SO I HAVE BEEN USING THIS WEAPON IN TURF WAR AND SPLAT ZONE. I REALLY TOOK A SHINE TO IT, AND WANTED TO UNDERSTAND IT'S MECHANICS... THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE WEAPON FOR SPLAT ZONE SO FAR.
Sorry for the extreme excitement in that first part, but after not seeing much of any discussion on this thing, i really wanted to learn how it worked. Once i learned it's range, i knew to fight people from MY Distance. This weapon is amazing. I took it into splat zone and found myself coming at the top killing position when winning and sometimes even losing. Once i scored 24 kills, and 7 deaths in a match, I knew i had to come preach about how AMAZING this weapon can be when used properly.
The Blaster is a weapon with... for lack of a better term, a "Critical Distance", where if someone is at the exact necessary distance and you hit them, or near enough to them, you're guaranteed a kill. A "Critical Hit", if you will. The Blaster has a special function where your shot will detonate after a short distance traveled, putting out a decently large ink explosion. I noticed in training with it, that at the critical distance, you'll hear a sound and see a flash on a kill, denoting you were correctly spaced. It's rate of fire is poor, but it's ink bubble shot works similarly to charge weapons, where it puts down a solid line of ink in front of you (with a larger blob at the end, if fired correctly, of course). If you fire in a way similar to how you would with one of those weapons, not firing from the same spot but strafing, you'll actually get a lot better ink coverage.
If you can help it, you always want to shoot at an even straight forward trajectory with this weapon, because unless the ink bubble hits the ground first, you'll get a straight line covering all ground between you and the explosion, even if you're high above the ground. Also, if you're too close to something, you'll only get a relatively small spot of ink on it, which is troublesome if you're trying to scale the terrain to get the height advantage- it can take longer than it needs to to create a wall path.
But, in exchange for the downsides of this weapon, you gain a weapon that from the proper distance, can hit and kill clustered foes, people hiding behind walls or on sniper perches from below, simply by blowing them away with the explosion. Multiple times, i was able to shoot upwards without being able to see the opponent, and kill them before they knew they were being attacked, since the explosion, even if they're outside the range of the critical, will still kill in two hits.
The debatable aspects of the set come from it's Disrupter sub weapon and Killer Wail super weapon- since neither puts ink down. The Disrupter is somewhat more useful in Splat Zone where you might be able to get multiple foes caught together since they're likely to bunch up more anyway. It basically makes them move like they're stuck in enemy ink no matter what for a while. You can throw one out, catch people off guard from their movement change and get a kill unawares, or use it to shut down a roller that nearly sneaked up on you, buying you distance.
Killer wail is generally only useful for area denial for a few seconds, forcing enemies to move or die, but i feel like opportunities where it'd make a huge difference are few and far between.
It's definitely sub-optimal for turf war, BUT i did manage to get some first place wins with it, with inventive and PRAGMATIC use of ink coverage- so it's definitely still possible to do well ink turf war with it... and it's kill power is immense. It truly shines in Splat Zones, where it can ink the box quickly, do to it's good coverage in a small area, and it's great killing potential and suppression power against foes in cover.
It's an unorthodox weapon with some flaws, but an incredibly satisfying and useful weapon to have on a team, i've found.
