Guides · The world

Weapons: bows, arrows, the crossbow and daggers

A sword for the close fight, a dagger for the strike from behind, and from the Bows and Keepers update a Recurve Bow and a crossbow for everything that keeps its distance. Damage below is before armour; on players and bosses some numbers change, and the tables say how.

The Recurve Bow

Hold right click to draw and let go to shoot. The longer the draw, the harder and further the arrow flies: a tap does 2 damage, half a draw 4, a full draw (one second) 7. Twelve marks round the crosshair fill as you draw and turn gold at full draw. Arrows drop as they fly, so aim a little high at range.

• While drawing you walk at 40% of your speed and cannot run.
• Held past three seconds, the aim starts to sway. Sneak (Shift) and it steadies.
• One bow shot a second at most: quick taps never out-damage full draws.
• Arrows hit creatures and players, never a teammate.

The Kept

After the White Night the Firstfolk kept what fell in their Reliquaries. Three things of that night rest there still, one each in the three Firstfolk Reliquaries nearest the world's spawn, glowing in the dark of the vault. There is only one of each in a world.

Relic	What it does
Dawnbrand	The strongest blade there is. Each blow on a creature gives back half a heart, and it strikes the Lightless twice as hard.
Heartstring	A bow that spends no arrows: with none in the bag it still shoots.
Lastward	The last ward the Roadfolk carved. Anywhere in your bag, it lends Swiftstep and Windleap.

• Taking one from its Reliquary is told to everyone in the world. /relics says where each one is.
• When its holder dies it falls where they fell, even in a world that keeps items.
• It never stays in a chest, a forge or on a shelf, and nothing makes another.
• Seven days with nobody carrying it (lying where it fell, or in the bag of someone who has not been back) and it goes back to its Reliquary.

The crossbow

The crossbow loads instead of drawing. Hold right click for 1.25 seconds and an arrow goes onto the stock; a click then shoots it. Every shot does 9 damage, flies faster and flatter than a bow's, and always carries an elemental arrow's effect. You walk at 60% while loading and at full speed once it is loaded. A loaded crossbow stays loaded when you switch slots, put it in a chest or drop it, and other players can see the arrow lying on the stock.

Arrows

Flint over a haft over a feather makes four arrows. Flint comes from gravel: one block in ten drops it. Feathers come from chickens; Seamcord for the bow from Glintmaws and from chests in cabins and dungeons.

4

• A shot takes arrows from your offhand first, then the leftmost arrows in your satchel, then your bag. Keep the kind you want in the offhand.
• The bow's satchel socket shows how many arrows of the next kind you have.
• An arrow that hits a block sticks in it and can be picked up again. One that hits a creature breaks.
• A Slagcaster's slag falls the same way your arrows do: when its arm goes up over its head, the arc is your warning.

Elemental arrows

Four arrows round a Keeper's elemental ore make four elemental arrows. Each hits as hard as a plain arrow and carries its element, as long as the draw was at least half (a crossbow shot always has it). The effects are shorter on players and bosses, and each Keeper shrugs off its own element.

4

4

4

4

Arrow	On a creature	On a player	On a boss
Tidal	Chill 3 s	Chill 1.5 s	Chill 1.5 s (not the Rime Sovereign)
Blazing	Burning 4 s	Burning 2 s	Burning 2 s (not the Magma Colossus)
Quaking	Rooted 1.5 s, knocked back twice as far	Rooted 0.5 s, knocked back further	A normal knock (not the Thorn Guardian)
Gale	Held in the wind 1 s, then thrown about 4 blocks	Blown 3 blocks back and 1.5 up, short of a harmful fall	A small push (not the Tempest)

• 
  ChillMove slowerTidal arrows
• 
  BurningLose half a heart a second; water or rain puts it outBlazing arrows. They never set blocks alight
• 
  RootedHeld in place by roots; you can still swingQuaking arrows
• 
  WindboundCaught in the wind, then thrownGale arrows, on creatures

Against the Elemental Core and the Crowned Wyrm, an arrow of the element they hold at that moment does nothing extra: change arrows as the element turns. On Easy, effects on you last half as long.

Daggers and the backstab

Every tier that has a sword has a dagger: one material over one haft. A dagger hits for its tier's sword damage less 2, swings every 0.2 seconds (a sword every 0.3) and reaches 3.5 blocks (a sword 4.8). Hit something from behind, within 45 degrees of straight behind it, and the dagger backstabs: double damage on creatures, half again on players (at most 4 more) and a quarter more on bosses, once a second on each target, with a violet slash and a flash at the edge of the screen. Reduced motion drops the flash.

Tier	Dagger	Backstab, creature	Backstab, player
Wooden	2	4	3
Stone	3	6	5
Iron	4	8	6
Gold	5	10	8
Dawnspar	6	12	9
Wanestone	7	14	11
Tungsten	9	18	13
Obitite	11	22	15

Armour still applies to every number above. A rimeiron dagger chills what it hits, like the rimeiron sword.

Swords and critical hits

A sword hits for 4 (wooden) up to 13 (obitite); the full list is in the crafting guide. Hit a monster while falling from a jump for a critical hit: one and a half times the damage. A critical hit and a backstab do not add up; the bigger one counts. Gauntlets make every hit you land stronger.

Shields

A shield is carried in your off hand. Hold right click to raise it while your hand holds nothing with a right-click use of its own (a sword, an axe, a pickaxe, an empty hand), or bind Block (hold) in Settings > Controls. Raised, it covers the front: you walk at 60% and cannot run, and left click bashes instead of swinging.

• The first blow from the front on a fresh shield is stopped whole and throws the striker back. Then the shield is Shaken for 10 seconds: raised, it still stops its tier’s share of each blow, and throws no one.
• Parry: raise it just as the blow lands, a quarter of a second before at most. The blow is stopped whole, the striker is thrown back harder and staggered, and the shield is not Shaken. A shield raised again straight after it was lowered can’t parry.
• A parried player can’t strike for 0.6 seconds; a parried creature stands dazed for a second. Bosses are never thrown back or staggered.
• Bash: 2 damage and a hard shove at whoever is in front, within 2.5 blocks. It breaks a bow’s draw, a crossbow’s load and a spell being cast. Once every 6 seconds, and it never Shakes the shield.
• Arrows and crossbow bolts from the front lose the shield’s share, fresh or not. They never Shake it.
• A shield does not stop fireballs, magma, a spell’s burst, Wright lasers, falls, fire, poison or the void.

Shield	Stops while Shaken	Made from
Wooden	20%	Seven boards
Stone	25%	Boards with a band of three Fieldstone (or stone)
Iron	30%	Boards with a band of three iron ingots
Gold	35%	Boards with a band of three gold ingots
Dawnspar	40%	Five Dawnspar and two gold ingots
Wanestone	45%	Five Wanestone and two gold ingots
The rarest ore	50%	Five of the rarest ore and two gold ingots
Tungsten	55%	Five tungsten ingots and two gold ingots
Obitite	60%	Five obitite and two gold ingots
Rimeiron	50%	Five rimeiron and two gold ingots. Whoever strikes it is chilled for 2 seconds

At the Lectern a shield takes Bulwark: each level takes a second off Shaken and stops 5% more of a creature’s blow. Against players only the shorter wait counts. Shield-blocks and bashes reach players only where a blow could: never a teammate, never with PvP off.

On touch screens

With a bow or crossbow in hand, the Draw button shows above the camera button. Hold it to draw (or load), slide the same thumb to aim, and lift it to shoot. While you draw the look slows to steady your aim, a little more with a creature in your sights, never over a player. The small socket on the Draw button's corner switches the arrow type. Arrange controls (Settings > Controls) moves it like any other button.

With a shield in your off hand and nothing in hand that has a button of its own, that button is Block: hold it to raise the shield, and slide the same thumb up to bash.

Which weapon when

• Night on the surface: a sword for the Waned; a bow for Slagcasters that keep their distance.
• A Keeper's towers: arrows reach the crystals from the ground while you stay out of reach of the boss.
• Creatures that turn their backs: the dagger. Twice the damage is often a kill.
• The Crowned Wyrm: elemental arrows for its pillars' crystals and a crossbow for the dive. See the Keepers.

Next: Magic. All sections: the guides.