A 16 DPS weapon that still earns its slot
The Wrench costs 20 gold at tier 1, deals 12 damage on a 1.7s cooldown for 7.1 base DPS, reaches 175 units, and pushes with 20 knockback. At tier 4 it costs 149 gold for 24 damage, 1.49s, 16.1 DPS — still 175 range, still 20 knockback. Across the entire ladder, damage rises 100% and price rises 645%.
By damage efficiency that is the worst curve in the Tool class: 0.36 DPS per gold at T1 collapsing to 0.11 at T4. And yet 20 of the 64 characters can start with it, Engineer starts with one by default, and four weapons in the table share its Tool tag. The Wrench is not bought for damage. It is bought for 20 knockback that never changes and a tag that perks read.
“Wrench parsed from brotato.wiki.gg and cached in src/data/brotato-weapons.json: 12/16/20/24 damage, 1.7/1.64/1.55/1.49s cooldown, 7.1/9.8/12.9/16.1 DPS, 175 range, 20 knockback at all tiers.”
The stat line, all four tiers
| Tier | Damage | Cooldown | Base DPS | Range | Knockback | Price | DPS per gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | 12 | 1.70s | 7.1 | 175 | 20 | 20 | 0.36 |
| T2 | 16 | 1.64s | 9.8 | 175 | 20 | 39 | 0.25 |
| T3 | 20 | 1.55s | 12.9 | 175 | 20 | 74 | 0.17 |
| T4 | 24 | 1.49s | 16.1 | 175 | 20 | 149 | 0.11 |
Notice what does not change: range and knockback are constants. The Wrench’s identity is fixed at tier 1 and you are only ever buying damage on it. That makes the upgrade decision unusually clean — if 7.1 DPS is not the bottleneck, 16.1 DPS will not be either.
The cooldown is slow. 1.7s per swing is slower than eight of the ten highest-DPS tier-4 weapons — Excalibur attacks every 0.66s, Fist 0.59s, Brick 1.39s — and only War Hammer (1.95s) and Obliterator (3.23s) are slower. You are swinging roughly 0.6 times per second at T1 and 0.67 at T4. Each swing is a decision, not a stream.
The 20 knockback economy
Knockback is where the Wrench competes. In the cached table, only a handful of weapons reach 20 or more:
| Weapon | Knockback | Cheapest tier | Price | DPS at that tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hand | 30 | T1 | 10 | 1.0 |
| Torch | 20 | T1 | 10 | 0.9 |
| Spiky Shield | 20 | T1 | 15 | 8.6 |
| Wrench | 20 | T1 | 20 | 7.1 |
| Hammer | 30 | T2 | 46 | 24 |
| War Hammer | 20 | T3 | 130 | 47.4 |
| Potato Thrower | 20 | T2 | 36 | 6.7 |
| Sniper Gun | 30 | T3 | 115 | 20.8 |
Read that table carefully and the Wrench’s position becomes uncomfortable. Torch gives 20 knockback for 10 gold with 0.9 DPS. Spiky Shield gives 20 knockback for 15 gold with 8.6 DPS — cheaper and harder-hitting than the Wrench’s 20 gold and 7.1 DPS. Hand gives 30 knockback for 10 gold.
So why does anyone run a Wrench? Three reasons, and only three.
Range. 175 versus Spiky Shield’s 150 and Hand’s 150. That 25 units is the difference between holding a line and being stepped on.
The Tool tag. Spiky Shield is Blunt/Medieval; Hand is Support/Unarmed; Torch is Elemental/Primitive. None of them is Tool, and Tool is what Artificer’s “+100% Damage with Tool weapons” and Engineer’s structure perks read.
Sweep attack. The Wrench uses a sweep, which hits across an arc rather than a single thrust line, so its 20 knockback applies to multiple enemies at once. That is the practical difference between a control weapon and a nudge.
Engineer: the build the Wrench was made for
Engineer’s perk list is the clearest build instruction in the character table: “+10 Engineering”, “Engineering modifications are increased by 25%”, “You start with 1 Wrench”, “Structures spawn close to each other”, “Damage modifications are reduced by 50%”.
That last line is the important one. A 50% damage penalty means the Wrench’s 16.1 DPS at T4 becomes about 8.1 — genuinely negligible. The build cannot be about the Wrench’s damage. It has to be about structures, with the Wrench as the Tool-tag carrier that keeps Engineering scaling online and provides 20 knockback to protect the structure cluster.
The play pattern follows from the stats. Structures spawn close together, so they form a kill zone. The Wrench’s job is to stand at the edge of that zone, sweep anything that leaks, and push it back into the fire. At 20 knockback and 175 range, a Wrench swing buys the structures roughly a second of extra fire time per enemy.
Artificer is the other Tool consumer: “+175% Explosion Damage”, “+4% Explosion Size for every 1 Elemental Damage you have”, “+100% Damage with Tool weapons”, “-100% Damage”, “Armor modifications are reduced by 50%”. The +100% Tool bonus is the single largest per-tag multiplier in the character table, and the Wrench is one of four weapons that receives it. Whether the -100% global penalty cancels it depends on stacking order the data does not expose — treat Artificer as a build to verify in-game, not a solved multiplier.
What the Wrench does not do
It does not clear waves. 16.1 DPS at T4 is lower than a tier-1 SMG’s 18. If the Wrench is your only damage at wave 12, you are losing.
It does not scale with attack speed well. At 1.49s per swing, a 20% attack-speed gain adds 0.12 swings per second. The absolute gain is tiny because the base rate is tiny.
It does not benefit from crit. 3% at x2 at every tier. Crit items on a Wrench build are wasted gold.
It does not upgrade efficiently. 149 gold for +3.2 DPS over T3 is the worst upgrade in the Tool class. If you are buying T4 Wrench, you are buying it for a reason other than damage.
Wave plan
Waves 1–6. Buy one Wrench at 20 gold only if you are on Engineer (free) or committed to a Tool/Engineering plan. Alone it deals 7.1 DPS against waves that need 20+. Pair it with a real damage weapon in the same shopping trip.
Waves 7–12. T2 at 39 gold is a 2.7 DPS gain. Skip it unless the Tool tag is load-bearing — 39 gold buys a T1 Fist (10.3 DPS), a T1 Hatchet (10.3), or three T1 Screwdrivers.
Waves 13–18. T3 at 74 gold gives 12.9 DPS. At this point structures or a partner weapon should be doing the killing, and the Wrench is holding a lane.
Waves 19–20. T4 at 149 gold is defensible only if you have spare gold and need the 24-damage swing for knockback breakpoints. Otherwise leave it at T3 and spend the 149 on a damage weapon.
Pairing weapons
The Wrench’s job is control, so pair it with something that converts control into kills:
- Fist — 108.5 DPS at T4 for 91 gold, with 15 knockback of its own. Two control weapons plus one damage weapon is a stable Engineer shell.
- Screwdriver — 22.7 DPS at 91 gold, 135 range, and the same Tool tag, so one Engineering perk feeds both.
- War Hammer — 102.6 DPS at 255 gold, Blunt/Tool. The Tool bridge that actually deals damage.
- SMG — 53.3 DPS at 400 range for 149 gold. Covers the range gap the Wrench cannot.
Where to go next
See all four Tool weapons side by side in weapons by class, and the class damage ranking in best weapons tier list. The Tool damage route is in Chainsaw build, the tag-token route in Screwdriver build, and the knockback melee option in Fist build. Character perks are listed in the character database.