In-depth Hardmode weapon tier list

Well, I just wrote up an actual analysis for the Classy Cane/Pearlwood Sword and Pearlwood Bow, and hilariously enough the latter ended up going up a tier, since unlike some of the other weapons on the list, it has more than zero bossing potential. Just goes to show how strong Ichor Arrows really are.

And this means that relative to their respective tiers, the Pearlwood Bow and Rainbow Crystal Staff are equally useful. I might even tilt it slightly in the Pearlwood Bow's favor since the RCS can't even hurt the boss you'd most likely use it against. I dunno, am I biased? I've talked to a few people on Discord who thought the Rainbow Crystal was pretty good, or even better than the Lunar Portal Staff. But based on my testing, I really don't think I'm being unfair to it by assigning it to D- rank.
 
The Rainbow Crystal Staff is really good... if enemies are so kind to stand still and read a newspaper while it tries to hit them.
I'd actually love to hear from people what they think is good about it. The only proper use I got out of the thing is placing it near a portal during the Old One's Army event. It does really well there, for obvious reasons. :)
 
Really good weapon tier list! I was surprised how bad or good some weapons are, and will likely save me farming time.

Also, are you planning on making one of these for pre hardmode weapons? I could help with some of the rare ones (slime staff, etc)
 
We can probably agree that the Rainbow Crystal was better before the sentry overhaul that came with the DD2 content. Back then, you could have exactly one of each sentry active at the same time, so although the Rainbow Crystal was never all that effective in combat, there was no opportunity cost for using it. Now it’s competing for a sentry slot with the likes of the Ballista Staff, which is at least decently accurate against grounded enemies and can clear out a room full of enemies in a few clicks.

The Rainbow Crystal is probably around equal in effectiveness to the Nimbus Rod, a weapon that people tend to favor a lot more. However, the Nimbus Rod doesn’t require a sentry slot, is available MUCH earlier, and has already lost most of its effectiveness this late into the game anyways.

I’ll wager that most people defending the RCS haven’t experienced most of the DD2 crossover content and may have forgotten about the reworked sentry system.
 
I would actually like to point out something for melee weapons: Most melee weapons with the aid of a Mechanical Glove or similar accessory gets drastically improved disruption thanks to the knockback bonus it gives. Since it is such a versatile accessory that provides many bonuses to melee weapons and the like, many people of the melee class end up using it and it maybe should be noted as you did with the different ammo types of ranged weapons, but that be up to you. (Plus, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.)

In fact, I've found that many subpar weapons like Excalibur or the Breaker Blade to have some use when aided with the accessory. As long as you are against non-knockback immune enemies, then using swords or other melee weapons like a spear could actually have slightly higher potential to them than previously thought since the increased knockback opens up the safety and disruption of the said melee weapon.

An easy example is the Herpling enemy. Normally, most swords are a suicidal move due to their high horizontal movement speed, eratic patterns, and high KB resist. However, using the accessory in tandem with a sword like the Breaker Blade(though it can be tricky due to it having slow speed and no autoswing, but timing it right manages) or Cobalt Sword made it possible to keep said enemy at bay, as long as you aren't purposely moving in its direction. However, some melee weapons aren't affected as majorly such as the Slap Hand due to it's already high disruption stat, so it doesn't matter in the long run.

Generally, it makes most Melee weapons safer and more disruptive and can increase it's potential if used correctly. Though there are a few cases in which the extra knockback is harmful, with weapons that rely on juggling the enemy in order to achieve maxium DPS. Weapons like the Death Sickle and Chlorophyte Partisan are the prime victims that I've encountered this behavior with. Because of that, I'm not really saying that it should be imperative to put this in the list, but I'd like to see your thoughts on this and see if it actually could be listed as a way to improve the potential of many melee weapons that fall flat due to the low Safety and Disruption stats.

Again, I love this accessory simply because it opens more oppurtunities to use lower rank melee weapons(the Frostbrand is another great example too, using the blade and beam at the same time to achieve a good DPS is safer because the higher knockback), but maybe some testing on your end if you would like to could disprove that, so I'd like to see your thoughts on the matter.
 
Again, I love this accessory simply because it opens more oppurtunities to use lower rank melee weapons(the Frostbrand is another great example too, using the blade and beam at the same time to achieve a good DPS is safer because the higher knockback), but maybe some testing on your end if you would like to could disprove that, so I'd like to see your thoughts on the matter.
My testing actually agrees with pretty much everything you just said; most swords are significantly more disruptive when a Power Glove is equipped. I may edit the description of "disruption" up at the top to reflect this. However, being highly disruptive does not completely make up for a weapon's lack of range; you are still vulnerable to getting outranged by the likes of Pirate Crossbowers, etc.

You might notice that I split up the analysis of the Dart weapons into two sections. Perhaps projectile swords should be treated the same way?

It’s probably fair to evaluate swords assuming that a Glove is being used, since I made similar assumptions while rating magic weapons (a lot of them are complete crap without a Mana Flower or Mana Regen buff).

Slightly different topic: Frostbrand is a funny one, because it fires a piercing projectile, but its stats are significantly worse than the Beam Sword's. Not sure which one most people would consider the better of the two.
 
vulnerable to getting outranged by the likes of Pirate Crossbowers
Ah, I hadn't thought about ranged enemies as much as I should. Agreed, that extra knockback won't help against enemies bombarding you away from the reach of your sword.

Perhaps projectile swords should be treated the same way?
That would make sense in the regard of how some swords have different stats than their projectiles and different abilities(such as an Influx Waver shooting a projectile that pierces enemies by chaining them, while the sword just hits multiple targets.) However, since many later swords retain their ability to contend with the increased danger of later enemies because of an added projectile, I wouldn't think it would be that too neccessary because most swords get a good chunk of their utility from the projectile itself. As such, swords aside from the projectiles will mostly end up getting a subpar rating in the long-run, and probably the inverse will happen for the projectile. But, it would add a little more utility to your guide so that's really up to you on whether they should be evaluated individually or not, as using them combined will get the maximized potential out of the weapon.

Slightly different topic: Frostbrand is a funny one, because it fires a piercing projectile, but its stats are significantly worse than the Beam Sword's. Not sure which one most people would consider the better of the two.
I enjoy the Frostbrand more because of the piercing projectile, it can lead to more DPS against a rush of fighter enemies or grouped ranged enemies from afar. Plus, I don't like spamming the attack button on the Beam Sword, I don't understand why any sword in hardmode doesn't have autoswing, it just makes using them more annoying than it has to. If the Beam Sword did have autoswing, then perhaps I would favor it more. Also, getting a Frostbrand is slightly easier than the Beam Sword because it doesn't have really low chance to drop, but it does come from a relatively rare enemy in the Ice Biome. However, with the aid of items like the Lifeform Analyzer and the Hunter Potion, finding one isn't too big of a problem nowadays.
 
*yawn*
Nothing new, move on.
If you need Chlorophyte bullets for your gun to work, then either your aim is horrible or it's a bad gun.
 
If you need Chlorophyte bullets for your gun to work, then either your aim is horrible or it's a bad gun.
Chlorophyte bullets allow you to reliably hit things that are offscreen; I don’t think a player’s aiming skill is much of a factor when it comes to that.

I understand that many guns (Xenopopper, Tactical Shotgun, Vortex Beater) are greatly improved by Chlorophyte bullets no matter how good your aim is, but I’m not going to call them bad guns. I thought it was only fair to evaluate every weapon at its fullest potential. For instance, the Daedalus Stormbow without Holy Arrows is pretty close to being bad, and many magic weapons are completely unusable without a mana regeneration potion. But as long as those conditions are relatively attainable, I’m not holding it against them that much.
 
I don't know why you put Crystal Storm and Magical harp both on C. They don't have too much damage but:
-Crystal storm has so insane speed that it is still very strong. Even against enemies with high def, it's still good and paired with golden shower it's just incredible. (RIP Corruption)
- Magical Harp is quite fast and used in enclosed areas it deals massive damage. Also I found it good against Plantera (mainly because she's slow) if you hollow out some area for fight.
 
WOW :eek:
Did you make a prehardmode one? If no, are you planning to do it?
I might, but the annoying thing about prehardmode is that there are so many weapons that do the exact same thing. Generic bow, generic sword, generic yoyo, stuff like that. It's not until right before the Wall of Flesh fight when people really start collecting a variety of weapons, and might need help choosing which ones to use.
-Crystal storm has so insane speed that it is still very strong. Even against enemies with high def, it's still good and paired with golden shower it's just incredible. (RIP Corruption)
The Crystal Storm is actually awful against enemies with high defense. I tested it against the post-Plantera dungeon and it was doing damage in the single digits. And I know it sounds unfair to test it there, but I also carried several other things like Cursed Flames, Golden Shower, and Sky Fracture, and they did much better against the same enemies.

Ichor is only marked as a point in a weapon's favor if it can actually inflict the debuff on its own, which the Crystal Storm cannot. To make things worse, its DPS against an ichored enemy is barely higher than that of the Golden Shower.
Magical Harp is quite fast and used in enclosed areas it deals massive damage. Also I found it good against Plantera (mainly because she's slow) if you hollow out some area for fight.
If you go on reddit, you'll notice that there are a lot of people who post that they can't beat Plantera, and also that they're doing a magic-only playthrough. This is not a coincidence. The Magical Harp is only recommended against Plantera because magic users have almost literally nothing else that's remotely usable for the fight. Crystal Serpent, Hex Doll, Sky Fracture, Magic Dagger, and that's pretty much it. All of these are much worse than the typically recommended Death Sickle or Chlorophyte Shotbow.

It earns C rank because it is still slightly usable against Plantera and underground randoms, but if you try to use it against any reasonably fast boss, or even an invasion, you'll agree that the Harp is definitely not B tier material.
 
Noticed that you've done an ammonution list as well. Which is also a great one.
But I had a question: If velocity wasn't much of an issue, then why is it a negative trait if it's average? I think it's better for the bullets that do have higher velocity to add that as a positive side. (Unless higher velocity in multiple projectiles only applied to arrows)
 
Noticed that you've done an ammonution list as well. Which is also a great one.
But I had a question: If velocity wasn't much of an issue, then why is it a negative trait if it's average? I think it's better for the bullets that do have higher velocity to add that as a positive side. (Unless higher velocity in multiple projectiles only applied to arrows)
I'm not really sure why I wrote it that way, to be honest. Probably because velocity doesn't make that big a difference. I think I'll mark velocity as a positive side for some of the earlier bullets, and just ignore it for some of the later ones.
 
If this list was 3ds (the only version I play on) the sniper rifle with Shroomite armor (bullet helm) would be at the top with chlorophyte bullets
I’m interested in evaluating how some weapons might be more or less viable on different platforms; certainly the Magnet Sphere wouldn't be nearly as good if it were more time-consuming to switch weapons (as seems to be the case in mobile). I hear the Venus Magnum is really good in mobile, too, but I haven’t quite gotten that far.

On another note, armor shouldn’t be taken into consideration when judging weapons, except in the case of a unique synergy (valhalla knight, meteor armor, etc).
 
I hear the Venus Magnum is really good in mobile
All guns which are normally not as great on PC because lack of autofire are a lot better on mobile because afaik most guns autofire, so guns with a lot of spread and damage (like the venus magnum) that wouldn't auto fire on PC would on mobile, making it really good.
 
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I’m interested in evaluating how some weapons might be more or less viable on different platforms; certainly the Magnet Sphere wouldn't be nearly as good if it were more time-consuming to switch weapons (as seems to be the case in mobile). I hear the Venus Magnum is really good in mobile, too, but I haven’t quite gotten that far.

On another note, armor shouldn’t be taken into consideration when judging weapons, except in the case of a unique synergy (valhalla knight, meteor armor, etc).
Technically the clockwork, on mobile, surpasses the magnum despite the much earlier obtaining time due to it having no periodical stops or mobile, making it faster than the chain gun.
 
You just gave the stardust dragon 5/5 and S+ because its a dragon i say cells are better



And i mean WAY better


though thats just opinion
 
You just gave the stardust dragon 5/5 and S+ because its a dragon i say cells are better

And i mean WAY better

though thats just opinion
I think Baconfry has a very good explanation to why the Stardust Dragon is a 5/5. I'd even dare say it's lightly overpowered, and I don't use that term lightly.
Apart from everything Baconfry mentioned, you can even effortlessly kill the final boss with it. Need to grind for something? Bring out the dragon, park yourself in a safe spot, go AFK, return every 10-15 minutes to collect your ill-gotten gains. No safe spots, like in the Dungeon? Just run around, dodging everything, while your dragon does the rest. Clean up on aisle four!
This thing does everything, and that all for a measly 18 fragments.

Even though I do think the Cell Staff is amazing, it doesn't hold a candle to the multipurpose Dragon.
 
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