Rate the Weapon: Day Twenty - Flying Knife

[Ami]

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 Twenty: Flying Knife

Just two more until we get to mid-hardmode items!

I'm sure everyone's at least played with this thing tangentially on their way to get a stormbow. A controllable, infinitely piercing, zero cost weapon that does melee damage. How can this possibly go wrong? It's a respectable destroyer killer, but then again, a LOT of things are respectable destroyer killers. This has the benefit of also being useful against the twins and prime, as you're able to consistently deal melee damage at very long range.

However, the only time I'd use this weapon is in speed runs, when I haven't acquired a stormbow, and farming more soul of lights is not an option.

Early Hardmode items
Day 12 - Daedalus Stormbow - 4.67 (27 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 - 4.54 - (22 votes)
Day 13 - Fetid Baghnakhs - 3.47 - (21 votes)
Day 17 - Toxikarp - 2.89 (18 votes)
Day 14 - Chain Guillotine - 2.80 - (15 votes)
Day 15 - Bladetongue - 2.76 - (21 votes)
Day 19 - Crystal Vile Shard - 2.72 (22 votes)
Day 16 - Dart Gun - 2.68 - (22 votes)
Day 18 - Life Drain - 2.00 - (21 votes) - Maybe if this replenished life based on damage dealt, instead of providing a buff to regeneration, people would like it more.

Pre-Hardmode items
Day 4 - Yoyos - 4.2 - (15 votes) - The only low votes are from people who don't like this weapon's aesthetic (read: silliness), NOT from lack of respect for its power.
Day 7 - Pistols - 4.17 - (39 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 - 3.48 - (25 votes)
Day 10 - Gem Staves - 2.85 - (27 votes)
Day 1 - Ore Swords - 2.54 - (24 votes)
Day 9 - Throwing knife/shuriken family - 2.52 (17 votes) - People would rather have a silver sword than shurikens.
Day 6 - Flails - 2.04 - (24 votes) - RIP Old, bad yoyos

 

[Aurora3500]

The Flying Knife is a valuable weapon to have.

The ability to guide it with your mouse is great for allowing you to kill enemies from safety, when you're in a situation with dozens of enemies in a nearby cavern and going there would get you killed, the Flying Knife can be used to kill all the enemies while staying safe behind the open cavern.

I haven't tried using it against the Mech Bosses as a main weapon, however if I do a Pure Melee Playthrough one day, this weapon would probably be one of the main melee weapons I would use. It is one of the few early hardmode melee weapons that seems like it would be effective against the Twins, both from experience and from what the Topic Creator says.

I give it a 3 however, because while it's valuable to have this weapon, I'm not going to go too far out of my way to get it. It's likely I'll still get this weapon either way from farming Hallowed Mimics.

 

[Xylia]

I'm gonna give it a 2.

Yeah, I know, you can use it from behind safety, but you can do that with a yo-yo too.

I just don't really see the draw this weapon has over something like a yo-yo to be honest. Maybe slightly more range if I recall correctly?

I picked one up one time, and tested it out and found it very..... underwhelming to actually use. Maybe a little oo and aah toy but for serious use.... probably not. I'll go with the Amarok.

 

[Ami]

Yeah, I know, you can use it from behind safety, but you can do that with a yo-yo too

Sadly, that's my reaction to yoyos in general. They're abject silliness, product placement-y as heck, and they straight up replaced several weapons. Do you remember Dao of Pow? It went from usable to a punchline, to an afterthought, to a non-thought.

 

[Xylia]

Sadly, that's my reaction to yoyos in general. They're abject silliness, product placement-y as heck, and they straight up replaced several weapons. Do you remember Dao of Pow? It went from usable to a punchline, to an afterthought, to a non-thought.

IMO, the Dao of Pow wasn't even all that great of a weapon to begin with.

It was (like all flails were) clunky and difficult to actually use and aim.

It just happened to be the only decent weapon available early hardmode (IF you had access to both Hallow AND Corruption Desert on the same world!).

The Yo-Yos filled a huge gaping hole that the Flails tried but failed to do -- Melee people needed a semi-ranged weapon that was actually easy to control.

Now, if the flails had similar mechanics as the yo-yos, everybody would have loved them all around.

 

[ManaUser]

I've used this weapon a bit, and it's decent, but the fact that you can guide it to a remote corner of the screen and fight stuff there is a mixed blessing as it can leave you quite exposed if an enemy suddenly shows up much closer. In general you want something that can deal with the enemy in your face right now, be it a sword or a magic bolt. This is much the same reason I don't like the charged weapons (Last Prism excepted, of course).

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I have a lot of respect for the Flying Knife because it's actually a balanced weapon. It has a fairly high displayed damage number for it's tier but it doesn't actually hit a target that often unless it's both big and slow, and for such targets it's mostly outshined by Shadowflame Knife (which honestly is ridiculous, it may as well be a gun that does melee damage).

You can do really cool things with it though where you cause it to fly off into a pile of sand and it just disappears into the desert, so it's got that going for it at least.

 

[Ezel]

4 - often.

It's useful in early-Hardmode, but often I ditch this weapon after the Mechanical Bosses. It's nice to have a controlable weapon until you get a decent Hardmode armor to reduce the high damage taken.

 

[Xakk]

Some of these topics don't make the best sense, given the weapon featured is onl as old as the Moon Lord. Might not be enough time for a lot of people to get in a few playthroughs enough to answer the question properly.

Anyway, the Flying Knife is a strange one. It extends the control of the Magic Missile line to a melee weapon, which thus costs no mana to use. However, as a melee weapon it can hit multiple times without discharging, something they cannot do. Also, there is the advantage any melee has over a magic or ranged weapon it emulates of being able to carry the effects of a vial. Thus with the flying knife you can fight an entire group of enemies from across the map, much farther than most YoYos.

That said the weakness of the weapon is in the name. It flies about erratically, something like a full momentum flail centered on your cursor, that bounces off walls, changing it's trajectory. In tight quarters this can get messy as the thing bounces in every direction. Coupled with the piercing element of the weapon, the Flying Knife doesn't pummel a foe the way a yoyo does, rather hitting them in back and forth sweeps that apply knockback in both directions.

With this it is better actually to hit groups of foes than one hard to reach one, so the weapon seems designed for fighting hordes of monsters that await you just through the next wall. For simply getting a weapon into an inacessible place, or attacking from one, a yoyo can be more effective.

 

[Ami]

Some of these topics don't make the best sense, given the weapon featured is onl as old as the Moon Lord. Might not be enough time for a lot of people to get in a few playthroughs enough to answer the question properly.

That's precisely why some weapons are picked. What if you've never heard of daedalus stormbow, but you see that it's the most highly rated weapon on the list? You might want to give it a shot.

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?

 

[Xakk]

Fair enough.

 

[Zinnia]

I use this sometimes because it always reminds me of Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy well more specifically his whistle arrow thingy.