Vilethorn

The Vilethorn is a weapon that fires a magical spear-like projectile in the direction of the cursor. It is currently the only weapon available to players that (consistently) travels through walls, making it rather invaluable. It is one of a few possible drops from a destroyed Shadow Orb.

Projectile
The Vilethorn produces a unique projectile that extends to cover a distance of 15 tiles and acts as a field that hangs in the air briefly (about 1 second). It passes through all objects, including walls. All enemies in its path take damage, usually with many hits per attack.

The Vilethorn produces miniscule knockback that tends to have the effect of nearly freezing enemies in place for the duration of each strike. It scores a rapid succession of hits (up to 7 per swing, for 56 total damage), each with a tiny knockback, preventing most enemies from moving or attacking. Note that enemies immune to knockback, like the Man Eater and bosses, do not have their movement or attack ability affected. It also has a minimal mana cost relative to its damage and capabilities.

The Vilethorn is the most mana-efficient weapon in the game, aside from the combination of Space Gun and Meteor armor, dealing ~4.6 damage per mana point. However, the Vilethorn has the distinction of being able to hit every enemy in its effective range even through walls. However, because it does damage in 7 hits, each hit is reduced by an enemy's defense.

These strengths can offset its low per-hit damage, making it an effective weapon for mob control and boss encounters; though the low per-hit damage rate makes it slow at killing high-defense enemies like the Fire Imp.