Windoges
Terrarian
Hello!
I've recently gotten back into Terraria and have been loving the Summoner class, my all-time favorite since its introduction in version 1.2. With the addition of whips, the class has gotten so much nuance to the point where going back to any other type of weapon hasn't been as interesting as summoning weapons for me. With my little ramble out of the way, I'd like to present my own rendition of the infamous tier-list style of presentation. Most if not all my thoughts are my own, and derive from my own experiences playing the summoner class multiple times in Master Mode.
As a disclaimer, this is ONLY in regards to playing as a pure summoner, meaning, the tooltip must specify 'summon damage' for it to be used in a (Master Mode) playthrough. I will not be taking into account hybrid builds, such as mage/summoner (sorry Forbidden Armor), or fighting the Moon Lord as a melee character with a Stardust Dragon. I'll be explaining my thought process for each tier:
S+: OP; lasts longer than it should
S: A very good choice for a good chunk of progression
A: Good, but has one downside that makes it below S
B: A decent choice, or situational for specific uses
C: Not the best but not the worst
D: Should be looked at for buffs in 1.5
I'll also be evaluating each minion by four metrics:
1. Damage output
2. Intelligence (AI)
3. Crowd control
4. Accessibility
Now, with all that laid out.. let's dive into it! Please keep in mind that all opinions are welcome and accepted. Terraria is called a sandbox game for a reason; there is no incorrect way of playing the game as long as you're enjoying the game! Video games are meant to be enjoyed and have fun playing. This post is NOT meant to tell anyone how to play Terraria. If you'd like a TLDR, here is the image of the actual tier list:
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Absolutely not. Come Hardmode, this thing does a complete 180 because of three things:
However, after you obtain the Blade Staff from QS, Abigail only really becomes usable against the Destroyer and is too slow to keep up with the Twins and Skeletron Prime. She's basically D tier in pre-Hardmode, but A- tier in Hardmode. With those two combined, this minion is a collective B.
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Unfortunately, its damage output is quite bad at the start. Sure, it does slightly better vs. aerial enemies, but when most pre-Hardmode enemies are on the ground, it misses and circles its target way too often for it to have any longevity. It does pierce well though, making it OK for some semblance of crowd control early on.
[Edit: After being suggested to experiment with it on the Eye of Cthulhu, Eater of Worlds, and Brain of Cthulhu, this weapon is actually surprisingly good against these bosses either due to their large hitbox or being able to infinitely pierce through multiple entities. As a result, I'd have to move this up to B tier, though I do think this weapon is still lackluster against most regular mobs, especially at the very beginning of the game where a summoner will likely obtain this minion.
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Of course, its absurdly low drop chance makes this staff undesirable for anyone since it requires a very sharp turn in terms of game progression to obtain. All in all though, it's not bad at all.
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This is because of summon tag damage, which adds a flat amount of damage to each hit for minions. It just so happens that all three whips in pre-Hardmode add 5/6/7 summon tag damage, which is why I mentioned earlier minions that can attack rapidly will always be the best choice in the early stages of the game. When you stack the Leather Whip and Snapthorn, you're looking at +11 damage per Flinx bounce for every enemy in the game. Now add the Sharktooth Necklace, and this weapon can be used until you defeat the Wall of Flesh. It's that good!
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The frogs are great for almost all the same reasons the flinxes are. They can keep up with almost all enemies and bosses in the game (save for Legendary Mode Wall of Flesh), though it doesn't have the same stickiness as the Flinx Staff does. This and the Flinx Staff make for great synergy across the board to avoid issues with any invulnerability frames, and is usually my go-to until I defeat the WoF.
Accessibility-wise, while I personally love fishing in the Blood Moon as a summoner, fishing in the Blood Moon can be undesirable to some, and the constant swarm of enemies while dealing with a miniboss can make it a little difficult to obtain. However, I do think for this summon, it is worth the grind 100% to carry you through the entire pre-Hardmode experience alongside the Flinx Staff.
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Even when considering the Hive Pack, the extra attack speed doesn't really mean much when the hornets can't shoot piercing projectiles like the Imps can.
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I used to be a very big fan of the Imp Staff, since its projectile was fired immediately upon summoning and it could be obtained immediately via fishing a Reaver Shark to mine hellstone. However, since both of those have been removed, the imps went from a solid A to a B- despite the buff to their rate of fire. They do particularly well against Skeletron's hands in phase 1, but otherwise, they're used for general exploration, fighting the Wall of Flesh without a bridge, farming Black Recluses in early Hardmode, and that's probably it. The imps are not bad by any means, but they do get outclassed by the Flinx and Vampire Frog Staff in most cases.
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The spiders also have a very unique property, in that, they are able to latch onto the enemy and eat away at their health. What is unfortunate though, is that past the 3rd spider summon, there are diminishing returns to how many times each type of spider can hit. It'd be a lot to explain here, so I recommend watching this portion of the video to grasp an understanding of how the Spider Staff specifically works.
I will say though, that the spiders absolutely destroy the Pirate Invasion, giving easy access to the Black Spot mount, the Discount Card, and plenty of money via selling the golden furniture they drop. Did I hear the Pirate Staff? Yeah, about that..
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I hope to see buffs to this, as I do think its a very cute minion and would hate to see it unchanged in the upcoming 1.4.5 update.
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To obtain the Sanguine Staff, you must either wait for a Blood Moon or summon one yourself via the Bloody Tear. Then, fish up the Dreadnautilus, a rare creature to begin with, and then kill it in what is basically a boss fight. While also dealing with the other random mobs that might spawn around you. This is a lot of hoops to jump through to obtain this weapon, whereas the other option is to fight the Queen Slime, who has a much easier route of summoning by just going to the underground Hallow and getting a Gelatinous Crystal. I personally don't think the effort is worth it and I skip this summon on regular playthoughs.
However, if you do obtain this minion, it is quite potent even after its bug fix (allowed the bats to sometimes hit twice) and a slight nerf to its speed. With its very intelligent AI, damage output, and crowd control, its by far the best choice for pre-mech Duke Fishron and fighting the very first mechanical boss, but other than that, it doesn't really hold much power in comparison to..
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Just by having the Ichor Flask, the blades already ignore a whopping 40 defense with absolutely zero effort other than obtaining ichor. (If your world has corruption, just make an artificial crimson biome and fish crimson crates up!) Then add the Stinger Necklace and Sharktooth Necklace, and now it pierces through 50 defense. As far as I'm concerned, no regular enemy/boss has more than 50 defense let alone 40, essentially making the Blade Staff deal 'true damage.'
Remember when I said this?
The one 'drawback' the Blade Staff has is its innately low base damage. But, I see this as a side-grade. Because percentage-based increases to summon damage are less impactful on lower base damages, this means you can opt for a more defensive and/or mobility focused set-up. The Hallowed Armor set bonus and the Warding prefix on accessories becomes very effective when only using the Blade Staff.
I haven't even mentioned its ability to stunlock enemies with the Well Fed buff. By having just 2 blades, they can render a regular mob completely incapacitated. The blades are also very intelligent, fast to switch targets, pierce infinitely, cannot ever miss its attack, and always return to the player's head, making it excellent for exploration in any enclosed space. Its no surprise that yet another Hallow-themed weapon is this powerful. I think this is the best minion in the game in terms of game progression acceleration, especially for those who are focused more on mobility/dodging attacks like me!
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Strangely, it is by far the best summon for dealing with Plantera. That's as far as where it can be best-in-slot goes though. Not a bad option, though its easily outclassed by the Blade Staff in every other situation.
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While it can be a pain to acquire the Desert Key, just prop up a Garden Gnome and add a desert torch for that good old Torch Luck to add up to a positive 0.5 luck and it'll drop in no time. I'd say this is more accessible and less eye-roll inducing than the Sanguine Staff, though that's just my personal opinion. I do still prefer the Blade Staff over this summon, as I tend to focus on dodging more than the risk-and-reward style that the Firecracker offers. This is overall a very solid summon for bosses, though might struggle against waves of enemies.
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The AI at times leaves a little bit to be desired, though it has great crowd control with its ability to dash itself through multiple groups of enemies at a time, air or ground.
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I would also like to mention that this summon holds a very special place in my heart. In the past, I've always done Duke Fishron as my first Hardmode boss to sequence break the game, and I would use the Tempest Staff to breeze through the mech bosses, Plantera, and the Golem. I'm fine with admitting bias towards this minion but bias in tier lists is just opinion. Objectively though, it doesn't quite measure up to other summons when it comes to a more traditional path of progression, despite its very high DPS due to its high attack speed.
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There's not much else to explain. The UFOs are hands down one of the best at burning down a single target, and are also surprisingly great in crowd control due to how fast they can switch from target-to-target when killing consecutive enemies.
It does have one minor downside, and that is it only being accessible after defeating the Golem, which is quite late into progression. But it is quite easy to obtain otherwise (provided you know how to counter the Martian Madness event), which brings this right up to S tier.
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Fighting the Empress of Light in its daytime form takes a good amount of practice for the average player to get right. I myself have rigorously studied the attack patterns and have watched other people online to get the movement down precisely. While I believe it is awesome that you're rewarded with the most powerful minion, it is also very impractical to acquire and use against the Moon Lord. There are several other minions (like the Xeno Staff or either Stardust staves) that still perform very well against the final boss, leaving the Terraprisma to be more of a novelty minion than one that accelerates your game progression.
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With how late into the game a summoner can obtain this minion though, I will admit it doesn't really live up to the power fantasy of end-game summoner equipment. This is why it remains at the A+ tier.
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The one drawback to expending all minion slots on the dragon is its lack of crowd control. However, this can easily be solved by mixing the dragon with the Stardust Cell and/or Xeno Staff, making this drawback nonexistent. It is easily one of the best summons in the game.
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If you read this far out, thank you for taking the time to read through my blocks of texts and nerdy explanations. Terraria is a game I am super passionate about, and to share my love/passion for the game is enough for me already. Have a great day!
I've recently gotten back into Terraria and have been loving the Summoner class, my all-time favorite since its introduction in version 1.2. With the addition of whips, the class has gotten so much nuance to the point where going back to any other type of weapon hasn't been as interesting as summoning weapons for me. With my little ramble out of the way, I'd like to present my own rendition of the infamous tier-list style of presentation. Most if not all my thoughts are my own, and derive from my own experiences playing the summoner class multiple times in Master Mode.
As a disclaimer, this is ONLY in regards to playing as a pure summoner, meaning, the tooltip must specify 'summon damage' for it to be used in a (Master Mode) playthrough. I will not be taking into account hybrid builds, such as mage/summoner (sorry Forbidden Armor), or fighting the Moon Lord as a melee character with a Stardust Dragon. I'll be explaining my thought process for each tier:
S+: OP; lasts longer than it should
S: A very good choice for a good chunk of progression
A: Good, but has one downside that makes it below S
B: A decent choice, or situational for specific uses
C: Not the best but not the worst
D: Should be looked at for buffs in 1.5
I'll also be evaluating each minion by four metrics:
1. Damage output
2. Intelligence (AI)
3. Crowd control
4. Accessibility
Now, with all that laid out.. let's dive into it! Please keep in mind that all opinions are welcome and accepted. Terraria is called a sandbox game for a reason; there is no incorrect way of playing the game as long as you're enjoying the game! Video games are meant to be enjoyed and have fun playing. This post is NOT meant to tell anyone how to play Terraria. If you'd like a TLDR, here is the image of the actual tier list:
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Abigail's Flower: B
When placing any kind of tombstone on grass, it has a somewhat rare chance of growing. This makes the weapon one of the first a summoner can get at the very start of the game. Unfortunately, this summon is also probably the worst summon in pre-Hardmode. Abigail looks like she's supposed to have great crowd control, but she falls flat because of how slow she is, not to mention her pretty low damage compared to.. everything else you can get. Sounds like you should just dump it in the trash, right?Absolutely not. Come Hardmode, this thing does a complete 180 because of three things:
- The Firecracker whip
- More minion slots due to the Spider Armor allowing you to reach 7 max slots pre-mech
- Instead of each re-summon adding 55% of the base damage, it will now add 130% of the base damage
However, after you obtain the Blade Staff from QS, Abigail only really becomes usable against the Destroyer and is too slow to keep up with the Twins and Skeletron Prime. She's basically D tier in pre-Hardmode, but A- tier in Hardmode. With those two combined, this minion is a collective B.
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Finch Staff: C+
On 1.4's release, this minion was C- tier purely because you were not guaranteed to get one in every world (1 in 3 chance of obtaining one in a naturally generated living wood chest). However, now that you're able to shimmer a Living Wood Wand into the Finch Staff, the finches are much more accessible.Unfortunately, its damage output is quite bad at the start. Sure, it does slightly better vs. aerial enemies, but when most pre-Hardmode enemies are on the ground, it misses and circles its target way too often for it to have any longevity. It does pierce well though, making it OK for some semblance of crowd control early on.
[Edit: After being suggested to experiment with it on the Eye of Cthulhu, Eater of Worlds, and Brain of Cthulhu, this weapon is actually surprisingly good against these bosses either due to their large hitbox or being able to infinitely pierce through multiple entities. As a result, I'd have to move this up to B tier, though I do think this weapon is still lackluster against most regular mobs, especially at the very beginning of the game where a summoner will likely obtain this minion.
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Slime Staff: B-
It actually is pretty good for it being theoretically one of the first summon weapons a summoner can obtain. High attack speed minions are the name of the game for pre-Hardmode, and the slimes are no exception. It can get a little dumb at times with how it targets enemies (meaning it's mandatory to control it) but it does infinitely pierce as far as I can tell, making it better than the Finch Staff for crowd control purposes. It's no Flinx Staff, but it can definitely be used well in conjunction with the flinxes and the vampire frogs.Of course, its absurdly low drop chance makes this staff undesirable for anyone since it requires a very sharp turn in terms of game progression to obtain. All in all though, it's not bad at all.
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Flinx Staff: S
When I first obtained this summon, I didn't think too much of it because of its low base damage and how boringly easy it was to obtain it. I'm very glad I was wrong though. Not only does it attack rapidly, it also sticks to the enemy, making the flinxes very intelligent and nice for crowd control for being something a summoner can get before defeating any boss. You might be wondering: why is it so important for a summon to be able to attack fast?This is because of summon tag damage, which adds a flat amount of damage to each hit for minions. It just so happens that all three whips in pre-Hardmode add 5/6/7 summon tag damage, which is why I mentioned earlier minions that can attack rapidly will always be the best choice in the early stages of the game. When you stack the Leather Whip and Snapthorn, you're looking at +11 damage per Flinx bounce for every enemy in the game. Now add the Sharktooth Necklace, and this weapon can be used until you defeat the Wall of Flesh. It's that good!
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Vampire Frog Staff: S-
Prior to 1.4.1, this would have been placed in B tier. With multiple of its issues fixed, though, this summon leaped all the way to S- tier for me.The frogs are great for almost all the same reasons the flinxes are. They can keep up with almost all enemies and bosses in the game (save for Legendary Mode Wall of Flesh), though it doesn't have the same stickiness as the Flinx Staff does. This and the Flinx Staff make for great synergy across the board to avoid issues with any invulnerability frames, and is usually my go-to until I defeat the WoF.
Accessibility-wise, while I personally love fishing in the Blood Moon as a summoner, fishing in the Blood Moon can be undesirable to some, and the constant swarm of enemies while dealing with a miniboss can make it a little difficult to obtain. However, I do think for this summon, it is worth the grind 100% to carry you through the entire pre-Hardmode experience alongside the Flinx Staff.
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Hornet Staff: B
It's a little late to obtain since you're required to defeat the Queen Bee, though, I've definitely used this when traversing the underworld. The hornets can deal with aerial enemies very well, such as the annoying Hellbats and Demons, and is a pretty decent choice for Skeletron and the last ~1500 HP of Legendary Mode WoF. Other than that though, its not as good as the Flinx or Vampire Frog Staff. It lacks crowd control and is not very good in enclosed spaces.Even when considering the Hive Pack, the extra attack speed doesn't really mean much when the hornets can't shoot piercing projectiles like the Imps can.
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Imp Staff: B-
Huh? I just praised the Imp Staff for being able to pierce through multiple targets. So why is this lower than the Hornet Staff?I used to be a very big fan of the Imp Staff, since its projectile was fired immediately upon summoning and it could be obtained immediately via fishing a Reaver Shark to mine hellstone. However, since both of those have been removed, the imps went from a solid A to a B- despite the buff to their rate of fire. They do particularly well against Skeletron's hands in phase 1, but otherwise, they're used for general exploration, fighting the Wall of Flesh without a bridge, farming Black Recluses in early Hardmode, and that's probably it. The imps are not bad by any means, but they do get outclassed by the Flinx and Vampire Frog Staff in most cases.
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Spider Staff: A-
For how easy it is to obtain at the very start of Hardmode, the spiders are a great choice to explore the new world of very dangerous Hardmode enemies. This is the nature of ground-based summons; they perform well underground and in most enclosed spaces for their crowd control abilities, yet are lackluster against all three mechanical bosses.The spiders also have a very unique property, in that, they are able to latch onto the enemy and eat away at their health. What is unfortunate though, is that past the 3rd spider summon, there are diminishing returns to how many times each type of spider can hit. It'd be a lot to explain here, so I recommend watching this portion of the video to grasp an understanding of how the Spider Staff specifically works.
I will say though, that the spiders absolutely destroy the Pirate Invasion, giving easy access to the Black Spot mount, the Discount Card, and plenty of money via selling the golden furniture they drop. Did I hear the Pirate Staff? Yeah, about that..
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Pirate Staff: D
There's not much to say here to be honest. The community has already recognized this as quite possibly the worst minion in the entire game. Even though the pirates have high base damage, not only are they dumb as bricks, they're also ground based and do not have latching properties like the spiders. Not to mention you'd probably have to grind out the Pirate Invasion for this summon.I hope to see buffs to this, as I do think its a very cute minion and would hate to see it unchanged in the upcoming 1.4.5 update.
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Sanguine Staff: A
Probably the most controversial opinion I have here: I think the Sanguine Staff, while a great summon on its own, is probably the most overrated summon among the community.To obtain the Sanguine Staff, you must either wait for a Blood Moon or summon one yourself via the Bloody Tear. Then, fish up the Dreadnautilus, a rare creature to begin with, and then kill it in what is basically a boss fight. While also dealing with the other random mobs that might spawn around you. This is a lot of hoops to jump through to obtain this weapon, whereas the other option is to fight the Queen Slime, who has a much easier route of summoning by just going to the underground Hallow and getting a Gelatinous Crystal. I personally don't think the effort is worth it and I skip this summon on regular playthoughs.
However, if you do obtain this minion, it is quite potent even after its bug fix (allowed the bats to sometimes hit twice) and a slight nerf to its speed. With its very intelligent AI, damage output, and crowd control, its by far the best choice for pre-mech Duke Fishron and fighting the very first mechanical boss, but other than that, it doesn't really hold much power in comparison to..
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Blade Staff: S+
When 1.4 released, this minion garnered lots of discussion revolving around its viability and competition against the Sanguine Staff. However, the more people found out about whip stacking and summon tag damage, the more praise this weapon got. And wow the blades definitely deserves it.Just by having the Ichor Flask, the blades already ignore a whopping 40 defense with absolutely zero effort other than obtaining ichor. (If your world has corruption, just make an artificial crimson biome and fish crimson crates up!) Then add the Stinger Necklace and Sharktooth Necklace, and now it pierces through 50 defense. As far as I'm concerned, no regular enemy/boss has more than 50 defense let alone 40, essentially making the Blade Staff deal 'true damage.'
Remember when I said this?
The Blade Staff takes this concept and sprints with it all the way up to the Xeno Staff. With it hitting enemies approximately ~4 times per second, this means any summon tag damage is essentially multiplied by 4 when it comes to damage per second. Even when accounting for the fact only 75% of the summon tag damage gets applied, if you stack multiple whips that apply summon tag damage like the Snapthorn, Spinal Tap, Cool Whip, and Durendel, the blades can amass so much damage for it being so easily obtainable. Furthermore, because the blades attack so rapidly, they even synergize with Morning Star/Kaleidoscope's special property of allowing summons to critically strike due to having more chances to crit, making this minion still a very good option late into Hardmode.
The one 'drawback' the Blade Staff has is its innately low base damage. But, I see this as a side-grade. Because percentage-based increases to summon damage are less impactful on lower base damages, this means you can opt for a more defensive and/or mobility focused set-up. The Hallowed Armor set bonus and the Warding prefix on accessories becomes very effective when only using the Blade Staff.
I haven't even mentioned its ability to stunlock enemies with the Well Fed buff. By having just 2 blades, they can render a regular mob completely incapacitated. The blades are also very intelligent, fast to switch targets, pierce infinitely, cannot ever miss its attack, and always return to the player's head, making it excellent for exploration in any enclosed space. Its no surprise that yet another Hallow-themed weapon is this powerful. I think this is the best minion in the game in terms of game progression acceleration, especially for those who are focused more on mobility/dodging attacks like me!
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Optic Staff: B
The Optic Staff is the start of weird mid-Hardmode weapons where it can be quite hard for me to justify using over the Blade Staff. While the mini retinazers are great, the mini spazmatisms can get stuck in walls pretty easily, while also having some issues with i-frames, though not to a greater extent. I do think the Optic Staff has great crowd control and damage output, but it needs space for that to happen.Strangely, it is by far the best summon for dealing with Plantera. That's as far as where it can be best-in-slot goes though. Not a bad option, though its easily outclassed by the Blade Staff in every other situation.
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Pygmy Staff: C-
I wanted to like this summon a lot after watching Ningishu's 1.3 summoner playthrough where she used them to focus on collecting Spooky Wood from the Mourning Woods in the Pumpkin Moon event. However, especially now that the Blade and Sanguine Staff exists, the pygmies are simply worse in every regard. I hope to see some love given to them in 1.4.5, since they're a cool concept for being the only grounded Hardmode summon to shoot projectiles. At least its very easily accessible and aren't as dumb as the pirates are!___
Desert Tiger Staff: A
When you pair this with the Firecracker and at least 2 Feral Claw type accessories, it can actually dish out incredible DPS values against bosses like the Empress of Light. It has similar bouncing properties to the Flinx Staff, though at times it can spend too much time flying around in the air in its 'catch-up' mode when a summoner is more focused on mobility than up-close-and-personal playstyles.While it can be a pain to acquire the Desert Key, just prop up a Garden Gnome and add a desert torch for that good old Torch Luck to add up to a positive 0.5 luck and it'll drop in no time. I'd say this is more accessible and less eye-roll inducing than the Sanguine Staff, though that's just my personal opinion. I do still prefer the Blade Staff over this summon, as I tend to focus on dodging more than the risk-and-reward style that the Firecracker offers. This is overall a very solid summon for bosses, though might struggle against waves of enemies.
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Deadly Sphere Staff: A
Prior to version 1.4.1.2, the immunity frames caused by each deadly sphere made it a pretty underwhelming weapon for me. Nowadays, it is very much so usable against bosses like the Empress of Light! It is still a questionable choice against Duke Fishron, a boss that the average summoner player would likely fight at a post-Plantera game state. If you're not particularly a fan of stacking multiple whips for the Blade Staff, this is a decent alternative prior to obtaining the Xeno Staff.The AI at times leaves a little bit to be desired, though it has great crowd control with its ability to dash itself through multiple groups of enemies at a time, air or ground.
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Raven Staff: B+
It has strikingly similar behavior to the Finch Staff in regards to its flight and intelligence. Even with its buff to its speed and, subsequently, damage output, I find this to not be worth the hassle of farming Pumpkings to acquire. Its great as an individual minion with good crowd control and damage capabilities, but it being able to miss often is a huge drawback for me personally, especially in high mobility situations. Still, conclusively, this minion is not a bad choice at all, and is actually quite good in enclosed spaces.___
Tempest Staff: B+
To start, I very much so think the Tempest Staff is overhated, alongside one other minion. After its most recent buff to its attack speed, the sharknados actually perform quite well against grounded enemies. I would not recommend this for anything that is fast or moves around in the air frequently; that is where the minion falls flat.I would also like to mention that this summon holds a very special place in my heart. In the past, I've always done Duke Fishron as my first Hardmode boss to sequence break the game, and I would use the Tempest Staff to breeze through the mech bosses, Plantera, and the Golem. I'm fine with admitting bias towards this minion but bias in tier lists is just opinion. Objectively though, it doesn't quite measure up to other summons when it comes to a more traditional path of progression, despite its very high DPS due to its high attack speed.
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Xeno Staff: S
Its no surprise that the UFOs are this high up. Its deceptively low base damage is made up by the fact that it instantly locks onto an enemy faster than the Blade Staff, attacks rapidly, hovers your head, and can never miss because it fires a laser. As you can tell, very similar properties to the blades!There's not much else to explain. The UFOs are hands down one of the best at burning down a single target, and are also surprisingly great in crowd control due to how fast they can switch from target-to-target when killing consecutive enemies.
It does have one minor downside, and that is it only being accessible after defeating the Golem, which is quite late into progression. But it is quite easy to obtain otherwise (provided you know how to counter the Martian Madness event), which brings this right up to S tier.
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Terraprisma: A+
I'd first like to mention that I think this is by far the most powerful summoning minion the game has to offer. It has every single thing you want in a minion; hovers right next to you, amazing DPS, can never miss, and is overall very intelligent. Despite being the most powerful, I do not think it is deserving of the S+ tier because of how inaccessible it can be.Fighting the Empress of Light in its daytime form takes a good amount of practice for the average player to get right. I myself have rigorously studied the attack patterns and have watched other people online to get the movement down precisely. While I believe it is awesome that you're rewarded with the most powerful minion, it is also very impractical to acquire and use against the Moon Lord. There are several other minions (like the Xeno Staff or either Stardust staves) that still perform very well against the final boss, leaving the Terraprisma to be more of a novelty minion than one that accelerates your game progression.
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Stardust Cell Staff: A+
This is the other overhated minion, in my opinion. Most people tend to overlook its tank-busting capabilities and aerial crowd control because the Stardust Dragon exists; this summon is almost as good as the Terraprisma, and when mixed with the dragon and some UFOs, can dish out some serious DPS against the Moon Lord while making the Lunar Pillars a joke.With how late into the game a summoner can obtain this minion though, I will admit it doesn't really live up to the power fantasy of end-game summoner equipment. This is why it remains at the A+ tier.
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Stardust Dragon Staff: S
I mean.. were you expecting anything else other than S? At only one minion slot, its very efficient due to the very first usage spawning several of its segments first, and then only grows stronger in power. This is especially true with the Firecracker, Kaleidoscope and Dark Harvest, making for one of the highest DPS a summoner can reasonably attain.The one drawback to expending all minion slots on the dragon is its lack of crowd control. However, this can easily be solved by mixing the dragon with the Stardust Cell and/or Xeno Staff, making this drawback nonexistent. It is easily one of the best summons in the game.
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If you read this far out, thank you for taking the time to read through my blocks of texts and nerdy explanations. Terraria is a game I am super passionate about, and to share my love/passion for the game is enough for me already. Have a great day!
