Competitive:Ink Vac

Unofficial

Use
The Ink Vac is known to suck up damaging projectiles and inking droplets as well as the following sub and special weapons:
 * Splat Bomb
 * Suction Bomb
 * Burst Bomb
 * Fizzy Bomb
 * Curling Bomb
 * Autobomb
 * Angle Shooter
 * Point Sensor
 * Toxic Mist
 * Torpedo and Torpedo explosion
 * Ink Mine explosion
 * Sprinkler and Sprinkler of Doom droplets
 * Trizooka shots
 * Tenta Missiles' missiles and explosions
 * Ink Storm device when thrown and the storm itself
 * Booyah Bomb projectile and explosion
 * Ink Vac's ink shot
 * Inkjet shots and exhaust
 * Ultra Stamp (when thrown)
 * Crab Tank shots
 * Reefslider explosion
 * Zipcaster explosions (indirect)
 * Triple Inkstrike tornados (the inkstrike markers themselves cannot be sucked up)
 * Kraken Royale's jump and charge attacks (blocking them from approaching the Ink Vac player instead of sucking them in)
 * Rainmaker shots and explosion from the Rainmaker shield

The Ink Vac's suction vortex can also apply object damage to the following:
 * Brella shields
 * Sprinkler
 * Squid Beakon
 * Splash Wall
 * Wave Breaker
 * Big Bubbler

Countermeasures

 * The Splatana, Roller, and Brush classes can use their melee attacks, which are not absorbed by the Ink Vac, to damage the user. Some special weapons, such as Reefslider, Zipcaster, and Ultra Stamp can splat the Ink Vac user if their special makes contact with them.
 * Enemies can fill up the Vacuum and splat the user before they have a chance to fire the shot. Weapons with range and a high rate of fire such as the Crab Tank's normal firing mode, the Hydra Splatling, and the Heavy Edit Splatling can splat the Ink Vac user before they can fire the ink shot. Because of their longer range, they are less likely to get punished by the Ink Vac user's teammates.

In competitive play
For much of the game's lifespan, Ink Vac was considered one of the weakest specials in the game. It wouldn't be until Version 4.1.0 that Ink Vac would be considered much more viable. In this update, the radius of the Ink Vac's ink shot was increased. This increased radius allows the Ink Vac to clear more areas and even instantly gain control of some Splat Zones. Furthermore, with the release of the Ballpoint Splatling Nouveau in Drizzle Season 2023, this variant of the Ballpoint Splatling would start to see use by anchor players in some game modes such as Splat Zones, Rainmaker, and Clam Blitz, who were already accustomed to using its regular variant. Weapons such as the Jet Squelcher would also see more use by anchor players, with its Angle Shooter sub weapon also receiving a significant buff.