The Horseman's Blade

The Horseman's Blade

• 

Statistics

Type	WeaponCrafting material
Damage	150 75 (Melee)
Knockback	7.5 (Very strong)
Critical chance	4%
Use time	26 (Average)
Tooltip	Summons Pumpkin heads to attack your enemies
Rarity	08*
Sell	10
Research	1 required

Projectile created

• Flaming Jack
  

Sounds

Use

• Internal Item ID: 1826
• Internal Projectile ID: 321

 Obtained from

 Classic

 Expert

 Master

Entity	Qty.	Rate
Pumpking Pumpking	1	1.56–12.5% 1.79–14.29% 6.25–12.5%

The Horseman's Blade (pre-1.4.4) swinging animation. Note how the projectiles home onto targets.

The Horseman's Blade is a Hardmode, post-Plantera sword which summons homing pumpkin heads upon hitting an enemy. Despite it being called Horseman's Blade, it drops from Pumpking, a boss from the Pumpkin Moon event, not the Headless Horseman. It has a 1.56-12.5% (1.79 - 14.29% ) chance of dropping from the Pumpking.

On the  PC,  Console,  Mobile, and  tModLoader, it also has a large aura of energy around the blade when swung, which increases the range at which the weapon can damage enemies, including enemies behind the player.

Its best modifier is Legendary.

Crafting

Used in

Result	Ingredients	Crafting station
Zenith	Terra Blade Meowmere Star Wrath Influx Waver The Horseman's Blade Seedler Starfury Bee Keeper Enchanted Sword Copper Shortsword	Mythril Anvil or Orichalcum Anvil

Notes

• The player is unable to turn while swinging the sword, similar to the Excalibur, Night's Edge, Keybrand, or Falcon Blade.
• The blade can hit up to a maximum of three enemies per swing.
• The pumpkins will do 100% / 150% the amount of damage of the sword's swing and can also critically hit.
• Pumpkins may spawn and follow Spike Balls, enemy projectiles, and even bound NPCs.
• Hitting critters will also cause the pumpkins to spawn.
• The pumpkins will not spawn or home in on other players in PvP, but can damage other players if they are already spawned and happen to make contact.
• The sword can be seen in darkness, but casts no light on other objects.
• 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.

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.
  • When doing this, make sure to use the respective banner of the statue enemy, as its buff will directly apply to the pumpkins. This will double the DPS in Expert Mode.
• 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,  Windows Phone, 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.
• , 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".
  • Jack-o'-lantern was an official term for lights sometimes appearing near bogs, leading travelers to their deaths. Another word for this phenomenon is called the Will-o'-the-wisp, another item in the game based on this name.
• 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 afterwards revealed to actually having 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

 PC version

• 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.

• Desktop 1.4.0.1:
  • Now used to craft the Zenith.
  • Striking Moment buff no longer quintuples the Flaming Jack's damage.

• Desktop 1.3.0.3: Fixed not summoning pumpkins against Lunar Events enemies.

• Desktop 1.2.1.1: Can now be reforged.

• Desktop 1.2.1: Introduced.