Weapons & Equip Mandible Blade Should Be Craftable.

[Xylia]

So, 1.3.3 brings with it yet another weapon that hardly anybody will actually use in serious progression, because it seems like Re-Logic has a fear of adding new things that are actually useful when they are found.

Case in point with the new Mandible Blade.

It does rather nice DPS, it is a low damage but rather fast weapon (though not as silly as the Arkhalis), and it is one of the few Easymode Auto-Swing Swords (it is kinda like a mini Falcon Blade).

However.... by the time you can reliably get it, it is already useless, and I will explain why.

First, let's look at the stats:

14 Melee Damage
2.5 Knockback
4% Critical Chance
19 Use Time
Auto-Swing

So basically, it is exactly as advertised: a nice fast shortsword/dagger like weapon that is swung like a broadsword.

But, there's a problem. Let's compare it to some other early-game swords:

Cactus Sword: 9 Damage, 5 Knockback This is probably the Go-To weapon for early Terrarians, right next to the Wood Sword. It has twice the Knockback (something that is VERY much needed early-game. Less damage, less speed, and no auto-swing, but in early-game, you are weak and you die fast to nearly anything. The knockback on the Cactus Sword will oftentimes save your butt, especially against some enemies with knockback resistance. It gives you just enough KB to keep some of these enemies away from you long enough to get away, or to pluck them to death with weak hits. It also has twice the range of the Mandible Blade, which means you can hit them from further away.

Spear: 8 Damage, 6.5 KB. Cactus Sword, only it hits 2-3 times per swing at the cost of area of effect.

Light's Bane: 17 Damage, 5 KB. More damage, slower swing, no Auto-Swing and like the Cactus Sword, much more KB.

Blood Butcherer: 22 Damage, 5KB. No Comparison. This is just a superior weapon all-around.

Ice Blade: 17 Damage, 4.75KB, 6% Crit, 19 Use Time, Auto-Swing. Projectile Weapon. Bigger weapon swing AoE. This is an upgrade all the way around.

So, with these weapons in mind, I will tell you the problem with trying to get the Mandible Blade (or even why you will almost never get one while it is still useful):

First, let's look at the Antlion Charger: It does 24 damage, has 70HP, and has 16 defense. To do 2+ damage to this enemy, you need a weapon that does at least 9 damage. The Cactus Sword barely does this, the Wood Sword outright fails, as does the Wooden Yo-Yo, and the Wooden Boomerang. With your starting 100HP, you will die in 5 hits without using potions. So this is NOT a mob you are going to farm early-game whatsoever. In fact, if you're not wearing at least Silver Armor, you shouldn't even BE in the Underground Desert to begin with unless you have a kick butt weapon (20+ damage weapon). If you had a Kick Butt weapon, you wouldn't be looking for the Mandible Blade in the first place (you'd probably be here for golden chests, heart crystals, extractinator, etc).

But wait, Antlion Chargers aren't your only problems though... we also have Antlion Swarmers (30 Damage, 12 Defense, 50 HP). You could just build/dig yourself a little hidey-hole and use fire arrows from a bow or something, right?

Well, there's one more enemy and this is what is going to be the deal-breaker: Tomb Crawlers. They have 80HP, 12-20 Defense for every part except the Head, and it does 16-34 Damage. If you made yourself a hidey-hole where Antlion Chargers and Antlion Swarmers can't get to you, then you are likely going to get smeared by the worms which spawn annoyingly often. That's not even speaking of Angry Tumblers (if any should fall in from the surface).

So if you only got 100HP and little/no armor, and some weak starting weapon, farming these is NOT feasible whatsoever unless you put a LOT of effort and don't mind getting killed a few times to Tomb Crawlers. Seems like a lot of work to go through, IMO when instead you could just go spelunking in the Underground Snow Biome (the worst thing in there if you stay above the Cavern Layer are the Viking Skeletons and the Flinxes, both of which are easy to avoid and you could pluck them to death with boomerangs). If you find an Ice Blade, Congratulations! You have a superior weapon in every way as shown above.

And if you get 120+ HP to try to make yourself more survivable, chances are you'll be ambushed by the EoC and will thus have either the Yo-Yo or the Sword made from it's drops, both of which are either just as good as (Demonite) or out-class entirely (Crimtane) the Mandible Blade anyways.

So, let me make a suggestion: Instead of having them being dropped by Antlion Chargers (which means 99% of the time, if you get one, you are way past the point of its usefulness), let's make them craftable instead:

Mandible Blade
5x Antlion Mandible
3x Silk

That way, we make a new use for Antlion Mandibles (besides the only 2 recipes that currently call for them), we give the player more reason to explore the surface desert (to kill the normal antlions that spit sand), AND we make the weapon readily available with a mild amount of work. To make it, you'd have to craft/find a Sawmill and a Loom (for the silk) which is reasonably done at the beginning of the game, but yet not as soon as you make a workbench and chop a couple trees down.

Seems like this would be a lot better idea to make this weapon more viable and not a "yet another useless weapon" category.

 

[Leinfors]

I've already noted this proposal for discussion . . . as for whether its something we implement or not, that's not my call. We've been focusing more on the performance issues than smaller things like this for now.

 

[Zach_]

Tbh, 5 mandibles and 3 silk is EXTREMELY easy to craft early game, just walk around in the desert until you get the non-moving antilions to spawn and kill them, and you have a sword that has autoswing and high dmg for early-game. Because like the ice blade requires a decent amount of luck, while with the recipe you proposed, you need pretty much no luck and it can be used up until post EoC. so making this a sword you can get right at the start of the game and can be used for a decent amount of time is not to my liking.

No support.

 

[Xylia]

Tbh, 5 mandibles and 3 silk is EXTREMELY easy to craft early game, just walk around in the desert until you get the non-moving antilions to spawn and kill them, and you have a sword that has autoswing and high dmg for early-game. Because like the ice blade requires a decent amount of luck, while with the recipe you proposed, you need pretty much no luck and it can be used up until post EoC. so making this a sword you can get right at the start of the game and can be used for a decent amount of time is not to my liking.

No support.

"Luck" to find an Ice Blade.

That's a good one.

I've found Ice Blades pre-EoC in 9 out of 10 of my last playthroughs, and that one I found an Ice Boomerang instead which is almost as good. I didn't bother continue searching for an Ice Blade in that playthrough because I took said boomerang straight to the Jungle to get my Amazon thing going.

You're also forgetting that it is much weaker than the Ice Blade (same swing speed, but lower damage, crit, KB, lack of projectile, and smaller weapon size) so I don't know why you are comparing it to the Ice Blade and talking like it is some powerful, powerful weapon that will just decimate everything (it won't).

TBH, the starting weapons are already too weak, and this weapon would go a long way in making the first 1-2h of the game much more pleasant. And besides. Don't like it? Don't craft it.

But it's current implementation makes the weapon 99.9% useless.

EDIT: The Mandible Blade is not some "OH MY!" weapon that just destroys everything in your path. It is easily out-classed by EoC weapons for reasons I mentioned above, and the Starfury and Ice Blade are in another league altogether and are available Pre-EoC with a little work. It's got a short blade, which makes it dangerous to use against some enemies and it has a weak knockback which only adds to the reasons why other weapons are better. So I really don't understand why you put it on such a pedestal and you're treating it like it's the Arkhalis 2.0...

 

[Nobody Important]

Compare it to the iron broadsword.

It has 40% more damage and half the knockback. With a very very slightly improved attack rate.

This requires less iron to make it but requires going into the desert. I say this is a good change to make.

Edit: Look at the zombie arm. With luck you could get something almost equivalent to a tungsten broadsword on your first night.

 

[Tyrian3k]

Compare it to the iron broadsword.

It has 40% more damage and half the knockback. With a very very slightly improved attack rate.

This requires less iron to make it but requires going into the desert. I say this is a good change to make.

Edit: Look at the zombie arm. With luck you could get something almost equivalent to a tungsten broadsword on your first night.

Well, with luck you could get something better than anything mentioned in this thread very early on.

Rockfish: 24 damage, 6 KB, 23 use time, auto-swing and functions as a good pre-HM hammer.

Alternatively, you can even get a few bombs and get two items from shadow orbs/crimson hearts, one of which will always be the respective gun. If you break them past midnight and before dawn, you also have a 75% chance of a meteor falling, which you can bomb for meteor armor and a space gun. At that point, going into the jungle will be a piece of cake and can quickly get you a Blade of Grass.
You can also get lucky while digging and get a gravitation potion to get to a floating island, which can land you a Starfury.

Getting pretty OP gear very quickly isn't that hard if you know where to look. (Though I barely ever speed my way through myself.)

That said, it's less about what alternatives you can get and more about how tough the enemies you need to kill are compared to the weapon you get from them.
The bone sword is very comparable in power and method of acquisition to the mandible sword, but the skeletons that drop it are a lot less dangerous than Antlion Chargers. Antlion Chargers are quite fast, have very high KB resistance and quite a lot of defense, making them quite a big challenge to kill for new characters. In expert mode it's even worse, since the mandible blade only deals 2 damage to the chargers and is therefore completely useless against the very enemy that drops it.

 

[Allenb60]

I think it is similar to items you can luckily get for just exploring, such as the: enchanted sword, water bolt, crimson rod, vilethorn, boomstick, undertaker, or chain knife. Not really easy to get or expected in every world starting out, but a nice drop to get excited about rather than a threshold or standard to achieve, such as the blood butcherer or lightsbane. In my experience its fairly powerful in respect to the biome its available from and if you can handle the desert without it then it isn't likely to be the object being searched for anyways. Honestly I feel like it should stay as only a drop from antlion chargers, and if it needs to be revamped it should have a crafting recipe similar to the sandgun, just to keep it as a viable option for using antlion mandibles too

 

[Sigma90]

My thinking is along the following:
It's not about the stats. It's about the rarity of the item. Having such a low drop rate (2% if the Wiki is correct) puts it in the situation of weapons like Bone Sword, Beam Sword and Keybrand. They're all weapons that are too rare to be farming for at the stage you need them. People default to a comparable or better weapon that's easier to obtain.

Xylia's suggestion to make it craftable -- which would make it more accessible -- and thus more useful.

(Besides, swords are a bit lacking in the melee weapon department in early game. Better off with a boomerang or a game-breaking yoyo and saving the ore for pickaxes and armour. You need the range to survive. Probably why most later swords fire projectiles.)

 

[Leinfors]

Worth noting, to those who may not have noticed from reading the continuing discussion, but we increased the Knockback on the Mandible blade significantly in response to some of these criticisms in 1.3.3.2.

That, in tandem with some changes to early-game Sandstorm spawns, are enough that the sword and its accessibility are where we as a team agreed we wanted it. No, its not a massive game changer, but its potentially available, by luck, in a surface biome which is often a minute or two walk from spawn.

Perhaps it may not alleviate everyone's personal dissatisfaction with the weapon, but I think the result should be somewhat more appealing.

 

[Xylia]

Worth noting, to those who may not have noticed from reading the continuing discussion, but we increased the Knockback on the Mandible blade significantly in response to some of these criticisms in 1.3.3.2.

That, in tandem with some changes to early-game Sandstorm spawns, are enough that the sword and its accessibility are where we as a team agreed we wanted it. No, its not a massive game changer, but its potentially available, by luck, in a surface biome which is often a minute or two walk from spawn.

Perhaps it may not alleviate everyone's personal dissatisfaction with the weapon, but I think the result should be somewhat more appealing.

@Sigma90 's right on this one.

It was never about the Blade's power but rather it's rarity. It's rare for no apparent reason. Arkhalis being rare is understandable, it's a ridiculously OP weapon for when you find it. This weapon just isn't.

This is the same beef I had with the desert ever since 1.3: I don't know why, but for some reason the devs decided that sticking Defense 14-16 mobs in an area that's right next to starting point is a good idea.

The desert is absolutely lethal to beginning players, with most enemies being able to kill you in 5 hits flat assuming 100HP and <5 Defense. Meanwhile, most starting weapons only hit for 1-2 damage and these enemies have 50-70HP.

The Desert is about as dangerous as the Jungle, but yet items obtained in the Desert are much, much less powerful than the stuff you get in the Jungle. Does the Mandible Blade compare to the Amazon? Boomstick?

Also, the Underground Snow (not Cavern, those Spiked Ice Slimes are OP) is far, far easier but yields way better items.

The Desert being "a short walk from spawn" doesn't suddenly change the fact that if you do bump into an Antlion Charger after "a short walk from spawn" means you are dead, straight up. You can't outrun it, the best you could do is HOPE you can build a dirt wall between you and it before it reaches you, or perhaps throw some ropes up quick and hope there ain't no birds or normal antlions nearby that will kill you anyways.

The starting player has absolutely no chance of killing an Antlion Charger without cheesing the terrain and/or using ranged weapons. Best you could do is make some fire arrows and use a bow, but even then......... 2% drop rate, you know?

All of this, for a 14 damage short-range sword with no projectile?

As I said above, the Ice Blade does 17 and still has more KB (5 vs 4.5), with the same swing speed and getting one involves fighting enemies that are much, much easier to kill. Snow Flinxes have a negative KB resist; the viking skeletons are not very hard at all, the Cactus Sword can knock them back enough that you won't get hit under normal conditions. Ice Bats are not a problem, assuming you don't fall to your death or something, and if you stay above the cavern layer, you won't be dealing with Spiked Ice Slimes.

Sure, the KB buff is.... ok, I guess? In fact, too much KB on a fast-swinging weapon is actually detrimental if you knock the enemy out of your swing range. You're actually losing damage, then.

The sword was fine stat-wise; it's just the method of acquisition that was out of whack.

As I said in my OP..... by the time you get a weapon that can deal more than 1-5 damage against the Chargers... you don't need the weapon the Chargers actually drop.

And btw... using a Mandible Blade against an Antlion Charger? You do 6 damage. You need to hit the thing ~12 times (assuming no modifiers/crits) to kill it with its own weapon, lol.

EDIT: Here's another suggestion: How about nerfing the stupid chargers and swarmers? That'd make things a lot more reasonable and it wouldn't make the desert a giant "NOPE!" roadblock early-game.

 

[Allenb60]

@Sigma90 's right on this one.

It was never about the Blade's power but rather it's rarity.

This is the same beef I had with the desert ever since 1.3: I don't know why, but for some reason the devs decided that sticking Defense 14-16 mobs in an area that's right next to starting point is a good idea.

The desert is absolutely lethal to beginning players, with most enemies being able to kill you in 5 hits flat assuming 100HP and <5 Defense. Meanwhile, most starting weapons only hit for 1-2 damage and these enemies have 50-70HP.

The Desert is about as dangerous as the Jungle, but yet items obtained in the Desert are much, much less powerful than the stuff you get in the Jungle. Does the Mandible Blade compare to the Amazon? Boomstick?

The Desert being "a short walk from spawn" doesn't suddenly change the fact that if you do bump into an Antlion Charger after "a short walk from spawn" means you are dead, straight up. You can't outrun it, the best you could do is HOPE you can build a dirt wall between you and it before it reaches you, or perhaps throw some ropes up quick and hope there ain't no birds or normal antlions nearby that will kill you anyways.

The starting player has absolutely no chance of killing an Antlion Charger without cheesing the terrain and/or using ranged weapons. Best you could do is make some fire arrows and use a bow, but even then......... 2% drop rate, you know?

All of this, for a 14 damage short-range sword with no projectile?

As I said above, the Ice Blade does 17 and still has more KB (5 vs 4.5), with the same swing speed and getting one involves fighting enemies that are much, much easier to kill. Snow Flinxes have a negative KB resist; the viking skeletons are not very hard at all, the Cactus Sword can knock them back enough that you won't get hit under normal conditions. Ice Bats are not a problem, assuming you don't fall to your death or something, and if you stay above the cavern layer, you won't be dealing with Spiked Ice Slimes.

Sure, the KB buff is.... ok, I guess? In fact, too much KB on a fast-swinging weapon is actually detrimental if you knock the enemy out of your swing range. You're actually losing damage, then.

The sword was fine stat-wise; it's just the method of acquisition that was out of whack.

As I said in my OP..... by the time you get a weapon that can deal more than 1-5 damage against the Chargers... you don't need the weapon the Chargers actually drop.

And btw... using a Mandible Blade against an Antlion Charger? You do 6 damage. You need to hit the thing 12 times (assuming no modifiers) to kill it with its own weapon, lol.

Um, only if you are in front of the desert walls, which are typically beneath the surface in caves. The desert is little to no threat if you just put blocks over the entrances to those caves or valleys, and furthermore the underground desert is meant to be a post-eater of worlds or brain of cthulhu area. In terms of progression the use is limited to the few are lucky enough to get it while exploring.

 

[Xylia]

Um, only if you are in from of the desert walls, which are typically beneath the surface in caves. The desert is little to no threat if you just put blocks over the entrances to those caves or valleys,

I've had them spawn on the surface. Maybe they spawned where there's a tiny bit of backwall showing, but meh.

and furthermore the underground desert is meant to be a post-eater of worlds or brain of cthulhu area.

But yet the sword is weaker than EoC drops. Okaaay.

In terms of progression the use is limited to the few are lucky enough to get it while exploring.

Again, a weapon that is useless 99.9% of the times it drops, with that 0.1% of the time being to some poor sod who somehow manages to cheese the terrain AND kill a charger or bumps into one underground and manages to cheese the terrain AND beats the 2% drop chance AND doesn't already have a better weapon.

That's a lot of ANDs.

 

[Sigma90]

[snip]

Yep, I did notice the change and I do read the changelogs. I sometimes quote and refer to them too.
I'm not complaining* about the sword; it's just an observation. Maybe it is an awesome weapon, but I feel like many people won't be using it. That's a shame. If the effort has gone into making and adding it, it should be used. Based on that, I do think Xylia's suggestion of making it craftable will make it more accessible. Of course, it's not my call as to what - if anything - changes. Just that most people will take the easier route even if there is a better alternative along a more difficult route.

* I know there has been some disappointment with the update, particularly around the crashes. I have no intention of complaining or further adding to problems, and I apologise if I do so inadvertently.

 

[Allenb60]

I've had them spawn on the surface. Maybe they spawned where there's a tiny bit of backwall showing, but meh.



But yet the sword is weaker than EoC drops. Okaaay.



Again, a weapon that is useless 99.9% of the times it drops, with that 0.1% of the time being to some poor sod who somehow manages to cheese the terrain AND kill a charger or bumps into one underground and manages to cheese the terrain AND beats the 2% drop chance AND doesn't already have a better weapon.

That's a lot of ANDs.

The last time I played start to finish I got a chain knife fairly early, which makes pretty quick work out of the antlion chargers, even when backed up against the end of a cave they were no problem (I also love that weapon now that I got a chance to use it extensively). This was before the update that added the mandible blade so I never got a chance to use it, but I definitely would have put it on my hot-bar if I had gotten one. It really just depends on the situation and time of obtaining it that will determine how useful you think it is, that's what I learned from the chain knife. It gets replaced by the evil biome swords anyways, I'm not seeing the reason for it to be crafted when the standard is already higher.

 

[Xylia]

The last time I played start to finish I got a chain knife fairly early, which makes pretty quick work out of the antlion chargers, even when backed up against the end of a cave they were no problem (I also love that weapon now that I got a chance to use it extensively). This was before the update that added the mandible blade so I never got a chance to use it, but I definitely would have put it on my hot-bar if I had gotten one. It really just depends on the situation and time of obtaining it that will determine how useful you think it is, that's what I learned from the chain knife. It gets replaced by the evil biome swords anyways, I'm not seeing the reason for it to be crafted when the standard is already higher.

I think I've seen a Chain Knife drop in like... 1 out of the last 10 playthroughs? Maybe 2 tops, Pre-EoC, lol.

I'm trying to keep rare drops out of this because you know some chucklenut will go "YOU CAN KILL THEM WITH THE ARKHALIS LOL".

I just thought that making it craftable would have...

1). Made the weapon actually be used rather often by people rather than it being the "meh, throw it in storage" for most people.
2). Made the weapon an early-game progression craftable actually worth working for,
3). Made the weapon unique in that it'd be the only craftable auto-swing in easymode.

It just woulda been nice? And 'sides, not everybody goes straight to EoC asap. Some peeps like to take their time and get full silver etc.

 

[Allenb60]

I think I've seen a Chain Knife drop in like... 1 out of the last 10 playthroughs? Maybe 2 tops, Pre-EoC, lol.

I'm trying to keep rare drops out of this because you know some chucklenut will go "YOU CAN KILL THEM WITH THE ARKHALIS LOL".

I just thought that making it craftable would have...

1). Made the weapon actually be used rather often by people rather than it being the "meh, throw it in storage" for most people.
2). Made the weapon an early-game progression craftable actually worth working for,
3). Made the weapon unique in that it'd be the only craftable auto-swing in easymode.

It just woulda been nice? And 'sides, not everybody goes straight to EoC asap. Some peeps like to take their time and get full silver etc.

Hey, you know what, that's exactly how I felt about the chain knife. I always got it way after it was viable and never thought much of it, but then recently I got it when I could really use it. Now appreciate how useful it can be at the right time, and I think the same goes for any rare drop.

 

[Mythical Golden Bunny]

Yeeeahhh... The Mandible Blade would be nice as a craftable or something along those lines. I got a lucky Mandible Blade and the results were... lackluster. I was using it on a Charger and the creature was slowly advancing towards me as I autoswung away, all while merely scratching the thing. It got to the point where I had to nope back and use something better.