Other Minions Rebalance

Cazmatism

Cazmatism

Skeletron
Minions in terraria are extremely interesting with deep meta and great variety. Unfortunately many of these suffer from massive issues (return mode, AI, invincibility frames) which take away greatly from their otherwise excellent design. In this post I will attempt to address that and try to fix all the issues summons have as of now.
Eventually I will also fix sentries and whips, though I am really not qualified for the former yet since I have barely any experience with these. I would love suggestions on both, however.

Also, this is my first time making a thread, and any post as detailed in formatting as this, so please let me know if I messed up with the formatting anywhere, it would be much appreciated!


Some things to note:-
  • Suggestions in this color are ones that I deem optional and are probably there just for flavor
  • Suggestions that are highlighted with a green "+" sign before them are buffs while ones with a red "-" sign before them are nerfs.
  • Suggestions and numbers with (?) after them signify that I am not sure about this change and it may not be correctly balanced
  • It is to be assumed that all summons that inflict invincibility frames except for the desert tiger and stardust dragon will now inflict local-immunity. I will try to list this as a change for each minion that needs it anyways.
  • Statements in this color are simply explanations of the suggestions and not suggestions themselves.


Minions:-
+ If a finch has not hit any target in the past 90 frames (This boost applies individually to each finch and not collectively to every finch)
This should help with its issues with hitting enemies without affecting the essence of how the summon generally works or should work
+ Now completely sticks to enemies
- Damage decreased to 5
+ Now drops from King slime
+ Gives local-immunity
Now is a viable and powerful option that gives weightage to the reward to fighting king slime rather than just being a joke drop.
- Hit rate nerfed to 2 times per second
+ Has local-immunity
Direct nerf to keep it an early game weapon and not a viable WoF option
+ Now has predictive shooting
+ Damage increased to 20 or 15(?) from 12
Rather big buff to make it the primary single target summon pre HM
- Fire rate changed to once every 180 frames with no variation
+ Damage increased to 38 from 17
+ Has local-immunity
Variation is now unneeded thanks to local immunity and a nerf in overall damage in return for fixed iframe issues. Also has lowered fire rate and higher damage to "declone" it from hornet staff further.
+ Local-immunity
- Damage decreased to 20(?)
Fixed just the obvious with a damage decrease to balance that out
+ Deals additional contact damage (half of damage including half of whip tag) with local immunity
- Cannot jump beyond 6 blocks of height.
+ Damage decreased to 25
Now poop every attack
Increases viability against crowds (making it better than spiders) while keeping it sub optimal against bosses and flying things
+ Cycles once every 54 frames
- Damage decreased to 25
- Now gives 30 frame local-immunity, effectively removing its double hits
Overall nerf and (especially) reduced firecracker synergy, also fixed double hitting bug by increasing i-frame time
- Hit rate reduced to 4 hits per second
Keeps blade a loadout oriented skill heavy top tier summon but makes it not absolutely broken anymore.
+ Uses local-immunity
+ Can phase though blocks completely but will not attack if enemy is not in line of sight
+ Return mode speed buffed
Fixes the many issues with optic staff
+ Now uses local-immunity
+ Right clicking with the staff causes the spheres to go towards the cursor and attack at the cursor’s location in a pattern similar to the blade staff (4 swings per sec(?)) but with a much wider area covered every “swing”
- Damage decreased to 35
Gives it 2 attack modes, one of which allow for huge control but lack of whip bonuses while the default mode is still retained. Also fixes the main issue with deadly sphere i.e i-frames
+ Have predicting firing and are fully accurate
- Damage decreased to 25
+ Spears now bounce through 3 targets (local-immunity)
+ Inflict a buffed version of Acid Venom that deals 70 DoT and a buffed version of poison that deals 20 DoT
+ Has a soft-priority for targets that haven't been afflicted by its venom DoT.
Accuracy issues fixed, while this summon would not be very great on it's own, the DoT it inflicts would make it an excellent single summon to be paired with other summons.
+ Upon not hitting any enemy in the past 60 frames (does not apply to return mode), will directly teleport on top of enemy and continue its cycle. This applies individually to each raven.
+ Return mode speed doubled further
Further boosts its enemy hitting capabilities and makes it less annoying.
- Is now a sentry
+ Sharkrons now explode in a 3 tile radius blast
+ Has predictive firing with 4 tile inaccuracy at 30 tiles range
+ The sentry itself overs just above the player
+ Damage decreases by 20% for every 20 tiles travelled
Changed to being a high damage crowd control close range sentry that also encourages hybridisation somewhat (though this is more to do with being a sentry than the changes themselves
+ Range increased massively
- Damage decreased from 36 to 32
+ Can attack omni-directionally
- Fire rate cooldown increased from 33 to 50
+ Damage increased from 36 to 50
+ Attacks bounce across 3 enemies with 30% damage falloff
Including the changes in yellow, this is the perfect summon. Slightly worse single target much better at multiple and all issues surrounding not hitting enemies are fixed. Excluding, damage is decreased slightly while range is buffed massively, making it still the "most perfect" summon we have in the game.
+ Each segment costs 0.5 minion slots
- Formula for damage boosts changed to (1.69 + .46(summon length/2 - 1))
- Damage decreased to 25
+ Inflicts celled which is counted per hit similar to cells. However, this one has 60 dps and stacks every hit rather than the 10 that stardust cells have.(?)
Should be more polarized towards crowd control rather than being powerful at both crowd control and single target, also reduces insane firecracker synergy though doesn’t completely remove it. The DoT further promotes the crowd control aspect of the staff and so does the doubled length of the dragon
 
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CursedSliver said:
Couple problems:
Finch: You didn't explain what the boost are
Optic and Blade's spoiler are doubled
Imp's damage is decreased, not increased (switch numbers?)
in Xeno half of them the color is slightly different
Where's stardust cells?????
Click to expand...

Finch: The boost is listed right there though?
1622045525390.png

Optic and blade: Yeah I'm trying to fix that rn but me and spoilers seem to be having a bad day today
Imp's damage is indeed increased to 38 from earlier 17
Xeno:
I'll just quote this for clarification:
  • Suggestions in this color are ones that I deem optional and are probably there just for flavor
Click to expand...
Stardust cells: Since I did not intend to change stardust cells or vampire frog staff, I did not list them either
 
Cazmatism said:
Finch: The boost is listed right there though?
View attachment 323433
Optic and blade: Yeah I'm trying to fix that rn but me and spoilers seem to be having a bad day today
Imp's damage is indeed increased to 38 from earlier 17
Xeno:
I'll just quote this for clarification:

Stardust cells: Since I did not intend to change stardust cells or vampire frog staff, I did not list them either
Click to expand...
yea, I got it
for the finch one you only stated what condition it will activate, not what the boost was
 
In general quite a lot of good ideas that I agree with, however...
Cazmatism said:
Deadly Sphere
+ Now uses local-immunity
+ Right clicking with the staff causes the spheres to go towards the cursor and attack at the cursor’s location in a pattern similar to the blade staff (4 swings per sec(?)) but with a much wider area covered every “swing”
- Damage decreased to 35
Gives it 2 attack modes, one of which allow for huge control but lack of whip bonuses while the default mode is still retained. Also fixes the main issue with deadly sphere i.e i-frames
Click to expand...
This might be overpowered since it would actually be possible to apply tag damage and Ichor before performing the right click attack.
Cazmatism said:
Raven
+ Upon not hitting any enemy in the past 60 frames (does not apply to return mode), will directly teleport on top of enemy and continue its cycle. This applies individually to each raven.
+ Return mode speed doubled further
Further boosts its enemy hitting capabilities and makes it less annoying.
Click to expand...
This would probably look strange and would be reported as a bug. Why don't you make them perform some kind of dash instead, similar to the Desert Tiger Staff?
Cazmatism said:
Tempest
- Is now a sentry
+ Sharkrons now explode in a 3 tile radius blast
+ Has predictive firing with 4 tile inaccuracy at 30 tiles range
+ The sentry itself overs just above the player
+ Damage decreases by 20% for every 20 tiles travelled
Changed to being a high damage crowd control close range sentry that also encourages hybridisation somewhat (though this is more to do with being a sentry than the changes themselves
Click to expand...
I have mixed feelings about this. Sentries that hover over the player (especially ones with non-piercing projectiles) wouldn't be very good at crowd control, and it wouldn’t be that great against bosses because the only way to increase sentry slots is through gear from OOA, which is a pretty hard event that can be pretty annoying to farm. On the other hand though, because it would be a sentry, it wouldn’t take up minion slots and would be free bossing DPS because it’ll always stay with you.
Cazmatism said:
Xeno
+ Range increased massively
- Damage decreased from 36 to 32
+ Can attack omni-directionally
- Fire rate cooldown increased from 33 to 50
+ Damage increased from 36 to 50
+ Attacks bounce across 3 enemies with 30% damage falloff
Including the changes in yellow, this is the perfect summon. Slightly worse single target much better at multiple and all issues surrounding not hitting enemies are fixed. Excluding, damage is decreased slightly while range is buffed massively, making it still the "most perfect" summon we have in the game.
Click to expand...
I think that it shouldn’t get the changes in yellow. I don't think that it needs to be any better against multiple targets because the existence of Dark Harvest, which massively improves the crowd control of any minion.
Cazmatism said:
Stardust Dragon
+ Each segment costs 0.5 minion slots
- Formula for damage boosts changed to (1.69 + .46(summon length/2 - 1))
- Damage decreased to 25
+ Inflicts celled which is counted per hit similar to cells. However, this one has 60 dps and stacks every hit rather than the 10 that stardust cells have.(?)
Should be more polarized towards crowd control rather than being powerful at both crowd control and single target, also reduces insane firecracker synergy though doesn’t completely remove it. The DoT further promotes the crowd control aspect of the staff and so does the doubled length of the dragon
Click to expand...
Making the Dragon twice as long in the way that you're suggesting would also make it take twice as long to completely summon, which would be really annoying during events. Also, in general I am against improving the Stardust Dragon's crowd control, as this would make the Cells even worse in comparison. And I feel like giving it a more powerful version of one of the Stardust Cell's main gimmick would both look weird and make the Stardust Cell Staff basically useless.

You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that the Stardust Cell and Stardust Dragon are mutually exclusive, which is far from true. In my experience I always get enough Fragments to make both. In my opinion the Dragon is worse than the Cells at crowd control because of the fact that it's only one minion, and that the Cells fire bonus projectiles at all other enemies that are being attacked by the player, which includes sentries and support magic weapons such as the Clinger Staff and Nimbus Rod, which can deal damage to enemies very far from the player. So I think that you should nerf both the Dragon's single-target DPS and crowd control (but still keep it more powerful than the Cells against single target).
 
Here's my Minions rebalance suggestions. Some of these are quite similar to yours.

Slime:
+Damage increased to 15.
I don't think this was ever supposed to be an item you'd seek out, its just a fun item you ocassionally get. With this damage buff it should have some utility regardless of when you get it in pre hardmode.

Flinx:
-Gets knocked much further back when hitting enemies.
+Increased knockback.
+-Has Local immunity but the max hit rate of a single flinx is capped at 2 hits per second.
Rduces the dps this thing has on bosses while still being a nice 'keep away' minion for the early game.

Vampire Frog:
-Hit rate is in sync with its attack animation
+Local Immunity
The 1.4.1 buff this thing got looks super lazy, someone went through to work of animating this thing and now it just death squats enemies.

Hornet:
+Damage increased to 18
Just needs more damage

Imp:
+damage increased to 30
-fire rate reduced to every 120 frames (2 seconds)
+Local Immunity
Declones it from hornet staff and could make it more useable with the firecracker in hardmode.

Spider:
+Local Immunity
-Attack rate reduced by 25%
Makes spider armor actually worth using, I also think the damage output of 3 spiders on a non summon build is a little too much.

Pirate Staff:
+Local Immunity
+Flying dutchman is now guranteed to drop one of the rare pirate items (except the coin gun)
I want to test this more to really know how good or bad it is but I can't when it's so rare. Also every minion should have local immunity.

Sanguine Staff:
-Locked to 1 attack per enemy per swoop
+Make Dreadnautelus an actual boss
On paper if this thing only hits once per swoop it really shouldn't be that busted but its swoop pattern seems specially built to reliable get 2 hits per swoop against the mechs which completely breaks the balance.

Blade:
+Now drops form hallowed mimics instead of Queen slime and enchanted swords
+Biome Mimics drop hooks indipently of thier other items (no one is happy about getting a hook instead of a weapon)
-Fix that armor penetration bug
-'well fed' buffs no longer provide minion knockback
Blade staff has been moved to a miniboss that spider minions can actually fight. The armor penetration bug is weird and counterintuitive. The well fed change is to keep the spider's ground distruption niche a bit longer as now the player needs a moon stone (post mech) or hercules bettle (post plant) to stunlock enemies with blades. It also makes people actual care about the minion knockback on these items.

Optic and deadly sphere:
+Now has local immunity
The lack of local immunity cripples this minion, and blurrs out any potential pros or cons it has. I want to see how good it is with local immunity before applying any other changes.

Raven:
+Doubled flight speed in return mode
For me this minion is perfect, but some people have issues with it because they fly to far away sending it into return mode. This change should make the minion more accessible.

Tempest:
-damage reduced to 45
+now permanently stays near the player
+Sharkrons are shot with greater velocity and are shot where the minion thinks the enemy will be.
+Contact damage now uses local immunity.
Makes the minion much more reliable. It's dps at range is still a bit worse than xeno but now you can actually take advantage of sharknado's contact damage. The sharknado's contact damage should melt anything that gets close to you.

No changes Needed:
-Xeno
-Star Cell
-Terraprisma (holy protection shouldn't work on Daytime Empress though)
-Desert Tiger

Needs change but haven't decided:
-Finch
-Pygmy
-Stardust Dragon
 
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Every minion should have local immunity and should be rebalanced slightly to account for it.

Finch, Raven: I would like it if these minions were designed to only deal damage when moving sufficiently fast and have enhanced AI that makes them overall faster and do aggressive swooping attacks, probably also increased damage to compensate for fewer hits.

Slime: I would want to redesign this minion to do jump attacks with pauses in between each jump that mimics how slime enemies move and deal damage only while airborne. More damage but re-designed to hit each enemy only once per jump.

Vampire Frog: I would like this to be a single target focused minion that can only hit one enemy per tongue attack but with high damage and strong knockback.

Imp: This minion has a bug that causes it to rapid-fire when acquiring distant targets. The bug must be fixed before enabling local immunity.

Tempest: I like the idea of a less mobile sharknado, because it better mimics the enemy attack it is based on. Tempest staff easily could have been a magic weapon that summons a temporary sharknado, similar to magnet sphere, possibly controllable like magic missile.

Deadly Sphere Staff: The enemy has the ability to move through solid blocks to reach a target, so the minion should too.

I want less minions sitting on top of enemies ticking damage.
 
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