Sub-Class Ranking
- Thread starter SilkyVol2
- Start date
TheJoekster
Dungeon Spirit
On bows vs guns, I'll play devil's advocate with Silky and say that one may find guns to be easier to use. An efficient way to play ranger early-game is to rush corruption or crimson for the guaranteed musket/undertaker after a bomb; this is a double whammy because you immediately get the Arms Dealer once a house is set up. Then you can save for a minishark.
Bows much more powerful than musket/undertaker are available after only a little more effort (e.g, Blood Rain Bow from a blood moon, Bee's Knees), but at this point someone inexperienced with ranger may not enjoy the layer of "skill" needed for aiming a bow, or the lack of autofire. Those who neglect bows for the rest of their playthrough will then not know the insanity of such weapons as the Daedalus Stormbow and the Tsunami.
For tomes vs staves, both can have trouble early game. Tomes need a stroke of luck with Water Bolt and staves just suffer with gem weapons. A ballsy and lucky tome player can get Demon Scythe early on and then lay ruin to all of pre-hardmode. That said, tomes seem to drop off post-mechs and then pick up again post-Fishron. The canonical early hardmode tomes bar Golden Shower (Cursed Flames, Crystal Storm) struggle with midgame bosses and enemies with high defense. Golden Shower should get a pass as it's an amazing tool for every class in Terraria, but Crystal Storm has trouble with high-defense enemies and Cursed Flames use lots of mana (although I read that Cursed Flames on new gen console and PC uses 9 mana by default instead of 12, which is helpful.) Tome runners (indeed, mage runners in general, and perhaps mixed classes as well) are also blessed with Magnet Sphere, which isn't a main weapon but is great to switch to in between the flurries of whatever other weapon you're using. But that's it. Those are your weapons until post-Fishron. It is a lonely stretch of the game.
Staff runners enjoy such a diverse arrangement of weapons in midgame that there isn't much to complain about. They just might have a little trouble early game.
I don't have enough experience with yoyos or summons to give a meaningful answer there.
Bows much more powerful than musket/undertaker are available after only a little more effort (e.g, Blood Rain Bow from a blood moon, Bee's Knees), but at this point someone inexperienced with ranger may not enjoy the layer of "skill" needed for aiming a bow, or the lack of autofire. Those who neglect bows for the rest of their playthrough will then not know the insanity of such weapons as the Daedalus Stormbow and the Tsunami.
For tomes vs staves, both can have trouble early game. Tomes need a stroke of luck with Water Bolt and staves just suffer with gem weapons. A ballsy and lucky tome player can get Demon Scythe early on and then lay ruin to all of pre-hardmode. That said, tomes seem to drop off post-mechs and then pick up again post-Fishron. The canonical early hardmode tomes bar Golden Shower (Cursed Flames, Crystal Storm) struggle with midgame bosses and enemies with high defense. Golden Shower should get a pass as it's an amazing tool for every class in Terraria, but Crystal Storm has trouble with high-defense enemies and Cursed Flames use lots of mana (although I read that Cursed Flames on new gen console and PC uses 9 mana by default instead of 12, which is helpful.) Tome runners (indeed, mage runners in general, and perhaps mixed classes as well) are also blessed with Magnet Sphere, which isn't a main weapon but is great to switch to in between the flurries of whatever other weapon you're using. But that's it. Those are your weapons until post-Fishron. It is a lonely stretch of the game.
Staff runners enjoy such a diverse arrangement of weapons in midgame that there isn't much to complain about. They just might have a little trouble early game.
I don't have enough experience with yoyos or summons to give a meaningful answer there.
SilkyVol2
Skeletron Prime
The main rebuttal to the tome argument of them loosing steam halfway through is that a golden shower with some mana cost reduction such as adamantite armour can quite easily defeat a duke fishron due to its consistent dps which gives razorblade typhoon and thus makes the mechs a cake walk. The best part of tome runs is the amount of support weapons that are available, such as golden shower, cursed flames and magnet sphere, which can modify battles to make them easier or more fun, staff users struggle to get weapons with consistent dps past sky fracture, until post events such as pumpkin moon and frost moon.