so, probably a little late now, and already discussed somewhere else, but back when the apple shot, grappling hook, Grappleshot™ was revealed, i had imagined some alternate mechanics, simple but maybe useful.
basically, a rappel line, so imagine you shoot the ground, next to a cliff, the apple hook could than attach, and let you jump off without incurring significant fall damage.
say for example your being chased to a cliff, cliffs to high to just jump off, but instead of fighting you could alternatively rappel down.
against players you could maybe shoot the hook off of its attachment point, dropping the rappelling player.