In-depth Hardmode weapon tier list

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.
Different kinds of versatilities really. Bows have many options for projectiles that fare better in different situations. Blade/Sanguine provide nearly the same amount of versatility in their own physical form with whips in mind, but as I keep saying, have uses if not whole builds for other classes to use that aren't pure Summoner. Sanguine as a support minion, Blade as an essential piece to Melee Titanium facetank (which is borderline the strongest Pre-mech strategy there is), Sanguine as the other half of your DPS on Forbidden Armor. That's what I mean by Blade/Sanguine having overall "more" versatility.

It depends on playstyle. Simply running away in a straight line and getting as far as possible from the boss off-screen is the most overrated playstyle in the game unless you use a weapon that actually benefits from such strategy, and that's the one playstyle that simply doesn't work with even the best Summon weapons. With Crystal Serpent, Dart Gun/Rifle or Megashark for example it just leads to a bunch of missed shots and you lose DPS (unless you use Clhloro bullets or a mage weapons that actually homes in, but even then if you were to use Forbidden armor the playstyle of fighting at somewhere midrange so you can move in with whips when you're out of mana is way more efficient). It's much more reasonable to fight with the enemies at least slightly on screen where you can actually aim at them, and boss attacks are more than perfectly dodgeable at mid or slightly far range.

Not sure what you're referring to specifically, but I'll assume you refer to me referencing that Dart Rifle takes 87 seconds to take out EoL judging by Qwerty's dps tests. The point I was making is that Dart Gun/Rifle drop off more than you think, to the point it goes from being somewhere around on par with Sanguine/Firecracker against Mechs, to only doing around half of the DPS of Blade Staff w/ Kaleidoscope later on.

I just tested Desert Tiger with a quick EoL, It's actually more consistent against EoL than last time I tried it, so I'll give you that. I wasn't actually calling it a crappy grounded minion, I was thinking of like Spider Staff for example. Its actual DPS against EoL though is lower than I thought, that said. With Spooky or Hallowed armor, hitting EoL with Firecracker constantly simply is not a practical option especially with a "glass cannon" build, and with Obsidian Armor you start to consider if Kaleidoscope with another minion is better than Desert Tiger with Firecracker (I'd bet it is), considering with Obsidian armor triple whip stacking becomes much easier + Desert Tiger doesn't actually hit that rapidly against EoL, so increased Firecracker attack speed won't be that beneficial compared to with Stardust Dragon.

Going back to the Hardmode dungeon scenario. Paladins walk slowly. Blue armored guys or whatever walk way faster than it. I lure the two skeletons to drop down from above and again, Blade staff instantly stunlocks them and keep them in place even while airbone. Paladins won't attack me from up there because I'm still at the lower stage. By the time I finish the skeletons off & any potential dungeon spirits (in like two seconds really), the Paladin is still trying to catch up to me. Then I simply wait until he's almost at the drop off and attack it before it can do anything, stunlocked with no effort. Even if the Paladin were to somehow get one hammer throw off, I just have to hold jump and the hammer will miss. Then I just chill. Blade Staff stunlocks teleporting mages no matter how much they try to imitate DBZ characters, and enemies falling from above are unlikely to ambush & hit me as they get stunlocked airbone too. Bone Lee gets stopped in his track if he tries jumping at me. Dungeon Spirits are instantly stunlocked when they spawn and have no chance of getting a cheap shot at me. Oh, and as an extra, if you happen to have a Lucky Coin, let your daggers hit the Blue armored guys for one damage every hit. Enjoy the $$$.

But yeah, if availability and such aren't taken into account (like I keep forgetting), then either Tsunami & especially Razorblade are SS tier as well or Dart Gun/Rifle should just drop since they are significantly less performing.
 
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It depends on playstyle. Simply running away in a straight line and getting as far as possible from the boss off-screen is the most overrated playstyle in the game unless you use a weapon that actually benefits from such strategy...
I'm loving this discussion, because I was trying to have this very same talk with my brother, back before 1.4's initial launch. He generally reduced Terraria into a generic, running simulator & I couldn't convince him otherwise, because he was getting most of his information about the game from YouTube. I thought setting the difficulty to Expert would change his mind, but it ended up just chasing him away. 😏 🤷‍♂️

This is one of the many reasons why discussions like this are important, because it's easy to assume there's a "best strategy", just because you see a large majority of players using the same methods. Anyhow, I think the fact that-there's even a discussion to be had, is a great reflection of just how much better the game is "balanced" now; so I'm enjoying this!

Not sure what you're referring to specifically, but I'll assume you refer to me referencing that Dart Rifle takes 87 seconds to take out EoL judging by Qwerty's dps tests. The point I was making is that Dart Gun/Rifle drop off more than you think, to the point it goes from being somewhere around on par with Sanguine/Firecracker against Mechs, to only doing around half of the DPS of Blade Staff w/ Kaleidoscope later on.
This is the complexity I was trying to describe about Summoner Class, back when 1.4 went live. The lifespan of Minions isn't the same as other Classes when it comes to Weaponry, they can sometimes fluctuate, depending on the circumstances. Spiders for example, got powercreeped by Blades, but before Blades was a thing, Spiders were ideal for all the situations being discussed now about Blades... & this was back in 1.3.5. So I would never say you're wrong, but... keep in mind that Summoner's effectiveness is now a "kit" & Blades isn't what you describe now without Kaleidoscope.

That's why it's even debatable, because Dart Rifle is Dart Rifle no matter who's using it. It's gonna shred as a Main Weapon, Support Weapon or a Class Alt Weapon, it doesn't care the circumstance, it'll always perform well.

Blade Staff stunlocks teleporting mages no matter how much they try to imitate DBZ characters...
Ignore everything else I said... this was my main reason for replying! This literally had me in tears!! 😂🤣😂🥤
 
To be fair, Spider Staff and hell Summoner as a whole (before post-Plantera) was pretty awful in boss fights in 1.3.5.
 
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.
Terra Blade’s beam is incredibly strong when propped up against other melee weapons up until Pillars. I found that I was more effective running it then almost any other single melee weapon, including key weapons like the Yoyos and the Flairon. Although the beam’s DPS is a fair margin lower than that of, say, Snowman Cannon, it being the strongest melee weapon for several tiers comes with a number of advantages, including being able to utilize Melee’s innate benefit for survivability (Beetle Shell is underrated for untimed battles) and enemy aggro for example. And invasions and dungeons, where Terra Blade shows its face, are by far the most common events post-Plantera and the only places against where it plays significantly below average are Duke and Empress.

Although Sanguine and Blade are viable choices post-Plantera, to be fair, so is Megashark. This doesn’t mean you *should* use it over the number of new options. Tiger can be obtained with an AfK farm, and like Sanguine you do have to make a point to get it but it’s not all that hard to once you do. And then it with Firecracker has about the same effective whip range as Durendal give or take like two blocks, and I imagine you’re using Durendal over Morningstar to optimize Blades. From there, it’s pretty easy to rush down the next tiers: Ravens for events, Tiger for single targets until you get Xeno. Look at how well Blade and Sanguine preform against empress with *pre-empress* whips compared to Tiger or Xeno, also with pre-empress whips. They all did quite a bit better. As for Kaleidoscope, well, that’s like feeding Megashark Luminite Bullets and saying it’s incredibly OP when it pierces. The other minions with Kaleidoscope also did substantially better.

Killing bosses up to Plantera in less than a minute is hardly unique to Blade and Sanguine. Have you ever fed a Megashark Crystal Bullets and used a bow to inflict Ichor against Twins ir Prime, or brought out Death Sickle against Plantera? Or a Chlorophyte Shotbow with Holy Arrows? And Destroyer, well, he’s Destroyer, you can kill him in mere seconds by attacking the coil with anything that can pierce. I am aware that Sanguine and Blade can solve *all* of these battles fast, which is why they deserve S+, but it doesn’t say they deserve SS considering it’s not like they’re better than everything at everything.

Limited range meant whips: you have to crawl into whip range at least every 4 seconds to get this DPS Summoner is known for, preferrably more often. The range of minions on their own is fine. LoS means line of sight. Many minions like Spider and Tiger can attack without line of sight by recasting, but Blade and Sanguine simply refuse to cooperate. The need to minmax wasn’t really the word I was looking for, but I’ll try to explain if. Melee and Ranged weapons, you can just switch to with little loss, but Mage and Summon want you to pay attention to *them*. For these builds to work (and for Summoner to not just be some supporting damage, like it always is), you have to pay attention to them. Capitalize into minions. Wear accessories with minions. Get whips to combine with minions. Capitalize into mana. Get a bunch of accessories to manage mana. Stack mana potions. It’s especially noticeable with Blades, which have such a different playstyle from almost anything else that if you want to run them you really want to pay attention to them.

I think Empress is simply a poor demonstration of Dart Gun’s strengths. Let’s give Empress four hypothetictical Skeletron Prime arms, or a swarm of Plantera’s Tentacles. When using dart guns, they bounce back and forth between the boss and the outside pieces, dealing as much as double or even triple the DPS they would alone. Or imagine Empress were a line of invasion enemies, you could fire over her head with Cursed Darts, and the resulting embers would smother every enemy in the crowd, especially with Dart Pistol’s superior fire rate if you’re willing to bring in alternate world evils. They also have the cornerhitting that has been mentioned earlier, and with their smart bounce and nearby tiles, said cornerhitting also gets the huge boost in DPS. I was never impressed by their ability against a single lone target, I always switched to Megashark, but it’s important to remember that the darts are basically giant gimmicks and once you play off their strengths they *really* show their teeth.

On that note, Sanguine and Blade are *capable* against crowds, but hardly optimal. As minions, they will attack the closest enemy to you without command, or whatever you whipped. This means they have virtually no linear pierce, and when you whip something approaching from another angle, your minions are now distracted. Additionally, whip damage falloff combined with its limited range makes it struggle to compete. This is where, compared to Terra Blade, a bow with Jester Arrows, or Stake Launcher, there’s a noticeable disadvantage. Feed a Titanium Repeater Jester Arrows, you’ll notice how much more effective linear pierce is at taking out the pirates than a frontline focus.
 
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Terra Blade’s beam is incredibly strong when propped up against other melee weapons up until Pillars. I found that I was more effective running it then almost any other single melee weapon, including key weapons like the Yoyos and the Flairon. Although the beam’s DPS is a fair margin lower than that of, say, Snowman Cannon, it being the strongest melee weapon for several tiers comes with a number of advantages, including being able to utilize Melee’s innate benefit for survivability (Beetle Shell is underrated for untimed battles) and enemy aggro for example. And invasions and dungeons, where Terra Blade shows its face, are by far the most common events post-Plantera and the only places against where it plays significantly below average are Duke and Empress.

Although Sanguine and Blade are viable choices post-Plantera, to be fair, so is Megashark. This doesn’t mean you *should* use it over the number of new options. Tiger can be obtained with an AfK farm, and like Sanguine you do have to make a point to get it but it’s not all that hard to once you do. And then it with Firecracker has about the same effective whip range as Durendal give or take like two blocks, and I imagine you’re using Durendal over Morningstar to optimize Blades. From there, it’s pretty easy to rush down the next tiers: Ravens for events, Tiger for single targets until you get Xeno. Look at how well Blade and Sanguine preform against empress with *pre-empress* whips compared to Tiger or Xeno, also with pre-empress whips. They all did quite a bit better. As for Kaleidoscope, well, that’s like feeding Megashark Luminite Bullets and saying it’s incredibly OP when it pierces. The other minions with Kaleidoscope also did substantially better.

Killing bosses up to Plantera in less than a minute is hardly unique to Blade and Sanguine. Have you ever fed a Megashark Crystal Bullets and used a bow to inflict Ichor against Twins ir Prime, or brought out Death Sickle against Plantera? Or a Chlorophyte Shotbow with Holy Arrows? And Destroyer, well, he’s Destroyer, you can kill him in mere seconds by attacking the coil with anything that can pierce. I am aware that Sanguine and Blade can solve *all* of these battles fast, which is why they deserve S+, but it doesn’t say they deserve SS considering it’s not like they’re better than everything at everything.

Limited range meant whips: you have to crawl into whip range at least every 4 seconds to get this DPS Summoner is known for, preferrably more often. The range of minions on their own is fine. LoS means line of sight. Many minions like Spider and Tiger can attack without line of sight by recasting, but Blade and Sanguine simply refuse to cooperate. The need to minmax wasn’t really the word I was looking for, but I’ll try to explain if. Melee and Ranged weapons, you can just switch to with little loss, but Mage and Summon want you to pay attention to *them*. For these builds to work (and for Summoner to not just be some supporting damage, like it always is), you have to pay attention to them. Capitalize into minions. Wear accessories with minions. Get whips to combine with minions. Capitalize into mana. Get a bunch of accessories to manage mana. Stack mana potions. It’s especially noticeable with Blades, which have such a different playstyle from almost anything else that if you want to run them you really want to pay attention to them.

I think Empress is simply a poor demonstration of Dart Gun’s strengths. Let’s give Empress four hypothetictical Skeletron Prime arms, or a swarm of Plantera’s Tentacles. When using dart guns, they bounce back and forth between the boss and the outside pieces, dealing as much as double or even triple the DPS they would alone. Or imagine Empress were a line of invasion enemies, you could fire over her head with Cursed Darts, and the resulting embers would smother every enemy in the crowd, especially with Dart Pistol’s superior fire rate if you’re willing to bring in alternate world evils. They also have the cornerhitting that has been mentioned earlier, and with their smart bounce and nearby tiles, said cornerhitting also gets the huge boost in DPS. I was never impressed by their ability against a single lone target, I always switched to Megashark, but it’s important to remember that the darts are basically giant gimmicks and once you play off their strengths they *really* show their teeth.

On that note, Sanguine and Blade are *capable* against crowds, but hardly optimal. As minions, they will attack the closest enemy to you without command, or whatever you whipped. This means they have virtually no linear pierce, and when you whip something approaching from another angle, your minions are now distracted. Additionally, whip damage falloff combined with its limited range makes it struggle to compete. This is where, compared to Terra Blade, a bow with Jester Arrows, or Stake Launcher, there’s a noticeable disadvantage. Feed a Titanium Repeater Jester Arrows, you’ll notice how much more effective linear pierce is at taking out the pirates than a frontline focus.
I do agree about Terra Blade's strengths, it does deserve S+ more than Dart Gun/Rifle. In fact in the grand scheme of things Melee doesn't have much of a reason to fight EoL considering Star Light doesn't get boosted by whips when I tried it, and is probably worse than Terra Blade for "true melee". Terra Blade and Dart Gun/Rifle don't belong in the same tier, or S+ needs to be more broad.

Sanguine and Blade are way stronger than Megashark. I'm pretty sure Megashark falls off noticeably after Plantera compared to new options in its class, unlike Blade/Sanguine (mainly Blade). Blade has better AI than Tigers or Ravens and is generally WAY more useful in Hardmode Dungeon. And against Daytime Empress, Blade Staff rivals or surpasses Tiger mainly with Hallowed Armor, and is more reliable & consistent than Ravens are with only a slight DPS difference in practice assuming Ravens don't suddenly stop attacking and waste time.

You named a bunch of options but provided zero DPS numbers, kill times or footage. How many of those option shred Expert Plantera in under half a minute with balanced or defensive gears? Additionally, if we're gonna compare Megashark to the two summon weapons against the remaining mech bosses, you would have Durendal at this point, which is a very significant DPS increase (especially for Blade Staff). Sanguine Staff deals around 1000-1500 DPS against Twins/Prime with pre-mech gears. For Blade Staff, it's around 775-1050. Against Plantera, both Sanguine & Blade deal around 1550-2100 DPS with Spider Armor. So to make it simple, Durendal adds around 550 DPS to Sanguine/Firecracker, and adds around 800 DPS to the Blade Staff. How do Ranger's options fare in comparison? The closest I saw was someone with an offensive Ranger set that involved mixing armors, and even then Shotbow with Holy Arrows killed Master Plantera in 42 seconds, I believe in Expert that translates to over 30 seconds still, which is at best on par and likely slower than Full Warding Hallowed Armor Blade Staff, at 31 seconds. Pre-Plantera weapon with an offensive Lucky/Menacing set struggles to rival a Pre-mech weapon with a defensive Warding set in term of boss damage.

Twins, Prime and Plantera are some of the easiest bosses in the game to use whips on, conveniently. Twins are always close to you unless you're blatantly running away at max speed with Unicorn mount or something like that, and Firecracker has just enough range to hit Spazmatism consistently. Prime literally moves toward you smoothly and predictably, very easy target for whips. Plantera is just really easy to hit in general, Phase 1 especially you can just circle around her even at close range. And then after Plantera, the range of new whips is significantly longer, so they are easier to use than ever at that point! Only if you use Firecracker or try to triple stack with Durendal against Empress that you might run into a problem. But even then, there's always Obsidian Armor which makes whips foolproof to use.

LoS is honestly not a significant concern at all. You turn around a wall or something and a mob tries to attack you by surprise. Blade staff simply instantly respond and stunlock the enemy, not that you can't already see it coming anyway. I usually find a somewhat open area in the hardmode dungeon and drink a battle potion there, so said issue is even less relevant to me. I've heard of Desert Tiger being able to clean mobs by spamming recasting which looks pretty darn good though.

The way you're describing it, what I'm seeing is Forbidden Armor being versatile and micro-heavy. The point of the hybrid armor is to combined the two classes to an extent rather than using one class at its full potency. I see it as a sidegrade for Summoners, and 100% an upgrade for Mages if they can handle a bit of micro'ing. Pre-mech and Pre-Plantera, you'll have 1-2 of each classes' accessories. So you still have like 2-3 slots left for boots, wings and dash. Or, this looks like a great opportunity to rock the Queen Slime mount.

The thing with Dart Gun/Rifle is that even as soon as Plantera I noticed it not really "shredding" her, at least the damage was much lower than Blade/Sanguine. Dart Gun/Rifle falls off like the majority of weapons do to a lesser extent, it's not that special at longevity like Blade/Sanguine are.

I've already acknowledged that Cursed Darts have an advantage in Pirate Invasion, my focus is on Underground & Hardmode Dungeon which we already went over, and are honestly more important as a whole. Even then as I already explained, Whips and Sanguine/Blade Staff shred crowds. Whips kill groups of weaker enemies, while Blade/Sanguine burst down tougher targets (Pirate Captains) very quickly. Really, we need to remember the entire surface strength of Summoner in the first place: Excelling against random mobs because of minions that automatically hunt down and kill enemies.
 
I do agree about Terra Blade's strengths, it does deserve S+ more than Dart Gun/Rifle. In fact in the grand scheme of things Melee doesn't have much of a reason to fight EoL considering Star Light doesn't get boosted by whips when I tried it, and is probably worse than Terra Blade for "true melee". Terra Blade and Dart Gun/Rifle don't belong in the same tier, or S+ needs to be more broad.

Sanguine and Blade are way stronger than Megashark. I'm pretty sure Megashark falls off noticeably after Plantera compared to new options in its class, unlike Blade/Sanguine (mainly Blade). Blade has better AI than Tigers or Ravens and is generally WAY more useful in Hardmode Dungeon. And against Daytime Empress, Blade Staff rivals or surpasses Tiger mainly with Hallowed Armor, and is more reliable & consistent than Ravens are with only a slight DPS difference in practice assuming Ravens don't suddenly stop attacking and waste time.

You named a bunch of options but provided zero DPS numbers, kill times or footage. How many of those option shred Expert Plantera in under half a minute with balanced or defensive gears? Additionally, if we're gonna compare Megashark to the two summon weapons against the remaining mech bosses, you would have Durendal at this point, which is a very significant DPS increase (especially for Blade Staff). Sanguine Staff deals around 1000-1500 DPS against Twins/Prime with pre-mech gears. For Blade Staff, it's around 775-1050. Against Plantera, both Sanguine & Blade deal around 1550-2100 DPS with Spider Armor. So to make it simple, Durendal adds around 550 DPS to Sanguine/Firecracker, and adds around 800 DPS to the Blade Staff. How do Ranger's options fare in comparison? The closest I saw was someone with an offensive Ranger set that involved mixing armors, and even then Shotbow with Holy Arrows killed Master Plantera in 42 seconds, I believe in Expert that translates to over 30 seconds still, which is at best on par and likely slower than Full Warding Hallowed Armor Blade Staff, at 31 seconds. Pre-Plantera weapon with an offensive Lucky/Menacing set struggles to rival a Pre-mech weapon with a defensive Warding set in term of boss damage.

Twins, Prime and Plantera are some of the easiest bosses in the game to use whips on, conveniently. Twins are always close to you unless you're blatantly running away at max speed with Unicorn mount or something like that, and Firecracker has just enough range to hit Spazmatism consistently. Prime literally moves toward you smoothly and predictably, very easy target for whips. Plantera is just really easy to hit in general, Phase 1 especially you can just circle around her even at close range. And then after Plantera, the range of new whips is significantly longer, so they are easier to use than ever at that point! Only if you use Firecracker or try to triple stack with Durendal against Empress that you might run into a problem. But even then, there's always Obsidian Armor which makes whips foolproof to use.

LoS is honestly not a significant concern at all. You turn around a wall or something and a mob tries to attack you by surprise. Blade staff simply instantly respond and stunlock the enemy, not that you can't already see it coming anyway. I usually find a somewhat open area in the hardmode dungeon and drink a battle potion there, so said issue is even less relevant to me. I've heard of Desert Tiger being able to clean mobs by spamming recasting which looks pretty darn good though.

The way you're describing it, what I'm seeing is Forbidden Armor being versatile and micro-heavy. The point of the hybrid armor is to combined the two classes to an extent rather than using one class at its full potency. I see it as a sidegrade for Summoners, and 100% an upgrade for Mages if they can handle a bit of micro'ing. Pre-mech and Pre-Plantera, you'll have 1-2 of each classes' accessories. So you still have like 2-3 slots left for boots, wings and dash. Or, this looks like a great opportunity to rock the Queen Slime mount.

The thing with Dart Gun/Rifle is that even as soon as Plantera I noticed it not really "shredding" her, at least the damage was much lower than Blade/Sanguine. Dart Gun/Rifle falls off like the majority of weapons do to a lesser extent, it's not that special at longevity like Blade/Sanguine are.

I've already acknowledged that Cursed Darts have an advantage in Pirate Invasion, my focus is on Underground & Hardmode Dungeon which we already went over, and are honestly more important as a whole. Even then as I already explained, Whips and Sanguine/Blade Staff shred crowds. Whips kill groups of weaker enemies, while Blade/Sanguine burst down tougher targets (Pirate Captains) very quickly. Really, we need to remember the entire surface strength of Summoner in the first place: Excelling against random mobs because of minions that automatically hunt down and kill enemies.
Empress doesn't only drop weapons. She drops one of the best pairs of wings in the game, and in Expert and Master Modes a pretty useful accessory for wing flight.

Have you even tested the Desert Tiger or Ravens in the Hardmode Dungeon? And I'd argue that the Blade Staff is objectively worse in almost every way to the Desert Tiger Staff.

How long does it take to kill these early Hardmode bosses with the Dart guns? After all, that's what this whole discussion is about. And in my experience, the Chlorophyte Shotbow with Ichor Arrows shredded Master Mode Plantera in less than 20 seconds.

Maybe whips and those staffs shred crowds, but faster than linear piercing? I don't think so.

Overall I feel like you have barely tested any other weapons on anything and are just making baseless assumptions about other weapons' performance and are only testing Blade/Sanguine's kill times.
 
This is all very interesting because somehow, I agree with you both! I can vouch for the Dart Guns, because I've been runnin' them for longer than I can remember, & though Summoner is my favorite Class, I normally prefer a hybrid-build over a dedicated, pure Summoner Class. That being the case, it would be great to flesh-out the tiers if it really is necessary, because if there truly is a Weapon that stands out above all others, we need to just say that! 😏 🤷‍♂️

In Dart Rifles case, specifically... I can vouch for the Weapon because it can't help but stand out in too many major events in the game.
  1. Pirates, which we all agree on (pretty much anything pre-Mech).
  2. All three Mechs, of course, though Daedalus Stormbow is a common choice.
  3. Old One's Army (Tier 2), which is where I personally believe the Weapon reaches it's peak.
  4. Upgrade to Chlorophyte tier, or anything else equivalent...
...because admittedly after that... I don't think it desirable enough to take into the Plantera fight, I'd rather go in with a generic Chlorophyte Repeater.

On the other hand, considering how my first 1.4 playthrough went, I never stopped using Blades Staff, until I ran into a wall with Tier 3 Betsy. Considering the fact that both Weapons were attainable around the same point in progression back then, with of course, Blades progression position being moved (Queen Slime), I can only suspect it had to do with balancing issues. 🤔 🥤

Honestly, it's a tough call for me. Even after Plantera, Blades are still useful in some circumstances, but with Golem & Cultist being so easy to exploit, there's no reason to consider them "obstacles", & at that point I'd just go for Stardust Cells. I'm loving all of this by the way, everyone is making such great cases for these Weapons!
 
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.
Keep in mind this is what your comparing whips too...

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The entire left half of the screen and some area offscreen gets completely distrupted, not even with obsidian armor can whips match that. If you need more single target dps then you can aim the darts directly at something, direct hits with cursed darts always hit at least twice.

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.
Remeber we're specificly talking about whips, In this scenario I'd rather use a life drain + sanguine bats. Since fire cracker is dependent on its tag the life drain will be doing more damage and distrupts a larger area. Also life drain doesn't auto re target, so if I see a pirate captian in the distance I can send my bats to attack it (and prevent the captain from shooting me) without worrying about them retargetting when I attack something else.

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.
That's a fairly open area of the dungeon, with how many times that guy teleported he would have taken an escape if was available. In an open area like that diabolists aren't really an issue, any weapon could have dealt with that.

However if you're in a less open area of the dungeon the diabolist can teleport somewhere out of LoS, like in my palladin with winding hall example. If one of those smaller enemies were a diabolist it would be able to teleport to different floors when you attacked it. With crystal darts I keep the whole winding hallway fiilled

As for the 'subpar single target damage' of crystal darts, most enemies in the hardmode dungeon are fairly weak, being able to cover more ground outweighs the single target dps, in the occasion you come across a pallidin you can switch to a single target weapon once all his friend are dead, then resume the dart spam.
 
Here's my weird way of thinking... & please ignore me if it's not helpful to the discussion! Where does the community generally rank Hollowed Armor, among the other Hardmode Armors in the game??

Here's why I ask, when 1.4 was still being tweaked & balanced, I made the assumption that Queen Slime was about equal in tier to the Mech Bosses (sort of an alt progression path). The only issue at the time was her subpar loot-pool. Some items were pretty decent, but items like Crystal Assassin Set & Volatile Gelatin were highly questionable.

What I suspect makes this stamp official, with the Bosses being mirrors to each other (aside from Crystal Assassin Set being better now), is Blades Staff! If it can be argued that both the Blades Staff & Hollowed Armor Sets are about equal in their transcendent usefulness... seeing as how Empress seems to be the definitive Boss for this kinda information... I think we can come to an agreeable conclusion!

Again though, if none of what I'm saying makes any sense, please ignore. I'm enjoying everyone's thoughts on the matter, waaay too much to distract from the conversation, if it's not worth considering. 🙏😅
 
Here's my weird way of thinking... & please ignore me if it's not helpful to the discussion! Where does the community generally rank Hollowed Armor, among the other Hardmode Armors in the game??
Short Answer: Thanks to Shadow Dodge, Titanium Armor was already considered viable all the way up to and including Moon Lord, and now it's on an armor set with better base stats.

Long Answer: Holy Protection is 100% damage reduction every 30 seconds. How does this compare to other defensive items? If the average enemy attack deals roughly 100 damage then Holy Protection is the equivalent of getting roughly 100 health every 30 seconds.

This is equivalent to 3,33 health per second, the same as a Super Healing Potion. And the more damage enemies deal, the better it gets. At 150 damage it's better than Valhalla Knight's Chestplate (4 hp/s); at 240 damage (what a Pillar enemy tends to deal on Master) it's 8hp/s, same as the old Pre-Nerf Valhalla Chest, and so on.

It's also by far the most reliable and efficient way of surviving a hit from the Empress of Light at Daytime. So yeah the only real downside this has is that it sometimes gets "wasted" by a weak attack, but let's be real that doesn't really happen often.
 
Empress doesn't only drop weapons. She drops one of the best pairs of wings in the game, and in Expert and Master Modes a pretty useful accessory for wing flight.

Have you even tested the Desert Tiger or Ravens in the Hardmode Dungeon? And I'd argue that the Blade Staff is objectively worse in almost every way to the Desert Tiger Staff.

How long does it take to kill these early Hardmode bosses with the Dart guns? After all, that's what this whole discussion is about. And in my experience, the Chlorophyte Shotbow with Ichor Arrows shredded Master Mode Plantera in less than 20 seconds.

Maybe whips and those staffs shred crowds, but faster than linear piercing? I don't think so.

Overall I feel like you have barely tested any other weapons on anything and are just making baseless assumptions about other weapons' performance and are only testing Blade/Sanguine's kill times.
That's correct, but personally I prefer settling for Fishron wings since he's easier & shorter to fight, not to mention I find Truffle Worms easier to gather. And when it comes to Melee, I don't worry too much about mobility since I'm a tank.

Never tried Desert Tiger in a playthrough because Desert Key being hard to obtain. I'd assume you can recast it and it can clean enemies on screen very nicely, in that case yes it's a very good alternative to Blade Staff in Hardmode Dungeon, though Blade Staff is still better defensively. Ravens though? I don't see anything about ravens. They contribute nothing in Hardmode Dungeon compared to Blade Staff. If anything they are unreliable at close-quarter. Sanguine has better AI and even then they are less reliable than Blade Staff in Hardmode Dungeon. I've gone in-depth about this in my video.

Chlorophyte Shotbow with Ichor Arrows killing master mode Plantera in under 20 seconds? This seem EXTREMELY absurd and I don't believe it one bit, please post footage of that.

Keep in mind this is what your comparing whips too...

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The entire left half of the screen and some area offscreen gets completely distrupted, not even with obsidian armor can whips match that. If you need more single target dps then you can aim the darts directly at something, direct hits with cursed darts always hit at least twice.


Remeber we're specificly talking about whips, In this scenario I'd rather use a life drain + sanguine bats. Since fire cracker is dependent on its tag the life drain will be doing more damage and distrupts a larger area. Also life drain doesn't auto re target, so if I see a pirate captian in the distance I can send my bats to attack it (and prevent the captain from shooting me) without worrying about them retargetting when I attack something else.


That's a fairly open area of the dungeon, with how many times that guy teleported he would have taken an escape if was available. In an open area like that diabolists aren't really an issue, any weapon could have dealt with that.

However if you're in a less open area of the dungeon the diabolist can teleport somewhere out of LoS, like in my palladin with winding hall example. If one of those smaller enemies were a diabolist it would be able to teleport to different floors when you attacked it. With crystal darts I keep the whole winding hallway fiilled

As for the 'subpar single target damage' of crystal darts, most enemies in the hardmode dungeon are fairly weak, being able to cover more ground outweighs the single target dps, in the occasion you come across a pallidin you can switch to a single target weapon once all his friend are dead, then resume the dart spam.
I don't think you realize how much you underestimate Summoner crowd control & overestimate the impact of "Drop off". No, really.

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Yes, once again, Cursed Darts are safer against pirates specifically. But I'm getting real tired of pretending whips don't overwhelmingly melt enemy groups no matter how many, and that "Drop Off" is something that anyone should care about in practice. This is with Pre-Hardmode whips by the way. Imagine if I had Durendal.

So you aren't satisfied with my evidence of the Diabolist getting stunlocked? Look at 10:24 in the same video then, doing the same to the purple mage in a somewhat more closed spaces. "Any weapon could have dealt with that"? How many weapons can outright Stunlock Diabolists automatically like that? It feels like you can't accept that Blade Staff more than "passed" your "scenario" test/trial, and now you're trying to nitpick smaller situations where a Blade Staff user would maybe need to press one key or two on their keyboard to solve it.

Hardmode dungeon enemies are weak? Teleporting mages are some of the most annoying if not dangerous enemies in the game. Skeleton Snipers can hit you from far away, dealing 320 damage in Expert. Excluding the "Mace" variant, Blue Armored bones have 1000+ HP, 50 Defense and high knockback resistance. Hell/Rusty Armored Bones are the same, just slightly weaker. Bone Lees have 2000 HP, 180 contact damage and can move very fast. Cursed skulls can inflict the Cursed debuff. Hardmode Dungeon in general is the most dangerous non-event/invasion scenario in the entire game. And, unless your "single target weapon" of choice is Tsunami or something, it's not going to kill Paladins as fast as Blade Staff.
 
So you aren't satisfied with my evidence of the Diabolist getting stunlocked? Look at 10:24 in the same video then, doing the same to the purple mage in a somewhat more closed spaces. "Any weapon could have dealt with that"? How many weapons can outright Stunlock Diabolists automatically like that? It feels like you can't accept that Blade Staff more than "passed" your "scenario" test/trial, and now you're trying to nitpick smaller situations where a Blade Staff user would maybe need to press one key or two on their keyboard to solve it.
For stunlocking in HM Dungeon, I personally find Blades + Scourge of the Corruptor > Blades + Whip (Durendal + Spinal tap/Mourning star)
Yes, blades lose tag dmg, but the Scourge still inflicts Ichor + sharpened, and deals about the same DPS as pure whip (if less than ~5 enemies, which, realistically, almost always the case)

Desert Tiger + Spam-pounce is good indeed, but not in terms of stunlocking, it just hits hard and attacks through blocks

Edit: as for other stunlock options, idk, shotbow+ chlorophyte arrows are worse than blades, dart pistol + crystal is worse, but safer (agree with the line of sight argument)
 
Yes, once again, Cursed Darts are safer against pirates specifically. But I'm getting real tired of pretending whips don't overwhelmingly melt enemy groups no matter how many, and that "Drop Off" is something that anyone should care about in practice. This is with Pre-Hardmode whips by the way. Imagine if I had Durendal.
I think you missunderstand me, I'm not trying to say that "summoner is bad at crowd control". I'm being nitpicky because you're trying to argue its better than cursed darts.
Using sanguine bats for crowd control is fine too, but adding firecracker for crowd control doesn't add many advantage that other weapons can do.

So you aren't satisfied with my evidence of the Diabolist getting stunlocked? Look at 10:24 in the same video then, doing the same to the purple mage in a somewhat more closed spaces. "Any weapon could have dealt with that"? How many weapons can outright Stunlock Diabolists automatically like that? It feels like you can't accept that Blade Staff more than "passed" your "scenario" test/trial, and now you're trying to nitpick smaller situations where a Blade Staff user would maybe need to press one key or two on their keyboard to solve it.
ok... now that is actually fairly impressive. I need to try out blades again.

Hardmode dungeon enemies are weak? Teleporting mages are some of the most annoying if not dangerous enemies in the game. Skeleton Snipers can hit you from far away, dealing 320 damage in Expert. Excluding the "Mace" variant, Blue Armored bones have 1000+ HP, 50 Defense and high knockback resistance. Hell/Rusty Armored Bones are the same, just slightly weaker. Bone Lees have 2000 HP, 180 contact damage and can move very fast. Cursed skulls can inflict the Cursed debuff. Hardmode Dungeon in general is the most dangerous non-event/invasion scenario in the entire game. And, unless your "single target weapon" of choice is Tsunami or something, it's not going to kill Paladins as fast as Blade Staff.
All those projectile enemies get distrupted by the flood of crystal darts and so never get a chance to fire thier attacks. Switching to a stronger weapon to kill the paladin faster is optional as he'll never get the chance to throw hammers. Try using crystal darts to keep the dungeon distrupted then switch to your whip when you want to deal with something up close.
 
I think you missunderstand me, I'm not trying to say that "summoner is bad at crowd control". I'm being nitpicky because you're trying to argue its better than cursed darts.
Using sanguine bats for crowd control is fine too, but adding firecracker for crowd control doesn't add many advantage that other weapons can do.


ok... now that is actually fairly impressive. I need to try out blades again.


All those projectile enemies get distrupted by the flood of crystal darts and so never get a chance to fire thier attacks. Switching to a stronger weapon to kill the paladin faster is optional as he'll never get the chance to throw hammers. Try using crystal darts to keep the dungeon distrupted then switch to your whip when you want to deal with something up close.
The thing is that I brought up Underground & Dungeon as my main examples of crowd control, while you brought up Pirate invasion (which is a smaller and least important part arguably).

Blade Staff can achieve just about the same, except it's automatic, you don't need to worry about ammo, the damage is higher against single target enemies and they'll stop and stunlock blue armored bones in place, while crystal darts may struggle to stop an incoming fighter AI on your face.
 
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So, what my tier list is looking like, after 50 hrs of testing
Only decent weapons, B and higher
Deadly sphere and Tempest staves are biased, I just like them. Performance-wise, they are definitely in C tier

Edit: some of them are not here (like Venus Magnum), since I am torn between B and C for that
 
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So, what my tier list is looking like, after 50 hrs of testing
Only decent weapons, B and higher
Deadly sphere and Tempest staves are biased, I just like them. Performancewise, they are definitely in C tier
I think you should look at boomstick again, this is a pre boss weapon that gets over 100dps easy. Minishark is in a similar boat although not quite as strong. they both have way more dps than almost every weapon at their tier.

Thorn chkaram being in A+ seems too high, I've used this thing and it feels like the definition of a B tier weapon, decent dps but comes with a weakness, whhenever you miss you're often left without it for a bit. It's also dependent on the feral claws. I'd rather use an amazon it has about the same range and comparable dps but is more accurate.

I think you're underestimating pre hardmode flails, they have high base damage and knockback, they kill common enemies with 0 issues. I also found the meatball to be a decent weapon against queeen bee, she has a large hitbox and the flail has just enough range to where it can get multiple hits per throw, the spin attack also neutralizes the bees.
It does not work too well against skeletron though.
Also I don't think the small damage difference between blue moon and sunfury is enough to put them in seperate tier. Same with meatball and ball o hurt.

Snowball launcher should be moved to S tier, this is an early game automatic firing gun. It also has high knockback and the ammo is dirt cheap. Once you get this thing nothing that isn't immune to knockback is touching you. On top of that its dps was good enough to where I kill skeletron with it once, it's not boomstick dps but boomstick is also harder to get.
 
Venus Magnum I'd say goes in B since it's theoretically really good, it just wrecks your finger.

+1 to flails being incredible in prehardmode. They're not great for most bosses (except Eater and Brain), but they tear through regular enemies and events. With the spinning attack you become virtually untouchable by anything that isn't knockback immune.

Also Zenith should just go in its own tier tbh, since the number of weapons it doesn't render completely obsolete can be counted on one hand. And most of those are support weapons like minions.
 
I think you should look at boomstick again, this is a pre boss weapon that gets over 100dps easy. Minishark is in a similar boat although not quite as strong. they both have way more dps than almost every weapon at their tier.

Thorn chkaram being in A+ seems too high, I've used this thing and it feels like the definition of a B tier weapon, decent dps but comes with a weakness, whhenever you miss you're often left without it for a bit. It's also dependent on the feral claws. I'd rather use an amazon it has about the same range and comparable dps but is more accurate.

I think you're underestimating pre hardmode flails, they have high base damage and knockback, they kill common enemies with 0 issues. I also found the meatball to be a decent weapon against queeen bee, she has a large hitbox and the flail has just enough range to where it can get multiple hits per throw, the spin attack also neutralizes the bees.
It does not work too well against skeletron though.
Also I don't think the small damage difference between blue moon and sunfury is enough to put them in seperate tier. Same with meatball and ball o hurt.

Snowball launcher should be moved to S tier, this is an early game automatic firing gun. It also has high knockback and the ammo is dirt cheap. Once you get this thing nothing that isn't immune to knockback is touching you. On top of that its dps was good enough to where I kill skeletron with it once, it's not boomstick dps but boomstick is also harder to get.
Can agree that thorn chakram is a bit too high, the initial logic was "almost like the Flamarang but pre-boss, so A + 1 subtier
Maybe I should nerf it too, will definitely retest in separate pre-HM world (as well as flails)

As for ranged weapons, snowball launcher has been already buffed to A+, don't think it is S though, no ammo versatility and does not emit light, which is useful in early exploration

Well, thats offtopic in fact, here we are considering HM-only
I want to do a similar pre-HM list, but too lazy)

And speaking of "SS" tier, the only weapon there are Vampire Knives. As a weapon itself , indeed, far from ideal, but that sheer variety of combos and overall usefulness of that thing... I mean the concept is insane
Technically, they are the most excessively nerfed weapon in the whole Terraria history.
1000 base DPS nerfed to ~550, and 30hp/s lifesteal cap instead of an unlimited one
Imagine now, with 3500 DPS instead of 2000 and no steal cap. 350 hp/s of healing, goddamn
They share this fearure with the Spectre Armor, but it is different a bit (though far better than the Nebula and a strong contender to be the best armor too)
 
As for ranged weapons, snowball launcher has been already buffed to A+, don't think it is S though, no ammo versatility and does not emit light, which is useful in early exploration
I can vouch for Snowball Cannon beinf S. It has great DPS for a preboss weapon, which mind you can be obtained in the easiest non-default biome to survive in, and has both autofire and a disruptive fire rate. Ammo variety hardly applies pre-boss when your choice is bullet or rarer bullet with more damage, or arrow with debuff vs arrow with pierce.

DPS-wise it’s comparable to a Platinum Bow with frostburn, but it’ll always be a little higher thanks to autofire meaning it always operates at peak preformance, and is also significantly more disruptive single target than Platinum Bow. And considering the ammo is even cheaper than Frostburn, that’s another point in favor of it.

For its wide number of strengths and being one of the most capable pre-boss weapons that doesn’t require entering dangerous environments, and its autofire+fire rate allowing it to last as a disruptor until Megashark, S tier is fine for it.
 
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