Despite playing itself as a fun, kid-friendly third-person shooter, Splatoon's strategy is varied and constantly in flux thanks to a steady stream of content and balance patches throughout the series.
Top competitive player ProChara has described much of his understanding of the metagame throughout each installment on YouTube, which can be found here.
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Splatoon 1
- As the first installment of the series, 1 both had most players lacking understanding of how to play optimally, in addition to the game itself having many weird elements straightened out later in the series that would create an unusual metagame compared to later games. The most obvious factor is the maps: private battles did not exist yet and the only gamemodes in 1 at launch were Turf War and Splat Zones, so the metagame centered around those two modes.
The result of all this is that the Aerospray, generally regarded as a weapon that could paint the map incredibly well in exchange for poor fighting power, was dominating the scene. It excelled in modes that were about painting because of how fast it could do so, and nobody really had that same understanding to combat it by staying out of spitting distance and splatting it before it could approach. As the metagame slowly solidified, players learned how to actually deal with enemy Aerosprays, and the weapon fell out of favor. - When the meta cooled down, it settled on focusing around one specific weapon: the .96 Gal Deco. It had a Splash Wall to give itself protection, high damage, long range, could paint decently, and painted for the Kraken Limit Break. Kraken gave it invincibility, a One-Hit Kill rolling melee attack, and could be used to instantly turn the tides of a fight when it needs to make a play or whenever it got cornered. This weapon fell out of the metagame when new strategies made it less favorable, combined with a Nerf reducing its damage and increasing how much Special charge it lost on death, but Kraken (on other weapons) would maintain metagame relevance deep into the game's lifespan.
- With more knowledge on how the game works, the meta shifted, this time taking two different paths centered around gear abilities, favored depending on where the game was played: Damage/Defense Up, popular the Western scene, and Quick Respawn, championed by Japan.
- Damage/Defense Up was centered around the titular Damage Up and Defense Up abilities. The rationale behind this strategy was to use these gear abilities to deathmatch the opponent and win by force. Damage Up, as the name implies, would cause the user to deal more damage from all their weapons: this could be used to counteract the reduced damage from Shooter bullets at the edge of their range, kill enemies with partially-charged Charger shots, and make the lethal explosive radius of a Blaster more potent. Naturally, the counter to Damage Up was to use Defense Up to reduce the amount of damage taken, and as such most builds in the West around this time centered around various ratios of Damage Up and Defense Up.
- Quick Respawn was centered around the Quick Respawn ability, as the name implies. The rationale behind this strategy was that, since the game had so many powerful specials (primarily the Kraken and Bubbler), reducing the time it takes to respawn after dying to them and immediately rejoining the fight after would become incredibly important; the Stealth Jump ability, which would completely obscure users' landing marker when they Super Jumped back into the fray, was also very prevalent to synergize with a constantly-respawning frontline team. This meta favored weapons that were aggressive for their classes and would thus benefit from being able to die often, such as the Wasabi Splattershot or Bento Splat Charger. It also benefited the Dynamo Roller to ambush enemies trying to camp its landing with a massive One-Hit Kill swing, something balanced out in every other situation by the weapon's slow speed.
In the end, Quick Respawn won out over Damage/Defense Up, when a tournament between Western and Japanese teams using their respective favored strategies led to Japan's victory. It wouldn't last, however, as its main components would get nerfed by the sequel game: Quick Respawn would only activate if the user didn't get any splats in their previous life, while Stealth Jump's landing marker became visible for enemies sufficiently close to it.
Splatoon 2
- The early 2 meta centered around one specific weapon: the Tri-Slosher. It swung fast, had a massive hitbox, could throw paint over walls to hit enemies behind, and its Limit Break was Ink Armor. Ink Armor's effects at the start of the game caused all allies to take no damage from the next hit they took, which could make or break coordinated pushes when everyone on one team could last just a little bit longer before going down. Running three Tri-Sloshers in a four-player team became the dominant strategy: what would happen is that each Tri-Slosher would paint for Ink Armor and constantly keep everyone alive. As a counter, the Rapid Blaster was favored to try and destroy enemy armor, shooting around cover from a distance and having Ink Mine and Splat Bomb Launcher to also safely destroy armor without actually getting in range of enemy Tri-Sloshers. Thus, three Tri-Sloshers and one Rapid Blaster to counter the enemy Tri-Sloshers became the norm until the 1.3.0 patch nerfed the Tri-Slosher and Ink Armor.
- Said 1.3.0 patch also gave a Balance Buff to two other Specials: Sting Ray, which would get its terrain-piercing laser complimented with shockwaves surrounding it to splat opponents with ludicrous speed, and the Baller, which got more potent all across the board and could unrelentingly hound enemies down. The metagame in this moment centered around spamming Specials as fast and often as possible, with Sting Ray regularly seen through the Splat Charger and Sloshing Machine, and Baller represented by the Aerospray RG and L-3 Nozzlenose. This style of play only died down when 1.4.0 nerfed these two Specials.
- The 1.4.0 patch also gave a couple of buffs to main weapons across the board, which once again led to a split metagame between Japan and the West:
- In Japan, buffs to the Brella weapons caused them to see a ton of use, with multiple of them within a single team composition. Brellas' higher HP when opened made them extremely useful as a brawling-type weapon to get up in the enemy's face and make them constantly fight.
- The West stuck more with their previous meta at the time, largely using Sting Ray but experimenting with more of the buffed weapons. What gained prominence is a Burst Bomb-oriented meta that centered around spamming Burst Bombs and chipping enemies down by throwing them and using Specials to instantly refill one's ink tank and throw more Burst Bombs. This could have been countered by Brellas, but North America and Europe are larger and more sprawling than Japan, and as such latency problems — which affected how reliably Brella shields could be used to protect their users when opening their canopies right before getting hit — led to them not being as useful as a counterstrategy, and as such players relied more on Bomb Defense to get by.
Splatoon 3
- 3 represented a shift in the direction for the new stage designs: tight corridors that keep the opposing teams constantly fighting each other through the multiple chokepoints. As such, 3's metagame — especially early in the game's lifecycle — centered around one question: "Can you hold your ground, or force enemies to retreat from theirs?" As such, the meta oriented itself around the Crab Tank, since this Special could absorb punishment from the enemy team, beam them down with rapid-firing twin guns, flush them out when they take cover via arcing ink bombs, and its singular weakness — the rider being vulnerable from the back — was often irrelevant when most maps didn't let enemies flank around to the opposite side of the user.
- Strategies centered around running at least two Splash-o-Matics, which got the Crab Tank, painted rapidly to earn said Crab Tank, and could still fight without it thanks to its decent DPS and having the Burst Bomb to deal damage instantly.
- Counterstrategies oriented around whatever could kill or otherwise negate the Crab Tank: the Sloshing Machine was the prime Crab buster, since it could throw sloshes over the tank to hit the rider, use Fizzy Bombs to deal high object damage to the tank, or charge a Booyah Bomb to force it to move. The Splatana Stamper also saw some use, since it had high object damage to shred the tank, in addition to having the Zipcaster Special Weapon to grapple around and actually flank Crab Tanks from behind.
- Team compositions could largely boil down to "a Sloshing Machine, maybe a second one or a Splatana Stamper, and everyone else uses the Splash-o-Matic". The dominant strategy would be that one Splash would start their Crab Tank, forcing enemies to retreat while the other Splash would follow up on the Crab Tank and finish them off and then pop a second Crab Tank to force enemies to retreat even further, whilst said enemies would try to use their own anti-Crab Tank specials to try and prevent them from losing momentum.
- The mid-Fresh Season 2023 patch gave a massive buff to the Inkjet, causing a new shift in the metagame. It got higher jetpack burst jumps to get into less-accessible areas more often and dodge enemy fire, while its explosive shots would deal higher damage more often upon impact with surfaces.
- For this, the Ballpoint Splatling saw an uptick in use for being a versatile long-range weapon that can play to either use of the Inkjet, chip damaging enemies from afar or moving close for massive damage, and having the Fizzy Bomb to paint for special or chip at Crab Tanks. The Tri Slosher and Rapid Blaster Deco also got picked for having Inkjet to use in their own niches of hitting around cover.
- Combined with a mild nerf to the Crab Tank that made it more vulnerable after it expired or broke, this created a metagame centered around both Specials: Crab Tank to keep ground, and Inkjet to make plays by attacking from unexpected angles. Other weapons saw use to use to supplement or counter them — like the Splash-o-Matic's paint being able to support the Range Blaster to go in, the Inkjet giving covering fire for a .52 Gal to push up and throw down Splash Walls, other long-range weapons like the E-Liter to suppress the Ballpoint and/or Inkjet, or the Tentatek Splattershot being able to throw Splat Bombs and Inkstrikes to flush out Crab Tanks.
- The Sizzle Season 2023 update led to an uptick in Tacticooler use thanks to a Balance Buff to its duration and synergy with Special Power Up. Notably, this led to the ability to "cycle" Tacticooler: painting for it, throwing it down, then painting for a second Tacticooler and throwing that down before the first's effect can expire.
- This buff led to an increase in use of the N-ZAP '85, a close-range support shooter that could quickly paint and fight when empowered. The Snipewriter 5H also became a surprise pick, going from "potential worst weapon in the game" to "amazing backline that could farm Tacticooler while painting to support the movement of other weapons". And the Drizzle Season 2023 debut of the Heavy Edit Splatling gave players a mid-range Tacticooler option that forced opponents to respect its presence and made good use out of Tacticooler's run speed increase.
- Weapons that got a lot out of Tacticooler's prominence include anything that can play to an aggressive strength. Blasters enjoyed having no jump shot deviation from the buff, which they could use to stay mobile as they rush down the enemy. The Slosher's issue of having poor synergy with its Special (Triple Inkstrike isn't good up close, but Slosher is) was negated by Tacticooler's Special charge preservation, which enabled it to keep its Special after dying and then use it to push in again.
- Against the still-viable previous two meta-defining Specials, Tacticooler created a form of Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: the Crab Tank can beam a whole team when they attempt to bum-rush enemies using Tacticooler; the Inkjet deals tons of damage to Crab Tank, flanking it from an unexpected angle and potentially one-shotting it by shooting the rider from above; and the Tacticooler negates Inkjet's ability to one-shot the entire team, preserving their Special charge and respawning them almost-instantly, enabling them to then rush down a Special-less Inkjet user when they recall to where they first used the Special.
- As Sizzle Season 2023 went on, Tacticooler was pushed further until it became the de-facto meta special and most teams ran it to enable an extremely fast-paced speed of play. The evolving metagame also led to a new Special joining the viability group: Trizooka, which received a Balance Buff that increased its explosive damage. Trizooka wasn't accepted as immediately as Tacticooler was, but over time, more and more experimentation and evolution in the metagame saw it gaining an increasing usage rate.
- The main weapons that saw the most love were the Splattershot and Squeezer, both Shooter weapons that can paint for a large number of Trizookas. The Splattershot has a versatile kit combined with Suction Bomb to be able to adapt to many situations, whether it's rushing enemies down with its good DPS, poking enemies with its lethal bomb to make space, or farming for Trizooka with its good painting ability. The Squeezer on the other hand, has oppressive mid-range pressure with its high damage 1-tap shots and ability to put down a Splash Wall for cover; said Splash Wall enables it to use a long-range Trizooka with safety, even when it pushes forward into spaces that would otherwise be dangerous.
- This metagame centers itself around a highly aggressive offense. The best weapons were ones that could fight adequately and get good mileage from Tacticooler's respawn protection if they die and/or push forth rapidly after a successful Tacticooler or Trizooka usage. On the flipside, this diminished weapons that couldn't do likewise; slower support weapons like the Annaki Splattershot Nova or the Bloblobber, and nearly-immobile weapons like the Hydra Splatling and Dynamo Roller get left in the dust when being rushed down by Tacticooler-powered enemies or if they're forced to take cover from Trizooka shots.
- The original two "big meta weapons" in the Splash-o-Matic and the Ballpoint Splatling started to get pushed out by the new options. The Ballpoint Splatling had poor matchup against the Snipewriter, since it would just get two-shot killed before it could unload its shots, and the Inkjet special struggled for a similar reason. The Splash-o-Matic's Crab Tank had a niche in fighting the Snipewriter, which struggled to destroy objects, but in turn it is extremely slow and vulnerable to a Trizooka blasting it apart. Instead, the Special that was used to deal with the Trizooka is Big Bubbler, which could withstand multiple Trizooka shots and force Trizooka users to waste their special; this led to the rise of the Splattershot Jr. and Zink Mini Splatling, which could gain Big Bubblers more frequently than other weapons, and the Splat Roller, since it could move into advantageous positions to activate Big Bubbler from.
- A damage nerf to the Trizooka as well as Squeezer's points for special being reduced led to the playerbase rethinking their strategy again, and the result was a new metagame referred to by top players as "no meta". Which is a bit of a misnomer since there are still strategies employed at that level — Tacticooler remains a must-have, Trizooka is still fairly common, and the bottom-of-the-barrel weapons continue to be avoided — it's just that everything else is a lot more open to use, with a common sentiment between teams being "play whatever you enjoy or have mechanical skill in" rather than adapting to a widely-recognized set of the absolute best weapons at the moment.
- The rocket-tag pace of the game has been accelerated even faster, with individual fights spiraling into total losses at a quickened pace, which is a result (and a cause of) the theme of this metagame: mechanical skill and adaptation. Because there aren't many widely-recognized "best weapons" that will work a majority of the time, the focus is on top players choosing whichever weapon they're personally good at. This leads to a wide variety of team compositions being used, with many top-level games decided at weapon select: if you or your weapon can't adapt to deal with what the opponents are doing, it will be an extreme uphill battle.
- Once again, the new metagame highlighted the differences in each region's own metagame. In the West, there's a stronger emphasis on individual skill and mechanics, while Japan tends to revolve more around teamplay and coordination. Since the "no meta" meta was far less defined by one specific composition that players could optimize, many Japanese teams had a disadvantage, to the point where Splat World Cup November 2023 (a Japanese-ran Splatoon tournament which only admits the best of the best) entered in more American players than Japanese, and which had grand finals of two American teams against each other — a stunning upset when Japan has historically placed above the West. (With a slight caveat that this happened quite close to Japan's own regional tournaments, meaning quite a few notable players were out of the running.)
