In your opinion, what would you say is the most improved main weapon in this game's life cycle?

[McSquid82]

In light of the recent patch, since we're at the end of this game's life cycle as far as new content goes with irregular balance updates. I'll go first and answer the question in the topic. In my opinion, it's either Zap or the Splattershot Pro. Zap was already a very good main weapon, but it was just too similar to Splattershot in terms of its stats other than its fire rate and damage. Now it's more mobile, slightly more accurate and stands out a lot more. As far as the Pro goes, it's in a way better spot that it was at launch. Its paint was garbage, and it was pretty undertuned all around. Now in addition to the paint buffs it got slightly better accuracy and damage. What are your thoughts?

 

[Vidknight]

I'm thinking between Snipewriter 5H or dapple dualies Nouveau. Pen at launch was ok. Nothing really special, but that was until a buff that made it do 68 damage per shot, less ink consumed per shot, and the increased movement speed, and the weapon was shot into being one of the best weapon in the game although I do feel that a meta shift was also the reason Pen became a top tier.

As for dapples the main weapon buffs it got was a big help for it, and it defineatlly improved it a good bit, but I feel that the biggest changes to happen was reef slider getting giga buffed in benefited a lot of slider weapons, but for dapples the slider buffs made it much more threatening. This weapon went from a low tier to a high tier, in such a short time, and it's crazy to think about it.

 

[LemonBoy]

I agree with vidkight, I think pencil is prolly the most trash to top tier weapon out there. BUT I also think wiper is up there in terms of one of the much better weapons from launch (not biased I swear). The paint buff it got early on was the thing that really sent it from possibly viable to viable. It also got a lot of other buffs, the bigger ones other than the paint one was the two frames it got towards it's charge slash. The other was technically not a direct buff, but the recent hammer buffs is absolutly bumping EVERY hammer weapon up a few spots, if not tiers. Wiper being the biggest winner with this buff.

 

[QuagSass]

I think Dappies gets the honor. It's been buffed soooooo many times in the game's lifespan and is a pretty respectable high tier now. And that's not even including the buffs to Reefslider and to a lesser extend Tacticooler.

Pencil is a solid contender as well, but also thinking about how Pencil got buffed makes me upsetti
I'll give Pencil one thing tho, it's version history is almost as funny as Ballpoint's. Props.

 

[Smash Arena]

Dapple Dualies for sure, I remember loving them in 2 and then feeling that they weren't as effective when I started playing 3. Over the years Nintendo has strengthened them to be a mainstay weapon for me again. I also see them all the time in both casual and high-rank games.

In fact, I would say that Dapples are a very well-designed weapon. They are easy to pick up and play at a low level thanks to their good paint output and being able to quickly splat opponents in regular firing mode. Conversely, they are difficult to master when it comes to safe spacing and properly using the dodge rolls/turret firing mode.

 

[SAMICOM]

In light of the recent patch, since we're at the end of this game's life cycle as far as new content goes with irregular balance updates. I'll go first and answer the question in the topic. In my opinion, it's either Zap or the Splattershot Pro. Zap was already a very good main weapon, but it was just too similar to Splattershot in terms of its stats other than its fire rate and damage. Now it's more mobile, slightly more accurate and stands out a lot more. As far as the Pro goes, it's in a way better spot that it was at launch. Its paint was garbage, and it was pretty undertuned all around. Now in addition to the paint buffs it got slightly better accuracy and damage. What are your thoughts?

tenta - from being unusable to otay!!

 

[nocoffei]

Aerospray MG has been buffed SEVEN TIMES since the game came out. Fizzy bomb has been reworked once; at first I hated the area change but uncharged throw is huge for getting out of binds. And with six reefslider buffs since launch (as pointed out by others in this thread) I think that puts Aerospray at the top of the list of highest number of total buffs with 14.

 

[DzNutsKong]

I'd say whether you're looking at it from a meta shifts standpoint or in a vacuum and not considering kits or the state of the game, it's gotta be the Snipewriter regardless. The ink consumption increase was a huge deal for letting it get three full charges from one ink tank with minimal Ink Saver Main gear, which is very close to enough for its special in a vacuum even after the nerfs. The movement speed buff was helpful for further improving its matchup against other anchors. The damage buff was arguably the most important since the state of the game has turned out to be more chip damage focused. I'm sure most of you know why but I'll go over what it did for those of you who aren't as in-the-know.

68 damage per shot is a big deal for a game that's centered around chip damage for reasons that you may already know, but in case you don't, picture the amount of relevant things in the game that deal 32+ damage and compare it to the things that deal 40+. For the former you have - Splattershot bullets, Squeezer bullets, Stamper horizontals, Rapid Blaster indirect, the outside hitboxes of basically every bomb in the game, plus I'm sure plenty more things I'm forgetting about. There's a lot. For the latter you have either of Dread Wringer's sloshes, Decav horizontals, and Splattershot Pro bullets, and none of those existed when Snipewriter came out. The list grew so much with that buff.

You could argue that some of its relevance is from Tacticooler's buffs, but for a while now people have been arguing that the 5B kit is also one of the strongest anchors in the game, with the only reason not to use it being that there aren't really any comps that it would fit onto any better than the 5H kit. This is despite it being stuck with Ink Storm which is not a very good special right now. This above anything else is a testament to how much better the main weapon's gotten - a technically bad kit on launch was enough to kill the weapon before, but now a technically mediocre kit is enough for the weapon to be seen as very strong. It's not just game state that's done this.

 

[C-53]

Reeflux comes to mind here, as a weapon that received a pretty transformative characteristic with the removal of the airborne charge penalty, not to mention a decent list of other small combat buffs, including an outright damage increase. If not for the missle nerf, this thing might be my pick, given how much effort the designers put into it.