Flesh Knuckles, do you like them? (2025)

My first thread here was about the berserkers glove and why I like it so much! However that has changed over time. Now I think the flesh knuckles and it's upgrades are my favorite accessories in the game!
Melee is my favorite class by far, probably followed by ranger. I love the awesome choice of armor and weapons at the classes disposal and always seem to gravitate towards the class in any playthrough, melee or not. In this time I have come to appreciate the berserkers gloves quite a bit, but I realized it wasn't the berserkers gloves I loved, it was the flesh knuckles. I know that sounds silly seeing as the berserkers gloves is a combination of the flesh knuckles and power glove, but if the flesh knuckles didn't exist, the berserkers gloves wouldn't exist either! Having a +8 defense for one accessory slots feels great. Defense in terraria is fantastic and while I do encourage everyone to learn to dodge, having all warding accessories and some defensive accessories are incredibly important to any play-through. The flesh knuckles is geared towards melee with it's extra defense and it's aggro feature and makes the tankiest class even more tanky.
I used to think The heroes shield, the other upgrade for the flesh knuckles was bad, and while it still is probably inferior to the frozen shield, you can have both! With the flesh knuckles, berserkers gloves, and heroes shield you can have 26 defense from those accessories alone. That is without any warding modifiers, and you already have slightly more defense than 6 accessory slots reforge to warding. If you'd like, you can further increase that by adding similar defensive accessories such as the aforementioned frozen shield or a celestial shell for even more defense and benefits. Or if you are going for a build (like a melee speed build), adding some flesh knuckles and its upgrades is an easy way to increase defense and survivability.
That is all to say that I love the flesh knuckles, but I want to hear what you guys think of them. It's an accessory that I don't see get talked about frequently, so I'd like to talk about it!

Haven’t used them yet, so I voted indifferent for now. I used to think it was kind of mid but since I’ve learned going all out with defense is actually smart I’ve had a change of heart with them and will try it with my next melee playthrough (whenever the hell THAT will happen, rotf)

free defense (who cares that enemies are more likely to target you)

I don't really use them since I play corruption worlds 99% of the time, I honestly find it more balanced and Difficult than Crimson. not to mention I still have PTSD from entering the Crimson for the first time back on the Xbox 360.
also if I do use it, the "downside" does nothing since I play singleplayer.