Well I’ll be missing the Range Blaster and next week’s weapon release weekends. Moved house on Monday (although I arrived on the Wednesday) and currently have standard broadband with a whopping 1.2mbps down and 0.24mbps up. I tried Mario Kart Wii online with Wiimmfi, could play that (barely), but encountered many disconnects and struggled to connect to hosts and other players in rooms. I then tried Splatoon 2 (in Turf War of course), had the first match work fine, then had 2 of those "win dc" style disconnects (everyone disappeared bar me and then "A communication error has occured." and the 4th match dropped out about 30 seconds in.
I love this kit, but with the nerfs made to jump shots (not really necessary despite the complaints), the maps favouring short ranged weapons and a lack of invincible specials countering short range I don't see the long term viability of this weapon. I'm waiting on the
Grim Custom Range Blaster because that should most definitely help keep short ranged weapons in check with its kit. This is also why I'm not holding any breath for the Hydra, as it'll have the same issues that the E-Litre has. I picked up the original Heavy at launch, but dropped it due to the over-reliance on your team getting key splats in aggressive moves and I couldn't push forward due to my range, slower kill time and slow movement so when my team lost ground, I couldn't push back because I lost my vantage points and the short ranged weapons get up in your face before you have the time to say "Rainmaker".
As the competitive players have mentioned many times (and I see their points), long ranged weapons don't work because they give up painting and aggression to hold back, be defensive and support, and most of those weapons don't even have the map space to abuse their range either. Splatoon already favours short ranged weapons due to matches being won by the team who manages the biggest single push, and Splatoon 2 kind of nerfed the living daylights out of all the short ranged counters (Dynamo, E-Litre through no damage up and poor kits, no Kraken to counter short range). It also didn't help that Disruptors were turned into Toxic Mist and Echolocator was lost, as Disruptors hindered all short ranged weapons rather than telling them "you can't go here" as there are many different ways for those weapons to go around it and splat you anyway, and Echo was a very useful tool to spam out and get easy onscreen info as to where the enemy where and prevent flanks.
I feel like I can get away with using the Splattershot Pro, but it isn't a very good weapon compared to all the things in the meta and I'd be better off learning a weapon that does the same things but better. I'm also holding out on the .96 Deco, with the kit it is receiving it stands a decent chance of countering short ranged weapons and I've planned my build for it, I just need to get that put together before it releases (which will be in a few months' time). Mark my words, once the Neo Splash releases that will become a highly popular mainstream meta weapon in Turf and Ranked. It paints way better than the nerfed Aerospray, got a nifty range buff and the maps will favour it and with the kit it has I think the Neo Splash will shine in a way that Splash in general never did in the original (although saying that near the end of the game's life the vanilla was used for Bomb Rush spam and constant turf coverage).
What was that about Comeback? :p
In all seriousness though I highly recommend that people download the Nintendo Switch Online App, whilst I agree on how unnecessary and complicated (and dumb) the calling side of the app is, SplatNet 2 is a real diamond and I wish we had a browser version of it. You get 12 pieces of gear a day, all with different main abilities (not always good though) and you only need to check it twice a day as gear gets 12 hours before disappearing. On top of that you can see how your win/loss streaks are going for your last 50 matches, you can see how many matches you've won with weapons you've used, your individual win percentages for all the maps on Ranked and really narrow down which maps give you problems and which modes are problematic and start working on them. There's also the SplatNet 100 and the silly trivia that shows your lifetime inkage and what real world locations you have "covered" with ink, and you get wallpapers for your phone and tablets (which is dumb, but Nintendo loves wallpapers don't they?). I've been getting rid of gear with Cold-Blooded and Quick Respawn as both of those abilities are so useless, and I've been using it to get nice pieces of gear with abilities that work better for me so I can get those fresh looks.
I haven't wrote an essay like this in quite some time. I better not start making a habit of this :p
