Water Candle

The Water Candle is an item that can be held or placed to attract enemies. When placed, it activates the Water Candle debuff) on any players in close proximity. prior to 1.3, it could only be found on shelves in the Dungeon, which tends to contain at least a dozen. However, it can now be crafted from a platinum candle in the presence of a Crystal Ball and Water.

Being in proximity of a placed Water Candle, or holding it, will increase all enemy spawn rates by 33%, and increase the maximum number of simultaneous on-screen enemies by 50%. Multiple placed Candles do not stack, but a held and placed Candle does stack. Note that in order to be considered "holding" the Candle, it must be in the player's Hotbar and currently selected; merely being in a player's inventory will not suffice. Multiple held candles also do not stack (holding a pile of 99 has the same effect as holding 1).

A stacked Candle's effect is calculated off the modified value from any previous candle. A spawn limit example:


 * Surface (day) hard mode: 6
 * With one Candle (placed): 9 (+50%)
 * With two Candles (one placed, one held): 13 (+50% of 9, rounded down)
 * The Water Candle can only be placed on platforms, work benches, and tables. They provide less light than an ordinary Candle, and cannot be wired to be turned off.
 * It can be useful for farming enemies for rare items, since the increased spawn rate provides more enemies from which to acquire drops.

Tips

 * It may help to collect all Water Candles found in the Dungeon, as that will lower enemy spawn rates in the area.
 * If the player enjoys fishing, it can often times be useful to place water candles around their town, as it increases the spawn rate of critters, while the NPC presence removes spawning of hostile monsters still. This means at night, more fireflies or lightning bugs spawn, and during rain more worms spawn.

History
Bougie d'Eau