Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[Kardfogu]

It's intresting that you bring up Minecraft because Terraria has sort of ended up ind the same boat as far as world generation goes. Both Relogic and Mojang have smoothed out the quirks in world gen to the point that things have become a little too samey from world to world.

Summoners have really rather good survivability if you go through the Old One's Army and get your hands on the sentry armors. But you're right about ranged. Ranged really does need a final "gun" on the level of the Zenith or Last Prism. Nothing really even comes close.

Yeah, I heard about sentry summoner, not bad stuff really, somewhat unorthodox, but not bad. On the other hand, I'm more of a regular summoner guy. Anyways, I don't have a problem with where summoner is right now, even if the archetypical summoner is squishy, it does the damage it needs to do, I'm fine with it.
I turned into a summoner type player since 1.4 and I'm happier with it.

Played a lot of tryhard ranged in 1.3 just to be outmatched in DPS, survivability and mobility at the same time by everyone else.
Yeah, playing ranged in multiplayer is like being that sentry for the melee guy he doesn't have any bonuses for. You don't die and you don't deal damage, your best friend doesn't even remember if you are in the game or not, as you just don't make a difference sitting in stealth and trying to hurt enemies with toy guns.
Then playing ranged in single player is the "Forever alone" treatment. Even the monsters avoid you once you pop stealth.
You can't farm in stealth as the mobs stop spawning or just walk away from you.
You can't farm out of stealth as ranged weapons just don't do any damage without stealth.

1.4 came out and ranged is still a lose-lose-lose scenario at the end of Hardmode.

 

[FLUX2226]

Finch staff I have a love/hate relationship for, I'm grateful for an early summon. But this bird can't hit anything about player sized more than half the time, the other half it goes through the enemy only hitting once. I still have yet to get a Slime staff with how rare it is.

Finch staff, I'd like it to hit the enemy, even if it's not as strong as the slime staff in that regard.

I wish the finch was a ranged summon (perhaps shooting feathers like harpies) so it offers consistent damage against all enemies. Low damage is fine for early game, but it's slow and clumsy which makes it very unreliable. Circling 3 times around a slime and then hitting it for 6 damage isn't exactly helpful. The Eye of Cthulhu can completely outrun the finch with its quick movement in expert/master, making it nearly impossible to beat it with the finch. As the only realistically obtainable starting weapon it should offer reliable damage at least (still not a big fan of a starting weapon being a world generation drop instead of having something craftable, but whatever).

 

[Draymien]

Yeah so idk how to make those big comments so ima try my best and I hope that you will get my point
The terraria 1.4 also know as journeys end has brought a lot of changes and additions into our beloved game, But it also made a hole in some parts:

1.- Daedalus Stormbow​

Yes it was probably WAY too op for the "early" hardmode (ignoring the fact that defeating a hallowed mimic with early hardmode stuff isn't a good idea) But the changes for this bow really affected the item, The damage reduction from 43 to 38 might not be that important, But the fact that using Holy, Unholy, Hellfire or Jester Arrows reduces the arrows per shoot kinda makes the weapons useless, Even though ichor and cursed flame arrows are a good option, The jester arrows are the best option against the mechanical bosses with no doubt, especially the destroyer, My point is, It is ok that they reduced the damage, But the arrows should go back to normal, I would also like to say again, That obtaining this arrow is not an easy task, in Expert mode the hallowed mimic has almost the life of a Normal mode Wall of flesh, And does 180 damage, which means that it only takes 4 hits from this enemy to die, Also dealing 7k damage with an early hardmode weapon its not that easy (Unless you are one of those dudes that build weird things that deal insane amounts of damge, If you are a normal human who can breathe, Then you know what I mean.
Also the Daedalus stormbow its only a good option against the three mechanical bosses, Besides them its quite useless, But now its not even good against them, Which made an item with insane potential a 100% useless, Its not worth farming anymore, So my point is, Please give us the old stormbow, It is such a good item that I could not believe what they did.
So yeah that's one, Now the important one

2.- Melee class became op​

Zenith, Zenith, oh Zenith, I really love that sword in fact, im not saying that is bad or anything, But since Zenith came out, The other classes aren't as OP as the melee class, Here:
In a PML (endgame) fight, you like to be op, In 1.3 most classes were equal, It was fun to use every single one of them (Probably summoner class wasn't really interesting tho anyway) But since the Zenith came out the other classes became less fun, The zenith its the only weapon that can eliminate the Master Mode moon lord in less than 10 seconds (Not exaggerating, Its actually possible, I personally did 20 secs and not 10, But I have heard of a lot of people that can do that), Anyway the rest of PML classes require more time to defeat him, So what am I suggesting
All classes should have their own and unique Engame weapon, So that they will be equal.
That's pretty much all that I had to say, I hope that these changes will be implemented cause even though 1.4 is amazing, I personally feel that there are some things missing so yeah.

 

[qwerty3.14]

Prehardmode summons are kind of weak, the base dps of the hornet and imp staff is around 10 dps compare this to the ealries hardmode summon the spider which ahs at base around 70 dps.
Now yes hardmode summons should be stronger but this is literally getting a 7x damage increase, compare this to something like bows, the molten fury has around 90dps compared to an early hardmode bow the titanium repeater with roughly 160dps that is roughly a 1.8x damage increase.

What I'm trying to say is that there's a very significant jump in the usefulness of minions upon entering hardmode much more than the other classes and I feel this mostly has to do with how weak the prehardmode summons are, although think the spider staff could use a small nerf.

I would double the hornet's base damage to 18, and I up the imp's damage to 27 and give the imp fireballs not use iFrames just like the spiders. Spider staff could be nerfed to 22 base damage, it's a little too strong.

 

[JohannSimm]

Yes it was probably WAY too op for the "early" hardmode (ignoring the fact that defeating a hallowed mimic with early hardmode stuff isn't a good idea) But the changes for this bow really affected the item, The damage reduction from 43 to 38 might not be that important, But the fact that using Holy, Unholy, Hellfire or Jester Arrows reduces the arrows per shoot kinda makes the weapons useless, Even though ichor and cursed flame arrows are a good option, The jester arrows are the best option against the mechanical bosses with no doubt, especially the destroyer, My point is, It is ok that they reduced the damage, But the arrows should go back to normal, I would also like to say again, That obtaining this arrow is not an easy task, in Expert mode the hallowed mimic has almost the life of a Normal mode Wall of flesh, And does 180 damage, which means that it only takes 4 hits from this enemy to die, Also dealing 7k damage with an early hardmode weapon its not that easy (Unless you are one of those dudes that build weird things that deal insane amounts of damge, If you are a normal human who can breathe, Then you know what I mean.

Here's my suggestion: Have the first two arrows fired by the Daedalus Stormbow be of the ammunition type, but have the remaining arrows be "energy arrows" that copy their damage from the arrows used but without their special bonuses. Then the bow's base damage could be buffed again, possibly even relative to its original value. With this change, the weapon would work better with multiple varieties of arrows, and would be less reliant on exploiting overpowered effects.

 

[Draymien]

Here's my suggestion: Have the first two arrows fired by the Deadalus Stormbow be of the arrow type used as ammunition, and have the remaining arrows be "energy arrows" that deal the same damage as the others but without special bonuses. With this change, the weapon's damage can be buffed again, possibly even relative to its original value.

Oh hey that sounds like a good idea, But I think that it would be probably too hard for the Developers to create such an effect, but yeah u got my support bro lol

 

[JohannSimm]

Oh hey that sounds like a good idea, But I think that it would be probably too hard for the Developers to create such an effect, but yeah u got my support bro lol

They'd have to create a new sprite, but another arrow sprite isn't the most demanding addition – after all, they just added that new "Torch God's Favor" item that has an entirely original sprite. The mechanic also has some precedent with the Phantasm. Copying the damage from the other arrows might be trickier, but if necessary they could just give the extra arrows a flat amount like 15 or 16. (There isn't massive damage variation between Hardmode arrows anyway – it's the bow that makes the most difference with baseline damage.) My estimate is that it shouldn't be too difficult to implement, but I may be underestimating the difficulty.

I think such a change would allow for a lot more flexibility in fine-tuning the weapon, so I hope it's considered. (I know mechanical overhauls are beyond the scope of this thread, but as far as they go I don't think this one is the most complex, at least on paper.)

 

[JohannSimm]

According to this post by Jota Bame, Cobalt Armor is in need of a serious buff. While it has versatility because of its variety of headgear, each combination is outclassed by pre-Hardmode armors, and it's woefully inferior to Palladium Armor (its alternative), mostly because of Palladium's regeneration. Cobalt Armor's defence should be increased, and it should be given raw stats buffs (not to exceed Palladium Armor).

They also mention in regards to Orichalcum Armor that "The stat bonuses for the Melee Helmet are so bad that it's only good for crowd control." So I suggest a buff to that helmet's bonuses as well.

 

[scientistB]

(And on a sidenote, I kinda hoped for that the Ancient Hallowed Armor had retained it's old set bonus. I've enjoyed the raw melee stats.)

1. Summoner at the start of the game is very bad because his first summons are RNG, and with the Reaver Shark nerf, you cannot rush imp staff

+1 to these.

Also, with the nerf to crates in pre-hardmode, I would have expected to have the hardmode crates contain more hardmode ores than they used to; or at least, at a reasonable rate.
I can't tell you how disheartening it is to get tin out of a Mythril Crate, or silver ore out of a Titanium Crate.
If it was up to me, I would either not let pre-hardmode and hardmode ores be mutually exclusive with each crate opening; or move the pre-hardmode ores down to at least Mythril or Pearlwood Crates.

But the reason this is a problem is not because we don't want to go mining for ores; it's because we hate infecting random parts of our world with Corruption and Hallow with each broken Demon Altar. All it adds is unnecessary dread, which is why many of us simply fish to avoid messing up the worlds we work so hard on. And due to the painfully low rate of the ores we need from crates, we'll be sitting there for long enough for the big V to spread like wildfire. If we want to create new Hallows and Corruptions, we'll just buy some seeds or make some Holy/Unholy Water.
Those are my two cents for now.

 

[Kardfogu]

In 1.3 most classes were equal, It was fun to use every single one of them (Probably summoner class wasn't really interesting tho anyway)

Nope. All ranged weapons from Moon Lord have been replaced or buffed in 1.4 and they are still all rubbish and subpar compared to the nerfed Phantasm.
Ranged was the weaksauce there, but other than that, yeah, the rest of the classes had their specialties. Not anymore. Melee does everything better than everyone else, except damage. The Last Prism is still the most powerful weapon in the game, but only by a small margin. (Tho the Zenith DOES kill Moon Lord easier, due to the fact it is a melee weapon an inherently tanky setup)

 

[JohannSimm]

I propose that +4 regeneration be given back to the Valhalla Knight armor as a set bonus. While the breastplate with the original effect was blatantly overpowered, allowing for all sorts of broken combinations, nerfing the effect just makes the Valhalla Knight armor worse. Restoring the armor's original regeneration as a set bonus also gives better incentive to wearing the whole set, giving it a wider variety of perks. I'll quote what Jota said in their post: "Carried by the Breastplate. That's the one good thing about this armor, since 60% minion damage doesn't matter when you don't get any minion slots to work with them and the sentry this supports suffers from being slow, dumb and inaccurate, with the set bonus only being a temporary fix to one of those." (Hmm, maybe Ballista needs a buff.)

[I've since thought of a better change. I'm now proposing that the Valhalla Knight's Helm be given a +15% or +20% bonus to melee damage. Despite being an upgrade of the Squire armor (whose chestpiece provides +15% melee damage) the Valhalla Knight armor currently has no such bonus, making it a downgrade in that regard.]

I also suggest swapping the Hallowed Plate Mail's "7% increased critical strike chance" and the Hallowed Greaves' "7% increased damage", in order to more closely match the bonus distribution of other armors (such as Adamantite armor and Turtle armor). This is just personal preference, as I find it more logical that the breastplate would provide a straight damage boost, with the leggings affecting crit damage along with speed – it is the more common distribution, after all. I think Hallowed Armor may be the only armor in the game that has this specific division of bonuses between the chest and legs, so I find it rather strange.

Also, Explosive Traps and the Oiled debuff* should receive significant buffs. In that same post, Jota Bame put it this way: "Special mention to the fact that this armor [Huntress armor, and by extension Red Riding armor] has the undisputed worst Set Bonus in the entire game that only affects the undisputed worst Sentry in the entire game by making it inflict the undisputed worst Debuff in the entire game which only enhances the worst way to deal damage in the entire game." Right now as far as I can tell, the Explosive Trap doesn't have much application outside of the Old One's Army event.

Flameburst sentries could also use a buff; general consensus seems to be that they're a mediocre sentry.

(*I am aware Leinfors already mentioned buffing this as a possibility.)

 

[JohannSimm]

The Martian Drones from the Martian Madness event should be able to drop Martian Conduit Plating (as they are machines like the Walkers and Saucers, which drop the plating). Perhaps Martian Probes could also drop Martian Conduit Plating, providing a minor reward if you decide to kill them and not trigger the event.

 

[Lithium]

Normally I wouldn't post this here, but seeing as this appears to be the only feedback thread, I don't see a better place.

I'm kind of confused by some of the changes made in 1.4. There's a lot of cool new stuff, and I do like some of it, but other changes just... don't feel right.
The whole NPC happiness system seems pretty poorly thought out. What Nico Bolas had to say about it pretty much sums up my opinions; it would be enough motivation for players to build isolated towns if happiness just gave them big discounts, but apparently the devs thought players needed negative reinforcement, too.

In the original post announcing this change, they even directly implied this system would make building tiny, optimized houses more of a pain. The only purpose Happiness seems to really serve is to punish players for attempting to build they way they like- compared to the huge markup in price, the small discount only possible under ideal circumstances, for only a few NPCs at a time, is not much of a reward. This system can punish far more than it can reward- and it punishes certain building styles, of all things. This is a sandbox game.

I'm not even sure why negative torch luck was a thing in the first place. Who thought THAT was a good idea? Even positive torch luck is odd... if harmless. Plus, luck is almost entirely opaque, offering the player next to no feedback about it.

Meteorite seems to have also gone the way of the Hardmode dungeon here, too- it was previously obtainable earlier, and was BALANCED for that point in the game- but it got moved to a later tier, and the items have not been buffed to compensate. And why can't you use bombs to mine it anymore...? It was like that since day one, and no one was complaining- people were only complaining that Meteor Armor was too powerful with its set bonus(Including well after its intended use), and the only thing 1.4 did to it was make that bonus affect two NEW weapons.
So yeah, Meteor Armor sort of got buffed, but the phaseblades are still pretty trash.

As for Summoner... well, I think a lot of people are rather disappointed with how it got changed. This update was supposed to make summoner good, but it's still garbage pre-hardmode and unviable as a solo class. Ranger has eleven pre-hardmode guns. Summoner's main weapon type- minion staves- only has FIVE pre-hardmode items.
Aside from that, all four pre-hardmode sentry weapons require completion of an optional(if cool) event to use(and they're all the same tier unlike other summon items), and the new whip weapon type has TWO pre-hardmode weapons.

Summoner has eleven pre-hardmode weapons total. Ranger has eleven bullet-firing pre-hardmode weapons total.
One subclass for Ranger matches the entire arsenal of a whole class at that stage of progression. No, Summoner is not a complete class.

Not to mention how lazy Master Mode seems to be. I haven't played it, so I can't quite comment, but I've seen some other people comment on it and I could've sworn I heard it was more than just stat modifiers, vanity items, and the best mount in the game.

Journey's End introduced a lot of cool things. And it's been a very fun update. But... it's also got some of the most perplexing changes I've seen in the game's history.
Even without mods, I think I might just prefer 1.3.5...

 

[MistaAnderson]

Hey, so I have a few points that I'd like to mention. Keep in mind I play Master Mode, classic (Not journey mode) and am streaming it.

Medusa Head

Medusa Head is far less useful now than it was before.
Before, even though it was underpowered, at least you could use it defensively; hide, charge, and then pop out with a big blast and go back into hiding.

Now, even in the reveal gif you guys posted, weak enemies like common eyeballs weren't defeated until they already rammed the player, 9 hits later, with absolutely no option for defensive use, since you have to be in the face of the enemy to even use it. Testing the weapon myself, I've found literally no way to use this weapon without being really close to an enemy and letting it ram you for free, since this thing does not knock anything back, and requires constant prolonged use up in their face with no defensive options whatsoever.
The limit to 3 enemies does not make things better. The weapon is currently worse than most pre-hardmode items.

For the Medusa Head to be useful at all in its current design, it would need a substantial range increase (At least double or triple current reach), as well as a removal of the limit of 3 enemies.

My suggestions for how to buff it (either or):

1. Increase the range to be just about 3x or 4x.
2. Add in the old charged-up behaviour in addition to the current damage-over-time, and make both have more range, but the megahit at the end has the most range, and hits more than 3 enemies. Maybe even give the last hit a chance to petrify mobs.
3. Or buff the knockback, as well as remove enemy limit completely, so the player can use it to stop incoming enemies with relative ease, despite having to be close.
4. Or you could make the weapon usable only by charging first, but effectively petrify enemies instead. They take strong falling damage, but can also deal damage upon falling onto the player (meaning it can't cheese airborne enemies easily) by falling also horizontally, akin to a flail. I understand if this kind of overhaul is too much.

Option 2 is my favorite.

I would lovingly accept a heavy buff of Medusa herself in order to justify the weapon being stronger; currently, I just grapple onto the ceiling above her and face the other way, and she can't really do anything whatsoever. She also won't petrify me if I hit her, so I can just face the other way and wait for her to approach, then attack and stun her. She's weak, even prehardmode. Her hoplites were far more threatening, but those were nerfed, so..
Perhaps let her climb her biome walls, and be able to still try to petrify while taking damage?

Mage Progression

I have three issues to explain here:

• There are no good armor replacements for Space Armor until Titanium Armor
• Jungle has no value for Mages, and is better skipped entirely, along with most of Dungeon
• Underworld is trivial to survive, yet yields Demon Scythe from a common enemy

In every single playthrough I've had these past years, as a Mage, it makes no sense for me to enter the jungle for any reason. The Jungle is the hardest biome to survive in prehardmode, even compared to the Underworld, and the armor in there does nothing for mages that the Meteor Armor doesn't do better.

Mana potions exist, and mana stars are easy to get especially now after 1.4. I can be constantly drinking potions, and the 21% magic damage increase from the Meteor Armor is actually good enough that it makes me do more damage even during mana sickness, than any other armor does by saving mana and not using any potions.
That's ontop of it already giving me 100% free mana for the Space Gun and Orange Zapinator anyway, meaning I actually never run out of mana and get to deal loads of DPS even when low on mana, also making it useful post-hardmode due to Zapinators.

The jungle armor does not stack up at all, and is ridiculously hard to get due to its biome, whereas Meteor Armor requires just a smack on a single Crimson/Corruption Orb, and some careful mining while minding the little meteor heads, who die automatically if I face them while mining, due to my pickaxe hitting them. Space Gun is obtainable at the same time.

There is no armor in Hardmode that I could find before Titanium, that does anything of value to beat out the Meteor Armor, unless you ditch all your DPS for Molten defense. I'm saying this because I literally couldn't ditch my Meteor Armor until I actually got Titanium.

Additionally, I feel like the Dungeon isn't really necessary to even loot, due to how there are much stronger counterparts in the Underworld, and the Underworld is not that hard to survive if I am to be honest. Jungle is far worse. And Underworld has the easiest-to-find loot chests, a relatively low enemy spawn rate, and buildings that you can use to cheese demons and bats from the inside.
Imps don't rectify this because they're so incredibly bad that they mirror Dungeon mages; you can literally just chip away their HP slowly with a copper shortsword without them moving, and their projectiles don't even bother you while you're under lava mining with Obsidian Skin, because your pickaxe destroys their projectiles. They're so trivial it's not even funny.

Underworld lights everything up and puts fire on the bats for maximum visibility, and Bone Serpents are super easy to spot and avoid by just hanging in the ceilings or jumping above them.
Demon Scythe also kills them pretty fast.

Because of this, my best bet as a Mage is just to get the Meteor Armor and Space Gun, dig down to the Underworld, cheese a few Demons from the buildings, and get myself a Demon Scythe. If I already picked up a Magic Missile, I can just shoot through platforms, doors or small holes and be completely unconcerned, especially since doors auto-close and open now. Otherwise I'll just pop in and out under the platforms to fire.
Then I can use Demon Scythe on Skeletron, pick up only the Shadow Key, and loot Underworld chests for their better counterparts.

This Demon Scythe strat is exactly what I've done on nearly every playthrough, including my current Master Mode playthrough, and previous Expert ones. It simply is far easier to survive in the Underworld, even with trash gear, than to deal with Jungle Hornets that fly around and fire aggressively (even while taking hits), hard-to-see bats, wallhacking maneaters and thorns obstructing every path.

I really wish things were balanced so that Underworld was far harder compared to these other ones. Perhaps buff Imps to make their projectiles indestructible or deal explosion damage when hit, make them teleport more rapidly and randomly, and NOT just sit there and stare at you when you get a hit in.
And perhaps in Master Mode, make regular Demons able to fire through Hellstone Brick and Obsidian Brick, or at least compensate for how easily you cheese them from inside those stupid buildings.

I would also like a buff to the Jungle Armor, so it actually makes sense to get it over the Meteor Armor. Perhaps give it slightly higher damage output than Meteor, and some mana reduction while Meteor Armor only makes Space Gun free. That would justify Jungle Armor, but only if you use anything else than Space Gun or Orange Zapinator. So it depends a little bit on luck and preference.
I also save more mana, and do more DPS, by spamming Demon Scythe and Space Gun, and whenever I run low on mana, spam Space Gun instead for constant DPS, than I do by using Jungle Armor and having to stop and do nothing when I run out of mana, or waste my (already terrible) DPS on a mana potion.

 

[Gotcha!]

As someone who has collected all items (and I mean -all- items) in pre-1.4, and wishing to do the same in 1.4, I'm getting rather annoyed with the low drop rate of kites. A friend of mine, who is also a collector, shares the same feeling.
We're in hardmode (moon lord beaten), and are spending our time collecting stuff.

- The kites that drop from balloon slimes have a ridiculously low drop rate. The balloon slimes are already freakishly rare and the windy days are very short. As soon as the windy day music stops, the balloons stop spawning, even though the wind is still well above 20mph. It'd be nice if the drop rate of these kites would be increased. The wiki says they have a 0.38% chance to drop, which is, as I said, ridiculous. Or just keep balloon slimes spawning as long as the wind is 20mph or higher.
- The bone serpent becomes quite rare in hardmode in our experience. We both have its kite now, but it took us several real life days of fleeing to hell every time the wind picked up, drinking combat potions, placing water candles, and hoping for the best. I feel the drop rate of the bone serpent's kite should be increased as well.

Aside from some minor pet peeves, I'm really enjoying the update. Many weapons that I didn't even glance at pre-1.4 are now actually useful and fun to use. Well done.
The overpowered weapons at the end are fun as well. They make collecting items much less of a chore. Contrary to people screaming for nerfs, I hope they'll remain this crazy. People are not forced to use them, and after beating the Empress during the day and the Moon Lord (at least twice), you've earned them. But the game gets so boring! Then don't use them.

 

[marulok]

I have a minor suggestions at buffing the crystal shard. Compared to most of the other mimic weapon weapons it feels mediocre. I decided to look at its strengths and flaws. First of all, there is little point in spamming multiple shards because of the pierce I-frames. Secondly, the DPS is fairly low, compared to stormbow, and there's not much of a reason to use it. I figured it'd be unfair to compare it to a really good item, so I'll compare it to the other mimic drop, the flying knife.

I didn't do a melee playthrough... ever, but I did watch a bunch of videos and done enough mixed class playthroughs to know that at that stage of the game melee has not much "far range" options. The knife is one of the far range options, giving it a use.

So anyway, I will say what the CVS is good at. It is very useful at stunlocking enemies, which gives it potential at being a support weapon. I propose that the CVS, and maybe the other equivalents, have their damage reduced, duration of attack increased, range increased slightly, and... give them independent (or whatever the name is) i-frames. I do remember you saying that independent frames will be rarely used, but I believe that using them here will benefit the weapons even more, allowing them to be used with virtually anything.

This will give them an alright bit of support potential, allowing one to stunlock enemies, and switch to another magic weapon. I believe that at the current projectile duration too much switching is required. My change would allow them to be viable even after their dps becomes insufficient.

I'm not sure about the vilethorn, as it is good as it is, but I believe the vile shard and nettle burst (Haven't got post-plantera in my current playthrough yet though), should be used as crowd control support weapons.

Anyway thanks for listening, and to anyone reading this feedback is appreciated.

P.S sorry if something comes out as unclear/messy. Kinda tired rn. Anyone ask me anything and I'll elaborate.

 

[Rumbledinger]

Not to mention how lazy Master Mode seems to be.

from my current experience if i had to Vote if Expert or Master is better balanced in terms of difficulty and Reward i'd 100% give it to Expert Mode.

Brutally Hard fits the Description on world gen. screen but only until you get your hands on some of the juicy HM stuff BUT

every Boss fight/Invasion (except for pirates, see details below) felt like no matter how progressed your equip etc. is you gonna get rekt if you don't go for/have that full 2 bars of temporary combat buffs.

for what rewards ? (my current progress is planterra to be the next boss) only glitter stuff without any useful stat or feature (just like party girl that almost every npc seems to dislike/hate now).

the only reward so far that gave me something useful that i don't get in expert was "The Black Spot" mount which feels pretty op given that it dropped pretty much every of the countless Pirate invasions i had already and that it is faster than anything else, ontop of that the Pirate invasion being a big fat Joke in difficulty:

you most likely have atleast 1 weapon that can fire through walls (i used Flying Dragon) and thats the entire Stat check for that Event. they don't have like the Goblins Mages that port inside your house if you're standing there during the event and they don't have things that can fire through walls either. just block the doors with a single block infront of them stay 1-2 tiles away from your house walls and fire through your walls while they try to desperately get inside. once all pirates are downed and the chat says the invason has been defeated you can go outside collect all drops uncluding to atleast 1 op mount drop (the only thing so far thats master exclusive and not just a shiny trophy or pet)

comparing this event/encounter with it's reward against every other event/boss and their respective rewards (talking pre planterra as a reminder) makes it look completly messed up.

 

[draeken]

• @ kardfogu: I don't see why would you think that ranged characters have lower dps. The musket is easy to get and one of the best nonpiercing preboss weapons. Same for phoenix blaster at wof, megashark at plantera, clockwork at mechanicals, onyx at mechanicals, tsunami as soon as you get it... etc. Post-moonlord balance is rather inconsequential imo, though you are right about zenith being op at that stage.

The numbers in the following points are Vs 12 defense (most prehardmode bosses have that more or less). No equipment bonuses.

• Some Jungle drops are weak .
  • 3 Hornets have 13 dps. 1 Musket has 55. (1.3 hornets used here)
  • New beekeper 49. New fiery greatsword 53 (and way better range and easier to get)
• Flamelash dps = 60, magic missile dps = 70
• Enchanted sword has something like 18 dps at range, starfury has 57
• The new lances are very weak. The idea is very cool though
• Pre-hardmode boomerangs are a bit weak. I can give numbers if necessary

Here is the dps table I'm using: terrariaweapons1.3.vs1.4

 

[Nicol Bolas]

New beekeper 49. New fiery greatsword 53 (and way better range and easier to get)

Hellstone weapons are intended to be higher tier than Jungle weapons.

Flamelash dps = 60, magic missile dps = 70

Flamelash penetrates, MM does not.

Enchanted sword has something like 18 dps at range, starfury has 57

Sky chest equipment is supposed to be better than something you can find in a random cave on the ground.

 

[JohannSimm]

Spectre Mask

I'll reference Jota's post again: 'Little known fact, the orbs spawned with the Mask each have a cooldown, this means that with something that hits very rapidly you will initially get a massive burst of balls, and then very disappointing DPS. "Something that hits very rapidly" is how you describe every good Post Plantera weapon, so this a worse choice than Hallowed armor.'

The rapid fire weapons deal low damage on each hit, but the Spectre Mask's projectiles just copy that base damage. Combine that with a long cooldown on the projectiles, and this means that its magic DPS is actually worse than Chlorophyte armor and Hallowed armor. Spectre Mask should have its orb cooldown reduced, so that it is able to synergize better with rapid-fire magic weapons like Razorpine – either that or boost the orbs' damage even further, or have them deal a flat high amount that isn't affected by weapon damage.

Adamantite Armor

Adamantite armor's ranged set bonus needs to be something more significant than a 25% chance not to consume ammo. Right now, it's better to swap out the Adamantite Mask for the Hallowed Helmet for an extra 1% of damage and one more defence, or the Chlorophyte Helmet for an extra 2% of damage and 5 more defense (in return for losing the crit chance). The ranged set bonus needs to have an upside that doesn't render it inferior to set mixing.

Also, for consistency's sake, Adamantite Mask should become the melee headgear and Adamantite Helmet should become the ranged headgear – they should swap stats and roles. The mask more closely resembles melee headgear from the other Hardmode armors, and follows the same naming convention, but it's the ranged headgear; vice versa for the Adamantite Helmet. With every other Hardmode armor, the mask is the melee headgear and the helmet is the ranged headgear. Switching the names and sprites would increase consistency and reduce confusion.

Ore Swords

Ore swords are currently useless. Here is a change to increase their utility:
– While wearing the matching armor set, ore swords have +15% crit chance
– While wearing the matching armor set, ore swords restore damage to you as health on a crit
– Reduce crafting requirements by 20%

This would apply to both shortswords and broadswords. My inspiration here is the game Bloodborne, which utilizes lifesteal as a combat mechanic to reward aggressive gameplay. I'm not sure how good this would actually be, but the healing on crit might increase survivability and mitigate the danger of getting close to enemies. They'd also synergize well with anything that boosted crit chance.