Life Drain



The Life Drain is a Hardmode magic weapon that has a 20% chance to be dropped by the Crimson Mimic found in the Crimson Biome.

When used, it deals constant damage to all enemies near the cursor's position, as long as the distance between the player and the cursor is unobstructed. A stream of red particles flows toward the user from each targeted enemy. While the weapon is in use, the user receives the Life Drain buff, which adds 2.5 life per second to existing life regeneration. The weapon will drain mana as long as it is in use, regardless of whether it connects with enemies or not.

While an enemy is being damaged by Life Drain, it is also afflicted with a special debuff that deals 5 damage per tick.

The Life Drain is unable to deal critical hits, and does not trigger either Spectre armor set bonus.

Tips

 * It is a very effective weapon against crowds of weaker enemies, but less effective against singular targets.
 * The Life Drain employs a significantly different mechanic from the Vampire Knives, which actually heal the user based on damage dealt. This weapon instead applies a life regeneration buff while enemies are being damaged which increases in power for every two additional enemies within its effect, but provides slower healing than the Vampire Knives. Both weapons are, however, very thematically similar, being based around stealing health and focused around the Crimson biome.
 * Due to the increased health regen rate provided by the weapon, equipment that multiplies the effects of regeneration, like Crimson armor, can have good synergy with it.
 * This is a useful weapon against worm-type enemies since it counts each segment as an individual target. This does indeed work against The Destroyer, though due to the boss and its probes being immune to all debuffs, Life Drain will not increase the player's life regeneration.
 * It is also extremely useful when fighting the Dungeon Guardian, as the debuff will ignore its high defence.
 * It does affect Target Dummies as if they were normal enemies, allowing players to heal more quickly after respawning without needing to pay the Nurse.
 * While the player must aim at an area within their line of sight, the Life Drain can still damage enemies through walls as long as they are still in the area.
 * Since it is not a direct healing effect, Moon Lord's Moon Bite debuff will not interfere with it in any way.
 * As it will always take a set amount of mana, but has no max amount of enemies it can damage at once, it is highly effective when attacking huge hordes of enemies.
 * This item works extremely well with the Palladium armor set bonus. When player attacks enemies, the armor's regeneration effect stacks with Life Drain's boosts, allowing rapid healing within a short period of time.

Trivia

 * May be a reference to the Life Leech weapon from the 1997 game Blood as it bears a similar appearance and also works by draining life in a similar fashion.

History
Lebensabfluss Absorbeur de santé 夺命杖