Game Mechanics Make Ore Swords fire a Sword Beam when close to full health

J Bame

J Bame

Terrarian
Right now, making any Ore Sword is a waste. For a smaller or equal amount of bars (depending on the Ore) that they require, you can make a Bow, and later on just a Spear, which are notably better for Reach and/or DPS. The only reason you'd ever use a Sword over those two weapon types is that being swung in an arc makes it a better choice for keeping things away from you in close combat, but as you probably know going for pure close combat is not exactly a good idea in this game.

This is where this change comes in: The Beam (which would be fired at roughly the same rate as Enchanted Sword's) would allow you to approach enemy crowds much more safely, as well as giving you a bit of an edge against ranged enemies that prey on your range limits. Due to the health restriction however, you'd have to be playing it safe with your HP to make full use of it, and since the Beams are fired extremely slowly you still have to get in with the Sword itself to get any real DPS. This change is there to alleviate their short range, but it wouldn't remove that weakness completely.

However, as you progress through the game and get better Ore Swords, the minimum health requirement would get smaller:
  • Tungsten Sword and everything below need you to be at full health to use the beams.
  • Gold also needs you at 100%, but Platinum needs 95%, to keep the trend.
  • Blood Butcherer requires 90%, but Light's Bane needs 66%. To compensate for its terrible reach, the Light's Bane fires its beam much more often than usual
  • Cobalt and Palladium swords work at 80%/77%, respectively.
  • Mythril and Orichalcum need you at 75%/72%.
  • Adamantite and Titanium only need 50%/47% of your total HP. The beams fired by these two have the ability to pierce 3 enemies.
  • Excalibur has no health restriction and is always active. It also pierces like the two above. I want this to fire on every swing, but I feel like it's up to debate if Ore Swords should really be good weapons.
With this change, Swords are still a waste seriously always go for the bow and the armor a much better use of your Bars and much more helpful to you during the time you'd be using them. Before ending, to compensate for the fact that I just put another nail on their coffin, Shortswords could get their bar requirement reduced by a lot to make them at least worth considering in a run.
 
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Sure why not, those ore swords are so pathetic I'll take any buff, and this does seem like a decent way to do so, and encourages you to keep your health full.

Though this does make them a bit overpowered and sort of makes the swords that can fire beams less special.

Also what if they were buffed if you're wearing a full set of the respective armour? Combined with my Pre-hardmode armour buff it might make them viable.
 
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J Bame said:
Right now, making any Ore Sword is a waste. For a smaller or equal amount of bars (depending on the Ore) that they require, you can make a Bow, and later on just a Spear, both of which are notably better for Reach and/or DPS. The only real niche a Sword has over those two is that being swung in an arc makes it better for keeping things away from you in close combat, but as you probably know pure close combat is not exactly a good idea.

This is where this change comes in: The Beam (which would be fired at roughly the same rate as Enchanted Sword's) would allow you to approach enemy crowds much more safely, as well as giving you a bit of an edge against ranged enemies that love the fact you have to be so close to hit them. Due to the health restriction however, you'd also have to be playing it safe with your HP to make full use of it, and since the Beams are fired extremely slowly you still have to use your actual Sword to get any real DPS.

As you progress through the game and get better Ore Swords, the minimum health requirement would get smaller:
  • Tungsten Sword and everything below need you to be at full health.
  • Gold is when it starts to get less restrictive, needing 90% of your HP to trigger. To keep tradition, Platinum needs 87%, a bit less.
  • Blood Butcherer requires 85%, but Light's Bane needs 66%. To compensate for its terrible reach, the Light's Bane fires its beam much more often.
  • Cobalt and Palladium swords work at 80%/77%, respectively.
  • Mythril and Orichalcum need you at 75%/72%.
  • Adamantite and Titanium only need 50%/47% of your total HP. The beams fired by these two have the ability to pierce 3 enemies.
  • Excalibur has no health restriction and is always active. It also pierces like the two above.
With this change, Swords are still a waste seriously always go for the bow and the armor a much better use of your Bars and much more helpful to you during the time you'd be using them. Before ending, to compensate for the fact that I just put another nail on their coffin, Shortswords could get their bar requirement reduced by a lot.
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Ignoring the fact that buffing the Excalibur takes away a lot of the advantage of having a True Excalibur, this just doesn't fit. Swords are good with the right set-up, as with most other weapons. Sure, they can be under-powered, especially early-game, but what can you expect? You have a lot of other options for melee in general.

This doesn't fit Terraria, in my opinion, but I can get why ore swords need a buff. I just don't think this is the way to do it.
 
While lots of late game swords has projectile attacks too, but you just can't really call projectile attacks "melee". Yes, true melee are bad for boss fights and boss fights are important too, but agains normal enemies, swords are pretty decent weapons, I think.

Yes, they doesn't have range, but that's why ranged weapons are "range"d weapons? melee means close range combat, right? although the class is bad against boss fight, which is kinda bad indeed...
but so this just doesn't seems to fit... (IMO)
 
steviegt6 said:
Sure, they can be under-powered, especially early-game, but what can you expect? You have a lot of other options for melee in general.
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I expect a sword that isn't a total waste of the Bars I used. Right now, any form of true melee is terrible since all enemies punish you extremely hard for getting up close to them so you are much better off getting the same DPS with a weapon that attacks at range.

This suggestion is not meant to make them good weapons on their own right, I don't think that's what Re-Logic has in mind for them. That's why the beam attack I propose is so weak and restricted, it's only there to make your life easier when using them against enemies in Caves, the only application for these Swords which they can't even do right without being massively outclassed.
 
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J Bame said:
I expect a sword that isn't a total waste of the Bars I used. Right now, any form of true melee is terrible since all enemies punish you extremely hard for getting up close to them so you are much better off getting the same DPS with a weapon that attacks at range.

This suggestion is not meant to make them good weapons on their own right, I don't think that's what Re-Logic has in mind for them. That's why the beam attack I propose is so weak and restricted, it's only there to make your life easier when using them against enemies in Caves, the only application for these Swords which they can't even do right without being massively outclassed.
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The issue is that they aren't that bad if you aren't fighting bosses. It also just straight-up doesn't fit Terraria, like, at all.
 
steviegt6 said:
The issue is that they aren't that bad if you aren't fighting bosses. It also just straight-up doesn't fit Terraria, like, at all.
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Echoing Bry's comments here, I have no problem with you disagreeing but I do have a problem with criticism that is just "it doesn't fit"

This also isn't even that big of a buff on the grand scale of things. Currently these swords are just "not that bad" against regular Fighter AIs and other linear enemies, the entire point of the suggestion is to make them just better at that role with a weak beam that is only active before you'll be able to get in.
 
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What are you gonna do about the True Excalibur tho
You literally made the regular Excalibur better.
And how is this gonna translate to the Terra Blade, if at all?
 
How is the regular one better

It's half as fast, deals less damage and most importantly fires its beam once on every swing (without melee speed), instead of once per week.

I also don't see why Terra Blade would need a change with this.
 
J Bame said:
How is the regular one better

It's half as fast, deals less damage and most importantly fires its beam once on every swing (without melee speed), instead of once per week.

I also don't see why Terra Blade would need a change with this.
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Hmm, nevermind; it seemed like it was much better at crowd control than the True Excalibur is, and it kind of does still seem like it, but I can't quite remember just how big the gap between the regular blade and its true version is.
 
Companion Cube Ω said:
Its outclassed by the influx weaver in raw damage so I think it should have a multi shot effect to give it an edge in crowd control.
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A weapon obtained in Pre/Post-Plantera should not be stronger than a Post Golem one. I'm also pretty sure that tripling Terra Blade's projectiles will do much more than just make "give it an edge" for Crowds, even with Iframes involved.
 
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