I wouldn't necessarily call Mage Class high-risk but...
Honestly, I know
very little about Melee Class, but the little experience I've had with it, many of the Swords just felt like
weaker Magic Rods. I've always felt that weapons like Arkhalis and Thorn Chakram should've been
more common, but I'm pretty pleased with the more unique, interesting HM Melee Weapons
as is [Scourge of the Corruptor, Vampire Knives, Dripper Crippler, etc.].
With all respect ... if you know "very little" about the Melee Class, then ... you can't really speak much on it.
Meanwhile, I specialize in it, it's what I play the most, so uh. Trust me on this?
I'm not sure why that'd ever be a concern, because I'm pretty certain that many
if not most of the current HM Melee Weapons that are present will remain
mostly unchanged [1.4].
- Blue Moon
- Anchor
- Chainsaw
- Phase Saber(s)
- Breaker Blade
- Clobberfish
- Death Sickle
I mean, they can always screw it up, but Dark Lance was admittedly pretty decent before its obvious debut buff. If they plan to just do more of that, I don't really see an issue; but yeah, let's hope.
Of that list...
Only the Death Sickle is really commonly used either because of Rarity, too much effort to craft (Phasesaber), or because there are simply better weapons around, or they are just impractical (Anchor, Breaker Blade).
That and you're listing early hardmode weapons, rather than late hardmode. Wanna know what a typical Melee progression looks like? It's something like this...
Wooden/Cactus Sword -> Ice Blade (if you find one) -> Night's Edge / Blood Butcherer -> Night's Edge (sometimes temporarily using the Fiery Greatsword for a short bit).
Then, once you're in Hardmode, it's usually something like this:
Bladetongue (a must get if you have Crimson!) -> Amarok -> Yelets -> Eye of Cthulhu/Terra Blade -> Solar Eruption/Daybreak.
Now, of course, that's not strict and set in stone, there are a few other notable mentions, but most are not worth going out of your way to look for one. Vampire Knives and Scourge of the Corruptor can both have a place on your hotbar, but the keys are too difficult to farm for them specifically and are usually skipped.
There are other weapons, like the Seedler (if it actually drops while it is still useful), the Death Sickle is also awesome if you get one to drop while it is still useful (Pre Terra Blade), and some of the Pre-Hardmode Yo-Yos can be reasonable substitutes for melee weapons, even post-nerf, an early Amazon can still be a reasonably effective weapon, and if you happen to get a Cascade to drop before killing the WoF, that can still work too.
But... here's the thing.
Against the Mechs, Plantera, and Golem, what Melee weapons are actually useful?
Bladetongue and the Fetid Baghnaks against The Destroyer, absolutely. But Prime and Twins? Absolutely not. Amarok will work against the Prime, but against the Twins, the range is a bit too short for my liking; I constantly get clipped with the green fire "breath" in the 2nd phase of the green eye because it's hard to actually deal damage and not get nailed with the fire streams, so I tend to not want to use Amarok for that. You could go to farm a Yelets, but it'll be much of the same, only slightly better DPS.
Otherwise.... I can't think of a single actual good melee weapon to use against Twins, or Plantera. Plantera basically has the same problem Twins do -- everything that does Melee damage has too short of range, though you
can use a Yelets, I've done it. It's just not as easy as grabbing, say, a Megashark and using it despite wearing Melee armor (which is what I usually advise Newbies to do).
This is the problem with melee weapons lacking projectiles. They just aren't useful against fast-moving bosses with attacks like the aforementioned green fire.
I'm fairly sure this is why Re-Logic gave so many late-game Melee weapons projectiles in the first place, to make sure they retained usefulness beyond killing small fry.
I mean... I guess, but that was originally the intended design choice of NPC happiness, the players would be forced to choose. The only reason all of this is odd for me, is because I've almost continually recall [a large number of] players being extremely dismissive to most NPCs, and at best, if they didn't care much for the building mechanics, would just build a shoebox tower/ prison, just so they could get the items they sold [NPCs]; and even more advanced than that, building these strange "half-shelters" just to get the valid housing function to trigger.
The flip-flopping is quite impressive... but then again, there might be something crucial I'm greatly overlooking here.
Here's a small hint: Gamers don't always know what they want / minorities speak the loudest.
Some people love the "choices" (which aren't really choices, stick this NPC here, stick that NPC there, if you do anything else you're making do with suboptimal results), but most... didn't.
The most vocal of the playerbase said we wanted housing to matter, that we wanted NPCs to care about where they lived... but this was a case of "Be careful what you ask for...." and after implementing it, they went "Hmm, you know, this isn't as fun as it looked on paper...."
I mean, I kinda get it but... we also have several pre-Hardmode Mounts, pre-Hardmode Wings, better movement options, better movement speed, Recall Potions, Wormhole Potions, Potions of Return, Magic Conch, Demon Conch, early-Harmode Mounts...
All of which apply after the initial stages of the game, and I don't know about you, but I like to start on the Angler's quests as soon as I get a Crimtane/Demonite fishing pole. Sometimes I start even earlier if I get lucky with worm/firefly spawns and get a bug net early enough.
This means I need to get to the ocean fast, and make sure I get a pylon there so I'm not having to spend 5 minutes out of a gameday schlepping it to the ocean to fish up a Clownfish or whatnot. Having a Pylon there makes that really easy. Also, Pylons are awesome for warping to near the dungeon, too. That's why I always build it on the side the Dungeon's on.
...it's not like it's
that hard to get around effectively, and it's objectively much better/easier to get around in 1.4 then it was in 1.3.5.
Not really, but if somehow I'm wrong here, I'd love to hear your personal take of the usefulness of some of the more unique/ obscure NPCs outside of the ones I mentioned, and how they are essential/ useful to you during pre-Hardmode.
Well... let's see.
The Demolitionist can be useful for grenades which are good early-game, though once I get a Crimtane/Demonite sword, I use Grenades a lot less (usually only the goblin invasion).
The Nurse? Never use her. Never needed to use her.
Tailor? I just buy a wig off him so I can hide the helmet.
Stylist? There's a certain hairstyle that I usually use that's not chooseable from chargen so it's nice to see her.
Dryad, I always buy planter boxes off her, 16-30 of each to start a trellis, one row per type of plant.
Mechanic, to buy the stuff needed for the Grand Design.
uh... other than that... can't really think of much else I do with the NPCs.
I don't know about this one, even with the added benefit of more storage options, 1.4 was pretty good about inventory management, to the point where I felt like 9999 stack of nearly every item was
more-that-enough. The addition of the Void Vault, and the adjustment to the Piggy Bank should probably go up on the billboard too.
Still, this isn't a change I'm for or against so...
Oh, the Void Vault does
wonders but it doesn't reach the "miracles" category. I can still fill both my inventory and the VV up within 10 or so minutes of any jungle or dungeon foray.
And again.
It has nothing to do with the 9999 stack size.
It has everything to do with the number of
unique items thrown at you. Maybe I travel a bit heavy, though: I always carry fireflies and worms on me, a fishing pole (because I hate constantly fiddling with chests every time I go to do something), some rope (though I'll usually get rid of it after I build the hellevator), a stack of healing potions, weapon/pickaxe/axe, torches, gel (because I'm constantly picking it up anyhow), wood (always nice to be able to build something or more torches if you were to somehow run out), an item that tells you the time, and if I have one, a weather radio or equivalent, as well as location items. that's... probably almost half the regular inventory in stuff carried.
It really doesn't take long to fill the rest of that up. I also like to grab as much crap out of chests possible, 1g here, 1g there it really adds up and just leaving it laying around doesn't seem very productive, lol.
Maybe it's just my playstyle, but eh. /shrug
Also, wire not being an item anymore means I can, once I have the Grand Design, wire anything I want anywhere as long as I had what I'm wiring with me (a switch, or a statue, or a trap or what not). Not that it happens, but the idea is nice. Can set up a farm anywhere and not have to worry about carrying a bunch of wire around on me.
EDIT: When I said "I can't think of a single melee weapon to use against Plantera" ... ok, there is Death Sickle. I did that once, and it worked rather well. But. Unless you have a perfect dungeon setup (assuming you're not cheating with hoiks: might as well just get any weapon you want from the builder's workshop at that point), you're probably not getting tablets early (Pre-Plantera) and so you must rely upon a Solar Eclipse happening after the 3 mechs but before Plantera, and, a Sickle needs to actually drop. You'd probably have better chances of winning the Powerball.
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