In-depth Hardmode weapon tier list

I've been doing some testing with post plantera summons (desert tiger, raven, tempest, , I did a pure summoner build and plan to test out some other sorts of builds, as I imagine some summons get more out of tag bonuses than others.
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All this is reforged to menacing.
Offensive buffs include summoning, bewitched, wrath, and ichor flask, I also had food in every situation except duke fishron (because I forgot on some of the first trials)
Since the duke fishron fights were short and easy to summon I ended up doing 5 trials for each scenario.
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Desert Tiger + firecracker, and the xeno staff seem to perform the best. Everything else seems to be roughly comparable
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Xeno staff is the clear winner here
Sanguine performed much worse than the other minions
Suprisingly the raven staff got 2nd place.
Desert tiger and tempest are in between sanguine and raven
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I tried out @AngryNimbus advice of resummoning here. Turns out resummoning the desert tiger on the first phase of the martian saucer is less effective than just using the kaleidoscope. I used the firecracker on the second phase both times.

Xeno staff is again the best but it is pretty close to desert tiger and raven. With how quickly the saucer dies on each trial it is entirely possible that rng (like where the saucer spawned and how I reacted to it) was a bigger factor here.
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I only recorded 1 trial for each minion this time, since the pumpkin moon is a lot longer than a boss fight.
Although I died a lot on wave 15 I made sure there weren't any deaths before that, the times are how long it took to reach wave 15.

For the desert tiger I used kaleidoscope to clean up small enemies, since it took to long for the tiger to run over and activate blazing energy, I tried to use firecracker on the minibosses, but that may have caused a few deaths on wave 15 due to the short range.
Keep in mind this is probably the most unreliable data, since there was a lot of rng and death in the 15th wave of the pumpkin moon. Still might be useful though.
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Edit: Turns out I missed a candy corn rifle, and pumpking trophy I think that was from my desert tiger trial since that was the last one I did.
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I've been doing some testing with post plantera summons (desert tiger, raven, tempest, , I did a pure summoner build and plan to test out some other sorts of builds, as I imagine some summons get more out of tag bonuses than others.
View attachment 303665
All this is reforged to menacing.
Offensive buffs include summoning, bewitched, wrath, and ichor flask, I also had food in every situation except duke fishron (because I forgot on some of the first trials)
Since the duke fishron fights were short and easy to summon I ended up doing 5 trials for each scenario.
View attachment 303666
Desert Tiger + firecracker, and the xeno staff seem to perform the best. Everything else seems to be roughly comparable
View attachment 303668
Xeno staff is the clear winner here
Sanguine performed much worse than the other minions
Suprisingly the raven staff got 2nd place.
Desert tiger and tempest are in between sanguine and raven
View attachment 303670
I tried out @AngryNimbus advice of resummoning advice here. Turns out resummoning the desert tiger on the first phase of the martian saucer is less effective than just using the kaleidoscope. I used the firecracker on the second phase both times.

Xeno staff is again the best but it is pretty close to desert tiger and raven. With how quickly the saucer dies on each trial it is entirely possible that rng (like where the saucer spawned and how I reacted to it) was a bigger factor here.
View attachment 303671
I only recorded 1 trial for each minion this time, since the pumpkin moon is a lot longer than a boss fight.
Although I died a lot on wave 15 I made sure there weren't any deaths before that.

For the desert tiger I used kaleidoscope to clean up small enemies, since it took to long for the tiger to run over and activate blazing energy, I tried to use firecracker on the minibosses, but that may have caused a few deaths on wave 15 due to the short range.
Keep in mind this is probably the most unreliable data, since there was a lot of rng and death in the 15th wave of the pumpkin moon. Still might be useful though.
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I'll add "if there are dense crowd of more than 7-8 ememies and for Martian Saucer phase 1" to Desert Tiger recast tip for now. Will test it later, if efficiency really does not improve, delete this tip.
For raven staff vs EoL – strange enough, in my fights they chase me instead of her half of the time. Not to run away from her? But then daytime is impossible...
 
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For raven staff vs EoL – strange enough, in my fights they chase me instead of her half of the time. Not to run away from her? But then daytime is impossible...
The ravens had no trouble keeping up with me. Although I haven't recorded it, I don't remember any trouble with using ravens against daytime empress in the past.
 
Sanguine performed much worse than the other minions

I thought as much. I never understood why everyone was always so quick to jump to Sanguine when fighting Empress - yeah it’s reliable, but its DPS by post-golem just flat out doesn’t keep up.

On another note, I’m curious how Dark Harvest compares to Kaleidoscope/Firecracker for Pumpkin Moon or first phase Martian. It’s always been my go-to above Kaleidoscope for crowds, but I’m not entirely sure it actually does better.
 
I thought as much. I never understood why everyone was always so quick to jump to Sanguine when fighting Empress - yeah it’s reliable, but its DPS by post-golem just flat out doesn’t keep up.

On another note, I’m curious how Dark Harvest compares to Kaleidoscope/Firecracker for Pumpkin Moon or first phase Martian. It’s always been my go-to above Kaleidoscope for crowds, but I’m not entirely sure it actually does better.
In 1.4 (not 1.4.1), ironically enough sangune was the only viable option for pre-Golem EoL.
Ravens were not buffed, deadly spheres and pygmies simply didn't work. (And now they don't)
Now Tiger has almost the same tracking + moer DPS, ravens are faster.

In moons and P1 Saucer, Dark Harvest>Kaleidoscope with sangune, blade, raven
Kaleidoscope>Harvest with Tiger, Tempest
Terraprisma – hard to tell, kills so fast
 
In 1.4 (not 1.4.1), ironically enough sangune was the only viable option for pre-Golem EoL.
Ravens were not buffed, deadly spheres and pygmies simply didn't work. (And now they don't)

Raven’s damage and speed buff actually did come in 1.4, not 1.4.1. And Xeno still existed as an option that surprisingly nobody used and isn’t that much harder to get - and has actually been *nerfed* in 1.4.1. Sanguine has just never seemed like a good choice for Empress.
 
Raven’s damage and speed buff actually did come in 1.4, not 1.4.1. And Xeno still existed as an option that surprisingly nobody used and isn’t that much harder to get - and has actually been *nerfed* in 1.4.1. Sanguine has just never seemed like a good choice for Empress.
Honestly, for me it is still Tiger& Sanguine > Xeno& Raven.
Xeno often tends drastically decrease its attack rate in speedy fights, total DPS is about the same.
I'll go now and test recasts and minions vs EoL with precise numbers
 
Everyone's talking about what the best summon is, but I would like to add that, although it seemed to overall be the worst. I was surprised at how well the tempest staff did considering its former reputation.

The thing even got a comparable time to desert tiger against empress of light.
 
For raven staff vs EoL – strange enough, in my fights they chase me instead of her half of the time. Not to run away from her? But then daytime is impossible...
I equiped some hallowed armor and fought against daytime empress of light using the kalediscope and some ravens, I almost killed her on my first try, and beat her on my 2nd attempt.
This is actually the first time I beat Daytime Empress of light as a pure summoner.
 
We all have different experiences)
My results, all summons were successful, even in Master mode.
Loadout (+bewitching table, summoning potion, 10 minions total):

Loadout.gif


Tests:

No whips, Journey mode (3x difficulty), standing still, godmode.

PM tiger final wave times:

Desert Tiger, no recasts – 11.43
Desert Tiger, recasts – 10.54

PM-Tiger_-no-recast.gif



PM-Tiger_-recasts.gif

Empress times: Journey mode (3x difficulty), real fight, no whips. Targets are focused via holding staff + RMB

Every Empress is summoned at 7.30 PM.
  • Tiger 9.28
  • Xeno 9.37
  • Sanguine 10.43
  • Ravens 12.10
  • Tempest 12.57
With Whips, Xeno *should* be the first due to its synergy with Kaleidscope, which is easier to use than short Tiger’s Firecraker.
Tiger recasting is moderately effective, saves about 40 seconds in PM.

Screenshots were taken a couple of seconds after kills.

Tiger:
EoL_-Tiger.gif

Xeno:
EoL_-Xeno.gif

Sanguine:
EoL_-Sanguine.gif

Raven:
EoL_-Ravens.gif
 

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On another note, I’m curious how Dark Harvest compares to Kaleidoscope/Firecracker for Pumpkin Moon or first phase Martian. It’s always been my go-to above Kaleidoscope for crowds, but I’m not entirely sure it actually does better.
I did some more test on the martian saucer for the dark harvest. I still used kaleidiscope 2nd phase.
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You should be using whips in 'no recast' mode? That's what it's competing against.
I tested pure minion performance – for reference. Firecracker adds a "fixed amount" of damage to these results.
Thus, Tiger+recast+firecracker > Tiger+firecracker, too
 
But if you spend time recasting that's time you aren't whipping
The different situation, unlike magnet sphere + razorpine
- To cast Sphere, you need to interrupt Razorpine's fire completely.
-
Tiger still exists while switching, and deals normal damage.

Results with whips:
Results.gif

Xeno+kaleidoscope were the 1st against EoL, as expected
Tiger is higher in PM due to splash damage, Sangune is so close to Raven because it does not waste time doing nothing.
 
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