ThatMossCreep
Terrarian
Agreed. Although, I do think that in some way, Shyguymask's video on this is relevant.
Game Mechanics Summoner Bad - A green man's essay on the summoner class, and how to possibly improve it
- Thread starter Shady Glasses
- Start date
Dispenser (Engineer)
Retinazer
I haven't seen that and I am trying to stay off YouTube atm so could you give me a basic run down of what he says?
ThatMossCreep
Terrarian
It's basically him griping about (specifically calamity) how the modding community sees whips
The modding community as a whole has a misconception that summoner is OP, but whips are most of your DPS
He then goes on to do DPS tests against the plant
Whip only takes around 1:30
Minion only takes around 0:50
Both takes around 0:25
He then used a mod to show where the damage was specifically coming from
Whips are a very small part of summoner's dps, it's mostly that the devs are a little too careless with tag
(he was using blade staff, which exacerbated the issue, but)
Dispenser (Engineer)
Retinazer
Chur for the run down. I know tag damage is the strong thing about whips, but I don't just see why modders don't just tone it down a bit and add their own whips.
Dapling
Queen Bee
The number on the wiki page counts minion and sentry slots as a damage multiplier which is not actually the case because most minions don't scale their damage linearly. Most minions use Static Iframes, don't have perfectly synced ai, etc, and most sentries don't have equal effectiveness as minions. In fact Stardust Dragon has the highest single-target dps out of any minion in the entire game and scales non-linearly itself, proving that the number on this page is absolute bogus and that you should never, ever use the equation they did. That page on the wiki is insanely misleading as a result. Just go do killtimes like people who actually test loadouts do, (which prove that summoner is completely fine in vanilla) please. Don't listen to terrible formulas like that one.
Calamity's attitude towards whips is likely due to an incredibly old tmod bug where whips could critically strike and hit multiple times every swing, and a difference in the thematic and mechanical vision they had for the class prior to 1.4. They were broken then, they are not broken anymore.
Nekohime
Duke Fishron
its the max possible and not all minions use iframes
Dapling
Queen Bee
that 11 is minion slots, that 4 is sentry slots.
doing the equation this way not only disregards that different minions scales with different tags by different amounts, it also basically multiplies the tag with itself, which is double dipping.
the number shown there is multiplied by summoner's dps with 1 minion slot and no bonuses. A full summoner loadout will never have 1 slot, so it's literally just a useless number that looks bigger than it actually is. If you take every minion slot into account (like you're SUPPOSED to, by the way), the number is a significantly less bloated and less deceptive 315.288%. In reality this number will be higher due to flat tags, but a far cry from "broken" and "outclassing everything".
Edit: wtf why are they even beginning to include sentries. They did that but didn't include Striking Moment or Psycho Knife stealth for melee. What the
is this page why is it this terrible.
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Mille Marteaux
Empress of Light
going purely off the listed numbers, if you're going to say summoner damage output is 261% x15 due to minion and sentry slots, you may as well also say that ranger output is 652% x4 because phantasm fires four arrows per shot
the math just isn't mathing, damage output in this game can't really be boiled down to one big single funny number the way this wiki page is trying to
the math just isn't mathing, damage output in this game can't really be boiled down to one big single funny number the way this wiki page is trying to
Dapling
Queen Bee
And that's ignoring the ghost arrows or ammo that can multihit like Luminite or Holy arrows too.
Dapling
Queen Bee
I will happily listen to your case if you state it. Go right ahead.
Dapling
Queen Bee
You're arguing summoner's overpowered, I'm arguing summoner's balanced. the thread is arguing summoner's bad (even if it was before 1.4.1)
Both of our points are directly related and comparable to the original point of the thread. Doesn't seem very off topic to me.
Nekohime
Duke Fishron
no we're discussing calamity at this point. which is very offtopic
IThinkQueenSlimeIsBad
Skeletron
true i guess
Shyguymask
Golem
When it comes to DPS & general viability, pure/whip Summoner is on the lower half of class viability for most of the games. Ranger more often outshines Summoner in DPS, and Melee not only has broken defense stacking but can also outshine Summoner DPS in about half of the tiers, depending on the weapons used.
I disagree that whip stacking needs to be nerfed. First of all, even myself can't make Summoner with 3-4 whips outclass Ranger/Melee builds let alone by a landslide through Whip stacking as much as possible. Not only are whip tags not THAT big of a boost in general, but stacking flat damage naturally comes with diminishing returns, especially when you're further undermining the DPS increase by spending less time whipping with your "main" whip that has higher DPS than the rest. Blade Staff is the only times where stacking tag damage does an especially noticeable difference, but even then? Blade Staff is outclassed by Sanguine Staff against Mech bosses in all cases, and Summoner is still the overall lowest DPS class against Plantera, even when played by me.
Xeno Staff with Kaleidoscope gets a little under 40s killtime against Daytime Empress of Light on an optimized build. If you add three more whips to go all the way to quad whip stacking, and then also add Betsy's Wrath (-40 defense, effectively +20 flat damage, basically another Kalei Tag) on top of all that, that shaves off about 15 seconds at most when played by me, but still not below 20s killtime. This is a large increase in DPS, however for how EXTREMELY more complicated & difficult the setup is, the DPS increase isn't that insane, and is not really practical in a playthrough in general. Furthermore, sweaty weapon switching strategies and such is not limited to Summoner either, Mage for example can borderline sub 20s EoL by combo'ing Betsy's Wrath with Bubble Gun, which involves significant precise aiming & timing at the same time, and you need to time a manual Mana potion midway through the fight.
Hybrid Summoner is a bigger problem than Whip stacking if anything, if there's something Summoner-related that should be nerfed, it should be that. Fortunately the solution is rather easy (Stronger critical hit gear & attack speed gear for other classes to bring more competition, Thorium did this and it worked).
Nekohime
Duke Fishron
Everyone uses boss EOL killtimes to determine how effective class builds are and thats not your suppose to do things. that boss makes up a very small% of this game's progression. You spend more time mining and getting better gear. You should be using the frost moon and pumpkin moon events
IThinkQueenSlimeIsBad
Skeletron
idk shes a fun boss i guess
MoultonLava
Torch God
They use her to test DPS because:
1: She has a high HP pool, allowing you to test for a longer time
2: she is one of TWO boss fights with ONLY the boss, no other minions and such.
3: She attacks the same way every time, allowing testers to memorize her patterns, and avoid getting hit so there isn't any hiccups in DPS, and finally:
4: she can be fought at any time.
