Shadow Sniper

Shadow Sniper

Type	Monster
Location	The Mines
Floors	81-119
HP	300
Damage	18
Defence	2
Speed	3
XP	20

The Shadow Sniper is the void spirit that never comes to the farmer. It is one of the harder counterparts of the Shadow Brute, it appears on the lava floors once the Mines have been switched to their dangerous state, and instead of walking in it shoots from across the room. Every hit brings the Darkness debuff, which dims the screen and makes everything else on the floor hard to see, so a Sniper left alone makes the dangerous Brutes and Shamans beside it far more dangerous than they already are. The trick to it is geometry: a Sniper can only fire in a straight line, so approaching off its axis makes it harmless. It counts towards the hundred and fifty void spirits Gil pays with the Savage Ring.

Behaviour

A Sniper is a ranged monster first. It keeps its distance and fires at the farmer, and the damage arrives from somewhere that cannot be swung at.

Darkness is what the shots are really for. The screen dims for several seconds, which does not reduce the farmer's own numbers but makes the rest of the floor difficult to read, and on a dangerous lava floor the inability to see what is approaching is worse than losing a few points of defence. A Sniper that is left shooting while the farmer fights something else keeps the room dark for the whole fight.

The weakness is in how it aims. A Sniper fires along a straight line and cannot angle its shot, so an approach made from off that line cannot be hit at all. Closing on a diagonal, or coming at it from a direction it is not facing, gets the farmer into melee range without taking a shot. Once there, it is easy to finish.

Taking it out first is almost always right. It is the only monster at that depth that can hurt the farmer from across the room, and until it is dead nothing else can be fought in good light.

A Basilisk Paw keeps the debuff off entirely, which turns a Sniper from a problem into a slow monster with a long reach.

Location

Shadow Snipers appear on the lava floors of the Mines, the stretch from the eighties down to the bottom, and only while the mine is in its dangerous state. There are two routes into that state. Mr. Qi's Danger In The Deep order, taken from the board in Qi's Walnut Room, flips the whole mine and resets the elevator with a week to reach the bottom. Completing it unlocks the Shrine of Challenge at floor one hundred and twenty, which from then on switches the mine between states, the change landing the following morning.

Dangerous Shadow Brutes and dangerous Shadow Shamans hold the same floors, and the three of them together are the hardest room in the mine. The Sniper darkens the screen, the Shaman heals, the Brute walks in. Any order other than Sniper and Shaman first tends to end badly.

Those floors are also the only place Radioactive Nodes appear, which is why farmers put up with them at all. Travelling back to the mine entrance resets the layout, so a cleared floor can be run again within minutes.

Drops

Void Essence comes off three kills in four. It is the most demanded monster drop in the game: the Iridium Band wants fifty of it alongside fifty Solar Essence, every Mega Bomb takes one, and the Desert Trader will trade the Void Ghost Pendant for two hundred once Krobus is close enough a friend. One piece fills an option of the Adventurer's Bundle in the Boiler Room, and the Wizard loves receiving one.

Finished metal bars fall out as well, Copper through Iridium, each rarer than the last, with small stacks of Coal among them. A bar from a monster has skipped the ore, the coal and the Furnace, which matters on a floor where the farmer's bag is already full of stone.

The Strange Bun appears on about one kill in twenty five, and one bun buys a switch at the Dark Shrine of Night Terrors in the Witch's Hut, which turns night-time monster spawns on the farm on or off.

The Rare Disc is the artefact worth keeping. It is a Museum donation and one of the pieces Gunther wants before handing over the Burnt Offering reward. Dwarf Scrolls III and IV turn up rarely and go to the Museum too.

Items this monster can drop when it is defeated, with the chance of each.

Item	Image	Chance
Copper Bar		4%
Dwarf Scroll III		0.5%
Dwarf Scroll IV		0.1%
Gold Bar		1%
Iridium Bar		0.2%
Iron Bar		2%
Prismatic Shard		0.05%
Rare Disc		0.3%
Strange Bun		4%
Void Essence		75%
Void Essence		10%
Diamond		0.05%
Prismatic Shard		0.05%

Notes

The Savage Ring at the end of the void spirit bounty gives a short speed boost on every kill, and on dark, crowded floors that extra movement is more useful than it sounds. Marlon sells a second once Gil has handed the first over, but two Savage Rings do nothing more than one.

Shadow Brutes and Shadow Shamans count towards the same total in both the ordinary and the dangerous mine, so a farmer who finds Snipers too much can bank the whole bounty on the easier floors instead.

Monster Musk doubles how many monsters wait on a floor. With Snipers that means more shots crossing the room from more directions, so it suits a farmer with a Basilisk Paw and goes badly for one without.

All Monsters

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Location	HP	Damage
Armored Bug	Skull Cavern	1	8
Armored Bug (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	250	20-27
Bats	The Mines & Skull Cavern	24, 36, 80, 300,; 268, 277	06, 07, 15, 30, 13, 14
Blue Squid	The Dangerous Mines	310	18
Bug	The Mines	1	8
Bug (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	250	15-16
Carbon Ghost	Skull Cavern; The Dangerous Mines	190	25
Cave Fly	The Mines	22	6
Cave Fly (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	266	13-15
Duggy	The Mines	40	6
Duggy (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	8
Dust Sprite	The Mines	40	6
Dust Sprite (dangerous)	The Mines	280	13-15
Dwarvish Sentry	Volcano Dungeon	300	18
False Magma Cap	Volcano Dungeon	290	15
Ghost	The Mines	96	10
Grub	The Mines	20	4
Grub (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	265	12-13
Haunted Skull	Quarry Mine; The Mines random dungeon floors	160	15
Haunted Skull (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	19-26
Hot Head	Volcano Dungeon	215	18
Iridium Crab	Skull Cavern	240	15
Iridium Golem	Wilderness Farm	430	15
Lava Crab	The Mines	120	15
Lava Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	340	19-26
Lava Lurk	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Magma Duggy	Volcano Dungeon	380	16
Magma Sparker	Volcano Dungeon	310	15
Magma Sprite	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Metal Head	The Mines	40	15
Metal Head (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	19-26
Mummy	Skull Cavern	260	30
Mummy (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	445	38-55
Mutant Fly	Mutant Bug Lair, Skull Cavern	66	12
Mutant Grub	Mutant Bug Lair	100	12
Pepper Rex	Skull Cavern	300	15
Putrid Ghost	The Dangerous Mines	500	25
Rock Crab	The Mines	30	5
Rock Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	272	13
Royal Serpent	Skull Cavern	150 + (50 × tail segments)	32-48
Serpent	Skull Cavern	150	23
Shadow Brute	The Mines	160	18
Shadow Brute (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	370	22-32
Shadow Shaman	The Mines	80	17
Shadow Shaman (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	21-30
Shadow Sniper	The Mines	300	18
Skeleton	The Mines	140	10
Skeleton (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	655	16-18
Skeleton Mage	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	355	20-25
Slimes	The Mines, Skull Cavern, Quarry Mine, Secret Woods, Tiger Slime Grove, and Volcano Dungeon	Varies	Varies
Spider	The Mines (Shrine ON)	200	15
Squid Kid	The Mines	1	18
Squid Kid (dangerous)	The Dangerous Mines; Skull Cavern	250	22-32
Stick Bug	The Dangerous Mines	700	20
Stone Golem	The Mines	45	5
Stone Golem (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	283	13
Truffle Crab	The Farm	30	5
Wilderness Golem	The Farm	30	5