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

[Maxil20]

I actually really like the hambat over the dark sword. While I do feel dark swords are fine, I feel a lot of people underrate the hambat here. I do feel it has a lot of nice advantages.

A. Bundling the mats works really, really well for the hambat. In my endgame world, I used to carry a bundle that was initially filled with 30 pig skins and 60 meat. Considering that twigs (and grass) are going to be used constantly throughout a world, I don't find it as bad to carry the twigs needed to craft the bats and the grass needed to remake the ropes. Even if you swap your hambats when they turn stale, that's still roughly ~300 days before you need to restock the mats.
B. A sub-50 damage hambat still works alright for 99% of most day to day encounters. While it won't be the most ideal way to fight some mobs, doing ~40+ damage per swing without worrying about durability is still very strong. I normally crafted a fresh hambat when I was about to tackle a boss, and used the hambat afterwards until a day or so into it being stale.
C. The hambat doesn't suffer from needing multiple of it for one fight. You will often need multiple swords in order to tackle some bosses, especially beefy ones like the DFly/champion. The hambat will only need one crafted throughout the fight, which is a nice boon if you don't like needing to resort your inventory midfight to make sure your new weapon goes into your weapon quick slot properly. The only time this is fairly moot is toadstool due to it actively discouraging you from using spoiling weapons.

My main issue with sword mats is grinding the NM fuel needed for those. NM fuel is a resource needed for a lot of things, and while dark swords can easily be upkept if it's the only thing you use it on, it can quickly be drained if you use it for other things as well (like bone armor, magi, ancient gear crafting, etc.). Hambats for comparison use resources that are used throughout the game, but their use can be considerably less in the endgame depending on what you use meat/pigskin on (in my world, I swapped over to dried kelp from jerky for sanity, and I don't use football helms at all thanks to alternatives like crowns/wig helms).

*I do want to note I don't really use the hambat much anymore thanks to the champion giving a large amount of moonglass for cutters and the shield of terror, but it did see me through a significant chunk of my DST experience, far more then how often I used dark swords.

[Psychic Chicken]

14 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

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.

I never thought of this issue because I willingly play permanently insane.

[Frogzard]

51 minutes ago, Psychic Chicken said:

I never thought of this issue because I willingly play permanently insane.

Something about saying you're permanently insane with a username and avatar like that just gives me the giggles

[BonesJrOfficial]

Been said already but I'll say it again.. dark sword is not as hard to obtain as you're leading on. Living logs are abundant. And nightmare fuel is even more so. I just don't think you're going to the right places tbh. Nightmare Fuel farmed by a ruin light or fissure.. easy stonks. Shadow splimonkey are nuts too. Set traps. Living logs from Bearger knocking down a forest, crazy. Best with birchnuts. 3 tree guardian is still great though. No Bearger, go to the birchnuts in autumn with a weatherpain. Enjoy. 

[GetNerfedOn]

While I was [[LAUGHING IN CUTLASS SUPREME MAIN]] I had a serious thought

What if DST introduced its own variant of the Cutlass Supreme through the Rockjaw? 

[EighteenXVIII]

Clearly OP hasn't tried to solo Toadstool with a Ham Bat, lol.

That said if you want a ton of nightmare fuel gear, you can do the shadow pieces boat trick. I did it the other day using Winona's Catapults and now I have 24 each of the shadow atrium, dark sword, night armor as well as over 120 nightmare fuel.

To spawn treeguards fast lategame: A) plant a ton of pinecones B) wait for them to reach their old, withered phase and C) hit them one by one until the big guys spawn (1/75 chance). You can get 18 living logs max this way. Alternatively, use Bearger or Deerclops.

A way of getting some quick nightmare fuel that doesn't require as much prep is building a lazy deserter. Just right click it until you're insane. Kill nightmare monsters, right-click deserter when needed, repeat. Use an Eye Mask for armor and just refuel it if you get hit too much. It's easier and safer than going to the ruins or using a Bone Helm, though slower.

If you've already killed Fuelweaver, you can use his Bone Helm and Bone Armor as Wolfgang. You can get 40 nightmare fuel in 5 minutes if you're good at kiting terrorbeaks.

Personally I prefer thulecite clubs myself for the 200 uses and no concern of spoiling. But dark swords are just easy to make, you can stock up and grab them as you need them. With my lazy deserter method I can get like 30 nightmare fuel in 10-15 minutes. That's six dark swords, since I already have stacks of living logs. Meanwhile making a hambat requires dealing with bundling wraps, or farming raw meat if you don't have any available, and dealing with spoilage, the materials using up 3 inventory slots because you want to wait until the boss fight to craft it fresh, etc. Dark swords avoid all of that and deal 15% more damage. You don't need to go to the ruins to craft them either. I think the dark sword is in a good spot.

[reallychina]

2 minutes ago, EighteenXVIII said:

Clearly OP hasn't tried to solo Toadstool with a Ham Bat, lol.

That said if you want a ton of nightmare fuel gear, you can do the shadow pieces boat trick. I did it the other day using Winona's Catapults and now I have 24 each of the shadow atrium, dark sword, night armor as well as over 120 nightmare fuel.

 

 

Please stop encouraging exploits

[EighteenXVIII]

1 minute ago, reallychina said:

Please stop encouraging exploits

It's just using Winona's catapults to your advantage. I facerolled my first Toadstool the other day thanks to them, was that also an exploit?

Besides, I can't even go through my thulecite gear faster than I can make more. I was really after the shadow atriums more than anything to save on grinding.

[Cheggf]

32 minutes ago, reallychina said:

 

Please stop encouraging exploits

Please stop telling people how they're allowed to enjoy the game that you aren't a part of and has no affect on you whatsoever.

[reallychina]

32 minutes ago, EighteenXVIII said:

It's just using Winona's catapults to your advantage.

Killing 30 bosses with a sum of 240.000 HP while taking no damage and using next to no resources is an exploit, not a legitimate use. Using catapults on BQ, dfly etc is using them as intended.

 

5 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Please stop telling people how they're allowed to enjoy the game that you aren't a part of and has no affect on you whatsoever.

Please stop encouraging exploits

[jan Mele]

5 minutes ago, reallychina said:

Killing 30 bosses with a sum of 240.000 HP while taking no damage and using next to no resources is an exploit, not a legitimate use. Using catapults on BQ, dfly etc is using them as intended.

Next time say that one is not supposed to use armour because it gives a huge advantage

[EighteenXVIII]

3 minutes ago, reallychina said:

Killing 30 bosses with a sum of 240.000 HP while taking no damage and using next to no resources is an exploit, not a legitimate use. Using catapults on BQ, dfly etc is using them as intended.

The amount of HP or the amount of bosses is irrelevant due to the splash damage. You'll find people who'll say using catapults on Dragonfly is cheese as well.

Actually my first time I beat the shadow pieces I left the knight for last, because Webber's spiders can beat it since it has single target attacks only. It was still hard because he frightens the spiders constantly and he will switch targets to you instead which you can't dodge. Most people leave the rook for last and they essentially "cheese" him using a road and a walking cane. I could do that over and over every time I want to reset the ruins and I'd have your approval for using a "legit" strat, but I think I prefer the way I did it because it saved me hours and hours of tedious grinding.

[Mday]

Depends on the situation.

Consider the following where:

Wes has 0.75 Damage Modifier

 

Darksword damge = 51

Spider has 100HP, so that is a 2-hits kill.

Spider Warrior has 400HP, so it takes 8 hits.

 

Hambat damage = 44.25

It will take 3 hits to kill a spider (50% increase), and 9~10 hits to kill a spider warrior(~20% increase).

[Frosty_Mentos]

I kinda would like a more durable alternative, but people will say it's Thulecite club.

[EighteenXVIII]

46 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I kinda would like a more durable alternative, but people will say it's Thulecite club.

Pick/Axe: 42.5 damage, 800 uses. 34,000 damage total.

Thulecite Club: 59.5 damage, 200 uses. 11,900 damage total.

Obviously the Pick/Axe is better! /s

[Frosty_Mentos]

Just now, EighteenXVIII said:

Pick/Axe: 42.5 damage, 800 uses. 34,000 damage total.

Thulecite Club: 59.5 damage, 200 uses. 11,900 damage total.

Obviously the Pick/Axe is better! /s

GARBAGE AND YOU KNOW IT! >:( Tbh it's like poking an enemy with a stick vs doing quick work and killing them faster. It's not even an argument that sharper weapons will always win over everyone.