hey squidkids! the splatoon 3 excitement is real here, and i felt in the mood to ramble about my favorite weapons to play in splatoon 2 and why i like them. also, i'll be talking about my hopes for splatoon 3's take on the weapon. do note that i don't really keep up with the meta all that much so some of what i'm saying could sound like crazy talk to an actual competitive player but i just wanted to get my thoughts out there anyway. with that, on with the list!
nautilus
getting my current favorite weapon out of the way! i wasn't always a huge fan of the splatlings until the nautilus showed up in a salmon run rotation once and i fell in love. i always loved the stored charge abilities of non-scoped chargers and thought that mechanic was really cool, but i never had the aim or patience to perfect my charger skills (i had a stint where i tried and failed miserably to main the goo tuber... dark times). the nautilus on the other hand has a much more forgiving aim, and with its high velocity shots it has the versatility to take the role of an aggressive frontliner or hang back and support your team by painting and picking off enemies via flanking. it's a super fun weapon to use and my current favorite to use at this point in time. i prefer the kit of the 79, but both nautiluses have pretty rad kits that i enjoy! also, it gets bonus points for being named after my favorite cephalopod :p
as for my hopes for splatoon 3, i really REALLY hope the nautilus gets the crab tank in one of its kits. it would make sense since it appears the crab tank is basically this game's version of the baller, and i just fucking love the thing i don't even care how it plays i just think it's awesome because i love crabs. predictable as always. i also hope for there to be a little more expansion and refinement of storing your charge in general... maybe a clothing ability that buffs the length of time you can charge? idk. either way i'm excited and can't wait to see what splat3 does with my favorite weapon!!
tri-slosher
OHHHH NOOOOO ANOTHER TRI MAIN is probably what you're thinking right now. right? yeah. well i gotta admit, i do really enjoy this broken ass bucket. it's my second-most inked weapon (first place goes to the hero dualies) and for good reason: it's fun as hell to use. "no aim no brain" as the motto goes. or as this insightful commenter on one of Etce's videos said: 
to play against? basically satan. and i understand this. but i can be a public menace every once in a while i think. i love the basic kit; burst bombs are always a plus in my book, and ink armor is a nice passive special that you can also use to refill ink and be even MORE of an obnoxious menace! yahoo!!!! i could never get into the nouveau very much though, but i understand why people enjoy/prefer it. overall its a really fun and brainless weapon for wreacking havoc on the frontlines. A+ from me.
splat3 hopes? not really sure, but i think the render for the new tri is fucking hilarious.
just look at this thing. minecraft looking ass weapon. very excited to use it.
sloshing machine
continuing the bucket love here! i'm a pretty big fan of the sloshing machine, especially its kensa variant with fizzy bombs. it's not the most intuitive weapon to use, particularly if you're used to the regular slosher, but once you get the hang of it i find it pretty fun and satisfying. i also love pulling off super jump splashdowns (the only thing that makes splashdowns worth it) with the kensa slosh. so fun.
idk what my hopes are for this one either beyond basic curiosity on what variants it'll get, but i'm very curious to see what's up with it appearing in hero mode in the trailer. the implication that you can use more than the default weapons in splat3's hero mode is a very exciting premise to me. i loved that feature of the octo explansion, and if you didn't already know, the singleplayer campaigns are my favorite part of the games (i fucking LOVE splatoon's platforming so much and hope it gets refined even more in splat3), so i'm really really hyped to see what this game has to offer.
splat dualies
my most used weapon (according to game stats)! wow. back when i was first getting to grips with splatoon this was my favorite weapon to use, and while i don't use it too much nowadays in my current weapon rotation i do have to admit that i'm pretty handy with them. i love the dodge roll a lot (if you couldn't tell by now, i love when weapons come with movement gimmicks), and dualies are just a really fun fast-paced weapon to zip around the stage with (...and roll off the map with. lol). i like the splat dualies the best out of all the dualies and enjoy the balanced gameplay they provide. i could never get into the dapples as they had too short range for my taste, the squelchers are a little too slow, tetras are fun but a little too lightweight, and i'll admit i haven't even tried using the gloogas lol. i'm partial to the vanilla kit (burst bombs my weakness as always), but i enjoy all of the splat dualies. the enperries provide some good defensive options with the inkjet, and the kensas have the baller which is always a super fun special to use.
hopes for splatoon 3? REALLY hoping for some fun dualie kits with the new subs and specials. also a new dualie variant with an ability to quickly switch the direction of a roll (ie zigzagging with one long roll?) might be fun to see. you can sort of do that with the slide ability on the squelchers but i'm thinking something even more mobile. gamebreaking? maybe. but god it would be fun.
that concludes my ramble for now. thanks for reading if you got this far!