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

[Shyguymask]

In my most recent playthrough I got it on my second bag, and again from my third bag.

And just because you had that specific luck doesn’t mean that it applies to everyone.

I'm aware and I did not use my bad luck as an argument, but 25% drop rate from a tough boss that isn't easy to cheese is still quite the obstacle regardless for a weapon. Objectively speaking it is harder to obtain than Blade/Sanguine

 

[J Bame]

If you can prove that it performs as good or better than Spider & Sanguine when it comes to regular enemies then I'll move it up. Otherwise it has zero uses, being outclassed at everything and not even being remotely functional against mech bosses.

Okay, I did four tests: Against Medusa Statues, against Hallowed Cavern enemies, against the Wall of Flesh, and against the Second tier of the Old One's Army. For all of these, gear used was Spider armor, Summoner Emblem, Pygmy Necklace, and Berserker's Glove for DPS; everything on Menacing with all relevant DPS buffs minus Wrath, and playing on Expert Mode.

Medusa Statues wired to a 1/2 second timer keeps 6 Medusas on-screen at all times. A Medusa has roughly the same bulk as a Pirate Corsair so we can consider this a "Pirate Invasion simulator" of sorts.

Spider Staff alone gets 710 DPS on average. They mostly attack a clump of 3 Medusas, so Acid Venom makes that 800 DPS. Occasionally, when a Medusa dies and they need a new target, they spread out and attack all 5 or 6 Medusas, here the DPS peaks at about 1242, with Acid Venom then making that 1422.

Pirates peak at 1452. Unlike the spiders, they are always running around hitting all Medusas so the readings are a lot more consistent.

Using both minions peaks at 1502 + what Acid Venom adds

Sanguine Staff is surprisingly disappointing here, peaking at only 755 and going as low as 450 at times.

Spoiler: Screenshots for proof

Wall of Flesh tests, ranked from best to worst:
4- Pirate Staff
3- Spider Staff
2- Spiders + Pirates
1- Sanguine Staff.

Spoiler

Whips used here were Snapthorn and Firecracker. Spiders win out since they stay on the Wall much more consistently, but mixing with Pirates still gives some more DPS. Unsurprisingly Sanguine blows its competition out of the water here.


Then in Caverns I could notice that both the Pirates and Spiders together cover their weaknesses somewhat nicely; the Spiders can more reliably deal with the occassional bat that flies too high up for the Pirates to jump up to, stunlock enemies and spread Acid Venom while Pirates just ensure extra minion slots don't get wasted due to iframes. I... honestly have no idea how to put this into an image so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Finally Old One's Army Tier 2. This time I was using Durendal and Ballista Cane on top of Snapthorn and Firecracker, since you have no reason not to in a real scenario. Durendal was used to deal with Wyverns and regular enemies, while Firecracker was to deal big damage to the Ogre and the occasional lone Drakin. In Blade Staff's case i used Spinal tap for its tag instead of Firecracker.

Starting the event at 12:00 PM:

Spider Staff finishes at 7:19 PM.
Pirates finish at 6:51 PM.
Spiders and Pirates together finish at 6:59 PM.
Sanguine finishes at 6:58 PM.
Blades finish at 7:08.

Surprisingly they are the best minion here, unless Optic Staff also has something to show.

So from all of this we can see two scenarios where you'd like to have a Pirate Staff:
1- You need a minion to deal with grounded enemies (aka 90% of OOA T2, or cleaning up random Blood Moon enemies while you are waiting for Dreadnautilus to bite)
2- You don't want extra minion slots to go to waste due to Spider's iframe issues.

These are certainly very niche, but it's definitely better than "If for some reason you grinded for this instead of Xeno, Raven or Desert Tiger you can get slightly more DPS against the Empress of Light if you replace 3 Sanguines" and whatever Pygmy is good for.

My final rank is C+: Almost never works but surprisingly strong when it does.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

I'm aware and I did not use my bad luck as an argument, but 25% drop rate from a tough boss that isn't easy to cheese is still quite the obstacle regardless for a weapon. Objectively speaking it is harder to obtain than Blade/Sanguine

Blade Staff and Kaleidoscope have basically the same rarity, in Classic Mode they both have a 25% chance of dropping and in Expert/Master there’s only a slight difference. Also IMO Prismatic Lacewings are more common than Gelatin Crystals. Sanguine Staff is quite a bit rarer than either aforementioned summon weapon, since you need to get a Blood Moon, fish up Dreadnautilus (both of which are pretty rare), and kill it before dawn.

Also, how come you mention nothing about the Firecracker's rarity, which is also 25% and comes from a boss that you can't cheese. Or the Dark Harvest's rarity, which at most has 12.5% chance to drop from Pumpking, but usually the chance is significantly lower than that. And Pumpkings are pretty annoying to kill, since their scythes are hard to dodge up close, and they move really fast at times and fire lots of massive high-speed projectiles at others. And after wave 11 multiple of them start spawning at once.

 

[qwerty3.14]

Or the Dark Harvest's rarity, which at most has 12.5% chance to drop from Pumpking, but usually the chance is significantly lower than that. And Pumpkings are pretty annoying to kill, since their scythes are hard to dodge up close, and they move really fast at times and fire lots of massive high-speed projectiles at others. And after wave 11 multiple of them start spawning at once.

Pumpkins have low health and drop a lot of hearts on death, pop a heartreach potion and you should have little trouble staying alive in the later waves as long as you dodge the flaming sytches which have a very long startup.

 

[Shyguymask]

Blade Staff and Kaleidoscope have basically the same rarity, in Classic Mode they both have a 25% chance of dropping and in Expert/Master there’s only a slight difference. Also IMO Prismatic Lacewings are more common than Gelatin Crystals. Sanguine Staff is quite a bit rarer than either aforementioned summon weapon, since you need to get a Blood Moon, fish up Dreadnautilus (both of which are pretty rare), and kill it before dawn.

Also, how come you mention nothing about the Firecracker's rarity, which is also 25% and comes from a boss that you can't cheese. Or the Dark Harvest's rarity, which at most has 12.5% chance to drop from Pumpking, but usually the chance is significantly lower than that. And Pumpkings are pretty annoying to kill, since their scythes are hard to dodge up close, and they move really fast at times and fire lots of massive high-speed projectiles at others. And after wave 11 multiple of them start spawning at once.

How many times do I have to repeat out that Empress of Light is a significantly more difficult obstacle than Queen Slime? If a boss is clearly more difficult than the other, then that's taken into account. The same applies to Wall of Flesh, it's not "cheesing" but you can simply come back with very significantly stronger gears and shred it, and voodoo dolls are very easy to find unless you're unlucky.

Gelatine Crystals are easier to find because they can be searched for during all time rather than the first half of the night. Locate your underground hallow, dig through and search for gelatine crystals while also removing regular crystals along the way so that new ones will grow with the chance they'll be Gelatine crystals. Classic mode isn't taken into account either. As for Sanguine Staff, Dreadnautilus is not difficult to find if you use a Sonar potion. Killing it with whips and occasional hits from minions doesn't take long either. If Sanguine wasn't a 100% drop though, I would have lowered it to S.

I'll take a look at J bame's post later since I'm playing Terraria rn

 

[Shyguymask]

text

The one issue I have is the Medusa test, as it seem in significant favor of Pirate staff and significant disfavor against Sanguine staff. The main reason is that you seem to be simply standing still above the Medusas. In a real scenario:

1. You would be moving around and dodging projectiles, in which Sanguine excels and Pirate Staff will panic and go into return mode if they aren't in the mood.
2. You would be surrounded quite frequently, in which case the Spider do a better job at slowing down the fighter AIs.
3. You would be using whips, and if you have Firecracker then Sanguine makes the best use of it. since it attacks and switches target more reliable while having almost as much base damage as Pirate.

The rest however is valid. In fact, I'm going to rise Pirate Staff to B- (also dropping Slime Staff to C+) with these in mind.

 

[Shyguymask]

Tier list is now completed. Every Minion, Whip and Armor is now included!

 

[Picklenugget8]

Good job!

 

[CursedSliver]

Now what you gotta do is to get the confidence of all weapons, whips and armors to at least 3. Don't be lazy.

 

[AngryNimbus]

As always, l am a bit late... Nevertheless,

Local Immunity (With special scaling):

These are better against armor but give less damage for each additional minion slot.

• Stardust Dragon Staff
• Desert Tiger Staff

Actually, they don't.
Wiki:

https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Stardust_Dragon_Staff

https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Desert_Tiger_Staff

Some random facts:

Seems that there is no damage limits at all

Agree with Xeno Staff, I frequently see the issues aganst small, fast enemies.

I've also have found that Sanguine bats have an exceptionally good synergy with dark harvest during Pumpkin Moon. (if stacked with the Kaleidoscope, they do compete with endgame minions)
Aganist OOA T2, it is mediocre though and gets overshadowed even by Optic staff. (Idk, they always attack only one nearest enemy)
The Pirte staff is bad, rare, unable to kill any boss. Good performance aganist grounded crowds (+ FC) , but spiders not too far behind (- 20%) and just spend that time farming the Queen Slime / killing Dread.
B- tier only if you are lucky as to recieve the ROD from the very first mob.

 

[Shyguymask]

I've also have found that Sanguine bats have an exceptionally good synergy with dark harvest during Pumpkin Moon.

Not sure if I see it. I believe Dark Harvest's "Dark Aura" attack deals fixed damage and triggers every minion hit, but it's overall lackluster because only with Blade Staff do you notice the Dark Aura contributing somewhat significantly. I think blazing through Martian Saucer's first phase is the best use I found for the "Dark Aura" attack coupled with Blade Staff.

 

[AngryNimbus]

Not sure if I see it. I believe Dark Harvest's "Dark Aura" attack deals fixed damage and triggers every minion hit, but it's overall lackluster because only with Blade Staff do you notice the Dark Aura contributing somewhat significantly. I think blazing through Martian Saucer's first phase is the best use I found for the "Dark Aura" attack coupled with Blade Staff.

Around 8-10k dps while facetanking pumkings, same as blades
When inside enemies hitboxes, and in attack mode, sanguine bats damage very frequently

 

[Mail]

...
Actually, they don't.
...

I'm not sure exactly what you are disagreeing with but with Desert Tiger staff, the first minion does 100% of the listed damage, and each slot expended after that gives +40% damage. When I say less damage for each additional slot, I mean that every minion slot after the first is only worth 40% of the listed damage.

For local/no immunity minions without this type of scaling, every minion slot adds 100% of the listed damage. Sure the +40% damage a tiger slot gives is not reduced by defense and the tiger gets faster, but that needs to outweigh the loss of 60% damage for every minion slot that buffs the Tiger instead of getting a fully powered minion.

 

[AngryNimbus]

I'm not sure exactly what you are disagreeing with but with Desert Tiger staff, the first minion does 100% of the listed damage, and each slot expended after that gives +40% damage. When I say less damage for each additional slot, I mean that every minion slot after the first is only worth 40% of the listed damage.

For local/no immunity minions without this type of scaling, every minion slot adds 100% of the listed damage. Sure the +40% damage a tiger slot gives is not reduced by defense and the tiger gets faster, but that needs to outweigh the loss of 60% damage for every minion slot that buffs the Tiger instead of getting a fully powered minion.

That's the point, l see it.
Damage Reduction takes place only from the very first minion slot to the second
However, from the second and up they scale by +40% per slot
You initially said that "less damage for each additional minion slot", which is not exactly the case
There is no damage bonus difference between transitioning either from 3 to 4th or from 10 to 11th

And, speaking of Desert Tiger, it is not that hard to obtain it. Just temporarily bring 300(?) crimsand/ebonsand blocks (or both) to your main arena in late pre-HM. From the beginning of HM to the post-Plantera stage there is a plenty of opprtunities for dropping best 3 biome weapons
Add jungle+ torches, almost forgot, to add 4th key chance and, more importantly, increased spawn rates + luck


Edit:
I simply think that we are overimpessed with the Stardust cell staff.

Let's visualize HM summoner progression and divide it into 2 "types", of high performing minions and those of secondary signicance
1.
Blade/Sanguine - > Desert Tiger/Raven (if no key) - > Xeno - > (cell?) Stardust Dragon

2.
Spiders (not too much longevity) - > Pirate (too situational) - > Optic - > Pygmy - > Sphere - > Tempest - > (cell?)

Terraprisma is the special case.

Cells fit just in between these categories.

It simply cannot be included into the first section (S tier) , as even in the best case scenario for cells/worst for dragon the total performance is equal. For ML, (which is more important at this stage), dragon is better just because whips are awful here, but even if you succeed in using them, final times are favouring Dragon slightly.

– Cells are equal vs EoL, lose vs ML.

During universal single-target/muli-target/AI test, which is the Frost Moon (it includes everything abovementioned), cells score early wave 20, xeno mid-late 19. Again, not enough to perfer them over crafting Dragon.
Dragon scores W20, 3000 points, which is better.

– Cells failed from both sides.

In other words, how micromanagement-dependant summon (which not much better than one from pregression stage below) and regular one with the same damage potential can be in the same tier? Even taking Dragons AI into cosideration?

Yes, UFO have some movement issues, but, lets be honest, in practice it is not so significant and does not allow to say that cells are way superior. Just about 20%. And the existing Dragon, which competes directly for spending 18 fragments on it. Since cells do not outperform Dragon vs ML in any case, for the very first fight it is better to craft healing potions from fragments rather than craft one more equal (at very best) minion.

In conclusion, Cells are contested way too much from every side (resources, Xeno, Dragon, Whip dependance in some cases)

If cells + whips would be at least 10% better than Dragon, then yeah, skills/danger translate into faster kill time. Acceptable.

But now, they look like "hey, I've beaten ML/EoL as fast as Dragon, but with more dangerous playstyle and wasted fragments, look at me, I'm so good"
Inacceptable.

Yes, *wasted* fragments, because cells do not improve your dps compared to Dragon, so zero advantage.
And super healing potions/ combined class tactics (daybreak vs core, by converting other fragments ) are way, way more useful than zero.

Cells are A+ at their best, Xeno should be buffed to A+. Summoner with whips is the best class vs Martian saucer. Raven, Tiger, Kaleidoscope destroy it.
Or not enough skills? (if daytime whipstacked EoL/ML is not a problem, LOL)

Even "skill-ceiling ranking" cannot provide advantages for cells, dragon + harvest + FC are superior


Edit 2:
Sanguine + Harvest
View attachment Sanguine.gif

 

[Shyguymask]

During universal single-target/muli-target/AI test, which is the Frost Moon (it includes everything abovementioned), cells score early wave 20, xeno mid-late 19. Again, not enough to perfer them over crafting Dragon.
Dragon scores W20, 3000 points, which is better.

This isn't really relevant to an actual playthrough, no one playing Summoner is going to wait until post-Cultist to do the Frost Moon. They don't even get anything out of the Frost Moon. Even waiting until post-Cultist to do Pumpkin Moon is weird. If you're planning on using that as evidence that Dragon is somehow superior to Cells at crowd control regarding Lunar events, it's wildly inaccurate because 1. Frost moon is about how fast you can kill enemies, disregarding everything relating to interrupting if not stunlocking enemies and defensive benefits 2. Said enemies being especially big minibosses that often stack on top of eachother, which significantly favors Dragon in that scenario. At this point of the game Lunar events can be considered the only relevant part of the game when it comes to dealing with regular enemies.

– Cells are equal vs EoL

This seem accurate without Betsy's Wrath, but with it taken into account Cells definitely beats Dragon in that case from my experience. By a few entire seconds or so, which is quite significant. The only exception (barely) is Spooky + Firecracker/Dark Harvest/Durendal + Dragon, which is way more unsafe than worth and shouldn't really be taken seriously in my book. But even then my fastest Spooky/Cells time against EoL had me fail to input one of my whips at the start and losing out on a bit of DPS, otherwise the rest of my fight was pretty much perfect.

Cells not only kill EoL about as fast if not faster than (on a good day) Dragon, but they are also a lot more consistent.

Yes, UFO have some movement issues, but, lets be honest, in practice it is not so significant

I have been affected by Xeno's shoddy AI a lot more than you think. Even when they're perfect, Cells deal significantly more DPS.

In conclusion, Cells are contested way too much from every side (resources, Xeno, Dragon, Whip dependance in some cases)

Cells overall perform better against EoL (at worst they are a lot more consistent while dealing the same DPS) and are also more reliable at dealing with Lunar events mobs. The Super Healing Potion argument is a big stretch and makes you come off as if you're already grasping at straws on your very first post about comparing Cells and Dragon, and besides, isn't it possible to obtain more than 36 Stardust Fragments from the Stardust pillar which is enough to craft both Cells/Dragon and at least a few Super Healing Potions? Other than that, Xeno Staff is weaker and also harder to obtain than Cells. Beating the easiest boss in the game and then dealing with the easiest Lunar pillar is a far easier task than fighting stupid Martian Saucer and praying for a 16% drop rate.

But now, they look like "hey, I've beaten ML/EoL as fast as Dragon, but with more dangerous playstyle and wasted fragments, look at me, I'm so good"
Inacceptable.

I'll take the extra effort needed to keep up my DPS against EoL if it means my Cells won't walk off-screen and leak seconds-worth of DPS.

So yes, in conclusion, I stand by that Cells perform better against EoL AND Lunar Events while Dragon is superior against Moon Lord, and no changes in the tier list will occur at this time.

 

[AngryNimbus]

This isn't really relevant to an actual playthrough, no one playing Summoner is going to wait until post-Cultist to do the Frost Moon. They don't even get anything out of the Frost Moon. Even waiting until post-Cultist to do Pumpkin Moon is weird. If you're planning on using that as evidence that Dragon is somehow superior to Cells at crowd control regarding Lunar events, it's wildly inaccurate because 1. Frost moon is about how fast you can kill enemies, disregarding everything relating to interrupting if not stunlocking enemies and defensive benefits 2. Said enemies being especially big minibosses that often stack on top of eachother, which significantly favors Dragon in that scenario. At this point of the game Lunar events can be considered the only relevant part of the game when it comes to dealing with regular enemies.


This seem accurate without Betsy's Wrath, but with it taken into account Cells definitely beats Dragon in that case from my experience. By a few entire seconds or so, which is quite significant. The only exception (barely) is Spooky + Firecracker/Dark Harvest/Durendal + Dragon, which is way more unsafe than worth and shouldn't really be taken seriously in my book. But even then my fastest Spooky/Cells time against EoL had me fail to input one of my whips at the start and losing out on a bit of DPS, otherwise the rest of my fight was pretty much perfect.

Cells not only kill EoL about as fast if not faster than (on a good day) Dragon, but they are also a lot more consistent.


I have been affected by Xeno's shoddy AI a lot more than you think. Even when they're perfect, Cells deal significantly more DPS.


Cells overall perform better against EoL (at worst they are a lot more consistent while dealing the same DPS) and are also more reliable at dealing with Lunar events mobs. The Super Healing Potion argument is a big stretch and makes you come off as if you're already grasping at straws on your very first post about comparing Cells and Dragon, and besides, isn't it possible to obtain more than 36 Stardust Fragments from the Stardust pillar which is enough to craft both Cells/Dragon and at least a few Super Healing Potions? Other than that, Xeno Staff is weaker and also harder to obtain than Cells. Beating the easiest boss in the game and then dealing with the easiest Lunar pillar is a far easier task than fighting stupid Martian Saucer and praying for a 16% drop rate.



I'll take the extra effort needed to keep up my DPS against EoL if it means my Cells won't walk off-screen and leak seconds-worth of DPS.

So yes, in conclusion, I stand by that Cells perform better against EoL AND Lunar Events while Dragon is superior against Moon Lord, and no changes in the tier list will occur at this time.

Everything seems relevant and I (mostly) agree
I'll try to find any more cell staff flaws to challenge these statements
By the way, haven't thought about 3 remaining pillars, cells are better here

Actually why I'm writing is because I'm torn between A+ and S for cells in my personal tier list, and in no way in my tests cells perform better (they are the same), plus the major ML fight favours dragon
While everywhere else, xeno are not too far behind
Martians are pain to summon/droprate BS rather than hard, got it


And no, sanguine is equal to blade in this case, even slightly better
View attachment Sanguine.gif

If someone uses +3 summon builds, cells are better.
Melee beetle scale mail set, Possessed Hatchet as a main weapon.
Empress of light.

Possessed Hatchet + 3 cells 1m 23s

Possessed Hatchet + 3 dragon 1.32

Possessed Hatchet + 3 xeno 1.40

Possessed Hatchet + 3 tiger 1.52

Possessed Hatchet + 3 sanguine 1.52

Possessed Hatchet + 3 blade 1.56

 

[Shyguymask]

And no, sanguine is equal to blade in this case, even slightly better
View attachment Sanguine.gif

Well before anything else I'm pretty sure you'd be able to kill Pumpkings even more effectively if using Morning Star/Dark Harvest/Durendal instead of just solo Harvest (From my experience, harvest-boosted Morning Star is better than solo Harvest, not to mention Morning Star has much lower penalty when striking multiple enemies). That said, I think Blade would perform better with this whip setup. Actually, in that case quadruple-whip stacking becomes realistic since you aren't focusing on dodging, so add Snapthorn or Spinal Tap. Unless Morning Star's tag is separated into two debuffs (one for tag one for crit), this should barely cap the NPC debuff slots at 5 including Ichor unless I'm missing something.

 

[AngryNimbus]

Well before anything else I'm pretty sure you'd be able to kill Pumpkings even more effectively if using Morning Star/Dark Harvest/Durendal instead of just solo Harvest (From my experience, harvest-boosted Morning Star is better than solo Harvest, not to mention Morning Star has much lower penalty when striking multiple enemies). That said, I think Blade would perform better with this whip setup. Actually, in that case quadruple-whip stacking becomes realistic since you aren't focusing on dodging, so add Snapthorn or Spinal Tap. Unless Morning Star's tag is separated into two debuffs (one for tag one for crit), this should barely cap the NPC debuff slots at 5 including Ichor unless I'm missing something.

I just tried to show that with Harvest only Sanguine Staff is quite effective.
Tseted it again.
Single Pumpking : Blade, Kaleidoscope, Dart Harvest, Durendal = 3300-3500 DPS in any case
Same whips, Sangune = 3200 – 3400 in the range of whips. 4600-4900 – facetanking.

PM 12.00 score (started at 7.30)
Blade : 4050 points, wave 15
Sanguine : 3758 points, wave 15

Blade is slightly better against regular mobs, Sanguine is better vs stacked Pumpkings at a close range (as I said previously)

Overall pretty much a tie, not a Blade win (even with Kaleidoscope, not Morning Star)

 

[Shyguymask]

I just tried to show that with Harvest only Sanguine Staff is quite effective.
Tseted it again.
Single Pumpking : Blade, Kaleidoscope, Dart Harvest, Durendal = 3300-3500 DPS in any case
Same whips, Sangune = 3200 – 3400 in the range of whips. 4600-4900 – facetanking.

PM 12.00 score (started at 7.30)
Blade : 4050 points, wave 15
Sanguine : 3758 points, wave 15

Blade is slightly better against regular mobs, Sanguine is better vs stacked Pumpkings at a close range (as I said previously)

Overall pretty much a tie, not a Blade win (even with Kaleidoscope, not Morning Star)

The thing that I should have said sooner is that it seem you're testing with Tiki armor with I assume Menacing modifiers as well, when Blade is meant to take advantage of Hallowed Armor & Warding modifiers.

I tried it myself with Godmode. I've had random accessories like Destroyer Emblem and Yoyo Bag from an earlier test, but I had Necromantic Scroll & Celestial Stone at least. Half of my accessories (Master) were on Menacing.

No Kaleidoscope, "only" Morning Star/Dark Harvest/Durendal/Snapthorn.

With Tiki Armor Sanguine obviously does more damage when facetanking, but when switching to Hallowed Armor and taking away one or two damage accessories (to get closer to simulate Warding) they seem about equal. Sanguine still seem faster at clearing Pumpkings when there is only one or a few of them, but against Mourning Woods Blade is somehow on par or faster at clearing them, especially when there are multiple other enemies close. And when there are many Pumpkings on top of each other, Blade seem about as fast as Sanguine at clearing those too since it seem Dark Harvest is making a bigger impact.

In general it has more to do with the armor (Tiki Vs. Hallowed). Unless you add something like Star Veil to your build, I'm not sure if Summoner is able to consistently tank hit after hit and survive through heart drops, Melee is the one that is known to handle that effectively (or you can just play both at once with Melee/Summoner Titanium hybrid lol)

 

[AngryNimbus]

The thing that I should have said sooner is that it seem you're testing with Tiki armor with I assume Menacing modifiers as well, when Blade is meant to take advantage of Hallowed Armor & Warding modifiers.

I tried it myself with Godmode. I've had random accessories like Destroyer Emblem and Yoyo Bag from an earlier test, but I had Necromantic Scroll & Celestial Stone at least. Half of my accessories (Master) were on Menacing.

No Kaleidoscope, "only" Morning Star/Dark Harvest/Durendal/Snapthorn.

With Tiki Armor Sanguine obviously does more damage when facetanking, but when switching to Hallowed Armor and taking away one or two damage accessories (to get closer to simulate Warding) they seem about equal. Sanguine still seem faster at clearing Pumpkings when there is only one or a few of them, but against Mourning Woods Blade is somehow on par or faster at clearing them, especially when there are multiple other enemies close. And when there are many Pumpkings on top of each other, Blade seem about as fast as Sanguine at clearing those too since it seem Dark Harvest is making a bigger impact.

In general it has more to do with the armor (Tiki Vs. Hallowed). Unless you add something like Star Veil to your build, I'm not sure if Summoner is able to consistently tank hit after hit and survive through heart drops, Melee is the one that is known to handle that effectively (or you can just play both at once with Melee/Summoner Titanium hybrid lol)

Tried that. Full hallowed, warding, Morning star, Durendal, Harvest.

Blades perform only by 15-20% worse, Sanguine by around 30-35%.
Here blades are arguably winning.
I forgot about Blade + defensive, which is almost on par with Xeno, 52 vs 57 seconds vs EoL, hallowed

Holy hell, thanks, how many things did I learn about summoner! And underestimated blade staff and (especially) cell staff. I wonder how 3 dragon/ 3 cells will compete with full ranger with vortex beater vs ML.
Yeah, cells are S tier, even despite being slightly worse in full summoner than dragon vs ML (in my hands)
Didn't find any counterarguments against cells

As far as I know, nothing to add to the list, good job!