The MOST Misinterpreted Weapon Class

I think the reason people, myself included, don’t know what “Kiting” is that its base description sounds too similar to “Flex”: weapons that are able to play offensively and defensively/support and switch back to back with ease. N-ZAP 85 is a great example, able to harass enemies with its mobility and power, while also able to weave back to allies with Tacticooler. Both Sloshing Machine sets are also examples; the Vanilla set can sit back with Fizzy and chuck Booyah Bombs, but also threaten opponents with the main weapon’s AOE, in relatively close quarters. The Neo set is more passive with Point Sensor, but Trizooka gives it more range and more kill power. That’s why almost every Splatoon player uses “Flex” or “Aggro-Support” as the term and not “Kiting.” The name being a bit ambiguous probably doesn’t help that much, either.

THANK YOU so much for explaining the versatile approach of Stringers. I main the Vanilla Tri Stringer, and being able to mix up range, AOE, and close quarter combat makes the class my favourite in the entire series

I think most people call what you call “kiting” skirmishers. People tend to describe as weapons that can start fights but not die. These include brushes and dualies that can use their agility to start fights and avoid dangerous situations, or brellas that can use their canopy to tank attacks, or explosher, dynamo, tri stringer, and wellspring that can use their aoe to hit from weird angles so that the enemy can’t fire back. I’m pretty sure people compared explo because they have a similar role: a midline that uses their aoe harass opponents. But differences are that explosher has better aoe , paint, and a wall to tank but has less mobility and more down time, while stringers has less aoe but has a one shot, more mobility, less down time, and insane object damage. Stringers are also in a weird sub category of weapons called pseudo back lines which are weapons that has the range to be a back line , but doesn’t need to commit to being a back line , allowing it to be a lot more aggressive such as Splatoon 1 custom jet squelcher, douser dualies, explosher, and stringers. People who never played stringers might get confused and think stringers are anchors because it has the range but it’s not.

I think the word you're looking for is Skirmisher, a playstyle focused on not dying while the actually good weapons (read slayers) come in and clean up your 1v2s, the maps in this game and how all these weapons play simply arn't made for kiting in the traditional sense (which is running away from an enemy to remain out of their range whilst taking pot shots) Personally, of the three only reeflux fits the defention to me as the other two bows get to much benefit from playing back and acting anchor

You should have given more examples of kiting weapons other than the stringers, it would have been very helpful

In defense of custom wellstring, the reason that its seeing a lot more usage in competitive play is definitely more than JUUUST the location spam aspect of it. While yes, having a huge amount of location is one of the parts custom wellstring does well in comp, one other reason it sees more usage is because wavebreaker doesn't take away the main weapon. Currently, comp is running more on zones only, and vanilla wellstring is a lot worse on this mode with stamp as it trades out the main weapon for a special that's incredibly easy to counter if you are a shooter, splatling, dualie or another explosion based stringer, which makes it much harder to use in that mode. Meanwhile, custom wellstring doesn't lose out on zones since wavebreaker doesn't take away your main in the first place, which allows you to keep up a lot more pressure and painting at a longer distance on Wellstring. This is also proven more true with what wellstring is mainly used as a semi-counter to, being vanilla squeezer and other wall weapons. Most of the splash wall weapons in comp currently are able to shoot through ultra stamp incredibly easily, meaning you'd be losing out on wellstring's high object damage at farther ranges for a special that is easily countered by the weapons it WANTS to counter. With the custom kit, however, you aren't taken from your main to use your special, meaning you can keep countering these weapons at a distance, helping to ease up matchups for your teammates against prominent splash wall weapons. This, on top of location being super helpful for both wellstring as an AoE weapon and with supporting your teammates, is what has custom wellstring over the vanilla wellstring in competitive play.

Where did you get this definition of kiting from? I swear its much more to do with manipulating/lureing enemies rather than being flexible in your own role/range. Think tetras rolling onto an enemy team's flank to draw players away from their own team. Maybe u could argue reflux does this with curling and ridiculous tapshot frame data but the other stringers are nowhere near mobile enough/have too much downtime to be in consistent danger. Every weapon with range can kite if the enemy is pushing but saying its a role/playstyle is an exaggeration unless referring to tetras, inkbrush...etc where their primary purpose in a comp is to draw attention.

as somebody that mains exclusively stringers, while I do feel it can kite fairly well, I feel that title is closer to that of a skirmisher, which, while I believe all of the stringers are capable of skirmishing well, only reeflux truly specializes at it, I would say the main element that all of the stringers share is being supportive, as they have amazing combo numbers, crazy paint output, and kits that allow them to be enable their team. While I do see the vision, I dont know if kite is the most accurate word for it, that brings to mind weapons like dualie squelcher, sliding away and keeping just out of reach, while I believe all the stringers can do this, I dont necessarily think that is their specialty. That said, I do appreciate the attention to the flexibility of the weapon class, I feel that stringers are one of the most expressive weapon classes in the game, being able to do just about any job well and so oftentimes succeeding with it is just figuring out which task to do first. Honestly the only way to use a stringer wrong is to only use one of its many modes While stringers are dynamic, I feel how I would generally categorize them is: Reeflux specializes at skirmishing, but it also has good paint which allows it to play well when supporting as well, since it wants to get a lot of eyes on itself and then refuse to die thanks to its mobility Tri-Stringer is very supportive, being very good at supporting its teammates with AoE to prevent targets from moving as well as being able to deal up to 90 damage if they cant get away, alongside having very good paint, that and due to it having charger range, it is very comfortable in the backline, that said, it can also very reliably play with it's team at midline and use primarily its AoE, I would describe its positioning as most similar to that of a jet squelcher Wellstring is very interesting in that, while it's more comfortable defending itself than a Tri-Stringer, it is also very slow, meaning it often is well suited to anchor while also actually wanting to play more like a midline, I would say it generally does best playing like an explo in opening but moving into more aggressive positions as its team gets momentum. Wellstring usually shouldnt be the furthest forward, generally I like playing it near weapons like stamper or blaster and creating a wall so that they cant actually fight either of us without instantly exploding. While I think its oneshot is good, that's usually more of a back-up plan than anything, since if you get caught in a 1-2 you dont even really get a chance to escape and so you just kinda die since it doesnt really have the movement to reliably do much in those situations

all ill say is WEAPON ROLES ARE NOT STATIC no matter the weapon

I still dont understand what kiting is, what other games is there examples of this? i have never heard of this term before, so like what i understand is that it can be used to snipe people but also can move around and fight people at the same time? so its basically just a combination of all other positons, like anchor, midline, and slayer? but like, whats the downside of a kite? bcs it has all range values and aoe? its it like harder or less consistant each of the range values and its more of like a general all around ok at each range but a master of none

neat video! you've activated my special interest and i'm gonna take a minute to selfishly rant about stringers cause wow i have so many hours put into the stringer class and so many thoughts about them: 1) no stringers have white-ink frames outside of their sub weapons. every stringer is incredibly ink efficient and easy to ink manage if you swim between shots. you can throw a subweapon and after charging 1 shot (maybe 2 on reeflux) you'll be able to swim to recover ink again. i run 2 subs to 1 main of ink recovery on every kit if i'm not running LDE 2) tri-stringer is like charger with great ink efficiency and high mobility that can ignore cover without wallbanging. that's insane to me 3) custom wellstring's detection works as support, but if your team gains advantage on a stage where the enemy's plat is a raised ledge, marking them makes confirming kills from safely below their ledge much easier- less time spent flaring the map to get an idea of where to group your explosive shots. SIDENOTE: i firmly believe this is the same concept for Dread Wringer D, another high paint output weapon with a detection sub and special (beakons reveal enemies on the map) that can completely ignore cover in a very threatening way 4) my dream wellstring kit is ink mine + big bubbler. my thought is you can bait aggressive weapons into your inkmines and finish them off with a single tap-shot instead of 2-3. and a big bubbler???? before i had to harass backlines from under their ledge or by arcing behind cover, but now i can become a huge problem for them anywhere on the map whenever i have special? AND my ink tank refills, meaning i can place a mine to prepare for someone entering my bubbler???? no one has to understand my vision, i would just be over the moon if this kit was real

It was more that people didn't know what kiting is, but also that, the class definitely still favors being an anchor more than it does being always on the move. Yes you have a very deadly area of effect, yes you have a lot of range, you paint a lot, you can be mobile, but the best spaces you can take advantage of, are typically from the backline. Challenging people behind walls safely, denying space and allowing others to combo off your icicle explosions. Reeflux definitely has its case, it's already incredibly mobile, almost comparable to the shooter class in how fast it can move and paint, but the other two don't exactly have that kinda luxury. The AoE spam is definitely disappointing, but I feel like it's just a result of the bows naturally being more defensively capable, than they are of offense. That's just my take on the matter though. I think you're right, but the class as a whole just isn't there yet.

Great video! Stringer is my favorite class, and I'm always happy to see people promote a kiting play style as an alternative to anchor play.

I can’t believe you gave my perfect kit to one of my favorite weapons, I would absolutely love to see it in the game.

As a somewhat recent Tri Stringer main I love this kind of play style. It’s just really fun and getting snipes is so fun.

Tristringer is the only one that rivals the range of pencil. Weirdly enough the heavy stringer has less range than the middle weight one.

My dream Wellstring kit would be Mine/Booyah. Mine can help wellstring cut off areas of the map and hold down the space to move where it wants, while Booyah can serve both as displacement for when you have advantage or a survivability option

Omg I am a wellstring and reeflux main but I had no idea what to think of my playstyle. Now I have a word for it

Kiting? Never heard of it lol (great video you explained it very well!)

I really love the video. A lot of people misunderstand how flexible stringers are at maneuvering between positions. I have inkline stringer and vreeflux 4 stars, and 5 stars vstringer too. I really enjoy stringers (and splatanas too!). They're clearly my favorite classes, and i'm kinda disappointed we don't have that many of them ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ But I really enjoyed the video! Thank you very much! Btw, for the new weapon kits, i was thinking: Inkstorm Burst for Stringer Zipcaster Torp for Reeflux Cooler mines for Wellstring. This is ofc my personal opinion, but funny that we had the cooler idea for wellstring.