Each class has their weaknesses, something they need to watch out for. Mages worry about running out of magic points as they speedrun through the matches. Warriors have to get in close to hit. Guitar-wielding Bards need to worry about getting hit all the time.

Shooters:
--Don't benefit from Agility (Warriors get Strength, Mages get Intellect, Bards get Charisma)
--Don't get critical hits
--Don't get knockback from power shots
--Must waste 5 skill points before finally specializing in ranged weapons. Ah, but only for bows! See, if you want to specialize in guns, you need to waste more skill points before specializing in *that*!
--Get crappy weapons. I mean, an assault rifle is 4-14! What are the bullets made from, seeds? A bloody rocket launcher is 20-40.

This is what we're working with, folks. So you have a class that doesn't get more damage from a stat that you would think *would*, like, you know, the *other classes* enjoy, don't get lucky double damage hits from time to time (by the way, that means the Critical Mastery skill is bunk), no knockback, and you have to spend skill points to even get good at shooting. So why even play as a shooter in S&S 3?

Cause I lost control of my life and I wanted to see if it can be done. And the answer, after hours of pain, is "yes".

Now I'm warning you, just because I'm laying out how to beat S&S3 as a Shooter doesn't mean it won't still be painful. You're gonna have a lot of rematches against certain champions, my friend.

This is the easiest decision you will ever have to make as a shooter hopeful. Shooters can't parry, but they can dodge. Secondly, since you'll be spending time shooting gladiators on the other side of the ring, you don't really need to be moving all that much.

So:

1. Slide that height down as far as it will go.
2. Slide the weight as high as it will go.

Your character should have the same build as a certain owner of a magic shoppe.

Lastly, the starting stats. If you don't benefit from Strength, and you don't benefit from Intellect, nor Charisma, you're left with Vitality or Agility. Either stat works. You either maximize the amount of health you gain with your weight so you can take more hits and stave off any critical hits the enemy gladiators conveniently enjoy having far more often than you, or maximize the dodge you get along with your short stature. Both will allow you to fire off more shots while Battle Trance is active (more on that later).

You can't buy your first peashooter until level 2 (if Father Painbringer has it), but there's no point in buying Nerf guns if you will only get the styrofoam bow's base stats until your first skill point. It's almost like the game is telling you being a shooter is a bad idea.

So just buy any other melee weapon to use, doesn't matter which. Your first few levels will mimic a warrior style. You'll find that, with your dodge potential maxed out, enemies will find it difficult to hit you (or they still will because this game favors the computer 7 times out of 10). Even if you went the vitality route, your short stature still gives you a nice bonus to dodge. Enjoy your health regenerating more than what your enemy dishes out.

It goes without saying that if you really want to use ranged weapons, you need to get 5 skill points in the School of Warfare pronto. Make that your priority as you level up. Continue adding agility or vitality points when adding stats. Don't even think about touching Strength, Intellect, or Charisma with this build.

(There was one time in the vitality route where the enemy gladiator had -2 health and died on the spot. I have no idea why that happened, I'm just glad the game gave me the win and didn't softlock itself.)

So you finally got enough levels to the point where the Ranged Weapon Mastery skill lit up. Your mouse is hovering over the skill. This is the last time you'll be able to continue being a warrior. You sure you want to do this?

Tack on Ranged Weapon Mastery and buy you a bow. [Oliver Joyce laughs ominously in the distance]

Here is the one silver lining to using bows/guns: BATTLE TRANCE.

There's an orb to the left of your armor/health/magicka. Fill up that orb through attacking and you activate Battle Trance, where your damage doubles. Battle Trance fills up slower with quick shots, somewhat with medium, and a lot with Power Shots. Two Power Shots and one Medium shot is enough to fill it up, but if you miss any shots, suffer a heavy hit, or get pushed back with a taunt or guitar riff, BT drops. Filling up the gauge will be a struggle as Power Shots will miss several times, but it's not too bad--not bad enough that I wouldn't dare making a guide about it at least.

Here's the kicker: so long as you're in Battle Trance, your attacks are guaranteed to hit (so long as the enemy doesn't conveniently dodge or parry. Point is, you can't MISS). That means you can constantly hit Power Shot again and again--the enemy gladiator wondering why bows suddenly work now--until they die. This is what we want to do! Power Shots always do the maximum damage, and in case you haven't figured it out, ranged weapons have *poor* damage range. You do not want to be spending precious time firing your styrofoam cannon on the Weak setting only for you to be in a pile of your own blood and wishing you could go back to being a warrior.

Now, if you say "screw spamming Power Shots, there's gotta be another way!", it turns out you're right. There's another button to press: DEFENSIVE STANCE.

Pressing defensive stance not only gives you a defense bonus to make opponents less likely to hit you, but it fills up your BT 1/5 of the way. Press Defensive Stance 5 times without getting hit, taunted, or knocked back by a guitar riff (these lower BT), and Battle Trance activates. *Now* you can spam Power Shot!

To recap, once you're in BT, keep firing Power Shots and they will do twice your maximum base damage. The enemy will fall shortly.

Because you decided to be a shooter, there will be 2 skills dedicated to damage and accuracy of each weapon type, and the rest will be catered to you not getting eviscerated by gladiators who decided not to be shooters.


Fill up each skill by the color-coded number and follow them in order. Don't go off track and decide you want Archaeology or something silly before filling up your defensive skills, because you'll be in for even more pain than what you previously signed up for.

For #1, choose a weapon skill and fill only to 5, as that's when Bow Skill Mastery lights up. Once it does, fill #2 to 10 pronto. This gives us the only damage and accuracy for bows that the game graciously affords us.

We don't need to worry about extra alignment (it's broken, anyway), and we don't need to worry about jumping good and resisting falling off the arena. We're here to shoot gladiators--not to play basketball--and if the gladiator gods decide we should fall off the arena, then we fall off that damn arena and try again. Fill #3 with Dodge Mastery.

Fill #4 with Robust Constitution. We want to last as long as possible in the arena so we can shoot more. The more times we can shoot while under Battle Trance, the better (also making sure we don't instantly die from a critical hit).

When dodging doesn't work, we have Armourer at #5 to take care of us next. We need armor and health like a shooter needs better weapons.

Filling up the defensive skills should make your gladiatorial days as less Painful as possible.
After these key defensive skills are filled in, you're around the level when guns finally try to compete with that Rare-level Ballista that does 20-100 damage. What, you don't have one? Well get the 50,000 gold and keep refreshing the store until one shows up! (You can keep refreshing the store's stock by hard-exiting the game and coming back.) Fill up #6 so that when a good gun finally comes along, you'll be ready to make full use of it.

Finally at #7 we have Elemental Resistance. The reason why I saved this until the end is, in my playthrough, I didn't seem to die to spells. Mage-oriented opponents were weak enough that even the seed-shooting guns killed them, and Champions still use everyday spells we can buy in the magic store. They don't use unique overpowered spells that beat you in three hits causing you to swear and...continue playing anyway. However, if you're hurting for some magic resistance, I give you permission to break the guide and fill this skill before Gun Mastery.

Shopping as a shooter sucks, because hardly anything helps you hurt more, and gladiators aren't made of money. You stare at the counter, looking at all the shiny things that benefit warriors, mages, and bards because their stats work, and you curse the guidemaker for going along with his silly scheme.

Priority 1: Any armor with "ranged weapon mastery" or "gun mastery". This is the only way you can increase the damage and accuracy of that thing you found in Father Painbringer's back alley.

Priority 2: Armor. A given.

Priority 3: Agility/Dodge. Keep stacking on that dodge potential and you'll be safe.

Priority 4: Defensive Bonus. This reduces the accuracy of opponents, and is applied *before* dodging. This has less priority only because Agility/Dodge armors are far more common. If you found good armor with Defensive Bonus, get it.

Priority 5: Vitality. Not really vital, but it does help with surviving critical hits that bypass your armor.

When you have spare cash, buy holy/unholy armors and wear them to help in your grind. Good guys get more experience points, and bad guys get more money. Replace these armors whenever you find items with +N% to experience/gold earned. Wearing these during a champion fight is pointless; you get a level up regardless, and besides, you need all the help you can get with your priority items.

When you have even more spare cash, buy armors with Archaeology, then wear them in a fight just before the shops restock so that you have better chances for better stuff.

Speaking of Father Painbringer's shop, have I mentioned how much his weapons suck? The best bow caps at 4-20, only getting better with higher rarity. This is the best bow users will ever get, folks. Higher rarity more than doubles the damage of the previous rarity, so a green ballista will be 8-40, and a blue ballista will be 20-100. Problem is, the level requirement increases too, and you only get 2 levels of training before being forced to embarrass yourself in front of whichever champion you have to face. You have to be at least level 16 or so before you finally get a ranged weapon that doesn't make you cry.

But hey, we're sharing the pain together. Maybe that's why he's called Father Painbringer.

Let's be honest, besides The Fearful Prisoner, all the champions will cause pain to some degree. But some will be downright agonizing. Even with my help, beating the champions will still come down to a matter of luck and you will be restarting fights more than sanity allows. I bet you will say "Why did I have to try Freakenstein's guide?" at least once.

1. Boarhide Trader Pigsus

This fight isn't too hard, this is just to make sure you know what the process is, because you're going to be doing this for most of the other champions. Forget about Quick Shot, it's almost useless. Spam Power Shot, even if the accuracy is bad. Our goal is to fill up Battle Trance, then continue spamming Power Shot when the accuracy is 100% (minus dodges and parries) and the damage is 2x. If you don't like using Power Shot to fill up the gauge, do a few Defensive Stances instead.

For future reference, if at any time a boss fills up *their* BT gauge, it's probably a good idea to hold up on spamming Power Shot and go for a Medium Shot instead to try and break their gauge.

2. Xanfar the Haunted.

The skeleton is annoying at first because he'll cast strong magic with 100% accuracy while you're trying to do what Freakenstein tells you. Once he runs out, he'll charge at you with deadly claws that are classified as maces for some reason. But it turns out that's what we want. if he's swiping at you and missing, he's not casting spells that do hit. Just spray and pray.

3. Obliterator 9000

Your first fellow ranged weapon user. This fight will be super easy, because they obviously have--

...a ridiculously-more powerful gun the likes of which won't be available to you until level 25. See, even the game knows the guns you get are bad, so they have to buff their own shooter. Luckily the Obliterator doesn't have armor, so there's less gladiator to chew. Shoot him more than he shoots you.

4. The Yeti Project

The best thing to do when you face The Yeti Project is to quickly play a different game.

When that doesn't work, you need to reassess your strategy and your readiness. The Yeti, sedated or not, won't just let you pile on Defensive Stances until your BT fills up. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. You may have to resort to Power Shots again and again, hoping all three shots connect, filling up the BT gauge while the damn yeti misses. Make sure your equipment is full of agility, dodge, and Bow Mastery. See if Father Painbringer actually has a good weapon in stock, maybe a Green-rarity ballista that does 8-40 damage.

5. Sir Bryan of May

An easy opponent, until he suddenly isn't when he taunts all your health away. Bards can't dodge attacks, so hit him with all the Power Shots the game allows you to.

6. Great Knight Gallantrus

This guy's hard. He's got an entire shop full of armor, and what's worse, they are enchanted with Defensive Bonus, which means your already-terrible accuracy is going to be even lower. To top it all off, Gallantrus knows Hex, and when he casts it, you can just forget about attacking in general. I had several points in Bow Mastery in equipment on top of the 10 on the character, and even then my Power Shot accuracy was 30%. The only hope of defeating him is to use Defensive Stance until your BT activates then let him have it.

7. Father Painbringer

I don't think this champion is hard, I just want to have the satisfaction of putting this man's defeat to words. This man is the sole reason why there are bow and gun users in S&S3, like, we could have all been warriors, bards, and mages, and that would be enough, but then this guy shows up and says "I don't think this game's hard enough" and sets up shop between Brunhilda and the Goth Twins, and not in a good spot either. Look at it! His picture on the overworld is right in the middle of the stairs, blocking the way to the Goth Twins and Little Fat Kid, begging you to not be any of the other three classes. He even sells maces, like he snuck in at night and stole some of her stock! What a narcissist! And he even has the gall to fight you with stuff you can't even buy. I didn't spare him. I spared the other champions in my playthrough. I even spared the yeti, and I hated fighting the yeti. Not Father Painbringer. I pointed my bow between the eyes, fired, and watched as the arrow bounced off his forehead because the weapons suck.

Then you wonder who will tend to his shop, and he's behind the counter and congratulates you on your victory. What the hell!? I killed your ass!

8. Ultratus Omega

This is your final challenge, and Ultratus Omega hurts like one. When this chainsaw-wielding ranged-weapon-user isn't pelting you with lightning attacks that do over 700 damage even with your elemental resistance skill (you did fill that skill up, right?), you will blink and suddenly wonder why 2000 of your armor is gone. That is Ultratus Omega's attack.

Look at this robot's arsenal: the chainsaws are classified as guns, and Ultratus is carrying two of them. Ultratus is *cheating*. So don't feel bad about using this guide to defeat a cheater.

First of all, you need armor, and you need it bad. You need at least 2100 to stave off the three lightning bolts Ultratus pelts at you. If you can find armor with lightning resistance, put it on, but DON'T sacrifice armor or your precious weapon skills to do so! You have 7300 damage to chew through.

If you went the agility route, you might not have to worry about Ultratus's chainsaw attacks as much as the health routers, but that also means you have far less health to save you from the constant spells you can't dodge which *will* kill you in time. Conversely, Health routers can soak up all the piddly ice attacks Ultratus will use, but will more often suffer from chainsaw attacks that will chop off all that health anyway.

If Ultratus casts the spell to give it a hefty defensive bonus, you have no choice but to put up Defensive Stance until your Battle Trance activates. If Battle Trance is already activated, ignore this buff and press the attack because the spell is useless.

Aside from all that, I hate to say it, but you need luck too. Sometimes Ultratus's AI malfunctions and does silly things like cast Command several times, or even Taunts (I don't know how good this robot's charisma skill is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it also does huge amounts of damage). Count your blessings if Ultratus attacks but you dodge. Sometimes Ultratus continues pelting you with weak frost attacks even though it has two perfectly good chainsaws right there and knows two hits can do you in. Sometimes to win against Ultratus, you have to get lucky.

When you eventually beat Ultratus, feel free to beat Ultratus again for another level each so you can finally wear the good stuff in shops.

If you followed through this guide and you beat the game, congratulations! We now share the same pain. Also bragging rights, but I'm not sure if this is something to brag about. Maybe you can use this achievement to get into the Salty Spittoon.

I made this guide and beat the game with it, but I don't feel any satisfaction, probably because I just beat S&S3 as a Shooter.