Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

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Lythael said:
And no its not a bug Imps dont have a 100% chance to spawn. So from time to time you may not see one for quite long similar situation like with sharks or chaos elementals.
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I have already said that it might have been really bad luck, but I find it weird that an enemy which isn't even listed as uncommon is that rare.
Derpling Ω said:
After fishing in lava for about 3 hours I didn't even get one. And I was in the underworld letting my vampire frogs kill every imp that spawned. Imps really are not common. I didn't even get the banner for them in that time.
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What was your fishing spot? The location of the fishing spot can easily affect which mobs spawn in a certain rarity.
 
Kirby737 said:
I have already said that it might have been really bad luck, but I find it weird that an enemy which isn't even listed as uncommon is that rare.

What was your fishing spot? The location of the fishing spot can easily affect which mobs spawn in a certain rarity.
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There was two that were close to each other. The first was just fishing from my wall of flesh arena which had a gigantic flat place for everything to spawn. The second was excavated in the ash just below that (using obsidian skin potions) and you could only get in through the lava and out through a one-sided wall.
 
Kirby737 said:
I find it weird that an enemy which isn't even listed as uncommon is that rare.
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Well Nymph is also "uncommon" it has higher spawn chance than most cave mobs
but its rarity is due to how it spawns.

With a flat farming area you can get Nymphs as "often" as Imps.

Tho unlike with Imps .. Metal Detector isn't a 2% chance drop
Ice Tortoise are also technically not "rare" but they don't appear often compared to other ice biome enemies and have 1% drop chance on their Frozen Shell

EDIT:
And yes with just 2% drop chance on a mob that spawns occassionally.
Its common to have "very bad luck"
 
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Alright, before the thread is locked forever, I want to take the liberty again to give a massive thanks to Leinfors for being so co-operative and awesome. It really is something special about the team that they have opened this thread and have actively put out a man, an especially great man, to listen to the Terraria community and take our feedback. It's going to be sad leaving this thread; I've been here since day 1, have read every post and haven't closed the tab once, and it's been an honor, to be honest.

And of course, a massive thanks as well to the entire Re-Logic team for creating one of the best games out there, from Redigit to Cenx to Loki to everyone in-between, whether they've left the team or not. You all are absolutely the best.

The game isn't perfect by any means, but that's okay, because as Sam Keen once said: 'You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.' And I see Terraria perfectly. :)

Much love and cheers from,
The Entire Terraria Community.

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
 
Hello, just a small question before the end of this thread, why cant the golden carp be turned in to golden delight or any food at all? I caught a lot of them these days and its kind of weird they just have a use for being sold. I know its too small of a thing to be changed in the small time span we have left but I just wanted to point it out.
 
Hello, I would like to point out some of the things I suggested that got overlooked:
1. Guide talks about smashing a shadow orb or crimson heart to summon a meteorite. I would be fine with this if there wasn't just a major update attempting to make the guide useful. I remember thinking my world was corruption several years ago when I first started because of a (now corrected) lie from the guide.
2. Probably is more complicated than it sounds, but could you please fix the problem with reforging weapons that start with "the? (i.e. change it from "Legendary The Horseman's Blade" to "The Legendary Horseman's Blade".
Thanks!
 
PeacefulPotato said:
Hello, I would like to point out some of the things I suggested that got overlooked:
1. Guide talks about smashing a shadow orb or crimson heart to summon a meteorite. I would be fine with this if there wasn't just a major update attempting to make the guide useful. I remember thinking my world was corruption several years ago when I first started because of a (now corrected) lie from the guide.
2. Probably is more complicated than it sounds, but could you please fix the problem with reforging weapons that start with "the? (i.e. change it from "Legendary The Horseman's Blade" to "The Legendary Horseman's Blade".
Thanks!
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The second one could be fixed by having the "the" part of the name be a prefix that does nothing, and every prefix could be replaced by a version that is identical to its normal equivalent but is called "the <prefix>", for example "The Arcane" "The Precise" ecc., though I don't know how hard would be that to code.
 
Alright guys.

I've sat one the various bits of feedback, and given the scope of what I'm able to be implementing at this time, do not see any further changes that are going to be made.

It is possible that, should a further revisiting of Terraria happen, there will be more balance changes. I'd certainly be eager to do so.

But as it stands, the majority of the feedback I've seen has basically been entirely new suggestions or further adjustments to things not particularly touched in the most recent hotfix, and so they are not in the scope of what I will be able to change moving forward.

With that said, I appreciate all of the discussion and thoughts you've shared here, and I'm confident things are in a better place in part due to all of your participation. I'm sorry I won't be able to address every single thing that could be addressed . . . but Terraria is a massive game in some ways, and it may never be possible to address everything. I believe that I've made substantial headway in improving things in the limited time I've spent doing so, I hope that you all agree. Should we ever revisit further changes, I'll be looking forward to re-opening this thread (or making one like it) to discuss more!

So thanks again guys, and keep being great!
 
Well . . . I didn't think I'd be back here again!

In some exciting news, I've been allocated enough time to do one more batch of balance changes and QoL adjustments to the game! The window for this is considerably shorter than previous overhaul patches, but I'm excited to tie up a few final loose ends, with the help of community feedback to guide me.

This thread is expected to remain open for about 2-3 weeks. I have roughly until the end of the month to finalize my proposals and changes. This means that my timeline for this is rather limited. I have less time to consider, less time to spend on time consuming changes, and less time for approval. As such, I'm going to try to focus on the most benefit I can gain from the simplest changes, rather than extensive reworks, which take much more time and higher level coding skill than I have to offer.

A recap of the ground rules and restrictions I am working with:
1. I'm only one member on a team, and I don't have absolute authority. Even if I'm convinced, all of my changes need to be approved by Redigit, Cenx, and Yoraiz0r to be implemented, so I can't just change what I want. There are changes that I wish to see, which are veto'd above my head, and there is nothing I can do about that. There are gameplay philosophies that Red and other members of the team wish to see, and sometimes, certain changes (while decent in their own right) may conflict with these overarching philosophies. I have to respect the boundaries I am operating under. Please don't take it too hard if I have to deny, or do not respond, to proposals. It isn't personal.
2. This is meant to be a discussion thread, and I'd like to see evidence and convincing arguments in favor of changes. If I'm not convinced, then I'm not going to advocate for changes, but I promise that I am interested in hearing it out . . . I want to make more changes!
3. Evidence and persuasive points win the day here. Number of posts or passion level behind a complaint, absent evidence or strong logic, won't convince me, nor will the number of likes, etc. a post gets. If a change is correct, then making a strong case for it should be easy. :)
4. My focus is primarily items, or simple changes made to things like spawning conditions or stats. It is also very unlikely for me to be able to completely overhaul weapons in the style of the Charged Blaster Cannon or Medusa Head.
5. Please be respectful to other posters here, we're all here to make Terraria a better game, and the best way to have a discussion is if we all get along! :)

And a few caveats, specifically to this round of changes:
1. Within reason, I'm interested in branching out of items somewhat, including some changes to some things like item accessibility, enemies/bosses, and some critter stuff. Items are still the easiest to work with and quantify though! This doesn't mean that I can tackle more complex overhauls, but simply that I'm interested in less item-oriented QoL this time around, in addition to the item changes.
2. My timeline for this is considerably shorter than previous timelines. My finalized changes are expected to be in by the end of the month, with this thread closing sooner than that. As such, I am wary of tackling particularly tangled balance situations that would take a longer time to sort out and analyze. I won't have many, if any, second chances on fixing any missteps here.
2A. Most notably, this applies to the vast number of issues concerning the mid-game Summoner balance. A number of bugs, oversights, and balance mistakes have come together to create a wildly tangled mess of OP gear . . . but removing any single one of them could accidentally cause the class to come crashing back down. My hands are tied here, because if I really, really wanted to work on this, I would likely have to remove/nerf most of these bugs/oversights only to then rebuild the class from the ground up. So I'm going to have to tread carefully here.
3. As my timeline is more significantly limited, so too is my ability to call in more substantial mechanical/code overhauls. Like before, the best candidates for change are things I can do within my own skillset, as Yoraiz0r and Grox are busy with their own tasks, which take strict priority over mine. There is a little wiggle room here, but not much. Stat changes > Overhauls/Reworks.

I'm really excited to see what we can accomplish with this last round of balance adjustments. I already have a small list of considerations I've made already under way, but I'm not going to be posting anything just yet, as none of it has been approved. Looking forward to what you guys have to say!
 
Exciting. Whenever I play the game I sometimes think "Man, it would be cool if x"
But I can't remember much right now, so I'll post some ideas once I do.
 
List from my server, reposted here for more discussion

Make Hero Shield require and inherit Cobalt Shield instead of Paladin's Shield
In its current state Hero Shield either outclasses or is outclassed by Frozen Shield no matter what changes are done to it, so its only niche is being a big 10 defense increase for max facetanking builds. With this change, it can exist as a cheaper alternative to Ankh Shield, giving it a much broader niche Number 2:

Make Bone Javelins deal melee damage, make them a non-consumable but more expensive item Melee could use a ranged weapon at this stage, ranger doesn't need more.
As for Bone Javelin not feeling like a melee weapon? Daybreak is literally a direct upgrade of it, and nobody thinks that should be ranged, so i think we are fine here.

Number 3: Sanguine staff now inflicts as many immunity frames as duration left in its attack cycle; Blade staff fixed AP bug and attack speed reduced by 33%
The big two of the summoner class. Sanguine specifically is very centralizing since it's literally free to have in any build, so it must be toned down.

Number 4: Arcane Flower increases magic damage and critical strike chance by 5%
The mana flower is an item outclassed by literally a hotkey. It is not, in fact, a must have for magic class and instead just an underpowered item. Putrid Scent's bonuses would make it a far more desirable item; losing some damage compared to Sorcerer Emblem but gaining some mana cost reduction and QoL.

Number 5: Obsidian Armor nerfed from +50% range and +35% speed to +30% range and +15% speed
this armor is busted

Number 6: Holy protection changed to reduce damage in half instead of negating it entirely
Simplest nerf that doesnt change its functionality much but makes it far more balanced.

Number 7: Whips Leather whip knockback increased from 0.5 to 2.5, tag from +4 to +5 Cool Whip now has 8 tag damage Morning Star increased tag from +5/5% to +10/+10%
Simple buffs to the only underpowered whips.

Number 8: Pulse Bow is now craftable with Shroomite bars.
Pulse bow is one of the coolest weapons in the game... and by far one of the hardest to even get to use in a run, due to Post Plantera's short duration before getting to Post Golem and Travelling Merchant RNG.

Making it craftable is bound to make it far more popular with the playerbase. The color palette fits perfectly with Shroomite Bars, which are obtainable at the exact same time and are used primarily for Ranger items, so them being the material would fit perfectly.

Now some simple changes:
  • Light discs damage from 57 to 100
  • Flamarang damage from 32 to 45
  • Ice sickle drop rate increased to 5%
  • Frozen Turtle Shell drop rate increased from 1% to 2.5%
  • Fire arrows damage increased from 7 to 10 OR knockback increased from 2 to 6
  • Local Immunity to Shadowflame Hex Doll
  • Thunder Zapper damage from 12 to 24 (yes, double the damage)
  • Nebula Blaze knockback from 0 to 1 (just let it have mythical)
  • Razorblade Typhoon mana cost increased from 16 to 60 (Sounds extreme... but this is just a bit more than Meteor Staff mana drain)
  • Treasure Magnet can now be upgraded to Celestial Magnet
 
Hello dear devs!
I want to suggest top 5 balance changes which cover my top favourite weapons:

#1
Buff Scourge of the Corruptor for 10-15%.
This is the exact value of how much Scourge falls behind significantly more easily accessible Seedler.
#1.2
Or Scourge should have offensive specialisation, just like Vampire Knives have a defensive one.
Add a simple buff to Scourge, which increases all player damage by 5-10%.

#2
Make Rainbow Gun not to interfere with other piercing projectiles.

#3
Increase Piranha Gun's chasing velocity. It unlatches from fast enemies, like Ice Queens on low health, EoL or charging Duke fishron.

#4
Further increase all numerical characteristics (such as projectile velocity, by up to twice) and damage by about 20% for the Tempest Staff

#5
Reduce the amount of i-frames inflicted by Optic and Deadly Sphere staves by 20% in case of Optic and by much more for Deadly Spheres (I should say from 8 to 4 or even less).

Other suggestions need more precise calculations.
Thanks for attention!
 
Vampire Knives AND Spectre Hood nerf on lifesteal from 30hp/s to 5hp/s

Buff Vampire Knives damage from 29 to 42 to compensate
Spectre Hood now increases mana by 100 and reduces mana cost by 20% rather than decreasing magic damage by 40%

Let me explain, lifesteal is blatantly overpowered, this is the best way to nerf it by compensating hard because of how powerful it is, so hard nerfing it would make it not effective immortality, but the buffs would compensate by giving it either less sidearm uses and being better as a main weapon, or being an armor you use for a while instead of swapping back and forth between when you get to low health to get back to full nearly instantly

Turn Gladiator armor into a melee armor, it's a decent set but it doesn't get much use, and the set bonus is pretty good for melee, a very QoL change that no one would really get mad over
Turn Shadow armor into a classless set akin to Crimson armor, having 2% (classless) crit on each piece and having a chance to dodge attacks, this would let it be more useful and not be this weird "melee" set that really isn't great because Molten is obtained at the same area
 
I'd like to split my suggestions into two parts, items I feel should be nerfed significantly due to them reducing gameplay variety(being so good almost nothing else at the tier is viable) and items I feel have been significantly powercrept or left behind that could use a significant buff.

Items that are so strong they reduce variety:

Hallowed Armor:
May as well start with the obvious, this renders almost every other option at its stage unviable due to how powerful its combination of offense and defense is. Spider armor is one of the worst cases where this is shown, where if you want to go offense summoner you gain only 11% damage at the cost of losing broken Holy Protection. One simple change that would drastically increase the viability of offensive minion summoner(not counting Obsidian here as I really hope that gets nerfed) would be adding a Chlorophyte Summoner helmet that increased minion slots by the same amount as Hallowed to give you a real offensive option. To fix the other classes and overall balance, I recommend either doubling the duration from 30s to 1 minute or making it activate only when you take damage instead of when you attack.

Beetle Armor:
45% DR is broken. I don't think that needs to be said. This makes every other armor set besides hallowed armor unviable on higher difficulties. Nerfing the max DR to 30% would keep this as the most powerful tanking option pre moonlord and it would still outcompete every other defensive armor in almost every circumstance, but would give other armors a bit more of a chance without killing the DR monster that is this set. I have no problem with the offensive version of this set. While I feel it is very powerful, it is also a pure melee armor so it should be more powerful than anything else, and you can get higher melee damage/crit with other sets if you don't want melee speed.

Terra Blade:
I love using this weapon, but this got severely overtuned in 1.4.1. I recommend reducing the damage from 115 to 105 and reverting the use time to 16. This still keeps it incredibly powerful but gives other weapons like the Flying Dragon at least a bit of a chance of competing with it. Given that the Flying Dragon comes a whole tier later it's absurd its almost completely outclassed by the Terra Blade. This would also give Starlight a bit more of a niche.

Sanguine Staff:
Completely outclasses every other minion at its tier and for several tiers past that. The simplest change without messing around with the mechanics of the minion or changing its facetanking abilities would be a simple sharp damage decrease from 35 > 26. A 25% damage nerf might seem extreme but this would still be more powerful than the vast majority of minions at its level and would still beat out Blade Staff in unoptimized builds. I don't have blade staff on this list because despite being able to achieve Sanguine levels of dps, it requires an optimal build as well as whip stacking meaning you cannot focus on using another weapon like you can with Sanguine. The main problem I have with this minion is it beating out all other minions with no work required and being usable in any build.



Items that have been powercrept:

Optic Staff:
This minion, along with the Pygmy staff has suffered from what I'd like to call the "Blade/Sanguine" syndrome. Anything that comes around or after either of their points in progression often has been made totally irrelevant by them, and the Optic Staff is the worst example of this. The lack of local iframes means that every summon deals 25% less single target damage than the previous. While this weapon theoretically has a niche on multitarget, its single target DPS is so bad that it often doesn't matter. I recommend either giving it local iframes and slightly decreasing the damage (from 30 to ~26) or drastically decreasing the iframes it gives. (Halving or more, as even halving would keep a 12.5% DPS loss per summon)

Pygmy Staff:
Somehow this minion is arguably worse than the Optic Staff. It's DPS is insanely low for it's tier and you could add 50% to the damage of this and it would still struggle against Sanguine Staff, a weapon from early hardmode. While a flat increase of it's DPS would be the simplest option, I think Tiki Armor giving some bonus to this minion, such as either increasing it's attack speed or giving some other very significant buff to this minion would be interesting, and give Tiki a bit more of a niche, assuming this is feasible to implement. If not, either slightly less than doubling or doubling this minions damage would be appropriate.

Deadly Sphere Staff:
Why is the return range so low?

Phaseblades:
Despite being made post evil boss due to the meteorite change, these weapons still feel balanced at the pre boss level. While having a marginally higher dps than the Blade of Grass, they suffer from a lack of knockback and being a tier later. I recommend increasing knockback from 3 > 4 and attack speed from 25 > 20. This makes it a kind of Muramasa lite and makes it more capable of stunlocking enemies.

Sentry accessories:
Currently, none of these can stack and they all provide identical stats. Perhaps if one provided 5% additional minion damage and the rest 5% additional damage from their respective class this would give each a reason to exist. Seeing as how bad sentries are regardless, this should not cause powercreep.

Light Discs:
Damage buff from 57 > 80. These fall significantly behind most alternatives at the stage.






Out of all of these, I do feel the Optic and Pygmy's are the most important if you can only take a couple of these changes. Pygmies problem is simple and just has far below average damage output, but optic has the problem of being severely crippled when multiple summons of it are used, which feels painfully counterintuitive to the hoard nature of this minion. I'd love to be able to summon a swarm of these but the way they work now I effectively lose over half my DPS when doing so off a weapon that already has a lower base DPS than the Sanguine Staff.
 
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honestly, i can only ask that the team buffs some of the weapons that get rendered outclassed or useless by other types obtainable in that stage of the game.

take the slime staff for example, I find the slime staff pretty useless since with the finch and flinx staff being way easier to obtain along with them being on par with the slime staff just makes the baby slime summon useless and generally just a random useless weapon, so either increasing the slime staff drop chance even by a bit or giving it a buff to make it stronger but rarer than the 2 summons mentioned above would greatly give it a purpose to be in the game other than simply being lucky to get one at the start.
 
On an enemy focused topic, since that’s finally approved again, I think there’s something to be said about Deerclops’s spawn rate and his HP.

Deerclops currently takes *72* minutes from its spawn time to despawn. What this results in is being able to freely beat your head into the boss repeatedly and get bee-tier loot way too earlier, and there’s literally no cost to dying even with on-tier loot. He should honestly despawn on death directly, but if nothing else the despawn time should be no higher than about 12 minutes.

His HP is a bit of a weird point, because it’s actually most balanced in Expert Mode. His HP currently uses enemy scaling, which seems like an oversight. I’d suggest 11k -> 14k -> 17k or something on that scale.

Now for some blatantly overpowered (and one underpowered) item.

-Vampire Knives and Spectre Hood: These items heal the player at an easily achievable maximum rate of ~30 HP per second. This is an obvious problem with a little bit of math (this is a greater healing potion of HP every 5 seconds). They should be toned down, significantly.

-Obsidian Armor. I imagine this one is already on your list of things to look at, but this set is unacceptably strong for its tier and manages to remain strong throughout Hardmode. Part of this is the whip range, which provides an enormous window of safety, but it also has to do with the speed, both of which need further nerfs. People might be upset about losing their whip range, however, which brings me to…

-Tiki Armor. Currently has a remarkably short window of use, and is outclassed almost immediately by Spooky and is given a run for its money by Hallowed. This could inherit some whip range to give it a bit more longevity as a safer set.

-Razorblade Typhoon. This role rework is an issue, because the damage buff and the lack of localimmunity means it didn’t get any worse against crowds, but now it’s much stronger single target too. Simple solution? A good damage nerf to weaken both its single target and crowd potential.

-Titanium Armor. This is the main but not the only reason sitting on top of bosses is so extremely powerful: *every hit* with optimal hit rate spawns a Shard. Megashark + Crystal Bullets is just as good as Fetid at facetanking, funnily enough. Easy nerf might be a spawnrate cap to one every 0.3-0.5 seconds, enough to pander facetanking but still let you use the shards as a shield or empowered bash.
 
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whoneedsnamestbh said:
Deerclops currently takes *72* minutes from its spawn time to despawn. What this results in is being able to freely beat your head into the boss repeatedly and get bee-tier loot way too earlier, and there’s literally no cost to dying even with on-tier loot. He should honestly despawn on death directly, but if nothing else the despawn time should be no higher than about 12 minutes.
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Speaking of, I beat this boss with surface loot, as well as a lucky Enchanted Sword and I managed to beat the boss on master, due to spawn requirements, I would've had the video but I got mad lol
 
I find recently that the Jungle Shrine items are a little tougher to find than they need to be. The Seaweed for the Turtle pet I think should be changed to a bonus item that can spawn alongside other shrine items, rather than taking the place of the main item inside.
It would also be nice if Shrines and Jungle Crates were just a little bit more common, but I understand if that's not a change they want to make.

Another thing that I've found lately is that I think the Nebula Armor's healing nerf was a little bit too much of an overcorrection, in hindsight. It was changed from 5 HP per second with each level all the way down to 3, which really hurts it way more than you'd think. I don't think it needs a full revert, but putting it in the middle at 4 HP per second would be more reasonable, I think.

And just in general, I think there have been a lot of over-correcting nerfs lately, because I think people tend to conflate an item being powerful at all with meaning it's overpowered. I would advise being a little more gentle with nerfs in this last patch.
 
Stardust dragon should have its immunity frames increased to something like 10 or 12 as to not outclass stardust cell, for some reason its immunity frames were reduced to 7 in 1.4 when it was already being given local immunity
 
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There is a lot of confusion surrounding Whips and if they are OP or not through the Terraria community as a whole (very especially modding communities from my experience), and what makes them actually strong if not "OP". Ever since 1.4 came out I have played around, tested and pushed whips to their limit for hundreds of hours at this point. So here's my elaborated analysis on Whips and their place in the "meta", and what adjustments should be made.

Before diving in, it's worth nothing that much of the reasons that Whips seem OP is because they synergize with items that were already on the verge if not already overpowered. These mainly include Blade Staff, Sanguine Staff, Obsidian Armor and Terra Blade.


Leather Whip
By itself It's a good "starter" whip for Summoner (one that requires some work to get), the main problem is that Snapthorn is ALSO easy to get and stronger in every way. And it doesn't require burning your piggy bank to obtain it! If Leather Whip received a significant drop in price, it would be taken more seriously as a starter weapon, because even myself question if 15 Gold for the weakest whip in the game that will get replaced soon is worth it. Sure, you can use both Leather Whip and Snapthorn together to stack their summon tag, but it's just as viable to spend those 15 Gold into reforging and other items. Suggested change: Cost of Leather Whip changed from 15 Gold to 10 Gold

Snapthorn & Spinal Tap
These weapons have some of the best longevity in the game, especially Snapthorn. It's a pre-boss weapon that can stay relevant and last until way past post-Plantera, right when you obtain Dark Harvest and replace it in your arsenal (Blade Staff builds use Morning Star/Durendal/Snapthorn when engaging Pumpkin Moon for the first time). Spinal Tap is another Whip that is obtainable in Pre-Hardmode and lasts for a while in Hardmode, though not to the same extreme extent as Snapthorn. However, Spinal Tap has its own spotlight being one of if not THE best Wall of Flesh killer in the game (combined with Snapthorn for the melee speed boost), and not in a way that requires particularly complicated gameplay or significant preparation! But as I said earlier, the problems is not the whips themselves, it's that they synergize with other items that were already on the verge of being too good. Obsidian Armor is a pre-Hardmode armor set with numbers such as "35" and "50" visible on it, the boosts it gives to whips is ridiculous and should be toned down. Nothing need to be done for these two whips by themselves, just strike down Obsidian Armor. I'll let others decide on the specific numbers.

Another case is Blade Staff. The sheer attack speed in spite of its low damage makes stacking Summon Tag whips a very powerful strategy with it, but in reality, the reason its damage output seem insane is because of its bugged interaction with Ichor. Blade Staff's "armor penetration" actually just increases the minion's base damage based on enemy defense rather than actually penetrating enemy defense, which means Ichor having ACTUAL armor penetration makes Blade Staff's DPS higher than it's supposed to be. It's equivalent to around 7-8 additional summon tag damage at all time even if the enemy has less than 25 defense. Summon tag stacking on Blade Staff by itself is NOT OP, especially since it requires mastery of a difficult technique using multiple weapons that already have limited range. The only problem here is the bugged Ichor interaction raising its DPS more than it should have. Snapthorn & Spinal Tap and other summon tag whips don't need to be nerfed for simply making Blade Staff viable.

Firecracker
One of the most interesting and powerful whips with the best longevity out of all Hardmode whips. But it doesn't deserve to be nerfed. Firecracker's performance is borderline entirely dependent on the minion it's used with, as such the reason Firecracker + Sanguine seems overpowered is simply because Sanguine is overpowered. Sanguine has high base damage for a pre-Mech minion, perfect AI and good attack speed. Combined with Firecracker, the synergy pushes pre-Mech DPS past what is considered balanced, because Sanguine itself is too good for its tier. Furthermore, it's mainly Obsidian Armor that abuses Firecracker. So that makes not one, but TWO overpowered items that Firecracker synergizes with very well. Nerf both Obsidian and Sanguine and Firecracker suddenly won't seem that powerful anymore.

Of course, Pre-mech is not the only part of Hardmode. Firecracker also synergizes extremely well with Desert Tiger and Stardust Dragon. But even though it's hundreds, if not in some cases quad-digit damage each explosion... it doesn't really feel overpowered at all at that point of the game. The thing is that weapons from other classes also get very powerful after Plantera. Yes, Firecracker's own damage output still remains one of the highest depending on the case & the boss, but it has its own flaws. Both Desert Tiger and Stardust Dragon have unreliable AI at times, and the range of the Firecracker is becoming too short without Obsidian Armor. And even then Obsidian Armor has very low survivability & lower offensive boosts than Spooky Armor. Even with Obsidian at its current state, using Firecracker post-plantera turns you into a glass cannon that has to deal with sometimes unreliable AI & need to manage Whip Stacking to get the full potential out of the Firecracker. I'm okay with this. And Firecracker isn't even good on Moon Lord at all, not worth the risk. In short, at worst the Firecracker seem overpowered because of two separate overpowered items carrying it, and later in Hardmode its playstyle has its own flaws and difficulties. This weapon is in a good state on its own and will stay viable even if/when Obsidian & Sanguine get nerfed.

Cool Whip (& Blade Staff)
I have been waiting to get into this one! Cool Whip has a bad reputation for having no direct minion synergy and generally being "weak", and while I have continuously defended it and even proved that it's somewhat viable if used as an extension of the Blade Staff SnapTap pre-mech build (I nickname the triple-whip setup "The Cooler Snaptap"), I still agree that it could be buffed. More specifically, it could be buffed as a compensation to Blade Staff getting nerfed as well. What I'm trying to say here is that even with the Ichor interaction bug in mind, I think Blade Staff dealing the damage it does is not problematic because you need to work really hard to achieve this DPS by Whip Stacking with three whips at once. My idea is that Blade Staff should still retain most if not all of its current maximum DPS, but make sure the player is working THAT hard to achieve it and not have a part of it given for "free" through Ichor bug. Suggested changes (Make these two balance changes TOGETHER to achieve desirable balance results): Blade Staff's Ichor bug is fixed. Cool Whip now gives 5 Summon Tag damage, and the Snowflake is now affected by Summon Tag damage. I heavily disagree with Bame wanting to also nerf Blade's attack speed.

Durendal
This one is fine. Besides Firecracker which isn't a problem, Blade Staff and to a lesser extent Terra Blade are the ones that abuses it the most. As we discussed prior, Blade Staff itself will get a DPS nerf so it'll be fine here. But as for Terra Blade, now is a good time to bring this up: "Melee speed" bonuses from Whips should be changed to "Whip speed" instead. The Terra Blade-Whip synergy, nicknamed "Terrawhip", is infamous for its ludicrous DPS to the point of not only being able to easily facetank Moon event minibosses and rack up a ton of kills & points extremely fast (even outshining the like of Terraprisma w/ Kaleidoscope), but also "phase skipping" Master Mode Duke Fishron. Dark Harvest is Terra Blade's favorite booster, but it still uses Durendal for an additional further boost, even if it's smaller. Other than that, Durendal is perfectly fine as I said.

Morning Star
This one is weird. On its own it's decent weapon mainly against mobs and early Pumpkin Moon waves. On the other hand it's a very small upgrade to Summoner compared to what other classes get post-Plantera, to the point that until Kaleidoscope is obtained, the Whip stacking playstyle struggles to not be outshined by simply using a weapon from another class alongside your minions. Pure Whip summoner is consistently strong through the game even being compared to Mixed/Hybrid Summoner playstyles, but the "Pre-Nighttime Empress" period is a noticeable outlier and a point where Whip Summoner is weak. The best setup for Nighttime Empress for Whip Summoner I believe is Obsidian/Desert Tiger/Firecracker/Dark Harvest/Durendal, or something close to that. Not only is Morning Star nowhere to be found, but Obsidian is about to get the nerfhammer. This calls for a Morning Star buff. Suggested change: Morning Star Summon Tag damage increased from 5 tag damage to 10 tag damage. Summon Tag Critical Hit Chance increased from 5% to 10%.

Dark Harvest
Again, change "Melee speed" bonuses to "Whip speed" when it comes to these whips. Other than that, the Dark Harvest is perfectly fine. In fact its existence is necessary to make Kaleidoscope a viable option against Moon Lord. That said, its "dark energy" tag effect doesn't seem to stick around when switching to other whips for some reason. But other than that, nothing to say, it's in a good spot.

Kaleidoscope
Not much to say, it's strong without being overpowered. Amazing against pillars, viable though risky against Moon Lord, great against Daytime EoL. Makes Stardust Cell viable when compared to Dragon.

As you can see, I actually ended up suggesting bigger buffs than nerfs for whips. I'll say it for the final time: Whips aren't overpowered, they just synergize really well with other items that are on the verge if not already overpowered. Whips are very well designed and a fantastic addition to the game. They created a proper, deep and satisfying "mid-range" focused class. Whip Stacking as an unintended mechanic is somewhat of a beautiful accident that brought a lot more good than bad to the game & balance. Please do not remove or even nerf it (beyond removing their interaction with Melee weapons like Terra Blade lol)
 
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