OC Now that we're two weeks into Sizzle Season, what are your thoughts on the patch?

missingno, 11 months ago

Barnacle and Dime is still A Splatoon 3 Map™, but at least it's one of the better ones. I like the design of mid, and it feels balanced in terms of giving backliners good places to stand but not too good. I think it's great for SZ and CB. RM is sadly too linear. TC is just okay but feels a bit snowbally around the uninkable.

I was dreading Humpback Pump Track, but it's been a long time since I actually played S2. Oh no, this map is even worse than I remember. The second worst sin a map can commit (the first is being Saltspray Rig) is forcing me to drop down into mid with no way to retreat once displacement specials get thrown at me. We could've had The Reef or Snapper Canal, why this?

Jammin' Salmon Junction is challenging in all the right ways. The size of the map really tests your ability to lure, but doesn't have any particular trouble spots that just feel awful if something spawns there. It sits solidly in a middle difficulty between Fission/Sockeye and Grounds/Bay.

Big Run on Undertow Spillway was rough. High tide was really good, normal tide alright, but low tide was an absolute disaster. Getting pincered on both sides, and the basket is a deadly moshpit. I had half a mind to jump in the water and save some time whenever RNG rolled low.

I was really concerned about rebranding Open as a replacement for League, because Open matchmaking sucks. I wanted League so that my team could actually get matched with other teams, dammit. Well it seems like they've done some undocumented changes to the matchmaking, because it does prioritize matching teams with teams much more often, and it's surprisingly good now. See, Nintendo can do good matchmaking, now fix solo queue next.

Challenges, eh. Trizookas was funny but I'm allergic to frontline so I was horribly unproductive, we'll see if future ones appeal to me more. I'm honestly not super bothered by the timeslots because I can already see this isn't something I would grind often, so I see why Nintendo would worry about queues being dead if they left if open. My real concern is that I don't understand the point of Challenges that are just normal Turf or Zones, like we have queues for that already.

I do not think S-Blast 92 is well designed. The main weapon almost straight outclasses almost every other Blaster. A Range Blaster with perfect accuracy and a Luna with Clash radius in the same package, that's insane. Apparently Nintendo's idea of how to balance this thing is to simply hold it back with the worst possible kit imaginable. Is it balanced? Yes. But I just don't think that's a healthy way to balance the game. I am afraid of what the second kit might do, and I wonder if they'll do anything about the whole rest of the damn Blaster class now. Also, they really didn't need to give it 300 damage in Salmon Run, that's ludicrous.

Painbrush... I'm still not sure what to make of it. The large hitboxes are quite frightening, but the ink efficiency is a pretty critical weakness. I feel like I'm starting to see a lot less of them already, did the hype die off?

I can see what most of the new kits are going for, they've almost all got some cool synergies. But they're also almost all made of pieces too undertuned to shine even with those synergies. I do think some of these could be great with the right buffs, but I'll get to the balance patch in a minute.

Personally, not much I want to play in here. Heavy Deco is the only backliner, and while I see why other Heavy players like a more aggressive kit, I'm the opposite. Kraken on a backliner means nothing to me, I don't want to be in positions where Kraken would get value. I tried a bit of Rapid Pro Deco and it does feel like the kind of midline poker I would want to play if it was better, but it just doesn't feel strong enough. Just a thought for you Nintendo, if S-Blast is allowed to have accuracy, please let other blasters get a taste of that.

The balance patch is pretty bad. Machine and Stamper got shot DEAD, like holy shit those are some overnerfs. Meanwhile Splash continues to get away with murder, and Ballpoint just got its idiotic 3.0 buff reverted (why did it ever get that to begin with?) but no further changes.

What really puzzles me though is that not a single subweapon was changed. The theme of this season was low tier subweapons apparently, every single new kit has a bad sub. So I'd hoped that the balance patch would be aimed at finally buffing all these subs, but nope. No changes whatsoever. Sorry to all these kits being held back then.

The Salmon Run buffs on the other hand though, really nice. Quite a lot of weapons got sauce.

Biggest miss of this season though has to be whatever sicko thought it was okay to give Wiper Deco 190p.