Is The Vilethorn useful?

[Tephra]

Ok, i just got a vilethorn but its so weak compared to my other weapons so i was wondering if i should keep it or sell it?

[penumbric_]

You should keep it-
It's quite useful for Eater of Worlds or anything for that matter with continous damage.
So basically it's great for farming.

[Drag]

Have you actually used it against an enemy? Some weapons may look really weak just from their base stats, but also come with more than a few effects that make them far more potent.

But most pre-hardmode stuff is pretty much useless once hardmode hits anyway.

[Tephra]

Well yeah but i have a 27 ranged damage weapon and i think the vilethorn does 16

[The_Technomancer]

It's great for hitting enemies through walls and keeping them in place temporarily.

[Drag]

Again, test the weapon out in combat and see how it handles. If you like it, you have your answer. If you don't like it, again, you have your answer. Just about everything needs to be experimented with.

Except for explosives. Those will kill you. If not, it'll hurt pretty bad. So don't use your body to test explosives. It's really bad for your health.

[Tephra]

lol

[Drag]

But seriously, though. Don't underestimate a weapon until you've at least used it and found that it does actually suck compared to what you have. Although the vilethorn itself does have some uses, specifically for milking enemies with a lucky coin.

[Tephra]

ok

[Celator]

The Vilethorn is worth keeping if only for its ability to hit enemies through walls. Also, although its base damage is very low, it hits enemies much faster than most other pre-hardmode weapons (and faster than the speed on its tooltip indicates, since one use will hit an enemy multiple times). For reference, the Bee's Knees, which I'm guessing is your ranged weapon with 27 damage, fires around 2.73 times a second, while the Vilethorn can deal around 4.67 hits per second. The Bee's Knees still has the higher DPS overall, but the Vilethorn doesn't lag that far behind.

[E X P A N S I O N P A C K]

vilethorn is awesome for invasions, blood moon, slime rain, ect. Just block the door, wait for enemies to build up and go to town

[Daemonologist]

At least in pre-HM, the vilethorn is definitely worth holding onto, each use can hit each target 7 times iirc (and it pierces infinitely, so you can hit every target in range up to 7 times every attack), making it particularly potent against low defence targets (and a great combo with the sharktooth necklace), and usable through walls as well. Multi-segmented targets like worms can get hit up to 7 times per segment, allowing it to be vastly more powerful that it appears to be at a glance. It quickly becomes useless in HM due to high defence on most targets unfortunately, but the nettle burst from plantera is a perfectly viable HM equivalent for HM enemies, hitting higher, more times per cast, and firing faster as well.

Another interesting thing to note about vilethorn and similar weapons is that because it very rapidly hits it's targets and deals minor knockback it essentially locks enemies that aren't immune to knockback in place while they're under attack. In addition to it's other features this makes it one of the most useful utility weapons there is in pre-HM, whether for dealing with groups of enemies or just for bunkering up and killing things from safety - including the very worms designed to discourage such methods. It's biggest downside is that it suffers far more than most weapons from enemy defence due to it's damage coming in 7 individual low hits rather than one high hit.

[Celator]

Originally posted by Daemonologist:

It quickly becomes useless in HM due to high defence on most targets unfortunately, but the nettle burst from plantera is a perfectly viable HM equivalent for HM enemies, hitting higher, more times per cast, and firing faster as well.

Don't forget about the Crystal Vile Shard, a pre-Plantera but still hardmode equivalent to the Vilethorn. It drops from Hallow Mimics.

[Daemonologist]

Tbh, the crystal vile shard has barely 10% more dps against 0 armour than vilethorn and while it handles armour better, it doesn't handle it well enough to really be worth using against typical HM enemies with 30-40 defence, both of them are pretty terrible vs HM enemies, despite the crystal vile shard only being obtained in HM. Vilethorn hits up to 7 times, crystal vile shard up to 5 times, and nettle burst up to 9 times per target per cast. The use times have a similar pattern, with the crystal vile shard being the slowest, and the nettle burst the fastest. Aside from the extra knockback (3 per hit vs 1 of the vilethorn/nettle burst for up to 15 per cast vs 7/9 of vilethorn/nettle burst) the crystal vile shard has little going for it - yes the damage per hit is higher than the vilethorn, but against HM enemies the increase just isn't enough to provide a meaningful damage output unless you absolutely must attack through a wall until the target dies.

Just some numbers for max dps per target without buffs/accessories/modifier/armor bonuses to illustrate my point:
raw base dps vs 0 def, (1s=60ticks):
vilethorn: 70 (10*7) per 27 ticks, 155.5555..dps
crystal vile shard: 95 (19*5) per 32 ticks, 178.125dps
nettle burst: 252 (28*9) per 24 ticks, 630dps

vs 8 def (-4 damage per hit), typical high def pre-HM mobs:
vilethorn: 42 per 27 ticks, 93.3333..dps
crystal vile shard: 75 per 32 ticks, 140.625dps
nettle burst: 216 per 24 ticks, 540dps

vs 30 def (-15 damage per hit), typical low def HM mobs.
vilethorn: 7 per 27 ticks, 15.5555..dps
crystal vile shard: 20 per 32 ticks, 37.5dps
nettle burst: 117 per 24 ticks, 292.5dps

vs 40 def (-20 damage per hit), typical high def HM mobs
vilethorn: 7 per 27 ticks, 15.5555..dps
crystal vile shard: 5 per 32 ticks, 9.375dps but just +10.5% base damage would double that, hitting 2s instead of 1s.
nettle burst: 72 per 24 ticks, 180dps

Kinda makes the crystal vile shard look like a pre-HM weapon, doesn't it? Hallowed Mimic drops are kinda odd really - the daedalus stormbow is really powerful, while the crystal vile shard is really weak for a HM weapon.