As another entry in the collaborative series of 'weapons vs bosses and events' (that of course anyone can add to or re-do, since there's so many playstyles), here's Queen Slime.
I wanted to test Queen Slime at the stage where she's actually helpful. Crystal Assassin Armor is better (IMO) than the 1st two tiers of hardmode armor but not necessarily the 3rd, so that affected my choices here. Also, she's most helpful if she can be beaten before the mech bosses.
With that in mind, here are my equipment choices:
The setup was, for ranged, a long platform about a screen or two wide and high off the ground (to stop bouncing gel). I would keep my distance in Phase 1, then in Phase 2 take to the air, flying diagonally to keep a fixed distance from Queen Slime, often off-screen.
This was bad for the melee tests, so I added another 1000 platforms in length and used the Blessed Apple for phase 2. I continued this for most magic and summoning tests.
Overall thoughts: The minions are absolutely the real menace here. The little bouncy slimecan take off half your health in a few seconds, and if you get juggled by a crystal slime you're dead. While I didn't use them in the main tests, fighting over the ocean or over a lava layer shuts down most of their attacks.
Armor doesn't matter much since every hit is doing 100+ or 200+ damage. Endurance potion was helpful here, as was lifeforce potion. Frequently, even with the best weapons, everything was chaotic.
The results:
(It often took 5-10 seconds just to find queen slime, and due to the randomness of her attacks times are not consistent. That's why each weapon is tested multiple times. For instance, both ichor and cursed flasks are used in the melee weapons. Just because one time is 15 seconds better than the other doesn't mean the flask is better, it could have just been random chance).
Melee
Melee was terrible in this fight. The bouncy slimes can shoot well over half a screen away, Queen Slime herself has several area attacks, everyone has huge contact damage, and if you fly during the second phase Queen Slime is often off screen.
Blue is very safe, Green is mostly safe, yellow is risky, orange is very risky, and red is horribly risky.
Tier 1:
Drippler Crippler (70 seconds with cursed flask, 76seconds with ichor flask). This flail is long enough to reach Queen Slime safely but also shoots a projectile that does even better. Awesome weapon.
Chain Guillotines (77 cursed, 55 ichor. I thought I might have miscounted, and got 91 with ichor on second attempt). These were buffed a lot in 1.4.1 and are good against the mechs, too, except the Destroyer (but it's good for the probes).
Shadowflame Knife: (80 cursed, 75 ichor, 76 no flask). By far the best option for a melee user: bounces onto nearby slimes, huge range, can attack off-screen.
Bananarangs: (73 cursed,81 ichor)
Tier 2:
Sergeant United Shield: (99 cursed, 84 ichor). Very effective and completely removes threat of summoned slimes, but during phase 2 often wanders far off-screen.
Amarok: (86 cursed, 92 ichor) (Yoyo glove was used here, and it helps eliminate the minions. This is a great weapon for the second stage on the blessed apple, since it doesn't lag behind)
Dao of Pow: (89 cursed, 90 ichor)
Tier 3:
Flying Knife: (100 cursed, 115 ichor). Terrible for this fight. It can't attack off-screen and it can't protect you well against minions up close.
Ice Sickle: (117 cursed, 104 ichor)
Frostbrand (beam only): (170 cursed, ichor not tried)
Tier 4:
Fetid Baghnakhs, Titanium Trident, Jousting Lance, Bladetongue, Breaker Blade, Obsidian Swordfish: Died a lot. I know Gungnir has done this with a KO Cannon, so check out this video if you're really excited about close-up melee:
Ranged
Ranged absolutely dominated this boss.
Tier 1:
Daedalus Stormbow: (50 holy, 43 cursed, 48 ichor, 73 unholy). The perfect weapon; it kills all the minions and can hit anywhere on the screen. Cursed arrows had better accuracy for me, and the nerf to holy arrows makes all the hardmode arrows pretty viable.
Tier 2:
Onyx Blaster: (69 crystal, 61 ichor, 73 cursed, 90 meteor, 79 explosive). Great for this fight: the onyx blast hits Queen Slime and the bullets take out the minions. Crystal bullets' nerf definitely hits all the guns.
Shadowflame Bow: (73 cursed). Only arrow damage matters here.
Dart Rifle: (91 crystal, 61 cursed). Crystal bullets were good against minions but pretty bad for main DPS. Flying up and down in phase 2 is better for cursed.
Dart Pistol: (131 crystal, 69 ichor). Again crystal underperforms, but ichor is great.
Uzi: (64 crystal, 73 cursed, 70 ichor) Narrow range means less minions hit. I accidentally didn't upgrade it to unreal at first, and got these numbers with a 'base' uzi: (84 crystal, 72 cursed, 90 ichor, 111 endless). The cursed seems like a fluke (probably a counting error), and overall the 'Unreal' upgrade makes an enormous difference.
Gatligator: (73 crytal, 91 cursed, 79 ichor). The spray is better against minions but randomizes DPS more or less.
Adamantite repeater: (90 holy, 86 ichor, 72 cursed)
Ice Bow: (80 cursed)
Tier 3:
Shotgun: (105 crystal, 99 cursed, 104 ichor)
Marrow: (Cursed 111)
Clockwork Assault Rifle: (113 crystal, 112 cursed, 113 ichor)
Toxikarp: (176) Hard to aim without practice.
Magic:
I like lots of mana accessories (mana cloak+celestial cuffs+mana regeneration) but I know not everyone does, so every weapon was tested with mana cloak and with pygmy necklace.
Tier 1:
Meteor Staff: (with Pygmy necklace 72 seconds, with Mana Cloak 66 seconds). Really didn't expect this one; it's probably the ease of aiming. Vertical movement helps.
Crystal Storm: (71 pygmy, 79 cloak). Really satisfying, and great in second stage with Blessed Apple. The only 'crystal fragments' weapon not nerfed.
Tier 2:
Sky Fracture: (85 pygymy, 74 cloak)
Crystal Serpent: (78 pygmy, 93 cloak)
Spirit Lamp: (94 pygmy, 76 cloak). I had a few issues with targeting in phase 2, as I wasn't sure if the projectiles 'time out' or not, so I kept doubling back to let them catch up and got hurt.
Cursed Flames: (94 Pygmy, 90 cloak). No floor to bounce on hurt this one.
Life Drain: (94 pygmy, 90 cloak). This one was great for minions but can't shoot off-screen.
Tier 3:
Frost Staff: (105 Pygmy, 106 cloak)
Magic Dagger: (105 cloak, 112 pygmy)
Poison Staff: (106 cloak, died and didn't feel like trying again with pygmy). Short range really hurts in this fight, because it puts you in range of the bouncy slimes.
Shadowflame Hex Doll: (119 cloak, 101 pygmy) Not as risky as Poison Staff, but still pretty rough. Great against the summoned slimes, though.
Flower of Frost: (122 cloak, 107 pygmy). Like a weaker Cursed Flames. Would do better if it had something to bounce on.
Golden Shower: (129 cloak, 106 pygmy) Really low DPS compared to the other tome weapons.
Tier 4:
Blood Thorn: (160 cloak, 116 pygmy). Times are all over the place because this weapon was wacky. Instead of on platforms, I fought phase 1 on the ground, where this did great at attacking queen and slimes from a distance. For phase 2, it acted kind of like Crystal Vile Shard if I jumped in the air, sending spikes out of me that lingered, doing damage when Queen Slime rammed into them. Times are inconsistent because weapon is inconsistent.
Crystal Vile Shard: (140 cloak. Didn't use pygmy staff but got a time of 165 when I used the wrong mythril headpiece). Ironic that this was the best pre-mech magic weapon against the Destroyer but the worst here. Bad range and Queen Slime moves out of range very quickly.
Summoning:
Spiders were almost entirely useless in Phase 2, with all damage in that phase done with whips. I tried using Firecracker in phase 1 and cool whip in phase 2 with spiders and got a time of 74 seconds, so it does seem to have some effect. Imps also do almost nothing in phase 2 due to slow projectiles.
Similarly, with imps+obsidian, using firecracker for phase 1 and coolwhip for phase 2 is 90 seconds, better than either alone.
Interesting results here. For me personally, I'd rather use Blade staff against the Dreadnautilus than use sanguine staff against Queen Slime, but I can never beat her with Spiders. But the Firecracker+Cool Whip+Spiderstaff+Obsidian Armor combo is very safe and compares to the best magic and melee weapons and the tier 2 of ranged. In Baconfry's Hardmode Weapon Tier List, he says:
Finally, when using Sanguine Staff, you can outperform the Daedalus Stormbow.
I wanted to test Queen Slime at the stage where she's actually helpful. Crystal Assassin Armor is better (IMO) than the 1st two tiers of hardmode armor but not necessarily the 3rd, so that affected my choices here. Also, she's most helpful if she can be beaten before the mech bosses.
With that in mind, here are my equipment choices:
Armor: Mythril for everyone except for Summoner, Spider and Obsidian for Summoner. In my mind, people want to defeat Queen Slime before they have 'perfect gear. Spider is the best gear for non-whip summoners, so it's an unfair comparison, but Summoners have the issue of having very few good weapons against Queen Slime. Sure, you can use Sanguine Staff, but if you have that, why would you need the Blade Staff?
Accessories:
Universal: Menacing Fairy Wings, Warding Shield of Cthulhu, Menacing Frog boots
Class-specific (all menacing):
Melee: Power Glove, Warrior Emblem, Pygmy Necklace
Ranged: Putrid Scent, Ranger Emblem, Magic Quiver or Pygmy Necklace (for bows vs not bows)
Magic: Celestial Cuffs, Sorcerer Emblem, Mana Cloak or Pygmy Necklace (done once with each accessory for most weapons)
Summoner: Power Glove, Summoner Emblem, Pygmy Necklace
All weapons were reforged to Unreal, Legendary, and Mythical when possible, and Demonic or Godly when not possible. Minions were Ruthless.
Buffs: Clairvoyance, Sharpened, Bewitching Table, Ammo Box, Ammo reservation potion, magic power, magic regeneration, stoneskin, endurance, regeneration, lifeforce, archer potion, hunter potion, summoning potion, sake (for melee), golden delight (well fed)
Mount: Blessed Apple
Hook: Dual Hook
Minion: Spider Staff, since I think Queen Slime should be a 'stepping stone', not something you approach with perfect gear. Swapping out spiders and sanguine didn't make much difference for Daedalus Stormbow (with spiders, 50 seconds with holy arrows and 43 with cursed; with sanguine, 45 with holy and 45 with cursed). The spiders usually targeted minions, so when they targeted Queen Slime it affected times. Most people had 3-4 spiders depending on if they had Pygmy Necklace or not).
Accessories:
Universal: Menacing Fairy Wings, Warding Shield of Cthulhu, Menacing Frog boots
Class-specific (all menacing):
Melee: Power Glove, Warrior Emblem, Pygmy Necklace
Ranged: Putrid Scent, Ranger Emblem, Magic Quiver or Pygmy Necklace (for bows vs not bows)
Magic: Celestial Cuffs, Sorcerer Emblem, Mana Cloak or Pygmy Necklace (done once with each accessory for most weapons)
Summoner: Power Glove, Summoner Emblem, Pygmy Necklace
All weapons were reforged to Unreal, Legendary, and Mythical when possible, and Demonic or Godly when not possible. Minions were Ruthless.
Buffs: Clairvoyance, Sharpened, Bewitching Table, Ammo Box, Ammo reservation potion, magic power, magic regeneration, stoneskin, endurance, regeneration, lifeforce, archer potion, hunter potion, summoning potion, sake (for melee), golden delight (well fed)
Mount: Blessed Apple
Hook: Dual Hook
Minion: Spider Staff, since I think Queen Slime should be a 'stepping stone', not something you approach with perfect gear. Swapping out spiders and sanguine didn't make much difference for Daedalus Stormbow (with spiders, 50 seconds with holy arrows and 43 with cursed; with sanguine, 45 with holy and 45 with cursed). The spiders usually targeted minions, so when they targeted Queen Slime it affected times. Most people had 3-4 spiders depending on if they had Pygmy Necklace or not).
The setup was, for ranged, a long platform about a screen or two wide and high off the ground (to stop bouncing gel). I would keep my distance in Phase 1, then in Phase 2 take to the air, flying diagonally to keep a fixed distance from Queen Slime, often off-screen.
This was bad for the melee tests, so I added another 1000 platforms in length and used the Blessed Apple for phase 2. I continued this for most magic and summoning tests.
Overall thoughts: The minions are absolutely the real menace here. The little bouncy slimecan take off half your health in a few seconds, and if you get juggled by a crystal slime you're dead. While I didn't use them in the main tests, fighting over the ocean or over a lava layer shuts down most of their attacks.
Armor doesn't matter much since every hit is doing 100+ or 200+ damage. Endurance potion was helpful here, as was lifeforce potion. Frequently, even with the best weapons, everything was chaotic.
The results:
(It often took 5-10 seconds just to find queen slime, and due to the randomness of her attacks times are not consistent. That's why each weapon is tested multiple times. For instance, both ichor and cursed flasks are used in the melee weapons. Just because one time is 15 seconds better than the other doesn't mean the flask is better, it could have just been random chance).
Melee
Melee was terrible in this fight. The bouncy slimes can shoot well over half a screen away, Queen Slime herself has several area attacks, everyone has huge contact damage, and if you fly during the second phase Queen Slime is often off screen.
Blue is very safe, Green is mostly safe, yellow is risky, orange is very risky, and red is horribly risky.
Tier 1:
Drippler Crippler (70 seconds with cursed flask, 76seconds with ichor flask). This flail is long enough to reach Queen Slime safely but also shoots a projectile that does even better. Awesome weapon.
Chain Guillotines (77 cursed, 55 ichor. I thought I might have miscounted, and got 91 with ichor on second attempt). These were buffed a lot in 1.4.1 and are good against the mechs, too, except the Destroyer (but it's good for the probes).
Shadowflame Knife: (80 cursed, 75 ichor, 76 no flask). By far the best option for a melee user: bounces onto nearby slimes, huge range, can attack off-screen.
Bananarangs: (73 cursed,81 ichor)
Tier 2:
Sergeant United Shield: (99 cursed, 84 ichor). Very effective and completely removes threat of summoned slimes, but during phase 2 often wanders far off-screen.
Amarok: (86 cursed, 92 ichor) (Yoyo glove was used here, and it helps eliminate the minions. This is a great weapon for the second stage on the blessed apple, since it doesn't lag behind)
Dao of Pow: (89 cursed, 90 ichor)
Tier 3:
Flying Knife: (100 cursed, 115 ichor). Terrible for this fight. It can't attack off-screen and it can't protect you well against minions up close.
Ice Sickle: (117 cursed, 104 ichor)
Frostbrand (beam only): (170 cursed, ichor not tried)
Tier 4:
Fetid Baghnakhs, Titanium Trident, Jousting Lance, Bladetongue, Breaker Blade, Obsidian Swordfish: Died a lot. I know Gungnir has done this with a KO Cannon, so check out this video if you're really excited about close-up melee:
Ranged
Ranged absolutely dominated this boss.
Tier 1:
Daedalus Stormbow: (50 holy, 43 cursed, 48 ichor, 73 unholy). The perfect weapon; it kills all the minions and can hit anywhere on the screen. Cursed arrows had better accuracy for me, and the nerf to holy arrows makes all the hardmode arrows pretty viable.
Tier 2:
Onyx Blaster: (69 crystal, 61 ichor, 73 cursed, 90 meteor, 79 explosive). Great for this fight: the onyx blast hits Queen Slime and the bullets take out the minions. Crystal bullets' nerf definitely hits all the guns.
Shadowflame Bow: (73 cursed). Only arrow damage matters here.
Dart Rifle: (91 crystal, 61 cursed). Crystal bullets were good against minions but pretty bad for main DPS. Flying up and down in phase 2 is better for cursed.
Dart Pistol: (131 crystal, 69 ichor). Again crystal underperforms, but ichor is great.
Uzi: (64 crystal, 73 cursed, 70 ichor) Narrow range means less minions hit. I accidentally didn't upgrade it to unreal at first, and got these numbers with a 'base' uzi: (84 crystal, 72 cursed, 90 ichor, 111 endless). The cursed seems like a fluke (probably a counting error), and overall the 'Unreal' upgrade makes an enormous difference.
Gatligator: (73 crytal, 91 cursed, 79 ichor). The spray is better against minions but randomizes DPS more or less.
Adamantite repeater: (90 holy, 86 ichor, 72 cursed)
Ice Bow: (80 cursed)
Tier 3:
Shotgun: (105 crystal, 99 cursed, 104 ichor)
Marrow: (Cursed 111)
Clockwork Assault Rifle: (113 crystal, 112 cursed, 113 ichor)
Toxikarp: (176) Hard to aim without practice.
Magic:
I like lots of mana accessories (mana cloak+celestial cuffs+mana regeneration) but I know not everyone does, so every weapon was tested with mana cloak and with pygmy necklace.
Tier 1:
Meteor Staff: (with Pygmy necklace 72 seconds, with Mana Cloak 66 seconds). Really didn't expect this one; it's probably the ease of aiming. Vertical movement helps.
Crystal Storm: (71 pygmy, 79 cloak). Really satisfying, and great in second stage with Blessed Apple. The only 'crystal fragments' weapon not nerfed.
Tier 2:
Sky Fracture: (85 pygymy, 74 cloak)
Crystal Serpent: (78 pygmy, 93 cloak)
Spirit Lamp: (94 pygmy, 76 cloak). I had a few issues with targeting in phase 2, as I wasn't sure if the projectiles 'time out' or not, so I kept doubling back to let them catch up and got hurt.
Cursed Flames: (94 Pygmy, 90 cloak). No floor to bounce on hurt this one.
Life Drain: (94 pygmy, 90 cloak). This one was great for minions but can't shoot off-screen.
Tier 3:
Frost Staff: (105 Pygmy, 106 cloak)
Magic Dagger: (105 cloak, 112 pygmy)
Poison Staff: (106 cloak, died and didn't feel like trying again with pygmy). Short range really hurts in this fight, because it puts you in range of the bouncy slimes.
Shadowflame Hex Doll: (119 cloak, 101 pygmy) Not as risky as Poison Staff, but still pretty rough. Great against the summoned slimes, though.
Flower of Frost: (122 cloak, 107 pygmy). Like a weaker Cursed Flames. Would do better if it had something to bounce on.
Golden Shower: (129 cloak, 106 pygmy) Really low DPS compared to the other tome weapons.
Tier 4:
Blood Thorn: (160 cloak, 116 pygmy). Times are all over the place because this weapon was wacky. Instead of on platforms, I fought phase 1 on the ground, where this did great at attacking queen and slimes from a distance. For phase 2, it acted kind of like Crystal Vile Shard if I jumped in the air, sending spikes out of me that lingered, doing damage when Queen Slime rammed into them. Times are inconsistent because weapon is inconsistent.
Crystal Vile Shard: (140 cloak. Didn't use pygmy staff but got a time of 165 when I used the wrong mythril headpiece). Ironic that this was the best pre-mech magic weapon against the Destroyer but the worst here. Bad range and Queen Slime moves out of range very quickly.
Summoning:
Obsidian Armor | Spinal Tap | Firecracker | Cool Whip |
Imp Staff | X | 98 | 104 |
Spider Staff | X | 82 | 77 |
Sanguine Staff | 70 | 39 | 52 |
Spider Armor | Spinal Tap | Firecracker | Cool Whip |
Imp Staff | X | 158 | 168 |
Spider Staff | X | 134 | 124 |
Sanguine Staff | 64 | 42 | 56 |
Spiders were almost entirely useless in Phase 2, with all damage in that phase done with whips. I tried using Firecracker in phase 1 and cool whip in phase 2 with spiders and got a time of 74 seconds, so it does seem to have some effect. Imps also do almost nothing in phase 2 due to slow projectiles.
Similarly, with imps+obsidian, using firecracker for phase 1 and coolwhip for phase 2 is 90 seconds, better than either alone.
Interesting results here. For me personally, I'd rather use Blade staff against the Dreadnautilus than use sanguine staff against Queen Slime, but I can never beat her with Spiders. But the Firecracker+Cool Whip+Spiderstaff+Obsidian Armor combo is very safe and compares to the best magic and melee weapons and the tier 2 of ranged. In Baconfry's Hardmode Weapon Tier List, he says:
and in Phase 2 of queen slime with spiders and imps, that's exactly what's happening. Your summons are useless, and Cool Whip becomes the best whip.Technically, Cool Whip is the best pre-mech whip for someone who isn't using summons.
Finally, when using Sanguine Staff, you can outperform the Daedalus Stormbow.
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