PC The Staff + Axe of Regrowth is drastically less effective on Blinkroot

[The Grimwar]

Steam or GOG

Steam

Single Player/Multiplayer

Single

Operating System

Windows 10

Terraria Version

1.4.4.9

Controls Used

Keyboard/Mouse

I noticed this issue pop up all the way back since 2019, which is basically the year I started playing with more attention paid to Terraria's mechanics, including herb gathering. I realized that the Staff of Regrowth's success rate was, for some reason, significantly less forgiving with Blinkroot than other plants. At the time I shrugged my shoulders and figured it was just the RNG not playing to my favor, that exact scenario kept repeating itself occasionally on all of the world I created. Every Terraria playthrough, I set myself up a farm for the herbs at my base so I can get easy access, each time I noticed the "Fewer Blinkroot" phenomena, I blamed the RNG being bad in that particular instance, moved on, and forgot about it, until earlier tonight! I, as of a few minutes ago, finally realized it wasn't mere RNG to blame as I was crafting potions at an Alchemist's Table. I ran out of Blinkroot. I ran out of blinkroot in my inventory, but when my eyes perused the other herbs, which I had spent just as much time collecting, I realized that all of the other herbs, Daybloom, Shiverthorn, Waterleaf, Deathweed, Moonglow, even Fireblossom numbered at least fifty, and this was AFTER I had used the herbs I had collected extensively to craft other potions I was running low if not completely out of. I figured that I could harvest some more Blinkroot with my trusty Staff of Regrowth and get back into business, but...

Four Blinkroot in my planter box for them were in bloom.

I only harvested four and all 6 years of me playing Terraria clicked.

That was when I realized that it wasn't RNG to blame, but that the Staff of Regrowth really IS drastically less effective on Blinkroot.

Please fix this in the coming update?

 

[ZeroRin]

you mean you tried with FOUR blinkroots and you somehow realized that it was not bad rng then post a bug report without even doing a basic test

simple test with 100 blinkroots clearly shows that it work as expected (1.5 herb and 3 seed per harvest on average)

 

[The Grimwar]

What I mean is that I ran out of blinkroot while crafting potions, with roughly 50+ of all other herbs in my inventory next to them. It wasn't just a single poor harvest, read my post.

 

[Orchamut]

I feel like Blinkroot is needed for more useful potions than most other herbs. Are you sure you're not just using up more of it?

 

[The Grimwar]

I feel like Blinkroot is needed for more useful potions than most other herbs. Are you sure you're not just using up more of it?

No, I specifically made potions that didn't need blinkroot first, Ironskin, Swiftness, Hunter, Regeneration.

That doesn't change the fact that the Staff of Regrowth harvests less Blinkroot than it does other plants by a significant margin.

 

[Altermaven🌸🎀]

Not a bug. 4 is too low of a general sample, so I have decided to test the general theorem that blinkroot returns on staff/axe of regrowth were somehow made less than any other herb.

Against a garden of 24 harvestables of each plant in one world:

Blinkroot: 32
Daybloom: 33
Shiverthorn: 39
Waterleaf: 30
Fireblossom: 34
Deathweed: 33
Moonglow: 37

The 33% is not a static increase, but a chance of extra harvestable when taking it using the tool. In one instance I did get fewer than 32. In another I got more. The same applies to the seeds. There is a chance you will just get one. There is a chance you will get the rare six (three instances of 33%).

My suggestion is to expand your current garden of blinkroot, and have patience on usage. Push comes to shove, make sure you use an alchemy table for the chance any blinkroot that is needed simply isn't used. The fault lays with bad RNG at the time. Try a larger sample case, and document the harvest before you use materials.

However, I will agree that having a chance of getting an extra herb can be unfair when you need it and it feels that the staff/axe of regrowth seems 'not worthwhile' if you get bad RNG. I wouldn't classify bad RNG as a bug, however.

 

[punchready]

Blinkroot enters and exits the blooming state randomly, so you cannot expect it to all bloom at the same time in a conventional farm, unlike all the other flows which collectively bloom at certain specific times. You said yourself that only "four Blinkroot in my planter box[es] were in bloom", which is showing exactly this random behavior. While the Staff of Regrowth can obtain seeds (but not herbs) from non-blooming herbs, it will not harvest non-blooming ones in planter boxes and clay pots. So your output from farming them just as any other herb is expected to be reduced greatly.
From a limited test I did, Blinkroot is blooming a little less than a third of the time. I would calculate the exact value, but statistics is not my thing (any non-blooming Blinkroot has a 1/6 chance to enter the blooming state, and a blooming one has a 1/3 chance to enter the non-blooming state).
I can confirm from the code however that there is absolutely no exception made for Blinkroot when dropping items from breaking/harvesting herbs.

 

[The Grimwar]

Against a garden of 24 harvestables of each plant in one world:

Blinkroot: 32
Daybloom: 33
Shiverthorn: 39
Waterleaf: 30
Fireblossom: 34
Deathweed: 33
Moonglow: 37

The 33% is not a static increase, but a chance of extra harvestable when taking it using the tool. In one instance I did get fewer than 32. In another I got more. The same applies to the seeds. There is a chance you will just get one. There is a chance you will get the rare six (three instances of 33%).

My suggestion is to expand your current garden of blinkroot, and have patience on usage. Push comes to shove, make sure you use an alchemy table for the chance any blinkroot that is needed simply isn't used. The fault lays with bad RNG at the time. Try a larger sample case, and document the harvest before you use materials.

However, I will agree that having a chance of getting an extra herb can be unfair when you need it and it feels that the staff/axe of regrowth seems 'not worthwhile' if you get bad RNG. I wouldn't classify bad RNG as a bug, however.

Yet for some strange reason, the bad RNG has been bad for me all the time since I started playing in 2017. Low Blinkroot yields from harvesting with the Staff of Regrowth has been everpresent and not because the Blinkroot isn't in bloom.

Am I truly the only one suffering this problem?

 

[punchready]

Like I explained, Blinkroot doesn't bloom all at once, so for example harvesting it once per in-game day will yield only a third of the drops compared to all the other herbs (assuming those are harvested at the right time of course).

 

[The Grimwar]

Like I explained, Blinkroot doesn't bloom all at once, so for example harvesting it once per in-game day will yield only a third of the drops compared to all the other herbs (assuming those are harvested at the right time of course).

And I'm fairly certain I spelled it out: The harvesting of Blinkroot I do perform with the SoR, yield significantly less Blinkroot than other plants. And it's not because fewer plants are in bloom.

 

[punchready]

If you can reproduce it in a relevant quantity, a video would be nice to at least have a starting point, as currently other people's tests and the source code do not suggest that there is a problem, making this issue probably not actionable.

 

[The Grimwar]

If you can reproduce it in a relevant quantity, a video would be nice to at least have a starting point, as currently other people's tests and the source code do not suggest that there is a problem, making this issue probably not actionable.

I don't have the faintest idea of how to record my gameplay footage, but I can write down all of the uses of the Staff of Regrowth, on all plants. A sample size of 100 plants in bloom, of each species, should suffice.

 

[ZeroRin]

While the Staff of Regrowth can obtain seeds (but not herbs) from non-blooming herbs, it will not harvest non-blooming ones in planter boxes and clay pots.

Neither part of the sentence is correct. Staff of Regrowth can obtain seeds AND herbs from non-blooming herbs and the result will be exactly the same as harvest blooming herbs. And since you gain the harvest buff by HOLDING the staff (rather than swinging it) you can just hold the staff and harvest herbs using wiring just like what i posted aboce

 

[punchready]

Neither part of the sentence is correct. Staff of Regrowth can obtain seeds AND herbs from non-blooming herbs and the result will be exactly the same as harvest blooming herbs. And since you gain the harvest buff by HOLDING the staff (rather than swinging it) you can just hold the staff and harvest herbs using wiring just like what i posted aboce

I copied that from the wiki, you should make an edit there if it is incorrect
You might be overlooking the "in planter boxes or clay pots" part?
Also not sure how one would get 100 blink roots to bloom at once in vanilla?

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

I copied that from the wiki, you should make an edit there if it is incorrect
You might be overlooking the "in planter boxes or clay pots" part?
Also not sure how one would get 100 blink roots to bloom at once in vanilla?

They were a little unclear with their wording, but it was correct. The staff of regrowth cannot be used to directly harvest non-blooming plants from planter boxes, but it can be used indirectly by holding the staff while using actuators to harvest the plants. As long as they are fully grown, you can get seeds from non-blooming plants on planter boxes this way (which is how they were able to harvest 100 blinkroot at once).

 

[punchready]

And I said that the Staff of Regrowth will not harvest non blooming plants in planter boxes, that doesn't mean that nothing else can I of course know that it's effect is simply applied when any herb breaks for any reason while the player is holding it.
But Blinkroot randomly exits the blooming state, I doubt a row of 100 of them will be blooming at once?

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

I'm fairly you get the same amount of herbs and seeds from non-blooming and blooming plants when using the staff of regrowth, so if you are using the actuator method, you don't need to wait for all 100 to bloom at once, you can just pull the lever when they are fully grown (which is almost certainly what they did in their test). Blinkroot grows fairly quickly, so it's probably one of the herbs that gains the most from using the actuator method (the others being waterleaf and deathweed, which bloom very infrequently)

 

[punchready]

Nevermind, I totally forgot the point of harvesting non blooming plants

But yeah I would say that OP is simply experiencing only a third of the Blinkroots blooming at once

 

[ZeroRin]

I copied that from the wiki, you should make an edit there if it is incorrect
You might be overlooking the "in planter boxes or clay pots" part?
Also not sure how one would get 100 blink roots to bloom at once in vanilla?

the wiki did not say anything about the staff preventing herb from dropping when harvesting a grown but non-blooming one

 

[punchready]

Herbs that are planted in a Clay Pot or Planter Box and are not blooming cannot be harvested whatsoever with the Staff of Regrowth.

Staff of Regrowth

The Staff of Regrowth is a tool that can be found in Ivy Chests as well as Jungle(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) and Bramble Crates(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions). Unlike other tools, it does not destroy most vegetation when swung, unless the tile is directly targeted. It also...

terraria.wiki.gg