Vilethorn



The Vilethorn is a magic weapon that extends a 15-tile-long spear-like projection from the player's position. It passes through blocks, pierces multiple enemies, and scores a rapid succession of up to 7 hits per enemy. Its total effect lasts roughly 1.5 seconds. It is one of the possible drops from destroying a Shadow Orb in the Corruption, but it can also be obtained from, which are caught from fishing in the Corruption.

The Vilethorn also inflicts minuscule knockback for each hit, which can stun-lock enemies.

Tips

 * The Vilethorn is the earliest weapon available to players that consistently travels through blocks.
 * It is rather mana-efficient for its damage potential.
 * With appropriate modifiers and accessories, it is possible to recover full mana between shots if the player stands still, allowing for sustained fire.
 * Because it needs to hit multiple times in order to reach its full damage potential, the Vilethorn is susceptible to enemies with high defense, as the damage reduction is applied to each hit rather than the total amount. This weapon scales very poorly in Hardmode as a result. It shares this trait with other low-damage but high-firing rate weapons, such as the Minishark.
 * For the same reason, accessories, modifiers and buffs that increase damage or lower enemies' defenses can be especially useful for the Vilethorn.
 * The most useful trait of the Vilethorn is its ability to fire through solid blocks and pierce all enemies caught in it. Exploiting this, whenever a threat is encountered, the player can quickly set up a sealed bunker made of solid blocks and attack enemies with impunity from within.
 * This makes it effective against Blood Moons, the Goblin Army, and any situation with swarming enemies. Note that the Chaos Balls fired by the Goblin Army's Goblin Sorcerers pass through solid blocks.
 * This trait also makes the Vilethorn useful against worm-type enemies. Bosses with multiple parts, such as the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu's first stage, are also vulnerable.
 * 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 nearby.
 * Caster-type enemies such as the Fire Imp, Dark Caster, and Tim cease attacking once they take any damage, and will not resume attacking for a while after. The Vilethorn can be useful for reaching these enemies so as to stop their assault.

Trivia

 * The Vilethorn is the counterpart to the Crimson's Crimson Rod, as the Crimson Rod is the magic weapon drop from Crimson Hearts and also pierces through enemies.
 * Until the release of 1.2, this weapon was unique in its ability to attack through blocks. Since then, however, two more very similar weapons have been introduced – the Crystal Vile Shard (introduced in 1.3.0.1), which is obtainable in early Hardmode from Hallowed Mimics, and the Nettle Burst (introduced in 1.2), which drops from Plantera later in Hardmode. These can be considered the Vilethorn's Hardmode upgrades. Many other weapons have also been introduced that allow attacking through blocks while hiding from enemies, such as the Chlorophyte Partisan, Death Sickle, and Mushroom Spear.