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.
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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
36 Comments
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Dude finally a video about defense and how actually work love to see that.
Thank you for making these videos. If at all possible, a comprehensive guide to movement speed would help a lot of people out.
peak video
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.
Counterpoint : big damage number go brrrrrr
Finally a defence focused video, thanks! With the proper gear and facetanking, we can do ML completely AFK easily. 🙂
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
fr. when i played infernum for the first time i went all defense.
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 Master Mode EOC do only one damage with a setup as easy as some platinum armor, a bast statue and an ironskin potion.
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
I use hallowed + full damage build up until I get hit once, then I use the godsend loadouts feature to switch to a defense build
i really needed this video. thank you fruit cat
Holy, 1 gorilion sections in a video
I noticed that you've ignore damage reduction and I wondered how it factors into these calculations
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
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
sorbet, you always deliver very useful content. Thank you, keep it up 🫡
I find that obtaining flesh knuckles in a corruption world isn't so bad personally. If you're already willing to put in the time to farm out for the best gear, odds are you already have a mob farm (and if not, they aren't too time consuming to make using dynamite). All you really need to do is let some crimson seeds spread to enough stone for an artificial biome, put that in your farm, and add some dart traps to aggro mimics.
I do recognize that defensive builds can be good even on higher difficulties, I personally prefer higher overall damage, especially with the Lucky modifier, I feel as if it's sorta slept on. And I especially prefer the tension that making mistakes in boss fights can bring
an hour?
You should really add terraria to the tittle, I almost didn't watch it because I thought it was something else random
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
"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
I beat Master Mode and Legendary FTW with full Warding accessories, it's that good, Legendary Getfixedboi is next lol.
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.
If I recall correctly, there actually is a bug that allows enemy defense to dip into negative values with armor penetration.
I focus on defense even in legendary because it means spending less time focusing on recovery vs attack, so even though I do less damage, I spend more time doing damage. DPS potential means nothing when you never get to apply it
awesome video (i havent even finished the whole video yet
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 ~210% to ~315%.
I remember I played on an online server with a boss / mob arena. I had a bunch of defense stacked, stood perfectly still, and fired Vampire Knives. I took on hordes of bosses and only had to occasionally change position in a few fringe situations. Defense was over 160 as a result of trying to max out my defense as much as I could (within reason). I tried the same loadout against Moonlord and death rays were shockingly weak. Still fairly strong though. Did die regardless because Vampire Knives sucks against ML
It's very situational but I will generally prefer to maximise damage output, especially later in the game. The quicker you kill a boss the less time you have to survive, and with enough playtime it's less about surviving the boss and more about optimising time to kill.
Got some inspiration for the future runs as I always take the multiplayer tank role. Thank you.
Absolutely loving these super in depth deep dives into a particular mechanic of terraria, keep up the good work man <3
terraria is a very well balanced game
the only time i dont use defense reforges is when im going for a no hit.
otherwise defense master race.