Rate the Weapon: Day Eighteen - Life Drain

How often do you use Life Drain in your playthroughs?

  • 1 - Never

    Votes: 23 62.2%
  • 2 - Rarely - The resources are too limited, or the time it's useful is too short.

    Votes: 5 13.5%
  • 3 - Sometimes - If I have the resources to spare

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • 4 - Often - It makes progression easier, but skippable

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • 5 - Most Games - It's great to have, but not worth ten hours to get.

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • 6 - Always - I will build a farm for this if I have to. I'm not progressing without it.

    Votes: 3 8.1%

  • Total voters
    37

Ami

Terrarian
Inspired by another topic, it occurs to me that many of us think weapons are bad or unusable, simply because we know what we like. But, do we know what we DON'T like? What's a worthy investment of your time and resources? In the case of polls which have multiple items bunched together, such as the ore swords, pick only the best one. If you love silver sword, but think iron sword is a waste of the bars, vote as if this were a poll for silver sword. I'll be logging these in a spreadsheet and making a compilation of which items users think are good, bad, OP, or a waste of space.
If they're bad, what would make them better? Lower cost? Autoswing? Projectiles? Different attack animation?
If they're OP, what would make them balanced?

Day Eighteen: Life Drain

This weapon increases life regeneration when damaging an enemy. the life regeneration is also applied if you hit a test dummy, so placing a bunch of test dummies in an arena while using this weapon will ensure that you're always gaining life while using it. It damages EVERY enemy in range, as well, meaning you can pop a ton of monsters, or deal heavy damage to destroyer with the same amount of mana. Unfortunately, the mana cost of the item is relatively massive, which is kind of sad for a weapon that wants to be spammed.

Early Hardmode items
Day 12 - Daedalus Stormbow - 4.76 (26 votes) - this guy probably needs a nerf. People intentionally go out of their way to not use it, as it makes progression too easy.
Day 11 - Nimbus Rod - 4.47 - (21 votes)
Day 13 - Fetid Baghnakhs - 3.5 - (20 votes)
Day 14 - Chain Guillotine - 2.85 - (14 votes)
Day 15 - Bladetongue - 2.8 - (20 votes)
Day 17 - Toxikarp - 2.87 (16 votes)
Day 16 - Dart Gun - 2.78 - (19 votes)

Pre-Hardmode items
Day 7 - Pistols - 4.21 - (38 votes)
Day 4 - Yoyos - 4.21 - (14 votes)
Day 8 - Covered in BEES! - 3.72 - (25 votes)
Day 5 - Boomerangs - 3.52 - (21 votes)
Day 2 - Ore Bows - 3.48 - (27 votes)
Day 3 - Grenades - 3.37 - (24 votes)
Day 10 - Gem Staves - 2.80 - (26 votes)
Day 1 - Ore Swords - 2.54 - (24 votes)
Day 9 - Throwing knife/shuriken family - 2.52 (17 votes)
Day 6 - Flails - 2.04 - (24 votes) - RIP Old, bad yoyos
 
It doesn't regenerate hp through the damage dealt. It just provides a buff which can easily neutralized and it eats mana. So, never. It's only use(I think) selling to NPCs or putting on a weaponrack...
 
people focus too much on the buff it provides not being just 'vampire knives but magic' and not enough on the fact that this weapon shreds enemies in a deceptively huge area. as an actual magic weapon, it's pretty good. if you're playing one of those magic types it's one of the few actually-not-awful weapons available until spectre armor, so it's got that going for it.

bulky types can also combine it with a mana regeneration potion while multiplayer tanking and get an extra layer of life regeneration on top of campfire/heart lantern/honey pit shenanigans.

all in all, if its niche applies to you, it's very good. if it doesn't, you can skip it.
 
The first time I got one I was excited... but then felt seriously let down. As an early hardmode magic weapon it's okay, I guess. It targets enemies in a slightly different way which gives it some uitiliy, but it completely fails to live up to the expectation of its name. The healing effect is so weak I honestly can't be sure it does anything at all.
 
It can be a fun weapon to play around with but it's just not practical to use, great to kill weak mobs though due to it's unusual range
 
Okay yeah at first I was exciting about the idea of draining as much damage as I was dealing, but that turned out to be a let down. I quickly forgot about that because this weapon is one of the exclusive club of 'kill things through walls' weapons (most of which are magic). I originally fell in love with the vilethorn (and long ago the corruption powder) for this same trait. Defend your house from safely inside, scrape those wandering bad guys off the ceiling, kill an enemy waiting in the next cave, or that boss hovering in the ground. The whole group of weapons is a notch more useful for the trait. Any enemy that you can hit through walls is (usually) one that's not hitting back, or often, able to escape.
What's more, in this specific instance, the life drain doesn't need to be aimed, much. Just wave it in their general direction and watch them bleed out. The buff that pushes your regeneration rate up is a great bonus on top of disintegrating bad guys en masse from unassailable positions. Which makes up for the somewhat short range, with blocks in the mix you could be close enough to whisper sweet nothings in their ear and still be safe.
This is the answer to the mage who shouldn't have to pack a death sickle for this kind of thing, and still thinks vilethorn/vileshard/nettleburst suck (they don't). I give it a 4.
 
I'm going to be blunt - its a pretty :red:ty magic weapon.
For one thing, it doesn't deal that much damage. For another, it doesn't actually drain life; it just increases health regeneration, which still follows the rules for health regen, ie its slower when taking damage, and it still drains a lot of mana.
If you want sustain as a mage, go spectre hood. If you aren't up to spectre hood, too bad.
 
Damage is too low, it drains mana too fast, and the healing effect just isn't up to scratch.

So..... never, really.
 
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