PC Bees damage mechanics

[YourLocalTerrarian]

Hey do y’all know if bees from specifically the bees knees do ranged damage? Or do they do melee damage? And do you know if the sharpening station would affect them?

I’ve heard the sharpening station affects the bees from the bee keeper, but I’m not sure if all bees from all weapons do melee damage.

 

[IndigoGollum]

I think the bees do ranged damage because they come from a ranged weapon. Sword projectiles (except the sky fracture) count as melee attacks because they were created by melee weapons and as such deal melee damage. The sharpening station should work fine on the bee keeper and its bees.

 

[J Bame]

From what I understand (may be wrong):

The Bees are a magic projectile, but it's spawned based on the damage of the "bee arrow", which benefits from ranged damage.

The Sharpening Station works on Beekeeper's bees because the Sharpened buff just increases the player's armor penetration stat if you are holding a melee weapon (this also means that any spawned projectiles, including minions, will benefit from it). If you were to swap to another non-melee weapon those bees would stop receiving that increase from it.

EDIT: This isn't fully true; see below.

 

[qwerty3.14]

Although bees are by default magic in the bee's knee's code, it changes the class of the bee's as soon as they spawn, so the bee's knee's bees are counted as ranged.

 

[YourLocalTerrarian]

Yeah I did actual testing and the bees are based on the weapon’a damage.