Spider Staff

  

This is the main page whose information applies to the Desktop, Console, and Mobile versions of Terraria.
For the differences of this information on Old-gen console, see Legacy:Spider Staff.

Spider Staff

• 

Statistics

Type	Weapon
Damage	26 (Summon)
Knockback	3 (Very weak)
Mana	10
Use time	36 (Very slow)
Velocity	10
Tooltip	Summons spiders to fight for you
Rarity	04*
Sell	1 GC
Research	1 required

Grants Buff

Buff	Spider
Buff tooltip	The spider will fight for you

Inflicts Debuff

Debuff	Acid Venom
Debuff tooltip	Losing life
Chance	100%
Duration	2–4 seconds

Projectiles created

• Venom Spider
  
• Jumper Spider
  
• Dangerous Spider
  

Sounds

Use

• Internal Item ID: 2551 (Desktop, Console, Old-gen console and Mobile versions)
• Internal Buff ID: 133 (Desktop, Console, Old-gen console and Mobile versions), 70
• Internal Projectile ID: 390, 391, 392

The Spider Staff in use. Note it is not stopped by walls.

The Spider Staff is a Hardmode summon weapon that spawns a Spider minion that follows the player and attacks by latching on to enemies. The spiders inflict the Acid Venom debuff for 2–4 seconds, can climb background walls, and jump high. If enough of them attack the same enemy, it can be stun-locked. Like other minions, the summoned Spider is invincible and follows the player until they die, summon a replacement minion, cancel the buff, or leave the world.

Its best modifier is Ruthless. The Mythical modifier provides the widest array of stat bonuses, but these primarily affect the initial summon rather than the resulting minion. Additionally, minions cannot deal critical hits. The only lasting advantage a Mythical Spider Staff has over a Ruthless one is knockback.

Crafting

Recipes

Result	Ingredients	Crafting station
Spider Staff(Desktop, Console, Old-gen console and Mobile versions)	Spider Fang(Desktop, Console, Old-gen console and Mobile versions)16	Iron Anvil or Lead Anvil

Notes

• The Spider Staff cycles through three visually distinct types of Spider minions. The first minion is a Venom Spider, the second a Jumper Spider, the third a Dangerous Spider, the fourth a Venom Spider again, and so on. All three types are functionally identical (despite the different names, all of them have the same movement, damage, and debuff-inflicting capabilities).
  • Each spider minion has an internal hit cooldown of 0.33 seconds, meaning it can hit an enemy up to 3 times per second.^[1]
  • Each spider minion applies 15 static invincibility frames for its type, meaning multiple spiders of the same type will be capped to 4 hits per second.^[2]
    • Therefore the 4th, 5th, and 6th spiders attacking an enemy will not be able to hit at the same rate as the first 3, with each one only adding an extra hit per second. As a result the maximum number of hits for spiders is capped at 12 times per second with 6 spider minions.
    • For example, 3 spiders will attack an enemy 9 times per second, but 6 spiders will only attack 12 times per second; 11 spiders will also only attack an enemy 12 times per second.
    • With only 3 spider minions, the invincibility frames do not actually come into play, since their internal hit cooldown lasts longer than duration of the invincibility frames.
• The spider minions can target enemies within a 50-tile range, and will automatically return to the player's side if their distance from the player is greater than 87.5 tiles.^[3]

Tips

• The spider minion's ability to move freely on background walls makes it much more effective in areas with good wall coverage. It is otherwise limited to walking and jumping, and since it cannot fly (for the purposes of attacking) and has no projectile attack, its effectiveness is limited against flying enemies.
• The Spider Staff is easily acquired when first entering Hardmode, as most players will have already found a Spider Nest before it begins. Simply return there to kill the Black Recluses that begin spawning in Hardmode. Black Recluses hit hard and can take a while to defeat with pre-Hardmode equipment, but the effort is worth it.
• If several spiders latch onto a single target that can receive knockback, the target will often be carried away from the player, but in some cases can carry the enemy towards the player faster than the enemy itself could normally approach.

Trivia

• The second type of spider, the Jumper Spider, resembles a Mexican redknee tarantula. The third type of spider, the Dangerous Spider, resembles a black widow.
• The staff appears to be a four-legged spider.
• The Spider Staff and the Queen Spider Staff are the only items available prior to defeating any mechanical boss that can inflict the Acid Venom debuff.
• It is one of only four weapons in the game that can inflict Acid Venom without any buffs or bonuses, the others being the Queen Spider Staff, the Pygmy Staff, and the Venom Staff.
• Contrary to the real world where spiders do not have wings, the spider minions will use wings to follow an airborne player when there are no background walls.

History

 Desktop version

• Desktop 1.4.1.2: Summoning Spiders will now attempt to systematically summon the different types of Spiders in order, rather than randomly.

• Desktop 1.4.0.1: Spiders now count as one minion.

• Desktop 1.3.0.1:
  • Damage increased from 25 to 26.
  • Knockback increased from 2 to 3.
  • Each spider now counts as 0.75 of a minion.

• Desktop 1.2.4.1: Now requires 10 mana.

• Desktop 1.2.4: Introduced.

 Console version

• Console 1.08: Introduced.

 Nintendo Switch version

• Switch 1.0.711.6: Introduced.

References