Painbrush

The Painbrush is a main weapon in, belonging to the brush weapon class. It is the first new entry in the brush class since the original roster from.

As a brush, when is pressed, it flicks splashes of ink in front of the user, with a higher damage and longer range compared with other brushes, which can be done repeatedly at a quite fast rate, after a slow first swing, to ink turf or splat opponents. If is held, the user will push the Painbrush along the ground, leaving a trail of ink as the user runs at a fast speed.

Compared to other brushes, its speed while pushing it on the ground is comparable to Octobrush's one, while the surface covered in flicked ink is visibly narrower among the brushes.

Appearance
The Painbrush resembles a fan brush with a slit in its bristles. Its silver, metallic handle resembles a palette cup. On the handle near the bristles, the Nouveau logo can be seen, colored white.

Splatoon 3
The Painbrush was revealed on 2023-05-16 in the Sizzle Season 2023 trailer. On 18 May 2023, Nintendo revealed the weapon in a dedicated post on their Twitter. The post shows that the Painbrush will have Curling Bomb and Wave Breaker.

It rolls with a speed comparable to the Octobrush and also has more range. Though, unlike other brushes, which typically fling ink in a wide area, the Painbrush spreads ink in a much more narrow field, straight ahead of the user, similar to the Splatana's horizontal slash. At its maximum potential, it takes 2 hits to splat an opponent; since this can happen only when the Painbrush wielder is close enough to their enemy, this weapon takes averagely 3 landed splashes of ink to splat an opponent, still holding the highest power among the brush class.

Strategy
For competitive tips about the Painbrush

Badges
Reaching certain Freshness levels with the Painbrush will reward the player with special badges that they can use on their Splashtag.

Etymology
Painbrush is a combination of the words pain and brush while also being a pun on paintbrush.