Yo-yo DPS -- does Ruthless beat Godly without accessory modifiers? Knockback?

[VicPariah]

Yeah, so I have the Code 1 yo-yo right now and it's a great weapon pre-hardmode for me. I can utterly obliterate zombies and it's a cinch to kill demon eyes, much better than using a spear-type weapon, and especially easier to use than the Harpoon Gun.

My curiosity is about if the critical strike chance for Godly by itself actually make it a faster kill than the +18% damage with Ruthless? I don't really consider, especially with the Code 1's weak knockback, the -15% knockback modifier to be of any real concern with the yo-yo.

Also, I don't have any items in my accessory slots that make my critical chance go up, nor my base damage. I do know that if I did have some, I would skip the Ruthless modifier and go for the Godly just to rack up the additional critical points.

But I haven't played enough Terraria with yo-yos. Does anyone specifically prefer the Ruthless modifier for yo-yo kills, sacrificing that little bit of knockback?

[Zemecon]

Originally posted by Tymon:

Originally posted by Maomag:

You would need to ignore knockback for crit chance to be a reasonable variable, though. Rithless is +18% every single hit. You lose DPS when you have knockback. Percent chances aren't constant. You can use a yoyo or any other melee weapon for a solid 5 minutes or more and still not get a critical hit but increased base damage adds up. The time it takes for an extra amount of damage from a +18% damage modifier is a full 17% faster than a +15% modifier. Add in the knockback and there you go. If you thing a critical strike happens reliably at - say - every 5th or 10th hit then I'd say you've fallen victim to the Gambler's Fallacy.

That's honestly not entirely true.

What part?

Originally posted by Tymon:

Outside of outright infinite duration yoyos you can only keep a yoyo out for a certain duration anyway, so you'd only get so many hits on an enemy regardless of knockback,

The amount of time it takes for a yoyo to be out is the same for all yoyos of that type so that doesn't matter. You still get a higher DPS with less knockback. You want as much time to count while you are still using your yoyo as possible. Again, don't rely on critical chance as a fraction of the hits you make because sometimes you can be very lucky with your hits while at other times you won't be. For me, critical chance is nice but it isn't something I intend to rely on.

Originally posted by Tymon:

plus if you've got stuff like a yoyo glove, it can make knockback have almost zero impact whatsoever.

The yoyo glove only adds to what the yoyo currently does so if you've got a lot of knockback then the yoyo glove won't help you much. With the added damage it gives one modifier it will give to other modifiers. So knockback is even more of an issue with the yoyo glove.

Originally posted by Tymon:

And then you have the terrarian. Knockback is irrelevant since most of the damage is going to be from the homing projectiles rather than the yoyo itself. As I already stated earlier though, 'your mileage may vary'.

That's why I said earlier that the Terrarian is one exception.

Originally posted by Tymon:

I've tested ruthless vs demonic and roughly eight times out of ten tests my overall DPS according to the DPS meter was higher using demonic.

I've tested it, too. There must be some other variables involved because I get a higher rate of constant damage. You can still get lucky with a demonic yoyo's crit chance which is what I think you must be seeing because more often than not the overall damage I see from a Ruthless yoyo averages higher.

EDIT: Fixed a typo and added six words.

[Tymon]

The main DPS lowering factor that I can tell is the yoyo itself bouncing off of your target, more than it is knockback. Even testing vs stuff like training dummies, you can only hit so many times regardless. And I think the big difference is that armor values add to critical hit rates so overall I get more critical hits. (EG: instead of 20% being 1 in 5 25% is 1 in 4) Early on knockback definitely can reduce your DPS though unless it's to a boss, in which case again it's irrelevant. In all the cases where it would really matter in endgame situations at least, monsters are either completely immune to knockback, (Like srollers, most martians, all worm enemies, all bosses, stuff like the pirate captain and paladin in the dungeon) or they are just so resistant to knockback that a 10% difference in knockback from ruthless vs demonic is not going to make a lick of difference.

[Zemecon]

Those would be your variables, then. I was under the impression the OP wanted to exclude additional factors like armor stats and knockback resistance but if I've been mistaken and that isn't the case then I would agree the two modifiers are a lot closer. I prefer not to rely on crit chance, myself, but that is just me.

But FYI I wasn't referring to the yoyos themselves bouncing. Knockback isn't as easy to notice with a yoyo because you have it out after the mob has been hit and you're running at it the whole time. That, or you've got a stationary training dummy. Yoyos with a high-knockback modifier still do show a good amount of knockback when you are standing still and you are able to notice it more.

EDIT: And for reference purposes, while the Demonic modifier has standard knockback for its weapon type, the Godly modifier has +15% knockback, making it a full +25% higher than Ruthless for knockback. So I shouldn't be seeing anyone saying here that Godly is better than Ruthless for DPS against your average mob.

[Tymon]

Originally posted by Maomag:

Those would be your variables, then. I was under the impression the OP wanted to exclude additional factors like armor stats and knockback resistance but if I've been mistaken and that isn't the case then I would agree the two modifiers are a lot closer. I prefer not to rely on crit chance, myself, but that is just me.

But FYI I wasn't referring to the yoyos themselves bouncing. Knockback isn't as easy to notice with a yoyo because you have it out after the mob has been hit and you're running at it the whole time. That, or you've got a stationary training dummy. Yoyos with a high-knockback modifier still do show a good amount of knockback when you are standing still and you are able to notice it more.

EDIT: And for reference purposes, while the Demonic modifier has standard knockback for its weapon type, the Godly modifier has +15% knockback, making it a full +25% higher than Ruthless for knockback. So I shouldn't be seeing anyone saying here that Godly is better than Ruthless for DPS against your average mob.

Absolutely, that's why I prefer demonic.But against endgame tier enemies it is pretty insignificant overall I think. But yeah, I think without any equipment at all, no armor, no nothing, you're right that overall ruthless would do more overall DPS. But most people aren't going to be using nothing but a yoyo, they'd have at least some kind of armor on that would up damage more than likely and add to critical hit rate. I guess it really vastly depends on what stage in the game you're on.

[VicPariah]

Actually, on my character I banked on increased melee speed for the crimson sword that's really gigantic (don't remember the name of it off the top of my head) and I have the Massive modifier on that one. I have +16% for that and +3% damage.

In the short run, I have been collecting shackles and I hope to get Warding on all of them. That will be my WoF build, plus or minus a couple accessories but still with the Warding modifiers.

[Coleyohley!]

Originally posted by V-Pariah:

Actually, on my character I banked on increased melee speed for the crimson sword that's really gigantic (don't remember the name of it off the top of my head) and I have the Massive modifier on that one. I have +16% for that and +3% damage.

In the short run, I have been collecting shackles and I hope to get Warding on all of them. That will be my WoF build, plus or minus a couple accessories but still with the Warding modifiers.

Are you playing in expert mode? What I'm about to say is pretty controversial and only really applies to expert mode, but here we go:

Defense is a luxury in expert mode that you simply cannot afford. I use armor for its set bonuses/ stat boosts alone. defense boosts of less than 10 are pretty much useless. here's why:

Let's say your character has 25 defense (decent for PHM), and you get hit by an attack that does 80 damage (say, you get hit by a tomb crawler). Now, defense in expert mode is halved before its protection is calculated, so the defense will remove a total of 13 (Terraria rounds up) damage from the amount dealt to the player.

You're still taking 67 damage. that's a fair bit lower, but that's still a lot.

So you beat the Wall, and now you're in hardmode. that 13 damage protection you have is now facing more than 100 damage per hit. now you're taking 87 damge per hit. That ratio is a lot scarier than than the one before.

[VicPariah]

Oh jeez. No wonder I keep dying a lot! :D