Also in my playthroughs I don't fight Golem immediately after Plantera, not because he's hard but because defeating him triggers tier 3 OOA, allows Martian Probes to spawn, and makes the Cultists spawn at the Dungeon entrance, and I like to get the best Pre-Golem gear possible for those events.
I can understand not wanting to start t3 OOA, but martian probes are easy to avoid and you can't accidently start lunar events (even if you kill the cultists you can just teleport away from lunatic cultist and let him despawn).
One of the things I'm focusing on is making accessories that are quickly upgraded useful on their own.
Alright how about instead of giving the rifle scope a new effect why not make it obtainable earlier in progression?
If this thing is obtainable in pre hardmode it might see some use against Wall of Flesh, I'm thinking either in dungeon chests or sold by the arms dealer.
Also ranger is the only class that doesn't have a pre hardmode accesory dedicated to them.
Another accesory in this situation is the titan glove, I don't think anyone cares about this, it just piggy backs off of other accessories in the tinker tree. If this were put in say gold chests it could see some use in the early game where you often don't have the mobility to avoid everything and are more reliant on knockback.
Maybe it should give both damage reduction and defense, 8 of each. Putrid Scent gives both damage and crit, and having just damage reduction would be an inferior Worm Scarf.
As if flesh knuckles aren't already an inferior worm scarf, when in expert hardmode will you find an enemy that does less than 35 damage?
Putrid scent usually isn't the first damage accessory you equip, it's good because you can't stack multiple of the same emblem.
The same would be true if flesh knuckles had say 10% damage reduction, if someone wants more damage reduction than just their 1 worm scarf then the can stack. The black belt is already an inferior brain of confusion and that thing still gets used.
I think you could also transfer the damage reduction into its tinkers, right now the hero shield is just not as good for single player, which seemed to be the main complaint with the flesh knuckles. 4 defense is not worth the frozen turtle effect.
As for berzerker gloves 8 defense really doesn't do much for summoners when they already have low defense they'd appretiate the dr much more, and melee characters will usually go for the mechanical glove. 10% damage reduction is more competitve with 12% melee damage than 8 defense.