Lucy the Axe

She sits at the top of pre-Hardmode chopping power, level with the Molten Hamaxe and the Axearang but reachable without a trip to the Underworld. Nothing cuts faster until The Axe in Hardmode. Since Deerclops can be summoned in a snow biome whenever you feel like assembling the item, this is usually the first genuinely quick axe of a run, and it lands early enough to change how a first big build goes.

Her damage sits above the Blade of Grass and level with the Muramasa, and she carries a natural critical rate several times what a sword of that tier has, so real output runs higher than the raw number suggests. She also gains more from melee speed than most early swords, which makes food and speed accessories pay better here than elsewhere. The catch is reach. It is short, and against a boss short reach means standing inside contact damage. She holds up on the large slow targets you are already circling, the Eater of Worlds and Skeletron, and struggles against anything that wants you at distance. You also cannot turn around mid swing, so a target that crosses under you costs a whole animation.

The best roll depends on the job. Light is what you want on a woodcutter, since swing speed is the thing you feel while clearing a forest, and Legendary if she is going into a boss fight. Reforging costs little at that point in a run, so moving her between the two before a build session and before a fight is reasonable rather than fussy.

Lucy is the only item in the game with dialogue, and there is a lot of it. She celebrates every tree she brings down, is briefly thrown by gem trees, works out on her own that a cactus is a prickly tree, and chatters at you when you stand still too long. Shut her in a chest and she panics about the dark. Take her back out and she is grateful. Drop her on the ground and she asks whether you are coming back. She works through her lines in order rather than picking at random, so you will hear the whole set eventually, and every line forces your character into the axe emote, which gives you away in multiplayer.

She is Woodie's talking axe from Don't Starve, brought across by the same crossover that added Deerclops, and her tooltip copies his line about her. That line is itself an old joke pointing at I Love Lucy.