Golden Shower

Damage is not why this stays in your hotbar for the rest of a playthrough. Every stream coats what it touches in ichor, and ichor strips flat defense off the target for a stretch afterward, discounting everything else you land in that window. The normal pattern is a quick spray, then a swap to your real weapon. Long after its own numbers stop meaning anything, that opener still shortens fights. Mythical is the modifier to aim for.

One press throws three arcing streams one after another, and each stream punches through several enemies before it gives out. The arcs fall as they travel, so at range you are lobbing rather than aiming flat. Anything the ichor touches glows brightly enough to follow in total darkness, roughly what a Hunter Potion shows you, which is handy in an unlit cavern.

This is the Crimson entry in a trio that also holds Cursed Flames and Crystal Storm, each built on a Spell Tome with materials from its own underground biome. On a Crimson world it deserves priority the moment the Wall of Flesh falls, because it makes the difficulty jump survivable. The Souls of Night are the real gate; the Ichor itself comes quickly. Jungle Mimics drop it too if you happen to crack one open.

• Weapons that land many small hits gain the most from a flat defense cut. Crystal Storm, Cursed Flames and the Magnet Sphere all jump noticeably.
• Betsy's Wrath stacks its own defense reduction on top of ichor, and running both takes a serious bite out of any boss.
• Flasks of Ichor, Ichor Bullets and the Bladetongue apply the same debuff for less setup. The flask and the ammo run out, this and the Bladetongue do not.
• The piercing and the fire rate make it a good crowd tool during events, where the raw damage still counts for something.

Segmented enemies are a good target because a single arc rakes several sections at once, and this is one of the better answers to them before a Magical Harp. The Destroyer is immune to ichor itself, so all you get there is the multi hit value. In Expert and above the game also cuts the damage this weapon deals specifically to the Destroyer and its Probes, which makes it a much weaker pick for that fight than it looks on paper.