chewythebigblackdog
Terrarian
I constantly hear this take and I just cannot get behind it.
Melee having weapons with decent range does not mean that those weapons actually do comparable damage to their other class counterparts. Oftentimes the reason that they are considered the viable picks for melee is because in boss fights you often need to stay at a distance to avoid getting killed. Take the often recommended shadowflame knife, for instance. If you compare its performance on, say, the twins, you'll find that in comparison to non-melee weapons its damage is mediocre at best. There is the terra blade, which is insanely good crowd control for its tier, but that's the exception, not the rule.
Melee does have fantastic armour, which lets it do tank setups very well. However, using a tank setup does not mean you need to use a melee weapon alongside it (however it's often a good idea to do so considering you can afford to get up close more easily). The extreme case of this is the beetle shell, which gives comparable melee bonuses to a warrior emblem. This means it's often better to view beetle shell as a multi-class set than a melee one.
Terraria's classes are overall decently balanced against one another. I'd consider summoner the worst class but that's mainly because it has to put more effort in than every other class to get its good weapons (e.g. during pre-mech). Personally I rank melee as third, though it's pretty close with mage for the #2 spot (I mainly rank mage higher due to doing better against most pre-hardmode bosses barring risky melee play, and being able to match melee's terra blade power spike with spectre armour, which is also absurdly good). I'd definitely put ranged as the best class, mainly because there's easy to get, powerful ranged weapons at literally every single stage of progression.
As for my pick, I'd have to say locking powerful combination items behind time-gated RNG. The travelling merchant as a concept is fantastic, I just wish that I didn't have to entirely rely on him to bring the 4 separate pieces I need for the architect gizmo pack (and thus the hand of creation). Similar can be said for the accessories from fishing quests, but those don't bother me quite as much as the hand of creation does (since cell phone/shellphone just saves inventory space, and the tackle bag is a relatively minor boost).
Last edited:
