Weapons & Equip An Offering for the Rangers seeking Blood

Because adding something that prolongs life to someone who isn't going to be fighting directly is ridiculous and unnecessary. All of the classes so far are already well balanced (except for summoners atm), you don't want to add something that shatters the balance and makes one class ludicrously unbalanced.
Once again, balanced is stripping all this life steal from everyone. Taking this balance and making half the classes then specialize in life stealing is "ludicrously unbalanced." Either need to get rid of all life steal, or to give a source for it for all damage types equally. People who like magic can wear specter armor to get decent life stealing on all spells, and people in Beetle Scale Mail can use their 30% boost to get some serious healing with vampire knives. Anyone else would have to do something like wear Specter armor and throw out clouds while throwing vampire knives and then actually off-hand wielding weapons they actually like, to have even half the results of the previous. Sure, most of the smart people just say "screw life stealing" (which you can do with both spells OR while in Beetle Scale Mail just as efficiently), but that isn't actually balanced either. Balancing means either no one gets it, or everyone does. And unfortunately it seems like no one is ever going to convince them to actually get rid of it. Convincing people to 'balance' life stealing though by giving us MORE of it, entirely possible and actually likely.

So yeah, also again, people can either waste their time posting futile pleads for not having more life-stealing around to annoy us with, or they can actually help figure out what would spread this around equally without going crazy about it. Otherwise, highly likely it's going to get spread around in said crazy way, regardless of anything anyone else says.

You know, I think I've said this same point now a half dozen times in this topic alone. This brings up why the devs will just ignore people who only say "nu uh, don't do it" instead of actually coming up with the "least hated solution" to spread it, it just gets tiring to wade through. On that note, yeah, got no problem with someone showing up saying "lifesteal sucks, but if we must have it this is what I think should be done to add it" (probably the ideal thing for me to read, tbh), but if someone just stops at "lifesteal sucks" without any constructive insight into a good "least hated solution" for sharing this torment to others not optimized for it currently, I'll just treat it as it is - a non-constructive reply with no creative insight and zero purpose, so basically spam (which has the same definition, so that's basically true). Nothing said in such a post is going to influence any design decisions down the road anyway, so might as well keep going as if such posts never existed. I just still find it harsh, the whole lifesteal implementation needs insight from people who actually hate it, so that we could actually have a "least hated solution" instead of something deserving of much more hate comparatively, but so many of such people are just throwing away their voice on this... people who aren't constructive about it will only have themselves to blame for such.
 
Once again, balanced is stripping all this life steal from everyone. Taking this balance and making half the classes then specialize in life stealing is "ludicrously unbalanced." Either need to get rid of all life steal, or to give a source for it for all damage types equally. People who like magic can wear specter armor to get decent life stealing on all spells, and people in Beetle Scale Mail can use their 30% boost to get some serious healing with vampire knives. Anyone else would have to do something like wear Specter armor and throw out clouds while throwing vampire knives and then actually off-hand wielding weapons they actually like, to have even half the results of the previous. Sure, most of the smart people just say "screw life stealing" (which you can do with both spells OR while in Beetle Scale Mail just as efficiently), but that isn't actually balanced either. Balancing means either no one gets it, or everyone does. And unfortunately it seems like no one is ever going to convince them to actually get rid of it. Convincing people to 'balance' life stealing though by giving us MORE of it, entirely possible and actually likely.

So yeah, also again, people can either waste their time posting futile pleads for not having more life-stealing around to annoy us with, or they can actually help figure out what would spread this around equally without going crazy about it. Otherwise, highly likely it's going to get spread around in said crazy way, regardless of anything anyone else says.

You know, I think I've said this same point now a half dozen times in this topic alone. This brings up why the devs will just ignore people who only say "nu uh, don't do it" instead of actually coming up with the "least hated solution" to spread it, it just gets tiring to wade through. On that note, yeah, got no problem with someone showing up saying "lifesteal sucks, but if we must have it this is what I think should be done to add it" (probably the ideal thing for me to read, tbh), but if someone just stops at "lifesteal sucks" without any constructive insight into a good "least hated solution" for sharing this torment to others not optimized for it currently, I'll just treat it as it is - a non-constructive reply with no creative insight and zero purpose, so basically spam (which has the same definition, so that's basically true). Nothing said in such a post is going to influence any design decisions down the road anyway, so might as well keep going as if such posts never existed. I just still find it harsh, the whole lifesteal implementation needs insight from people who actually hate it, so that we could actually have a "least hated solution" instead of something deserving of much more hate comparatively, but so many of such people are just throwing away their voice on this... people who aren't constructive about it will only have themselves to blame for such.

Each class has their own bonuses and set backs. These are what makes the class different

Melee:
High Defense - High Damage - Life Steal

Ranged:
Moderate Defense - High High Damage - Range

Magic:
Reusable Mana - High Damage - Life Steal

Summoner:
Ability to be Lazy - Minions - Range
 
Each class has their own bonuses and set backs. These are what makes the class different
...

Correction, Magic has a defense that is almost identical to Ranged, applies considerable crowd controlling mechanics and...
...a lot of Range. In fact, the similarities between range for spells and guns made me very comfortable using guns, especially while mana was low. I also don't feel that magic got the short side on overall DPS compared to ranged either. Once again, game is 100% balanced if life steal did not exist. If you simply turned Vampire Knives into throwing knives with no life leech and you converted all Specter Armor sets into the damage hat version and then deleted the healing version, game is still 100% balanced (and I would actually still be playing Sorcerer primarily over anything else, cause I love how magic works). Considering this, apply previous post. Applying previous post, I see no constructive input here, so, nothing more to talk about.
 
Correction, Magic has a defense that is almost identical to Ranged, applies considerable crowd controlling mechanics and...

...a lot of Range. In fact, the similarities between range for spells and guns made me very comfortable using guns, especially while mana was low. I also don't feel that magic got the short side on overall DPS compared to ranged either. Once again, game is 100% balanced if life steal did not exist. If you simply turned Vampire Knives into throwing knives with no life leech and you converted all Specter Armor sets into the damage hat version and then deleted the healing version, game is still 100% balanced (and I would actually still be playing Sorcerer primarily over anything else, cause I love how magic works). Considering this, apply previous post. Applying previous post, I see no constructive input here, so, nothing more to talk about.

Magic also has a downside that Ranged doesn't have. It's its strength and weakness. MANA. It can run out pretty quickly, and will punish the player for restoring it. That's actually a major downside.
 
Magic also has a downside that Ranged doesn't have. It's its strength and weakness. MANA. It can run out pretty quickly, and will punish the player for restoring it. That's actually a major downside.
Mana can be easily replenished the same way ammo is, money. You buy a huge stack of pots, you can go full auto without a care in the world. Want to conserve mana (and thus money), don't go full auto. There is even an accessory that lets you go lazy mode with using mana potions, mostly if you haven't bound it to the side buttons of your mouse (which then basically is your new "reload" button). In a dedicated battle, I use concentrated magic attacks, avoiding both melee and ranged, while never running due to lack of mana. The mentioned use of ranged sometimes when mana is low is when facing a couple of weak things after mana is low and being all "nah, I'll save that potion this time", and is mostly there to both add variety to my attacks and to spend some of the ammo I keep endlessly picking up and never using otherwise (I still pick up more ammo than I use). Considering that fallen enemies drop stars too, the above "need" ends up really rare, so often it's more using ranged just to be totally random sometimes, including being random with projectile melee attacks (love those sickles and hard mode boomerangs). Nothing major about this one, I actually find it more annoying maintaining active ammo types (especially mid battle) than keeping mana restored, but mostly because I keep saving space by wanting one ammo spot for stars, one for gels, and then worry about stuff like wires and solutions in addition to ammo (end up burning a lot of space there, being a Ranger). Mana Potions use space too though, which is what makes this not unfair for Rangers.

Once again, game 100% balanced without life stealing. I mained Sorcerer before 1.2 (when there was no life stealing), and since then keep making Sorcerer with no healing specter armor (damage specter armor is pretty nice). I would know that Sorcerers are totally balanced without life stealing. Means that balancing the game with lifestealing will be compensating for this.
 
Mana can be easily replenished the same way ammo is, money. You buy a huge stack of pots, you can go full auto without a care in the world. Want to conserve mana (and thus money), don't go full auto. There is even an accessory that lets you go lazy mode with using mana potions, mostly if you haven't bound it to the side buttons of your mouse (which then basically is your new "reload" button). In a dedicated battle, I use concentrated magic attacks, avoiding both melee and ranged, while never running due to lack of mana. The mentioned use of ranged sometimes when mana is low is when facing a couple of weak things after mana is low and being all "nah, I'll save that potion this time", and is mostly there to both add variety to my attacks and to spend some of the ammo I keep endlessly picking up and never using otherwise (I still pick up more ammo than I use). Considering that fallen enemies drop stars too, the above "need" ends up really rare, so often it's more using ranged just to be totally random sometimes, including being random with projectile melee attacks (love those sickles and hard mode boomerangs). Nothing major about this one, I actually find it more annoying maintaining active ammo types (especially mid battle) than keeping mana restored, but mostly because I keep saving space by wanting one ammo spot for stars, one for gels, and then worry about stuff like wires and solutions in addition to ammo (end up burning a lot of space there, being a Ranger). Mana Potions use space too though, which is what makes this not unfair for Rangers.

Once again, game 100% balanced without life stealing. I mained Sorcerer before 1.2, and since then keep making Sorcerer with no healing specter armor (damage specter armor is pretty nice). I would know that Sorcerers are totally balanced without life stealing. Means that balancing the game with lifestealing will be compensating for this.

Mana potions inflict Mana Sickness. As for the star thing, it is indeed true. However, Ranged still does not need life steal. I'm no longer going to try to compare ranged to other classes. I'm going to see how well it is without inflicting it the pain of comparison:

Pro:
-Usually more Ammo than you need
-High Damage
-Different types of Ammunition
-Different types of Weapons themselves
-Different subsets within those weapons
-Defense that's pretty good
-Stealthing ability
-The ability to get ammo back and back

Con:
-Ammo is not unlimited
-Some more, just can't think
 
Mana potions inflict Mana Sickness. As for the star thing, it is indeed true. However, Ranged still does not need life steal. I'm no longer going to try to compare ranged to other classes. I'm going to see how well it is without inflicting it the pain of comparison:

Pro:
-Usually more Ammo than you need
-High Damage
-Different types of Ammunition
-Different types of Weapons themselves
-Different subsets within those weapons
-Defense that's pretty good
-Stealthing ability
-The ability to get ammo back and back

Con:
-Ammo is not unlimited
-Some more, just can't think
Don't forget that their armor effect conflicts with the class itself.
 
Mana potions inflict Mana Sickness. As for the star thing, it is indeed true. However, Ranged still does not need life steal. I'm no longer going to try to compare ranged to other classes. I'm going to see how well it is without inflicting it the pain of comparison:

Pro:
-Usually more Ammo than you need
-High Damage
-Different types of Ammunition
-Different types of Weapons themselves
-Different subsets within those weapons
-Defense that's pretty good
-Stealthing ability
-The ability to get ammo back and back

Con:
-Ammo is not unlimited
-Some more, just can't think
Maybe you haven't noticed yet, but there is no such thing as mana sickness. You can spam mana pots with no restrictions. Purple pots however are restricted by potion sickness, so aren't recommended for magic spamming. If you equip the Mana Flower, you can hold down the fire button with any spell and only stop shooting when your potion supply runs out.

Edit: You can tell I didn't actually play the 1.2.3 patch yet. A 25% damage reduction for 5 seconds (drained 5% every second, but restored every potion) however isn't going to slow me down much. It's not like I've ever needed to go full auto that hard yet, and if I do, losing a quarter of the damage isn't going to slow down lazy feelings either.

Also again, if you're talking about people needing life stealing, no one does. Everyone manages perfectly fine without. This isn't about people needing it though, this is about a surplus bonus feature with zero impact on requirement for anyone's build regardless of class being equally optimizable for all classes. Because again, no one needs it, but it exists. It's also not going away, so everyone is going to get it optimized. If you don't want to discuss how Rangers should get it, that's up to you, but then you have less rights to complain about how Rangers will get a Ranger-optimized Life Steal, even if its done in the worst possible way, because you didn't offer any constructive support on having it show up in a less horrible way.

Also again, you've got nothing to convince me of either really. I hate life stealing, and ideally wish it was gone completely again. But I also wish I had a hundred billion dollars. Neither are realistic requests that I have reasons to expect will happen. I can state my hatred for life stealing all I want, it's never going away. Same thing with you, you can talk like a broken record about all your views on how Rangers don't need life stealing, and it won't stop you from getting it. The only thing either of us can have any impact on at all is ideas for how Rangers would get it, and if you're going to be stubborn about not having constructive ideas, then you are useless in disputes regarding life stealing's future. Only constructive input means anything.

So yes, instead of any futile meaningless comments, anyone actually have anything constructive to say? Hopefully not just people who actually love this life stealing crap.
 
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Maybe you haven't noticed yet, but there is no such thing as mana sickness. You can spam mana pots with no restrictions. Purple pots however are restricted by potion sickness, so aren't recommended for magic spamming. If you equip the Mana Flower, you can hold down the fire button with any spell and only stop shooting when your potion supply runs out.

Also again, if you're talking about people needing life stealing, no one does. Everyone manages perfectly fine without. This isn't about people needing it though, this is about a surplus bonus feature with zero impact on requirement for anyone's build regardless of class being equally optimizable for all classes. Because again, no one needs it, but it exists. It's also not going away, so everyone is going to get it optimized. If you don't want to discuss how Rangers should get it, that's up to you, but then you have less rights to complain about how Rangers will get a Ranger-optimized Life Steal, even if its done in the worst possible way, because you didn't offer any constructive support on having it show up in a less horrible way.

Also again, you've got nothing to convince me of either really. I hate life stealing, and ideally wish it was gone completely again. But I also wish I had a hundred billion dollars. Neither are realistic requests that I have reasons to expect will happen. I can state my hatred for life stealing all I want, it's never going away. Same thing with you, you can talk like a broken record about all your views on how Rangers don't need life stealing, and it won't stop you from getting it. The only thing either of us can have any impact on at all is ideas for how Rangers would get it, and if you're going to be stubborn about not having constructive ideas, then you are useless in disputes regarding life stealing's future. Only constructive input means anything.

So yes, instead of any futile meaningless comments, anyone actually have anything constructive to say? Hopefully not just people who actually love this life stealing crap.

I actually agree with you on life stealing. I wish it wasn't introduced to the game. However, now that it was... I can't do anything about it. This approach was taken slightly wrong. @SzGamer227 has a weapon tied to life steal. That's the way it should be done.
 
Maybe you haven't noticed yet, but there is no such thing as mana sickness. You can spam mana pots with no restrictions. Purple pots however are restricted by potion sickness, so aren't recommended for magic spamming. If you equip the Mana Flower, you can hold down the fire button with any spell and only stop shooting when your potion supply runs out.

Also again, if you're talking about people needing life stealing, no one does. Everyone manages perfectly fine without. This isn't about people needing it though, this is about a surplus bonus feature with zero impact on requirement for anyone's build regardless of class being equally optimizable for all classes. Because again, no one needs it, but it exists. It's also not going away, so everyone is going to get it optimized. If you don't want to discuss how Rangers should get it, that's up to you, but then you have less rights to complain about how Rangers will get a Ranger-optimized Life Steal, even if its done in the worst possible way, because you didn't offer any constructive support on having it show up in a less horrible way.

Also again, you've got nothing to convince me of either really. I hate life stealing, and ideally wish it was gone completely again. But I also wish I had a hundred billion dollars. Neither are realistic requests that I have reasons to expect will happen. I can state my hatred for life stealing all I want, it's never going away. Same thing with you, you can talk like a broken record about all your views on how Rangers don't need life stealing, and it won't stop you from getting it. The only thing either of us can have any impact on at all is ideas for how Rangers would get it, and if you're going to be stubborn about not having constructive ideas, then you are useless in disputes regarding life stealing's future. Only constructive input means anything.

So yes, instead of any futile meaningless comments, anyone actually have anything constructive to say? Hopefully not just people who actually love this life stealing crap.
Check again, Mana sickness IS a debuff, it is a side effect of having the mana flower equipped and burning through your mana rapidly.
 
Check again, Mana sickness IS a debuff, it is a side effect of having the mana flower equipped and burning through your mana rapidly.
Noticed this before you posted, edited accordingly. However, anyone who can burn away their entire mana supply in 5s is doing it wrong (long range = dodge sometimes). Just like reloading again, when you reload is usually the best time to reposition. This is also as long as it takes to reactivate cloaking for Rangers, so you can see where this came from, and also stands way easier to manage then. As is, I've gotten good at maintaining sustained fire without bleeding potions, and still find it personally easier to manage than Ranger's stuff. That's all opinion based however, such options are all equal... before lifestealing (this is why Sorcerers don't suffer in content before getting Specter Armor).
I actually agree with you on life stealing. I wish it wasn't introduced to the game. However, now that it was... I can't do anything about it. This approach was taken slightly wrong. @SzGamer227 has a weapon tied to life steal. That's the way it should be done.
I keep seeing people mention this, yet never linking to it. I've never actually been able to read this suggestion cause people seem to think everyone already knows it. I can neither evaluate it, nor can it impact my own insight on the matter, if I have no idea what it is. People can say it's the perfect answer all they want, but saying they know a perfect answer doesn't do much if no one says what it is... Especially true if it's a genuine idea from someone who hates lifestealing that has an idea that is sorta appreciated by both those who also hate lifestealing, as well as those who are bloodthirsty for it.
 
Noticed this before you posted, edited accordingly. However, anyone who can burn away their entire mana supply in 5s is doing it wrong (long range = dodge sometimes). Just like reloading again, when you reload is usually the best time to reposition. This is also as long as it takes to reactivate cloaking for Rangers, so you can see where this came from, and also stands way easier to manage then. As is, I've gotten good at maintaining sustained fire without bleeding potions, and still find it personally easier to manage than Ranger's stuff. That's all opinion based however, such options are all equal... before lifestealing (this is why Sorcerers don't suffer in content before getting Specter Armor).

I keep seeing people mention this, yet never linking to it. I've never actually been able to read this suggestion cause people seem to think everyone already knows it. I can neither evaluate it, nor can it impact my own insight on the matter, if I have no idea what it is. People can say it's the perfect answer all they want, but saying they know a perfect answer doesn't do much if no one says what it is... Especially true if it's a genuine idea from someone who hates lifestealing that has an idea that is sorta appreciated by both those who also hate lifestealing, as well as those who are bloodthirsty for it.
Removed the link.
 
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[[link]] Here you go.
Thank you for that.
Though after looking into it, it seems you would have done better sending it to me privately. Just remove the link before you get in trouble.
I actually agree with you on life stealing. I wish it wasn't introduced to the game. However, now that it was... I can't do anything about it. This approach was taken slightly wrong. @SzGamer227 has a weapon tied to life steal. That's the way it should be done.
Checked it over and gave my own insight on it, and a list of things to fix up. It had its own decent flare to it, but it was hardly the perfect solution you described it to be. Both my ideas and @SzGamer227's had it's own unique flare to it, but I don't think you could actually value one over the other. One thing he does get however is specific details, as my post was more generalized concepts still (I haven't been in the mood for specific details when it was hard to find people calm on the subject in the first place). Technically, neither idea is complete enough to use, but with so few people working on it... it makes sense why so much more work is required.
 
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Thank you for that.

Checked it over and gave my own insight on it, and a list of things to fix up. It had its own decent flare to it, but it was hardly the perfect solution you described it to be. Both my ideas and @SzGamer227's had it's own unique flare to it, but I don't think you could actually value one over the other. One thing he does get however is specific details, as my post was more generalized concepts still (I haven't been in the mood for specific details when it was hard to find people calm on the subject in the first place). Technically, neither idea is complete enough to use, but with so few people working on it... it makes sense why so much more work is required.

I completely forgot this thread. Anyway, yeah.
 
Once again, balanced is stripping all this life steal from everyone. Taking this balance and making half the classes then specialize in life stealing is "ludicrously unbalanced."

But as long as VK's exist in the form that they are in, there's no need. You can take your damage build (with universal accessories as as I've said, not much difference in damage), then just switch to them by pressing a number on the hotbar, then switch again when you've healed up. Heck, I'd probably still use them as a Sorcerer because I wouldn't be bothered to switch the helm to hood, as I do not use the 'pause time' function when you open your inventory.

People who like magic can wear specter armor to get decent life stealing on all spells, and people in Beetle Scale Mail can use their 30% boost to get some serious healing with vampire knives. Anyone else would have to do something like wear Specter armor and throw out clouds while throwing vampire knives and then actually off-hand wielding weapons they actually like, to have even half the results of the previous.

And this is where an experiment I did a good time ago comes into use. Back on TO, there was a specific heated debate that I was involved in regarding life-leech. My response, as has been here, was that Vampire Knives work well with any class. I immediately got told that they don't do :red: if you aren't Melee, so I opened up Terraria to get a realistic perspective on this verdict.

Lo and behold, there was me in my Shroomite Armour waltzing semi-carelessly through the dungeon throwing knives everywhere and not a single death. I thought this wasn't enough of a result, so I decided to find out what the Pumpkin Moon wave15 would be like. I blitzed through the waves with my damage set-up and got to wave15, then decided to park my backside on a platform, aim up and held the trigger for the remainder of the night. Still didn't die.

And the best part about the set-up is that I can switch to my insane DPS weapon just like that if I wanted to. I didn't have to organise my build to meet my needs at all. That's the beauty of this game; you aren't restricted to using one class (despite more people than necessary receiving the illusion of this anyway).

One thing I have to note is that this was a time where the VK's were in the same state as they are now (PC version anyway, I don't know what goes on in the console). This wasn't with any form of Pre-nerf VK's.

Balancing means either no one gets it, or everyone does.

The only 'imbalance' I see is that there isn't a tagged Ranger/Summoner item. And since not having an equal amount of that content does not directly relate to gameplay balance, as well as the fact that all classes have an adequate amount of access to life-leech, I can't really be convinced.

You're stating that the only logical/realistic option to go for is to just suggest something that does the least amount of harm. I just can't bring myself to believe that. My only suggestion regarding life-leech wholly is make VK's baseless damage. That is the only thing that can make the position it has on this game as balanced as possible. Otherwise, I'm fine with how it is at the moment.
 
I've done my best to read all the arguments on this thread, (And I have to say, they all make a pretty good case.) and, while I don't have ones to address, I'd like to state my opinion:

First and foremost. What seems to be the primary idea being argued is whether the concern that this addresses is a valid one. I dislike this, because new content is rarely a bad thing in and of itself. That's why we play the game. For its content. For this reason, I approach suggestion criticism from a "Why not?" point of view.

Well then, why not?

"Because it creates imbalance."
Lanie has not provided stats, or any other details to their suggestion, so attempting to argue this, as far as I can tell, is a moot point. From what I have gathered, this is balanced for the same reason the Hood and the Knives are - it drops DPS at a point in the game where DPS is king.

"It breaks theming already present in the game."
At the point in the game where this is introduced, weapons are incredibly diverse, and Rangers aren't subject to "Terra Blade Syndrome." (As far as I know.)

"It fails to address any problem or introduce anything of any value."
Basically, something that exists for the purpose of existing. Like a Purity alternate. Regardless of the arguments that can be against the former half of this point, I daresay that it does introduce an interesting new weapon, so it passes this point.

I don't like this suggestion because it doesn't spark my interest for any particular reason. At the same time, I don't dislike it, as it doesn't doesn't run into any of the flaws listed above.
 
I don't like this suggestion because it doesn't spark my interest for any particular reason. At the same time, I don't dislike it, as it doesn't doesn't run into any of the flaws listed above.
The number 1 biggest reason why there probably isn't a big interest spark going on is due to a lack of details. However, I was sorta testing the water with the general idea, so that I could round off details without having my hatred for the concept cloud the overall result. This would probably take input from others to achieve, mentions of how some factor was under-performing. I didn't trust myself to do such adequately.

And then the whole topic met a few pages of bias in return, sorta demoting the idea of working on details at all.
 
The number 1 biggest reason why there probably isn't a big interest spark going on is due to a lack of details. However, I was sorta testing the water with the general idea, so that I could round off details without having my hatred for the concept cloud the overall result. This would probably take input from others to achieve, mentions of how some factor was under-performing. I didn't trust myself to do such adequately.
Details rarely, if ever, spark my interest. I sort of just turned myself into a liar, though, because I just realized I misinterpreted how the weapon functions. I read "feels a bit like the Piranha Gun," and failed to realize that this is a target-snapping death laser. Booyeah.
 
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