Top 10 Best Weapons In 1.4.4! (In-Depth Ranking)

[Shyguymask]

The undertaker/musket takes zero time because you're going to be breaking an orb anyways, the terrablade/starfury don't really either in your list and many other strong weapons do not require much grinding at all. The phoenix blaster, night's edge, shadow chest weapons, many craftable weapons, require little to no dedication to obtain. Whereas on the other hand grinding for dart weapons will take 75 souls on average plus the time required to kill the mimics is a considerable amount, and it's not consistent either (the last time I grinded for one of those weapons it took me hours.)

Some of the strongest weapons in the game, yes, require dedication to obtain, but really most of these weapons are unnecessary, there's no need to grind for a demon scythe for the WoF when you could just use a hellwing bow or grind for a tsunami when you could just use the terrablade for the cultist, these weapons are almost if not as good, and take much less grind.

You only need 9 souls to progress through the game, maybe you want to fight the destroyer twice (I usually end up doing this) so let's say 15 souls. What else do you use souls of night for? Maybe if you're grinding mimics... but if you're not at the most you're going to be getting another 15 souls or less for a weapon (which I almost always don't do as soul weapons suck), at which point you'll never need to go to the underground evil biome again unless you run out of cursed flames or ichor. It doesn't take much time to get souls, so by the time you get your 9/15/30/however many souls you need you probably won't have a key.

Killing Queen Bee is one of the most rewarding things to do in Pre-Hardmode since it gives access to Bee Armor and Pygmy Necklace, that alone being a large powerspike for the player. This makes Bee's Knees in particular more than worth going for. Queen Bees summons aren't difficult or expensive to make & you get decent money out of it.

Martian Probes are not really difficult to find with Water Candle + Battle Potion, and Xeno Staff is surrounded by a bunch of other good drops like Influx Waver. You can kill several Martian Saucers per event.

Queen Slime's summon is easily one of the easiest boss summons to get, and Queen Slime herself is one of the easiest bosses to cheese. It only helps that Blade Staff has long longevity, being viable all the way into the post-plantera dungeon.

Flinx Staff, to repeat what I said in the OP, is viable for the entirety of Pre-Hardmode and it's not really difficult or time consuming to kill several Flinxs in the biome that's arguably the best to explore at the start of the game.

The biome mimic weapons are the only ones that could be considered questionable when it comes to availability. But even then, you get a supply of Greater Healing Potions from biome mimics and there are multiple good reasons to spend time grinding in underground evil biomes. While you do technically only need 9 souls, Souls of Night are used to craft several good items like Onyx Blaster, Cool Whip and of course the Key of Night among other things (contrary to your claim, the souls weapons are good on average).

Something important to keep in mind too is that this list also takes struggling players into account, who may get stuck on repeated attempts against bosses, so it's extremely warranted for them to get the best gear possible to increase the chances of winning.

 

[ggyt]

Killing Queen Bee is one of the most rewarding things to do in Pre-Hardmode since it gives access to Bee Armor and Pygmy Necklace, that alone being a large powerspike for the player. This makes Bee's Knees in particular more than worth going for. Queen Bees summons aren't difficult or expensive to make & you get decent money out of it.

That's a large powerspike for the player if they are using a summoner build.

Something important to keep in mind too is that this list also takes struggling players into account, who may get stuck on repeated attempts against bosses, so it's extremely warranted for them to get the best gear possible to increase the chances of winning.

I would definitely add the Demon Scythe to the list then; it's pre-boss and shreds every pre-hardmode boss. It doesn't even take that much time to grind, arguably less time than it takes to grind Queen Bee to get the Bee's Knees, and it's useful for a much larger time period.

I would also add the phoenix blaster and knight's edge to the list, they are the best pre-hardmode weapons and are very useful for early hardmode mobbing.

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

That's a large powerspike for the player if they are using a summoner build.

You do know that every build can use minions for free damage, right? While I haven't done any tests I'm 90% sure that bee armour is the best pre-hardmode dps armour for melee, ranged, and magic setups.

Also regarding the demon scythe, it's a pre-boss weapon in the same way that the tsunami is a pre-mech weapon. It's literally a 1/35 drop from the single most difficult pre-hardmode biome to survive in, if you're strong enough to grind it just fight a boss at that point. Making a farm for it is probably the most feasible way to get it, but again that isn't something that most players will do. It's almost like saying "you can cheese fishron with teleporters, so tsunami is the best pre-mech weapon".

Demon scythe is good, don't get me wrong, but the other early game weapons on this list have the advantage of being much easier to obtain.

 

[Dapling]

That's a large powerspike for the player if they are using a summoner build.

Every build has minion slots and every build wants more of them, especially in prehardmode where your selection of damage accessories is quite lacking.

 

[Kellam Yoshikage]

You do know that every build can use minions for free damage, right? While I haven't done any tests I'm 90% sure that bee armour is the best pre-hardmode dps armour for melee, ranged, and magic setups.

Also regarding the demon scythe, it's a pre-boss weapon in the same way that the tsunami is a pre-mech weapon. It's literally a 1/35 drop from the single most difficult pre-hardmode biome to survive in, if you're strong enough to grind it just fight a boss at that point. Making a farm for it is probably the most feasible way to get it, but again that isn't something that most players will do. It's almost like saying "you can cheese fishron with teleporters, so tsunami is the best pre-mech weapon".

Demon scythe is good, don't get me wrong, but the other early game weapons on this list have the advantage of being much easier to obtain.

Cheesing Fishron makes the fight take longer, building a farm for Demon Scythe makes the grind shorter. A lot shorter, since normal underworld has 1/600 spawn rate (1/360 if you have theoretical perfect efficiency) while a farm can easily reach 1/60 while consistently killing enemies before reaching the cap. I do agree that demons are a pain to farm through normal play, though; farm or no, grenades are the only earlygame weapon I would trust to have enough raw power for killing things like bone serpents. So I'd put it on a similar level to Sandgun, where it is really really strong but it's inconvenient enough that it's hard to recommend.

As for Phoenix Blaster and Night's Edge, they definitely are good weapons, but you have lots of good options for Wall of Flesh and if you know how to stack mining speed, you only really use them in early hardmode as self defense while mining until you can get a repeater or similar.

I agree that normally you don't fight anywhere near enough enemies for a good shot at a crimson key. A pretty extreme grind of 3 Flesh Knuckles from biome mimics is looking at around 500 kills on average for souls + natural biome mimic spawns, and that's still a far cry from the 2500 par for the key. Ichor farming is pretty fast as well; ichor stickers account for just under 40% of enemies, and give 3.5 ichor on average, which turns into 150 ichor arrows, for instance. That's just under 50 kills total for a full stack of 9999 ichor arrows, which takes a while to shoot through. But at the same time, you can just throw in a crimson biome for anything you're farming that isn't souls of light. If someone farms for an Ankh Shield, they have plenty of time for a key. You can put crimson at an invasion farm, or with your post-Plantera dungeon farming, or when farming ice tortoises, or you can stack a bunch of biomes together and aim for any key. When every enemy has 5 chances to drop a key, keys drop a lot faster. I've never actually gotten Vampire Knives in a run though lmao, the key only drops for me when I'm in corruption worlds.

I just don't like using minions with other classes. Every time I get an early slime staff in GFB I have to constantly unsummon it so I can play around it killing me, to the point where I just don't use it. Flinx Staff has that same knockback value, though I haven't tried it much because I'm used to minions trying to kill me. Demonstration gif on the wiki shows the flinx hitting the skeleton towards the player, so it seems the same thing is happening there. Would be much more obvious on a slime with the Flinx flinging it towards you at high speeds. At least they're okay on non-Cultist bosses?

 

[ggyt]

Also regarding the demon scythe, it's a pre-boss weapon in the same way that the tsunami is a pre-mech weapon. It's literally a 1/35 drop from the single most difficult pre-hardmode biome to survive in, if you're strong enough to grind it just fight a boss at that point. Making a farm for it is probably the most feasible way to get it, but again that isn't something that most players will do. It's almost like saying "you can cheese fishron with teleporters, so tsunami is the best pre-mech weapon".

It's not as difficult as you're making it seem, if you're struggling to kill them in the open you can just box yourself in and use the starfury, it will also kill the imps' projectiles. You can also set up a bed near the underworld and just throw yourself at them repeatedly, they aren't that hard to kill in the open with an evil gun or minishark.
The demon scythe is not that rare that farming for it's the only way to get it, usually if I want to use it I'll just start making a hellbridge early and I'll have a good chance of having one by the time I'm done; if I don't, no worries, I'll just use something else.
You don't even have to go as far as pre-boss, whether you decide to get it pre-boss/pre-evil/pre-skeletron/post-skeletron it's still the best pre-hardmode magic weapon and will shred the rest of the pre-hardmode bosses you have left to fight.

 

[Shyguymask]

A new player realistically won't be interested in nor very capable of rushing Demon Scythe near the start of the game. Meanwhile, a veteran player like myself would rather actually progress through the first half of Pre-Hardmode in a smooth and consistent manner rather than spend my time rushing to the underworld & grind the most dangerous pre-hm enemy just to deal a bit higher DPS than weapons like Starfury and Boomstick. There are also not a lot of important materials or accessories adjacent to Demon Scythe at all. Even Boomstick, which I considered having in the top 10 when first creating my list, ended up not making it due to its availability. And that weapon is significantly easier and overall more rewarding (Feral Claw, Staff of Regrowth, Jungle materials, etc) to go get than Demon Scythe. Simply put, it's not efficient to go out of your way to get Demon Scythe early.

Also, as far as Magic weapons go, Demon Scythe actually faces competition with Aqua Scepter against WoF, which is easier to aim and has comparable damage output.

 

[ggyt]

A new player realistically won't be interested in nor very capable of rushing Demon Scythe near the start of the game. Meanwhile, a veteran player like myself would rather actually progress through the first half of Pre-Hardmode in a smooth and consistent manner rather than spend my time rushing to the underworld & grind the most dangerous pre-hm enemy just to deal a bit higher DPS than weapons like Starfury and Boomstick. There are also not a lot of important materials or accessories adjacent to Demon Scythe at all. Even Boomstick, which I considered having in the top 10 when first creating my list, ended up not making it due to its availability. and that weapon is significantly easier and overall more rewarding (Feral Claw, Staff of Regrowth, Jungle materials, etc) to go get than Demon Scythe. Simply put, it's not efficient to go out of your way to get Demon Scythe early.

Also, as far as Magic weapons go, Demon Scythe actually faces competition with Aqua Scepter against WoF, which is easier to aim and has comparable damage output.

The demon scythe is way more powerful than the starfury or boomstick, it's not just "a bit higher DPS."

 

[Dapling]

The demon scythe is way more powerful than the starfury or boomstick, it's not just "a bit higher DPS."

Have you got killtimes to back that up?

 

[Kellam Yoshikage]

So, I thought in the past Aqua Scepter would have similar damage output to Demon Scythe against WoF, but that was when I thought Aqua Scepter would be able to hit its static iframe cap. But the dust effects aren't hitboxes. Aqua Scepter hits a single target once per 14 ticks, while especially close range, Demon Scythe can reach the static iframe limit of 10 ticks. Shot from below to hit all segments, they do much more similar damage, but Demon Scythe has better reach in this regard so you don't have to squeeze the boss to get optimal DPS this way.

As for stats for Demon Scythe, I'll reference Kepples' DPS tests at Kepples' Weapon Testing (v0.7.0) . Given the focus on optimal DPS, there is a bias towards melee weapons that benefit from melee speed for 3 damage stats instead of 2, but Demon Scythe consistently outperforms Boomstick and Starfury. Skeletron's a classic, Demon Scythe gets a kill almost twice as fast as true melee Starfury and 50% faster than Boomstick. Against Deerclops, Demon Scythe is more than twice as fast as both. Queen Bee, almost twice as fast as both. Wall of Flesh, 1.5x as fast as Aqua Scepter here and 3rd overall behind Night's Edge and Star Cannon. Boomstick gets Party Bullets in these tests, too, a small edge but not one I ever bother going for over silver bullets. Obviously Demon Scythe crushes the evil bosses, against BoC it's so dominant that it even beats out Sandgun, and that weapon is itself hilariously powerful.

I mostly agree that the underworld doesn't have other relevant stuff for earlygame. I like magma stone, but that doesn't work with demon scythe so that's only really a consideration for multiplayer. Obsidian rose and magma stone -> lava charm are Terraspark ingredients, but much less relevant for experienced players that know how to farm potions. And experienced players are the main people to consider here, as demon scythe is prohibitively annoying to get if you don't either know what you're doing or do the efficient grenade farm I've plugged twice and will plug five more times I love that thing. Even that farm has a decent up-front cost with all the dynamite you need for clearing the area. Also, Demon Scythe would feel a lot less relevant if mage actually had good pre-Skeletron options besides Zapinator and Scythe. And specifically Vilethorn against EoW because that is the third and only other mage weapon that isn't miserable in that fight.

 

[ggyt]

<snip>

Also, Demon Scythe would feel a lot less relevant if mage actually had good pre-Skeletron options besides Zapinator and Scythe. And specifically Vilethorn against EoW because that is the third and only other mage weapon that isn't miserable in that fight.

Thank you for this post, it saved me the effort of having to comb through my gameplay footage to prove something that is obvious to everyone who regularly uses these three weapons (granted I've never used the starfury for bosses, only for mobbing/utility.)

Yeah, pre-HM mage progression is pretty scuffed. The best weapon is available pre-boss, all the other pre-skeletron weapons are not or are barely viable, and once you beat skeletron, even though the dungeon/shadow key weapons are definitely fun to use, they're all just worse than the demon scythe.

 

[Shyguymask]

So, I thought in the past Aqua Scepter would have similar damage output to Demon Scythe against WoF, but that was when I thought Aqua Scepter would be able to hit its static iframe cap. But the dust effects aren't hitboxes. Aqua Scepter hits a single target once per 14 ticks, while especially close range, Demon Scythe can reach the static iframe limit of 10 ticks. Shot from below to hit all segments, they do much more similar damage, but Demon Scythe has better reach in this regard so you don't have to squeeze the boss to get optimal DPS this way.

As for stats for Demon Scythe, I'll reference Kepples' DPS tests at Kepples' Weapon Testing (v0.7.0) . Given the focus on optimal DPS, there is a bias towards melee weapons that benefit from melee speed for 3 damage stats instead of 2, but Demon Scythe consistently outperforms Boomstick and Starfury. Skeletron's a classic, Demon Scythe gets a kill almost twice as fast as true melee Starfury and 50% faster than Boomstick. Against Deerclops, Demon Scythe is more than twice as fast as both. Queen Bee, almost twice as fast as both. Wall of Flesh, 1.5x as fast as Aqua Scepter here and 3rd overall behind Night's Edge and Star Cannon. Boomstick gets Party Bullets in these tests, too, a small edge but not one I ever bother going for over silver bullets. Obviously Demon Scythe crushes the evil bosses, against BoC it's so dominant that it even beats out Sandgun, and that weapon is itself hilariously powerful.

I mostly agree that the underworld doesn't have other relevant stuff for earlygame. I like magma stone, but that doesn't work with demon scythe so that's only really a consideration for multiplayer. Obsidian rose and magma stone -> lava charm are Terraspark ingredients, but much less relevant for experienced players that know how to farm potions. And experienced players are the main people to consider here, as demon scythe is prohibitively annoying to get if you don't either know what you're doing or do the efficient grenade farm I've plugged twice and will plug five more times I love that thing. Even that farm has a decent up-front cost with all the dynamite you need for clearing the area. Also, Demon Scythe would feel a lot less relevant if mage actually had good pre-Skeletron options besides Zapinator and Scythe. And specifically Vilethorn against EoW because that is the third and only other mage weapon that isn't miserable in that fight.

Aqua Scepter's range against WoF is sufficient. In fact, I quickly checked in-game and it's actually higher than I remember, it projectiles reaches the entire screen on my ultrawide monitor.

As for Demon Scythe, there's a lot of asterisks to its very high DPS that haven't been mentioned. First of all: Ease of use & Mana. Not only is Demon Scythe outright significantly difficult to aim against moving targets, but it drains mana faster than Mana potions restores it, falling in the "Mana Sinkhole" as a result. You either have to outright stop attacking & bleed DPS, build up Mana Sickness & tank your DPS or purposely get hit to trigger Celestial Cuffs' effect. Furthermore, to kill Master mode Skeletron in under a minute with only Demon Scythe, you basically have to facetank phase 1 hands, and at that point it's more of a speedkill than a practical fight you'd do in a normal playthrough. This strategy is also fully outclassed by Volcano + Molten Armor, which will take out the hands as fast if not faster while also taking a lot less damage from the hands. Not to mention that at this stage of the game, the Volcano is drastically faster & non-RNG reliant to obtain compared to Demon Scythe.

I am very familiar with Demon Scythe's matchup against Skeletron because I used it to kill him 10 seconds faster than Kepples' tests with a slightly less optimized loadout. As for early pre-hardmode, you also have to consider the fact that players will realistically not have most or all the things that early Demon Scythe is partially dependent on to maximize its usefulness: Mana Flower (-1 accessory slot if you can't mana pot manually), a stash of medium Mana potions, Mystic Robe (Which means giving up on Flinx Coat) and Celestial Cuffs among other minmax-y things. Boomstick and especially Starfury don't scale as hard from optimization in pre-Hardmode, meaning their base performance in reality is comparable to Demon Scythe. Especially when you consider the fact that half of the optimization that Boomstick demands is one of the best accessories in pre-hm anyway (Shark Tooth Necklace).

There's one last asterisk: Worse compatibility with Minions relative to Melee and Ranged weapons (in pre-hm). I already brought up how Mystic Robe requires you to sacrifice an entire minion slot to give that boost to Demon Scythe, but Melee weapons like Starfury and Volcano can further close the gap with the Sharpening Station glitch, which makes minions most notably deal significantly more damage against high-defense targets like Queen Bee and Skeletron. You can either maximize damage against those targets, or switch out Shark Tooth Necklace for other useful accessories like Brain of Confusion or Bone Helm.

In general, Kepples' tests are offensive/optimization oriented and don't fully represent the actual viability of weapons in the game. Minmaxed Bubble Gun can kill Master mode Empress of Light in under 20 seconds, even without a dedicated hybrid Summoner build, but feats like that alone don't tell the whole story when it comes to general viability. In late pre-hm Demon Scythe is above average in performance, in mid pre-hm it's overall matched by weapons that are far easier to obtain and then in early game it requires so much out-of-the way grinding AND setting up a "selfish" build around it that it's just not really worth it in the long run.

Now, here are my own Demon Scythe Vs. Aqua Scepter killtime tests against Master mode WoF (No minions used):

Spoiler: WoF tests

The faster Demon Scythe killtime was a result of playing riskily and sticking closer to WoF to maximize Demon Scythe's hitrate. Otherwise, It's the same as Aqua Scepter... as long as you're using Celestial Cuffs, running in a straight line AND getting hit by lasers at least somewhat consistently. If you jump up and down to dodge lasers OR run fast to avoid lasers all the time OR don't use Celestial Cuffs, then Demon Scythe instantly becomes worse than Aqua Scepter. It's evident that Kepples played hyperaggressively in his tests against WoF, and at that point, close-range Demon Scythe is outshined by Night's Edge + Molten Armor, and perhaps even Obsidian Armor + Minion mixing (Hybrid Summoner most likely outshines that but still).

All in all, Demon Scythe in particular has tons of drawbacks behind its very high power. Availability, mana problems, velocity/aiming and gear dependency all adds up to dragging down Demon Scythe's viability to a high degree, and it's far from being a top 10 weapon. It's still a good A rank weapon regardless. But raw power is not everything, else weapons like Bubble Gun would need to be on this list.

 

[ggyt]

Aqua Scepter's range against WoF is sufficient. In fact, I quickly checked in-game and it's actually higher than I remember, it projectiles reaches the entire screen on my ultrawide monitor.

Some of us like to fight the WoF from a distance (off screen). It's also not that hard to aim the demon scythe either if your bridge is flat, the eyes/mouth don't really move.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

While the discussion about certain items potentially being better than the listed items in the OP is interesting and very helpful, I think something that's being forgotten is that this thread is less a tier list as it is a collection of items that you can reasonably set out to obtain that are the best at being good, consistent, plug and play weapons.

Most entries on this list does not have any kind of conditional "actually this weapon is stronger if you do this and this and that" setup. You aim them vaguely in the direction of your enemy and you will get results. This is a list of items that, if at any point someone is struggling, you can recommend them work towards getting one of these items and it will likely solve their problems.

I honestly think the only entry on this list that has any degree of conditional "if" on it is the Starfury, and that's just because the projectile has to be aimed. I begrudgingly agree with its being useful, despite the fact it isn't immediately obviously strong through the entire pre-Hardmode stretch since the numbers on the item don't tell the whole story.

It's upsetting that there aren't any magic items listed, but I think that's a core problem with Magic more than anything else. I imagine the primary candidates would be Nimbus Rod, Rainbow Gun, Clinger Staff, and Magnet Sphere, if only because they act more like one minute sentries than magic weapons. After that, I'd probably say Crystal Serpent just for being a no-nonsense casting weapon available at a point your entire lineup is "applies Ichor" or otherwise is all nonsense, and then RBT gets mentioned because it's RBT.

All things said, while the Demon Scythe is cool, I can honestly say I have never once gone out of my way to get this weapon and then used it enough to justify getting it. Last time I played Magic I got more use out of the Weather Pain than I did Scythe just because you can get it way easier and you just vaguely point it at an enemy without having to think five seconds ahead or play in melee range.

 

[Kellam Yoshikage]

Main context where I get demon scythe is in skyblock runs, which are naturally different from normal runs. There, good weapons are hard to come by until you can fish, and you can set up an optimal scythe farm trivially to boot. From there I generally end up using Scythe as my primary weapon through the entirety of prehardmode.

I wouldn't put Crystal Serpent or Razorblade Typhoon (that acronym is so hard to recognize when you haven't seen it before) up there. Crystal Serpent's pretty strong but sits in mostly the same place as Onyx Blaster - easier to get safely for newer players, but slower on the whole, and for the mechs themselves you generally have better options outside of mage. Typhoon is, well, it's a Fishron weapon, all the Fishron weapons are crazy besides perhaps Tempest Staff. Up through Golem you might as well just take the one Fishron kill and use whatever weapon you got there, against pillars, it is very good, but I'm not really sure of how dominant it is there. As for the long-lasting magic weapons, I really like Clinger Staff and will go out of my way to get one in corrupt worlds, but for the most part I find it's just a really good farming tool.

Starfury isn't just about sheer damage, though. It's a fantastic scout weapon that lets you spot things anywhere on the screen. Even being a budget version, it serves as a spelunker potion, hunter potion, and dangersense potion all at once, and it's available early enough that it can be really hard to get those potions lined up otherwise, especially for newer players still dying all the time.

 

[ggyt]

While the discussion about certain items potentially being better than the listed items in the OP is interesting and very helpful, I think something that's being forgotten is that this thread is less a tier list as it is a collection of items that you can reasonably set out to obtain that are the best at being good, consistent, plug and play weapons.

I would buy that if the crimson knives weren't on the list, that isn't a weapon that you can reasonably expect to obtain most runs unless you specifically decide to make farms.

FWIW I would totally recommend the demon scythe to anyone who is really struggling to kill the evil bosses, skeletron, or the Wall of flesh. I think everyone is overestimating how annoying fighting demons are, or maybe I'm just the outlier in finding it fun. The demon scythe doesn't need that much optimization either, just give it the mana regen/power pots and you're good to go, you don't even need to sacrifice accessories slots for stuff like the hive pack or the shark tooth necklace (its base damage is much higher than stuff like the boom stick or minishark.)

Starfury isn't just about sheer damage, though. It's a fantastic scout weapon that lets you spot things anywhere on the screen. Even being a budget version, it serves as a spelunker potion, hunter potion, and dangersense potion all at once, and it's available early enough that it can be really hard to get those potions lined up otherwise, especially for newer players still dying all the time.

Another thing the Starfury is useful for that I don't see mentioned much if at all is it's ability to safely dispatch cactus boulders and larvae from a distance in the underground desert, it makes that biome much less horrible.

 

[Dapling]

I would buy that if the crimson knives weren't on the list, that isn't a weapon that you can reasonably expect to obtain most runs unless you specifically decide to make farms

Pretty sure they’re the best weapon in the game power-wise by such a massive margin that they transcend beyond the point where you need to take rarity as a viability consideration, but that’s probably just me.