I don’t think you’re appreciating the way these weapons work enough.Melee’s projectile swords are very fun to use, are a big part of Terraria’s theme, and are just good.
They are interesting because you have a blade and projectile in the same package. Let’s look at Terra Blade. It deals 90 odd damage by sword and shoots a projectile that deals 120 odd damage every second swing. You can attack from a distance for good damage output, but get up close and that’s an additional 180 damage in one projectile cycle. Even on the Influx Waver, which hits thrice and shoots a projecrile every swing, that’s a flat 33% damage boost. Only sword I can’t really apply this logic to is the Star Wrath, but that’s one example out of many.
Now take these weapons to a crowd. With a ranged weapon, you shoot the enemies that are easiest to hit or more prelevant. With a sword, you can walk through the crowd and deal hefty damage as long as you watch positioning. With the projectile swords, you have both, in the same package. This creates a distinct strategy that you can’t really find elsewhere where you can dual focus with both the blade and the beam to either hit separate enemies at the same time, allowing yourself to neglect crowds to focus on the event boss, or to rocket your DPS against any one target if you’re willing to be risky. It also means that if the enemy does try to ram you, you get some payoff with damage. Use the Influx Waver on the Pumpkin Moon, or the Terra Blade on an Eclipse. You’ll see this in effect.
The sword swing mixed with a projectile can be prelevant throughout the whole game for many different reasons as well. If you get an Enchanted Sword, can fore onto the Eye of Crhulhu without stopping to bat away his servants. You can smack off the Destroyer with your sword and remove Probes with the projectile. You can parry Golem’s fists with the blade with no concern without changing your path of fire. You can knock away Plantera’s tentacles without diverting your attention off the boss. You can kill Duke Fishron’s Bubbles or Sharkron that may happen to get too close. You can destroy Moon Lord’s Leech Clots without changing your line of fire. Etc, etc.
If you wanted true melee eithout the projectiles, there’s always a high DPS close combat option available - Terragrim, Fetids, Starlight. But these are separate from the projectile swords, because their DPS is higher but they lack the flair I just described for melee weapons. Additionally, if you ignored the blade on melee projectile swords, it’s still a different strategy from ranged or mage. Changing from high DPS low defense to low DPS high defense changes the battle from a battle of power to one of endurance. If you play lots of video games, you know how different these types of battles feel even if it’s just stats.
Finally, you do have a point about melee non-swords being unique, I did overlook that. But if you want to encourage people to use these, the solution is not to kill the competition, especially when the competition is just as unique as they are.
This is what I mean by melee projectile swords offering their own unique strategy. Yeah, they can end up being similar to Ranged or Magic, but they are also quite distinct for the reasons I just explained above. No other category of weapons can really do that, at least to the extent melee’s sword weapons do. That’s the issue I have with hurting Melee’s projectile swords. Lots of people claim they are just copies of magic weapons, but they really aren’t, for the reasons I spent admittedly too long hammering out. Hurting melee swords would just remove this whole flair, hurting melee class’ uniqueness and making it feel lesser, if that makes sense.
And no, you aren’t frustrating me, it’s always entertaining to discuss mechanics with other people even when they don’t agree, and I’m glad you’re not taking it personally either. People who argue well are very fun to argue with
