Buffs and New Utility for Line Marker

[Nitro Rocket]

Line Marker, despite the many buffs it has gotten, is still one of the worst subs in the game. While I wouldn't say it is unusable, there is a few other buffs I would want, plus new mechanical traits that I think would help make the sub more useful.

For the buffs, I would:
- Decrease the hitbox for terrain
- Increase the hitbox for players and objects
- Increase object damage

Currently, the detection for the "line" that puts a tracking marker on opponents is larger than the detection for dealing damage. Unless someone is passing through the trail after the marker has been thrown, the damage hitbox and tracking hitbox should be the same. Decreasing the hitbox for terrain will make it easier to throw over ledges at a low angle without it bouncing off of the corner.

Line Marker also has no object damage multiplier (3 markers to shred a sprinkler/Beakon). Spending 40% of your ink tank to get so little value doesn't make sense. I would increase this by at least 3 times; now you can break Sprinklers and Beakons from a distance, use them against Splash Wall weapons and help break specials from across the map.

To really make it better, I think a few new properties could enhance its effectiveness.
These being:
- Continue traveling after hitting an opponent
- Create a paint droplet at users feet when thrown (similar to Torpedo)
- Create and explosion at every point of impact

The paint droplet is just so that the Line Marker can be thrown forward while letting you move afterwards. Currently, hitting an opponent stops the Line Marker, which usually means that you can only hit one enemy at a time, so I would want that changed.

To give it a small bit of AOE, and to make it easier to hit opponents against a wall and/or around a corner, I would make the current size paint splatter the Line Marker creates when hitting terrain into a radial explosion for every time that it bounces. This means that you no longer need pin-point accuracy to get value from the Line Marker, simply hitting the terrain next to them will at least do damage. Since hitting a Line Marker direct already puts the paint splatter at their feet, hitting a Line Marker direct will create a small explosion around them that can hit other nearby enemies. Hitting an explosion and a direct could lead to very threatening damage, and with multiple explosions, potentially kill all on its own. I'm not sure how the damage of the sub overall would work, but I would want the explosions to be doing at least 30-35 damage.

Let me know what you think of this idea.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Direct damage should be 45 and blast damage should be 30.
This covers pretty much all of the bases for improving the special; at least, the creative ones. You didn't mention a direct damage buff, outside of that I have no nitpicks.

The only other thing I'd quite like to see is a location duration buff; in fact, it's the one way I think the sub could be balanced without unrealistic changes like trail damage or terrain rebound blasts. 7 second tracking on the trail, and a whopping 10-12 seconds on a direct.

 

[Linneus]

Can you believe the other 45% sub weapon is maybe the best sub in the entire game? Like, literally every single Angle Shooter weapon except maybe Jet Squelcher just wishes it had Burst Bomb instead.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Can you believe the other 45% sub weapon is maybe the best sub in the entire game? Like, literally every single Angle Shooter weapon except maybe Jet Squelcher just wishes it had Burst Bomb instead.

No, Jet Squelcher players probably wish they had Burst Bomb the most out of all Angle Shooter weapons (except maybe Slosher Deco players but they know it ain't happening). It's a returning sub for Jet, and was an inkredibly fun kit in Splatoon 1.
We do not talk about the Burst Bomb Jet Squelcher from Splatoon 2.

 

[Linneus]

Do we talk about Jet Squelcher at all in Splatoon 2?

 

[joe???]

Angle shooter is fine in my opinion, it feels great on long range chip damage weapons like rapid blaster pro deco and bloblobber deco and would have been amazing on explosher as well but that opportunity is dead for a while I suppose lol. Marking an entire sightline, quick paint when thrown at a surface, and finishing off weakened enemies is enough of a benefit for the cheapest sub in the game. It being hard to hit also makes it feel rewarding, if it had aoe not only would it be EXTREMELY annoying it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying to use.

Not everything in the game has to be strong, it just has to make sense in some context. If vpro and vjet are never strong in this game, its really just nintendo's fault for giving them a sub weapon that doesn't make sense for them, same way we aren't begging nintendo to buff beakon and kraken because they don't make much sense on krakon roller lol.