Opinions on dodging, defense, and overall skill.

Do you believe that dodging is more important than defense?

  • Total voters
    30
Mark The Devourer

Mark The Devourer

Official Terrarian
I recently watched a video where a fellow by the name of Sorbet Cafe beat Terraria with 0 defense. It was really cool! But it made me wonder how much I rely on defense. So I want to ask all of you guys. Do you believe that dodging is more important than pure defense? If so, do you believe that high defense builds could become a "crutch"?
If you are able to doge everything than you wouldn't need high defense at all, so I assume it would force you to get better at the game. Defense can be extremely satisfying to increase, but requires less technical skill than dodging I reckon. Still, a melee tank build has been my favorite way to play Terraria ever, so perhaps I'm just worrying too much/ being to hard on myself.
 
RandomDuckNerd said:
I feel like you should get good at dodging so you won't get annihilated, but to also have a good amount of defense to allow yourself to slip up everyone once in a while

That's why I put Warding on my accessories when I do summoner playthroughs
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That makes sense. That is currently what I'm trying to do in my summoner playthrough. I had all my accessories set to menacing but got my rumpus whooped. Then I tried all warding and I quickly felt the difference. Well, mostly. The armor set could use some improvement. I'm gonna use the spooky helmet, Valhalla Knights breastplate, and tiki pants for a balanced offensive and defensive summoner build. I'll probably switch to stardust after moon lord though because at that point I'll be able to overpower almost, if not everything by then.
edit: tiki ain't half bad with the extra 5 defense and whip size. I think I might stick with tiki!
Shyguymask said:
Both are viable ways of beating the game. High defense/tank builds are the easiest way to beat the game, while heavily experienced players can confidently get away with glass cannon builds consistently. That said I still went for high Defense builds on my Master Hardcore playthrough.
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Oh hello Mr mask! Thanks for the reply. I have tried to go for a glass cannon build and I didn't like it as much as your average defensive set up. Maybe it's possible I just prefer defensive over glass cannon set ups?
I am going to try and do a ranged and mage play through eventually, and when I play melee or summoner I like to use mounts as all my accessory slots are taken up with important accessories. However, I know I can fit in a pair of wings and a soaring insignia in my mage and ranger set ups. maybe instead of trying to learn to dodge as a summoner, I could try learning through those classes?
 
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I think It just comes down to fun. Fun is most import thing in any game. So dogeing is what gives me fun the most. Thats why day time empress is so nice to kill every time. Face tanking with a Valhla setup dosen't feel any fun. Plus In mods like calamity/ fargo you cant face tank.
 
i'd say both are just as important, but you can deviate to one end if you have excess skill or lack it
that said, the "ability to afford mistakes every once in a while" thing should still be considered though, especially at higher difficulties where the game becomes a glorified dodging simulator (and you can't "just dodge it" when enemies bullet hell spam the hell out of you from every direction)
 
You simply use what's comfortable. Defense exists for players that want to be able to stack Defense, either due to just not being good enough to dodge everything, or just wanting the safety net to deal with the bits of chip damage you take here and there.

The tradeoff for defense is that it takes longer to defeat enemies, which leaves room to take more damage. It's simply choosing between playing safer with more room to make mistakes, at the cost of a longer fight that you could make more mistakes in, or choosing to play with more damage to make a fight shorter, at the cost of having little room to mess up.. which could lead to a longer time spent trying to defeat the boss than if you had just stacked defense instead.

Sometimes you just aren't good enough to run pure damage setups, and that's fine. At the end of the day, the game only cares about you reducing your target's HP to 0 before your target reduces yours to 0 - anything else done within the rules of the game are simply limitations set by other players. Use a Terra Blade on Shroomite. Throw out a Vampire Knife or two on a Mage. It may not be efficient, but who cares?
 
Mille Marteaux said:
You simply use what's comfortable. Defense exists for players that want to be able to stack Defense, either due to just not being good enough to dodge everything, or just wanting the safety net to deal with the bits of chip damage you take here and there.

The tradeoff for defense is that it takes longer to defeat enemies, which leaves room to take more damage. It's simply choosing between playing safer with more room to make mistakes, at the cost of a longer fight that you could make more mistakes in, or choosing to play with more damage to make a fight shorter, at the cost of having little room to mess up.. which could lead to a longer time spent trying to defeat the boss than if you had just stacked defense instead.

Sometimes you just aren't good enough to run pure damage setups, and that's fine. At the end of the day, the game only cares about you reducing your target's HP to 0 before your target reduces yours to 0 - anything else done within the rules of the game are simply limitations set by other players. Use a Terra Blade on Shroomite. Throw out a Vampire Knife or two on a Mage. It may not be efficient, but who cares?
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Thanks for the insightful comment! That is something I have thought about for quite a while. Although in my melee tank play through I managed to kill EoL in my second try with not much trouble. I did, however, notice that I wasn't doing the bestess of damage, but the fight went swimmingly otherwise.
What does worry me is if I ever decide to take on daytime EoL (like others have mentioned). Then it is very possible that the fight will become a very dangerous fight of endurance. However, I might try using other class weapons. I got Valhalla greaves and breastplate can help with summon damage, and slapping on a powerful ranged or magic weapon can help too.
After thinking about it, I realized "why can't I just do both?" you can still dodge with high defense so why don't I just get a good set of accessories and weapons and just reforge them to warding and something like unreal or legendary?
Hmmmm, perhaps I'm overthinking this. I guess that what being stuck at home sick will do to ya!
 
Treat Defense like your training wheels - eventually, if you want to "improve" then you need to take them off. Ultimately though, practice is what leads to consistency, so having high Defense helps you learn attacks.. but it's easy to start to rely on it, which leads to bad habits and an overall lower execution ceiling.

However, this genuinely does not matter for 9/10 players - again, the game only cares if you reduce your target's HP to 0 before they reduce yours to 0, so how you do it is up to you.

For instance, a while back I threw hands with Daytime EoL with Starlight just to see if I could:


I had fun, but would I recommend doing this? Not immediately. Would you have fun? Probably not. Should you try it? Only if you want to.

However, this is just one example of what practice leads to, and eventually "shunning" defense will let you get to a level where you're more comfortable with trying silly things like this.. or like this ridiculous run.


Rap God% lives in my head rent free.

However, as I said before, you do not need to do things like this if you don't want to.

If you want to build defense and tank drowning, you are more than free to do so. Lord knows I enjoy a bit of being Johnny Four Shields in multiplayer sessions.
 
Mille Marteaux said:
Treat Defense like your training wheels - eventually, if you want to "improve" then you need to take them off. Ultimately though, practice is what leads to consistency, so having high Defense helps you learn attacks.. but it's easy to start to rely on it, which leads to bad habits and an overall lower execution ceiling.

However, this genuinely does not matter for 9/10 players - again, the game only cares if you reduce your target's HP to 0 before they reduce yours to 0, so how you do it is up to you.

For instance, a while back I threw hands with Daytime EoL with Starlight just to see if I could:


I had fun, but would I recommend doing this? Not immediately. Would you have fun? Probably not. Should you try it? Only if you want to.

However, this is just one example of what practice leads to, and eventually "shunning" defense will let you get to a level where you're more comfortable with trying silly things like this.. or like this ridiculous run.


Rap God% lives in my head rent free.

However, as I said before, you do not need to do things like this if you don't want to.

If you want to build defense and tank drowning, you are more than free to do so. Lord knows I enjoy a bit of being Johnny Four Shields in multiplayer sessions.
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That's very helpful. Thanks for sharing! I think I will have to practice more if I ever want to reach the skill of the videos.
 
How I see it is that defence focused builds are by far the easiest way to beat the game, more over I'd say that terraria cannot be even considered hard assuming one uses full defence/healing setups (not a far streach to say half bosses are near afk-able)

Glass canon, dodge focused builds allow for much smoother near grind free progression as much less items are needed when going for such a build

To sum it up this is one of the parts of terraria that made me love this game, there is no correct way to play it. It's not a 2d soulslike which forces you to crash head first into a bossfight until you memorize it's movement but it also doesn't hinder experienced players for taking up challenges while undergeared or using low sustain build
 
I can totally see where you're coming from. Many accessories for a tank build take quite some time to craft. At least the ankh shield is much easier to craft thanks to shimmer.
And you are absolutely correct when you say there is no right way to play it! I've found myself developing many different strategies whenever I play Terraria. Even more so when I'm playing classes other than my favorite (melee is by FAR my favorite, so playing ranged mage and summoner has opened my eyes to many new perspectives and strategies). I'm always improving even if it's only by a little bit!
 
For the most part, a lot of Terraria's difficulties can be circumvented with advanced knowledge of basic mechanics like AI patterns and available tools, in addition to general skill and reaction.

High defense and health regen builds allow players a lower entry point to tackle certain bosses or biomes earlier or in a 'less prepared' fashion. Your overall DPS may suffer but not dying ultimately is the best possible outcome, as long as you can weather the attrition.

Big DPS, low defense, and no regen builds have their merit, but you have to add a certain level of skill and technical know-how to make them work effectively. Learning mechanics and just general practice as well as studying up on tactics isn't for everyone, but the option is there for those that want to pursue it.

I'm not in the high skill category, but I do know Chlorophyte bullets will hit something at least, for example.
 
I personally find that using a heavy defense/healing loadout is a lot less fun to play, at least during bossfights, as they lower the risk and therefore the challenge. Perhaps it's because I just have so many hours in the game, but using defensive loadouts against bosses I enjoy fighting feels like cheating to me; I enjoy the challenge of those fights and the stakes of getting hit, and the entire purpose of defense/survivability is to lower exactly those things. That's just me though, and I know many people who enjoy the feeling of being unkillable.

Admittedly, however, Terraria has quite the poor showing of bosses when it comes to fight design so I'm really not missing much if I decide to cheese them by becoming invincible, but against the few good ones like Empress, Duke, or Queen Bee, I like to use as few defensive  or damage items as possible (usually opting for mobility item) to preserve the challenge and enjoyment of the boss.
 
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Dodging is the true solution; if you don't get hit there's no need for defense or similar. Most attacks in terraria aren't hard to dodge (unless you're doing for the worthy stuff), but might require time to learn.

The issue is that humans aren't perfect, you're gonna mess up eventually.

Defense is the temporary solution; if the hits do less you have more time to learn and adapt. I would say most new players should go for a defense build, since while dodging is easy, it's only easy once you know how to dodge. A great example of this is phase 3 duke fishron, who is a nightmare if you don't know, but it's an easy loop if you do.

It's a natural process of mastery. Defense comes first, which paves the way for Dodging.
 
I personally go for the dodging playstyle, but defensive playstyles are equally, if not more, viable than glass cannon setups because of how much survivability defense can give. I don't find them as fun to play, but its all up to preference.
 
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