Nettle Burst

The Nettle Burst is a rather unique magic weapon that fires a spear-like projectile that hangs in the air, travelling through blocks and infinitely piercing enemies. Functionally, it is a hardmode upgrade to the Vilethorn and drops from the jungle boss Plantera. It appears to have a brighter, greener colour than the Vilethorn with a red tip, and less spikes coming from the sides which are also red. Unlike the body of the weapon, the projectile is a reddish-brown colour.

Compared to the Vilethorn, the Nettle Burst deals a little over double damage and has a slightly faster re-fire time. However this, combined with the slightly higher mana cost, disallows you from firing it continually without losing mana.

Similar to the Vilethorn, the Nettle Burst produces minuscule knockback for each quick hit, which tends to have the effect of nearly freezing enemies in place for the duration of each swing. Equally, enemies that are immune to knockback do not have impeded movement.

The most useful trait of the Nettle Burst and Vilethorn, however, is the property of passing through solid blocks and piercing as many enemies as travels through its effect. This means that players can simply wall themselves off from any threat that does not pass through walls, and still kill them at no risk, or fire through solid walls at worms and other enemies that pass through walls at a much higher range than any melee weapon (or hitting them while they're in mid-air through a thinner wall) at the cost of noticeably lower damage per hit.

It's infinite piercing property is also considerably useful against enemies with multiple parts or minions, such as the Destroyer

Until the release of v1.2, the Vilethorn was the only weapon with this behaviour.

Although small, the Nettle Burst has the same low knockback as the Vilethorn, so its best modifier is Mythical.