Lightning Aura sentry summons

The Lightning Aura Rod, Cane, and Staff are special sentry summon weapons that summon a small base at the point clicked and a Lightning Aura sentry minion (an orb) which hovers over the base. Each Lightning Aura sentry is a circle of lightning aura centered on the base that damages enemies repeatedly as they go through it. The Rod is sold by the Tavernkeep for, the Cane for , and Staff for.

Lightning Aura weapons completely ignore enemy defenses, by adding half the enemy's defense to the weapon's damage. The Lightning Aura Staff, for example, always inflicts around 34 damage on any enemy, regardless of its defense stat. The Lightning Aura weapons state tripled damage numbers in their tooltips as an estimate to reflect this unique ability.

The Rod is always available. The Cane becomes available after defeating one Mechanical Boss, and the Staff becomes available after defeating Golem. The three different versions cause an identical effect, but with varying statistics, with the Staff being the most expensive and the most powerful.

These weapons can only be used outside of the Old One's Army event after the event has been successfully completed. Completing the event on any difficulty allows Rods, Canes, and Staves alike to be used outside of the event.

During the Old One's Army event, Etherian Mana can be collected, which allows the placement of multiple Lightning Auras that remain permanently until the event is over. Etherian Mana cannot be used outside the event.

Lightning Aura sentries are boosted by the Monk armor and Shinobi Infiltrator armor set bonuses, which increase their attack rate (from 2 attacks per second to 2.4 attacks per second) and allow them to deal critical hits. The critical strike chance of these weapons will always be locked at 25% (Shinobi Infiltrator), or 16.7% (Monk), and will not be boosted by the weapon's modifier or any other boost to critical strike chance. The Shinobi Infiltrator armor also increases the size of the Lightning Aura summon.

Trivia

 * Prior the Lightning Aura Rod's introduction to Terraria, the Slime Staff was the weakest summon item in the game (half base damage, but ignores defense).