Like the other threads about using different weapons to fight bosses, this one is about testing all the weapons from one segment of the game against a standard boss. There's already a late pre-hardmode thread, an early pre-hardmode thread, and a late hardmode thread, so I thought I'd do an early pre-hardmode thread.
I wanted to simulate the standard King Slime experience as much as possible, so I had crappy equipment.
All fights were in Journey mode at the Expert Mode level with 400 health and 200 mana.
*Weapons with a star by the number indicate that the item used is from a difficult region that most players will not explore in-depth before a boss.
Melee
The only class where I died in different attempts, and the only class without a specialized pre-boss armor (unless you count the Gladiator set).
Tried Unsuccessfully (see True Melee below):
Gladius, Candy Cane Sword, Katana, Platinum Broadsword, Mandible Blade, Falcon Blade. These weapons had trouble aiming closely at King Slime and/or reaching the hitbox without getting hit ourselves. I died quite a few times with these.
*1. Thorn Chakram: 71 seconds. All the boomerangs do better if you stay close; I like to run on a platform above and shoot this down. Also not terrible against Skeletron.
*2. Star Fury: 72 seconds. I usually avoid using this before the dungeon because it makes all the boss fights too easy. Great weapon, all the way up to Wall of Flesh.
*3. Ball of Hurt: 81 seconds.
*4. Amazon: 84 seconds. This one can stay out longer than the other yoyos, making the fight a bit easier.
*5. Fruitcake Chakram: 101 seconds. Difficult to obtain due to its seasonal status, which is why I've given it an asterisk.
6. Enchanted Boomerang: 106 seconds. A little less good than the others at dealing with stray slimes, so a bit more dangerous to use, especially since getting a low time depends on coming in close and bouncing it off the slime a lot.
7. Swordfish: 108 seconds.
8. Trident: 109 seconds. I'm not sure why these times are so similar. My guess is that the trident had longer range and got more hits in despite its low damage.
*9. Rotted Fork: 115 seconds. Long reach definitely helps here.
10. Rally: 119 seconds. Good if you can get it.
11. Storm Spear: 120 seconds. Great balance of safety and damage. Can be more risky and get hits in up close or keep your distance and chip away with the bolt, which does 1.5x damage. This is my favorite melee weapon for King Slime and Eye of Cthulhu.
*12. Blade of Grass: 135 The only broadsword I survived with due to its immense length and damage. Still not strong enough to facetank, but fun and risky. A good strategy is to stand underneath the first two hops, dodge the third, and reposition during fourth.
13. Flaming Mace: 137 seconds. King Slime is one of the few bosses where the On Fire! debuff actually does some good work.
14. Enchanted Sword: 139 seconds (beam only).
*15. Bloody Machete: 150 seconds. A Halloween boomerang.
16. Purple Clubberfish: 153 seconds. Great range and damage, but all broadswords are pretty bad.
17. Chain Knife: 180 seconds.
18. Ice Blade: 195 seconds (beam only).
19. Wooden Yoyo: 230 seconds
20. Spear: 247 seconds
21. Wooden Boomerang: 259 seconds.
22. Platinum Shortsword: 282 seconds. I wouldn't have thought this was possible if I hadn't seen Gungnir beat King Slime with a shortsword in his 'random weapons' playthrough.
Ranged
All guns used silver bullets. Ranged is definitely king in this fight, with summoning close behind.
*1. Sandgun: 46 seconds. Very messy, but the fight is short enough that you won't use too much sand. Be careful using platforms as sand won't go through them.
2. Molotov Cocktail: 52 seconds. Absolutely fun to use, but requires you to find Pinky.
*3. Minishark: 54 seconds. Keep in mind this is with silver bullets and a sharktooth necklace.
*4. Boomstick: 54 seconds. Maximum damage requires getting close.
5. Blood Rain Bow: 56 seconds (Jester's Arrows). All arrows are converted to blood streams, so only damage matters. Essentially a pre-hardmode Daedalus Stormbow.
6. Grenades: 60 seconds. A classic early boss weapon.
*7. Harpoon: Aggressive: 68 seconds, Safe: 133 seconds. This weapon performs much better if used at point-blank range.
*8. Spiky Balls: 71 seconds.
9. Bone Javelin: 75 seconds. Combines easy accessibility (just need desert fossil + extractinator or killing tomb crawlers), high damage and low cost. My go-to ranged option for King Slime and Eye of Cthulhu, especially since the bleeding debuff lingers.
*10. Musket: 77 seconds.
11. Bone throwing knives: 77 seconds. I think this only outperforms the poisoned knives because the aiming is a bit easier.
*12. Revolver: 80 seconds.
13. Paintball gun: 80 seconds. No ammo needed.
14. Poisoned Knife: 90 seconds.
15. Snowball Cannon: 100 seconds.
16. Platinum bow, Frostburn arrows: 104 seconds
17. Platinum bow, Jester's arrows: 105 seconds. I don't know why these two are so close and the wooden bow are so different; I even reran the wooden bow tests. I think the frostburn effect matters a lot more with the low damage of the wooden bow.
*18. The Undertaker: 108 seconds.
*19. Flintlock Pistol: 109 seconds.
*20. Red Ryder: 116 seconds.
21. Javelin: 127 seconds. These go pretty far and pierce.
22. Rotten Eggs: 127 seconds.
*23. Blowpipe with poison darts: 134 seconds. Poison darts are some of the easiest things to get from the jungle, but this still does pretty bad.
24. Shuriken: 136 seconds.
25. Wooden bow, frostburn arrows: 149 seconds. Frostburn alone contributed a lot of the damage in this fight. 8 damage a second over 150 seconds is 1200 damage (out of 2800), but it wasn't up the entire time.
26. Wooden bow, Jester's arrows: 192 seconds.
27. Snowballs (thrown by hand): 208 seconds.
Magic
There are surprisingly few magic weapons available in early hardmode. I used the Wand of Sparking and Thunder Zapper as stand-ins for the weaker gem staves.
No mana potions or mana accessories were used, so star pickup from killed slimes was the only way to replenish mana. Fortunately, there are a lot of dead slimes.
1. Gray Zapinator: 36 seconds. Extremely variable weapon, also extremely rare.
*2. Crimson Rod: 90 seconds. Never thought of using this as a main bossing weapon, but it's not bad.
3. Diamond staff: 94 seconds.
*4. Vilethorn: 126 seconds. Kind of a mana hog.
5. Wand of Sparking: 145 seconds.
6. Thunder Zapper: 170 seconds: I love the underground desert and it's loot, and have tried to convince people how good it all is: bone javelins, amber staff, bast statues, magic conch, storm spear. I was hoping this weapon would do well but it is just plain bad for this boss.
Summoning:
Again, these results were obtained with 2 summons total using the Flinx Fur Coat. Ironically, these have the worst time with the extra slimes since the Flinx minion I used for other classes wasn't focused on the boss, so it took care of the spawned slimes. The whip forces them to ignore the other slimes, leaving a big clump of leftover slimes at the end.
*1. Vampire Frogs, Snapthorn: 48 seconds. In every one of these boss threads, summoners have done very well. This requires three advantages, though: a difficult-to-obtain summon, a sequence-breaking whip, and a specialized armor set the other classes didn't get in these matchups. See below for more details on armor sets, though.
*2. Flinx Staff, Snapthorn: 57 seconds.
3. Vampire Frogs, Leather Whip: 71 seconds.
4. Flinx Staff, leather whip: 84 seconds.
5. Finch Staff, Snapthorn: 86 seconds. Snapthorn's longer reach keeps it safer than the leather whip, and it deals with leftover slimes better.
6. Finch Staff, leather whip: 149 seconds.
Giving good armor sets to other classes:
Summoning gets an unfair advantage by getting its best armor. Melee is kind of stuck with what it has, but the other classes have more options.
Mage with Jungle Armor:
Diamond Staff: 65 seconds
Thunder Zapper: 104 seconds. Thunder Zapper runs out of mana fast, so it benefits a lot.
Ranged with Fossil Armor:
Minishark: 43 seconds. Hopping into a chasm with a a few bombs and then grabbing an extracinator and some desert fossils is all you need for this powerful combo. The Sandgun is even faster (the best thing on this list besides the ultra-rare gray zapinator), but messy.
Having pity on true melee:
Just to test the true melee weapons that didn't do damage fast enough to keep me alive, I tried using Ironskin potion, a Bast Statue, and Warding on all 5 accessories for a total defense of around 54.
All of these are very dangerous.
1.Falcon Blade: 112 seconds
2. Bladed glove: 162 seconds
3. Cactus sword: 312 seconds
4. Umbrella: 328 seconds
5. Copper Shortsword: 335 seconds
The Flinx staff did most of the damage in the last 3 fights. The Bladed Glove required facetanking interrupted by healing. Unsurprisingly, the Copper Shortsword was objectively the worst weapon I tested. I assume the broken wooden hammer would be worse, but literally everyone has access to the copper shortswords at this stage.
I wanted to simulate the standard King Slime experience as much as possible, so I had crappy equipment.
Armor: Platinum for everyone except summoner, who had the Flinx Fur Coat. I tested a couple of weapons with Fossil Armor and Jungle Armor to see how much armor effects things. The reason summoner is different is because playing summoner without using the Flinx Fur Coat is essentially the same as not playing summoner at all.
Minions: Flinx staff. This partially balances out summoners getting better armor. Also, I personally always grind for a summon before fighting any bosses, and it's in the Platinum tier and Ice tier, both of which are pre-boss.
Accessories used: Dunerider boots (no sand used), shackle, blizzard in a bottle, ring of regeneration, sharktooth necklace (the best accessory used). No modifiers.
Potions used: Just the simplest healing potion. Potion farming is tedious this early on. Ironskin is absolutely doable, but many beginning players won't be using it.
No modifiers were used on any weapon, as King Slime should be fightable before the Tinkerer arrives. I did include weapons from the Goblin Army, Jungle, Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts and Sky Islands as weapons that are possible at this stage. I did not include Demon Scythe.
Minions: Flinx staff. This partially balances out summoners getting better armor. Also, I personally always grind for a summon before fighting any bosses, and it's in the Platinum tier and Ice tier, both of which are pre-boss.
Accessories used: Dunerider boots (no sand used), shackle, blizzard in a bottle, ring of regeneration, sharktooth necklace (the best accessory used). No modifiers.
Potions used: Just the simplest healing potion. Potion farming is tedious this early on. Ironskin is absolutely doable, but many beginning players won't be using it.
No modifiers were used on any weapon, as King Slime should be fightable before the Tinkerer arrives. I did include weapons from the Goblin Army, Jungle, Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts and Sky Islands as weapons that are possible at this stage. I did not include Demon Scythe.
All fights were in Journey mode at the Expert Mode level with 400 health and 200 mana.
*Weapons with a star by the number indicate that the item used is from a difficult region that most players will not explore in-depth before a boss.
Melee
The only class where I died in different attempts, and the only class without a specialized pre-boss armor (unless you count the Gladiator set).
Tried Unsuccessfully (see True Melee below):
Gladius, Candy Cane Sword, Katana, Platinum Broadsword, Mandible Blade, Falcon Blade. These weapons had trouble aiming closely at King Slime and/or reaching the hitbox without getting hit ourselves. I died quite a few times with these.
*1. Thorn Chakram: 71 seconds. All the boomerangs do better if you stay close; I like to run on a platform above and shoot this down. Also not terrible against Skeletron.
*2. Star Fury: 72 seconds. I usually avoid using this before the dungeon because it makes all the boss fights too easy. Great weapon, all the way up to Wall of Flesh.
*3. Ball of Hurt: 81 seconds.
*4. Amazon: 84 seconds. This one can stay out longer than the other yoyos, making the fight a bit easier.
*5. Fruitcake Chakram: 101 seconds. Difficult to obtain due to its seasonal status, which is why I've given it an asterisk.
6. Enchanted Boomerang: 106 seconds. A little less good than the others at dealing with stray slimes, so a bit more dangerous to use, especially since getting a low time depends on coming in close and bouncing it off the slime a lot.
7. Swordfish: 108 seconds.
8. Trident: 109 seconds. I'm not sure why these times are so similar. My guess is that the trident had longer range and got more hits in despite its low damage.
*9. Rotted Fork: 115 seconds. Long reach definitely helps here.
10. Rally: 119 seconds. Good if you can get it.
11. Storm Spear: 120 seconds. Great balance of safety and damage. Can be more risky and get hits in up close or keep your distance and chip away with the bolt, which does 1.5x damage. This is my favorite melee weapon for King Slime and Eye of Cthulhu.
*12. Blade of Grass: 135 The only broadsword I survived with due to its immense length and damage. Still not strong enough to facetank, but fun and risky. A good strategy is to stand underneath the first two hops, dodge the third, and reposition during fourth.
13. Flaming Mace: 137 seconds. King Slime is one of the few bosses where the On Fire! debuff actually does some good work.
14. Enchanted Sword: 139 seconds (beam only).
*15. Bloody Machete: 150 seconds. A Halloween boomerang.
16. Purple Clubberfish: 153 seconds. Great range and damage, but all broadswords are pretty bad.
17. Chain Knife: 180 seconds.
18. Ice Blade: 195 seconds (beam only).
19. Wooden Yoyo: 230 seconds
20. Spear: 247 seconds
21. Wooden Boomerang: 259 seconds.
22. Platinum Shortsword: 282 seconds. I wouldn't have thought this was possible if I hadn't seen Gungnir beat King Slime with a shortsword in his 'random weapons' playthrough.
Ranged
All guns used silver bullets. Ranged is definitely king in this fight, with summoning close behind.
*1. Sandgun: 46 seconds. Very messy, but the fight is short enough that you won't use too much sand. Be careful using platforms as sand won't go through them.
2. Molotov Cocktail: 52 seconds. Absolutely fun to use, but requires you to find Pinky.
*3. Minishark: 54 seconds. Keep in mind this is with silver bullets and a sharktooth necklace.
*4. Boomstick: 54 seconds. Maximum damage requires getting close.
5. Blood Rain Bow: 56 seconds (Jester's Arrows). All arrows are converted to blood streams, so only damage matters. Essentially a pre-hardmode Daedalus Stormbow.
6. Grenades: 60 seconds. A classic early boss weapon.
*7. Harpoon: Aggressive: 68 seconds, Safe: 133 seconds. This weapon performs much better if used at point-blank range.
*8. Spiky Balls: 71 seconds.
9. Bone Javelin: 75 seconds. Combines easy accessibility (just need desert fossil + extractinator or killing tomb crawlers), high damage and low cost. My go-to ranged option for King Slime and Eye of Cthulhu, especially since the bleeding debuff lingers.
*10. Musket: 77 seconds.
11. Bone throwing knives: 77 seconds. I think this only outperforms the poisoned knives because the aiming is a bit easier.
*12. Revolver: 80 seconds.
13. Paintball gun: 80 seconds. No ammo needed.
14. Poisoned Knife: 90 seconds.
15. Snowball Cannon: 100 seconds.
16. Platinum bow, Frostburn arrows: 104 seconds
17. Platinum bow, Jester's arrows: 105 seconds. I don't know why these two are so close and the wooden bow are so different; I even reran the wooden bow tests. I think the frostburn effect matters a lot more with the low damage of the wooden bow.
*18. The Undertaker: 108 seconds.
*19. Flintlock Pistol: 109 seconds.
*20. Red Ryder: 116 seconds.
21. Javelin: 127 seconds. These go pretty far and pierce.
22. Rotten Eggs: 127 seconds.
*23. Blowpipe with poison darts: 134 seconds. Poison darts are some of the easiest things to get from the jungle, but this still does pretty bad.
24. Shuriken: 136 seconds.
25. Wooden bow, frostburn arrows: 149 seconds. Frostburn alone contributed a lot of the damage in this fight. 8 damage a second over 150 seconds is 1200 damage (out of 2800), but it wasn't up the entire time.
26. Wooden bow, Jester's arrows: 192 seconds.
27. Snowballs (thrown by hand): 208 seconds.
Magic
There are surprisingly few magic weapons available in early hardmode. I used the Wand of Sparking and Thunder Zapper as stand-ins for the weaker gem staves.
No mana potions or mana accessories were used, so star pickup from killed slimes was the only way to replenish mana. Fortunately, there are a lot of dead slimes.
1. Gray Zapinator: 36 seconds. Extremely variable weapon, also extremely rare.
*2. Crimson Rod: 90 seconds. Never thought of using this as a main bossing weapon, but it's not bad.
3. Diamond staff: 94 seconds.
*4. Vilethorn: 126 seconds. Kind of a mana hog.
5. Wand of Sparking: 145 seconds.
6. Thunder Zapper: 170 seconds: I love the underground desert and it's loot, and have tried to convince people how good it all is: bone javelins, amber staff, bast statues, magic conch, storm spear. I was hoping this weapon would do well but it is just plain bad for this boss.
Summoning:
Again, these results were obtained with 2 summons total using the Flinx Fur Coat. Ironically, these have the worst time with the extra slimes since the Flinx minion I used for other classes wasn't focused on the boss, so it took care of the spawned slimes. The whip forces them to ignore the other slimes, leaving a big clump of leftover slimes at the end.
*1. Vampire Frogs, Snapthorn: 48 seconds. In every one of these boss threads, summoners have done very well. This requires three advantages, though: a difficult-to-obtain summon, a sequence-breaking whip, and a specialized armor set the other classes didn't get in these matchups. See below for more details on armor sets, though.
*2. Flinx Staff, Snapthorn: 57 seconds.
3. Vampire Frogs, Leather Whip: 71 seconds.
4. Flinx Staff, leather whip: 84 seconds.
5. Finch Staff, Snapthorn: 86 seconds. Snapthorn's longer reach keeps it safer than the leather whip, and it deals with leftover slimes better.
6. Finch Staff, leather whip: 149 seconds.
Giving good armor sets to other classes:
Summoning gets an unfair advantage by getting its best armor. Melee is kind of stuck with what it has, but the other classes have more options.
Mage with Jungle Armor:
Diamond Staff: 65 seconds
Thunder Zapper: 104 seconds. Thunder Zapper runs out of mana fast, so it benefits a lot.
Ranged with Fossil Armor:
Minishark: 43 seconds. Hopping into a chasm with a a few bombs and then grabbing an extracinator and some desert fossils is all you need for this powerful combo. The Sandgun is even faster (the best thing on this list besides the ultra-rare gray zapinator), but messy.
Having pity on true melee:
Just to test the true melee weapons that didn't do damage fast enough to keep me alive, I tried using Ironskin potion, a Bast Statue, and Warding on all 5 accessories for a total defense of around 54.
All of these are very dangerous.
1.Falcon Blade: 112 seconds
2. Bladed glove: 162 seconds
3. Cactus sword: 312 seconds
4. Umbrella: 328 seconds
5. Copper Shortsword: 335 seconds
The Flinx staff did most of the damage in the last 3 fights. The Bladed Glove required facetanking interrupted by healing. Unsurprisingly, the Copper Shortsword was objectively the worst weapon I tested. I assume the broken wooden hammer would be worse, but literally everyone has access to the copper shortswords at this stage.
Last edited by a moderator:
