Skeleton Sniper

Like its rocket carrying counterpart it only turns up in the Dungeon after Plantera has been killed, on its own, with no summon involved. It prefers the areas backed by slab walls, and it is rare enough that a Lifeform Analyzer is the difference between farming them and hoping. That same rarity is why it is dangerous: you will not have built a habit of watching for it.

It walks toward you slowly, and the instant it has a clear line it stops, pauses for a moment, and fires a single round that crosses the room faster than you can react to it. That shot can come from off screen entirely, and it takes a very large bite out of your health bar, enough that a couple of them in a row ends most runs. There is no dodging the bullet. The pause before it is the only warning you get, and often you cannot even see it happen.

Every hit you land resets its cooldown by more than the cooldown itself, so continuous fire keeps it permanently silent. Heavy knockback undoes that. It shoves the sniper back to the range it prefers and drops it onto solid ground, which is exactly the position it wants. Keep it close, keep hitting it, and use something rapid rather than something heavy. It also cannot fire while airborne, so anything that lifts it off the floor buys extra seconds.

• The design is an undead world war soldier, down to the Stahlhelm and a bolt action rifle with wooden furniture.
• The Rifle Scope being an occasional drop rather than a guaranteed one lines up with the history. Scopes were scarce, and most marksmen never got issued one.
• The Sniper Rifle it can leave behind is a different weapon entirely, modeled on something far more modern than the rifle it carries.