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Also see Nailgun (disambiguation).
The Sawblade Launcher is the alternate form of the Nailgun. It can be unlocked in [4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL ] by using the Electric Railcannon on the pool of water in the Chamber of the Feline and the Rodent.
Behavioral Differences[]
Primary Fire[]
The Sawblade Launcher shoots out saws that do more damage than nails and will pierce through enemies and ricochet off of walls. The main downside is that it fires significantly slower than the Nailgun while doing less damage per second.
The durability of saws will be slightly reduced if they bounce off terrain, potentially reducing their potential maximum hits.
Saws can be punched with the Feedbacker to double their damage per tick until the saw contacts a wall or enters a magnet's orbit.
Attractor[]
The Attractor variant will still fire out a maximum of three magnets that can attract nails to it, although now saws will also be drawn towards the magnets. Whereas nails will simply head directly towards the magnet, saws will instead circle around it, piercing any foes can come close to it. With a few exceptions, this makes it less useful at delivering high amounts of damage to a single target, but it works far better at dealing high amounts of damage to multiple targets, or making it easier to hit an enemy with a magnet trap.
The initial size of a saw's orbit around a magnet depends on how horizontally far the saw is when connecting to the magnet; the further the saw is, the larger its initial orbit will be.
The primary fire of the Attractor fires out special silver saws that do more damage than saws fired by the Overheat variant, have more durability (capable of withstanding over 15 wall bounces) and deal more damage to weak husks, but there is a limited supply. Compared to silver nails (of which a maximum of 100 can be held), you can only hold a maximum of 10 silver saws, which recharge slower than silver nails. A silver saw will also increase in damage by 50% multiplicatively with each fodder husk it hits. This increased damage applies to any subsequent enemy, not just fodder husks. Silver sawblade can pierce 2 enemies before before being destroyed upon third hit.
A single magnet can hold up to 15 saws. With the use of multiple magnets, the lifespan of a sawblade can be extended up to about a minute. Punching the orbiting sawblade will always land a hit, even if the actual sawblade is on the opposite side of a magnet.
Overheat[]
Unlike the Attractor variant, the Overheat variant fires out regular saws with less damage, less durability, and no extra damage on weak husks, but there is no ammo capacity. Each shot builds up heat with 12.5% increments, and as heat accumulates over 50%, the weapon will fire slower with less accuracy. The durability of saws is dependent on heat. At 0 heat, the sawblade can reflect off the surfaces 11 times, at max heat the number is 4. Firing the Attractor variant will also instantly build full heat. There is only one heatsink available compared to the Overheat Nailgun's two heatsinks. At low heat, a single sawblade can pierce through a single enemy before being destroyed upon hitting the second enemy. At 50% or more heat, the sawblade cannot pierce enemies.
The alternate fire will launch an overheated saw with more damage and extremely high durability, capable of hitting walls over 80 times while igniting enemies. The more heat accumulates, the more it will multi-hit an enemy upon contact. At near-max heat, it will multi-hit an enemy 3 times. It will also ricochet perpendicular to walls rather than at an angle (for example, hitting a flat floor will bounce it directly upwards). This could be used in closed-in areas to cause constant damage across a straight line or certain point. The amount of wall bounce does not depend on the charge level the overheated Saw was fired at. Without the heat sink, the primary fire's fire rate slows down even more and the weapon remains inaccurate.
JumpStart[]
The primary fire of the Jumpstart variant fires regular saw blades similar to the Overheat variant at a constant rate. Saw blades fired by JumpStart Sawblade Launcher can ricochet off surfaces 4 times and cannot pierce enemies at all.
The alternate fire fires a cable identical to the standard JumpStart nailgun. When plugged into an enemy, the fire rate of the JumpStart variant doubles. Hitting the plugged enemy with a sawblade from any variant of the weapon will decrease the amount of time required to "charge" the enemy by 1 second, allowing for sawtraps to instantly trigger the electrical shock. Upon reaching maximum charge (5 seconds if not hit by any sawblades) or killing the enemy, any nails in the enemy will explode, dealing additional damage to the target and any enemies around it as well as granting the [+CONDUCTOR] Style Bonus.
Weapon Location[]
The Sawblade Launcher can be found in [4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL], with its location hinted at in [4-3: A SHOT IN THE DARK] after defeating the Mysterious Druid Knight (& Owl). In [4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL ], after the first jump pad, there is a closed door with a partly open door to the right of it. The partly open door shows a glimpse into the Chamber of the Feline and the Rodent, which has a pool of water as well as a blue skull. Shoot the water with the Electric Railcannon and the closed door will open, giving you access to the weapon.
Pros and Cons[]
Pros:[]
- Higher damage per shot.
- Shots pierce enemies and ricochet off of walls.
- Saws circle around magnets, damaging nearby enemies.
- Overheat Saws can create traps that cover long distances.
Cons:[]
- Lower DPS without piercing.
- Saws orbit around magnetized enemies, unable to hit smaller enemies with magnets stuck in them.
- Slower ammo recharge speed.
- No form of Overheat Storage if using Overheat Saw.
Strategy[]
The Sawblade Launcher is much more suited to placing traps than directly firing at enemies compared to the Nailgun. As such, using the Sawblade Launcher primarily consists of finding fairly open areas where the saws will be able to catch enemies. If the area is particularly large, saws can cover a greater radius if fired far from the magnet in order to increase the size of their initial orbit. This greater radius can also allow for using the Whiplash to drag lighter enemies directly into traps, easily dealing with them. The Overheat variant's alternative fire can also trap hallways, due to bouncing perpendicularly.
Overheat variant can be used to create saw traps that move in a straight line. Due to the durability of a secondary fire's sawblades, they can bounce between walls for a while before being destroyed.
Saws have a high damage per second if they're all able to connect multiple times, which can be used to deal large amounts of damage to bosses or strong enemies quickly if baited into the saws. Bosses with cutscenes are naturally a prime opportunity to lay down saws.
The Attractor variant has the same damage bonus against weak husks as its Nailgun equivalent, making it extremely effective at picking off Strays, who will instantly die to silver saws, and to a certain extent, Soldiers, who take 3 silver saws to kill.
With good aim, saw-punching can maximize the damage output of individual saws. In particular, a punched full-heat saw will instantly kill Schisms, and will continue to do so until it runs out of durability, contacts a wall, or enters a magnet's orbit.
Attaching a magnet to Hideous Masses during their upright form and firing sawblades can kill them outright, or at least damage them heavily. It is due to their large size that the saw blades to hit their tail.
Although Malicious Faces usually avoid Sawtraps due to being airborne, magnets can be placed on nearby walls in order to hit them.
It's important to T.H.I.N.K. about the magnet placements. Poor trap placement can lead to one being caught out in risky situations, such as being closed in by demons and husks. In addition to this, placing a magnet close to columns and walls can cause saws to lose durability much more quickly, greatly decreasing the saws' potential damage.
For large opponents such as Flesh Prison, Corpse of King Minos and Leviathan, simply placing a magnet on them allows orbiting saws to hit them due to their size rendering them within the magnet's orbit.
Trivia[]
- The saws can be Parried to be redirected. This has no damage boost on its own, but deals extra +NAILBOMBED damage.
- Unlike the Alternate Revolver, the Sawblade Launcher has an actual name.
- It is also a much more drastic change on the weapon, as the Alternate Revolver merely increased power at the cost of fire rate, while the Sawblade Launcher outright changes the base weapon's projectiles.
- When the Sawblade Launcher was initially introduced in early access patch 10a, saws had no magnet weight and the Overheat variant could be tap-fired for little heat penalty, quickly resulting in Minos Prime being killed in a fraction of a second by tap-firing Overheat over the duration of the cutscene. The strategy was quickly dubbed 'Sawcon'. This was fixed in 10b, which also fixed silver saws increasing in damage off fodder corpses and the Overheat variant's alternate fire not breaking if it never hits a wall.
- Based on it's colorful appearance the Sawblade Launcher may be made out of industrial tools like the Railcannon and the Rocket Launcher.
- Based on this, one can assume the Sawblade Launcher may have been used for construction or logging purposes.
- Unlike the Attractor Nailgun the Attractor Variant of the Sawblade launcher can use its entire 'magazine' without breaking a magnet.
- Overheat Sawblade Launcher's secondary fire briefly stops when hitting an enemy. The more heat the sawblade was fired at, the longer it stops.
- In Jumpstart Sawblade, messages "Out of range" and "No target" are replaced with "Too far" and "Null".
- Upon obtaining a Dual Wield powerup, the launcher itself uses a different animation when it launches a blade.
Gallery[]
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