The Piercer Revolver is the first gun found in ULTRAKILL and is the blue variant of the Revolver, obtained in 0-1: INTO THE FIRE. It's alternate fire allows it to pierce through multiple targets, dealing moderate damage, and it can also break most glass objects in the game.
Mechanics
Holding alt fire will begin to charge the Piercer, reaching full charge after 0.5 seconds. If released before then, the charge will be lost and the gun will revert to its default state without firing anything.
When released at full charge, the Piercer fires a blue beam consisting of three 1-damage hitscans, which will strike an enemy consecutively. If the enemy dies before all three hitscans strike it, the remaining hitscans will continue past the enemy's corpse, striking any other enemy behind it. This allows the weapon to kill up to three enemies with one shot.
The alt fire must cool down for 2.5 seconds before it can be used again. However, the primary fire will remain usable during this cooldown.
Strategy
The Piercer is a good source of quick burst damage. Since all attacks from the Revolver can deal extra damage through headshots and limbshots, quickly swapping to the Piercer and firing its charge shot at an enemy's head is an easy way of dealing 6 damage in under a second. This piercing beam can also be ricocheted off of the Marksman Revolver's coins, stacking its damage even higher.
The Marksman Revolver is the green variant of the Revolver, purchasable from the Terminal Shop as early as 0-2: THE MEATGRINDER. Its alternate fire flips a coin into the air, which can be shot with any hitscan weapon to increase the shot's damage and ricochet it into an enemy's weak point.
Mechanics
The Marksman holds a maximum of four coins. Pressing alt fire will throw a coin into the air in an arc. This arc will change depending on the player's current velocity: as long as the player continues to move in the same direction they were moving when they threw the coin, the arc will be the same relative to the player. The Marksman will recharge one coin at a time, and takes 4 seconds to recharge each coin - if the player throws all four coins, it will take 16 seconds to recharge them all.
Coins themselves deal no damage. However, shooting a coin with a hitscan attack will increase the shot's damage and deflect the shot into the closest target it has line of sight to. It will choose its target based on this priority list.
- The deflected shot will first target any other coins that are currently in the air. Every time the shot strikes another coin, it chooses a new target, and it will always choose another coin first.
- If the player has fired an ejected core, unsurfed rocket, or intact cannonball, it will target the closest of these within a 100-unit radius.
- If there are no live explosives to target, the shot will target the nearest enemy.
- It first checks if the enemy is charging a projectile. If it is, it will target and detonate that projectile.
- If the enemy is not charging one, it next checks for weakpoints and targets the one with the highest damage modifier.
- If the enemy has no weakpoints, it will target the body.
- If none of these targets are available, the shot will be deflected in a completely random direction.
When a hitscan attack is reflected off of a coin, its damage is boosted - how much depends on what weapon was used.
- For Standard Revolvers, the primary fire and Piercer alt fire gain 1 additional damage per hitscan from each coin.
- For Alternate Revolvers, the primary fire and Piercer alt fire gain 0.5 damage per hitscan from the first coin, then another 0.25 damage per hitscan for each additional coin after the first.
- The Standard Sharpshooter and Alternate Sharpshooter alt fires gain 1 additional hitscan per coin.
- The Electric Railcannon and Malicious Railcannon gain 2 additional damage from the first coin and 1 additional damage from every coin after the first, but this damage boost is not applied until the beam targets an enemy rather than a coin. In the case of the Malicious Railcannon, this damage boost is only applied to the hitscan, not the explosion.
Deflecting a shot from the Revolver's primary fire into an enemy earns the +RICOSHOT style bonus. Deflecting any other hitscan attack from a weapon earns the +ULTRARICOSHOT style bonus. Deflecting a hitscan attack from an enemy, while difficult, earns the +CHARGEBACK style bonus. If multiple coins are used to deflect the shot, the style bonus is multiplied by however many coins are in the chain.
Splitshots
If a coin is shot with the Revolver's primary fire at the peak of its arc or any time after 1 full second has passed, the shot will split into two identical beams, each with the full damage of the original beam plus the extra damage from the coin. Coins flash yellow to indicate when they've reached their arc's peak, and the sound a coin makes as it falls will change slightly after a second has passed.
The two beams from splitshots will never deflect into the same target. One beam calculates its target first, and that target is then removed from the priority list before the second beam calculates its own target. For example, if the player has fired the Core Eject Shotgun's core before performing a splitshot, the first beam will detonate the core, and the second will instead target the nearest enemy's weakpoint as the core is no longer a valid target.
Performing a splitshot will award two +RICOSHOT style bonuses.
Advanced Techniques
Chargeback
Throwing a coin into the path of an enemy's hitscan attack will deflect the attack into the nearest enemy, awarding the +CHARGEBACK style bonus. If this targets the enemy that fired the attack, it will instantly kill them, except in the case of Guttermen, where it will behave normally.
Deadcoining
After a coin is thrown, there is a 0.1-second window in which shooting the coin will not trigger a ricoshot - it will simply continue its arc unaffected. If an existing coin is chained into the newly thrown, "dead" coin, all damage from the first coin will be stacked onto the second coin. This stacked coin will increase the next shot's damage by 1 + the stacked damage. Repeatedly chaining coins this way can stack damage theoretically to infinity.
Coin Punching
When an airborne coin flashes, it can be punched with the Feedbacker to deflect the coin itself into an enemy, dealing 2 damage (multiplied by weakpoints) and causing the coin to bounce above the enemy's head, where it can be shot or punched again. A coin bounced this way has an additional 1 damage stacked onto it.
If no enemy is present, the coin will be deflected directly forward, bouncing off of the wall in front of the player. This will also stack damage onto the coin, though once the coin has reached 5 damage total, it cannot stack any further damage unless it is punched into an enemy or deadcoined.
Coin Lashing
Striking a coin with the Whiplash will bounce the coin into the air. This will not stack any damage, but can be useful to keep coins in the air for long periods of time - especially for damage-stacked coins that the player may not want to shoot immediately.
Fastcoining
There is a small delay of about 0.125 seconds between throwing multiple coins. Normally this delay does not impact gameplay whatsoever, but it is technically possible to skip this delay by switching away from and back to the Marksman Revolver - this must be done in time for the second swap animation to finish playing before the delay would otherwise end. This is highly impractical for humans, as both swaps would need to happen within a few frames of throwing the coin. But it might come in handy for tool-assisted runs of the game, which are not bound by human limitations.
Strategy
The Marksman's coins are one of, if not the most versatile tools in the player's arsenal. Their consistent, controllable angle allows one to shoot an enemy from virtually any position, and their ability to reflect all hitscans allows for incredibly creative setups.
Basic splitshots can be used for quick crowd control, taking out weaker flying enemies and hard-to-reach ranged units. The angled shot can be used to reach out-of-the-way enemy weakpoints, most notably Streetcleaners' gas tanks located on their backs. More advanced coin setups can deal large amounts of damage to a single target in a rather short amount of time, which is most useful against bosses with long introductory cutscenes.
Media
The Sharpshooter Revolver is the red variant of the Revolver, purchasable from the Terminal Shop as early as 0-2: THE MEATGRINDER. Its alternate fire spins the gun to shoot a beam that pierces through enemies and ricochets off of walls, which can destroy enemy projectiles.
Mechanics
Holding down alt fire will rapidly spin the gun to charge it. After being held for at least 0.3 seconds, releasing alt fire will shoot a red beam that pierces through all enemies in its path, then bounces off the wall it hits. How many times it bounces depends on how long the gun is spun: if held for 2.5 seconds, the beam will bounce 3 times before disappearing the fourth time it hits a wall.
The beam's damage depends on how many times it bounces. When freshly fired, the beam deals 1 damage to each enemy in its path. Every time the beam bounces off a wall, an additional 1-damage hitscan is added, up to a maximum of 3 damage to each enemy.
When bouncing off of a wall, the beam's new angle is normally equal and opposite to the angle at which it struck the wall. However, if at least one enemy's weakpoint is within a few degrees of the new path, the beam will readjust itself to aim at the nearest weakpoint.
If the beam collides with any enemy projectile, that projectile will be destroyed and produce a 7-damage red explosion after a brief hitstop. It will only destroy the first projectile it collides with; the rest will be left untouched.
The Sharpshooter has 3 charges, which take 6.6 seconds each to recharge. Using its alt fire will consume one charge, regardless of how long the beam is charged.
Advanced Techniques
By lining up a shot perpendicular to a surface, the Sharpshooter's alt fire can hit the same enemy multiple times - once before bouncing, and again after the bounce. If this is done with two parallel surfaces, the beam can hit that enemy up to four separate times, as long as the enemy's weakpoint is in the path of the initial shot. This will deal a minimum of 9 damage if no weakpoints are struck (only possible if the enemy has none) and a maximum of 18 if the beam strikes the weakpoint every time.
Sharpcoining
Coins can be used to extend the number of hits even further, as Ricoshots do not count against the Sharpshooter's wall bounces. With precise positioning, it's possible to throw a coin front of the beam as it returns from a wall bounce, causing it to strike the coin instead of a second wall and return to the first wall. By throwing a coin before firing the beam, then bouncing it off of a coin each time it bounces off of a wall, it can strike all four coins this way. This is extremely difficult to pull off against most enemies, but it can be a very stylish way to fight a stationary or especially slow boss.
Note that coins do not add damage to the Sharpshooter's charge shot the same way they do to other hitscan shots. Instead of increasing each hitscan's damage by 1, they add another hitscan per coin. Even with this limit, the damage output of the aforementioned technique reaches a minimum of 33 if no weakpoints are hit and a maximum of 66 if a weakpoint is hit each time.
Strategy
The Sharpshooter Revolver is a useful tool for pulling off tricky maneuvers. Its infinite piercing and ability to auto-target weakpoints allows it to take out multiple weaker enemies with clever positioning, and its ability to create red explosions by destroying enemy projectiles makes it an excellent crowd control tool. Against larger enemies, it is a relatively simple source of high damage, and when combined with coins, it can provide some very stylish kills.
However, using this weapon to its fullest potential requires a level of precision that most other weapons do not ask for. Since its power is uniquely limited by the environment it's used in, its usefulness is situational at best, and there are easier ways to deal high damage quickly. But when used properly, it can be devastating in the right scenarios.