Argus

> "*Bullets spread horizontally, and knock close enemies back on hit. If enemies hit any barrier on their way back, they will receive additional DMG.*"
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Upon firing, all projectiles will spread out into a horizontal line. The projectiles will not spread out as they travel, making them equally effective at hitting enemies at all ranges, only limited by how far they can travel before disappearing.

However due to the horizontal spread, hitting most enemies with all of the projectiles can be difficult, if not impossible. Shooting wider enemies, such as  Desert Coyote or  Lu Wu will increase the chance of hitting them with all projectiles.

If an enemy is hit within 10 meters, they will be knocked back and staggered. Each shot at this distance is capable of knocking them back, but they can only be staggered once every 5 seconds. Every time an enemy is knocked back they take additional damage equivalent to 20% of the hit's damage, ignoring lucky shots. This extra damage is capable of triggering their own lucky shots to compensate however.

## Impactful Inscriptions

* **RoF** improves its low rate of fire.
* **Stability** allows for better weak spot targeting, since the weapon has high recoil.
* **Accuracy** also allows for better weak spot targeting, since it can decrease the horizontal spread.
* **Critical procs** and **Critical damage** are very reliable, the purely horizontal spread can hit weak spots of multiple enemies simultaneously.
* **Elemental procs** are very reliable, it has a 91% chance each second to inflict an elemental effect if all projectiles hit.

## Ineffective Inscriptions

* **Magazine** increases and **Reload Time** decreases have little effect because of its low rate of fire.

## Possible Exclusive Inscriptions

Argus has more than one weapon-specific exclusive inscription:

* ◈ +200% Effective Range; +1 Piercing. +100% Shot Speed. The piercing increase allows it to hit two targets with each projectile, increasing damage output by up to +100%. The effective range increase allows it to be used like an unscoped sniper, however due to the horizontal spread it will likely miss most projectiles regardless of range.
* ◈ Generate a spirit upon your first hit on an enemy. The spirit will deal DMG to the enemies in a line when you hit a random enemy When the weapon hits an enemy, a blue bird spirit appears above that enemy and lasts for about 3 seconds. When the weapon deals another hit before the spirit leaves, the spirit will swoop to the target enemy in a flash, while dealing  True? damage to all enemies in the path. Damage value is equal to weapon basic damage with all projectiles, making it valuable comparing to normal weapon spread.

It may instead have a common inscription:

* ◈ *Two shot magazine*(full text) increases DPS by +29%, which increases to +49% with ● -40% Reload Time.
* ◈ *+65% DMG vs any elemental effect*(full text) is very reliable if it appears with ◆ *Elemental DMG convert*(full text) because of its high elemental effect chance.
* ◈ *+1.2% base DMG each hit*(full text) stacks at a slow rate due to a moderate rate of fire and many projectiles possibly missing small targets. Larger targets let it stack faster.

## Notes

* Despite the description mentioning that enemies must be knocked into a barrier to deal additional damage, this is currently not the case as it will work regardless.
	+ Additionally, the description currently mentions it can knock back enemies hit, however it can only do this when within 10 meters.

## Update History

* 06/01/2023 update: Exclusive inscription "Effective Range +200%; Piercing +1" changed to "+200% Effective Range; +1 Piercing. +100% Shot Speed".
* 06/01/2022 update: Added exclusive inscription "Generate a spirit upon your first hit on an enemy. The spirit will deal DMG to the enemies in a line when you hit a random enemy".
* 03/25/2022 update: Increased the distance at which the knockback effect can be triggered from 7 meters to 10.
* 12/30/2021 update:
	+ Can now knock back enemies continuously and deals additional damage upon doing so, but now both the knockback and stagger are limited to a 7 meter range.
	+ Increased Rate of Fire from 150 to 180.
* 04/29/2021 update: Optimized the animation during shooting.