.


. . . and it got a buff last update

Spoiler: HE'S YOUR DADDY NOW

ALL ABOARD THE INK TRAIN!
CHOO CHOOOOOOOO!!! GET OUT ME WAAAAY!

Also, plan ahead when going to the objective and get aaaaaaall the lucky shots
and don't die to sprinklers like me.
... or do, misery loves company =p