I think Desert Tiger is a universal Minion/ Pet!?

Aside from Obsidian Armor being too strong, I'm PRETTY unclear on what issues you seem so concerned about. You are speaking of a lot of theoreticals (they did the thing I told them not to do!) but I don't even know what thing you are referring to.
I don't wanna give the impression that I don't like or appreciate the changes, you guys are brilliant, but there were four reoccurring concerns I wildly expressed, to the point of getting banned. I consider myself pretty well-versed in Summoner Class & these are the issues I was worried about.
  1. A Summoner Starting Class was gonna be extremely difficult to balance. I never suspected it'd be egregious, because damage is so low at that stage in the game, but it was gonna have to find a place to fit in between Finch & Slime Staff to Hornets. What made this so difficult, is that it had to be distinguishingly better than a Starter Minion & compete with the potential of a player being another Class, with two Minions. I didn't see a way around this, so I voted against it.
  2. The Obsidian Armor speaks for itself, but the tricky part, which I described above was my concern. It's easy to be fooled by the numbers if you analyze things like this in a vacuum, which I see happen here often. My suggestion was possible, only because I had to work through the smoke & mirrors. That can be tricky to do when you're juggling 47 other balance issues & bug fixes... I was worried.
  3. There's a general consensus that Minions such as Blade Staff & Sanguine Staff should be the standard for Minion A.I. The idea was pushed to the point where the rarity of Bloodnautilus' drop was nerfed. I was vehemently against this because it then created the Duke Fishron disparity that you guys just got done fixing. The fact that Whips are amazing now & Obsidian Armor is a thing, Sanguine Staffs rarity didn't need to change. I'm concerned it's going to overshadow Twins Staff & Blades Staff.
  4. It wasn't that I was totally against adding new Summoner stuff, but the potential for Whips was still on-the-table & we had no idea how good they were gonna be once they were fixed... well, now we know & it puts us in an odd place where it's easy to make mistakes where balancing is concerned. In addition, there's this misconception that Summoner is weak, which was false, but the right observation was, "Whips need to be improved, but Minions should be mostly left alone" (as you experienced yourself by adding just 2 pts of damage).

Mind you, its also my weekend right now so I may not be very active in discussion for a few days.
I was pretty loud & obnoxious about it, so I'm kinda surprised my objections were completely missed. 🤔 🥤
 
I was pretty loud & obnoxious about it, so I'm kinda surprised my objections were completely missed. 🤔 🥤

I think my issue may be that, as I was reading your posts, the precise nature of your objections are not highly apparent.

Also, and to use your own words (not mine!), loud and obnoxious is not the best way to get my attention. I don't follow a squeaky wheel gets the grease philosophy.
 
I don't wanna give the impression that I don't like or appreciate the changes, you guys are brilliant, but there were four reoccurring concerns I wildly expressed, to the point of getting banned. I consider myself pretty well-versed in Summoner Class & these are the issues I was worried about.
  1. A Summoner Starting Class was gonna be extremely difficult to balance. I never suspected it'd be egregious, because damage is so low at that stage in the game, but it was gonna have to find a place to fit in between Finch & Slime Staff to Hornets. What made this so difficult, is that it had to be distinguishingly better than a Starter Minion & compete with the potential of a player being another Class, with two Minions. I didn't see a way around this, so I voted against it.
  2. The Obsidian Armor speaks for itself, but the tricky part, which I described above was my concern. It's easy to be fooled by the numbers if you analyze things like this in a vacuum, which I see happen here often. My suggestion was possible, only because I had to work through the smoke & mirrors. That can be tricky to do when you're juggling 47 other balance issues & bug fixes... I was worried.
  3. There's a general consensus that Minions such as Blade Staff & Sanguine Staff should be the standard for Minion A.I. The idea was pushed to the point where the rarity of Bloodnautilus' drop was nerfed. I was vehemently against this because it then created the Duke Fishron disparity that you guys just got done fixing. The fact that Whips are amazing now & Obsidian Armor is a thing, Sanguine Staffs rarity didn't need to change. I'm concerned it's going to overshadow Twins Staff & Blades Staff.
  4. It wasn't that I was totally against adding new Summoner stuff, but the potential for Whips was still on-the-table & we had no idea how good they were gonna be once they were fixed... well, now we know & it puts us in an odd place where it's easy to make mistakes where balancing is concerned. In addition, there's this misconception that Summoner is weak, which was false, but the right observation was, "Whips need to be improved, but Minions should be mostly left alone" (as you experienced yourself by adding just 2 pts of damage).


I was pretty loud & obnoxious about it, so I'm kinda surprised my objections were completely missed. 🤔 🥤

In my experience, Flinxes have actually done well as a good early game minion. Agile enough to hit and kill Eye of Cthulhu and King Slime, don’t pull enough DPS to really shine later on. They could possibly use a damage nerf of maybe 1 (not more, because at 8 damage, 1-2 is already huge) but overall they’re pretty well set. Also, Fur Coat was a neccesary change as well. It allows summoners to go from having no identity early game to having at least something to support them. And I think the extra minion is fair, becaude even though it’s a lot of DPS, you’re sacrificing essential set bonuses.

Like I said this morning, you make a good point about Sanguine potentially overshadowing Optic and Pygmy, but I still think Sanguine isn’t actually highly overpowered. I know you disagree with this notion, but I’ve ran several builds utilizing Sanguine and it *really is what a minion should feel like*. Reliable and not stupid, with good but not excessive DPS and able to synergize with other minions. It has a great point in balance, working well in hybridized as well as pure builds without being too good, and if it outshines Optic and Pygmy than that’s their fault and not Sanguine’s. Rarity doesn’t fix this either because then obtaining it is tedium and not difficulty.

It’s good that you have a valid concern over balance changes, and I respect someone who really wants what’s best for the game. But sometimes, it’s better to trust people to do things rather than try to oversee control it - the vast majority of changes were actually done quite well and its only Obsidian Armor and Vampire Frog that are really in need of touches. I don’t think you’re giving all these changes enough credit. Sometimes, trust is key.
 
All items that buff melee speed get added together, but whip speed is an independent multiplier.
+50% melee speed and +50% melee speed = +100% attack speed
+50% melee speed and +50% whip speed = +125% attack speed
The whip attack speed from Obsidian armor scales with everything. Stats of the same type are added together before being multiplied, so stats that are provided by many sources don't actually improve DPS by the listed amount.
 
Optic staff badly needs a buff imo, even back in 1.3 it was seriously underwhelming. The spider staff outperformed it in most situations. And now that we have the blade staff and sanguine staff which cover all the things spiders struggle with there is practically no niche for the optic staff.
 
Optic staff badly needs a buff imo, even back in 1.3 it was seriously underwhelming. The spider staff outperformed it in most situations. And now that we have the blade staff and sanguine staff which cover all the things spiders struggle with there is practically no niche for the optic staff.

Exactly. Sanguine outshining Optic is Optic’s fault, not Sanguine’s.

Optics have a very strong theoretical DPS, the issue is how often they mess each other up. The 1.4.1 fix may actually fix that, or they may not. Haven’t gotten far enough to try them yet.
 
Here is a working Terraria Tweaker 2 plugin with your suggested balance changes.

I changed only the set bonus.
Set bonus minion damage 25 -> 10
Set bonus attack speed 50 -> 38

Feel free to modify the script. It should be fairly straightforward.

Terraria Tweaker 2 works with 1.4.1.1 and will continue to work with future hotfixes without updates, but after obsidian armor gets nerfed, this mod will be a double nerf and the description will no longer match the ingame stats.
I really feel like @qwerty3.14 is the most qualified for testing this script to see if the changes feel satisfying or if it totally guts Obsidian Armor. 🤔 🥤
 
If twins are worse than bats, having 5 less damage but twice the minions and greater attack rate, that just shows how bad the twins are... heck if spiders are still better than twins even with 4 less base damage and half the minions, twins will have no place regardless of anything else. Could someone confirm the dps of the twins staff right now?
 
If twins are worse than bats, having 5 less damage but twice the minions and greater attack rate, that just shows how bad the twins are... heck if spiders are still better than twins even with 4 less base damage and half the minions, twins will have no place regardless of anything else. Could someone confirm the dps of the twins staff right now?
I don't want to start a debate about Minions, I've come to the realization that the opinions on Summoner Class vary greatly & are just too all-over-the-place. I will say this though... 🤔 🥤

I treat my Minions like an army, every army needs different types of soldiers. In 1.3.5, I'd use Spiders as ground units & Twins like marksman. I've never compared Minions beside each other unless they feel like a direct upgrade. Twins have amazing range & I'm not sure about anyone else, but it also feels like two Minions for the price of one. My usual 1.3.5 set-up was, three Spiders, Two sets of Twins. It's pretty powerful IMHO, even in Master Mode, so I can't even pretend to understand why it's criticized so much.

Sanguine Staff is just good, to the point that even if you aren't a Summoner, you should still be using Sanguine Staff. The game shouldn't feel like that, which is why I'm against this being a common trend, where the Meta revolves around Minions in the same way it does something like Lifeforce Potions, Heart Reach Potions or Ironskin Potions. The Summoner Class starts to lose it's identity at that point, which I'm sure is against the entire philosophy of having Classes in the first place.
 
If twins are worse than bats, having 5 less damage but twice the minions and greater attack rate, that just shows how bad the twins are... heck if spiders are still better than twins even with 4 less base damage and half the minions, twins will have no place regardless of anything else. Could someone confirm the dps of the twins staff right now?

Grabbed an unreforged Twins Staff off of an old character and some summoner items to try this.

Versus an Eye of Cthulhu, a single set of Twins on their own with no items pulled a pretty consistent 55 dps in the first phase and 70 dps in the second phase.

Three Twins would theoretically pull 165 and 210 dps, jowever the actual case was fluxuating begtween 95 and 125 dps on his first phase and 125 and 160 dps on his second.

In a full set of Tiki with 7 minions and 30% damage, they should pull 500 dps on the spot first phase and 637 dps second phase. They actually cut out to 180-190 dps first phase and 220-260 dps second phase.

The issue with Twins that has such an enormous effect on their DPS is that they interrupt each other so much, which as I look at it, 1.4.1s hotfix definitely did not fix. This is why they pull so much less damage than you think.
 
I don't want to start a debate about Minions, I've come to the realization that the opinions on Summoner Class vary greatly & are just too all-over-the-place. I will say this though... 🤔 🥤

I treat my Minions like an army, every army needs different types of soldiers. In 1.3.5, I'd use Spiders as ground units & Twins like marksman. I've never compared Minions beside each other unless they feel like a direct upgrade. Twins have amazing range & I'm not sure about anyone else, but it also feels like two Minions for the price of one. My usual 1.3.5 set-up was, three Spiders, Two sets of Twins. It's pretty powerful IMHO, even in Master Mode, so I can't even pretend to understand why it's criticized so much.

Sanguine Staff is just good, to the point that even if you aren't a Summoner, you should still be using Sanguine Staff. The game shouldn't feel like that, which is why I'm against this being a common trend, where the Meta revolves around Minions in the same way it does something like Lifeforce Potions, Heart Reach Potions or Ironskin Potions. The Summoner Class starts to lose it's identity at that point, which I'm sure is against the entire philosophy of having Classes in the first place.

Not neccesarily.

Like I found out in my previous comment, Twins are just flawed in AI. They are very weak, pulling between 150-200 DPS on their own and maxing out around there, depending on enemy defense.

Sanguine Staff works because it can’t interrupt itself. It’s not excessively strong for its tier, because if you look at it, each minion gets less than 1 hit in per second for about 45-60 damage per minion in a summoner build. This pulls to good and reliable but not excessively high DPS in a summoner oriented build.

Also, as respectfully as I can say it, you’re just wrong about how summons shouldn’t be used in conjuction with other sets. The game was never built around being excessively strict with class boundaries. Minions were originally created way back in 1.2 to be an add to your existinf build, in fact. There’s no reason why its a bad thing that Sanguine can be used with other builds for an extea 30-90 dps depending on how much you use. It’s not cheating to do so, they let you for a reason. Now that Twins only interrupt each other and not piercing bullets, doesn’t hurt to use them in conjuction with other builds either.

Back to Sanguine and Optic, Sanguine pulls just the right DPS with the right reliability for its tier around Mech stage. The reason it shines over Optic so much isn’t Sanguine being broken - simply Optic being a big fleshy pile of utter garbage when you are trying to build a real Summoner setup.
 
Also, as respectfully as I can say it, you’re just wrong about how summons shouldn’t be used in conjuction with other sets. The game was never built around being excessively strict with class boundaries. Minions were originally created way back in 1.2 to be an add to your existinf build, in fact. There’s no reason why its a bad thing that Sanguine can be used with other builds for an extea 30-90 dps depending on how much you use. It’s not cheating to do so, they let you for a reason. Now that Twins only interrupt each other and not piercing bullets, doesn’t hurt to use them in conjuction with other builds either.
This is why I don't like debating about Minions, because it should be common knowledge that I'm not against hybrid Classes. If I wasn't clear, what I'm saying is that a consistent shield of area-of-effect damage is way too Meta. It's not about Sanguine Staff specifically, just how good it is, to the point of being a measurable amount of DPS no matter what the circumstance. It's too difficult to explain this when the enemies are A.I., but I think most ppl would fully understand if Minions worked like this in PvP. 🤔 🥤
 
Grabbed an unreforged Twins Staff off of an old character and some summoner items to try this.

Versus an Eye of Cthulhu, a single set of Twins on their own with no items pulled a pretty consistent 55 dps in the first phase and 70 dps in the second phase.

Three Twins would theoretically pull 165 and 210 dps, jowever the actual case was fluxuating begtween 95 and 125 dps on his first phase and 125 and 160 dps on his second.

In a full set of Tiki with 7 minions and 30% damage, they should pull 500 dps on the spot first phase and 637 dps second phase. They actually cut out to 180-190 dps first phase and 220-260 dps second phase.

The issue with Twins that has such an enormous effect on their DPS is that they interrupt each other so much, which as I look at it, 1.4.1s hotfix definitely did not fix. This is why they pull so much less damage than you think.

Thought so, Twins were only ever good in few numbers, so they are decent only with the Sentry Armors in comparison to other minions as they have no minion amount bonus. Though with the Pygmy Necklace being PH, you can have 2 - 4 minions with said armors so this may no longer hold up and this niche may already be lost as well.

Given so, the last remaining niche of the twins is as a minion for other non-summoner focused players, such as for example the Crystal Assassin who is meant to be a Jack-of-all-trades in the first place.
 
If twins are worse than bats, having 5 less damage but twice the minions and greater attack rate, that just shows how bad the twins are... heck if spiders are still better than twins even with 4 less base damage and half the minions, twins will have no place regardless of anything else. Could someone confirm the dps of the twins staff right now?
You get 2 minions per summon with the optic staff however each twin has half the attack speed of the spider. The optic staffs 4 extra damage is the only thing that contributes to it theoritcly having more single target dps... and even then that extra 4 damage is misleading. The retnimini actually only does 80% of the damage of the staff.. so if you average out spaz's damage and retni's damage the staff's base damage is more like 27! only 1 point above the spider staff.

So if you have a pair of twin minions does and average of 27 damage and attacks twice per second vs a spider that attacks twice per second with 26 damage, the more or less have the same theoretical base dps. What distingusihes these two minions are thier attack patterns.

Here's the big advantage the spider has, it latches onto enemies, once a spider latches onto something it will pretty much just stay on their and continually attack with that 2x per second attack rate, only the fastest flying enemies can shake off spiders. They are a pretty reliable minion most of the time. Compare this to the twins which bounce around and miss often.

Spiders are also really good in caves, while twin minions are infamous for getting stuck on blocks.

There's really only 2 major weakness of spider, the first one as I mentioned earlier are fast flying enemies, like the twins, however the optic staff also struggles with this. The other major weakness of the spider staff is the lack of local iFrames, this means once you have 3 spiders clinged onto an enemy adding a 4th doesn't really add much, although once again the optic staff shares this weakness.
 
Also another thing is that the optic staff actually struggles with iFrames more than the spider staff does, if 2 twin minions attack at the same same time then one of them misses and has to go through its whole animation before attacking, however since spiders cling onto their victims they're always ready to bite once the iFrames end.




(also I refuse to belive the spider staff has 'very weak knockback')
 
Before I say anything, I guess it's important to admit that this thread is kinda obsolete in it's original intent. With the changes to Whips being so good, any Minion could technically be Class Neutral. I'm gonna have to make the claim that Desert Tiger is likely to benefit the most from a Summoner build in every case, the stacked damage bonus is just too potent to ignore. 🤔🥤

With that outta the way, I had this crazy idea to test Flinx Gear, with just two Minion buffs & Vampire Frogs. I took the starting Class into Hardmode, to see if I could measure it's effectiveness, & this is what I got...

20201020020924_1.jpg
20201020020930_1.jpg


I went toe-to-toe with a Hardmode Mimic, Mummy, Slime, Angry Nimbus & easily killed them all. Now, I know this isn't super impressive or anything, but I thought it might be interesting to make a comparison - to about where it is that Flinx Gear might lay in the pre-Hardmode Armor Tiers. I wasn't wearing any other pieces of Armor, but I guess wearing a Gold/ Platinum piece of grieves or a helmet makes the most sense, anyhow....
  1. The coolest weapon I can think of to compare Vampire Frog to is maybe the Blood Rain Bow?
  2. To be fair, I'd have to compare Flinx Gear to a set that increases ranged damage, but can only thing of Necro Armor or maybe Fossil Armor? 🤔🥤
  3. I want to do another test with something comparable, Gold Tier or less Armor Set & a weapon about the same Tier as Blood Rain Bow.
  4. This isn't a critique BTW, I just need to update my information on Summoners progression path now, since what I currently knew is outdated.
I think my next test will be Flinx Gear exclusively, vs Wandering Eye Fish & Zombie Merman, Summoner Potion buff only, as Bewitching Table progression skip isn't 100% guaranteed. Thoughts?
 
I think my next test will be Flinx Gear exclusively, vs Wandering Eye Fish & Zombie Merman, Summoner Potion buff only, as Bewitching Table progression skip isn't 100% guaranteed. Thoughts?

Wandering Eye Fish and Zombie Mermen have a lot of defense, enough to bring the Flinx's damage to 1 even with summoning gear. Though they still do fine if you have Whips and Shark Tooth necklace to buff up their damage.

This new gear combined with the dramatically increased drop rates makes the Vampire Frog much easier to get early on.
 
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