The Comprehensive Guide to Defense (Terraria)

There were quite a few segments I had to cut because I didn't want this video to run over an hour, some of those will be going up on my Patreon soon! There will be details about damage that regular enemies deal, damage reduction, the paladin's shield, the shimmer buffs, and a detailed comparison of the worm scarf vs brain of confusion.
For early access to videos, exclusive content, voting on stream games, and to help me be able to make content, join / sorbetcafe
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0:00 Introduction
0:36 How defense works
1:56 Random damage variation
2:56 Are warding accessories worth it?
4:33 How much damage do enemies actually do
5:12 Every attack from every boss for every class (I'm sorry)
6:10 Eye of cthulhu
7:25 King Slime
7:56 Eater of worlds
8:57 Brain of cthulhu
9:27 Queen bee
10:23 Deerclops
10:53 Skeletron
12:18 Wall of flesh
13:40 The flesh knuckles issue
14:29 The twins
17:01 The destroyer
18:59 Skeletron prime
20:37 Plantera
21:56 Golem
22:47 Post-Golem builds
24:08 Duke Fishron (and how to facetank him)
25:14 Empress of Light
26:11 Lunatic Cultist
26:43 Moon Lord
27:35 Moon lord socket cheese
28:11 the end of this section (I'm sorry)
29:05 Killtime testing (high damage vs high defense vs high damage with warding)
29:20 Eye of Cthulhu Killtimes
20:52 Queen Bee Killtimes
32:10 Wall of Flesh Killtimes
33:50 Plantera Killtimes
35:36 Empress of Light Killtimes
38:29 Conclusions from the killtime tests
38:41 Damage becomes less effective when stacked
39:55 Tanking can be pretty boring
40:35 Potion buffs
42:35 Placed buffs
44:12 Heart statues are OP
45:43 The nurse is also OP
45:58 Accessories
48:27 Why use defense if you can dodge?
50:02 Legendary Mode
53:06 How to be a hardcore tank
54:17 How to be a multiplayer tank
56:30 Final thoughts
57:39 Reframing menacing vs warding
#terraria #gaming #guide

[@regularsama412]

"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

[@nivdy]

on the other side of the coin, kill them before they can kill you symbolises the perspective of a damage build.

[@yellowwolfpajamas2870]

wouldnt you be more likely to kill them before they kill you with a defense buile?​

[@KwikBR]

objection: "it doesn't matter how fast the boss can kill you if you kill it first"

[@tobytowns1]

a good offense is a good defense

[@metal_pipe9764]

​@@tobytowns1 no a good defense is a good defense

[@Rukir]

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.

[@baderhh9928]

Well calamity has buffed reforges, warding for some reason gives 10 def (idk if they changed it tho)

[@sansgaming607]

@@baderhh9928 they did dw

[@paracame8162]

​@@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

[@TheLusion]

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

[@Israel-jr5ks]

Defense damage BS also

[@Al-hb6uj]

KZbin’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

[@Superp2gamer]

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.

[@Tempestissiman]

I mean this is also because of how ridiculously good the night's edge is lol

[@preadatordetector]

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.

[@nickenchugger]

All warding melee build as in cheese it with nights edge? That happens regardless of how much you put into defense.

[@Tempestissiman]

@@nickenchugger remember the op is talking about legendary. It's not exactly a walk in the park even with night's edge

[@jasonthe4th]

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.

[@sorbetcafe]

That makes sense, I had noticed that she was doing surprisingly low damage when I checked her in FTW.

[@Superp2gamer]

WHAT? dang. That speed boost in insane. Master mode plantera is easy for me, but hell on legendary.

[@supersonicfan6404]

The tendrils DO deal massive damage, but I did not realize plantera itself didn’t… that would have made the fight much easier…

[@k241.-]

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.

[@SomeCowguy]

Which is exactly why many people dont do it

[@tminuswild]

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]

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

[@SomeCowguy]

@@sorbetcafe while that is true, defence does have more effect on higher difficulties. Classic = 0.5/d Expert = 0.75/d Master = 1/d

[@lotion5238]

​​@@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

[@9w8suxjehsoxjznw]

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.

[@FrostyTheCookie]

Telling a summoner to only rely on minions is the ultimate troll, summoner is the actual true melee with whips.

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

​@@FrostyTheCookiewhips were such a huge W addition

[@kalsyphr5039]

Summoners are the ultimate multiclass class.

[@mattsen4297]

Remind me to never play this game with you..

[@tinnitusintensifies]

summoner is pretty balling because you literally dont need to use your mouse in bossfights when focus is needed

[@odithrinok]

People have been sleeping on defense for the LONGEST time. I always used warding for basically all accessories, regardless of class. What you realize when you play this game for long enough, is that killing hard bosses isn't about your damage output, it's about your survivability.

[@exgem789]

Skill issue just dodge

[@Cryst_-yd4zp]

@@exgem789 you wont always be able to dodge, no matter how good you are... sure you may be good enough to almost never be hit, but you will, and that will likely mess you up. Few players are really able to no-hit bosses consistently, or even only most of the time.

[@razerblaze070]

dont need to run warding if you just dodge lol thats why Brain of Confusion is better the harder the difficulty

[@BoxBoxBoxxboxBoxx]

I always go with glass cannon builds.

[@BoxBoxBoxxboxBoxx]

@@Cryst_-yd4zp While it is true that you wont be able to no-hit bosses every time but you can most of the time....With enough practice, tho i have been playing off and on for about 5 years so i dunno about the average guy.

[@purplehaze2358]

54:50 I didn't expect going into this to see a firing squad of every gem staff in the game.

[@zeroboros934]

theres a whole playthrough of multiplayer mages that looks goofy like this

[@cryolitegem]

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

[@theendofthestart8179]

but why did they drop right into the enemy projectile? also health potion was off cooldown. This is was 100% a skill issue.

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

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

[@sorbetcafe]

“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

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

@@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.

[@cryolitegem]

@@Kermit_E_Frog did you even watch the video?

[@Jerrycourtney]

*_Maybe the real best defense in Terraria is all the friends we made along the way._*

[@randombystander991]

Nah, NPC's are pretty lousy at beating bosses.

[@wrawler]

Got it, we just have to play multiplayer and make our friends the decoys

[@Jerrycourtney]

@@wrawler finally, someone who _gets it._

[@dacrystalcreeper7300]

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.

[@semi-automaticchickennugge6417]

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

[@TheLifeLaVita]

literally everyone stacks defense all the time lmao

[@TheLifeLaVita]

@@semi-automaticchickennugge6417 more damage is more fun

[@mihael64]

​@@TheLifeLaVita A surprising amount of people don't!

[@TheLifeLaVita]

@@mihael64 crazy

[@DeuxisWasTaken]

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]

well, warding is still for noobs though.

[@justanothercommentercarryo8367]

@@theendofthestart8179 Cool.

[@Brass319]

"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:

[@MirmValkyrie]

My favorite variation is "hit it til it dies, don't die"

[@prettyradhandle]

but i like dodging attacks

[@Brass319]

@@prettyradhandle not mutually exclusive

[@prettyradhandle]

@@Brass319 mutually exclusive, dodging an attack that does 10 damage is not as exciting as one that would deal 100

[@Brass319]

@@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.

[@jimmyjohnjoejr.9020]

Thank you for making these videos. If at all possible, a comprehensive guide to movement speed would help a lot of people out.

[@outspade]

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.

[@hajoeijgenraam295]

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.9020]

@@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.

[@hajoeijgenraam295]

@@jimmyjohnjoejr.9020 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.

[@theendofthestart8179]

place 2 pylons. boom, done.

[@Z7Games]

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"

[@Brent-jj6qi]

*Not even 28% faster

[@purplehaze2358]

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%.

[@SethAbercromby]

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]

@@SethAbercromby why are they weak to fire damage?

[@SethAbercromby]

@@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.

[@Xeconis]

The quick explanation I give people for this is pretty much just "Defense is most effective when you stack a lot of it or when it's so early in the game that a % increase does basically nothing" Being with this game for over a decade has shown me that the most important stat is d- it's actually vertical mobility since pretty much every AI in the game is completely incapable of dealing with it but survivability is king. If you're surviving the fight you're winning the fight. There's multiple ways to go about that, and the idea of dodging vs mitigating is always going to be a personal preference imo (unless hardcore where it's always "why not both") and that's why it's the more interesting question to begin with. I'm personally not part of the Menacing vs Warding debate because I instead opt for Quick because I don't want to be part of the discussion and that 24% is basically like almost 4 mph of ground speed which is awesome and definitely not a waste of my time and gold so who's the fool now!! And if I don't use Quick I take Lucky so I can gamble on critical hits. That's just the way I prefer to play. Not to sound like "oh but you're dumb and defense still sucks" but I've practiced no-hit boss fights a lot and don't play hardcore mode so my own personal scenario puts me in a place where I very consistently don't need the extra hits. In multiplayer though, I also opt for drawing boss aggro, but I usually start with the "more traditional" avoidance strategy because I don't like sitting still. If my friends (who are significantly less proficient at the game due to far less practice) are struggling with that I'll sit myself down with the pure mitigation/regen setup. I don't think this game is difficult enough to force certain setups, it's fairly trivial to make most things simply work out for you provided you've been around long enough and gotten enough practice in on the game. It does kind of suck that there's a debate of X vs Y because new players are the ones that are most malleable to those discussions and either way I believe they should be able to pursue whatever they feel like and discover what they prefer using themselves, even if it's not the mathematical best option. Optimization is always going to be interesting (hell, the max possible speed is hilarious to look at, even if impractical) but it's not suited to the majority of the playerbase and leaves no room for personal flair and expression of preference unless your preference is just being optimal.

[@yellowishnesses1138]

My problem with quick is that it doesn't affect any boots' speed. It does affect acceleration, but it ends up being almost negligible when boots allow you to reach top speed immediately. Magiluminescence and quick accessories is a neat combination that allows you to stop on a dime to dodge easier, but nothing in the game is challenging enough to make it useful. Defense allows you to survive many things without any understanding, but mobility and understanding allows you to overcome any foe in the game with ease.

[@Xeconis]

@@yellowishnesses1138 I play a lot of modded to get the challenge I want

[@steveverera9999]

@@Xeconis Which mod makes quick actually useful? with any dodge accessory and boots, you can get max travel speed by just 2 presses. Horizontal speed is affected by wings and balloon/frog leg upgrades. As for lucky, because of the way terraria does that calc it is worse. you'd think it would be 50 x2crit= damage -defense. but it's (50-defense) x 2crit. All im saying is, that goblin needs to be in hell.

[@Xeconis]

@@steveverera9999 You're overthinking this, I was responding to the idea that there is nothing challenging enough in the game and if you read the original comment I made you'd know I don't care to be optimal because I don't need to be optimal. I play a lot of modded so I can adjust my difficulty beyond what vanilla offers. If I wanted to be optimal I would just stationary camp any boss that doesn't have the raw damage. On another note, dashes are great and all but there are fights out there where you don't want or care for sudden horizontal repositioning and use something else, and besides that there are players that don't like dashes regardless. It's a playstyle thing, nothing wrong with either side. Shimmer reforging is a godsend I agree but man is it a time sink it's faster to just get rich as hell and suffer with the goblin.

[@steveverera9999]

@@Xeconis yeah but im not on about optimal, im about the fact that Quickening does actually nothing. I want it to do something via mod or other stuff. And if it also fix the damage formulas for crits so it isn't gimped.

[@purplehaze2358]

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]

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

[@turmspitzewerk]

@@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]

@@turmspitzewerk You have to be trolling.

[@turmspitzewerk]

@@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"

[@purplehaze2358]

@@turmspitzewerk Brain is not a well-designed fight my dude.

[@solomonbyrne3909]

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.

[@razerblaze070]

it is kind of unfun and feels like cheese to jut slap on all warding and defense accessories all the time

[@SomeCowguy]

Same reason i never cheese destroyer, whats the fun in breezing through any challenge you can use to get better?

[@TrouserSnivy]

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.

[@SethAbercromby]

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.

[@HebiSnake]

Some people genuinely don't know.

[@Shyguymask]

31:07 That's not true. The point of killtime testing is to see how weapons perform *when* they are dealing damage, preferably to their potential if they require aiming or have some other slight complication (without outright taking hits from high damage attacks on purpose). Whether you are only hitting 50% of 90% of the time, weapons with above average higher DPS are still going to retain their above average DPS, and subpar weapons are going to still be subpar in all cases.

[@theendofthestart8179]

how am I the only reply on this legend's comment... others too scared?

[@krimson8317]

@@theendofthestart8179 Maybe

[@mb654bloopers]

The definition of kill time testing is pretty arbitrary anyway. You have the "theoretical potential" kill time testing that assumes you have god mode on, while the one in this video is "practical" kill time testing.

[@yokuutsu9097]

The goat..

[@xd3athclawx554]

When I test modded weapons that I don't know I usually do take use time into account, so if the dps is the same I will take the item with a higher use time because you have a higher chance to hit more with the higher use time weapon because if you miss with the lower use time weapon its a larger chunk of damage that misses. Obviously doesn't matter against enemies that are like the king slime or golem because they are very easy to hit.

[@user-xf3rx3tl5e]

joke's on you, i always use lucky

[@Rosy-maple-moth46]

Ok Cheese

[@kaitoshirogane5563]

SOME of us actually want the game to have a little challenge smh 🙄🙄🙄

[@flaireyuwu]

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

[@mmsbludhound873]

Daytime Empress: hold my beer

[@SethAbercromby]

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

[@crashertalksmore9869]

Pretty much lol

[@aetheriox463]

the TRUE comprehensive guide to defense: bigger number = better (usually)

[@OhCrapI_He]

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

[@thesamesunrise5297]

Absolutely loving these super in depth deep dives into a particular mechanic of terraria, keep up the good work man

[@aaronpark8232]

Fascinating and well-researched video! I've been playing a 100HP only Master Mode run with my brother, which as you might expect completely devalues all defenses minus Hallowed Armor, Brain of Confusion, and Master Ninja Gear, but it's still very illuminating to see just how strong a defensive build can be. Thanks for the video!

[@Kinen098]

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

[@RobYu]

Super interesting, thanks for this guide and all the work that went into showing the actual effectiveness of warding/defensiveness!

[@theendofthestart8179]

chat gpt comment

[@ivyklobs2662]

as soon as hardmode hits you bet your ass I'm rushing forbidden armor every damn time I love how there's no strawman fallacy!! incredible video!

[@oriondezagrats4228]

Honestly I've loved Forbidden armour ever since it came out, and both that and Frost make me sad there's no 'endgame' versions of those set bonuses. Heck, there's a lot of full sets that have interesting bonuses that it's a little disheartening that they're only really viable for a comparatively small window of time.

[@NotSnak]

Forbidden armor is so good. Its just a shame mixed summoner armors arent more common. Even in modded (and hell in calamity its outright worse due to calamity chunking your damage if you use a non summon damage weapon along with summons which defeats the point of the armor)

[@MarkTheDevourer]

absolutely fantastic and comprehensive video. I've been thinking about defense for a while, and this cleared up a lot of my doubts. Thanks!

[@vfrostbane225]

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!

[@cosminonisoru1145]

Dude finally a video about defense and how actually work love to see that.

[@DenajM25]

Back in the day before 1.4, the concensus was always to get warding on everything

[@AlterEgo-en2wx]

Nah, this mindset entered the game at 1.3 already. I myself never subscribed to either viewpoints though

[@nixbtw]

I love how in most games, what you reforge things to depends on your class, but in terraria, *Warding*

[@electricfall]

Got some inspiration for the future runs as I always take the multiplayer tank role. Thank you.

[@dodge7246]

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*

[@damnthisisabadname]

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

[@sorbetcafe]

shackle supremacy

[@logansmith6342]

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

[@sutarn_gamer4159]

What about Quick? I usually just go for quick since I think it makes it easier to dodge.

[@theendofthestart8179]

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?

[@theendofthestart8179]

@@sutarn_gamer4159 long story short, if you arent flying, speed buffs arent good.

[@AkaRetribution]

I am now completely rethinking how I should play melee with my two buds now, thank you for this enlightenment. I've always been confused as what's better to go for in terms menacing or warding and now seeing my own playstyle as a mostly defensive with a little bit of offense and the way you explained how a multiplayer melee should play for best results. I see that just reforging my stuff to warding with light buffs would best suit me and my team.

[@deshanford6375]

Hell of a guide, mad props to you man. I just happen to running my first master mode full playthrough right now

[@corydog2264]

Tysm for this, gonna send it to my friend a good 30 times

[@whereismyrootbeer]

i've played very aggressively for over a thousand hours in both vanilla and calamity combined. while defense might be better and safer, i just prefer minmaxing damage. in prehardmode these 4% might not give much, but in hardmode they do, and honestly i'd rather die a billion times to a boss only to kill it five seconds faster than i would with tank build. is in the most rational mindset? not really. is it fun, placing everything on the line and risking it? hell yeah. i might be too biased but damage has always been my go-to

[@backwardlenny5682]

Damage is definitely better in mods like Infernum

[@steveverera9999]

Even in hardmode master/legend, 4% isn't much unless im fighting EoL. 28% is tiny when compared with the damage buffs you have and it's additive to all of those. so best case scenario it's a 19% increase with adamantite, post golem is where i find Menacing falls off a cliff off of 1 weapon alone With the 171 damage% set up just going to 199 which is 15% increase. If i added melee speed and summon+sentry damage in there it would probably hit single digits in effectiveness. After golem i really find it hard to justify menacing unless. I always go for the balancing acts of both damage and tanking, the only time i really am using a tank loadout is either exploring or learning how a boss moves to better learn it instead of dying in 3 shots without learning what i did to mess up.

[@ekremslayer3389]

@@backwardlenny5682 Definitely true. Fighting DoG with all warding as a melee still had me dying in like 3 hits.

[@Schmitzerize1992]

This is the type of videos I LOVE to see. Good job buddy

[@YeOldMacGamer]

Finally a defence focused video, thanks! With the proper gear and facetanking, we can do ML completely AFK easily. :)

[@raphaelnadeau6686]

Counterpoint : big damage number go brrrrrr

[@gamingzeraora443]

i use full damage for anything other than legendary mode

[@schhhh]

literally the best argument against using defense

[@user-qd8yy9lc4g]

...In your face!

[@josea.ruizquinones9262]

Big red number as you die in one hit for the hundredth time as you practice the no-hit kill while the others are already five bosses ahead.

[@ekremslayer3389]

Honestly it also just feels better to not get hit. I'd rather deal big damage and have to dodge everything to survive consistently because then I have to learn the fight and get better

[@VeryAnonymousTurtle]

the multiplayer footage that you show is beautiful, something about seeing so many people fighting a boss is just majestic.

[@theendofthestart8179]

no friends?

[@Highmastet]

I absolutely LOVE these hardcore deep dives, I hope to see more! Unrelated to that, I sincerely wish we had an end-game spear option

[@lahiruerangafile]

I like this series, fully explaining a single topic to every detail. Didn't watch it yet cuz it's 1am rn but I'll watch later. but my opinion about defense was if boss does less damage but hits very often warding is better, otherwise if boss doesn't hit often but does a lot of damage then menacing, I'll watch it to see if I was right

[@KITSUMELO]

"if dodging boss is fun then why not dodge it for even longer"

[@tewu8257]

Hello, I like facetanking a lot in this game and have always recommended defensive setups, thanks for making this video; anyway here are some notes on the script that I feel are not necessarily true. 17:30 - While it is true that the head deals insane damage for this point in the game, if you stand inside the destroyer it will virtually never hit you due to i-frames. 19:20 - I agree, but you can still facetank prime if you really wanted to, it's a bit risky but the bomb attack is very inaccurate and the skull spin, while dealing very high damage, does give you some breathing room after, allowing you to regen a bit. And while it's spining inside of you, fetid baghnakhs deal a lot of dps in return 24:30 - You don't actually need vampire knives but sure. 25:45 - Yeah, no. Melee is not actually the best facetanking class with summoner having basically equal survivability combined with simply higher dps after late game bosses dont allow you to use super close ranged weapons. 26:50 - This is completely unnecessary, with the star veil equipped, the barrage of eye projectiles right before the death ray give you enough i-frames to skillfully dodge the big scary attack. 27:20 - It totally is, even on legendary.

[@sfglim5341]

Omg another Sorbet Cafe vid!!!! I love ur vids thanks for making these

[@itsokiie]

this guide singlehandedly makes me wanna join your discord, bc this information is so concise that I definitely want to see more.

[@duncanurquhart5278]

defensemaxxing and wardingpilled

[@gigachadlovessharks]

you can actually get the honey buff by using a bottel of honey with the buff keybind

[@Shwoble]

I love your content, thank you for giving so much to the terraria community with your video essays

[@Xeare204]

Haven't seen the whole video yet, but it's also notable having your hp drain slower is more than just being able to take x% more hits, as it gives you more time to get your HP potion cooldown back, as well as abuse any regen buffs you have applied. So even if you aren't reducing damage to trivial values, more defense is always significantly better as often times the amount of survivability you [actually] gain is compounded upon.

[@cap1986]

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 / online game

[@AniematedSteph]

I thought I would disagree with this video but it changed my mind good job

[@damnitschmolt9205]

It's been a few years, but I remember I used to play full damage builds and struggle and die in multiplayer a lot before swapping to full warding (but not fully optimised tank levels) - it's a lot more fun to spend the fight alive and trying to clutch instead of dead and being carried by your friends! I feel very validated right now, my pals were menacing enjoyers 😄 Couple of other things that made some gears turn in my head: 40:51 Wait, you can toss purification powder at evil mushrooms to get regular mushrooms? TIL 47:12 cmimic farm the entire section on how to be a multiplayer tank

[@CountersSign]

I got to respect this man. He just told everyone the (almost) perfect builds for each class

[@purplehaze2358]

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.

[@dddw.]

i legit started reforging menacing because it was TOO easy

[@theOkayest]

This is an incredible video, amazing info!

[@rozee8516]

PLEASE KEEP DOING THESE VIDEOS THEY ARE AMAZING

[@regularsama412]

I still don't understand people who don't reforge to warding. Off of experience and zero contact with the community, I realized that the difference between menacing and warding was an astronomical gap. You go from fearing for your life every corner you turn to being able to slam dunk on anything that feels like a threat [they're never a threat]. In fact, I beat my hardcore master mode using ranged weapons with full turtle armor and warding

[@TheLifeLaVita]

most of the people don't play hardcore master mode all the time. And you don't need defense if you just dodge. Lucky is generally much better for fun

[@regularsama412]

@@TheLifeLaVita Well, yeah, the fun factor is there. It's more challenging to figure out other ways to beat the bosses

[@TheLusion]

@@TheLifeLaVita but that just proves that warding is better, and softcore is too easy and beatable by everyone, maybe just for main player but everyone can do this with infinite lifes like me, i play hardcore master mode and even that is too easy for me

[@TheLifeLaVita]

@@TheLusion everyone knows already that stacking defense is the strongest option lmao I never said the opposite and nobody ever will. Let's stay focused here. There is nothing to prove because it's already proven. I didn't try to prove anything because there's nothing to prove. Very simply people have fun in different ways and playing skyrim with godmode on is fun just for a little while.

[@missing6747]

@@TheLusion hardcore isn't any more difficult, just tedious.

[@Beanie-Babe]

this video is fucking incredible, thank you for making this, you earned a sub, live for this kind of content lol

[@natalie6811]

I’ll always remember that in my first expert playthough, the way I killed both the Twins and Plantera, after having so much trouble with both of them, was to stack defense and melee speed accessories before just standing in a hole with the Fetid However-it’s-spelled.

[@warpedg4mer936]

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.

[@user-qd8yy9lc4g]

"Defense isn't that important" "Pedro, why aren't we alive"

[@fiddlestickjones]

Defense is really good, but what if I wanna die in 2 hits, did you think if that?

[@Vesite]

Great video! I did actually use menacing on my hardcore mastermode character, but only for daytime empress😉. Clearly maximising defence is the best and easiest strategy.

[@Armegeothm]

Since picking the game back up about a decade after I stopped playing (late winter 2011/12 to late winter 2022/23 hiatus), I've found that my conditioned desire for big defense number has never gone away, since I remember the good old days of the 1.0.x updates where defense bonuses were rare and the best options for it kept getting cut down. Suddenly, 1.1 comes along, and not only was there new content that lets you pump defense even higher, you could reforge your accessories to add a whopping +4 per! And you could fuse two of the three defensive accessories at no loss to defense or functionality! What was once a meager maximum of 40 defense was now a staggering 85, and you could safely knock it down to 82 to gain impressive offensive power and mobility without a real loss in survivability or bonuses. It felt terrific back then, and it still does today, especially with the new buffs and set bonuses and gear options available.

[@most10wanted67]

You have made some very valid, well thought and research point, however dead enemies can't fight back.

[@xenopsychologist4943]

you get dead enemies either way. but ya only shave a few seconds off a fight minmaxing your damage. that said, i tend to adjust my defense level to match the amount of challenge im looking for as i play. i slowly weaned myself off of high defense builds as i started to want more risk in my runs. perhaps someday i will join the hardcore club.

[@TrouserSnivy]

I'm also not understanding certain things such as... and correct me if I am wrong and it's just implied, I tried rewinding a couple places but didn't want to rewatch the entire video over... why you would NOT have a bast statue regardless of your build, when you would be using one on the defense build. Or potions. Etc. I run triple claws on my melee and reforge to violent when I can and settle for either crit or damage if I run out of money. That doesn't mean I don't use a bast statue and ironskin??? Like what? Why would I not use a free buff that is not competing for anything? Also for wall, if you're gonna be bringing the issue of having 10+ players in the world into question... like yeah, it is rough, but you should be batting hungries away from yourself while pulling all of the laser aggro for your team, and you should be good at dodging the laser. Obviously nobody is perfect and I'm not even great at it, but if you don't you will just die whether you are taking less damage from those or not. If you can not dodge the lasers, you just die in multiplayer wall of flesh melee. It's that simple. So why reduce the amount of times you can hit it with your sword between laser cycles by not running violent? I actually don't know who was even running menacing on melee to begin with. Also I feel like throwing berserker glove and flesh knuckle on everyone in a multiplayer word is going to make the boss aggro go absolutely insanely unpredictable but I guess if you're all trading aggro for weaker hits on yourself then maybe worth it? For solo, like... literally why are you using flesh knuckles and berserker glove on anyone but melee and summoner. Like at this point, if you are quite literally trading your actual fun class or gimmick items out for defense, when you would STILL have to dodge, it just punishes you less for being bad at dodging, but it's going to take forever to kill the boss... why not just play something equally boring like gravity potion ranger/mage/summoner killing the boss from a full screen away. Like you may as well, just as boring

[@Tempestissiman]

About the wall, the hungries gain drastic knockback resistance when there are more players, batting them away is not an option. Dodging the laser is doable if you're skilled but we're discussing effective of builds here, if you need to be more skilled to use damage build, then damage build is worse. Not to mention a defensive build reduces laser damage from 50+ damage to *tickle* damage. I've certainly never bothered dodging them. About the berserker glove and knuckles, you equip them for more defense. That's what this video is about. Sorbet also made a good point in the video, backed with kill time testing that a defense build can dish out comparable kill times to damage build so I'm not sure where you got the "taking forever to kill" from. This video isn't arguing about which class is more fun to play. It's evident that damage build is more effective at surviving and killing bosses, and newer players who just want to beat the game will benefit more from defense than damage. If you find optimizing for damage fun, go for it, but it's disingenuous to argue that because you find it fun that everyone should use damage build and that defense is worthless. I don't think you're arguing that either, but it's a common perception among the community that this video is trying to argue against.

[@TrouserSnivy]

​@@Tempestissiman "batting away," may have been a bad way to word swatting them to death in general but no, something taking more skill to use does not mean it is worse if it is more effective. It's less effective if you aren't practiced enough but it rewards getting better as it is objectively more effective when you do get better. It is disingenuous to say less damage is equivalent to more damage, though I will give that at the moment I wasn't considering that there are probably some baghnakhs strats in vanilla that involve facetanking that are faster than DPS builds. But not really sure what bosses that would even be on, you can just hit destroyer without taking contact damage and proper movement should let you hit golem and plantera about the same amount, because claws make your baghnakhs huge enough to hit backwards. I'll admit to having only recently played Calamity, I know vanilla lacks many lance options, but lances are a pretty undervalued melee weapon class for fighting flying bosses while on a glass cannon build. A lot of the damage downtime you would have with swords in general regardless of your armor setup is not present when you use a lance. Gloves makeup for the awful rate of fire lances have/the penalty for missing with a lance being having to wait to try again. Not dying instantly to getting stuck inside skeletron because you ran a high armor build is a great hardcore strat but not getting into that situation to begin with is even better, and even skeletron prime on master won't instakill you if you just don't panic shield bash inside him and instead jump out with obsidian shield knockback resist. And to clarify the part about armor being "worthless," I'll say my mindset on the situation evolved, as I got more into Terraria, from I was the turtle armor paladin shield ankh shield etc guy, to the DPS only guy, to "I appreciate armor more as I started to understand that armor only supplements good dodging by making your mistakes less punishing, but I understand that if I was better it would matter less." And I had been going out of my way to try things such as staying on adamantite armor for the huge melee speed and move speed bonus, until I get to turtle armor where I do mixed turtle chest and hallowed helmet/legs instead. Because while it would be a lot faster to get through the game at my current skill level with heavier armor, I would learn to play better and benefit from the higher damage output that comes with being able to play around less safe playstyle. I actually love heavy armor conceptually in general, games or otherwise, cosmetically and playstyle, just they tend to always be flawed in video games in the sense that you're gimping yourself to use it over other things. Terraria is the least egregious example of it actually, like you kind of said you still won't be like throwing or even doing that much worse damage output compared to a DPS setup in [vanilla] Terraria for doing it. Where in Dark Souls or the second Helldivers game, or worst of all honestly Payday 2, you just get wrongfully punished for attempting to run it at all.

[@vyppal]

A well structured video. Great job with it. You have made me consider defense when I play vanilla. In modded, I'd prefer to build primarily around my movement-based playstyle (with not many direct offense/defense boosting accessories, which sometimes isn't anywhere near optimal, but is fun). While I may be a menacing+lucky main, I do sometimes choose life recovery builds for a secondary loadout. Switching between them effectively mid-boss (even easier now with loadouts with hotkeys) acts as my lifeline in modded whenever it is needed, such as Calamity's now removed Malice Mode. Defense actually be looking kinda nice tho

[@annieabsorbsaqua5793]

I think this is really giving me the final push to just chill out with trying to play on master mode. I'm not actually very good. And now I know I can minmax like this to make it through that anyway. But usually that's not what I want out of a playthrough. So I might as well play on a more suited difficulty to what I am actually doing. Thanks.

[@Tempestissiman]

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]

literally everyone builds defense and goes for warding all the time

[@dragonex4723]

Probably because of the prevalent “just don’t get hit” ideology

[@Tempestissiman]

@@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

[@sorbetcafe]

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

[@TheLifeLaVita]

@@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

[@SpiderJAAM]

My rule of thumb for accesories is "Is it a shield (or something that adds + defense)?... Then +4 Defense" 🤣

[@tokyoyumiko]

bro made a more in-depth, higher effort presentation then any teacher I've had. ABOUT TERRARIA DAMAGE

[@draven5893]

Wow I'm quite early! Also I have been bored playing Terraria, but seeing these drastically different armour and class setups makes me want to try them out, thanks!

[@pinkmimic5942]

And when the world needed him the most, Sorbet came to shape the new META.

[@galaxystudios370]

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

[@Tempestissiman]

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

[@TheLusion]

@@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

[@friedpumpkin0191]

Very well made video. I knew about most of the stuff in this video, and I do agree that defense is more versatile, and invaluable in hc. It didn't convince me, as after 1200+ hours I mostly enjoy just min-maxing damage, that's just my playstyle. Also just a side note, as you mentioned, damage boosts get less effective the more you have of them. This can be optimized by trying to get about equal damage and crit boost, except for summoner of course.

[@leodecipher9223]

I think the best argument against going full defense is just that it’s more fun to be a glass cannon. I’m a summoner, and yeah sometimes it’s more fun to face tank a stupid strong boss, but it is so much more rewarding to be able to dodge all of its really strong attacks and come out of the battle the victor. If you’re going full tank and, like me, want to go summoner, it doesn’t really feel like you’re going summoner, more like melee wearing the clothes of a summoner. Now, if you like laughing in the face of a boss and not taking nearly as much damage then cool! I’m glad you enjoy that! But some of us like the risk and reward of a full glass cannon build, and going full tank takes a lot of the fun out of it.

[@TheLegendaryLlama]

this is a good and informative video, but a lot of people simply prefer dodging. If it's not a panic it's just not as fun for some people, and to a lot beating a boss should feel earnt by good gameplay, not having a tanky enough build to just nullify your mistakes. It's not always down to stats, but regardless i do think this is a well-made video and the advice could help a lot of people.

[@zachlewis9751]

All it took to convince me was the information that menacing was a weak additive bonus while expert and master modes calculate defense higher than classic. I didn’t know either of those and that knowledge convinced me.

[@AwareOCE]

Its insane how much I was missing from full optimized builds, and Ive been playing master mode runs with wiki open since it came out 😮

[@flipallthetables793]

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.

[@supermonkeyqwerty]

> 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

[@EATZYOWAFFLEZ]

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.

[@flipallthetables793]

@@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.

[@nightmareraven3045]

I will be deep in a cold, dead grave before I ever stop reforging all my accessories to menacing

[@rougenarwhal8378]

And without defense it might happen sooner than you realize

[@8out242]

I have played Terraria a lot and so dmg% is just better for me because i dont really get hit that much, BUT WOW, you actually makes a great point. Good job and props for calculating that!

[@Greywander87]

I always go Warding early on, as the +4 bonus is much more significant compared to what you're getting from your armor. As you get better and better armor, the Warding bonus becomes a smaller and smaller proportion of your total defense. I've generally seen people recommending Lucky, rather than Menacing, for the later game. I'm about to go watch your video on that subject (actually started it and came back to watch this one first). I'm pleased to see that turtle strats are still effective even in the late game.

[@potatomining4806]

This is something I learned for sure in legendary mode. Losing 25% of your health to a hit is better than being one shot, even if you get 3x the dps

[@olixx1213]

You aint getting 450 defense, which is what you'll need to do what you say

[@hdckighfkvhvgmk]

That's quite the exaggeration on both ends. Even with max tank setup you will still get 2-3 shot by normal enemies in legendary mode. It's only worth runnin def build for eye, plant, and ML because their melee isn't buffed by FTW. Attemot that anywhere else and you're going to have a rough time unless you're good enough at dodging.

[@olixx1213]

@@hdckighfkvhvgmk Not an exaggeration on my end That's literally the amount you need to go from taking 150 instead of 600 Which is what he basically said

[@hdckighfkvhvgmk]

@@olixx1213 not you I was talking about his numbers for both damage done and defense.

[@TheOfficialMrloggy]

I just use whichever +4% increase reforge I get first

[@coreflakes]

real

[@pressaltf4forfreevbucks179]

Based

[@Kersakofu]

Before the pirate ship got nerfed, I did a really stupid strategy of full defense and zooming left to right while waiting for my teammates to respawn so we could beat moonlord on master mode. Even with the lasers, I was the main reason we won that fight. It was really funny in retrospect.

[@kyarumomochi5146]

Did a bit of testing after making that last comment. Glad to see that you actually mentioned defense being worse on master mode on start. Whatever the thing about defense is that it matters alot less than damage reduction and dodging. DR scales with enemy attacks and dodges negates them entirely. On a build with frost shield ninja gear and BoC you already have 25% (32.5% with endurance) damage reduction below 50% hp and 25% chance to dodge enemy attacks. This makes defense on its own much less important as both of these scales to enemy attacks much more significantly so having extra damage to kill enemies because of potential damage loss from having these accessories is significantly better. And also defenses importance matters alot less in conjunction to your skill level. You will ALLWAYS need to kill and attack enemies but you ARENT bound to take damage from them. This important distinction is one of the reasons why defense isnt prefered as having high defense equals damage loss for potential failure. Mitigating failures on their own matters much more than lessening the failure value. The 3 accesory combo+endurance i mentioned earlier cuts down avarage damage you are taking to almost 40-50% on their own so the impact of higher defense will matter alot less than covering these accessories lack of damage buffs

[@shotapenes3937]

i play alot on mobile without a controller and its basicaly impossible to play without a warding build

[@MonsterCity277RS]

Me too

[@Bismarck501]

peak video

[@KhristianBolano]

This video can be summed up with 2 words: diminishing returns. It's basically just an opportunity cost: Menacing does very little for your build because 28% damage on top of all the other stuff going on is just giving you diminishing returns. Defense stacking is flat instead, which means the more you invest in it, the more you get. If Menacing or crit was somehow multiplicative like it is in other games (multiple sources of damage don't add up, instead they multiply each other) then yeah stack up different sources of damage amplification. That would be absolutely busted in the Terraria environment though, which is ALWAYS an endurance trial like it or not. It reminds me of that multiplayer Master Mode run I did with my friends back in 2020. I was the melee character. I was used to reading stuff like defense sucks in high difficulties, but my experience as a melee player was always proving otherwise. Why did it suck if it worked just as well as the others? Maybe I was not good at the game? Nope! The dodge argument can be always applied, even if you stack defense. "Just dodge" yeah I can dodge with full defense and never die lol. At some point I started developing what I started to call "Frankenstein builds". Basically minmaxing defense as you did in the video. I took the best of the best defensive armor and put them together. I also started to notice one hilarious thing. By taking damage instead of my friends through the shield accessories, I took only part of that damage because of my incredibly high defense. They were saved while I only took 1 damage, and that instance of damage even triggered i-frames.. which led me to use the i-frame accessory. At that point, it became ridicolous. The drawback of absorbing damage is supposed to be that you're taking the damage instead, but instead of a drawback it was a reward. I get to defend you while taking 1 damage, trigger i-frames, and even passively heal during those i-frames where the boss is still targeting me.. I also felt like I was doing respectable damage despite not being dedicated to it. All I had to do was reforging to Warding and equip accessories that would benefit everyone instead of just myself.

[@user-ko7xo2ly1y]

Thanks for making this vid. Playing FTW seed on master mode. Would have been impossible for me without defense.

[@hdckighfkvhvgmk]

Well this will be buried because I still generly dislike defensive builds due to personal experience. I distinctly remember a world in multiplayer where I went defensive melee vs one of my friends going offensive melee and it simply made me feel useless for most of the playthrough. He could do everything I could do but just better because he could still live everything while dealing much more damage than I could. To prove this i challenged him to beat ML without me there and he could easily do so even on the highest difficulty at the time (that being expert). Also my main world is on FTW so I don't need to explain much there.

[@sorbetcafe]

it just sounds like your friend was better at the game than you were or your build wasn't that good - using something like beetle shell and no offensive bonuses will make you feel weak as hell offensively

[@hdckighfkvhvgmk]

@@sorbetcafe well now I'm just offended, thanks :( Also, what do you mean my build "wasn't good" the point was to be defensive I wouldn't be running that many offense boosters anyway.

[@sorbetcafe]

I didn't mean to make you feel bad, but to be blunt, your friend would've been able to solo the moon lord regardless of whether their build was an offensive or defensive one. I don't think the reason for that was because of your gear. One of the things I kept bringing up in this video was balancing offense and defense and trying to sacrifice as little as possible - or going all in with minmaxing to the point that you can facetank. If your build was sacrificing a lot of damage for mediocre gains (beetle armor is, really, the most likely offender here), then you're going to feel underwhelmed.