Talk:Basilisk Dart/@comment-25543325-20150805221031/@comment-6218837-20150806005353

I've never really thought that melee weapons (boomerangs, yoyos and projectile weapons being the most obvious) should be merged into throwables. If more mechanics were added for throwables (see the Scythes category for an example of the wiki adding this) I'd be really happy with that. The Penetration ability is pretty cool, although the melee Daybreak also has that.

Based on my limited experience, throwable weapons are almost always the best in the earliest stages of the game, where melee weapons are shoddy self-defense at best, ranged weapons are fairly rudimentary and magic or summoner weapons are either barely or not there. Once one gets into the flow of the game a little more, melee is still fairly weak, although they've gotten some new big swords and flails to buff themselves some. If you think about it, the Starfury, Enchanted Sword and Ice Blade are the only PHM melee weapons (excluding boomerangs, flails and yoyos) that have a ranged ability.

Meanwhile, rangers are left in a pretty bad position, because it's the point where they don't have guns yet and are still relying on ore-tier bows. Mages are starting to come into their own, especially with the gemstaves, while Summoner is kinda sitting there sucking its thumbs. Thrower still has some viable weapons in the Javelin line and the upgrades to the Throwing Knives, but it's not a whole lot better than mage or warrior at this point.

Later in the pre-Hardmode scene, we're forced to use molotovs or beenades - by no means shoddy weapons - as a thrower. These weapons will end up taking us throughout the entire game. However, they're limited in their versatility while mages and rangers in particular are given a plethora of effective weapons. This picture illustrates what I mean. Red marks early-game; orange marks usable in mid-PHM, such as against Skeletron and the Queen Bee; and yellow marks what you'll be using for the Wall of Flesh and beyond.

I consider this a really good example of "Linear Warrior, Quadratic Wizard," where a given gameplay choice can work extremely well in the early-game as other options are just starting to even be defined, but is soon eclipsed once they get their arsenals.