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I recently entered hardmode with my new character, and I am being faced with two choices: the Palladium Pickaxe and Palladium Drill. I remember that before 1.2, there were only drills, not pickaxes, for the hardmode-tier mining tools.

After comparing them, I have found that the pickaxe has 5 knockback, and drill has 0. Other than that, they are identical. So, why would I choose a Drill? If the only difference is the knockback, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to get the Drill over the Pickaxe. Or am I missing something?

note: the wiki says the pickaxe can't mine Adamantite and Titanium, but that appears to be wrong; they both have 130% pickaxe power. Also, in-game, they actually have the same tooltip, so the wiki's wrong.

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  • According to the very wiki you link to, Pickaxes can't mine Adamantium / Titanium.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Oct 11, 2013 at 22:41
  • @RavenDreamer gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/134156/…
    – Doorknob
    Commented Oct 11, 2013 at 22:54
  • Palladium(and Cobalt) can't mine Adamantite/Titanium. You need Mythril/Orichalcum to mine those. That goes for both Drills and Pickaxes.
    – VanBuzzKill
    Commented Oct 15, 2013 at 20:22
  • @Domenik Wrong, did you try? This was changed I. 1.2, I believe.
    – Doorknob
    Commented Oct 15, 2013 at 20:25
  • @Doorknob I didn't realize they took out the ore progression. Looks like I wasted plenty of time getting enough mythril for a pickaxe then.
    – VanBuzzKill
    Commented Oct 15, 2013 at 20:30

4 Answers 4

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The wiki has this to say about drills and the latest updates:

History

  • 1.2: Drills are no longer material. Each drill now has a pickaxe equivalent, for those who don't like drills.
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    Ah, so it's just a matter of preference on what it looks like? Ok, thanks
    – Doorknob
    Commented Oct 12, 2013 at 1:20
  • Well that, and sound also.
    – M'vy
    Commented Oct 12, 2013 at 20:09
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    I never liked Drills for some reason. Don't know why, just find them really bothersome and harder to use compared to pickaxes.
    – VanBuzzKill
    Commented Oct 15, 2013 at 20:20
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Pickaxes are pretty much always better than their drill counterpart as of patch 1.3.0.8. All pickaxes and drills of the same ore have the same pickaxe power and mining speed (except orichalcum, where the pickaxe has a faster mining speed).

However--

Pickaxes have the advantage of having knockback (which can help with enemies when you are mining). They can also be affected by any melee weapon prefix while drills cannot. Importantly, this means that they can get the Light prefix, which increases mining speed by 15%. Other prefixes might give lower mining speed, but more damage and knockback, which might be preferable for protection when mining (and in some cases actually yields the same mining speed value due to rounding).

Drills offer only aesthetic differences over their pickaxe counterparts. They have a different profile and a different sound when used.

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I recommend using the pickaxe.

All picks are faster than their drill counterparts. See this video for a comparison of mining speeds between pickaxes and drills.

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    Do you have a source for this? It seems to contradict what the accepted answer says.
    – user28379
    Commented Nov 9, 2014 at 2:33
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    I saw a video which compared drills and pick mining speed (of the same material), and it makes him right : Picks are overall better (especially orialchum pick).
    – Red-Jeweled
    Commented Jun 10, 2015 at 22:20
  • This answer is correct, it's a shame it's been downvoted.
    – Aequitas
    Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 22:40
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The drill sound. That's about it. Also I believe the drill can't have modifiers which is good if you don't wanna risk anything.

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