Vilethorn

The Vilethorn is a very unusual magic weapon that fires a spear-like projectile that hangs in the air for about .8 seconds, whose total effect lasts around 2 seconds, travels through blocks, pierces multiple enemies, and covers a distance of about 15 tiles. It scores a rapid succession of up to seven hits, and deals multiple hits even on small enemies, as the entire length of the projectile continues to do damage as it briefly hangs in the air. It is the earliest weapon available to players that consistently travels through blocks. The Vilethorn is one of the possible drops from a destroyed Shadow Orb.

The Vilethorn produces miniscule knockback for each of its seven rapid hits (for up to 70 total damage), which tends to have the effect of nearly freezing enemies in place for the duration of each swing. Enemies that are immune to knockback, like the Man Eater and Bosses, do not have their movement or attack ability affected. These strengths can offset its low per-hit damage.

The most useful and remarkable trait of the Vilethorn, however, is the property of passing through solid blocks and piercing as many enemies as travels through its effect. This functionally means that players can completely wall themselves off from any threat that does not similarly possess attacks that pass through walls, and slay them all with impunity. Even with trivial damage, if you can hurt an enemy that can't touch you, you can defeat even the toughest of enemies. Because enemies that are vulnerable to knockback are essentially stopped in their tracks, and the vilethorn has a duration just barely long enough for a player to recover all their mana and fire again before the effect ends, a player can essentially just lay down a constant thorn that paralyzes any enemy that passes near their little bunker with constant HP drain.

The simultaneous trait of infinite piercing ironically also makes it very useful against worm-type enemies that are specifically meant to stop players from just walling themselves in, and even those bosses that have multiple segments or minions. The Brain of Cthulhu, in its first stage, with multiple floating eyes, is particularly vulnerable.

Hardmode enemies, unfortunately, tend to have defenses and knockback resistance that render the Vilethorn nearly useless against them unless used from behind a block bunker and the player is patient enough to chip away at triple-digit health one point at a time.

Until the release of v1.2, this weapon was unique in its behavior. The Nettle Burst is essentially a hardmode version of the same weapon, being a little over twice as powerful. Other weapons were also introduced in v1.2 that can similarly attack while hiding from enemies - a Death Sickle, Mushroom Spear, and Chlorophyte Partisan, among others, all have some form of block-piercing projectile while being Melee Weapons, and summoning items like the Pygmy Staff can also be used to throw a minion out to fight for the player.

Although small, Vilethorn has knockback, so its best modifier is Mythical.



Tips

 * An easy solution to Blood Moons and the Goblin Army, as it allows you to strike enemies approaching your home structure while you remain safely indoors (after having sealed off your Doors with blocks). The Goblin Army's Goblin Sorcerers may still teleport inside, but they have fairly low defenses, and the Vilethorn dispatches them rather quickly.
 * The Vilethorn is effective against worm-type enemies. Because these enemies have multiple segments, with each segment taking damage, the Vilethorn's "field" can strike every segment. This has the advantage of killing many lesser worm enemies in a single strike. Even the Bone Serpent falls fairly easily to this weapon, and it is also effective against the Eater of Worlds.
 * Because of its piercing ability, the vilethorn is also quite effective against any enemy that attacks in mobs.
 * Even though many caster-type enemies like the Fire Imp take negligible damage from the vilethorn, while being able to attack through walls, even dealing a single point of damage to them tends to stun them and prevents them from dealing more damage until they teleport again.