but honestly, ACTUALLY honestly, I just did a master mage run right after master melee. Melee for sure was fantastic early game because they get access to insane weapons for nothing and of course wall of flesh melts to nights edge but (and keep In mind I use relevant potions on ALL my characters) they lack a good dedicated potion. drunk debuff kinda mid. now into hardmode yes the good old shadowflame knife is strong, and dao of pow took destroyer to 10% hp because it spawned in a knot but you can't really... progression break melee. I would not wish Duke Fishron on any melee build pre plantera and this is where mage is honestly godly Mage easily breaks progression with a duke kill. Sprit flame eats him, mage has two fantastic potion one that makes regen insanely rapid and the other that gives 20% magic damage and stacks with other rage and wrath potions. Razorblade Typhoon and Bubble Gun are insanely strong for when you can get them and from here the rest of the game is pretty much a breeze. Heck Razorblade typhoon even melts Empress of Light if you want to farm for the guitar otherwise Nightglow will delete cultist and nebula wave for your final pre moonlord weapons and personally I find them far better than melees options for the fight (I used tera blade a ton because aiming while avoiding getting melted was a pain, mage DOESN'T NEED TO AIM and still just nukes from a longer range) tldr: Melee is solid absolutely at all levels of progression, but has a harder time BREAKING progression. you scale linearly up to Tera Blade and that pretty much peaks your power until Daybreak but Daybreak has drawbacks that can make it tough v/s moonlord (phase 1 mostly) Mage can sequence break very easily, has better potion stacking, and has one of the easiest moonlord fights.
@Ara@Araun23 I definitely agree, I’m going through my second playthrough on melee (first time was mage), and got hard stuck on the mech bosses. It took me over a week to farm up and gather stuff just to finally kill the Twins, the other two shortly after. My build ended up being Titanium armor, Bananarang, Shield of Cthutulu, Fairy Wings, Frostspark Boots, Worm Scarf, Warrior Emblem and Star Veil. Had to use pretty much every potion available including wrath, rage, endurance potions and cursed flasks. Even had to setup the heart statue just in case (No nurse cheese needed at least) Whether it was skill issue on my part or not, it was definitely painful
@Araun23 The thing is that Melee is the class which can most easily do the strategy that trivializes the game: Defence stacking. Sorbet Cafe had a good video in this, but the way defence works, every marginal defence is more important than the last. And with full warding defensive accessories, there is very little melee cannot ignore. (In the case of the mechs, I recently did a master mode playthrough where I simply ignored all the Destroyer's attack except for its head, since all the other attacks did 1 damage. And I had not even fully stacked defense at the time by getting more dual flesh knuckles etc.)
It also has the most insane peak, the second hardmode starts you can immediately rush Queen Slime for the daggers or the Sanguine Staff (which is guaranteed) which can then combined with both the shark tooth necklaces and Ichor while instead of using a whip you just use the Minishark All the minus armor allows you to play both summoner and ranger at the same time while fully scaling both classes simultaneously without needing to wear any class-specific gear This build falls of once you get deeper into hardmode and unlock some of the stronger stuff either ranger or summoner has access to but in early-hardmode you shred trough everything while being fully ranged + summons making it incredibly safe
"Summoner. Mage. Melee. Ranger. Long ago, the four classes used to live together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the melee buffs attacked. Only Redigit, Master of all four classes, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. 100 days passed, and I discovered a new Master of the classes. A RUclipsr named Throarbin. And although his skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he can save anyone."
Throarbin: You can't just look at how fast the boss dies/does the most damage, that's not indicative of how good a class is Also Throarbin: Whoever kills the boss fastest/does the most damage is the best
Fair enough, lol. I considered adding a category for how easy it is to get gear with different classes but thought it'd just get too subjective and convoluted.
@Throarbin I think a big factor, especially for less skilled players, is how much defense the respective armor sets give Melee is very accessible for how tanky it is even just at base
@Throarbin how so? Mage and summoner are notorious for having the hardest grinds for gear, ranger has easy weapons but it also has to craft ammo so melee wins
@Throarbin Maybe next time get someone else to test with you, and make it a collab lol. Or if there is a next time, 4 of you in your own respective classes could do it.
@ThroarbinCould be more fun getting two of your friends to make the second and the third attempt, making it a total of three different tries with three slightly different gameplay styles to even out the results, and to make it more fun
The summoner has a very rare sequence break in which the bewitching table can be got before any boss kill if it spawns in entrance or at a low enough level just like with the chests with the other classes
@ThroarbinI saw it sometimes but wasn’t sure if you had😄. Also thank you for getting me back into this game a year ago saw your content and reminded me of when I played it on Xbox with my friend in 2015-2016 I’ve now put over 1000+ hours on it between steam tmod loader PlayStation and mobile… might have gotten me addicted😅
You can also hoik into the dungeon and steal one (with most likely copious amounts of deaths) as soon as you get a hammer, but at that point, you can also sequence break any class by getting a golden key from a regular chest lol (won't lie though, I suffered through the hoik heist not long ago tho, SOLELY to be able to have cattiva and foxparks out at the same time regardless of equipment)
That footage of "optimal" melee builds chasing after out-of-reach flying bosses waving a sword rather than using _anything_ with reach to attack while the boss is hanging back...
I loved this video and your clear passion for actually testing claims to get data, but even from the brief clips, it’s clear your play style doesn’t favour melee. Too often were you finishing fights on mid-high hp, or constantly bouncing off of the boss instead of positioning more precisely, or only using the ranged function/projectile of some weapons, which is not how you should play when going for fast kills. Overall I think the video was good, it’s just I think that explains at least part of the huge gap between melee and the other classes. Between more optimal gameplay and ignoring the more crazy progression skips, I think you’d have seen a much more even result. TL;DR, my fav came last, melee good, you bad 😡
you should have added a fail count to the statistics in the end in my opinion. melee rarely ever died, which is a pretty important aspect in my opinion
But there is tons of player error Yes summoner and mage should theoretically die alot more compared to melee and ranger, both having less defense than melee and summoner less safe than ranger and mage while mage having attack downtime or weakened attacks, truthfully people can beat every boss with every class without dying once and player error can still be highly random what if throarbin died more on melee or ranger that’s going to bring up more questions as to if throarbin should even be a good baseline for such a test
I feel like for Melee, the lack of Boomerangs or Yo-yos is a weird call at points. Cause those do help against Flying Bosses. Maybe not as much as I think they do, but its easier to land hits on them with those, than it is to try and chase them down with a big bonk stick
Melee isn’t a big damage class, it’s more of a tank class. Not as good for bosses themselves, but for their minions. Also good for smaller enemies. I find it harder to kill regular mobs with anything else.
Fun video, but I also just value the summons making general gameplay way easier. Like building, fishing, or just anything where enemies are trying to kill you as you're working on something else really
Saying summoner suffered from the removal of whipstacking is very true especially in early game when it has very few other options but Re-Logic specifically added the new summon reforges to counteract that so ignoring the Fabled reforge on your summons ends up crippling your damage especially in early game
18:58 my first mage playthrough had to break every Shadow Orb in the whole world and two more in another world to get the Vilethorn (17 total, excluding the guaranteed Muskets). It’s a ~0.02% chance of not getting it within 16 attempts.
Mistakes or inconsistencies aside. This is a great test. This is a boon to the community, and who ever writes for the wiki should use this as a reference if nothing more than to compare. What I think would be a better idea is to break the tests into sections. Test all max loadouts, all community average loadouts, and all minimum viable loadouts separately, then maybe combine all the videos together with an added section at the end adding up all the scores.
It would've been interesting to see this same format, but with the theoretical best reforge. I think Summoner winning despite no reforges surprised me, because in prehardmode and early hardmode, the summoner reforges are really strong for low damage weapons (Flinx, Hornet, Blade Staff, etc), so it likely could've won by more than 25 points.
Technically chillet mount and fishron mount during rain in hardmode would always be optimal since free +10% and +15% damage respectively and a free acc slot, chillet can also ram for extra damage but realistically no
@TheBedevilled as a roller skate user, they are really powerful movement tools but do not beat chillet or a flying mount. the roller skates biggest advantage is in how easy they are to obtain so early and replacing boot items while not taking an accessory slot
Oh, that is why I love the Ranger class. BTW, Ranger players, We should never go for full Shroomite armor. It sucks because you can't effectively use the set bonus in a single-player world. Instead, use the Red Riding armor from the Tavernkeep and swap the hood with a Shroomite helmet of your choice. This gives you the same defense as full Shroomite armor but with much higher damage (if we are not using the Shroomite set bonus.) Also, if you aren't willing to waste a few hours collecting stars, a Sandgun with Evil Sand is a pretty good replacement for the Star Cannon.
I remember when summoner was heavily underrated back then. Everyone wanted to be mage, ranger, or melee, mostly melee, but I always chose summoner. It was the class no one fought me over, and now I’m just glad to see that it’s the best glass cannon.
51:22 Did you know that Solar eruption can deal more than 2.5x MORE damage than Daybreak? (1400-1800 DB VS 4100-4800 SE) I beat Moonlord using the absolute max tank build and it felt like 1 or 1.5 minutes. All you have to do is just destroy his top eye and then go to your "invincibility box" with honey, Bast statue, 3 heart statues and/or nurse
Here is 1 change that is VERY IMPORTANT during the mech race. What one should probably do is go for whatever mech a soul would help their class, so for example, if you play summoner, going for the twins first for the optic staff is optimal, same thing for Ranger and the Destroyer for either the Megashark or the Flamethrower as pure example.
Melee being last makes total sense imo. The class is meant balanced around having high defense armor but inconsistent dps, so obviously it wouldn't win the time-to-kill competition. True melee weapons can only hit bosses 20% of time and then flails, boomerangs, and yoyos all have limited range and at least slightly below average dps. Even when you get access to projectile swords they only do half their maximum dps if you aren't also hitting enemies with the sword itself.
I might be of a rare sort that gets the king slime mount for summoner, because the mount does summoning damage if I recall, and that damage gets boosted by summoner armors too I believe. the mount is nice for the eye and skeletron (when its just a head and you can bounce on it )
that’s a pretty great video, it’s pretty comprehensive in the frames of the methodology used. though, of course the methodology isn’t perfect, it’s more of "the best class at dps" specifically, but realistically it’s not the only thing important. few other important factors are how grindy is to get the gear, how easy the class is to play as, and how consistently good it is across the whole game. reforges on the weapons likely won’t affect the ranking much, since all classes get the buffs, but warding accessories are really strong for survavability of the summoner and the mage in particular (the main con of those classes). there are also some random quirks that could affect classes in certain specific cases, like whether the world’s evil is the corruption or the crimson (e. g. the summoner cannot benefit from +10% crit from rage potions; or availablity of vampire knives), or which ores are in the world (the mage couldn’t get the diamond staff without platinum ore). really, it’s a pretty complicated question, and there probably isn’t the right answer. as well as, unless you intentionally challenge yourself to be limited to one class, using other classes’ things for support is usually beneficial.
Great video! It's interesting to see this kind of breakdown. All I wish is that there was a dps meter to also see that metric for people more actively watching
Max builds should have included potions and reforges. I would have all used reforges for the wiki build as well cause the wiki says what the best modifier is for each weapon. Reforges for accessories are subjective for each player so I get why you didn’t use them. But weapons could have used it
Overall even for accessories a simple menacing stack would've probably been the best one As it would have each class at it's maximum possible damage output Combine that with best reforge on a weapon And I really do think a lot of the placements would've changed Because reforges affect the outcome a lot
Pre-hardmode summoner is still rough but the new pals help a lot. im a little shocked we pulled first. but i forgot about the kaleidoscope. also use foxsparks flamethrower on the coils first next time lol
Still not going for the summoner pals. Wildly rare for what they’re worth and just generally not worth the time farming for them and being like 2% more optimized
i think defense and the amount of available accessories for movement (accessories not specifically focused on that class' dps) shoulda been considered too. Melee and range go up in points a lot with defense in consideration and summoner wouldn't be #1
29:46 Apparently from what I've seen, if you have a set up with teleporters, inner tube, and a lance, it can one shot nearly every hardmode boss if done properly. It works because the lance's dmg is based on how fast you are moving, and if you allow the inner tube to have infinite acceleration due to the teleporters you can achieve ludicrous speeds and have insane damage
"Ranger! Mage! Summoner... Oh shit...uh...what's the name of the melee guy again? Whatever, just call him Melee!" -Throarbin probably. XD Side note: for any instance of using Ruby gear for the mage, I would have still used Amber...Ruby has too many RNG factors attached to it to be considered a "least resistance" option Where as Amber is a guaranteed find in the desert, difficulty aside...
I kind of feel like a level of insanity measure might also be a good thing to award bonus points to others or remove points for a future version of this, so things like getting a lot of stars to use with an early star cannon before facing a single boss, getting a lot of platinum coins for the coin gun early hard mode, and beating daytime empress immediately once you can be noted and penalized if it's what a class absolutely has to do to beat the other classes, maybe the bonus point just goes to the class that had the least insane thing to do to prepare for that boss
I ALWAYS KNEW SUMMONNER WAS THE BEST CLASS, BUT I LIKE MOST CLASSES EXCEPT THE KIND OF PIGS USING MELEE AND TANKING ANY HITS, ALSO, I DIDNT REALLY LIKE MAGE, BECAUSE I NEVER COULD BEAT MOON LORD AS A MAGE, BUT THE CLASS WEAPONS LOOK GREAT. I ALSO THINK THAT RANGER IS THE BEST CLASS EARLIER IN THE GAME, BUT OVERALL, ITS ALSO THE MOST BALANCED. SUMMONNER IS BAD EARLY GAME, BUT CATCHES UP EASILY IN THE ENDGAME. ALSO, ANY CLASS YOU PREFER IS THE BEST. IM NOT TOO MUCH IN TAKING RISKS, AND I LIKE HAVING FUN WITH THE GAME AND SEEING COOL STUFF, SO I LOVE SATISFYING DAMAGE, AND AMAZING STYLED STUFF LIKE SUMMONS, AND MAGE WEAPONS. MAGE WEAPONS LOOK AMAAAAAAZING, BUT ARE PRETTY MEDIOCRE IN TERMS OF DPS. SUMMONNER IS BAD AT THE BEGGINING, AND BROKEN AT THE END, MELEE HAS ALWAYS BEEN BAD EXCEPT FOR THE ZENITH AND WILL ALWAYS BE, RANGER IS BALANCED, BUT BROKEN WITH SOME WEAPONS, LIKE MINISHARK IN THE EARLY GAME, BUT SUCKS LIKE HELL IN THE LATE GAME (LIKE BRO, JUST LOOK AT THE VORTEX PILLAR, WE ALL KNOW IT SUCKS). ONCE AGAIN, YOU CHOOSE YOUR CLASS, YOU PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT, YOU PREFER WHAT YOU WANT, BUT MAYBE, MAYBE, NO CLASS MIGHT BE BEST. MELLE WEAPONS WERE ALWAYS TOO BASIC AS WELL, AND I THINK THE ONLY PRETTY "GOOD" WEAPONS ARE (TO ME) THE FLYING DRANGON, I THINK THIS THING LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME AND IS FULL OF STYLE AND DPS, THE MEOWMERE, ALWAYS COOL TO HEAR A MEOW, THE STARWRATH, LOOKS AWWWWEEEESOMEEE, AND THE ZENITH. ALSO, MAYBE SUMMONNER WOULDNT HAVE BEEN FIRST PLACE HADNT IT BEEN 1.4.5.5. IT ALL COMES FROM THE BUFFS, AND I GENUINLY THINK ALL CLASSES ARE GOOD DEPENDING ON HOW YOU END UP PLAYING THEM AND ON WHICH ONE YOU THINK IS BEST. SRY FOR ALL CAPS COMMENT, I WAS EXITED. W RUclipsR, W STREAMER, I LOVE THE CONTENT, KEEP IT UP, WHEN IS FACE REVEAL ?, IM SUB :D
I will say that on my current zenith seed, mage and it’s zapinator variants have been taking care of the my biggest walls, but admittedly that’s after suffering a bunch of deaths and getting that perfect run
very small thing to add (and im not sure if we're including weird seeds) but you can actually farm dungeon mobs in the drunk world seed pre skeletron. this gives access to bone armor for ranger and the spinal tap for summoner. i tried fishing, but couldn't get any dungeon crates, so those are non renewable
Leaving a comment to appease the machine. But also because it didn't suggest this video to me even though I watched all the VODs! Anyway, great work, quite surprised by how things turned out! Also, would you happen to have a spreadsheet or somewhere you tracked and shared the results? Edit: I decided to watch and track how the classes performed without the theoretical max or survey since I have easier access to the information for how to set up the wiki and path of least resistance builds and a mix between wiki and path of least resistance is how I play. While doing this, I noticed the following things (I know you put a ton of effort into this and it's phenomenal work, I just thought you'd like to know since you asked us to point them out :D ) It seems you awarded bonus points if a higher placed class died to any class that placed lower that did not die. I agree with this choice :) 3:29 & 3:44 - melee has access to night's edge and molten armor but summoner does not have imps and obsidian armor; would this have improved the speed by >30% to overtake melee? Who knows 19:54 - melee gets one point in max from the score of PoLR 19:54 - ranger's total is shown as 50 despite the true total being 47 22:42 - it is generally only recommended to use one imp at a time as their attack provide longer i-frames; two hornets likely would have performed better, potentially enough to overtake melee 24:36 - mage and summoner times are swapped 25:45 - same as above with the imps' i-frames; this and the lightning boots "oops" might've pushed summoner in front of melee :P 28:00 - mage got a bonus point despite "failing two attempts" 32:58 - mage didn't get a bonus point for the 15 sec queen slime kill 34:59 - I don't know if summoner actually died in this category, it's not shown under the combat footage kill timer, which is also different from the score screen kill timer 36:18 - mage and ranger didn't get a bonus point they should've 46:34 - mage and melee tied on time and should've each gotten 1.5 51:55 - summoner and melee tied for first, but got less points than if they had gotten second; they should've gotten 2.5 each instead of 1.5 52:28 - mage gets a bonus for 1 death vs summoner's 2 deaths? sounds like mage favoritism to me! 53:49 - mage didn't get a bonus point that it should've My adjusted score summary: All categories totals: Summoner Pre-Hardmode - 41 Summoner Hardmode - 91.5 Summoner Overall - 132.5 Melee Pre-Hardmode - 33.5 Melee Hardmode - 44 Melee Overall - 77.5 Mage Pre-Hardmode - 60.5 Mage Hardmode - 69.5 Mage Overall - 130 Ranger Pre-Hardmode - 73 Ranger Hardmode - 48 Ranger Overall - 121 Only Wiki and path of least resistance categories totals: Summoner Pre-Hardmode - 23 Summoner Hardmode - 53.5 Summoner Overall - 76.5 Melee Pre-Hardmode - 16 Melee Hardmode - 24.5 Melee Overall - 40.5 Mage Pre-Hardmode - 32 Mage Hardmode - 34 Mage Overall - 66 Ranger Pre-Hardmode - 34 Ranger Hardmode - 24 Ranger Overall - 58 Conclusion: play melee for defense, ranger/mage in pre-hardmode for dps, summoner in hardmode for dps. Or like The Bin said, play whatever class you like the most!
I just really wish they made summons deal critical strikes but only apply to one minion because damm I've seen ranger and mage destroy bosses with critical strikes😂
I like this video it's was pretty good, although not using reforges definitely hurt all of the classes pretty significantly which is my only issue but I can understand why they weren't used, but also I didn't realize just how big if a different they made
It's funny seeing everyone keep complaining about Melee being the easiest, strongest and Relogic's favourite child, and then see it massively underperform in these tests.
29:33 I think that's better than the highly optimized stuff like the Mappy railgun, using teleporters to set up instant kills, and abusing the Old One's Army. Pretty sure most of them would just be the same number.
Summoner vindication is good. It has suffered for quite a long time. Though, I wonder if some more sentries will be added, aside from the new ones and the Old Ones' Army stuff.
You should compare them in events as well at certain points For example Goblin army- post evil boss and pre mech Pumpkin and frost moon- post plantera, post golem etc. Old one's army- all different stages Etc. For the non wave events like blood moon and solar eclipse it could simply be enemies killed vs deaths or something like that Also post moon lord and master mode comparison could work too since melee was a hell of a lot less deaths in master mode than summoner when I dual class played it
I would have done a full length survey, Throarbin. Do not underestimate my love for taking surveys. Also i think a possible issue with the survey is that a lot of less optimal things (hallowed armor for mage instead of chlorophyte as an example) come from not everyone doing the hardest difficulties. Being less optimal is more forgivable in easier difficulties. Adding on that most people are likely more casual and don't know any min-max/sweat type of strats (whip stacking for example, never even heard of it before it was removed), makes it so that someone who is more used to playing on the hardest possible version of the game is listening to the choices of people who may have never finished a master mode run. I would love to see a more in-depth version of the survey, although I understand how much time that would take and that it would be difficult to pull off without a guarantee of a statistically fine amount of people to take the survey. I understand that I am an outlier and am way too willing to spend hours on a survey instead of paying attention to my university lectures.
Mistakes and corrections
- in the Theoretical Max category, I often didn't use imps with summoner which I absolutely should have
you could also get meteor bars for the starcrash with summoner, so you could have used it against the eye
plus against the worm only using vampire frogs is actually the best option
Probably wouldn't have done much, iirc multiple imps have issues so their dps is lower than it should be.
and against skeletron you can use the hornet armor shroomy bois and starcrash, but even JUST hornet armor, but as always a foxparks does help
and against the wall only use vampire frogs
"Whatever class you like the most is the best class." The words of a Mage main.
but honestly, ACTUALLY honestly, I just did a master mage run right after master melee. Melee for sure was fantastic early game because they get access to insane weapons for nothing and of course wall of flesh melts to nights edge but (and keep In mind I use relevant potions on ALL my characters) they lack a good dedicated potion. drunk debuff kinda mid. now into hardmode yes the good old shadowflame knife is strong, and dao of pow took destroyer to 10% hp because it spawned in a knot but you can't really... progression break melee. I would not wish Duke Fishron on any melee build pre plantera and this is where mage is honestly godly
Mage easily breaks progression with a duke kill. Sprit flame eats him, mage has two fantastic potion one that makes regen insanely rapid and the other that gives 20% magic damage and stacks with other rage and wrath potions. Razorblade Typhoon and Bubble Gun are insanely strong for when you can get them and from here the rest of the game is pretty much a breeze. Heck Razorblade typhoon even melts Empress of Light if you want to farm for the guitar otherwise Nightglow will delete cultist and nebula wave for your final pre moonlord weapons and personally I find them far better than melees options for the fight (I used tera blade a ton because aiming while avoiding getting melted was a pain, mage DOESN'T NEED TO AIM and still just nukes from a longer range)
tldr: Melee is solid absolutely at all levels of progression, but has a harder time BREAKING progression. you scale linearly up to Tera Blade and that pretty much peaks your power until Daybreak but Daybreak has drawbacks that can make it tough v/s moonlord (phase 1 mostly)
Mage can sequence break very easily, has better potion stacking, and has one of the easiest moonlord fights.
Spoiler
GET OUT!!!!
@Ara@Araun23 I definitely agree, I’m going through my second playthrough on melee (first time was mage), and got hard stuck on the mech bosses. It took me over a week to farm up and gather stuff just to finally kill the Twins, the other two shortly after.
My build ended up being Titanium armor, Bananarang, Shield of Cthutulu, Fairy Wings, Frostspark Boots, Worm
Scarf, Warrior Emblem and Star Veil. Had to use pretty much every potion available including wrath, rage, endurance potions and cursed flasks. Even had to setup the heart statue just in case (No nurse cheese needed at least)
Whether it was skill issue on my part or not, it was definitely painful
@Araun23 The thing is that Melee is the class which can most easily do the strategy that trivializes the game: Defence stacking. Sorbet Cafe had a good video in this, but the way defence works, every marginal defence is more important than the last. And with full warding defensive accessories, there is very little melee cannot ignore. (In the case of the mechs, I recently did a master mode playthrough where I simply ignored all the Destroyer's attack except for its head, since all the other attacks did 1 damage. And I had not even fully stacked defense at the time by getting more dual flesh knuckles etc.)
Summoner is like a particle accelerator. Such a slow start but it just keeps building speed until it blitzes the end game
Especially in 1.4.5 Summoner is a wildly underrated class. Also great for farming events.
Picks up so much speed after getting snapthorn and starcrash
It also has the most insane peak, the second hardmode starts you can immediately rush Queen Slime for the daggers or the Sanguine Staff (which is guaranteed) which can then combined with both the shark tooth necklaces and Ichor while instead of using a whip you just use the Minishark
All the minus armor allows you to play both summoner and ranger at the same time while fully scaling both classes simultaneously without needing to wear any class-specific gear
This build falls of once you get deeper into hardmode and unlock some of the stronger stuff either ranger or summoner has access to but in early-hardmode you shred trough everything while being fully ranged + summons making it incredibly safe
Love the dedication of this reply! So true!
SUMMONER IS NOT UNDERATED EVER AT ALL.
"Summoner. Mage. Melee. Ranger.
Long ago, the four classes used to live together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the melee buffs attacked. Only Redigit, Master of all four classes, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. 100 days passed, and I discovered a new Master of the classes. A RUclipsr named Throarbin. And although his skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he can save anyone."
The thought of Throarbin air scootering into a rock like in the ATLA intro brings a smile to my face, I can hear him laughing it off 😂
Yeah pretty much
You could also say the summoner rework attacked...
And just like throbin they are bad at summoner
C-can the melee buffs apply to true melee? Please?
😭
that time of the month for throarbin to yet again talk about which terraria class is the best
a monthly video
Throarbin: You can't just look at how fast the boss dies/does the most damage, that's not indicative of how good a class is
Also Throarbin: Whoever kills the boss fastest/does the most damage is the best
Fair enough, lol. I considered adding a category for how easy it is to get gear with different classes but thought it'd just get too subjective and convoluted.
@Throarbin I think a big factor, especially for less skilled players, is how much defense the respective armor sets give
Melee is very accessible for how tanky it is even just at base
@Throarbin how so? Mage and summoner are notorious for having the hardest grinds for gear, ranger has easy weapons but it also has to craft ammo so melee wins
I find it funny that the standings are the complete opposite of the community rankings pre 1.4.5.
True
This video must've been insanely tedious to make. Crazy work.
Summoner W
Thanks for noticing, it nearly burned me out with just how monotonous a lot of the work was
@Throarbin Maybe next time get someone else to test with you, and make it a collab lol. Or if there is a next time, 4 of you in your own respective classes could do it.
@ThroarbinCould be more fun getting two of your friends to make the second and the third attempt, making it a total of three different tries with three slightly different gameplay styles to even out the results, and to make it more fun
@helsinker4508 Oh that is so much better for results than one person handling a class the whole time.
The summoner has a very rare sequence break in which the bewitching table can be got before any boss kill if it spawns in entrance or at a low enough level just like with the chests with the other classes
Also where’s the summoning potions for extra summons on bosses that’s huge?!? love the content though
I should have showed it somewhere, but I did actually use the bewitching table for pre-boss summoner max builds, if I remember right
@ThroarbinI saw it sometimes but wasn’t sure if you had😄. Also thank you for getting me back into this game a year ago saw your content and reminded me of when I played it on Xbox with my friend in 2015-2016 I’ve now put over 1000+ hours on it between steam tmod loader PlayStation and mobile… might have gotten me addicted😅
You can also hoik into the dungeon and steal one (with most likely copious amounts of deaths) as soon as you get a hammer, but at that point, you can also sequence break any class by getting a golden key from a regular chest lol
(won't lie though, I suffered through the hoik heist not long ago tho, SOLELY to be able to have cattiva and foxparks out at the same time regardless of equipment)
I never got that in all the time I've been playing the game. And it shouldn't be counted because it's too RNG dependant.
I feel so justified now. I always love playing mage or summoner and to see both of them so close in ranking is so nice.
That footage of "optimal" melee builds chasing after out-of-reach flying bosses waving a sword rather than using _anything_ with reach to attack while the boss is hanging back...
I could only show a small bit of the footage but I did in fact use more ranged melee weapons to reach bosses
I loved this video and your clear passion for actually testing claims to get data, but even from the brief clips, it’s clear your play style doesn’t favour melee. Too often were you finishing fights on mid-high hp, or constantly bouncing off of the boss instead of positioning more precisely, or only using the ranged function/projectile of some weapons, which is not how you should play when going for fast kills.
Overall I think the video was good, it’s just I think that explains at least part of the huge gap between melee and the other classes. Between more optimal gameplay and ignoring the more crazy progression skips, I think you’d have seen a much more even result.
TL;DR, my fav came last, melee good, you bad 😡
Using the Star cannon on EoC is unthinkable😂
EoC?
@megaminer2745Eye of Chuthdhdnxkdhrb....
@megaminer2745 EoC = eye of cthulhu
ikr it's unreal
@someone54829yes that *was* the joke good job !!
I respect you for making an evaluation explaining the flaws of the experiment, as this is a question of preference and nothing was going to be perfect
you should have added a fail count to the statistics in the end in my opinion. melee rarely ever died, which is a pretty important aspect in my opinion
But there is tons of player error
Yes summoner and mage should theoretically die alot more compared to melee and ranger, both having less defense than melee and summoner less safe than ranger and mage while mage having attack downtime or weakened attacks, truthfully people can beat every boss with every class without dying once and player error can still be highly random what if throarbin died more on melee or ranger that’s going to bring up more questions as to if throarbin should even be a good baseline for such a test
You used the Corruption-exclusive Demon Bow against the Crimson-exclusive Brain of Cthulhu for path of least resistance
Damn
I feel like for Melee, the lack of Boomerangs or Yo-yos is a weird call at points. Cause those do help against Flying Bosses. Maybe not as much as I think they do, but its easier to land hits on them with those, than it is to try and chase them down with a big bonk stick
Melee was done really dirty
Melee isn’t a big damage class, it’s more of a tank class. Not as good for bosses themselves, but for their minions. Also good for smaller enemies. I find it harder to kill regular mobs with anything else.
Summoner goes brrr in hardmode.
true that
Fun video, but I also just value the summons making general gameplay way easier. Like building, fishing, or just anything where enemies are trying to kill you as you're working on something else really
Yes! One damage is a hell of a lot more than no damage. Even if I’m not playing summoner, I like to have some minions out early game
@PhilipWhite-17 always
i love to play melee, but i always have a summon out anyway, because it is bonus dmg, and it does help with exactly that too
Saying summoner suffered from the removal of whipstacking is very true especially in early game when it has very few other options but Re-Logic specifically added the new summon reforges to counteract that so ignoring the Fabled reforge on your summons ends up crippling your damage especially in early game
I was expecting an adaptation of the avatar intro there
18:58 my first mage playthrough had to break every Shadow Orb in the whole world and two more in another world to get the Vilethorn (17 total, excluding the guaranteed Muskets). It’s a ~0.02% chance of not getting it within 16 attempts.
Mistakes or inconsistencies aside. This is a great test. This is a boon to the community, and who ever writes for the wiki should use this as a reference if nothing more than to compare. What I think would be a better idea is to break the tests into sections. Test all max loadouts, all community average loadouts, and all minimum viable loadouts separately, then maybe combine all the videos together with an added section at the end adding up all the scores.
"Wall of fresh"
Now I need art of the WoF wearing shades.
Early game vilethorn is like criminally slept on i stg
It would've been interesting to see this same format, but with the theoretical best reforge. I think Summoner winning despite no reforges surprised me, because in prehardmode and early hardmode, the summoner reforges are really strong for low damage weapons (Flinx, Hornet, Blade Staff, etc), so it likely could've won by more than 25 points.
Technically chillet mount and fishron mount during rain in hardmode would always be optimal since free +10% and +15% damage respectively and a free acc slot, chillet can also ram for extra damage but realistically no
Fair point
Roller skates better
@TheBedevilled as a roller skate user, they are really powerful movement tools but do not beat chillet or a flying mount.
the roller skates biggest advantage is in how easy they are to obtain so early and replacing boot items while not taking an accessory slot
Oh, that is why I love the Ranger class.
BTW, Ranger players, We should never go for full Shroomite armor. It sucks because you can't effectively use the set bonus in a single-player world. Instead, use the Red Riding armor from the Tavernkeep and swap the hood with a Shroomite helmet of your choice. This gives you the same defense as full Shroomite armor but with much higher damage (if we are not using the Shroomite set bonus.)
Also, if you aren't willing to waste a few hours collecting stars, a Sandgun with Evil Sand is a pretty good replacement for the Star Cannon.
now this is class warfare
Impeccable timing, just as i was gonna start a new playthrough with my friends
lucky bastard none of my friends are as addicted to terraria as me, godspeed soldier
I remember when summoner was heavily underrated back then. Everyone wanted to be mage, ranger, or melee, mostly melee, but I always chose summoner. It was the class no one fought me over, and now I’m just glad to see that it’s the best glass cannon.
51:22 Did you know that Solar eruption can deal more than 2.5x MORE damage than Daybreak? (1400-1800 DB VS 4100-4800 SE) I beat Moonlord using the absolute max tank build and it felt like 1 or 1.5 minutes. All you have to do is just destroy his top eye and then go to your "invincibility box" with honey, Bast statue, 3 heart statues and/or nurse
Here is 1 change that is VERY IMPORTANT during the mech race. What one should probably do is go for whatever mech a soul would help their class, so for example, if you play summoner, going for the twins first for the optic staff is optimal, same thing for Ranger and the Destroyer for either the Megashark or the Flamethrower as pure example.
The real lesson is that hybrid summoner basically sends everything out of the park
People always seem to forget how broken defense is in Terraria. Go watch SorbetCafe's video on defense.
yes this guy is very misinformed
15:19 wiki is crazy bout grinding for stars😭
RIP Throwing Class
wait so mage couldn't use an amber staff cause the underground desert is too difficult but ranger could use full fossil armour at the same point?
I’m surprised no one mentioned spiky balls from the goblin invasion .
Another aspect is crowd control. Maybe factoring in goblins and martians as well as their minibosses could have been good
Melee being last makes total sense imo. The class is meant balanced around having high defense armor but inconsistent dps, so obviously it wouldn't win the time-to-kill competition. True melee weapons can only hit bosses 20% of time and then flails, boomerangs, and yoyos all have limited range and at least slightly below average dps. Even when you get access to projectile swords they only do half their maximum dps if you aren't also hitting enemies with the sword itself.
56:33 and especially the soaring insignia that + Betsy Wing is amazing
i remember the time where nothing beated Spectral Hood armor... It is still one of the best sets till this day
I love me the spectral hood and mask, having both a high dps and a high survivability option is really awesome
53:49
I'm not upset Melee came last. I'm not upset.
*gets up.
*walks outside of house
*screams 'no' for 40 seconds
*cries
Ok I'm multiclassing.
Should've used snowball cannon as it's easy to get and very good.
I might be of a rare sort that gets the king slime mount for summoner, because the mount does summoning damage if I recall, and that damage gets boosted by summoner armors too I believe. the mount is nice for the eye and skeletron (when its just a head and you can bounce on it )
44:03 probably for the dodge chance, because taking 0 damage is a lot better than reducing damage
10:34 Hive mind loadout lol. Excellent description.
Such a fun video. Probs for the massive effort
Its confusing when you say it in seconds but write it in minutes😂
57:46 Don't forget about Journey Mode; it can duplicate Platinum Coins and Fallen Stars, allowing it to easily use these two.
that’s a pretty great video, it’s pretty comprehensive in the frames of the methodology used.
though, of course the methodology isn’t perfect, it’s more of "the best class at dps" specifically, but realistically it’s not the only thing important. few other important factors are how grindy is to get the gear, how easy the class is to play as, and how consistently good it is across the whole game.
reforges on the weapons likely won’t affect the ranking much, since all classes get the buffs, but warding accessories are really strong for survavability of the summoner and the mage in particular (the main con of those classes).
there are also some random quirks that could affect classes in certain specific cases, like whether the world’s evil is the corruption or the crimson (e. g. the summoner cannot benefit from +10% crit from rage potions; or availablity of vampire knives), or which ores are in the world (the mage couldn’t get the diamond staff without platinum ore).
really, it’s a pretty complicated question, and there probably isn’t the right answer. as well as, unless you intentionally challenge yourself to be limited to one class, using other classes’ things for support is usually beneficial.
The forgotten throwing class
You should test classes based on events as well
Great video! It's interesting to see this kind of breakdown. All I wish is that there was a dps meter to also see that metric for people more actively watching
the super star cannon is op.
41:33 ye reforging those makes it shred😂
Very interesting video, great job!
Max builds should have included potions and reforges. I would have all used reforges for the wiki build as well cause the wiki says what the best modifier is for each weapon. Reforges for accessories are subjective for each player so I get why you didn’t use them. But weapons could have used it
Overall even for accessories a simple menacing stack would've probably been the best one
As it would have each class at it's maximum possible damage output
Combine that with best reforge on a weapon
And I really do think a lot of the placements would've changed
Because reforges affect the outcome a lot
I thought the name said: Witch Class is TRULY the Best, lol
"Noooo you can't just break progression like that!"
"Haha star cannon goes brrrrrrrrr"
Rangers, the "f'it I have money" class.
also powerhouse in journey mode, gotta love spamming star cannon in journey mode with master diff
Pre-hardmode summoner is still rough but the new pals help a lot. im a little shocked we pulled first. but i forgot about the kaleidoscope. also use foxsparks flamethrower on the coils first next time lol
Still not going for the summoner pals. Wildly rare for what they’re worth and just generally not worth the time farming for them and being like 2% more optimized
i think defense and the amount of available accessories for movement (accessories not specifically focused on that class' dps) shoulda been considered too. Melee and range go up in points a lot with defense in consideration and summoner wouldn't be #1
29:46 Apparently from what I've seen, if you have a set up with teleporters, inner tube, and a lance, it can one shot nearly every hardmode boss if done properly. It works because the lance's dmg is based on how fast you are moving, and if you allow the inner tube to have infinite acceleration due to the teleporters you can achieve ludicrous speeds and have insane damage
Would be cool, if you made the same video with Calamity
3:50 you can use a drunk world to get bones from the dungeon for the spinal tap
Love the videos ❤
At 10:54 the video in the background for melee and mage are mixed up 😂
31:30 Super Star Shooter?
I would but didn't cause I was doing no mech gear
I was one of the 500 who took the survey. And yeah it did take quite a while to fill it out
"Ranger! Mage! Summoner...
Oh shit...uh...what's the name of the melee guy again?
Whatever, just call him Melee!"
-Throarbin probably. XD
Side note: for any instance of using Ruby gear for the mage, I would have still used Amber...Ruby has too many RNG factors attached to it to be considered a "least resistance" option Where as Amber is a guaranteed find in the desert, difficulty aside...
53:54 Okay, but did you know that Summoner is the best class? ;)
0:00 you got it right here bro😂✌️
I always get a cool whip personally, mainly because I can get frozen wings as well
I kind of feel like a level of insanity measure might also be a good thing to award bonus points to others or remove points for a future version of this, so things like getting a lot of stars to use with an early star cannon before facing a single boss, getting a lot of platinum coins for the coin gun early hard mode, and beating daytime empress immediately once you can be noted and penalized if it's what a class absolutely has to do to beat the other classes, maybe the bonus point just goes to the class that had the least insane thing to do to prepare for that boss
Thanks for the vid! Even if some classes are better than the other, they all are good in there own ways.
I think you should do another class test video but this time against events
I ALWAYS KNEW SUMMONNER WAS THE BEST CLASS, BUT I LIKE MOST CLASSES EXCEPT THE KIND OF PIGS USING MELEE AND TANKING ANY HITS, ALSO, I DIDNT REALLY LIKE MAGE, BECAUSE I NEVER COULD BEAT MOON LORD AS A MAGE, BUT THE CLASS WEAPONS LOOK GREAT. I ALSO THINK THAT RANGER IS THE BEST CLASS EARLIER IN THE GAME, BUT OVERALL, ITS ALSO THE MOST BALANCED. SUMMONNER IS BAD EARLY GAME, BUT CATCHES UP EASILY IN THE ENDGAME. ALSO, ANY CLASS YOU PREFER IS THE BEST. IM NOT TOO MUCH IN TAKING RISKS, AND I LIKE HAVING FUN WITH THE GAME AND SEEING COOL STUFF, SO I LOVE SATISFYING DAMAGE, AND AMAZING STYLED STUFF LIKE SUMMONS, AND MAGE WEAPONS. MAGE WEAPONS LOOK AMAAAAAAZING, BUT ARE PRETTY MEDIOCRE IN TERMS OF DPS. SUMMONNER IS BAD AT THE BEGGINING, AND BROKEN AT THE END, MELEE HAS ALWAYS BEEN BAD EXCEPT FOR THE ZENITH AND WILL ALWAYS BE, RANGER IS BALANCED, BUT BROKEN WITH SOME WEAPONS, LIKE MINISHARK IN THE EARLY GAME, BUT SUCKS LIKE HELL IN THE LATE GAME (LIKE BRO, JUST LOOK AT THE VORTEX PILLAR, WE ALL KNOW IT SUCKS). ONCE AGAIN, YOU CHOOSE YOUR CLASS, YOU PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT, YOU PREFER WHAT YOU WANT, BUT MAYBE, MAYBE, NO CLASS MIGHT BE BEST. MELLE WEAPONS WERE ALWAYS TOO BASIC AS WELL, AND I THINK THE ONLY PRETTY "GOOD" WEAPONS ARE (TO ME) THE FLYING DRANGON, I THINK THIS THING LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME AND IS FULL OF STYLE AND DPS, THE MEOWMERE, ALWAYS COOL TO HEAR A MEOW, THE STARWRATH, LOOKS AWWWWEEEESOMEEE, AND THE ZENITH. ALSO, MAYBE SUMMONNER WOULDNT HAVE BEEN FIRST PLACE HADNT IT BEEN 1.4.5.5. IT ALL COMES FROM THE BUFFS, AND I GENUINLY THINK ALL CLASSES ARE GOOD DEPENDING ON HOW YOU END UP PLAYING THEM AND ON WHICH ONE YOU THINK IS BEST. SRY FOR ALL CAPS COMMENT, I WAS EXITED. W RUclipsR, W STREAMER, I LOVE THE CONTENT, KEEP IT UP, WHEN IS FACE REVEAL ?, IM SUB :D
Melee class in end game literally become magic swords man class
Wait a second, this isn't a ranking of the "best" class! This is just ranking the classes in order of Most Glass Cannon to Least Glass Cannon....
I will say that on my current zenith seed, mage and it’s zapinator variants have been taking care of the my biggest walls, but admittedly that’s after suffering a bunch of deaths and getting that perfect run
I love summoner and I love it being here at the top.
45:51 nah bro, daytime empress before golem💀💀💀
When using non summoners, i still always use a summon for extra dps. It wont be that much, but it does add up
Thrower clears them all
Nah classless sweeps (access to lawnmower)
very small thing to add (and im not sure if we're including weird seeds) but you can actually farm dungeon mobs in the drunk world seed pre skeletron. this gives access to bone armor for ranger and the spinal tap for summoner. i tried fishing, but couldn't get any dungeon crates, so those are non renewable
holy work u had to do..... really interesting video... never spected summoner being top 1 Xd
Leaving a comment to appease the machine. But also because it didn't suggest this video to me even though I watched all the VODs! Anyway, great work, quite surprised by how things turned out!
Also, would you happen to have a spreadsheet or somewhere you tracked and shared the results?
Edit: I decided to watch and track how the classes performed without the theoretical max or survey since I have easier access to the information for how to set up the wiki and path of least resistance builds and a mix between wiki and path of least resistance is how I play. While doing this, I noticed the following things (I know you put a ton of effort into this and it's phenomenal work, I just thought you'd like to know since you asked us to point them out :D )
It seems you awarded bonus points if a higher placed class died to any class that placed lower that did not die. I agree with this choice :)
3:29 & 3:44 - melee has access to night's edge and molten armor but summoner does not have imps and obsidian armor; would this have improved the speed by >30% to overtake melee? Who knows
19:54 - melee gets one point in max from the score of PoLR
19:54 - ranger's total is shown as 50 despite the true total being 47
22:42 - it is generally only recommended to use one imp at a time as their attack provide longer i-frames; two hornets likely would have performed better, potentially enough to overtake melee
24:36 - mage and summoner times are swapped
25:45 - same as above with the imps' i-frames; this and the lightning boots "oops" might've pushed summoner in front of melee :P
28:00 - mage got a bonus point despite "failing two attempts"
32:58 - mage didn't get a bonus point for the 15 sec queen slime kill
34:59 - I don't know if summoner actually died in this category, it's not shown under the combat footage kill timer, which is also different from the score screen kill timer
36:18 - mage and ranger didn't get a bonus point they should've
46:34 - mage and melee tied on time and should've each gotten 1.5
51:55 - summoner and melee tied for first, but got less points than if they had gotten second; they should've gotten 2.5 each instead of 1.5
52:28 - mage gets a bonus for 1 death vs summoner's 2 deaths? sounds like mage favoritism to me!
53:49 - mage didn't get a bonus point that it should've
My adjusted score summary:
All categories totals:
Summoner Pre-Hardmode - 41
Summoner Hardmode - 91.5
Summoner Overall - 132.5
Melee Pre-Hardmode - 33.5
Melee Hardmode - 44
Melee Overall - 77.5
Mage Pre-Hardmode - 60.5
Mage Hardmode - 69.5
Mage Overall - 130
Ranger Pre-Hardmode - 73
Ranger Hardmode - 48
Ranger Overall - 121
Only Wiki and path of least resistance categories totals:
Summoner Pre-Hardmode - 23
Summoner Hardmode - 53.5
Summoner Overall - 76.5
Melee Pre-Hardmode - 16
Melee Hardmode - 24.5
Melee Overall - 40.5
Mage Pre-Hardmode - 32
Mage Hardmode - 34
Mage Overall - 66
Ranger Pre-Hardmode - 34
Ranger Hardmode - 24
Ranger Overall - 58
Conclusion: play melee for defense, ranger/mage in pre-hardmode for dps, summoner in hardmode for dps. Or like The Bin said, play whatever class you like the most!
I just really wish they made summons deal critical strikes but only apply to one minion because damm I've seen ranger and mage destroy bosses with critical strikes😂
Your empress of light(night time) theoretical max for melee can be improved a lot. Melee can face tank with Influx Waver getting a much quicker kill.
Ranger is the best class ever , no class can even get close to its time
Me as a summoner enjoyer: “Why do it yourself, when robots do it better?” (-Echo R6)
I like this video it's was pretty good, although not using reforges definitely hurt all of the classes pretty significantly which is my only issue but I can understand why they weren't used, but also I didn't realize just how big if a different they made
I was already playing summoner before this
It's funny seeing everyone keep complaining about Melee being the easiest, strongest and Relogic's favourite child, and then see it massively underperform in these tests.
29:33 I think that's better than the highly optimized stuff like the Mappy railgun, using teleporters to set up instant kills, and abusing the Old One's Army. Pretty sure most of them would just be the same number.
110 seconds is a minute 50 not a minute 40, 100 seconds would be a minute 40
31:20 drippler crippler can get you an 8 second kill
Summoner vindication is good. It has suffered for quite a long time.
Though, I wonder if some more sentries will be added, aside from the new ones and the Old Ones' Army stuff.
You should compare them in events as well at certain points
For example
Goblin army- post evil boss and pre mech
Pumpkin and frost moon- post plantera, post golem etc.
Old one's army- all different stages
Etc.
For the non wave events like blood moon and solar eclipse it could simply be enemies killed vs deaths or something like that
Also post moon lord and master mode comparison could work too since melee was a hell of a lot less deaths in master mode than summoner when I dual class played it
I would have done a full length survey, Throarbin. Do not underestimate my love for taking surveys.
Also i think a possible issue with the survey is that a lot of less optimal things (hallowed armor for mage instead of chlorophyte as an example) come from not everyone doing the hardest difficulties. Being less optimal is more forgivable in easier difficulties. Adding on that most people are likely more casual and don't know any min-max/sweat type of strats (whip stacking for example, never even heard of it before it was removed), makes it so that someone who is more used to playing on the hardest possible version of the game is listening to the choices of people who may have never finished a master mode run.
I would love to see a more in-depth version of the survey, although I understand how much time that would take and that it would be difficult to pull off without a guarantee of a statistically fine amount of people to take the survey. I understand that I am an outlier and am way too willing to spend hours on a survey instead of paying attention to my university lectures.