Stake Launcher

The Stake Launcher is a Hardmode Repeater-like weapon that auto-fires Stakes as ammunition. Stakes are not affected by gravity, and travel faster than most other Bow or Repeater projectiles, with the exception of the Pulse Bow. Stake ammunition is dropped along with the weapon, and can also be purchased from the Witch Doctor or Arms Dealer while the weapon is in the player's inventory. The Stake Launcher is dropped by Mourning Wood during the Pumpkin Moon event.

While its standard damage statistics apply to most enemies, Stakes do extra damage to Vampires, in the range of 5000 per hit &mdash; enough to one-shot Vampires.

The Stake Launcher has a base 14% critical strike chance as opposed to the usual 4%.

Its best possible Modifier is Unreal.

Tips

 * The Stake Launcher is easily one of the most powerful ranged weapons obtainable, given its extremely high damage (base of 100 with the stakes), powerful knockback, high velocity, automatic fire, cheap ammunition, and the fact that said ammunition can pierce up to ten times. The only downside would be the fire rate, which is relatively slow in comparison to other high-tier ranged weapons, like the Megashark.
 * This weapon is very effective against The Destroyer.

Trivia

 * The Stake Launcher references vampire folklore, in which the only way to kill a vampire is to drive a wooden stake through its heart.
 * Using the stake launcher against a vampire while in multiplayer may trigger a server's "anti-cheat" plugin, if present, due to the arbitrarily high damage dealt.