Chainsaw in Build 42 — Bat-Tier Numbers at Axe Weight

The Trade in One Line

The chainsaw is bat durability at axe weight: 0.6–1.1 damage, condition 15, knockback 0.5 — all in line with the baseball bat — but costing 3 to carry and critting at 25% instead of 40%. As a weapon its numbers describe a heavier, less lucky bat; the dual-purpose label is what you are really buying.

What the Numbers Mean in Play Cross-Verified

• Damage 0.6 – 1.1. Mid-blunt band, matching the nightstick; the crowbar edges the ceiling, the machete doubles it.
• Condition 15. The joint-best durability of the common weapons, tied with the bat and crowbar — a chainsaw will not die on you. Drain is Maintenance-gated — skill leveling guide.
• Knockback 0.5. Full stagger tier with the bat, crowbar, hammer and shovel; nothing that clears lines like the sledgehammer’s 1.0, but real space per hit.
• Weight 3. The fire-axe/pickaxe tier — one and a half times the bat and crowbar’s 2, half the sledgehammer’s 6.
• Crit 25%. Middle — the hunting knife’s 50% and bat’s 40% are the crit kings; the saw sits with the wrench and nightstick.

When Not to Use It

• When you only want a weapon. The baseball bat gives you the same condition and knockback at weight 2 with a higher floor and double the crit.
• When one-hit stops matter. 0.6–1.1 does not end fights; the machete’s 2–3 at the same weight 2 does, if you can find or forge one.
• When the pack is the constraint. Weight 3 is a real tax for mid-tier numbers; a nightstick delivers a similar band at 1.5.

How It Compares

The chainsaw’s row is the uncomfortable one: the bat matches its durability and knockback while weighing less, hitting a higher floor and critting harder. Against the nightstick it is the same band and life for 1.5 more weight and a better shove. Against the fire axe it trades damage for condition and knockback. On pure numbers the chainsaw is justified only by the second job its name implies — which the weapon tier list weighs separately, and this page deliberately does not fabricate.

Sources & Verification

Every figure on this page is agreed by two independent sources we can read today, matched by the in-game item ID Base.Chainsaw:

What this is not. Neither source is our own measurement, and PZwiki stamps most item pages against an older 42.10-era build while flagging that they may lag the current release. Treat these as 42.20-era agreement rather than 42.21-verified, and expect a patch note to change them eventually. Spawn locations are deliberately absent from this page: we could not source them twice, so we do not print them.