The Splat Grind--4/14

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the Splat Grind because the Splat Grind stops for no one, not even Ocho from The Amazing World of Gumball spamming Triple Inkstrike. Today, I’m going to tell you my Splatoon 3 highlights from the past week.

April 8: It’s come to my attention that there’s going to be normal Salmon Run going on at the same time as Eggstra Work, so if there aren’t any randos my level making lobbies, I’m still set, but the bad news is it’s on Spawning Grounds. But enough about next week. Let’s talk about today. Today’s a random rotation. Hopefully, this rotation will be nice to me.

The first wave, I had the Grizzco Stringer. Um…okay. The first thing I did was one-shot a Steelhead. The second thing I did was strand a Flipper-Flopper in three seconds and then one-shot it. Sorry, Glooga Dualies. Sorry, Undercover Brella. Especially sorry, H-3 Nozzlenose. I’m just built different. Anyway, we make it to the second wave, and not only is it low tide, now I have the H-3 Nozzlenose. In fact, we have two H-3 Nozzlenoses. This wave was a little bit of a nightmare. You’ve got a Big Shot, a Drizzler, and a Flyfish firing at the basket at the same time, and people are using the Big Shot cannon to get eggs to the basket, so I put myself on egg-running duty getting all the eggs in while avoiding these attacks. When one more Big Shot came in, I decided it was time to Nozzlenose it to death. Then I got bonked by a Cohock, and we were wiped out after that. I gotta hand it to 69 for being able to handle the H-3 Nozzlenose for two consecutive waves.

Let’s try this again. The first wave, I had the Tenta Brella. I don’t really like Brellas, but you know, I made it work. There was a Steelhead next to a Flyfish, so I had to fire at the Steelhead while trying not to get nuked by the Flyfish. Why I didn’t target the Flyfish first is beyond me. Anyway, once the Steelhead was beaten, I jumped down and grabbed an egg, and while I was swimming to the basket, a Maws popped up behind me. I turned around and shot it, and it died. I didn’t think the Tenta Brella was that powerful. SplatNet said I got one Maws out of three, so it might have been the Grizzco Stringer or the Flingza Roller. Moving on to wave 2. It was low tide again. Low tide might have beaten me before, but maybe the Grizzco Stringer will make it better. Stranding Flipper-Flopper was harder because we had a Steel Eel driving over the same spot. I didn’t have enough ink to throw bombs at the Maws and the Flyfish that were both right next to me. One person disconnected, and the other two had L-3 Nozzlenoses. Why do we keep getting Nozzlenoses?! I was at the basket winding around two Steel Eels that were pretty much on top of each other trying to survive, trying to get to the back of one without getting plowed by the other, trying to revive someone, trying to get an egg in the basket, trying to do something, and I somehow survived. I survived long enough to beat one, at least. I got killed by the other. There was one player left, and we had no idea where they were. Were they just thinking, “We have eight seconds left. If I can survive, we’re good”? ‘Cause we survived. The third wave, I had the Clash Blaster. Aw yeah. It was also Mothership. Aw, it depends. If you can fight the Mothership off quickly, you’ll be fine. It got, like, two eggs. It went for the basket at the very end after we made our quota. I was already at the basket with an egg, and I had to put that off while I shot it away, and it took an egg. I swear, if this Mothership brought us back below quota with five seconds left, I would have thrown my Switch. Luckily, we shot it off, and I got that last egg in. We barely made it out of that Mothership wave with a total of 47 eggs out of 35.

Let’s think about it this way: at least we didn’t have any Nozzlenoses for Mothership.

April 10: Technically, I had time to play on April 9, but I skipped it anyway. Today is Turf War day. Here we go.

I started on Undertow Spillway, and oh great. I have Player on my team. The twist: Player has an E-Liter. They’re this super-epic E-Liter player, and they just never changed their name. The other team had Lux and Anidiot, two Blasters who led the team on splats, and while I was wildly mashing people to death, I always found myself on the end of one of their Blasters. At the end, it looked like we were going to squeeze out that win…and we did. We won by ONE percent. I got 1040 points and #1 Overall Splatter. I had six splats, and Player the literal E-Liter had five. I out-splatted an E-Liter, and that left me feeling pretty proud.

The second battle was on Undertow Spillway, and oh great. Player’s on the other team. Well, if I was able to out-splat them, how good can they be? What I didn’t realize until it was too late was that Agent 420 had a Splat Charger. We were up against two Chargers and two Aerospray RGs. I kid you not. They were making their way towards our base, but I could sneak around them using the Convenient Left Ramp that hangs over the center. I covered up some of their ink and got my Killer Wail ready. I turned it on without any real thought as to where it was pointing, and three seconds later, I get two splat notifications, one for Player and one for Agent 420. I had just splatted both Chargers without trying, so if you want a good idea of how to ambush Chargers, there you go. At the end, I had splatted one of those Aerosprays, I check the map, the whole rest of the other team is on our base. We lost by 10 percent.

Battle 3 was on Undertow Spillway. Yeesh. Anidiot was back. They were gone for the last battle. Now they were back, and they had a Squiffer. I thought I was fine because it’s impossible to be good at splatting with two different classes, but they were actually really good. Crossing the middle was nigh-impossible with them alive. I tried running past them as close as possible to the ramp they were standing on so they’d have to get in a weird position to snipe me. They were willing to get into that weird position to snipe me. We were sort of about to win maybe, but they wiped us out in the last 10 seconds and stormed our base. The overhead looked about the same as last time, but we lost by 29 percent?! I swear, this game is making up random numbers.

Oof. Just oof.

April 11: So I use Hazmy’s Salmon Run Report to decide whether or not I’m going to play Salmon Run. Today’s rotation started at 11 am. I get back from class at 11:15, and the report for this rotation isn’t there? Why isn’t it there? Why is the information I need not immediately there? It came out at around noon. This rotation is rated at a 3, so here we go.

The first wave, I was just sitting at the overhead view of the stage for several seconds just waiting for someone to vanish from the copter. Anyway, I had the Splash-O-Matic. It was low tide, and the lights were going down. I was like, “Please God be Giant Tornado.” It was the one that wasn’t Giant Tornado. The first thing I did was get into one of those ink cannons poised to one-shot that Steelhead coming in, so of course the person in the other ink cannon got it instead. That’s when I decided I was better off beating bosses directly. A Stinger was coming in, like, right next to me, so someone else and I started shooting them before they could start firing, and I think the other person just bonked the guy off the top, and we were just shooting empty buckets in order to get some eggs. I wish I had clipped it. Anyway, wave 1 clear. On to wave 2. I had the Rapid Blaster Pro at normal tide. The first boss to come in was a Fish Stick. One other person and I swam up the tower. I wanted to wait until it was drilled into the ground, but they weren’t, so I just started firing. Apparently, if you splat a Fish Stick before it implants itself in the ground, the whole pillar just collapses. There goes our high ground, but worry not. Here comes another Fish Stick right now. The third wave, I had the Ballpoint Splatling, and the lights were going down. I was like, “Please God don’t be Grillers.” It was Goldie Seeking, which is a mixed bag. It could either be across the arena, or it could be right there in front of all four of you like it was this time. The bad news is Splatlings are still a foreign language to me. I still can’t wrap my head around firing when you let go of the button. I was just firing randomly, picking up eggs where I could, and checking the same two gushers for Goldie. We made it out alive with 57 eggs out of 37, and I still don’t know how to use Splatlings.

I spent a little time in the waiting room testing the Ballpoint. So apparently it starts off firing short range, and then it switches to really long range. But we’re going back in, so enough testing. The first wave, I had the Rapid Blaster Pro, and it was low tide. I was like “Please God be Giant Tornado.” It was just low tide. We were simultaneously barely surviving and popping eggs into the basket like mad. Maybe it was the presence of a Flyfish that made things seem more hectic. Once we made our quota, I saw AceTGYT in their life ring cut off from the rest of us. I just had to charge through that Slammin’ Lid to get to them, which was the perfect time for a Chum to hit me on the head. We still made it through. The second wave, I had the Splash-O-Matic on normal tide. There were multiple Steelheads this wave. I noped out of fighting the first one, and I tried to nope out of the second wave until it was the only boss there. That’s when a Slammin’ Lid comes in and protects it. I was like, “Aw, it’s under a Slammin’ Lid…Wait a minute, it’s under a Slammin’ Lid!” What I did was jump off the tower, grab an egg that was lying there, barely touch the force field, and then get hit by a Cohock, but the Steelhead still got crushed, so there! The third wave was also normal tide. I had the Dark Tetra Dualies. This wave started out okay. We had twelve eggs. I was about to fight this Slammin’ Lid, but then I saw a Stinger’s shot cut across the arena, and I just knew I had to get rid of it. As I was running towards it, I was thinking, “Am I really going to take this Stinger on by myself?” No. Here comes my teammate. We take out the Stinger, but then we get assaulted by Lessers. We get the one player warning. I hear someone use their Reefslider. Were they going to revive us? No. Because they were dead. We were wiped out with 12 eggs out of 15.

We were going to make it, guys. I swear.

April 13: Today, Um’ami Ruins is in the Turf War rotation. I have pretty bad luck on Um’ami Ruins. I’ve only won twice there. Maybe it’s the intense bottlenecking that happens in the middle. Watch me get Inkblot Art Academy three times in a row.

The first battle was on Inkblot Art Academy. There was someone on my team named Player, and I know what you’re thinking…yeah, they did have a Splattershot Jr. Splatlandian Youth Player with their Splattershot Jr., default banner, default clothes. This was their initiation. Anyway, I wasn’t so focused on them as I was on this crab firing at me, and once they were done with me, I was focused on this Splatana Stamper swinging at me. I tried hiding behind that little box on the side landing, but after approximately ten seconds of this, I decided to do the sensible thing and leave. Amazingly, they didn’t chase me. I was able to sneak past them at the end, but then I look at see them razing our home base, and I just decide, “It’s too late for home base. The path to victory is in the center!” And that’s when they noticed me. They busted us by 22 percent, but I got 1101 points and #1 Overall Splatter with four splats. Player died eight times, and they got two splats, and they were both assists, but I hope they had fun.

The second battle was on Inkblot Art Academy. Player was gone, probably getting themselves a real name, but scorbunzx the Splatana Stamper was on my team. This battle started out going pretty well. I got splatted midway through my Killer Wail, but those two speakers managed to splat cosmo the Splat Brella. I actually splatted them twice with my Killer Wail, which should teach them to play the Brella. The biggest problem we had to deal with was Triple Inkstrikes. I thought it was all Ocho the Tentatek because Ocho might be one of my favorite background characters in The Amazing World of Gumball, but he’d definitely go into Turf War and spam Triple Inkstrike with the Tentatek. As it turns out, the Splat Brella also has Triple Inkstrike. At the end, we were able to sneak past the enemy team and cover up, like, half of the center. The overhead was really close, but we lost by one percent–wait, we won by one percent? I don’t know how numbers work. I take it back! Ocho is my least favorite background character in Gumball, and I got 1321 points and five splats to four times splatted.

The third battle was on Inkblot Art Academy. This time, Wawooweewa was on my team. There’s nothing else interesting about them. It’s just that their name is Wawooweewa. They were in the last two battles. They killed me with their Reefslider. Anyway, we started out mostly on top. I saw a bit of enemy ink thinking there was a person there, so I ran away and passed the person above that spot who had shot it down there and splatted them. They were also using the Brella, so there. Scorbunzx was on the enemy team again, and I managed to ambush them twice. Where was that kind of power in the first battle? They were invading our base, but we made it to the center. Were they going to stop us? Yes. We lost by nine percent, and I got 1250 points and #1 Overall Splatter with four splats. I was wondering how abysmal it had to be for me to get #1 Overall Splatter. The other team had 3, 4, 4, and 4, so I guess we were all doing bad.

See? I was right. I did get Inkblot Art Academy three times in a row. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to say Wawooweewa for the rest of the day.

April 14: So it’s a month out, and they’ve already announced the next Splatfest. I’d pick Wisdom, but I’ve already picked Frye four times. Am I really gonna go for five? Also, are we going to be playing Tricolor on an actual Triforce? That’s actually really cool.

Actual Splatoon? Uh…no. My Switch won’t connect to the wi-fi for some reason.

Thank you for listening to the Splat Grind. Be sure to come back next week for even more Splatoon craziness including Eggstra Work if I can get my Switch to connect.

Listen to it on YouTube! https://youtu.be/HA2JFzxbPBI