After seeing some later changes (mostly 1.4.1) I decided to start a strict mage walkthrough. Mage has always been my favorite class, because it has a wide selection of weapons that function differently, it was fun to play. As you can guess, I was rather disappointed.
At any point in the game, there is exactly 1 magic weapon that is viable. Other options range from severely underpowered to borderline useless. Sure, every bossfight is doable, but only with a certain weapon with no alternative. I'm still getting PTSD from waiting for 2 days (I mean IRL days) for sandstorm to occur, because I couldn't progress without that forbidden fragment. You enter hardmode, you make meteor staff, you kill the destroyer. You find out killing it doesn't do anything for you, you are still stuck with meteor staff and crystal serpent. You farm for unholy trident, find out it barely matches crystal serpent. You get the spirit flame, kill eyes and skeletron with it. Then you kill plantera with it, because whatever comes after, still isn't good enough. You have replaced crystal serpent with venom staff, but there really is not much difference.
It's even worse in pre-hardmode. You try taking on brain (it's crimson world), it's a close fight, but you can't kill it fast enough before it kills you. It's a very easy fight with melee or ranged, but mage doesn't have enough knockback to keep the brain away. You get the ore and tissue samples though, so you go mine hellstone. You don't regret replacing your jungle armor, the mana cost on your ruby staff is so high you have to gulp mana potions anyway and deal with mana sickness, reduced mana cost from jungle armor doesn't do anything. You could get meteorite armor instead, but someone decided it's a good idea to unlock meteorite only after you have already made hellstone gear, so you can't. Then you come back for a rematch with brain, in melee set, being a mage.
I think everyone can agree that mages start to shine after you defeat Plantera and get access to hardmode dungeon, right? Wrong.
That's a famous shadowbeam staff. I think it's considered a good weapon, though I can't agree with that. After it received its first nerf, I dropped it and never looked back, until today. I decided to compare it to some melee weapons of the same tier.
That's a yoyo that is very easy to get from solar eclipse after defeating Plantera. I don't use yoyo bag here, just a single yoyo on a mage character, wearing mage armor, dealing 70% more damage per second.
I have also thrown in a paladins hammer for comparison, not as impressive, but still better than shadowbeam staff, and with no restrictions on piercing.
Here's my gear
Note that I'm wearing Sorcerer Emblem. I would also wear Celestial Emblem, but Traveling Merchant just wouldn't bring me a Celestial Magnet to make one.
I don't know why developers have been nerfing mages so hard since 1.2. Some of these nerfs were turned around in 1.4.1, but it's still not enough. Mages are extremely weak and underperform in most scenarios. They have lost their key feature of being versatile, and just a straight down inferior, boring class now. Sure, leaf blower is good now, and nettle burst stepped up from useless to underwhelming, but what about other weapons? I can't imagine using the following weapons in any scenarios (only listing hardmode):
At any point in the game, there is exactly 1 magic weapon that is viable. Other options range from severely underpowered to borderline useless. Sure, every bossfight is doable, but only with a certain weapon with no alternative. I'm still getting PTSD from waiting for 2 days (I mean IRL days) for sandstorm to occur, because I couldn't progress without that forbidden fragment. You enter hardmode, you make meteor staff, you kill the destroyer. You find out killing it doesn't do anything for you, you are still stuck with meteor staff and crystal serpent. You farm for unholy trident, find out it barely matches crystal serpent. You get the spirit flame, kill eyes and skeletron with it. Then you kill plantera with it, because whatever comes after, still isn't good enough. You have replaced crystal serpent with venom staff, but there really is not much difference.
It's even worse in pre-hardmode. You try taking on brain (it's crimson world), it's a close fight, but you can't kill it fast enough before it kills you. It's a very easy fight with melee or ranged, but mage doesn't have enough knockback to keep the brain away. You get the ore and tissue samples though, so you go mine hellstone. You don't regret replacing your jungle armor, the mana cost on your ruby staff is so high you have to gulp mana potions anyway and deal with mana sickness, reduced mana cost from jungle armor doesn't do anything. You could get meteorite armor instead, but someone decided it's a good idea to unlock meteorite only after you have already made hellstone gear, so you can't. Then you come back for a rematch with brain, in melee set, being a mage.
I think everyone can agree that mages start to shine after you defeat Plantera and get access to hardmode dungeon, right? Wrong.
That's a famous shadowbeam staff. I think it's considered a good weapon, though I can't agree with that. After it received its first nerf, I dropped it and never looked back, until today. I decided to compare it to some melee weapons of the same tier.
That's a yoyo that is very easy to get from solar eclipse after defeating Plantera. I don't use yoyo bag here, just a single yoyo on a mage character, wearing mage armor, dealing 70% more damage per second.
I have also thrown in a paladins hammer for comparison, not as impressive, but still better than shadowbeam staff, and with no restrictions on piercing.
Here's my gear
Note that I'm wearing Sorcerer Emblem. I would also wear Celestial Emblem, but Traveling Merchant just wouldn't bring me a Celestial Magnet to make one.
I don't know why developers have been nerfing mages so hard since 1.2. Some of these nerfs were turned around in 1.4.1, but it's still not enough. Mages are extremely weak and underperform in most scenarios. They have lost their key feature of being versatile, and just a straight down inferior, boring class now. Sure, leaf blower is good now, and nettle burst stepped up from useless to underwhelming, but what about other weapons? I can't imagine using the following weapons in any scenarios (only listing hardmode):
- Frost staff
- Flower of Frost
- Rainbow Rod
- Shadowbeam Staff
- Inerno Fork
- Spectre Staff
- Bat Scepter
- Staff of Earth
- Laser Machinegun
- Crystal Storm
- Magical Harp (meme weapon that only has an advantage over the weakest boss in the game, felt like it was necessary to elaborate)
- Toxic Flask
- Nightglow