The Ultimate Splatana Wiper Guide
For Patch 7.0.0
Hi, I'm Fae, I've been playing competitive Splatoon for the past few months and mainly play the Splatana Wiper. I noticed there aren't many guides out there for this weapon anywhere, so I decided to make my own for both kits. I'm not the best Splatana Wiper player out there, but I feel knowledgeable enough about the weapon's playstyle to make a decent guide for it. This is a more competitive focused guide, but this guide will still have relevant information to you if you only play solo queue.
Because this post is so long, I made an index you can use to skip to specific sections by using Ctrl+F (I do not expect most people to read this entire post):
1-0-1: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Main Weapon
1-0-2: General Playstyle
1-0-3: Main Weapon Advanced Tech
2-0-1: Sub Weapons
2-1-1: Torpedo
2-2-1: Squid Beakon
2-0-2: Advanced Sub Weapon Tech
3-0-1: Special Weapons
3-1-1: Ultra Stamp
3-2-1: Tenta Missiles
3-0-2: Special Weapon Advanced Tech
4-0: Gear
4-1: Splatana Wiper Gear
4-2: Splatana Wiper Deco Gear
5-1: Team Compositions
Conclusion
1-0-1: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Main Weapon
Splatana Wiper as a main weapon is a very versatile weapon that excels at skirmishing: a playstyle where you attempt to draw attention to yourself and pull people away from team fights or the objective to create a temporary player advantage for your team. Splatana Wiper excels at providing consistent chip damage that's easy to combo off of and splitting team fights by flanking behind enemy lines with its near unparalleled mobility. The main weapon is very ink efficient, allowing it to pressure enemy players with chip damage constantly with very little downtime. The Splatana Wiper is also a midrange weapon with arguably the best mobility in the game, allowing it to outrange weapons with a faster kill time than it, such as short range Shooters like the Splattershot and Splash-O-Matic while being able to effectively keep up with their mobility and kite them better than most other midline weapons. Lastly, Splatana Wiper has incredible damage multipliers against objects, letting it shred Booyah Bombs and Crab Tanks more easily than most other weapons. The mechanics of its charge slashes even allow it to do this safely from under a ledge.
The main weakness of the Splatana Wiper is it's low damage output. The main weapon is by no means bad at fighting, but it has no way of pressuring midrange kills quickly with its fastest kill option being a rather finnicky oneshot when up close. It's lack of quick damage output without help from it's kit makes its matchups into other midline weapons with faster kill times such as the Nautilus and Squeezer incredibly difficult. It also has no way to quickly chain kills into each other unless they are close enough together to hit them with back to back charge slash directs, which makes it very reliant on continuation specials when played aggressively. Splatana Wiper's main strength being its mobility is also made less valuable by Tacticooler. Due to the strafe speed of Splatanas not scaling with Run Speed, weapons like the N-Zap and Splash-O-Matic with the movement speed buffs from Tacticooler are suddenly capable of playing at the same pace as Wiper, if not faster. Wiper isn't invalidated by Tacticooler per say, it still has traits that make it worth picking in competitive play, such as its high object damage multipliers and having better mobility in enemy ink than most other weapons, but Tacticooler makes it harder for the weapon to find a niche competitively. It's important as well to keep in mind this isn't a factor in solo queue, as there's no guarantee either team with have a Tacticooler on it.
1-0-2: General Playstyle
For tips on how to play the main weapon itself, you always want to be using your maximum effective range. Splatana Wiper has the ability to outrange frontline and even some midline weapons when spaced properly, and because of its low damage output you need to be spacing well against weapons like short range Shooters if you want to win those matchups consistently. Your charge slashes and horizontal slashes have different range values, which means there will be some weapons that are difficult to space out with horizontal slashes that you'll need to use charge slashes for to outrange them consistently (N-Zap, Clash Blaster, Mini Splatling, etc.). Additionally, you never want to only be using one kind of attack. While there are situations where you want to favor using one over another, if you're only ever using one type of attack with Splatana Wiper you're effectively playing half a weapon.
Splatana Wiper's vanilla kit is a weapon that plays to flank behind enemies and force the opposing team to trun around away from the objective or the rest of your team to deal with them. You always want to be aware of where your team is positioning to ensure that they can play off of your distraction. If you go in while your team isn't in position, the enemy team won't have anything to focus on other than you, causing you to go down immediately without getting any value. Whether or not you go for splats is dependent on who the enemy team decides to focus. If they send 2-3 players to go deal with you, your goal is to survive as long as possible and waste their time to allow your team to get in position to splat them or take space around the objective. If they don't decide to focus you, you can start going for splats. If you aren't able to create a meaningful distraction because your team isn't in position to play off of you yet, you generally want to be playing defensively and zoning out frontlines with charge slashes.
Splatana Wiper Deco is a lot more of a support than the vanilla kit. In neutral it wants to play to paint mid for map control while applying constant chip damage with the ink efficient main weapon. It's a support/slayer hybrid that aims to make use of Splatana Wiper's versatility as a main weapon to allow it to be a support that's still a decent fighting weapon. It can still play aggressively, but you usually want to wait for Tacticooler if you have one or your own Tenta Missiles to start going in and taking fights, as dying with Tenta Missiles is the single worst thing you can do for your team. In advantage state after winning a fight you want to be painting and maintaining map control and placing Beakons around the map. One small tip is I actually wouldn't recommend painting your spawn at the start on most map/modes, as Splatana Wiper is a really strong weapon in team fights and wants to be there to help as they happen.
1-0-3: Main Weapon Advanced Tech
Main Strafing
This is essentially using a horizontal slash and immediately dipping back into your own ink and swimming. Chaining this together as a movement mix-up makes you much harder to hit while still applying pressure with a consistent 30 damage every time you slash. Splatana Wiper also paints its own feet much more consistently than shooters, another weapon that uses main strafing as a movement option in fights. This lets Splatana Wiper use main strafing even while surrounded by enemy ink due to it consistently painting its own feet whenever it slashes.
Dodge Dashing
This is a very advanced technique that makes use of the dash you get when holding forward while performing a charge slash. This dash will go in whatever direction you face, allowing you to face away from your opponent, dash to the side and flick you aim back towards your opponent as the dash ends, redirecting the charge slash to still hit them. This is a very difficult technique to pull off and will require some practice, but is very strong as a movement mix-up against weapons like Blasters with a slow fire rate that rely on hitting a direct up close. The speed of the dash is also not affected by standing in enemy ink or on uninkable turf, giving you a strong movement option in enemy ink or a way to quickly traverse patches of uninkable turf while having a hitbox out in front of you.
Ledge Camping
As illuded to earlier, you can manipulate charge slashes to go over ledges if you jump as you perform a slash. This allows you to pressure ranged chip damage safely from under a ledge. This can deny key areas from the enemy team, making it very difficult to hold certain positions without moving you out of the area first. Area of Effect weapons such as Slosher and Range Blaster can still hit you from under ledges, so be careful of that when going for plays under ledges.
Trapping
The horizontal slashes of Splatanas can paint over opponent's feet if you aim downward slightly while slashing. This is pretty inconsistent and hard to do without practice, but because of Wiper's fast fire rate, even if it happens once or twice in a fight it can make the difference between your opponent getting away and having to stop fighting for a second to paint their own feet, allowing you to secure a kill. It's not consistent enough to where this will happen every slash, even with practice, but because all you're really doing is aiming slightly downward there's not much of a reason not to go for it when the reward can change the outcome of duels. Vertical slashes can also paint over opponents on walls while still hitting them due to Splatana Wiper's unique ability to split its shots.
Jump Camping
Splatana Wiper is really good at camping jumps as you can oneshot people with the melee charge slash hitbox right as they land. Be careful doing this against Dualies and opponents running Drop Roller, as the timing becomes much more strict. Other Splatana users can also oneshot you as theyre jumping in with a charge slash, so be aware of this as well. You can also use the dodge dashing tech explained above to protect your own landing, by dashing into someone camping your jump to instantly oneshot them as you land.
2-0-1: Sub Weapons
2-1-1: Torpedo
Torpedo on Splatana Wiper covers its biggest weakness: its damage output. Having a sub weapon that can provide 60 damage as chip damage to speed up your kill time makes a lot of the weapon's hard matchups much easier. The sub can be used to locate sharking weapons for your team and call out their positions in coordinated play. The sub provides 60 points of damage on a direct, and spawns several pellets after detonation that will deal 12 damage each. This sub has an absurd number of combos with the main weapon (listed below) and is relatively cheap considering the ink efficiency the main weapon has, allowing you to use it a lot without losing much output on your main weapon.
2-2-1: Squid Beakon
The utility of Squid Beakon is a lot less obvious. It doesn't do damage like Torpedo, but allows Splatana Wiper to use its versatility and unique traits to serve a more supportive role for its team. Its amazing mobility through enemy ink allows it to place Beakons around the map easily and quickly without losing much uptime on the main weapon. Beakons along with Tacticooler decrease your team's downtime after going down by a lot, which allows Splatana Wiper Deco to skirmish more easily and jump back into one of the Beakons it placed behind enemy lines to immediately begin applying pressure again.
2-0-2: Sub Weapon Advanced Tech (Rolled Torpedo, Back Torpedo, Beakon Shields)
Rolled Torpedo
Torpedo when it hits a surface will no longer home in on targets, but can also no longer be destroyed. As such, you can roll it across the ground to prevent it from being shot down and guarantee chip damage. This is useful against fast firing weapons such as short range Shooters that would otherwise easily shoot down a torpedo aimed at them, allowing you to still hit them with the chip damage from Torpedo.
Back Torpedo
Because Torpedo has to travel a minimum distance before locking on to enemy players, you can also throw a Torpedo behind enemy players to force them to turn around to shoot it down or take the 60 damage. This is very similar to a rolled Torpedo but requires you to be closer to the enemy in exchange for also spawning the Torpedo's Pellets, which provide additional chip damage and paint.
Unconventional Beakon Uses
Beakons don't necessarily always need to be used defensively as a jump point. Beakons can also be placed near flanks, as placing a Beakon in these areas will reveal the positions of any enemy player standing there and alerting your team to any flankers. Beakons also have HP and can tank damage for you in fights. Be careful doing this too much as if the Beakon isn't destroyed your teammates in solo queue may jump to it, not knowing it wasn't intended for that, but this isn't a problem in cooridnated play with voice chat. Lastly, you can shark near your own Squid Beakons and quickly oneshot anyone who tries to destroy them with a charge slash. I wouldn't rely on this for getting picks as your time is better spent actually pressuring enemy players with your main weapon rather than sitting in ink hoping your opponents go to destroy your Beakons, but it's worth mentioning.
3-0-1: Special Weapons (Ultra Stamp, Tenta Missiles)
3-1-1: Ultra Stamp
Ultra Stamp is an amazing special for Splatana Wiper in terms of synergy but has a major flaw that I'll get to later in this section. Ultra Stamp covers some of Splatana Wiper's bad matchups like Slosher for example and allows it to chain kills together quickly as a continuation special while forcing people to pay attention to it. In theory Ultra Stamp would give you a full frontal shield you can use to prevent being traded back by the enemy team and draw even more attention by forcing multiple players to turn and deal with your special, but unfortunately the special can be shot through in between the hammer swings by Shooters, Splatlings, Dualies and in some cases Chargers.
Because of this, you don't want to rely on Ultra Stamp's protection to block shots against these kinds of weapons and only use the special once you're already in range to threaten a kill. Splatana Wiper is great at getting into the enemy's backline due to its mobility through enemy ink, but due to its low damage output can have trouble getting opponents to respect its presence and turn around to deal with it. Ultra Stamp makes the weapon much more threatening once it gets into position, forcing the enemy team to send players to go deal with you. Ultra Stamp can also be used to counter HP specials like Crab Tank and Booyah Bomb and easily cancel Triple Splashdown if it's used on top of you, something the main weapon struggles to do. The Stamp can also be thrown to threaten AoE damage over walls, similar to a shot from Trizooka. If nothing else, Ultra Stamp is an ink tank refill that lets you throw 2 Torpedoes at once, and that alone is pretty valuable to have.
3-2-1: Tenta Missiles
Tenta Missiles has much less immediately obvious synergy with Splatana Wiper, but Splatana Wiper Deco is a support as opposed to its much more slayer-oriented counterpart. Tenta Missiles acts as an entry tool for your team that Splatana Wiper Deco can get fairly often with its high paint output. Splatana Wiper Deco is the best weapon at fighting with its own missiles, which combo perfectly with Splatana Wiper's own chip damage. This makes Splatana Wiper Deco a very powerful weapon in team fights that can create oppressive advantage states by constantly disrupting enemy positioning with displacement specials and lowering downtime after deaths.
3-0-2: Advanced Special Tech (Jumping with Ultra Stamp, Tenta Missiles Targeting Priority)
For some unexplainable reason, Rollers have the ability to crush you with the roller during your Ultra Stamp, forcing a trade unless you press the B button to jump, causing you to stop moving and jump over the hitbox of the roller as they're crushed by the Stamp. This tech is also useful for popping the Rainmaker barrier without splatting yourself and shredding HP specials more effectively.
Tenta Missiles fire 10 missiles and will split them up as evenly as possible between however many targets you select. While you may assume the more targets you hit the better, there are some situations where you want all 10 missiles to hit a single target, such as flushing someone off the tower in Tower Control or displacing the Rainmaker carrier while potentially getting a pick on them, as their slower movement speed makes it much harder to dodge the missiles when all 10 are used on them.
4-0: Gear
To avoid this post getting too long, I will just share the builds I recommend running and give a brief summary of why certain abilities were chosen rather than explaining each ability individually
4-1: Splatana Wiper (An Asterisk indicates the ability is more niche)
Recommended Abilities: Swim Speed, Ink Saver Sub, Ink Resistance Up, Quick Super Jump, Comeback, Stealth Jump, Ink Recovery Up, Quick Respawn*, Ink Saver Main*
2 Subs ISS, 1 Sub IRU: Makes Torpedo cheaper and easier to use to maximize uptime with the main weapon. 2 Subs of Ink Saver Sub doesnt hit a specific benchmark, its just that running more after this point starts to scale worse
1 Sub ISM: Gives you an extra slash after throwing a Torpedo. It's a pretty niche ability choice and can be swapped out for a second QSJ Sub depending on user preference, but several high level wiper players I've talked to recommend it.
2 Subs Ink Resistance: 1 Sub is essentially mandatory, this is a weapon that wants to be diving into enemy ink frequently, but 2 subs is preferred if possible
1 Sub vs 2 Subs QSJ: Honestly up to user preference, I personally run 1 Sub as I don't find myself jumping out very much with this weapon. You can use a second QSJ Sub in place of an Ink Resistance or Ink Saver Main sub if you prefer having 2 Subs.
Explanation of Quick Respawn Playstyle in Tacticooler meta: Because of Tacticooler being in the meta, I would say High amounts of QR (30+ AP) on Splatana Wiper is just not really worth it when you can just wait for your Tacticooler. Low amounts of QR can still have utility when chained into itself with Tacticooler, though. If you die with Tacticooler without getting a pick, your Quick Respawn will activate on your next death, allowing you to essentially chain Tacticooler deaths and Quick Respawn deaths into each other to constantly draw attention away from the enemy team. The reason I recommend running lower amounts of QR (About a Main and 2-3 Subs is the sweet spot) for this playstyle is it leaves you with enough gear slots to fit most of the other utility subs you want on Wiper as well so you aren't forced to play to your QR all the time.
4-2: Splatana Wiper Deco
Recommended Abilities: Swim Speed Up, Special Charge Up, Sub Power Up, Quick Super Jump, Ink Resistance Up
2 Subs SPU: Allows you and your teammates to jump to your Beakons faster. Beakon scales pretty well with low amounts of SPU, so you only need about 2 Subs
1 Main and 1 Sub Special Charge: 13 AP of Special Charge with Comeback allows you to pretty much always have Tenta Missiles on your respawn if your team needs you to. Running less than this is still fine, but I wouldn't recommend going over 1 Main and 1 Sub personally.
5-1: Team Composition Recommendations
General Synergies
Splatana Wiper generally wants to be paired with weapons that can combo off of its chip damage (Slosher, Stamper, Range Blaster, Snipewriter, 96 Gal Deco) as well as weapons that can cover its difficult matchup into midlines like Nautilus and Squeezer. Splatana Wiper has good paint but the vanilla kit isn't going to want to spend much time securing map control for its team, so throwing a short range Shooter like Splash-O-Matic or Splattershot onto a comp to have a support weapon that can help maintain map control while having a powerful special for retake is always nice. Lastly, while Splatana Wiper doesn't benefit as much from the mobility buffs Tacitooler provides, it still very much likes having one on team comps because of its other benefits (Maximum Quick Respawn, Quick Super Jump and Ink Resistance for example)
Splatana Wiper Deco
Splatana Wiper Deco is much more of a supportive weapon that plays to start fights for its team while creating strong advantage states with the combination of Beakons and Tacticooler. Splatana Wiper Deco is a very strong weapon in team fights with Tenta Missiles acting as an entry tool for its team and the main weapon itself providing good chip damage and paint from midrange. This kit can still have its moments of being aggressive, but you typically want to wait for your Tacticooler player to get their special first if you have one, as dying with missiles is really bad value. I have found the most success running Splatana Wiper Deco on backless or double cooler comps where the whole team can run in to fight with your missiles and take space, and then use a special like Crab Tank to then hold that space rather than running a dedicated backline.
Splatana Wiper Team Comps (Asterisk indicates both kits are usable)
Splatana Wiper/Slosher/Snipewriter 5H/Flex
The flex slot is usually a short range Shooter like Splattershot or Splash-o-Matic to provide additional map control and a strong special on retake and lockout, but Moonlight has used Sorella Tenta Brella in this slot to let the Wiper and Slosher players push up with the shield, and the chip damage from every other weapon on the comp allowing Tenta Brella to oneshot from much longer ranges than it can without prior damage.
Splatana Wiper/Snipewriter 5B/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/N-Zap 85*
Splatana Wiper/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/Tri Slosher Nouveau/Splash-O-Matic
Recommended for Rainmaker map/modes. Splash-O-Matic can be replaced with Splat Dualies for more shield DPS and a lethal bomb
Splatana Wiper Deco/96 Gal Deco/Splash-O-Matic/Snipewriter 5H
Splatana Wiper Deco/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/Splattershot/N-Zap 85
Conclusion
Thank you so much for reading, this guide took a very long time to write and I hope the guide was helpful to you. This is my first post here so hopefully it was decent enough, and if you have any questions about the weapon after reading like what to do in specific weapon matchups or how to play specific maps/modes, you can message me and I'll try my best to answer (I couldn't cover it all in this guide as it's already long enough and there are way too many weapons and maps for me to cover all of them).
For Patch 7.0.0
Hi, I'm Fae, I've been playing competitive Splatoon for the past few months and mainly play the Splatana Wiper. I noticed there aren't many guides out there for this weapon anywhere, so I decided to make my own for both kits. I'm not the best Splatana Wiper player out there, but I feel knowledgeable enough about the weapon's playstyle to make a decent guide for it. This is a more competitive focused guide, but this guide will still have relevant information to you if you only play solo queue.
Because this post is so long, I made an index you can use to skip to specific sections by using Ctrl+F (I do not expect most people to read this entire post):
1-0-1: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Main Weapon
1-0-2: General Playstyle
1-0-3: Main Weapon Advanced Tech
2-0-1: Sub Weapons
2-1-1: Torpedo
2-2-1: Squid Beakon
2-0-2: Advanced Sub Weapon Tech
3-0-1: Special Weapons
3-1-1: Ultra Stamp
3-2-1: Tenta Missiles
3-0-2: Special Weapon Advanced Tech
4-0: Gear
4-1: Splatana Wiper Gear
4-2: Splatana Wiper Deco Gear
5-1: Team Compositions
Conclusion
1-0-1: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Main Weapon
Splatana Wiper as a main weapon is a very versatile weapon that excels at skirmishing: a playstyle where you attempt to draw attention to yourself and pull people away from team fights or the objective to create a temporary player advantage for your team. Splatana Wiper excels at providing consistent chip damage that's easy to combo off of and splitting team fights by flanking behind enemy lines with its near unparalleled mobility. The main weapon is very ink efficient, allowing it to pressure enemy players with chip damage constantly with very little downtime. The Splatana Wiper is also a midrange weapon with arguably the best mobility in the game, allowing it to outrange weapons with a faster kill time than it, such as short range Shooters like the Splattershot and Splash-O-Matic while being able to effectively keep up with their mobility and kite them better than most other midline weapons. Lastly, Splatana Wiper has incredible damage multipliers against objects, letting it shred Booyah Bombs and Crab Tanks more easily than most other weapons. The mechanics of its charge slashes even allow it to do this safely from under a ledge.
The main weakness of the Splatana Wiper is it's low damage output. The main weapon is by no means bad at fighting, but it has no way of pressuring midrange kills quickly with its fastest kill option being a rather finnicky oneshot when up close. It's lack of quick damage output without help from it's kit makes its matchups into other midline weapons with faster kill times such as the Nautilus and Squeezer incredibly difficult. It also has no way to quickly chain kills into each other unless they are close enough together to hit them with back to back charge slash directs, which makes it very reliant on continuation specials when played aggressively. Splatana Wiper's main strength being its mobility is also made less valuable by Tacticooler. Due to the strafe speed of Splatanas not scaling with Run Speed, weapons like the N-Zap and Splash-O-Matic with the movement speed buffs from Tacticooler are suddenly capable of playing at the same pace as Wiper, if not faster. Wiper isn't invalidated by Tacticooler per say, it still has traits that make it worth picking in competitive play, such as its high object damage multipliers and having better mobility in enemy ink than most other weapons, but Tacticooler makes it harder for the weapon to find a niche competitively. It's important as well to keep in mind this isn't a factor in solo queue, as there's no guarantee either team with have a Tacticooler on it.
1-0-2: General Playstyle
For tips on how to play the main weapon itself, you always want to be using your maximum effective range. Splatana Wiper has the ability to outrange frontline and even some midline weapons when spaced properly, and because of its low damage output you need to be spacing well against weapons like short range Shooters if you want to win those matchups consistently. Your charge slashes and horizontal slashes have different range values, which means there will be some weapons that are difficult to space out with horizontal slashes that you'll need to use charge slashes for to outrange them consistently (N-Zap, Clash Blaster, Mini Splatling, etc.). Additionally, you never want to only be using one kind of attack. While there are situations where you want to favor using one over another, if you're only ever using one type of attack with Splatana Wiper you're effectively playing half a weapon.
Splatana Wiper's vanilla kit is a weapon that plays to flank behind enemies and force the opposing team to trun around away from the objective or the rest of your team to deal with them. You always want to be aware of where your team is positioning to ensure that they can play off of your distraction. If you go in while your team isn't in position, the enemy team won't have anything to focus on other than you, causing you to go down immediately without getting any value. Whether or not you go for splats is dependent on who the enemy team decides to focus. If they send 2-3 players to go deal with you, your goal is to survive as long as possible and waste their time to allow your team to get in position to splat them or take space around the objective. If they don't decide to focus you, you can start going for splats. If you aren't able to create a meaningful distraction because your team isn't in position to play off of you yet, you generally want to be playing defensively and zoning out frontlines with charge slashes.
Splatana Wiper Deco is a lot more of a support than the vanilla kit. In neutral it wants to play to paint mid for map control while applying constant chip damage with the ink efficient main weapon. It's a support/slayer hybrid that aims to make use of Splatana Wiper's versatility as a main weapon to allow it to be a support that's still a decent fighting weapon. It can still play aggressively, but you usually want to wait for Tacticooler if you have one or your own Tenta Missiles to start going in and taking fights, as dying with Tenta Missiles is the single worst thing you can do for your team. In advantage state after winning a fight you want to be painting and maintaining map control and placing Beakons around the map. One small tip is I actually wouldn't recommend painting your spawn at the start on most map/modes, as Splatana Wiper is a really strong weapon in team fights and wants to be there to help as they happen.
1-0-3: Main Weapon Advanced Tech
Main Strafing
This is essentially using a horizontal slash and immediately dipping back into your own ink and swimming. Chaining this together as a movement mix-up makes you much harder to hit while still applying pressure with a consistent 30 damage every time you slash. Splatana Wiper also paints its own feet much more consistently than shooters, another weapon that uses main strafing as a movement option in fights. This lets Splatana Wiper use main strafing even while surrounded by enemy ink due to it consistently painting its own feet whenever it slashes.
Dodge Dashing
This is a very advanced technique that makes use of the dash you get when holding forward while performing a charge slash. This dash will go in whatever direction you face, allowing you to face away from your opponent, dash to the side and flick you aim back towards your opponent as the dash ends, redirecting the charge slash to still hit them. This is a very difficult technique to pull off and will require some practice, but is very strong as a movement mix-up against weapons like Blasters with a slow fire rate that rely on hitting a direct up close. The speed of the dash is also not affected by standing in enemy ink or on uninkable turf, giving you a strong movement option in enemy ink or a way to quickly traverse patches of uninkable turf while having a hitbox out in front of you.
Ledge Camping
As illuded to earlier, you can manipulate charge slashes to go over ledges if you jump as you perform a slash. This allows you to pressure ranged chip damage safely from under a ledge. This can deny key areas from the enemy team, making it very difficult to hold certain positions without moving you out of the area first. Area of Effect weapons such as Slosher and Range Blaster can still hit you from under ledges, so be careful of that when going for plays under ledges.
Trapping
The horizontal slashes of Splatanas can paint over opponent's feet if you aim downward slightly while slashing. This is pretty inconsistent and hard to do without practice, but because of Wiper's fast fire rate, even if it happens once or twice in a fight it can make the difference between your opponent getting away and having to stop fighting for a second to paint their own feet, allowing you to secure a kill. It's not consistent enough to where this will happen every slash, even with practice, but because all you're really doing is aiming slightly downward there's not much of a reason not to go for it when the reward can change the outcome of duels. Vertical slashes can also paint over opponents on walls while still hitting them due to Splatana Wiper's unique ability to split its shots.
Jump Camping
Splatana Wiper is really good at camping jumps as you can oneshot people with the melee charge slash hitbox right as they land. Be careful doing this against Dualies and opponents running Drop Roller, as the timing becomes much more strict. Other Splatana users can also oneshot you as theyre jumping in with a charge slash, so be aware of this as well. You can also use the dodge dashing tech explained above to protect your own landing, by dashing into someone camping your jump to instantly oneshot them as you land.
2-0-1: Sub Weapons
2-1-1: Torpedo
Torpedo on Splatana Wiper covers its biggest weakness: its damage output. Having a sub weapon that can provide 60 damage as chip damage to speed up your kill time makes a lot of the weapon's hard matchups much easier. The sub can be used to locate sharking weapons for your team and call out their positions in coordinated play. The sub provides 60 points of damage on a direct, and spawns several pellets after detonation that will deal 12 damage each. This sub has an absurd number of combos with the main weapon (listed below) and is relatively cheap considering the ink efficiency the main weapon has, allowing you to use it a lot without losing much output on your main weapon.
Torpedo indiect (35)
Charge slash + horizontal slash (Splatana Stamper? I don't know her)
Shaves 1 horizontal slash off of standard kill time
Torpedo Direct (60)
Charge slash
2 horizontal slashes
Horizontal slash + blade hitbox
Torpedo Pellet (12)
2 horizontal slashes + blade hitbox
Charge slash + horizontal slash
Shaves 1 horizontal slash off of standard kill time
Torpedo Direct + 1 Pellet (72)
1 horizontal slash
Charge slash + horizontal slash (Splatana Stamper? I don't know her)
Shaves 1 horizontal slash off of standard kill time
Torpedo Direct (60)
Charge slash
2 horizontal slashes
Horizontal slash + blade hitbox
Torpedo Pellet (12)
2 horizontal slashes + blade hitbox
Charge slash + horizontal slash
Shaves 1 horizontal slash off of standard kill time
Torpedo Direct + 1 Pellet (72)
1 horizontal slash
2-2-1: Squid Beakon
The utility of Squid Beakon is a lot less obvious. It doesn't do damage like Torpedo, but allows Splatana Wiper to use its versatility and unique traits to serve a more supportive role for its team. Its amazing mobility through enemy ink allows it to place Beakons around the map easily and quickly without losing much uptime on the main weapon. Beakons along with Tacticooler decrease your team's downtime after going down by a lot, which allows Splatana Wiper Deco to skirmish more easily and jump back into one of the Beakons it placed behind enemy lines to immediately begin applying pressure again.
2-0-2: Sub Weapon Advanced Tech (Rolled Torpedo, Back Torpedo, Beakon Shields)
Rolled Torpedo
Torpedo when it hits a surface will no longer home in on targets, but can also no longer be destroyed. As such, you can roll it across the ground to prevent it from being shot down and guarantee chip damage. This is useful against fast firing weapons such as short range Shooters that would otherwise easily shoot down a torpedo aimed at them, allowing you to still hit them with the chip damage from Torpedo.
Back Torpedo
Because Torpedo has to travel a minimum distance before locking on to enemy players, you can also throw a Torpedo behind enemy players to force them to turn around to shoot it down or take the 60 damage. This is very similar to a rolled Torpedo but requires you to be closer to the enemy in exchange for also spawning the Torpedo's Pellets, which provide additional chip damage and paint.
Unconventional Beakon Uses
Beakons don't necessarily always need to be used defensively as a jump point. Beakons can also be placed near flanks, as placing a Beakon in these areas will reveal the positions of any enemy player standing there and alerting your team to any flankers. Beakons also have HP and can tank damage for you in fights. Be careful doing this too much as if the Beakon isn't destroyed your teammates in solo queue may jump to it, not knowing it wasn't intended for that, but this isn't a problem in cooridnated play with voice chat. Lastly, you can shark near your own Squid Beakons and quickly oneshot anyone who tries to destroy them with a charge slash. I wouldn't rely on this for getting picks as your time is better spent actually pressuring enemy players with your main weapon rather than sitting in ink hoping your opponents go to destroy your Beakons, but it's worth mentioning.
3-0-1: Special Weapons (Ultra Stamp, Tenta Missiles)
3-1-1: Ultra Stamp
Ultra Stamp is an amazing special for Splatana Wiper in terms of synergy but has a major flaw that I'll get to later in this section. Ultra Stamp covers some of Splatana Wiper's bad matchups like Slosher for example and allows it to chain kills together quickly as a continuation special while forcing people to pay attention to it. In theory Ultra Stamp would give you a full frontal shield you can use to prevent being traded back by the enemy team and draw even more attention by forcing multiple players to turn and deal with your special, but unfortunately the special can be shot through in between the hammer swings by Shooters, Splatlings, Dualies and in some cases Chargers.
Because of this, you don't want to rely on Ultra Stamp's protection to block shots against these kinds of weapons and only use the special once you're already in range to threaten a kill. Splatana Wiper is great at getting into the enemy's backline due to its mobility through enemy ink, but due to its low damage output can have trouble getting opponents to respect its presence and turn around to deal with it. Ultra Stamp makes the weapon much more threatening once it gets into position, forcing the enemy team to send players to go deal with you. Ultra Stamp can also be used to counter HP specials like Crab Tank and Booyah Bomb and easily cancel Triple Splashdown if it's used on top of you, something the main weapon struggles to do. The Stamp can also be thrown to threaten AoE damage over walls, similar to a shot from Trizooka. If nothing else, Ultra Stamp is an ink tank refill that lets you throw 2 Torpedoes at once, and that alone is pretty valuable to have.
3-2-1: Tenta Missiles
Tenta Missiles has much less immediately obvious synergy with Splatana Wiper, but Splatana Wiper Deco is a support as opposed to its much more slayer-oriented counterpart. Tenta Missiles acts as an entry tool for your team that Splatana Wiper Deco can get fairly often with its high paint output. Splatana Wiper Deco is the best weapon at fighting with its own missiles, which combo perfectly with Splatana Wiper's own chip damage. This makes Splatana Wiper Deco a very powerful weapon in team fights that can create oppressive advantage states by constantly disrupting enemy positioning with displacement specials and lowering downtime after deaths.
3-0-2: Advanced Special Tech (Jumping with Ultra Stamp, Tenta Missiles Targeting Priority)
For some unexplainable reason, Rollers have the ability to crush you with the roller during your Ultra Stamp, forcing a trade unless you press the B button to jump, causing you to stop moving and jump over the hitbox of the roller as they're crushed by the Stamp. This tech is also useful for popping the Rainmaker barrier without splatting yourself and shredding HP specials more effectively.
Tenta Missiles fire 10 missiles and will split them up as evenly as possible between however many targets you select. While you may assume the more targets you hit the better, there are some situations where you want all 10 missiles to hit a single target, such as flushing someone off the tower in Tower Control or displacing the Rainmaker carrier while potentially getting a pick on them, as their slower movement speed makes it much harder to dodge the missiles when all 10 are used on them.
4-0: Gear
To avoid this post getting too long, I will just share the builds I recommend running and give a brief summary of why certain abilities were chosen rather than explaining each ability individually
4-1: Splatana Wiper (An Asterisk indicates the ability is more niche)
Recommended Abilities: Swim Speed, Ink Saver Sub, Ink Resistance Up, Quick Super Jump, Comeback, Stealth Jump, Ink Recovery Up, Quick Respawn*, Ink Saver Main*
2 Subs ISS, 1 Sub IRU: Makes Torpedo cheaper and easier to use to maximize uptime with the main weapon. 2 Subs of Ink Saver Sub doesnt hit a specific benchmark, its just that running more after this point starts to scale worse
1 Sub ISM: Gives you an extra slash after throwing a Torpedo. It's a pretty niche ability choice and can be swapped out for a second QSJ Sub depending on user preference, but several high level wiper players I've talked to recommend it.
2 Subs Ink Resistance: 1 Sub is essentially mandatory, this is a weapon that wants to be diving into enemy ink frequently, but 2 subs is preferred if possible
1 Sub vs 2 Subs QSJ: Honestly up to user preference, I personally run 1 Sub as I don't find myself jumping out very much with this weapon. You can use a second QSJ Sub in place of an Ink Resistance or Ink Saver Main sub if you prefer having 2 Subs.
Explanation of Quick Respawn Playstyle in Tacticooler meta: Because of Tacticooler being in the meta, I would say High amounts of QR (30+ AP) on Splatana Wiper is just not really worth it when you can just wait for your Tacticooler. Low amounts of QR can still have utility when chained into itself with Tacticooler, though. If you die with Tacticooler without getting a pick, your Quick Respawn will activate on your next death, allowing you to essentially chain Tacticooler deaths and Quick Respawn deaths into each other to constantly draw attention away from the enemy team. The reason I recommend running lower amounts of QR (About a Main and 2-3 Subs is the sweet spot) for this playstyle is it leaves you with enough gear slots to fit most of the other utility subs you want on Wiper as well so you aren't forced to play to your QR all the time.
Recommended Abilities: Swim Speed Up, Special Charge Up, Sub Power Up, Quick Super Jump, Ink Resistance Up
2 Subs SPU: Allows you and your teammates to jump to your Beakons faster. Beakon scales pretty well with low amounts of SPU, so you only need about 2 Subs
1 Main and 1 Sub Special Charge: 13 AP of Special Charge with Comeback allows you to pretty much always have Tenta Missiles on your respawn if your team needs you to. Running less than this is still fine, but I wouldn't recommend going over 1 Main and 1 Sub personally.
5-1: Team Composition Recommendations
General Synergies
Splatana Wiper generally wants to be paired with weapons that can combo off of its chip damage (Slosher, Stamper, Range Blaster, Snipewriter, 96 Gal Deco) as well as weapons that can cover its difficult matchup into midlines like Nautilus and Squeezer. Splatana Wiper has good paint but the vanilla kit isn't going to want to spend much time securing map control for its team, so throwing a short range Shooter like Splash-O-Matic or Splattershot onto a comp to have a support weapon that can help maintain map control while having a powerful special for retake is always nice. Lastly, while Splatana Wiper doesn't benefit as much from the mobility buffs Tacitooler provides, it still very much likes having one on team comps because of its other benefits (Maximum Quick Respawn, Quick Super Jump and Ink Resistance for example)
Splatana Wiper Deco
Splatana Wiper Deco is much more of a supportive weapon that plays to start fights for its team while creating strong advantage states with the combination of Beakons and Tacticooler. Splatana Wiper Deco is a very strong weapon in team fights with Tenta Missiles acting as an entry tool for its team and the main weapon itself providing good chip damage and paint from midrange. This kit can still have its moments of being aggressive, but you typically want to wait for your Tacticooler player to get their special first if you have one, as dying with missiles is really bad value. I have found the most success running Splatana Wiper Deco on backless or double cooler comps where the whole team can run in to fight with your missiles and take space, and then use a special like Crab Tank to then hold that space rather than running a dedicated backline.
Splatana Wiper Team Comps (Asterisk indicates both kits are usable)
Splatana Wiper/Slosher/Snipewriter 5H/Flex
The flex slot is usually a short range Shooter like Splattershot or Splash-o-Matic to provide additional map control and a strong special on retake and lockout, but Moonlight has used Sorella Tenta Brella in this slot to let the Wiper and Slosher players push up with the shield, and the chip damage from every other weapon on the comp allowing Tenta Brella to oneshot from much longer ranges than it can without prior damage.
Splatana Wiper/Snipewriter 5B/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/N-Zap 85*
Splatana Wiper/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/Tri Slosher Nouveau/Splash-O-Matic
Recommended for Rainmaker map/modes. Splash-O-Matic can be replaced with Splat Dualies for more shield DPS and a lethal bomb
Splatana Wiper Deco/96 Gal Deco/Splash-O-Matic/Snipewriter 5H
Splatana Wiper Deco/Splatana Stamper Nouveau/Splattershot/N-Zap 85
Conclusion
Thank you so much for reading, this guide took a very long time to write and I hope the guide was helpful to you. This is my first post here so hopefully it was decent enough, and if you have any questions about the weapon after reading like what to do in specific weapon matchups or how to play specific maps/modes, you can message me and I'll try my best to answer (I couldn't cover it all in this guide as it's already long enough and there are way too many weapons and maps for me to cover all of them).
