I uhhh honestly can't expect most people to be truly great at this weapon. I've spent a couple months playing with it and I feel like I'm only just beginning to be able to say "look what this can do!"
At first glance, tri-stringer is a weird, maybe bad charger. Your regular trigger pulls don't drop much if any ink directly in front of you, your shots don't pierce, and sometimes you don't even hit with all of the arrows at a full charge. I've got good and bad news: it's both better and worse than a charger. It's got a lot of flexibility and some serious damage, but at the cost of a high, steep skill curve and no pierce.
Let's take a look at the numbers:
| attack | damage |
|---|---|
| tap shot | 40 per ink stream |
| half charge | 80 per arrow |
| full charge | 150 per arrow/450 total |
| arrow burst | 40 per pop |
So right away I get to say, "oh, I forgot a 400 damage weapon last post": if you understand tristringer's aiming principles and land all three arrows, this stringer is a delete button for cohocks and can almost oneshot the mid-HP bosses like Steel Eels, Scrappers, and Slammin' Lids (side note: if you've never noticed, the shooting range boss targets have stickers of all the bosses that share its health pool). Since two arrows is 300, you have some leeway with accuracy on Steelheads. You can also kill a chum with a single arrow from a half charge with damage left over. Each stream from a tap shot also hits the 40 damage requirement to oneshot a smallfry. This is actually true of all sniping weapons, but tri-stringer's three streams actually make it very decent smallfry mopper--don't be afraid to take the lead in mudmouth and griller rounds, especially if no one else is!
Now. Mechanically, the tri-stringer gets complex quickly! Between a tap shot and a full charge, the streams scale in damage. I don't know the exact rate, but you can basically treat it as linear. This means you can pop a chum with a single arrow at just over a half charge. Once you hit a half charge, you gain the burst on missed arrows, and your range and spread begin to alter. The closer you get to full charged, the greater your range and closer your arrows land. Any arrow that hits a target is fully absorbed as damage. There's no pierce, so the only arrows that pop are ones that miss. The pop is fairly large, and it does do area of affect damage, meaning you can stack damage from multiple pops; you can kill a chum with them if the arrows land close enough. The single pops will do a small chip on all surrounding enemies, and, crucially, rez your teammates (with some time for them to get closer to the arrow!)
Along with the damage nuances, you also have some interesting arc mechanics and some spread control via standing for horizontal spread and hopping for vertical. This spread control and arc management is where the skill curve really starts taking a vertical climb.
Vertical or Horizontal?
When you're at a full charge, your two outside arrows are just on the edge of your circle reticle. You can and will miss with one of these, especially if your stick & gyro sensitivity is set quite high. (granted, I still keep mine at 4, but I had to drop it down when I started stringing in earnest--it was at 5) In general, if your target is tall and skinny, like a steel eel's fish or a string of stinger pots (which, side nuance note: hit these with a half charge or half + half more so each arrow hits a separate pot), you should hop. If it's a squat target, like a steelhead bubble or slammin' lid mushroom head, stay grounded. What's super wild is your change to vertical isn't instant. You can actually release a diagonal line if you release too soon. Along with this, hopping does lift your reticle higher. With motion controls, adjusting for this is easy (and at this point entirely instinctive; I almost forgot to mention it!); no idea with just stick. In SR these two things matter a bit less as targets are larger, but if you feel like you're missing your third arrow, this may be why. Honestly, in SR, most of the time when at a full charge you can land all three from a horizontal with a steady hand, but hopping will make shots easier to land, and it's always good to hop a half charge to paint a wall path.
At a half charge, use horizontals for when the hoard spreads out, and verticals, aimed high, for when they're strung out or in a choke point. Just lay down a constant stream of chip damage until there are bosses to delete.
arcing
Honestly, the arcing of shots is super weird. You can do some awesome stuff with it, but it's basically 100% instinct sholting and I don't expect anyone to use it well unless they're a main and even then some shots Just Miss.
If you aim roughly 20-30° up from level, your range isn't impacted, and your shots enter your target at something closer to 80°... which means you can shoot over a hoard and pop a boss if you have a good feel for your max range. Aim a little higher and your arrrows start losing range, but you're able to lob beautifully. I recommend hopping for almost all arc shots if your intent is to kill; the way the vertical spread lands is far more forgiving than horizontal.
Your half charge shots arc as well, with the same rule: aim around 30° up and your arrows will drop at their max range, meaning you can drop shots on enemies behind walls or rez teammates behind goons. I recommend you keep these horizontal.
There's some veeery fun things you can do with arc shots, hitting with the outside arrows, half + some change shots, and knowing when to use horizontal or vertical. It's such an incredibly flexible weapon, but boyyyyy do you need a lot of time to get a feel for it. You should absolutely go "what if I do this..." and "I wonder if I can nail this Slammin' Lid from below it" but be prepared to miss a lot. you need lots of time.
In general, the tri-stringer often feels weak--it doesn't paint as you expect, and like a charger you want a full charge, but it has the wrinkle of an extra charge point and no pierce. It's actually one of my favorite SR weapons when used skillfully though; it hits like a truck, and its compexity gives it a flexibility you don't otherwise see in a sniper role weapon. You can do some wild stuff.
Here's some important general tips:
painting horizontally:
The tri-stringer's ink streams are funny; they kinda shoot out and then flop down, leaving the area directly around you bare except for every third or so shot. For maximum coverage and ink efficiency, don't spam tap shot. Instead, run forward and tap shot every half second or so--your goal is to shoot once you've roughly gotten over the gap you leave in front of you. You can lay out a broad swathe surprisingly quickly this way. It's no aerospray, but for covering some lanes or around the basket at start it's rather decent, and you can fill a flipper-flopper ring quite well with just two or three shots.
painting vertically:
A hop tap shot paints a nice vertical rectangle, a horizontal shot a horizontal one, yes. But a half charge shot (or a half + half even) can do so at range! The burst doesn't add much coverage, but it does drip down a bit more, which can save you in a pinch. In general, let the shape of the wall guide whether you hop. If you wanna play, you can do some funky things by shooting at a wall when at a 45° angle to it or greater, or make a diagonal path by shooting early when hopping. I'm not sure of any frequent applications, but it is fun!
shoot-then-swim:
The tri-stringer isn't great at this, but it's a sniper role b&b and there is a trick to doing it decently and gives you some ok mobility through sludge for repositioning: hop for a vertical and fire twice in quick succession, once just below level and once around 20°. You can get off two vertical tapshots even in a shorthop, and by aiming up and down you ensure your path is fully covered to your maximum tap shot range. Dive in, swim to the end, and repeat.
role notes:
You should behave, for the most part, as a sniper; focus on bosses, take special care to delete steelheads, and hang back near the basket. You however do have the flexibility to wade in a bit closer to grab an egg, or to clean up smallfry, and you also have some excellent support fire capabilities. Lob constant salvos of half charges to weaken a hoard for shooters to clean up and use your arcing to land a rez. Use your broad tap shot coverage to clean a bit of floor to give your mates some swim space. Don't be afraid to climb a fish stick and tap shot those singing lil guys either; you can kill two or even three per tap!