Is the nailgun any good?

[A_pet_tick]

Havent been playing for hours on end like most ppl but in my experience the nail gun just seems to be a deicated bullet hose. Is it actually good or is it just for bosses that need so much movement and focus to dodge their crap that you cant aim at the same time?

I tried out the seccond varriant. It looks sick and sounds intimidating but doesnt shred compared to just double pumping the shotgun.

Ive only reached the last level on the first layer so im probrably wrong. Afterall its not hitscan, so for all i know im actually missing all my shots whenever i use the seccond variant.

[Venc Ganence]

You are right on the nailgun being for enemies you can't reliably hit and need to focus on dodging for. Ignoring the fact that it shoots nails, it's a double barreled minigun. At the weakest projectile in the game and lowest accuracy, it still has the highest DPS through sheer fire rate alone. The Attractor variant can be used as a crutch: nailing the enemy with a magnet and then hold down LMB while you only think about dodging.

But in its own right? The nailgun can be pretty good. As I said, primary fire by itself isn't accurate nor powerful, just a torrent of nails. It's creative use of the alt-fires that make it shine. Hakita's own video on the nailgun is what illuminated me to how it can be used:
https://youtu.be/WgVruicF9mY
The Attractor variant rightfully has the bonus +attraptor

Overheat is best used as the railcannon equivalent of a shotgun: high cooldown point-blank burst damage. It seems nails deal less damage if the enemy is directly spiked with a magnet, so to avoid that you're gonna use this point-blank to eliminate inaccuracy. If you want to use it at range, combining with Attractor for guidance is a good call. Then there's combining the two in other ways...

Did I mention the nailgun combos with the Electric railcannon?

[A_pet_tick]

dang. thanks for the detail. This is a lot more helpfull than i was expecting

[CobaltNinja]

The nailgun is good but I personally don't enjoy it. All of the other weapons are single-shot and reward precision (especially marksman, though the coin hitbox is SUPER forgiving).

[Clearwater]

The nailgun is also very useful for getting pre-emptive damage on some bosses. For example, during the Cerberus fight on 0-5 or the V2 fight on 1-4, you can place down a magnet near where they stand while they do their intro animation and spam nails at it. While they're invulnerable during said intro animation, when the fight actually begins there is a chance they'll walk over the magnet and trigger a good amount of damage.

Magnets are also useful if you're having trouble tracking enemies at high mobility. If you're able to stick a magnet to someone, you can then back off or even turn your back to then and continue firing the nailgun as the nails fired will home in on the magnet. And since the magnet is embedded in someone's poor skull...