The cheapest 300-range weapon in the game
The Slingshot costs 15 gold at tier 1, deals 10 damage per shot on a 1.22s cooldown for 8.2 base DPS, and reaches 300 units. That is 5 gold more than a Pistol (10 gold, 10 DPS, 400 range) and 5 more than a Fist (10 gold, 10.3 DPS, 150 range). It is not the best deal in the table.
But it is the cheapest way into the Primitive tag at range, and Primitive is a 10-weapon class with characters built around it. Twenty-three of the 64 characters list it as a starting option. At tier 4 it costs 122 gold for 20 damage and 18.2 DPS — and by then the honest comparison is with its own class-mate, the Javelin.
“Slingshot parsed from brotato.wiki.gg and cached in src/data/brotato-weapons.json: 10/13/16/20 damage, 1.22/1.17/1.13/1.1s cooldown, 8.2/11.1/14.2/18.2 DPS, 300 range, 5 knockback, 3% crit at x2.”
Every tier
| Tier | Damage | Cooldown | Shots/sec | Base DPS | Range | Knockback | Price | DPS per gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | 10 | 1.22s | 0.82 | 8.2 | 300 | 5 | 15 | 0.55 |
| T2 | 13 | 1.17s | 0.85 | 11.1 | 300 | 5 | 31 | 0.36 |
| T3 | 16 | 1.13s | 0.88 | 14.2 | 300 | 5 | 61 | 0.23 |
| T4 | 20 | 1.10s | 0.91 | 18.2 | 300 | 5 | 122 | 0.15 |
The curve is a straight, unremarkable ladder: damage up 100% from T1 to T4, price up 713%, DPS up 122%. Range and knockback are constants, so every gold you spend buys damage and nothing else.
Two facts make it feel worse than the numbers suggest. The cooldown barely moves — 1.22s to 1.10s is only a 10% faster shot rate across the entire ladder. Crit is 3% at x2 at every tier, an expected multiplier of 1.03, which means the Slingshot effectively does not crit.
The Javelin problem
Primitive contains two ranged weapons, and the comparison is not close:
| Weapon | T1 DPS / price | T4 DPS / price | T4 range | DPS per gold (T4) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slingshot | 8.2 / 15 | 18.2 / 122 | 300 | 0.149 |
| Javelin | 6.7 / 18 | 21.1 / 140 | 425 | 0.151 |
| Spear (melee) | 9.8 / 20 | 48.4 / 149 | 500 | 0.325 |
| Cacti Club (melee) | 9.0 / 20 | 44.1 / 149 | 200 | 0.296 |
| Hatchet (melee) | 10.3 / 10 | 71.4 / 91 | 125 | 0.785 |
Javelin delivers more DPS (21.1 versus 18.2), more reach (425 versus 300) and gains range as it upgrades (350 to 425), for 18 more gold at tier 4. Its DPS-per-gold is identical to three decimal places. If you are choosing between the two, Javelin is the better weapon and the Slingshot’s only edge is a 3-gold cheaper entry.
Then look at the melee Primitive weapons. Hatchet returns 0.785 DPS per gold at tier 4 — five times the Slingshot — and Spear returns 0.325 with 500 range. Primitive is a melee-heavy class, and its two ranged members are the weakest entries in it.
This is the verdict most Slingshot guides avoid: the Slingshot is the weakest Primitive weapon at tier 4 by damage efficiency. It survives on price and availability, not on merit.
Where the Slingshot actually earns its slot
Three narrow cases.
Wildling. The character carries “+30% Life Steal with Primitive weapons”, “You start with 1 Stick” and “You can’t equip weapons above tier II”. That tier cap is the key: Wildling can never hold a T3 or T4 weapon, so the Slingshot’s poor T4 scaling is irrelevant — its best legal form is T2 at 11.1 DPS for 31 gold. With 30% lifesteal on Primitive, that 11.1 DPS returns roughly 3.3 HP per second while firing. A real, if modest, sustain loop, and 300 range keeps it safer than the class’s melee options at 125–200.
Captain. “+60% XP Gain for every free weapon slot you have”, “+100% stats gained from level upgrades”, “+200% XP required to level up”, “+2% Enemy health at the end of a wave”, “+2% Enemy damage at the end of a wave”. Captain rewards fewer, cheaper weapons, and a 15-gold Slingshot that holds a Primitive tag without requiring upgrades fits that logic better than a 122-gold T4 anything.
Farmer. “+20 Harvesting”, “Harvesting increases by an additional 3% at the end of a wave”, “+1 Harvesting when picking up a consumable while at maximum health”, “-50% materials dropped”. Farmer wants to stay at range and collect, and the Slingshot’s 300 range at 15 gold lets it fill a slot while gold goes into Harvesting. Farmer’s starting pool includes Double Barrel Shotgun, Hand, Lute, Potato Thrower, Pruner, Quarterstaff, Screwdriver, Sickle, Slingshot, Spear, Stick, Taser, Thief Dagger, Torch, Wand and Wrench.
What 300 range buys you
300 units is the boundary between mid-range and long-range in the cached data. Melee clusters at 125–250. The 300 band holds Slingshot, Rail Gun and Ghost Scepter. Above it: Double Barrel Shotgun 350, SMG 400, Revolver 450, Potato Thrower 500, and the 800–1000 tier of Sniper Gun and Obliterator.
At 300 you hit enemies before they reach melee range but not before they cross most of the arena. Practically that means two steps of separation: you shoot, they close, you move. The 5 knockback helps only a little — Fist has 15, Wrench 20, Hammer 30 to 50 — so this is a kiting weapon that relies on your movement rather than displacement.
Wave plan
Waves 1–5. Buy at T1 for 15 gold if you need range and Primitive. 8.2 DPS clears the earliest waves adequately when paired with any second weapon.
Waves 6–10. T2 at 31 gold for 11.1 DPS is a 35% gain — the best upgrade ratio the weapon has, at 0.36 DPS per gold.
Waves 11–15. T3 at 61 gold for 14.2 DPS. At this point the Slingshot is behind most alternatives. If you have a Primitive stat line and a free slot, fine; if you are buying it as damage, stop.
Waves 16–20. T4 at 122 gold for 18.2 DPS is 0.15 per gold — worse than Spear (0.325) and Hatchet (0.785) in the same class. Only buy it if the Primitive tag is load-bearing and you cannot hold a melee weapon.
Boss waves. 300 range is workable against a boss. 18.2 DPS is not. Plan on another weapon carrying the damage.
Where to go next
See the Primitive class in full in weapons by class, and the cross-class ranking in best weapons tier list. The range-and-DPS decision process is in how to pick the right weapon, the Ethereal ranged comparison is in Ghost Flint build, and the cheap melee alternative is in Fist build.