PC Tier List: Pre-Hardmode Weapons

Move the rally up a bit, it's actually quite good if you didn't have a amazon(which should really be an A since B is the class for weapons you shouldn't farm for).
also, Dark lance before swordfish?dude, this have to be corrected.
 
Last edited:
Main trouble with the Rally is dropped by enemies that can kill you way faster/easier than the stuff in the Jungle can, and it's a fairly low drop chance. Meanwhile, if you get some silver armor and... well practically anything that ain't a starting weapon, like an Enchanted Boomerang, any kind of bow&fire arrows, etc, you can feasibly get an Amazon if you're careful enough before even fighting the EoC. But yeah I would say that the Amazon is definitely A-tier. It's the single best weapon that's available as soon as you start the game, you only need a little luck and caution to get one.
 
Updated the thread to reflect your suggestions. Also fixed the image links.

Looking at my original listing, I still find issues with a lot of the weapons' placement, which is mostly a result of my inexperience when I first created the thread. Thinking of doing some in-depth testing. More to come.
 
Nicely organized list. I would lower the Wand of Sparkling to a C. It inflicts no Knockback, so it is unable to keep away enemies or control hordes. It has mediocre DPS either way, as it is easily outclassed by other early game weapons such as a Wooden Boomerang or even a Wooden Bow(especially with the range differences in the weapons). While it has some use because it is an early Mage weapon and it inflicts On Fire!, I certainly wouldn't give it a B ranking.
 
sandgun’s actually decent if you can get cribs and/ebonsand for it to make it pierce.
Also, waterbolt can replace wand of sparking, so it (wand of sparking, not waterbolt) should be in the C category.

By the way, why is the vilethorn in S tier? It had a specific niche, but it still is just a niche.
 
Last edited:
Doesn't matter how slow you kill something, if you can kill the enemy while being invincible yourself (by building a box around yourself, for example) then the weapon is ludicrously powerful.

The Vilethorn allows you to do just that, though I would argue a Yo-Yo would do it faster (just make a tiny gap to throw the Yo-Yo out).
 
Godley said:
sandgun’s actually decent if you can get cribs and/ebonsand for it to make it pierce.
Also, waterbolt can replace wand of sparking, so it (wand of sparking, not waterbolt) should be in the C category.

By the way, why is the vilethorn in S tier? It had a specific niche, but it still is just a niche.
Click to expand...
Waterbolt can, but not necessarily. I've actually had it happen only twice in ~4 years of gameplay, and never post-1.3. So, for all intents and purposes, I put them on different levels progression-wise.

Will mark the sandgun, its main drawback is that no one wants to clean up after it, so not a whole lot of people chime in.

Vilethorn might not necessarily be S tier, I'll admit that, but it maintains a solid DPS throughout pre-Hardmode (except in Expert). Plus, wall-piercing is just so powerful.
 
@Godley For a Water Bolt to replace a Wand of Sparking, two things need to happen first:

1). The world must spawn a Water Bolt above the surface. This is roughly 10-30% chance of this happening from my experiences.
2). You must arrive at the dungeon safely which means navigating through biomes.

#2 is the big drawback. Trying to get past Corruption early-game is a nightmare, and incredibly difficult on Expert. That's to say nothing about trying to cross the Desert if that happens to be in your way, as the Antlions will kill you in 2-3 hits flat and you have no way of hurting them.

But I suppose, if you were to somehow miraculously do it, and IF one even spawned on the surface, then yeah obviously, it's utterly overpowered at the beginning of the game.

But good fricken luck trying to get one that early especially in Expert.
 
Xylia said:
@Godley For a Water Bolt to replace a Wand of Sparking, two things need to happen first:

1). The world must spawn a Water Bolt above the surface. This is roughly 10-30% chance of this happening from my experiences.
2). You must arrive at the dungeon safely which means navigating through biomes.

#2 is the big drawback. Trying to get past Corruption early-game is a nightmare, and incredibly difficult on Expert. That's to say nothing about trying to cross the Desert if that happens to be in your way, as the Antlions will kill you in 2-3 hits flat and you have no way of hurting them.

But I suppose, if you were to somehow miraculously do it, and IF one even spawned on the surface, then yeah obviously, it's utterly overpowered at the beginning of the game.

But good fricken luck trying to get one that early especially in Expert.
Click to expand...
Well, good luck killing anything at all in expert mode with a wand of sparkling.
If I played mage then I will rather look specifically for a world with a water bolt rather than fighting with a wand of sparking, just saying.
 
You can always use terrain to your advantage, the big "Thing" behind the Wand of Sparking, is the On Fire! debuff that works on many mobs early-game where you can stand on a ledge above where they can't reach you and set them on fire and kill them slowly that way if there's an enemy in your way that you can't handle yet.

Now, yeah, you can do this with Fire Arrows, true... but yet Arrows are limited supply, you have to make them, whereas Mana is infinite, you just wait a couple seconds and you can use the Wand as many times as you want.
 
Move the wooden yo-yo a bit up, then, I always saw it as a better version of the wooden swords that have better range.
It’s not all that hard to obtain, either, if you go on a mining trip you should be able to get one.

Also, if the bouncy grenade has better stats all around compared to the other grenades(higher base damage, quicker use time, longer range, ignores explosive reduction), why is it lower than regular grenades.
I mean, dude, this is a weapon that could take on the destroyer.
[doublepost=1543607464,1543607089][/doublepost]
Xylia said:
Doesn't matter how slow you kill something, if you can kill the enemy while being invincible yourself (by building a box around yourself, for example) then the weapon is ludicrously powerful.

The Vilethorn allows you to do just that, though I would argue a Yo-Yo would do it faster (just make a tiny gap to throw the Yo-Yo out).
Click to expand...

Actually, it does matter, if it takes longer to kill an enemy with a weapon than it does to spawn another enemy in, you will be practicing trapped infinitely.

Also, If so, why does nobody use the crystal vile shard?
 
Godley said:
Move the wooden yo-yo a bit up, then, I always saw it as a better version of the wooden swords that have better range.
It’s not all that hard to obtain, either, if you go on a mining trip you should be able to get one.

Also, if the bouncy grenade has better stats all around compared to the other grenades(higher base damage, quicker use time, longer range, ignores explosive reduction), why is it lower than regular grenades.
I mean, dude, this is a weapon that could take on the destroyer.
Click to expand...
Wooden Yoyo moved up - you and @Fortanono both voted for it.
As for the bouncy grenades, they're much harder to obtain than regular 'nades, however powerful they are. The bouncing is also kind of counterproductive at the worst of times. Flagged 'em, though.

Godley said:
Actually, it does matter, if it takes longer to kill an enemy with a weapon than it does to spawn another enemy in, you will be practicing trapped infinitely.

Also, If so, why does nobody use the crystal vile shard?
Click to expand...
You aren't wrong, but I usually find that the Vilethorn does enough damage to finish enemies off, while the Crystal Vile Shard/Nettle Burst are comparatively pretty weak.
 
Yeah, the Vilethorn is found by breaking Shadow Orbs which is very early-game and it works on most Pre-Hardmode enemies (until you get to the Underworld) just fine. Even in the Underworld, it's a way to safely kill demons without getting sickled to death, or imps that spawn on the other side of solid blocks.

But, when you get the Crystal Vile Shard... it does very little damage, and takes absolutely forever to kill much of anything, and sadly the Nettle Burst is about the same. The NB can work on some weaker enemies, but.... why not just one-shot those with the Terra Blade?
 
Xylia said:
Yeah, the Vilethorn is found by breaking Shadow Orbs which is very early-game and it works on most Pre-Hardmode enemies (until you get to the Underworld) just fine. Even in the Underworld, it's a way to safely kill demons without getting sickled to death, or imps that spawn on the other side of solid blocks.
Click to expand...
Ironically, the only job I got the vilethorn to do is to kill demons on the other side of my hellbridge.
Also, you don’t want to use this on imps, you just don’t.


Btw, why is the kartana so low?
 
Godley said:
Btw, why is the kartana so low?
Click to expand...
yes move the kartana its better then all the ore swords and be collected very early.


edit: also why are happy grenades in c+ they have no stats at all. they cost 2x as normal grenades and do half the damage.
 
Last edited:
The Katana is probably rated low due to its rarity. Yes, it's better than Ore Swords, from experience in doing several playthroughs, I can tell you that I see one Pre-Amazon maybe 1-2 out of every 10 playthroughs.

It's RNG for the Travelling Merchant to show up in the first place (which requires the player to have built enough houses for enough NPCs to move in to even trigger the chance for him to come) and then once he does come, there's some 5%-10% or some odd chance of there actually being a Katana in his shop inventory.

And once you get the Amazon (which you can do as soon as you have a little armor and some way of killing bees and vines in the Jungle), the Katana is then obsolete.

EDIT: BTW, the same applies to the Revolver. An awesome weapon... but the stupid TM almost never has it early enough in the game that it'd make a difference. I've seen it, exactly once and boy did it make early game easy as pie.
 
Xylia said:
The Katana is probably rated low due to its rarity. Yes, it's better than Ore Swords, from experience in doing several playthroughs, I can tell you that I see one Pre-Amazon maybe 1-2 out of every 10 playthroughs.
Click to expand...
fine but if thats true why is the Red Ryder which has a 1/156 of collected form a present which is in a event that last for like 1 month in A.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom