The spray gun is the least popular weapon in the game. Where the other guns are relatively straightforward, easy to use and have clear strengths, the spray gun's stats seem mediocre and its functionality too unorthodox for most players to pick it up.

The lack of popularity and knowledge about the gun results in misconceptions about what the spray gun is capable of, like the assumption that it's mainly designed for "support" usage, or that it's incapable of getting kills in PvP.

I've been extensively putting this thing to use in singleplayer and multiplayer. This gun offers something special that the other guns do not, making it a viable pick in certain team compositions and maps while also making it capable of carrying games if used well. I hope I can do it justice by breaking down its intricacies (as well as generally useful information about the game) in this guide.

At the time of this guide's release I tried to include all the relevant information possible, but I still think there is room for improvement, so expect to see some changes to the contents in the future.

With that said, let's get started.

The aims of the guide are as follows:

• help people become familiar with the spray gun
  
• clear up any superstitions and misconceptions surrounding the spray gun
  
• help people get better at the spray gun if they decide to ever use it
  
• contain any relevant information surrounding the spray gun (you can treat it as an encyclopedia, if you want)

The spray gun specializes in close-range combat like the shotgun, difference being that it is a DPS weapon. It abuses (or in a sense weaponizes) the soaking mechanic in PBS, and is capable of zoning.


No, far from it. Like every other gun in the game, it has its own share of strengths and weaknesses, as well as its own niche in the game. Mastery of the weapon is ultimately what makes you strong as a player, and you can get far with it whether you're having fun in singleplayer or trying to play competitively.


The learning curve for the spray gun is a bit tricky to define.

Anyone can use the spray gun in its most basic form, or at least grasp the concepts - all you have to do is just walk up to things and spray them after all, how hard could it be?

Actually using the gun well, however, is a different story. I'm sure anyone that used it is familiar how easily they died or got knocked down by enemies as they tried to use it. You have to account for spacing, baiting attacks, jump patterns, and generally paying a lot more attention to who you are fighting. You also have to think a lot more often about the choices you make as compared to other guns when you first start improving at it.

Ultimately, the more you understand how PBS itself works, and the more you get comfortable with the mechanics of the spray gun, the better you become.


If you enjoy the concept of the spray gun and want to main it, then it is worth the time and investment.

If you are a type that likes to use a variety of weapons rather than focus on mastering a single one, it may be better to just know the core ideas behind the spray gun, more specifically:

• in what levels does spray gun shine the most (eg. you'll have a better time with spray in Shinobi Estate as opposed to Peach Beach)
  
• when to use its firing modes
  
• what cards go with it
  
• how to pick fights that you can win

No, the spray gun works fine with its current range. Yes it is very short and some encounters can get very dangerous because of it. A slight buff to the range would do wonders for the gun. However, the spray gun works fine as is.

The limited range is made to balance the gun for its ability to cover a lot of area and zone out opponents. The spray gun can do a better job at holding chokes or objectives than any other gun in the game.


The damage on the primary fire isn't outstanding, but neither is it for the other guns. In fact majority of the weapons in PBS suffer from damage falloff, making something like Dual Pistols or even Gatling deal less than 13 damage at max range. Spray gun doesn't suffer from that.

Due to high water capacity of the spray gun, damage buffs can be easily applied, at which point its damage becomes close to lethal. Not to mention that your secondary firing mode, traps, deal 17 damage per hit, which hurts quite a bit.


That's totally fine if a weapon doesn't gel with you, as long as you just give it a try. At the end of the day, you want to use guns that you actually enjoy.

The spray gun simply offers a different playstyle, which just makes it fun in its own way. Understanding any particular gun simply takes time and commitment.


Not at all. You can impact the game with the spray gun even when playing without using any fancy techniques. Dashes simply help you be very nimble, which just happened to be my preferred playstyle.

The spray gun is just as effective even if you prefer to take things slow, being more careful and strategic with what actions you take. The spray gun will reward you for that. Ultimately, it's about finding the playstyle that works for you.


Although my experience with the controller is limited in PBS, the essential tech is very much transferable regardless if you are a mouse and keyboard or a controller enjoyer, so it's really just a matter of preference.

This section is about:

• The spray gun, at a closer detail
  
• How to use it, including some tech that you can do

The spray gun is a bit of a weird mishmash of features shared between other guns that adds something unique into the mix. Essentially what you get is an automatic close-range gun that can fire large but slow projectiles and stationary traps.



The firing modes of the spray gun (with level 10 stats listed) are listed below.

Important notes:

• 1 meter = 100 in-game units
  
• Both firing modes do not suffer from damage fall-off. It stays consistent regardless of distance traveled

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Release (primary fire)

Your main firing mode for close-range DPS, moving around, soaking allies and just about anything you do. It has low water usage, allowing it to fire for a long period of time without having to reload.

The spray gun's fire rate is decent and projectiles are easier to hit once in range compared to other weapons. The power of 13 is mediocre; while it can still hurt, if you're fighting mobs of enemies which have a lot of health, or if your opponent in PvP is using barrier, you can find yourself engaging in extended fights.

Release deals about 23 damage per hit under a 60% damage buff (5* Ryobi card). A damage-buffed spray gun can:

• kill players in 9 hits
  
• melt away 5* single Ryoki barrier in 14 hits,
  
• melt away Kagura barrier in 44 hits.

How often will you find yourself landing that many hits on your opponents? On mobs or against player bots - quite easily, since they don't pose a threat to you and don't make a good attempt at running away from you. Against real players? Depends on their skill, agility and threat level (i.e., how likely they are to kill you if you try to get near them).

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Set (alt fire)

The spray gun traps travel until they hit a target, then start dealing persistent AoE damage upon collision. The duration of the trap is roughly 1.8 seconds, and outputs 10 hits during its duration (170 damage total). They can also soak a group of allies very well.

With the 60% Ryobi damage buff you would deal 27 damage per hit with the traps, which is about 270 damage total. Soji attack speed buffs will let you have multiple traps present at the same time (the traps, however, will still do 10 hits during their duration).

This fire type is unique to the spray gun alone, as there is no other gun in the game that can create clouds of persistent AoE damage. The traps allow you safety and a variety of interesting strategic setups, such as:

• using traps as small zoning tools (eg. on chokes in closed maps, or on Capture the Bra flag point). You can get quite unpredictable with those!
  
• jumping in and out of a busy skirmish to try to spray trap as many people as possible
  
• placing traps behind you while you run away or kite somebody
  
• combining it with cards or melee (more on that later)

The traps are semi-automatic, slow to fire and have even less range than your primary fire. For those reasons you should avoid using it as your go-to and instead use it in combination with primary fire as you play.

In practice, you can pretty much derive the following pros and cons:

• has a high fire rate mode that is automatic
  
• large projectile size, making it easier to hit things
  
• traps provide good zoning capabilities
  
• great mobility (good jump type + decent normal dash)
  
• decent water usage with reasonably quick reloads
  
• best gun for soaking
  
• works well in closed spaces
  
• very good in Queen of the Hills and Capture the Bra
  
• doesn't rely on soak to be effective
  
• can tolerate most debuffs in the game
  
• flexible playstyle
  
• less demanding on good aim (generous aim assist)
  
• safe to use in a high-latency setting (multiplayer)
  
• improves team synergy and awareness of your allies

• this gun soaks enemies just as well as allies, making it a double-edged sword
  
• tricky to use; demands a completely different approach to the game
  
• half of its utility is specific to PvP only

• worst range in the game
  
• insufficient damage for Co-Op, needs cards to help
  
• the projectiles are slower in comparison to other guns
  
• can get bullied by guns with longer range
  
• can struggle in Team Battle and Squirmy Showdown
  
• struggles against flying enemies
  
• struggles in open spaces
  
• heavily card dependent (needs barrier and usually at least one attack card)
  
• fighting at close range can be very risky

In my experience, this is quite a mechanically demanding gun to use. To make the most of it you have to get comfortable with it and understand its strengths and weaknesses, which takes time, practice and more importantly patience.

With the spray gun, you can make it difficult for your opponents to react to your movement, and in some cases damage, making it a menace in closed maps and objective-based game modes. This gun is the best in the game at soaking allies, which means you get to position more aggressively at the start of the game.

This does come at a cost of being heavily card dependent, where a lack of synergy in your card decks can create unnecessary downtime, and certain gun matchups and maps can put you at a severe disadvantage.

This gun exercises your game awareness and tests your strategies, and when these things go well this gun feels quite rewarding to use.

The greatest challenges with the gun is being able to take risks and knowing how you can contribute to the game in worst-case scenarios, which can happen more often than you'd like. It can be frustrating, but overcoming such challenges is what makes this gun interesting and ultimately fun to use.

Originally posted by Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash/Water Guns, Kagurapedia:

TIP: When holding the reload button, there is a slight delay before you actually begin reloading, the length of which varies per water gun. This delay is skipped if you are airborne so it is recommended that you jump before reloading water guns with long delays, such as the gatling gun.

Jump cancelling is a fundamental concept in PBS and just about any main Senran Kagura game. Fortunately, it's quite easy to grasp: after just about anything you do, jump to cancel the end lag animation.

The main applications of jump cancelling in PBS is resource management with water and interrupting certain techniques, such as dashes and melee attacks. I will elaborate on these down below.

Dashes are extremely important. They can help you traverse maps quickly, improve your survivability, help get out of hitstun and knockdown, and render cards like Rin and Imu completely useless.

The spray gun rewards you for properly utilising mobility, which will very often be in the form of dashes and double jumps. Mastery of the two allows you to get on top of your opponents better, avoid dangerous situations more effectively, and allow you some neat engage/disengage tactics with traps.

Certain types of dashes that exist in the game are not obvious as they are more of an engine quirk than a legitimate gameplay feature, so the game doesn't explicitly teach you about them. However, getting comfortable with these dashes will not only improve your experience with the spray gun but also with any other gun.

How exactly? Let me show you:


Short sliding (previously referred to as "tap dash" or "dry dashing" in this guide) is essentially just tapping the dash key. This executes the brief dash windup, but doesn't actually dash you normally.

The short slide serves as a foundation to proper sliding, which will be discussed shortly.

Short sliding has the advantage of allowing you to travel a hefty distance while barely consuming any water. In fact in situations where you have no water, doing the tapping dash -> jumping -> reloading loop will allow you to refill your water capacity to the max while remaining vigilant, instead of having sluggish movement while trying to reload.

One annoying thing about the short slide is that it's easy to mess up if you mistime the jump cancel, so it takes practice to get fully comfortable with it.


Sliding (previously referred to as "instant dash" and sometimes known as "drifting") is a combination of tapping the dash key and firing that instantaneously propels your character at fast speeds.

A slide can be performed in two ways:

• Tap dash -> fire
  
• Fire -> tap dash

Note: you never want to hold the dash key while doing this, otherwise you'll slow yourself down.

Tapping dash then firing works for both semi-automatic as well as automatic weapons, excluding the gatling gun. It consumes the least water per dash, however it is also easier to mess up if you mistime your keys.

Firing then dashing is a safer way to slide, but it doesn't work with semi-automatic weapons.


This should hopefully highlight why getting comfortable with sliding is extremely important, if not mandatory, for the spray gun in particular. You have high ammo capacity, but normal dashing is so inefficient that it will just waste it all for nothing.

However, it is not to say that normal dashing is bad. There are situations where you need to dash normally for better control over your movement, as you can often overshoot when sliding.

Check out the video below for demonstration of some of the spray gun tech that you can practice. Explanations are listed below.


Release -> Set: You can toggle from release to set seamlessly. This only works in one direction though, reason being that release has a faster fire rate than set.

Being able to effectively toggle between different fire modes allows you to adapt to different combat situations much quicker, thus improving your damage output.

Melee cancel: Works on ground melee only. When your character is in a melee attack animation, it can be canceled by jumping. This is useful for two reasons:

• You can use melee as means of gap-closing to an opponent without committing to a full melee attack
  
• If your attack does hit, you can cancel the recovery animation, thus giving your opponents a smaller window for being able to punish you

Release -> jump -> melee: You can loop this attack indefinitely on your target, knocking them back while spraying them, until they hit a wall. This attack loop is helpful in Co-Op, where combining your melee with spray helps improve your damage output.

Set -> double jump: Simple but useful to practice. Sometimes you just want to seamlessly lay traps in the middle of a fray without wanting to commit to it, so being able to do it efficiently (that is, finding perfect angles in maps to time your jumps) helps.

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Tap dash: A useful movement mechanic that is applicable to any weapon. You essentially tap the dash key (without holding it) to create a mini slide. This is the PBS equivalent of bunny hopping. It's particularly great when you are low on water, as it doesn't consume much of your resource.

Release slide: When you shoot your gun immediately after tap dashing, you slide. A powerful movement tech that the spray gun makes great use of with its primary fire mode, and is most crucial to know if you want to maximize your speed, aggression, and disengage. Mastering sliding makes you very slippery and difficulty to defeat.

Release slide -> double jump: Being able to smoothly slide and double jump will allow you to outpace all the other guns in the game, with the exception of those buffed by Rin cards. Don't forget to reload your gun mid-air to cancel the animation lag you get when you land after your double jump. Mastering this will make you strong in Capture the Bra game mode.

Release slide -> set: Setting traps at the end of your slides is just a way of dealing damage while being slippery. useful in situations where you don't want to get too close to your opponent.

Release slide -> set -> double jump: Sliding and double jumps are a strong combination. Combined with traps, you can do some creative engage/disengage tactics while placing traps to deal damage.

Set slide: A disengage tactic for when you escape a fight, poke with traps or try to damage someone who is chasing you as you run away. If you have Soji attack speed buff, sliding with traps can be done more consistently, much to the same degree as release sliding.

Release slide -> set slide: Combines release engage with trap disengage, which is something you might find yourself doing when you are dueling or trying to poke people in PvP.

Set slide -> double jump: Can also double jump into a set slide as a form of ambush, but in either case it is a form of disengage.

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Melee cancel -> set: It's useful to get comfortable with the distance at which the gap-close dash is triggered when you melee. Melee cancels are just one way of landing traps in someone's face, which may be difficult in PvP but certainly useful in singleplayer and Co-Op.

Tap dash -> melee cancel -> set: If you are just out of range to gap-close to someone with a melee cancel, something quick like a tap dash can help.

Dash -> melee cancel -> set: Same as above, except you dash normally. Dashing normally can be useful too, as you are better control over your movement. You can then lock-on during your dash to redirect your character to the target you want to melee.

Tap dash -> dash (redirection): This is not useful in any significant way, but it's just a way of showing that tap dashing into a dash is possible, albeit finicky.

Tap dash -> dash -> melee cancel -> set: An application dash redirection to reposition your character, so that they can detect their target properly. Not actually useful in practice, but just generally good to know that it's a thing.

(A better alternative to this method of redirection is to just lock-on your character during a normal dash before you melee, but unfortunately I haven't captured that method on video yet.)

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Sound bug: If you switch firing modes while holding down the shoot button on release, the release sound will continue to play as long as you hold the button.


Some things that have not been recorded in the above video:

Air melee: Although mid-air melee cannot be cancelled, it has other interesting properties, such as being able to halt you mid-air. This can be useful in situations where you want to double-jump but stop yourself at just the right moment.

Pogo jumping: Pistol, dual pistols and the spray gun can double jump mid air indefinitely, meaning they can essentially pogo mid-air. This allows for strategies with the spray gun where you can place traps on an objective, such as point in Queen of the Hills, while staying in the air.

Release/set slide -> Jump -> Lock-on -> Air melee: A way to melee people from behind, without them likely suspecting it. Placing a trap in advance would mean that they can get knocked down into it if your melee successfully hits.

Additional movement topics that are less important but still relevant for achieving fluidity in movement mechanics of this game. Most notably I'd like to briefly mention the following topics:

• Knockdown cancel
  
• Lock-on movement
  
• Landing animation cancel

Knockdown cancel is when you get knocked down by a melee attack, a projectile, or something similar. The recovery animation is excruciatingly long. To get out of it quicker, just spam the dash key.

Lock-on movement or movement while firing your gun is different from moving normally in PBS. Normal movement (when you don't input anything other than WASD keys or joystick movement) interpolates the forward vector of your character and rotates it to where you want to go. Basically whenever you're walking sideways your character actually walks forward, just arcs their way towards a new direction.

Now say you are on a long, narrow crate, and you want your character to go back and forth without falling down. What do you think is going to happen?


With a joystick you have tight enough turns to move about the crate without falling, but on keyboard you likely won't be able to do it through movement input alone.

To resolve this issue, you simply lock-on or shoot. What this does is basically locking your character to face the direction of the camera, thus making your movement independent of your character's forward vector and letting you have more control over your movement.

Landing animation cancel is a bit tricky to explain because at first it may not seem like a big deal, but it can bite you in the ass if you're not aware of it.


As you can hopefully see in the video, when you shoot your gun then jump, the animation that comes up when you land interrupts your attack while holding the fire key. It's less noticeable with slow semi-automatic weapons, since the interval locks you in the firing animation and thus doesn't trigger the landing animation.

You want to avoid the landing animation by moving your character before you land. Simple.

The landing animation also appears when you double jump, but simply moving your character before your land isn't going to cut it completely. To be sure that it does however, is by reloading mid air. Literally just don't forget to reload mid-air if you don't want your movement interrupted while dashing and jumping and whatnot.

There are some important aspects of the game which are important understand to have a competitive edge in achieving what you want in PBS. Topics include:

• Hitstun
  
• Hitstun extension

This section is on the topic of cards, more specifically:

• Card ratings in the context of the spray gun, from best to worst
  
• Detailed explanations of individual cards based on personal experience
  
• Example decks for different situations

The spray gun relies heavily on cards since they effectively govern what you can and cannot do in a fight.

If you do not have any kind of buff cards or barrier, chances are you are going to be extremely vulnerable when trading with opponents, thus significantly risking in you dying.

If you have zero cards for utility, locking people down to enter your range will become more difficult.

Perhaps you don't actually want to use the gun for damage and just want to rely on staying far away and supporting your team with team buffs and debuffs!

These things can be achieved with the right card decks. Below I will be discussing the cards that in my experience have been quite useful in ranked pvp and co-op.

They are by no means perfect and have been built around my preferences with using the spray gun, therefore I encourage you to play around with customizing and experimenting with card decks that work for you. At the end of the day, PBS is about having fun.

Below is the spray gun card tier list based on personal experience.
For more detailed explanations on each of these cards, please see the Spray Gun Card Choices Explained sections.



Exceptional
These cards have long stood the test of time and proved to be meta and usable in virtually any scenario.

Useful
These cards are versatile and can be slotted in with just about any kind of deck. There is little drawback in using these cards, and ultimately the selection depends on your preference in playstyle.

Situational
This slot is reserved for cards that are potentially powerful in the right circumstances, but otherwise tend to backfire or not be as impactful.

Better alternatives exist
These cards have a common characteristic of being too unreliable or difficult to use. Not only that, but the cards above are guaranteed to yield more impressive results when they work.

Not needed
Similar to the above category except much less rewarding, if not redundant.

You're trolling
In a legitimate match, they can be either useless or detrimental to your team.

Co-Op Only
These cards have a legitimate place for spray gun in Co-Op.

Minori cards are meta in PBS. A major source of healing in the game, this card is useful in virtually any scenario. It is crucial on the spray gun since you will be taking damage constantly. It is extremely rare that you would need more than one Minori card in your deck, since a single card is already very potent.

- Single: Can heal you nearly to full health and comes at cost 1, making it a strong card. Cheap cost lets you bounce back into action much quicker.

- Team: Heals slightly less than the single variant and has a higher cost of 2, but helps your entire team. Valuable in PvP as it can save your allies from dying.

- DLC: A cost 1 team heal with a tiny healing amount. If you are very cautious about card cost and don't care as much about healing then this card is an option.

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A meta card; the major source of barrier in this game. Crucial for the spray gun; this card alone allows you to survive fights and close range while preventing you from getting stunned by crowd control effects (gun hitstun; attack card effects; melee; etc.)

Although it's entirely possible to get far with just Kagura barrier, which is cost 1 and has insane durability, having Ryoki provides additional safety in games.

- Single: Your usual go-to, as it is most durable (300 HP max) and comes with a reasonable cost

- Team: Usually not used as it is too expensive to deploy, but if you're aiming to play in a more supportive manner then this card is worth considering.

- DLC: A more cost-efficient team barrier with a penalty on durability (200 HP max). While it can be useful, you can quickly notice that 200 HP barrier is quite paper thin, and beyond protecting you from attack card harass its utility is a bit limited.

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Ryobi is useful on the spray gun when you like to play aggressively, benefiting both of the spray gun's firing modes to unleash some scary DPS.

- Single: Your go-to as it is cost 1 has the highest damage increase of 60%.

- Team: Seldom used due to increased cost and inferior numbers. It can help your team depending on their composition (e.g., damage buffs are not going to help gatling users for example, since they have to rely solely on reload buffs)

- DLC: Not needed. It can help snipers in your team one-shot, but it's not going to help the spray gun in any significant way.

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Ryona cards are ideal for use with the spray gun. Being a close-range gun, you want to be able to endure fights and survive incoming damage.

Damage debuffs help improve the lifetime of your barrier when active, as well as being generally useful for contesting PvP objectives (queen and bra) and crippling damage of dangerous matchups (grenade, sniper, assault rifle).

- Cost 2 variant: Max rarity card can achieve a 60% damage debuff. This is usually good enough.

- Cost 3 variant: Max rarity card can achieve a 90% damage debuff. This card is a bit overkill given the cost, and cost 3 can really slow your ability to cycle through cards. An experienced player is very likely to have a buff in hand that can cleanse this debuff. Ultimately, the choice depends on your personal preference.

- DLC: Same as 60% variant but with cost 1, making it really strong.

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Ayame cards are a source of invisibility in the game that behaves in the same way as a normal buff support card. Being able to conceal yourself helps the spray gun in particular.

- Icon invis: A strange card that hides your icon on the mini-map, as well as the enemy indicator that appears through walls. It has very niche use in PvP against experienced players that actually pay attention to the map, and those that solely target you and nobody else (which can easily happen). Outside of PvP, this card is useless.

- Full invis: Fully conceals you from both enemies and allies (and unlike Pontaro, it makes you actually completely invisible, with the exception of when barrier is active). Homing attack cards and Luka will not track you. Very strong effect, but cost 3 and short duration makes it difficult to use reliably.

- DLC: Full invisibility at a cheaper cost. This makes it very strong, if not overpowered.

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Soji cards provide a wide variety of buffs and debuffs to choose from:

- Attack speed buff: Playstyle preference. Spray gun interactions with attack speed are quite interesting, empowering your zoning with traps and ultimately letting you soak enemies and allies much faster. Can use attack speed for the "soak the enemy to death" strategies.

- Attack speed buff (team): Most guns do not benefit from attack speed, so I would avoid this card unless you know what you are doing.

- Range buff: Playstyle preference. Longer range on the spray gun allows for more safety and higher likelihood of hitting things.

- Range buff (team): I would typically avoid unless you are in a special match where this makes sense. Same goes with any other team buffs mentioned: use it on your team if you know what you are doing.

- Range debuff: My personal go-to on spray gun. Range debuff is strong in that it forces your opponents to enter your attack range. It also helps with dealing against shower gun users.

- Attack speed debuff: It sounds attractive, but in practice it kind of sucks. It only hinders some guns (especially the rocket launcher, and to some extent even the spray gun), while having no significant effect against others (eg. shower gun; gatling; single pistol secondary fire). Lowering damage with Ryona is generally more useful than lowering DPS.

- Accuracy debuff: If for whatever reason you're not using Bebeby or want multiple accuracy debuffs, this is the card for you.

- DLC: Not particularly useful.

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A strong PvP debuff that can hinder the ability of your foes to attack, fly and dash (unless they are soaked).

- Cost 1 variant: A nuisance debuff, decreasing reload by 30% at max card rarity. Doesn't really do anything, but because it's cost 1 means you can remove buffs from the enemy team more frequently. It can be coupled with homing attack cards, where using this will strip away enemy invisibility, allowing homing cards to hit whoever they fly towards.

- Cost 3 variant: A scary card when timed right. The 60% reload debuff has a low duration, but can make it difficult for the opponent when they are in a pickle and running low on water.

Do keep in mind though that spray gun can soak enemies, so if you attack a reload debuff enemy you may soak them and thus give them infinite water. This can be something you aim for intentionally or something to avoid, depending on your strategy.

- DLC: A cost 2 60% reload. Effectively a direct upgrade to the aforementioned Murakumo cards.

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Yagyu cards alter double jump behavior. Buffs are useless on spray gun, since this gun's double jump is already water efficient. Jump buffs generally aren't meta to begin with. The debuff, however, can be nasty.

- Single: Don't need this.

- Team: Don't need this.

- Debuff: A situational but potentially devastating card, depending on the matchup. Hopping guns such as pistol, dual pistols and spray cannot double jump under the effects of the max rarity jump debuff. Similarly, guns that hover or rely on long jumps cannot maintain themselves in the air, opening up more opportunities for ambush.

- DLC: Don't need this.

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Naraku cards provide a different kind of barrier, with significantly higher durability and stationary placement in maps. These cards are rarely used, but can offer some interesting gameplay strategies.

Naraku cards are strong in singleplayer content, as often time CPUs will struggle to effectively pierce through it. In additional, high durability is included even in lower card rarities, such as 1*s and 2*s.

I would avoid using it in Co-Op since it doesn't actually protect towers from grunt damage.

Do keep in mind that, as with Ryoki and Kagura barriers, Naraku barrier can also be shredded by shield-breaking cards (Katsuragi and Yozakura).

- Static (Green): The most durable variant at a somewhat manageable cost.

- Reflective (Red): This card variant is less durable but can knock down enemies when you cast barrier on top of them (assuming they are not protected with a barrier of their own). Very niche and rarely useful. Due to high card cost, I would avoid.

- DLC: Reflective barrier with a cheaper cost. Has some strategic uses, but is seldom useful.

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In PBS, melee is an art of its own. Hanabi cards attempt to encourage you at using melee. Given the close range nature of the spray gun, buffing melee may seem like a legitimate, albeit risky, option.

Given the fast-paced nature of PBS, landing melee in PvP matches is quite difficult, and forcing yourself to use melee often is the same as playing the game on hard mode. Melee is rewarding when it hits though, so ultimately forcing a melee playstyle is a preference.

If your characters deals about, say, 74 damage per melee hit (assume ground, but air damage would be different), then the damage would come close to about 118 with Hanabi melee buff. This damage comes close to that of a rocket launcher.

One thing worth noting is the spray gun doesn't offer any kind of crowd control effects, like hit stun, which you would otherwise get with guns like rocket, grenade, sniper and assault rifle. This makes melee on spray more difficult, and often times you can only land it after soaking somebody (only if you have barrier to resist power-up knockdown), or as a follow up to an attack card.

- Single: The only card you should realistically consider if you're opting for melee damage.

- Team: Avoid using this card. Melee buff is useless on most guns, so you're just making lives of your allies unnecessarily difficult.

- DLC: Avoid using this card. Literally useless.

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Kagura cards serve to debuff gun and melee damage altogether. It's a rather strange debuff as there is hardly a situation where both gun and melee damage are a problem - it's only going to be one or the other. For that reason I never bother using this card, as other more specialized debuffs outperform it to some capacity.

- Cost 2 variant: -55% on a max rarity card. Only loses 5% of damage reduction compared to a cost 2 Ryona, so in some sense it is quite strong.

- Cost 3 variant: -65% on max rarity. Given that the effectiveness of the debuff increases by 10% at cost 3, whereas Ryona or Shiki cards increase by 30%, I would avoid using this card.

- DLC: Weaker effect, but comes with cost 1. Never really used it, but it could be useful depending on your play style.

---

Haruka cards do not help the spray gun in any special way, as the gun is perfectly playable without soak. However, it can be useful for two things:

• If you enjoy spamming traps with Soji attack speed cards, soak helps
  
• Haruka buff can help manage your soak gauge, avoiding situations where you die from a badly-timed soak powerup (which could be caused by a foe or ally)

- Single: Your typical go-to option. Max rarity card will grant you 71% additional soak to your current soak gauge.

- Team: Avoid using this card. Not only is the cost ridiculous, but soaking your allies at a wrong time can literally get them killed.

- Debuff: This one is interesting. Since spray gun soaks very quickly, using a Haruka debuff may seem like an anti-synergy, but at the same time you can avoid shower and gatling opponents the opportunity to obtain soak themselves, since this buff is particularly strong on them.

It's a double-edged sword. Could be useful in some cases, but personally I don't bother with this card on the spray gun.

- DLC: Avoid using this card.

---

Daidoji cards buff gun and melee damage, at the cost of being more expensive.

I avoid this card on spray gun simply because of the cost, as it is a big deal in PvP. It loses in competition against most cost 1 buffs, which provide stronger effects anyway.

- Cost 2 variant: Your go-to card. This card can be used more safely in Co-Op and singleplayer, since you don't risk having the buff be overwritten as much.

- Cost 3 variant: It's a team buff. Given the cost and how melee is rarely used, I would avoid.

- DLC: Cheaper version of the team buff.

---

Reload buffs do not help the spray gun in any special way. Although traps can consume quite a bit of water, your base reload speed is already fast enough for it to not matter.

- Single: Can achieve up to 5 times the reload speed at max rarity. Strong card, but just not amazing on the spray gun.

- Team: Shares same multiplier as the single card. Same caution applies as with other team buffs. This card can particularly help gatling users in particular, especially in Co-Op.

- DLC: Same potency as a normal team card at a cheaper cost and slightly lower duration.

---

Imu cards affects water usage from dashing. Every gun has different dashing behaviour, particularly in speed and water usage, so dash buffs and debuffs affect them differently. That being said, the spray gun doesn't care about either of them.

- Single: The spray gun doesn't suffer from water usage problems. With mobility tech, this card is useless.

- Team: The dashing buff won't help your team in any way, I'm sorry.

- Debuff: Can bully guns with slow fire rates and those with poor water usage when dashing. Beyond that it's useless.

- DLC: Don't need it.

---

A fun card with very niche uses that can improve or hinder the dashing speed. This card is particularly useful on low fire rate weapons like the sniper rifle or rocket launcher, both of which can't use mobility tech well and must often resort to dashing normally.

- Single: Your go-to card. Although isn't amazing on spray, it's fun to use. Makes you extremely fast, which can startle your opponents whether you're ambushing them or escaping from fights.

- Team: Don't need it.

- Debuff: Not very useful against matchups that can slide.

- DLC: Don't need it.

---

Shiki cards reduce melee damage. Useless in PvP, but has uses in Co-Op and singleplayer content.

These cards are great in Co-Op in particular, as it prevent mobs from one-shotting towers between waves 30-50. Especially helpful for the spray gun since you don't have any immediate way of clearing out enemies. They are also great for supporting your allies.

- Cost 2: Weaker than cost 3, but still decent.

- Cost 3: The most useful variant of all, especially in late Co-Op stages.

- DLC: Weaker than cost 2, but its effect is also pitifully low. Has its place regardless, but don't expect it to save you at late Co-Op stages.

Some important general information on pets:

• Pets that deal damage target enemies furthest away from them
  
• Major categories of pets:
  
  • Normal
    
  • Destructor
    
  • Support
    
  • Walker

Normal pet cards are simply pets that stay alive for their specified duration (20 seconds assuming max upgrade) and shoot things while they are active.

Destructors immediately chase down an enemy in their line of sight upon spawning. They can be hard to use as they often miss or go after an unintended target. However, destructors are good when you want to get rid of pet cards as fast as possible to get your skill cards back in rotation.

Support cards are your typical buffs and debuffs, with healing and barrier as the two outliers. Due to being pet cards, they can be activated spontaneously, thus making them very strong.

Walkers are pets that put you on a giant walker vehicle and changes how your character moves and shoots. Press the taunt button to leave the walker once its duration runs out.

---

Puppet Ball
Normal

• Too slow to be useful in more challenging content
  
• Outperformed by Luka

Bebeby
Support

• Same potency as a Soji accuracy debuff
  
• Strong in PvP where accuracy greatly impacts most guns

Luka
Normal

• An exceptionally strong pet card, useful virtually anywhere
  
• High DPS and auto aim makes it meta in PvP. However, shots are easier to dodge the further you are away from Luka
  
• Helps the spray gun with additional range
  
• Can help deal with flying enemies

Ninto
Destructor

• Same as Puppet Ball but with a shock effect
  
• Outperformed by Luka

Amano
Destructor

• A destructor pet with a shock effect
  
• The shock effect makes it useful in niche PvP and Co-Op situations
  
• Targets furthest enemy in range

Kotaro & Kagero
Destructor

• Does most damage of all destructors
  
• Loses out in competition to other destructors due to limited utility

Hanzo
Support

• Gradual healing over time. Max rarity Hanzo heals 10 HP per second for 20 seconds, with a total of 200 health gained
  
• Weaker than higher-rarity Minori healing cards. Can be used if you need a normal card slot for something else

Baby Bat
Destructor

• A destructor with a poison effect
  
• Poison effect is great for PvP and in any scenario where you need to cripple a target with a lot of health

Kagura (barrier)
Support

• Exceptionally strong pet card. 1000 durability is insanely good
  
• Spray gun loves this card
  
• Watch out for shield breaking cards
  
• Duration of the barrier is less compared to Ryoki cards

Ushiwakamaru
Normal

• Very little range makes this pet practically useless
  
• Need further testing to see if it actually works

Pontaro
Support

• Cheap complete invisibility, very valuable
  
• Strong in PvP and singleplayer content. Helps spray in particular, since fighting up close while invisible makes it harder for enemies to lock onto you with aim assist
  
• I don't recommend using invisibility in Co-Op, since cloaking yourself means enemies will instead target towers

Puppet Walker (Wood/Red/Green/Black/White)
Walker

• Absolutely useless cost 10 cards with little reward
  
• You can dash very fast
  
• You cannot cast cards while the walker is self-destructing

Yumi
- Strong homing and trap cards, but poor bouncing card
- Provide great utility for yourself and allies with its ability to freeze hit targets
- Has strong synergy with the spray gun, allowing you get in range of the opponent


Miyabi
- Strong attack card with a wide range of use cases
- Vortex has wide range, making it useful for capturing enemies
- Deals a lot of damage, often fatal
- Helps the spray gun get in range and confirm kills

Homura
- A high damage card and a source of burn
- Homing variant good; trap is okay; bouncing is unreliable
- No special synergy with the spray gun, but helps with poking enemies from far away


Hikage
- Functions the same way as Homura cards, except it's slower and harder to see
- Low visibility makes it applicable in PvP for catching people by surprise
- Less likely to catch people from far away due to being slow, so better used in the middle of the fight or at closer proximity

Yozakura
- A heavy-duty shield-breaking card
- Can be scary to deal with in PvP, and is very effective at contesting bra and hills objectives in PvP
- Very expensive to deploy, so must be used cautiously

Katsuragi
- A lightweight shield-breaking card with the ability to knockdown enemies
- Due to its cheap cost and short cast time, it has synergy with the spray gun and can be used in the middle of PvP skirmishes to strip away enemy barriers
- Can be used in Co-Op to push enemies away from towers
- Ranged variant is useless, do not use it

Hibari
- Functions like a Yumi card, but slower and with the inferior zapping effect
- If an enemy got zapped in the middle of the dash, they continue to dash very fast across the map (colloquially known as "giving them a taxi"). Often times that's not really what you want


Mirai
- Volleys a bunch of projectiles in various ways
- Good source of hit stun and a general nuisance in PvP
- Bomb variant deals good damage and helps long range. Helps you contribute to fights from far away as a spray gun user
- Close-range bouncing projectiles can insta-kill after a melee strike

Leo
- Very long reach with many different variants
- Can hurt and hit stun enemies through walls
- Vertical variant can help deal with enemies in the air, albeit difficult to use
- Requires good positioning to use it well
- Weak against barrier

Murasaki
- A very unsafe attack card that can stun enemies hit for a long duration
- Can be used when contesting objectives, whether it's in Co-Op or PvP
- Only use the invulnerable variant for PvP. Can use the other one in Co-Op
- Difficult to use in practice

Renka
- An interesting attack card with the direct and range variants. A source of zap
- Direct fires in a straight line. Difficult to use in practice
- Ranged variant can be difficult for enemies to predict, making it decent for catching people in the air
- Useless against barrier as it doesn't do much damage

Yomi
- Pushes enemies away and serves as a good source of consistent knockdown
- Vertical tornadoes are impractical, but may have a special niche in Co-Op
- Horizontal tornadoes are good in Co-Op and useful in PvP
- Very expensive to deploy and leaves you exposed. Requires good positioning
- Weak against barrier

Ikaruga
- A smaller, weaker Miyabi with faster cast time and duration
- Smaller hitbox sizes makes its utility much weaker in comparison to Miyabi, thus less synergy with the spray gun when fighting people in the air


Yuyaki
- Hits things at close range and knocks them back very far
- The knockback has anti-synergy with the spray gun. The only time such knockback is helpful is if you're stalling time in late Co-Op waves and need a quick and fast attack card to do so (assuming Katsu or Yomi cards won't suffice)
- Weak against barrier

Asuka
- Lose in competition to just about every other attack card in the game
- Deal good damage against ground enemies, but their versatility is very limited
- Can technically be used in Co-Op, but in late stages their damage becomes insignificant
- Can theoretically pair well with a melee playstyle

Let's discuss how we can combine these cards together to make some powerful spray gun decks. Below I have listed the decks that in my experience have been strong with the spray gun and I explain why that's the case. Feel free to take inspiration and modify them to your liking.

As you play with people in PvP, chances are they will gradually learn your deck. For this reason it's useful to have multiple decks prepared, leaving your opponent guessing what your next move will be.

PvP Deck #1 - Mixed


An well-rounded deck with emphasis on damage. It's a relatively balanced deck with no card duplicates.

This deck hurts. Ryobi melts enemies; Homura helps deal with enemies from far away; Miyabi lets you catch your opponents, potentially killing them.

Misusing cards can create downtime and thus be quite punishing, so more care should be exercised when using this deck.

PvP Deck #2 - Card spam


Note: 1* and 2* cards are harder to react to in PvP scenarios since they don't have character voices associated with them like with higher-rarity cards, thus increasing your chances of landing them when the enemy least expects it. Although still weak and with limited variety, these cards still hold legitimate strategic value.

Less reliant on the spray gun, this deck is more focused on positioning to unleash damage via cards as often as possible. Even if cards miss, the low average card cost means you'll cycle through them relatively quickly. The cards give you plenty of range to work with to even punish people in the air.

A homing card-heavy deck struggles against barrier and invisibility. A debuff is handy for taking out invisibility from the opposing team. If you want a lower-cost debuff, Murakumo reload debuff and Bebeby are your friends.

PvP Deck #3 - Damage, extra barrier


This deck lets you be tanky (as well as make your friends tanky if you so choose) and allows you to deal some good damage. Can slot in a team Ryobi buff to reinforce high damage output of your entire team.

The only potential issue is the lack of debuffs. Can swap one of the Ryobi cards for a debuff if the situation calls for it.

PvP Deck #4 - Aggressive


My personal favourite deck, simply because it forces you to use the spray gun, thus accentuating skill expression with the weapon.

Katsuragi can be replaced with another damage buff if your heart desires, but personally over many games of running support card only builds, the need for a consistent damage card like Katsuragi became more apparent.

PvP Deck #5 - Trap spam


A quirky deck that emphasizes on the use of the secondary firing mode of the spray gun.
It's effective at the following things:

• more likely to put opponents in a badly timed soak power up state
  
• makes sure you don't get soaked at a wrong time with the help of Haruka
  
• stronger zoning power when you concentrate traps in a single area, dealing good damage
  
• discourages enemies from chasing you by sliding with traps
  
• makes skirmishes generally more chaotic with greater trap frequency

TL;DR: it cranks up the power of traps up to eleven.

PvP Deck #6 - Utility 1


A deck that makes consistent use of Ryona and Yumi. This deck lets you maintain the state of the game more often to be in your favor, while allowing frequent opportunities to catch people with homing cards.

This deck is exceptionally powerful in capture the bra and queen of the hill, but can struggle in team battle due to lack of damage.

PvP Deck #7 - Utility 2


Intended to be a variant of deck #4 that stands a better change against shower gun users.

I found the Katsuragi card to be great, as being able to shred barrier (or, even better, knock enemies down), allows you to get kills easier even if you are under an influence of a debuff.

PvP Deck #8 - Melee 1


A melee deck that makes use of Yumi to catch enemies. Immediately after Yumi lands, activate Hanabi then melee them for heavy damage.

Different characters in the game have different melee damage numbers (eg. Mirai melee does 74 damage; Hanabi melee deals 78; Yumi melee deals 71, and so on). Assuming we play as Hanabi,
melee damage under the melee buff becomes roughly 124. Paired with a 5* Yumi card, which deals 120 damage, we deal a total of 244.

If the opponent were to take over 56 damage prior to the Yumi -> Hanabi melee combo, it's pretty much guaranteed death for them. Just food for thought.

PvP Deck #9 - Melee 2


You catch opponents with Miyabi instead of Yumi, which pulls enemies at just the right range in order for you to melee them right after.

The only cards that would counter this strategy are Kagura barrier. You either bring a shield-breaker card along with you, or use the Miyabi -> Hanabi combo only after your opponent has depleted their Kagura barrier.

PvP Deck #10 - Non-interactive support 1


Support card abuse. You can build a deck entirely composed of annoying cards, and expect all the hard work to be done by your allies. This deck assumes that you never use the spray gun for fighting.

PvP Deck #11 - Non-interactive support 2


Attack card abuse. Focuses on damaging enemies from afar who are distracted by fighting your teammates or doing something else. Again, very annoying.


PvP DLC Deck #1 - Mixed


A balanced deck for PvP. Has enough versatility to be used in team battle.

PvP DLC Deck #2 - Close-range threat


Makes you a real threat at queens and bra. An extra Katsuragi card can be replaced with a debuff.

PvP DLC Deck #3 - Card spam


DLC homing card spam. Disgustingly annoying, since DLC homing cards are extremely overpowered in PvP.

PvP DLC Deck #4 - Cancer


Another cancerous spam deck. The idea is you deplete everything in order to get to barrier, buff and debuff combo, which together allow you to opportunistically use your spray gun.

You don't need healing because barrier and homing cards are extremely over tuned and ruin the game. Saying this from personal experience.

Note that this deck does struggle in queen of the hills due to limited safety.

There is a lot of customization that can be achieved in co-op.

The concern for high card costs is not high as you typically have plenty of time to charge them between waves (with the exception of puppet walker pets, since the games will often end before this card even finishes charging).

Co-Op Deck #1 - Carry


This deck can effectively solo co-op stages with the help of AI companions.

Miyabi and Katsuragi are very strong cards for co-op as they allow you to effectively force enemies away from the towers. You still need barrier to avoid getting stun-locked and from suffering too much damage at the later stages, but it does help you immensely. The Shiki card is best used in clutch situations, like for a last wave or when you expect a wave of very hard-hitting opponents.

Co-Op Deck #2 - Melee


A fun melee deck. Can replace Hanabi with Daidoji for a more balanced damage output.

Co-Op Deck #3 - Trap spam


Just place as many traps as humanly possible around a tower and watch your enemies melt. Still need Shiki for reducing damage and an attack card for some sort of stun, such as with Miyabi or Murasaki.

Co-Op Deck #4 - Maximum knockback


Just push enemies as far as you can away from your towers.

This section is dedicated to multi-splash PvP modes, of which there is free match and ranked.
More specifically, this section goes over:

• What the spray gun's role is in different PvP modes, reflecting on the win conditions and how to achieve them
  
• The different ways and play styles the spray gun can adapt to in PvP
  
• Example footage of PvP games for these modes
  
• Matchup-specific information

A couple important notes on PvP before moving on to this section:

• Use caution when soaking allies while in the middle of the fight, as they might get killed during the soak powerup animation
  
• since you have the worst range in the game, ALWAYS watch out for the soak powerup knockdown. If your barrier is down, it will screw you over. If an ally tries to perform a squirmy on someone near you, the tent that spawns can also knock you down as well
  
• if you recently started playing the game: level up your character first, then gun, then cards to prepare yourself for PvP
  
• It is strongly recommended that you take Minori heal and Ryoki barrier in PvP

To get the most out of the spray gun in PvP, it's best to understand the win condition to form your strategy around.

The PvP in this game is broken down into four game modes, with the scores calculated after the match timer ends:



Killing people with the spray gun is hard. Depending on the matchup, your engages can risk in you dying, or having to fight against opponents with guns too oppressive for you to properly get in range. People will often try to jump or fly away from you, so being able to track their movement becomes crucial in order to confirm kills.

Various strategies can be used for team battle, and in fact you might find yourself switching between them depending on the situation. Some strategies for killing players include:

• Aggressively chasing after your opponents and spraying them to death (depends on gun matchup and opponent's skill). If you can identify a weak link on the enemy team, this strategy will often cross your mind.
  
• Spamming damage cards is the safest but least reliable method of doing damage. More experienced players tend to get better at dodging and reading attack cards.
  
• Immobilizing them with cards to then get on top of them (most likely to guarantee kills). Miyabi or Yozakura cards are often good for that.
  
• Soak them to then guarantee a kill with an attack card.
  
• Let enemies come towards you (you don't force fights, but if they happen you'll be prepared for it)
  
• Not fight (prioritize survival). Good if you have a lead or just want to play strictly as a support for the team.

You can take risks in fights and search for opportunities to engage by playing around your cards, allies, and actions of enemies. You can also use your secondary firing mode more often when kiting around them.

Summary of the match:

• Don't miss Miyabi cards like I do :P
  
• Position well, look for engage opportunities
  
• I refrained from taking on fights where I was unsure if I would win
  
• Melee cancels can be quite difficult in practice

One important thing to note about Squirmy Showdown is that you cannot perform squirmies on anyone past the final 15 seconds of the match.

This gamemode is similar to Team Battle, with the notable exception that you have to perform squirmies to gain scores. Meaning you and your allies can play around saving each other, or at the very least protect you from getting squirmied while down.

Summary of the match:

• Be patient
  
• Positioning often depends on your current card roaster
  
• Place traps on enemies locked in the soaking wet buff animation

This game mode can either be good or bad for the spray gun. Your opponents will often be forced to enter your attack range, but equally you can be pressured by enemy fire from outside your reach when trying to cap points.

The advantage depends on whenever you are playing in a closed map or an open one; close maps are more in your favor while open ones can make you more vulnerable to gunfire. There are many ways to play around the two scenarios and try to win games, but ultimately you want to be able to pressure points while making use of your mobility and oppressive trap placement.

Summary of the match:

• Don't soak your allies at spawn; do it near a point if necessary
  
• Switch often between release -> trap, especially near the point
  
• When you have buff and barrier advantage on ground over the opponent, run them down
  
• Invisibility helps deal with Luka
  
• Can lock people down with Yozakura and Miyabi cards near points easily

Some things to keep in mind when playing in a Capture the Bra match:

• auto barrier persists whether you carry a flag
  
• the flag stays with you whenever you perform squirmies

Arguably the most advantageous game mode for the spray gun, but can also get quite complicated. Map knowledge for finding the shortest path to capturing bras is a big bonus here, as spray gun's mobility shines the greatest in this mode. Ultimately though you want to find the balance of when you need to chase vs when to defend the bra.

Depending on the map, you can focus on:

• rushing bra non-stop (if the map is small)
  
• defend your bra (if the map is too large to capture bras quickly, or you have a score advantage)
  
• hybrid of defensive and aggressive (depends on your team composition and tactics, or if members of the opposing team are down)

You want to be mindful of your health at all times in this mode when you think about stealing the bra. Because you start with the auto barrier ready, unless you get one shot by a card + sniper rifle combo you can actually apply a lot of pressure to the enemy flag by suicide bombing into the enemy base and simply running away.

If timed well the auto barrier will continue to protect you as you run away.

There are various ways to play around pressuring the flag, and your traps are particularly powerful at applying pressure or even when running away.

The biggest problems that can arise is if your team is out of sync (i.e., no one knows what they're doing), or the entire enemy team is camping your base, which can easily happen in a 3v3 scenario.

Your ability to defend the flag is not the strongest, as you can be harassed by guns with greater range and sometimes even card spam.

Summary of the match:

• If the map is small to medium size, pressure the base immediately at the start of the game
  
• Be patient (I wasn't patient enough at one point in the match while trying to cap the flag at low health)
  
• Positioning, tactics and game awareness are key to victory
  
• Knowing how to move is extremely important when playing around the bra
  
• Place traps around the bra to catch people off-guard
  
• Mirai cards can intercept player movement (flag carriers in particular)
  
• Once you have a stable enough score advantage, you can transition to playing more defensively around your bra
  
• If you are low health and carrying the bra, play around your allies
  
• Important to be aware of your soak meter, so that it doesn't backfire while doing something (in this case chasing after a bra carrier)
  
• If someone on the opposing team is down, you have an advantage in pressuring the bra

This section covers tips about certain gun matchups and how to deal with them, as well as debuffs that they would be particularly useful in such matchups.

• can be difficult to chase due to their ability to fly. Attack cards like Yumi, Miyabi and Murakumo can help in catching them
  
• they will often be forced to stay mid-range due to damage fall-off, unless they have the range buff
  
• their secondary fire (3-shot burst) deals a lot of damage, and in rare cases can cause hitstun. If they are buffed, approach with caution
  
• a skilled assault rifle user can follow up on hitstun extension very well, which can hinder your ability to move
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, range, jump, accuracy, reload

Limited experience in this matchup.

• they have flight and fast normal dashes (high water consumption), but other than that their mobility is quite subpar
  
• the shotgun likes the soak powerup due to its high water consumption
  
• their homing fire mode deals roughly half of the damage of their point-blank counterpart
  
• much safer to approach when debuffed
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, reload

• awkward to approach due to the extreme damage, stuns and unpredictability of grenades
  
• they can potentially shred barriers
  
• one of their weaknesses is limited range, which can be exploited
  
• unlike you, they can't remain in the air indefinitely
  
• you have superior mobility
  
• have debuffs in hand for approaching them, otherwise keep your distance or lock them down with cards
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, fire rate, range, jump

• the rocket launcher users constantly need to reposition due to the slow, clunky nature of their rockets
  
• they often use homing rockets, which will hit you if you position poorly
  
• although not immediately threatening, rockets can still catch you off-guard
  
• rockets can stun you
  
• they can't remain in the air indefinitely
  
• just all-in them with barrier
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, reload, soak, fire rate, range, jump

• a somewhat even matchup that is slightly more in favor for the spray gun
  
• at first their incredible range may seem extremely oppressive, but due to their low fire rate and poor mobility (and the need to be very precise to deal damage) you can bully them pretty consistently
  
• be careful if they have damage buff or attack cards that can lock you down
  
• they hate being debuffed as it can heavily diminish the reward / likelihood of their shots hitting
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, reload, soak, range, jump, fire rate, accuracy

Limited experience in this matchup.

• they have high damage, making it potentially tricky to approach
  
• their bullets can ricochet, allowing them to put you under pressure in closed spaces
  
• safer to approach when they are debuffed
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, range, jump, fire rate, reload, accuracy

• they can be potentially deadly with the soak powerup
  
• their mobility works exactly the same as yours
  
• dual pistols can only realistically fight at mid-range
  
• they deal zero damage when debuffed
  
• like you, they also hate dealing with opponents in the air
  
• they can be hard to catch, so damaging and immobilizing cards help against this matchup
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, soak, range, jump, reload, accuracy

Limited experience in this matchup (no one in their right mind uses the spray gun anyway, let's be real)

• the spray gun, pistol and dual pistols hate jump debuffs. They are unable to jump if it's on them
  
• just play around your cards, see if you got an upper hand
  
• unlike most other weapons, the spray gun can be useful for dealing damage even when debuffed (eg. accuracy or reload debuffs have virtually no impact on your performance). The more annoying ones would be those that lower your damage (unless you only care about damage via cards) or jump debuffs
  
• countered by Yozakura cards
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, range, jump, reload

• this thing will turn you into yogurt if you're not careful
  
• their range is equivalent to the sniper rifle, so range debuffs won't do much to them
  
• insurmountable DPS potential, so often times that alone is enough to make them very difficult to approach
  
• they don't need damage cards to be useful, only reload speed and soak
  
• don't force fights unless you have an advantage
  
• unless soaked, they hate jumping and being in the air
  
• can move very fast, but running out of water forces them to stop and reload
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, reload, accuracy

• I hate this matchup. This thing is a spray gun hard counter that deals stupid amounts of damage
  
• they can one-shot you with a damage buff
  
• range debuff is strong against them, but they will still deal a lot of damage if they get close to you
  
• their ability to fight on ground is awkward, so they prefer to be in air
  
• you can poke them with homing cards, like Homura or Yumi
  
• when their soak runs out, you can be prepared to catch them and all-in them with Miyabi, Yozakura or similar cards (can get pretty difficult depending on map)
  
• can technically get in air as well and shoot them down with Luka or if you have a range buff, but often times it's not going to do much
  
• their homing projectiles are slow and can be dodged with your mobility
  
• as much as they enjoy flying around, they are eventually forced to land when they are debuffed so that they can cleanse it
  
• DEBUFFS: damage, range, jump

This section goes over the role of the spray gun in co-op games. The following ways of playing co-op are discussed:

• Playing with others
  
• Solo with bots
  
• Solo without bots

The spray gun in co-op requires you to be creative. The spray gun is great for soaking allies, but beyond that the gun is hard to use due to the following reasons:

• lack of damage
  
• lack of range

Lack of damage means you can't easily clear late wave enemies by yourself, requiring you to get creative with how fend them off. Lack of range means it's hard to deal with flying enemies, but worst of all, you are likely to take damage from donuts, pool noodles, detonator explosions and drone fire because of it. In some cases damage is unavoidable, unironically requiring healing and barrier to not die. Indeed, the spray gun is quite a masochistic choice of weapon for co-op.

Additional general pointers worth bringing up with regards to co-op:

• focus on defending only a single point instead of all three during harder waves
  
• melee is very useful for knocking down enemies, preventing them from hitting towers
  
• some stages are harder than others

The spray gun works best in co-op when you have team mates that you can soak. With a competent team, games get a lot easier, allowing you to get away with virtually any card deck that you want to build.

It's good to have a mental clock for when you should soak your ally. Always be sure to soak them at the start of the game. Soaking wet buff lasts for about 30 seconds, after which you can seek out your allies away to soak them. There is no convenient in-game indicator whether an ally is soaked or not (their corresponding characters have a shine to them, but it is often hard to see). For this reason, it's good to have a mental countdown for when to soak allies again. As you play the game and get used to the momentum of Co-Op games, you will naturally develop this habit.

A common way to play co-op is unironically by playing alone. You can summon bots instead of players that soak you and play like your typical CPUs in other game modes. This is useful when you want to farm co-op for money but don't have others to play with. Additionally, you don't have to worry about net code issues that can happen while playing alone (e.g., when towers mysteriously take damage is a net code issue).

You want to ideally select CPUs with gatling guns for maximum damage output, such as Katsuragi, Daidoji, Abyssal Miyabi, and similar. While CPUs are helpful they of course can't carry the game for you. They are best primarily for soaking, killing weak mobs and baiting dangerous attacks. Overall they do make co-op easier.

An extremely masochistic way to play co-op with the spray gun and entirely depends on your individual skill. Arguably a little better than using a sniper rifle for no bot soloing, using the spray gun gets very difficult in late stages. However, it makes for a good challenge and can be surprisingly fun. It goes without saying that you need a max level character and weapon to have a chance at beating most maps solo (with the exception of Sakura Fields, in theory).

Some benefits of playing solo without bots is you have absolute control over the enemies' behaviour. If no towers are in their line of sight, they will chase you and do nothing else, allowing you to bait them and thus efficiently clear them. However, this is not always possible and entirely depends on how close enemies spawn to towers. A drawback of this is of course waves take much longer to clear.

Some stages are much easier to clear than others. Strategies depend entirely on level and enemies that you face in a wave. See below the rankings for spray gun solo stages based on difficulty from personal experience:


Clearing these stages alone will often require the use of different kinds of tech, melee, and preferably cheap cards that can push enemies away (Yuyaki, Katsuragi). Cards may be selected depending on the wave.

Some miscellaneous things worth bringing up in conclusion to the guide.

On a less important but equally useful note, here are some tips from my experience with using the spray gun and playing PBS in general:

• Press 4 to see stats their current health and buff/debuff status in PvP (only works in multi-slash).
  
  
• If your opponent suddenly disappeared from your view, don't forget to look up as they may have likely double jumped. The mini map can also be quite helpful in these situations.
  
  
• If you're looking to challenge yourself, you can create free match 1v5s against bots in team battle and see how you do. If that's not enough, you can create a brand new level 1 save, never level anything up, and try to complete singleplayer game modes on the hardest difficulty.
  
  
• Analyzing your own games helps, especially if you can record them. PBS often involves a lot of on-spot thinking due to the fast-paced nature of the game and the skill card RNG, so looking back on past games helps take things nice and slow and reflect back on how well the strategy worked out and what could be improved.
  
  
• If you're not sure what cards your opponent may have with them, be aware that certain cards have higher probability of being picked than others. Meta cards are very often going to out-compete others. Familiarity with card probability comes with experience.
  
  Some are going to be gun matchup specific (eg. Gatling users will almost always take Kafuru), or more general (eg. always have heal and barrier; some form of generally useful buff or debuff like Ryobi or Ryona; some attack card to pin people down for kills, usually homing ones like Yumi or Homura or close ones like Yozakura and Miyabi).

• Always keep track of what cards you have at any point in the game before you decide to do something.
  
  
• If you're thinking about fighting someone in PvP, make sure you have sufficient health or that you have barrier ready. Avoid reckless fights and try to not get poked out, as that could cripple your ability to fight until you can sufficiently heal yourself.
  
  
• Keep a close eye on buffs the opponent might have. If they are under a Ryobi buff, chances are they are going to be cocky and play more aggressively.
  
  
• My rule of thumb with building card decks is to have at least two buffs and one or more debuffs. The reason is because certain debuffs, such as Yagyu, can be extremely detrimental to your ability to get around some of the more complicated maps of PBS (eg. Bon Appetit Kitchen, Snow World). Being able to override such debuffs helps greatly.
  
  
• Don't neglect traps! I see new players that try to use the spray gun only use the primary fire, but not the secondary. Traps are really strong, and you should practice using them.
  
  
• Practicing dashes and switching between firing modes can really help. I recommend giving it a try in training room.

05/08/2022 - Fixed typos and wording across the guide
07/08/2022 - Added a tier list for pet cards
30/08/2022 - Modified Spray Gun in Team Battle section, introducing the idea of letting enemies come towards you
30/08/2022 - Separated cards and playstyles into two different sections; added some new decks and removed the Defensive deck for PvP (may come back to it in the future)
11/09/2022 - Added gifs for extra visuals; reworded the Introduction and About the Spray Gun sections to elaborate on my points better; replaced card deck images to no longer show optional cards (doubt they were useful to begin with)
08/12/2022 - The card tier list has been updated, but next I'm thinking about elaborating more effectively on the thought process of the rating and maybe showcasing (through videos or gifs) the performance of these cards with the spray gun
13/12/2022 - Made changes to the card tier list and renamed example decks in the Playstyles section
02/01/2023 - Made changes to the About the Spray Gun section by focusing more on the applications of the fire modes; removed the "Aiming" category from the mechanics section, moving the hitbox comparison gifs to the About the Spray Gun section
06/01/2023 - Added hitstun extension to the mechanics section. Added tips section to the guide.
03/04/2023 - Added a new PvP card deck
11/04/2023 - Changes in wording for matchups and PvP section; split the Spray Gun in PvP section in two, as I was running out of space when expanding the section
24/04/2023 - After numerous performance tests in ranked, added the so-called Utility v2 deck to the guide
30/06/2023 - Renewed the skill card tier list; added descriptions on card choices (WIP)
03/07/2023 - Extended the Spray Gun Cards section to talk more about the card choices; added more reference decks for PvP and Co-Op
06/07/2023 - Added the Q&A section
02/09/2023 - A big pending revamp of the guide structure, aiming to update the contents while making everything simpler and cleaner. Card tier list has been updated.
18/09/2023 - Updates to some of the guide terminology. A proper list of terms (among other important changes) will need to be composed eventually.
25/05/2024 - Co-Op and Pet Cards Explained sections has been added (WIP)
05/01/2025 - Added images to the Pros & Cons section for improved readability

Pending updates

• Go over more specific tactics and ways of using the spray gun
  
• Make the guide less wordy and easier to read
  
• Discuss pet cards