Item popularity snapshot - June 2018

Hello people! I miss the old item popularity snapshot threads. I don't blame people for not making them, because it's obviously a lot of work. This time though, I decided to do it myself. So here's the June 2018 edition!

I looked at the global top 50 for this. I'm in Ace I, so I could not see all of the Nightmare League (but it would be a gargantuan amount of effort to do this for the entire league anyway). So here's what the ship distribution in the top 50 looks like:


So there's a high amount of enforcers and shooters, but a low amount of fixers and defenders. That was to be expected though. And now that that's out of the way, the thing we're all here for: the weapon rankings!



Here "sum" is the total amount of weapons present, which is different from the amount of users because people run 2 of the same weapon sometimes.

It cannot come as a surprise, given the high amount of enforcers, that Blast Cannon and Flare Gun are the leading weapons. What could come as a surprise, however, is that the dropoff to sniper is so big. Sniper Cannon is barely any more present than Mine and Explosive Cannon. Mine even has more unique users than the often complained about sniper!

The bottom of the list isn't very surprising. Launchers have never been popular at the top end of the game, where everyone's speed (and avoiding skill) is too high to reliably land them. To a lesser extent, this also goes for torpedos. If anything, I expected Missiles to be higher. I seem to recall them being near the top in the past, and they haven't been nerfed since that time. They've even been buffed, if you count the recent perk addition.

Now, let's go on to the yellow items:


No surprises here. Frost was nerfed into obscurity, and since the "fixes" there have been few players who preferred Tesla Bolt over a speed item.

Next, blue items:


A few surprises here. First of all, the turbo count is not 50. There were 2 enforcers who chose to run Big Shield + Bandage, and among those was the #1 player (HXD Peterking). The second surprise is that the Rudder count is not zero. There was one defender who chose to use a rudder. It's safe to say that was a good decision, given that he's now one of only two defenders that managed to get into the top 50.

Lastly, the green items:


There's not much to say about this. There were only 5 fixers, and their setups varied. Actually, one interesting point: there are no "selfish fixer" setups in the top 50

Now, let's look at some specifics for the most represented ships. What weapons do shooters like to use?


The only remarkable thing here is that the Fire Bomb number is relatively high, considering the low placement in the weapon ranking. This is because all Fire Bombs in the top 50 were on shooters.

Next: what blue item setup do high ranked shooters prefer?


One setup is clearly preferred, though the other remains high enough to be relevant.

Now, there aren't really enough fixers, defenders or speeders in the top 50 to look at setups, but there were many enforcers. So here's the weapon top 5 for enforcer:


As you can see, the dropoff from 4 to 5 is huge. There are only 4 weapons that see significant use by enforcer players, of which 2 are dominant.

Lastly, what yellow setups do enforcers use?


It's obvious that most enforcers run 2x Tesla Shield. What's less obvious is that 6 enforcers in the top 50 run a different setup. Half of those run the setup that's most popular among speeders (TS + OB + nitro), while the other half runs something funny involving the rare frost item or Tesla Bolt.

That was it! I hope you enjoyed reading this post. It's not likely I'll make another, because it's a lot of work, lol.

 

kudos that looks like it took zonks to make
ofc flare bc is the meta lol

 

Respect for making this!

 

Thanks @Miathan, you’ve done a really good job on this, I really like the way it’s laid out.

Thoughts on the numbers...

Sniper isn’t really a surprise, given the high number of Tesla Shields in the meta. Though I don’t know if that’s a reason to stop complaining about it, considering that fully half the players that made it into the top 50, are people who brought a hard counter to Sniper.

It’s also reassuring to see that Tesla Bolt and Frost are indeed ‘dead’ as opposed to ‘balanced’. Which should have been obvious for months now.

Going forward, I hope Rovio isn’t going to do thier usual knee-jerk reaction and nerf Enforcers.

What I think needs to happen is a reversal of ‘some’ of the damage that has been done during the last few updates. Small buffs to EC, Frost, and Tesla Bolt, enough to bring Speeders and Defenders back into the meta. Which I think would really help to put all these double bubble Enforcers back in their box.

I think Fixer has also been needing some love for quite a while now. A buff for repair boxes certainly wouldn’t go amiss.

 

You’re funny!

And no! Absolutely not! It is still the meta weapon of 3/4 Shooters, and Shooters are still slightly overrepresented in the top 50. Once Tesla Shields are put back in check, Sniper will be back to its usual OP self, doing too much damage for not enough skill.

The best way to reduce the viability of Tesla Shields is just to bring back more of its natural counter: Speeders with Tesla Bolt, and EC Defenders.

 

Heh! I know you’re just poking fun at me <3

#triggered

 

@Ash KOT @ViscountSniffit Why on earth does EC need a buff? It's the #4 weapon in the list, and considering that enforcers don't use 2 pointers, it's the #2 weapon right behind sniper for non-enforcer ships.

Also, it's powerful enough. It still hits like a truck and does area damage on top of that.

 

Very nice presentation. My guess is that the enfos not running Double Tesla S are the ones that dont have two viable ones yet

 

Well, noone said that a defender must run double EC. If they do, and then have a cooldown problem, it's on them. They have 5 points and 3 slots, that creates a lot of options. Charging into the enemy group while blowing it up with your double EC is only one tactic, and it doesn't have to be the dominant one.

 

Thanks!

 

That's what I've been saying forever. If you have cooldown problem on Defender, just equip Cannon .. every 4 seconds almost 1000 damage (with fire).

 

I've even seen them do well with carronade

 

My dream defender setup is Explosive cannon, Napalm and Standard Cannon, but RNGesus gave me 6 epic flare guns, so I stopped farming my 2 napalms

 

Lol 7 speeders and 72% enforcers and shooters. Nothing to add great job @Miathan.

 

7 speeders isnt that far of the expected average (10). But it is far of the 25 out of 50 we had most of 2017 though.