Guide coverage: patches through 1.0.12

How to Fish weapon tier list

Five guns, ranked by damage per second rather than reputation. The Assault Rifle tops raw DPS, the SMG wins on value per dollar, and the Shotgun looks weak until you count its 25 pellets per shot.

All five weapons, by measured DPS

Weapon	Price	Damage / shot	Shots / s	DPS	Fully upgraded DPS	Mag	Bullet upgrades
Assault Rifle	$20000	40	14.3	571	1429	30	$30,550
SMG	$650	24	20.0	480	1400	30	$21,469
Shotgun	$150	3 × 25	4.5	341	3182	2	$26,540
Sniper Rifle	$3800	200	1.0	200	500	5	$35,749
Pistol	$50	25	6.7	167	1067	10	$26,855

How to read this: DPS = damage × projectiles per shot × shots per second. Shotgun DPS assumes every pellet connects, which only happens at close range.

Tiers, by what you need

Tier	Weapon	Why
Rush	SMG	About 480 DPS for $650, full-auto with a 30-round magazine. This is the weapon most boss guides tell you to buy first, and it holds up on the fast, growing Pufferfish.
Late-game	Assault Rifle	Highest stock DPS (about 571) and it scales to roughly 1,429 once bullet upgrades are finished. $20,000 before upgrades.
Burst	Sniper Rifle	200 damage per shot at $3,800, rising to 500 per shot. Sustained DPS looks low because it fires once a second, but the per-shot damage matters against high-health bosses.
Close range	Shotgun	$150, 25 pellets per shot with spread: 75 damage per shot stock, 700 upgraded — if you are inside its range.
Starter	Pistol	$50 and 167 DPS, fine until the first boss, and the cheapest bullet upgrades to start with.

Attachment prices per weapon

Attachment	Assault Rifle	SMG	Shotgun	Sniper Rifle	Pistol
Red Dot Sight Easier to hit targets while aiming	$5500	$460	$280	$640	$310
Sniper Scope Easier to hit distant targets while aiming	$4300	$940	$650	$1200	$940
Compensator Moderately reduces recoil	$3000	$600	$220	$500	$400
Suppressor Significantly reduces recoil	$8000	$2500	$1800	$2500	$2500
Laser Sight Shows where the weapon is pointing, making hipfire easier	$4800	$280	$140	$1600	$100
Extended Mag Increases ammo count in magazine	$5400	$320	—	$1200	$90
Iron Sight Removes any sight attached to weapon	—	—	—	—	—

Patch 1.0.11 removed the iron sight from shops and stopped players downgrading a suppressor into a compensator, so the attachment list above is what you can actually still buy.

Quick answers

Which weapon is best in How to Fish?

By raw damage per second the Assault Rifle wins (about 571 DPS stock), but it costs $20,000. The SMG is the value pick: about 480 DPS for $650, full-auto, and that is why boss guides recommend it for fast targets.

Is the Shotgun really the weakest gun?

Only on paper. The table lists 3 damage per pellet, so a single pellet looks tiny — but the shot fires 25 pellets with spread, which is up to 75 damage per shot at close range and 700 per shot fully upgraded. It is a point-blank weapon, not a bad one.

Do I need to fully upgrade bullets?

Each weapon has 12 bullet tiers and the last tiers are the expensive ones: the Assault Rifle costs $30,550 in total, the Sniper $35,749, while the SMG is the cheapest at $21,469. Upgrading the first few tiers is cheap and gives the best return.

Are attachments worth buying?

Prices are per weapon and vary hugely: the red dot sight is $310 for a pistol but $5,500 for the Assault Rifle. Note that iron sights were removed from shops in patch 1.0.11 because players kept buying them by mistake.

Where do the damage numbers come from?

From the in-game weapon values, matching patch 1.0.12. Damage is per projectile, so weapons that fire several projectiles per shot (the Shotgun) are listed with their pellet count.