Dark Sword vs Hambat, does the Dark Sword need a change?

[Reiko24]

I had this thought recently about Hambats and Dark Swords.

 

Hambat is extremely cheap, you can craft it every single time you want to, because pig farms are a thing, lasts for a huge amount of time,  and can have like 1000 uses, you can just have a hambat and solo toadstool with ONE weapon that deals 59 damage.

Dark Sword has only 100 uses and deals 68 damage. Costs a living log (which is pure RNG if you don't have wormwood, and 1 living log for 100 hits is not very good to be honest) and 5 nightmare fuel.

The nightmare fuel amount needed is actually huge. Every shadow creature drops 1-2 nightmare fuel. If you want to get a couple of dark swords for a boss then you need to be insane and farming nightmare fuel for a long time. Lowering your sanity all the time is tedious and your sanity lowering methods can take a lot of time or just consume resources that can end. Natural insanity's nightmare creature spawn is also not very high. You can easily farm nightmare fuel after obtaining the Bone Helm, but that's too much effort for something that deals 9 more (idk maybe 15 more if we count in the spoilage and the time when people don't use the hambat for bosses anymore) damage.

68 dmg 100 uses high cost and effort weapon vs 50-59,5 almost free weapon

 

Let's say you are fighting Bee Queen.

I think the attack speed is 2 attacks per second so let's calculate.

Bee Queen has 22500HP.

If you attack non stop, Dark SwordS (one Dark Sword is 6800 dmg, so to kill BQ you need 3,3 dark swords. 3 living logs and 15 nightmare fuel) you will kill BQ in about 165 seconds.

Let's check the Hambat (I used the 58 damage number because of spoilage): 193 seconds

It's not a very big difference. A whole DST day lasts for 480 seconds (8 minutes). The Bee Queen fight took 34% of the day when using a dark sword and Hambat took 40%. The difference is almost not noticeable in my opinion.

Hambat seems hugely better because of its high dmg output and because it's infinitely more cheap than a dark sword, and I think that Dark Sword deserves more love. The effort required to get a couple of dark swords for a boss is huge in comparison to needing to get two meat and a pigskin.

What do you think about that? Do you agree, or am I completely wrong?

 

[lakhnish]

Dark Swords are fine as they are.

They are a consistent 68 damage while Hambat loses damage overtime.

I'm always going to use Dark Swords over Hambats when fighting big bosses like Bee Queen since they do more damage overall (and you're not attacking non-stop, you're moving around and attacking, which is a big difference).

[Mysterious box]

50 minutes ago, Reiko24 said:

Dark Sword has only 100 uses and deals 68 damage. Costs a living log (which is pure RNG if you don't have wormwood, and 1 living log for 100 hits is not very good to be honest) and 5 nightmare fuel.

You can farm living logs in the lunar grotto with gnomes. As for nightmare fuel if you don't focus on actively restoring your sanity you can get it passively or you can go to the ruins to farm nightmare creatures during the wild phase and farm it actively.

[Reiko24]

2 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

You can farm living logs in the lunar grotto with gnomes and if you don't focus on actively restoring your sanity you can get it passively or you can go to the ruins to farm nightmare creatures during the wild phase and farm it actively.

I think Hambat requires much less effort though...

[reallychina]

Both weapons are fine as they are. On bossfights you don't need that 15% extra damage unless ending the fight faster helps you save on other resources (think BQ, CK, FW). Later in game more treeguards spawn on trigger and bearger can help spawn as many as you want if you take a panflute to protect it. Using that, at some point you should have too many living logs.

As for nightmarefuel, it depends on your habits.

 

1. how you get nightmare fuel: don't eat sanity foods unless a bossfight is next, DON'T use Tam, eat meat raw etc, you will have sufficient fuel.

2. if you use dark swords on lol mobs. Since most common mobs have 100, 150, 200, 250 hp, using a DS is a waste because it will require the same amount of hits

Hambat is very good for most mobs. You use DS if the fight is time sensitive (hound attacks, certain bosses). For this reason, Morning star is the best weapon, much stronger than DS and has no hit durability.

 

 

[Mike23Ua]

Dark Swords are way better than Hambats, and I’ve personally begun using them to kill my arch enemy of the sea: a Deadly massive swarm of cookie cutters.

Is this a waste of Dark Swords? Probably.. but I need everyone on these forums to understand I WANT THE COOKIE CUTTERS DEAD!

Plus: it’s not that hard to get living logs, you can get them from Mushgnomes down in the Lunar Grotto or from Tree guardians you can anger the forest into Spawning. 
As for Nightmare Fuel there’s a decent amount of ways to obtain that as well, without wasting Resources.. but Ultimately it’s going to depend on your playstyle.

For ME I like weapons that aren’t on a literal countdown timer in usefulness, I like to run around the map with my non-perishable weapon in hand.. while I mostly use just Spears (because they have pretty skins..) if I need a more powerful weapon I aim for Darkswords and NOT Hambats.

This could also largely be because to unlock the bundling wrap to preserve the life of your Hambat with you need to kill an annoying Raid Boss that I have not beaten alone yet (the Bee Queen) and Klei needs to realize that by locking such an important craftable behind fighting this boss many many newbies and casual players don’t have access to the bundling wrap- Which in turn means- We are quite literally playing the game on a spoilage timer for both foods and Hambats.

Hence: Why I just go for Darkswords and rarely if ever actually use Hambats..

There is a WORKAROUND for this however that lately I’ve started using, now that all of the Holiday events are always active simultaneously at the same time: this gives players access to the Winters Feast GIFT WRAP which is the same thing as the Blueprint you get from Bee Queen except without needing to fight a boss to obtain it. So then really… why is this still tied to needing to fight the Bee Queen?

Darkswords don’t need a buff though, they’re pretty great and easy to mass farm as is.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, Reiko24 said:

I think Hambat requires much less effort though...

Don't get me wrong I also prefer the hambat as I usually don't think the extra 9 damage is worth the effort but at a certain point I end up building up the resources for dark swords due to one reason or another and I have no reason not to use them by then.

[Reiko24]

49 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

Dark Swords are fine as they are.

They are a consistent 68 damage while Hambat loses damage overtime.

I'm always going to use Dark Swords over Hambats when fighting big bosses like Bee Queen since they do more damage overall (and you're not attacking non-stop, you're moving around and attacking, which is a big difference).

 

 

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

You can farm living logs in the lunar grotto with gnomes and if you don't focus on actively restoring your sanity you can get it passively or you can go to the ruins to farm nightmare creatures during the wild phase and farm it actively.

When you guys and other people put it that way that seems actually reasonable. I didn't know that the gnomes are such a good way of getting living logs, because I didn't explore all of the new stuff yet. I personally think farming nightmare fuel is a bit tedious that's why I started wondering what are the upsides and downsides of both weapons and started comparing them.

[Theukon-dos]

No, not really. For starters, The materials for dark swords are *a lot* easier to farm than you're giving them credit for.

Yes, you're generally going to be getting Living Logs from Tree guards. But those guards also drop six whole logs each. And when you reach the late game where Treeguards spawn much more frequently and in higher numbers, it is not hard to have a surplus of living logs. Remember, you only need 4-5 to kill bee queen.

And nightmare fuel is also really easy to farm. Shadows are easy to kill, and as long as you're not constantly trying to keep your sanity up, you'll pretty much be constantly farming fuel as your sanity just passively ticks downwards. And if that's not fast enough for you, you can pretty quickly get a good couple stacks by hanging out in the ruins during the nightmare phase.

 

Also, you're really underestimating the spoilage effect here. While it's definitly not important during short fights, such as Deerclops or Klaus. But it can become super important in longer fights. 

You used Bee Queen as an example, which is actually convenient because I have experience with this one. See, you messed up the math here because it assumes that the player is going to *consistently* be making 2 hits per/second. But anyone who' fought Bee Queen can tell you that this isn't physically possible 99% of the time. The only characters who can possibly tank BQ are Wendy and maybe Wolfgang/Wigfrid. Everyone else though is going to have to spend their time kiting. A lot of kiting.

When I fought Queen Bee on my WX world, it took me about 2-3 days to put her down. And by the time I got to phase 4, my Ham Bat had already fallen below 50 damage. So yeah, I think a more consistent 68 damage would have been extremely useful to have for the fight.

 

Also, Toadstool is a terrible example to use here, You'd go about 20 seconds before a spore cloud brings you down to like, half damage or so.

[jan Mele]

2 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Also, Toadstool is a terrible example to use here, You'd go about 20 seconds before a spore cloud brings you down to like, half damage or so.

You can kinda prevent this by dropping it on the ground

[Faintly Macabre]

No

[Reiko24]

2 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

No

No

[Eughstein]

tbh only thing i would like to see to dark swords(and all durability weapons in general) is to automatically change when they break, it's so annoying to change it every time by yourself and before you did it your character attacks with a god damn fist, we already have this mechanic working for tools(even when you use them as a weapon) so why don't add it to weapons too?

[Mike23Ua]

18 minutes ago, Eughstein said:

tbh only thing i would like to see to dark swords(and all durability weapons in general) is to automatically change when they break, it's so annoying to change it every time by yourself and before you did it your character attacks with a god damn fist, we already have this mechanic working for tools(even when you use them as a weapon) so why don't add it to weapons too?

This needs to be in the next QoL.. if I have an inventory of Tentacle Spikes I shouldn’t need to juggle through my inventory to equip my other 4.

[Mr Giggio]

Heres the thing - as always in DST, this subject also depends on the situation. I farm nfuel everyday bein insane naturally and its enough to sustain my magiluminescence and dark sword use. 

ALSO

fighting small/medium/big mobs is different than giants. So, for those which aint giants, i use dark swords. I just need to take down a few, the max output damage is higher what means less hits and even if i hold it for a few days it will deal 68 damage regardless. Havin hte ingredients handy is always a good thing.

BUT

giants are a whole another thing and for those, the insanity aura and cost are heavy. Long term battles holding a sword will punish a lot in sanity and i know, cactus and stuff exists to heal sanity but its plus one more thing to concern. Its just more convenient use a hambat so i will indeed go for it. few boss battles i dont use it [like fweaver i like tulecite clubs and crab king morning star].

its even funny im thinkin about ruins and i use hambat in a rush but in summer when i go downstairs to clean for real if i already have living logs enough [what is totally possible at this point] i use dark swords instead [or hambats in a bundling wrap if isnt the case]

so the conclusion is - its always time and place to use both and both are fine, just choose wisely what fits ur playstyle and there you go

30 minutes ago, Eughstein said:

your character attacks with a god damn fist

cmon its funny mock ur friends when they punchin bosses/terrorbeaks

"oh i see you got a double terrorbeak huh also nice punch"

[Nogard78]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

Also, Toadstool is a terrible example to use here, You'd go about 20 seconds before a spore cloud brings you down to like, half damage or so.

Not really, when you have enough speed boost you can just not care about it, having magi and cane (and going in a straight line) prevents the spoilage tick from occuring, but when you mess up you get -7% on freshness (or something close to it). I recently defeated toadstool with a hambat at 85% freshness by the end of a fight. Of course you can't have lag.

[Cheggf]

Ham bat does less damage and breaks automatically regardless of use. I use dark sword way more than ham bat, I basically only use ham bats as an early game thing.

Ham bat has already been nerfed once or twice, it doesn't need any more changes. Just because you prefer it doesn't mean it's the best. Needing to use perishables to make perishables is a huge downside, especially outside of boss fights where you might go so long without using it that it goes to sub 50 damage before you even swing it. And it takes three whole inventory slots of materials to craft so carrying around an uncrafted ham bat is extremely inconvenient.

Plus, you're exclusively looking at this from your one way of playing: solo, and rushing bosses. When in a group (especially with inexperienced players, or a lot of players) pig skin can be much more scarce and saving some for armor by instead using something that's mostly just for weapons anyways can be a big boon.

[xDarkSoul18x]

I hate the hambat kind of. More annoying to constantly remake or worry about doing less damage because of spoil. I'd much rather have a darksword. Someone did make a post on using other meats and items for bats, that I think would be cool. Like a fishbat or monster meat bat.

Kind of more late game I guess but I recently got my Splumonkey farm up at a choke point. Literally have fuel, bananas, beard hair and small meat than I know what to do with haha. But i am always down to see what ways the game could change 

[HowlVoid]

I think having a way to make it easier to farm nightmare fuel is in order. Even with a skull helm it takes such a long time because you usually only get 1-2 per every 1-2 minutes, this is especially true for characters with 1x dmg. That's why when people say Wormwood has an easy time crafting darkswords, well that's just not true. Only the living log in that recipe is easy.

Something like the ends well in Hamlet, but maybe out in the ocean. Like dark spot bubbling from nightmare fuel because the lunar grotto below has kicked out of the caves. It can change location from time to time and allow us to trade moon glass for nightmare fuel.

Or you could fish in this dark spot for nightmare fish, which when killed will drop 1-2 nightmare fuel and have a chance to spawn a nightmare.

[Q42]

50 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Even with a skull helm it takes such a long time because you usually only get 1-2 per every 1-2 minutes

What

[HowlVoid]

4 minutes ago, Quackkyy said:

What

The skull helmet thing-y from fuelweaver. It attracts a lot of nightmares at once. Farming nightmares using that item can take sometime to get nightmare fuel. 

[Q42]

Just now, HowlVoid said:

The skull helmet thing-y from fuelweaver. It attracts a lot of nightmares at once. Farming nightmares using that item can take sometime to get nightmare fuel. 

Yes, but how are you only getting 1-2 every 1-2 minutes? I've never really had nightmare fuel problems after beating fuelweaver, the helm spawns so many of them.

[HowlVoid]

6 minutes ago, Quackkyy said:

Yes, but how are you only getting 1-2 every 1-2 minutes? I've never really had nightmare fuel problems after beating fuelweaver, the helm spawns so many of them.

They swam me. It's about the rate considering I have to take it off sometimes and lose time. Also I try to keep only crawling terrors around and max out the spawn but they tend to drop 1. Wormwood has a natural damage multiplier so it's not like things can go faster.

A minute may be a bit of an exaggeration now that I consider it. All I know it takes a long time for only a small amount of NF.

[Theukon-dos]

15 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

They swam me. It's about the rate considering I have to take it off sometimes and lose time. Also I try to keep only crawling terrors around and max out the spawn but they tend to drop 1. Wormwood has a natural damage multiplier so it's not like things can go faster.

A minute may be a bit of an exaggeration now that I consider it. All I know it takes a long time for only a small amount of NF.

Might just be a matter of getting more confidence. In my experience, you can be extremely agressive when kiting shadows, so long as you have enough speed.

Alternatively, you could also hop on a boat to focus on farming terror beaks. If you're Wanda than you can just camp 'em out. But even without the extra range, they have extremely large windows for dealing damage, particularly whenever they teleport.

[HowlVoid]

14 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Might just be a matter of getting more confidence. In my experience, you can be extremely agressive when kiting shadows, so long as you have enough speed.

Alternatively, you could also hop on a boat to focus on farming terror beaks. If you're Wanda than you can just camp 'em out. But even without the extra range, they have extremely large windows for dealing damage, particularly whenever they teleport.

I still think there can be improvement in farming nightmares. I'm not having trouble obtaining it, but obtaining a lot of it in a short amount of time.