Originally posted by electricdawn:

Still don't understand the reason. So they deal damage, so what? You can repair them, but you can't pick them up and place them somewhere else?

Just doesn't click for me. It's not a one-shot thing like an arrow.

I'm only explaining the most likely reasoning for it.
I should also mention however I never use them because they are used up when they serve their purpose. Also I would probably use them more if pine trees dropped more core wood. Like most things in this game, the recipe requirements and upgrade requirements are not balanced for single player play and the game needs rebalancing here as it already does in terms of number of monsters that spawn and overall difficulty of spawning mobs in relation to total player count.