The Ghost Flint is a reach weapon, not a damage weapon
At tier 1 the Ghost Flint costs 12 gold, deals 6 damage on a 1.25s cooldown for 4.8 base DPS, and reaches 170 units. It is one of the weakest damage entries in the entire cached table. And yet 20 of the 64 characters in the roster list it as a starting weapon, Ghost included.
That combination only makes sense one way: the Ghost Flint is not purchased for its DPS column. It is a melee Ethereal weapon with a thrust attack, a 3% x2 crit frame, and the unusual property that its range climbs with every tier — 170, 180, 190, 200. In a table where SMG stays at 400 forever and Fist stays at 150 forever, a weapon that gains reach as it upgrades is doing something different.
“Ghost Flint parsed from brotato.wiki.gg and cached in src/data/brotato-weapons.json: 6/9/12/20 damage, 1.25/1.19/1.12/1.06s cooldown, 4.8/7.6/10.7/18.9 DPS, 170-200 range, 3% crit at x2.”
The full ladder
| Tier | Damage | Cooldown | Swings/sec | Base DPS | Range | Crit | Knockback | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | 6 | 1.25s | 0.80 | 4.8 | 170 | 3% x2 | 2 | 12 |
| T2 | 9 | 1.19s | 0.84 | 7.6 | 180 | 3% x2 | 2 | 26 |
| T3 | 12 | 1.12s | 0.89 | 10.7 | 190 | 3% x2 | 2 | 52 |
| T4 | 20 | 1.06s | 0.94 | 18.9 | 200 | 3% x2 | 2 | 105 |
Two rows deserve attention. Range scales with tier — 170 to 200 is a 17.6% increase in engagement distance, and 200 puts the Flint level with Sword, Captain’s Sword and War Hammer reach while staying inside the Ethereal tag. The attack rate is slow and stays slow: 1.25s to 1.06s is only a 15% shorter cooldown across the whole ladder, while damage rises 233%. This is a slow, long poke, not a flurry.
What 18.9 DPS at 105 gold actually means
Divide it out: 0.18 DPS per gold at tier 4. The Ethereal class has exactly 4 weapons, and the comparison is not kind:
| Weapon | Tags | T4 DPS | Range | Price | DPS per gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scythe | Ethereal/Legendary | 208.3 | 250 | 285 | 0.73 |
| Ghost Scepter | Ethereal | 36.1 | 450 | 122 | 0.30 |
| Ghost Axe | Ethereal | 26.5 | 200 | 149 | 0.18 |
| Ghost Flint | Ethereal | 18.9 | 200 | 105 | 0.18 |
The Scythe is in a different universe, but it is T4-only and Legendary — you cannot plan around it, only accept it if it drops. Among the three affordable Ethereal weapons, Ghost Flint and Ghost Axe are tied on efficiency at 0.18, and Ghost Scepter is nearly twice as good at 0.30 with 450 range for 17 more gold.
That is the conclusion most Ghost Flint guides skip: Ghost Scepter is the better Ethereal purchase in almost every situation. It costs 15 gold at T1 versus 12, scales to 36.1 DPS at 122 gold versus 18.9 at 105, and reaches 450 instead of 200. If your character can hold a ranged weapon, the Scepter wins outright.
The Flint’s case is narrow and specific: you want an Ethereal melee weapon, or your character cannot equip ranged weapons, or you need a 12-gold tag holder in wave 1 and nothing better has dropped.
The Ghost character turns it into a real weapon
Here is where the math flips. The Ghost character carries “+10 Damage with Ethereal weapons”, “+30% Dodge”, “Dodge is capped at 90%” and “-100 Armor”.
Flat damage added per hit is worth more, proportionally, on a weapon with low base damage. Run the numbers at tier 4:
- Ghost Flint: (20 + 10) / 1.06 = 28.3 DPS, up from 18.9 — a 50% increase
- Ghost Axe: (40 + 10) / 1.51 = 33.1 DPS, up from 26.5 — a 25% increase
- Ghost Scepter: (30 + 10) / 0.83 = 48.2 DPS, up from 36.1 — a 33% increase
Every Ethereal weapon benefits, but the Flint gains the largest percentage, because its 20 base damage is the smallest denominator. At tier 1 the effect is starker still: (6 + 10) / 1.25 = 12.8 DPS versus 4.8 — a 167% increase from a single character perk.
This is the general rule for flat damage in Brotato: it is a fixed addition to every hit, so it favours weapons that hit for small numbers. It also widens the absolute gap between Flint and Scepter from 17.2 DPS to 19.9, even though that gap shrinks as a share of the Scepter’s output: 17.2 of 36.1 is 48%, while 19.9 of 48.2 is 41%.
The “-100 Armor” line is the other half of the deal. Ghost cannot use Armor at all, so all defence comes from “+30% Dodge” and from range. A 200-range melee weapon is a strange fit for a character with no Armor: you are relying on dodge rolls inside contact range. That is another argument for the Scepter when you can equip it.
Building around the tag instead of the weapon
The Flint’s honest role is tag density. If your loadout already holds two Ethereal weapons and a stat line feeding them, a third Ethereal slot at 12 gold is cheap insurance. Ethereal is a 4-weapon class, so every Ethereal item you own raises the chance that the next Ethereal offer is usable.
The Ethereal-relevant characters, from the data:
- Ghost — “+10 Damage with Ethereal weapons”, “+30% Dodge”, “Dodge is capped at 90%”, “-100 Armor”. The only character with an Ethereal-specific perk.
- Lich — “+10 HP Regeneration”, “+10% Life Steal”, “100% chance to deal 10 (100% Max HP) damage to a random enemy when you heal”, “Damage modifications are reduced by 50%”. No Ethereal synergy, and the 50% damage penalty makes a low-DPS weapon a poor fit.
- Druid — “+5 Max HP”, “+15 Luck”, “33% chance to get +1 Luck when you pick up a fruit”, “-100 HP Regeneration”, “-100% Life Steal”, “Engineering modifications are reduced by 50%”, plus poisoned fruit. Druid can start with the Flint but gains nothing for it.
The character table is blunt: only Ghost has an Ethereal perk. On every other character, the Ghost Flint is a 12-gold melee weapon with 170 range and 4.8 DPS.
Wave plan
Waves 1–4. Buy at T1 for 12 gold only if you need a body in a slot. Do not upgrade. 4.8 DPS clears nothing on its own; the 170 range is the entire value.
Waves 5–10. On Ghost, T2 at 26 gold is a real step: (9 + 10) / 1.19 gives 16.0 effective DPS, more than triple the T1 base of 4.8. Off Ghost, this is the point to replace it with a Ghost Scepter or a Hatchet.
Waves 11–15. T3 at 52 gold gives 10.7 DPS and 190 range. On Ghost, (12 + 10) / 1.12 gives 19.6 effective DPS. Low, but 190 range means you poke from outside most melee exchanges.
Waves 16–20. T4 at 105 gold is the weakest upgrade in the class. The only reason to take it is the 200 range breakpoint, which matches Sword and Captain’s Sword reach while staying Ethereal.
Stat priorities
- Flat damage beats everything, because it bypasses the low base entirely. On Ghost, +10 is already applied; more compounds the same way.
- Attack Speed is the second lever — the 1.06s base cooldown is slow, and dropping to 0.9s is a 17.8% DPS gain.
- Crit is a poor buy at 3% x2, and worse here than usual, because crit multiplies base damage rather than the flat additions.
- Max HP and Dodge on Ghost specifically, since “-100 Armor” removes the alternative.
Where to go next
See all four Ethereal weapons side by side in weapons by class, and the cross-class ranking in best weapons tier list. The melee alternative with far more damage is in Fist build, and the cheap ranged tag holder is in Slingshot build. Character perk text is listed in the character database.