PC Expert - Ranger > Melee, Magic pre-Fishron

Zesty_Limez

Terrarian
I've come to realize that Ranger is the most reliable class to fight bosses with on Expert (pre-fishron or plantera), as well as early normal Hardmode. Melee isn't given enough edge to tank bosses pre-hardmode, and mage is limited on weapons, most of which don't deal enough damage to bypass the high defense of Expert bosses (and still deal reasonable damage). Ranger can easily strafe bosses and shoot at them. Often times, I find myself switching to Ranger just so I'm able to defeat bosses. Melee on Expert WoF is near impossible because of all The Hungry constantly spawning, and water bolt simply wont deal enough dps. Molten Fury (assuming you fished the Reaver Shark and skipped Nightmare tier) and Minishark make quick work of any of the pre-hardmode Expert bosses.
In hardmode, it's much the same story-- having trouble with destroyer? Whip out the Daedelus storm bow. Twins troubling you? Spam crystal bullets. Prime dicing you up? Grab the crystal bullets.
Summoner deserves a mention here (partially because it's my favorite class), since it can really pack a punch with the Twins staff and beyond (but everything below that is bad in Expert). But to get the Optic staff, I have to do what? Use ranger to kill the twins. Once you successfully defeat all of the mech bosses, Melee, Mage, and Summoner start to actually be useful, especially once you beat fishron. But until then, Ranger is the most reliable class, in my opinion.

I may be completely wrong though, so feel free to share your opinions on the class balancing on Expert. Do you find that Melee is the best? Is mage a force to be reckoned with?
Let me know!
 
I used Melee when I was playing through Expert Mode after I beat the Wall of Flesh, but that was when you can fish up a Seedler so I used that up to post-Martian Madness. Without that now Ranged or Magic might be better since there's no good Melee weapons I can remember that's pre-Mechanical bosses. Also the Mechanical bosses and Golem are just more damaging with more health in Expert so if you can fight them without getting hurt too much in normal the same strategy should work in Expert.
 
I do agree, Ranger is the most reliable from early game to Post-Mech and has been so since 1.1. Back then, a good amount of people thought the only reliable way to kill the Twins was to get a Megashark from the wuss-at-the-time Destroyer and lay waste with Crystal Bullets. Now, this is much less so the case, with things like the Ice Sickle, Golden Shower, that Crystal-esque mage weapon you get from fishing, that Chain Guillotine and other nice loots from the biome mimics.
 
The problem with the hallowed mimic's 'vilethorn' weapon is that it deals so little damage in expert, that it makes it difficult to properly fight enemies and especially bosses. Even out of biome chests, the Stormbow is better than the others in terms of boss fighting.
 
I agree the stormbow was the only reason how I got through the mechanical bosses due to how much DPS it can do with holy arrows
 
I'm not sure if this was unintentional, but you can't really enjoy expert mode without a ranger alongside of you. Hopefully with some patches, the other classes will see more love.
 
I'm not sure if this was unintentional, but you can't really enjoy expert mode without a ranger alongside of you. Hopefully with some patches, the other classes will see more love.

Well, you can, actually. Terra Blade is one of the best Plantera killers, fetid bangkhas are really good on Destroyer as well, and then there's light discs and bananarangs for the other mechs. Yoyos also tend to be fantastic for normal mobs.

And that's just Melee. Magic also has a huge range of toys they can use to compete.
 
I'm not sure if this was unintentional, but you can't really enjoy expert mode without a ranger alongside of you. Hopefully with some patches, the other classes will see more love.

Agree with original post ranger are the most consistent, but everyone can progress.

Melee has a solid to kit with yoyos for every stage of the game. And fetid ba...? Whatever are just awesome for some fights and with the right attack speed. Boss fights are a little harder if you don't have a good weapon to do damage at range but usually something is available.

Mage I am just finishing up a run and maybe I am stuck in my old ways, but mage crushes pre-hardmode with metoerite, space gun, and demon scythe. Hard mode you get a core kit of golden shower, crystal storm, and magic harp (after twins) and don't get any real upgrades until post plantera dungeon. There are a lot of magic weapons available between there but most use more mana and output equal or less damage than the core... Other than destroyer (nimbus rod kill) the first kill on each mech and plantera is long close fight. Then you get spectre + dungeon gear and can cruise through the rest of the game with solid items from martian and Duke.
 
Well, you can, actually. Terra Blade is one of the best Plantera killers, fetid bangkhas are really good on Destroyer as well, and then there's light discs and bananarangs for the other mechs. Yoyos also tend to be fantastic for normal mobs.

And that's just Melee. Magic also has a huge range of toys they can use to compete.
While Magic does have toys to mess with, most of them in Expert pre-plantera are rather weak and inefficient against bosses.
 
While Magic does have toys to mess with, most of them in Expert pre-plantera are rather weak and inefficient against bosses.

Debatable. Crystal Storm doesn't really compare to Megashark, but it works. Nimbus Rod is one of the best weapons of the whole game anyway, Golden Shower is also pretty awesome. The new shadowflame spell is also pretty good, if mana expensive.

That's not touching the venom staff or anything either. Mages got it pretty alright.
 
Debatable. Crystal Storm doesn't really compare to Megashark, but it works. Nimbus Rod is one of the best weapons of the whole game anyway, Golden Shower is also pretty awesome. The new shadowflame spell is also pretty good, if mana expensive.

That's not touching the venom staff or anything either. Mages got it pretty alright.
Yeah, Nimbus, Golden Shower, and the Hex Doll are the top 3 weapons, but that's about it. Crystal storm is my least favorite spell, because it takes so many shots to kill something, especially in expert. Ranger, on the other hand, has the Megashark, Dart Gun (my new favorite weapon), Clockwork rifle, Stormbow, etc., all of which kill bosses much faster (with the exception of nimbus on the Destroyer).
 
I don't know, I was going thorugh Expert mode with Ranger and Mage and didn't have any problems (maybe except Bee Queen and Brain of Cthulhu) with it. I'm not sure about Warrior since last time I was plaing that class was about 2 years ago.
 
Ranged is the best for expert mode Duke fishron. Though other classes work well, range allows you to attack him from afar, allowing you to attack without being attacked.
 
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Ranged is the best for expert mode Duke fishron. Though other classes work well, range allows you to attach him from afar, allowing you to attack without being attacked.
Yeah, this is exactly what I'm getting what. While you CAN use other classes, ranger has the range and the dps, making it easy to dodge and kill bosses.
 
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