In-depth Hardmode weapon tier list

[Shyguymask]

Honestly, do the Dart weapons actually deserve S+? They are no doubt S tier, but I don't see how they deserve all the way to S+, on equal footing to Blade/Sanguine and Vampire Knives. I could say this for a good number of S+ weapons but Dart Gun is the one weapon that I've used significantly in my last playthrough, and it's not as "crazy" as Blade/Sanguine for example.

At the end of the day, Ichor darts are inaccurate and require you to get a bit closer to bosses. Crystal darts have poor single target DPS. Dart Gun/Rifle DPS as a whole is only on par or lower than Sanguine with Firecracker. It's not versatile to the point of being notably usable with other classes or hybrid classes, Blade has the Melee/Summoner hybrid Titanium facetank build, while Sanguine is generally a great support minion no matter the class but is also amazing with Forbidden Armor. Dart Gun/Rifle doesn't attack automatically, like with how Blade Staff is superb in the Hardmode Dungeon defensively. And lastly, Dart Gun/Rifle doesn't have the same longevity as Blade/Sanguine do, who quite literally get even stronger (relative to other options even) as Hardmode progresses, until Post-Golem (or pillars if you rush).

I would either slightly drop Dart Gun/Rifle, possibly some other weapons as well, OR give Blade/Sanguine their own tier, SS.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Honestly, do the Dart weapons actually deserve S+? They are no doubt S tier, but I don't see how they deserve all the way to S+, on equal footing to Blade/Sanguine and Vampire Knives. I could say this for a good number of S+ weapons but Dart Gun is the one weapon that I've used significantly in my last playthrough, and it's not as "crazy" as Blade/Sanguine for example.

At the end of the day, Ichor darts are inaccurate and require you to get a bit closer to bosses. Crystal darts have poor single target DPS. Dart Gun/Rifle DPS as a whole is only on par or lower than Sanguine with Firecracker. It's not versatile to the point of being notably usable with other classes or hybrid classes, Blade has the Melee/Summoner hybrid Titanium facetank build, while Sanguine is generally a great support minion no matter the class but is also amazing with Forbidden Armor. Dart Gun/Rifle doesn't attack automatically, like with how Blade Staff is superb in the Hardmode Dungeon defensively. And lastly, Dart Gun/Rifle doesn't have the same longevity as Blade/Sanguine do, who quite literally get even stronger (relative to other options even) as Hardmode progresses, until Post-Golem (or pillars if you rush).

I would either slightly drop Dart Gun/Rifle, possibly some other weapons as well, OR give Blade/Sanguine their own tier, SS.

Yes, Ichor Darts are inaccurate and require you to get close to bosses, but so do whips. The Blade Staff isn't noticeably powerful without summon tag whips, and in early Hardmode that means the Snapthorn or Spinal Tap, which don't have very much range. Applying Ichor, which boosts Blade Staff, as a pure summoner also requires hitting the target with a whip. Even with the Durendal, you'll have to get up close to deal reasonable damage. Dart guns may be inferior to the Sanguine and Firecracker combo, but that requires constant whipping which is dangerous.

Summon staffs are the best support weapons and were intended to be support weapons, so the Sanguine Staff being a better support weapon is obvious. Also I think that the Blade Staff contributes the least out of all the elements of the melee/summoner hybrid Titanium facetank build, it's just free damage. Don't forget to consider that the Dart guns can be used in a hybrid ranger/summoner build, alongside the Sanguine or Blade Staff.

However I would be behind dropping Dart Pistol/Rifle to S, mainly because certain other weapons, such as Coin Gun, Megashark, Phantom Phoenix, Chlorophyte Shotbow, etc., are S tier, not S+ tier, even though they are pretty good if not better than the Dart guns.

 

[Shyguymask]

Yes, Ichor Darts are inaccurate and require you to get close to bosses, but so do whips. The Blade Staff isn't noticeably powerful without summon tag whips, and in early Hardmode that means the Snapthorn or Spinal Tap, which don't have very much range. Applying Ichor, which boosts Blade Staff, as a pure summoner also requires hitting the target with a whip. Even with the Durendal, you'll have to get up close to deal reasonable damage. Dart guns may be inferior to the Sanguine and Firecracker combo, but that requires constant whipping which is dangerous.

Summon staffs are the best support weapons and were intended to be support weapons, so the Sanguine Staff being a better support weapon is obvious. Also I think that the Blade Staff contributes the least out of all the elements of the melee/summoner hybrid Titanium facetank build, it's just free damage. Don't forget to consider that the Dart guns can be used in a hybrid ranger/summoner build, alongside the Sanguine or Blade Staff.

However I would be behind dropping Dart Pistol/Rifle to S, mainly because certain other weapons, such as Coin Gun, Megashark, Phantom Phoenix, Chlorophyte Shotbow, etc., are S tier, not S+ tier, even though they are pretty good if not better than the Dart guns.

The problem is that considering Darts are a Ranger weapon, they feel disadvantageous to use in a certain way because Ranger's main advantage is supposed to be thriving in far range combat.

That said, I always felt like people overestimate the difficulty of using whips. All things considered getting close to mech bosses is not all that dangerous if you know what you're doing. The difference in range between the average melee sword weapon and whips is way bigger than it seem. If anything, you can use Obsidian Armor which makes whip range a lot higher, and it's probably the best option for DPS with Sanguine anyway.

Blade Staff contributes more to Titanium armor than you may think. When facetanking, to simplify it, if we treat Blade Staff as dealing 60-70 damage everytime, then that's quite a ton of damage actually. one dagger hits several times each second, so one dagger = hundreds of additional DPS when facetanking. That's a lot when you have 4 daggers.

I see zero advantages of a Ranger/Summoner hybrid build. There's zero synergy, nor there are weaknesses being really covered. If you just run away and space yourself from bosses with Ranger weapons then your summons are likely to lose aggro, not to mention you obviously won't be using whips at that range. And if you were to use whips, then you're just being inferior to pure Summoner because you don't have as many summoner-dedicated gears. Melee/Summoner hybrid offers sharpening station for minions, high defense, whips boosting speed of melee weapons and Feral Claws boosting both melee and summoner options. Even for Mages it would be better synergy than Ranger, at least when you're out of Mana you can spend the time waiting for mana regen hitting bosses with whips.

 

[qwerty3.14]

Honestly single target bossing is when dart guns are at their 'weakest' but even there they are among the stronger options. They did about as well as hallowed repeater, megashark and rainbow rod in my Empress tests, which were among some of the stronger pre plantera weapons (only beaten by daedleus strombow, chlorophyte shotbow, and coin gun).
I will say though that sanguine's bossing performance is really good, In my orichalcum armor analysis one of the armors I compared it to was spider to get extra bats. Even though it was a ranged build with all lucky accesories the spider armor build performed the best in everything except the destroyer. Now granted I was using CAR + crystal as my main weapon which isn't really a top tier boss weapon.

Crystal darts are stupid good in caves. Nothing rivals their ability flood any cave or the hardmode dungeon with a mass amount of homing projectiles. The sanguine and blade staff don't perform noteably well in these environments, Sanguine bats refuse to attack anything that doesn't have LoS with their resting position, blades do a bit better but if they dash into a wall they might retreat to the resting position as well.

Cursed darts decimate invasions and the destroyer, From experience I don't find sanguine or blade's performance against destroyer to be anything special. In my oricalcum armor analysis I used an adamantite repeater as my main weapon for destroyer and the spider armor build performed about as well as mythril. If I was using cursed darts there's no chance sanguine will be anywhere near as good in comparison.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

I see zero advantages of a Ranger/Summoner hybrid build. There's zero synergy, nor there are weaknesses being really covered.

As a person who advocates for this being the "perfect build", hearing this is quite surprising. What's your take on a Red Riding Build similar to something like this?

• Red Riding Set
• Frost Hydra Staff
• Sanguine Staff
• (any guns, you choose)
• Papyrus Scarab
• Summoner's Emblem
• Apprentice's Scarf
• (any other accessories, you choose)

 

[starman2995]

they feel disadvantageous to use in a certain way because Ranger's main advantage is supposed to be thriving in far range combat.

I personally disagree with this for a couple of reasons. Before gaining access to homing ammo, I feel like ranger is designed more for close distance than far distance, at least compared to mage. This is reflected in the armor values (ranger being 2nd highest), as well as with mage having several homing weapons by this stage. Even if you need to get close to utilize ichor darts to the fullest (though they are good even without doing that), ranger seems well-suited to do so with its higher armor values.

I see zero advantages of a Ranger/Summoner hybrid build. There's zero synergy, nor there are weaknesses being really covered.

The way I see it, the benefit of a ranger/summoner hybrid is mainly that rangers have the strongest & easiest to use weapons. Just at a base, partially due to the ammo you can get, I feel like ranger has the strongest base dps of pretty much all class weapons in early hardmode. On top of that, they are very flexible; you can use them at long range if need be, but they are just as effective (and sometimes more so) at close range. I don't know how well it would compare to a pure summoner whip build, but I feel like this is a strong case for this type of hybrid.

 

[qwerty3.14]

As a person who advocates for this being the "perfect build", hearing this is quite surprising. What's your take on a Red Riding Build similar to something like this?

• Red Riding Set
• Frost Hydra Staff
• Sanguine Staff
• (any guns, you choose)
• Papyrus Scarab
• Summoner's Emblem
• Apprentice's Scarf
• (any other accessories, you choose)

Here's what I would change
I think sanguine is too weak post golem, either use ravens (if you can work with them), desert tiger, or xeno.
Swap out the summoner emblem for destroyer emblem, your summons lose 5% damage but your ranged weapon get a big buff.
Extra accesories would be celestial shell, avenger emblem, and/or necro scroll.

Sentries don't work well in boss fights so for those I would swap out the head piece for a shroomite/adamantite one,
and swap the scarf for one of the extra accesories.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

Here's what I would change
I think sanguine is too weak post golem, either use ravens (if you can work with them), desert tiger, or xeno.
Swap out the summoner emblem for destroyer emblem, your summons lose 5% damage but your ranged weapon get a big buff.
Extra accesories would be celestial shell, avenger emblem, and/or necro scroll.

Okay, so I did a quick test to see how both sets performed, using Desert Tiger as a Minion because I wanted to fight Queen Slime (Master Mode). I didn't notice much of a difference in power & the Sentries appeared to make the fight much safer, killing off most of the adds, destructible projectiles & allowing me a aim off-screen using the Sentries targeting as a guide. Can you check behind me & do a follow-up?

Sentries don't work well in boss fights so for those I would swap out the head piece for a shroomite/adamantite one,
and swap the scarf for one of the extra accesories.

Yeah, I wanna make sure this isn't a playstyle bias at work. I'm a player who finds Sentries to be invaluable, but it'd be nice to have an objective observation of their actual performance, because I take "safety" & "easy of use" into consideration when rating Weapons/ Builds.

Edit: I have to remind myself at times, that my tests can be confusing, because I look for very specific things, instead, try Pillars, whichever you feel most comfortable with, without retreating (to compare both sets). I'd like to see your opinion.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Okay, so I did a quick test to see how both sets performed, using Desert Tiger as a Minion because I wanted to fight Queen Slime (Master Mode). I didn't notice much of a difference in power & the Sentries appeared to make the fight much safer, killing off most of the adds, destructible projectiles & allowing me a aim off-screen using the Sentries targeting as a guide. Can you check behind me & do a follow-up?


Yeah, I wanna make sure this isn't a playstyle bias at work. I'm a player who finds Sentries to be invaluable, but it'd be nice to have an objective observation of their actual performance, because I take "safety" & "easy of use" into consideration when rating Weapons/ Builds.

Edit: I have to remind myself at times, that my tests can be confusing, because I look for very specific things, instead, try Pillars, whichever you feel most comfortable with, without retreating (to compare both sets). I'd like to see your opinion.

Queen Slime is a grounded boss for a good chunk of the fight, so what might be happening in your tests is that the more sentry-focused build dealt with the first phase quicker, whereas the other build dealt with the second phase better. If you try against a boss that moves around in the air for the whole fight, such as Skeletron Prime or Empress of Light, the sentries won't be able to hit it.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

Queen Slime is a grounded boss for a good chunk of the fight, so what might be happening in your tests is that the more sentry-focused build dealt with the first phase quicker, whereas the other build dealt with the second phase better. If you try against a boss that moves around in the air for the whole fight, such as Skeletron Prime or Empress of Light, the sentries won't be able to hit it.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing it, as I feel like Rangers have the easiest time leashing Bosses than any other Class in the game. All I did was build the typical, three-tier'd Arena, and do a figure-eight around Skeletron until he died. I'm pretty bad at aiming too so... I based my views on how easy the fight was, instead of how long it took to defeat him, even though it seemed pretty quick (cuz I'm low-key a scrub, that finds workarounds to beat better players/ hard enemies/ Bosses).

If necessary, I might start recording my fights, perhaps it'll make my takes on certain builds easier to critique?

 

[AngryNimbus]

Maybe I'm a bit late, but I saw you were writing about ichor darts and their inaccuracy and something about titanium armor
I have an idea (not tested yet). Ichor dart deals obscene amounts of hits when it hasn't split, so, in theory, combined with dagger minions and titanium armor it would be better vs destroyer facetanking than fetid/cursed dart/daedalus

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

I went on ahead to show an example of leashing with Sentries for my own amusement. I made sure to use the bare minimum & arguably the worst Sentries in the game, just to prove a point, I guess?? I basically consider the Red Riding Set to be a direct upgrade to the Huntress Set, so they're pretty much the same build to me. I always make an effort to strip a Class down when measuring effectiveness. Keep in mind, I'm not MLG, I just know how to break games in funny ways a lot.

• Huntress Set
• Explosive Trap (Tier 2)
• Dart Rifle/ Cursed Darts
• Onyx Blaster/ Explosive Rounds
• Sanguine Staff
• (any Dev Wings)
• Summoner's Emblem
• Ranger's Emblem*
• Pygmy Necklace
• Frog Gear
• Worm Scarf
• Frostspark boots
• **All No Modifiers

I'm sure a more skilled player could perfect this, but I just wanted to show an example of what using Sentries looks like for me while adventuring, since it seems to be obscure for some strange reason?? I tend to have the most fun with Invasions & Normal Enemies, but Bosses can get it too!

Spoiler: Equipment/ Loadout

 

[Shyguymask]

Honestly single target bossing is when dart guns are at their 'weakest' but even there they are among the stronger options. They did about as well as hallowed repeater, megashark and rainbow rod in my Empress tests, which were among some of the stronger pre plantera weapons (only beaten by daedleus strombow, chlorophyte shotbow, and coin gun).
I will say though that sanguine's bossing performance is really good, In my orichalcum armor analysis one of the armors I compared it to was spider to get extra bats. Even though it was a ranged build with all lucky accesories the spider armor build performed the best in everything except the destroyer. Now granted I was using CAR + crystal as my main weapon which isn't really a top tier boss weapon.

Crystal darts are stupid good in caves. Nothing rivals their ability flood any cave or the hardmode dungeon with a mass amount of homing projectiles. The sanguine and blade staff don't perform noteably well in these environments, Sanguine bats refuse to attack anything that doesn't have LoS with their resting position, blades do a bit better but if they dash into a wall they might retreat to the resting position as well.

Cursed darts decimate invasions and the destroyer, From experience I don't find sanguine or blade's performance against destroyer to be anything special. In my oricalcum armor analysis I used an adamantite repeater as my main weapon for destroyer and the spider armor build performed about as well as mythril. If I was using cursed darts there's no chance sanguine will be anywhere near as good in comparison.

Hallowed Repeater, Megashark and Rainbow Rod aren't crazy weapons on their own either. Daedalus, Shotbow aren't even that good for Empress judging by your DPS tests. Dart Pistol/Rifle taking 87-90 seconds to kill Expert EoL is actually pretty bad compared to many other weapons.

You're supposed to use whips with Sanguine and Blade. Whips very easily decimate hardmode mobs no matter how many, better than Crystal Darts do. Not to mention Blades stunlocks enemies in place. Crystal Darts are very good, but not amazing. The actual damage is still noticeably lower than whips.

Sanguine + Firecracker kills Expert Destroyer in 48 seconds with standard gears. Probably not as good as cursed darts but still fast on its own.

As a person who advocates for this being the "perfect build", hearing this is quite surprising. What's your take on a Red Riding Build similar to something like this?

• Red Riding Set
• Frost Hydra Staff
• Sanguine Staff
• (any guns, you choose)
• Papyrus Scarab
• Summoner's Emblem
• Apprentice's Scarf
• (any other accessories, you choose)

Again, there's no real synergy or weaknesses being covered. The only conclusion one could make is that going Summoner hybrid always benefits the other three classes, with Ranger being by far the weakest example of such. Red Riding Set doesn't even give additional slots.

I personally disagree with this for a couple of reasons. Before gaining access to homing ammo, I feel like ranger is designed more for close distance than far distance, at least compared to mage. This is reflected in the armor values (ranger being 2nd highest), as well as with mage having several homing weapons by this stage. Even if you need to get close to utilize ichor darts to the fullest (though they are good even without doing that), ranger seems well-suited to do so with its higher armor values.

The way I see it, the benefit of a ranger/summoner hybrid is mainly that rangers have the strongest & easiest to use weapons. Just at a base, partially due to the ammo you can get, I feel like ranger has the strongest base dps of pretty much all class weapons in early hardmode. On top of that, they are very flexible; you can use them at long range if need be, but they are just as effective (and sometimes more so) at close range. I don't know how well it would compare to a pure summoner whip build, but I feel like this is a strong case for this type of hybrid.

The vast majority of Ranged weapons are really bad at close-range against underground mobs, you can very easily miss since the enemy is on top of you and Ranged weapons tend to have low knockback. There's nothing that suggests that Ranger is a close-range or even mid-range class, the only reason provided was Armor Values and by that logic Summoner is a far-range class because it has the lowest defense even though Minions & Whips are clearly designed for close-range or mid-range combat.

There's also nothing here that convinces me Ranger/Summon hybrid is worth anything. The only argument you said is that Ranger weapons are strong and easy to use , nothing was said about Summoner or synergy between the two classes. "Strongest" isn't even accurate because Summoner is on par or surpasses Ranger Hardmode onwards, not even taking crowd control or survivability into account.

Maybe I'm a bit late, but I saw you were writing about ichor darts and their inaccuracy and something about titanium armor
I have an idea (not tested yet). Ichor dart deals obscene amounts of hits when it hasn't split, so, in theory, combined with dagger minions and titanium armor it would be better vs destroyer facetanking than fetid/cursed dart/daedalus

It could work, but I doubt it would work as well as Melee Titanium armor. Ranger has noticeably lower defense, I think Fetid still attacks at a faster rate and Blade staff's direct attack would be dealing much less damage since no whips or sharpening station.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

Again, there's no real synergy or weaknesses being covered. The only conclusion one could make is that going Summoner hybrid always benefits the other three classes, with Ranger being by far the weakest example of such. Red Riding Set doesn't even give additional slots.

This continues to be the part that confuses me, because every Class, when using a Minion, gets a passive, free-three slots with buffs, correct? With the Huntress/ Red Riding Sets, you also get a bonus to Minion damage (+plus), in addition to the ability to summon multiple Sentries (+plus). The Armor itself also increases Class damage, in addition to having a pretty high Critical Strike Chance (+plus, plus). I'm seeing nothing but synergy here, unless you're saying it's not good synergy??

 

[qwerty3.14]

Hallowed Repeater, Megashark and Rainbow Rod aren't crazy weapons on their own either. Daedalus, Shotbow aren't even that good for Empress judging by your DPS tests. Dart Pistol/Rifle taking 87-90 seconds to kill Expert EoL is actually pretty bad compared to many other weapons.

Comparing it to other weapons around its tier that's pretty good.
Hallowed repeater, megashark, and rainbow rod are all post mech.
The only pre mech weapons that beat it were the super rare pay to win gun, and the daedleus stormbow.
And with the exception of the hallowed repeater these are all weapons in the S tier range thanks primarily to thier bossing performance.

All my summon tests used post plant whips, I can't really call blade + kaleidiscope pre plant. I'll take your word for it that you've found some build with pre plant whips that kills faster than ichor darts.

You're supposed to use whips with Sanguine and Blade. Whips very easily decimate hardmode mobs no matter how many, better than Crystal Darts do. Not to mention Blades stunlocks enemies in place. Crystal Darts are very good, but not amazing. The actual damage is still noticeably lower than whips.

Ok... firstly no whips are not better at CC than darts.

lets look at pirate invasion, it has a few shooter enemies which means that while you're whiping 1 crowd of enemies a deadeye or cross bower can come along and take shots at you, cursed darts cover the wholes screen in projectiles distrupting everything.

Also if you're using a whip the only thing blades will be attacking are enemies you're already hitting with your whips. A common strategy I use against pirate captain is to right click them with my summon, they run over and prevent the pirate captain from attacking letting me focus on thoe other enemies. If I were to use a whip on those other enemies then my minion would stop attacking the captain giving him a chance to shoot again.

Also keep in mind pre plantera whips have some of the harshest dropoffs in the game. Durendel which is post mech has a 20% dropoff. Firecracker's tag can only be aplied to 1 enemy per swing. Spinal tap is notable for not having as much of a dropoff but thats a pre hardmode weapon, you're not doing much damage with it.


As for enclosed spaces... Idk how you could think that, a short ranged area in front of your character can compete with flooding the entire area with bouncing semi homing projectiles while staying out of LoS with big threats.

Here's a scenario for you.
You're at the green dot, the big red blob is a paladin, the smaller ones are other enemies.
How would you deal with this?
Well with crystal darts simply fire at the wall and smart bounce does the work for you.
Sanguine, well those refuse to attack anything that doesn't have LoS with the resting position so you run around the corner and now there's a giant hammer flying at you.
Blade? you resummon it by the palladium it hits him once flies into tiles loses LoS and retreats.
Spider? That'll stick to the paladium but if you decide to whip the weaker enemies on your way to the palladin then the spider jumps off and now theres a hammer flying toward you.
The only safe way a pure summoner is dealing with this is waiting under the edge of the floor the enemies are on have them walk to the edge so you can quickly run around and start whipping.


Or what about a diabolist, you whip the diabolist and then he teleports awway you then have to chase him down again. With crystal darts you have the whole area covered, a crystal dart will deal with him wherever he teleports.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Again, there's no real synergy or weaknesses being covered. The only conclusion one could make is that going Summoner hybrid always benefits the other three classes, with Ranger being by far the weakest example of such. Red Riding Set doesn't even give additional slots.

I'd argue that a mage-summoner is the worst hybrid. You won't be able to do much damage with your primary magic weapon because you'll run out of mana pretty quickly, which can be avoided by equipping mana-related accessories such as tinkers of the Celestial Magnet or Band of Starpower, and have the Arcane modifier on some accessories, however then you wouldn't be able to equip summoner accessories and your summons would just be a small bit of extra damage. Also if you whip enemies while your mana regenerates you'll have to constantly change your playstyle mid-boss fight. I would argue that a pure summoner with whips is better than a mage-summoner hybrid.

 

[whoneedsnamestbh]

I would either slightly drop Dart Gun/Rifle, possibly some other weapons as well, OR give Blade/Sanguine their own tier, SS.

From my own playing around with these minions, they’re very good, easily S+ still, but calling them SS rank or the best weapons per their tier in the game, above even dart guns, looks completely absurd.

Setting aside dart guns for a moment, let’s compare these staves to a few other key weapons put in S+: Terra Blade, Tsunami and Eventide, Razorblade Typhoon. The former three have a damage output that puts anything else of their tier to shame, especially Terra Blade: a post-plantera weapon with so much power in every single aspect that it’s *still* a viable choice three tiers later when you’re fighting the Lunar Events. Same can be applied to the bows and the typhoon: they crush all competition that you could put them against until several tiers later.

Nobody’s denying that Blade and Sanguine have insane longevity and deserve S+. They have quite a bit of damage and last incredibly long, but I can’t call them better than these other weapons are listed, more about the same. For one, they *do* lose ground post-Plant, where, although they are still viable, you’re probably better off switching to some of the post-Plant minions: namely Tiger, Xeno and sometimes Raven. The argument of whip stacking also applies to these: Tiger gets insane benefits from piling whip speed onto Firecracker, for example. They also have a number of innate disadvantages to being minions, including a limited range, a need for LoS, and a need to min-max your build for maximum potential.

This does *not* mean the S+ weapons I listed also deserve SS. Terra Blade is obscenely powerful, but it does *finally* get replaced by the Lunar Events, and has a few key disadvantages compared to some ranged and magic weapons post-Golem. Tsunami and Eventide are incredible with the right ammo variety, however Eventide is only stronger than Stake Launcher-which is another easy S tier but not quite S+- by a small enough margin to only be one sub-tier ahead considering its later role in progression, and although Tsunami hits like a train it does have competition with the aforementioned Eventide. Typhoon is absurdly spammable, but it’s only *slightly* better than Nightglow, a weapon of the same tier with similar advantages, that is deserving of S.

To get back to dart guns, I think S+ is still fine for them. The three darts provided give you tons of variety for different situations, and like a few peopke have mentioned already they can last a long time with the specific advantages each Dart provides. If anything, at all, would ever be worthy of SS, these before their buff reversion would be that, and with their current stats and utility that can decimate enemies if their tier and continue to be used in the Hardmode dungeon, comparing them to Terra Blade and Tsunami among other things is reasonable.

 

[qwerty3.14]

I'd argue that a mage-summoner is the worst hybrid. You won't be able to do much damage with your primary magic weapon because you'll run out of mana pretty quickly, which can be avoided by equipping mana-related accessories such as tinkers of the Celestial Magnet or Band of Starpower, and have the Arcane modifier on some accessories, however then you wouldn't be able to equip summoner accessories and your summons would just be a small bit of extra damage. Also if you whip enemies while your mana regenerates you'll have to constantly change your playstyle mid-boss fight. I would argue that a pure summoner with whips is better than a mage-summoner hybrid.

I actually disagree with this.
Hallowed headgear provides all the mana you'd need, with the exception of the celestial magnet all mana accesories are kind of pathetic.
Mage also has the worst chest pieces so they're giving up the least when going spooky, and they also have the worst unique accesories so I don't have trouble finding space for a papyrus scarab.

Also pre mech you have forbidden armor, admantite + forbidden + forbidden gives you humorous amounts of mana.

If you do run out of mana and don't want to 'change your playstyle' then you can just push 'quick mana', mana sickness really isn't that bad unless your weapon can drain your mana pool iun under 5 seconds (which most don't when you have headgear).



Bame, Derpling, Coley, Cazmatism, Kayogin, Coley, and I did a tier list on Bame's discord server, this is what we ended with.
(Queen spider is supposed to be in A tier, but bame was too lazy to move it)
(Bame was also too lazy to add lunar flare and blowpipe even after it was pointed out they were missing, they are P and A repectively)
(items within tiers are not ordered because Bame was lazy)

 

[Shyguymask]

From my own playing around with these minions, they’re very good, easily S+ still, but calling them SS rank or the best weapons per their tier in the game, above even dart guns, looks completely absurd.

Setting aside dart guns for a moment, let’s compare these staves to a few other key weapons put in S+: Terra Blade, Tsunami and Eventide, Razorblade Typhoon. The former three have a damage output that puts anything else of their tier to shame, especially Terra Blade: a post-plantera weapon with so much power in every single aspect that it’s *still* a viable choice three tiers later when you’re fighting the Lunar Events. Same can be applied to the bows and the typhoon: they crush all competition that you could put them against until several tiers later.

Nobody’s denying that Blade and Sanguine have insane longevity and deserve S+. They have quite a bit of damage and last incredibly long, but I can’t call them better than these other weapons are listed, more about the same. For one, they *do* lose ground post-Plant, where, although they are still viable, you’re probably better off switching to some of the post-Plant minions: namely Tiger, Xeno and sometimes Raven. The argument of whip stacking also applies to these: Tiger gets insane benefits from piling whip speed onto Firecracker, for example. They also have a number of innate disadvantages to being minions, including a limited range, a need for LoS, and a need to min-max your build for maximum potential.

This does *not* mean the S+ weapons I listed also deserve SS. Terra Blade is obscenely powerful, but it does *finally* get replaced by the Lunar Events, and has a few key disadvantages compared to some ranged and magic weapons post-Golem. Tsunami and Eventide are incredible with the right ammo variety, however Eventide is only stronger than Stake Launcher-which is another easy S tier but not quite S+- by a small enough margin to only be one sub-tier ahead considering its later role in progression, and although Tsunami hits like a train it does have competition with the aforementioned Eventide. Typhoon is absurdly spammable, but it’s only *slightly* better than Nightglow, a weapon of the same tier with similar advantages, that is deserving of S.

To get back to dart guns, I think S+ is still fine for them. The three darts provided give you tons of variety for different situations, and like a few peopke have mentioned already they can last a long time with the specific advantages each Dart provides. If anything, at all, would ever be worthy of SS, these before their buff reversion would be that, and with their current stats and utility that can decimate enemies if their tier and continue to be used in the Hardmode dungeon, comparing them to Terra Blade and Tsunami among other things is reasonable.

There are only a couple things that Terra Blade will actually shred: Golem and invasions. Against bosses like Duke, Empress and Moon Lord, hitting Terra Blade with the actual blade (which if where most of its DPS comes from with whip boosts in mind) isn't really practical. The beam, while good, still has overall on par or less DPS than Blade/Sanguine, even though Terra Blade is a post-Plantera weapon. Tsunami/Eventide are great, but are weapons that you'd usually obtain post-Plantera or post-Golem (eventide especially) that arguably get replaced by Phantasm soon after at that point. Tsunami can be obtained Pre-mech, but doing so isn't exactly easy, and even then it doesn't attack mobs automatically & effectively protect you like Blade/Sanguine does, it's not a super versatile weapon that all classes can use for support, and even then once Kaleidoscope is obtained Tsunami's DPS isn't all that much higher than Blade Staff's. Not to mention the defensive benefits of using Blade Staff. Tsunami has higher damage, but it's significantly more difficult to obtain Pre-mech, and it doesn't have the insane utility & versatility that Blade/Sanguine have. Same applies to Razorblade Typhoon, except it overall deals less damage than Tsunami (unless Destroyer) but is way better than it against crowds. The fact that these two Pre-mech weapons (mainly Blade) can actually compete with these weapons that are post-Golem or post-Cultist in term of power is really telling. Oh yeah, and if you're going to use Razorblade Typhoon, you can use both it and Sanguine effectively with Forbidden Armor.

"They have quite a bit of damage" is an understatement. Going with Expert & "standard" gears, Sanguine + Firecracker kills Destroyer in 48 seconds, kills Twins in a minute flat and kills Prime in 54 seconds. Against Plantera, both Blade & Sanguine with their appropriate whips kill Plantera in under 30 seconds. With a full warding build with Hallowed Armor, Blade Staff kills Plantera in only 31 seconds. And against EoL, with Hallowed Armor, Blade Staff can do it in a little over 40 seconds with Durendal or Betsy's Wrath. Tiger needs the Desert Key, and a Summoner player is unlikely to get that without grinding because Desert & Underground desert offer little for Summoners unless they go for Forbidden Armor. And even then, Tiger can struggle to hit flying enemies consistently. Ravens in general are pretty slow and not as reliable, even if their actual DPS is very high. Xeno Staff is post-Golem and it's honestly better to just kill cultist and get Cells/Dragon unless you think that strategy is cheap and boring (like I do, actually).

Blade & especially Sanguine have more than enough range with their AI. Unless your strategy is to just run away as far as possible from the boss, their supposed "limited" range is almost never an issue. Both Blade & Sanguine are Pre-mech and easily last all the way to Post-golem or post-cultist depending on if you want to get Xeno Staff and/or fight EoL before cultist. I don't know what "LoS", I assume it means something related to "Sight" and detecting enemies? If that's the case then that's really not an issue either. Blade will react and attack enemies instantly, especially. They can simply be treated as weapons that don't attack through walls. Needing to min max build? I don't see how, and I don't see why this would apply to them and not other weapons. Blade thrives with defensive builds that neglect % boosts, and it also has a home with Titanium Armor. Sanguine is a great support for any character period, but especially Forbidden Armor.

There's a noticeable margin in the usefulness of Blade/Sanguine to other weapons. They are available earlier than Terra Blade and by default lasts longer & contributes more in the long run. They are easier to obtain than Razorblade/Tsunami. They, once again, have way more versatility and utility compared to those weapons. And even then, against daytime EoL, Blade is scarily close to rivaling said weapons, especially with the fact Hallowed Armor is preferrable for Daytime EoL. With Dart Gun/Rifle in mind it's not even a contest, Blade/Sanguine deal on par or better damage against bosses while being better at arguably everything else & having more longevity. Just look at Qwerty's EoL kill times for example: Dart Rifle took 87 seconds to kill EoL, while Blade takes around half that time to kill EoL. That's what I mean by longevity. If anything, the longevity of Dart Gun/Rifle is overrated. Either Dart Gun/Rifle just aren't as good as people think (especially with the nerf now in effect), or Blade/Sanguine (at least Blade) are indeed SS tier. No matter which character you're playing as, Pre-mech mainly you're missing out by not having Blade or Sanguine as a support minion. Even at their most minor role, they make a noticeably difference in making your character stronger. Not just some crappy grounded minion that barely does anything at all: Sanguine actively contributes and increases your overall DPS by an actually significant amount, while Blade offers amazing protection against Underground & Hardmode Dungeon enemies.

lets look at pirate invasion, it has a few shooter enemies which means that while you're whiping 1 crowd of enemies a deadeye or cross bower can come along and take shots at you, cursed darts cover the wholes screen in projectiles distrupting everything.

Also if you're using a whip the only thing blades will be attacking are enemies you're already hitting with your whips. A common strategy I use against pirate captain is to right click them with my summon, they run over and prevent the pirate captain from attacking letting me focus on thoe other enemies. If I were to use a whip on those other enemies then my minion would stop attacking the captain giving him a chance to shoot again.

Also keep in mind pre plantera whips have some of the harshest dropoffs in the game. Durendel which is post mech has a 20% dropoff. Firecracker's tag can only be aplied to 1 enemy per swing. Spinal tap is notable for not having as much of a dropoff but thats a pre hardmode weapon, you're not doing much damage with it.


As for enclosed spaces... Idk how you could think that, a short ranged area in front of your character can compete with flooding the entire area with bouncing semi homing projectiles while staying out of LoS with big threats.


View attachment 318035
Here's a scenario for you.
You're at the green dot, the big red blob is a paladin, the smaller ones are other enemies.
How would you deal with this?
Well with crystal darts simply fire at the wall and smart bounce does the work for you.
Sanguine, well those refuse to attack anything that doesn't have LoS with the resting position so you run around the corner and now there's a giant hammer flying at you.
Blade? you resummon it by the palladium it hits him once flies into tiles loses LoS and retreats.
Spider? That'll stick to the paladium but if you decide to whip the weaker enemies on your way to the palladin then the spider jumps off and now theres a hammer flying toward you.
The only safe way a pure summoner is dealing with this is waiting under the edge of the floor the enemies are on have them walk to the edge so you can quickly run around and start whipping.


Or what about a diabolist, you whip the diabolist and then he teleports awway you then have to chase him down again. With crystal darts you have the whole area covered, a crystal dart will deal with him wherever he teleports.

I don't have experience with Pirate invasion, and while Crystal/Cursed Darts are definitely safer, they still take longer to kill crowds. Especially Pirate Captains. What I had in mind primarily was underground & dungeon enemies.

Drop off isn't a significant issue. Blade Staff switches targets instantaneously, especially combined with how fast it attacks, while Sanguine can easily hit multiple targets. And simply hitting with whips will stunlock groups of enemies because of their big hitboxes. Also, "Firecracker can only be applied to 1 enemy per swing" is a no-issue because again Sanguine easily shreds crowd of enemies, especially if you take advantage of right click to make them target enemies at the far back. And even then the damage & large hitboxes provided by whips is more than enough, especially if you have Obsidian Armor.

How would I deal with that? Simple. I let the two enemies fall on me, Blade Staff instantly responds and keeps the enemy airbone while I kill them with whips. Any Dungeon Spirits that may spawn will be instantly stunlocked as well, zero risks. I then let the Paladin approach me from above, and I simply stunlock and kill it with Whips & Blade with ease. It's actually faster and better to engage the enemies by letting them fall on me and letting Blade Staff do its job, than "playing it safe" with Crystal darts which once again deal subpar single-target damage.

The Diabolists and other teleporting Dungeon enemies? Don't worry about them at all. You're greatly underestimating these little daggers.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

There are only a couple things that Terra Blade will actually shred: Golem and invasions. Against bosses like Duke, Empress and Moon Lord, hitting Terra Blade with the actual blade (which if where most of its DPS comes from with whip boosts in mind) isn't really practical. The beam, while good, still has overall on par or less DPS than Blade/Sanguine, even though Terra Blade is a post-Plantera weapon. Tsunami/Eventide are great, but are weapons that you'd usually obtain post-Plantera or post-Golem (eventide especially) that arguably get replaced by Phantasm soon after at that point. Tsunami can be obtained Pre-mech, but doing so isn't exactly easy, and even then it doesn't attack mobs automatically & effectively protect you like Blade/Sanguine does, it's not a super versatile weapon that all classes can use for support, and even then once Kaleidoscope is obtained Tsunami's DPS isn't all that much higher than Blade Staff's. Not to mention the defensive benefits of using Blade Staff. Tsunami has higher damage, but it's significantly more difficult to obtain Pre-mech, and it doesn't have the insane utility & versatility that Blade/Sanguine have. Same applies to Razorblade Typhoon, except it overall deals less damage than Tsunami (unless Destroyer) but is way better than it against crowds. The fact that these two Pre-mech weapons (mainly Blade) can actually compete with these weapons that are post-Golem or post-Cultist in term of power is really telling. Oh yeah, and if you're going to use Razorblade Typhoon, you can use both it and Sanguine effectively with Forbidden Armor.

"They have quite a bit of damage" is an understatement. Going with Expert & "standard" gears, Sanguine + Firecracker kills Destroyer in 48 seconds, kills Twins in a minute flat and kills Prime in 54 seconds. Against Plantera, both Blade & Sanguine with their appropriate whips kill Plantera in under 30 seconds. With a full warding build with Hallowed Armor, Blade Staff kills Plantera in only 31 seconds. And against EoL, with Hallowed Armor, Blade Staff can do it in a little over 40 seconds with Durendal or Betsy's Wrath. Tiger needs the Desert Key, and a Summoner player is unlikely to get that without grinding because Desert & Underground desert offer little for Summoners unless they go for Forbidden Armor. And even then, Tiger can struggle to hit flying enemies consistently. Ravens in general are pretty slow and not as reliable, even if their actual DPS is very high. Xeno Staff is post-Golem and it's honestly better to just kill cultist and get Cells/Dragon unless you think that strategy is cheap and boring (like I do, actually).

Blade & especially Sanguine have more than enough range with their AI. Unless your strategy is to just run away as far as possible from the boss, their supposed "limited" range is almost never an issue. Both Blade & Sanguine are Pre-mech and easily last all the way to Post-golem or post-cultist depending on if you want to get Xeno Staff and/or fight EoL before cultist. I don't know what "LoS", I assume it means something related to "Sight" and detecting enemies? If that's the case then that's really not an issue either. Blade will react and attack enemies instantly, especially. They can simply be treated as weapons that don't attack through walls. Needing to min max build? I don't see how, and I don't see why this would apply to them and not other weapons. Blade thrives with defensive builds that neglect % boosts, and it also has a home with Titanium Armor. Sanguine is a great support for any character period, but especially Forbidden Armor.

There's a noticeable margin in the usefulness of Blade/Sanguine to other weapons. They are available earlier than Terra Blade and by default lasts longer & contributes more in the long run. They are easier to obtain than Razorblade/Tsunami. They, once again, have way more versatility and utility compared to those weapons. And even then, against daytime EoL, Blade is scarily close to rivaling said weapons, especially with the fact Hallowed Armor is preferrable for Daytime EoL. With Dart Gun/Rifle in mind it's not even a contest, Blade/Sanguine deal on par or better damage against bosses while being better at arguably everything else & having more longevity. Just look at Qwerty's EoL kill times for example: Dart Rifle took 87 seconds to kill EoL, while Blade takes around half that time to kill EoL. That's what I mean by longevity. If anything, the longevity of Dart Gun/Rifle is overrated. Either Dart Gun/Rifle just aren't as good as people think (especially with the nerf now in effect), or Blade/Sanguine (at least Blade) are indeed SS tier. No matter which character you're playing as, Pre-mech mainly you're missing out by not having Blade or Sanguine as a support minion. Even at their most minor role, they make a noticeably difference in making your character stronger. Not just some crappy grounded minion that barely does anything at all: Sanguine actively contributes and increases your overall DPS by an actually significant amount, while Blade offers amazing protection against Underground & Hardmode Dungeon enemies.

I don't have experience with Pirate invasion, and while Crystal/Cursed Darts are definitely safer, they still take longer to kill crowds. Especially Pirate Captains. What I had in mind primarily was underground & dungeon enemies.

Drop off isn't a significant issue. Blade Staff switches targets instantaneously, especially combined with how fast it attacks, while Sanguine can easily hit multiple targets. And simply hitting with whips will stunlock groups of enemies because of their big hitboxes. Also, "Firecracker can only be applied to 1 enemy per swing" is a no-issue because again Sanguine easily shreds crowd of enemies, especially if you take advantage of right click to make them target enemies at the far back. And even then the damage & large hitboxes provided by whips is more than enough, especially if you have Obsidian Armor.

How would I deal with that? Simple. I let the two enemies fall on me, Blade Staff instantly responds and keeps the enemy airbone while I kill them with whips. Any Dungeon Spirits that may spawn will be instantly stunlocked as well, zero risks. I then let the Paladin approach me from above, and I simply stunlock and kill it with Whips & Blade with ease. It's actually faster and better to engage the enemies by letting them fall on me and letting Blade Staff do its job, than "playing it safe" with Crystal darts which once again deal subpar single-target damage.

The Diabolists and other teleporting Dungeon enemies? Don't worry about them at all. You're greatly underestimating these little daggers.

The Tsunami isn't versatile? Ranger is the most versatile class in the entire game, almost every one of its weapons can be used with different kinds of ammo for different situations, and some gain extra effects with Endless Quiver and Endless Musket Pouch. Imagine you're using any bow or repeater, it doesn't have to be Tsunami. Want a good option for lined-up crowds? Use Jester's Arrows. Want decent DPS and a DoT effect against bosses? Use Frostburn or Venom Arrows. Want to annihilate events and enemies underground with smart-bouncing projectiles? Use Chlorophyte Arrows. Want to deal absurd DPS against anything that doesn't move around too much? Use Holy Arrows. Want to apply a powerful debuff that also boosts your other weapons? Use Ichor Arrows. Want to reliably hit targets at long range and potentially save an accessory slot, as well as inflicting a debuff? Use Ichor or Venom Arrows. Want to deal large amounts of knockback and keep enemies off you? Use Hellfire Arrows. Want to endlessly spam projectiles? Use the Endless Quiver.

How come you're saying that the Blade Staff and Sanguine Staff's range isn't an issue when earlier you were saying that if you attack bosses as a ranger they're going to lose aggro and stop attacking?

Why is performance against a Post-Plantera boss the only evidence that pre-mech bosses weapons are better than some other pre-mech bosses weapons? Test them all individually with a pure class build for each weapon, against Queen Slime and the mech bosses.

Desert Tiger Staff does not struggle with hitting flying enemies. As of 1.4.1.2, the Tiger can bounce above flying enemies, mostly staying in the same spot relative the target, dealing consistent damage. And don't call it "crappy grounded minion that can barely do anything at all"!

LoS means line of sight, which both Blade Staff and Sanguine Staff need in order to actively attack enemies.

In that Hardmode Dungeon scenario, would the Paladin just stand there, patiently waiting until you finish off the other two enemies before it attacks? No! If you go around the corner and start attacking the weaker enemies, the Paladin will almost immediately start throwing hammers at you, which you won't be able to dodge in the small space that you'd be in. The hammers hit very hard and at fired at a rapid rate, so you'd be killed very quickly.

Also keep in mind that the method of obtaining a weapon isn't factored into its rank, this tier list is about performance.