Sub weapon

“	Divert the enemy with weapons like Splat Bombs or the Sprinkler. Pro tip: You can try out the weapons at Ammo Knights before you buy.	”
— Splatoon's official website,

Sub weapons are secondary weapons in the Splatoon series. They use considerably more ink than a main weapon, and as such, are less often used and usually serve more specialized purposes. Each main weapon has one type of sub weapon that it can use.

Usage

Sub weapons are deployed by pressing . If the sub weapon is throwable, holding down will display a trajectory to help the player aim the weapon. If the sub weapon is not throwable, it will be placed on the ground.

Sub weapons consume a great deal of ink, so it may be necessary to monitor the ink supply before and after deployment of a sub weapon. When the ink supply becomes sufficient for using a sub weapon, a sound effect will play and a red light will show on the ink tank.

List of sub weapons

Weapon	Description	Games
Splat Bomb	A basic bomb that explodes after a short period of time. It can be rolled or thrown. The explosion timer will only progress while the bomb is touching the ground.	✓	✓	✓
Suction Bomb	A bomb that can be attached to any surface. It explodes after a moderate period of time and has a larger blast radius than the Splat Bomb.	✓	✓	✓
Burst Bomb	A bomb that explodes on impact. Multiple Burst Bombs can be thrown without having to refill the ink tank. They deal less damage than other bombs; two direct hits or three indirect hits will splat an opponent, or they can be used in combination with the main weapon.	✓	✓	✓
Seeker	A bomb that chases a target before exploding. It leaves a trail of ink that the player can use to travel quickly.	✓
Curling Bomb	A bomb that travels in a straight line across the floor, leaving a trail of ink and bouncing off of walls and obstacles. It explodes after its timer expires. The maximum distance of the Curling Bomb can be shortened by holding the deployment button to 'cook' the timer before release. This makes the blast radius larger.		✓	✓
Autobomb	A bomb that walks towards any nearby enemies before exploding.		✓	✓
Ink Mine	A bomb that hides in ink once planted. It deals damage to enemies that get too close. As of Splatoon 2, the Ink Mine gives significantly less damage, but also applies a tracking effect to its victims, letting everyone on the user's team know where the victim is.	✓	✓	✓
Disruptor	A bomb that gives negative status effects to opponents. Affected enemies will suffer from reduced mobility and a reduced ink recovery rate.	✓
Toxic Mist	A bomb that releases a poison mist which causes negative status effects to opponents that come into contact with it. Affected enemies will suffer from reduced mobility and gradual loss of ink supply. Unlike the Disruptor, the mist remains active for a short time after being used.		✓	✓
Point Sensor	When thrown, this object explodes in a spherical cloud. The cloud tags enemies with a tracking effect that shows their location to everyone on the user's team.	✓	✓	✓
Splash Wall	A barrier made of falling ink. It blocks enemy movement and enemy fire.	✓	✓	✓
Sprinkler	Continually sprays ink in a circular area around itself in a staggering motion, until it is broken by enemy fire or the deployer gets splatted. It can be thrown onto virtually any surface.	✓	✓	✓
Squid Beakon	A device that allows the user and their teammates to Super Jump directly to its location.	✓	✓	✓
Fizzy Bomb	A bomb that is capable of exploding multiple times. The bomb can be held and shaken like a soda in order to increase the weapon's explosive potency, increasing the number of times it can explode.		✓	✓
Torpedo	A device that transforms into a floating homing missile when within range of a target. The missile itself is incapable of splatting an opponent alone but will deal a large amount of damage. The missile can be shot down by opposing players.		✓	✓
Angle Shooter	A marker-shaped projectile that shows an opponent's position if hit directly or by the trail it produces when thrown. It bounces off any wall it hits, leaving a small splash of ink behind. It deals the least damage of any sub weapon on a direct hit, and the trail deals no damage.			✓
Smallfry	A Smallfry that deals consecutive damage if directly thrown at an enemy or destructible object. If no enemy is hit it will instead distract nearby foes.			Only in Return of the Mammalians

Abilities

Abilities on a player's gear can affect sub weapons. The following abilities have effects that specifically focus on improving the performance of sub weapons.

Ability	Effect	Games
Bomb Range Up	Allows bombs, Point Sensors, and Disruptors to travel farther when thrown.	✓
Damage Up	Increases damage dealt by weapons.	✓
Ink Saver (Sub)	Reduces the amount of ink consumed by sub weapons.	✓	✓	✓
Sub Power Up	Improves the performance of each sub weapon in multiple ways.		✓	✓
Sub Resistance Up	Reduces effects and damage from sub weapons.			✓

Gallery

Splatoon

• 

  Splat Bomb

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  Suction Bomb

• 

  Burst Bomb

• 

  Seeker

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  Ink Mine

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  Disruptor

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  Point Sensor

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  Splash Wall

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  Sprinkler

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  Squid Beakon

• 

  Concept art of various sub weapons.

Splatoon 2

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  Splat Bomb

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  Suction Bomb

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  Burst Bomb

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  Curling Bomb

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  Autobomb

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  Ink Mine

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  Toxic Mist

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  Point Sensor

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  Splash Wall

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  Sprinkler

• 

  Squid Beakon

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  Fizzy Bomb

• 

  Torpedo

Splatoon 3

• 

  Splat Bomb

• 

  Suction Bomb

• 

  Burst Bomb

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  Curling Bomb

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  Autobomb

• 

  Ink Mine

• 

  Toxic Mist

• 

  Point Sensor

• 

  Splash Wall

• 

  Sprinkler

• 

  Squid Beakon

• 

  Fizzy Bomb

• 

  Torpedo

• 

  Angle Shooter

• 

  Smallfry

Trivia

Audio from a LINE sticker with the thrown Sub Weapon sound

Audio from a LINE sticker of a Burst Bomb

• The Seeker and Angle Shooter are the only sub weapons that don't share the sound effect that plays when they are used with any other sub weapons. The majority of them use a distinctive 'throw' sound effect, while the Ink Mine and Squid Beakon use a different 'deploy' sound effect instead. These differences also reflect the different ways these weapons are used.
• There are two LINE stickers that feature the sound of a thrown Sub Weapon; one is of a Burst Bomb while the other does not explicitly feature any Sub Weapon.
• In a Nintendo Direct presentation about Splatoon just before the game's release, it erroneously states that there are 9 sub weapons, when Splatoon has 10.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	サブウェポン sabu wepon	Sub weapon
Dutch	Subwapen	Sub weapon
French	Arme secondaire	Secondary weapon
German	Sekundärwaffe	Secondary weapon
Italian	Arma secondaria	Secondary weapon
Russian	Запасное оружие Zapasnoye oruzhiye	Spare weapon
Spanish (NOE)	Arma secundaria	Secondary weapon
Chinese	次要武器 cìyào wǔqì (Mandarin)	Sub Weapon
Danish	Sekundær våben Sekundærvåben	Secondary weapon
Korean	서브 웨펀	Sub Weapon
Norwegian	Sekundærvåpen	Secondary weapon
Portuguese	Arma secundária	Secondary weapon
Swedish	Sekundärvapen	Secondary weapon

See also

Sub weapons come in sets with main weapons. These lists show which sub weapons come with each main weapon.

• List of sub weapon sets in Splatoon
• List of sub weapon sets in Splatoon 2
• List of sub weapon sets in Splatoon 3