The REAL Problem With Utility Subs in Splatoon 

Anyone that wants utility subs to be on par with the best bombs deserves to experience early Splatoon 1 2-3x Gal meta

The main problem with mist is that the user ends up with less ink than the enemy

I think the biggest issue with utility sub weapons is that, despite the name, they often have far less utility than any bomb would. Every bomb has by default: a decent amount of burst paint, the ability to pressure at long range, and the ability to force people to react and move in response to the bomb. All of those are really powerful traits, and the bombs that don't have all three gain something else in exchange like location, combo damage, or sometimes even both. For a utility sub to compete, it has to do something that a bomb can't do. That's why splash wall and beacon are among the best ones, no bomb is going to shield you or be an anchor for you and your team. But then you look at something like toxic mist and like... it's not doing anything that a bomb can't do better. It slows enemies and drains ink, but only for a moment cause they'll just move out of the cloud and avoid it. The "utility" it offers is creating a zone of the map that players don't want to enter for 5 seconds, but any lethal bomb does the exact same thing and then some. Throw a suction bomb and you achieve the same effect, but now instead of that person losing 20% of their ink tank for not moving out, they just explode, and after the explosion you get paint that stays there until an enemy paints over it. The marginal amount of utility toxic mist might add is almost never worth losing the paint, damage, and every other benefit that bombs give. Same thing with sprinkler, it's not good enough at what it's supposed to do to justify picking it over a bomb, which can also paint and will often paint better. Hell, I bet you could combine both of these into one sub weapon and it'd still be okay at best. Like imagine a sub weapon that costs 70% ink and deploys both toxic mist and sprinkler where it lands: is that good enough to take over a splat bomb? In most cases, I honestly still don't think it is, and the fact that it's close at all is wild to me.

I think sprinkler should just not break when you are splatted. Weapons like Light Tetras are going to die a lot and that Sprinkler isn't staying around for long.

Having two sub weapons would give the two left and right parts of the Switch D-Pad an actual purpose. Being able to swap between the two on the fly for different purposes. It would make kits have potential to synergize with their main weapon AND have more functionality. And basically the user would have to decide which sub weapon was the best to throw in a specific situation. This would lower the prevalence of bombs significantly and give a chance for utility subs to shine.

I feel like angle shooter is super underrated. It is absolutely amazing on my main big swig express! It’s good for damage combos, killing people trying to run, quickly painting your feet, and scanning enemies for your team, things that big swig express really wants as a support/displacement weapon. It is still very capable of fighting with its vertical flick and angle shooter is very good at finishing them off if they don’t get one shot. Big swig express has the perfect kit for it in my opinion and I wouldn’t trade angle shooter for anything.

I am a biased Toxic Mister, it would be so cool if it was buffed in ways that makes it feel rewarding to catch enemies in your cloud. Ex: standing in it will make you slowly take damage, similar to standing in enemy ink or inkstorm but to a weaker extent, let’s say like 15 damage max. This can transform some kits into nice mist combos like Tristringer and the new Recycled Brella. Alternatively, increase its inkdrain potency by instantly draining 30%~50% of their ink tank if they’re caught in the initial explosion. This makes the short-term payoff much more effective and plays off the trapping/rushstopping potential of this sub.

Honestly angle shooter having the trail deal damage would kinda suck and not really solve the main problem. If it did 20 damage let's say, tower control would be miserable - the trails can be placed in such a way that you have to hit two of them, and then you're within one shot range of blaster AoE shots for example. Personally, when I'm using an angle shooter weapon, I find the biggest issue to be that I don't get value from a hit. Basically, hitting someone swimming doesn't slow them down so I can't convert a KO in mid range, or constantly add chip damage to a fight at long range. Think about the rapid pro deco being the only dart weapon to kinda work with it- it can follow up on the direct hit damage with AoE shots and track the movement

Something to mention is Bombs are often required to compensate for low range, Utility Subs are only really affordable at longer range. Angle Shooter does have damage at range but lacks threat, Buff ink consumption to 25% so you could throw 4-5 per tank, Now it can splat someone in a single ink tank but keep in mind that enemies can react to escape and the line would give away your position, This would also help its utility to locate enemies behind cover.

This actually needs more views

I feel like the only reason people hate Toxic Mist on Bambrella is because of how poorly the main and sub synergize. It might be good in some cases, but due to the fact is has no paint output and takes up a good amount of the ink tank, usually it just doesn't work out, especially with Bambrella being decently ink-hungry. I feel like Burst Bomb or Torpedo would be MUCH better for it, as they paint the user's feet and allow for easier escapes out of enemy ink. Plus, both subs mentioned provide an AMAZING combo tool for the weapon, just like Angle Shooter does on the vanilla kit.

Really good video

I think bombs should be for direct combat and utility subs should be a mix of some combat and other things. Line marker does damage for combos and such but it should also be able to locate enemies longer, do tripwire damage, etc. Probably not the best ideas but better than having it as the worst sub.

I like the idea of all weapons having 2 subs. (lets have that L button actually do something!) I can see splatoon 4 doing what 3 done with specials and just doubling the number of subs we have so there's enough variety even with everything having 2 of them.

The only buff I've had for Line Marker was to make it like a temporary ink rail that you can use as a movement option. I know the main reason they wouldn't do that would be potential out-of-bounds shenanigans but outside of that slow weapons would LOVE to have Line Marker.

1. I still find it blasphemous that they have the audacity to give curling bomb more ink consumption over fizzy bomb. 2. Yeah, I also agree that weapon kits should be expanded to include 2 subs (1 bomb + 1 utility) instead of one in order to minimise the synergy complications. For any short range weapon, a bomb is the bare minimum for bring viable, not having one is a death sentence, just look at Sploosh, that weapon is the poster child of terrible sub synergy, especially so with the Neo variant and squid beakon. I just want my splat bomb sploosh, can't be asking for too much right?

I played splatoon 1 and with how broken are splat bomb and suction in this game because of the map design and spamability, i dont mind the buff, that would increase all weapons usage rate and that means not fight against shooter each match :3

A large chunk of utility subs should be buffed mainly sprinkler. But generally speaking, if you said bombs are over tuned, I'd agree

I really think custom kits would help sp much. Utility subs probably would be picked less, but there are weapons who would rather have them, and that choice would be up to the players, and not what nintendo decided to stick a weapon with.

Ill send it into a lil splatoon dc im in, also u got my sub man, quite nice content (i thought i was watching a 100k views minimum video w 250k subs min at first)❤

fantastic video!

What if instead we just rework sprinkler entirely into a turret. When placed down it begins to paint the floor like usual but when an enemy comes into range the turret will be to shoot at the enemy. It will be like a octo trooper you can use in battle.

If I use sprinkler and have respawn punisher on and someone who got hit by the sprinkler dies do they get respawn punished?

No amount of buffs would make sprinkler worth putting on anything

I think they should give more and i mean more HP to sprinkler, so it could be used as an annoying sub. My vision is, the opponent is either given the choice of spending time on a sprinkler or playing the objective. If they pick the sprinkler, its gone, although time is wasted. If not, the thing will paint the area and help out the enemy with special output. Although, stay up time can be adjusted. And for toxic mist.. We can make it deal 5-10 damage (Its big and instant unlike angle shooter, so its most likely to hit), the radius won't be changed or its effects but teammates/user gain some sort of buff (defense) only within the mist. Would make weapons like jet squelchers and tristringer great while close range like trislosher/bambrella set up for incoming attacks, the effect can't be stacked tho bc thats broken. Might be busted but tried.

A different idea for bomb spam aversion is to decrease the effectiveness of sub saver. Seriously it's dumb when you're able to just throw two bombs back to back for free.

call me wrong but i really think mist has a ton of potential and if it was actually good it would be a super fun supportive sub

Great way to fix sprinkler: remove decay 😮

Ok im going to say what buff i think the utilities should get and are more realistic to get. angle shooter, i think should just make the shot of it a little wider so its a little easier to hit the direct maybe like a charger or even bamboo kind of radius and the marking duration is as long as point Sencor trip wire does 20 damage once. mist should be 55% and whiting frames are lowered, so u dont run ut of ink whenever u try to use it in a fight as much, also it slows down ur airtime movement so u cant squid roll through it at the same speed. sprinkler should be 50% and get its paint back that it used to have in splatoon 2 and it stays alive when u die, sub power up still doesnt let u throw it farther like it used to so u cant put ur sprinkler its imposible to reach spots. point sencor has a radius increase and whiting frames lowered and maybe redused the ink cost of it? i want u to beable to throw them on any weapon without feeling to punished, curling bomb is 55%, the explotion radius without charging it is slightly increased and whiting frames are lowered

I think you should be able to attach the sprinkler to your player, that way as you’re moving you always have paint on your feet and you can paint without wasting your own ink. Only downside being you’d be an extremely obvious target that can’t sneak anywhere

In addition to the kit situation, I also think we should Nerf bombs, rather than buff other subs. They get too consistent of value with no downsides, and at lower elos where players don't yet have mastery over movement bomb spam is both miserable and genuinely oppressive. I really do think that throwing bombs back-to-back should increase the cost and white ink frames (temporarily) a little bit more every time a bomb is thrown in rapid succession, before gradually fading back to normal when the player stops throwing bombs. This would make bomb spam harder to do and also more punishable. We should be encouraging players to get value from the synergy between their bomb and the rest of their kit, like going for a quick combo because you have enough ink, or trapping them with your bomb so they're locked in close combat with you where you may have a more advantageous matchup, instead of encouraging them to spam suction bomb on tower or throw a stray torpedo every half a second without ever actually playing the game

In the story mode, line marker's trip wire does damage 💀

bro do 2 subs left bumper is not used for anything in battle do right bumper for bomb and left bumper for util

Foreigner in zeal used based

3:00 YES thank you for mentioning disrupter. You thought splat bomb spam was annoying? Dear god try being constantly slowed and tracked an entire match by some jerk wad with sub saver. No one wants disrupter back. At least they shouldn’t.

First comment also you got 800 subs :33