Okay, bucket discussion time. The question I wanted to look at was "Is the Tri-Slosher really better than the regular Slosher?" but perhaps a more appropriate question would be "Why is the Tri-Slosher obviously so much better than the regular Slosher?" This time, we'll look at the stats first. For the ranges and bullet measurements, I'm using the dashed lines in the test garage for reference.
Slosher
Kill Range: 3 lines
Bullet width: 0.4 lines
Average TTK: 0.92 seconds
Tri-Slosher
Kill Range: 2.5 lines (middle), 1.75 lines (sides)
Bullet width: 0.4 lines (middle), 0.4 lines (sides)
Average TTK: 0.8 seconds
Some people might see these stats and say, "What's the big deal? the Tri-Slosh gives up range for slightly faster TTK and fire rate. Not obviously better." But let's look at the inking patterns:
Every 0.5 seconds, the Slosher puts out a straight, solid line of ink that travels 3.4-ish lines from the point of origin, with a big splatter at the end. Every 0.4 seconds, the Tri-Slosher puts out a straight, solid line of ink that travels 2.8-ish lines from the point of origin, with a big splatter at the end, plus two drips of paint on either side that land up to 2 lines away. The total paint coverage by both shots is approximately the same, but the Tri-slosher inks wider and 20% faster.
How about the splatting potential for each, though?
So, both buckets essentially shoot a fat bullet (about as wide as 40% of the distance between dashed lines) down the center. Neither bucket has any damage fall-off, so it's a two-hit kill for both buckets even at max range.
The Tri-Slosher shoots the same fat bullet as the Slosher, except it shoots 3 of them, with the side bullets skewed about 15 degrees off-center on either side. Both the middle and side bullets are still two-shot kills. It kills faster than the OG Slosher due to fire rate.
There also exist a few weird dead-zones that may cause your side bullets to miss:
1. If your target is between 0.5 and 0.75 lines away (the red area), and you fire upward, above the horizon, they may avoid your side bullets if your middle bullet doesn't hit.
2. If your opponent is between 0.75 and 0.9-1.0 lines away (the yellow area), and you fire straight ahead, parallel with the ground, your side shots may miss if your middle shot is off target. (Both scenarios 1 and 2 here can be avoided by simply aiming lower).
3. If your target is inside the 0.5-line range, and you somehow miss with the middle bullet, your side bullets will miss, too.
4. At max side-bullet range (1.75 lines away), there exists a tiny dead-zone (exaggerated here for clarity) between the middle bullet and the side bullets at between 10 and 15 degrees off the center axis on either side. If your opponent is within these dead zones, your shot will miss entirely. This is extremely rare, as it relies on your opponent being perfectly at max side-range within a five-degree opening.
These negligible weaknesses aside, the Tri-Slosher is obviously better than the regular Slosher at just about everything. It's better for ink coverage, better for splatting, and better for flanking. It has Ink Armor as its special which is valuable for any team, and burst bombs to make splatting even easier.
The only reasons to pick the regular Slosher, in my opinion, are:
1. You really like Suction-Bombs and Tenta-Missiles.
2. You despise frantic inking, flanking, or pushing and would rather hang back and defend your team's flanks or your teammates.
3. You want to maybe, sometimes, outrange a Splattershot or N-Zap user, if you're lucky.
4. You miss the Bamboozler and want something that kind of plays similarly.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this analysis, you can check out some more from this thread here:
Next time, we'll look at brushes and decide which one is more like a happy little tree, and which one is more like a "happy accident."
Slosher
Kill Range: 3 lines
Bullet width: 0.4 lines
Average TTK: 0.92 seconds
Tri-Slosher
Kill Range: 2.5 lines (middle), 1.75 lines (sides)
Bullet width: 0.4 lines (middle), 0.4 lines (sides)
Average TTK: 0.8 seconds
Some people might see these stats and say, "What's the big deal? the Tri-Slosh gives up range for slightly faster TTK and fire rate. Not obviously better." But let's look at the inking patterns:
Code:
[img]https://abload.de/img/splatbucketlwsrr.png[/img]Every 0.5 seconds, the Slosher puts out a straight, solid line of ink that travels 3.4-ish lines from the point of origin, with a big splatter at the end. Every 0.4 seconds, the Tri-Slosher puts out a straight, solid line of ink that travels 2.8-ish lines from the point of origin, with a big splatter at the end, plus two drips of paint on either side that land up to 2 lines away. The total paint coverage by both shots is approximately the same, but the Tri-slosher inks wider and 20% faster.
How about the splatting potential for each, though?
Code:
[img]https://abload.de/img/splatbucketrangedhsgx.png[/img]So, both buckets essentially shoot a fat bullet (about as wide as 40% of the distance between dashed lines) down the center. Neither bucket has any damage fall-off, so it's a two-hit kill for both buckets even at max range.
The Tri-Slosher shoots the same fat bullet as the Slosher, except it shoots 3 of them, with the side bullets skewed about 15 degrees off-center on either side. Both the middle and side bullets are still two-shot kills. It kills faster than the OG Slosher due to fire rate.
There also exist a few weird dead-zones that may cause your side bullets to miss:
1. If your target is between 0.5 and 0.75 lines away (the red area), and you fire upward, above the horizon, they may avoid your side bullets if your middle bullet doesn't hit.
2. If your opponent is between 0.75 and 0.9-1.0 lines away (the yellow area), and you fire straight ahead, parallel with the ground, your side shots may miss if your middle shot is off target. (Both scenarios 1 and 2 here can be avoided by simply aiming lower).
3. If your target is inside the 0.5-line range, and you somehow miss with the middle bullet, your side bullets will miss, too.
4. At max side-bullet range (1.75 lines away), there exists a tiny dead-zone (exaggerated here for clarity) between the middle bullet and the side bullets at between 10 and 15 degrees off the center axis on either side. If your opponent is within these dead zones, your shot will miss entirely. This is extremely rare, as it relies on your opponent being perfectly at max side-range within a five-degree opening.
These negligible weaknesses aside, the Tri-Slosher is obviously better than the regular Slosher at just about everything. It's better for ink coverage, better for splatting, and better for flanking. It has Ink Armor as its special which is valuable for any team, and burst bombs to make splatting even easier.
The only reasons to pick the regular Slosher, in my opinion, are:
1. You really like Suction-Bombs and Tenta-Missiles.
2. You despise frantic inking, flanking, or pushing and would rather hang back and defend your team's flanks or your teammates.
3. You want to maybe, sometimes, outrange a Splattershot or N-Zap user, if you're lucky.
4. You miss the Bamboozler and want something that kind of plays similarly.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this analysis, you can check out some more from this thread here:
Next time, we'll look at brushes and decide which one is more like a happy little tree, and which one is more like a "happy accident."
