Splattershot
General: The regular Splattershot is often less looked upon of the two when it comes to the Splattershot twins. Instead of a sticky bomb as a sub and an Inkzooka as a special weapon, the Splattershot has a burst bomb as a sub and bomb rush as a special. The Splattershot also misses the Tentatek label on the design of the weapon. The stats between the two weapons are identical. The Splattershot can take advantage of the perfect blend of fire range, damage, and fire rate to make it a complete monster to face one on one. It outranges rollers, blasters, and short range weapons like the Splash O’ Matic. Overall, a very solid gun.
Sub Uses: Burst bombs. You can use the Burst bomb to reach long range opponents. Is a E-Liter trying to melee you by throwing burst bombs in your face? Wait until he runs out of ink then throw them right back at you. I recommend this to normal shooting because even if your inkling runs ink resistance as one of your main gear abilities, the burst bombs still throw off your aim because of the way a burst bomb distributes its ink upon impact. Another good way to make use of the burst bomb is to block an enemies path up a wall. This is a neat little alternative to shooting, and it works wonders on Camp Triggerfish when you are camping the zone. Using the burst bombs when you make a bad super jump is not very useful if you are convinced you are pretty much dead. Burst bombs for splatter hopping is actually something I prefer over regular splatter hopping, and it gives you a wider area to work with if you are suddenly stuck in a 1v1 contest since there is more ink for you to move around in, actually allowing you to do stuff like turf strafing (which will be discussed more below.) I think throwing a burst bomb at your opponent at the very start of an encounter has some very high potential. A burst bomb that is a direct hit will make the TTK (time to kill) rating on the Splattershot dip to less than half than it was before, giving no opportunities for trades. Two direct burst bomb hits will instantly kill your opponent, but as it is, it is very difficult to do that and regular shooting kills quicker. You can use burst bombs to check sharp corners, high places, and other areas where your opponent has the ability to camp. This works because even if you don’t hit an opponent directly, if any of the opponent’s hitboxes connect with the burst bomb, you will hear a sound indicating it. If you really want to take advantage of the burst bomb though, use bomb throw up in your gear abilities.
Special Uses: Bomb Rush. I will abbreviate this special weapon and refer to it as BR. This special has a very limited scope in terms of what uses it could possibly provide. Mostly because it is so outclassed by the other versions of BR that involve sub weapons that take better advantage of this. However, there are a few niche things you can get out of this special. First of all, Splat Zones are incredibly easy to take with this special even compared to other versions of BR thanks to the fact that burst bombs explode immediately upon impact. This solves a huge problem if you have trouble on Port Mackerel, in fact, I would say that this special is the most useful on that stage. The two main problems that squids face on Port Mackerel are:
A: Claiming an enemy zone.
B: Reclaiming your own zone when your opponents have every exit in lockdown mode.
Both of those problems can be solved with BR. This special disrupts any sort of organization your opponent had before as it causes panic. Mainly, the panic of saving yourself from getting splatted. If you use the BR correctly, your team will have a decent opportunity to regain momentum. This applies for other stages like Kelp Dome and Urchin Underpass, other stages that might be troublesome to recover from. So my last word of advice is this: BR was not meant for getting kills or being a panic button.
Recommended Gear (Abilities): There is lots of different gear abilities that can be used to create a unique play style for the Splattershot. If you want to practically always have a BR up your sleeve, run two special charge ups for mains and for the last main choose whatever you want. I always thought bomb sniffer was pretty redundant; as practically all the bombs in the game give you a warning before they explode, but you never know, you might just need it if for some reason someone decides to play with an RG. If you have two ink saver subs as your main abilities you can get 4 burst bombs without dipping into ink and 5 if you do. Your can do some pretty crazy things with this, as I explain in Roles you will play (Turf Wars). If you choose to run any run speed up in your main abilities, you will greatly benefit from the trigger sway advanced technique I talk about below. Ninja Squid and Cold Blooded are the two most hyped gear abilities on Squidboards. Ninja Squid is great for turf strafing, and if used correctly I can pretty much guarantee you will win any 1v1 situation (if battle conditions are neutral.) Cold Blooded removes a lot of threat from point sensors, which are abundant in A rank lobbies. But if you are in a C or B lobby, I would not recommend putting Cold Blooded in your set as players in those ranks haven’t got a clue how to take advantage of it. Ink Resistance Up is a personal favorite of mine. With this gear ability, your screen will not be covered as much by ink and vibrations by the gamepad will be at a minimum. This is unbelievably helpful, especially if you die to stuff like 3ks and Octobrushes on a regular basis. But this is helpful for any gun, and it might be exactly the ability you needed to step up your game. Haunt is a bit of work and utterly USELESS to people in any other lobby besides an A lobby. Even in A lobbies, it might be more of a burden than a relief. It is a flawed ability in design. It works like a point sensor, and it is only active when you die. If you are on a team that intends on winning, you should not be dying more than three times a game. And what if one of your deaths is wasted? You might have traded with your opponent. Your opponent may have SD’d. Your teammate might have immediately killed your after you had already died. Besides the obvious counter productivity that is involved with this, this ability is taking up an entire main ability slot. And also adding to the list of negatives is that smart enemies will take advantage of this! All a teammate of the person who killed you would have to do is camp near the path your teammates will have to take to get to the guy who killed you and sneak attack you. Which is a demonstration of the last point I am going to make; Haunt will distract your teammates from other potential threats. Ok, next up is Recon. This ability will not be useful until the update arrives. This is fairly common knowledge. Besides that it leaves your team with only three people to help fight… Yeah, it sucks August update or no. That is all I am going to cover for now.
Roles You Will Play
Roles you will play (Splat Zones): I love Splat Zones. It is my favorite game mode and the best mode right now in Splatoon for showing how good a team truly is. It is also the best mode for showing how good you are as an individual. So in Splat Zones, your goal is to deal with rollers and short range weapons. Also, you are in charge for making comebacks when you need to claim back a zone for your team. How? Bomb Rush! This is a very useful special for claiming practically any zone. Make sure before you use it all of your opponents are close at hand so you don’t waste it. You cannot do this all by yourself.
Roles you will play (Turf Wars): In Turf Wars, your goal as the most balanced weapon in the game is to get the game started in your team’s favor. This means swimming as fast as you can to ink up turf on the middle chokepoint of the map and making sure you keep your life as you wait for your teammates to come and help assist you. Overall though, your goal will be get kills, and that is a priority over stay-behind-the-action-and-ink-turf-for-ten-hours-screw-my-life. So, besides that, what else is the Splattershot good for in Turf Wars? If you chose equipment abilities suited charging your special, then you can try staying at the front lines and charging your special by inking up some of your opponents turf. Either that or you could charge your special the boring way (like mentioned above.) Personally though, I do not think that Turf Wars is the Splattershot’s best mode.
Roles you will play (Tower Control): Get on the tower if nobody else will. Check side passage ways where opponents might hide to ambush your tower from behind. But don’t waste your time checking to make sure. Bomb Rush is a monster at stopping offensive pushes. Any opponents near the tower are no doubt going to get splatted. Bomb Rush is a monster in any situation when it comes to Tower Control, so I would suggest building a gear set based around tapping the full potential of Bomb Rush.
Advanced Tech
Turf Strafing (ZL, Input Direction, ZR): Turf Strafing is simply quickly changing where you are in the middle of a firefight by quickly swimming to the left or right in your own ink. This is meant for 1v1 situations or even 1v2 situations. If you have Ninja Squid, this AT will have its usefulness multiplied by a thousand (that was an exaggeration, not sarcasm.) This works for any gun. Places I would recommend using it are in narrow spaces like the Blackbelly side passageways, Arowana side passageways, Mackerel middle area, etc. The list goes on forever. You can also use this in open areas, but you better hope you have a lot of turf covered. I think the only weapons that are not very effective against this are Dynamos, Blasters, and weapons whose ink spreads outwards.
Trigger Sway (ZR, Left and Right): This is such a cheap shooting tactic I almost didn’t put it in this guide. So, you basically just move left or right while shooting. In order for this to be effective, you have to readjust your aim while doing it. If everybody catches on to using this I am pretty sure confrontations would be changed forever. And you won’t realize how effective this truly is until you are faced against someone Trigger Swaying. You can use this anywhere. I do not recommend using this against chargers, since you should not even make yourself visible to chargers in the first place, which will be below. Dynamos, Blasters, and Chargers do very well against Trigger Swaying.
Splatterhopping (Jump, Ink, Squid): Splatterhopping was first discovered at E3 2014, on the day it was announced. Back then, it was way better than it is right now. Due to a number of reasons. First, people were unfamiliar with the game. It was being tested on a demo only like two hours after we were aware the game even existed, so people were not exactly at OpTic levels. Second, squid mechanics were very different. I am not sure how different they were, but Splatterhopping back then was much quicker than it is today. My theory is that jumps in squid form were lower, and falling was faster. This actually made it go as fast as normal swimming in ink is today. Third, people were using motion controls when they were not even used to them. It isn’t even a matter of experience with the game anymore. Nobody was used to the motion controls so nobody could have a decent chance of tying to aim to punish the Splatterhopping in the first place. So back to the actual discussion of how Splatterhopping is useful today. In truth, it is only slightly useful. You can use it to escape enemy turf, but besides that it isn’t really helpful. In C rank lobbies you might be able to get by with it if you plan on using it as a mandatory traveling procedure, but in B, A, and S rank lobbies you will get splatted.
Weapon Types and How to Deal With Them
General: The regular Splattershot is often less looked upon of the two when it comes to the Splattershot twins. Instead of a sticky bomb as a sub and an Inkzooka as a special weapon, the Splattershot has a burst bomb as a sub and bomb rush as a special. The Splattershot also misses the Tentatek label on the design of the weapon. The stats between the two weapons are identical. The Splattershot can take advantage of the perfect blend of fire range, damage, and fire rate to make it a complete monster to face one on one. It outranges rollers, blasters, and short range weapons like the Splash O’ Matic. Overall, a very solid gun.
Sub Uses: Burst bombs. You can use the Burst bomb to reach long range opponents. Is a E-Liter trying to melee you by throwing burst bombs in your face? Wait until he runs out of ink then throw them right back at you. I recommend this to normal shooting because even if your inkling runs ink resistance as one of your main gear abilities, the burst bombs still throw off your aim because of the way a burst bomb distributes its ink upon impact. Another good way to make use of the burst bomb is to block an enemies path up a wall. This is a neat little alternative to shooting, and it works wonders on Camp Triggerfish when you are camping the zone. Using the burst bombs when you make a bad super jump is not very useful if you are convinced you are pretty much dead. Burst bombs for splatter hopping is actually something I prefer over regular splatter hopping, and it gives you a wider area to work with if you are suddenly stuck in a 1v1 contest since there is more ink for you to move around in, actually allowing you to do stuff like turf strafing (which will be discussed more below.) I think throwing a burst bomb at your opponent at the very start of an encounter has some very high potential. A burst bomb that is a direct hit will make the TTK (time to kill) rating on the Splattershot dip to less than half than it was before, giving no opportunities for trades. Two direct burst bomb hits will instantly kill your opponent, but as it is, it is very difficult to do that and regular shooting kills quicker. You can use burst bombs to check sharp corners, high places, and other areas where your opponent has the ability to camp. This works because even if you don’t hit an opponent directly, if any of the opponent’s hitboxes connect with the burst bomb, you will hear a sound indicating it. If you really want to take advantage of the burst bomb though, use bomb throw up in your gear abilities.
Special Uses: Bomb Rush. I will abbreviate this special weapon and refer to it as BR. This special has a very limited scope in terms of what uses it could possibly provide. Mostly because it is so outclassed by the other versions of BR that involve sub weapons that take better advantage of this. However, there are a few niche things you can get out of this special. First of all, Splat Zones are incredibly easy to take with this special even compared to other versions of BR thanks to the fact that burst bombs explode immediately upon impact. This solves a huge problem if you have trouble on Port Mackerel, in fact, I would say that this special is the most useful on that stage. The two main problems that squids face on Port Mackerel are:
A: Claiming an enemy zone.
B: Reclaiming your own zone when your opponents have every exit in lockdown mode.
Both of those problems can be solved with BR. This special disrupts any sort of organization your opponent had before as it causes panic. Mainly, the panic of saving yourself from getting splatted. If you use the BR correctly, your team will have a decent opportunity to regain momentum. This applies for other stages like Kelp Dome and Urchin Underpass, other stages that might be troublesome to recover from. So my last word of advice is this: BR was not meant for getting kills or being a panic button.
Recommended Gear (Abilities): There is lots of different gear abilities that can be used to create a unique play style for the Splattershot. If you want to practically always have a BR up your sleeve, run two special charge ups for mains and for the last main choose whatever you want. I always thought bomb sniffer was pretty redundant; as practically all the bombs in the game give you a warning before they explode, but you never know, you might just need it if for some reason someone decides to play with an RG. If you have two ink saver subs as your main abilities you can get 4 burst bombs without dipping into ink and 5 if you do. Your can do some pretty crazy things with this, as I explain in Roles you will play (Turf Wars). If you choose to run any run speed up in your main abilities, you will greatly benefit from the trigger sway advanced technique I talk about below. Ninja Squid and Cold Blooded are the two most hyped gear abilities on Squidboards. Ninja Squid is great for turf strafing, and if used correctly I can pretty much guarantee you will win any 1v1 situation (if battle conditions are neutral.) Cold Blooded removes a lot of threat from point sensors, which are abundant in A rank lobbies. But if you are in a C or B lobby, I would not recommend putting Cold Blooded in your set as players in those ranks haven’t got a clue how to take advantage of it. Ink Resistance Up is a personal favorite of mine. With this gear ability, your screen will not be covered as much by ink and vibrations by the gamepad will be at a minimum. This is unbelievably helpful, especially if you die to stuff like 3ks and Octobrushes on a regular basis. But this is helpful for any gun, and it might be exactly the ability you needed to step up your game. Haunt is a bit of work and utterly USELESS to people in any other lobby besides an A lobby. Even in A lobbies, it might be more of a burden than a relief. It is a flawed ability in design. It works like a point sensor, and it is only active when you die. If you are on a team that intends on winning, you should not be dying more than three times a game. And what if one of your deaths is wasted? You might have traded with your opponent. Your opponent may have SD’d. Your teammate might have immediately killed your after you had already died. Besides the obvious counter productivity that is involved with this, this ability is taking up an entire main ability slot. And also adding to the list of negatives is that smart enemies will take advantage of this! All a teammate of the person who killed you would have to do is camp near the path your teammates will have to take to get to the guy who killed you and sneak attack you. Which is a demonstration of the last point I am going to make; Haunt will distract your teammates from other potential threats. Ok, next up is Recon. This ability will not be useful until the update arrives. This is fairly common knowledge. Besides that it leaves your team with only three people to help fight… Yeah, it sucks August update or no. That is all I am going to cover for now.
Roles You Will Play
Roles you will play (Splat Zones): I love Splat Zones. It is my favorite game mode and the best mode right now in Splatoon for showing how good a team truly is. It is also the best mode for showing how good you are as an individual. So in Splat Zones, your goal is to deal with rollers and short range weapons. Also, you are in charge for making comebacks when you need to claim back a zone for your team. How? Bomb Rush! This is a very useful special for claiming practically any zone. Make sure before you use it all of your opponents are close at hand so you don’t waste it. You cannot do this all by yourself.
Roles you will play (Turf Wars): In Turf Wars, your goal as the most balanced weapon in the game is to get the game started in your team’s favor. This means swimming as fast as you can to ink up turf on the middle chokepoint of the map and making sure you keep your life as you wait for your teammates to come and help assist you. Overall though, your goal will be get kills, and that is a priority over stay-behind-the-action-and-ink-turf-for-ten-hours-screw-my-life. So, besides that, what else is the Splattershot good for in Turf Wars? If you chose equipment abilities suited charging your special, then you can try staying at the front lines and charging your special by inking up some of your opponents turf. Either that or you could charge your special the boring way (like mentioned above.) Personally though, I do not think that Turf Wars is the Splattershot’s best mode.
Roles you will play (Tower Control): Get on the tower if nobody else will. Check side passage ways where opponents might hide to ambush your tower from behind. But don’t waste your time checking to make sure. Bomb Rush is a monster at stopping offensive pushes. Any opponents near the tower are no doubt going to get splatted. Bomb Rush is a monster in any situation when it comes to Tower Control, so I would suggest building a gear set based around tapping the full potential of Bomb Rush.
Advanced Tech
Turf Strafing (ZL, Input Direction, ZR): Turf Strafing is simply quickly changing where you are in the middle of a firefight by quickly swimming to the left or right in your own ink. This is meant for 1v1 situations or even 1v2 situations. If you have Ninja Squid, this AT will have its usefulness multiplied by a thousand (that was an exaggeration, not sarcasm.) This works for any gun. Places I would recommend using it are in narrow spaces like the Blackbelly side passageways, Arowana side passageways, Mackerel middle area, etc. The list goes on forever. You can also use this in open areas, but you better hope you have a lot of turf covered. I think the only weapons that are not very effective against this are Dynamos, Blasters, and weapons whose ink spreads outwards.
Trigger Sway (ZR, Left and Right): This is such a cheap shooting tactic I almost didn’t put it in this guide. So, you basically just move left or right while shooting. In order for this to be effective, you have to readjust your aim while doing it. If everybody catches on to using this I am pretty sure confrontations would be changed forever. And you won’t realize how effective this truly is until you are faced against someone Trigger Swaying. You can use this anywhere. I do not recommend using this against chargers, since you should not even make yourself visible to chargers in the first place, which will be below. Dynamos, Blasters, and Chargers do very well against Trigger Swaying.
Splatterhopping (Jump, Ink, Squid): Splatterhopping was first discovered at E3 2014, on the day it was announced. Back then, it was way better than it is right now. Due to a number of reasons. First, people were unfamiliar with the game. It was being tested on a demo only like two hours after we were aware the game even existed, so people were not exactly at OpTic levels. Second, squid mechanics were very different. I am not sure how different they were, but Splatterhopping back then was much quicker than it is today. My theory is that jumps in squid form were lower, and falling was faster. This actually made it go as fast as normal swimming in ink is today. Third, people were using motion controls when they were not even used to them. It isn’t even a matter of experience with the game anymore. Nobody was used to the motion controls so nobody could have a decent chance of tying to aim to punish the Splatterhopping in the first place. So back to the actual discussion of how Splatterhopping is useful today. In truth, it is only slightly useful. You can use it to escape enemy turf, but besides that it isn’t really helpful. In C rank lobbies you might be able to get by with it if you plan on using it as a mandatory traveling procedure, but in B, A, and S rank lobbies you will get splatted.
Weapon Types and How to Deal With Them
Tower Control Threats: All
Turf War Threats: Blaster, Rapid Blaster Deco, Luna Blaster
Splat Zones Threats: Basically all of them, it depends on the map.
How to approach: The best way to approach a Blaster is to not approach it. Trying to 1v1 a regular Blaster is a pain in the ***, and trying to 1v1 a Rapid Blaster that knows what it is doing is impossible. How to 1v1 a Blaster is to keep just out of range and jump while shooting for extra range. Techniques like Turf Strafing and Trigger Sways are useless here because of the wide hitbox at the apex of the shot. You do not wade into enemy territory when there is a Blaster on the other team. That is a huge no-no. You wait patiently for the Blaster to make its own presence known and then throw out a splat bomb before confronting. For a Rapid Blaster you just want to spam burst bombs if you can; besides that, get the hell out of dodge. That only applies if the Rapid Blaster knows how to use its weapon. If the RB sucks, outmaneuvering him should not be too hard, or just forcing through the blasts.
Turf War Threats: Blaster, Rapid Blaster Deco, Luna Blaster
Splat Zones Threats: Basically all of them, it depends on the map.
How to approach: The best way to approach a Blaster is to not approach it. Trying to 1v1 a regular Blaster is a pain in the ***, and trying to 1v1 a Rapid Blaster that knows what it is doing is impossible. How to 1v1 a Blaster is to keep just out of range and jump while shooting for extra range. Techniques like Turf Strafing and Trigger Sways are useless here because of the wide hitbox at the apex of the shot. You do not wade into enemy territory when there is a Blaster on the other team. That is a huge no-no. You wait patiently for the Blaster to make its own presence known and then throw out a splat bomb before confronting. For a Rapid Blaster you just want to spam burst bombs if you can; besides that, get the hell out of dodge. That only applies if the Rapid Blaster knows how to use its weapon. If the RB sucks, outmaneuvering him should not be too hard, or just forcing through the blasts.
Tower Control Threats: Krak-On Roller
Turf War Threats: All
Splat Zones Threats: Basically all of them, it depends on the map.
How to approach: A roller at high level play will almost never simply roll forward in hope of getting a kill via squish. The ink flick is very dangerous to the Splattershot, as a Splattershot user only barely outranges a roller’s ink flick. So say you get into a 1v1 position where both you and the roller are aware of each other’s presence. Most times, a roller will either run (if you are spaced a decent distance away), or it will immediately start ink flicking you before you can get a chance to fight back (if the distance between the roller and you is close). 9/10 chances are you are screwed if the situation you get in relates to the latter. But there is a way to make sure this never happens, and A+/S rank players do this instinctively. Ink the turf around you if you are in enemy territory and throw burst bombs around corners. This should be simple practice for all Splattershot mains. And it works, amazingly. If you want extra protection against roller movement think about it like this: where would I go as a roller, in the mode I am playing in? And then set up measures to counter that. Now, say you see a roller and he doesn’t see you. If you see his/her hair flying in a manner that says “my special is ready,” then do not approach him directly. Because chances are, it’s a Krak-On roller. You want to wait until this roller is in a position that enables you to splat it so that he has no time to press the button that releases the Kraken. This is time consuming, but it is worth it. What I just explained can be ignored if it is a carbon roller you see, just be wary of an Inkzooka.
Turf War Threats: All
Splat Zones Threats: Basically all of them, it depends on the map.
How to approach: A roller at high level play will almost never simply roll forward in hope of getting a kill via squish. The ink flick is very dangerous to the Splattershot, as a Splattershot user only barely outranges a roller’s ink flick. So say you get into a 1v1 position where both you and the roller are aware of each other’s presence. Most times, a roller will either run (if you are spaced a decent distance away), or it will immediately start ink flicking you before you can get a chance to fight back (if the distance between the roller and you is close). 9/10 chances are you are screwed if the situation you get in relates to the latter. But there is a way to make sure this never happens, and A+/S rank players do this instinctively. Ink the turf around you if you are in enemy territory and throw burst bombs around corners. This should be simple practice for all Splattershot mains. And it works, amazingly. If you want extra protection against roller movement think about it like this: where would I go as a roller, in the mode I am playing in? And then set up measures to counter that. Now, say you see a roller and he doesn’t see you. If you see his/her hair flying in a manner that says “my special is ready,” then do not approach him directly. Because chances are, it’s a Krak-On roller. You want to wait until this roller is in a position that enables you to splat it so that he has no time to press the button that releases the Kraken. This is time consuming, but it is worth it. What I just explained can be ignored if it is a carbon roller you see, just be wary of an Inkzooka.
![[EJ]_Locke](/data/avatars/s/5/5070.jpg?1443902761){kind=avatar}
