The Horseman's Blade
Projectiles created
Flaming Jack
The Horseman's Blade
Obtained from
Using The Horseman's Blade to attack
Target Dummies,
Zombies, and a
Mimic. Note how the projectiles home onto targets, and how only three enemies can be hit at once.
The Horseman's Blade's swinging animation. Note how the projectiles home onto targets.
The Horseman's Blade is a Hardmode, post-Plantera sword that can damage up to three enemies per swing while summoning homing pumpkin heads upon hitting an enemy except those spawned from statues. The pumpkin heads pass through solid blocks to attack their closest target, dealing 100% (150% ) of the weapon's base damage while also inheriting the same chance to inflict critical hits. On the 
Desktop version, 
Console version, and 
Mobile version, The Horseman's Blade also creates a broad orange circular slash around it when swung that significantly increases the range at which the weapon can deal damage to enemies, including those behind the player. The Horseman's Blade is dropped by the Pumpking during the Pumpkin Moon event with a 1.56 ~ 12.5% (6.25 ~ 12.5%) chance depending on the current wave.[1]
Despite being called The Horseman's Blade, it drops from the Pumpking and not from Headless Horsemen during the Pumpkin Moon event.
Its best modifier is Legendary.
Crafting
Used in
Notes
- Pumpkins cannot be summoned from hitting critters or statue-spawned enemies with The Horseman's Blade.
- It will always knock enemies away from the player, regardless of the direction it is swung.
- The player is unable to turn while swinging the sword, similar to the Excalibur, Night's Edge, Keybrand, and Falcon Blade.
- The sword can be seen in darkness but casts no light on other objects.
- Pumpkins may spawn and follow Spike Balls, enemy projectiles such as Chaos Balls or Vile Spit, and even bound NPCs.
- The pumpkins will not spawn or home in on other players in PvP but can damage other players if they have already spawned and happen to make contact.
- Wearing full Frost armor or a Fire Gauntlet, or using one of the many Flasks that generate light on weapon swings will cause pumpkin projectiles to glow as well. This and the homing, wall-ignoring projectiles, make it excellent for exploration or resource-gathering once obtained.
- On the Nintendo 3DS
version, hitting critters will cause the pumpkins to spawn.
Tips
- Attacking large segmented enemies such as The Destroyer or Wyverns with the blade will cause many pumpkins to spawn and attack, as each segment can be attacked, therefore counting them as different targets.
- Using an automatic statue farm, it is possible to kill the statue-spawned enemies with The Horseman's Blade to make pumpkins spawn and attack other foes, which is especially useful while fighting bosses and enemies during the Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon.
- Because the pumpkins home in on enemies, this weapon is useful in many situations, such as attacking large groups of enemies in the Hardmode Dungeon or during events.
- When comparing to the Terra Blade, The Horseman's Blade's very strong knockback and homing projectiles compensate for its slower, less-damaging swing.
Trivia
- It is the third strongest sword in the game in the
Old-gen console and 3DS versions, being beaten only by the True Night's Edge and the Terra Blade.
- The sword seems unusually larger than other swords when placed on a Weapon Rack.
- Modifier prefixes are added in front of the "The" in its name, which can result in a grammatically incorrect name such as "Keen The Horseman's Blade". It shares this trait with all other items that can obtain modifiers and whose names begin with "The". This error is not present in the Old-gen console version.
- In the Desktop version, Console version, and Mobile version, the projectiles can still gather at Moon Lord's hands and head despite them being taken out.
- The pumpkin projectiles are called "Flaming Jack" in death messages. "Jack" may be just short for "Jack-o'-lantern".
- The Horseman's Blade (and the Headless Horseman enemy) is a reference to the Headless Horseman featured in the 1820 gothic story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by American author Washington Irving. During the story's climax, the main character is chased by the Headless Horseman who ultimately throws his head at him. The head is afterward revealed to actually have been a pumpkin. The story has since been referenced many times, as well as linked to Halloween due to jack-o'-lanterns. In Disney's 1949 film adaptation The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, it appears as a Jack-o'-lantern on fire, which this item likewise might be a reference to.
History
- Desktop 1.4.4.6: Fixed an issue where the projectiles would sometimes decide to target critters, even though they are not meant to do so.
- Desktop 1.4.4:
- Flaming pumpkins are no longer summoned when striking enemies spawned from statues.
- Flaming pumpkins only deal 100% of the weapon damage instead of 150%.
- Horseman's Blade now has an area of damaging energy around the blade, dealing damage in a larger, wider area of effect, including better coverage behind the player.
- Damage increased from 75 to 150.
- ↑ Pumpkin Moon enemies have a greater chance of dropping loot in later waves than in earlier waves (except for guaranteed drops such as Spooky Wood, and, on the Old-gen console version and Nintendo 3DS version, except for trophies – which never drop except in wave 15 when they will always drop). Information taken from the Desktop 1.4.0.5 source code, method
RegisterBoss_PumpkinMoon() in Terraria.GameContent.ItemDropRules.ItemDropDatabase.cs. There may be inaccuracies, as the current Desktop version is 1.4.4.9.
Classic
Expert
Master
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