Let's talk about short-range, ink-coverage focused shooters with some offensive splatting capability. This morning I decided to look at the question,
"Should I use my Aerospray as an offense weapon?"
I see a lot of Aero players going for that sweet flank or trying to push into defenders or kill other short-range painters head-on, and my gut was telling me that this was almost always inadvisable as a solo move. But let's compare it to two similar weapons that can paint and splat, the Splattershot, Jr. and the Splash-o-matic. Just for fun, we'll also compare it to the Sploosh-o-matic, which is more of a pure ink-coverage weapon, for reasons that will become clear in a second. We'll use the minimum number of shots it takes to splat an enemy, since we're focusing on offense here, rather than painting speed.
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[img]https://abload.de/img/splataeroagy54.png[/img]
No question about it: the Aerospray makes a big fucking mess and is a great ink-coverage weapon. With its special, it can also help your teammates push into enemy territory. But should it be used to flank or kill defenders? Let's take a look at the ranges for these weapons.
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[img]https://abload.de/img/splataerorangez4xfd.png[/img]
We see that the Aerospray, Junior, and Splash-o-matic all have the same max range at about 2.25 lines, at which range they will require an extra shot to kill. A note that the Splash-o-matic does have damage fall-off and requires an extra shot, too, but its accuracy makes the whole range effectively usable to splat.
On the Aerospray, though, you'll notice a red area I call the
No-Hit Zone. In this range, it only requires 5 shots to splat, but it's a total gamble whether or not your shots will actually land. So, rather than having the optimal range of 2.1 lines or so that the Junior has, the Aero really doesn't start to consistently land its shots until the target is within 1.5 lines. Which you'll notice is the same optimal range as the Sploosh-o-matic, which has a max range of about 1.6 lines. Let's look at some TTK numbers:
Aerospray MG:
Max Range: 1.86 seconds average TTK
No-Hit Zone: 1.32 seconds average TTK
Optimal Range: 0.62 seconds average TTK
Splattershot, Jr.
Max Range: 0.88 seconds average TTK
Optimal Range: 0.7 seconds average TTK
Splash-o-matic
5-shot range: 0.66 seconds average TTK
4-shot range: 0.5 seconds average TTK
Sploosh-o-matic
Max Range: 0.66 seconds average TTK
Optimal Range: 0.52 seconds average TTK
So, should you be using the Aerospray as an offensive splatting weapon? Probably not. The Aerospray is best used as a pure ink-coverage weapon to cover up undefended enemy ink. Not only will other ink-coverage shooters like the Splattershot Jr. and the Splash-o-matic outrange you long before you get within your optimal range, but every legit offense and defense weapon will, as well. And you'll trade with the Sploosh-o-matic, which kills just about as fast at its max range, which is slightly longer than your optimal range. This is not to even mention other close-range threats like the Carbon Roller, Tri-Slosher, or the Octobrush.
My advice is, if you want an offensive painting weapon that can push into enemy territory and reliably take down enemy inkers, go with the OG/Tentatek Splattershot or the N-Zap, or
possibly the Splattershot, Jr. or Splash-o-matic, though these two are really ink-coverage weapons that can fill in for an offense weapon if they absolutely have to.
If you enjoyed this analysis, please check out
Doorman's excellent post on blasters, which inspired me to do these tests, and also
my post analyzing the well-rounded shooters.
Next time we'll look at buckets and the question, "Is the Tri-Slosher really better than the regular Slosher?" The answer may surprise you. (No it won't: the answer is Yes.)