When did they make broadswords suck?

[Maggie]

I haven't really played terraria much in a long time when did they decide to make the shortsword the good one and make broadswords absolutely useless? Is there any way to change it to the old attack style where you can walk backwards and attack at the same time? On top of the broad sword being useless there isn't much reason to use anything but the yoyo as an early game melee in mastermode....

[[R] Nerva]

Originally posted by Arctictrix:

there isn't much reason to use anything but the yoyo as an early game melee in mastermode....

Dunno about fixing broadswords (shooting broadswords like excalibur can still attack in the opposite direction of movement), but by and large, the quoted text is your problem: you're playing on Master Mode.

Master Mode is just stat inflation over Expert. When you inflate stats, weapons that used to be on the lower end of effective now drop off. For example, you can't close-range tank because boss collision is so damaging, so attempting to play melee the traditional way (getting in close and trading blows) doesn't work anymore as a result. Master Mode, in particular, hurts the "low damage, high rate of fire" weapons the most - defense in Terraria is subtractive rather than percentile. This means that if you have high defense, it gets applied in full on each hit, meaning a low-damage weapon that hits a lot loses more of its total damage than a high-damage weapon that hits once. Example: an enemy with 30 defense that gets hit for 3 hits of 50, their defense reduces the total damage to 60. If that same enemy gets hit for one hit of 150, they reduce it to 120.

As a result of all this, you need an attack that keeps you at a safe distance while allowing you to deal solid damage, preferably in big singular hits, and the only early game melee options that do that are flails (slow, even slower now that they've been made more complex), boomerangs (don't deal enough damage to be useful, slow when used at max range because you have to wait for them to come back), and yoyos (lowish damage, esp. without the yoyo bag, but the best of a bad set of options).

These kinds of balance issues occur throughout the game, with every class type except ranger getting the shaft as a result. Magic suffers because its base damage has always been on the low-end, relying on piercing and multihit to remain competitive, and it is mana-limited, meaning you have to empty several mana bars just to kill ordinary enemies due to stat inflation (which further penalizes your damage due to mana sickness). Summoning suffers because its damage as a whole is low, it can't crit, and whips just don't have the reach or damage to compensate. Melee suffers because even with all the defense in the world you can't tank now. Meanwhile Rangers are just loading their weapons with Hellfire/Jester/Holy Arrows or Chlorophyte bullets and mauling everything they have a firing line to from a position of safety over a screen away, while also enjoying reduced boss aggro in multiplayer environments, meaning that all your buddies get murdered before you do while you get to be the hero.

TL;DR - Don't play Master Mode unless you're willing to play ~*the meta*~ instead of playing your favorite combat style. Stay on Expert, where the difficulty primarily comes from new patterns and attacks, not just mere statistical inflation.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

they reworked alot of stuff and tbh swords in master mode and even expert now i wouldn't bother with any swords just b/c they give the enemy too many chances to close in.

i used the maces / flails / spiked ball and chain weapons to literally clear most enemies. They stay in one spot and the dumbass A.I.'s even in master mode just walk right into it like lambs to the slaughterhouses.

[wcc]

I remember Broadsworts for having one use: to get rid of hugging bats. And since 1.4 you can use Flails for that.

[Maggie]

I wish they change broadswords back to attack left or right based on where your cursor is and not movement direction....

If swords are really so weak in harder modes and require more risk they should really add armor penetration to swords that doesn't add dmg and make them too strong in easier modes but ignores def and makes them balanced on harder modes.