The Bees Knees is probably it for me: It takes down the wall of flesh, and keeps me alive through early hardmode until I can get better weapons, generally the Daedalus stormbow, followed by light discs/yelets. I once had to take down an expert mode pirate invasion with nothing but the bees knees and, while it took FREAKING EVER it did the job. Turns out if you get enough bees together, you can take down flying pirate ships given enough time.