I'm about to try beating the Empress of Light during the day. Being a summoner with an SDMG, I'm wondering what the effective range is on the Stardust Cell's attacks that it occasionally fires at my target. If the range is pretty good on that I might use them instead of the dragon who might not be able to keep up with the Empress during the fight.
In-depth Hardmode weapon tier list
- Thread starter Baconfry
- Start date
Dapling
Duke Fishron
The Stardust cells have a secret ability with infinite range, which only activates upon hitting enemies with a non-summoner weapon. They're the only minion in the game that does that.
qwerty3.14
Terrarian
I used a Tsunami, with a xeno staff and hallowed armor (I beat her Pre Lunar events).
Ah that's quite promising. My strat's gonna be hovering with the Celestial Starboard in one direction while the bullets and cells take care of her. She doesn't despawn if you travel too far, does she?
Dapling
Duke Fishron
She teleports, so you shouldn’t be able to despawn her.
Bvdrst
Terrarian
One thing I was curious about this tier list was why you placed the dart pistol at S+ and the dart rifle at S even before the 1.4 buffs. Why do you think they are so powerful? I ask because nobody else seems to think they are a strong weapon at all, and I think the terraria devs agreed, which was why they ended up buffing it.
qwerty3.14
Terrarian
um... even in 1.3 they were busted the devs made a mistake.
Crystal darts hit 6 targets and will ricochet to make sure they do it's basically like a repeater with jester's arrows that doesn't require everything to be in a straight line.
Cursed darts are likely to hit things multiple times and and cover the arena is flames, devastating against the destroyer the only reason you didn't see it much was because of the dominance of the storm bow in 1.3
Ichor darts are good at inflicting ichor on a lot of things and once again are likely to hit targets multiple times.
Not only did these weapons get a damage buff but now that the dryad sells the opposite evils seeds in a graveyard you can now get both cursed darts and ichor darts on any world.
Bvdrst
Terrarian
Ah I didn’t know that. I asked because on reddit everyone seems to think the dart rifle and dart pistol are nothing special.
Dapling
Duke Fishron
Reddit also thinks that the mana flower is the only option mages have, and that melee’s dps consistently rivals ranger’s. I wouldn’t really listen to them.
J Bame
Terrarian
Can I ask what exactly makes Solar Eruption that good in your list?
Solar Eruption is horrible on the Nebula Pillar (good luck killing Floaters with a weapon that relies on multhits) and has a lot of issues with ML's heart since that short reach does terribly against the True EoC spam. It's super weird to see it all the way up in S+ being hyped up as the best thing made in an Ancient Manipulator when it has two very noticeable bad matchups and isn't even that good anywhere else. Meanwhile Phantasm has no weaknesses at all, way better DPS than any other Fragment weapon and that's just a simple S.
Some other nitpicks of mine:
Cursed Flames is definitely A+ now due to how massive the buffs were, it's braindead to use in caves by just spamming it and letting it bounce, and it's far from being a bad weapon on the Mechs and Queen Slime.
Ice Sickle is another one overranked, yes that DPS is fancy but that range is the opposite of that. It's terrible on the mechs (yes, even Destroyer, it only hits 5 times so it's not that much stronger on him) and pretty much everything that can exploit the short range of a Spear so seeing that high of a rank for it is weird.
Snowman Cannon shoots homing rockets, and apparently that's what makes something with 1k DPS an S+. Electrosphere launcher has about twice the DPS and pretty much the same if only slightly worse crowd control, with the only real downside being the limited range and that's only a B+ here.
Sky Fracture got a higher mana cost, but is that really enough to make it drop all the way down to B from A+?
Seeing Crystal Serpent, a weapon with roughly the same DPS as the above, solid crowd control and almost 0 mana drain, only half a tier above the Frost Staff (aka Staff of Frost in the changelog because even the devs forget about it) pains me.
Poor Blizzard Staff sitting in B-, thing is stronger than Razorpine and outside of ML phase 1, the OOA and Cultist the vertical aim doesn't kill it as much as the list is implying. I may be biased because I love the weapon, but I definitely wouldn't put it below A.
I think there is a case for Blood Thorn to go straight to F.
Solar Eruption is horrible on the Nebula Pillar (good luck killing Floaters with a weapon that relies on multhits) and has a lot of issues with ML's heart since that short reach does terribly against the True EoC spam. It's super weird to see it all the way up in S+ being hyped up as the best thing made in an Ancient Manipulator when it has two very noticeable bad matchups and isn't even that good anywhere else. Meanwhile Phantasm has no weaknesses at all, way better DPS than any other Fragment weapon and that's just a simple S.
Some other nitpicks of mine:
Cursed Flames is definitely A+ now due to how massive the buffs were, it's braindead to use in caves by just spamming it and letting it bounce, and it's far from being a bad weapon on the Mechs and Queen Slime.
Ice Sickle is another one overranked, yes that DPS is fancy but that range is the opposite of that. It's terrible on the mechs (yes, even Destroyer, it only hits 5 times so it's not that much stronger on him) and pretty much everything that can exploit the short range of a Spear so seeing that high of a rank for it is weird.
Snowman Cannon shoots homing rockets, and apparently that's what makes something with 1k DPS an S+. Electrosphere launcher has about twice the DPS and pretty much the same if only slightly worse crowd control, with the only real downside being the limited range and that's only a B+ here.
Sky Fracture got a higher mana cost, but is that really enough to make it drop all the way down to B from A+?
Seeing Crystal Serpent, a weapon with roughly the same DPS as the above, solid crowd control and almost 0 mana drain, only half a tier above the Frost Staff (aka Staff of Frost in the changelog because even the devs forget about it) pains me.
Poor Blizzard Staff sitting in B-, thing is stronger than Razorpine and outside of ML phase 1, the OOA and Cultist the vertical aim doesn't kill it as much as the list is implying. I may be biased because I love the weapon, but I definitely wouldn't put it below A.
I think there is a case for Blood Thorn to go straight to F.
Baconfry
Terrarian
Solar Eruption is good against a lot of things, but now I realize that those things don't include lategame boss fights. I've gained a better understanding of my own ranking system, and yeah, Solar Eruption is probably not S. Depending on whether I get good bossing results with it, the Nebula Arcanum could also be knocked down a bit, though it's had an excellent matchup against everything other than the Moon Lord.
Ice Sickle is... yeah, it'll be knocked down for the same reasons as Solar Eruption.
Snowman Cannon is way easier to use than Electrosphere Launcher, and is the only rocket launcher I'd pull out for a boss fight. Maybe I never properly figured out how to use the Electrosphere Launcher, so I'll have to test that out a bit more.
Sky Fracture was never A+ material in the first place, as its projectile is just too slow compared to basically any ranged weapon. Crystal Serpent suffers from the same problem. Previously I felt pressured to rank them higher because they were the best magic weapons in early Hardmode, but that doesn't exactly mean that they were objectively very good. Frost Staff has much better crowd control than Crystal Serpent, btw.
Blizzard Staff is better than Bubble Gun for sure, and there's a new boss that it works well against. I agree with you and think it could afford to move up.
Ice Sickle is... yeah, it'll be knocked down for the same reasons as Solar Eruption.
Snowman Cannon is way easier to use than Electrosphere Launcher, and is the only rocket launcher I'd pull out for a boss fight. Maybe I never properly figured out how to use the Electrosphere Launcher, so I'll have to test that out a bit more.
Sky Fracture was never A+ material in the first place, as its projectile is just too slow compared to basically any ranged weapon. Crystal Serpent suffers from the same problem. Previously I felt pressured to rank them higher because they were the best magic weapons in early Hardmode, but that doesn't exactly mean that they were objectively very good. Frost Staff has much better crowd control than Crystal Serpent, btw.
Blizzard Staff is better than Bubble Gun for sure, and there's a new boss that it works well against. I agree with you and think it could afford to move up.
Baconfry
Terrarian
Lately I've been noticing a lot of redundancy in the stats section of each analysis, so I'm trying out a new system in which I simply list the stats in the form of a 1-5 scale, and add any extra relevant information to the writeup. It should make it easier to see what each weapon's strengths and weaknesses are. analyses that are up to date have been marked with a hash.
So I obtained Terraprisma, and as a summoner main completing 1.4 Master Mode I'm kinda bummed that its DPS is only equal to Stardust Dragon while being locked behind what's probably the hardest boss fight in the game. The main differences I notice are that that it attacks slightly slower than the dragon, but it is extremely consistent and faster at acquiring and switching targets on screen. Was kinda expecting a big difference in damage, but I guesssss you can acquire it before even facing Golem if you have the Empress' attack patterns down. The summoner main who the weapon's intended for will definitely find the fight difficult to complete that early, since unless you have the Xeno Staff I don't think summons will have a chance to keep up with her blinding speed. The most consistent summon before that is probably the Raven staff, but they're slower than the Empress so even that might not help too much. Truly unfortunate, since the most reliable way to damage an enemy this fast is by using Chlorophyte bullets. I haven't tried for it as early as possible but I reckon it might need a summoner to class change to ranged, at least for this fight, to make it easier. Someone's probably dreamed up a method of getting it as a pure summoner, though.
Realistically it probably won't see much use if you return to it after the Moon Lord (since at that point the game is "finished"), but if acquired as early as possible it can literally carry a summoner all the way to the end. I suppose that balances it out a little bit but the daytime Empress fight is extremely punishing nonetheless.
Realistically it probably won't see much use if you return to it after the Moon Lord (since at that point the game is "finished"), but if acquired as early as possible it can literally carry a summoner all the way to the end. I suppose that balances it out a little bit but the daytime Empress fight is extremely punishing nonetheless.
Last edited:
Baconfry
Terrarian
Not a summoner main, just a ranged hybrid using a Shroomite Mask/Red Riding Dress/Spooky Leggings with a Papyrus Scarab and summoning buffs. I got Terraprisma right before the Lunar Events, and it took a massive dump over all the content that came after that. I honestly think it could give the Stardust Dragon a run for its money, and I would absolutely try to obtain it even after defeating the Moon Lord.
RavenMagus
Terrarian
For what it's worth, I'm actually very unhappy with Nebula Arcanum as of late. The DPS is insane against big slow stompy ground enemies, but the galaxies are too slow to keep up with anything that flies, and it feels like that's a lot of everything lategame.
J Bame
Terrarian
The Arcanum is one of the best crowd control weapons in the game to use against the Pillars. Simply stand still holding M1 with the thing and you'll see how well it shreds enemies.
Making it faster would not only kill part of what makes it unique and satisfying to use, it would also make it invariably too similar to Nebula Blaze.
RavenMagus
Terrarian
The pillars is one of my main points, actually. Many of the Pillar enemies are fliers that are fast enough to fly past the galaxies and hurt you while the galaxies are trying to catch up again.
It's amazing at shredding the pillars themselves, but that's not the difficult part of those encounters anyways. A lot of weapons are good against the actual pillars.
I still think it's a good weapon (and I'd agree that speeding up the galaxies would just make it too good at everything), but I find myself using it less and less, often in favor of Nightglow, which obliterates anything that's trying to chase me.
Baconfry
Terrarian
The Arcanum is functionally an AoE weapon. Rather than ramming into enemies, it works best when enemies ram into it. The first few shots won't reliably deal with immediate threats, but once you have a bunch of galaxies floating around, you'll basically have a deathgrip over the entire area.
I was able to kill the Moon Lord with this, but it was a rather clumsy kill and it probably wouldn't have worked in Expert mode. Its matchup against other bosses isn't too bad, though. If the boss stops moving for just a second (which most bosses do), it gets booty-blasted by every shot you fired in the past 5 seconds.
I was able to kill the Moon Lord with this, but it was a rather clumsy kill and it probably wouldn't have worked in Expert mode. Its matchup against other bosses isn't too bad, though. If the boss stops moving for just a second (which most bosses do), it gets booty-blasted by every shot you fired in the past 5 seconds.
RavenMagus
Terrarian
Maybe the difficulty is the difference, then. I'm playing on Master and I generally can't afford to not reliably deal with the immediate threat, as everything does massive amounts of damage. A lot of the Pillar enemies do as much as 300 damage on a hit and I have to run if my shots don't kill them immediately.
It would explain why I remember Arcanum being better than I feel it is now, too.
It would explain why I remember Arcanum being better than I feel it is now, too.