Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[CellarDoor96]

But can we not talk about mods during the balance thread of the base game?

I'm joking, I think he means stacking the melee speed buffs that some whips like Durendal give, alongside Terra Blade.

 

[Dr. Flavin]

It's easier than you think.

Night's edge swings in an arc so all the hungries are constantly knocked back. WoF's lasers deal pathetic damage, especially to a melee character with high defense.

You will never touch the wall itself. With lightning boots, by the time it becomes faster than you it will have mere seconds left to live.

The only risk is Hungries that come from below, in a blind spot that Night's Edge cannot hit, but even then most of the time you win the DPS race.

If I had to make any change, it wouldn't be ANOTHER Night's edge buff, but rather getting rid of this:
View attachment 353427

These "Super Hungries" with 150 feel like they just exist to over true melee. 30 more damage than the previous tier doesn't sound like that much, but with how defense works it's a much bigger jump than you'd think. Other classes shoot at the wall from far outside the Super Hungries' range, so getting rid of them will do nothing but make Night's edge more beginner friendly.

I tested DPS a while back, Queen Spider is generally underrated.

Deals a lot of damage, has inherent CC due to all the babies running around, and even spreads Acid Venom. I think it's the low velocity against bosses that makes people think it's a bad weapon (not like something obtainable 10 minutes into Hardmode should be good against a boss)

Wow, never knew about that mechanic, that is weird. I Admittedly never tried to true melee wall of flesh, maybe next playthrough.


I'm surprised, I haven't used the queen spider staff in a while, I guess the venom buffs helped more than I thought.
I'd still rather take the consistency of the Old One's towers though, even with this newfound appreciation.

 

[ED209]

Are potion recipes up for consideration? I've always felt that the health & mana potion ladder is a bit chaotic; you can't make lesser or greater mana, the upgrade from lesser to standard mana/health is the same, but the upgrade to super mana/health is completely different to one another. I also think that health potions found in smashed pots are a complete waste of an inventory slot when in hardmode.

It would make more sense that each potion is used to upgrade itself to the next level, as the lessers do into their upgrades.

So, I propose the following:

1. Make lesser & greater mana potions craftable (see recipes below)
2. Match the upgrade ladders of both health and mana potions on all levels, not just one
3. Replace the water in the greater healing potions with standard healing potions (see recipe below)

Apologies if this isn't the type of input you're after, but if feels like a QoL issue.

 

[Razor_Typhoon]

I know how unlikely this is to happen since this isnt a stat related thing but I say it anyway,

If you are good enough at the game, you can kill Duke Fishron at the start of hardmode due to the fact that truffle worms start spawning at the start of hardmode, and the problem
is his drops are so powerful that it makes the rest of hardmode up till Golem a breeze and I suggest a solution for it.

Change when truffle worms start spawning from the start of hardmode to post plantera (like prismatic lacewings), this is a example of progression jumping as
duke fishron's weapons (flailon, tsunami, bubble gun, razorblade typhoon and tempest staff) can tear through the mech bosses and plantera and while killing duke fishron
with pre mech boss gear is considered way tougher than the regular battle, I still think its noteworthy enough to take into account.

 

[Shyguymask]

I know how unlikely this is to happen since this isnt a stat related thing but I say it anyway,

If you are good enough at the game, you can kill Duke Fishron at the start of hardmode due to the fact that truffle worms start spawning at the start of hardmode, and the problem
is his drops are so powerful that it makes the rest of hardmode up till Golem a breeze and I suggest a solution for it.

Change when truffle worms start spawning from the start of hardmode to post plantera (like prismatic lacewings), this is a example of progression jumping as
duke fishron's weapons (flailon, tsunami, bubble gun, razorblade typhoon and tempest staff) can tear through the mech bosses and plantera and while killing duke fishron
with pre mech boss gear is considered way tougher than the regular battle, I still think its noteworthy enough to take into account.

If a new player is struggling and needs help against Mech bosses & Plantera, there is no way they are going to be able to beat Duke Fishron at that stage of the game. I don't see how this is a problem.

 

[Razor_Typhoon]

If a new player is struggling and needs help against Mech bosses & Plantera, there is no way they are going to be able to beat Duke Fishron at that stage of the game. I don't see how this is a problem.

While this is true, it still makes no sense how prismatic lacewings require the defeat of Plantera to spawn but truffle worms can be found right after defeating the wall of flesh..

 

[pickpickles]

Okay, honestly? This.
There's a lot of items like the Golem Fist and Chain Knife that the game considers "flails", but I just call them "punchy launchers".
The Flairon is named like a flail, sprited like a flail... but it isn't an actual flail.
Flails are one of my favorite weapon types and I think having Flairon join its ranks (with the buffs the quoted user suggested) would make the subclass viable throughout the entire game.
Would be nice to see this treatment happen to the Anchor as well, but I won't ask for too much.

Anchor would be nice to have with the 1.4 flail mechanics, although it would look rather strange and we already have plenty of other functional flails. The only realistic change it could probably need is higher retraction speed after throwing.


On another note, I think it would be a good QOL buff to remove or reduce the knockback from the Bladetongue's Ichor shot as it can push an enemy directly into the user.

 

[scientistB]

I know how unlikely this is to happen since this isnt a stat related thing but I say it anyway,

If you are good enough at the game, you can kill Duke Fishron at the start of hardmode due to the fact that truffle worms start spawning at the start of hardmode, and the problem
is his drops are so powerful that it makes the rest of hardmode up till Golem a breeze and I suggest a solution for it.

Change when truffle worms start spawning from the start of hardmode to post plantera (like prismatic lacewings), this is a example of progression jumping as
duke fishron's weapons (flailon, tsunami, bubble gun, razorblade typhoon and tempest staff) can tear through the mech bosses and plantera and while killing duke fishron
with pre mech boss gear is considered way tougher than the regular battle, I still think its noteworthy enough to take into account.

I have to vote against this. Many of Terraria's bosses are not strictly locked behind progression (viewing pre-hardmode and hardmode as two separate things) to give the player the freedom of choice. I once took on Queen Bee as my first boss in a run, for example. If a player is good enough to face Duke in early Hardmode and survive, by all means, reward them. It's only gamebreaking if those strong items are handed to them, but it's Duke we're talking about. That power is earned.
One might argue that Empress drops are stronger; she drops the best whip in the game, even. The Starlight makes Baghnakhs obsolete.
Most notably, the player is already overwhelmed with stuff to do when Hardmode starts. An average player exploring or building a home in the Hallow, a new biome, would get unfairly killed if a Lacewing dies when they're not nearly prepared. The Truffle Worm doesn't spawn Fishron immediately; it has to be a conscious decision.

Are potion recipes up for consideration? I've always felt that the health & mana potion ladder is a bit chaotic; you can't make lesser or greater mana, the upgrade from lesser to standard mana/health is the same, but the upgrade to super mana/health is completely different to one another. I also think that health potions found in smashed pots are a complete waste of an inventory slot when in hardmode.

It would make more sense that each potion is used to upgrade itself to the next level, as the lessers do into their upgrades.

So, I propose the following:

1. Make lesser & greater mana potions craftable (see recipes below)
2. Match the upgrade ladders of both health and mana potions on all levels, not just one
3. Replace the water in the greater healing potions with standard healing potions (see recipe below)

View attachment 353490

Apologies if this isn't the type of input you're after, but if feels like a QoL issue.

I like this idea, I kinda had no idea that some potions weren't craftable since I don't play Mage as often as I should.
That said, I feel a Fallen Star might be a little expensive for only 2 Lesser Mana Potions. Maybe increase how many you make per star, or, to keep consistency, change the Fallen Star to a Daybloom.
Also, I disagree with requiring Fragments for Super Mana Potions. Health potions are more important and less-used than mana potions, so having them on a completely equal playing field in terms of recipes wouldn't be very fair. I'd propose keeping the Super Mana Potion's recipe as is. This would however require some adjusting for the Greater Mana Potion's recipe; maybe change the Crystal Shard to an herb of some kind?

 

[J Bame]

On the topic of potion recipes... who was the mad man that came up with this?

Why does arguably the worst potion in the game get to have such an expensive recipe?

 

[Dr. Flavin]

You know, someone suggested turning some of Plantera's drops into craftables made with Chlorophyte and that got me thinkin'.
What if the Grenade launcher was made into a craftable item with Souls of Fright and illegal weapons parts? Souls of Fright only have one weapon craftable exclusively with them, compared to the other soul's two, it feels thematically appropriate. It would make getting the Cyborg a lot easier and less luck reliant, it would make Princess and Cyborg pre-plantera which I don't think would be too unbalanced probably. Maybe make a crafting recipe for rockets too?
Speaking of an item for infinite basic rockets would be nice, always felt weird how bows and guns got one but explosives didn't. This feels like a great idea! Maybe?

 

[khs8157]

Just sharing some thoughts on Hallowed armor and Terra Blade.

Hallowed Armor
Even if you're going to nerf Hallowed armor, do it only for Expert and Master mode. They are not especially good on the Classic mode (except daytime EoL), since you'll not be taking much damage anyways. For example, none of the Plantera's attacks has more than 70 damage in Classic mode. Even with summoner armor(27 def), you'll take at most 57 damage, and with melee armor(50 def), you'll take at most 45 damage. That is 45~57HP per 30s saved from Holy Protection at best, which is worse than 60Hp per 30s from Palladium armor. And I haven't even considered defensive buffs/accessories into account, which makes Holy Protection even less effective. (Of course, Holy Protection has more value than the same points of HP regen since it prevents death from burst damage. That said, you won't usually get burst-damaged to death on the Classic mode, and you also have health potions to deal with it.)

Thus, I think 30/40/60 seconds on Classic/Expert/Master would be a fair nerf. I could say 20/40/60 but I'm worried 20s might be too OP on daytime EoL.

Also, an interesting direction would be nerfing the base offensive stats of Hallowed armor and adding offensive bonuses to the Holy Protection buff, so that taking damage while Holy Protection is on would actually cost you something.

Terra Blade
While I agree that Terra Blade is OP, I think it is a weapon that deserves to be OP. It is one of Terraria's most representative weapons and has a very complex crafting tree.
However, I do think it is too easy to obtain considering its power. While it requires a variety of materials you'll likely have all of them if you followed the standard game progression. A Broken Hero Sword should be much harder to obtain than now. Mothron is too weak, it even has lower health than Dreadnautilus, a pre-mech mini-boss. (It didn't get a stat buff even though it is now post-Plantera.) The drop rate of Broken Hero Sword is also too high, you get several of them in one Solar Eclipse even though you only need one. Making the Solar Eclipse (especially Mothron) a bit harder and lowering the drop rate of BHS so that you get one on average of 2~3 Solar Eclipses would be fine. If you didn't get one on the first Solar Eclipse, you either have a choice of grinding more for it or just go for another weapon.

I'm all with buffing the late-game melee weapons, but I think Terra Blade should remain the best pre-Lunar melee weapon for general use, while other weapons may outperform it for specific purposes, considering Terra Blade's position and reputation in the game. At least it should be better than some random Boss drops.

I think some stat change(nerf use time and buff damage) on Terra Blade would be reasonable. Actual use time scales dramatically with melee speed when its use time is already low, due to autoswing swords skipping one frame(Use time, though I'm not sure if this is true as of 1.4. I have tested and confirmed this in 1.3 using Fetid Baghnakhs...) and rounding down of use time after melee speed is applied. This would effectively reduce its power when used with melee speed builds.

 

[HammerHoovy🌳]

I will try to tackle boots along with Sandstorm in a Bottle.

Spoiler: Boots

Terraspark should be much easier to obtain as all of the upgrades they have over Lightning boots are just situational QoL. The only effects that are good all of the time are the effects of lightning boots, e.g running 34 mph and rocket boot flight/extra wing time.

Amphibian gives 30 mph running speed (not that much slower compared to lightning and its tinkers). The boots also give +48% ascent speed, which is much more useful than the extra wing time that lightning and its upgrades give. Amphibian is superior to Terraspark despite being easier to obtain.

I would therefore suggest making Terraspark easier to obtain by perhaps doing what some others have mentioned (making jungle rose craftable into obsidian rose, decrease rarity of lava charm in chests and imps dropping obsidian rose).

Give a buff to Lightning boots and apply that buff to its tinkers so that those boots are good enough to compete with Amphibian boots. Increase maximum running speed so that the extra speed the boots have over Amphibian actually makes a difference in battles and general movement. You would probably also have to increase the acceleration. This way Lightning boots and its tinkers are the best for horizontal movement while Amphibian are the best for vertical movement.

Spoiler: Sandstorm in a Bottle

I just quickly want to bring up the Sandstorm in a Bottle. It should really be made much more accessible. I would highly recommend adding it to the underground desert loot pool since the underground desert doesn’t have any bottle and doesn’t really have any good loot that is worth while either. Especially when you consider the difficulty of the underground desert. Bundle of Balloons is also way too rare and as a result people just go and get a horseshoe balloon/something in a balloon every playthrough. Making Sandstorm in a Bottle more accessible definitely helps with that. Although there would still be the problem with the Bundle of Balloons that they require 3 balloons thus making them tedious to get.

 

[Veezle]

I think the Dudgeon Defenders 2 crossover gear is in need of some buffs.

Spoiler: Flameburst Rod, Cane, and Staff

These need a major buff. I would recommend adding 7,15, and 20 damage to each summon. I would also give them a fire rate buff of around 20%. If that isn't enough, some slight homing might make them better. Currently they just aren't good enough to warrant using, even with the Apprentices armor buff to them.

Spoiler: The Weapons

The Phantom Phoenix is actually good, so I'll leave it alone. The Tome of Infinite Wisdom is also pretty good, it just needs a primary attack buff of like 10 or so damage. The melee weapons on the other hand, are really bad. The first thing I would recommend is double the size of all of them. They are really, really, small. Give the Ghastly Glaive autoswing and increse its damage to around 85. Make the Sleepy Octopod deal about double its current damage. And finally, make the Brand of the Inferno deal 120 damage and maybe it might se some use. The tier 3 weapons are all good, just make the Flying Dragon's projectile bigger and have more pierce.

 

[GoldenTerrabyte]

Also, an interesting direction would be nerfing the base offensive stats of Hallowed armor and adding offensive bonuses to the Holy Protection buff, so that taking damage while Holy Protection is on would actually cost you something

This is a really creative idea for Hallowed armor, and easily the best suggestion I've seen in the thread for it.

 

[Flubman]

I think Orichalcum armor could use a buff because the petals it shoots out miss most of the time. Maybe the petals could be made twice as fast?

 

[DeDZahar]

write this down
Few improvements:
1. Make the Soaring Insignia be capable of granting infinite fly time for flying mounts - Reindeer, Bee, Queen Slime mount and carpet(optional);
-off topic--2. Improve the generation of pyramids cause that (pic below) is really annoying (I mean pyramids have weird generation - while large world where 3 deserts have nothing, small world with one desert gets pyramid close enough to oasis with sandstorm in;
3. Rework\raise chance of the generation of sandstorm in a bottle (example):
depending on world size the chance of getting op will increase by 10% or in large world if generated more than 1 pyramid increase the chance of appearing of op in next piramid by 50% despite the loot in previous one;
4. Rework generation of lava charm(example and further details):
Leave the layer where lava can naturally spawn but increase the height to 2500~2700 (for large world) with the following algorithm ->
if the generated chest is nearby lava pool with size of at least 75 tiles within distance of 5 tiles horizontally\10 tiles vertically but only if chest is above lavapool\15 tiles diagonally the charm will be allowed to generation(with 5% increased chance). If chest is in lava pool with size at least 100 tiles than lava charm will be generated with 100% chance in according to usual loot. I always see at least two chest with similar characteristics: one somewhere in 2600~2700 layer and one in mushroom biome. Loved those chests from mushroom places - quite often used to see one charm per world in 1.3.5.3... (for kek decided to look up for one in my current world using TEdit and op located in the deeps of snow biome was not a good news)( - _ - with my 1280x600 screen even with spelanker potion It would take too long to find it )
5. Increase the range of hammer of paladin(or give it attack animation of paladin in exchange of going through blocks
6. --Optional-- replace crafting station of blade of grass and zenith with demon altar (thematical change)

 

[MrD108]

I really don't know why people are complaining about Holy Protection. When it was available in Titan Armor as Shadow Dodge, it did not bother anyone, although it was available before. And now that it has actually been put in the right place, people are complaining that it is too strong.
I believe that Holy Protection should remain as it is, especially since we badly need dodging armor to fight the Empress during the day, for example.

 

[J Bame]

I really don't know why people are complaining about Holy Protection. When it was available in Titan Armor as Shadow Dodge, it did not bother anyone, although it was available before. And now that it has actually been put in the right place, people are complaining that it is too strong.
I believe that Holy Protection should remain as it is, especially since we badly need dodging armor to fight the Empress during the day, for example.

Uh.... what?

Back when it was Shadow Dodge on Titanium people complained MORE about it because it could last all the way up to Moon Lord, and because it made Hallowed and Chloro Armors (and by extent all the other HM ores) look useless in comparison.

There was never a time where Shadow Dodge/Holy Protection wasn't widely considered an overpowered set bonus.

Daytime Empress is an optional challenge for an optional boss with an overpowered reward. No gear should be balanced around its existence. And we also shouldn't expect something obtainable from your first mech kill to be useful against a late game boss.

 

[khs8157]

I really don't know why people are complaining about Holy Protection. When it was available in Titan Armor as Shadow Dodge, it did not bother anyone, although it was available before. And now that it has actually been put in the right place, people are complaining that it is too strong.
I believe that Holy Protection should remain as it is, especially since we badly need dodging armor to fight the Empress during the day, for example.

As I explained in my post, the Holy Protection/Shadow Dodge is not OP on Classic mode. On the Expert mode, however, it becomes OP-ish, but back in 1.3, 30 seconds would have been fine for a balance between Classic and Expert. Now in 1.4, there is Master mode, in which almost all Hardmode bosses and enemies do around 150~400 per hit. Holy Protection is so OP in Master mode, it's like having additional Healing Potions that heals for 150~400 with a seperate cooldown of 30 seconds, let alone For The Worthy. Its HP saving potential is roughly equal to 5~13 HP/s which is much more than Valhalla Knight armor, and its effect is actually miles better than regeneration since it is an instant recovery. If you take two successive Giant Tortoise hits in Master Mode, you will die no matter how much your regeneration is, but Holy Protection will save your life.

Then there is daytime Empress, where Hallowed armor outclasses every single armor in the game, including the endgame ones.

 

[MrD108]

Uh.... what?

Back when it was Shadow Dodge on Titanium people complained MORE about it because it could last all the way up to Moon Lord, and because it made Hallowed and Chloro Armors (and by extent all the other HM ores) look useless in comparison.

There was never a time where Shadow Dodge/Holy Protection wasn't widely considered an overpowered set bonus.

Daytime Empress is an optional challenge for an optional boss with an overpowered reward. No gear should be balanced around its existence. And we also shouldn't expect something obtainable from your first mech kill to be useful against a late game boss.

As I explained in my post, the Holy Protection/Shadow Dodge is not OP on Classic mode. On the Expert mode, however, it becomes OP-ish, but back in 1.3, 30 seconds would have been fine for a balance between Classic and Expert. Now in 1.4, there is Master mode, in which almost all Hardmode bosses and enemies do around 150~400 per hit. Holy Protection is so OP in Master mode, it's like having additional Healing Potions that heals for 150~400 with a seperate cooldown of 30 seconds, let alone For The Worthy. Its HP saving potential is roughly equal to 5~13 HP/s which is much more than Valhalla Knight armor, and its effect is actually miles better than regeneration since it is an instant recovery. If you take two successive Giant Tortoise hits in Master Mode, you will die no matter how much your regeneration is, but Holy Protection will save your life.

Then there is daytime Empress, where Hallowed armor outclasses every single armor in the game, including the endgame ones.

Well, I disagree with the two of you, but I'm not going to argue on the suggestion thread.
I am against the last update (mortgage "last" update) killing one of the most interesting bonuses for the set that has been in the game since 1.2, but these decisions will be made by the developers.