‘Splatoon 2’ Best Weapons: What tier is best for your play style?

Splatoon 2 has a ton of creative ink dispersal options at the player’s disposal, but it can be a little intimidating for new players to figure out what weapon tier is best for them. A giant paint roller? A bucket? An old NES Zapper? This is complete nonsense.

Thankfully, I’ve played a whole lot of Splatoon and its sequel and can help you out a little bit, based on my own experience.

Splatoon 2 Best Weapons: Good options for racking up points in Turf War

If you’re just starting out and you want to get as high a score as possible in Turf War, I recommend sticking with any of the game’s many automatic weapons. The various weapons under the Splattershot label work well here, with each of them providing a decent balance between ink coverage and damage.

If you’re like me and you generally avoid combat and want to ink as much ground as possible, the Aerospray MG is the way to go. It’s like a Splattershot, but its fire rate is really high and its shot has a nice spread to it. It’s basically an ink hose that can cover a lot of ground quickly, and I’m consistently near the top of the leaderboard at the end of each match when I use it. The only problem is it’s pretty bad for combat, with low damage.

Splatoon 2 Best Weapons: Want to splat others with ease? Use these.

An alternate title for this list could be “Weapons that kill me the most in Splatoon 2.” The Splat Duelies are pretty fantastic for one-on-one confrontations at close range. Their high fire rate, when combined with the dodge roll maneuver that comes with them, makes them excellent for confusing opponents and taking them out before they get their bearings.

The dodge roll is also a hard counter to the roller weapon type. If you see someone approaching with the intent of crushing you beneath the weight of their giant paint roller, just dodge out of the way and take them out with ease.

Of course, you can also just try the roller if it seems appealing to you. I don’t really like it, but you might.

The slosher (the paint bucket weapon) is almost like a paint shotgun, with a slower rate of fire but a high concentration of damage over a set area. It’s surprisingly effective at range, too. I really, really don’t like facing off against people using the slosher effectively.

Lastly, the N-Zap ’85 functions like a conventional automatic weapon, but its high damage makes it ideal for killing while you ink. It also looks like an NES Zapper, which is fun.

More Nintendo Switch news and coverage

Looking for more Nintendo Switch news? Check out how blind gamers are using the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s left Joy-Con issue turns out to be a hardware problem — here’s how to solve it. Find out how to buy a console amidst the recent restock. Learn why the Switch cartridges taste so bad. Check out our comparison photos sizing up the Switch to the Wii U GamePad (part one and part two), or find out how to make use of ethernet without the dock and the best way to get alerts when new stock arrives.