The Best Ways To Farm Ability Chunks In Splatoon 3

The long-awaited release of "Splatoon 3" has everyone saying the same thing: it's the same good ink-splashing turf war fun, upgraded but not reinvented. The game brings back many beloved mechanics, like Table Turf Battle, with a shiny new polish, offering some great bonuses for returning players as well. The way the game handles gear abilities hasn't changed much, either. Gear pieces still have a main ability as well as sub-ability slots that can be filled with bonus skills. These abilities are either rolled randomly through gaining experience in Turf War or Anarchy battle game modes, or hand-picked by using Ability Chunks of the desired ability.

However, one new mechanic in "Splatoon 3" is that Ability Chunks can also be used to swap out the main ability as well as the sub-ability slots — where previously, main abilities were set in stone for each individual item. As such, this makes Ability Chunks more valuable than ever to farm for players wanting to curate their perfect piece of gear. Thankfully, they aren't too hard to get — here's a rundown on the easiest and fastest ways to farm Ability Chunks in "Splatoon 3."

The most basic method of farming Ability Chunks is to grind Salmon Run Next Wave. This game mode is a direct carry-over of the Salmon Run matches in "Splatoon 2" — however, the crucial difference is that Salmon Run is always available in "Splatoon 3," making it a reliable source of Ability Chunk farming. How it works is that, after each successful match, the player receives an amount of Grizzco points based on how well they performed. These points fill up a bonus meter that gives out a reward every 100 points in the form of the featured Salmon Run gear piece or capsules that can contain cash, drink tickets, food tickets, and ability chunks.

However, the main focus of this farming method relies on the fact that you can only have one piece of the featured gear at a time, and are given the option to chunk the new gear piece (or the old one to make room for the new version) to receive Ability Chunks in exchange. Furthermore, after reaching 1200 Grizzco points, players are consistently rewarded the featured gear every 200 points (and every 400 points after reaching 4000 points) — chunking a gear piece at regular intervals will get you a reliable source of Ability Chunks that isn't as grindy or expensive as some others. Still, the bonus meter resets every 40 hours, so make sure to check the rotation schedule by accessing SplatNet 3 through the free Nintendo Switch Online mobile app.

This reset, however, is the main downside to the Salmon Run method. Players have to grind their way back up to 1200 points again after each reset — not to mention the fact that the grind doubles after 4000 points, putting a soft limit on how much you can farm before you get diminished returns for your time. If this method isn't quite giving you the results you need, it might be worth keeping an eye on the calendar, as the other way to farm chunks involves making the most of the regularly scheduled Splatfests.

During the Splatfests, players gain access to the Splatfest Tee, a gearpiece with an extremely powerful ability as well as a massive discount on scrubbing. Normally, you would have to pay 20 thousand Cash to scrub a piece of gear with Murch, gaining an Ability Chunks per filled ability slot on the gear. The Splatfest Tee, however, only costs 2000 Cash to scrub, making it an incredibly efficient way of grinding for Ability Chunks. It also helps to use the Drink Tickets earned from Salmon Runs to boost the amount of EXP gained as well as your chances of rolling a specific ability. The downside, of course, is that the Splatfest Tee is unavailable between Splatfests. However, since the events happen every few weeks (per NintendoLife), you won't have to wait an abysmal amount of time for a chance to get big Ability Chunk gains.