[Music] welcome everyone to the next episode of the meta history before we've cycled through a few different eras of the game but this one is more of a story of optimization midline meta just barely started and it's going to take a long time to fully catch on and evolve so let's get started right where we left off consider subscribing or becoming a member and we're going to jump straight into a patch 6.1 it has more major balance changes since 6.0 didn't have too many major ships the first big change that comes from this patch is making pencil more dominant while it wasn't changed directly the other three strongest cooler weapons were all increased in their special cost basically just making them all worse by comparison this especially hurt Tri Slasher Nuvo and from here on out it stopped being a cooler staple and was more often used in double cooler comps in the meantime editing was able to keep up a lot better than people realized due to just how broken the main weapon was especially back then when it painted better it would still be absent for a long time from the western scene and not be better than pen for quite a bit so we'll talk about it more when it manages to catch up finally with Zap on the other hand it actually got a notable damage buff this patch increasing it from 28 to 30 improving its consistency with other 70 damage weapons however Zap very much relies on a very strong anchor option in order for it to be worth it and from here on out there isn't really any amazing option the closest we really saw was just red pen which isn't really too different if anything this problem only got worse because there was a slight random nerf to ballpoints longrange mode making it a little bit less accurate shot was also made 200p in this patch to reduce its special output which while a great change only served to further enhance pencil indirectly since Zuka could threaten it all of this basically means pencil goes from great to dominant from here on out on the midline side of things Stamper got a slight painting nerf which mainly hurt Crabs Sword since its higher output of a more consistent special created a different play style while Squeezer got a slight ink consumption and painting nerf which made it more important to build around the weapon's weaknesses basically making sure that you have a weapon that can paint a whole lot however both of these remained as some of the best options for quite some time it is worth noting though that Squeezer's dominance from here on out did make it a lot harder for Stamper to see as much use especially as the difficulty for the weapon kept increasing squeezer's mobility wall and easier kit with a good matchup advantage made it a more common midline which is a trend that we would see for a while but this patch did still have some positive changes notably there were some buffs to wave and inktorm which increased the potential of other midlines like duly squatchers nautilus and most notably range blaster as the meta shifts further and further into a midline focused meta range blaster gets better and better cooler has already been a nice benefit for it and so is pencil with a reliable combo damage with it but now it's especially important because there are going to be more mid-range weapons and more fighting in the meta range is especially good at fighting against other mid-range weapons because that's where it likes to space and so it's a big positive for it and I think this slight wave change only served to help enhance the weapons rise there were some other small things like inkbrush being a bit faster and flings and dynamo having more consistent horizontal flicks but these were more for niche situations as the weapons were only picked on a few specific maps or by specific players as for changes in this patch we tend to see a good bit more squeezer sword nautilus range blaster machine slasher tentrellas and 96 gal deco for midlines while 2x shots still managed to see some use of this time though the main weapon trio that would start to become more common is pencil squeezer and splattershot with a varying degree of fourths though usually another midline pencil and Squeezer's insane range made it tricky to take fights without prior damage while the consistent soup output from squeezer and shot gave frequent power spikes and the ability for the comp to move forward with every weapon having an easy time of working off of pencils high damage which brings us immediately into 7.0 probably one of the least impactful patches in the game this added very underpowered main weapons and lackluster kits 52 Deco was the only one to see moderate competitive use but it was mostly due to screen being briefly overhyped especially after it's buffed later the balance changes also had basically nothing 52 got slightly higher points for special due to it being an amazing solo weapon and still a solid comp one luga and Mini got decent buffs but neither of them would see drastic use at this time and reflux gets nerfed again in its pain output because of turf war arguably the least important patch ever released which means there's not really much new in terms of development and we can jump again once more to patch 7.2 since 7.1 wasn't a balanced patch this one had a lot of smaller buffs but what's most notable right now is that it toned back some midline and zuka spam options in the points for special department with range blaster now being included due to its continually increasing use though wavebreaker wasn't exactly a dealbreaker here at 10 points higher however this patch didn't really do enough damage to change their increasing popularity in terms of main weapons Slast got a long range radius increase which paired with other buffs over time have served to make it a decent option though it's currently overshadowed by range blaster being a slightly easier and more reliable option i also want to point out that Splattershot Pro and Dapples are other main weapons improving over time all three of these are slowly increasing in their main weapon capabilities and while they won't see too much major use yet they will be more important down the line however the biggest changes in this patch were to the specials mainly Big Bubbler had its weak point strengthened opening back discussion on if it could be a viable counter to try Zuka with it being considered one of the strongest specials right now and a tipping point in Big Bubbler's viability screen got the damage buff I hinted at earlier which allowed a little bit more 52 deco and foil squeezer use for a little bit of time though they still didn't stick around too long due to having other stronger kits not really a huge loss honestly train was implemented very poorly into the game and to this day is restricted in comp because of that so I can't say many people miss it a few episodes ago I mentioned that Kraken Cheese took a while to get fixed and this was also the patch that did that and last up on the changes list is triple splashdown being 10 frames faster but a slightly smaller blast reuse for the splashdown and the fist which turned it from a bad special to a decent one that got custom exploiny amount of usage in Koshen the qualifier for worlds for Japan and a turf war event most of the developments that came around this time period were just a better understanding of the game midlines were talked about a lot more and generally classified better and team comps were starting to really be centered around a support shooter two midlines and one cooler anchor though again little bit of red pen and zap was seen sometime and a little bit of rapid blaster pro deco as well midline pairs typically consisted of squeezer sword or 96 being paired with range blaster or slasher having one option that's good at standing in the open and one that has a version of AoE by this time having a little bit less kill power on options like the slashing machines and rap and deco were starting to have those weapons drop off and even Nautilus was being quickly overshadowed it didn't help as well that Jetpack was only dropping further and furthered off as more midline options as well as pencil continued to have better and better matchups at shutting it down big bubbler wasn't exactly helping with that since it already was pretty good into jetpack and would only get buffed into it later because of solo queue we did also manage to see a little bit more big bubbler weapons like Zimmy and Roller but Junior was the main one to directly compete with Shot it had some moments of success but it was a lot harder to get in without a shooter getting a consistent entry tool since the midlines had much lower special output it was clear that bubble was a lot better but Junior wasn't the easiest option to slot into comps though running 2x short-range shooter was basically done by now but the big answer is would there be a more consistent short-range option because Junior wasn't working as well for the entry zap was dropping off because of Pen and running Shot and Squeezer seemed a little inconsistent as people got better at dealing with Zuka but there was one option that seemed to be better one more buff I haven't mentioned in this patch is Neosplashmatic going from 210 to 200 points for special and while this development continued into 8.0 before it really caught on Neoplash would end up being the answer short range needed having a special that was more consistent allowed the short-range weapon to be mostly responsible for paint and not having to fight as much and most importantly also serving as an answer against bubble comps that were being used against double zuka it ended up being the perfect choice but like I said that didn't catch on immediately though and before we get into that we have Sizzle season 24 and patch 8.0 dropping on June 1st 2024 this introduced two powerful new main weapons the decapitator and wellstring which also uniquely had both their kits mint decapitator saw some early tournament success but was generally seen as a worse stamper and struggled a lot against squeezer and range blaster though it was still a notable new bubble option custom wellstring did have one breakout tournament where it almost won an area cup with its insanely high object damage being great into wall and any bubble comps as well as a heavy location kit with great uptime and good combos with meta options like sword and slasher however wavebreaker just was not valuable enough of a special to warrant it especially on the backline slot and the main weapon still had some trouble in 1v ones a solid option but mostly overshadowed by pencil in the balance patch Tri Stringer and Reflex got great buffs and this finally put Reflex at a point where it could see some decent tournament use between both of its two kits occasionally making podium appearances in area cups though not a staple threat outside of turf still part of that was also due to Slider getting a major buff in this patch allowing it to paint with its rails and trap opponents being paired with the ability to cheese zone which were stronger at this time slider was finally starting to be a usable special during this time not too much change in tournaments we did see some unique comps like roller and carbon being ran with mass quick respawn and double tactic cooler typically with zap edit and squeezer these faster paced comps gave a lot more chances to run down midline slower weapons though suffered heavily on lockouts due to inconsistent and lacking retake options it was very risky and volatile but a cool alternative for roller players some perception changes of other specials would continue to evolve here like jetpack falling out further and displacement options like missile and whale being seen a little bit more strongly but for the most part there was a clear set of specials above everything else which would be cooler stamper zip caster tri shrank zuka and crab tank with the field and mid lines drastically narrowed down and the short run fully optimized comm started to get very standard with squeezer slasher neoplash and pencil being the best one with range and stamper not far behind as range and slasher's powerful AoE pair was seen a lot more in the western scene especially given that CRB just released with a kit giving it a special for more powerful aggression finally it's worth noting that part of this meta development was also some stage reworks that made them a little bit more open to wrap things up we can speed through patch 8.1 which once again had a lot of smaller changes the most notable one by far being a buff to carbon roller increasing its horizontal kill range and vertical hitbox making it more comparable to splat roller strength and as blast being a whole five frames faster being more worth it but still overshadowed by range tisuka and Jet were made weaker into bubble solidifying that as a weakness for them and Kraken was made slower drastically lowering the power of primarily CRB and 96 Deco the latter of which was already losing out to Squeezer finally Slider got a massive 70 radius in exchange for less consistent zone sheets an overall very important buff that we wouldn't see the effects of quite yet though from here on out the meta didn't really change much it has reached a nearly fully optimized state and that's not that surprising the previous four episodes of the series spanned an entire year of balance patches but this one spans an entire year by itself an entire year of evolving and working towards midline meta while of course powerful main weapons and increased fighting power were fun it did have its problems it was very stale given how long it lasted the short-range shooter was basically a paintbot rolls felt very stagnant and entry tools were a little bit more limited with the lower special output coordination also just wasn't as big a factor which some people have missed from Splatoon 2 but now after a year of dealing with this meta Nintendo gave a warning that the next patch 9.0 would be focused on nerfs finally giving a chance to shake things up but would this take advantage of the healthy parts of the meta or just make it worse we'll have to revisit this question in the next episode [Music]