Game Mechanics Terraria classes

[david thompson]

I personally think that mage and summoner should be combined.
I mean, just think about it, summoners use magic to summon, any summoning item like the stardust dragon staff uses mana, therefore, summoners are technically mages, so, nebula items should be transformed into stardust items. For example, nebula arcanum=stardust arcanum

 

[Laluzi]

Strongly disagree. The playstyle of each ends up being wildly different in practice - mages are fragile high-dps players who can pull truly insane damage outputs with vast ranges and high AOE but rely on rapidly consuming mana pots. It's a very high-skill and high-return class. Summoners can also pull very high dps, but rest at the mercy of AI targeting, are not great at handling crowds, and need a close-range crowd-clearing weapon to cover gaps the minions leave - one which won't have much class bonus, since those all go to the minions. It's low-skill and the easiest class to AFK, consuming no supplies to function, but can't produce nearly as much damage as mages or rangers outside of single-target situations. They're more fragile in pure defense terms, but get a huge bonus to survivability in the endgame with the Stardust Guardian distracting enemies.

One class's armor and accessories specialize for pure damage (or support buffs), while the other focuses near-solely on numbers of minions and the damage of those minions.

In that sense, It would make more sense to combine mages and rangers than it would to combine mages and summoners. As it is, combining mages and summoners would either end up with summon-specced mages and traditional mages (meaning the classes still exist), or something disgustingly overpowered. A mage with a Last Prism and good positioning can solo a Pumpkin Moon without ever dying - you don't need to toss a ten-segment Stardust Dragon into that mix.

 

[david thompson]

You see, thats where ur wrong, summoners need to keep their distance in battles because they have low defence and no designated weapons, but when i use stardust gear with my mana pots, mage accesories, and last prism together, i basically one shot every boss, that loadout is goated, im not saying to get rid of those two classes, im saying to make a class that combines the two elements i've even come up with a name, "BERSERKER", and i think the armor should look like redigit's armor, which i have, i actually have evey available developer set in expert mode. And mage with ranger? no, just no

 

[BrusselSprouts693]

Developers literally removed summon weapons from mage so it seems like it's not something they want attached

 

[Bry]

I read your initial post, David, but I'm gonna focus on your second one. Just know now that I completely do not support this.

You see, thats where ur wrong, summoners need to keep their distance in battles because they have low defence and no designated weapons, but when i use stardust gear with my mana pots, mage accesories, and last prism together, i basically one shot every boss, that loadout is goated, im not saying to get rid of those two classes, im saying to make a class that combines the two elements i've even come up with a name, "BERSERKER", and i think the armor should look like redigit's armor, which i have, i actually have evey available developer set in expert mode.

Ah yes, when you use the most powerful equipment available, things die easily. Who would've possibly guessed such an outcome as that?

I think "Berserker" may be the least apt name for a magic class; every instance I've heard the word in uses it for melee-related purposes. And, uh, what I'm gleaning from you is that you want to completely scrap all pre-existing Magic AND Summoner armors and make a bunch of palette swaps of the big kahuna dev's personal armor set? Think about that for a bit more.

Also,

And mage with ranger? no, just no

Whoooo would even consider that?

 

[Laluzi]

When I brought up 'it would make more sense to combine mages and rangers', I was using that to underline how little sense it made to combine mages and summoners, especially on such a weak premise as 'they both use mana.' My rationale was that the playstyle of mages and rangers is more similar to each other than the playstyle of mages and summoners, and that their niches have more overlap. That's not to say I think it's a good idea. I don't. It's terrible. Barring ranger-ammo being far more of a PITA to manage than mage-ammo, mages specialize in crowd control and rangers excel at single-target damage. Also, their themes are pretty distinct in the public consciousness. I rather suspect part of the reason you want to conflate mages and summoners is that summoners are usually a subclass of mage.

Also, yeah. Last Prism can wreck anything in the game even if your armor doesn't specialize for it. I can give my summoner a Meowmere and it'll still rain rainbow death upon the screen - it's just that it won't do as much damage as it would with my melee character. Endgame gear is incredibly powerful even if unspecced. However, speccing it is when things get really dangerous. Sure, I can summon all three mechs and kill them within fifteen seconds with any endgame character, but specialization is where you get feats like 'farm Moon Lord completely AFK' or 'top 10,000 single-target DPS.' The Last Prism is especially gated in that to use it effectively, you need to sacrifice an accessory slot for something that is only useful to mages, otherwise potion sickness will kill your DPS and you'll mash your potion button out of existence besides. Accessory slots are not cheap.

I don't know why you're bringing up owning sets of armor in-game. I maintain that combining summoner and magic effects into an endgame armor set is terrible and brokenly overpowered unless it was a jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none situation - something like 2/3 the stat bonus for both Stardust and Nebula and no set bonus to top them off. Which is kind of what Old One's Army sets already do, actually. Just use the Dark Artist's set. Extra sentries are relatively useless, but you can swap out the hat for a more useful piece, like the Stardust helmet. Hybridization does mean forfeiting set bonuses, but that opportunity cost is deliberate.

Or keep playing the way you already are. If it works for your purposes, that's great - I've got a few characters who sacrifice some of their class efficiency for extra minions. But you will be outperformed by a pure mage and a pure summoner in their respective areas, and I prefer that the game stay that way - that people are allowed to mix and match their classes or throw all of their resources into maximizing their output in one arena, and that there are benefits to both of these builds. (And also that one class isn't purely better than the others, which is the main reason I nope at this suggestion.)