This article is about the group of summon weapons. For the hook, see Ivy Whip.
Whips are close-ranged summon weapons that swing in an arcing motion and produce a unique sound. Like all summoning weapons, whips receive damage bonuses from summon damage and cannot normally deal critical hits.
When an enemy has been hit with a whip, any minions and sentries the player has summoned will target that enemy, much like when pressing ⚷ Open / Activate on an enemy with a minion/sentry-summoning weapon.
If a whip hits multiple targets in a single attack, the damage dealt will be reduced by a fixed percentage on each consecutive hit. This stat for each whip is listed as "Multihit penalty" in the following table.
Most whips inflict a special debuff on struck enemies for 4 seconds[1], "tagging" them.
Whips can have the same modifiers as swords, including Legendary. Their best modifier is Legendary.
All whips are affected by melee attack speed bonuses, autoswing effect from the Feral Claws and its upgrades, and bonuses from flasks. Any other melee bonuses will not affect whips.
Each whip inflicts its own special "tag" debuff, and the summon tag damage and critical strike chance can be stacked with the use of multiple different whips.[2]
Tips
Whips can be an excellent weapon for an early-game head start, as they have significant damage and are easy to obtain early on.
Whips are exceptionally useful for clearing foliage due to their range and broad area of effect. Combined with the ability to break plants behind solid walls, a whip can erase an entire thorny bush in a single swing, quickly bring down vines, and can safely trigger Rolling Cacti to roll away.
Because the primary hit of a whip operates similarly to a piercing melee weapon, they are effective against enemies that pass through blocks, such as worms, Cursed Skulls, and casters with destructible projectiles.
However, all whips will deal less damage to each successive enemy hit close together in a single swing, all the way down to 1 damage. This penalty is heavier on earlier whips, and lighter on later whips.
This does not stop whips with debuff effects such as the Snapthorn from applying their respective debuff. However, Firecracker's explosive burst effect will only be applied to the first enemy hit, even if the whip causes a different enemy to be targeted instead.
Melee-oriented armor sets and equipment, such as the Feral Claws, can greatly increase whips' effectiveness, since they benefit from attack speed bonuses.
This includes melee speed bonuses from the Snapthorn, Durendal, and Dark Harvest. If the player is fast enough, they can strike once with a speed-increasing whip, then switch to a higher-damage whip to gain immense damage bonuses. The autoswing effect of the Feral Claws makes this much easier, as the player can simply hold the attack button down and use the numbers on the keyboard to switch between whips in the hotbar.
The summon tag damage gives significant bonuses to minions. For instance, the pre-Hardmode whips can more than triple the DPS of the Baby Slime minion against the Eye of Cthulhu, and Kaleidoscope increases the damage of the UFO minion, an already-powerful summon, by more than 50%.
Using multiple different whips has an even greater effect on minion DPS compared to using only one whip, as whips' summon tag bonuses can be stacked.
Whips have excellent synergy with the Valhalla Knight armor, which has a +60% summon damage bonus, high defense and regeneration, and several sentry slots, but few bonuses to other types of weapons. For more risk/reward, the Shinobi Infiltrator armor has a +60% damage bonus and a +20% speed bonus (which affects whips more than most melee late-game weapons), but less armor and no healing.
Trivia
Whips were added as a homage to summoners with whips from the Japanese science fantasy media franchise Final Fantasy, notably Rydia from the video game Final Fantasy IV. They also reference the monster-catching and summoning Beastmaster class from the video game Final Fantasy V.
In real life, whips are generally used on animals, for training and performance purposes. This is potentially why the Zoologist sells the Leather Whip.
↑Information taken from the Desktop1.4.3.6 source code, method StatusNPC() in Terraria.Projectile.cs. There may be inaccuracies, as the current Desktop version is 1.4.4.9.
↑Information taken from the Desktop1.4.4.9 source code, method Damage() in Terraria.Projectile.cs.
