The four filters, in order
Most weapon advice fails because it answers the wrong question first. “Which weapon has the most damage” is the fourth question, not the first. Run these four filters in sequence and the choice usually makes itself:
- Tag match — does your character’s stat line actually feed this weapon?
- Range band — can you survive at the distance this weapon requires?
- DPS per gold — is the damage worth the shop slot it costs?
- Tier availability — can you buy it now, or only after wave 10?
A weapon that fails filter one is a dead slot no matter how good filters two through four look. The cached table makes each filter checkable instead of vibes-based.
“Weapon decisions are tag decisions first. The stat table stores damage, cooldown, DPS, range and price per tier for 79 weapons; every filter below is a column in that table.”
Filter 1 — tag match beats raw DPS
Start with what your character multiplies. The character data is explicit about this. Cyborg carries “Ranged Damage modifications are increased by 200%”, “Melee Damage modifications are reduced by 100%” and “Elemental Damage modifications are reduced by 100%” — so on Cyborg, a Blade weapon is not a weak pick, it is a zero pick. The reverse holds for Knight: “You can’t equip ranged weapons” removes all 31 ranged weapons from consideration before you look at a single stat.
Once the class is fixed, compare inside it:
- Gun — 14 weapons. Best T4: Obliterator at 123.8 DPS for 255 gold. Best value: Pistol at 57.5 DPS for 91 gold.
- Blade — 8 weapons. Best T4: Excalibur at 303 DPS for 230 gold. Best value: Sword at 66.3 DPS for 190.
- Unarmed — 5 weapons. Best T4: Flaming Brass Knuckles and Power Fist, both 135.6 DPS (173 and 221 gold). Best value: Fist at 108.5 for 91.
- Primitive — 10 weapons. Best T4: Hatchet at 71.4 DPS for 91 gold.
- Tool — 4 weapons. Best T4: War Hammer at 102.6 DPS for 255 gold. Second: Chainsaw at 34.2 for 242.
Notice that Tool’s ceiling collapses the moment you exclude War Hammer. A 4-weapon class has no depth, so the tag is only worth committing to when a perk pays you for it — Engineer gets “+10 Engineering” and “You start with 1 Wrench”, which is exactly that payment.
Filter 2 — range band sets your movement
Range is the stat that decides whether you can play the build you imagined. The cached table spreads T4 range across 21 distinct values from 100 to 1000, but they cluster into three usable bands.
| Range band | T4 weapons | Examples | Play pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| 150 or less | 20 | Fist (150), Brick (150), Screwdriver (135), Hatchet (125) | Stay inside the pack, rely on knockback |
| 151–350 | 32 | Wrench (175), Sword (200), Scythe (250), Slingshot (300) | Mid-range circling, punish approach |
| 351–500 | 21 | Double Barrel Shotgun (350), SMG (400), Revolver (450), Potato Thrower (500) | Kite in a wide loop |
| Over 500 | 6 | Rocket Launcher (600), Sniper Gun (1000), Obliterator (1000) | Stand-off, kill before contact |
The largest single group is the 151–350 band at 32 weapons, and that is not a coincidence: it is the band where a melee weapon can still hit and a ranged weapon still has room. If you are unsure how a run will go, buy in that band.
Two specific numbers decide more fights than any other. First, 150: every melee weapon at 150 or below needs knockback to be safe, and Fist’s knockback of 15 is why it survives where a knockback-0 Chainsaw does not. Second, 1000: Sniper Gun and Obliterator both reach it, which is enough to start hitting a boss before it has closed half the arena.
Filter 3 — DPS per gold, not DPS
DPS per gold is the number that tells you whether a shop offer is a purchase or a trap. Divide tier-4 DPS by tier-4 price:
| Weapon | T4 DPS | Price | DPS per gold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brick | 86.3 | 40 | 2.16 |
| Excalibur | 303 | 230 | 1.32 |
| Fist | 108.5 | 91 | 1.19 |
| Flaming Brass Knuckles | 135.6 | 173 | 0.78 |
| Pistol | 57.5 | 91 | 0.63 |
| Revolver | 67.2 | 130 | 0.52 |
| Sword | 66.3 | 190 | 0.35 |
| Captain’s Sword | 84.2 | 210 | 0.40 |
| SMG | 53.3 | 149 | 0.36 |
| Sniper Gun | 33.3 | 245 | 0.14 |
Brick at 2.16 is the anomaly that should change how you shop. It is a 40-gold weapon with 86.3 DPS — more damage per gold than Excalibur, and less than a fifth of the price. If a Brick appears and you have a Blunt slot, the correct move is nearly always to take it.
Sniper Gun at 0.14 is the other end. You do not buy it for damage efficiency; you buy it for the 1000 range and the 20% crit on an x4 multiplier, and you accept that the gold is paying for reach rather than throughput.
Filter 4 — tier availability limits the plan
46 of the 79 cached weapons exist at all four tiers. That matters because a tier-1 weapon costs 10–20 gold and a tier-4 weapon costs 91–290. The gap is not a detail; it is the difference between having a weapon in wave 2 and having one in wave 12.
Weapons that do not exist at T1 include Chainsaw, Captain’s Sword, Minigun, Sniper Gun, Scythe, Excalibur, War Hammer, Mace, Hammer, Power Fist, Flaming Brass Knuckles, Gatling Laser, Obliterator, Rocket Launcher, Grenade Launcher, Nuclear Launcher, Plasma Sledge, Particle Accelerator, Flamethrower, Fireball, Thunder Sword, Sword, Vorpal Sword, Trident, Anchor, Blunderbuss, Harpoon Gun, Circular Saw, Brass Knuckles and DEX-troyer.
If your build depends on one of those, you need a bridge weapon for the first eight waves. The bridge should share a tag and cost under 25 gold. Real options from the table: Pistol (10 gold, 10 DPS, 400 range, Gun), Fist (10, 10.3, 150, Unarmed), Brick (6, 21.6, 150, Blunt), Hatchet (10, 10.3, 125, Primitive), Slingshot (15, 8.2, 300, Primitive), SMG (20, 18, 400, Gun), Screwdriver (10, 7.5, 135, Tool), Rock (10, 11.9, 150, Blunt/Primitive).
Putting the filters together on one shop offer
Say the shop offers a tier-3 Captain’s Sword for 110 gold and you are running a Gun character.
Filter 1 kills it immediately: no Gun tag, so no Ranged Damage multiplier applies. Filter 2 is fine — 200 range is workable. Filter 3 looks acceptable — 48.5 DPS for 110 gold is 0.44 per gold. Filter 4 is fine because you are past wave 8. But filter 1 already decided it, and buying it would mean 110 gold spent on a weapon that receives none of your stats.
Now say the same shop offers a tier-3 SMG for 74 gold. Filter 1 passes, filter 2 passes at 400 range, filter 3 is 0.40 per gold, filter 4 passes. That is a buy — and a T4 upgrade at 149 gold later brings it to 53.3 DPS on a weapon your whole stat line feeds.
Where the method breaks
The four filters assume a neutral shop. Three things override them.
Character restrictions. Knight requires tier II or above and forbids ranged. Wildling forbids anything above tier II. Both invert filter 4 entirely — Knight can never buy a T1 weapon, Wildling can never buy a T4 one.
Free-slot scaling. Captain gains “+60% XP Gain for every free weapon slot you have” and “+100% stats gained from level upgrades”. On Captain, filter 3 is wrong, because the empty slot is worth more than a cheap weapon. Buy fewer, better weapons.
Structure builds. Engineer gets “Structures spawn close to each other” and “+10 Engineering” with “Damage modifications are reduced by 50%”. On Engineer the weapon is a trigger, not a damage source, so DPS per gold stops being the metric and tag presence becomes the whole decision.
Where to go next
See the full ranking in best weapons tier list, then read weapons by class to check how deep your tag actually goes. If you are deciding what to buy instead of which weapon, shop guide covers the reroll economics. For the stat side of filter one, read how to get more damage and stats explained. Loadouts that pass all four filters are in best builds and synergies.