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 time this game's been out by a country mile.
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-ranged weapon that's significantly slower than weapons with similar reach, but makes up for this in a number of ways. 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. Arguably the biggest thing putting this apart from other Splatanas is that this dash covers a much larger distance than the rest which is useful to help you close the distance from some enemies. This combines with the one-shot hitbox to make the weapon very fearsome if you can 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. These are very useful for walling out areas from opponents if nothing that outranges you is nearby. The 80 damage is great for taking down opponents that have previously been damaged and leaving them susceptible to smaller hits otherwise. If you hit someone with it then you can follow it 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. Using an uncharged attack up close deals 70 damage which is only situationally useful.
The Decavitator has a weirdly good paint output for the kind of weapon it is. Its uncharged slashes cover a very wide area without taking long although a low walking speed will force you to swim to a different spot after a handful of swipes to paint optimally. It's not the absolute best weapon in the game for painting, but it can charge for its special or claim an area for itself pretty 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 so you will need to be cautious when trying to wall out an area. This is 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.
As I said before, 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 and it's very easy to find yourself in a situation where you take someone down only for their teammate to catch you afterwards. 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 an incredibly strong weapon that has tools to handle practically any situation.
Playstyle and Game Plan
When using the Decavitator, you are your team's instigator. 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 find it on. Stealth is a big way to help this weapon start engagements and so it's often extremely helpful to use things like side routes and longer-ranged allies' paint support to get closer to enemies. Unless you're certain you can get someone, though, it's usually best to start fights while you're at full HP because of how slow this weapon's attacks are.
Your dash can be used in a number of ways. The most obvious of these is as a little range extension for your one-shot. If someone doesn't know where you are, then this saves you the time of having to paint and then swim closer to your enemy. If the enemy sees you and will be able to react in time then it can be nice to instead let you quickly reposition yourself. The bottom line here is to then try and hit the enemy with a charged shot to uncharged shot combo, either moving to the side if you think you still have a good shot of winning the engagement or retreating if you don't.
Since you can turn the camera between time the dash and the shot come out, try to make sure this charged shot is either going to hit an enemy or give you a good path to escape in a worst case scenario. It's important to state that you should not dash directly towards someone that can already see you unless you're confident they won't shoot you during the dash for one reason or another since this is often very easy for the opponent to do.
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 you don't spend as much time in a spot where they can hit you. Your charged attack comes out very, very quickly after a dash, giving your opponents basically no time to react to it if they can't position their camera past the wall you're dashing against.
The fact that your one-shot is so big means that you make some plays similarly to how a Roller would. You can absolutely hide in your ink in a part of the map where your opponents will soon cross by in hiding and wait for your opponents to pass by you. Ideally you sit in a spot where opponents are unlikely to accidentally paint over, but also in a spot where you can reach an opponent after dashing with either your one-shot or your combo. Spending the whole game playing like this is kind of a waste and if you're looking to do that, then your time is better spent learning the Splat Roller instead. It has better ledge poking ability, has faster attacks for better kill streak potential, and has Curling Bomb for even better mobility. Still, plays like this are a valuable use of your time in moderation.
If nothing that outranges you is nearby then you can use charged shots to wall out an important area of the map. If someone gets hit by one, then react accordingly and follow through with an uncharged shot. Make sure you're playing around the possibility of an opposing shorter-ranged weapon rushing you down or a longer-ranged weapon getting to a spot where they can hit you.
Otherwise, this weapon has decent painting with its uncharged attacks. If you don't have anything else to do and don't see a good opportunity to hide then you can absolutely take the time to paint around, especially on teams that need it more like those with a Blaster. This much is a bit harder but you can also try keeping tabs of which enemies have taken damage because of the sheer threat that your projectiles now pose to them thanks to their good combo numbers. If someone is weak from a Burst Bomb, for example, your projectiles combo well with basically all of a Burst Bomb's hitboxes, so a follow-up kill would be easy if you find yourself able to go for it.
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 can use it to finish off opponents you know are already weak that you happen to be close to already. It's usually your fastest option when someone unexpectedly gets in your face so you can bank on them being damaged or a teammate coming in to help, but that's about the only other major use case of this attack. The only other point to mention is that it's technically a more ink-efficient way of taking someone down who's close to you, but it's much slower so it's usually not worth it.
Staying back and playing this weapon supportively is ideal in some cases, especially against teams with several short-ranged weapons, but you shouldn't be spending a majority of the time during a game playing like this. The big exception to that is when your team matches up poorly into an opposing weapon that you outrange where you can absolutely play defensive. The most notable examples of this often include Splat Dualies and .52 Gal. A more commonplace use 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. In these cases you need to keep an eye open for the moment it becomes possible for you to go back to playing aggressively again.
The reason it's not ideal to always play supportively is that there are better options for this. If you want to play the weapon purely more supportively then you're better off playing a Shooter for its improved paint output, attacking speed, and general flexibility when working with a team composition. Likewise, if you want to play it purely for more aggressive projectile spam then you're better off playing the Splatana Stamper, and I'll reiterate that if you want to play it purely for sharking then you're better off playing the Splat Roller. It's still good to play like each of these in moderation, and if anything basing your playstyle around only one of these might make it easier to learn this weapon, but you will need to learn how to be flexible to see the best results and to truly play to this weapon's strengths.
Weapon Kits and Their Differences
I'm much more experienced with the Charcoal kit than the Mint kit, but have a good 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. As of right now, the Mint kit is by far the better of the two, but it's not like the Charcoal kit is bad by any means.
Suction Bomb is a very good subweapon. A lot of people fall into the trap of sitting back and repeatedly throwing bombs forward for long periods of time but there are not many points where this is the best thing to be doing. 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. Using Suction Bomb too often can make you a very easy target because of how much ink this weapon's shots take up. 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. The best use case to throw Suction Bomb repeatedly is holding out a spot that this weapon cannot reach from inside of a Big Bubbler and there are plenty of spots like this. The Decavitator's imperfect range and inability to reach around both corners and ledges leaves it with a lot of points where some weapons might be able to threaten its Big Bubbler more easily. Even if you don't want to do this, Suction Bombs still clear out choke points and cover pretty nicely, which this weapon can't always do on its own.
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 unless your opponent messes up. 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 often being important, in some situations, Splash Wall's existence on this kit can make it ideal to draw attention to yourself and makes this kit the better of the two for skirmishing. Splash Wall can sometimes let you very briefly wedge yourself into particularly threatening places that force your opponents to look at you. If you can find an opportunity to make your opponents look away from your teammates while your teammates approach them, take that opportunity. No matter how you're using Splash Wall make sure you keep the option in mind of swimming through it from one side to the other for the sake of forcing enemies to go around it and be cautious of any bombs that might get thrown at it.
Splash Wall is extremely important if you want to challenge a mid-ranged weapon like a Splatana Stamper or Mini Splatling 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 even a few 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 run out.
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, and the Decavitator is the only of the two with good enough paint output to get many of them. Big Bubbler is one of the single best specials in the game at the time of me writing this and as such, this is a huge deal for this weapon. Despite what you might think, this is absolutely not a panic button because there's a bit of a delay between when you activate it and when it starts protecting you. Similarly to how Splash Wall works, 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 their application isn't quite the same for what I'd imagine to be obvious reasons. Splash Wall is much more freely spammable and Big Bubbler has better protection for a longer time, but is anchored to one spot.
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. Likewise, if your team struggles against Trizooka or Inkjet, it might be a valuable use of your special to use it in relation to when your opponents use their specials. In particular, Big Bubbler 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 some or all of it for them.
There are a lot of smaller tips I have for using the special. Don't hesitate to leave your Big Bubbler if you don't feel like you're impacting the game much from inside it anymore since some Big Bubblers will be plain bad and that's okay. 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 because a lot of the specific things it does happen to be things that the Decavitator really appreciates as a main weapon. The sword itself can't reach over ledges or around cover well and Inkjet is perfect for the job. It is also a much more straightforward tool to use on defense.
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 and expect them to rush you down, you'll often want to fire your next shots a bit between you and your opponent to keep them at bay. 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.
Against even longer-ranged weapons than those, though, Inkjet becomes incredibly risky to use no matter how good you are at controlling it. Your hurtbox is straight-up bigger while using it and your movement is so much slower that it's usually an easy shot for them. The main counterplay here is to be cautious of where they are at all times and if one ends up surprising you, you usually need to hit a one-shot and hope for a trade even if you should still be trying to survive regardless.
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.
If you can reach an especially high point, though, like flying over the huge walls in the middle of Hagglefish Market, then that's worth considering as well. Reaching points like these that are especially high in the air can make it impossible for even mid-ranged weapons to contest you. The added distance from your opponents sacrifices your ability to get kills as easily but allows you to control space incredibly efficiently. The later shots of your Inkjet are going to get fewer kills than the earlier ones when you're facing stronger opponents so this is often worthwhile.
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
The Decavitator's matchup spread is currently very good, with it having some amount of options against basically every weapon in the game. I would never blame a loss with this weapon on a bad matchup as opposed to something you individually need to change about your playstyle. I have a guide on how to play each of this weapon's matchups linked here but will still summarize.
The matchups where the Decavitator is at its best are where it either outranges the opponent or a difference in range doesn't end up mattering in practice, although these might be the ones that a newer Decavitator player could struggle to learn the most. This includes things like the Splattershot and Tri-Slosher. Some of these weapons aren't known for having the best fighting capabilities but the Decavitator feels especially strong into them, even the ones that have it better like the .52 Gal.
It's worth noting that many of these weapons play to ambush you and while the Decavitator can really struggle with this, it's able to keep them away from doing too much else. These matchups are good but don't get careless or you will be punished harshly for it. Try to keep all of your opponents' movement options in mind when approaching engagements with them as well since many of these weapons are extremely mobile.
Much like the other Splatanas, your weapon does pretty well against weapons that rely on objects such as basically every Brella with their shields and the Sloshing Machine with its Booyah Bomb. Its attacks being slower and range being worse compared to other Splatanas technically give it a different matchup spread here but all three swords are good into these weapons 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.
The dynamic flips if a weapon has a notable range advantage against you and doesn't have an expoitable charge time or slow kill time. This mostly refers to weapons like the Splatana Stamper and Squeezer. If you're caught in the open then they can kill you faster than you can kill them and they outrange you. 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. I'd argue these are your worst matchups. Sharking does improve the matchup into these weapons and you will need to play around it a lot more into teams with several of them, which significantly limits the value you can get out of this weapon in other areas.
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
Both the de facto way to run both Decavitator kits and my personal preferred way to. Quick Respawn is for players or teams that like making particularly aggressive and sometimes even risky plays. It's a great ability even if it never activates because it still acts as a bit of a safety net for when you make said plays and punishes your team a lot less when things don't work out. As a big fighting weapon, this naturally is a great choice for the Decavitator. The one slight drawback is that in order for it to be worthwhile, Quick Respawn requires that you dedicate a lot of your gear to it. It simply doesn't save enough time for the tradeoff to be worth it if you invest too little.
Ninja Squid Builds
The least common and in my opinion worst of the three to the extent that I considered not even mentioning these. Even still I would only ever run Ninja Squid when in a voice call with teammates where people 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. Getting closer to enemies without them seeing you is a huge plus, but being slowed down and having less gear are huge drawbacks that make it usually not worth it. There are plenty of options to hide from enemies even if you're not running Ninja Squid. There's actually even less gear freedom than Quick Respawn and it's worth noting that your movement is still visible even if a lot harder to spot. Nonetheless, if you really want to be that much harder to spot, then you can try it out in a tournament setting.
"General" Builds
Last of the three, this is how you should build for this weapon if neither of the two above explanations describes how you want to play. 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. Not as common or good as Quick Respawn but there is plenty of merit to running a Decavitator build like this especially if the opponents' playstyles or team composition make it more ideal for you to play defensively more often.
Dishonorable Mentions
Lastly, I'd like to go over some abilities where I can't see any argument to run them in the current state of the game despite them sometimes being 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 at you over it. This actually applies to everything with this guide. The goal here is to recommend what you should and shouldn't do if your goal is 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 making a mistake by teetering over the ledge, 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. This can be a pretty big deal and is worth practicing.
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. I can't name a single time where this has been the optimal play for a game but maybe one exists if you want to choke a particularly important weapon out of its special while pushed up and don't expect them to see you in time. It's very fun to do regardless, definitely one of the most unique damage combos in the game.
When you're landing from a super jump or Inkjet's recall, you have a few options. 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 makes it worth going for. 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.
Similarly, 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. For those of you who know of Splatoon 1's history, think of what the Dynamo Roller used to be able to do before it got nerfed. Same idea applies here. This is more situational as you get to a higher level of play and opponents are more cautious about this, but I've weirdly seen it squeak out a trade at all levels.
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 a tiny bit behind it, 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 go over a small handful of gaps that no other weapon can if said gap starts over a grate.
Conclusion
The Decavitator is an incredibly flexible and powerful weapon in its current state. While it pushes a more aggressive playstyle, it still leaves its user with a lot of room to play how they want and has a lot of potential for big playmaking. Its slower attacks make it so bad plays will get properly punished and while it's simple to understand how to play a part of this weapon, for most new players it will feel like there's a lot of room to learn even if they can use multiple other weapons as a possible baseline for how to play. If this sounds appealing to you at all, then give it a try.
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 time this game's been out by a country mile.
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-ranged weapon that's significantly slower than weapons with similar reach, but makes up for this in a number of ways. 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. Arguably the biggest thing putting this apart from other Splatanas is that this dash covers a much larger distance than the rest which is useful to help you close the distance from some enemies. This combines with the one-shot hitbox to make the weapon very fearsome if you can 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. These are very useful for walling out areas from opponents if nothing that outranges you is nearby. The 80 damage is great for taking down opponents that have previously been damaged and leaving them susceptible to smaller hits otherwise. If you hit someone with it then you can follow it 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. Using an uncharged attack up close deals 70 damage which is only situationally useful.
The Decavitator has a weirdly good paint output for the kind of weapon it is. Its uncharged slashes cover a very wide area without taking long although a low walking speed will force you to swim to a different spot after a handful of swipes to paint optimally. It's not the absolute best weapon in the game for painting, but it can charge for its special or claim an area for itself pretty 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 so you will need to be cautious when trying to wall out an area. This is 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.
As I said before, 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 and it's very easy to find yourself in a situation where you take someone down only for their teammate to catch you afterwards. 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 an incredibly strong weapon that has tools to handle practically any situation.
Playstyle and Game Plan
When using the Decavitator, you are your team's instigator. 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 find it on. Stealth is a big way to help this weapon start engagements and so it's often extremely helpful to use things like side routes and longer-ranged allies' paint support to get closer to enemies. Unless you're certain you can get someone, though, it's usually best to start fights while you're at full HP because of how slow this weapon's attacks are.
Your dash can be used in a number of ways. The most obvious of these is as a little range extension for your one-shot. If someone doesn't know where you are, then this saves you the time of having to paint and then swim closer to your enemy. If the enemy sees you and will be able to react in time then it can be nice to instead let you quickly reposition yourself. The bottom line here is to then try and hit the enemy with a charged shot to uncharged shot combo, either moving to the side if you think you still have a good shot of winning the engagement or retreating if you don't.
Since you can turn the camera between time the dash and the shot come out, try to make sure this charged shot is either going to hit an enemy or give you a good path to escape in a worst case scenario. It's important to state that you should not dash directly towards someone that can already see you unless you're confident they won't shoot you during the dash for one reason or another since this is often very easy for the opponent to do.
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 you don't spend as much time in a spot where they can hit you. Your charged attack comes out very, very quickly after a dash, giving your opponents basically no time to react to it if they can't position their camera past the wall you're dashing against.
The fact that your one-shot is so big means that you make some plays similarly to how a Roller would. You can absolutely hide in your ink in a part of the map where your opponents will soon cross by in hiding and wait for your opponents to pass by you. Ideally you sit in a spot where opponents are unlikely to accidentally paint over, but also in a spot where you can reach an opponent after dashing with either your one-shot or your combo. Spending the whole game playing like this is kind of a waste and if you're looking to do that, then your time is better spent learning the Splat Roller instead. It has better ledge poking ability, has faster attacks for better kill streak potential, and has Curling Bomb for even better mobility. Still, plays like this are a valuable use of your time in moderation.
If nothing that outranges you is nearby then you can use charged shots to wall out an important area of the map. If someone gets hit by one, then react accordingly and follow through with an uncharged shot. Make sure you're playing around the possibility of an opposing shorter-ranged weapon rushing you down or a longer-ranged weapon getting to a spot where they can hit you.
Otherwise, this weapon has decent painting with its uncharged attacks. If you don't have anything else to do and don't see a good opportunity to hide then you can absolutely take the time to paint around, especially on teams that need it more like those with a Blaster. This much is a bit harder but you can also try keeping tabs of which enemies have taken damage because of the sheer threat that your projectiles now pose to them thanks to their good combo numbers. If someone is weak from a Burst Bomb, for example, your projectiles combo well with basically all of a Burst Bomb's hitboxes, so a follow-up kill would be easy if you find yourself able to go for it.
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 can use it to finish off opponents you know are already weak that you happen to be close to already. It's usually your fastest option when someone unexpectedly gets in your face so you can bank on them being damaged or a teammate coming in to help, but that's about the only other major use case of this attack. The only other point to mention is that it's technically a more ink-efficient way of taking someone down who's close to you, but it's much slower so it's usually not worth it.
Staying back and playing this weapon supportively is ideal in some cases, especially against teams with several short-ranged weapons, but you shouldn't be spending a majority of the time during a game playing like this. The big exception to that is when your team matches up poorly into an opposing weapon that you outrange where you can absolutely play defensive. The most notable examples of this often include Splat Dualies and .52 Gal. A more commonplace use 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. In these cases you need to keep an eye open for the moment it becomes possible for you to go back to playing aggressively again.
The reason it's not ideal to always play supportively is that there are better options for this. If you want to play the weapon purely more supportively then you're better off playing a Shooter for its improved paint output, attacking speed, and general flexibility when working with a team composition. Likewise, if you want to play it purely for more aggressive projectile spam then you're better off playing the Splatana Stamper, and I'll reiterate that if you want to play it purely for sharking then you're better off playing the Splat Roller. It's still good to play like each of these in moderation, and if anything basing your playstyle around only one of these might make it easier to learn this weapon, but you will need to learn how to be flexible to see the best results and to truly play to this weapon's strengths.
Weapon Kits and Their Differences
I'm much more experienced with the Charcoal kit than the Mint kit, but have a good 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. As of right now, the Mint kit is by far the better of the two, but it's not like the Charcoal kit is bad by any means.
Suction Bomb is a very good subweapon. A lot of people fall into the trap of sitting back and repeatedly throwing bombs forward for long periods of time but there are not many points where this is the best thing to be doing. 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. Using Suction Bomb too often can make you a very easy target because of how much ink this weapon's shots take up. 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. The best use case to throw Suction Bomb repeatedly is holding out a spot that this weapon cannot reach from inside of a Big Bubbler and there are plenty of spots like this. The Decavitator's imperfect range and inability to reach around both corners and ledges leaves it with a lot of points where some weapons might be able to threaten its Big Bubbler more easily. Even if you don't want to do this, Suction Bombs still clear out choke points and cover pretty nicely, which this weapon can't always do on its own.
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 unless your opponent messes up. 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 often being important, in some situations, Splash Wall's existence on this kit can make it ideal to draw attention to yourself and makes this kit the better of the two for skirmishing. Splash Wall can sometimes let you very briefly wedge yourself into particularly threatening places that force your opponents to look at you. If you can find an opportunity to make your opponents look away from your teammates while your teammates approach them, take that opportunity. No matter how you're using Splash Wall make sure you keep the option in mind of swimming through it from one side to the other for the sake of forcing enemies to go around it and be cautious of any bombs that might get thrown at it.
Splash Wall is extremely important if you want to challenge a mid-ranged weapon like a Splatana Stamper or Mini Splatling 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 even a few 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 run out.
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, and the Decavitator is the only of the two with good enough paint output to get many of them. Big Bubbler is one of the single best specials in the game at the time of me writing this and as such, this is a huge deal for this weapon. Despite what you might think, this is absolutely not a panic button because there's a bit of a delay between when you activate it and when it starts protecting you. Similarly to how Splash Wall works, 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 their application isn't quite the same for what I'd imagine to be obvious reasons. Splash Wall is much more freely spammable and Big Bubbler has better protection for a longer time, but is anchored to one spot.
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. Likewise, if your team struggles against Trizooka or Inkjet, it might be a valuable use of your special to use it in relation to when your opponents use their specials. In particular, Big Bubbler 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 some or all of it for them.
There are a lot of smaller tips I have for using the special. Don't hesitate to leave your Big Bubbler if you don't feel like you're impacting the game much from inside it anymore since some Big Bubblers will be plain bad and that's okay. 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 because a lot of the specific things it does happen to be things that the Decavitator really appreciates as a main weapon. The sword itself can't reach over ledges or around cover well and Inkjet is perfect for the job. It is also a much more straightforward tool to use on defense.
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 and expect them to rush you down, you'll often want to fire your next shots a bit between you and your opponent to keep them at bay. 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.
Against even longer-ranged weapons than those, though, Inkjet becomes incredibly risky to use no matter how good you are at controlling it. Your hurtbox is straight-up bigger while using it and your movement is so much slower that it's usually an easy shot for them. The main counterplay here is to be cautious of where they are at all times and if one ends up surprising you, you usually need to hit a one-shot and hope for a trade even if you should still be trying to survive regardless.
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.
If you can reach an especially high point, though, like flying over the huge walls in the middle of Hagglefish Market, then that's worth considering as well. Reaching points like these that are especially high in the air can make it impossible for even mid-ranged weapons to contest you. The added distance from your opponents sacrifices your ability to get kills as easily but allows you to control space incredibly efficiently. The later shots of your Inkjet are going to get fewer kills than the earlier ones when you're facing stronger opponents so this is often worthwhile.
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
The Decavitator's matchup spread is currently very good, with it having some amount of options against basically every weapon in the game. I would never blame a loss with this weapon on a bad matchup as opposed to something you individually need to change about your playstyle. I have a guide on how to play each of this weapon's matchups linked here but will still summarize.
The matchups where the Decavitator is at its best are where it either outranges the opponent or a difference in range doesn't end up mattering in practice, although these might be the ones that a newer Decavitator player could struggle to learn the most. This includes things like the Splattershot and Tri-Slosher. Some of these weapons aren't known for having the best fighting capabilities but the Decavitator feels especially strong into them, even the ones that have it better like the .52 Gal.
It's worth noting that many of these weapons play to ambush you and while the Decavitator can really struggle with this, it's able to keep them away from doing too much else. These matchups are good but don't get careless or you will be punished harshly for it. Try to keep all of your opponents' movement options in mind when approaching engagements with them as well since many of these weapons are extremely mobile.
Much like the other Splatanas, your weapon does pretty well against weapons that rely on objects such as basically every Brella with their shields and the Sloshing Machine with its Booyah Bomb. Its attacks being slower and range being worse compared to other Splatanas technically give it a different matchup spread here but all three swords are good into these weapons 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.
The dynamic flips if a weapon has a notable range advantage against you and doesn't have an expoitable charge time or slow kill time. This mostly refers to weapons like the Splatana Stamper and Squeezer. If you're caught in the open then they can kill you faster than you can kill them and they outrange you. 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. I'd argue these are your worst matchups. Sharking does improve the matchup into these weapons and you will need to play around it a lot more into teams with several of them, which significantly limits the value you can get out of this weapon in other areas.
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
Both the de facto way to run both Decavitator kits and my personal preferred way to. Quick Respawn is for players or teams that like making particularly aggressive and sometimes even risky plays. It's a great ability even if it never activates because it still acts as a bit of a safety net for when you make said plays and punishes your team a lot less when things don't work out. As a big fighting weapon, this naturally is a great choice for the Decavitator. The one slight drawback is that in order for it to be worthwhile, Quick Respawn requires that you dedicate a lot of your gear to it. It simply doesn't save enough time for the tradeoff to be worth it if you invest too little.
- 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.
- Stealth Jump - With this ability, there are so many more places you can super jump to than you would be able to without it. Jumping in against someone with a bomb is less likely, but against a long-ranged weapon is basically impossible without this ability unless they specifically mess up or don't see you. This is a risk that's not worth taking. There's an additional benefit here of being able to jump closer to enemy lines because of how much harder it is to see your jump marker, although of course this isn't an excuse to jump into someone who's being rushed down or who's in a fight. More time is saved and death is less risky regardless.
- 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 at least consider running two sub abilities. You just save a lot of time while jumping into teammates after respawning and this is crucial for a weapon that's going to die as often as you will with Quick Respawn.
- Ink Resistance Up - Similar story to Quick Super Jump where one sub ability is extremely useful on most weapons. Touching enemy ink even 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 personally. 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 and it's honestly worth getting a pair of shoes with this loadout and one additional sub that you use often just for the sake of making gear building that much easier.
- Comeback - I was considering calling these next two abilities NOT mandatory, but for Quick Respawn, they may as well be. Comeback is extremely important for how much stuff it gives after you die with the most notable of these being letting you get your special more quickly. The synergy is fairly straightforward here.
- Special Power Up (Charcoal Kit ONLY) - While it's never really worth it for Big Bubbler, running two subs of this ability will make your Inkjets noticeably more consistent by making some of its more damaging hitboxes bigger on top of making the special last long enough for one extra shot. This is a very strong ability for Inkjet but you're already so strapped for gear slots that it can be difficult to run much more than two subs.
- Special Saver - 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 and it makes it even quicker and easier for you to get your special on defense. While this is something Comeback already helps with, this is important enough of a scenario for you to be at your strongest that Special Saver can absolutely be worth it.
- 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 at least two can be nice. While it's really hard even if possible to justify running more than that on the Charcoal kit, it's worth noting that the Mint kit doesn't want Special Power Up and can usually run more of it as a result.
- Sub Resistance Up - Not a great ability in my opinion, but this weapon plays to basically every strength it has. 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. Location effects from Point Sensor, Ink Mine, and so on lasting for less time is a pretty nice plus for this weapon too. 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 should find 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.
- Ink Saver (Sub) (Mint kit ONLY) - I would advise against this ability if you're new to the weapon but if you've played around with it before then this might fit your playstyle. Running a few subs of this make it a little bit easier to hold out choke points with Suction Bomb, which is notable for Big Bubbler specifically. If your reason for running this isn't explicitly to help out your Big Bubblers then this is not worth running at all.
- Ink Recovery Up (Mint kit ONLY) - This is an ability that you should only ever be running one sub of and only if you're also running multiple of Ink Saver (Sub). It's only worth it on those builds which are already not the best to begin with.
Ninja Squid Builds
The least common and in my opinion worst of the three to the extent that I considered not even mentioning these. Even still I would only ever run Ninja Squid when in a voice call with teammates where people 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. Getting closer to enemies without them seeing you is a huge plus, but being slowed down and having less gear are huge drawbacks that make it usually not worth it. There are plenty of options to hide from enemies even if you're not running Ninja Squid. There's actually even less gear freedom than Quick Respawn and it's worth noting that your movement is still visible even if a lot harder to spot. Nonetheless, if you really want to be that much harder to spot, then you can try it out in a tournament setting.
- 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 there's a brief period where this ability isn't active after you go 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.
- 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. If you've been reading all of these then I will be going over everything with these mandatory abilities all over again for all three types of builds you can run.
- 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 six sub abilities worth of this or one main and three subs.
- 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 save so much time when super jumping into play and super jumping out of play goes from unrealistic to completely possible.
- 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.
- 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. Only reason it's not absolutely mandatory is that 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. Getting more special output on defense can be very nice.
- 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 how 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.
"General" Builds
Last of the three, this is how you should build for this weapon if neither of the two above explanations describes how you want to play. 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. Not as common or good as Quick Respawn but there is plenty of merit to running a Decavitator build like this especially if the opponents' playstyles or team composition make it more ideal for you to play defensively more often.
- 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. You also aren't nearly as vulnerable to longer-ranged weapons or weapons with bombs, which make up a vast majority of this game's viable weapon lineup.
- Quick Super Jump - Similar idea here as the other two build types. It saves so much time to super jump in and out of play with one sub ability's worth of this that I would run it on basically 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.
- 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 - I think Comeback is absolutely mandatory on this weapon unless you very specifically are running Ninja Squid where it still makes a very strong case for itself. 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. You have so much more gear freedom with these kinds of builds that any argument to drop this ability kind of goes out the window.
- 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. The two benchmarks are running two subs for one extra shot and one main with one sub for two extra shots.
- 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, plain and simple. The ability's benefits are noticeable as long as you aren't running one sub of it.
- Special Saver - 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 three subs.
- Sub Resistance Up - One sub of this can be the difference between living and dying in a few exceptionally rare situations. It can protect you from very, VERY specific damage combos from vanilla Slosher, vanilla Splatana Stamper, and Fizzy Bomb. The utility of reducing the duration of Point Sensors and the like is kind of nice too. This can be a nice ability to run one sub of if you're certain you'll be playing against multiple of those weapons but I personally don't like it much otherwise.
- Ink Saver (Sub) (Mint kit ONLY) - This ability is at its best on these types of builds even if still not the best option overall. Running a few subs of this lets you hold out choke points with Suction Bomb a little bit better. This weapon isn't supposed to be playing around Suction Bomb especially often though so this is mostly relegated to holding out space for your Big Bubbler. I would advise against this ability entirely if you're new to this weapon.
- Ink Recovery Up (Mint kit ONLY) - This ability only works with Ink Saver (Sub) as described above and only is worthwhile with one sub's worth if you have multiple subs of Ink Saver (Sub) already. Again, wouldn't recommend if you're new to the weapon as opposed to it being something you can try out once you've gotten some experience.
Dishonorable Mentions
Lastly, I'd like to go over some abilities where I can't see any argument to run them in the current state of the game despite them sometimes being 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 at you over it. This actually applies to everything with this guide. The goal here is to recommend what you should and shouldn't do if your goal is 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 simply putting 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. I was almost tempted to put Last-Ditch Effort into this category as well which is a much, much better ability than Tenacity is, which should make it clear just how bad I think this ability is for this weapon.
- Respawn Punisher - Running this ability is like 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 many, many situations where it needs to trade, in which case it's a net loss for you. All of this is to say that that in more evenly-matched games, it's difficult enough to break even with Respawn Punisher, let alone see a consistent, direct boost from it like almost every other ability in the game gives.
- 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. Even still you are pretty vulnerable in both cases, you 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, permanent 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 making a mistake by teetering over the ledge, 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. This can be a pretty big deal and is worth practicing.
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. I can't name a single time where this has been the optimal play for a game but maybe one exists if you want to choke a particularly important weapon out of its special while pushed up and don't expect them to see you in time. It's very fun to do regardless, definitely one of the most unique damage combos in the game.
When you're landing from a super jump or Inkjet's recall, you have a few options. 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 makes it worth going for. 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.
Similarly, 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. For those of you who know of Splatoon 1's history, think of what the Dynamo Roller used to be able to do before it got nerfed. Same idea applies here. This is more situational as you get to a higher level of play and opponents are more cautious about this, but I've weirdly seen it squeak out a trade at all levels.
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 a tiny bit behind it, 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 go over a small handful of gaps that no other weapon can if said gap starts over a grate.
Conclusion
The Decavitator is an incredibly flexible and powerful weapon in its current state. While it pushes a more aggressive playstyle, it still leaves its user with a lot of room to play how they want and has a lot of potential for big playmaking. Its slower attacks make it so bad plays will get properly punished and while it's simple to understand how to play a part of this weapon, for most new players it will feel like there's a lot of room to learn even if they can use multiple other weapons as a possible baseline for how to play. If this sounds appealing to you at all, then give it a try.
