Weapons & Equip Fixing the Musket.

[TMB50]

A bizarre part of the game, that is most likely an artifact from older versions, is the Musket: It's just that. A normal musket. And yet, to obtain it, you have to smash a Shadow Orb. This is quite weird for several reasons:

• It's Crimson counterpart is the Undertaker, which is has a name and sprite that fit the Crimson, whereas the Musket is generic. This is specially weird when considering that the Flintlock Pistol is very similar, aesthetically, and yet it's sold by the Arms Dealer.
  
• The Musket is the only gun found before the Sniper Rifle that deals high damage per shot for it's tier (It's damage per shot is only outmatched by the Boomstick pre-HM) at a slow fire rate that isn't a shotgun, which means that Crimson worlds lose out on a role.
  
• Unlike the Undertaker, the Musket has no generic "counterpart" in-game, whereas the Revolver is pretty much a slightly stronger Undertaker.

My suggestion consists of:

• Changing the current gun obtained from the Shadow Orb from the Musket to a new gun: The Embalmer. The Embalmer pretty much looks like a Corruption-themed lever-action rifle, similar to how the Undertaker resembles a Crimson-themed revolver. The stats are slightly tweaked: Now the fire rate is back to 40 so it's DPS is lower than the Undertaker's in order to compensate for the latter's struggle to defeat defense.
  
• The Musket is now sold by the Arms Dealer for 10 Gold, and damage is further increased to 45, with the use time reduced to 50.
• The Travelling Merchant can now sell a "Repeating rifle" for 20 Gold, which resembles a lever-action rifle with a similar color scheme as the Revolver, and which has an use time of 37, along with 40 damage.

 

[Lord Garak]

The Musket is one of the most solid items of the Old Guard. I see no reason for it to be changed. If anything the Undertaker should just be replaced with the Flintlock Pistol, as the latter is at least slightly more viable than the dreadfully weak Undertaker yet for some reason has always been sold overpriced and too late to be useful.

 

[TMB50]

The Musket is one of the most solid items of the Old Guard. I see no reason for it to be changed. If anything the Undertaker should just be replaced with the Flintlock Pistol, as the latter is at least slightly more viable than the dreadfully weak Undertaker yet for some reason has always been sold overpriced and too late to be useful.

The Flintlock Pistol would be far more easily fixed by restricting the Minishark so it requires defeating a pre-HM boss, as it pretty much only goes obsolete once the Phoenix Blaster is crafted, and up until then it's pretty much the best all-purpose gun pre-HM due to being both powerful and easy to use.
As for the flintlock pistol being more viable than the Undertaker, that is factually wrong: Without taking crit chance or ammo into account, the Undertaker has 15*(60/22)=40,9 DPS, whereas the Flintlock Pistol has 10*(60/15)= 40 DPS, on top of dealing less damage per hit. This means that the Undertaker has slightly higher DPS and is also less affected by defense than the Flintlock Pistol. On top of this, the latter doesn't have knockback, which means that it's less effective at slowing monsters and cannot obtain the Unreal modifier.
As for changing the musket, it's not so much an actual change as it is making a new item to take it's previous role, and using the old name and sprite for a polar opposite of the Flintlock Pistol, on top of adding an analogue to the Revolver.

 

[Lord Garak]

The Flintlock Pistol would be far more easily fixed by restricting the Minishark so it requires defeating a pre-HM boss, as it pretty much only goes obsolete once the Phoenix Blaster is crafted, and up until then it's pretty much the best all-purpose gun pre-HM due to being both powerful and easy to use.
As for the flintlock pistol being more viable than the Undertaker, that is factually wrong: Without taking crit chance or ammo into account, the Undertaker has 15*(60/22)=40,9 DPS, whereas the Flintlock Pistol has 10*(60/15)= 40 DPS, on top of dealing less damage per hit. This means tha tthe Undertaker has slightly higher DPS and is also less affected by defense than the Flintlock Pistol. On top of this, the latter doesn't have knockback, which means that it's less effective at slowing monsters and cannot obtain the Unreal modifier.
As for changing the musket, it's not so much an actual change as it is making a new item to take it's previous role, and using the old name and sprite for a polar opposite of the Flintlock Pistol, on top of adding an analogue to the Revolver.

My mistake, I mixed up the Flintlock and Revolver stats. In that case I would frankly just move the Revolver in to replace the Undertaker and remove the Flintlock entirely. These weapons have been hit hard by the passage of time and are nowhere near as viable as they should be, not to mention redundant.

 

[TMB50]

My mistake, I mixed up the Flintlock and Revolver stats. In that case I would frankly just move the Revolver in to replace the Undertaker and remove the Flintlock entirely. These weapons have been hit hard by the passage of time and are nowhere near as viable as they should be, not to mention redundant.

The Revolver is too good to be potentially the player's first gun, on top of removing a weapon that is among the few biome-themed guns. The undertaker itself is still pretty much viable. It's only the Flintlock that's been hit hard by time, and even then, it always failed to be worthwhile due to being available at exactly the same time as the Minishark.

 

[Lord Garak]

The Revolver is too good to be potentially the player's first gun, on top of removing a weapon that is among the few biome-themed guns. The undertaker itself is still pretty much viable. It's only the Flintlock that's been hit hard by time, and even then, it always failed to be worthwhile due to being available at exactly the same time as the Minishark.

By the point you're using an Undertaker you're doing fairly slow pepper-damage when you could be hitting hard with a rotten fork or even ranged weapons like a golden bow, which has a far superior damage output. Compared to the Musket's clear distinction from a bow the Undertaker is too similar. Expert mode makes this problem even worse since the Undertaker's lowered base damage means it's hit by armor values like a train.

 

[TMB50]

By the point you're using an Undertaker you're doing fairly slow pepper-damage when you could be hitting hard with a rotten fork or even ranged weapons like a golden bow, which has a far superior damage output. Compared to the Musket's clear distinction from a bow the Undertaker is too similar. Expert mode makes this problem even worse since the Undertaker's lowered base damage means it's hit by armor values like a train.

And those issues would be exacerbated by the Flintlock Pistol, which is already worse at dealing with armor. As for the Undetaker dealing "slow pepper-damage", that's just plain false. It's a bit lackluster, but it still deals decent damage when taking Musket Ball damage into account. Plus, it has the inherent advantage of being a gun, so it doesn't arc, and uses cheap ammo that doesn't have to be crafted at that point.

 

[Person999]

Well let’s look at this mathematically through the use of math (excluding crit chance and bullet damage because the undertaker and musket have the same and with the revolver it just makes it even more OP looking) I got that the undertaker does about 40.875 DPS and the musket does 53.165 DPS
So the musket has more DPS than the undertaker but they are not too terribly different in the DPS
Now the revolver does 57.14 DPS, outclassing the rest of them the problem with that is it is available before the other two, pretty broken no? So instead of having the revolver be after you break your first shadow orb/crimson heart make it post EoW/BoC and I say that you should stop looking at the revolver as a alt undertaker because of the dart guns more closely resemble those two so I say they should keep the musket the same, and nerf the revolver, because, OP much?

 

[Lord Garak]

Well let’s look at this mathematically through the use of math (excluding crit chance and bullet damage because the undertaker and musket have the same and with the revolver it just makes it even more OP looking) I got that the undertaker does about 40.875 DPS and the musket does 53.165 DPS
So the musket has more DPS than the undertaker but they are not too terribly different in the DPS
Now the revolver does 57.14 DPS, outclassing the rest of them the problem with that is it is available before the other two, pretty broken no? So instead of having the revolver be after you break your first shadow orb/crimson heart make it post EoW/BoC and I say that you should stop looking at the revolver as a alt undertaker because of the dart guns more closely resemble those two so I say they should keep the musket the same, and nerf the revolver, because, OP much?

Well one, over 10 DPS is a huge difference. And two, you're ignoring armor which is another gap widener.

 

[TMB50]

Well let’s look at this mathematically through the use of math (excluding crit chance and bullet damage because the undertaker and musket have the same and with the revolver it just makes it even more OP looking) I got that the undertaker does about 40.875 DPS and the musket does 53.165 DPS
So the musket has more DPS than the undertaker but they are not too terribly different in the DPS
Now the revolver does 57.14 DPS, outclassing the rest of them the problem with that is it is available before the other two, pretty broken no? So instead of having the revolver be after you break your first shadow orb/crimson heart make it post EoW/BoC and I say that you should stop looking at the revolver as a alt undertaker because of the dart guns more closely resemble those two so I say they should keep the musket the same, and nerf the revolver, because, OP much?

On the flip side, if we take ammo into account, the DPS values, assuming musket balls, are 65,14 and 60 for the Musket and Undertaker, respectively; which indicates that either the Musket needs a nerf (As it got buffed in 1.3.0.1 to deal 31 instead of 25 DPH), or the Undertaker needs a buff (As it didn't get buffed at any point), as it pretty much needs HM ammo to beat the Musket in terms of DPS. I have the impression that doing so by reverting the Musket's use time back to 40 would be the better approach.

 

[Person999]

Both points are fair, and yeah now I agree either the musket needs a small nerf or the undertaker needs a small buff, but the revolver needs a serious nerf or make the thing post EoW/BoC

 

[TMB50]

Both points are fair, and yeah now I agree either the musket needs a small nerf or the undertaker needs a small buff, but the revolver needs a serious nerf or make the thing post EoW/BoC

The latter is only one among many early-game balancing issues (Such as the Minishark not becoming obsolete until HM in spite of being available without defeating any bosses, and Meteor Armor's sheer OPness), and I think a separate thread would be needed to adress them all.

 

[Lord Garak]

The latter is only one among many early-game balancing issues (Such as the Minishark not becoming obsolete until HM in spite of being available without defeating any bosses, and Meteor Armor's sheer OPness), and I think a separate thread would be needed to adress them all.

Phoenix Blaster far outpaces the Minishark but until that point it is definitely the most viable boss weapon. Against some enemies a Boomstick is more effective.