How this Brotato weapon tier list was built
This ranking uses one source of truth: the 79 weapons cached in src/data/brotato-weapons.json, each with per-tier damage, cooldown, DPS, crit, range, knockback and price. Every number below is a field from that table, and where I quote a ratio — DPS per gold, hits per second — it is arithmetic on those fields.
Two caveats keep the list honest. First, the DPS column is base sheet DPS before your stat line multiplies it; a 108.5 DPS Fist on a character with no Melee Damage is a different weapon from the same Fist on a Brawler. Second, the table holds 48 melee and 31 ranged weapons, so melee gets more chances to appear at the top of a pure DPS sort. A tier list ranks weapons; characters rank builds.
The ranking rules:
- Base DPS at tier 4 is the primary sort, because waves 15–20 are where runs are decided and T4 is what you are holding by then.
- DPS per gold breaks ties, because a 40-gold Brick that beats a 210-gold sword changes your whole shop plan.
- Range adjusts placement by one band, because a weapon you cannot land hits with has a real DPS of zero.
- Availability matters: a T4-only Legendary is a lottery ticket, not a plan.
“Weapon stats parsed from brotato.wiki.gg and cached locally: 79 weapons, 48 melee / 31 ranged, with per-tier damage, cooldown, DPS, crit, range and price.”
The raw tier-4 DPS table
These are the ten highest base-DPS weapons at tier 4 in the cached table. Cooldown is seconds between attacks, so a lower number means a faster weapon.
| Weapon | Class tags | Damage | Cooldown | Base DPS | Range | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excalibur | Blade/Legendary | 200 | 0.66s | 303 | 200 | 230 |
| Scythe | Ethereal/Legendary | 150 | 0.72s | 208.3 | 250 | 285 |
| Gatling Laser | Heavy/Legendary | 10 | 0.073s | 137 | 500 | 290 |
| Flaming Brass Knuckles | Elemental/Unarmed | 80 | 0.59s | 135.6 | 150 | 173 |
| Power Fist | Explosive/Unarmed | 80 | 0.59s | 135.6 | 150 | 221 |
| Obliterator | Gun/Heavy | 400 | 3.23s | 123.8 | 1000 | 255 |
| Fist | Unarmed | 64 | 0.59s | 108.5 | 150 | 91 |
| War Hammer | Blunt/Tool | 200 | 1.95s | 102.6 | 200 | 255 |
| Brick | Blunt | 120 | 1.39s | 86.3 | 150 | 40 |
| Captain’s Sword | Blade/Naval | 80 | 0.95s | 84.2 | 200 | 210 |
Read the far right column before the middle one. Excalibur costs 230 gold; Brick costs 40 for 28% of the DPS. That gap is the entire shop economy in one row.
S tier — carry weapons that justify their slot
Excalibur (303 DPS, 200 damage, 0.66s) is the ceiling of the dataset and the only weapon that clears 300 base DPS. It is T4-only and Legendary-tagged, so the realistic plan is not “buy Excalibur” but “do not skip the Legendary roll in the late shop”. Range 200 and knockback 5 make it a front-line Blade, not a kite tool.
Fist is the tier’s real winner for most runs: 108.5 DPS at 91 gold, knockback 15 — tied with Flaming Brass Knuckles and Power Fist, and behind only War Hammer’s 25 in the top ten — and it is available from T1 at 10 gold. You can start with a Fist, keep it, and upgrade it on your own schedule. Three Fists at T4 cost 273 gold and put 325.5 base DPS on the field, which is more than Excalibur’s 303 for 230 gold, at a lower total price.
Brick (86.3 DPS, 40 gold, 2.16 DPS/gold) is the best value in the game and it is not close. A T1 Brick is 21.6 DPS for 6 gold. A Blunt Brick start is nearly free, and the 40-gold T4 upgrade delivers 28% of Excalibur’s DPS for 17% of its price. If a shop offers Brick into a free slot, the math is already done.
A tier — strong, conditional on tags
Scythe (208.3 DPS, 285 gold, range 250) is the second-highest DPS and the longest-reaching melee weapon in the top ten. Ethereal tag plus T4-only makes it a Ghost-adjacent pick rather than a general one.
Gatling Laser (137 DPS, 0.073s cooldown) fires roughly 13.7 times per second for 10 damage a hit. That is the fastest cooldown in the dataset, and it wants flat damage bonuses rather than crit — at 13.7 hits per second, one extra point of damage compounds hard.
Obliterator (400 damage, 3.23s, 123.8 DPS, range 1000) is the hardest single hit in the table. Range 1000 matches Sniper Gun’s T4 reach and doubles it as a boss opener.
Power Fist and Flaming Brass Knuckles share the same 80 damage / 0.59s frame for 135.6 DPS. Power Fist costs 48 more gold for the Explosive tag; Flaming Brass Knuckles brings Elemental at 173. Pick by your stat line, not the price tag.
B tier — value picks and role players
Captain’s Sword (84.2 DPS, 210 gold) returns 0.40 DPS per gold, the worst ratio in the top ten — but Blade/Naval with range 200 and 80 damage per swing makes it a strong single-target finisher for Naval builds.
War Hammer (102.6 DPS, 200 damage, 1.95s) is a Blunt/Tool two-hander that also feeds Engineering characters through the Tool tag. It is the only Tool-tagged weapon in the top ten, which is what Engineering characters read.
Revolver (67.2 DPS, 130 gold, range 450) and Pistol (57.5 DPS, 91 gold, range 400, 25% crit at T4) are the efficient Gun options. Pistol’s 0.632 DPS/gold beats every non-Legendary Blade weapon in the table.
C tier — niche, filler, or trap
Sniper Gun (33.3 DPS, 245 gold, 20% crit on an x4 multiplier at T4) has the lowest DPS-per-gold in the Gun class at 0.136, and it earns its place only on range: 1000 at T4 is the longest reach in the dataset. As a damage source it loses to a 91-gold Pistol. As a “delete the elite before it closes” tool it has no substitute.
Ghost Flint (18.9 DPS at T4, 105 gold) returns 0.18 DPS per gold, which ranks in the bottom third of the table. Its value is the Ethereal tag and a 3% x2 crit frame, not its sheet number.
Stick (11 DPS at T4, 91 gold) exists to hold a Primitive tag early. Upgrading it to T4 buys less DPS than a T1 Brick for nine times the gold.
Reading the list against your character
The tier list assumes neutral stats. Your character is not neutral. Check the tags first: a Gun-class character multiplies SMG’s 53.3 DPS and Revolver’s 67.2, while a Blade character multiplies Sword’s 66.3 and Captain’s Sword’s 84.2. A 30% tag multiplier on the right weapon beats a 20% raw DPS advantage on the wrong one.
Then check range against how you actually play. Melee range clusters at 150 for Fist, Brick, Knife and Rock, 175 for Wrench and Stick, 200 for Sword and Captain’s Sword, and 250 for Scythe. Ranged clusters at 300 for Slingshot and Rail Gun, 350 for Double Barrel Shotgun, 400 for SMG and Pistol, 450 for Revolver, 500 for Potato Thrower, and 800–1000 for Sniper Gun. If you kite, a 150-range weapon is a dead slot regardless of its DPS column.
Finally, weigh the tier availability column. Weapons that start at T3 or T4 — Chainsaw, Captain’s Sword, Minigun, Sniper Gun, Scythe, Excalibur — cannot be your wave-1 plan. Weapons with all four tiers, such as Fist, Brick, SMG, Pistol, Slingshot and Knife, give you a cheap entry and a clear upgrade path. That path is usually worth more than 20 extra DPS you cannot afford until wave 12.
Where to go next
Open the weapon database to filter all 79 entries by class and tier, then cross-check the tag math in weapons by class. If you are still choosing a starting weapon, how to pick the right weapon walks the range and DPS-per-gold decision in order. For the character-side multipliers, read the character database and the best characters tier list. Builds that assemble these weapons are collected in best builds and synergies.