PC Tier List: Pre-Hardmode Weapons

Take a look at the star anise, it’s one of, if not THE most annoying weapon pre-hardmode weapon to use, as it requires opening a ton of hard-to- get presents as it has a as well as a stat lower than the poisoned knife(at lease these infect a Debuff).
Yet it’s in A.
Now look at the snowball, yes, it’s horrible in terms of stats, but it’s effectively limitless even for beginners, yet it’s in C.
If that’s not enough, look at code1 and revolver, these are obtained exactly the same way as the kartana, yet they’re in A.
rarity definitely isn’t a factor here.
 
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fine but if thats true why is the Red Ryder which has a 1/156 of collected form a present which is in a event that last for like 1 month in A.

I would agree that it should definitely not be an A ranking, yes. I would personally put it in B or B- because your chances of getting it while it's relevant are pretty darn slim.

And I would posit the same argument about the Revolver.

The Code 1, I wouldn't put it in A either, because it's weaker than the Amarok which can be farmed the very moment you turn your world to hardmode and you would very much get an Amarok way sooner than the Code 1 unless the stars aligned just right, and even then, you'd use it for what, 10 minutes until an Amarok drops?
 
Moved the Red Ryder down. Frankly, including rarity in the rankings has been a pain in the :red:, and a lot of these rankings (specifically for rarer items like the Traveling Merchant's gear) are near-obsolete. Would like some way to work with that.
 
To be honest, I think they really should rework the TM to be honest, because quite often he shows up with exactly nothing useful or relevant to you whatsoever, and some of the few times he does show up if you build early, you don't even have the money to get what he's selling anyways, lol.

Several awesome weapons that he has, that rarely see much use, seems like such a wasted system to me.
 
The Code 1, I wouldn't put it in A either, because it's weaker than the Amarok which can be farmed the very moment you turn your world to hardmode and you would very much get an Amarok way sooner than the Code 1 unless the stars aligned just right, and even then, you'd use it for what, 10 minutes until an Amarok drops?
You’re thinking of code2, code1 is a pre-hardmode yo-yo obtained after EOC that has slightly stronger stats compared to the Amazon.
It is sold by the traveling merchant, tho.








Move bones a bit lower, to B-.
I mean, I understand that B is for Bone, but this is a serious post, not a joke one, and bones are joke weapons.
 
After EoC? Well, see, that's the problem with the Code 1.... I (and surely many other players do as well) usually make the Amazon before killing the EoC, and that 1 damage is not going to change anything, so might as well keep using the Amazon.

I'd give it a B-, personally.

EDIT: Okay so I was wrong about the Code 2, now that I'm looking at the wiki. It's stronger than an Amarok, but yet it is much weaker than the Yelets, and it requires a Mech to be killed before it will appear in the Merchant's inventory (which is the same requirement for a Yelets to drop in the Jungle). It has an Infinite Flight Time (according to wiki?), but yet -13 damage is a pretty big difference compared to the Yelets. There's no way in *bleeeep* I would trade -13 damage for infinite flight.
 
After EoC? Well, see, that's the problem with the Code 1.... I (and surely many other players do as well) usually make the Amazon before killing the EoC, and that 1 damage is not going to change anything, so might as well keep using the Amazon.

I'd give it a B-, personally.

Well, it is~5% stronger, and since it’s relatively cheap, if you have a lot of money you can just but a ton of them until you get one with good prefix.

Another thing is that there really isn’t any reason to not buy it, i mean, saving 5 gold isn’t going to change much of anything.
 
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With 1.4 having been out for almost a month now, I'm able to put the first weapons up here and start to re-rank the ones that have been changed. I do apologize for my long period of inactivity, but that's how life be sometimes.

Note that I haven't acquired all, or maybe even most, of the weapons included in the update, so I find myself unable to rank them properly. For those I have used, I'll do my best to place them, but I will include an asterisk (*) that they are new/heavily modified and as such bear reevaluation. For those I feel unable to rank, I will place them at the bottom of the post, effectively flagging them for review.

Community input is crucial to the success of this project, and I would very much appreciate your input.

Right now, for this thread in particular, the weapons that still need placing are:

Blood_Rain_Bow.png
Blood Rain Bow
Combat_Wrench.png
Combat Wrench
Finch_Staff.png
Finch Staff
Gladius.png
Gladius
Gray_Zapinator.png
Gray Zapinator
Terragrim.png
Terragrim
Vampire_Frog_Staff.png
Vampire Frog Staff
 
Right now, for this thread in particular, the weapons that still need placing are:

Blood_Rain_Bow.png
Blood Rain Bow
Combat_Wrench.png
Combat Wrench
Finch_Staff.png
Finch Staff
Gladius.png
Gladius
Gray_Zapinator.png
Gray Zapinator
Terragrim.png
Terragrim
Vampire_Frog_Staff.png
Vampire Frog Staff

My experiences:
Blood Rain Bow --trouble with ceilings, not very accurate, but outdoors it is an early "kill them from shelter" weapon.

Gray Zapinator: I liked this one a lot while I was playing mage -- slow, but packs a hella punch for how early you can get it, especially since it's mana-free with the Meteor Armor set bonus. The random effects are unpredictable, but the upshot is shoot it at a bunch of early-game enemies and it'll certainly take down at least one and maybe an extra or few. (ETA: That is, the random effects are candy that kick in after it hits the original target.)

Vampire Frog Staff: Not as flexible or powerful as the Hornet, but you can get it way before QB, and it does make an excellent early minion. ETA: Just having a minion that early is pretty sweet. This is basically a much earlier start for summoners.
 
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My experiences:
Blood Rain Bow --trouble with ceilings, not very accurate, but outdoors it is an early "kill them from shelter" weapon.

Gray Zapinator: I liked this one a lot while I was playing mage -- slow, but packs a hella punch for how early you can get it, especially since it's mana-free with the Meteor Armor set bonus. The random effects are unpredictable, but the upshot is shoot it at a bunch of early-game enemies and it'll certainly take down at least one and maybe an extra or few. (ETA: That is, the random effects are candy that kick in after it hits the original target.)

Vampire Frog Staff: Not as flexible or powerful as the Hornet, but you can get it way before QB, and it does make an excellent early minion. ETA: Just having a minion that early is pretty sweet. This is basically a much earlier start for summoners.
How easy do you find it to get the blood moon items? I've been playing on Master Mode and the fights are usually slow enough that I have to do a couple of moons to get anything.
 
How easy do you find it to get the blood moon items? I've been playing on Master Mode and the fights are usually slow enough that I have to do a couple of moons to get anything.

I'm playing on regular, and it's pretty easy, for some value of easy. Getting the enemies turns out to be independent of fishing power entirely, so just spam bait at that (with a Sonar potion for warning), and don't bother with the fishing "armor". The bigger issue was that when I did it pretty early, the enemies were tough, to the point of qualifying as minibosses to my early character. Both are fast, agile, and don't take much knockback, so you basically need to move fast and hammer them at range.
 
I'm playing on regular, and it's pretty easy, for some value of easy. Getting the enemies turns out to be independent of fishing power entirely, so just spam bait at that (with a Sonar potion for warning), and don't bother with the fishing "armor". The bigger issue was that when I did it pretty early, the enemies were tough, to the point of qualifying as minibosses to my early character. Both are fast, agile, and don't take much knockback, so you basically need to move fast and hammer them at range.
I had similar experiences. Was pretty easy to find them, but beating them (especially the merman) required at least spectre boots + double-jump alongside a dungeon-level weapon. Definitely not the most common weapons to get, but I'd argue that they're usually worth it if you put in the effort. Does that sound fair?
 
I had similar experiences. Was pretty easy to find them, but beating them (especially the merman) required at least spectre boots + double-jump alongside a dungeon-level weapon. Definitely not the most common weapons to get, but I'd argue that they're usually worth it if you put in the effort. Does that sound fair?
Agreed on the mobility, but I don't think I had a dungeon-level weapon at that point. For the Merman at least, you can shoot from the top of a rope if you have to, but I think they both should be beatable with Platinum or evil weapons.
 
Agreed on the mobility, but I don't think I had a dungeon-level weapon at that point. For the Merman at least, you can shoot from the top of a rope if you have to, but I think they both should be beatable with Platinum or evil weapons.
Definitely sounds fair. I'm inclined to place them both in B+, does that sound good? I've gotten to play with them some and they are feeling good, but not like... ideal.
 
Definitely sounds fair. I'm inclined to place them both in B+, does that sound good? I've gotten to play with them some and they are feeling good, but not like... ideal.
The Blood Rain Bow probably rates a B or so, but I'd bump up the Vampire Frog Staff at least to A if not S, just for being a reasonably powerful first minion, way before QB. It actually does more base damage than the Hornet -- no debuff and less agile is decent balance, but even so, for quite a while after I got it, it was dealing out more damage than my melee character was, just from jumping around and attacking everything.

The Zapinator would probably be a B or B+ -- it's got a hefty punch, but also uses a lot of mana, so before Meteor armor it made a great opening salvo but with weak stamina. And when you do get Meteor Armor, you also get the Space Gun, so then its punch is competing with beam spam.
 
For when you get it, nothing beats the sickle. And depends on your playstyle, obviously, but IMO, the Wooden Yoyo is an S. Again, because you can get it on day 1, and it goes through walls using a single hammered platform. You don't have to risk hornet and spiked jungle slime stings going for the Amazon day 2 or 3.
 
For when you get it, nothing beats the sickle. And depends on your playstyle, obviously, but IMO, the Wooden Yoyo is an S. Again, because you can get it on day 1, and it goes through walls using a single hammered platform. You don't have to risk hornet and spiked jungle slime stings going for the Amazon day 2 or 3.
Not gonna lie, I've never used the Sickle, like... ever. How does it stack up against immediately available things like the Spear, though?
 
I just sell spears. Usually, when I get the message the merchant has moved in, I've found at least a couple return potions and enough surface loot to to buy net, piggy bank, sickle, anvil and I spend everything else on bombs and/or grenades.

The autoswing of the sickle is just too sweet. It also strikes monsters coming up behind you. The uncorruptable blocks are icing.

Heading one way from center with spear is a heck of a lot harder for me than heading the other once I buy the sickle. It still isn't really enough for jungle or corruption, true, but with speed potion, it's usually enough to run through it with just ebonwood armor, even in a large master world.

[EDIT]
Oh, forgot to mention, when you run through the jungle at full speed swinging the sickle to fend off bats, you can't help but gather some jungle seeds.
[/EDIT]
 
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Not gonna lie, I've never used the Sickle, like... ever. How does it stack up against immediately available things like the Spear, though?

The Sickle is likely available before the Spear, unless you happened to find the latter in a chest before the merchant showed up. It does more damage, autoswings, sweeps behind you, and it's less picky about aiming. The hay is also a nice bonus -- can't do much with it, but it's free and it does make walls as well. It saves on collecting blocks for a quick base, or walling off a big space, and nowadays you can block-replace it later with whatever you like.
 
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