How to craft it
Anvilhow it plays
Darts need something to fire them, and early on that means the Blowpipe out of jungle chests or the Dart Pistol from the Temple. Poison Darts are the straightforward step up from plain ones: the impact is small and the poison afterward does most of the work, so on anything with a real health pool the total damage runs well ahead of what the hit number suggests.
when not to bother
Poison refreshes rather than stacks, so a second dart resets the timer instead of doubling the tick. Steady fire keeps the debuff up, but dumping your whole magazine into one target at once wastes most of it.
They are also wasted on trash mobs that die before the poison pays out. Use ordinary darts for clearing caves and save these for bosses, armored enemies and anything that takes a while to bring down.