1.4.4 Summoner Minion, Whip & Armor In-Depth Tier List

Sprite said:
Pardon the semi-unrelated question... Could you perhaps indulge us about minion iframes, and which cap out at what numbers? All that I know right now in terms of the local iframes and DPS, is that 3 Enchanted Sword summons cap out their unique iframes.
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Here’s @qwerty3.14 ‘s guide to enemy iframes if you’d like to take a look. It goes into each type and explains in detail about how they interact with other types of iframes: An explanation of enemy immunity frames

And to make a small correction, Blade minions use Local iframes, which means they can never override each other and will never “cap out.”
 
Coleyohley said:
Here’s @qwerty3.14 ‘s guide to enemy iframes if you’d like to take a look. It goes into each type and explains in detail about how they interact with other types of iframes: An explanation of enemy immunity frames

And to make a small correction, Blade minions use Local iframes, which means they can never override each other and will never “cap out.”
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Huh, I've seen some stuff via YT that shows minions like spiders and blades max out. But thanks for the referral.

_Edit:_ Took a look into it, I see that there are different variations on iframes... But it still doesn't answer the question of "At what number per summon does the iframe limit cap out?" Sure, Bats, Blades, Star Cells, and Terraprisma Swords are all iframe piercers (which means you can max on them with no issues), but on the rest of them, where is our damage cap number? 3?
 
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Sprite said:
Huh, I've seen some stuff via YT that shows minions like spiders and blades max out. But thanks for the referral.
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All guides tend to become outdated over time, so it's entirely likely that they were accurate as of the time of creation.
Unfortunately, video guides can't be edited as easily as forum posts can be, so outdated ones stay outdated yet continue to be cited due to viewcounts (and the nature of Youtube discourages unlisting old videos with high viewcounts).

On older iterations, it was usually around 3 or 4, so you would only cast a few of that type of minion (or ignore them entirely) before using another one, then usually using a gun as a sidearm since most other weapons shared the same global frames and you couldn't deal any damage with them.
 
Mille Marteaux said:
All guides tend to become outdated over time, so it's entirely likely that they were accurate as of the time of creation.
Unfortunately, video guides can't be edited as easily as forum posts can be, so outdated ones stay outdated yet continue to be cited due to viewcounts (and the nature of Youtube discourages unlisting old videos with high viewcounts).

On older iterations, it was usually around 3 or 4, so you would only cast a few of that type of minion (or ignore them entirely) before using another one, then usually using a gun as a sidearm since most other weapons shared the same global frames and you couldn't deal any damage with them.
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Yeah, everything can be outdated, but it was _specifically_ a 1.4.4.x mobile version, using spiders vs Dreadnautilus. This one, actually. Right now I'm running with... 3 Blades, 3 Ravens, 3 Sharknadoes with 3 Whips (Dark Harvest, Durendal, and Firecracker/Cool Whip/Morning Star). Trying to figure out best numbers for mixing.
 
Sprite said:
Yeah, everything can be outdated, but it was _specifically_ a 1.4.4.x mobile version, using spiders vs Dreadnautilus. This one, actually. Right now I'm running with... 3 Blades, 3 Ravens, 3 Sharknadoes with 3 Whips (Dark Harvest, Durendal, and Firecracker/Cool Whip/Morning Star). Trying to figure out best numbers for mixing.
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Spiders, Spazminis, Flinx, Frogs, and Imps are the only ones that use static. All the rest of them use Local, including all the whips.

Spiders cap out at 3 because they are constantly on top of the enemy, constantly creating iframes. However, each spider color is technically a different projectile type, and since the color of the spider summoned is based on a fixed order, the first 3 will not be fighting for vulnerable frames.

Frogs are somewhat similar but they cap out at ONE. If there’s a frog on the enemy, no other frogs can hit, but since they’re always jumping around, having more frogs increases the chance that one’s going to be on top of the enemy.

Flinx always bounce off the enemy when they hit (launching them away from the enemy for a moment, allowing other flinx to attack) and they’ll sit inside the enemy until it is vulnerable again. This lets them “cap” about about 4-5, which you won’t normally have the minion slots for until flinx are outclassed anyway.

Spaz minions are weird because they dash through the enemy. If multiple dash at once, only one of them hits, so it’s hard to say how many you should have before they start conflicting. (Reti minion lasers do not pierce, so they will never cause iframes. Due to this, summoning more twins still results in higher DPS, but most of that comes from Ret).

Imps are the same story. Their projectile is what causes the iframes, so if they synchronize and all fire at the same time, only one of them will hit. Hard to say again.

And… that’s all. The rest of them either don’t pierce or use Local and never conflict with each other anyway. The only other one that “doesn’t” is Stardust Dragon, but you can only have one of those at a time anyway and the damage of the dragon itself increases per slot so a longer dragon is always better.

EDIT: Sharknadoes can actually deal contact damage, and inflict an insane 20 GLOBAL iframes when they touch the enemy. Sharknadoes don’t tend to try to run into things though, so this doesn’t usually come up in normal gameplay. (Their projectile doesn't piece, so more Sharknadoes are always better regardless of whether or not they touch an enemy)
 
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So, question that's been on my mind about Morning Star and Kaleidoscope - do their summon crit chances stack, or do you only get the bigger of the two, or does it roll two different critical chances, or...

I know that Morning Star's base damage was reduced a little so it's not just a less obnoxious to obtain Kaleidoscope now, but i've just been kinda lazy swapping between the two of them when casually playing and since I'm not fully in on whip spec I'm not sure if I'd be better off just stacking a different whip with Kaleidoscope or not.
 
Blade Staff S+ to S in light of Whip builds facing increasing competition against Hybrid builds in general, mainly Flamethrower builds dealing higher DPS on Plantera while needing much less effort to use.

Xeno Staff S to S- because of hotfix nerf.

Dark Harvest S- to A+ since I don't feel like it contributes or feel important any more than Durendal.

Morning Star remains S-, I was actually considering raising it to S before the base damage nerf.
Mille Marteaux said:
So, question that's been on my mind about Morning Star and Kaleidoscope - do their summon crit chances stack, or do you only get the bigger of the two, or does it roll two different critical chances, or...

I know that Morning Star's base damage was reduced a little so it's not just a less obnoxious to obtain Kaleidoscope now, but i've just been kinda lazy swapping between the two of them when casually playing and since I'm not fully in on whip spec I'm not sure if I'd be better off just stacking a different whip with Kaleidoscope or not.
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I assume they stack. if using Kaleidoscope as main whip, you probably want to stack it with Dark Harvest for the speed boost.
 
I've heard many times that minions keep their stats from the moment they were summoned, like if you unequip accessory that increased summon damage, minions will not lose that modifier. Is it still true and wasn't changed?
What about armor penetration, does sharktooth necklace affect minions and how (during summon / in real time)?
 
ValetVald said:
I've heard many times that minions keep their stats from the moment they were summoned, like if you unequip accessory that increased summon damage, minions will not lose that modifier. Is it still true and wasn't changed?
What about armor penetration, does sharktooth necklace affect minions and how (during summon / in real time)?
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They changed that, minions are now updated in real time.
Minions can have armour penetration but only when you have it in effect, so by having a necklace equipped or holding a melee weapon with the sharpening buff.
 

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Gulyaev🌳 said:
Are you planning to update your tier list when 1.4.5 comes out? Because at least 6 new whips are already confirmed
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I will! In fact I considered making a final update to the 1.4.4 version of this tier list a while ago but I might as well wait for 1.4.5 at this point. Unless some people really want to see my final thoughts on 1.4.4 summon weapons.
 
I decided I would update it one last time before 1.4.5 after all. Some descriptions there and there were changed too.

Abigail: B+ to A because of several discoveries I made that made me realize she is actually better against Hardmode bosses than I gave her credit for. We already know that she's good against Queen Slime, but she is actually even better than I thought since Spider Armor + Firecracker is enough to borderline spawnkill a lot of the minions Queen Slime spawns, making the fight easier. Additionally, if fighting her 2nd phase on the Black Spot mount, she is barely fast enough to catch up to Queen Slime and deliver hits semi-consistently. And just a bit earlier I decided to test minion performance on Destroyer on a whim, and turns out Abigail is arguably the best minion for it assuming whip build. Sanguine has similar performance but is annoyingly difficult to obtain, Blade Staff sucks on Destroyer and Optic Staff's Retiminis lost their pierce in 1.4.4.

Flinx Staff: S- to S because time has shown that it's consistently the most contributory minion through pre-hm to the point that it's one of the best pre-hm weapons in the game, every player should get this if they can unless they are playing a self-imposed challenge. I've also underestimated its performance against Wall of Flesh, Frog/Flinx mix can actually deal more DPS than Frog/Imp mix if done right.

Hornet Staff: A to A- because its performance on Skeletron isn't very good compared to optimized minion mixing.

Pirate staff: C to C- because lol don't use this

Sanguine Staff: S- to A+ because I don't think a weapon that's so hard to obtain yet with relatively so little longevity belongs in S tier.

Kaleidoscope: A- to A just because I think it's better than that.
 
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spooky armor should be A-, because it takes soooooo much spooky wood to craft, which means we need multiple pumpkin moons, and then we need to kill the mechanical bosses to get the hallowed bars to craft the summoning item, it's just a high rank because the next armor is the last one [but all of this doesn't matter if u like the events
in Terraria]
 
Ronal;] said:
spooky armor should be A-, because it takes soooooo much spooky wood to craft, which means we need multiple pumpkin moons, and then we need to kill the mechanical bosses to get the hallowed bars to craft the summoning item, it's just a high rank because the next armor is the last one [but all of this doesn't matter if u like the events
in Terraria]
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You are already going to do Pumpkin Moon multiple times anyway because you'll also be wanting Dark Harvest, Raven Staff and two Necromantic Scrolls.
 
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