qwerty3.14
Terrarian
Looking at the light levels of these light pets there really doesn't seem to be too big of a diffrence between them, I'd probably just use whichever fits my characters aesthetics the best.
-Betsy’s Wrath damage buff? Yeah, uh. If we’re nerfing the damage of Ichor to 15 (a good change, btw), then Betsy’s Wrath just gets that much better in comparison. Not to mention its massive damage buff by almost *double*. Combined with the debuff, it essentially has a hit damage of 130 now, AND has a powerful synergy with any other weapon. I think it did need a buff due to the difficulty of OOA, but holy.
From a rough bit of testing in endgame gear, assuming all shots hit:
Betsy's Wrath: ~2.5k DPS average
Razorpine: ~3k DPS average
Nebula Blaze: ~2.3k DPS average
Given that Betsy's Wrath is heavily affected by gravity making it fairly hard to hit all/any shots, and the latter is a homing pillar weapon that basically never misses, I'd say it's in a pretty good place now for how difficult OOA is in higher difficulties.
If anything was needing to be changed with it, it's probably still too weak, because unless you're basically point blank or firing at ideal angles, you're rarely going to be hitting with all three shots that get fired, making the practical DPS more around 1.8k-2k, if not less.
That said, I think it's in an okay place now. The fact it can be more than just a "debuff and switch to a better weapon" tool now is a very good thing.
I will say that my Betsy's Wrath numbers were based on number testing against similar tier equipment, and took into account its unique aiming and trajectory (as well as its AoE/group damage effects). It wasn't just an arbitrary ballpark, though like several OOA weapons, I did go with a 2x damage multiplier to start with (because my conclusion was that it was an acceptable value).
Bety's wraith has to big advantages those other two weapons have.From a rough bit of testing in endgame gear, assuming all shots hit:
Betsy's Wrath: ~2.5k DPS average
Razorpine: ~3k DPS average
Nebula Blaze: ~2.3k DPS average
Given that Betsy's Wrath is heavily affected by gravity making it fairly hard to hit all/any shots, and the latter is a homing pillar weapon that basically never misses, I'd say it's in a pretty good place now for how difficult OOA is in higher difficulties.
If anything was needing to be changed with it, it's probably still too weak, because unless you're basically point blank or firing at ideal angles, you're rarely going to be hitting with all three shots that get fired, making the practical DPS more around 1.8k-2k, if not less.
That said, I think it's in an okay place now. The fact it can be more than just a "debuff and switch to a better weapon" tool now is a very good thing.
1. I don't think all minions need to be able to keep up with fast flying bosses as long as the have some other niche to make up for it. Although currently the only minions that struggle with flying bosses but are still strong enough to be useful outside of of boss fights are the vamp frog and the spider. For example I think the desert tiger should get a BIG damage buff so that it gets maul to few targets its able to reliably deal with.
- First up - All hardmode melee minions need to be able to latch onto enemies in some form like the spiders and/or be made fast enough to follow every boss. All of them. The fact of the matter is that while there are events with slow or ground based minions, the majority of the "meat" of this game is flying boss enemies that move at high speeds, and the best way to deal with those is through fast movement through the air. Summoner especially NEEDS to play this way, because their defense stats are the lowest in the game, and as a result the melee minions just end up constantly chasing the boss around. It doesn't even have to be the same as the spiders - the way the blade staff and terraprisma attack enemies is also effective. There's a reason that the Xeno staff is considered the best summon - it has that reliability that the other summons lack. If any minions become overpowered as a result of this, I don't think anyone would mind if they received a nerf to their damage either. The common consensus is that reliability trumps raw damage output when it comes to minions.
- Second of all - The "return range" needs to be increased if an enemy is tagged, or just increased in general for non-ranged minions. While it may seem overpowered to be able to have minions attacking a target off screen, the fact of the matter is that this is already exactly what the other classes are able to do with guns, throwing knives, any ranged magic spell, etc. If the player is able to move fast enough to keep a boss off screen, then they shouldn't be punished for playing summoner in a situation where no other class is.
I haven't tried the buffed sharknados yet, however I would rather sharknados keep something to distiguish it from xeno, I'd like to see the sharknado be a slower, less acurrate but more damaging alternative to the ufo. Basicly I'd like to see it be a 'bomber' minion while the xeno staff is a 'fighter' minion.Finally, some thoughts on individual cases:
- Sharknados need to have homing projectiles. This summon is the highest tier summon that can be obtained before the lunar events (minus terraprisma of course, but that's an "extra" if anything), and the projectile speed increase just doesn't cut it. I think that this minion is awesome, but it's total lack of reliability means that it is just accepted as an inferior version of the xeno staff, and these small buffs won't suddenly change that. While it is entirely possible that this will result in the minion becoming overpowered, reliability is always king when it comes to minions, so even a pretty substantial damage nerf would still make this a buff overall.
Xeno staff was a tad bit to strong, it's arguably better than the stardust cell staff and that's supposed to be in a higher tier... obivously it's not comparable to the stardust dragon but honestly no weapon that isn't 'super endgame' comes close to the stardust dragon.Xeno staff didn't need the nerf. Not much to say here, the only point in time where I think an argument could have been made is before 1.4's dynamic minion damage, but overall they're just... not overpowered. Better than ravens and sharknado? Absolutely, but that's because the latter two are really, really unreliable while the Xeno staff isn't. While I don't think the nerf has had a substantial impact on its usefulness, I don't think it was justified either.
Adding chlorophyte to the recipe feels kind of unnessary, it's already a bit annoying how much spooky wood it takes to craft it. As for the defense... it doesn't really matter. Especially in higher diffculties a few extra points of defense doesn't really help much.Give spooky armour slightly more defense than tiki armour, and make it require chlorophyte. It's pretty clear at this point that spooky armour is meant to occupy the same spot as Shroomite, Beetle and Spectral armours, so it may as well require chlorophyte like the other three. It's clearly not trying to be a sidegrade anymore, and giving it less defense is just silly.
Solar armor used to be quite underwhelming, it used to have less offensive bonuses than beetle shell set and worse defensive effect than beetle shell, wich is a bit underwhelming for an endgame armor. A lot of player would literally just use nebula armor for their melee builds because its set bonus trumped solar armor's stats.I don't really have a great suggestion for anything around this since I'm not familiar enough with the numbers in this game to provide anything meaningful. But I was wanting to ask what exactly the team's goal for balancing is. Or specifically why mixed sets were target-nerfed and the solar armor was buffed.
Is the goal for only one set per chapter of the game to be truly good?
Were mixed sets seen as an unintentional and abusive way to use the armor sets that were intended to be used specifically with turret summons?
Was there any consideration for reworking the point of the Tavernkeep sets to be around making mixed sets instead of around using turrets?
Just wondering what the mindset and intent around this sort of thing is, not suggesting that I know how they should be.
If this has already been addressed elsewhere, sorry for repeating it.
1. I don't think all minions need to be able to keep up with fast flying bosses as long as the have some other niche to make up for it. Although currently the only minions that struggle with flying bosses but are still strong enough to be useful outside of of boss fights are the vamp frog and the spider. For example I think the desert tiger should get a BIG damage buff so that it gets maul to few targets its able to reliably deal with.
2. I never really had issues with minions range, just that when they do wander too far the slow ones are disabled for a long time, I think just increasing the return speed of these minions would be more appropriate. Minions are already able to reach the edge of the screen and I think that's far enough since you generally want to keep threats on screen so that you can actually see what they're doing.
I haven't tried the buffed sharknados yet, however I would rather sharknados keep something to distiguish it from xeno, I'd like to see the sharknado be a slower, less acurrate but more damaging alternative to the ufo. Basicly I'd like to see it be a 'bomber' minion while the xeno staff is a 'fighter' minion.
Xeno staff was a tad bit to strong, it's arguably better than the stardust cell staff and that's supposed to be in a higher tier... obivously it's not comparable to the stardust dragon but honestly no weapon that isn't 'super endgame' comes close to the stardust dragon.
I think ravens are actually a fairly reliable minion, not to the level of the sanguine or xeno but far from unusable.
Adding chlorophyte to the recipe feels kind of unnessary, it's already a bit annoying how much spooky wood it takes to craft it. As for the defense... it doesn't really matter. Especially in higher diffculties a few extra points of defense doesn't really help much.
that isn't why it go nerfed it was literally capable of trivializing most bosses making master mode considerably easier than expert in many fights.
I'm not sure why the best whip in the game needed to be buffed to the point where the Morning Star now has even less of a niche than it did before.Kaleidoscope (Buff)
- Damage increased from 165 to 180
Ok... I appreciate the buff but this is no where near enough... let me put it this way...Hornet Staff (Buff)
- Damage increased from 9 to 11
There's just one change that confuses me a little:
I'm not sure why the best whip in the game needed to be buffed to the point where the Morning Star now has even less of a niche than it did before.
Crystal assassin already seems good, thanks to that dash it effectievly frees up an accessory slot, which if you want to you can fill with a summon accesory2. Crystal Assassin Armor got a boost to three classes in addition to the summoner.
I know it's hard because the new minion slot would be too overwhelming, so I have two ideas:
a) let the armor give minions a critical attack chance
b) have it have an extra set bonus that increases the power of summoner accessories. Eg. Pygmy Necklace = +2 Minion Capacity, Hercules Beetle / Papyrus Scarab = + 30% minion damege (but not +2 minion capacity)
I never said (nor, I think, implied) that Morning Star was in a comparable tier to Kaleidoscope (while Empress is theoretically available pre-Golem, I can't imagine anyone actually beats her that early); however, it used to at least have a niche use in the endgame because it had the highest single-hit damage of any whip, plus the knockback. Kaleidoscope was still undeniably the best whip overall, and I'm just confused why it needed buffed when the general whip changes/fixes already gave it a considerable buff. My mental comparison, I guess, would be with the Sniper Rifle—also available from post-Plantera Dungeon, and has the highest single-shot damage in its category, even though nobody considers it the best in the game, but that very fact gives it a niche use even for an endgame character (although the zoom ability without without taking up an accessory slot also has something to do with that).Morning Star is a Hardmode Dungeon weapon, which puts it as a pre-Golem weapon.
Kaleidoscope is an Empress drop, putting it soundly at at least a tier above Golem-level drops.
The two are not of the same tier and buffing Kaleidoscope has little impact on Morning Star's "tier" territory. By the time you get it, Morning Star should be well past its time.
I would say Morning Star is still not very good though, it's a DPS whip that is worse than many side class weapons you could be playing as summoner at that point. But I'm okay with it staying that way.Morning Star is a Hardmode Dungeon weapon, which puts it as a pre-Golem weapon.
Kaleidoscope is an Empress drop, putting it soundly at at least a tier above Golem-level drops.
The two are not of the same tier and buffing Kaleidoscope has little impact on Morning Star's "tier" territory. By the time you get it, Morning Star should be well past its time.