Weapons & Equip Balance all the classes.

[semag]

To start this suggestion, let's just go over all the classes and see their attributes and pitfalls.

Melee:
Defence: Highest
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: Mostly high, despite the name.
Ammo: None
Weapon control: High

Ranged:
Defence: Medium
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: High
Ammo: Arrows, Bullets, rockets, amongst others, as well as none occassionally
Weapon control: Medium

Magic:
Defence: Low
Attack/DPS: Medium
Weapon reach: Low to high
Ammo: Mana
Weapon control: Low to high

Summoner:
Defence: Extremely low
Attack/DPS: Extremely low (excepting whips, more on that later)
Weapon reach: High, but really quite low.
Ammo: Mana, but not as applicable
Weapon control: Extremely low (excepting whips)

By these standards, Melee wins in every single category, and Summoner loses in almost every category. The difference between the classes is horrendous. Clearly there needs to be some sort of revolution to create more equality between the classes. So I'm going to go over every category and suggest some balance changes to make the game more balanced.

Melee:
Melee should definitely keep its high defence; it's supposed to be an up-close and personal class. However, it has no right to have such high-range, high damage weapons such as Yoyos and projectile swords. Using yoyos means that you barely need to be close to enemies for the entire game, and even without them, by hardmode you're going to be using melee weapons for their ranged capabilities regardless regardless. I don't believe that these weapons should be removed of course, and a straight-up nerf wouldn't work either. I just think that the ranged projectiles should be nerfed, so that melee is encouraged to be an upclose battle again rather than just a better version of ranged/mage. And Yoyos have desperately needed a nerf since their conception. They are brokenly powerful, and with them you can easily win the entire game (my yoyo-only run was by far the easiest run I've ever done).
Also, one hidden feature of mastermode is a scaling defence bonus. In normal mode, incoming damage is reduced by 50% of your defence stat. In Expert mode, that increases to 75%, and in Master mode, it's 100%. This is good for balancing out the difficulty of these modes, but it does absolutely nothing for low defence classes. And of course, what classes give high defence? Melee. Melee gets even more ridiculously overpowered in Mastermode.

Ranged:
I think ranged is probably one of the best balanced classes. However, I do believe that their defence should be lower than magic and summoner classes, as they are the ranged class, and so should be expected to be hit the least, as well as slightly increased attack.

Magic:
Magic can have its good moments. But for the most part, it has measily attack, the added cost of mana, and terrible defence. For a class which requires mana to fire, I expect much higher attack than they currently have. I also believe that a class which can have both high range and low range, but in general lower than ranged, should have a higher defence. I haven't played a mage playthrough in a long time because it is generally unsatisfying. You expect a mage to have high damage potential, but even with the best armour and weapons, you tend to do less damage than the ranged capabilities of melee.

Summoner:
sigh...
I had the displeasure of playing summoner on my first playthrough of mastermode (and only, unless the mode gets better). And I couldn't believe that somehow summoner had became even worse than it was in 1.3. In 1.3, it felt like a feasible class to play as. It was a challenge, yes, but it was fun. And now, you have a choice.
1. Use actual summoning weapons and be absolutely awful
2. Just use the whip and become a lesser melee
Minion AI is absolutely horrendous. Most of them will prioritize being close to you over actually attacking the enemy. There's a reason why people use the blade staff (other than its piercing) for practically every boss until you get Terraprisma or Stardust dragon, and it's because most other minions simply don't attack bosses. Couple the bad AI with low attack and defence in general, and you've got a terrible class.
Now let's talk about whips. Let's be honest: they are melee weapons. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it needs to be correctly done in order to add to the summoning class and not subvert it. This was not achieved in the 1.4 update, and was worsened in the 1.4.1 update. Whips are not in fact the supporting weapon that they should be to fit in with the summoner class, but have become THE weapon of the summoner class. No longer is using actual summoning weapons useful, because now you can just use obsidian armour and whips and beat half the game.
How do I think things ought to be with summoning class? Firstly, whips should do barely any damage by themselves. The entire purpose of the summoning class is that you stand back while your minions do all the damage for you, and hence this is why summoner has such little defence. They are supposed to be a ranged class. But then the melee whip comes in and forces players to be extremely close to their enemies in order to make any feasible attacks. With such low defence, this means you die a lot. What I believe is the solution is to make the whip effect last maybe 10-15 seconds, and make the whip attack far lower. This means that you will swing by the boss every 10 seconds to get that extra buff, and then you can hang back again to let your minions do the work.
Also, another thing which made summoning way worse in 1.4 was the removal of being able to switch out accessories and have your minions keep their buffs. This pointless nerf made the worst class even worse, and took out half of the strategy.

General:
I also believe that hardmode terraria forces the player far too much to abide by one of the 4 classes. Excepting a few, armor sets focus in too much on a single class. And those which don't specify still group together other classes, such as Frost and Forbidden armor. I believe this system doesn't actually line up with what a first time player wants to do, as they will use the items they pick up along the way and want to use them regardless of their armour. Therefore, I think that some more generic armor sets which don't adhere to one class is necessary. Crystal Assassin armor is a good example of this, however its low defence means that you'd probably have better armor to fight Queen Slime regardless. I also think Frost and Forbidden armor is a great idea, but I think Melee+Ranged and Magic+Summoner are balance-wise poor combos. Melee and Ranged are 2 opposing classes, quite literally a ranged and a close class. Magic and Summoner do work better together, but I think a better combo is Ranged and Summoner, as both are ranged classes, and Magic and Melee, as they are a mix of ranged and close-combat.

None of this is mentioning how awful PVP is. Summoner minions literally will not attack players, meaning that only whip can be used. Other than that, melee absolutely strikes out over all. Just use a projectile sword and get them cornered and the fight is won.

If you got this far, thank you! Despite 1400 hours in Terraria, I feel this, amongst other 1.4 problems, has really affected my enjoyment of the game, and I won't be returning until some major fixes occur. I might post some more suggestions with my other problems with the current state of the game, but I think others have pointed a lot of them out already.

 

[DV Game]

all classes should be fun to play
if summoner will be underpowered as well as ranger/magician, leaving only melee, that will be really bad.
I think all classes are balanced normally and as they need, melee have high defense due to low attack range, ranged/magic have lower defense due to high range but need to aim, and summoner have lowest because minions to all the work mainly. every class is already balanced normally, even understanding that every class has good moments.
about whips - yeah, they look like melee, but have you heard the sound it makes? it is a loud sound, and minions come and hit where is the sound is. can you understand it now?

yeah, magician and summoner are harder to play than ranger/melee but that's ok? and for magic in hardmode you have mana flower & lots of greater mana potions

 

[semag]

I think all classes are balanced normally and as they need, melee have high defense due to low attack range, ranged/magic have lower defense due to high range but need to aim, and summoner have lowest because minions to all the work mainly. every class is already balanced normally, even understanding that every class has good moments.

Yeah, I understand why the defence stats are how they are at the moment, which I mentioned in my suggestion. But the issue comes when the attributes you have given do not apply anymore to the class. Melee has high defence because they are supposed to be close-ranged, and yet most of their best weapons today have high range, and do far more damage than ranged and magic. Having lower defence for magic makes sense, but yet their weapons don't get the higher damage that they deserve for all the effort required for the class. Summoner no longer has the "minions do all the work," because minion AI is garbage and whips are far more feasible than summons, for some reason.

about whips - yeah, they look like melee, but have you heard the sound it makes? it is a loud sound, and minions come and hit where is the sound is. can you understand it now?

Yup, I get all of that, as I outlined in my actual thread. The fact that they are melee is not the problem, the problem is that they are far too much the central point of the summoner's arsenal when they should be a support weapon.

yeah, magician and summoner are harder to play than ranger/melee but that's ok? and for magic in hardmode you have mana flower & lots of greater mana potions.

Of course it's not bad that one class is more difficult than the other. It's just generally when you try a harder difficulty, you want a higher reward. And yet Mage and Summoner offer no reward, because mage does less damage than melee for 90% of the game, and summoner is just awful.

 

[whoneedsnamestbh]

Melee:
Melee should definitely keep its high defence; it's supposed to be an up-close and personal class. However, it has no right to have such high-range, high damage weapons such as Yoyos and projectile swords. Using yoyos means that you barely need to be close to enemies for the entire game, and even without them, by hardmode you're going to be using melee weapons for their ranged capabilities regardless regardless. I don't believe that these weapons should be removed of course, and a straight-up nerf wouldn't work either. I just think that the ranged projectiles should be nerfed, so that melee is encouraged to be an upclose battle again rather than just a better version of ranged/mage. And Yoyos have desperately needed a nerf since their conception. They are brokenly powerful, and with them you can easily win the entire game (my yoyo-only run was by far the easiest run I've ever done).
Also, one hidden feature of mastermode is a scaling defence bonus. In normal mode, incoming damage is reduced by 50% of your defence stat. In Expert mode, that increases to 75%, and in Master mode, it's 100%. This is good for balancing out the difficulty of these modes, but it does absolutely nothing for low defence classes. And of course, what classes give high defence? Melee. Melee gets even more ridiculously overpowered in Mastermode.

This is only really the case after Plantera. For much of the game, Melee’s effecftive range is actually quite short, with only a few exceptions such as Shadowflame Knives and True Swords (the former arching down quickly and the latter being slower and harder to aim). The majority of the melee weapons, many even after Plantera, force you to be uncomfortably close to bosses. Wall of Flesh especially ruins Melee because every single actually viable weapon puts you right in range of every single Hungry.

As for yoyos, they absolutely don’t have high range - they can never even reach the edge of your screen, and their single target DPS is very high but they’re almost useless against invasions due to the single target and previously mentioned limited range.

The thing about defense in expert and master is that yes, it scales, but it actually scales at a smaller rate than the enemy damage, so defense actually becomes *less* useful. As enemy contact damage scales and defense becomes weaker, melee gets weaker as you go up in difficulty.

Ranged:
I think ranged is probably one of the best balanced classes. However, I do believe that their defence should be lower than magic and summoner classes, as they are the ranged class, and so should be expected to be hit the least, as well as slightly increased attack.

Ranged actually has consistently the highest DPS in the game, so not much to say except that it’s too strong and reducing its defense would help.

Magic can have its good moments. But for the most part, it has measily attack, the added cost of mana, and terrible defence. For a class which requires mana to fire, I expect much higher attack than they currently have. I also believe that a class which can have both high range and low range, but in general lower than ranged, should have a higher defence. I haven't played a mage playthrough in a long time because it is generally unsatisfying. You expect a mage to have high damage potential, but even with the best armour and weapons, you tend to do less damage than the ranged capabilities of melee.

Mmmm. Mage actually has a lot more capability than you’re giving it credit for. It’s very strategic, so it will feel weak if you aren’t playing it well, but with good mana management it becomes incredibly strong. Many mage options have incredible DPS for their tier, such as Crystal Storm being almost like a pre-boss Megashark or the beast of a weapon that is Razorpine. It also has the most general utility because of the variety in weapons.

I recommend relying on more than mana potions to keep your mana up. There are plenty of options, including mana regen potions, celestial magnet/cuffs, etc. Managing your mana well completely throws the weapons up in strength, and you will find that you have a ton of DPS.

And it is consistently better than Melee in either DPS or range. Not more than Ranged, but that’s an issue of Ranged being too strong.

I had the displeasure of playing summoner on my first playthrough of mastermode (and only, unless the mode gets better). And I couldn't believe that somehow summoner had became even worse than it was in 1.3. In 1.3, it felt like a feasible class to play as. It was a challenge, yes, but it was fun. And now, you have a choice.
1. Use actual summoning weapons and be absolutely awful
2. Just use the whip and become a lesser melee
Minion AI is absolutely horrendous. Most of them will prioritize being close to you over actually attacking the enemy. There's a reason why people use the blade staff (other than its piercing) for practically every boss until you get Terraprisma or Stardust dragon, and it's because most other minions simply don't attack bosses. Couple the bad AI with low attack and defence in general, and you've got a terrible class.
Now let's talk about whips. Let's be honest: they are melee weapons. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it needs to be correctly done in order to add to the summoning class and not subvert it. This was not achieved in the 1.4 update, and was worsened in the 1.4.1 update. Whips are not in fact the supporting weapon that they should be to fit in with the summoner class, but have become THE weapon of the summoner class. No longer is using actual summoning weapons useful, because now you can just use obsidian armour and whips and beat half the game.
How do I think things ought to be with summoning class? Firstly, whips should do barely any damage by themselves. The entire purpose of the summoning class is that you stand back while your minions do all the damage for you, and hence this is why summoner has such little defence. They are supposed to be a ranged class. But then the melee whip comes in and forces players to be extremely close to their enemies in order to make any feasible attacks. With such low defence, this means you die a lot. What I believe is the solution is to make the whip effect last maybe 10-15 seconds, and make the whip attack far lower. This means that you will swing by the boss every 10 seconds to get that extra buff, and then you can hang back again to let your minions do the work.
Also, another thing which made summoning way worse in 1.4 was the removal of being able to switch out accessories and have your minions keep their buffs. This pointless nerf made the worst class even worse, and took out half of the strategy.

This is the summoner bad rhetoric that I’m always complaining about and will never understand. I don’t get why people find the class so weak?? I never get it. And I especially don’t get how 1.4 could have made it “worse”.

Summoner’s DPS is absolutely not low. The combined rapid hits on minions with the very high base damage on minion armors, plus the whip tags, gives Summoner an edge in DPS the entire game. Flinx gear and leather whip is on par with Ranged for the first few bosses, Vampire Frogs are incredibly capable for the Wall, Spiders have enormous grounded DPS, you’ve seen the strength of Blades, Sanguines are reliable and have high DPS, Desert Tiger has been buffed hugely, Ravens have poor AI but contribute the most DPS of any weapon their tier, Xenoes are fast, reliable and hard hitting.

Also, Whips *are* support. The vast majority of their extra DPS comes from tags, with the tags on most whips contributing as much as 50% more damage on minions. Their damage on their own is quite lacking, unless you use Obsidian Armor, which as I discussed last night, has been both significantly nerfed.

And there’s no way you should ever “only” use a whip. Even with Obsidian Armor’s whip focus, a large chunk of your damage still comes from minions, so you’re still running a cluster of 4-6 minions alongside your whip and it’s still legit summoner.

And the whips changes the meta of summoner, but not in a bad way. Playing “keep away” with never attacking manually and focusing on dodging sounds cool, but when your damage was so low anyway you ended up just using a ranged weapon alongside it, killing the whole point. Meanwhile, the DPS of a Summoner when you combine minions, whip tags, and the little bit of DPS from the whip itself can actually *outpreform** every other class, making Summoner a glass cannon. Low defense, low range, insane DPS. I think it’s unfair to try to look at summoner after 1.4 in the same lens as summoner in 1.3.

Finally, keeping summon bonuses after swapping out gear wasn’t a strategy, it was an exploit. And you shouldn’t need to anyway now that Summoner is more than capable.

 

[Dapling]

Now let's talk about whips. Let's be honest: they are melee weapons. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it needs to be correctly done in order to add to the summoning class and not subvert it. This was not achieved in the 1.4 update, and was worsened in the 1.4.1 update. Whips are not in fact the supporting weapon that they should be to fit in with the summoner class, but have become THE weapon of the summoner class. No longer is using actual summoning weapons useful, because now you can just use obsidian armour and whips and beat half the game.
How do I think things ought to be with summoning class? Firstly, whips should do barely any damage by themselves. The entire purpose of the summoning class is that you stand back while your minions do all the damage for you, and hence this is why summoner has such little defence. They are supposed to be a ranged class. But then the melee whip comes in and forces players to be extremely close to their enemies in order to make any feasible attacks. With such low defence, this means you die a lot. What I believe is the solution is to make the whip effect last maybe 10-15 seconds, and make the whip attack far lower. This means that you will swing by the boss every 10 seconds to get that extra buff, and then you can hang back again to let your minions do the work.

You realize that whips were selected because they are what beast tamers have classically used to handle animals, right? It works perfectly well for summoner.

 

[Geotree]

ok, my review cuz I feel like it

To start this suggestion, let's just go over all the classes and see their attributes and pitfalls.

Melee:
Defence: Highest
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: Mostly high, despite the name.
Ammo: None
Weapon control: High

Ranged:
Defence: Medium
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: High
Ammo: Arrows, Bullets, rockets, amongst others, as well as none occassionally
Weapon control: Medium

Magic:
Defence: Low
Attack/DPS: Medium
Weapon reach: Low to high
Ammo: Mana
Weapon control: Low to high

Summoner:
Defence: Extremely low
Attack/DPS: Extremely low (excepting whips, more on that later)
Weapon reach: High, but really quite low.
Ammo: Mana, but not as applicable
Weapon control: Extremely low (excepting whips)

By these standards, Melee wins in every single category, and Summoner loses in almost every category. The difference between the classes is horrendous. Clearly there needs to be some sort of revolution to create more equality between the classes. So I'm going to go over every category and suggest some balance changes to make the game more balanced.

Melee:
Melee should definitely keep its high defence; it's supposed to be an up-close and personal class. However, it has no right to have such high-range, high damage weapons such as Yoyos and projectile swords. Using yoyos means that you barely need to be close to enemies for the entire game, and even without them, by hardmode you're going to be using melee weapons for their ranged capabilities regardless regardless. I don't believe that these weapons should be removed of course, and a straight-up nerf wouldn't work either. I just think that the ranged projectiles should be nerfed, so that melee is encouraged to be an upclose battle again rather than just a better version of ranged/mage. And Yoyos have desperately needed a nerf since their conception. They are brokenly powerful, and with them you can easily win the entire game (my yoyo-only run was by far the easiest run I've ever done).
Also, one hidden feature of mastermode is a scaling defence bonus. In normal mode, incoming damage is reduced by 50% of your defence stat. In Expert mode, that increases to 75%, and in Master mode, it's 100%. This is good for balancing out the difficulty of these modes, but it does absolutely nothing for low defence classes. And of course, what classes give high defence? Melee. Melee gets even more ridiculously overpowered in Mastermode.

Ranged:
I think ranged is probably one of the best balanced classes. However, I do believe that their defence should be lower than magic and summoner classes, as they are the ranged class, and so should be expected to be hit the least, as well as slightly increased attack.

Magic:
Magic can have its good moments. But for the most part, it has measily attack, the added cost of mana, and terrible defence. For a class which requires mana to fire, I expect much higher attack than they currently have. I also believe that a class which can have both high range and low range, but in general lower than ranged, should have a higher defence. I haven't played a mage playthrough in a long time because it is generally unsatisfying. You expect a mage to have high damage potential, but even with the best armour and weapons, you tend to do less damage than the ranged capabilities of melee.

Summoner:
sigh...
I had the displeasure of playing summoner on my first playthrough of mastermode (and only, unless the mode gets better). And I couldn't believe that somehow summoner had became even worse than it was in 1.3. In 1.3, it felt like a feasible class to play as. It was a challenge, yes, but it was fun. And now, you have a choice.
1. Use actual summoning weapons and be absolutely awful
2. Just use the whip and become a lesser melee
Minion AI is absolutely horrendous. Most of them will prioritize being close to you over actually attacking the enemy. There's a reason why people use the blade staff (other than its piercing) for practically every boss until you get Terraprisma or Stardust dragon, and it's because most other minions simply don't attack bosses. Couple the bad AI with low attack and defence in general, and you've got a terrible class.
Now let's talk about whips. Let's be honest: they are melee weapons. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it needs to be correctly done in order to add to the summoning class and not subvert it. This was not achieved in the 1.4 update, and was worsened in the 1.4.1 update. Whips are not in fact the supporting weapon that they should be to fit in with the summoner class, but have become THE weapon of the summoner class. No longer is using actual summoning weapons useful, because now you can just use obsidian armour and whips and beat half the game.
How do I think things ought to be with summoning class? Firstly, whips should do barely any damage by themselves. The entire purpose of the summoning class is that you stand back while your minions do all the damage for you, and hence this is why summoner has such little defence. They are supposed to be a ranged class. But then the melee whip comes in and forces players to be extremely close to their enemies in order to make any feasible attacks. With such low defence, this means you die a lot. What I believe is the solution is to make the whip effect last maybe 10-15 seconds, and make the whip attack far lower. This means that you will swing by the boss every 10 seconds to get that extra buff, and then you can hang back again to let your minions do the work.
Also, another thing which made summoning way worse in 1.4 was the removal of being able to switch out accessories and have your minions keep their buffs. This pointless nerf made the worst class even worse, and took out half of the strategy.

General:
I also believe that hardmode terraria forces the player far too much to abide by one of the 4 classes. Excepting a few, armor sets focus in too much on a single class. And those which don't specify still group together other classes, such as Frost and Forbidden armor. I believe this system doesn't actually line up with what a first time player wants to do, as they will use the items they pick up along the way and want to use them regardless of their armour. Therefore, I think that some more generic armor sets which don't adhere to one class is necessary. Crystal Assassin armor is a good example of this, however its low defence means that you'd probably have better armor to fight Queen Slime regardless. I also think Frost and Forbidden armor is a great idea, but I think Melee+Ranged and Magic+Summoner are balance-wise poor combos. Melee and Ranged are 2 opposing classes, quite literally a ranged and a close class. Magic and Summoner do work better together, but I think a better combo is Ranged and Summoner, as both are ranged classes, and Magic and Melee, as they are a mix of ranged and close-combat.

None of this is mentioning how awful PVP is. Summoner minions literally will not attack players, meaning that only whip can be used. Other than that, melee absolutely strikes out over all. Just use a projectile sword and get them cornered and the fight is won.

If you got this far, thank you! Despite 1400 hours in Terraria, I feel this, amongst other 1.4 problems, has really affected my enjoyment of the game, and I won't be returning until some major fixes occur. I might post some more suggestions with my other problems with the current state of the game, but I think others have pointed a lot of them out already.

I sort of agree with melee, beggining and mid game is a little bit of trouble due to normal defense and not much range capability (excluding yoyo's). but once you hit mid hardmode and late game you get stupid amounts of defence and decent ranged melee attacks, which I dont like, I agree the projectiles should be nerfed. but I do not agree that it has the highest dps, its beaten by range and mage, excluding zenith but should I really include that?

dont you dare increase range damage. it will become even more powerful than it already is and thats just messing with the balance issues. it has low defense because it doesnt want to get hit, it rarley gets hit and so it should have low defense to balance it out.

stop giving mage so much crap, I've played mage so many times and when used well by someone who knows how to use it, its amazing, just not as good as ranger because ranger is op. if you manage mana well and dont just slap on a mana flower and forget about it (mage flashbacks), you can have incredibly high dps. it has low defense because it is mainly ranged, the only weapons you want to get close to a boss is stuff like crystal storm, vile thorn and the terrible crystal alternative, shadow flame vodoo doll, etc. it has amazing dps potential, higher than melee(do I have to keep saying to exclude zenith) if used properly, plus a wide range of quirks like life steal, buffs(looking at you nebula armour), status effects, homing, and more, making it extremley powerful in the hands of the right person.

I dont think it was nerfed in 1.4. in fact the only reason I'm playing a master mode playthrough is because it is so much better than before. whips arent budget melee weapons. they sometimes increase the damage of summoning weapons, give debuffs, and etc. nerfing the whips just completley nerfs the already less than decent summoner class. the whips were a great idea cuz it also lets your minions target one npc rather than the terrible attack the closest thing. I havent had any problems with summons but thats me

 

[SuperSkeletonboi]

Spoiler: ANALYSIS

To start this suggestion, let's just go over all the classes and see their attributes and pitfalls.

Melee:
Defence: Highest
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: Mostly high, despite the name.
Ammo: None
Weapon control: High

Ranged:
Defence: Medium
Attack/DPS: High, potentially highest
Weapon reach: High
Ammo: Arrows, Bullets, rockets, amongst others, as well as none occassionally
Weapon control: Medium

Magic:
Defence: Low
Attack/DPS: Medium
Weapon reach: Low to high
Ammo: Mana
Weapon control: Low to high

Summoner:
Defence: Extremely low
Attack/DPS: Extremely low (excepting whips, more on that later)
Weapon reach: High, but really quite low.
Ammo: Mana, but not as applicable
Weapon control: Extremely low (excepting whips)

By these standards, Melee wins in every single category, and Summoner loses in almost every category. The difference between the classes is horrendous. Clearly there needs to be some sort of revolution to create more equality between the classes. So I'm going to go over every category and suggest some balance changes to make the game more balanced.

Melee:
Melee should definitely keep its high defence; it's supposed to be an up-close and personal class. However, it has no right to have such high-range, high damage weapons such as Yoyos and projectile swords. Using yoyos means that you barely need to be close to enemies for the entire game, and even without them, by hardmode you're going to be using melee weapons for their ranged capabilities regardless regardless. I don't believe that these weapons should be removed of course, and a straight-up nerf wouldn't work either. I just think that the ranged projectiles should be nerfed, so that melee is encouraged to be an upclose battle again rather than just a better version of ranged/mage. And Yoyos have desperately needed a nerf since their conception. They are brokenly powerful, and with them you can easily win the entire game (my yoyo-only run was by far the easiest run I've ever done).
Also, one hidden feature of mastermode is a scaling defence bonus. In normal mode, incoming damage is reduced by 50% of your defence stat. In Expert mode, that increases to 75%, and in Master mode, it's 100%. This is good for balancing out the difficulty of these modes, but it does absolutely nothing for low defence classes. And of course, what classes give high defence? Melee. Melee gets even more ridiculously overpowered in Mastermode.

Ranged:
I think ranged is probably one of the best balanced classes. However, I do believe that their defence should be lower than magic and summoner classes, as they are the ranged class, and so should be expected to be hit the least, as well as slightly increased attack.

Magic:
Magic can have its good moments. But for the most part, it has measily attack, the added cost of mana, and terrible defence. For a class which requires mana to fire, I expect much higher attack than they currently have. I also believe that a class which can have both high range and low range, but in general lower than ranged, should have a higher defence. I haven't played a mage playthrough in a long time because it is generally unsatisfying. You expect a mage to have high damage potential, but even with the best armour and weapons, you tend to do less damage than the ranged capabilities of melee.

Summoner:
sigh...
I had the displeasure of playing summoner on my first playthrough of mastermode (and only, unless the mode gets better). And I couldn't believe that somehow summoner had became even worse than it was in 1.3. In 1.3, it felt like a feasible class to play as. It was a challenge, yes, but it was fun. And now, you have a choice.
1. Use actual summoning weapons and be absolutely awful
2. Just use the whip and become a lesser melee
Minion AI is absolutely horrendous. Most of them will prioritize being close to you over actually attacking the enemy. There's a reason why people use the blade staff (other than its piercing) for practically every boss until you get Terraprisma or Stardust dragon, and it's because most other minions simply don't attack bosses. Couple the bad AI with low attack and defence in general, and you've got a terrible class.
Now let's talk about whips. Let's be honest: they are melee weapons. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it needs to be correctly done in order to add to the summoning class and not subvert it. This was not achieved in the 1.4 update, and was worsened in the 1.4.1 update. Whips are not in fact the supporting weapon that they should be to fit in with the summoner class, but have become THE weapon of the summoner class. No longer is using actual summoning weapons useful, because now you can just use obsidian armour and whips and beat half the game.
How do I think things ought to be with summoning class? Firstly, whips should do barely any damage by themselves. The entire purpose of the summoning class is that you stand back while your minions do all the damage for you, and hence this is why summoner has such little defence. They are supposed to be a ranged class. But then the melee whip comes in and forces players to be extremely close to their enemies in order to make any feasible attacks. With such low defence, this means you die a lot. What I believe is the solution is to make the whip effect last maybe 10-15 seconds, and make the whip attack far lower. This means that you will swing by the boss every 10 seconds to get that extra buff, and then you can hang back again to let your minions do the work.
Also, another thing which made summoning way worse in 1.4 was the removal of being able to switch out accessories and have your minions keep their buffs. This pointless nerf made the worst class even worse, and took out half of the strategy.

General:
I also believe that hardmode terraria forces the player far too much to abide by one of the 4 classes. Excepting a few, armor sets focus in too much on a single class. And those which don't specify still group together other classes, such as Frost and Forbidden armor. I believe this system doesn't actually line up with what a first time player wants to do, as they will use the items they pick up along the way and want to use them regardless of their armour. Therefore, I think that some more generic armor sets which don't adhere to one class is necessary. Crystal Assassin armor is a good example of this, however its low defence means that you'd probably have better armor to fight Queen Slime regardless. I also think Frost and Forbidden armor is a great idea, but I think Melee+Ranged and Magic+Summoner are balance-wise poor combos. Melee and Ranged are 2 opposing classes, quite literally a ranged and a close class. Magic and Summoner do work better together, but I think a better combo is Ranged and Summoner, as both are ranged classes, and Magic and Melee, as they are a mix of ranged and close-combat.

None of this is mentioning how awful PVP is. Summoner minions literally will not attack players, meaning that only whip can be used. Other than that, melee absolutely strikes out over all. Just use a projectile sword and get them cornered and the fight is won.

If you got this far, thank you! Despite 1400 hours in Terraria, I feel this, amongst other 1.4 problems, has really affected my enjoyment of the game, and I won't be returning until some major fixes occur. I might post some more suggestions with my other problems with the current state of the game, but I think others have pointed a lot of them out already.

Spoiler: My analysis

I believe this is highly wrong, melees range does not increase until the near end of the game, that means post plantera moving up to golem and even then, the only actual high dps melee has is zenith. meowmere star wrath terra blade and influx waver all range to only around 1000-2000 dps
If melee does lose its range then that would make the class almost worthless, and I mean it. Defens becomes less and less useful as the difficulty mode increases, in master mode, everything will do almost around 100 or more dmg no matter. Melee in my opinion is the weakest or 2nd weakest class mostlikely tied with summoner.
in pvp, melee is the 2nd weakest due to most of its good weapons primarily being banned and with most yoyos and boomerangs being inefficient
with the exception of paladins hammer, swords with projectiles are all thats left, namely terra blade.

ranged class is overall best, second highest def, and has the highest average dmg outputs throughout the whole game
I forgot to mention those amazing crowd control and ammo effects makes ranger highly effecient, and don't get me started on that stormbow during pre mech. If a flare gun bullets dmg can be increased to 3 at max, that means ranged dmg can be increased by an inevitable 300% (6000-12000 dps)and the slower movement in stealth mode doesn't matter when you can simply just use celestial starboard and soaring insignia
in pvp ranged is the best class due to having insane dmg outputs and arrow hell, but the problem being in most online servers, vortex armor is banned, and ranged takes a hard hit, but mostly doesn't matter sience there are still plenty of good ways to increase damage

mage class is the second best in my opinion, even with low def, the dmg outputs are also very high where most hm post plantera weapons aroun 4000/6000 dps, namely the armors set bounuses have to be the BEST in the game, spectre armors dmg and healing effects are beyond overpowerd. and don't get me started with nebulas armors sety bounuse which literally supportes all the other classes.
in pvp mage is also the second best with good crowd control and dmg only a few of their good weapons are banned, but most rangers can easily counter this.

summoner class got reworked in 1.4 but its still bad. lowest def causes you to have to dodge every attack, only streessing you out even more making you think you might get hit the next, and when you do your left with very little hp left due to having def lower than most early hm armors. Summoner armor has a moderatly high dmg output, and whips exist but they only help so much with dps (around 3000-5000)
summmoner is a little better so id put it around the 3rd or 2nd place spot of the best class
pvp wise summoner is absolutely garbage, minions don't attack at all, its a real pain, and the fact that you can only use whips prove my point even more, whips alone, are G A R B A G E in pvp, im not kidding, little to no crowd control, just a projectiless melee weapon with just a tiny bit of extra range.

 

[ProfessorMeme]

Melee is not balanced. Pre boss enchanted sword and yo-yos pre wall of flesh night's edge with exceptionally high defense for the stage and yo-yos pre hardmode boss amarok and boomerangs pre golem terrablade(bruh the range) endgame zenith(infinite range)
I miss the 1.3 days where all classes were perfectly balanced (except summoner lol) and terrarian was best melee

 

[Shyguymask]

You realize that whips were selected because they are what beast tamers have classically used to handle animals, right? It works perfectly well for summoner.

Another thing too... whips are probably inspired from classic Castlevania games. And what are Summon Minions based on as well? "Familiars" in Castlevania.

ranged class is overall best, second highest def, and has the highest average dmg outputs throughout the whole game

Ranger is garbage against Hardmode mobs for the most parts compared to other classes, and "highest average dmg outputs through the whole game" is wrong as soon as Hardmode starts. Melee kills stuff WAY faster while facetanking with Titanium Armor, and Summoner in general kills Mech bosses & especially Plantera faster with normal setups. Summoner can kill Expert Plantera in well under 30 seconds with standard equipment. Ranger is overall the best in Pre-Hardmode arguably, but again once Hardmode starts Ranger takes a nosedive in viability and become consistently outclassed, mainly Pre-Mech & Pre-Plantera. It becomes good again post-Cultist but Summoner STILL deals as much if not slightly more damage than the Phantasm.

summoner class got reworked in 1.4 but its still bad. lowest def causes you to have to dodge every attack

People WIDLY exaggerate the "summoner low defense" thing. The thing about Defense is that when you don't focus on it, it hardly contributes to your survivability & there is no real difference in survivability between Summoner and Mage. Only exception is if you use Obsidian Armor in Hardmode. But seriously, right off the bat Summoner can get Berserker's Glove in Hardmode which gives them 8 defense, making its defense around on par with Mage. Secondly, one of the main & best Summoner weapons through Hardmode is the Blade Staff, a weapon that almost doesn't benefit from percentage damage bonuses, which means a Summoner can get away with going full Warding and hardly losing DPS compared to other weapons/classes. Combine Blade Staff/Warding modifiers with Hallowed Armor, and suddenly you're in practice the second sturdiest class (that still deals high DPS) after Melee.

Summoner armor has a moderatly high dmg output, and whips exist but they only help so much with dps (around 3000-5000)

Is 3000-5000 stable DPS supposed to be low?.... Whips gives Summoner a huge DPS boost.

whips alone, are G A R B A G E in pvp

Try using or fighting a combination of Obsidian Armor & Kaleidoscope in PvP. Your opinion will change faster than an enraged Duke Fishron.

 

[mathbrush]

I suppose this is a case of theory vs practice. Is a melee-only run the easiest way to get through the game? Should it be the recommended way to defeat Terraria Master Mode?

In practice, it becomes a real pain right around when Hardmode starts. And against the Master Mode Moonlord I find it harder to aim Daybreak than to use the Nebula Blaze or Vortex Beater.

If I had to do a brainless 'easy' run I'd do ranger the whole game. I think Mage is even better than ranger since you get the Space Gun early game, Life Draing mid-game, Spectre Hood late game and Razorblade Typhoon/Betsy's Wrath/Nebula Blaze/Last Prism in the endgame. Mage just takes more work with mana management.