Why are blow darts so weak?

[SecretPizzaMan]

Seriously, recently I've been doing a spear/axe/blow darts only challenge as wicker but my god, blow darts are crazy expensive and do so little damage, not even viable in multiplay since it takes so many resources which could've been better utilized for other things. Does anyone have good suggestions for balancing them?

[GelatinousCube]

They're decent in niche situations if buffed by volt goat jelly eg: Malbatross and phase three of CC but otherwise yeah they're pretty atrocious. 

Either they should do a little more damage or as many have suggested in the past you should get 2 per craft instead of 1 or something similar to make them more viable.

Alternatively the actual blowgun could be one craft and the darts another cheaper recipe. Perhaps the blowgun could cost reeds and last for 50/100 shots and the actual darts could just cost the feather and stinger/hounds tooth/whatever so they aren't so difficult to mass produce and don't cost a billion reeds.

I personally would go with the last one combined with getting two darts per craft. I feel like that would make them viable but not overpowered. 

[Notecja]

I usually collect/farm them overtime and use as emergency weapons during solo bossfights (mostly bee queen). 100 quick damage without getting close is no joke.

But why so weak? I think its balance from solo DS, where Deerclops and most bosses have 2k hp, rarely 3k hp... and many creatures have much less HP.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

10 darts = 1000 safe damage

when i didnt have much experience killing bosses i used these and the fire ones to deal extra damage without being hit

[Owlrust]

Blowdarts should really have a durability instead of a 1-use-per mechanic. Increase the hound's teeth in the recipe and I can see myself crafting a more expensive one with 5 or 10 uses instead of crafting 10 individual ones with 1 use each.

[Duck986]

4 minutes ago, Owlrust said:

Blowdarts should really have a durability instead of a 1-use-per mechanic. Increase the hound's teeth in the recipe and I can see myself crafting a more expensive one with 5 or 10 uses instead of crafting 10 individual ones with 1 use each.

they'll be unstackable tho. what if you need like 40 of them? you'll waste 4-8 inventory slots instead of 1 for full stack

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Duck986 said:

they'll be unstackable tho. what if you need like 40 of them? you'll waste 4-8 inventory slots instead of 1 for full stack

 

7 minutes ago, Owlrust said:

Blowdarts should really have a durability instead of a 1-use-per mechanic. Increase the hound's teeth in the recipe and I can see myself crafting a more expensive one with 5 or 10 uses instead of crafting 10 individual ones with 1 use each.

or instead of uses that each craft gives more than 1 dart

[BeeClops]

yeah sadly darts are not too viable, despite feathers being very farmable and ofc teeth are never an issue. But the reeds and the inventory are the biggest setbacks imo.

They did come in pretty handy to cheese my way through the first champion fights when he first came out tbh. And they still are pretty good for his stage 3 on console because of how painful using weather pains is, but still very niche yeah. They're useful for malbatross too, but also console specific. 

Probably the best use for them still remains killing that annoying Wee Mactusk while he's running back to his home.

[SecretPizzaMan]

38 minutes ago, Duck986 said:

they'll be unstackable tho. what if you need like 40 of them? you'll waste 4-8 inventory slots instead of 1 for full stack

Blow darts stack to 20.

[Duck986]

36 minutes ago, SecretPizzaMan said:

Blow darts stack to 20.

whatever, 4 slots is still more than 2

[hhh2]

They are really great at removing killer bee hives.

[Maxposting]

The issue is partially with the tediousness of the recipe.

They are one of the only uses for feathers, and farmable once a year (in the actual blowdart case), and the reeds costs pile up quickly.

They aren't bad as is, except the time-consuming mass-recipe, considering they are basically the only ranged attack (except walter)

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 minutes ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

they are basically the only ranged attack

the sad part is that even fire staffs are better and cheaper xD

[Duck986]

1 hour ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

considering they are basically the only ranged attack (except walter)

Electric darts left the chat

[Dextops]

while i do think they should be buffed i don't think they should ever really outclass melee combat in most situations 

[PetulantPansy]

Ranged damage (not like wanda's whip) in general is weak in this game. It's fine too because the game would be too easy if you could kill everything from a distance and hold f. 

[Capybara007]

1 hour ago, PetulantPansy said:

Ranged damage (not like wanda's whip) in general is weak in this game. It's fine too because the game would be too easy if you could kill everything from a distance and hold f. 

Klei could easily come up with a solution for that, everytime an enemy gets hit it gets 4 seconds of stun resistance which make it so you cant just stun the enemy from a safe spot.

My solution would be to make blowpipes and darts separate, you make a blowdart with 5 reeds and it can shoot 100 darts you can load like walters ammo, this is all it takes.

This is because farming reeds is slower than farming feathers, if you want to mass farm reeds you need a reed trap setpiece no mather what, but feathers on the other hand, are easier to mass farm, specially in the end game.

The devs however, are far from likely to make these changes, but its still a topic that its worth discussing.

[Falkenpelz]

15 hours ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

The issue is partially with the tediousness of the recipe.

They are one of the only uses for feathers, and farmable once a year (in the actual blowdart case), and the reeds costs pile up quickly.

They aren't bad as is, except the time-consuming mass-recipe, considering they are basically the only ranged attack (except walter)

The feather point exactly. The recipe requires mass-farming a bird that spawns 15 days a year, only in specific biomes and only has a 50% chance to even drop a feather, plus you need a ranged weapon for it and you are pretty much guaranted to spawn Krampii in the process.

[SecretPizzaMan]

16 hours ago, hhh2 said:

They are really great at removing killer bee hives.

You are a monster, those blow darts had families you know and you wasted them on the easiest mob spawner to destroy.

5 minutes ago, Falkenpelz said:

The feather point exactly. The recipe requires mass-farming a bird that spawns 15 days a year, only in specific biomes and only has a 50% chance to even drop a feather, plus you need a ranged weapon for it and you are pretty much guaranted to spawn Krampii in the process.

I'm doing the challenge as Wicker so the feathers aren't the hard part, it's the reeds. I don't want to constantly regenerate my world especially since the world I'm doing the challenge on has the lunar island connect to the mainland. However the swamp biome only has 36 reeds to collect. Is it just me or have reeds gotten super rare in swamp biomes ever since the terraria update, usually there would consistently be more then 50 reeds in my worlds.

[Cheggf]

Weak? They're super strong. They have good range, a fast animation for extra damage, and enormous base damage. The only bad part about them is how difficult they are to obtain but that's on purpose since you're supposed to mostly do the risky melee combat instead of risk free ranged combat.

I think they're mostly fine how they are right now. A powerful item that's difficult to obtain, but if you do obtain enough of them you've basically turned combat off. You aren't supposed to be using them as your permanent primary means of damage like you're trying to, you're doing a challenge run so of course it's challenging. If you're playing normally as Wickerbottom they're worth using to supplement your melee, or even temporarily replace it.

The only potential issues I have with them are that they require Wickerbottom to farm them during winter, so it's season and character specific. Not necessarily an inherent issue but if anything about them were to be changed I think it should be related to those.

[ShadowDuelist]

8 hours ago, SecretPizzaMan said:

I'm doing the challenge as Wicker so the feathers aren't the hard part, it's the reeds. I don't want to constantly regenerate my world especially since the world I'm doing the challenge on has the lunar island connect to the mainland. However the swamp biome only has 36 reeds to collect. Is it just me or have reeds gotten super rare in swamp biomes ever since the terraria update, usually there would consistently be more then 50 reeds in my worlds.

I always set reeds to “more” or “lots”. Default is usually not enough, not even for non-wicker intensive farming, and having to regenerate the world until getting the tentacle trap is annoying (and probably “more cheaty” than just adjusting the settings to more)

 Also some reeds are lost to fires and shenanigans eventually, specially on shared worlds, so having a random low count to start with can be really bad.

[SecretPizzaMan]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I always set reeds to “more” or “lots”. Default is usually not enough, not even for non-wicker intensive farming, and having to regenerate the world until getting the tentacle trap is annoying (and probably “more cheaty” than just adjusting the settings to more)

 Also some reeds are lost to fires and shenanigans eventually, specially on shared worlds, so having a random low count to start with can be really bad.

The problem is it is set on more. Yet still 36 reeds.

[Astraia]

Blow darts are decent for their price. As Wickerbottom with Applied Silviculture (ugh I almost accidentally said Applied horticulture) and birds of the world, you can mass-produce feathers and reeds, as for the hounds' teeth, you should already have plenty of those from hound attacks and dfly desert.

Blow darts also make it a safe way to do boss fights, since they have pretty decent range, it can make them great for attacking from longer distances, meaning you can have a less like chance to get hit.

Imo, they're pretty good for what they're worth

[MasterGamer4360]

I agree with Nightfall, but instead I believe they don't come too cheap as she said, but thinking they're weak is another story....

Like Nightfall, I agree they're a great way to avoid damage with the range of blow darts, they make for a great weapon, and they 100 damage is pretty great

[abrocator]

I’ve only used blowdarts to kill Ancient Herald.  I thought it was too risky to tank him with all his possible spawns.

Of course the blowdarts where gotten from disarmed traps and not from that stupid clearly-just-for-Wicker recipe.