Wand of Sparking

Ordinary chests on the surface and down through the underground layer hold it, which means most worlds hand you one inside the first hour of looting. If yours does not, the Skeleton Merchant stocks it, but only during a third quarter moon, so the trip you make to see him has to line up with the calendar.

The shot leaves in a shallow curve rather than a straight line, which takes a few casts to read at range. It passes through one enemy and stops at the second, and hitting the first thing cuts what is left of its flight in half, so the pierce only pays off when two targets are practically touching. Most hits leave the target burning, and the burn lights it up, which is genuinely useful when you are fighting in the dark rather than in a built arena.

Nothing else in magic costs this little per cast. It is tied with the Wand of Frosting at the bottom of the mana table, so a starting mana pool sustains near constant fire without a single potion. Its natural critical rate is also far above the baseline every other weapon starts from. Against worms it is excellent, since one spark burns several segments. Against a single tough target it runs out of road quickly, so think of it as the weapon you clear caves with, not the one you bring to a boss.

It cannot roll anything that touches knockback or mana cost, which cuts the pool of possible rolls down considerably. That leaves Demonic for more crit on a weapon that already crits a lot, or Deadly if you would rather have the fire rate. Either is fine and the difference is small.

It trades places with the Magic Dagger entirely. Chests no longer contain it and the Skeleton Merchant no longer sells it. Instead Mimics carry it in Hardmode, and it comes back as a much heavier, much faster weapon that burns with Hellfire rather than ordinary flame, at a correspondingly higher mana cost.