Jousting Lance

Nothing drops this. The Zoologist puts it on her counter once you have filled in roughly a third of the Bestiary, which means a spread of critters caught and enemy types killed rather than one spot ground out. Most players cross that line somewhere around the start of Hardmode without ever aiming at it, so it tends to appear in the shop as a surprise.

Press to extend the lance, hold to keep it out at a fixed angle. Both damage and knockback scale directly off how fast you are moving, with no cap on either. Fighting on foot at a walking pace wastes the weapon entirely. Mounts, asphalt runways, sprint accessories and every dash in the game feed it, so a Shield of Cthulhu, Tabi or Master Ninja Gear, or the Solar Flare dash all multiply every hit you land.

Taking any damage retracts the lance immediately. That makes it excellent at clearing weak Hardmode spawns in a single pass and poor against anything that survives a charge and swings back, because the counter shuts you down while it is still standing. Feral Claws and its upgrades soften this, since autoswing readies the next attack for you automatically after a hit. Titan Glove accessories help from the other end by making you less likely to get hit in the first place. Player versus player jousting snowballs badly for the same reason: whoever connects first stops the other one dealing damage at all.

Because the scaling has no ceiling, a Mollusk Whistle or an Inner Tube plus a very deep water column will build speeds nothing else in the game reaches. Surfacing from the bottom of one with the lance out produces damage numbers that are frankly ridiculous, enough to end the Dungeon Guardian in one hit with the right setup.

Locking the lance to point straight up or straight down stretches its hitbox vertically, which is how you connect with fliers and anything moving unpredictably while you charge. Straight down during a hellevator descent cuts through cobwebs that would otherwise slow your fall, and the speed you keep turns the drop itself into an attack. Holding it against your direction of travel makes mounts moonwalk at full speed, which is useless and worth doing at least once.

The Hallowed and Shadow versions are the same weapon with more behind them and are the natural next steps. Godly and Demonic are equally good here. Melee speed prefixes do not apply to lances at all, so ignore that whole group.