Damage

Damage is the attack value dealt by a weapon. The health points (HP) of a player or object must be attacked down to 0 for them to be splatted or destroyed. Players have 100 HP. The Rainmaker shield has 1000 HP. Splash Walls have 600 HP, and naturally lose 85.71 HP per second.

Damage Up vs. Defense Up
The Damage Up and Defense Up abilities interact by canceling the effects of the other. If a weapon starts at dealing 52 damage per shot, it will still do 52 damage if the attacker is wearing 1 Main of Damage Up and the defender is wearing 1 Main of Defense Up. But if the attacker is wearing no Damage Up and the defender is wearing 3 Subs of Defense Up, the damage will be reduced to 49.6, forcing the attacker to land one extra shot in order to splat the defender. This leads to players stacking more and more of these abilities to counter each other.

Hits-to-Splat Tables
These images show the hits-to-splat for all possible match-ups of Damage Up and Defense Up, for weapons that deal consistent damage. Weapons that deal consistent damage but never have their hits-to-splat changed are: Aerospray, H-3 Nozzlenose, Jet Squelcher, Slosher, Sloshing Machie, Splattershot Pro, and Tri-Slosher.

Blasters, Chargers, and Rollers deal variable damage, so they are affected differently. The edge of a Blaster blast may become too weak to splat in two hits, and the edge of a Rapid Blaster blast may become too weak to splat in four hits, requiring the Blaster player to either use Damage Up or aim their weapon more accurately. Chargers may require an extra hit-to-splat if the player did not fully charge their shot. Rollers will have their effective range slightly reduced by Defense Up, which sometimes results in a different number of hits-to-splat.

Falloff Damage
If a player is fighting outside of the effective range of their weapon, falloff damage will occur. This means the damage dealt will be less, often making it necessary to hit an opponent extra times to splat them. This happens because ink is less lethal when it loses velocity, which happens if a player is fighting outside of the effective range of their weapon. When a player is fighting at effective range, a crosshair will appear when they point their aiming reticle at someone.

The Slosher and Tri-Slosher are least likely to experience difficulties related to falloff damage because their damage starts very high. Blasters, Chargers, and the Sloshing Machine are not affected by falloff damage at all. Falloff damage can be mitigated by using Damage Up abilities.

Passive Ink Damage
Stepping in enemy ink will accumulate up to 50 damage at a rate of 30 damage per second. The Ink Resistance Up ability reduces this to 30 accumulated damage at a rate of 12 damage per second.

Benefits of Reaching Damage Cap
The number of hits required to splat an opponent is determined by the base damage of a weapon. Weapons that need more than 1 hit to splat have a damage limit regardless of how much damage is stacked, as follows: If a player stacks enough Damage Up to approach these limits, then the player will have the potential to need one less hit-to-splat if the enemy steps on the player's ink color. The closer the player is to reaching a damage limit, the higher the chances of this happening.
 * 2-hit weapons have a damage limit of 99.9.
 * 3-hit weapons have a damage limit of 49.9.
 * 4-hit weapons have a damage limit of 33.3.
 * 5-hit weapons have a damage limit of 24.9.

For example, the base damage of a fully charged Bamboozler shot does 80 damage. If the player stacks 2 Mains & 5 Subs of Damage Up to reach the 99.9 damage limit, and if the enemy walks on the player's ink for a split second, there is the potential to splat them in one fully charged Bamboozler shot instead of two shots.

Examples of the other damage limits: Splattershot Pro has the potential to splat in two shots instead of three if the player stacks enough damage up to do 49.9 damage per shot and the enemy walks on the player's ink. Jet Squelcher has the potential to splat in three shots instead of four if the player stacks enough damage up to do 33.3 damage per shot and the enemy walks on the player's ink.

For damage limits on other weapons, see the chart below.

Damage and Related Stats
 Special Weapons are discussed in their own article.

Calculating Damage
a = Ability Points of Damage Up = 10 × [Number of Damage Up Main Slots] + 3 × [Number of Damage Up Sub Slots] d = Ability Points of Defense Up = 10 × [Number of Defense Up Main Slots] + 3 × [Number of Defense Up Sub Slots] A = (0.99 × a - (0.09 × a) ^ 2) / 100 D = (0.99 × d - (0.09 × d) ^ 2) / 100 When Damage Up ≥ Defense Up Damage = [base damage] × [1 + (A - D)] When Damage Up < Defense Up Damage = [base damage] × [1 + (A - D) / 1.8] Note: Splatoon rounds down damage values. For example, a calculated value of 30.39 damage should be rounded down to 30.3 damage.