Hello everyone, I'm playing with thorium mod on Expert mode and I lately I've hit hard mode.
So I did what I already did on my vanilla playthrough: going for Cobalt/Mythril/Titanium ores, Wings and prepare for the hard mode's bosses.
Here what I did: farmed a hell lot of hard mode's ingots, got my melee Titanium Armor and went underground to summon The Beholder, leaving around fire places for Hp regen and stuff.
It spawned Valadium, the treasure bag with the summon's staff and its loot.
I though "ok, now the mechanical bosses might be easier with Valadium's stuff"... but I was a little, how can I say, disappointed with the Valadium set.
First of all: it's only ranged, but has melee and magic weapons. Why? It hasn't higher bonuses than a ranged Titanium set, it has slightly more armor (we're talking about 38vs34, nothing big).
My question is: why should I farm it, if it doesn't provide me with anything more than a Titanium set?
The set bonus? It's interesting, sure, but at this point I might stick with what I've already have since I don't see any major benefits.
Same thing goes for the Lodestone set.
Is it a melee set, right? More over a sort of pseudo tank set, it has accessories for keeping the aggro and stuff.. why does it have lower defense than Titanium? 11 less armor than Titanium, 4 less than Orichalcum, just +1 armor than Mythril... why?
Ok sure, it increases damage reduction the lower your hp are, but its base defense it's really low for an armor I can obtain only after I've killed a hard mode boss, and mine again after I've mined all 3 the early hard mode ores.
So, here what I personally suggest about these early hard mode armors:
Remove the specialization for both armor (by adding Magic/Melee/Ranged counterparts helmets) or power up their own specialization to a level they *really* feel like an upgrade.
[About Valadium] -> increase its bonus damage or critical chance
[About Lodestone] -> increase its defense, it should have at least more defense than Orichalcum
Personally I don't like the Valadium own gravitational potion, I would have liked more something about horizontal mobility with a bonus damage for X seconds after using it.
Like a mini-teleport with 20 seconds of internal cooldown, which is something every class could benefit from.
I think they should be worth more since they are "unlocked" after beating a boss, that's all.