Lucky or Menacing?
- Thread starter Vendidurt
- Start date
drain.
Terrarian
Depends on what build you want.
If you're going for a crit-build, Lucky is the way to go.
Menacing if you're looking for as much damage as possible.
I prefer Menacing more, personally. Since Menacing gives higher damage at all given times, as opposed to Lucky, which only gives them if you're, well, Lucky.
If you're going for a crit-build, Lucky is the way to go.
Menacing if you're looking for as much damage as possible.
I prefer Menacing more, personally. Since Menacing gives higher damage at all given times, as opposed to Lucky, which only gives them if you're, well, Lucky.
Vendidurt
Eye of Cthulhu
I want to maximize DPS. I want the best total numbers over something like the Pumpkin Moon event.
Snickerbobble
The Painter
I go for Lucky. With weapons already dealing over 100 damage, 1 menacing seems to up the damage by 2 or 3 points. I'd rather take an extra 1/25 chance for double damage. I only pick Menacing if I'm doing PvP, only because crits don't seem to work in PvP.
ShinyMoogle
Official Terrarian
It's not a simple answer, and depends a great deal on your armor and the accessories you have equipped. If you must pick one, and only one, I would say lucky. The caveat: this is only because most armor sets and accessories will provide more additional damage than critical chance.
Optimizing your average DPS depends on the weapon and the enemy in question, but in all cases, a mix of damage bonus and critical chance bonuses gives you a good deal more damage output - on average - than the same amount all dumped into one or the other.
Now, pure menacing may have a few points in its favor when it comes to fighting off random enemy mobs, because you can have more consistent damage output and perhaps more consistent OHKOs on enemies. However, bosses and events which have numerous high-health enemies are best done with more DPS optimization.
Optimizing your average DPS depends on the weapon and the enemy in question, but in all cases, a mix of damage bonus and critical chance bonuses gives you a good deal more damage output - on average - than the same amount all dumped into one or the other.
Now, pure menacing may have a few points in its favor when it comes to fighting off random enemy mobs, because you can have more consistent damage output and perhaps more consistent OHKOs on enemies. However, bosses and events which have numerous high-health enemies are best done with more DPS optimization.
Vendidurt
Eye of Cthulhu
So what I am seeing is to mix the two so they boost each other? Like, if I hit 50% crit I should dump the rest into Menacing?
I am trying Pumpkin Moon with Spectral Armor on console (so its different from you PC players) with Destroyer Emblem, Sorceror Emblem, Frostspark Boots, Celestial Stone, and Eye of the Golem. I can throw some things around but for now thats the gist of it. I have a load of traps for the mooks. I can throw out one accessory for Mana Flower or some such. Weapons include Bat Scepter, Nimbus Rod, and Rainbow Gun. I cant find an ice key mold which makes me cry.
ShinyMoogle
Official Terrarian
More or less. Basically, peak average DPS occurs right around an even split of damage bonuses and critical rate chance, with a slight skew toward damage thanks to enemy defense. A basic rule of thumb is to add up all the damage bonuses your armor and accessories grant (but not the weapon modifier, because I believe that is calculated separately), and compare that with your critical hit chance (you can read this one right off of the weapon), then pick accessory modifiers that boost whichever is lower so they're about equal. And then go ahead and toss Menacing onto the last one. That'll get you right around the ballpark for maximum damage on most weapons against most enemies.
Without getting too wrapped up in the details, the reason for this is that your damage is basically multiplied by both the damage bonus and the critical hit chance. By increasing the smaller value, you get a bigger return for the same boost.
Last edited:
Burnscars
Fire Bad
Critical hits don't happen in pvp, so lucky shines in pve, but menacing is good for both pve and pvp. For pvp, warding ends up being better than menacing; players hit fast and hard, and the good players don't miss, so the extra defense helps a lot. Warding is also very useful in pve; adding twenty defense is a huge boost and can make any class better at surviving, even if it doesn't help with boss kill time-trails. I tend to favor menacing, but warding shouldn't be overlooked, and lucky is limited to specialty builds in pve.
Burnscars
Fire Bad
Well then lucky or menacing would depend on your gear. I recommend using menacing on a ranger because rangers already have very high critical hit, and lucky on your melee character to knock the guts out of pumpking with your flairon. Nothing matches the flairon for dps, unless you can achieve critical-mass with the horseman's blade.
If you don't have those high-tier items, make a crimson world and a corrupt world, and get the vampire knives and the scourge. The scourge kills things rapidly, and the knives can help you survive, and both weapons are spammage.
To reach critical mass with (ruthless or legendary) the horseman's blade, you need to do the following;
beetle set, beetle scale armor
celestial stone - violent
fire gauntlet - violent
mechanical glove - violent
ankh shield (prevents headless horseman weakness debuff) - violent
your favorite wings (I like the hoverboard or fishron wings) - violent
You also need to reach wave 15, I recommend using these weapons to get there quickly;
Ruthless Paladin's Hammer - sweeps crowds, launches farther with attack speed bonus
Ruthless Vampire Knives - Use when at half health
Ruthless Flairon - use against individual pumpkings
these buff potions, recommend 4 each;
ironskin, endurance, well fed (pumpkin pie), wrath, rage, heart reach, life force, tipsy (sake)
Violent is interesting for melee for more than the obvious reasons;
Paladin hammer and vampire knives reach farther for this set-up. Paladin hammer is especially amazing with high attack speed.
All weapons get even faster with beetle scale set bonus.
The faster Horseman's Blade will cause more homing pumpkins to spawn during critical mass.
What happens during critical mass;
At wave 15, the pumpkings swarm. Use the horseman's blade. If done correctly, you only need to jump vertically and swing your horseman's blade. Pumpkings should begin dying fast enough to keep you alive, so don't dodge. Moarning Wood causes more damage, so don't tank them. Fly to a high area and watch pumpkings drop like flies until day breaks, and, if you remember to re-buff when your buffs dry up, you should have more drops than you'll know what to do with.
Also, menacing can also reach wave 15 solo, but only if you have the above gear. Maybe you are still looking for a candy corn rifle, some trophies, or want some scrolls for your summoner.
Don't overlook Violent, especially if you have a Paladin's Hammer.
Vendidurt
Eye of Cthulhu
Holy Pancakes! The Wall of Flesh Text has awoken!
A couple problems and I should have mentioned, I am going Spectral Set and am on Console. Vita specifically. I will be using magic, and Flairon is nonexistent. Also Beetle Armor is a myth.
I will definitely play around with Violent. I dont use it at all, and I did see when I used Dragon Armor (console exclusive melee) i threw the Paladin Hammer ridiculously fast and much farther. I will try it with the Horseman Blade sometime with 5 violents. My weapons are the Bat Scepter, Rainbow Gun, and Nimbus Rod. I use all beneficial potions and crystal ball.
Ruthless Paladin Hammer?do you ignore crit entirely? That doesnt seem right to me....
When I farm Dungeon Guardian I use Lucky. Obviously.
A couple problems and I should have mentioned, I am going Spectral Set and am on Console. Vita specifically. I will be using magic, and Flairon is nonexistent. Also Beetle Armor is a myth.
I will definitely play around with Violent. I dont use it at all, and I did see when I used Dragon Armor (console exclusive melee) i threw the Paladin Hammer ridiculously fast and much farther. I will try it with the Horseman Blade sometime with 5 violents. My weapons are the Bat Scepter, Rainbow Gun, and Nimbus Rod. I use all beneficial potions and crystal ball.
Ruthless Paladin Hammer?do you ignore crit entirely? That doesnt seem right to me....
When I farm Dungeon Guardian I use Lucky. Obviously.
shamurai7
Terrarian
easy....not even opinion here just number crunching done by the Diablo community where these values are far more significant for reaching high level play. The best formula is to get crit chance to between 45 - 50 % chance. After this put everything else in damage boosts. This is the same rule of thumb for all games with crit such as league of legends as well. Remember the 5 D's of Diablo in regards to the mistake of building defence..... Dead Demons Dont Do Damage.
Rm -rf /bin/
Plantera
A 100% chance to do double damage is the same as a 100% increase in damage. A 50% chance to do double damage should on average produces a 50% increase in damage. In theory they should be the same unless I'm have mistaken something, so Lucky is just Menacing with a chance to be better or worse. I typically go with Menacing because of consistancy.
DicemanX
Brain of Cthulhu
You can maximize DPS by doing a bit of calculation. First, here's a thread showing the math behind menacing versus lucky, although it doesn't include melee weapons and violent reforges:
http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/maximizing-damage-for-all-4-classes.120485/
Here are the key conclusions:
If monster defense is 0, then DPS maximization occurs when the boost to crit chance and damage is the same - this is because both are multiplicative with respect to each other, while all boosts to damage are additive and all boosts to crit chance are additive as well (shroomite headgear is the exception). If monster defense is not zero, then you have to consider both the defense and weapon damage. In general, the higher the defense and the lower the weapon damage, the greater the damage boost needs to be over the crit chance boost.
Here is the precise way of determining how much to boost each through reforges:
Calculate: 50(monster_defense)
Compare that to: [(%damage_boost) - (%crit_chance_boost)](weapon_damage)
If the first calculation is bigger than the second, then it's better to boost weapon damage, while if the second calculation is greater it is better to boost crit chance. For instance:
The most difficult Moon enemy, Ice Queen, has a defense of 38, so the first calculation works out to 50(38)=1900. Suppose that you haven't reforged your accessories yet, and your total boost to damage from accessories and armor is 40% and the boost to crit chance is 20%. Suppose also that your weapon damage is 80 (this includes the weapon reforge). The second calculation works out to [(40)-(20)](80)=1600. Since the first calculation is bigger, your first reforge should be Menacing. This means that the second calculation will now result in [(44)-(20)](80)=1920, which is now bigger than the first calculation, so the second reforge should be Lucky. Continue like that for the remaining reforges.
Do note however that if you make an arena using Spear Traps (the most damaging traps in the game) you should go for all crit boosts instead. Crit chance boosts Spear Trap DPS, but strangely enough crit chance doesn't affect any other Lihzahrd traps. For those building arenas in pre-hardmode, crit chance boosts regular Dart trap DPS, so once again crit chance is the way to go.
Also note that the DPS boost to melee weapons via weapon speed is multiplicative with damage boosts and crit chance boosts, so in general it's best to keep all three around the same level for mobs with low defense, and for mobs with high defense opt for more damage boosts. I don't have a general formula for melee weapons since it's difficult to calculate DPS due to rounding problems with weapon speeds.
Last edited:
FlakMaster
The Destroyer
The DPS difference between Menacing and Lucky is too small that it is negligible in realistic scenarios. I just go with whatever I get first.
I do believe that Menacing affects summoner damage. And since minions can't do criticals, menacing would be an obvious choice for a summoner.
Don't underestimate warding though. Having a bonus +20 defence with Shroomite or Beetle will save you a lot of health against the weaker, faster attacks in the moon events.
I do believe that Menacing affects summoner damage. And since minions can't do criticals, menacing would be an obvious choice for a summoner.
Don't underestimate warding though. Having a bonus +20 defence with Shroomite or Beetle will save you a lot of health against the weaker, faster attacks in the moon events.
DicemanX
Brain of Cthulhu
Menacing reforges boosting minion damage isn't really relevant to this thread since gear can be removed or swapped after the minions are summoned. For "summoners" the question still stands whether menacing or lucky reforges are better. Also, the DPS difference between Menacing and Lucky could be negligible in some scenarios, but that isn't a true statement in all "realistic" scenarios. The difference can be huge, especially for Moon events when you're trying to squeeze out as much damage as possible and are facing some mobs with pretty massive defenses.
FlakMaster
The Destroyer
Pumpkin Moon will always be easy to hit wave15. There's no reason to maximise potential on that apart from bragging rights. As for the Frost Moon, unless you are scattering a good amount of spear traps everywhere which I don't do, I don't see how the difference is huge. Even if it is the difference between getting from wave15 to 16 for an individual, I still don't find it huge.