Everything awesome about this rework 😎

It’s a win-win-win-win for everybody:

• Multihit gets to stay in the game while actually being balanceable, as it no longer depends on any other abilities to work.
• Arapaima becomes similarly balanceable as its bouncing can be changed in ways that don’t affect any other strategies it has.
• Arapaima gets to actually use the unique playstyle it was intended to have. Meanwhile, we basically get a 4th, brand-new t10 for swampy shores.
• Giant salamander enthusiasts get to keep their beloved stealthy t9 (or at least, its ability and playstyle), despite the salamander itself getting reworked.

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There is nothing to be lost by this Giant Salamander rework. No mechanics, no strategies, no gameplay. In fact, this only adds more to the game, in a literal sense: a new t10, and effectively two new and unique playstyles if we count arapaima fulfilling its intended gameplay. From a material lens, i cant think of any real reason to have anything against all of this.

Sprites for the rework are here

Extra notes

I’m guessing that some of yall are curious why giant salamander was chosen for this rework. So i’ll give some clarifications:

• For those who may think giant salamander isn’t t10 material, I’d actually argue it’s actually more t10-worthy than both GST and AST. whereas the turtles get to around a 1 meter shell length, Giant salamander’s total length gets nearly twice that long.
• I’ve also heard some people say that if giant salamander were to be t10, it should have a stealth based ability, rather than something like this. I don’t disagree actually; the only reason why i used giant salamander was out of necessity more than anything else.
• Originally this rework was for GST; When i asked around, most people said GST should keep its 0 recoil in any rework it may get. GST having 0 recoil, and the necessary accommodations it would need in order to make this rework, well, work, made things too complicated in my opinion. Aside from that, the only other t10 which the community would broadly approve a rework for would probably be walrus (as much as i would love to make this a halibut rework). Obviously, walrus doesn't fit the stats needed to make this ability balanced.
• So the only option from there was to rework a t9 into a t10. Of the possible options, they either didn’t have any animals to fill the spots that would be emptied by their tiering up (e.g. oarfish), or multiple reworks would be necessary in order to make everything come together (i considered making this a narwhal t10 rework, though doing so would probably mean making sea lion t9 and otter t8, which is an issue since sea lion and leo seal are functionally identical). And so this really only left giant salamander as a candidate for this rework.
• Lastly, if you’re wondering why i made this ability a rework to a current animal, rather than making this ability for a new animal, it’s based on the assumption and pretext that fede would likely prefer to do a rework rather than add something entirely new. Though in fairness, i cant think of any difference between the amount of work in a reworked versus completely new animal, other than one having a reused sprite. If a new animal were instead added, i’d put my money on using goliath tigerfish.

Extra notes (cont’d)

The only real issue with this rework is the question of whether or not fede would even do it in the first place.

• While fede’s decline in activity over time is a bit concerning on this front, it is at least worth noting that he has reworked multiple animals in past betas (namely, CS and goblin in the reef beta). I don’t think it’s totally unreasonable to think he could make this rework, especially considering how quickly he can make animals (napo took him less than a day, and SS as a whole, only around three), and especially if the important authority figures are on board with the rework.
• Unfortunately, that last part really sticks a thorn into this rework. Because a certain set of somebodies, who combined make up more than half of the harmony managers (i won’t name any names but i have no doubt yall know who they are) will likely continue to not budge on changing arapaima, even if the broader community overwhelmingly advocates for my arapaima changes and this giant salamander rework. But who knows, maybe they’ll have a change in heart. Or maybe fede will find these changes himself and muster enough sincere interest to do it himself, like how (iirc) he made napo with very little input from crabinet, if any at all.�