Hey!
For those of you who may be reading this who aren't especially active on Squidboards, my name is Deez. I'm a Decavitator one-trick that has experience on a Div 6 team. I've been playing Decav since the moment it dropped, both winning Low Ink's Beta Bracket with and hitting 5 Stars with the Charcoal Decavitator within its first month. In the seven months since the weapon's dropped I've won over 2000 games across both kits.
There have been a few times recently where I've seen people mention offhandedly that they struggle in the Decavitator matchup. I've learned a lot about this weapon and have a good grip on what gives me the most difficulty when playing, so I get the feeling that I'd be more qualified than most people on here to write a guide on this. If you have more to add then please let me know!
DISCLAIMER
Just as a heads up, I don't play most of the weapons discussed here. A lot of weapons will have fairly similar counterplay against Decav but not all of them. I've sectioned off these weapons and will be talking about those individually.
GENERAL COUNTERPLAY
I'm going to go a bit more specifically into each weapon later in this document but I will need to go into some more general things that you'll want to keep in mind with every weapon.
Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, if your weapon has any amount of noteworthy area-of-effect, use it! Things like an Octobrush's falloff, a Slosher hitting over cover or if you're especially good with aiming even something like a Shooter's or Splatling's falloff. These all come with playing each of those weapons though so if you main any of them, chances are you're already playing to these strengths. It is worth mentioning on the off chance that you're not already doing this.
Even if your weapon doesn't have AoE, Decav can't contest people who are above ledges especially well. You need to be practically over a ledge for a one-shot to hit and its beam-like projectiles will stop reaching you if you step even a little bit back. This brings me to my first bigger point. You need to know where the Decav user is as often as possible to limit what it can do to your team.
If you know where this weapon is, and if you can't or don't want to play to ledges, you can enact one of a few more specific game plans I'll have listed for you in the next section. If not, there's a realistic chance this weapon is sharking. Sharking is a very powerful strategy in this game that doesn't have any particularly concrete counterplay. Point Sensors and the like are nice, but not every weapon has access to those. The best you can do is put a heavier focus on painting the map and position closely enough to your teammates that even if you do end up getting caught, the impact it has can be minimized.
Otherwise, the biggest thing you want to make use of is the fact that this weapon is slow. I get the feeling that a lot of people underestimate just how slow this weapon is. It's no Dynamo Roller but the Decavitator doesn't have many options when it's put into a situation it isn't ready for. Even an uncharged swipe with the main weapon has a pretty substantial amount of downtime, being around half a second or so depending on what its user wants to do afterwards, and this is to say nothing about its even slower charged swipes.
There are a lot of weapon-specific ways to abuse this, but the biggest way to do this that isn't weapon-specific is to approach it with a teammate. If two people rush down a Decav at the same time then the best it'll usually get is a trade unless it's able to swim to cover or abuse some other part of its kit. This is not like a Shooter or Dualie where it can turn around and immediately hit a second person.
Lastly, a few smaller things to mention. Decav's projectiles are blocked a bit more easily by cover than some other weapons so while it's not foolproof, using cover can help if you're not especially close to it. Its hitboxes are all very thin vertically so you can jump over them if the Decav user throws them out perfectly flat to the ground. However, the Decav user can answer this right back by angling their shot a little bit upwards. This little bit of info can still get you a rare, cheeky kill or make it just a little bit harder for them to line up their shot.
WEAPON-SPECIFIC COUNTERPLAY
A lot of weapons can play to similar things as one another in order to try and best handle Decav. As such, I'll split this into groups and will go over each group individually. This will not go into detail about any of the things mentioned above, so keep those in mind too, especially the point about AoE.
You may notice one very big thing that ties a lot of the weapons in each group together and you're probably right about most of them. Some weapons might sort of apply to multiple groups or I might've gotten one completely wrong so it's best you use your own judgment here too. I'll need to elaborate on all of these regardless.
Group 1 is for most, but not all weapons that can be played as anchors. Your usual game plan should work into Decav. Some of these have Ink Vac which does not work very well here. If you need to use it and get rushed down by a Decav try mixing up your movement before you fire the shot. There's nothing else about Decav that changes how these weapons play the game so there's not really much to talk about.
Group 2 is mostly for weapons that have a noticeable range advantage over Decav with good fire rates or otherwise little downtime. Your game plan is to try and wall the opposing Decav out once you see it since you outrange and are faster than it. This too is what I imagine to be pretty standard fare for these weapons. You can slowly but surely push it out of open positions unless it has a Splash Wall or Big Bubbler active.
However, it's worth noting that these are matchups where Decav is most likely to shark. Some weapons here have tools to help with this, like with Squiffer's Point Sensor and Mini Splatling's good paint output. I talked about sharking earlier in this guide under the general counterplay section and will avoid reiterating.
Group 3 is mostly for weapons with a noticeable range advantage over Decav, but that it can rush down if it's at full HP and nobody else is ready. This might come from some exploitable down time or slow kill time compared to other weapons with a similar range value. From here, you're going to have to be a lot more cautious about knowing where the Decav is and trying to predict if and when they'll approach.
If you don't have a good feel for this yet, then playing against a bunch of Decav players will help get you an idea, especially if they know what they're doing. Try to keep in mind what ranges they'll typically approach you from, the timing they use relative to your shots being thrown out, if they seem to be taking note of when you're low on ink and so on. If you find yourself stuck midgame, try thinking about it after the game. Consider if you need paint control nearby, cover, the use of certain movement or other defensive options to increase your odds here.
The matchup might be pretty hard for these weapons in particular to adjust to. However, learning these kinds of skills will be especially invaluable as they'll likely end up helping you in a lot of matchups, not just against Decav.
Group 4 is for weapons where Decav's range is either better than your weapon's or the difference in range is not relevant for one reason or another. These are the weapons that will probably need to play most closely to the general counterplay ideas I listed earlier. Play with your teammates, use AoE where possible. Decav can wall most of these weapons out without too much trouble and you kind of need to respect this otherwise.
A lot of these weapons very naturally want to play towards ambushing their opponents. Some of them have better things to be doing, but all of them can ambush a Decav user if need be. Try being particularly cautious of the Decav user's charge shot usage, how they time it and when and where they'll be dashing. There's a pretty hefty amount of downtime between when it starts charging and when the shot actually comes out and using that window of time to get somewhere the Decav user might not be expecting could be invaluable.
Otherwise, many of these weapons can play to their kit. A rolled Splat Bomb or Torpedo poses big problems for this weapon because of the speed issue and the fact that it particularly wants to be at full HP when it starts engagements. A lot of these weapons' kits have tools designed to deal with distant opponents and those will usually be nice here, although it's worth mentioning that careless use of Ultra Stamp or Reefslider are fairly easy to punish thanks to the weapon's dash and big hitbox.
Group 5 is for weapons that I didn't feel comfortable putting into one of the other groups for one reason or another. Maybe they fit nicely into one of those but I had more to say about these. Will be going over each of these individually...
CONCLUSION
The Decavitator is absolutely one of the stronger main weapons in the game right now. It has a particularly crushing matchup into shorter-ranged weapons and feels like it has options in every matchup. However, nothing here is impossible. It might take an honest effort for quite a few weapons but you can totally manage if you apply yourself and are open to changing parts of your gameplay. Hope this helps!
For those of you who may be reading this who aren't especially active on Squidboards, my name is Deez. I'm a Decavitator one-trick that has experience on a Div 6 team. I've been playing Decav since the moment it dropped, both winning Low Ink's Beta Bracket with and hitting 5 Stars with the Charcoal Decavitator within its first month. In the seven months since the weapon's dropped I've won over 2000 games across both kits.
There have been a few times recently where I've seen people mention offhandedly that they struggle in the Decavitator matchup. I've learned a lot about this weapon and have a good grip on what gives me the most difficulty when playing, so I get the feeling that I'd be more qualified than most people on here to write a guide on this. If you have more to add then please let me know!
DISCLAIMER
Just as a heads up, I don't play most of the weapons discussed here. A lot of weapons will have fairly similar counterplay against Decav but not all of them. I've sectioned off these weapons and will be talking about those individually.
GENERAL COUNTERPLAY
I'm going to go a bit more specifically into each weapon later in this document but I will need to go into some more general things that you'll want to keep in mind with every weapon.
Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, if your weapon has any amount of noteworthy area-of-effect, use it! Things like an Octobrush's falloff, a Slosher hitting over cover or if you're especially good with aiming even something like a Shooter's or Splatling's falloff. These all come with playing each of those weapons though so if you main any of them, chances are you're already playing to these strengths. It is worth mentioning on the off chance that you're not already doing this.
Even if your weapon doesn't have AoE, Decav can't contest people who are above ledges especially well. You need to be practically over a ledge for a one-shot to hit and its beam-like projectiles will stop reaching you if you step even a little bit back. This brings me to my first bigger point. You need to know where the Decav user is as often as possible to limit what it can do to your team.
If you know where this weapon is, and if you can't or don't want to play to ledges, you can enact one of a few more specific game plans I'll have listed for you in the next section. If not, there's a realistic chance this weapon is sharking. Sharking is a very powerful strategy in this game that doesn't have any particularly concrete counterplay. Point Sensors and the like are nice, but not every weapon has access to those. The best you can do is put a heavier focus on painting the map and position closely enough to your teammates that even if you do end up getting caught, the impact it has can be minimized.
Otherwise, the biggest thing you want to make use of is the fact that this weapon is slow. I get the feeling that a lot of people underestimate just how slow this weapon is. It's no Dynamo Roller but the Decavitator doesn't have many options when it's put into a situation it isn't ready for. Even an uncharged swipe with the main weapon has a pretty substantial amount of downtime, being around half a second or so depending on what its user wants to do afterwards, and this is to say nothing about its even slower charged swipes.
There are a lot of weapon-specific ways to abuse this, but the biggest way to do this that isn't weapon-specific is to approach it with a teammate. If two people rush down a Decav at the same time then the best it'll usually get is a trade unless it's able to swim to cover or abuse some other part of its kit. This is not like a Shooter or Dualie where it can turn around and immediately hit a second person.
Lastly, a few smaller things to mention. Decav's projectiles are blocked a bit more easily by cover than some other weapons so while it's not foolproof, using cover can help if you're not especially close to it. Its hitboxes are all very thin vertically so you can jump over them if the Decav user throws them out perfectly flat to the ground. However, the Decav user can answer this right back by angling their shot a little bit upwards. This little bit of info can still get you a rare, cheeky kill or make it just a little bit harder for them to line up their shot.
WEAPON-SPECIFIC COUNTERPLAY
A lot of weapons can play to similar things as one another in order to try and best handle Decav. As such, I'll split this into groups and will go over each group individually. This will not go into detail about any of the things mentioned above, so keep those in mind too, especially the point about AoE.
You may notice one very big thing that ties a lot of the weapons in each group together and you're probably right about most of them. Some weapons might sort of apply to multiple groups or I might've gotten one completely wrong so it's best you use your own judgment here too. I'll need to elaborate on all of these regardless.
Group 1 is for most, but not all weapons that can be played as anchors. Your usual game plan should work into Decav. Some of these have Ink Vac which does not work very well here. If you need to use it and get rushed down by a Decav try mixing up your movement before you fire the shot. There's nothing else about Decav that changes how these weapons play the game so there's not really much to talk about.
Group 2 is mostly for weapons that have a noticeable range advantage over Decav with good fire rates or otherwise little downtime. Your game plan is to try and wall the opposing Decav out once you see it since you outrange and are faster than it. This too is what I imagine to be pretty standard fare for these weapons. You can slowly but surely push it out of open positions unless it has a Splash Wall or Big Bubbler active.
However, it's worth noting that these are matchups where Decav is most likely to shark. Some weapons here have tools to help with this, like with Squiffer's Point Sensor and Mini Splatling's good paint output. I talked about sharking earlier in this guide under the general counterplay section and will avoid reiterating.
Group 3 is mostly for weapons with a noticeable range advantage over Decav, but that it can rush down if it's at full HP and nobody else is ready. This might come from some exploitable down time or slow kill time compared to other weapons with a similar range value. From here, you're going to have to be a lot more cautious about knowing where the Decav is and trying to predict if and when they'll approach.
If you don't have a good feel for this yet, then playing against a bunch of Decav players will help get you an idea, especially if they know what they're doing. Try to keep in mind what ranges they'll typically approach you from, the timing they use relative to your shots being thrown out, if they seem to be taking note of when you're low on ink and so on. If you find yourself stuck midgame, try thinking about it after the game. Consider if you need paint control nearby, cover, the use of certain movement or other defensive options to increase your odds here.
The matchup might be pretty hard for these weapons in particular to adjust to. However, learning these kinds of skills will be especially invaluable as they'll likely end up helping you in a lot of matchups, not just against Decav.
Group 4 is for weapons where Decav's range is either better than your weapon's or the difference in range is not relevant for one reason or another. These are the weapons that will probably need to play most closely to the general counterplay ideas I listed earlier. Play with your teammates, use AoE where possible. Decav can wall most of these weapons out without too much trouble and you kind of need to respect this otherwise.
A lot of these weapons very naturally want to play towards ambushing their opponents. Some of them have better things to be doing, but all of them can ambush a Decav user if need be. Try being particularly cautious of the Decav user's charge shot usage, how they time it and when and where they'll be dashing. There's a pretty hefty amount of downtime between when it starts charging and when the shot actually comes out and using that window of time to get somewhere the Decav user might not be expecting could be invaluable.
Otherwise, many of these weapons can play to their kit. A rolled Splat Bomb or Torpedo poses big problems for this weapon because of the speed issue and the fact that it particularly wants to be at full HP when it starts engagements. A lot of these weapons' kits have tools designed to deal with distant opponents and those will usually be nice here, although it's worth mentioning that careless use of Ultra Stamp or Reefslider are fairly easy to punish thanks to the weapon's dash and big hitbox.
Group 5 is for weapons that I didn't feel comfortable putting into one of the other groups for one reason or another. Maybe they fit nicely into one of those but I had more to say about these. Will be going over each of these individually...
- I think Blaster is a weapon with less range than Decav but I've never felt super comfortable walling one out as I would with any other Group 4 weapon. This one might fit best into Group 2 because it's not super easy to approach and I shark against these often. Might just be me as a player historically not doing well in this matchup.
- Clash Blaster is 100% a Group 4 weapon but your particularly bad kill time will make it harder to properly ambush a Decav player, especially since it's pretty easy for one to react to your AoE and move out of the way. To my understanding Clash Blaster players don't normally like playing from positions where it needs to do this, but you might just need to hit two directs. The vanilla kit has all of the tools I mentioned that shorter-ranged weapons often have for distant opponents so that will be nice for you.
- Splat Roller is also fairly obviously a Group 4 weapon, but it's worth noting that Decav can also abuse your down time pretty well if you're not cautious enough. This much might be standard for Roller players to deal with but this does notably extend to your Big Bubblers. Carelessly throwing out shots while sitting in a Big Bubbler isn't always safe and you'll want to know where the Decav user is before doing this.
- If I recall correctly, Flingza Roller is a weapon that often needs to play to multiple playstyles, between painting with vertical flicks as an anchor and doing Roller things when need be. Decav won't have a difficult time rushing down your vertical flicks if you aren't careful but the more standard Roller stuff works pretty nicely against it.
- Aerospray and Splattershot Nova are the only weapons here that I'll be lumping together but their kill times are really, REALLY bad. I can usually play very recklessly into these two weapons and still come out on top. Playing to your kit and with your teammates is absolutely vital here.
- Undercover Brella is kind of a question mark for me because it has a pretty awful kill time too and to top it all off it can't turn especially fast without closing and reopening its canopy if a Decav goes around its shield. I don't know if an ambush would even work with this weapon. You might need to play defensively with your subweapon on both kits and bait out weird approaches with your shield.
- Splat Brella is probably also a Group 4 weapon. You can't really fight a Decav player out in the open like you would with a Shooter. I've found pretty consistently that I can spam uncharged shots and it puts immense pressure on the shield, forcing the Splat Brella user to drop it. If it's possible to time your shield flair so that you don't get hit by at least one shot then I've never seen it happen. You might need to use some combination of jumping the Decav player, using your shield to try and block follow-ups and also trying to read when they'll dash around your shield but you'd NEED a two-shot which is unreliable.
- Tenta Brella is one I feel completely inexperienced in because my answer as Decav is usually to use Splash Wall since I play the Charcoal kit lmao. This is the weapon here I'm least confident in talking about. You might want to be careful about when you throw your shots though. Keep the option of going through your shield open if they dash to you suddenly and make sure you know the Decav can't be too close to you as you ready your shield.
- S-BLAST is also a matchup where I don't have a lot of experience. Probably would fit both as a Group 2 and a Group 4 weapon depending on how you play it.
- Lastly, what about a Decavitator mirror match? Long story short, in my experience, it's usually felt like whoever sees the other one first wins unless there's a clear skill gap between the two players or one of them messes up. I've had all of these situations happen pretty often on both ends. A Decav can pretty easily abuse an opposing Decav's downtime and also the range difference doesn't matter. If anything I like sharking a lot in the mirror so it ends up playing out more similarly to a Group 2 matchup except I don't use Splash Wall as much here.
CONCLUSION
The Decavitator is absolutely one of the stronger main weapons in the game right now. It has a particularly crushing matchup into shorter-ranged weapons and feels like it has options in every matchup. However, nothing here is impossible. It might take an honest effort for quite a few weapons but you can totally manage if you apply yourself and are open to changing parts of your gameplay. Hope this helps!
