WHO WINS? Phantasm, Tsunami or Vortex Beater (Post 1.3.0.4 Phantasm Nerf)

Test the DPS against a dummy, WHO WINS? Tsunami, Phantasm, or Vortex Beater

  • Tsunami

  • Phantasm

  • Vortex Beater


Results are only viewable after voting.
I like number 1 :D Lower base damage might throw some people off, but I agree it stays truest to the bows original design.

I like the first idea the most, too. It respects the weapons core-idea, still benefits from archery potions in a significant way and, even if it ends up toe to toe with the Tsunami, makes it feel unique and fun to use in its own right.
 
Ok, I'll explain why phantasm was fine.

Sure it had 66% chance not to use ammo, but it still used ammo.

Let's take a look at the solar eruption. It's a melee weapon and doesn't cost anything, but it still has a lot of range, plus the utility of going through walls.

So of course phantasm should do significantly more damage than it. Many endgame items are underpowered, (like the nebula blaze, and both solar armor and stardust armor have awful set bonuses.) So people assumed phantasm was OP.

Non homing weapons should do much more damage than homing weapons to compensate for actually having to aim.

Phantasm was the final bow, so either revert the nerf or give us another endgame bow.
 
Ok, I'll explain why phantasm was fine.

From my point of view the following explains nothing at all, And I'll tell you why that is...

Sure it had 66% chance not to use ammo, but it still used ammo.


Other ranged weapons do that as well, mages use mana, most melee weapons have lower range and lower DPS in general. This in no way an argument, because with the choice of the loadout, you have something unique to the ranged class which can be disturbingly powerful as well.

Let's take a look at the solar eruption. It's a melee weapon and doesn't cost anything, but it still has a lot of range, plus the utility of going through walls.

There is no point in comparing Melee gear with ranged gear. If you compare weaponry, you compare it with similar gear, not completely different gear.

So of course phantasm should do significantly more damage than it. Many endgame items are underpowered, (like the nebula blaze, and both solar armor and stardust armor have awful set bonuses.) So people assumed phantasm was OP.

Phantasm still does more dmg than the solar eruption, or the nebula blaze (in the long run) for example, if you use the appropriate gear, including buffs. The solar armour has one of the best and the most versatile set bonus ever seen, when talking melee. Stardust is flat out the best Summoner set available, if anything summoners are still lacking in general. Stardust provides +5 to minion count, along with the the highest dmg boost to minions, period.

If a weapon annihilates plantera in less than 2.5 seconds, consumes no mana, can hit targets off-screen AND is available BEFORE killing the moon lord, it is clearly OP. Deal with it...

Non homing weapons should do much more damage than homing weapons to compensate for actually having to aim.

There can be other drawbacks for homing weapons, but I can see your point for the first time...

Phantasm was the final bow, so either revert the nerf or give us another endgame bow.

There is another endgame bow. It is called Tsunami, which we are talking about up and down the entire time, because it deals more dmg than the phantasm and is available loooong before you can even consider crafting the Phantasm (Which is higher tier, for that matter)
 
Have people tried using phantasm after the nerf? I Kill moon lord in around 2 min without any ranger gear, do people expect a pre moon lord weapon to kill everything in 5 seconds or something?
 
Have people tried using phantasm after the nerf? I Kill moon lord in around 2 min without any ranger gear, do people expect a pre moon lord weapon to kill everything in 5 seconds or something?
mind dropping some numbers to back this post up

What DPS do you get?
What arrows are you using?
What armor?
What accessories?

the usual I want to test the math to see if you're serious


On a serious note

They should totally nerf the shot damage, but rebuff the arrow stream, and make them ignore defense
 
mind dropping some numbers to back this post up

What DPS do you get?
What arrows are you using?
What armor?
What accessories?

the usual I want to test the math to see if you're serious

1. I don't know since I don't have the trinket for showing dps.
2. Ichor
3. Beetle (defence version)
4. Charm of myths (proven to be not so useful for that fight since I don't go below 300 hp during the fight.), worm scarf, paladin shield (a bit more defence than the ankh shield), Cross necklace and Wings. All warding.

The only damage boosting buff I have is archery potion and well fed buff. Oh and phantasm is unreal quality.
 
Last edited:
1. I don't know since I don't have the trinket for showing dps.
2. Ichor
3. Beetle (defence version)
4. Charm of myths (proven to be not so useful for that fight since I don't go below 300 hp during the fight.), worm scarf, paladin shield (a bit more defence than the ankh shield), Cross necklace and charm of myths. All warding.

The only damage boosting buff I have is archery potion and well fed buff. Oh and phantasm is unreal quality.

What was your 5th accessory? You listed charm of myths twice :p
 
I have been doing more damage with the Tsunami since the beginning, I did some testing on my own and it out preformed that other bow.

Was using Luminite arrows to do so, with Sniper, Ranger, Destroyer, Crit wings, and Crit Avengers.

I was getting 8-10k dps with Tsunami and 7-9k with Phantasm

Phantasm is too weak now? What? I still hit 1k DPS on Warding with Beetle Shell using Endless Quiver.
Phantasm was balanced by costing ammo? Huh? 66% chance to not use ammo with most endgame sets having 20~25% and ammo box granting another 20? Okay then.

Unreal Phantasm was averaging 4.8~5.1k DPS on The Twins. With an Endless Quiver. With Solar Armor and melee damage investment.

ZpON2WK.jpg

Do you know what my other weapons were doing with similar accessories?

Buffs: Well Fed, Tipsy
Legendary Fetid Baghnakhs: 2.7k
Legendary Star Wrath: 2.5k
Godly Solar Eruption: 3.4k Shotgun, 2.6k mid-range
Godly Daybreak: 1.7k +200 with max Burning stacks
Legendary Meowmire: 3.1k in a small room so the cats can continuously bounce

You know what happened when I did full buffs with an Endless Quiver with actual range damage investment? 7k DPS. With Wooden Arrows.
Wooden Arrows.

As much fun as it is to use, this weapon was patently absurd. It outclassed Moon Lord drops at murdering things. Murder isn't even a strong enough word for what this weapon used to do, honestly. Using it was borderline a war crime.

And I loved every second of it.
You forgot the Mages here,

Mages have a crazy dps, I get on average around 10-15k dps... on bosses, in expert mode.

Though the extra 5k comes from the 3 stacks of damage buff mages get from new armor 10k is base before stacks.
 
Last edited:
I have been doing more damage with the Tsunami since the beginning, I did some testing on my own and it out preformed that other bow.

Was using Luminite arrows to do so, with Sniper, Ranger, Destroyer, Crit wings, and Crit Avengers.

I was getting 8-10k dps with Tsunami and 7-9k with Phantasm


You forgot the Mages here,

Mages have a crazy dps, I get on average around 10-15k dps... on bosses, in expert mode.

As it should be :D
 
Phantasm still does more dmg than the solar eruption, or the nebula blaze (in the long run) for example, if you use the appropriate gear, including buffs. The solar armour has one of the best and the most versatile set bonus ever seen, when talking melee. Stardust is flat out the best Summoner set available, if anything summoners are still lacking in general. Stardust provides +5 to minion count, along with the the highest dmg boost to minions, period.

If a weapon annihilates plantera in less than 2.5 seconds, consumes no mana, can hit targets off-screen AND is available BEFORE killing the moon lord, it is clearly OP. Deal with it...

Stardust may be the best summoner armor, but the set bonus is pathetic. And while Solar Armor's bonus is indeed versatile, I disagree strongly that it's the best. The damage reduction is better covered by Beetle Shell, the pseudothorns is handy but not that big a bonus in the grand scheme of things, and the dash always seems to take a backseat to attacking with my weapons (and I'm used to tapping to make small position adjustments, so it keeps activating when I don't want it to). I still find myself using Beetle Scale Mail because it provides more DPS and the other benefits of Solar are too minor for me to care.
Vortex and Stardust Armor are both objectively better than their predecessors. Having used Nebula, I can say that it's better than Spectre (does more damage than Spectre Mask, but still heals). Is Solar Armor being a clear choice over Beetle Armor too much to ask for?
As for doing more damage than the Nebula Blaze, both Nebula weapons are pretty bad. The projectile velocity on the Nebula Arcanum is way too slow, while the mana cost is crazy (40 mana, two full stars. With no boosts from equipment, that's 1/5 of your max mana). Meanwhile the Nebula Blaze is generally inferior to the Razorblade Typhoon, unless the Razorblade has no chance of hitting multiple targets (and even then, the Razorblade Typhoon consumes 1/3 the mana per second).

And using the Phantasm against Plantera is like using the Heat Ray against Destroyer. It's 2+ tiers after what you're testing it on, of course it's going to obliterate it. Consuming no mana is true of every ranged and melee weapon, and almost all ranged weapons can hit off-screen targets. Also, only nine weapons are not available before killing the Moon Lord.
 
Last edited:
you talking about the mages or the Tsunami?

Mages, I'm of the opinion that Phantasm was overnerfed a little.

Edit: Mostly just that it's special feature feels more like a pointless gimmick now. Though, I think Pillar weapons as a whole are kind of a let down. As Frost/Fishron weapons can generally out do them D:
 
Stardust may be the best summoner armor, but the set bonus is pathetic.
(hopefully I edited out most of that wall of text, not used to forums)
The set bonus isn't the absolute worst. It might not do alot of damage, but what it does is keep enemies in a spot, leaving them much more likely to be hit by the Rainbow Crystal Staff (those things it fires have a delay on them before they do damage, leaving most fast enemies to avoid them by merit of existence). It could certainly do more damage in a perfect world, but honestly, with the Stardust Dragon, and the fact that summoners are free to use any type of weapon they see fit, I find it to be adequate.
 
Stardust may be the best summoner armor, but the set bonus is pathetic.

The set bonus is not great, but the set in and off itself is superior in every way possible, when compared to other summoner sets.

And while Solar Armor's bonus is indeed versatile, I disagree strongly that it's the best. The damage reduction is better covered by Beetle Shell, the pseudothorns is handy but not that big a bonus in the grand scheme of things, and the dash always seems to take a backseat to attacking with my weapons (and I'm used to tapping to make small position adjustments, so it keeps activating when I don't want it to). I still find myself using Beetle Scale Mail because it provides more DPS and the other benefits of Solar are too minor for me to care.

Beetle shell may provide more percentage based reduction, but it provides a significantly lower boost to damage along with 5 less base armor. The extra 5% reduction per charge on the beetle shell are not much of a difference to begin with, which is especially true, after being hit once or twice. Also we have access to the worm scarf now, making that difference matter even less.

Shell provides 11% more melee dmg, 5% crit, and 6% more melee speed
Solar provides 22% more melee dmg, 17% crit and 15% more melee speed

When talking stats, we're talking permanently active stats here. They will always be there, no matter if you get hit or not. The peak of 15% more reduction on shell on the first hit taken is a joke in comparison. Let alone the fact that ANY amount of damage taken costs you a charge. Here Solar is at an advantage too, because it offers higher movespeed, making dodging easier in general and it also offers a quick sidestep-dodge that costs a charge but spares you the damage if performed successfully. If you rely on attack speed, beetle scale is still the proper choice, but some of the most powerful melee weapons do not even benefit from that speed boost that much, if at all, for example the Terrarian, paladin's hammer, or the solar eruption, also vampire knives have capped attack speed, same goes for the scourge of the corruptor.

The double tap-trigger is debateable though. I reckon some manner of seperate key, or a certain key combination like ctrl + double tap, or shift + double tap would have been fine as well.

Vortex and Stardust Armor are both objectively better than their predecessors. Having used Nebula, I can say that it's better than Spectre (does more damage than Spectre Mask, but steal heals). Is Solar Armor being a clear choice over Beetle Armor too much to ask for?

As I have stated, Solar armour is clearly superior to the beetle shell in more than one way. If you however favour a playstyle that requires a certain sets bonus to make it worthwhile, you've chosen to go all-in, as in ignoring other variants of playing.

As for doing more damage than the Nebula Blaze, both Nebula weapons are pretty bad. The projectile velocity on the Nebula Arcanum is way too slow, while the mana cost is crazy (40 mana, two full stars. With no boosts from equipment, that's 1/5 of your max mana). Meanwhile the Nebula Blaze is generally inferior to the Razorblade Typhoon, unless the Razorblade has no chance of hitting multiple targets (and even then, the Razorblade Typhoon consumes 1/3 the mana per second).

I agree on this one, even if we are lightyears off-topic now.

And using the Phantasm against Plantera is like using the Heat Ray against Destroyer. It's 2+ tiers after what you're testing it on, of course it's going to obliterate it. Consuming no mana is true of every ranged and melee weapon, and almost all ranged weapons can hit off-screen targets. Also, only nine weapons are not available before killing the Moon Lord.

Plantera is sporting 30.000 HP on a single target, -s i n g l e- being the keyword here. Killing that thing in less than 2.5 seconds means 13k-14k DPS on a single target and maybe even more on groups of enemies depending on the ammo. What more need you be told? The only weapon that can compare its DPS to these values is the last prism, which eats your mana in no time, forcing you to seize fire, recover via taking damage, or live with the mana sickness debuff, thus reducing DPS dramatically. Also the last prism is a moonlord exclusive drop, it is not craftable, mind you.
 
Honestly, the progression of weapon tiers got a bit messed up with the introduction of the Duke. Prior to him being part of the game, it was pretty clear that Frost Moon items were more or less the intended endgame gear. It was personal preference beyond that.

Once he was introduced, it messed things a little because his gear was at least FM tier (or better), but he could be fought earlier than either Moon event. Hell, you can fight him shortly after entering HM if you wanted. The Moon Event require progression past Plantera to access (Ectoplasm from HM Dungeon). Any player skilled enough could easily break the progression scheme at this point.

Now we have a the Lunar Events and their items. This is more or less definitive endgame for Terraria (unless they do another content update in a v1.4...) As gamers, we kinda expect endgame equipment to be powerful. Not game-breaking, but clearly powerful. I find it hard to justify a weapon that can be acquired at nearly any point in HM outranking a truly endgame-tier weapon.

I've always felt Duke Fishron and his equipment screwed up the gear progression because of how he was accessed with very little dependencies and the power/utility of his gear. (All other things are locked by other tasks being required first.) It's been made a little clearer now with the introduction of gear/item clearly intended to be the next tier up. (Mildly evident by the new rarity colors.)

I don't mind items getting nerfed/buffed; I just want them adjusted/balanced correctly relative to other items though.

Anyway, now that I got my SDMG, I can go back to be a Gun-Ranger while the Phantasm "issue" gets sorted out (maybe...)
 
The only weapon that can compare its DPS to these values is the last prism, which eats your mana in no time, forcing you to seize fire, recover via taking damage, or live with the mana sickness debuff, thus reducing DPS dramatically. Also the last prism is a moonlord exclusive drop, it is not craftable, mind you.
The last prism doesn't consume a lot of mana if used correctly, I can kill most bosses with a wide hit box easily since you don't have to get the prism into full focus.

also with full stacks of mana regen it lasts about 4-5 secs longer than normal. (doing 15k dps that is a lot of damage)

The only boss I really have to get full focus on is Moonlord.
 
I'm not having a problem with the nerf. Just switch over to S.D.M.G., even before the nerf it was still better than all 3.
 
Back
Top Bottom