Weapons & Equip Some Late-game Summoner re-estructuring

[J Bame]

In this game, summoner weapons fit into three categories: Minions, Whips, and Sentries. Throughout the game, a summoner will mainly use the former two, since Sentry staves and armors are scarce, and their lack of movement/range gives them no use against bosses making them only a niche crowd control option.

The two main weapons have no proper conclusion after Moon Lord. The "final minion staff" slot is shared by both the Stardust Dragon and the Cell (which you could argue dont have significant differences between one another, making the choice more of which weapon has more DPS), and Whips end at Kaleidoscope with not even a fragment weapon to go along.

Meanwhile... Moon Lord drops two Sentries. Two Niche weapons for Summoner. While every other class gets satisfyingly overpowered weapons.

Clearly, we need to swap some things around:

First of all, swap Stardust Dragon and Lunar Portal Staff.

With this change the Stardust weapons would have clear differences (Stardust Cell for single target boss damage, Lunar Portal for dealing with enemies) and Summoners finally have an Ultimate Minion, and what better weapon for that role than a giant Space Dragon.

The two weapons would need a rename and a recolor to fit thematically, but this isn't a big issue all things considered. Just swap the Palettes around and the names to "Lunar Dragon" and "Stardust Wormhole" and we are done.

Second Change, swap Kaleidoscope and Rainbow Crystal Staff.

Now we have a proper endgame whip, and we get some more sentry variety in Post-Golem. We dont even need any visual changes here: Kaleidoscope fits in the pattern of "Colourful Moon Lord Drop" to the Dragon's "Space Drop", and the Empress is already associated with Rainbows.

This would bring another problem, however. Now the strongest Whips to bring to the Pillars and Moon Lord are the Dark Harvest and Morning Star, which while not bad weapons on their own they aren't on the same level as the Kaleidoscope.

This also has a simple solution: add another whip to take Kaleidoscope's place. Some sort of Ice Whip from the Frost Moon, a powerful Solar Eclipse drop, a Cat O' Nine Tails whip sold by the Pirate Captain after a certain Post Golem condition is fulfilled... get creative.

Of course, these retierings would come with stat changes or even functional reworks if needed. What's important here is that after these changes Summoner weapons now have a proper conclusion and a generally cleaner progression.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

It seems that the issue here isn't that the Stardust Dragon Staff and Kaleidoscope are too powerful for pre-Moon Lord, but that there's a lack of good summon weapons after Moon Lord.

So why don't we just re-tier the Lunar Portal Staff and Rainbow Crystal Staff without moving any other weapons around, and add new post-Moon Lord summon weapons?

 

[J Bame]

It seems that the issue here isn't that the Stardust Dragon Staff and Kaleidoscope are too powerful for pre-Moon Lord, but that there's a lack of good summon weapons after Moon Lord.

So why don't we just re-tier the Lunar Portal Staff and Rainbow Crystal Staff without moving any other weapons around, and add new post-Moon Lord summon weapons?

Those two were made candidates for ML drops not because they are overpowered (this suggestion ignores the relative strength of the weapons mentioned), but just because I think they are the most fitting. I think that as far as cool factor goes you can't do better than a Lunar Dragon and a Rainbow Whip.

Your idea would be much more work than this suggestion, since you'd have to make new ML drops from scratch, find a sensible place to put the Rainbow Crystal and Lunar Portal, and somehow fix the redundancy between Stardust Cell and Dragon.

This idea is at most a pair of recolors, one or two reworks, some number changes and just one new Whip.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Those two were made candidates for ML drops not because they are overpowered (this suggestion ignores the relative strength of the weapons mentioned), but just because I think they are the most fitting. I think that as far as cool factor goes you can't do better than a Lunar Dragon and a Rainbow Whip.

Your idea would be much more work than this suggestion, since you'd have to make new ML drops from scratch, find a sensible place to put the Rainbow Crystal and Lunar Portal, and somehow fix the redundancy between Stardust Cell and Dragon.

This idea is at most a pair of recolors, one or two reworks, some number changes and just one new Whip.

If the Stardust Dragon Staff is moved to post-Moon Lord, then there shouldn’t be a pathetic sentry to replace it.

How about a whip crafted with Stardust Fragments instead, that would have equal stats to the current Kaleidoscope and essentially fill in the gaps left behind by both weapons that you’re suggesting should be re-tiered.

 

[J Bame]

f the Stardust Dragon Staff is moved to post-Moon Lord, then there shouldn’t be a pathetic sentry to replace it.

How about a whip crafted with Stardust Fragments instead, that would have equal stats to the current Kaleidoscope and essentially fill in the gaps left behind by both weapons that you’re suggesting should be re-tiered.

Lunar Portal is too weak? Then give it a buff. More damage, more consistent projectiles, a new stardust-themed attack, you name it.

This suggestion aims to make a cleaner summoner weapon progression while also keeping brand new content to a minimum; if we go for Stardust Whip then Lunar Portal has no place and we have to add something else that could drop it.

 

[Xurkitree1]

Stardust Dragon is too iconic to be moved to post-ML and Cells aren't exactly useful when their debuff dps is instantly wiped every few seconds or so.

 

[J Bame]

Stardust Dragon is too iconic to be moved to post-ML and Cells aren't exactly useful when their debuff dps is instantly wiped every few seconds or so.

The Dragon is iconic? Well that's another reason why it'd be accepted as a Moon Lord drop. Cells are underpowered? Well now this is the perfect time to buff them.

None of what you bring up goes against what the suggestion is trying to accomplish: A cleaner summoner progression with less redundancy between tiers, almost no holes and with as little new content as possible.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Kaleidoscope is in the perfect place at the moment, and if we were to add another whip to take its place, there wouldn't be anywhere to put it. The Empress of Light is the hardest thing before Moon Lord (including events), and if we were to add a whip with equal stats to Kaleidoscope anywhere other than Empress and Duke it would be too easy to get for how good of a whip it is. If we added a whip to Duke Fishron's loot pool that would ruin summoner progression since it would be available before Durendal.

Instead of swapping Kaleidoscope and Rainbow Crystal Staff, let's add the latter to the Empress's loot pool as a Stellar Tune-like drop and add a new whip after Moon Lord. That way you'd only have to add one thing.

 

[J Bame]

Kaleidoscope is in the perfect place at the moment, and if we were to add another whip to take its place, there wouldn't be anywhere to put it. The Empress of Light is the hardest thing before Moon Lord (including events), and if we were to add a whip with equal stats to Kaleidoscope anywhere other than Empress and Duke it would be too easy to get for how good of a whip it is. If we added a whip to Duke Fishron's loot pool that would ruin summoner progression since it would be available before Durendal.

This is why I like the idea of the Frost Moon whip the most. I don't know about the majority of people here but to me that event is even harder than both Empress and Duke, and the addition of a whip would be very welcome since the event currently has nothing in store for a summoner specifically.

Rainbow Crystal as a sidedrop would be weird. It's not like Stellar Tune which is more of a fun item rather than something meant to be good, it'd be a full on sentry that a summoner may actually grind for. I also like how the Empress only drops exactly one weapon for each class. It's not a major problem but personally I don't like it.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

This is why I like the idea of the Frost Moon whip the most. I don't know about the majority of people here but to me that event is even harder than both Empress and Duke, and the addition of a whip would be very welcome since the event currently has nothing in store for a summoner specifically.

Rainbow Crystal as a sidedrop would be weird. It's not like Stellar Tune which is more of a fun item rather than something meant to be good, it'd be a full on sentry that a summoner may actually grind for. I also like how the Empress only drops exactly one weapon for each class. It's not a major problem but personally I don't like it.

Isn’t Stellar Tune good? It deals decent DPS, has great crowd control, can hit enemies behind blocks, and has fast auto-targeting projectiles.

The Empress has only one weapon per class in her primary loot pool. Adding the Rainbow Crystal Staff in the place I’m suggesting wouldn’t effect that.

 

[J Bame]

Isn’t Stellar Tune good? It deals decent DPS, has great crowd control, can hit enemies behind blocks, and has fast auto-targeting projectiles.

The keyword is "meant to be good". If you want a magic weapon from the Empress you have Nightglow. Stellar Tune is more of a secret instrument drop, added in for fun like The Axe is for Plantera. That's the difference between it and Rainbow Crystal, which is a sentry staff with no "fun" properties.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Rainbow Crystal as a sidedrop would be weird. It's not like Stellar Tune which is more of a fun item rather than something meant to be good, it'd be a full on sentry that a summoner may actually grind for.

You act as if Rainbow Crystal would become a must-have for summoner playthroughs like things like Snapthorn, Sanguine Staff and Durendal currently are. I don't think so.

Very few people fight Empress as a summoner before most Pre-Cultist things. The Dungeon gives you Morning Star, Paladin's Shield, and Ectoplasm, Pumpkin Moon gives you Spooky armour, several accessories, Raven Staff and Dark Harvest, Fishron gives you wings, Martian Madness gives you Xeno Staff, and Betsy gives you wings. I doubt most summoners fight Empress before doing most if not all of these things. Assuming you fight Empress after at least Dungeon, Pumpkin Moon, Fishron and Martian Madness, you'd get a sentry, which would only help you in Frost Moon and OOA, both of which offer very little to summoners.

 

[J Bame]

Very few people fight Empress as a summoner before most Pre-Cultist things. The Dungeon gives you Morning Star, Paladin's Shield, and Ectoplasm, Pumpkin Moon gives you Spooky armour, several accessories, Raven Staff and Dark Harvest, Fishron gives you wings, Martian Madness gives you Xeno Staff, and Betsy gives you wings. I doubt most summoners fight Empress before doing most if not all of these things. Assuming you fight Empress after at least Dungeon, Pumpkin Moon, Fishron and Martian Madness, you'd get a sentry, which would only help you in Frost Moon and OOA, both of which offer very little to summoners.

It would be the only sentry available that you would be able to place in mid air, and as far as I'm aware Rainbow Crystal is decently accurate after 1.4. This would give it uses on flying bosses, such as Cultist or Fishron, and the beginning of the Pillar events until Stardust Portal is acquired.

If you grinded T2 of OOA you will have plenty of these to cover a lot of ground, so it can become an alternative to Xeno Staff or Ravens from Pumpkin Moon. And once TRAE is a thing you will definitely want to do Frost Moon as summoner

I don't agree that it would be a useless drop, nor do I think that a summoner still wouldn't want Empress Wings or the Insignia, or hell any of Empress' drops as sidearms. And if Empress does become skippable for summoners... well I think that's just what it is. Not every class needs to get the same amount of value from everything.