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Splatoon 2 Why Chargers Aren't Terrible

Do you agree with my points in "Why Chargers Aren't Terrible"?

  • Yes, I have been enlightened or I already had the same thoughts.

  • No, I have my own opinions, and I don't need you telling me what's good and bad.

  • I don't take either side in this argument.


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CreeperFishStix

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Before you come charging at me with your Splatterscopes, let me explain myself.
I have been playing Splatoon (the original) since August 2016, which I will admit isn't a long time, but it was long enough to reach S 44. I have also been playing Splatoon 2 since launch (July 21st, 2017) and have reached S+ in all modes. Long story short, I know how stuff works in this relatively new franchise.

On to the actual topic of this thread: chargers. Specifically, the fact that they are still a good weapon class. Saying that chargers are bad is like saying the Rapid Blaster Pro isn't broken, it's just not true! I have developed 3 main reasons why I believe that my above statement is true:

First, despite the fact that damage up was removed from the game, which allowed players to one-shot enemies without fully charging a shot, the unscoped versions of these weapons got a special buff: charge hold. For those of you who don't know, charge hold is when you fully charge a shot, except for Goo Tuber, in which you can hold a partially charged shot, if you continue holding down the button and dive into your ink, when you come back up, you will still have your shot. Each weapon has a certain amount of time before your shot gets taken away from charge-holding. This is important for one of my later points, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Second, the chargers kits in Splatoon 2 are still good, some even better than their Splatoon counterparts. For example, and this is a very situational example, the E-Liter (Litre if you live in PAL regions) 4K compared to the E-Liter 3K. The 3K had Burst Bomb sub and Echolocator special, which made it an offensive power house. The 4K, however, deals with it's weapon's problems better with Ink Mine sub and Ink Storm special. The E-Liter has a problem with being flanked, even the 3K had trouble with up-close encounters, which the new Ink Mine deals with perfectly. When it gets activated by an enemy, they get located and receive a small amount of damage, as well as having the possibility of getting stuck in your ink, at least temporarily. The user can then turn around, and get that beautiful partial charge kill they missed from the first game. The Ink Storm has a similar effect, only over a larger area. It makes enemies scatter near the objective or out of hiding when one gets dropped, allowing you to snipe them while they attempt to get away.

Third, chargers can do something no other weapon can do at long range: they can take out enemies in a relatively short time with no sign of them being there, especially with the charge hold. They can charge up a shot, and either peak around or above an object, or charge hold from behind an object, and get the kill on an enemy who has no time to react. Let me compare this to another long-ranged weapon, the Jet Squelcher. It has the longest range of any shooter, but in return has a slow rate of fire and low damage shots. If you started firing directly at an enemy, they would probably take the first two shots, but would then escape by swimming away or behind an object. Put the charger in, and most well-seasoned players will experience minimal difficulty getting the kill on their unsuspecting target.

So, what are your thoughts? Are you still a salty charger main who plays chargers in Splatoon (the original) to cope with the "difficulty" of dropping damage up and scope, or have you been enlightened by my wise words?
 
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NPDgames

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You're right. Chargers are a strong weapon type. But they're not an easy weapon type. This early in on the game, even the franchise, we're nowhere near the skill ceiling. At this point, somebody using a charger won't be quite as good as sombody using a splattershot, in fact nowhere near. If you could get 12 kills with a charger, that skill could get you 20 with a shooter. When the skill ceiling begins to approach, things will change. Weapons like chargers and rollers will see more play, and become an integral part of your team. But for now, shooters will remain the most prevelant weapon type.
 

flamingoezz

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chargers aren't bad per se. they are just difficult to use, as their advantage is range -- and there are only a few points on each map where chargers can perch safely, making it easy to get close to them.

there are few players who are good enough with the weapon AND aggressive, making it a largely neutralizing class. when i have one on my team, i never applaude..but when i face one, i kinda groan.
 

Sifu

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I don't think anyone ever said chargers were bad - just that they are less useful (currently) in Splatoon 2 than they were in S1. I play a good bit with chargers, and I never find myself doing as well as I could when I'm using one of my other favourite weapons, but I do often find myself painting a decent amount of the map, and often getting 5-8 kills in a game, but just as often I find myself with a small number of kills or with a small amout of turf covered.

That said, I think a good charger knows when to perch in a safe position, and when to get aggresive and push for more control; the charge holding mechanic helps a good bit with this, and the design of the maps requires you to take risks to do well as a charger.
 

precastzero180

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Charger main here. I like my Chargers, so it may come as a surprise that I think they are rather terrible in Splatoon 2. They are good in the right hands, but so is any weapon. The inherent flaw of Chargers in both Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2 is they are slow back-line weapons in a game that fundamentally favors aggressive short-ranged ones that can ink turf quickly and stay mobile.

Splatoon 1 balanced this out by giving some Chargers invincibility specials or overall better kits with bombs or a Splash Wall that was actually quick to deploy and useful. Splattershots and other short-ranged weapons couldn't always just rush them down without considering these risks. On the flip-side, Chargers could use these options for pushes themselves. Yes, invincibility specials were BS and needed to go. But what is there to take their place?

Chargers now have an defensive and offensive problem. There is almost nothing that can prevent a coordinated team or even a single player to rush down a Charger and splat them. The new map designs make it so easy to flank and ambush Chargers and on a whole don't have many good perches. Chargers don't do 1v1s well. Even experienced players will lose in those scenarios 9 times out of 10. So now Chargers have to make sure they never find themselves in that situation, all the while defending or pushing the objective; not easy.

Most weapons don't have to worry about such things. They can adapt to various situations instead of working double-time to be in the right place at the right time. A Splattershot with Burst Bombs and Splashdown has a lot of options. An E-liter with Beakons and Bubble Blower has few. The reason why the vanilla Splat Charger and Splatterscope are the only relatively common Chargers in highly competitive play is almost solely because they have Splat Bombs. Bombs will always be better than any other sub. Ironically the Goo Tuber has the best kit of any Charger.

I personally don't mind the absence of Damage Up. Of all the nerfs Chargers have received, this was the least significant IMO as people were using Damage Up and Defense Up across the board anyways. I also really like being able to hold a charge. It's fun and it's flashy. But it's also not that useful, nor does it solve any of the problems addressed above.

So to address the OP's points:

1) Charge-holding does not fill the gap of what was lost between Splatoon 1 and 2

2) Most of the new kits are not good. They don't give Chargers much of a chance to defend themselves against players running them down or to make pushes of their own.

3) Charging behind the safety of cover, while useful, does not make up for the fact that doing so works against the advantage of being fast and mobile while also not considering the number of such positions that actually provide decent vantage points in Splatoon 2 maps. Other weapons also have options that defy the limitations of cover such as bombs and vertical routes.
 
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Elecmaw

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^ Hit the nail right on the head. They revamped the maps to be more oriented to short-ranged weapons, but now the meta moved on from charger hell to blaster hell. They also nerfed partial shots pretty badly(can only go up to <80 dmg, no more dmg up), which makes close encounters hard to deal with. But other long-ranged fighters like the Jet Squelcher and Heavy do have a fighting chance when caught up close.

E3K's kit gave it so many more options over the E4K. A single direct with a burst bomb + tap shot is good enough to slay someone, whereas you need two tap shots to kill someone who got hit by mine. Plus, mines have to stay in one place whereas bursts can be quickly pulled out whenever necessary.

Echolocator reveals everyone on the map, even hiding people aren't safe from being shot anymore. But there's also a hidden perk to Echo, it refuels your ink tank which can be invaluable for a weapon that drains as much ink as the E3K. Having the game tell you where everyone is is incredibly useful regardless of what weapon you are using, but especially for the snipers. Ink Storm just zones people out, while helpful for getting people to move from cover and into your sniping view it's nowhere near as good for it as echo was.

The only thing i disagree with is that the chargers in this game are awful. They're just weak, but what with the sets ranging from mediocre or just flat out bad i doubt it's going to change in new patches. The ability to slay someone in one shot from afar is as tempting as always, but that doesn't matter when people can just hide and fight between the myriad of corners in every new map and you're given few options to flush them out.

Having a E4K with burst bombs and tenta-missles would already help it a lot, but i doubt that is going to happen anywhere near soon since people fear E4K with bursts way too much.
 

precastzero180

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^ Hit the nail right on the head. They revamped the maps to be more oriented to short-ranged weapons, but now the meta moved on from charger hell to blaster hell. They also nerfed partial shots pretty badly(can only go up to <80 dmg, no more dmg up), which makes close encounters hard to deal with. But other long-ranged fighters like the Jet Squelcher and Heavy do have a fighting chance when caught up close.
I wouldn't say Blaster hell. More like Splattershot hell and whatever can compete with it e.g. pre-nerf Tri-Slosher, Sloshing Machine, Baller, Ink Armored N-ZAP. The Rapid and Luna Blaster are strong, but the other Blasters have a similar problem to Chargers: they are slow and get picked apart by everything else. Most long-range weapons in Splatoon 2 suffer from these problems to one extent from another (the recent buffs to the .96 and SSP is a decent start though), but as you say, they aren't completely helpless against ambushes and rushes.

The only thing i disagree with is that the chargers in this game are awful. They're just weak, but what with the sets ranging from mediocre or just flat out bad i doubt it's going to change in new patches. The ability to slay someone in one shot from afar is as tempting as always, but that doesn't matter when people can just hide and fight between the myriad of corners in every new map and you're given few options to flush them out.
Maybe words like terrible and awful are too strong. With a few individual exceptions (Goo Tuber, Flingza), any weapon can find its place in the game. I don't think weak is a good word either. They are just very disadvantaged by way of circumstance. The maps, the kits, the way the objective game types are set up; all things that put Chargers at a disadvantage. They could be very good under different circumstances. I think the general approach to kits in Splatoon 2 is backwards. Bombs and specials like Baller and Splashdown should be more common on longer-ranged weapons while shorter-ranged weapons should be the ones with the more "support" options like Ink Mines and Bubble Blower. That the Splattershot has Burst Bombs and Splashdown is rather ridiculous in my view, but that is a rant for another time and thread.
 

The Salamander King

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WARNING!!! UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT!!!



I personally think that Goo Tuber might just be the best of all chargers, as it's the only weapon in the class that (when played correctly, of course) almost nullifies the main weakness of the charger weapon class, the need to charge. If you charge up and hold your charge, you can get about halfway across most maps before it runs out. This means that you don't really have to charge a shot to get kills, just pop up and one shot people, similar to a blaster. With all other chargers, before you can kill an enemy, you have to stop and charge up. A good Goober needs to only charge at spawn and swim to the other side of the map and pick people off without them even being aware of your existence.

The Goober also has a kit that makes up for its weaknesses. Chargers can't fight up close. Splashdown. Chargers are bad at getting people out of areas. Suction bombs. The kit supports the weapon perfectly.


I think that they should have given Eliter Curling bombs. It would allow the weapon to get away when being flanked. Giving it burst bombs again would be horrible, as in the first game, even if you got close to an Eliter it would bomb and tapshot you, which actually killed faster than a lot of shooters.
 

AllToonedUp

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As a charger user, I wouldn't say chargers are terrible per say. They're just not dominating in the current meta, it's as simple as that. They're still good weapons if you put the time into them but most people don't bother with them due to the absence of Damage Up, there's less stages where a charger can snipe safely, and the fact that most of the chargers have kits that don't cover their weaknesses.
 

Elecmaw

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I personally think that Goo Tuber might just be the best of all chargers, as it's the only weapon in the class that (when played correctly, of course) almost nullifies the main weakness of the charger weapon class, the need to charge. If you charge up and hold your charge, you can get about halfway across most maps before it runs out. This means that you don't really have to charge a shot to get kills, just pop up and one shot people, similar to a blaster. With all other chargers, before you can kill an enemy, you have to stop and charge up. A good Goober needs to only charge at spawn and swim to the other side of the map and pick people off without them even being aware of your existence.

The Goober also has a kit that makes up for its weaknesses. Chargers can't fight up close. Splashdown. Chargers are bad at getting people out of areas. Suction bombs. The kit supports the weapon perfectly.


I think that they should have given Eliter Curling bombs. It would allow the weapon to get away when being flanked. Giving it burst bombs again would be horrible, as in the first game, even if you got close to an Eliter it would bomb and tapshot you, which actually killed faster than a lot of shooters.
There is one crucial point you're missing- The Goo Tuber needs someone to ink that path for them. They can't do that fast on their own. Their reduced range and elongated charge times mean that they ink slower than the E4K, which is pretty bad in of itself.
Combined with the exploit that lets people bounce around the map with a charge as the other chargers, and the weapon itself still feels very redundant in it's function.

You could say let's add an Splattershot in the team comp and have it ink that path for them but what if you can simply pick Firefin and not have that fatal flaw in the first place?
The Goo Tuber has the potential to become strong at some point, but it needs a whole lot more than the 2 frames less pop up time it's getting in every new patch.
 

Mawnster

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There is one crucial point you're missing- The Goo Tuber needs someone to ink that path for them. They can't do that fast on their own. Their reduced range and elongated charge times mean that they ink slower than the E4K, which is pretty bad in of itself.
Combined with the exploit that lets people bounce around the map with a charge as the other chargers, and the weapon itself still feels very redundant in it's function.

You could say let's add an Splattershot in the team comp and have it ink that path for them but what if you can simply pick Firefin and not have that fatal flaw in the first place?
The Goo Tuber has the potential to become strong at some point, but it needs a whole lot more than the 2 frames less pop up time it's getting in every new patch.
And in pubs relying on your team to do that can be dangerous and is not an effective way of climbing. And I think overall that’s the problem with chargers rn. They are just to risky and to difficult to use when compared to other weapons.

You have to have strong game sense and aim discipline to get value from a charger. And on top of that you have to deal with how much more inflexible and vunerable you are to non chargers. When you die with a charger, you may have just costed your team the whole game cus it’s so hard to get yourself resitutaed for an attack. Whereas shooters can easily defend and shift quickly to attack if their team is pushed back hard. In everyone way it is inherently easier and safer to just play a shooter.

And it’s not that shooters are actually poorly balanced, it’s that chargers haven’t received enough of a safety net to make up for their difficulty in getting value out of them.
 

Spraylan

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In both Splatoon 1 and 2 I main the Splatterscope. I do like the rebalancing that chargers have received inbetween the two games, but it definitely feels like ranged non-charger weapons have had an easier time cutting into their niche. I don't know what the best way to address this issue is, but I feel like a small range nerf for squelchers and ranged blasters would be worth looking at.
 

The Salamander King

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In both Splatoon 1 and 2 I main the Splatterscope. I do like the rebalancing that chargers have received inbetween the two games, but it definitely feels like ranged non-charger weapons have had an easier time cutting into their niche. I don't know what the best way to address this issue is, but I feel like a small range nerf for squelchers and ranged blasters would be worth looking at.
Yes, the Ranged Blasters (both Rapids and Range) need a nerf, mostly because you don't have to aim to get long range kills. Maybe a nerf to the Dualie Squelchers would be fine, but Jet is actually in need of a buff, as it has the worst bullet velocity and killtime of any weapon in the game with the exception of Dynamo.
 

IHaveAToaster

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I don't know what the best way to address this issue is, but I feel like a small range nerf for squelchers and ranged blasters would be worth looking at.
Considering the fact that most ranged weapons in general are in a bit of a predicament right now, I doubt changing them would be of much help to Chargers.

The inherent flaw of Chargers in Splatoon 2 is they are slow back-line weapons in a game that fundamentally favors aggressive short-ranged ones that can ink turf quickly and stay mobile.
^ This, Basically.
 

Reila

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I think the game is designed in a way that makes chargers not as good as sniper weapons/classes in other games. For example, Hanzo and Widowmaker have tools to get to high places in Overwatch, where they enjoy some level of safety. Of course, there are heroes who can chase them wherever they are, like D.Va, Winston, maybe Sombra, too, but it is something.

In Splatoon, there are no relatively safe place for charger players and the game is as aggression-oriented if not more than Overwatch. Charger players are in the open, they are easy preys, considering how sub-par their close range capabilities are. A good charger player can work around the extremely fragility that comes with playing with a mostly stationary weapon, but that is only yet another thing that makes charger the most challenging class of weapons to get good with.

There is a lot to learn and improve when playing chargers, so it is less about the weapons being bad and more about most charger players being bad, myself included.
 

Spraylan

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I think the game is designed in a way that makes chargers not as good as sniper weapons/classes in other games.
I think this touches on a major aspect of the Charger that doesn't get discussed enough. It's not just a sniper rifle. Splatoon is a game about map control no matter if you're playing Turf Wars, Ranked, or even Salmon Run, and the charger isn't absolved this responsibility. It's good at lanebreaking, for attacking ledges deep in enemy territory, giving your teammates emergency escape routes, safely recovering territory lost to enemy specials, in addition to being a sniper rifle.
 

Reila

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I think this touches on a major aspect of the Charger that doesn't get discussed enough. It's not just a sniper rifle. Splatoon is a game about map control no matter if you're playing Turf Wars, Ranked, or even Salmon Run, and the charger isn't absolved this responsibility. It's good at lanebreaking, for attacking ledges deep in enemy territory, giving your teammates emergency escape routes, safely recovering territory lost to enemy specials, in addition to being a sniper rifle.
Right. If you look at chargers as multipurpose tools, as they are, rather than just killing machines, then they do have other uses. I think if chargers had the same advantages sniper classes have in other games, they would be really broken.

This peculiarity does make the use of chargers somewhat questionable, as you can achieve similar results with other weapons without the struggle that is to actually learn to play charger weapons.
 

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