Small question to those here, I didn't just say no spoilers since Marina's hacks are shown, do you find this a big deal if not I can simplify the title, I also want to know for the review to know what point I move the spoiler free section?
@@samohankain my opinion, that's their own fault. Why else do you think the video maker would SPECIFICALLY say no FINAL BOSS spoilers instead of, y'know, no spoilers without specification, which means no spoilers in general.
Tbh. If they’re clicking on a tier list for a thing they don’t wanna be spoiled on, that’s their own fault. Tier Lists are fundamentally gonna go in depth with it’s content
Here's the thing: Tri-Strikes have a MASSIVE advantage in that your Special Guage immediately reaches 0 after throwing the third flare. So if you have a Luck-centric build where Special Cans are EVERYWHERE, you have zero downtime between throwing flares and collecting more spare cans. Also yeah Sprinkler's sick in this mode. I LOVE Side Order.
Strike with mobile special charge is speedrunning OP Strike one-cycles every single portal. Strike one-cycles the final boss's first phase. It needs slightly more damage for the second phase. And almost two-cycles the final phase. It also is versatile. You can throw one strike at the Tower Control thing, another at the sniper tower thing targeting you, and another at the hoard coming at you. It's way more dynamic than Crab, for example. Strikes can also one cycle the upside-down cake tower mini boss thing if you get your placement right, and one cycle certain phases of the Parallel Canon mini boss if you time it right with the spawns (since the Strikes can take them out before they land).
True, but it means you have no panic button if you get surrounded. That happens so often that I just don't think it deserves S tier, especially since you need to have a build around it for that to work.
@@SomeGalNamedEve Tbh you shouldn't be in panic situations to begin with. By the time you are on floors above 25, your build and game skills should be enough. You also do NOT need a build around Strikes since it is so versatile and has insanely high damage output.
@@SomeGalNamedEveOnce you’re familiar enough with the mode, being in panic situations don’t happen as often, if at all. At that point, I’d rather have a special with insane coverage, DPS, and spamability compared to one that will keep me alive.
Ink mine is so slept on, genuinely one of the best get off me tools, easy to spam with the pearl drone, gets cracked with explosion damage, can guard the zone rather well
I lost track of how many times it bought enough time for me to get my armor back, just slapping it down while running away. The knockback is really good for clearing a perimeter around you as well.
Personally I would much rather have Splat or Burst Bombs for my sub, but Mine is absolutely godlike on Pearl and so much better than I thought it would be.
One note for inkstrike - it's crazy good against the layered floor boss. Because of how it inks in a column, it can attack all of the layers at once, meaning your can beat that boss in roughly 20 seconds with the right chips
Honestly from my runs, imo any special that has good verticality (like Trizooka) is pretty great for Rondo since it can easily reach the important layers of it
I would generally agree with this tier list except for one thing: when you run a build with lots of canned special drop. Specials like triple splashdown and reefslider immediately use all of the special gauge, which means you can immediately recharge the special gauge from all of the enemies you just blew up. Specials like ink storm and wave breaker slowly drain the charge, and if you pick up a special can, it will not make the special last longer. Canned specials would change how this tier list work
Canned specials can really make the difference for which special you can use. Being able to end the special quick/early is super nice, which is why I would rather have Slider than Kraken
Even without special gauge considerations, the output of triple splashdown and reefslider is incredibly good for completing objectives and clearing hordes; they are always very very good in this mode. I like Triple Splashdown more because the base area is so large that scaling it makes it actually just hit the entire map. Zooka is substantially worse than either because the shots don't pierce through to objectives or do quite enough damage to them, and Kraken is pretty mediocre because of how poor the clearing is and its total inability to finish off portals. Tristrike is an easy S; the base output is incredible, the scaling is outright broken, and you can spam it to no end. Also, Ink Storm is really bad because it has a cooldown, which absolutely gimps your ink economy, and it doesn't do enough damage to actually accomplish much of anything; it's nowhere near as bad as Wave Breaker (which requires like four stacks of sonic damage to become as good as the base of any other special, against certain enemies only and still not able to hit portals), but it's really low-output and especially hurts if you find something like the movement for special points chips early in a run, which are normally a win condition.
Triple Splashdown absolutely would've been in at least A for me. It's saved my life SO many times when I've been surrounded, the knockback it gives is so nice. It's probably the best "get off me" tool in the game
Got me my first clear. The explosion_festival floor killed my run before, but running triple splashdown let me clear it in 30 seconds compared to dying at 3 minutes
Imo, I'd put Triple Splashdown above Kraken for the singular reason that Strikes and Stamp can be really good: spamability. I think that, if you have special charge, lucky canned special drops, or drone canned special drops, the amount of times you can use it is insane. It's also a good ink refill and get-off-me tool that works incredibly if you're using low hacks or even low chips, which is how I first-tried 4-hack Octo Shot.
For killer wail, I find that it’s worth mentioning how well it does with any amount of Sound Damage up. It’s a very niche chip, but for that reason, the amount of damage boosting is really high. A single chip and it already does 150% more damage. Wail turns into a *killer* wail really quickly, if you have the chips.
But in big part, Sprinkler is pretty good in Side Order due to the Level Design favoring it so much and most Jelleton''s AI Pathfinding (which is pretty dumb) making it easier for them to get into the Sprinkler's Range with no much of a compromise by you. Very same reason why Sprinkler is pretty good in Salmon Run (although not as good as in Side Order)
It's pretty easy to get a set of chips that allow you to basically use Inkstrike as your main weapon, at which point the game doesn't have much to throw at you that will pose a challenge. Unlike Crab, 1 or 2 triple inkstrikes is usually enough to clear out an entire map within 7 seconds no matter where you're standing
Agreed. Crab is very strong out of the box and carries the splatana run just fine, but tristrike is also strong out of the box but scales into an absolute monster with any special generation, plus the blast radius/damage chips (which are some of the best chips in general, so it's not like you only want them for tristrike).
Would say Chara missed a little bit about splashdown, its not as good to get your armour back after its broken but its very good to help you not get your armour broken in the first place. If you're able to recognise a situation where your armour is going to get broken imminently, splashdown's fast startup can solve that issue for you. I'd say the lack of range isnt as much of a problem too because you can float with the drone to get close to things. Comparing it to something like crab, if you use crab in that same situation I feel like you'll not get a lot out of it because you'll be too busy rolling away from the swarm of jelletons to shoot at the portal you wanted to use the crab on. Splashdown both clears the portal of fish and damages it Probably doesnt compare as well to stamp tho, but its still better as a panic button imo
Triple splashdown is especially good with any special recharge chips (splating and lucky drops in particular) since using it resets the meter almost instantly, so combine recharge with knockback, damage, and radius, and you can pretty much do a splashdown only run.
Yeah Triple Splashdown isnt as bad as Chara made it out to be, just a couple of special charge up chips and special can drops and you're in ground-pound heaven,, Afterall there was a reason Splashdown was brought back as Story Mode's own panic button
something cool to note is rush damage (used for stuff like the brush) actually affects stamp which makes it absolutely MELT EVERYTHING, INCLUDING the final boss
Mine was the mvp with just one explosion size, and some splat inktank refill. Carried me through any close range situation with my first victory on the tower. Just keep strafing and spamming mines and nothing can reach you. (Including the arpaggio missile guys)
3:17 Counterpoint: splash damage and splash radius can be applied to way more than just bomb sub weapons. They also boost most of the better specials, nearly every one of pearl drone's attacks, the lucky bombs granted by the lucky chain perk, and more. Once you realize how generous the game is with what's considered "splash damage," it becomes a perk that has a place in nearly any build, and having just one or two splash damage chips scales better than if you had 2-3x as many main damage ones so it's almost always worth picking up. And that's not even mentioning how good splash radius is (it's a radius buff so 30% bigger means a single bomb covers an area 1.69x as large, and it comes with better paint as well so it's like two perks in one vs other color chips where range and ink coverage are separate things). For this reason, I personally would rank all the bomb sub weapons a tier or two higher, if you're going for a strong build you'll almost always want chips to boost splash damage anyway. Except for fizzy, honestly I think that might be the worst bomb because charging it is too much of a hassle in this mode (and it gets even worse if you invest in sub saver since it can't be spammed)
Fizzy also just doesn't do that much damage. Remember from multiplayer that fizzy does 35 damage on a chip hit and 50 on a direct, while other bombs do 30 on a chip hit and 180 on a direct. The damage ratios are similar in side order, so Fizzy often ends up doing less than a third of the damage that a splat or suction bomb would do. You also generally don't have much interest in a long, thin paint trail in this mode, as you're mostly dealing with winding paths, walls, and wanting to hold your ground with a wide field of your own ink to slow enemies.
@@celestialspark5697 yeah, pretty much. I don't like burst bomb much either for similar reasons, but it's the only bomb that always explodes on impact so it still has its uses
Worth noting with Stamp: Both the rush mode AND the throw mode are improved by Rush Attack chips. If you're stacking Rush Attack anyways, Ultra Stamp is by FAR the best special choice.
Even better, Stamp comes with the Brush palette out of the gate, which is biased towards Mobility chips, including the Rush ones, so it is very easy to build into.
@@robert2german Yes! And with Mobile Special Gauge your stamp output is INSANE. You can make quick work of any portal objective using just Ultra Stamp once the chips start rolling in.
2:00 Ink mine is a B-A tier for me, but only if it's used on pearl drone. What it is there is an instant detonate Suction bomb that spawns on your position, OR just an ink mine that can be placed multiple times. It's good late game, at least, if on pearl drone.
From playing side order, I think my favorite kit is probably Luna, Splatbomb, Splashdown. The stacking with explosion radius and splash damage is just so insane, especially with the spawner levels since broken spawners are also affected by the buffs. It’s just so satisfying
Is there a reason for Splat over Suction? They use the same amount of ink, both detonate instantly on portals, and suction has a bigger radius. I've not really found any spots where the fuse on splat bomb really mattered other than Intensifying Harmony.
Crab is SO GOOD at shredding portals, pushing tower, and dealing with the final boss. You just circle around the arena dodging it's attacks until you have it ready.
I find that once you learn the optimal way to beat most or every stage there tend to be very few situations where you're in dire need of a panic button. Having something with crazy DPS, such as Strikes, is much preferable, and in regards to Strikes their vulnerability ain't much a problem once you know where you should be positioned to win each map. Also, Crab I've found to not be as good a panic button if you're surrounded or by an edge since you can be hit from behind or knocked off in ball form. And while I'm at it, I haven't found Booyah to be all that nice as a panic button since unlike in PvP or Salmon Run where you've got teammates for the enemy to focus on while you're in the air, in Side Order all the enemies just pool beneath you, so if you panic the special you're usually just forced to throw it at your feet. On another note, charging Booyah without a "Booyah!" button feels weird!
In defense of Ink mine, if you are running charger I find it invaluable early game when charger struggles with crowd control, and it serves you the late game with the many knockback and sub saver chips you’ll accumulate by the end. However, on faster weapons like splattershot, brush, dualies, etc, it is hard to get good use out of when your other options both early and late game are far greater.
As someone who speed runs Side Order its really funny to see all these ranked from a casual stand point, cus in speed runs things like sprinkler are basically completely worthless, and even specials like crab tank are way less preferable to like Ustamp and Tristrike when you’re trynna go fast.
Triple Splashdown was my go-to in side order mostly because I'm terrible at ink management. It takes so little to charge up, especially with special charge perks, so if I'm ever out of ink I just pop a splashdown, get everything off of me, and have a full ink tank to do whatever I want with (farm another splashdown). I think it provides a lot of value in a very easy-to-use package, all while not requiring much chip investment.
I did once run the very last level basically spamming strike. I think that it may just depend. But both it and booyah bomb are my top tier. Part for familiarity and part for the ability to chuck something at a goal that's across the map rather than having to actually get to it.
The areas where I found ink wall to be strong was where there were strong choke points I could funnel enemies into. For instance, that one tower control stage with the sniper tower in the middle while you go around it. You go on these 2 higher platforms with 2 ramps and you can easily lead enemies up one of them, making ink wall pretty solid in those situations.
ink mine top 3 fizzy bottom 3 burst bottom 5 mine is a good get off me tool like splat bomb, doesn't kill but it has good knockback and is relatively cheap. fizzy and burst don't do damage and there's almost no reason to use them over your main weapon, especially fizzy since burst at least has utility for chase stages.
i dont care what anyone says but inkmine is my goat... i stayed in a corner for around 2 minutes spamming it for dear life and it carried me to victory so many times lmao. of course things like sprinkler and splat bomb are better but mine is def underrated in my eyes.
One thing about triple splash down (and I guess stamp too) is that most enemies want to be right next to you; that means that the situation where a lot of enemies are next to you is very common. Another thing is that the special is so fast; it can just be used to refill your ink tank (I guess this one also applies to stamp throwing mode).
Tri strike is easily the best special on every build besides rush damage where it is outclassed by stamp. It clears every objective instantly from range, resets instantly to make grabbing cans more effective, and kills every enemy in one hit while also protecting yourself by throwing it at your feet. If you invest in a reasonable amount of special charge and blast damage, it insta kills every overlorder phase as well as trivializing rondo/harmony. It is bar none the best special and it contributed massively to my no hacks runs for each weapon.
I will say, curling bomb is great for the final boss, as a way to stay back while still dealing some damage. You can kite at the edge of the arena, cook it for like half a second, and it'll explode just after impacting the boss. Also can help you run away if you don't have a large dodging area for the sting ray attack.
I think sprinklers are a bit overated. The thing that people are overlooking is that bombs will insta explode on contact with a portal. This makes them S tier against the final boss and an entire subset of battles. Use a bomb, any special for extra damage, and then throw your ink refilled bomb for an instant explosion. If you want to truly speeedrun this stuff then bombs are your ticket to getting a lot of things done before enemies can even spawn in a lot of cases. Not to mention the explosive up makes them do more damage alongside lucky bombs. One run I got a bunch of lucky bombs plus explosive up and I would be tossing curling bombs of all things all over and cleared the rigorous rooms without hardly doing anything.
personally i think burst bomb is the best sub, just because it's so instantaneous, and it's still an explosion-type weapon so it has good knockback by default. i think it becomes an even better get-off-me tool than splat bomb (and it's cheaper to boot); one explosion knockback chip and enemies will never get near you again. sprinkler is a close second though, and i fully agree with crab and stamp being at the top. it's really funny to think that sprinkler stamp is such a god tier kit in side order
Gotta say, imo, Triple Splashdown is second to reef in terms of how good it is as a panic button. Personally I get surrounded a lot very quickly, and TripleSplash has helped immensely. I *think* the explosion chips help in terms of damage for it, and its knock-back alone already makes it a good get off me tool like Slider. S Tier for me.
Kinda surprised that Kraken did as well as it did. I believed it was the worst special in Side Order. In hindsight I do see that using it to survive is crucial, even if it doesn't do much else.
imo tristrike is better than crab, the dps is insane and you can delete objectives like portals with no sweat, other than that, i think the tier list is spot on
From my experience slider has more uses than splashdown. More chips can stack with slider and lining up lessers for plowing actually does work. Plus I THINK the knock back is higher with slider with explosions.
One thing you might want to take into account is that specials that can be cycled through quickly are significantly helped out by the Canned Special Drops (specifically Splashdown, Slider, and Inkstrike) since you can actually start chaining them very easily against fast-spawning hordes. Found that to be really helpful when I got the Splashdown weapon especially!
Curling is honestly really good. Besides movement if you charge it becomes a really nice lane guarder. Pair it with Reed slider, or even better brella. And you can have the brella charge forward followed by an explosion, which is usually enough to kill. Genuinely whenever I see people struggle with it it’s either because they didn’t try to take use of its ability to pair with weapons. AKA: what a sub should do!
if yall are using splashdown, i'd super recommend you try out stacking up on luck chips & canned special drops. that special is INCREDIBLY fun when you can just splashdown a giant crowd of enemies which all die at once & immediately drop special recharges so you can go do it again. it's great if you're struggling with crowds.
Putting ink strike at only S is doing it a huge disservice. It has absolutely mouthwatering amounts of disservice. As you mentioned, having a special charge build for it is very good. I actually had a build like that, which used brush and the special charge while moving chip. It's survivability is great too, because anytime you're in danger, just throw it at your feet and you're safe. You can move while throwing it, so you won't immediately get mauled by enemies. Even if you lose your shield, there will be no more enemies around you to finish you off. Ink strike is the best special for side order in my opinion.
I don't agree with a lot of the special placement, I think that any tool that clears an area works exceptionally well as survivability. Most enemies can only do melee attacks, and all ranged attacks are easy to avoid. So I think Inkstrike and Triple Splashdown are the best. I find the best defense to be a good offense, I have literally never struggled when I have specd into inkstrike, especially if I had a pearl drone inkstrike chip for even more kaboom. Comparitively, I find the crab tank to be slow and unweildy, sometimes when I have been seriously swarmed I have still died after popping crab. But if I pop insktrike and throw em at my feet, area cleared, especially if I have explosion damage and radius chips.
Splashdown is by far my favorite to use, since I always spec into high special charge. The DPS is actually REALLY good with just a few splash damage chips, and even though you don't have time to regen armor, 99% of the time it'll kill whatever is right next to you or at least knock them away. With the damage being what it is and how fast it is to use it makes for one of the best specials to spam every five seconds
A lot of this feels completely wrong to me lol, but I mean this is coming from a comp player's perspective so it makes sense, and of course opinions For reference, my sub tier list would be: X: Splat bomb S: Suction bomb, curling bomb A: Fizzy Bomb, sprinkler B: Ink mine, Toxic mist C: Splash wall And for specials X: Triple splashdown, Reefslider S: Crab tank, Booyah Bomb, Ultra stamp A: Triple Inkstrike, Trizooka, Kraken Royale B: Killer Wail 5.1, Ink Storm C: Wave Breaker Open to discussions, edited with some talk
Drop Wave Breaker to like F tier (or C if you don't want to make it), up Killer Wail to A, add Ink Storm in B tier. Being locked out of special recovery is absolutely awful in Side Order since specials are one of the best ways to manage ink, and Wave Breaker doesn't even deal with most enemies or damage portals, plus is way too localized for how much you want to move around, and half or more of the maps have massive elevation differences it doesn't deal with at all. Ink Storm has slightly better output, but still most of the same problems. Killer Wail is one of the better boss-killers and can reliably help with portals, killing the sprinkler guys in zones, and hitting the tower, which are really useful things to be able to do at unlimited range, even if the actual clear is kind of whatever; the special lockout on it is also pretty negligible compared to storm and wave. Stamp up to X, slider down to S, possibly tristrike up to X, Booyah down to A. Stamp is some of the best DPS in the game out of the box, scales with rush damage, has absolutely no issues with anything the game asks of you other than the elusive bounder boss (where it still wins easily, just is a little slower), and is the most consistent speedrunning tool. It does take up your whole character, but unlike Crab and especially Kraken, the damage is really hard to actually pass with other builds. Slider has some issues with dropping elevations and not the largest AoE, even if it's generally solid, but being able to hit portals while blowing away enemies near them is still nice. Tristrike has incredibly high base output, tons of range, and monstrous chip scaling while being available to charge again immediately. Booyah has a pretty severe issue where you always have to Booyah your feet or you just die on landing, and I really don't like it that much because of that. Suction in X, no idea how this is not just better Splat Bomb at the same cost but with bigger AoE. Mine to S, curling to A, Fizzy to B, mist to B. Mine is really strong protection with crazy paint and knockback. Curling and fizzy just don't really do a particularly useful thing for this mode with a thin paint trail; Curling is also hard to do damage with unless you charge it fully, and Fizzy's damage is less than other bombs even if you somehow triple direct hit something. Mist is honestly pretty strong protection, trivializes the chase missions, and Hindrance Damage exists. I'd drop Sprinkler to B as well as I just don't ever feel it actually doing anything (way too slow to actually help yourself, damage is pathetic, area covered is pathetic) but people seem to like it so IDK.
@@celestialspark5697 That's a lot to read through, but let's see yeah wave breaker can probably drop, though I wouldn't really move up wail since its consistency issues with both the targeting and tracking make it unreliable for actually doing any damage to things other than portals, which many specials outclass it for. Being able to get rid of problematic enemies across the map is great on paper but when there's a hundred others between you and them it's very unlikely you'll actually wind up aiming at your target. Also, I forgot ink storm completely lmao, B tier seems fair for that yeah. Stamp and inkstrikes can also likely swap places since I only ranked strikes that high due to damage, and with stamp semi-outclassing it there it's left somewhat middling. Keep in mind a crucial part of special rankings is how well they can save/protect you, hence why reefslider and splashdowns placed so high, as they're effectively a get out of jail free card, even if they don't kill everything around you you'll receive more than enough space to escape. And with Booyah Bomb, shooting it at your feet is good for protection, but it can still be used as a long range attack if you just clear out some space before activating it. Suction is below splat bomb because it doesn't have the same cost, it's actually more expensive, if I recall correctly actually being the most costly sub in the game, and I don't think the aoe is worth it for splat bomb's faster detonation and overall better rounded use. Though of course suction has its own unique cases on some stages and scenarios. The reason curling is placed so high is because it's the last full strength bomb that explodes on contact, which makes it still very helpful against portals, which is an exceptionally valuable thing for bombs to accomplish in this mode, especially with damage hacks or chips. Mine's protection can really be accomplished the same with any other bomb, but mine can't be thrown or used at all in the air, its explosion is no stronger than anything else and I'm pretty sure it does even less damage. The reason I had it as high as it was, was because of its rather exceptional matchup against parallel canon. Fizzy bomb doesn't hurt to have, though its offensive power leaves more to be desired than the other bombs, it can still do some good long range damage and the semi curling trail can help in a pinch. I didn't fully understand what hinderance damage was before I made this list, but yeah that does seem very strong with mist, but that gives it exactly two use cases, one of them being completely dependent on chip rng. Still, that's likely enough to drag it out of C tier at least. And as for sprinkler, Chara listed a lot of valid reasons in this mode, as its damage is genuinely helpful in a mode where nothing actually attacks it, but he definitely overhyped it a ton, hence why it's where it is. Thank you for the feedback and alternate perspectives :)
I like to thing of weapon strategy in side order as sort of an expanded version of the kits you get for salmon run, in that you can combine main-sub-special in unique ways that wouldn't happen much in the normal gamemodes. I will say I think ink mine is super slept on, in my opinion it's a better emergency relief button than most of the specials like kraken or crab, it takes way less ink than a bomb, detonates basically immediately, knockbacks the fish, and with a couple buffs like splat ink recovery or splash radius, it provides basically a portable splashdown explosion for only part of your ink tank. This can free up the special gauge for less defensive specials like tri-strike or killerwail to focus on objectives, whete it's better to use the salmon run philosophy of using specials to contain the enemies and render them unable to threaten you, rather than save yourself in a situation already getting sour.
Ink Mine + Triple Splashdown + Mobile Special Charge and Special Charge up (anything that allows you to get specials faster) = practically untouchable By the end of the run you can just move 2 feet and splashdown > It paints everything > by the time anything has the chance to come close you have another splashdown > if you approach, you have a splashdown. Inkmine is very good for this mode because by nature of the AI constantly approaching, they'll just walk into them which usually buys enough time to activate another one. Pearl Inkmine is especially busted because of how often she does it.
In my first playthrough where I beat the game using the stringer, ink wall, and stamper. The wall worked out surprisingly well with the stringer since I was able to keep them further away and shoot them through the wall. Stamper was good when enemies were too close since the stringer does not do as well enemies very close to you.
Ink Mine is basically a no-range splat bomb. You don't deploy it in advance: you use it as a panic button. Its knockback reliably keeps things off you and low ink consumption makes it very affordable. Wail is strong but INSANELY hard to aim. I wish it didn't lock onto the smallest of the small fish: so often I've wanted to aim for something and just targeted something else entirely
curling bomb massively slept on here unlike other bombs it can go straight through enemies you can gain immediate control over the objective if you're being walled out for free using its explosion knockback
People often sleep on T-Splashdown because of how easy it is countered, but as long as you time it right it is actually an excellent panic button for taking out ground enemies
Ink mine actually seems pretty nice as a "get off me" tool, it blows enemies back pretty nice and is good for closer range fights where enemies surround you, being that it's not super expensive and it explodes quickly if it's instantly triggered. I do agree with splash wall, I struggle to find a use for it. It might've been decent if it had it's splatoon 1 damage or something.
Honestly the only sub I use in side order is curling bomb. I just never use my sub weapon since I only upgrade my weapon and pearl, the only time I need help is to run away and curling does that
i honestly feel like splashdown should be one of the top 3 with crab and stamp, it's the perfect 'get off me' tool against hordes especially if you're a charger or splatling, plus it kills everything around you so you can get out faster and easier without losing your main and sub weapon like crab does, plus since it isn't a special that drains over time, you can get it back almost instantly if you have the right chips, making you basically unkillable because nothing can get close without dying to splashdown
just for comparison, booyah forces you to land on top of enemies if you don't throw it at your feet, in which case you just have a worse splashdown and can still die if you land without killing everything first. tri strikes also leaves you insanely vulnerable unless you spam them all when there isn't a billion gelatins on the stage, and barely work as a 'get off me' tool
I’ve had so much fun snipping the fleeing enemies from across the map with my booyah bomb they don’t run from it like other things of its type (thrown bombs, triple splashdown, etc), at least until the dmg area starts, and at that point it’s too late and if they do manage to not be killed by it, they’ll still get flung, hopefully off the map, or close to the player
Honestly, Stamp gives you much more survivability than it gets credit for. Its radius and knockback are insane for protecting you, and the only threat to you might be a blind-side Arpeggio, perfectly-timed Nobilmente shot, or stray explosion splash damage.
Tri strike is great for survivability. You press special and throw one strike to the floor it kills all the enemies. Then you get two more to do damage. Crab tank can kill enemies and survive well, but it’s one or the other.
That's so crazy, I think Ink Mine is probably the best sub in the game-- I never use it in its vanilla PvP style "place them down and wait for them as a trap", but rather aggressive "I will click this button every time enemies approach". It's got more immediate and useful power in that regard than any of the other bombs; I don't have to wait for the bomb timer, I press R and the enemies blow up and scatter, and the whole "place it in a chokepoint" is an added bonus! And my big issue with Sprinkler is that you just can't spec into it or boost it in any way! I want to do a Sprinkler build and it just doesn't exist.
about Ink mine. I think it's actually quite solid, at least I've had very interesting runs with it. If you can get 1 ink saver saver sub upgrade, then you can hold ground for really long amount of time by spamming mine thanks to the knockback (paired with squid roll attack you can just survive forever in the middle of enemies, as mine puts down paint to allow you to squid roll more reliably)
My only argument so far is that Ink Mine is HUGE, not actually preemptively, but reactively; it has almost no arming time in Side Order, and you can drop it at your feet to give a lot of space when you're being surrounded.
mine is S tier for me lol, it’s extremely useful when you’re surrounded by enemies since it doesn’t consume a lot of your ink, and it gets REALLY powerful with splash knockback
I had a nightmare 2 nights ago where I played against prochara in splatzones, and I played so badly that prochara made an entire video making fun of me. I remember waking up in a cold sweat
Why didnt you mention splashdown as a "get off me" tool? IMO that's its main capability, it's ability to get everything off of you so you can recover (metaphorically or literally if your armor is broken)
I'd swap Kraken and slider position. Kraken doesn´t paint, has trouble dealing with targets off the ground, you can get pushed off the stage and has a lot of endlag so enemies can swarm you. Reefslider stacks with both explosion and rush chips, can be spammable with the special cans and it's a really fast movement tool. My gripe with it is that it doesn't start when you're in the air, so enemies can hit you when you land
Ink mine is good, its so good for getting rid of swarms, its a get off me tool that explodes faster than splatbomb and has better knockback, you dont place them in places youre waiting to trap jelltons on, you place them when theyre about to get on you, when the inkmine is going to explode instantly
Honestly, triple splashdown is extremely nice for when you get swarmed by too many enemies. They all die or get pushed far away, giving breathing room again
Burst Bomb is awesome if you get a Rush Attack chip, you can aggresively squid roll into the enemy, then Burst Bomb your landing spot to go all over again. And the damage on said Rush Attack is really good considering squid roll has firmly placed itself into the available movement options. Wall can protect you against shots and... that's it. It can give the Splatling it starts on some time to charge but by doing that you've consumed half your ink tank already. If you pickup a Nautilus or Ballpoint Style chip then throwing a wall is just less time you're up shooting things.
Having experienced a build that focused on splash damage, explosion knockback, and ink saver sub, ink mine would be my absolute top tier. That thing is busted. The only true one that I think most will agree on is Splash wall, it takes long to deploy, often activates behind of the group you are trying to block off, and unless you're in a narrow space, they'll just squirm themselves around it.
i'd place inkstrike higher personally for crowd control alone since it doesnt need to charge up like booyah can toss one at my feet to clear my immediate surroundings, one at the sniper fish, the third one at the other sniper fish, etc nice that tossing all 3 can oneshot a portal too so it gets through floors fast
I found splash down to be the best special as when you use it everything around you is usually gone with minimal investment and the fact that it’s really quick also allows you to spam it
Curling bomb's knockback can stun enemies, which is decently useful a lot of the time. Doesn't affect the ranking though because most other subs can do that.
I was skeptical of Triple Splashdown at first, but after doing many no-hack runs with the weapon that comes with it by default, I kinda got stockholm syndromed into liking it. It compensates for the low DPS of the main weapon at the beginning, and is a useful enough panic button when the stages get difficult. I did swap it out for Tristrike at one point, and that worked to some extent, but Triple Splashdown is a lot better than I originally thought.
Another upside to Wail is that you can still use it while gliding. I forget whether you can activate it while in the air, but at the very least if you activate it and one way or another you find yourself in the air you can still target enemies while recovering shield if needed. Crab is still my favorite for Side Order tho
![Did Side Order SURPASS Octo Expansion [Full Review]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kKjJdXNcodU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Did Side Order SURPASS Octo Expansion [Full Review]](/img/tr.png)
Small question to those here, I didn't just say no spoilers since Marina's hacks are shown, do you find this a big deal if not I can simplify the title, I also want to know for the review to know what point I move the spoiler free section?
I'd make it more prominent - if there's no final boss spoilers, people will generally assume that there are no spoilers at all
@@samohankain my opinion, that's their own fault. Why else do you think the video maker would SPECIFICALLY say no FINAL BOSS spoilers instead of, y'know, no spoilers without specification, which means no spoilers in general.
There are only 100 characters in a title I think using 4 words for it should be plenty clear for this@@samohanka
Tbh. If they’re clicking on a tier list for a thing they don’t wanna be spoiled on, that’s their own fault. Tier Lists are fundamentally gonna go in depth with it’s content
you can't choose subs and specials until you get to that part so imo no spoilers is fine
Never thought we’d see the day where Sprinkler was S-Tier.
You undervalued it.
The S stands for sprinkler
I still don't see it
It was S-tier in my heart since 2015.
Either u know how strong sprinkler or don't know how to use it and don't know how strong it is
Here's the thing: Tri-Strikes have a MASSIVE advantage in that your Special Guage immediately reaches 0 after throwing the third flare. So if you have a Luck-centric build where Special Cans are EVERYWHERE, you have zero downtime between throwing flares and collecting more spare cans.
Also yeah Sprinkler's sick in this mode. I LOVE Side Order.
Strike with mobile special charge is speedrunning OP
Strike one-cycles every single portal. Strike one-cycles the final boss's first phase. It needs slightly more damage for the second phase. And almost two-cycles the final phase. It also is versatile. You can throw one strike at the Tower Control thing, another at the sniper tower thing targeting you, and another at the hoard coming at you. It's way more dynamic than Crab, for example.
Strikes can also one cycle the upside-down cake tower mini boss thing if you get your placement right, and one cycle certain phases of the Parallel Canon mini boss if you time it right with the spawns (since the Strikes can take them out before they land).
True, but it means you have no panic button if you get surrounded. That happens so often that I just don't think it deserves S tier, especially since you need to have a build around it for that to work.
@@SomeGalNamedEve Tbh you shouldn't be in panic situations to begin with. By the time you are on floors above 25, your build and game skills should be enough. You also do NOT need a build around Strikes since it is so versatile and has insanely high damage output.
@@SomeGalNamedEveOnce you’re familiar enough with the mode, being in panic situations don’t happen as often, if at all. At that point, I’d rather have a special with insane coverage, DPS, and spamability compared to one that will keep me alive.
This is why Slider should be higher
Ink mine is so slept on, genuinely one of the best get off me tools, easy to spam with the pearl drone, gets cracked with explosion damage, can guard the zone rather well
Ferocious levels get sloppy-toppied by Mine for real
THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYIIIING
The pearl drone argument doesn’t work tbh, cause it’s irrelevant to this tier list
I lost track of how many times it bought enough time for me to get my armor back, just slapping it down while running away. The knockback is really good for clearing a perimeter around you as well.
Personally I would much rather have Splat or Burst Bombs for my sub, but Mine is absolutely godlike on Pearl and so much better than I thought it would be.
One note for inkstrike - it's crazy good against the layered floor boss. Because of how it inks in a column, it can attack all of the layers at once, meaning your can beat that boss in roughly 20 seconds with the right chips
Honestly from my runs, imo any special that has good verticality (like Trizooka) is pretty great for Rondo since it can easily reach the important layers of it
Just aim for the top, if the top dies its an instakill
@atsukana1704 actually, no
You have to destroy the the three glowing rings (the top is just one of them)
They're the ones that trigger a checkpoint
@@OriginalGameteerTwo crab tank usages is enough for that tbh
I would generally agree with this tier list except for one thing: when you run a build with lots of canned special drop.
Specials like triple splashdown and reefslider immediately use all of the special gauge, which means you can immediately recharge the special gauge from all of the enemies you just blew up. Specials like ink storm and wave breaker slowly drain the charge, and if you pick up a special can, it will not make the special last longer. Canned specials would change how this tier list work
Canned specials can really make the difference for which special you can use. Being able to end the special quick/early is super nice, which is why I would rather have Slider than Kraken
Even without special gauge considerations, the output of triple splashdown and reefslider is incredibly good for completing objectives and clearing hordes; they are always very very good in this mode. I like Triple Splashdown more because the base area is so large that scaling it makes it actually just hit the entire map. Zooka is substantially worse than either because the shots don't pierce through to objectives or do quite enough damage to them, and Kraken is pretty mediocre because of how poor the clearing is and its total inability to finish off portals. Tristrike is an easy S; the base output is incredible, the scaling is outright broken, and you can spam it to no end.
Also, Ink Storm is really bad because it has a cooldown, which absolutely gimps your ink economy, and it doesn't do enough damage to actually accomplish much of anything; it's nowhere near as bad as Wave Breaker (which requires like four stacks of sonic damage to become as good as the base of any other special, against certain enemies only and still not able to hit portals), but it's really low-output and especially hurts if you find something like the movement for special points chips early in a run, which are normally a win condition.
Completely agree. Triple splashdown + special charge comps absolutely carried me without hacks
Canned special luck build + tri-zooka lets you wipe the screen in ridiculously short amounts of time and infinitely chain zookas
Triple Splashdown absolutely would've been in at least A for me. It's saved my life SO many times when I've been surrounded, the knockback it gives is so nice. It's probably the best "get off me" tool in the game
I found it great for ink hungry weapons since like strike it just does it's job instantly for you to start charging special again
@@ebluegamer5397 TH-cam posted your reply twice :P
@@SomeGalNamedEve whoops, sorry about that
Only for ground enemies, because my splashdown has been cancelled a lot of times while I was trying to use it as a panick button/"get off me" tool
Got me my first clear. The explosion_festival floor killed my run before, but running triple splashdown let me clear it in 30 seconds compared to dying at 3 minutes
Imo, I'd put Triple Splashdown above Kraken for the singular reason that Strikes and Stamp can be really good: spamability. I think that, if you have special charge, lucky canned special drops, or drone canned special drops, the amount of times you can use it is insane. It's also a good ink refill and get-off-me tool that works incredibly if you're using low hacks or even low chips, which is how I first-tried 4-hack Octo Shot.
For killer wail, I find that it’s worth mentioning how well it does with any amount of Sound Damage up. It’s a very niche chip, but for that reason, the amount of damage boosting is really high. A single chip and it already does 150% more damage. Wail turns into a *killer* wail really quickly, if you have the chips.
When I maxed out the sound damage chip randomly, i didn't find any sound based specials on my way 😂
The wave damage chip scales that fast because the vanilia stats of all wave based attacks in side order is absolutely miniscule.
The only time we will ever see sprinkler above B tier.
But in big part, Sprinkler is pretty good in Side Order due to the Level Design favoring it so much and most Jelleton''s AI Pathfinding (which is pretty dumb) making it easier for them to get into the Sprinkler's Range with no much of a compromise by you. Very same reason why Sprinkler is pretty good in Salmon Run (although not as good as in Side Order)
@@alpha34098 Sprinkler in salmon run?
@@alpha34098bro what version of Salmon Run do you play?
@@alpha34098 bro has the temu version of salmon run where u get sprinklers instead of splat bombs
It's pretty easy to get a set of chips that allow you to basically use Inkstrike as your main weapon, at which point the game doesn't have much to throw at you that will pose a challenge. Unlike Crab, 1 or 2 triple inkstrikes is usually enough to clear out an entire map within 7 seconds no matter where you're standing
Agreed. Crab is very strong out of the box and carries the splatana run just fine, but tristrike is also strong out of the box but scales into an absolute monster with any special generation, plus the blast radius/damage chips (which are some of the best chips in general, so it's not like you only want them for tristrike).
Would say Chara missed a little bit about splashdown, its not as good to get your armour back after its broken but its very good to help you not get your armour broken in the first place. If you're able to recognise a situation where your armour is going to get broken imminently, splashdown's fast startup can solve that issue for you.
I'd say the lack of range isnt as much of a problem too because you can float with the drone to get close to things.
Comparing it to something like crab, if you use crab in that same situation I feel like you'll not get a lot out of it because you'll be too busy rolling away from the swarm of jelletons to shoot at the portal you wanted to use the crab on. Splashdown both clears the portal of fish and damages it
Probably doesnt compare as well to stamp tho, but its still better as a panic button imo
Plus if you have knock back chips it can basically reset the area you’re in
It’s also effected by splash radius and splash damage chips which is a good bonus
Triple splashdown is especially good with any special recharge chips (splating and lucky drops in particular) since using it resets the meter almost instantly, so combine recharge with knockback, damage, and radius, and you can pretty much do a splashdown only run.
Yeah Triple Splashdown isnt as bad as Chara made it out to be, just a couple of special charge up chips and special can drops and you're in ground-pound heaven,,
Afterall there was a reason Splashdown was brought back as Story Mode's own panic button
something cool to note is rush damage (used for stuff like the brush) actually affects stamp which makes it absolutely MELT EVERYTHING, INCLUDING the final boss
Mine was the mvp with just one explosion size, and some splat inktank refill. Carried me through any close range situation with my first victory on the tower. Just keep strafing and spamming mines and nothing can reach you. (Including the arpaggio missile guys)
3:17 Counterpoint: splash damage and splash radius can be applied to way more than just bomb sub weapons. They also boost most of the better specials, nearly every one of pearl drone's attacks, the lucky bombs granted by the lucky chain perk, and more. Once you realize how generous the game is with what's considered "splash damage," it becomes a perk that has a place in nearly any build, and having just one or two splash damage chips scales better than if you had 2-3x as many main damage ones so it's almost always worth picking up. And that's not even mentioning how good splash radius is (it's a radius buff so 30% bigger means a single bomb covers an area 1.69x as large, and it comes with better paint as well so it's like two perks in one vs other color chips where range and ink coverage are separate things).
For this reason, I personally would rank all the bomb sub weapons a tier or two higher, if you're going for a strong build you'll almost always want chips to boost splash damage anyway. Except for fizzy, honestly I think that might be the worst bomb because charging it is too much of a hassle in this mode (and it gets even worse if you invest in sub saver since it can't be spammed)
Fizzy also just doesn't do that much damage. Remember from multiplayer that fizzy does 35 damage on a chip hit and 50 on a direct, while other bombs do 30 on a chip hit and 180 on a direct. The damage ratios are similar in side order, so Fizzy often ends up doing less than a third of the damage that a splat or suction bomb would do. You also generally don't have much interest in a long, thin paint trail in this mode, as you're mostly dealing with winding paths, walls, and wanting to hold your ground with a wide field of your own ink to slow enemies.
@@celestialspark5697 yeah, pretty much. I don't like burst bomb much either for similar reasons, but it's the only bomb that always explodes on impact so it still has its uses
Worth noting with Stamp: Both the rush mode AND the throw mode are improved by Rush Attack chips. If you're stacking Rush Attack anyways, Ultra Stamp is by FAR the best special choice.
Even better, Stamp comes with the Brush palette out of the gate, which is biased towards Mobility chips, including the Rush ones, so it is very easy to build into.
@@robert2german Yes! And with Mobile Special Gauge your stamp output is INSANE. You can make quick work of any portal objective using just Ultra Stamp once the chips start rolling in.
@@GardivanythTHIS ^. I have done so much fast runs with stamp and it's always so fun just quickly finishing stuff.
We are no longer confined to low tier hell, STAMP NATION RISE UP!
LETS GO STAMP 🔥🔥🔥
I LOVE YOU HAMMER
STAMP W RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
2:00 Ink mine is a B-A tier for me, but only if it's used on pearl drone. What it is there is an instant detonate Suction bomb that spawns on your position, OR just an ink mine that can be placed multiple times. It's good late game, at least, if on pearl drone.
Ngl I think mine is pretty good at keeping enemies away from you and the objective by knocking them back
From playing side order, I think my favorite kit is probably Luna, Splatbomb, Splashdown. The stacking with explosion radius and splash damage is just so insane, especially with the spawner levels since broken spawners are also affected by the buffs. It’s just so satisfying
Let's not forget feeding burst chips to Pearldrone for extra coverage!
Is there a reason for Splat over Suction? They use the same amount of ink, both detonate instantly on portals, and suction has a bigger radius. I've not really found any spots where the fuse on splat bomb really mattered other than Intensifying Harmony.
Triple inkstrike is amazing for getting enemies off you/breaking portals/dealing huge damage to the finall boss and the tower one
Crab is SO GOOD at shredding portals, pushing tower, and dealing with the final boss. You just circle around the arena dodging it's attacks until you have it ready.
Then the boss stingrays you and you die while crabbing
@@Vylokaif you do circles instead of a straight line to dodge stingray, it works much better
I find that once you learn the optimal way to beat most or every stage there tend to be very few situations where you're in dire need of a panic button. Having something with crazy DPS, such as Strikes, is much preferable, and in regards to Strikes their vulnerability ain't much a problem once you know where you should be positioned to win each map.
Also, Crab I've found to not be as good a panic button if you're surrounded or by an edge since you can be hit from behind or knocked off in ball form. And while I'm at it, I haven't found Booyah to be all that nice as a panic button since unlike in PvP or Salmon Run where you've got teammates for the enemy to focus on while you're in the air, in Side Order all the enemies just pool beneath you, so if you panic the special you're usually just forced to throw it at your feet. On another note, charging Booyah without a "Booyah!" button feels weird!
In defense of Ink mine, if you are running charger I find it invaluable early game when charger struggles with crowd control, and it serves you the late game with the many knockback and sub saver chips you’ll accumulate by the end. However, on faster weapons like splattershot, brush, dualies, etc, it is hard to get good use out of when your other options both early and late game are far greater.
As someone who speed runs Side Order its really funny to see all these ranked from a casual stand point, cus in speed runs things like sprinkler are basically completely worthless, and even specials like crab tank are way less preferable to like Ustamp and Tristrike when you’re trynna go fast.
discovering that you could still get hit off the map in kraken form hurt
Triple Splashdown was my go-to in side order mostly because I'm terrible at ink management. It takes so little to charge up, especially with special charge perks, so if I'm ever out of ink I just pop a splashdown, get everything off of me, and have a full ink tank to do whatever I want with (farm another splashdown).
I think it provides a lot of value in a very easy-to-use package, all while not requiring much chip investment.
I did once run the very last level basically spamming strike. I think that it may just depend. But both it and booyah bomb are my top tier. Part for familiarity and part for the ability to chuck something at a goal that's across the map rather than having to actually get to it.
The areas where I found ink wall to be strong was where there were strong choke points I could funnel enemies into. For instance, that one tower control stage with the sniper tower in the middle while you go around it. You go on these 2 higher platforms with 2 ramps and you can easily lead enemies up one of them, making ink wall pretty solid in those situations.
ink mine top 3
fizzy bottom 3
burst bottom 5
mine is a good get off me tool like splat bomb, doesn't kill but it has good knockback and is relatively cheap.
fizzy and burst don't do damage and there's almost no reason to use them over your main weapon, especially fizzy since burst at least has utility for chase stages.
I'd love to see you show this tierlist to comp players without providing any context
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the Order weapons would fair competitively if they had their base kits from the Tower!
i dont care what anyone says but inkmine is my goat... i stayed in a corner for around 2 minutes spamming it for dear life and it carried me to victory so many times lmao. of course things like sprinkler and splat bomb are better but mine is def underrated in my eyes.
One thing about triple splash down (and I guess stamp too) is that most enemies want to be right next to you; that means that the situation where a lot of enemies are next to you is very common.
Another thing is that the special is so fast; it can just be used to refill your ink tank
(I guess this one also applies to stamp throwing mode).
The devs refused to put everyone's favorite damage sub boi in the mode: Angle Shooter. We all know it's because it would be X+ tier.
Tri strike is easily the best special on every build besides rush damage where it is outclassed by stamp.
It clears every objective instantly from range, resets instantly to make grabbing cans more effective, and kills every enemy in one hit while also protecting yourself by throwing it at your feet.
If you invest in a reasonable amount of special charge and blast damage, it insta kills every overlorder phase as well as trivializing rondo/harmony.
It is bar none the best special and it contributed massively to my no hacks runs for each weapon.
I will say, curling bomb is great for the final boss, as a way to stay back while still dealing some damage. You can kite at the edge of the arena, cook it for like half a second, and it'll explode just after impacting the boss. Also can help you run away if you don't have a large dodging area for the sting ray attack.
I think sprinklers are a bit overated. The thing that people are overlooking is that bombs will insta explode on contact with a portal. This makes them S tier against the final boss and an entire subset of battles. Use a bomb, any special for extra damage, and then throw your ink refilled bomb for an instant explosion.
If you want to truly speeedrun this stuff then bombs are your ticket to getting a lot of things done before enemies can even spawn in a lot of cases. Not to mention the explosive up makes them do more damage alongside lucky bombs.
One run I got a bunch of lucky bombs plus explosive up and I would be tossing curling bombs of all things all over and cleared the rigorous rooms without hardly doing anything.
personally i think burst bomb is the best sub, just because it's so instantaneous, and it's still an explosion-type weapon so it has good knockback by default. i think it becomes an even better get-off-me tool than splat bomb (and it's cheaper to boot); one explosion knockback chip and enemies will never get near you again. sprinkler is a close second though, and i fully agree with crab and stamp being at the top. it's really funny to think that sprinkler stamp is such a god tier kit in side order
Gotta say, imo, Triple Splashdown is second to reef in terms of how good it is as a panic button.
Personally I get surrounded a lot very quickly, and TripleSplash has helped immensely. I *think* the explosion chips help in terms of damage for it, and its knock-back alone already makes it a good get off me tool like Slider. S Tier for me.
7:38 Stamp shreds the final boss too
Kinda surprised that Kraken did as well as it did. I believed it was the worst special in Side Order. In hindsight I do see that using it to survive is crucial, even if it doesn't do much else.
I think Splashdown is a bit underrated since it's so quick to use, which means you can quickly start farming a new one.
crab goes crazy with explosion knockback. shooting a shot into a horde sends them all flying off the map.
imo tristrike is better than crab, the dps is insane and you can delete objectives like portals with no sweat, other than that, i think the tier list is spot on
From my experience slider has more uses than splashdown. More chips can stack with slider and lining up lessers for plowing actually does work. Plus I THINK the knock back is higher with slider with explosions.
One thing you might want to take into account is that specials that can be cycled through quickly are significantly helped out by the Canned Special Drops (specifically Splashdown, Slider, and Inkstrike) since you can actually start chaining them very easily against fast-spawning hordes. Found that to be really helpful when I got the Splashdown weapon especially!
As someone who plays a certain low tier with booyah bomb and sprinkler, it's nice to see those get actual use in at least one mode
I think ranking all the chips would be a good idea
Curling is honestly really good. Besides movement if you charge it becomes a really nice lane guarder. Pair it with Reed slider, or even better brella. And you can have the brella charge forward followed by an explosion, which is usually enough to kill. Genuinely whenever I see people struggle with it it’s either because they didn’t try to take use of its ability to pair with weapons. AKA: what a sub should do!
Your using ink mine wrong 😭 that thing saving my life
Ink mine is completely invalidated by a single specific drone chip
triple inkstrike makes any and all portal levels an insta win because it can oneshot portals
if yall are using splashdown, i'd super recommend you try out stacking up on luck chips & canned special drops. that special is INCREDIBLY fun when you can just splashdown a giant crowd of enemies which all die at once & immediately drop special recharges so you can go do it again. it's great if you're struggling with crowds.
I never thought the singleplayer side of splatoon would be getting tier lists, this is incredible
Putting ink strike at only S is doing it a huge disservice. It has absolutely mouthwatering amounts of disservice. As you mentioned, having a special charge build for it is very good. I actually had a build like that, which used brush and the special charge while moving chip. It's survivability is great too, because anytime you're in danger, just throw it at your feet and you're safe. You can move while throwing it, so you won't immediately get mauled by enemies. Even if you lose your shield, there will be no more enemies around you to finish you off. Ink strike is the best special for side order in my opinion.
I don't agree with a lot of the special placement, I think that any tool that clears an area works exceptionally well as survivability. Most enemies can only do melee attacks, and all ranged attacks are easy to avoid. So I think Inkstrike and Triple Splashdown are the best. I find the best defense to be a good offense, I have literally never struggled when I have specd into inkstrike, especially if I had a pearl drone inkstrike chip for even more kaboom. Comparitively, I find the crab tank to be slow and unweildy, sometimes when I have been seriously swarmed I have still died after popping crab. But if I pop insktrike and throw em at my feet, area cleared, especially if I have explosion damage and radius chips.
0:07 that transition was awesome
Splashdown is by far my favorite to use, since I always spec into high special charge. The DPS is actually REALLY good with just a few splash damage chips, and even though you don't have time to regen armor, 99% of the time it'll kill whatever is right next to you or at least knock them away. With the damage being what it is and how fast it is to use it makes for one of the best specials to spam every five seconds
A lot of this feels completely wrong to me lol, but I mean this is coming from a comp player's perspective so it makes sense, and of course opinions
For reference, my sub tier list would be:
X: Splat bomb
S: Suction bomb, curling bomb
A: Fizzy Bomb, sprinkler
B: Ink mine, Toxic mist
C: Splash wall
And for specials
X: Triple splashdown, Reefslider
S: Crab tank, Booyah Bomb, Ultra stamp
A: Triple Inkstrike, Trizooka, Kraken Royale
B: Killer Wail 5.1, Ink Storm
C: Wave Breaker
Open to discussions, edited with some talk
wrong wrong wrong wrong inkmine is the best sub you did not play optimally.
Drop Wave Breaker to like F tier (or C if you don't want to make it), up Killer Wail to A, add Ink Storm in B tier. Being locked out of special recovery is absolutely awful in Side Order since specials are one of the best ways to manage ink, and Wave Breaker doesn't even deal with most enemies or damage portals, plus is way too localized for how much you want to move around, and half or more of the maps have massive elevation differences it doesn't deal with at all. Ink Storm has slightly better output, but still most of the same problems. Killer Wail is one of the better boss-killers and can reliably help with portals, killing the sprinkler guys in zones, and hitting the tower, which are really useful things to be able to do at unlimited range, even if the actual clear is kind of whatever; the special lockout on it is also pretty negligible compared to storm and wave.
Stamp up to X, slider down to S, possibly tristrike up to X, Booyah down to A. Stamp is some of the best DPS in the game out of the box, scales with rush damage, has absolutely no issues with anything the game asks of you other than the elusive bounder boss (where it still wins easily, just is a little slower), and is the most consistent speedrunning tool. It does take up your whole character, but unlike Crab and especially Kraken, the damage is really hard to actually pass with other builds. Slider has some issues with dropping elevations and not the largest AoE, even if it's generally solid, but being able to hit portals while blowing away enemies near them is still nice. Tristrike has incredibly high base output, tons of range, and monstrous chip scaling while being available to charge again immediately. Booyah has a pretty severe issue where you always have to Booyah your feet or you just die on landing, and I really don't like it that much because of that.
Suction in X, no idea how this is not just better Splat Bomb at the same cost but with bigger AoE. Mine to S, curling to A, Fizzy to B, mist to B. Mine is really strong protection with crazy paint and knockback. Curling and fizzy just don't really do a particularly useful thing for this mode with a thin paint trail; Curling is also hard to do damage with unless you charge it fully, and Fizzy's damage is less than other bombs even if you somehow triple direct hit something. Mist is honestly pretty strong protection, trivializes the chase missions, and Hindrance Damage exists. I'd drop Sprinkler to B as well as I just don't ever feel it actually doing anything (way too slow to actually help yourself, damage is pathetic, area covered is pathetic) but people seem to like it so IDK.
@@celestialspark5697 That's a lot to read through, but let's see
yeah wave breaker can probably drop, though I wouldn't really move up wail since its consistency issues with both the targeting and tracking make it unreliable for actually doing any damage to things other than portals, which many specials outclass it for. Being able to get rid of problematic enemies across the map is great on paper but when there's a hundred others between you and them it's very unlikely you'll actually wind up aiming at your target. Also, I forgot ink storm completely lmao, B tier seems fair for that yeah.
Stamp and inkstrikes can also likely swap places since I only ranked strikes that high due to damage, and with stamp semi-outclassing it there it's left somewhat middling. Keep in mind a crucial part of special rankings is how well they can save/protect you, hence why reefslider and splashdowns placed so high, as they're effectively a get out of jail free card, even if they don't kill everything around you you'll receive more than enough space to escape. And with Booyah Bomb, shooting it at your feet is good for protection, but it can still be used as a long range attack if you just clear out some space before activating it.
Suction is below splat bomb because it doesn't have the same cost, it's actually more expensive, if I recall correctly actually being the most costly sub in the game, and I don't think the aoe is worth it for splat bomb's faster detonation and overall better rounded use. Though of course suction has its own unique cases on some stages and scenarios. The reason curling is placed so high is because it's the last full strength bomb that explodes on contact, which makes it still very helpful against portals, which is an exceptionally valuable thing for bombs to accomplish in this mode, especially with damage hacks or chips. Mine's protection can really be accomplished the same with any other bomb, but mine can't be thrown or used at all in the air, its explosion is no stronger than anything else and I'm pretty sure it does even less damage. The reason I had it as high as it was, was because of its rather exceptional matchup against parallel canon. Fizzy bomb doesn't hurt to have, though its offensive power leaves more to be desired than the other bombs, it can still do some good long range damage and the semi curling trail can help in a pinch. I didn't fully understand what hinderance damage was before I made this list, but yeah that does seem very strong with mist, but that gives it exactly two use cases, one of them being completely dependent on chip rng. Still, that's likely enough to drag it out of C tier at least.
And as for sprinkler, Chara listed a lot of valid reasons in this mode, as its damage is genuinely helpful in a mode where nothing actually attacks it, but he definitely overhyped it a ton, hence why it's where it is.
Thank you for the feedback and alternate perspectives :)
Honestly, Im glad Chara realized how powerful Sprinkler was off rip, i figured out how OP it was when I also started.
I like to thing of weapon strategy in side order as sort of an expanded version of the kits you get for salmon run, in that you can combine main-sub-special in unique ways that wouldn't happen much in the normal gamemodes.
I will say I think ink mine is super slept on, in my opinion it's a better emergency relief button than most of the specials like kraken or crab, it takes way less ink than a bomb, detonates basically immediately, knockbacks the fish, and with a couple buffs like splat ink recovery or splash radius, it provides basically a portable splashdown explosion for only part of your ink tank. This can free up the special gauge for less defensive specials like tri-strike or killerwail to focus on objectives, whete it's better to use the salmon run philosophy of using specials to contain the enemies and render them unable to threaten you, rather than save yourself in a situation already getting sour.
Ink Mine + Triple Splashdown + Mobile Special Charge and Special Charge up (anything that allows you to get specials faster) = practically untouchable
By the end of the run you can just move 2 feet and splashdown > It paints everything > by the time anything has the chance to come close you have another splashdown > if you approach, you have a splashdown.
Inkmine is very good for this mode because by nature of the AI constantly approaching, they'll just walk into them which usually buys enough time to activate another one. Pearl Inkmine is especially busted because of how often she does it.
In my first playthrough where I beat the game using the stringer, ink wall, and stamper. The wall worked out surprisingly well with the stringer since I was able to keep them further away and shoot them through the wall. Stamper was good when enemies were too close since the stringer does not do as well enemies very close to you.
Curling should be counted as a rush attack
Ink Mine is basically a no-range splat bomb. You don't deploy it in advance: you use it as a panic button. Its knockback reliably keeps things off you and low ink consumption makes it very affordable.
Wail is strong but INSANELY hard to aim. I wish it didn't lock onto the smallest of the small fish: so often I've wanted to aim for something and just targeted something else entirely
curling bomb massively slept on here
unlike other bombs it can go straight through enemies you can gain immediate control over the objective if you're being walled out for free using its explosion knockback
I think curling should get bonus points since it synergizes with rush chips in addition to explosion chips
People often sleep on T-Splashdown because of how easy it is countered, but as long as you time it right it is actually an excellent panic button for taking out ground enemies
Ink mine actually seems pretty nice as a "get off me" tool, it blows enemies back pretty nice and is good for closer range fights where enemies surround you, being that it's not super expensive and it explodes quickly if it's instantly triggered. I do agree with splash wall, I struggle to find a use for it. It might've been decent if it had it's splatoon 1 damage or something.
Honestly the only sub I use in side order is curling bomb.
I just never use my sub weapon since I only upgrade my weapon and pearl, the only time I need help is to run away and curling does that
i honestly feel like splashdown should be one of the top 3 with crab and stamp, it's the perfect 'get off me' tool against hordes especially if you're a charger or splatling, plus it kills everything around you so you can get out faster and easier without losing your main and sub weapon like crab does, plus since it isn't a special that drains over time, you can get it back almost instantly if you have the right chips, making you basically unkillable because nothing can get close without dying to splashdown
just for comparison, booyah forces you to land on top of enemies if you don't throw it at your feet, in which case you just have a worse splashdown and can still die if you land without killing everything first. tri strikes also leaves you insanely vulnerable unless you spam them all when there isn't a billion gelatins on the stage, and barely work as a 'get off me' tool
Imagine they buffed the multiplayer vanilla sprinkler so it would be as good as this one, ugh I'd love it
I’ve had so much fun snipping the fleeing enemies from across the map with my booyah bomb
they don’t run from it like other things of its type (thrown bombs, triple splashdown, etc), at least until the dmg area starts, and at that point it’s too late
and if they do manage to not be killed by it, they’ll still get flung, hopefully off the map, or close to the player
Bro WHAT triple splashdown is OP. It's good when you panic.
So, the color chip ranking is next? I'm genuinely curious what you think are the best chips or generally the ones worth aiming for.
I seen this live. Chara said Octo Expansion first time lol
Honestly, Stamp gives you much more survivability than it gets credit for. Its radius and knockback are insane for protecting you, and the only threat to you might be a blind-side Arpeggio, perfectly-timed Nobilmente shot, or stray explosion splash damage.
Tri strike is great for survivability. You press special and throw one strike to the floor it kills all the enemies. Then you get two more to do damage. Crab tank can kill enemies and survive well, but it’s one or the other.
Against the final boss booyah bomb ain’t too good as if he whips out the sting ray you get absolutely shredded on the way down
That's so crazy, I think Ink Mine is probably the best sub in the game-- I never use it in its vanilla PvP style "place them down and wait for them as a trap", but rather aggressive "I will click this button every time enemies approach". It's got more immediate and useful power in that regard than any of the other bombs; I don't have to wait for the bomb timer, I press R and the enemies blow up and scatter, and the whole "place it in a chokepoint" is an added bonus!
And my big issue with Sprinkler is that you just can't spec into it or boost it in any way! I want to do a Sprinkler build and it just doesn't exist.
Triple Splashdown is soo good for a low hack run, Especially no hacks Octo shot having a get off me tool that goes up into the air is so nice
about Ink mine.
I think it's actually quite solid, at least I've had very interesting runs with it.
If you can get 1 ink saver saver sub upgrade, then you can hold ground for really long amount of time by spamming mine thanks to the knockback (paired with squid roll attack you can just survive forever in the middle of enemies, as mine puts down paint to allow you to squid roll more reliably)
You lost me by curling, the knock back is massive if you hold it down.
Ink mine is the same, you can spam it and it keeps things off you easily
My only argument so far is that Ink Mine is HUGE, not actually preemptively, but reactively; it has almost no arming time in Side Order, and you can drop it at your feet to give a lot of space when you're being surrounded.
mine is S tier for me lol, it’s extremely useful when you’re surrounded by enemies since it doesn’t consume a lot of your ink, and it gets REALLY powerful with splash knockback
I had a nightmare 2 nights ago where I played against prochara in splatzones, and I played so badly that prochara made an entire video making fun of me.
I remember waking up in a cold sweat
Why didnt you mention splashdown as a "get off me" tool? IMO that's its main capability, it's ability to get everything off of you so you can recover (metaphorically or literally if your armor is broken)
I'd swap Kraken and slider position. Kraken doesn´t paint, has trouble dealing with targets off the ground, you can get pushed off the stage and has a lot of endlag so enemies can swarm you. Reefslider stacks with both explosion and rush chips, can be spammable with the special cans and it's a really fast movement tool. My gripe with it is that it doesn't start when you're in the air, so enemies can hit you when you land
Ink mine is good, its so good for getting rid of swarms, its a get off me tool that explodes faster than splatbomb and has better knockback, you dont place them in places youre waiting to trap jelltons on, you place them when theyre about to get on you, when the inkmine is going to explode instantly
Honestly, triple splashdown is extremely nice for when you get swarmed by too many enemies. They all die or get pushed far away, giving breathing room again
Burst Bomb is awesome if you get a Rush Attack chip, you can aggresively squid roll into the enemy, then Burst Bomb your landing spot to go all over again. And the damage on said Rush Attack is really good considering squid roll has firmly placed itself into the available movement options.
Wall can protect you against shots and... that's it. It can give the Splatling it starts on some time to charge but by doing that you've consumed half your ink tank already. If you pickup a Nautilus or Ballpoint Style chip then throwing a wall is just less time you're up shooting things.
Having experienced a build that focused on splash damage, explosion knockback, and ink saver sub, ink mine would be my absolute top tier. That thing is busted.
The only true one that I think most will agree on is Splash wall, it takes long to deploy, often activates behind of the group you are trying to block off, and unless you're in a narrow space, they'll just squirm themselves around it.
i'd place inkstrike higher personally for crowd control alone since it doesnt need to charge up like booyah
can toss one at my feet to clear my immediate surroundings, one at the sniper fish, the third one at the other sniper fish, etc
nice that tossing all 3 can oneshot a portal too so it gets through floors fast
I saw that with the rights colors chips, wave becomes incredible !
I found splash down to be the best special as when you use it everything around you is usually gone with minimal investment and the fact that it’s really quick also allows you to spam it
Curling bomb's knockback can stun enemies, which is decently useful a lot of the time. Doesn't affect the ranking though because most other subs can do that.
I cant wait for the color chip ranking😍
I was skeptical of Triple Splashdown at first, but after doing many no-hack runs with the weapon that comes with it by default, I kinda got stockholm syndromed into liking it. It compensates for the low DPS of the main weapon at the beginning, and is a useful enough panic button when the stages get difficult.
I did swap it out for Tristrike at one point, and that worked to some extent, but Triple Splashdown is a lot better than I originally thought.
Another upside to Wail is that you can still use it while gliding. I forget whether you can activate it while in the air, but at the very least if you activate it and one way or another you find yourself in the air you can still target enemies while recovering shield if needed. Crab is still my favorite for Side Order tho