Complete PvP Guide #1 - Weapons

Number 1 in a series of guides designed to cover everything you need to know about PvP in terraria. This guide focuses on weapon types and their advantages and disadvantages.

Introduction

PvP in terraria can be very fun and unique due to it's building aspects. This series of guides will explore every corner of terraria PvP, so you can go out and destroy everyone. You will find the most diverse and interesting PvP on the steam group Odyssey PvP: Odyssey PvP Link

Classes

Weapons are split into 3 different classes, ranged, magic and melee. The only thing it really changes is whether the the weapon gets a stat boost because of an armour or other thing the person has on them. Of course weapons from the same class are generally pretty simliar though, but some weapons can be confusing, the space gun and light discs can seem to be ranged when they are melee/magic. If in PvP you have can have multiple weapons of different classes then you should by all means use different class weapons. The stat gains you get from armour and accesories are not enough to make using other classes of weapons useless.

Generally in PvP Ranged is the best and Melee is the worst, unless you balance the weapons. I will go into this more in the game mode guide, but if weapons come from the same tier, like molten, then ranged dominates while melee can do nothing.

Ranged Weapons

Ranged weapons are generally the best weapons to use in PvP. Most of them fire projectiles at a fast speed in one direction. You can kill someone using melee long before they can reach you and the projectiles are harder to dodge than most magic weapons which can have a small range, be slow moving or bounce around. Most ranged weapons are bows and guns but there are some other cool weapons as well.

Bows

Most are very straight foward in terraria, each one is a little better better than the last. They move onto repeaters, which only have a different graphic design and work the exact same way. There are a lot of different arrow types as well which changes how the bow is used. The best prefix for bows is always unreal, except for lower tier ones where deadly/demonic is the best option.

Wooden Bow - Demon Bow - These 6 bows, Wooden, Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold and Demon bow are incredibly similiar. Their stats change slightly, mainly just the damage value which is a good stat in PvP. In low tier PvP you will see bows dominate everything, even a demon bow can match up to top melee weapons sometimes. Having a good aim is very important, and practice is the main thing for that. Aiming 45 degress upwards will make the arrow travel furthest on a flat surface. Aiming for the head is the best thing to do at closer range as it can catch people if they try to jump. Try to keep your distance from people with close range weapons, falling back if you must. But if someone is running away the bow will be able to kill them because of it's large range. You can shoot arrows through one block gaps, which gives you a shield which is very useful at close range.

Molten Fury - The Molten Fury is a large step up from the demon bow, in terms of damage and arrow speed. The arrows travel further giving you as much range as you should need. A special thing this bow does is that it turns wooden arrows into flaming arrows. But in fact, these fake flaming arrows still do the same damage as the wooden arrows, but it is still helpful as it can still give players the on fire debuff.

Repeaters - Repeaters have a very fast firing rate and speed, it can seem the arrows travel in a straight line. They don't fire as much as the top guns but they do more damage and you can kill people in seconds, and you won't see them very much in balanced PvP.

Arrows

Arrows are the ammo of all bows, and there is a unique mixture of them. As they are stackable they cannot have prefixes.

Wooden Arrows - The most basic arrows which add a small amount of damage to the bow damage.

Flaming Arrows - These do a little more damage than wooden arrows, and can give other players the on fire debuff, which doesn't deal much damage but if you get a kill with the debuff they only respawn with 100 health. They lose their fire if they pass through water and won't give the on fire debuff but I'm pretty sure they still do the same damage though it is not something I have tested or seen being tested.

Unholy Arrows - They do a little more damage than flaming arrows and they will pierce through multiple enemies, so they are useful if you are likely to be against groups of people.

Holy Arrows - They don't do much damage but they will cause stars to fall down from the sky to where the arrow hits. These stars do about half the damage of the arrow, but they pass through everything above the arrow so in certain situations you can use them to kill people who are no where near able to reach you, making them very strong.

Cursed Arrows - They do the most damage out of all the arrows so can be the best choice to use in most situations. Their downfall is that they only do damage to one person at a time. Also they are supposed to give enemies the cursed inferno debuff which should do a fair amount of damage but it actually doesn't give the player the debuff, even though it looks like it did.

Jester Arrows - They do a decent amount of damage and have infinite piercing but they break after a short time. The faster the speed of the arrow the bow makes it, the further it will go, making it a pretty bad choice for lower tier bows, having use in few situations. They do 1 more damage than unholy arrrows but they extra range unholys give makes jesters useless in most situations. If you are using them you will have to get close range to people and of course try to get in a position where you can hit multiple people.

Hellfire Arrows - One of the best arrows, they do a lot of damage and create an explosion hitting any enemies in the explosion range of about 1 block every direction. They have the downfall of damaging you if they hit right next to you, but this can be used in some situations to respawn at your bed with full health. They are very useful if people are building as there will be lots of one block wide walls you can hit them with. Just be careful people dont get too close to you otherwise you will damage yourself while the other person damages you as well.

Normal Guns

There are a lot of different types of guns to choose from. By normal guns I mean guns which use musket balls as their ammo. You use them similiar to bows, but they are easier to aim and travel faster and have more range, so guns are generally better than bows. Again the best prefix for them is unreal except for a few random exceptions where deadly/demonic is the best.

Musket - A very slow firing gun but it does a lot of damage. It works well if you aim well, but if you aim well with other guns, the musket is probably your worst choice. It is very powerful compared to the low tier bows but there is nothing special about it.

Flintlock Pistol - A fast firing gun which does less damage. It's strength is almost equal to the musket but it's fast fire rate gives it the edge. You can trap people with lots of knockback from the fast fire rate, and it is easier to hit people with lots of shots. The better your the aim more times you will hit people, essentially the same as the musket but with a little higher dps.

Shotgun - By far this is my least favourite weapon. It fires 4 bullets with high random variance in the angel in each. It fires about as fast as the musket but does less damage. Because of the randomness you don't really need to aim it very well, but you will still have a high chance of htiting someone because of the amount of bullets. At close range you have a higher chance of hitting someone but if multiple bullets hit only one will count. It's dps is still low at close range, I would completely avoid this gun.

Minishark - A very fast firing but low damaging weapon. It is one of the only weapons which is affected by the defense of the other player a lot. It is great for knockback because of the broken knockback PvP system where everything does the same amount of knockback. So lots of bullets will send someone flying in the opposite direction. It's dps is higher than the flintlock unless against someone with high defense, and again how well it is depends on your aim.

Handgun - It does decent damage with decent speed. A very powerful gun with not much to it other than being really good.

Clockwork Assault Rifle - This gun fires 3 bullets at once, which is really good against people not wearing shields as it will knock them back and you will get multiple hits. Otherwise you will only get one hit making it not as good as it might first seem. It is around as good as a handgun.

Phoenix Blaster - A fast firing, high damaging gun, it will destroy anyone in seconds. An upgraded handgun, it is something too powerful for most balanced PvP.

Megashark - Pretty much an upgraded phoenix blaster, it will kill anyone instantly. It is one of the most over powered weapons in all of terraria PvP.

Ranged Weapons Part 2

Bullets

Ammo for most guns, there is a small variety to choose from, but not as much as there is for bows. They have no prefixes because they stack.

Musket Balls - The default weakest ammo which just does plain damage.

Silver Bullets - It does more damage than the musket balls but it still does nothing special.

Crystal Bullets - Insane for fighting mobs, but in PvP not as good. If the opponent has no shield you can get them better with the little shards from the bullet breaking, and you can hit through walls with them but it is hard to tell if it will work or not and can be a luck based thing. They still do a fair amount of damage and can be very good.

Cursed Bullets - Like cursed arrows, the highest damaging bullets. The second best bullet to use, the damage can be really good but again the cursed inferno debuff doesn't work in PvP.

Meteor Shots - By far the best ammo, they do a lot of damage but they can bounce of walls once. You can outrange almost anything with this and with practice you can easily outrange other ranged people from bouncing the bullets from a place where they can't reach you. They are very useful and also can hit through two players if they haven't bounced.

Unique Guns

There are several guns which use their own ammo, most of them are extremely strong.

Blowpipe - After saying most of these guns are really strong, this is extremely weak. It hardly counts as a gun, its ammo curves a bit like with bows. It doesn't do much damage at all and is slow firing, but it can be used similiarly to a bow and is on par with around a copper bow. It has a lot of range over the low tier bows as well.

Sandgun - Extremely high damge, speed and ammo speed, the gun is insane and will kill people quickly. You can trap people with the sand it fires but 99 times out of 100 you'll just rip them apart.

Star Cannon - Again, this gun is like the sandgun, with an even higher dps. The ammo is piercing as well, and you can shoot thourgh walls 2-3 blocks wide if you standing next to them. Something which is way too powerful.

Flamethrower - It does not have the range of the other guns, but it still has enough to stop most melee users. You do not need to aim it very well as its flames are very wide, and will kill anything within it in an instant. It will damage people next to a wall being hit by the flames and it gives the on fire debuff for a very long time, which will make people respawn with 100 health. the only bad thing is that it doesn't work in water, it will still fire into water but you can't fire it while you are in water. One of the most overpowered weapons, on the same level as the megashark.

Thrown Weapons

Consumable weapons which you throw and will fall to gravity quite quickly. Most of them are a little different to each other and serve different purposes. As they are all stackable they don't have prefixes.

Shurikens, Throwing Knies, Poison Knives and Bones - These will piece through players, and you will have to be close to the player or above them for the weapons to be effective. You can pick some of them up if you use them, which can work against you if the other player uses them. Shurikens can pass through walls if you stand right next to one, and poison knives can poison other players, doing a bit more damage and gives a chance for them to respawn with 100 health.

Grenades - They will explode on impact or after a short while. The explsion radius is about 2 blocks every direction and will damge any opponents and you. It does a ton of damage, and will one shot people on 100 hp. Use them carefully and make sure you don't throw them to someone right next to you or in a place where you might be pushed into. Most of the time you will need to be above the other player to really get a hit.

Spiky Balls - They will stay on the ground for a short while and disappear unless people walk over them a lot of times. They can do a lot of damage if you have a lot next to each other in a line. They are best placed in narrow places where people will have to walk on the floor. If the other playres don't have shields you can pretty much block off certain places as they won't be able to get past the knockback and if you throw them onto the person they will be juggled around helplessly.

Bombs and Dynamite - High damaging weapons which create giant explosions. Bombs will create an explosion size the same as a grenade and do about the same damage, but will not explode on contact and will destroy blocks, which can be good if you throw a lot of bombs on top of someone under some blocks. Dynamite will almost always one shot anyone and has a massive explosion radius. It will literally destroy everything and is very rarely seen in any type of PvP. Be careful with them as you can easily kill yourself if you don't plan where you will go after planting the weapon. You can use sticky bombs also which will stick to a wall, making it easier to put in a certain place, but it limits the range on how far the bomb will go.

Unholy/Holy Water - Not a ranged weapon, or any class of weapon, these are the only weapons with a damage type, so I decided to include them here. They do a fair amount of damage, are work the same as shurikens. The only difference is that they don't drop when used. Also the landscapping changing ability is pretty much useless in PvP.

The Harpoon

The last ranged weapon, it is pretty unique. It acts similiar to flails but has a much higher range. At first it curves similiar to a bow but then it comes back to you in a straight line damaging anything it hits. A very hard weapon to use at its best, it can be very strong close range. It will shred anyone close to it, even if you have fired the projectile will do damage while the item you are holding does damage. I believe this, all the swords/swinging weapons and the blue moon are the only items that can do damage without a projectile. If you can aim it right it can be very good in lower tier PvP.

Magic Weapons

Most magic weapons are pretty unique to each other, so it is hard to group them up. They are very defensive weapons, which are good to control areas and damage anyone who tries to come close to you. Though there is a lot of different stuff each one does, so there is a lot you can do with all the weapons. Mana is limited though normally, especially in balanced PvP and with each weapon description I will assume there will be limited mana. The best prefix for almost all of these is mythical.

Bouncing Weapons

A lot of the magic weapons create projectiles which will bounce of walls. Though all of them are pretty different, they are the best for area control as they can fill up rooms and are good for leaving a wall of damage behind you so people can't chase you.

Water Bolt - It's low damaging and slow moving but travels in a straight line and will bounce 5 times before it goes away, unelss it has been 30 seconds. You can put a lot of them in a certain area and they will be really hard to avoid and will take chunks of damage of peoples health. Normally it won't do enough to kill someone without support though.

Flower of Fire - It does a lot of damage and can travel some distance but otherwise it is not that good. They are easy to dodge and slow moving, they do not go very high up, they use a lot of mana, they are destroyer after one player hit and they don't work in water. They do give a small on fire debuff which is tiny compared to it's massive damage. It's best used at close range where you can hit them easily and then you can kill people really quickly, and can be used defensively to hold people back a bit while you run away from them.

Magical Harp - The notes it produces will bounce infinitely and pierce infitely but they only last a few seconds. They have a lot of damage, speed and low damage cost so it is very strong and can be used offensively and defensively to take over and control areas. Trapping someone in a room with one can be instant death. Another good thing about them is that a third of the time the notes will be bigger and will pass through a wall you stand next to. You can not get a mythical harp so deadly/demonic/mystic are the next best.

Cursed Flames - It arches like the flower of fire but it goes higher and faster, and pierces making it much better. The projectiles will stay around for a longer time and go furtehr distances and pierce through people so it is very deadly if used right. It's higher range and speed makes it good offensively as well so it is a great weapon.

Crystal Strom - Extremely over powered weapon which fires really really fast with decent damage. they last for a few seconds with a slow speed. You can quickly fill up an area in front of you making people have to run away, and quickly fill an area behind you make a fortress of defense. Without a lot of limited mana this weapon is amazingly good. With unlimited mana it matches the megashark and flamethrower.

Controllable Weapons

Probably the best weapon type in all of terraria, you can control where the projectile goes with your mouse, moving it to anywhere you wanty giving it insane range. Unless there is limited mana and a lot of blocks in the way they will destroy anyone. You can time them to cause knockback at a good time to make them fall down. The magic missile will do decent damage and can be used in low tier PvP, the flamelash can be very strong even in top tier PvP and the rainbow rod is the msot powerful weapon in all of terraria PvP. The best use of them is to stay far back and far from other peoples range and keep using it, and to have a big screen. the best counter to them is of course, to get close to them and in range of them, or if you must, then flee.

Magical Gun Weapons

They act the same as normal guns, they fire in a straight line. Though the do pierce and the projectiles can be very fast. The space gun is more low tier where the laser rifle is very high tier and an upgraded version. You'd use them the same you'd use a gun, stay very from your target and shoot them.

Other Magic Weapons

Magic weapons unique enough to be in this group. They do a lot of different things and include some of my favourite weapons.

Aqua Sceptor - It is like a low tier flamethrower, it can do a lot of burst damage and quickly kill enemies with shields, or do a lot of juggling to people without shields. It is surprisingly good depending on how much mana you have. It is a close range weapon so you have to be able to get in close range. Also ruthless is a better prefix than myhtical, it does more damage and the speed does not matter and the higher speed mythical gives makes it waste more mana, which the mythical prefix gives.

Vilethorn - It works similiar to the aqua scepor except does less damage but the projectiles stay a bit longer meaning you can get more hits. It can also go through walls so you can hit people who will not be able to reach you. It can be used like an aqua sceptor or to get a bit of extra damage through walls. Also if your opponent has no shield the knockback can push them away and you can block of passages as they won't be able to damage you.

Magic Dagger - It uses the same mechanic the shurikens use, but it has more speed and damage than any of the other weapons which use the mechanic. It goes a fair amount of distance before falling to damage and does a lot of damage. It can be very deadly at close range or to people below you. It can be hard to aim but it is very good if you can aim it.

Ice Rod - A very unique weapon which creates a block of ice where you fire it. If you can't build then it is not very good and will fire in a straight line and stop where you aimed limiting its range. But if you can build then you can do lots of cool things. You can block people and slow them down a bit and you can create stepping stones to highly increase your mobility, and other team mates mobility too. But the best thing is you can create a wall of ice and then only ice can be fired through the wall making it impossible for people to damage you while you kill them all. Unless an enemy has an ice rod too though and it can back fire and they can hit you before you realise.

Demon Scythe - It does a lot of damage and will slowly speed up from 0 speed to a very fast speed. Because it takes time to speed up it is very easy to dodge at long range as people have a lot of time to react to it. But at close range it will create a damaging shield which will kill anyone trying to get too close to you. It is an extremely defensive weapon and should be used mainly defensively.

Starfury - A sword that uses a lot of mana. It does decent damage but you will lots of mana, and it has a really small range so should be rarleyused as a sword. You can use it to create stars to fall where you click but it is very situational. Through it can be very good in the right situation it won't do tons of damage and it is rare for it to be used as good as it can be. Not the most useful weapon.

Melee Weapons

Melee weapons generally have very small range and because of this people using melee will normally get killed before they can do any damage. though can can destroy people up close you will still take a fair amount of damage and melee classes in games need more life.

Swords and Swinging Weapons

There are loads and loads of swords and swinging weapons, which is a shame as they are the only weapon type which doesn't use any projectile technically so don't need much skill and are pretty boring. I will not list them all out but they not only include about 30 swords but a lot of tools as well. To use them you have to get right next to your target, which can be very hard. Against someone who knows how to avoid you there are a few ways to do that, they can be forced from other players to move close to you, you can kill them in a certain point they have to walk through and you can outspeed them. The first two are really easy to do and you can jsut wait out of range of enemy fire and wait until they get close to you. The last one is harder to do, if you are good with mobility items, which I will go into more in another guide, then you can outspeed them before they have killed you. You'll have to dodge a lot, but you have to do that whatever you do in PvP anyway. You put yourself in a lot of danger and is very risky.

As there is a lot of different swords there is some variety between them. Of course the more dps the better, making excalibur the best. Size can be very good too, giving you more leeway when trying to kill someone running away from you. The breaker blade and blade of grass are good examples of large swords. you will want to try to be underneath someone with a sword as you are more likely to get more hits and kill them faster. also if people don't have shields the will get knocked back and won't be able to hit you easily. Fast swinging speed and larger swords work really well in terms of knocking people around. Legendary will be the best prefix for all the swords.

Spears

Spears, along with most melee weapon types, follow a linear path. They are also considered the worst weapon type in terraria PvP too. They have short range, almost as short as a sword, but you have to aim it so you will barely get as much damage as a sword will do. Even with knockback, it will be hard to keep sword users away from you and you will get killed by a light's bane if you use a gungir sometimes. If playing balanced PvP then your spear should be good, and as you have to aim them they can be hard to use but good if you use it correctly. Because they are technically projectiles, they can't be lgenedary, so ruthless/godly is the best depending on the spear.

Flails

Similiar to spears, but with a lot more range, flails can be pretty good. You can do a fair amount of damage with them if you are in range and if you can aim it right they can curve around and hit people. They can do a lot of damage close range but you need to make sure the flail doesn't go past the player. Also the blue moon works similiar to the harpoon, it will do damage up close even if you have fired it, and it will do a lot of damage, like using a sword and a flail at the same time. And the dao of pow can go through walls you are standing next to if the wall is one block thick which can be very useful in some situations.

Boomerangs

Probably the most diverse melee weapon type, boomarangs have a lot of range and are the best melee weapon type for PvP. They do a lot of damage up close as they return faster if you hit an enemy close by, giving you lots of hits. You can curve them around and hit people trying to take cover as well if you move around while using a booomerang. The basic boomerangs are the wooden, enchanted and flamarang, which fire in a straight line with increaing damage. The thorn chakram and light discs bounce off walls though. Again the best prefix is ruthless/godly depending which flail you are using.

The bouncing can be used to go round corners and give you a lot of range in places with lots of blocks. This gives the thorn chakram an edge over the flamarang but the higher damage of the flamarang makes it slightly better overall. The light discs are much better and by far the best melee weapons. They have an insane range and you can stack them up to 5 so you can fire a lot of them. And you can fire all boomerangs through one block thick walls which is handy. Again the best prefixes are ruthless/godly depending on which boomerang, except for the ligght discs which can;t have a prefix because they stack.

Shortswords and Drills

Two rarely seen melee types are short swords and drills. Both have very small range but drills and chainsaws can go any direction. The small range means you need to have a shield to make them very useful otherwise you won't get many hits. For drills and chainsaws you will do higher dps if you repeatdly click instead of holding down the mouse button. Very bad weapons because of their small range but they will do a lot if you can get lots of hits down. Shortswords can be legendary but you'll have to use godly/ruthless for the drills/chainsaws/hamdrax.

More PvP

This guide only touches terraria PvP, there are a lot of other aspects which I will cover in other guides, the next one will be about accesories armours and more.

Even though this is pretty long there is quite a bit more I could of added, if you think there is anything important I missed or any other errors in the guide please do say. Comments will help me make better guides in the future, thank you.

Completed Guides:
Accesroies, Armour and More

Planned Guides:
-Game Mechanics
-Building in PvP
-Tactics and Combat
-Making and Playing Gamemodes

[John_Gillen | DaGillFish]

I know, this guide is unbelievably outdated. It wouldn't be too bad if the author would take some time to update it.

[grandmage]

Guys, the guide is so outdated that it needs to be closed. Stop complaining and contact the author if you actually care.

[ReticentLily]

http://puu.sh/81r7d.png
tsk tsk Baih...

[daikero]

Its great; Pre-1.2, so @alwen those weren't even introduced yet.

[psf]

i use Sniper Rifle, Stake Launcher, and Terra Blade in PvP

[Crazyeker]

i thought there were more weapons

[sehn]

very good but needs a few corrections

[chubbins]

Usefull info.

[Nonbinary Boywife (Threat)]

GOOD JOB! :)

[Blaze_13_]

I think you did a fair job