20:40 "her contact damage is pretty much never relevant unless you are actively trying to be inside of her" the plantera fanbase is suffering a huge hit for this one
@@SlyRocko TLDR+: warding gives an even more substantial impact when your armor already brought it down to 40 making the 28 bring it down to 12 which would be a 334% decrease in damage. And if the armor brought it down to only 28 defense and you add warding it only does 1 damage and you can regerate faster than that with a regen setup
It’s funny people say defense is bad, usually Calamity players, when that mod nerfs tank strats literally every patch because it’s too good. I know it’s not vanilla but it’s still funny.
there's a calamity build with 920 defense and a lot of accessories which allows you to tank, also you can use a tournir spear features for literally oneshoting any boss
At the end of the day, Monster Hunter World’s smithy says it best. If you’re dying too fast, upgrade your armor. If you’re taking too long, upgrade your weapon.
Not a Terraria story (it happened a whole year before Terraria was even a thing) but a "damage vs defense" story still. Me and my friend were playing one very grindy MMO, and we were up to AoE grind. If you don't play MMOs, the way it works is that you aggro a group of mobs and kill them with your AoE skills, heal up the damage you will inevitably take during this and then repeat. I went for full tank build for this, friend laughed me up and went full damage build, "I'll be going through 5-7 packs while you'd be sloggin thorough your first". What happened in reality: I did one 25-27 mob pack in about 2 minutes, then spent about half a minute healing and rebuffing before repeating it. My friend did strict 15 packs only, because even 1 mob above 15 would kill him (-15% EXP because death penalty and you'd have to drag your a$$ back from the nearest town). For every 7 packs he took, he'd die at least once, because mobs don't care about your plans and will often spawn nearby, get aggro and join the mob pile. He was constantly stressed, wasted a tonn of money on gear repairs (part of the death penalty), wasted some more rare resources (cs food and pet revival treats) and barely made it to next level when I raised 2 and a half. So yeah, faster doesn't always mean better. That turtle from the fairy tale definitely was up to something.
When i play vanilla or modded with a friend, our strategy is: I become an unkillable Tungsten Cube. (With 0 Skill) He becomes a glass cannon. He gets killed multiple times, but i stay alive so the enemy doesn't despawn. Profit.
@@Txzunami I personally love running melee tank builds. I get to shit on my friends who die every 10 seconds and I feel like the "Bro I'm respawning in 5 second meme" while only rarely actually being in serious danger. If we lose its because either we're just a little under geared for damage or defense and can spend a couple minutes finding the right combos to fill the weaknesses. It's definitely all about what you enjoy personally. My friends would never want to play the more mundane looking tank builds and I don't like the fragility of the DPS builds. If I can deal high melee damage then I'm fully down to get in close and help the DPS but the thrill of being the aggro magnet and trying to dodge every boss projectile (despite being able to tank) is just fun. I play terraria more like a bullet hell than a boss rush and it works for me.
When people say "yeah but you can either take slightly less damage or make the fight go significantly faster but have to dodge a little more" but they completely overlook that fact that with a lot of high damage low range weapons, taking less per hit will allow you to land more hits by letting you stick closer which means you will do more damage thus decreasing the time in the fight on top of just taking less per hit
Only if they can't aim. And for bosses that dash around a lot and are hard to hit, sitting still doesn't change that. As the video shows, damage builds were *always* faster, and he's not even a particularly good player.
UA-cam’s timing is immaculate. Here’s my story: I’m playing legendary mode for the first time, and I’m stuck on the wall. I’ve tried star cannon, but all the stars get deflected. So instead, I’m running all menacing and bee nades. After 40 Queen bees, I’ve collected enough bee nades for 4 wall attempts, and they all end with the wall at
I used a damage melee build with nights edge and a ton of furniture and minecart tracks. Took a long time to build that but I was able to beat him without knowing about this guide.
I have 600 hours in Terraria, in almost every world i went menacing for damage. I recently tried going defensive on my Master World world, and it was game changing. It literally made the game 1 difficulty level easier.
Because Master Mode's defense formula is more effective than easier difficulties, that would make sense. A flat 1 damage reduction per defense point is extremely valuable.
@@sorbetcafe As the commenter above states, Defense actually goes up in effectiveness when you increase difficulty. All the way up to a 1:1 ratio of damage taken to defense reduction. The problem lies in the fact that there's no point to stack defense in master mode where you're not getting hit by a giant fucking turtle for 752 damage and a defense decrease ain't gonna make that survivable. It does have the strange side effect of causing damage from tiles directly touched (spikes and lava) to become less effective in master mod because of the lack of a damage increase to lava whereas traps do get that increase
I'd also recommend rolling back to versions of Terraria that allowed the instant kills from her (and the Dungeon Guardian) to be dodgeable again. Not that I've done it myself, but I lament not beating her before they buffed her Daytime attacks.
just as a side note since you didn't mention it, Plantera's contact damage isn't boosted in FTW/GFB, so using defense there is just as effective as it is on regular worlds.
Important note regarding Life Force potion, your health regeneration scales with your max HP, meaning that if you increase your hp by 20% you'll be increasing your hp regen as well
@connortodd4538 I checked the official wiki and HP regeneration scales with max HP. While for mana regeneration it's the higher the percentage of mana you are missing from your max the slower the regeneration is. I'm not sure if that's what you meant
You ever come across one of those videos on UA-cam that make you and your opinion feel more validated compared to what the community thinks? This one is it. Thanks for making this, Sorbet.
I remember a friend asking me why Summoner has such pitiful defense. I said "you autoattack, focus on dodging" Then again i convinced him you got the imp staff for throwing the doll in lava.
at the end of the day, regardless of whats better, the ultimate argument is that having fun with the playstyle you prefer > metamancing I just go for whatever build I feel like going at that moment in time sometimes my runs are completely free, sometimes they're harder than diamond regardless of what is good or not, I just have fun doing whatever I feel like doing cuz thats kinda the point in a non competitive / offline game
I’ve noticed this since forever. So glad you made this video with numbers to prove it. Also the nuance of combat is a defining factor and I think the fact that you take that into account with the numbers is what makes this video unique. Amazing job
@@YoursTrulyAudrey why get warding when you can no hit every boss? Or just get hit so little in the fight that you are full heal the next time it hits you. In the end it's about preference.
@@LazyMaybe You watched a 1-hour video on a guide tells me you suck at the game already. Fyi, the first thing shown on this video was him "cheesing" a boss, which by my standards is cheating/doesn't feel rewarding. Also, just learn how to dodge, because clearly you have a skill issue in Terraria.
@@-ClerzZ- You can easily do that as a summoner with 0 defensive equipment. It's not difficult to survive 2-3 hits from most bosses, the main issue comes when you get hit 4+ times in rapid succession.
@@prettyradhandle what I meant by that is dodging attacks and making sure their hp hits 0 before yours does. Obviously if you want to challenge yourself extra hard then do that, just know that it's not like forsaking defense for extra damage is particularly optimal or anything.
I spent probably 30plat trying to reforge all my gear after everything being on menacing. Zenith was pushing almost 1200 per crit, I’ve since dropped to 106def and only do about 780 per crit
35:04 the “wouldn’t have died with 28 extra defense” has so much indignation behind it, and as someone who has almost always opted for warding over menacing reforges, I’m here for it
Could not disagree more. Off cool down potion and missed dodge. This is one of those "If I were born a fish, I'd be a fish" type arguments. Damage will reward you when you're playing bad AND when you're playing good
“Here’s an example of a character dying to an attack that they would have survived with warding” >They should’ve just not gotten hit That’s got nothing whatsoever to do with the point I was making in the video, you’re just ignoring it and nitpicking something else to try to seem like you’re refuting the point. To paraphrase, “In a bad situation, having this helps a lot, here’s a visual example of it” >don’t ever get in a bad situation then??? Dumbass just be perfect That’s completely ridiculous lol
@@sorbetcafe No, your point is "If they'd had a little more defense they would have lived"(paraphrased) and everyone else's point is to not build completely around the worst happening but to grow with every attempt until you don't feel the need to watch an hour long video on defense to justify yourself.
I am so glad you made this video, people constantly tried spewing out that defense is completely useless, ignoring the fact that you can made expert Mode EOC do only one damage and Master Mode do hardly more than 10 with a setup as easy as some platinum armor, a bast statue and an ironskin potion.
I mostly played with full damage builds but i tried warding once and can confidently say id rather live and therefore continue attacking significantly longer than do slightly more damage
There is also "infinite healing loops" to consider as a positive for defense. Because there is a point where if you reduce damage enough, you'll take less damage in a minute than what a potion can heal you. At that point you are inmortal as long as you have potions in the inventory and the boss will just die at some point because the bosses don't heal. And said thresthold is VERY EASY to achieve only with Warding accesories and dodging a few hits. Not even need for crazy armor combos. I seriously can't understand how people will put "kill enemy 28% faster" over "near immortality"
i take kill boss faster anyday because its fun and i can play with different builds. without some cheesy strats you wont reach immortality on a lot of builds. if i have to learn the fights anyways why shouldnt i have more damage.
Thanks for making this. I think the sleeping on defense can be partially attributed to a pendulum effect since there was a time when Warding was considered to be the best by a large margin, so when the last parts of the endgame and harder modes dropped, the pendulum swung in the "we were sleeping on Menacing, Warding is for noobs" direction. With people realising that no actually, Warding is still amazing, it's likely that it may swing back soon.
@@theendofthestart8179 Imagine getting triggered over what other people prefer on how to play, jeez stop being such a clown dude. Youre not making me laugh 😬
This was excellent. I've played a lot over the years but I was only ever a casual player and never really understood the underlying systems. Being able to give hard numbers to contextualise the bonuses really helped judge the options. Thanks!
You shouldn't tank Brain for more reasons than just the broken armor debuff. In expert mode and above, creepers inflict 9 out of the 10 ankh shield debuffs, and 9 out of 9 if you consider the fact it predates the pocket mirror being a part of the ankh shield recipe. I don't think I need to explain why you shouldn't tank a boss that more than halves your defense, negates life regen, leaves you unable to attack, and inflicts damage over time that completely bypasses defense entirely.
@@ZaChemas BoC is a very fun and well designed fight IMO: its pathetically easy if you aren't dumb; but will completely rawdog you if you slip up and let it touch you. its like a little baby daytime empress way before that was a thing. BoC is totally the easiest boss and *shouldn't* pose a challenge, but getting lazy and expecting it to be a cakewalk can definitely throw you up if you're just kinda expecting to lazily out-DPS it like you would against most bosses before endgame.
@@purplehaze2358 "you shouldn't tank the boss because it does a lot of damage" "i think the boss is fun because it can do a lot of damage" "wtf are you saying. are you stupid"
You could genuinely go in-depth about this when you bring in stuff like jump speed and which speed bonuses work on the ground/in the air. A useful resource for Terrasparkians and Amphibites alike.
Many people misunderstand how movement speed works. Movement speed for the most part only increases your acceleration when using running boots or wings, unless you stack it far enough that you can exceed the max speed those accesories set you to.
@@jimmyjohnjoejr Yeah i really would appreciate a comprehensive video on movement speed. Most of what i know i have from spending hours on the wiki. Magiluminescence is one of the only accesories that actually increases max speed for running shoes and doesn't even work on wings from my testing.
45:44 Might want to keep the Dryad with the Nurse for this trick, as the Dryad's blessing buff will give the player +8 Def, +3 Regen per second, and +50% Thorns effect. She'll also buff the Nurse's Def & Regen rate similarly, and give her a weaker thorns effect. Her buff also has a weak DoT damage to enemies; which isn't much to add, but is something.
I really like the note that every point of defense is more valuable than the last. This is actually pretty typical in many armour formulae like in Age of Wonders 4, but most people see the smaller percentage of the initial number and dont recognize the fact that its actually granting more and more value. this was a great vid. thanks!
meanwhile my absolutely backwards solution is to hyper-optimize tankiness and then when i realize the game is easy and boring as a result i just use a mod to buff the enemies so they deal damage again
I think for most players who actively avoid defense, it isn't that they don't understand how good defense is. Before something like 1.4 , my go-to was to have high defense loadouts and use ranged weapons. For a while that made it much easier to play the game and beat bosses. But with over 2000 hours in this game I can't bring myself to do the "go-to". As was pointed out, doing defense builds can feel pretty boring. It isn't just an edgy mindset of "oh, I don't need defense since I'm good enough to dodge", but a desire to take risks, challenge oneself, and keep the game interesting. And it isn't just boring in the sense of fights being relatively easy, but in the sense that to do it well, you need to grind for items like the flesh knuckles and the paladin's shield, or for players who don't want to bother getting money, it can even be annoying to pay for the warding reforges or sit at the shimmer for 20 minutes (if getting warding on more than one accessory at once). At least when grinding for a more offensive build you get the reward of fun, challenging, fast-and-loose bossfights... Anyway, I get that I am biased against warding because of my specific way of enjoying Terraria. I play mostly for the boss fights, and if the bosses are trivialized, I will have less fun. Also, a fun little trick with the heart statue pre-skeletron is to use the wiring for the light in the surface dungeon room. if you demolish the dungeon you can just place a pressure plate and a heart statue or two over the leftover wire.
I stopped using defense because I realized how useless it is if I get better. The idea behind trading warding for violent on melee is that if I play better, I get a tangible reward for my progress. And in theory it is better. It is not only an incredibly intuitive metric of skill progression, it is quite literally mathematically better, so anyone that wouldn't have incentive to arbitrarily challenge themselves in a PvE game have actual reward incentive to do so. Paladin's shield also isn't really a great defensive item, I have never felt tankier running it but in theory a ranged character can run it to soak some damage the melee is taking, and if that person is using shiny stone or the specter mage set, they can heal off the damage they shared with the melee. I do think it is a good point that this stuff applies mainly to bosses though, I have noticed after I made the switch how miserable horde events are without defense stats, and in those events the paladin shield actually should go on your tank since damage will be spread among everyone else.
For master I usually play an offensive build with warding reforges, so fights are still tough, but the extra defense goes a long way in keeping you alive. Especially nasty fights I replace one offensive item with worm scarf for the damage reduction since it's applied before defense, making you a lot more tanky for only a slight reduction in overall DPS.
I think you undersold the value of the flinx fur coat. Like, sure, you _can_ just nab a summoning potion to make up for it.. but like, you can also do that _with_ the flinx fur coat, bringing your minion DPS (but not _necessarily_ summon in general) boost overall from ~110% to ~215%.
Seeing him use the vampire frog staff also hurt me a little. Sure it theoretically has really good DPS, but the frogs have such a hard time dealing damage to bosses consistently without setups like the narrow corridor on WoF that makes you a sitting duck for laser beams it's really hard to justify using them. For WoF I like to use one imp against the hungy since they are weak to fire damage and the fireball can hit multiple at once, with all the other minion slots being hornets which are inversely much stronger against the main body. They total to much more consistent DPS over the frogs and you can use the open space to dodge around like the mage or ranger builds.
@@derfloh4245 I can't tel you why, but curiously they do not resist the On Fire! debuff. Both they and the Wall of Flesh are also not immune to the hornet's poison, making them a great summon against WoF imo.
Brilliant Analysis! Well done. I have always felt that I am bad at "good dodging", I can dodge to an average level, but when I watch people who are really good at dodging, I feel like i don't know how to dodge at all. So for us 'average/below-average dodgers', defense has always been the way to go. I think people should experiment with both, that's the beauty of this excellent game!
It's worth noting that in PHM white string and its dyed variants are extremely cheap to reforge and extremely easy to get, so in the event you want to stack warding, they're a good early option
I think not including things like the burger, bast statue for damage or warding examples doesn't make for a valid comparison. Because there's no "tradeoff" for those. You just have to spend the time to get them. These comparisons should be between the things that have tradeoff. Not ones that don't. If I can get free defense while I'm playing a damage build, I'm still gonna get the free defense. I'd like to see a second video comparing optimized builds. With only tradeoffs between them.
@@vulpix9210 Its more about the trendline, really. Pulling hairs over +5 defense for a build claiming to kill enemies before they die barely impacts anything. Boss attacks still hit like a truck, and unless you stack defense to negate that, which is the whole point of warding, you still have to focus on dodging.
@@Maniac_l23. If you read my comment. It's not *just* about the bast statue. It's about everything from the bast statue to the endurance potions to ironskin to anything else. All builds should be given either everything without tradeoffs. Or not given them
"Because there's no "tradeoff" for those. You just have to spend the time to get them." Well, yeah... that's the tradeoff. Most people don't want to spend the time getting that stuff, just like most people don't put together optimized builds. It's more realistic to account for how an 'average' setup will have both worse gear and worse buffs.
Alt title: In Defense of Defense On a more serious note, my Expert mode True Melee run has taught me the true beauty of the Tank build. An optimal Tank build from my experience has some combination of Defense, Damage reduction, and Life regeneration. Defense is great for smaller attacks DR is great for bigger attacks Life regen is great because it gives you more hit points over time, which Defense and DR let you take further P.S. I always thought Master mode was designed with Tank builds in mind, and this video confirms that through and through
One thing about honey that rarely gets talked about is that you can get the buff without any building, accessories, etc. To do it you need honey bottles in your inventory. If there is no potion sickness currently, and you press the buff button, it uses the honey bottle as a *buff potion* and gives you 30 seconds of honey buff, while not giving you the potion cooldown. (but it might get fixed in 1.4.5)
Finally we can put the "defense bad" myth to its grave. I do not understand why it's such a prevalant opinion among the community despite being so utterly untrue. Edit: Finished watching the video. I'm astonished by how in-depth you go and how you brought up many good points that I have never even considered, especially the bit on why menacing is bad at the end. This is definitely my favorite video you've made
@@TheLifeLaVita Yes but you also do see many opinions floating around claiming defense is worthless on high difficulty. I've certainly seen many of them
Terraria has a huge community, some circles might frequently use defense, others bash it as being useless. Not everyone builds defense and goes for warding all the time - in fact, one of the most common things I had to do when I started streaming was explain why I skipped over menacing reforges for warding ones
@@Tempestissiman generally everyone goes for warding except when they don't wanna spend so much time to reforge everything or doesn't have the need for it in higher difficulties. Just looking at how much damage reduction you get it's obvious defense is strong. Skipping over defense or not going for warding doesn't mean they don't know how effective warding is, but just that they wanna have more fun in other ways
for the those wondering, this is also very effective if not better in the calamity mod as the warding reforge gives damage reduction AND gets buffed the more major progression bosses defeated(ex. wall of flesh, moon lord, etc.)
Thing is, playing on the designated reveangence mode, every single hit completely cuts your defense by half and literally everything has DOT that pierces defense
Pretty much the only time you want or need a full menacing build, since HP doesn't matter anyway and it's just a race to kill her a little before you get caught by a stray projectile
I have a problem with the comparisons made. At 7:38 you say the following: "All that this is showing us is that this is really showing is that having access to the 24 defense from warding accessories is extremely powerful and quite unbalancing". Except in none of the comparisons you show is the difference only those 24 extra defense points. What you showed is more "here is a build with preparation for maximum damage and nothing else, vs build with preparation for maximum defense and nothing else", when a lot of aspects of both builds can be combined *with no detriment*. For example, in the early summoner comparisons where the only summoner armor is the Flinx Fur Coat, the "maximum damage build" is missing out on things that it could absolutely use to increase the armor it has without decreasing the damage. There is nothing stopping that build from having iron skin and a bast statue, not to mention that the armor set up is missing legs, and the wizard hat which is used doesn't even improve summon damage (unless explicitly in the Celebration Mk.10 seed where it gives 1 extra summon slot) so it could just be replaced by a platinum helmet.
Yeah that's a major problem with this video. Another problem I have is that the DPS comparisons are just played poorly as far as the DPS builds are concerned. Ultimately this video really didn't change my mind on anything. I already knew defense wasn't bad, but I still think damage is better.
@@EATZYOWAFFLEZ Enjoying the game is what matters in the end, whether one is better or not only matters if that matters for your enjoyment. As he pointed out at some point in the video, going full defense can be extremely overpowered. But it can also be boring because there ends up being basically no skill required as you just sit and tank for some fights. I don't care if, from a meta perspective, defense is far stronger than menacing, because in the end I have way more fun dodging attacks and dealing insane damage than otherwise.
@@GhGh-gq8oo Please quote the full sentence: "Enjoying the game is what matters in the end, *whether one is better or not only matters if that matters for your enjoyment.* " If speedruns are how you enjoy the game, then defense over damage matters. I never said otherwise.
I was looking for a comment like this. I normally love in depth videos like this, but I can't really take any of the comparison seriously when it has a flaw like this, because it's basically not comparing real builds that a player might have. I feel like a better comparison would have been to use the basic armour setup for that class at that stage in the game, with all menacing and all relevant potions (both offensive and defensive), and relevant arena modifiers (eg bast statue, heart lantern, etc), then compare to the exact same setup with warding accessories and no other changes, and then have the 3rd be the full defensive setup that will use different defensive armour and accessories. This would directly show how much warding alone does on a setup everyone would be familiar with, while also comparing to how focused defense performs.
Well, for one, I wasn't posting an argument, just personal experience, so that is incorrect. For this, let me add on to my previous statement. For solo I think this video is very true. Warding is much more important. But I always play Terraria multiplayer, and never solo. Menacing is much better for multiplayer considering the enemy has more targets, and even if my teamate(s) die, their 30 seconds is usually up by the time I would also be dead, even though we played Calamity and Terraria on the hardest modes, not including seed modes. (Master Death, Master). Even bosses that kill the melee tank, and chase afterwards. This is me agreeing with what the video is saying.
I have been playing through Infernum recently (Just beat Exo Mechs today, only SCal left!), and there have been many fights where shifting more into a defensive build has made the fight significantly more doable. It keeps you alive in times where you make multiple mistakes in a row, and makes it so that you don't have to instapop a potion as soon as you get hit once, you can allow yourself to regen and save the potion for a better time. even with Calamity's defense damage, and even against DoG, who does absolutely stupid damage in Infernum, allowing me to take 1 extra hit from the head makes things so much easier. going from even being 2 shot to 3 shot, in the most extreme case (lasers and body do much less), gives much more wiggle room when you often go long stretches without getting hit because you have to learn the fights so much, allowing you to regen back to full.
Yea, literally just being able to survive one extra hit can make all the difference, and give you time to recover and use a health potion or whatever to get you back up over the 'one more hit and I'm dead' threshold. Survivability is just super important unless you're just REALLY good at the game, because for vast majority of players, they wont be capable of avoiding everything. Calamity also heavily rewards trying to protect against specific boss debuffs. Can take some extra grinding to get such gear, but that preparation can make an extremely tough boss way more manageable.
I’m currently 24 attempts into expert hardcore and am reasonably confident I’ll be able to beat most of the bosses without much trouble. However, I’ll be running a tank build for the simple reason that I don’t want the mistakes I make to instantly cost me the run. beetle shell supremacy
Bosses aren't the main difficulty of hardcore, in fact it's probably the least concerning part. Regular enemies deal more damage a lot of the times and you can't predict it. To that end defense is even more valuable because it lets you avoid being camped by an enemy. Also, make sure to get a cross necklace for that purpose. It gives you extra time to recall out of a bad situation
@@Tempestissiman agree i use the star veil and can very fastly save and exit and weapons doesn't go bad with autopause bug of the game when you can't exit cause of attack
Great video, but there are some problem with your methodology I noticed: 1) When comparing the armor of the various classes, I think it was a mistake to have the damage-focused builds use worse armor and accessories. You never really showed an accurate representation of most players builds, which will usually include decent but not optimal armor, some defensive accessories such as ankh shield, and an ironskin potion, with the accessories at menacing. Basically, there is no reason for not using ironskin potions and bast statues for the full damage player, since it has absolutely zero cost in dps for doing so. Additionally, by giving the normal build a bunch of defensive accessories and armor that the damage build doesn't get, it obscures the actual value of Warding specifically by comparing the defenses of Menacing + weak equipment to warding + tanky equipment, rather than comparing menacing and warding on equal footing. 2) Additionally, I think you should have included worm scarf / endurance potions in your calculations. Again, there is a distinct middle ground between full damage and full defense that you seemed to ignore 3) I don't remember you talking about how warding is better early game, as 24 flat damage reduction means a lot more against Eye than against Fishron. I think this is worth considering, as there are people who will use warding pre hardmode but switch to menacing around/after mech bosses. 4) During your combat tests, you died with the defensive build, and then brushed that off since "you weren't trying to dodge". You only died because you facetanked, but remember you said you HAD to facetank to obtain the killtimes you did with the tanky builds. This is a really unfair double standard, you say the tanky builds are much safer because of the lower damage, but you also say that they are comparable in damage because you can facetank - but if you think about it, facetanking bosses is a strategy that makes you take more damage to let you deal more damage! To mitigate the lack of dps, you are willingly sacrificing the main advantage of defense, but you aren't acknowledging that fact. If you wanted a fair comparison, you should have used the same strategy both times, that way it's a comparison between actual damage output, and there are no asterisks about your increased survivability.' 5) In addition to having a damage + warding test, you should have included a defense + menacing test. I don't think it would be better, but it's a distinct build style that is very common for players to use and not testing it is a big oversight.
I'll argue against 4 and 5. 4) From the perspective of a player who is genuinely struggling, the extra defense is much safer. From the perspective of an experienced player trying to kill things as quickly as possible, it can simultaneously be comparable in damage because they strategically take damage to deal more damage. Those are not mutually exclusive, it just means that tank builds are versatile. Builds that sacrifice defense for more damage lack that versatility, despite mostly comparable killtimes. I'll also add that he was playing offense nearly as aggressively as he played defense, which later on resulted in a ton of deaths. Less defensive builds have to take similar risks to maintain any advantage, except that risk is far greater compared to defense doing the same thing. 5) IMO that would introduce unnecessary clutter. 12 tests is already messy, adding in 4 more for the sake of a minor variation doesn't make much sense.
everything about this video is insane, the length, the structure, the information, the quality, all the numbers (casually correcting the wiki in between btw) and gameplay footage edited. providing a full equipment list in 3 iterations and also going into specific details about gear choices and boss abilities is absurd I think a lot of people don't realize how much work a video like this is. btw terraria is a 13 year old game, the fact we still get content like this for it is mind blowing
This video has a ton of useful information. As someone who isn't as familiar with all the items and options in this game, it would be nice to have this as a written guide. It would be extra special if it could have information on which accessories and armors become available at various stages of the game and recommendations on upgrades and replacements for each phase of the game. In lieu of such a guide based around this video, does anyone know of any written resources based around defensive play styles that are up to date and similar to what I described. Anywho thanks for the video. it's obvious that you put a ton of work into it!
Defense doesnt become less useful the better you are at dodging, it compliments how well you're dodging even further. Barely being hit by bosses? Very cool, same! Now imagine if every hit you took that was big was 20% less and every small-damaging projectile was a joke.
this popping in my recommendation after a manga/comic about an adventurer Tanker with max Defense being kicked out and the party got whipped by enemy after that because they has no defense while the tanker join another party and keep winning....yeah this is the sign
This video is fantastic, the comprehensive guide on every aspect is just top tier. You researched and gave us builds, damage values, AND kill times for each and every build. This is just simply amazing. This video alone has convinced me to subscribe
Moral of the story: If you don't like having fun and taking risks, or are just seriously terrible at Terraria, use this guy's exotic builds. If you're a new player, use warding with normal accessories and armor. If you play calamity good luck 👍
Tbh because of calamity's defense damage system and how calamity puts a softcap on how much damage reduction you can have optimizing for damage can be important
Sorry if I come across as a little hostile, since it's pretty late for me and I'm tired, but to me it seems like the majority of this is very biased towards defense. Maybe I didn't hear some important details or something, but from what I heard, some simple and accessible defensive items were not given to the damage build at all. The main focus should be the reforges, since that's a very black/white decision to make: Warding or Menacing? But other things kept getting introduced, that *should* be applied to both sides, including: 1. Obsidian Shield, being instrumental in dodging due to knockback negation, which is very useful in any build. 2. Potions. There is no conceivable reason why a damage player can't use ironskin, endurance, and lifeforce (also the Aegis Fruit). 3. Bast Statues and Heart statues, similar to potions, do not reduce damage at all, and should always be included. 4. The Nurse. I can't speak much about this because I never use the nurse, but it should be stated that she can always be used by any player. The only reason I care so much about this in particular is that it seems like for the defense builds, you mainly focused on defense, but also added in some damage stuff. This should also be done for damage, by including some basic defensive items. Also, the way damage buffs affect your damage is very similar to how defense affects damage reduction. Your defense directly stacks and reduces the damage you take by it's value. Pretty simple, easy to follow. Damage could *seem* worse (especially when you word it like "the 28% increase *actually* only increases by 16%") at first, but it still stacks up your damage, but not by adding together the multipliers because that would be OP. Instead the multipliers separately affect the base damage, and add their respective values directly to the damage value. 10% + 15% ≠ 1.25 x Base Damage 10% + 15% = BaseDmg + (0.1 x BaseDmg) + (0.15 x BaseDmg) Therefore the line saying that it "only increases damage by 16% and not 28%" only works after already applying like half of your other damage buffs. Idk where this rant came from, I'm really tired. I just saw this video and it fired me up for no reason so I wrote a whole essay lmfao. I'm going to bed now. Good video, very in depth, I learned some new things, keep it up.
@@ToastedBread14 20 defense is quite significant, not to mention the 10% damage reduction from endurance and the 20% max hp from lifeforce. The point we're trying to make is that the video is biased. Who would've thought that using accurate numbers in a math-heavy video matters :O
@@ToastedBread14 20 def is still 2/3 of what warding enchants gives you tho. Still good video to show that def builds isnt as bad as you might've thought they are
You are changing my whole view on terraria with these videos, they are so high effort and easy to follow. I'm on my first master mode hardcore character and your videos have been a great help, thank you!
Thank you, I always played safe with a warding build and I saw people use primarily offensive and always got confused when I did so much worse when I switched. I thought I was crazy for finding an easier time with defence.
One of my favorite builds to do is a full tank and regen build. Max out the potions, max out the warding, max out buffs for healing potions, and the crimson knives. I love doing it, its just so fun to me
I remember getting so pissed at ML in my expert melee run that I used as much defense as possible and tanked everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. I was just sitting in honey, jumping to grab some hearts every time the lazer came by. I can say with 100% certainty that full defense is op.
luck will shift incoming and outgoing damage calculations in your favor. with a garden gnome and having the correct biome torches while underground, you'll have a +0.4 luck stat, therefore you'll get a 40% chance for any given instance of incoming damage to reroll its variance to take the lowest of the two, and the same for outgoing damage, but taking the highest. this reverses if you have negative luck. damage variance is ±15%, and i believe its placed after most damage buffs and before defense, so it has a lot of sway over damage values. so yeah, if you can buff your luck as much as you can manage, then it will help fights go smoother. garden gnomes and torches are the easiest sources, but you can also get luck by being near ladybugs (and not harming them), lantern nights, luck potions and by shimmering lots of coins. in the context of this video it does have the effect of giving you more sustainability by having a chance to reduce the damage you take from any given damage instance. so um yeah do the luck-giving things
Minor note: You can also circumvent Deerclops's frozen debuff by equipping the handwarmer, assuming either that it's Christmas or you set your device's clock to make the game think it's Christmas.
38:41 this should have been at the start of the video as this is what's actually important. I fully believe that this video could have been five minutes and get the majority of the point across with just this.
But if it was 5 minutes long, it would have been just a guide, not a comprehensive one. Gotta fit in more numbers by checking every boss to earn the title
"It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward." - Quote from greatest philosopher of our time, Rocky Balboa.
@@gigachadlovessharks yeah since it heals you i guess there's something that prevents using healing items when you're potion sick even if using it with the buff key doesn't heal you
"It doesn't matter how fast you can kill the boss if they kill you first" is the sentence that defines the offense v defense discourse
on the other side of the coin, kill them before they can kill you symbolises the perspective of a damage build.
wouldnt you be more likely to kill them before they kill you with a defense buile?
objection: "it doesn't matter how fast the boss can kill you if you kill it first"
a good offense is a good defense
@@tobytowns1 no a good defense is a good defense
20:40 "her contact damage is pretty much never relevant unless you are actively trying to be inside of her" the plantera fanbase is suffering a huge hit for this one
i like your pfp :3
I for one know a certain waffle would love to bring her to his OSOGOF tunnel
@@Pyrax99 fellow waffle viewer spotted
@@Stormyyyy... yeah it's cute
If you're planting seeds ya do wanna be inside of her though.... XD
TLDR: Sure, reducing the 300 damage nukes by 28 is not much, but reducing the 70 damage chipping projectiles by 28 has a very substantial impact.
@@SlyRocko TLDR+: warding gives an even more substantial impact when your armor already brought it down to 40 making the 28 bring it down to 12 which would be a 334% decrease in damage.
And if the armor brought it down to only 28 defense and you add warding it only does 1 damage and you can regerate faster than that with a regen setup
TLDR for the reply above: warding reduces a lot
TL;DR
Warding
tldr: ward
TL;DR Defense good
It’s funny people say defense is bad, usually Calamity players, when that mod nerfs tank strats literally every patch because it’s too good. I know it’s not vanilla but it’s still funny.
Well calamity has buffed reforges, warding for some reason gives 10 def (idk if they changed it tho)
@@baderhh9928 they did dw
@@baderhh9928 the reforges scale with your stage of the game. warding gives more defense and damage reduction the further along in the game you are
there's a calamity build with 920 defense and a lot of accessories which allows you to tank, also you can use a tournir spear features for literally oneshoting any boss
Defense damage BS also
At the end of the day, Monster Hunter World’s smithy says it best. If you’re dying too fast, upgrade your armor. If you’re taking too long, upgrade your weapon.
Not a Terraria story (it happened a whole year before Terraria was even a thing) but a "damage vs defense" story still.
Me and my friend were playing one very grindy MMO, and we were up to AoE grind. If you don't play MMOs, the way it works is that you aggro a group of mobs and kill them with your AoE skills, heal up the damage you will inevitably take during this and then repeat.
I went for full tank build for this, friend laughed me up and went full damage build, "I'll be going through 5-7 packs while you'd be sloggin thorough your first".
What happened in reality:
I did one 25-27 mob pack in about 2 minutes, then spent about half a minute healing and rebuffing before repeating it.
My friend did strict 15 packs only, because even 1 mob above 15 would kill him (-15% EXP because death penalty and you'd have to drag your a$$ back from the nearest town). For every 7 packs he took, he'd die at least once, because mobs don't care about your plans and will often spawn nearby, get aggro and join the mob pile. He was constantly stressed, wasted a tonn of money on gear repairs (part of the death penalty), wasted some more rare resources (cs food and pet revival treats) and barely made it to next level when I raised 2 and a half.
So yeah, faster doesn't always mean better. That turtle from the fairy tale definitely was up to something.
"if dodging boss is fun then why not dodge it for even longer"
it's no longer fun if there's no consequences to failure
The consequence is you have to focus on dodge longer
And you're in mastermode
The other thing is, I (like a lot of players I assume) rarely get hit, so having 0 defence doesn't mean that much in most fights so menacing is better
@elfishmoss1457 if you disagree then just stop watching
@@FlyinglistRL interesting to see nonetheless so I continued watching
When i play vanilla or modded with a friend, our strategy is:
I become an unkillable Tungsten Cube. (With 0 Skill)
He becomes a glass cannon.
He gets killed multiple times, but i stay alive so the enemy doesn't despawn.
Profit.
One of the oldest strategy i always used with a lot of friends many many years
So.. not fun gameplay?
And the glass Cannon becomes a Bullet SHOOTER
@@Txzunami depends on what you enjoy
It could be unenjoyable for you but it might be more enjoyable for others lol
@@Txzunami I personally love running melee tank builds. I get to shit on my friends who die every 10 seconds and I feel like the "Bro I'm respawning in 5 second meme" while only rarely actually being in serious danger. If we lose its because either we're just a little under geared for damage or defense and can spend a couple minutes finding the right combos to fill the weaknesses.
It's definitely all about what you enjoy personally. My friends would never want to play the more mundane looking tank builds and I don't like the fragility of the DPS builds. If I can deal high melee damage then I'm fully down to get in close and help the DPS but the thrill of being the aggro magnet and trying to dodge every boss projectile (despite being able to tank) is just fun. I play terraria more like a bullet hell than a boss rush and it works for me.
When people say "yeah but you can either take slightly less damage or make the fight go significantly faster but have to dodge a little more" but they completely overlook that fact that with a lot of high damage low range weapons, taking less per hit will allow you to land more hits by letting you stick closer which means you will do more damage thus decreasing the time in the fight on top of just taking less per hit
Yeah but many people who play something like summoner don’t really have that problem unless they have garbage summons
Only if they can't aim. And for bosses that dash around a lot and are hard to hit, sitting still doesn't change that. As the video shows, damage builds were *always* faster, and he's not even a particularly good player.
UA-cam’s timing is immaculate. Here’s my story:
I’m playing legendary mode for the first time, and I’m stuck on the wall. I’ve tried star cannon, but all the stars get deflected. So instead, I’m running all menacing and bee nades.
After 40 Queen bees, I’ve collected enough bee nades for 4 wall attempts, and they all end with the wall at
I was doing a mage run on legendary mode, and I was running menacing, couldn't win, the imps too strong. Soon as I swapped to warding? Win.
I mean this is also because of how ridiculously good the night's edge is lol
I used a damage melee build with nights edge and a ton of furniture and minecart tracks. Took a long time to build that but I was able to beat him without knowing about this guide.
All warding melee build as in cheese it with nights edge? That happens regardless of how much you put into defense.
@@nickenchugger remember the op is talking about legendary. It's not exactly a walk in the park even with night's edge
I have 600 hours in Terraria, in almost every world i went menacing for damage. I recently tried going defensive on my Master World world, and it was game changing. It literally made the game 1 difficulty level easier.
Which is exactly why many people dont do it
Because Master Mode's defense formula is more effective than easier difficulties, that would make sense. A flat 1 damage reduction per defense point is extremely valuable.
That’s not true at all, enemies deal 3x damage while defense is only 2x as effective on master. Defense is worse on master mode
@@sorbetcafe while that is true, defence does have more effect on higher difficulties.
Classic = 0.5/d
Expert = 0.75/d
Master = 1/d
@@sorbetcafe As the commenter above states, Defense actually goes up in effectiveness when you increase difficulty. All the way up to a 1:1 ratio of damage taken to defense reduction. The problem lies in the fact that there's no point to stack defense in master mode where you're not getting hit by a giant fucking turtle for 752 damage and a defense decrease ain't gonna make that survivable.
It does have the strange side effect of causing damage from tiles directly touched (spikes and lava) to become less effective in master mod because of the lack of a damage increase to lava whereas traps do get that increase
there's one situation where I would recommend a menacing build: Daytime empress
I'd also recommend rolling back to versions of Terraria that allowed the instant kills from her (and the Dungeon Guardian) to be dodgeable again.
Not that I've done it myself, but I lament not beating her before they buffed her Daytime attacks.
@@RdTrler they are dodgeable
just get good
They mean dodgeable as in the hallowed armors ignore all damage dodge
just as a side note since you didn't mention it, Plantera's contact damage isn't boosted in FTW/GFB, so using defense there is just as effective as it is on regular worlds.
That makes sense, I had noticed that she was doing surprisingly low damage when I checked her in FTW.
WHAT?
dang. That speed boost in insane. Master mode plantera is easy for me, but hell on legendary.
The tendrils DO deal massive damage, but I did not realize plantera itself didn’t… that would have made the fight much easier…
Omg it’s the guy who talks in the terraria discord
@@Superp2gamer Teleporters help a lot btw, use them
Important note regarding Life Force potion, your health regeneration scales with your max HP, meaning that if you increase your hp by 20% you'll be increasing your hp regen as well
@connortodd4538 I checked the official wiki and HP regeneration scales with max HP.
While for mana regeneration it's the higher the percentage of mana you are missing from your max the slower the regeneration is. I'm not sure if that's what you meant
You ever come across one of those videos on UA-cam that make you and your opinion feel more validated compared to what the community thinks?
This one is it. Thanks for making this, Sorbet.
I remember a friend asking me why Summoner has such pitiful defense. I said "you autoattack, focus on dodging"
Then again i convinced him you got the imp staff for throwing the doll in lava.
Telling a summoner to only rely on minions is the ultimate troll, summoner is the actual true melee with whips.
@@FrostyTheCookiewhips were such a huge W addition
Summoners are the ultimate multiclass class.
Remind me to never play this game with you..
summoner is pretty balling because you literally dont need to use your mouse in bossfights when focus is needed
at the end of the day, regardless of whats better, the ultimate argument is that having fun with the playstyle you prefer > metamancing
I just go for whatever build I feel like going at that moment in time
sometimes my runs are completely free, sometimes they're harder than diamond
regardless of what is good or not, I just have fun doing whatever I feel like doing
cuz thats kinda the point in a non competitive / offline game
Truth
Fr. Melee, Mage, Summoner, Ranger, multiclass or cheese, if you're having fun you're having fun.
funny comment bc people do what they think is fun or familiar even in competitive environment instead of trying to play optimally
But the point is having fjn, and "metmancing" can also be fun for some people.
@@SioxerNikita then do that, his point is that's not the only way to do it.
I’ve noticed this since forever. So glad you made this video with numbers to prove it. Also the nuance of combat is a defining factor and I think the fact that you take that into account with the numbers is what makes this video unique. Amazing job
"Why get warding when you can kill the boss before it hits you"
"Why get menacing when you can survive any attack if it hits you"
@@YoursTrulyAudrey why get warding when you can no hit every boss? Or just get hit so little in the fight that you are full heal the next time it hits you.
In the end it's about preference.
I can assure you that you're not tanking a boss on expert/master mode.
@-ClerzZ- Clearly you didn't watch the video.
@@LazyMaybe You watched a 1-hour video on a guide tells me you suck at the game already. Fyi, the first thing shown on this video was him "cheesing" a boss, which by my standards is cheating/doesn't feel rewarding. Also, just learn how to dodge, because clearly you have a skill issue in Terraria.
@@-ClerzZ- You can easily do that as a summoner with 0 defensive equipment. It's not difficult to survive 2-3 hits from most bosses, the main issue comes when you get hit 4+ times in rapid succession.
"Don't get hit, hit it until it dies" mfers when they realize "make sure their hp hits 0 before yours" is a more accurate statement:
My favorite variation is "hit it til it dies, don't die"
but i like dodging attacks
@@prettyradhandle not mutually exclusive
@@Brass319 mutually exclusive, dodging an attack that does 10 damage is not as exciting as one that would deal 100
@@prettyradhandle what I meant by that is dodging attacks and making sure their hp hits 0 before yours does. Obviously if you want to challenge yourself extra hard then do that, just know that it's not like forsaking defense for extra damage is particularly optimal or anything.
there is only one scenario where menacing and lucky are better than warding: when you are trying to get the terraprisma
I spent probably 30plat trying to reforge all my gear after everything being on menacing. Zenith was pushing almost 1200 per crit, I’ve since dropped to 106def and only do about 780 per crit
Alternatively: They know how to dodge. Look at any challenge or speedrun player for calamity, they ain't going for warding.
54:50 I didn't expect going into this to see a firing squad of every gem staff in the game.
theres a whole playthrough of multiplayer mages that looks goofy like this
@@purplehaze2358 it was beautiful
@@zeroboros934 where
@@justaguywhotriestomakepeop7164 check the previous livestreams of the channel under the "live" section
@@zeroboros934 I gotta second that other guy, where exactly? Tried searching around a bit and found random modded videos or solo walkthroughs lol.
35:04 the “wouldn’t have died with 28 extra defense” has so much indignation behind it, and as someone who has almost always opted for warding over menacing reforges, I’m here for it
but why did they drop right into the enemy projectile? also health potion was off cooldown. This is was 100% a skill issue.
Could not disagree more. Off cool down potion and missed dodge. This is one of those "If I were born a fish, I'd be a fish" type arguments. Damage will reward you when you're playing bad AND when you're playing good
“Here’s an example of a character dying to an attack that they would have survived with warding”
>They should’ve just not gotten hit
That’s got nothing whatsoever to do with the point I was making in the video, you’re just ignoring it and nitpicking something else to try to seem like you’re refuting the point.
To paraphrase,
“In a bad situation, having this helps a lot, here’s a visual example of it”
>don’t ever get in a bad situation then??? Dumbass just be perfect
That’s completely ridiculous lol
@@sorbetcafe No, your point is "If they'd had a little more defense they would have lived"(paraphrased) and everyone else's point is to not build completely around the worst happening but to grow with every attempt until you don't feel the need to watch an hour long video on defense to justify yourself.
@@Kermit_E_Frog did you even watch the video?
31:03 _casually drops 896 platinum_
I am so glad you made this video, people constantly tried spewing out that defense is completely useless, ignoring the fact that you can made expert Mode EOC do only one damage and Master Mode do hardly more than 10 with a setup as easy as some platinum armor, a bast statue and an ironskin potion.
I mostly played with full damage builds but i tried warding once and can confidently say id rather live and therefore continue attacking significantly longer than do slightly more damage
literally everyone stacks defense all the time lmao
@@Consumpter more damage is more fun
@@TheLifeLaVita A surprising amount of people don't!
@@mihael64 crazy
*_Maybe the real best defense in Terraria is all the friends we made along the way._*
Nah, NPC's are pretty lousy at beating bosses.
Got it, we just have to play multiplayer and make our friends the decoys
@@wrawler finally, someone who _gets it._
Actually true since you can make them use beetle armor paladin shield and flesh knuckles 😂
What friends? We playing solo!
Somebody explained why i shouldn't use Warding either and instead go for Menacing, but now that I've seen both videos, I think I will go for Arcane.
i think i will go for Quick because of this
@DanielSooSchway Good idea!!!
There is also "infinite healing loops" to consider as a positive for defense.
Because there is a point where if you reduce damage enough, you'll take less damage in a minute than what a potion can heal you. At that point you are inmortal as long as you have potions in the inventory and the boss will just die at some point because the bosses don't heal.
And said thresthold is VERY EASY to achieve only with Warding accesories and dodging a few hits. Not even need for crazy armor combos.
I seriously can't understand how people will put "kill enemy 28% faster" over "near immortality"
*Not even 28% faster
i take kill boss faster anyday because its fun and i can play with different builds. without some cheesy strats you wont reach immortality on a lot of builds.
if i have to learn the fights anyways why shouldnt i have more damage.
i don't get hit
@@mrosskne ive played with you, yes you do.
@@ohyouknowthisonejeffrey9753 No you haven't.
Thanks for making this. I think the sleeping on defense can be partially attributed to a pendulum effect since there was a time when Warding was considered to be the best by a large margin, so when the last parts of the endgame and harder modes dropped, the pendulum swung in the "we were sleeping on Menacing, Warding is for noobs" direction. With people realising that no actually, Warding is still amazing, it's likely that it may swing back soon.
well, warding is still for noobs though.
@@theendofthestart8179 Cool.
@@theendofthestart8179”warding is still for noobs though” My boy, you sound like a clown saying that. But youre not funny, please be funny 🙏
@@jnb_110 new people get hit more, experienced players get hit less. Simple as that.
@@theendofthestart8179 Imagine getting triggered over what other people prefer on how to play, jeez stop being such a clown dude. Youre not making me laugh 😬
This was excellent. I've played a lot over the years but I was only ever a casual player and never really understood the underlying systems. Being able to give hard numbers to contextualise the bonuses really helped judge the options. Thanks!
You shouldn't tank Brain for more reasons than just the broken armor debuff. In expert mode and above, creepers inflict 9 out of the 10 ankh shield debuffs, and 9 out of 9 if you consider the fact it predates the pocket mirror being a part of the ankh shield recipe. I don't think I need to explain why you shouldn't tank a boss that more than halves your defense, negates life regen, leaves you unable to attack, and inflicts damage over time that completely bypasses defense entirely.
ok, let's be honest... who the hell dies to brain creepers, even in pre-hardmode on legendary, creepers end up being a joke 9/10 times
@@ZaChemas BoC is a very fun and well designed fight IMO: its pathetically easy if you aren't dumb; but will completely rawdog you if you slip up and let it touch you. its like a little baby daytime empress way before that was a thing. BoC is totally the easiest boss and *shouldn't* pose a challenge, but getting lazy and expecting it to be a cakewalk can definitely throw you up if you're just kinda expecting to lazily out-DPS it like you would against most bosses before endgame.
@@turmspitzewerk You have to be trolling.
@@purplehaze2358 "you shouldn't tank the boss because it does a lot of damage"
"i think the boss is fun because it can do a lot of damage"
"wtf are you saying. are you stupid"
@@turmspitzewerk Brain is not a well-designed fight my dude.
Thank you for making these videos. If at all possible, a comprehensive guide to movement speed would help a lot of people out.
You could genuinely go in-depth about this when you bring in stuff like jump speed and which speed bonuses work on the ground/in the air. A useful resource for Terrasparkians and Amphibites alike.
Many people misunderstand how movement speed works. Movement speed for the most part only increases your acceleration when using running boots or wings, unless you stack it far enough that you can exceed the max speed those accesories set you to.
@@hajoeijgenraam295 yeah, I didn't realize that for a very long time. Even then there's still a ton I don't understand about it.
@@jimmyjohnjoejr Yeah i really would appreciate a comprehensive video on movement speed. Most of what i know i have from spending hours on the wiki. Magiluminescence is one of the only accesories that actually increases max speed for running shoes and doesn't even work on wings from my testing.
place 2 pylons. boom, done.
45:44 Might want to keep the Dryad with the Nurse for this trick, as the Dryad's blessing buff will give the player +8 Def, +3 Regen per second, and +50% Thorns effect. She'll also buff the Nurse's Def & Regen rate similarly, and give her a weaker thorns effect. Her buff also has a weak DoT damage to enemies; which isn't much to add, but is something.
I really like the note that every point of defense is more valuable than the last. This is actually pretty typical in many armour formulae like in Age of Wonders 4, but most people see the smaller percentage of the initial number and dont recognize the fact that its actually granting more and more value. this was a great vid. thanks!
The reason I tend to avoid defense is not because I think it's ineffective, on the contrary it's because it makes the game too easy and boring for me.
completely valid, yeah, it tends to trivialize a lot of stuff
meanwhile I can't be fucked with grinding so I just go with whatever I get naturally
meanwhile my absolutely backwards solution is to hyper-optimize tankiness and then when i realize the game is easy and boring as a result i just use a mod to buff the enemies so they deal damage again
@@pittagiiya amazing
bro you got me in first half 😂
Nice hour long video
Counterpoint: Just don't get hit
I think for most players who actively avoid defense, it isn't that they don't understand how good defense is. Before something like 1.4 , my go-to was to have high defense loadouts and use ranged weapons. For a while that made it much easier to play the game and beat bosses. But with over 2000 hours in this game I can't bring myself to do the "go-to". As was pointed out, doing defense builds can feel pretty boring. It isn't just an edgy mindset of "oh, I don't need defense since I'm good enough to dodge", but a desire to take risks, challenge oneself, and keep the game interesting. And it isn't just boring in the sense of fights being relatively easy, but in the sense that to do it well, you need to grind for items like the flesh knuckles and the paladin's shield, or for players who don't want to bother getting money, it can even be annoying to pay for the warding reforges or sit at the shimmer for 20 minutes (if getting warding on more than one accessory at once). At least when grinding for a more offensive build you get the reward of fun, challenging, fast-and-loose bossfights... Anyway, I get that I am biased against warding because of my specific way of enjoying Terraria. I play mostly for the boss fights, and if the bosses are trivialized, I will have less fun.
Also, a fun little trick with the heart statue pre-skeletron is to use the wiring for the light in the surface dungeon room. if you demolish the dungeon you can just place a pressure plate and a heart statue or two over the leftover wire.
it is kind of unfun and feels like cheese to jut slap on all warding and defense accessories all the time
Same reason i never cheese destroyer, whats the fun in breezing through any challenge you can use to get better?
I stopped using defense because I realized how useless it is if I get better. The idea behind trading warding for violent on melee is that if I play better, I get a tangible reward for my progress. And in theory it is better. It is not only an incredibly intuitive metric of skill progression, it is quite literally mathematically better, so anyone that wouldn't have incentive to arbitrarily challenge themselves in a PvE game have actual reward incentive to do so.
Paladin's shield also isn't really a great defensive item, I have never felt tankier running it but in theory a ranged character can run it to soak some damage the melee is taking, and if that person is using shiny stone or the specter mage set, they can heal off the damage they shared with the melee.
I do think it is a good point that this stuff applies mainly to bosses though, I have noticed after I made the switch how miserable horde events are without defense stats, and in those events the paladin shield actually should go on your tank since damage will be spread among everyone else.
For master I usually play an offensive build with warding reforges, so fights are still tough, but the extra defense goes a long way in keeping you alive. Especially nasty fights I replace one offensive item with worm scarf for the damage reduction since it's applied before defense, making you a lot more tanky for only a slight reduction in overall DPS.
Some people genuinely don't know.
I think you undersold the value of the flinx fur coat. Like, sure, you _can_ just nab a summoning potion to make up for it.. but like, you can also do that _with_ the flinx fur coat, bringing your minion DPS (but not _necessarily_ summon in general) boost overall from ~110% to ~215%.
Seeing him use the vampire frog staff also hurt me a little. Sure it theoretically has really good DPS, but the frogs have such a hard time dealing damage to bosses consistently without setups like the narrow corridor on WoF that makes you a sitting duck for laser beams it's really hard to justify using them. For WoF I like to use one imp against the hungy since they are weak to fire damage and the fireball can hit multiple at once, with all the other minion slots being hornets which are inversely much stronger against the main body. They total to much more consistent DPS over the frogs and you can use the open space to dodge around like the mage or ranger builds.
@@SethAbercromby why are they weak to fire damage?
@@derfloh4245 I can't tel you why, but curiously they do not resist the On Fire! debuff. Both they and the Wall of Flesh are also not immune to the hornet's poison, making them a great summon against WoF imo.
Bro I see you on every terraria video
@@SethAbercromby to be fair, if you have a lot of defense its a lot easier to keep the boss standing still and let the frogs wail on them
Brilliant Analysis! Well done. I have always felt that I am bad at "good dodging", I can dodge to an average level, but when I watch people who are really good at dodging, I feel like i don't know how to dodge at all. So for us 'average/below-average dodgers', defense has always been the way to go. I think people should experiment with both, that's the beauty of this excellent game!
It's worth noting that in PHM white string and its dyed variants are extremely cheap to reforge and extremely easy to get, so in the event you want to stack warding, they're a good early option
I just use whichever +4% increase reforge I get first
real
Based
i roll out the mobility one but same
I think not including things like the burger, bast statue for damage or warding examples doesn't make for a valid comparison. Because there's no "tradeoff" for those. You just have to spend the time to get them. These comparisons should be between the things that have tradeoff. Not ones that don't. If I can get free defense while I'm playing a damage build, I'm still gonna get the free defense. I'd like to see a second video comparing optimized builds. With only tradeoffs between them.
Just subtract 5 from all the non-bast statue ones on the table.
@@Maniac_l23. That isn't really helpful for the actual testing. It'll give the stat, that's cool. But not the actual hit count per boss/enemy.
@@vulpix9210 Its more about the trendline, really. Pulling hairs over +5 defense for a build claiming to kill enemies before they die barely impacts anything. Boss attacks still hit like a truck, and unless you stack defense to negate that, which is the whole point of warding, you still have to focus on dodging.
@@Maniac_l23. If you read my comment. It's not *just* about the bast statue. It's about everything from the bast statue to the endurance potions to ironskin to anything else. All builds should be given either everything without tradeoffs. Or not given them
"Because there's no "tradeoff" for those. You just have to spend the time to get them."
Well, yeah... that's the tradeoff. Most people don't want to spend the time getting that stuff, just like most people don't put together optimized builds. It's more realistic to account for how an 'average' setup will have both worse gear and worse buffs.
Alt title: In Defense of Defense
On a more serious note, my Expert mode True Melee run has taught me the true beauty of the Tank build.
An optimal Tank build from my experience has some combination of Defense, Damage reduction, and Life regeneration.
Defense is great for smaller attacks
DR is great for bigger attacks
Life regen is great because it gives you more hit points over time, which Defense and DR let you take further
P.S. I always thought Master mode was designed with Tank builds in mind, and this video confirms that through and through
the multiplayer footage that you show is beautiful, something about seeing so many people fighting a boss is just majestic.
no friends?
@@theendofthestart8179 😢
Nice video coming from the guy who beat master mode with zero defense. I love this guy
"Defense isn't that important"
"Pedro, why aren't we alive"
It makes no sense to go for anything but defense in pre hardmode imo
I'd genuinely take +1 defense over +4% damage in pre hardmode
shackle supremacy
Warding shackle, my champion
I so agree btw that 4% DMG is just not worth it when it increases DMG by 1 -5 flat dmg
What about Quick? I usually just go for quick since I think it makes it easier to dodge.
yeah, but id take shark teeth over any defense item any day, and frankly spending any amount of time minmaxing before hardmode just seems, wasteful?
@@sutarn_gamer4159 long story short, if you arent flying, speed buffs arent good.
One thing about honey that rarely gets talked about is that you can get the buff without any building, accessories, etc. To do it you need honey bottles in your inventory. If there is no potion sickness currently, and you press the buff button, it uses the honey bottle as a *buff potion* and gives you 30 seconds of honey buff, while not giving you the potion cooldown. (but it might get fixed in 1.4.5)
Finally we can put the "defense bad" myth to its grave. I do not understand why it's such a prevalant opinion among the community despite being so utterly untrue.
Edit: Finished watching the video. I'm astonished by how in-depth you go and how you brought up many good points that I have never even considered, especially the bit on why menacing is bad at the end. This is definitely my favorite video you've made
literally everyone builds defense and goes for warding all the time
Probably because of the prevalent “just don’t get hit” ideology
@@TheLifeLaVita Yes but you also do see many opinions floating around claiming defense is worthless on high difficulty. I've certainly seen many of them
Terraria has a huge community, some circles might frequently use defense, others bash it as being useless. Not everyone builds defense and goes for warding all the time - in fact, one of the most common things I had to do when I started streaming was explain why I skipped over menacing reforges for warding ones
@@Tempestissiman generally everyone goes for warding except when they don't wanna spend so much time to reforge everything or doesn't have the need for it in higher difficulties. Just looking at how much damage reduction you get it's obvious defense is strong. Skipping over defense or not going for warding doesn't mean they don't know how effective warding is, but just that they wanna have more fun in other ways
Dude finally a video about defense and how actually work love to see that.
for the those wondering, this is also very effective if not better in the calamity mod as the warding reforge gives damage reduction AND gets buffed the more major progression bosses defeated(ex. wall of flesh, moon lord, etc.)
Thing is, playing on the designated reveangence mode, every single hit completely cuts your defense by half and literally everything has DOT that pierces defense
Daytime Empress: hold my beer
Pretty much the only time you want or need a full menacing build, since HP doesn't matter anyway and it's just a race to kill her a little before you get caught by a stray projectile
Pretty much lol
I have a problem with the comparisons made.
At 7:38 you say the following: "All that this is showing us is that this is really showing is that having access to the 24 defense from warding accessories is extremely powerful and quite unbalancing".
Except in none of the comparisons you show is the difference only those 24 extra defense points. What you showed is more "here is a build with preparation for maximum damage and nothing else, vs build with preparation for maximum defense and nothing else", when a lot of aspects of both builds can be combined *with no detriment*.
For example, in the early summoner comparisons where the only summoner armor is the Flinx Fur Coat, the "maximum damage build" is missing out on things that it could absolutely use to increase the armor it has without decreasing the damage. There is nothing stopping that build from having iron skin and a bast statue, not to mention that the armor set up is missing legs, and the wizard hat which is used doesn't even improve summon damage (unless explicitly in the Celebration Mk.10 seed where it gives 1 extra summon slot) so it could just be replaced by a platinum helmet.
> having iron skin and a bast statue
lmao true everyone has iron skin, but also i never would've given bast statue a second chance
Yeah that's a major problem with this video. Another problem I have is that the DPS comparisons are just played poorly as far as the DPS builds are concerned.
Ultimately this video really didn't change my mind on anything. I already knew defense wasn't bad, but I still think damage is better.
@@EATZYOWAFFLEZ Enjoying the game is what matters in the end, whether one is better or not only matters if that matters for your enjoyment.
As he pointed out at some point in the video, going full defense can be extremely overpowered. But it can also be boring because there ends up being basically no skill required as you just sit and tank for some fights. I don't care if, from a meta perspective, defense is far stronger than menacing, because in the end I have way more fun dodging attacks and dealing insane damage than otherwise.
@@GhGh-gq8oo Please quote the full sentence:
"Enjoying the game is what matters in the end, *whether one is better or not only matters if that matters for your enjoyment.* "
If speedruns are how you enjoy the game, then defense over damage matters. I never said otherwise.
I was looking for a comment like this. I normally love in depth videos like this, but I can't really take any of the comparison seriously when it has a flaw like this, because it's basically not comparing real builds that a player might have. I feel like a better comparison would have been to use the basic armour setup for that class at that stage in the game, with all menacing and all relevant potions (both offensive and defensive), and relevant arena modifiers (eg bast statue, heart lantern, etc), then compare to the exact same setup with warding accessories and no other changes, and then have the 3rd be the full defensive setup that will use different defensive armour and accessories. This would directly show how much warding alone does on a setup everyone would be familiar with, while also comparing to how focused defense performs.
this is such an eye opener especially with how detailed the whole thing is
For someone who used to run warding, it never helped me that much. When I switched to menacing it was a world of difference, I play mage.
Exactly menacing helps with damage while you are outmaneuvering the enemy in question.
@@derianyounan1353 There's a whole damn video in the OP that goes over this argument and why it's not correct.
> watches video explaining how [argument] is objectively incorrect
> comments [argument] anyway
Well, for one, I wasn't posting an argument, just personal experience, so that is incorrect.
For this, let me add on to my previous statement. For solo I think this video is very true. Warding is much more important.
But I always play Terraria multiplayer, and never solo. Menacing is much better for multiplayer considering the enemy has more targets, and even if my teamate(s) die, their 30 seconds is usually up by the time I would also be dead, even though we played Calamity and Terraria on the hardest modes, not including seed modes. (Master Death, Master). Even bosses that kill the melee tank, and chase afterwards.
This is me agreeing with what the video is saying.
the TRUE comprehensive guide to defense:
bigger number = better (usually)
I have been playing through Infernum recently (Just beat Exo Mechs today, only SCal left!), and there have been many fights where shifting more into a defensive build has made the fight significantly more doable. It keeps you alive in times where you make multiple mistakes in a row, and makes it so that you don't have to instapop a potion as soon as you get hit once, you can allow yourself to regen and save the potion for a better time.
even with Calamity's defense damage, and even against DoG, who does absolutely stupid damage in Infernum, allowing me to take 1 extra hit from the head makes things so much easier. going from even being 2 shot to 3 shot, in the most extreme case (lasers and body do much less), gives much more wiggle room when you often go long stretches without getting hit because you have to learn the fights so much, allowing you to regen back to full.
Yea, literally just being able to survive one extra hit can make all the difference, and give you time to recover and use a health potion or whatever to get you back up over the 'one more hit and I'm dead' threshold. Survivability is just super important unless you're just REALLY good at the game, because for vast majority of players, they wont be capable of avoiding everything. Calamity also heavily rewards trying to protect against specific boss debuffs. Can take some extra grinding to get such gear, but that preparation can make an extremely tough boss way more manageable.
I’m currently 24 attempts into expert hardcore and am reasonably confident I’ll be able to beat most of the bosses without much trouble. However, I’ll be running a tank build for the simple reason that I don’t want the mistakes I make to instantly cost me the run.
beetle shell supremacy
Bosses aren't the main difficulty of hardcore, in fact it's probably the least concerning part. Regular enemies deal more damage a lot of the times and you can't predict it. To that end defense is even more valuable because it lets you avoid being camped by an enemy.
Also, make sure to get a cross necklace for that purpose. It gives you extra time to recall out of a bad situation
@@Tempestissiman agree i use the star veil and can very fastly save and exit and weapons doesn't go bad with autopause bug of the game when you can't exit cause of attack
@@Tempestissiman considering Attempt 24 died to a pigron, you're 100% right.
Attempt 25 took it home, though
@@galaxystudios370 congratulations!
Great video, but there are some problem with your methodology I noticed:
1) When comparing the armor of the various classes, I think it was a mistake to have the damage-focused builds use worse armor and accessories. You never really showed an accurate representation of most players builds, which will usually include decent but not optimal armor, some defensive accessories such as ankh shield, and an ironskin potion, with the accessories at menacing.
Basically, there is no reason for not using ironskin potions and bast statues for the full damage player, since it has absolutely zero cost in dps for doing so. Additionally, by giving the normal build a bunch of defensive accessories and armor that the damage build doesn't get, it obscures the actual value of Warding specifically by comparing the defenses of Menacing + weak equipment to warding + tanky equipment, rather than comparing menacing and warding on equal footing.
2) Additionally, I think you should have included worm scarf / endurance potions in your calculations. Again, there is a distinct middle ground between full damage and full defense that you seemed to ignore
3) I don't remember you talking about how warding is better early game, as 24 flat damage reduction means a lot more against Eye than against Fishron. I think this is worth considering, as there are people who will use warding pre hardmode but switch to menacing around/after mech bosses.
4) During your combat tests, you died with the defensive build, and then brushed that off since "you weren't trying to dodge". You only died because you facetanked, but remember you said you HAD to facetank to obtain the killtimes you did with the tanky builds. This is a really unfair double standard, you say the tanky builds are much safer because of the lower damage, but you also say that they are comparable in damage because you can facetank - but if you think about it, facetanking bosses is a strategy that makes you take more damage to let you deal more damage! To mitigate the lack of dps, you are willingly sacrificing the main advantage of defense, but you aren't acknowledging that fact. If you wanted a fair comparison, you should have used the same strategy both times, that way it's a comparison between actual damage output, and there are no asterisks about your increased survivability.'
5) In addition to having a damage + warding test, you should have included a defense + menacing test. I don't think it would be better, but it's a distinct build style that is very common for players to use and not testing it is a big oversight.
I'll argue against 4 and 5.
4) From the perspective of a player who is genuinely struggling, the extra defense is much safer. From the perspective of an experienced player trying to kill things as quickly as possible, it can simultaneously be comparable in damage because they strategically take damage to deal more damage. Those are not mutually exclusive, it just means that tank builds are versatile. Builds that sacrifice defense for more damage lack that versatility, despite mostly comparable killtimes. I'll also add that he was playing offense nearly as aggressively as he played defense, which later on resulted in a ton of deaths. Less defensive builds have to take similar risks to maintain any advantage, except that risk is far greater compared to defense doing the same thing.
5) IMO that would introduce unnecessary clutter. 12 tests is already messy, adding in 4 more for the sake of a minor variation doesn't make much sense.
One of the most informative videos I’ve seen in a long time. Well done and thank you!
Bro made a 58 minute video about defense just to tell us that the flesh knuckles are OP.
I HAVEN'T FELT THE HEAT OF BATTLE IN QUITE A WHILE AND IT'S LIKE I JUST CAME BACK TO LIFE!
I LOVE DEFENSE!
*background explosion*
Nice to see a breakdown on the numbers, will definitely be prioritizing warding on accessories from now on
everything about this video is insane, the length, the structure, the information, the quality, all the numbers (casually correcting the wiki in between btw) and gameplay footage edited.
providing a full equipment list in 3 iterations and also going into specific details about gear choices and boss abilities is absurd
I think a lot of people don't realize how much work a video like this is.
btw terraria is a 13 year old game, the fact we still get content like this for it is mind blowing
This is the type of videos I LOVE to see. Good job buddy
This video has a ton of useful information. As someone who isn't as familiar with all the items and options in this game, it would be nice to have this as a written guide. It would be extra special if it could have information on which accessories and armors become available at various stages of the game and recommendations on upgrades and replacements for each phase of the game. In lieu of such a guide based around this video, does anyone know of any written resources based around defensive play styles that are up to date and similar to what I described.
Anywho thanks for the video. it's obvious that you put a ton of work into it!
what a video! watched all of it and loved every second of it :) thanks for your effort, keep it up!
I thought I would disagree with this video but it changed my mind good job
Subscribed more valuable information than other sources and will rely on as a general guide for defense plays ^w^
PLEASE KEEP DOING THESE VIDEOS THEY ARE AMAZING
Defense doesnt become less useful the better you are at dodging, it compliments how well you're dodging even further. Barely being hit by bosses? Very cool, same! Now imagine if every hit you took that was big was 20% less and every small-damaging projectile was a joke.
Absolute gigachad for the work here! Awesome stuff, man!
i legit started reforging menacing because it was TOO easy
My rule of thumb for accesories is "Is it a shield (or something that adds + defense)?... Then +4 Defense" 🤣
This video is cool. Didn't realize you could make such builds that weren't just using the set bonuses.
this popping in my recommendation after a manga/comic about an adventurer Tanker with max Defense being kicked out and the party got whipped by enemy after that because they has no defense while the tanker join another party and keep winning....yeah this is the sign
Tanks need some love. It feels like they rarely get appreciated.
"healing potions are useless cuz experienced player would just dodge. Save the inventory slot"ahh argument
This video is fantastic, the comprehensive guide on every aspect is just top tier. You researched and gave us builds, damage values, AND kill times for each and every build. This is just simply amazing. This video alone has convinced me to subscribe
I will be deep in a cold, dead grave before I ever stop reforging all my accessories to menacing
And without defense it might happen sooner than you realize
@@rougenarwhal8378 Who needs defence when I can melt moonlord before ever getting hit?
@@nightmareraven3045If you do that on master mode, fair enough.
Moral of the story:
If you don't like having fun and taking risks, or are just seriously terrible at Terraria, use this guy's exotic builds.
If you're a new player, use warding with normal accessories and armor.
If you play calamity good luck 👍
Tbh because of calamity's defense damage system and how calamity puts a softcap on how much damage reduction you can have optimizing for damage can be important
@electricfallBro literally use mixed armors
This is incredible. I applaud you and your dedication to this topic, which I hadn’t really thought was interesting until now. Cheers!
Sorry if I come across as a little hostile, since it's pretty late for me and I'm tired, but to me it seems like the majority of this is very biased towards defense.
Maybe I didn't hear some important details or something, but from what I heard, some simple and accessible defensive items were not given to the damage build at all.
The main focus should be the reforges, since that's a very black/white decision to make: Warding or Menacing?
But other things kept getting introduced, that *should* be applied to both sides, including:
1. Obsidian Shield, being instrumental in dodging due to knockback negation, which is very useful in any build.
2. Potions. There is no conceivable reason why a damage player can't use ironskin, endurance, and lifeforce (also the Aegis Fruit).
3. Bast Statues and Heart statues, similar to potions, do not reduce damage at all, and should always be included.
4. The Nurse. I can't speak much about this because I never use the nurse, but it should be stated that she can always be used by any player.
The only reason I care so much about this in particular is that it seems like for the defense builds, you mainly focused on defense, but also added in some damage stuff. This should also be done for damage, by including some basic defensive items.
Also, the way damage buffs affect your damage is very similar to how defense affects damage reduction.
Your defense directly stacks and reduces the damage you take by it's value. Pretty simple, easy to follow.
Damage could *seem* worse (especially when you word it like "the 28% increase *actually* only increases by 16%") at first, but it still stacks up your damage, but not by adding together the multipliers because that would be OP. Instead the multipliers separately affect the base damage, and add their respective values directly to the damage value.
10% + 15% ≠ 1.25 x Base Damage
10% + 15% = BaseDmg + (0.1 x BaseDmg) + (0.15 x BaseDmg)
Therefore the line saying that it "only increases damage by 16% and not 28%" only works after already applying like half of your other damage buffs.
Idk where this rant came from, I'm really tired. I just saw this video and it fired me up for no reason so I wrote a whole essay lmfao. I'm going to bed now.
Good video, very in depth, I learned some new things, keep it up.
I agree. I use warding but it definitely seemed biased. Would love to see the comparisons where bast, ironskin, etc is also given to damage builds
Congrats the damage build used bast statue and iron skin potion and aegis fruit and got 20 more defence.
@@ToastedBread14 20 defense is quite significant, not to mention the 10% damage reduction from endurance and the 20% max hp from lifeforce.
The point we're trying to make is that the video is biased. Who would've thought that using accurate numbers in a math-heavy video matters :O
@@ToastedBread14 20 def is still 2/3 of what warding enchants gives you tho. Still good video to show that def builds isnt as bad as you might've thought they are
absolutely fantastic and comprehensive video. I've been thinking about defense for a while, and this cleared up a lot of my doubts. Thanks!
You are changing my whole view on terraria with these videos, they are so high effort and easy to follow. I'm on my first master mode hardcore character and your videos have been a great help, thank you!
Awesome video, really good guide for bosses and their attacks, too. Gonna ignore and use menacing either way tho.
Me too lol
consider the following: tanking is boring, dodging is more fun
Bro just gave me the confidence to do a master run. You're amazing!
you got this!
this video is fucking incredible, thank you for making this, you earned a sub, live for this kind of content lol
Tysm for this, gonna send it to my friend a good 30 times
Thank you, I always played safe with a warding build and I saw people use primarily offensive and always got confused when I did so much worse when I switched. I thought I was crazy for finding an easier time with defence.
Super interesting, thanks for this guide and all the work that went into showing the actual effectiveness of warding/defensiveness!
chat gpt comment
Back in the day before 1.4, the concensus was always to get warding on everything
Nah, this mindset entered the game at 1.3 already. I myself never subscribed to either viewpoints though
One of my favorite builds to do is a full tank and regen build. Max out the potions, max out the warding, max out buffs for healing potions, and the crimson knives. I love doing it, its just so fun to me
Absolutely loving these super in depth deep dives into a particular mechanic of terraria, keep up the good work man
I remember getting so pissed at ML in my expert melee run that I used as much defense as possible and tanked everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. I was just sitting in honey, jumping to grab some hearts every time the lazer came by. I can say with 100% certainty that full defense is op.
NO WAY!
miyu from peak game blue archive loves play terraria?!
luck will shift incoming and outgoing damage calculations in your favor. with a garden gnome and having the correct biome torches while underground, you'll have a +0.4 luck stat, therefore you'll get a 40% chance for any given instance of incoming damage to reroll its variance to take the lowest of the two, and the same for outgoing damage, but taking the highest. this reverses if you have negative luck.
damage variance is ±15%, and i believe its placed after most damage buffs and before defense, so it has a lot of sway over damage values. so yeah, if you can buff your luck as much as you can manage, then it will help fights go smoother.
garden gnomes and torches are the easiest sources, but you can also get luck by being near ladybugs (and not harming them), lantern nights, luck potions and by shimmering lots of coins.
in the context of this video it does have the effect of giving you more sustainability by having a chance to reduce the damage you take from any given damage instance. so um yeah do the luck-giving things
Minor note: You can also circumvent Deerclops's frozen debuff by equipping the handwarmer, assuming either that it's Christmas or you set your device's clock to make the game think it's Christmas.
38:41 this should have been at the start of the video as this is what's actually important. I fully believe that this video could have been five minutes and get the majority of the point across with just this.
But if it was 5 minutes long, it would have been just a guide, not a comprehensive one. Gotta fit in more numbers by checking every boss to earn the title
"It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward." - Quote from greatest philosopher of our time, Rocky Balboa.
you can actually get the honey buff by using a bottel of honey with the buff keybind
that doesn't work if you have the potion sickness debuff tho
@@starsscapes really?
@@gigachadlovessharks yeah since it heals you i guess there's something that prevents using healing items when you're potion sick even if using it with the buff key doesn't heal you