Hey!
For those of you who may be reading this who aren't especially active on Squidboards, my name is Deez. I'm a Charcoal Decavitator one-trick that has been playing with a div 6 team lately. I stopped playing Splatoon around Splatoon 2's launch but returned for Splatoon 3 and have been hooked ever since. I was a big Splatana fan before this weapon dropped, and when it released it instantly became the only weapon I would play for more than a few games at a time.
It took only a month for me to reach five stars on this weapon, which is half as long as my previous record, and a week before then I won my first big bracket, that being Low Ink's Beta Bracket. I've done greater things with this weapon than I have with any of my previous mains and had more fun with it so I've given it nearly all of my recent play time. It currently sits as my most played weapon across the near three years this game's been out.
Before I go on, though...
Slight Disclaimer
...I did specify that I play Charcoal Decavitator because the Mint kit clicked with me a little bit less at first. I don't think this weapon depends on its kit super hard but I haven't put too much time into Mint in a more coordinated setting and might be missing a few key things with Big Bubbler in particular. I do still have a fair amount of play time with both kits, but it's still way, way more on Charcoal. That being said I can still absolutely tell you what I've found most successful when using the kit!
Introduction
Of the few weapons currently in the Splatana weapon class, the Decavitator stands out with its very distinctive playstyle compared to the rest. It's a mid-range weapon that often needs to use stealth to its advantage and ambush its opponents with its fast kill time. After you hold down the fire button to charge, releasing it will unleash a giant melee hitbox in front of you that one-shots opponents.
Much like other Splatanas, using this attack while grounded and holding Up on the control stick will make you dash forward. Unlike other Splatanas, this dash covers a massive distance and can be used to help you approach enemies. This combines with the one-shot hitbox to make the weapon very fearsome if you can quietly get within range for this dash to let you reach opponents. You can get a bit tricky with this as well by changing the direction your camera is facing mid-dash, letting your melee attack cover a different area than it would have otherwise and giving you a few more directions you can dash towards in order to still threaten to one-shot someone.
When not within range of a one-shot, this charge attack releases a projectile that does 80 damage. This can kill opponents that have previously been damaged, but if they're at full health, this instead will leave them susceptible to smaller, quicker hits. You can follow this up by using an uncharged attack, which releases a projectile that deals 40 damage. Using them both back-to-back leads to a guaranteed kill, and the uncharged attack is both faster and more ink-efficient than the charged one, making this an important combo to make use of. If you've ever seen higher-level Splatana Stamper gameplay, the same idea applies here. Using an uncharged attack up close deals 70 damage which is only situationally useful.
The Decavitator isn't the kind of weapon that wants to paint the ground as often as many others, but when it wants to get its special quickly, it can do so very well. Its uncharged slashes cover a lot of space fairly quickly although a low walking speed will force you to swim a little bit after a handful of swipes to paint optimally. This is never a weapon you would add to a team solely for its paint output, but having good paint output is nice regardless to let you get special and get map control quickly.
Like the other Splatanas, the Decavitator deals some of the best damage to objects and armor in the entire game. This weapon can quickly tear apart things like Booyah Bomb, Brella shields, and the Rainmaker bubble. This is a nice quality to have but isn't really reason by itself to learn a new weapon. It's also worth note that it does use a lot of your ink tank to use repeated charged attacks, but it's not as big of a concern with this weapon as it would be for some others. It's something you will need to be mindful of as you play but isn't a weapon-defining weakness like it would be for an Explosher for example.
Unlike other weapons with mobility as a big focus, the Decavitator's attacking speed is pretty slow. The time it takes for its attacks to charge may be fast, but there is a lot of delay between when you release the button, when the attack executes, and when the attack finishes. Making mistakes with this weapon can be very punishing because of how long it can take before you're able to swim. In addition, as a weapon that uses stealth to find many of its opportunities to attack, things that help with location like Autobomb and Wave Breaker can lock it out from doing a lot of the things it wants to.
Overall, the Decavitator is a very dangerous weapon with a lot of room for fun, rewarding playmaking.
Playstyle and Game Plan
When using the Decavitator, at most points, your goal should be trying to get within range of your opponents without them noticing you. You are one of the more aggressive weapons in the game and should be one of the most aggressive weapons on most comps you'd run it on. Use things like side routes and longer-ranged allies' paint support to get closer to enemies. If all else fails, using Suction Bomb or Inkjet to force enemies out from cover can be very helpful. Your dash can also be used as a little range extension for your one-shot or to let you quickly position yourself to pick someone off with your charged to uncharged projectile combo.
The fact that your one-shot is so big means that you can and should be playing it with a similar playstyle as a Roller. You can absolutely sit in a part of the map where your opponents will cross by, but where you also won't get hit or spotted while someone's painting and can just one-shot them afterwards, sometimes even after using a dash.
You would think its dash would see similar use to a Dualie and it definitely can, but isn't always your best option because of how slowly it moves by comparison. The dash's absolute best use case is to cover a gap either after hiding in your own ink or to pop out past a wall that your opponent might be hiding behind so they don't see you as you're doing it. The reason this is so great is because your charged attack comes out very, very quickly after your dash finishes, giving your opponents basically no time to react to it.
As I said before, this weapon has solid painting with its uncharged attacks. Not fantastic, but when your team is being locked out of a part of the map and you need your special to get in, this weapon can do so fairly quickly. You should not be focusing on painting though unless it's important for you to get your special or if you want to lock down a part of the map from your opponents. Otherwise, the uncharged projectile is still useful if you just want quick damage on someone.
Using your uncharged attack up close for the 70-damage hit is sometimes useful. Not often enough to center your playstyle around it, but it can be very nice sometimes. You do need to use it twice to kill an enemy, but it uses less of your ink tank and is much faster. You can use it to finish off opponents you know are already weak that you happen to be close to already. The only other use case is a more ink-efficient way of killing a very slow weapon you're already absolutely dead certain you know you can get a kill on.
Staying back and playing this weapon supportively or like a more standard frontline is ideal in some cases, especially against teams with several short-ranged weapons, but it's not always. The absolute best time to use this is to help hold off an important choke point, but it's also fine if you don't really have a way to get closer to your enemies and want to wait for either your special or your teammate's to move forward. Your slow-moving and wide hitboxes will also cover a lot of space for a long time which makes it harder for enemies to approach you.
The reason this isn't always ideal is because limits how much usage you can get from your dash because the enemies are able to see you and will be able to react to your movement. Without your dash, this weapon is usually just a worse version of the Splatana Stamper because of its better range, kit, and attacking speed. Again, it's still good to play like this sometimes, but you should be ready to readjust and play to the other strengths of this weapon whenever an opportunity allows you.
Weapon Kits and Their Differences
I'll reiterate that I'm much more experienced with the Charcoal kit than the Mint kit, but have a decent amount of play time with both and have a lot of general experience playing a lot of different weapons. You can absolutely be successful while still mostly playing to the strengths of the sword itself even if learning how to use your subweapon and special is obviously ideal.
Suction Bomb is a very good subweapon. A lot of people fall into the trap of just sitting back and repeatedly throwing bombs forward the whole game but I don't think that's how this weapon should be playing. When you throw Suction Bomb, it should usually be with one of three goals in mind - either helping you paint far away from yourself so you can get access to your special quickly, very briefly holding a small, but important part of the map from your opponents, or clearing enemies from behind cover and forcing them into the open.
In addition, this weapon likes being able to hide a lot and throwing a Suction Bomb immediately gives your opponents a general idea of where you are. This is more reason for you to use Suction Bomb less often than other weapons. That being said, it's absolutely still a good subweapon for the Decavitator, just not quite as ridiculously playstyle-defining as it is for something like an N-ZAP.
Splash Wall is an odd subweapon that takes a lot more time to get used to, but in my opinion fits the Decavitator even better than most bombs would. Once you pick one of the enemies off, there's a good chance at least one of the others will then know where you are. Splash Wall can be great here to keep yourself from immediately getting shot at afterwards.
This needs to be done proactively instead of reactively. You CANNOT throw this out while you're being attacked or else you'll get taken out before it can activate. In the ideal situation, you pick off one of the enemies and have a Splash Wall up while next to one or a few other enemies. This gives an absolute golden opportunity for your teammates to close in on them because of the attention your enemies now need to give you.
It's pretty ironic that despite everything I said in the last section about stealth being important, in some situations, Splash Wall's existence on this kit can actually make it ideal to briefly draw a lot of attention to yourself for a very short burst of time. Splash Wall can sometimes let you very briefly wedge yourself in places that force your opponents to look at you if it's in a different direction than at your teammates. If you can find an opportunity to do this as your teammates can approach them, then take that opportunity. This isn't something you should do through a whole match but knowing when and where to do it can be very helpful.
Smaller note, but Splash Wall is also extremely important if you want to challenge a mid-ranged weapon like a Splatana Stamper or Nautilus that are out of reach from your one-shot. They are faster than and can outrange you which will just lead to them keeping you out from approaching them otherwise, instead letting them slowly advance on you and take away your space.
Either way, both subweapons are very ink hungry. This is where your main weapon's ink consumption issue is most likely to come into play because too many charged shots after throwing a subweapon will leave your ink tank completely empty. You need to be ready to either sit and recover a little bit of ink or need to be prepared for what happens after you've used it.
Of every weapon in the game, this one and the Splat Roller are by far the best at keeping people outside of their own Big Bubblers. Despite what you might think, this is absolutely not a panic button because there's a bit of a delay before it starts protecting you. If someone is firing at you and you use Big Bubbler you will end up dying before it can pop up unless they miss. To survive, you need to use this special around a second ahead of the time it would take for them to kill you.
Putting Big Bubblers at important points of the map can be extremely helpful. If you don't have the best idea of what parts of a map are "important," try putting them out in front of a Tower Control checkpoint or underneath a Clam Blitz basket. A lot of what I just said about Splash Wall also applies here although you do need to keep in mind that you only get a few of these per game as opposed to Splash Wall being freely spammable.
It's worth noting that Big Bubbler has some very extreme matchups into other specials. It works fantastically into Trizooka and can be nice into Inkjet and Tenta Missiles, but gets completely destroyed by Kraken Royale and especially Triple Inkstrike. If you want your bubble to stay up for any substantial amount of time, it's best that you pay attention to what all specials your opponent has active at the top of the screen. This special is the single best Trizooka answer in the game and since Trizooka is the single best attacking special in the game, a lot of teams will greatly appreciate you being able to block a part of it for them.
There are a lot of smaller tips I have for using the special as well. You can use Suction Bombs from inside of your bubble to threaten space that your main weapon can't reach and to force enemies to respond to you being there. Also, don't hesitate to leave your Big Bubbler if you don't feel like you're impacting the game much from inside it anymore. I haven't experimented as much with this part of it yet but I've heard that specifically the Beakon inside of a Big Bubbler can be extremely important on hyper aggressive teams just for the sake of letting your teammates get jump to a more important part of the map after they die. It likely makes it all the more important that you're able to protect it from the specials it matches up poorly into.
Inkjet is a very important special for the Charcoal kit. Not only is it one of the stronger specials in Splatoon 3 as a whole, but it does a lot of specific things that the Decavitator really appreciates. The sword itself can't reach over ledges well because of its flat hitboxes and Inkjet is able to cover those ledges very well.
However, Inkjet is one of the toughest specials to learn how to use. Missing shots with it is very easy and putting yourself in a position where your enemies can run you down and kill you is also very easy. If you don't hit your first shot on an opponent, you'll often want to fire your next shots a bit between you and your opponent to keep them from rushing you down. This is especially important for mid-ranged weapons like the Range Blaster and Slosher who have a particularly easy time hitting you and can't paint their own feet especially quickly.
Once you get a basic grip of how the special works, you'll then want to learn how to play evasively with it. Keep the terrain underneath you in mind when using it because moving over higher ground will push you further upwards and vice versa. You have a boost to let you dodge upwards every once in a while, but this by itself isn't all you'll want to be using for evasive play. If you don't have terrain like this under you then going into squid form for a second is another entirely serviceable way to make yourself harder to hit.
Finally, once you've gotten all of that down, you'll want to start learning to predict movement. This is something that applies to most weapons in general but especially so with Inkjet since its shot speed is very slow and one-shots are very small. If you know where your opponent is going to go, you can shoot your Inkjet shot in that direction to try and one-shot them during their movement. Even if you don't hit the one-shot, you can still use the outer hitboxes to repeatedly pepper someone with damage until they eventually go down. Doing this to hit people from behind corners is very useful.
Matchups
It's a bit tougher to talk about the matchups of a weapon that spends most of its time either hiding or holding space down. This playstyle is one where either you succeed in doing those things and win or you fail and you die. There are still some things to talk about though.
The matchups where this weapon is at its absolute best are those where, in order to contest it, they need to get dangerously close to its one-shot range. Things like the Inkbrush and Sploosh-o-Matic will struggle very hard to get within your range with your wide projectile hitboxes to begin with, let alone while managing to get past your one-shot. You still need to play very diligently around how quickly they can get close to you, keep track of where they are, and try not to play their game by recognizing when they're just trying to distract you. You will need to predict their movement but your bigger hitboxes make it easier than for other weapons.
Uniquely, I think this weapon does better into Ultra Stamp than any other short-ranged weapon in the game. Your one-shot actually outranges Ultra Stamp's so as long as you're at full health, one cannot use rush mode against you without your properly-timed one-shot killing it first. It takes practice but becomes very consistent once you get the hang of it. The icing on the cake is that you can sometimes dash through an Ultra Stamp and take minimal damage.
Much like the other Splatanas, your weapon does pretty well against weapons that rely on objects such as the Splat Brella with its shield and the Sloshing Machine with its Booyah Bomb. Its attacks being slower than Wiper's and Stamper's makes it not quite as good as those two but it's very strong there regardless.
Weapons that have tools against people hiding in their own ink make it a lot harder for you to get close. If you get hit with a Point Sensor, hiding away will not work and you'll need to start playing more defensively. Wave Breaker can be similarly effective with its initial location effect and will force you to hide behind cover and jump over its waves if you aren't able to destroy it quickly.
There are a lot of weapons that particularly struggle against hiding players because of a lack of paint output, preferring more forward positions, and slower kill time all at once. This includes things like the Slosher and Squeezer. However, if you're caught in the open, they can kill you faster than you can kill them and they outrange you, so they quickly turn into some of your hardest matchups. Big Bubbler or Splash Wall can help maintain your ground against weapons like these but won't always be an option for one reason or another.
Most losing matchups are very workable here. It doesn't feel like any single weapon can completely stop you on your own even if some do make it easier or harder. Try to keep in mind that, much like other weapons of this class, you have the tools to handle most situations pretty well if you're able to use good judgment and opportunistic play.
Gear Abilities
Unlike the previous version of this guide, I think there are three different lines of thinking you could take when building a gear set for this weapon. Each of them is very different and because of that, I think it's appropriate if I split this section into three parts. I'll give a general idea of how each gear set differs in playstyle and will go over each ability you should consider running with them from most to least important. You should not try to fit every ability in one section onto one build, but instead try to pick and choose which ones you should and shouldn't run based on my explanations. Building gear for your weapon is all about experimentation so I'd like to encourage you to try all three out if you have the ability chunks to!
Quick Respawn Builds
This is my personal preferred way of playing this weapon and is currently what's most popular at higher levels of play as well. Quick Respawn is for players or teams that like making particularly aggressive and sometimes even risky plays. This would naturally be a great choice for the Decavitator but the problem is that in order for it to be worthwhile, Quick Respawn requires that you dedicate a lot of your gear to it. Running too little of this ability makes the tradeoff no longer worth it.
Ninja Squid Builds
I have by far the least experience with this kind of build of the three, but it's worth going over. Ninja Squid is at its absolute best in a coordinated setting where the Decavitator user's teammates are either going out of their way to paint for it or can naturally give it the paint that it wants without having to actively focus on it. In solo matchmaking it can be very challenging to make consistent use out of it, but as I've mentioned before, being able to get closer to opponents without them seeing you can be very powerful for this weapon. The problem with needing to dedicate a lot of ability slots is even worse here than it is for Quick Respawn as well and it's worth noting that your movement is still visible even if a lot harder to spot.
"None of the Above" Builds
Last of the three, this is how you should build for this weapon if neither of the two above explanations describes you. If you don't want to play as aggressively as often or if your team is slower without having exceptional paint output, then you can run something like this. It's worth noting that this weapon usually fits best on teams that can quickly get picks and push forward and is harder to, but still entirely possible to justify running otherwise.
Dishonorable Mentions
Lastly, I'd just like to go over some abilities that are straight-up suboptimal to run despite sometimes being fairly popular. Don't get me wrong here - I could totally see why someone would find one or more of these abilities fun. You're absolutely more than welcome to play with whatever gear you want and I won't get upset over it. This actually applies to everything with this guide. The goal here is to recommend what you should and shouldn't do it you want to win and want some good long-term growth with this weapon, but this ultimately is a game and the bottom line should be having fun before anything else.
With that being said...
Other Notes
This weapon struggles to poke over ledges, but the best way to do so is to charge up an attack, release the attack button, and THEN to jump. This has a lot of very situational use cases as it usually relies on your opponent messing up, but the big reason I'm mentioning this is that it lets you hit people riding the Tower Control tower without having to climb it.
Your attacks are easier to hit than most other weapons', but it is worth mentioning that they don't reach very far vertically. What I mean by this is if you release an attack perfectly flat to the ground, your opponents will be able to jump over it if they know how to play against the Decavitator and manage to predict your timing. Angling your camera a little bit more upwards or jumping with your opponent can help with this issue.
Smaller thing to mention and extremely situational, but if you hit someone up close with your one-shot hitbox while they have respawn armor, any following hit will kill them through said armor, including even an uncharged projectile. It can be nice to try and go for a trade against someone's spawn armor in some situations.
When you're landing from a super jump or Inkjet's recall, you have a few options here. Try using the dash you get from your grounded vertical slash the moment you land if there's any chance you're under enemy fire. This isn't foolproof, especially against a well-timed bomb, but giving yourself any chance of survival in these situations is a big deal. If your reflexes are particularly quick, you can see where your opponents are compared to your landing point and can try to choose the direction of your dash accordingly. You can be aggressive with this and try to dash to the side of your opponent or you can try to fall below a ledge to make it harder for them to hit you.
Also, if anyone gets overly careless with your landing, just releasing a charged attack without dashing can punish people who get too close. Your attack starts up while you're still in the air and activates basically the moment you land. This is more situational as you get to a higher level of play and opponents are more cautious about this, but can be very effective in solo matchmaking.
Activating Big Bubbler with the right timing can let you act slightly more quickly out of your charged attack. If you use a charged attack and click the right control stick at a specific time after your projectile comes out, you can use Big Bubbler a bit sooner than you could otherwise. This is situational, but can be useful at all levels of play.
If you jump just a little bit in the air while throwing a Splash Wall, it will land a little bit further away from you than had you just thrown it while on the ground. Quickly dashing towards it in this case can leave you just barely behind it and safe from enemy fire. This can be very nice for quickly allowing yourself to push into certain spaces but it definitely will take some time getting a feel for where its applications lie.
If you use your dash on the ground to slide off of an edge, you will not start descending until your dash ends. This allows you to threaten your one-shot over some gaps that other weapons simply can't. An example this is on Flounder Heights where you can clear some space over the grate bridge in the center of the map without jumping or ever touching the grates. Position yourself on one of the four high points around that bridge and try dashing close to another.
Conclusion
This weapon is great. When the season started, I saw a lot of people say they're having lots of fun with the weapon despite saying in the same breath that they aren't great with it yet. It has the same complexity, flexible toolkits, and freedom of expression as the other Splatanas have, but with a completely unique playstyle that is unlike anything else in the game. If reading this makes you even the slightest bit interested in the weapon, go and give it a shot. It may take a while for things to click but you'll have a lot of fun when it does.
For those of you who may be reading this who aren't especially active on Squidboards, my name is Deez. I'm a Charcoal Decavitator one-trick that has been playing with a div 6 team lately. I stopped playing Splatoon around Splatoon 2's launch but returned for Splatoon 3 and have been hooked ever since. I was a big Splatana fan before this weapon dropped, and when it released it instantly became the only weapon I would play for more than a few games at a time.
It took only a month for me to reach five stars on this weapon, which is half as long as my previous record, and a week before then I won my first big bracket, that being Low Ink's Beta Bracket. I've done greater things with this weapon than I have with any of my previous mains and had more fun with it so I've given it nearly all of my recent play time. It currently sits as my most played weapon across the near three years this game's been out.
Before I go on, though...
Slight Disclaimer
...I did specify that I play Charcoal Decavitator because the Mint kit clicked with me a little bit less at first. I don't think this weapon depends on its kit super hard but I haven't put too much time into Mint in a more coordinated setting and might be missing a few key things with Big Bubbler in particular. I do still have a fair amount of play time with both kits, but it's still way, way more on Charcoal. That being said I can still absolutely tell you what I've found most successful when using the kit!
Introduction
Of the few weapons currently in the Splatana weapon class, the Decavitator stands out with its very distinctive playstyle compared to the rest. It's a mid-range weapon that often needs to use stealth to its advantage and ambush its opponents with its fast kill time. After you hold down the fire button to charge, releasing it will unleash a giant melee hitbox in front of you that one-shots opponents.
Much like other Splatanas, using this attack while grounded and holding Up on the control stick will make you dash forward. Unlike other Splatanas, this dash covers a massive distance and can be used to help you approach enemies. This combines with the one-shot hitbox to make the weapon very fearsome if you can quietly get within range for this dash to let you reach opponents. You can get a bit tricky with this as well by changing the direction your camera is facing mid-dash, letting your melee attack cover a different area than it would have otherwise and giving you a few more directions you can dash towards in order to still threaten to one-shot someone.
When not within range of a one-shot, this charge attack releases a projectile that does 80 damage. This can kill opponents that have previously been damaged, but if they're at full health, this instead will leave them susceptible to smaller, quicker hits. You can follow this up by using an uncharged attack, which releases a projectile that deals 40 damage. Using them both back-to-back leads to a guaranteed kill, and the uncharged attack is both faster and more ink-efficient than the charged one, making this an important combo to make use of. If you've ever seen higher-level Splatana Stamper gameplay, the same idea applies here. Using an uncharged attack up close deals 70 damage which is only situationally useful.
The Decavitator isn't the kind of weapon that wants to paint the ground as often as many others, but when it wants to get its special quickly, it can do so very well. Its uncharged slashes cover a lot of space fairly quickly although a low walking speed will force you to swim a little bit after a handful of swipes to paint optimally. This is never a weapon you would add to a team solely for its paint output, but having good paint output is nice regardless to let you get special and get map control quickly.
Like the other Splatanas, the Decavitator deals some of the best damage to objects and armor in the entire game. This weapon can quickly tear apart things like Booyah Bomb, Brella shields, and the Rainmaker bubble. This is a nice quality to have but isn't really reason by itself to learn a new weapon. It's also worth note that it does use a lot of your ink tank to use repeated charged attacks, but it's not as big of a concern with this weapon as it would be for some others. It's something you will need to be mindful of as you play but isn't a weapon-defining weakness like it would be for an Explosher for example.
Unlike other weapons with mobility as a big focus, the Decavitator's attacking speed is pretty slow. The time it takes for its attacks to charge may be fast, but there is a lot of delay between when you release the button, when the attack executes, and when the attack finishes. Making mistakes with this weapon can be very punishing because of how long it can take before you're able to swim. In addition, as a weapon that uses stealth to find many of its opportunities to attack, things that help with location like Autobomb and Wave Breaker can lock it out from doing a lot of the things it wants to.
Overall, the Decavitator is a very dangerous weapon with a lot of room for fun, rewarding playmaking.
Playstyle and Game Plan
When using the Decavitator, at most points, your goal should be trying to get within range of your opponents without them noticing you. You are one of the more aggressive weapons in the game and should be one of the most aggressive weapons on most comps you'd run it on. Use things like side routes and longer-ranged allies' paint support to get closer to enemies. If all else fails, using Suction Bomb or Inkjet to force enemies out from cover can be very helpful. Your dash can also be used as a little range extension for your one-shot or to let you quickly position yourself to pick someone off with your charged to uncharged projectile combo.
The fact that your one-shot is so big means that you can and should be playing it with a similar playstyle as a Roller. You can absolutely sit in a part of the map where your opponents will cross by, but where you also won't get hit or spotted while someone's painting and can just one-shot them afterwards, sometimes even after using a dash.
You would think its dash would see similar use to a Dualie and it definitely can, but isn't always your best option because of how slowly it moves by comparison. The dash's absolute best use case is to cover a gap either after hiding in your own ink or to pop out past a wall that your opponent might be hiding behind so they don't see you as you're doing it. The reason this is so great is because your charged attack comes out very, very quickly after your dash finishes, giving your opponents basically no time to react to it.
As I said before, this weapon has solid painting with its uncharged attacks. Not fantastic, but when your team is being locked out of a part of the map and you need your special to get in, this weapon can do so fairly quickly. You should not be focusing on painting though unless it's important for you to get your special or if you want to lock down a part of the map from your opponents. Otherwise, the uncharged projectile is still useful if you just want quick damage on someone.
Using your uncharged attack up close for the 70-damage hit is sometimes useful. Not often enough to center your playstyle around it, but it can be very nice sometimes. You do need to use it twice to kill an enemy, but it uses less of your ink tank and is much faster. You can use it to finish off opponents you know are already weak that you happen to be close to already. The only other use case is a more ink-efficient way of killing a very slow weapon you're already absolutely dead certain you know you can get a kill on.
Staying back and playing this weapon supportively or like a more standard frontline is ideal in some cases, especially against teams with several short-ranged weapons, but it's not always. The absolute best time to use this is to help hold off an important choke point, but it's also fine if you don't really have a way to get closer to your enemies and want to wait for either your special or your teammate's to move forward. Your slow-moving and wide hitboxes will also cover a lot of space for a long time which makes it harder for enemies to approach you.
The reason this isn't always ideal is because limits how much usage you can get from your dash because the enemies are able to see you and will be able to react to your movement. Without your dash, this weapon is usually just a worse version of the Splatana Stamper because of its better range, kit, and attacking speed. Again, it's still good to play like this sometimes, but you should be ready to readjust and play to the other strengths of this weapon whenever an opportunity allows you.
Weapon Kits and Their Differences
I'll reiterate that I'm much more experienced with the Charcoal kit than the Mint kit, but have a decent amount of play time with both and have a lot of general experience playing a lot of different weapons. You can absolutely be successful while still mostly playing to the strengths of the sword itself even if learning how to use your subweapon and special is obviously ideal.
Suction Bomb is a very good subweapon. A lot of people fall into the trap of just sitting back and repeatedly throwing bombs forward the whole game but I don't think that's how this weapon should be playing. When you throw Suction Bomb, it should usually be with one of three goals in mind - either helping you paint far away from yourself so you can get access to your special quickly, very briefly holding a small, but important part of the map from your opponents, or clearing enemies from behind cover and forcing them into the open.
In addition, this weapon likes being able to hide a lot and throwing a Suction Bomb immediately gives your opponents a general idea of where you are. This is more reason for you to use Suction Bomb less often than other weapons. That being said, it's absolutely still a good subweapon for the Decavitator, just not quite as ridiculously playstyle-defining as it is for something like an N-ZAP.
Splash Wall is an odd subweapon that takes a lot more time to get used to, but in my opinion fits the Decavitator even better than most bombs would. Once you pick one of the enemies off, there's a good chance at least one of the others will then know where you are. Splash Wall can be great here to keep yourself from immediately getting shot at afterwards.
This needs to be done proactively instead of reactively. You CANNOT throw this out while you're being attacked or else you'll get taken out before it can activate. In the ideal situation, you pick off one of the enemies and have a Splash Wall up while next to one or a few other enemies. This gives an absolute golden opportunity for your teammates to close in on them because of the attention your enemies now need to give you.
It's pretty ironic that despite everything I said in the last section about stealth being important, in some situations, Splash Wall's existence on this kit can actually make it ideal to briefly draw a lot of attention to yourself for a very short burst of time. Splash Wall can sometimes let you very briefly wedge yourself in places that force your opponents to look at you if it's in a different direction than at your teammates. If you can find an opportunity to do this as your teammates can approach them, then take that opportunity. This isn't something you should do through a whole match but knowing when and where to do it can be very helpful.
Smaller note, but Splash Wall is also extremely important if you want to challenge a mid-ranged weapon like a Splatana Stamper or Nautilus that are out of reach from your one-shot. They are faster than and can outrange you which will just lead to them keeping you out from approaching them otherwise, instead letting them slowly advance on you and take away your space.
Either way, both subweapons are very ink hungry. This is where your main weapon's ink consumption issue is most likely to come into play because too many charged shots after throwing a subweapon will leave your ink tank completely empty. You need to be ready to either sit and recover a little bit of ink or need to be prepared for what happens after you've used it.
Of every weapon in the game, this one and the Splat Roller are by far the best at keeping people outside of their own Big Bubblers. Despite what you might think, this is absolutely not a panic button because there's a bit of a delay before it starts protecting you. If someone is firing at you and you use Big Bubbler you will end up dying before it can pop up unless they miss. To survive, you need to use this special around a second ahead of the time it would take for them to kill you.
Putting Big Bubblers at important points of the map can be extremely helpful. If you don't have the best idea of what parts of a map are "important," try putting them out in front of a Tower Control checkpoint or underneath a Clam Blitz basket. A lot of what I just said about Splash Wall also applies here although you do need to keep in mind that you only get a few of these per game as opposed to Splash Wall being freely spammable.
It's worth noting that Big Bubbler has some very extreme matchups into other specials. It works fantastically into Trizooka and can be nice into Inkjet and Tenta Missiles, but gets completely destroyed by Kraken Royale and especially Triple Inkstrike. If you want your bubble to stay up for any substantial amount of time, it's best that you pay attention to what all specials your opponent has active at the top of the screen. This special is the single best Trizooka answer in the game and since Trizooka is the single best attacking special in the game, a lot of teams will greatly appreciate you being able to block a part of it for them.
There are a lot of smaller tips I have for using the special as well. You can use Suction Bombs from inside of your bubble to threaten space that your main weapon can't reach and to force enemies to respond to you being there. Also, don't hesitate to leave your Big Bubbler if you don't feel like you're impacting the game much from inside it anymore. I haven't experimented as much with this part of it yet but I've heard that specifically the Beakon inside of a Big Bubbler can be extremely important on hyper aggressive teams just for the sake of letting your teammates get jump to a more important part of the map after they die. It likely makes it all the more important that you're able to protect it from the specials it matches up poorly into.
Inkjet is a very important special for the Charcoal kit. Not only is it one of the stronger specials in Splatoon 3 as a whole, but it does a lot of specific things that the Decavitator really appreciates. The sword itself can't reach over ledges well because of its flat hitboxes and Inkjet is able to cover those ledges very well.
However, Inkjet is one of the toughest specials to learn how to use. Missing shots with it is very easy and putting yourself in a position where your enemies can run you down and kill you is also very easy. If you don't hit your first shot on an opponent, you'll often want to fire your next shots a bit between you and your opponent to keep them from rushing you down. This is especially important for mid-ranged weapons like the Range Blaster and Slosher who have a particularly easy time hitting you and can't paint their own feet especially quickly.
Once you get a basic grip of how the special works, you'll then want to learn how to play evasively with it. Keep the terrain underneath you in mind when using it because moving over higher ground will push you further upwards and vice versa. You have a boost to let you dodge upwards every once in a while, but this by itself isn't all you'll want to be using for evasive play. If you don't have terrain like this under you then going into squid form for a second is another entirely serviceable way to make yourself harder to hit.
Finally, once you've gotten all of that down, you'll want to start learning to predict movement. This is something that applies to most weapons in general but especially so with Inkjet since its shot speed is very slow and one-shots are very small. If you know where your opponent is going to go, you can shoot your Inkjet shot in that direction to try and one-shot them during their movement. Even if you don't hit the one-shot, you can still use the outer hitboxes to repeatedly pepper someone with damage until they eventually go down. Doing this to hit people from behind corners is very useful.
Matchups
It's a bit tougher to talk about the matchups of a weapon that spends most of its time either hiding or holding space down. This playstyle is one where either you succeed in doing those things and win or you fail and you die. There are still some things to talk about though.
The matchups where this weapon is at its absolute best are those where, in order to contest it, they need to get dangerously close to its one-shot range. Things like the Inkbrush and Sploosh-o-Matic will struggle very hard to get within your range with your wide projectile hitboxes to begin with, let alone while managing to get past your one-shot. You still need to play very diligently around how quickly they can get close to you, keep track of where they are, and try not to play their game by recognizing when they're just trying to distract you. You will need to predict their movement but your bigger hitboxes make it easier than for other weapons.
Uniquely, I think this weapon does better into Ultra Stamp than any other short-ranged weapon in the game. Your one-shot actually outranges Ultra Stamp's so as long as you're at full health, one cannot use rush mode against you without your properly-timed one-shot killing it first. It takes practice but becomes very consistent once you get the hang of it. The icing on the cake is that you can sometimes dash through an Ultra Stamp and take minimal damage.
Much like the other Splatanas, your weapon does pretty well against weapons that rely on objects such as the Splat Brella with its shield and the Sloshing Machine with its Booyah Bomb. Its attacks being slower than Wiper's and Stamper's makes it not quite as good as those two but it's very strong there regardless.
Weapons that have tools against people hiding in their own ink make it a lot harder for you to get close. If you get hit with a Point Sensor, hiding away will not work and you'll need to start playing more defensively. Wave Breaker can be similarly effective with its initial location effect and will force you to hide behind cover and jump over its waves if you aren't able to destroy it quickly.
There are a lot of weapons that particularly struggle against hiding players because of a lack of paint output, preferring more forward positions, and slower kill time all at once. This includes things like the Slosher and Squeezer. However, if you're caught in the open, they can kill you faster than you can kill them and they outrange you, so they quickly turn into some of your hardest matchups. Big Bubbler or Splash Wall can help maintain your ground against weapons like these but won't always be an option for one reason or another.
Most losing matchups are very workable here. It doesn't feel like any single weapon can completely stop you on your own even if some do make it easier or harder. Try to keep in mind that, much like other weapons of this class, you have the tools to handle most situations pretty well if you're able to use good judgment and opportunistic play.
Gear Abilities
Unlike the previous version of this guide, I think there are three different lines of thinking you could take when building a gear set for this weapon. Each of them is very different and because of that, I think it's appropriate if I split this section into three parts. I'll give a general idea of how each gear set differs in playstyle and will go over each ability you should consider running with them from most to least important. You should not try to fit every ability in one section onto one build, but instead try to pick and choose which ones you should and shouldn't run based on my explanations. Building gear for your weapon is all about experimentation so I'd like to encourage you to try all three out if you have the ability chunks to!
Quick Respawn Builds
This is my personal preferred way of playing this weapon and is currently what's most popular at higher levels of play as well. Quick Respawn is for players or teams that like making particularly aggressive and sometimes even risky plays. This would naturally be a great choice for the Decavitator but the problem is that in order for it to be worthwhile, Quick Respawn requires that you dedicate a lot of your gear to it. Running too little of this ability makes the tradeoff no longer worth it.
- Quick Respawn - Obviously, Quick Respawn is mandatory to running a Quick Respawn build. You need to put Quick Respawn in at least one of your main abilities and two of your sub abilities. I'd personally recommend you start with one main and three subs instead and work off of there. You can absolutely run even more than just this, but I'd advise against it if you're just starting out and want to get a feel for the weapon. For reference my current favorite build has one main and four subs of this ability.
- Quick Super Jump - Just as a rule of thumb, no matter what gear you build in this game, it will almost always want at least one sub ability's worth of Quick Super Jump. If I were you I'd even consider running two sub abilities although you definitely don't need to. You just save a lot of time while jumping into teammates after respawning.
- Stealth Jump - With this ability, there are so many more places you can super jump to than you would be able to without it. More opportunities to jump closer to a more important part of the map means more time saved. Jumping in against a long-ranged weapon is basically impossible without this ability unless they specifically mess up or nobody sees you, which is a risk that's not worth taking.
- Ink Resistance Up - Similar story to Quick Super Jump where one sub ability is extremely useful on most weapons. Touching enemy ink just a little bit without this ability makes it so you immediately receive a movement penalty and take chip damage, but one sub gives you a sixth of a second of leeway. It may not sound like much, but it's very useful in a way that's a bit difficult to put into words. You can viably run two subs of this ability but it wouldn't be my first choice here. All three of these build types I'm going to be talking about will suggest you run Quick Super Jump, Stealth Jump, and Ink Resistance Up no matter what else you're running. These three are so good that I would consider them mandatory on every Decavitator build.
- Comeback - Comeback is extremely important for how long it gives so many beneficial effects after you die. This weapon will probably also be dying more than most other weapons in a given match which makes the synergy obvious. I was very close to considering this mandatory like the aforementioned four abilities and the only reason I'm not is because a few other abilities could be argued to have more merit for your hat's main ability. I would heavily consider running this if you're new to the weapon though.
- Special Power Up (Charcoal Kit ONLY) - Not worth it for Big Bubbler, but running two subs of this ability will make your Inkjets noticeably more consistent by making some of its more damaging hitboxes bigger. I was heavily considering calling this one and Comeback both mandatory as well.
- Special Saver - I'm personally not as huge of a fan of this ability on this weapon, but I know that's a hot take and it'd be a disservice not to talk about it. Because you're dedicating so much of your gear to Quick Respawn, having abilities that are at their best with only one or two sub abilities is important and this is a big example. Similarly to Comeback, it synergizes very well with a weapon and playstyle that can often die a lot.
- Swim Speed Up - This ability is one of the stronger ones in this game right now but usually requires that you run a bit more of it than this weapon's gear slots have the room for. Just running one sub worth of this ability is never worth it but running two can be nice. While three subs is the absolute most I'd consider for the Charcoal kit, it's worth noting that the Mint kit doesn't want Special Power Up and can usually justify this ability more easily as a result. There, you can run as few as two subs or as many as one main and two subs.
- Sub Resistance Up - Another ability I'm not personally a fan of that is fairly popular for this weapon, although it's not nearly as big of a hot take as it is when I say that about Special Saver. One sub of this can be the difference between living and dying in extremely specific scenarios, specific enough to the point where I could count on one hand the amount of times it could've made a difference across all of my games. It can protect you from very, VERY specific damage combos from vanilla Slosher, vanilla Splatana Stamper, and Fizzy Bomb. Since you're usually short on free ability slots, if you have one left that you don't know what to do with, this can be a good option.
- Ink Saver (Main) - One sub of Ink Saver (Main) will give you one extra charged shot before your ink tank is empty assuming you spam all of them in a row. It's rarely ever a situation this weapon finds itself in but opening up the option can be nice and there aren't many other abilities where just one sub can give you something like this. I'd like to note that the gap between this ability and the ones above it really is much bigger than the other gaps to the point where I'd consider dropping the one sub of this ability in favor of another sub of Quick Respawn, Quick Super Jump or Swim Speed Up. It still is worth mentioning because it's not an outright bad option and does have legitimate merit to being run.
- Opening Gambit - Opening Gambit is something very experimental that not many Decavitator players have tried out, but at the time of writing this is very popular on a lot of weapons in Japan's scene for reasons that I could easily see carrying over here. This ability fits a lot of very useful benefits into one ability and it can last for a long time if you're playing consistently well enough, but even mistakes can be very punishing. Dedicating so much of your gear to an ability that can be this hit-or-miss is not usually ideal, but if you don't like Comeback for whatever reason and have an empty main ability, you could give this a shot. I'd advise against this if you're new to the weapon but it's still worth mentioning if you want something to experiment with.
Ninja Squid Builds
I have by far the least experience with this kind of build of the three, but it's worth going over. Ninja Squid is at its absolute best in a coordinated setting where the Decavitator user's teammates are either going out of their way to paint for it or can naturally give it the paint that it wants without having to actively focus on it. In solo matchmaking it can be very challenging to make consistent use out of it, but as I've mentioned before, being able to get closer to opponents without them seeing you can be very powerful for this weapon. The problem with needing to dedicate a lot of ability slots is even worse here than it is for Quick Respawn as well and it's worth noting that your movement is still visible even if a lot harder to spot.
- Ninja Squid - Not much to talk about here. Obviously Ninja Squid is mandatory for a Ninja Squid build and it's only possible to run it as your shirt's main ability. It's worth noting that this ability doesn't activate as you're going from kid to squid form so you'll want to move a bit more slowly for a split second while waiting for this to activate.
- Quick Super Jump - Similar idea here as with other builds. You definitely want one sub of this ability and can also consider two on any weapon with an aggressive playstyle. You just save so much time when super jumping into play and super jumping out of play goes from unrealistic to completely possible.
- Stealth Jump - Without Stealth Jump, your opponents have a lot of room to punish a lot more super jumps than they could before, especially those with bombs or good range. You can also jump closer to enemy territory without your teammates needing to hide.
- Ink Resistance Up - Once again, Ink Resistance Up is also mandatory to make enemy ink worsen your movement and damage you less. I would run one sub of this, Stealth Jump, and one sub of Quick Super jump on every build of this weapon. If I were you and I were newer to building gear as a whole, I would heavily consider getting a pair of shoes with Stealth Jump as its main ability, with its sub abilities being Quick Super Jump, Ink Resistance Up, and whatever third ability you personally think you might use on a lot of weapons.
- Swim Speed Up - Contrary to other build types for this weapon, if you're running Ninja Squid, Swim Speed Up is an absolute must. Your top speed while swimming is much lower if you run Ninja Squid which is a huge drawback for an ability that directly encourages fast, aggressive play. Offsetting this drawback is very important as a result. I'd recommend running at least five sub abilities worth of this, or one main and two subs.
- Comeback - Even without Quick Respawn, this ability is still one of the best in the game overall for how much benefit it gives when the enemy team has map control. This is the point of the game where you'll usually be at the biggest disadvantage and will need the most help as a result. Again, almost mandatory, although here I could see someone running Swim Speed Up as their hat's main ability.
- Special Saver - If you don't want a second sub ability of Quick Super Jump then you could definitely consider putting Special Saver in its place. The amount of options you have here are even tighter than with Quick Respawn because of how much Swim Speed Up you need and this is one of the better options available for abilities that you can get good mileage out of with just one sub.
- Special Power Up (Charcoal Kit ONLY) - Two subs of this ability make your Inkjets a lot more consistent, but if you're running Ninja Squid it's normally to play to the strengths of the main weapon as opposed to its kit. You simply cannot play to your special as often as other builds if you play as patiently as Ninja Squid forces you to. Two subs can be a lot to ask for with a build like this but it's not unreasonable.
- Sub Resistance Up - Still not an outright bad ability to run one sub of, but it's way too uncommon for you to get use out of this ability compared to how consistent the ones above are. This is the absolute last ability I'd consider running on this weapon for its Ninja Squid builds. It's way easier to come up with a good build for these but you end up with much less variety.
"None of the Above" Builds
Last of the three, this is how you should build for this weapon if neither of the two above explanations describes you. If you don't want to play as aggressively as often or if your team is slower without having exceptional paint output, then you can run something like this. It's worth noting that this weapon usually fits best on teams that can quickly get picks and push forward and is harder to, but still entirely possible to justify running otherwise.
- Quick Super Jump - Similar idea here as the other two build types. It saves so much time to super jump with one sub ability's worth of this that I would run it on every weapon. Unlike the other two builds, I don't think two subs of Quick Super Jump is as good on these types of builds, but it still is a very reasonable option.
- Stealth Jump - Once again, you will be able to jump so much closer to enemy lines than you otherwise would be able to with this ability and so much more safely that this is always worth running.
- Ink Resistance Up - I'll reiterate this as well, but running one sub of Ink Resistance Up makes it a lot easier to move around without taking needless chip damage or movement penalties. It's difficult to put into words how much of a difference it makes.
- Comeback - Unlike for the other two build types, I think Comeback is absolutely mandatory on this weapon if you choose not to run Quick Respawn or Ninja Squid. Dying happens so often in Splatoon, especially when your team doesn't have much map control and needs the boost, and it gives benefits on ink efficiency, movement speed, and charging your special all at once for a solid amount of time. It's already important on Ninja Squid or Quick Respawn builds where your gear slots are more limited so you could imagine it becomes mandatory when you have so much more freedom with your gear.
- Special Power Up (Charcoal Kit ONLY) - Lastly for mandatory gear abilities, and in a similar case as Comeback, Special Power Up. This helps your Inkjet's consistency so much by making its more damaging hitbox bigger and making it last a little bit longer. Like Comeback, the only reason not to run it on other build types was because of how restrictive those can be to build for and this removes that limitation. On Charcoal's kit especially you're playing to the strengths of the sword itself less than the other two build types so playing to a good special becomes all the more important. Two subs of this ability is standard but people have gone as far as running one main and one sub.
- Swim Speed Up - This would be my first consideration for my shirt's main ability on both kits and is a very natural choice for this weapon even otherwise. Moving around more quickly is nice and the ability's benefits are noticeable if you run two subs of it or more.
- Special Saver - Just one or two subs of this ability can make it a bit faster to get your special gauge filled after dying. It's a pretty nice perk for similar situations as those where Comeback is useful and it's very low-cost.
- Special Charge Up - You can also choose to run at least two subs worth of this ability if even Comeback and Special Saver aren't enough for you. It's definitely not bad but not as worthwhile as the aforementioned abilities. This is another candidate for your shirt's main ability because of how well it stacks as you run more of it but I'd never run more than one main and two subs.
- Sub Resistance Up - I'll reiterate the exact reasoning from before - one sub of this can be the difference between living and dying in extremely specific scenarios, specific enough to the point where I could count the amount of times it could've made a difference for me on one hand. It can protect you from very, VERY specific damage combos from vanilla Slosher, vanilla Splatana Stamper, and Fizzy Bomb. I usually will choose to run another ability I already have instead of putting a sub of this on my build.
- Ink Saver (Main) - This weapon is a little bit ink hungry if it uses repeated charged slashes. On other kinds of builds you can't really run more than one sub of this ability, but here some people have found success running two or three as well since you have more freedom with your abilities. I don't think it's necessary for this weapon but having fewer points where you have to stop to refill your ink tank can be very nice. This is generally the most efficient of the three ink-saving abilities.
Dishonorable Mentions
Lastly, I'd just like to go over some abilities that are straight-up suboptimal to run despite sometimes being fairly popular. Don't get me wrong here - I could totally see why someone would find one or more of these abilities fun. You're absolutely more than welcome to play with whatever gear you want and I won't get upset over it. This actually applies to everything with this guide. The goal here is to recommend what you should and shouldn't do it you want to win and want some good long-term growth with this weapon, but this ultimately is a game and the bottom line should be having fun before anything else.
With that being said...
- Tenacity - This ability is usually flat-out slower for getting your special than running Comeback or even just Special Charge Up in your hat's main slot. You could make a similar argument as Comeback where it's better to get some kind of boost when you're at a disadvantage and need it most, but this still fills your gauge too slowly and comes into effect at the stage of the game before you're most likely to die and cut into your special meter anyways.
- Respawn Punisher - Running this ability is basically making a statement that you think you'll average way, way more kills than your opponents can get on you. The penalty for the player is much more harsh than it is for the opponents so you really need to have a dominant game for it to be worthwhile. Those dominant games will be a lot of fun when they happen, but will be very rare even for the best players if they're up against decent opponents because this weapon's range and speed force it into a lot of situations where it needs to trade, in which case it's a net loss for you.
- Drop Roller - This weapon already has plenty of options to protect its landing. You technically move quicker while rolling than you do during a dash, but still are pretty vulnerable in both cases, miss out on the free attack at the end if you choose to roll and in general are committing a big part of your gear to give yourself an ability that's already very similar to what the Decavitator itself provides. Even if you want to argue that this weapon doesn't want to run Stealth Jump, which I wouldn't, would you rather have an extra ability that functions very similarly, only marginally more safely than something your main weapon already does, or would you rather run Swim Speed Up and have a noticeable increase to how fast you move?
Other Notes
This weapon struggles to poke over ledges, but the best way to do so is to charge up an attack, release the attack button, and THEN to jump. This has a lot of very situational use cases as it usually relies on your opponent messing up, but the big reason I'm mentioning this is that it lets you hit people riding the Tower Control tower without having to climb it.
Your attacks are easier to hit than most other weapons', but it is worth mentioning that they don't reach very far vertically. What I mean by this is if you release an attack perfectly flat to the ground, your opponents will be able to jump over it if they know how to play against the Decavitator and manage to predict your timing. Angling your camera a little bit more upwards or jumping with your opponent can help with this issue.
Smaller thing to mention and extremely situational, but if you hit someone up close with your one-shot hitbox while they have respawn armor, any following hit will kill them through said armor, including even an uncharged projectile. It can be nice to try and go for a trade against someone's spawn armor in some situations.
When you're landing from a super jump or Inkjet's recall, you have a few options here. Try using the dash you get from your grounded vertical slash the moment you land if there's any chance you're under enemy fire. This isn't foolproof, especially against a well-timed bomb, but giving yourself any chance of survival in these situations is a big deal. If your reflexes are particularly quick, you can see where your opponents are compared to your landing point and can try to choose the direction of your dash accordingly. You can be aggressive with this and try to dash to the side of your opponent or you can try to fall below a ledge to make it harder for them to hit you.
Also, if anyone gets overly careless with your landing, just releasing a charged attack without dashing can punish people who get too close. Your attack starts up while you're still in the air and activates basically the moment you land. This is more situational as you get to a higher level of play and opponents are more cautious about this, but can be very effective in solo matchmaking.
Activating Big Bubbler with the right timing can let you act slightly more quickly out of your charged attack. If you use a charged attack and click the right control stick at a specific time after your projectile comes out, you can use Big Bubbler a bit sooner than you could otherwise. This is situational, but can be useful at all levels of play.
If you jump just a little bit in the air while throwing a Splash Wall, it will land a little bit further away from you than had you just thrown it while on the ground. Quickly dashing towards it in this case can leave you just barely behind it and safe from enemy fire. This can be very nice for quickly allowing yourself to push into certain spaces but it definitely will take some time getting a feel for where its applications lie.
If you use your dash on the ground to slide off of an edge, you will not start descending until your dash ends. This allows you to threaten your one-shot over some gaps that other weapons simply can't. An example this is on Flounder Heights where you can clear some space over the grate bridge in the center of the map without jumping or ever touching the grates. Position yourself on one of the four high points around that bridge and try dashing close to another.
Conclusion
This weapon is great. When the season started, I saw a lot of people say they're having lots of fun with the weapon despite saying in the same breath that they aren't great with it yet. It has the same complexity, flexible toolkits, and freedom of expression as the other Splatanas have, but with a completely unique playstyle that is unlike anything else in the game. If reading this makes you even the slightest bit interested in the weapon, go and give it a shot. It may take a while for things to click but you'll have a lot of fun when it does.
