Splatoon: Snipers

Stop me if you've heard this one before. You're in inking turf, getting the whole area nice and covered. When all of a sudden, SPLAT! Your Inkling lets out a cry, returning to the spawn point. What happened? No enemy Inklings were near you and the game was showing no signs of lag. Then the camera pans over to show you the cause of your discomfort. 

Oh. You. We meet again. You, you, you, you! It's always YOU! 

Snipers are the bane of my existence in Splatoon. Having them on your team is great, especially if they happen to be quite adept at the talent. But when you're going against a skilled sniper, it can make for an unpleasant experience.  

Snipers have the greatest range of any weapon in the game, capable of splatting you without entering close confrontation. Even if they don't land a lot of kills, you should never take a sniper lightly because of what they bring to the team. A sniper can keep you at bay or worse, locked into your own base, allowing the enemy team to keep turf on the outside. Disposing of an especially skilled sniper can turn the tide in your favor and should become a high priority if they keep giving you trouble.

R.I.P. Unsuspecting Inkling. Splatted because he
didn't turn around.

I see a plethora of videos on YouTube about tips on sniping, but I've hardly seen any that offer advice on how to counter a sniper. I get it, lots of people love to snipe in this game, but it isn't everyone's bag so how about throwing us non snipers a bone? No? Oh, um, well, OK then.

I'm no Splatoon master but I do have a year's worth of experience under my belt and a B- on Rank that I sweat blood and tears to get. The least I can do is give my two cents on handling snipers.

Pay attention. I know that should go without saying but many snipers in Splatoon catchy their prey because they aren't paying enough mind. They can be so caught up with inking turf, splatting an opponent or getting on the tower, that they are totally unaware that a sniper has them in their sights. You get to see the enemy team before the match begins for a reason and that is to eye what kind weapons you'll be up against. The type of charger a sniper is using should be taken into account. The E-Liter's are a pain because they boast the greatest range of any charger. And the width they cover with a fully charged shot is nasty. You can quickly veer to the left or right to try to avoid being hit but more often not, you'll end up shot because they already saw you and it was too late. The one saving grace is that E-Liters has the laser sight so this can give you a rough estimate of their position. Splat Chargers are arguably worse than the E-Liters. The view of the Splat Charger is narrow and it doesn't have as much range, but because they don't have a laser sight, its very easy for these kinds of snipers to be close by and go undetected. 

As Peppy Hare once said, use bombs wisely. Bombs are an invaluable sub weapon in Splatoon and are my favorite to fight with. If you're using bombs, Bomb Up is a must for Gear. That extra range really comes in handy for chasing off snipers and really just in general. My preferred bombs are Splat Bombs but I can Suction and Burst Bombs are good too. If you've got Bomb Rush as your Special, you can always force a sniper to flee. Sometimes making a sniper back off is just as good as eliminating them because it can give your teammates a chance to move in. If you manage to somehow combine your Special with your a teammates, you might have a better chance of splatting them. On Moray Towers, a sniper was trying to keep us from taking over the middle area and advancing up the enemy side. I used activated my Splat Bomb Bomb Rush Special and force him to jump towards the center. Then, my teammate used his Ink Strike to bomb the center, meaning I had a front row seat to see the enemy sniper get splatted. 

If you've never used a Dual or Jet Squelcher, I recommend learning because these things are great for picking off snipers. The Dual Squelcher doesn't have the fire rate of the Jet variety, but the range is freaking awesome. On the other end, the Jet Squelcher has less range but a higher rate of fire. Alternatively, Splatlings are also effective against taking on a sniper's range, but they may take some more getting used to with the charge times and movement.

Snipers may want you to think that they are these unstoppable, team-killing juggernauts. They aren't. While the snipers posses incredible range, these players are squids like the rest of us and can be splatted like anyone else.