Ahoy, longish post about Fan of Cards ahead.
I just began playing Ulterraria 1.1 last night and I have some feedback specifically regarding the Fan of Cards weapon series. As a disclaimer, I'm playing in normal mode and I suspect this weapon was originally balanced with expert mode in mind.
I'm thinking that the pre-hardmode Fan of Cards is overtuned for how easy it is to get and how it behaves. To start, the weapon is capable of shotgunning, which coupled with its quick speed and fast fire rate makes it utterly devastating in pre-hardmode to the point that I felt almost every other weapon became obsolete outside of certain circumstances. Their "very weak" knockback still adds up to a considerable push across five separate projectiles making it difficult for any pre-hardmode enemy to touch you. None of this would be much of an issue if the pre-hardmode Fan of Cards were difficult to get, but one can easily make a beeline to the ocean, farm one black ink and immediately have one of the strongest pre-hardmode weapons in Ulterraria. I would submit that this is closer to a Skeletron-level weapon and perhaps could be something that the Clothier either sells directly or sells a reagent for (look at that slick-dressed man and tell me he wouldn't be the type to be a closet magician or poker player
). Perhaps a Card Dealer's Manual or Card Printer crafting table?
This weapon continues the trend of far-reaching weapons being labeled "melee" weapons that really began in earnest with 1.3. I see this is a problem mostly because of how easy it is to buff melee damage compared to other damage types, especially near endgame. You end up with a combination of the highest overall defense numbers coupled with extremely high-damage "melee" weapons that really behave more like ranged weapons. Chief offenders in my mind include Daybreak (which behaves exactly like every other thrown weapon in the game but is instead considered melee), Solar Eruption, all yo-yos, and to a lesser extent any melee weapon that fires a projectile such as Beam Sword. The takeaway for Ulterraria is that I think Fan of Cards could be considered ranged or thrown despite all the precedents set by vanilla Terraria.
Another disclaimer: I have yet to hit hardmode, so I don't know if these weapons have additional effects (i.e.: debuffs) or projectile speeds. Regarding the hardmode versions and looking strictly at their on-paper stats, I noticed that each of the three variants do different amounts of damage but only require one different material (crystal shard, cursed flame, or ichor) to craft. At least as far as ichor vs. cursed flame is concerned neither is really any harder to get than the other. Crystals are more easy to get right away yet this version does more damage than the ichor one. The cursed flame version does more damage
and has slightly better knockback which should make it strictly better than either of the others. Am I judging these weapons too quickly since I haven't actually had a chance to mess with them yet?
My two cents. Thanks for all your hard work
