Gear ability

Gear Abilities, or simply Abilities, are special attributes that are placed on wearable Gear in Splatoon. They provide different effects depending on the ability present and their strength is based around the number of copies if they are stackable. Each piece of gear has a specific main ability which is the same in all possessed. Certain abilities, due to how their effects work, such as Tenacity or Cold-Blooded, are only present on a specific type of gear and cannot be rolled as secondaries. All gear has slots for secondary abilities, which are weaker versions of stackable abilities.

Secondary abilities are randomly chosen whenever a gear levels up, which happens when its bar is filled through battling; the points earned in the match go towards leveling it up. Secondaries give close to half the boost of a primary ability. Higher rarity pieces of gear take longer to level up, even on the first secondary abilities. The amount of secondaries that can be present on a single piece of gear depends on the rarity (amount of stars) of the gear. The more stars there are, the more secondary abilities it comes with. Up to three secondary abilities can be present, meaning that the highest rarity is 3 stars. Although seemingly random, some Brands make getting specific abilities either more common or less common. Spyke, who can be found in an alleyway in Inkopolis, will re-roll secondary abilities or increase the gear's slots in exchange for Super Sea Snails or 30,000 Cash.

Some abilities are ineffective with certain Sub and Special Weapons, offering no improvements. For example, Bomb Range Up has no effect on non-throwable Sub Weapons such as Ink Mines and Squid Beakons.

Stacking
Stacked abilities have diminishing returns applied, meaning that each additional ability of the same type will have a slightly smaller effect than the previous. As diminishing returns make it impossible for players to gain over-powered stats, it is undesirable to stack too much of the same ability. Abilities that have a small maximum effect are the least desirable to stack. For example, Swim Speed Up has the smallest maximum effect in the game at 25%, so diminishing returns become severe early relative to the other abilities. A player may not even perceive an improvement past a certain point, like after 3 main ability slots of Swim Speed Up.

This encourages players to wear a variety of different abilities, rather than focusing on one ability.

Mutually Exclusive Abilities
Some abilities can only be used in one main ability slot, preventing the user from having any others that require the slot. For instance, if a player equips headgear with Tenacity, they cannot also have Comeback. These abilties include:
 * Headgear:, , , and.
 * Clothing:, , , and . Because the Splatfest Tee must be worn during a Splatfest, none of these abilities can be used in Splatfest Battles.
 * Shoes:, , and.