The Sawblade Launcher is the Alternate Weapon form of the 
Nailgun. Unlike its counterpart, it fires circular spinning sawblades, capable of ricocheting off of walls and terrain and deal more damage than nails, but have decreased ammo capacity and fire rate. It is the second Alternate Weapon found in the game, unlocked in 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL inside a secret room.
The Sawblade Launcher resembles a crossbow with a primarily light brown color with white stripes, a triangular prod, and a wide, metallic tiller mainframe from which the sawblades are loaded. The mainframe has two long cylindrical pipes and a pair of small rails that propel the sawblades forward. Behind the sawblade's firing mechanism is a small screen that displays the Sawblade Launcher's weapon UI indicating the variant and current weapon state, and a small trigger is positioned behind the tiller.
Obtaining
The Sawblade Launcher is obtained in 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL inside a secret room, with its location hinted at in the previous level, 4-3: A SHOT IN THE DARK.
In 4-3: A SHOT IN THE DARK, the player can find the hint to the Sawblade Launcher's location by entering the Tomb of Kings secret room and after defeating the 
Mysterious Druid Knight (& Owl). Inside the sarcophagus where the boss once resided, a small golden slab can be found which can be picked up and read.
Within the PYRAMID lies the chamber of THE FELINE and THE RODENT.
Within the CHAMBER lies a pool of clear WATER.
Within the WATER lies a SECRET...
But only those who wield the ELECTRIC magic of the Druids may find
it.
In the following level, after the first Jump Pad following the entrance, there is a closed door with a partly open door to the right of it. The partly open door shows a glimpse into the Chamber of the Feline and the Rodent, which has a pedestal containing a 
Blue Skull Key. Firing the 
Whiplash through the crack in the door at the Skull Key picks it up and fully opens the entrance. The chamber also contains a square-shaped pool of water around the blue pedestal, and firing the 
Electric Railcannon into the water causes the previously locked door outside of the chamber to open. The pool of water in the chamber can be electrocuted by the Railcannon even without using the Whiplash to open the door, however.
Inside the closed chamber is a stairway leading down to a hallway to a massive, open room within a dark void, which contains an altar where the Sawblade Launcher is placed. Along the walls are two large stone engravings of 
Gabriel, and at the end of the room lies a portrait of King Sisyphus placed before his massive corpse.
Upon obtaining the Sawblade Launcher, the player receives a prompt briefly detailing its mechanics and difference from the standard Nailgun:
ALTERNATE NAILGUN: Slower firerate.
Projectiles ricochet off surfaces.
Mechanics
The Sawblade Launcher fires one sawblade per shot, and its primary fire can be held down to shoot sawblades at their maximum fire rate. Depending on the variant, the Sawblade Launcher fires one of two kinds of sawblades. The Attractor fires silver sawblades which possess higher durability and damage, while the Overheat and Jumpstart fire normal sawblades with slightly less durability and damage. Sawblades pierce through enemies and bounce off of surfaces, decreasing by one durability for every hit on an enemy or surface until they break once their durability has been fully consumed.
Sawblades can be punched using the 
Feedbacker after firing, propelling them in the direction they were punched and doubling the damage they can deal per-hit before breaking. Sawblades are also attracted to magnets from the Attractor Nailgun or Sawblade Launcher, orbiting around the magnet in a circle rather than directly touching it. If a sawblade that had its damage previously increased via a Feedbacker punch begins orbiting a magnet or hits a surface, its damage per-hit is reset back to normal.
Usage
The Sawblade Launcher is primarily effective at placing traps rather than directly firing at enemies compared to the Nailgun. As such, the Sawblade Launcher can be best utilized by finding fairly open areas where the saws are able to catch enemies in the crossfire, or corridors where sawblades do not have much room to bounce away from the path of their target. The Sawblade Launcher can be used as a setup tool before engaging in enemy encounters by placing traps at the positions where enemies spawn from, ensuring they are killed upon being spawned, or at the very least weaken them to the point where they can be finished off easily with other weapons.
Saws have a greater damage output if they are able to connect multiple times, which can be used to deal with large enemies or bosses if the player can lead them towards the sawblades. Bosses who initiate cutscenes during their introduction are naturally a prime opportunity to place many saws and set up traps.
Punching sawblades with the Feedbacker can also be a viable method of use. With good aim, saw-punching can maximize the damage output of individual saws. In particular, a punched full-heat orange sawblade fired by the Overheat instantly kills 
Schisms, and continues to do so until it runs out of durability, contacts a wall, or enters a magnet's orbit.
Variants
The Attractor Sawblade Launcher is the blue variant of the Sawblade Launcher. Its alternate fire can place up to three magnets at once, each of which can be used to attract magnetic objects such as nails, sawblades, rockets, and chainsaws.
Mechanics
The Attractor Sawblade Launcher's primary fire can withstand 15 wall bounces and can hit the enemy 3 times before breaking. Upon hitting lesser or greater husks, the damage output on the subsequent enemies is increased by 50% during the after the first pierce and 125% after the second pierce. This damage stacks with sawblade punches.
The Attractor's alternate fire shoots out a magnet projectile which sticks to surfaces and enemies. Magnets have a cooldown of 0.35 seconds between firing, and up to three magnets can be placed at one time. Magnets last 12 seconds before breaking, indicated by a rapidly increasing alert sound and flash emanating from the magnet. Magnets can be prematurely broken by shooting them with any hitscan attack, ground slamming them, or overloading the weight of a magnet. Once broken, a magnet is instantly able to fire once again.
When attached to a surface or enemy, magnets cause nearby magnetic projectiles (nails, saws, rockets and chainsaws) to be attracted to them in a pull radius. Magnetized nails become suspended in midair and attempt to get as close as possible to nearby magnets, or to the closest point between each if multiple magnets are present. Magnetized saws and chainsaws begin to orbit magnets in a circular motion.
Magnetized rockets shot by the player home in towards the closest magnet when fired, but only do so if the magnet is attached to an enemy, otherwise ignoring it. However, magnetized rockets that were shot by enemies such as the 
Guttertank home in on magnets even if they are attached to a surface. Magnets break after 3 hits from any rocket. Normal rockets count as a single hit, while freeze-charged rockets count as two.
Magnets have a maximum weight value that determines the amount of projectiles that can be attracted to them before breaking. A single magnet can hold up to 75 nails, 30 normal saws, 15 silver saws, 5 orange saws/chainsaws, or any combination of the aforementioned projectiles. Rockets do not possess magnet weight. When a magnet breaks, any nails, saws, or chainsaws that were attracted to the magnet fire outwards in random directions. Specifically in the case of nails, this is referred to as a Nailbomb. In a Nailbomb, each nail flying outward deals an amount of damage equivalent to half of the total number of nails that was attracted to the magnet at the time that it broke.
Magnets are one of multiple projectiles which can receive and transmit conductor shocks from the Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher or the 
Electric Railcannon. In the levels 5-2: WAVES OF THE STARLESS SEA and 5-4: LEVIATHAN, magnets attached to enemies slowly cause lightning to target and eventually strike the enemy.
Usage
The Attractor Sawblade Launcher's magnets, although not able to deal damage directly, are a very powerful tool with the ability to augment the strength of the player's arsenal. In the weapon's own case, magnets greatly amplify the potential for sawblades as trap weapons. By shooting sawblades towards a magnet, the player allows them to persist for a much longer amount of time without breaking, creating a grounded hazard that won't harm the player and quickly clears through large crowds of low-health smaller enemies. Multiple magnets can further increase the area of effect as sawblades circle between more than one at a time, allowing the player to form barriers that cover common paths in arenas or surround enemies in big areas. This is particularly effective with the Attractor Sawblade Launcher's own silver sawblades, due to their higher damage and durability.
Sawblade magnet traps also work particularly well against bosses who initiate cutscenes upon appearance, allowing ample setup time to fire more saws or combine the trap with weapons such as the 
Freezeframe Rocket Launcher and maximize immediate damage upon the start of a fight. This technique can also be effective against regular enemies with predictable or slow movement patterns who are easy to bait into traps.
Although the Attractor Sawblade Launcher's magnet traps struggle in midair due to the grounded nature of magnets, airborne enemies such as 
Malicious Faces or 
Virtues which happen to be positioned close to a wall or other surface can be attacked by firing a magnet there instead. The player must be mindful, however, of the fact that not having the magnet in a horizontally open area causes sawblades to bounce along the wall and break much more quickly.
Particularly large enemies such as the 
Flesh Prison and 
Flesh Panopticon, 
The Corpse of King Minos and 
Leviathan can be weak to magnet-based sawblade traps, as placing a magnet along the enemy causes attracted saws to nearly always hit them. This technique also works very well against a 
Hideous Mass by placing a magnet on the enemy's stomach weakpoint, causing the orbit of the saws to hit its tail and deal multiplied damage.
Magnet sawblade traps may receive an extra damage boost from the use of a detached 
Sawed-On Shotgun chainsaw, which can circle magnets in a similar fashion to sawblades, albeit with much more durability and hits per enemy.
The Overheat Sawblade Launcher is the green variant of the Sawblade Launcher. Its alternate fire releases a bright orange sawblade with increased durability, damage, and the ability to set enemies on fire.
Mechanics
The Overheat Sawblade Launcher's primary fire can withstand wall 11 bounces at low heat and 4 wall bounces at maximum heat. When below 50% heat, the primary fire can pierce enemies once, allowing it to hit up to two enemies. When below 50% heat, the primary fire has perfect accuracy, but it decreases as the heat levels go beyond 50%.
The Overheat Sawblade Launcher's alternate fire must be initially charged up by using the weapon's primary fire for a few seconds. It becomes instantaneously set to full by a shot from the Attractor, and instantaneously set to a third by a shot from the Jumpstart. If the alternate fire is not used after being charged, it slowly decreases back to having no charge over time.
While the Overheat's alternate fire is at low charge, the weapon fires sawblades at a rate of 4/sec. At high charge, it fires sawblades at a rate of just under 2/sec.
When using the alternate fire, the Overheat performs a heatsink, releasing a powerful orange sawblade. The Overheat Sawblade Launcher has only one heatsink at a time. Once it has been expended, the primary fire is reduced to a firerate of 1.5 sawblades per second, its accuracy becoming greatly reduced, and the heatsink beginning to recharge over the course of 8 seconds. Heatsinks are unable to recharge while firing the primary fire in this state.
The bright orange sawblade produced by the Overheat's alternate fire possesses much greater durability and improved damage from a normal sawblade. It also has the ability to set any flammable enemy in comes into contact with on fire for a brief time. The orange sawblade bounces in a much more predictable fashion, ricocheting off surfaces in an orthogonal manner. Depending on how much the alternate fire of the Overheat Sawblade Launcher was charged before an orange sawblade was fired, the sawblade has a different number of hits on contact with each enemy. At low charge, the orange saw hits an enemy once on contact. At medium, it hits an enemy twice, and at full charge, it hits an enemy three times on contact. If an orange sawblade hits its number of 20 maximum hits while in an enemy, it finishes the remainder of the hits it had on that enemy before breaking afterward.
Notably, if an orange sawblade leaves an enemy right after dealing its exact number of maximum hits, it is able to survive for one more cycle of hits on an enemy before breaking, meaning an orange sawblade can technically deal up to 23 hits.
Usage
The orange sawblade fired by the Overheat Sawblade Launcher can be a powerful up-front damage dealer against big enemies due to raw strength alone, and also functions as a decent damage-over-time weapon against flammable enemies or those doused in gasoline by the 
Firestarter Rocket Launcher.
Due to its orthogonal, predictable bounce pattern and its greater durability than most saws, the orange sawblade can work exceptionally well for traps, bouncing between walls and covering common enemy paths. This also makes it powerful against stationary enemies and bosses such as the 
1000-THR "Earthmover" Defence System. The orange saw can be more easily saw-punched than most sawblades due to its bounce pattern and durability, able to persist for a significant period of time and even one-shot Schisms when punched.
The Overheat Sawblade Launcher also serves well in combination with the Attractor's magnet traps, as its increased initial fire rate and lack of ammo allows it to fire many saws with low durability, then quickly charge up an orange saw and attach it to a trap, which lasts a longer time and clears out low-health enemies very quickly. The player must be cautious, however, not to overload the magnet's weight and break it when firing large quantities of sawblades at a time.
Due to other Sawblade Launcher or Nailgun variants being able to charge the Overheat's heatsink instantly, it may be more optimal in many situations to fire another variant first and then quickly swap to the Overheat for faster attacks.
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher is the red variant of the Sawblade Launcher. Its alternate fire shoots out a cable that can attach to enemies, continuously charging electricity into a large shock. Sawblades shot by the weapon can shorten the time taken to charge and increase the damage of the shock.
Mechanics
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher's primary fire shoots sawblades that can bounce up to 4 times, at a rate of 2 sawblades/second.
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher's alternate fire shoots a small plug attached to the player via a cable, with limited range. Until the cable connects to an enemy, it can be fired with little to no cooldown, instantly regenerating if it were to miss or hit a surface. After the cable connects, it increases the Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher's firerate to 4 sawblades/second and begins the weapon's distinctive charging process.
When attached to an enemy, the Jumpstart will charge an electric shock over a 5 second interval. If its sawblades damage an enemy while charging, the interval decreases by 0.5 seconds and the shock damage increases by 0.5. During the charge sequence, the player must stay within 20 units and maintain line-of-sight to the target. If the player leaves range or line-of-sight, the cable will disconnect after 2 or 1 seconds, respectively, though can be fired again immediately after. After the 5 second interval, a conductive electric shock is delivered, after which the cable must take 5 seconds to rearm.
If the enemy shocked by the Jumpstart has nails embedded inside of it, the weapon performs a conductor aftershock, causing the enemy to be launched into the air if they are Light or Medium weight, destroying all nails previously embedded inside, and causing the shock to be chained to all nearby grounded enemies and conductive projectiles, dealing damage based on the number of nails inside the original target (Starts at a minimum of 2 damage if the number of embedded nails is 1-30, up to a maximum of 6 damage at 90 nails embedded in an enemy, with any more nails having no increase on the shock's damage). If any enemy it is chained to also has nails embedded inside it, they start a new, separate conductor aftershock chain with a minimum damage of 0.5 instead of 2. Conductive projectiles include magnets, coins, rockets, tethered chainsaws, and 
Screwdriver Railcannon drills. Conductive projectiles receive and transmit the shock to other nearby enemies or projectiles, functionally extending the shock's range. Magnets in particular have the additional ability to trigger a conductor aftershock when attached to an enemy, similar to embedded nails. The damage of a conductor aftershock triggered via magnets starts at a minimum of 2 if the enemy is embedded with 1-2 magnets, and can reach up to 3 if the enemy is embedded with 3 magnets. This damage increase is independent of that of embedded nails, meaning that an enemy with three attached magnets and 90 embedded nails can deal an aftershock with up to 9 damage.
Airborne enemies are not able to receive shocks transmitted by conductor aftershocks under normal circumstances, but are able to transmit them to other enemies themselves if embedded with nails or attached magnets. Underwater, the Jumpstart's electric shock always triggers conductor aftershocks, regardless of whether the enemy has nails embedded in them or not, as well as dealing the player with 50 self-damage. Underwater, conductor shocks can also transmit to airborne enemies.
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher's cable has the ability to activate certain electrical coils used in some level secrets. It can also charge trams on contact to make them move much more quickly for a brief period.
Usage
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher's conductive shock can deal strong damage on its own, but it functions best with the support of other attacks. Due to the cable's persistence when swapping weapons, it can be maintained alongside other weapon combos and techniques. As well as this, the Jumpstart incentivizes firing at enemies which are attached to the cable by greatly increasing its fire rate when tethered, meaning that the weapon has the ability to maximize its damage over the course of the shock's charge-up time.
The Jumpstart further supports conductive shocks via the ability for sawblades to both speed up and increase the damage of a Jumpstart cable shock, making the Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher a very strong single-target damage weapon against large enemies. With its increased fire rate, the weapon can quickly deal bursts of electric damage which reduces huge chunks of health on bulky enemies with relative ease. Underwater, this can be used to deal with large crowds, but at a higher risk of death from self-damage.
The Jumpstart's conductive shocks can be made even more powerful alongside Attractor magnets and other conductive projectiles. Magnets cause the aftershock of the cable to transfer between them if the enemy is embedded with any amount of nails, and sawblade traps created using magnets reduce the cable's charge time at a much faster rate than regularly firing the weapon alone. Any conductive projectiles are very useful for extending the range of aftershocks in larger arenas, and can also transmit shock damage back into enemies that have already been hit, increasing the overall strength of a single aftershock.
Advanced Techniques
Magnet Missile
By breaking an active magnet nearby (best done with a ground slam) that is currently holding sawblades and/or nails, and then firing a new magnet at the same time, the fired magnet picks up all of the projectiles being held by the last magnet and carries them along its flight trajectory. This can be used to deliver magnet-based traps prepared beforehand into position to strike enemies if they do not spawn close enough to any available surfaces.
Jumpstart Traps
The Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher can be used in combination with magnets and their orbiting sawblades to very quickly trigger shocks with high damage against single targets, dealing huge chunks of their health near-instantly. As well as this, filling an enemy with nails using a Nailgun not only causes the aftershock of the weapon's cable to spread to any nearby enemies just as fast, but it also spreads to the surrounding magnets, causing the shocks to repeatedly bounce between targets multiple times, with the potential to quickly kill even many large, high-health enemies like 
Cerberi, 
Guttermen and Hideous Masses.
Style Bonuses
| Name
|
Points
|
Description
|
| + ATTRAPTOR
|
60
|
Kill any enemy with any type of  Nail, Sawblade, or Chainsaw stuck to or orbiting around one  Magnet.
|
| + BIPOLAR
|
120
|
Kill any enemy with any type of Nail, Sawblade, or Chainsaw orbiting around or between two or more Magnets.
|
| + CONDUCTOR
|
1–90
|
Hit an enemy stuck with any type of Nail with an Electric Beam or Lightning Strike, or kill an enemy with the shock produced by the  Jumpstart Nailgun or
Jumpstart Sawblade Launcher. Point gain is equal to the number of Nails in the target, up to a maximum of 90.
|
| + ROCKET RETURN
|
100
|
Hit an enemy with their own rocket, either by Whiplashing it, or using a Magnet.
|
| + HALF OFF
|
50
|
Kill a  Filth,  Stray, Schism, or  Soldier with a torso hit from any type of Sawblade.
|
Media
Alternate Designs by Jericho
Color Customization
Each unlockable preset is reproducible one-to-one with custom colors; their corresponding color and hex codes are also in the table below.
| Name
|
Soul Orbs
|
Color Code
|
STANDARD
|
0
|
N/A
|
ACIDIC
|
10
|
R: 0.60
G: 0.60
B: 0.60
R: 0.60
G: 0.60
B: 0.60
R: 0.33
G: 1.00
B: 0.00
|
CLEAR SKY
|
25
|
R: 0.12
G: 0.48
B: 1.00
R: 0.12
G: 0.48
B: 1.00
R: 0.00
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
|
SNOW LEOPARD
|
50
|
R: 1.00
G: 1.00
B: 1.00
R: 0.00
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
R: 0.00
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
|
VAMPIRE
|
100
|
R: 0.00
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
R: 0.50
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
R: 0.50
G: 0.00
B: 0.00
|
Trivia
- Unlike the
Alternate Revolver, the Sawblade Launcher has an officially designated name. This is also a trait shared by the 
Impact Hammer.
- It is also a much more drastic change on the weapon, as the Alternate Revolver trades increased firepower at the cost of fire rate, while the Sawblade Launcher outright changes the base weapon's projectiles.
- When the Sawblade Launcher was initially introduced in Early Access patch 10a, saws had no magnet weight and the Overheat variant could be tap-fired for little heat penalty, quickly resulting in bosses such as
Minos Prime being killed in a fraction of a second by tap-firing Overheat over the duration of the cutscene. The strategy was dubbed "Sawcon", only to be swiftly fixed in the following patch, 10b.
- The term "Sawcon" is still often used to refer to the usage of the Sawblade Launcher as a setup trap weapon, despite this bug long since being patched.
Stalker:
