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

Getting the xeno staff really isn't that hard,martian probes are super common if you haven't done the event so you'll probably just run into one.
If you didn't get one the first time then you can go to the top corner of your world make a platform out of lihizard brick (jungle increases spawn rate), place a water candle, and stand in front of some walls to stop wyverns from spawning. You should have no issues finding probes with this. It takes way less preperation than trying to get something like a sanguine staff.
The issue isn't martian probes.

It's everything about Martian Saucer.
 
WARNING: LAGGY AS HELL. BLAME MY BAD PC


Tested Imps vs Frogs with 3 builds: One pure summoner, another a Summoner using another weapon and then a Melee build using Night's Edge. Only reforges are Menacing on the Frostspark, Stinger Necklace and then the Bone glove. Didn't reforge everything because i'm lazy. Also yes, this character has 500 health. This is only 20 more HP than you would have with a Lifeforce potion and 400 HP, and the character doesn't even drop below half health so it doesnt matter.

First Obsidian Armor Snaptap with both, then Bee armor with Hellwing Bow, then Molten armor with Night's Edge. The Imps were just a little bit better every time.

Yeah, a glass cannon setup that enables WASD movement and plays unrealistically greedy will kill WoF wayyyy faster than a Warding setup with a safer playstyle playing without WASD keys. That's not the point, and even if it was, it's an unfair comparison, not to mention there is no video.

Said glass cannon setup barely drops below 50% HP when used on Expert mode, and WoF isn't a boss that requires much mobility (in my video i just ran in one direction and shot in the other) so I do think this is a fair comparison.
Also, the best Melee weapon to use along this is Sunfury, as not only keeping the button held down creates an orbiting shield around you, but you can spam Bone glove projectiles at WoF from a distance at the same time. Objectively speaking going up and close with Obsidian armor is not safer than keeping your distance, letting frogs do the work and having a barrier with Sunfury shielding.
THIS, right here, is the mistake everyone makes when doing WoF as melee: being too afraid to stand right next to an eye. Whips with Obsidian's range delete the Hungries from the fight, and the Night's edge swings constantly knock them away before they can hit you, so the only thing that will deal damage to you with these setups are the laser, which are way too weak to be relevant and the occasional Hungry that manages to sneak in from behind (something that's only a problem for Night's Edge, again Spinal Tap is insane here)

Night's Edge when playing aggressively kills the Wall much faster than Sunfury at a medium range (which isn't even safe, the Sunfury is so slow that you have to aim precisely at the hungries to get out of the way), playing aggressively with Sunfury gets you murdered by hungries because you no longer have a sword hitbox when throwing the flail and using it from a distance is just worse than using a Hellwing Bow.

I actually don't see a reason to use Sunfury here.

Imp Staff does around almost twice as much damage per hit, but hits like 1/3 as often as frogs while having worse i-frame issues. I fail to see how Imps are better on a defensive playstyle specifically, especially considering I'd assume in your WoF tests the frogs did not attack WoF by jumping up and down hitting all three parts which is more efficient (again, there is no video).
I... don't understand why the Imps do better either. Maybe it's the incredibly open area where I summon the wall, that makes the frogs take longer to finish their jump to the third eye?
 
Tested Imps vs Frogs with 3 builds: One pure summoner, another a Summoner using another weapon and then a Melee build using Night's Edge.
None of these were with the defensive playstyle I was describing which is what I assume favors frogs. Not to mention none of these are nearly under 20 seconds.

Said glass cannon setup barely drops below 50% HP when used on Expert mode, and WoF isn't a boss that requires much mobility (in my video i just ran in one direction and shot in the other) so I do think this is a fair comparison.
You had Life fruits and had buffs that were rare in Pre-hardmode (Endurance and Ex. Stuffed). And you also got hit a lot in most of these, one time you were close to dying as well.

THIS, right here, is the mistake everyone makes when doing WoF as melee: being too afraid to stand right next to an eye.
It's easy to say that until you do the fight on Master Mode and basically die from making one mistake. You should watch my Melee/Summoner showcase video at the Wall of Flesh section, which is the entire reason I came up with Bee Armor + Frogs as a safer solution for Master mode WoF. Even a tank character with 60+ defense will die from two or three hits. You on Expert you had Life Fruits and came close to dying having mastered the fight too.



Added two more minions (don't get too excited) and also the first Whip placement (Ironically a "spicy" take there).
 
None of these were with the defensive playstyle I was describing which is what I assume favors frogs. Not to mention none of these are nearly under 20 seconds.


You had Life fruits and had buffs that were rare in Pre-hardmode (Endurance and Ex. Stuffed). And you also got hit a lot in most of these, one time you were close to dying as well.


It's easy to say that until you do the fight on Master Mode and basically die from making one mistake. You should watch my Melee/Summoner showcase video at the Wall of Flesh section, which is the entire reason I came up with Bee Armor + Frogs as a safer solution for Master mode WoF. Even a tank character with 60+ defense will die from two or three hits. You on Expert you had Life Fruits and came close to dying having mastered the fight too.



Added two more minions (don't get too excited) and also the first Whip placement (Ironically a "spicy" take there).
Tbh, in my opinion, that didn't really hold up your argument. Potions are rather easy to get, endurance, wrath and rage you just fish, there are at least 10 sources of Ex. stuffed pre-hardmode, you can find life force in shadow chests, so wouldn't it make sense to bring them on a boss fight?
Plus, have you ever seen playirime's true melee series? He literally stands right next to the eye while spamming terrgrim which had far shorter range than night's edge or sunfury and still won in master, which I argues that with a decent mobility and bit of practice, it is entirely possible to stand right next to the eye while still being perfectly fine, and in Bame's case he just didn't practice it as much. Sure, Bee+Frog may be safer, but he didn't even mention about defensive playstyle, just dps, and you trying to argue with a virtually non-existent argument just doesn't makes sense.
 
Potions are rather easy to get, endurance, wrath and rage you just fish, there are at least 10 sources of Ex. stuffed pre-hardmode, you can find life force in shadow chests, so wouldn't it make sense to bring them on a boss fight?
Armored Cavefishes are quire rare in the underground Jungle, and I rarely find multiple while fishing for Summoning potions. The vast majority of Ex. stuffed food are rare as well. You aren't guaranteed to find Lifeforce potions, and even then you'll most certainly only get a few. And if you die against WoF, you'll run out of Lifeforce potions. And even then you have less max HP than with just Life Fruits (480 vs. 500).

Plus, have you ever seen playirime's true melee series?
It's literally possible to kill Moon Lord with a Flare Gun in the span of over 20 hours. Doesn't mean it's a good let alone safe option for it. Outside of Facetanking which doesn't exist against WoF, there is a reason that "True Melee" is widely considered nearly unusable in most boss fights with the vast majority of Melee weapons. The over-obsession with DPS and how fast you can kill bosses only hurts discussions, as survivability in general matters just as much, if not more depending on the case.

Sure, Bee+Frog may be safer, but he didn't even mention about defensive playstyle, just dps, and you trying to argue with a virtually non-existent argument just doesn't makes sense.
Except I brought up exactly that as the main meat of my argument and it was ignored.
 
None of these were with the defensive playstyle I was describing which is what I assume favors frogs. Not to mention none of these are nearly under 20 seconds.
They didn't appear to be 20 seconds because it was a laggy video.
You had Life fruits and had buffs that were rare in Pre-hardmode (Endurance and Ex. Stuffed). And you also got hit a lot in most of these, one time you were close to dying as well.
Endurance is really easy to get since Armored Cavefish are one of most common fish underground. And Exquisitely Stuffed isn't that hard to get thanks to Seafood Dinners which are crafted from a huge variety of pretty common fish. Also, you can use a Lifeforce Potion (which can be found in Shadow Chests) to get to 480 health which is just under the 500 you get with Life Fruit.
It's easy to say that until you do the fight on Master Mode and basically die from making one mistake. You should watch my Melee/Summoner showcase video at the Wall of Flesh section, which is the entire reason I came up with Bee Armor + Frogs as a safer solution for Master mode WoF. Even a tank character with 60+ defense will die from two or three hits. You on Expert you had Life Fruits and came close to dying having mastered the fight too.
With Obsidian armour, you can easily eliminate the Hungries as they spawn with your whip, which were the thing that were dealing massive damage to you when you attempted to get close. The lasers however don't deal much damage, only 66-90 on Master compared to the Hungry which deal up to 225 damage, and thanks to immunity frames you'll only take damage from one or two of the lasers whenever the wall fires at you.

Also, @J Bame never came close to dying when testing Obsidian armour, at least not in the video.
 
They didn't appear to be 20 seconds because it was a laggy video.
I lowkey counted the time with timestamps, all of the kills were over 20 seconds. Unless Youtube is lying to me, I even pressed skipped 5s four times at once (totaling 20 seconds) and the fights were longer than that.


Endurance is really easy to get since Armored Cavefish are one of most common fish underground.
Armored Cavefish is factually an "uncommon" fish. It's found significantly less often than Variegated Lardfishes. Through my playthroughs it was always Endurance Potions that were the hardest to keep stocked as well.

only 66-90 on Master
That's quite a lot considering there are many lasers + Obsidian Armor has low defense.

Also, @J Bame never came close to dying when testing Obsidian armour, at least not in the video.
He was a few seconds away from dying. He was practically facetanking WoF at the end of the first kill, without Life fruits he would have been one or two hits a way from dying. If it was Master Mode he would have been almost certainly dead.
 
I lowkey counted the time with timestamps, all of the kills were over 20 seconds. Unless Youtube is lying to me, I even pressed skipped 5s four times at once (totaling 20 seconds) and the fights were longer than that.
The fights were longer than 20 seconds because the recording was lagging.
Armored Cavefish is factually an "uncommon" fish. It's found significantly less often than Variegated Lardfishes. Through my playthroughs it was always Endurance Potions that were the hardest to keep stocked as well.
That's weird, for me they are the easiest fish to get other than Bass.
That's quite a lot considering there are many lasers + Obsidian Armor has low defense.


He was a few seconds away from dying. He was practically facetanking WoF at the end of the first kill, without Life fruits he would have been one or two hits a way from dying. If it was Master Mode he would have been almost certainly dead.
How about you attempt Wall of Flesh with Obsidian armour in Master and see for yourself how much easier it is than with Bee armour.
 
The fights were longer than 20 seconds because the recording was lagging.
You mean the game was slowed down? Looking at the laggy footage I don't see anything off in term of game speed.


How about you attempt Wall of Flesh with Obsidian armour in Master and see for yourself how much easier it is than with Bee armour.
I did. It's perfectly doable, but Bee armor is a perfectly viable & safer alternative as well. Bee armor is literally easier because it involves keeping distance and focusing more on dodging.
 
In disregards of the potion problem, first, it is indeed not 20 sec, according to in-game time, it is 27 sec.
The video is trying to prove how imp can kill wof slightly quicker than frogs. If you are going all out with glass cannon, you can't have much defense, these extremes don't go well together.
I did. It's perfectly doable, but Bee armor is a perfectly viable & safer alternative as well. Bee armor is literally easier because it involves keeping distance and focusing more on dodging.
But his argument is that by spontaenously destroying the hungries, you can also focus more on dodging the lasers while still staying close. Your argument with bee armor is that by staying far far away without losing damage, you can avoid the hungries instead, which is a completely different argument. Remember, hungries can do nearly 3 times the damage as the lasers, which makes them extremely dangerous.
He was a few seconds away from dying. He was practically facetanking WoF at the end of the first kill, without Life fruits he would have been one or two hits a way from dying. If it was Master Mode he would have been almost certainly dead.
What do you mean? he clearly had over 40% health left, life fruits only accounts for 100 health, 40% x 500 = 200, which means he shouldn't die without life fruits.
Dreadnatulius: only 66-90 on master.
That's quite a lot considering there are many lasers + Obsidian Armor has low defense.
First of all, we have iFrames, which means it is unlikely that all of them can hit, as he said. Secondly, ironskin+obsidian armor + obsidian shield + Exc. stuffed already grants 27 defense, plus endurance, which means each is only gonna hit for around 36-56, which is not too bad, provided that you don't just sit still. Lastly, he isn't too optimised about it. ideally you would want a soild hellbridge high enough so that the month is right in the middle, the lower eye's lasers can't hit you, and the higher eye's lasers will miss you.

I think it should be said that you should post video evidences. He had one, so wouldn't it make sense for you to do one, if you disagree with it?
 
None of these were with the defensive playstyle I was describing which is what I assume favors frogs. Not to mention none of these are nearly under 20 seconds.

These builds were also heavily unoptimized. Just look at me being too lazy to reforge more than 2 accessories, forgetting Archery potions and having Feral Claws equipped with the Hellwing bow.

Also, what would really have changed if I were using your defensive build?

I only reforged 2 accessories to Menacing so there wouldnt be any relevant DPS loss from going full warding.

Feral claws, obsidian shield and Boots are mandatory and cannot be replaced no matter what.

Stinger Necklace gives me the same DPS buff as sharpened, and since i was tanking lasers so often the Honey was practically permanent.

Pygmy Necklace... may not have been doing anything because both minions lack localImmunity lol

The DPS wouldnt have change much even with some defensive accessories in

20 seconds was an exaggeration, my bad there.
You had Life fruits and had buffs that were rare in Pre-hardmode (Endurance and Ex. Stuffed). And you also got hit a lot in most of these, one time you were close to dying as well.

I watched the video again, the most health I had lost was in the last attempt and that was a little over half health. Every other attempt ended at half HP or more.

This means that if I had neither Life Fruits or Lifeforce i still would have survived the fights.

Endurance and T3 well fed arent hard to get at all. Go to your Cavern fishing spot, catch 2 specular fish and 1 armored, done.

It's easy to say that until you do the fight on Master Mode and basically die from making one mistake. You should watch my Melee/Summoner showcase video at the Wall of Flesh section, which is the entire reason I came up with Bee Armor + Frogs as a safer solution for Master mode WoF. Even a tank character with 60+ defense will die from two or three hits. You on Expert you had Life Fruits and came close to dying having mastered the fight too.
SnapTap still shreds on Master, again the Spinal Tap completely takes care of the hungries so you just have the lasers to worry about and those will still lose the DPS race every time. Even with Bee armor the strategy is viable.

Night's edge needs more optimization (full reforges and no getting lazy with buffs) but the execution is still the same, just dont touch the mouth or a Super-Hungry and you'll be fine.

If this is still too risky for you... then just use Bee armor with the Hellwing Bow. It still killed the Wall faster than Frogs with sharpened and that was with one (two?) wasted accessory slots and no Archery potion.

The whole point here is: for some reason Imps kill the Wall faster than Frogs.
 
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But his argument is that by spontaenously destroying the hungries, you can also focus more on dodging the lasers while still staying close. Your argument with bee armor is that by staying far far away without losing damage, you can avoid the hungries instead, which is a completely different argument. Remember, hungries can do nearly 3 times the damage as the lasers, which makes them extremely dangerous.
The lasers are a lot harder to dodge up close, and even if you kill most of the Hungries, they respawn. You might get get caught off-guard by one appearing below or above you.


What do you mean? he clearly had over 40% health left, life fruits only accounts for 100 health, 40% x 500 = 200, which means he shouldn't die without life fruits.
I stand by the fact he was seconds away from dying in Expert, and if it was Master, he'd be dead. His health would be dropping significantly faster on its own, and since WoF has thousands more HP in Master Mode, he'd get it a few more times. No chance.


First of all, we have iFrames, which means it is unlikely that all of them can hit, as he said.
You'd still take a ton of damage regardless. If you keep getting hit by laser after laser you'd be dead in seconds. Even if it's only 40 damage the damage quickly adds up over the course of the fight, and if you make a mistake you're taking 175~ damage from the hungries. Here's how fast even a tanky character can die from one mistake.


I think it should be said that you should post video evidences.
I literally did yesterday. "Defensive" playstyle without WASD keys.


Also, what would really have changed if I were using your defensive build?

The fact that it plays out completely differently and relies on an entirely different strat? I'm sorry but I thought I made it clear long ago. This is literally my main argument. Literally if you just post proof that imps can go on par with or better than frogs with the strategy I described I will drop Vampire Frog Staff significantly in the list.


Stinger Necklace gives me the same DPS buff as sharpened, and since i was tanking lasers so often the Honey was practically permanent.
It doesn't, Stinger Necklace is 5 armor pen, sharpened station is 12. The eyes and especially the mouth have more than 5 defense. You may had Honey buff a lot but it doesn't change the fact you were seconds away from losing the DPS race, and if you would have certainly lost it on Master Mode if you played as recklessly. It's not as easy and safe as it's being made out to be. It doesn't matter if you still had half or two thirds of your health, being anywhere below 3/4 of your HP is danger zone when WoF is at lower health.

Endurance and T3 well fed arent hard to get at all. Go to your Cavern fishing spot, catch 2 specular fish and 1 armored, done.
That's grinding.


If this is still too risky for you... then just use Bee armor with the Hellwing Bow. It still killed the Wall faster than Frogs with sharpened and that was with one (two?) wasted accessory slots and no Archery potion.
You're just playing a glorified Ranger loadout at that point. Ranger and Summoner have zero synergy and their playstyles contradict each other when it comes to Whips.


The whole point here is: for some reason Imps kill the Wall faster than Frogs.
That's not the whole point. The actual whole point is that I claim frogs have a notable niche of being able to deal relatively high damage at far-range and playing defensively relying on dodging. If you prove that wrong then I will immediately drop frogs. I have always assumed Imps is around on par with frogs with Obsidian Armor and took this into account while making the list. That said, you could have tried targeting WoF's mouth or top eye so the frogs will actually jump up and down and hit more often, increasing DPS.
 
The lasers are a lot harder to dodge up close, and even if you kill most of the Hungries, they respawn. You might get get caught off-guard by one appearing below or above you.
No, you won't be caught off guard because the whips shred them as they spawn.
That's grinding.
I did some testing and it took me about a minute to catch two Specular Fish and an Armored Cavefish, however in each of my tests I caught 5 to 7 of one type of fish before I caught the other one. Also, Seafood Dinners can be crafted with Cavefish as well as Specular Fish, so you don't even need the Specular Fish.

And if I fished for 5 minutes instead of 1, I would have probably gotten enough Cavefish to last me a while.
You're just playing a glorified Ranger loadout at that point. Ranger and Summoner have zero synergy and their playstyles contradict each other when it comes to Whips.
The reason he was using the Hellwing Bow was because it is a lot safer than attempting Bee armour with whips, and is a good weapon for WoF as a bonus.
 
No, you won't be caught off guard because the whips shred them as they spawn.
Whips don't cover the entire screen.


I did some testing and it took me about a minute to catch two Specular Fish and an Armored Cavefish,
You got quite lucky. And what if you die to the WoF? You most likely will have to go fish again.


The reason he was using the Hellwing Bow was because it is a lot safer than attempting Bee armour with whips, and is a good weapon for WoF as a bonus.
You're still playing Ranger, not Summoner.
 
The fact that it plays out completely differently and relies on an entirely different strat? I'm sorry but I thought I made it clear long ago. This is literally my main argument. Literally if you just post proof that imps can go on par with or better than frogs with the strategy I described I will drop Vampire Frog Staff significantly in the list.

I honesly don't get what I'm supposed to be doing differently. I take it that "playing defensively" means "keeping your distance away from the Hungries and focus on dodging". You don't need to abuse Sharpened for that. You just need something that can deal damage at range. My playstyle would be the exact same as what I showed in my Bee armor test.

It doesn't, Stinger Necklace is 5 armor pen, sharpened station is 12. The eyes and especially the mouth have more than 5 defense. You may had Honey buff a lot but it doesn't change the fact you were seconds away from losing the DPS race, and if you would have certainly lost it on Master Mode if you played as recklessly. It's not as easy and safe as it's being made out to be. It doesn't matter if you still had half or two thirds of your health, being anywhere below 3/4 of your HP is danger zone when WoF is at lower health.
Eyes have 6 defense on Expert. With STN that's effectively 1 which reduces damage by 0.5, and that's rounded down to 0 so against those both Sharpened and STN are identical. The mouth goes down to 13 defense with STN (-6.5 damage, rounded down to -6) and 6 with Sharpened (-3 damage).

So with STN the frogs del 14 damage to all three body parts (42 damage total) and with Sharpened the Frogs deal 14 to the eyes and 17 to the mouth (45 total). So Sharpened just adds 7% DPS. Still wrong to say they are the same increase, however im also attacking with another weapon when using STN. I'm using Hellwing bow and that gets a roughly 10% damage boost from STN.

So the comparison is 7% more damage to your frogs or 10% more damage to my sidearm + its full DPS... pretty sure the latter wins.

Aim up with Spinal Tap/Obsidian Armor and all hungries are gone, including those Super Hungries that are extra bulky and deal 100 damage. I'm not exaggerating, that thing is not ok.

That's grinding.

Well yeah, I guess 1 minute of fishing counts as grinding but that doesn't mean it's hard or time consuming.
You're just playing a glorified Ranger loadout at that point. Ranger and Summoner have zero synergy and their playstyles contradict each other when it comes to Whips.

ok? That's still better than trying to abuse the Sharpened bug?

That's not the whole point. The actual whole point is that I claim frogs have a notable niche of being able to deal relatively high damage at far-range and playing defensively relying on dodging. If you prove that wrong then I will immediately drop frogs. I have always assumed Imps is around on par with frogs with Obsidian Armor and took this into account while making the list. That said, you could have tried targeting WoF's mouth or top eye so the frogs will actually jump up and down and hit more often, increasing DPS.
The points im arguing here are:
1- Imps are a little bit better against the wall than Frogs.
2- Abusing the Sharpened bug it's not better than using a sidearm.

I proved 1 with my videos showing the imps being better both when DPS-racing the wall and when fighting it normally from a distance. I proved 2 when I showed Hellwing Bow killing it faster than your Sunfury attempt when using bad accessories, barely any reforges and no Archery Potion. (also I did target the top eye in my video)

I don't even disagree with Vampire Frog being A+, i literally just nitpicked the part where you said it's better than Imps against the Wall.
 
I honesly don't get what I'm supposed to be doing differently. I take it that "playing defensively" means "keeping your distance away from the Hungries and focus on dodging". You don't need to abuse Sharpened for that. You just need something that can deal damage at range. My playstyle would be the exact same as what I showed in my Bee armor test.
What you're referring as "using a sidearm" is in reality switching your class to Ranger. This is a thread focusing on Summoner and potential hybrid classes like Melee/Summoner and Mage/Summoner hybrid. Ranger has no sort of synergy with Summoner, if anything it's anti-synergy.


Eyes have 6 defense on Expert. With STN that's effectively 1 which reduces damage by 0.5, and that's rounded down to 0 so against those both Sharpened and STN are identical. The mouth goes down to 13 defense with STN (-6.5 damage, rounded down to -6) and 6 with Sharpened (-3 damage).
Untrue as far as I'm concerned.

I did a rough test. Hitting one of WoF's eyes with STN not holding a Melee weapon. Highest damage peaks at 17 per hit:

17.png


Now remove the STN necklace and resort to Sharpened while holding a Melee weapon:

18.png


18 damage. I seem to be able to deal one more damage per hit, which is exactly what I expected. I tried this with two different WoFs and cycled back and forth a couple of time. Same results. STN peaks at 17 damage, Sharpened peaks at 18 damage. Frog's base damage was always at 16 and I made sure my buff list didn't change. You can notice Ichor on one of the Hungries but it was simply myself clearing the Hungries with Kaleidoscope so I could more easily focus on the eye. No ichor or tag used against the eye, only frogs. I did not replace the STN with anything else when removing it, I left the accessory slot empty. If I use both STN and Sharpened at the same time, the damage also bumps to up to 18.


Well yeah, I guess 1 minute of fishing counts as grinding but that doesn't mean it's hard or time consuming.

I really don't think 1 Armored Cavefish per minute on average is really a thing. At all. On Cavern with good fishing gears, maybe. But when you're in the underground Jungle primarily fishing for Summoning Potion, no. And besides, I don't need the Endurance potion if I'm playing defensive Bee armor strategy and already taking fewer damage from the lasers through Warding modifiers.


The points im arguing here are:
1- Imps are a little bit better against the wall than Frogs.
2- Abusing the Sharpened bug it's not better than using a sidearm.
Which in term of Obsidian armor is not something I brought up or is trying to refute except for the fact again the "sidearm" is simply switching your class.


(also I did target the top eye in my video)
Where? I skimmed through the video again and you did nothing but relentlessly focus on the bottom eye for the entire video.
 
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