Scout vs Fighter

[Giant Octopodes]

Actually for the dragontooth club it's effectively just a slower dragontooth cutlass with higher damage and the ability to use the AoE attack if wanted, making it technically the best crit build weapon for practical use

Dragontooth Club is certainly a great option for a hybrid approach, and I'm not knocking it at all - but I will say that the word "best" is I think too strong for, well any weapon, given that it's all tradeoffs.

If you're going Scout - Desperado with a Dragontooth Club with 3 Aquamarines, as compared to Scout - Acrobat with say the Infinity Gavel with 3 Rubies, you're dealing way less damage (minimum damage 80 vs 130, so about 60% of the damage), and you have twice as long of a cooldown between special attacks. So it's much more likely you fail to OHKO an enemy (especially those on the edge), and far more punishing if you do. Meanwhile compared to the Dragontooth Cutlass with the same setup of Scout - Desperado and 3 Aquamarines, you're attacking every .4 seconds instead of every .72, or about twice as often. That means it's not nearly as punishing to stop and take 1 swipe at an enemy if you crit, and for every time you need to swing again fishing for that crit, the discrepancy gets worse.

So as with most hybrid setups, you're better than either of the alternatives in the areas they're weak in exchange for being much worse in the areas they excel. Now none of this includes the effect of inherents, I need to test extensively once I get to that point of the game again with them and trinkets and so forth. And I don't doubt that for many people in many circumstances the dragontooth club ends up being the most effective overall. But "best" is nonetheless a bridge too far in my book.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Dragontooth Club is certainly a great option for a hybrid approach, and I'm not knocking it at all - but I will say that the word "best" is I think too strong for, well any weapon, given that it's all tradeoffs.

If you're going Scout - Desperado with a Dragontooth Club with 3 Aquamarines, as compared to Scout - Acrobat with say the Infinity Gavel with 3 Rubies, you're dealing way less damage (minimum damage 80 vs 130, so about 60% of the damage), and you have twice as long of a cooldown between special attacks. So it's much more likely you fail to OHKO an enemy (especially those on the edge), and far more punishing if you do. Meanwhile compared to the Dragontooth Cutlass with the same setup of Scout - Desperado and 3 Aquamarines, you're attacking every .4 seconds instead of every .72, or about twice as often. That means it's not nearly as punishing to stop and take 1 swipe at an enemy if you crit, and for every time you need to swing again fishing for that crit, the discrepancy gets worse.

So as with most hybrid setups, you're better than either of the alternatives in the areas they're weak in exchange for being much worse in the areas they excel. Now none of this includes the effect of inherents, I need to test extensively once I get to that point of the game again with them and trinkets and so forth. And I don't doubt that for many people in many circumstances the dragontooth club ends up being the most effective overall. But "best" is nonetheless a bridge too far in my book.

To clarify, I did say "best crit build weapon" which you immediately tried to criticize by using a comparison between it in a crit built and an entirely non crit build (also mentioning the longer duration in special attack which you wouldn't primarily be using as it cannot crit). You do bring it back with the comparison to the other crit weapon it would be compared against and I would like to bring up that in a practical setting, in the advent that you don't manage to crit kill a monster in an initial strike, you do have the ability to use the actually damaging special attack instead of another damaging attack, which can also partially reduce the time that you'd spend moving over to that monster (unless backed against something that initial attack would knock it back).

Sure, there will be some aspect of tradeoff, but between entirely crit builds, that are much more similar in their attack style and use, it's easier to see why I said so. Of course, you could say, compare it to a dagger build and state that is the 'best' crit build weapon, though that occupies it's own niche and you'd then even consider if the build more suits a side weapon (or needs an accompanying weapon like a hammer for crowds).

'Best' was probably the wrong label, but at least in my own play (decently efficient in the way I go about killing monsters or in fighting stuff while mining), it's oftentimes better to run something that hits harder more often and just ignore what you don't kill than to go at something for a second strike at all. It's the reason why while I argue for the crit build, I use a hammer aoe build myself (though that can be attributed to being a player stuck in my own older ideas too), as the knockback given is a secondary benefit for someone not necessarily wanting to always engage in combat (more often than not a waste of time if not a direct objective).

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Was just trying to show that like all hybrid builds it's a tradeoff where you're sacrificing the benefits of the 'pure' versions (the damage and power of the aoe hammer build and the raw average kill speed of the dragontooth cutlass crit build) in exchange for having a lot of the power of each. The trouble with 'if I don't get the ohko I do a slam', is that while that is effective, slams are a relatively long time lock to execute. You can attack spam to get extra hits in there but I'm not aware of a way to cancel out, and the amount of time spent not moving with that is pretty long. It's very effective, but compared to another swipe or even two of the cutlass it is likely to be a time loss. Lots of situations where it's worth it, but not guaranteed.

Of course part of the complications as well is that inherents mess with things so much. Dragontooth Cutlass and the Club can both get up to +4 speed on the Inherent, which is massive and possibly (probably?) the best choice for them in a crit build. But that asymmetrically advantages the Cutlass because it's a flat -.04 seconds per speed and it starts at a lower speed; with 4 speed each it's .24 seconds vs .56 seconds, or moving from baseline just under twice as fast to actually significantly better than twice as fast. And I have no idea how that speed bonus impacts the special attack, I've done zero testing on that.

I'm also not convinced a Dwarf Sword with a Crit Damage Inherent and an offensive setup won't win out for my ideal crit weapon - you end up with +75 Crit Power (assuming that's the inherent you use for the Dwarf Sword which is my current assumed target), +2 Speed, and +4 Defense. So vs the Dragontooth it's just a bit slower, roughly the same power on a crit but weaker on a non-crit, but +4 Defense. And though it's 3 defense less than what I've been running with, 2 of that can be made up by swapping boots assuming you use the Basilisk Paw trinket. So it moves to a pretty nice defensive hybrid where you have a reasonable chance to kill while swinging at foes waiting for the bombs to go off, with almost all the defensive benefits the current build I love provides.

Lots of options, all of which provide advantages and disadvantages. And that was all I was getting at - no doubt that not just for you but for many when weighing it all it is indeed the ideal, it's certainly a great choice. But I don't want folks to think there's just one "correct" answer, and would encourage instead they find for themselves what tradeoffs result in the ideal weapon for their desired usage and playstyle.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

And I have no idea how that speed bonus impacts the special attack, I've done zero testing on that.

Doesn't afaik, only affects that post-swing delay

So vs the Dragontooth it's just a bit slower, roughly the same power on a crit but weaker on a non-crit, but +4 Defense

Defense is rather meaningless though, at least in those quantities. With the way it functions, it's really only worth it as a stat when going all out as each successive defense point matters more than the last, and in a game where you can infinitely heal with no negatives or much timeloss it's pretty moot relative to extra damage which would save you more time in the long run.

Also not sure what you're comparing it to but the dragontooth club and cutlass both have an inherent 50 crit power that has nothing to do with their innate enchant, so the damage on crit would be considerably lower (due to the stacking nature of the innate crit power)


And I do get what you mean about allowing players to find their own best, I will say a lot of stuff said does come down to simple matters of rhetoric though, disallowing yourself from offhandedly saying something is better, worse, etc. than another option simply because you want another to have the least impacted experience is rather pointless when it doesn't fundamentally stop them from pursuing anything themselves.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Defense is rather meaningless though, at least in those quantities. With the way it functions, it's really only worth it as a stat when going all out as each successive defense point matters more than the last, and in a game where you can infinitely heal with no negatives or much timeloss it's pretty moot relative to extra damage which would save you more time in the long run.

Also not sure what you're comparing it to but the dragontooth club and cutlass both have an inherent 50 crit power that has nothing to do with their innate enchant, so the damage on crit would be considerably lower (due to the stacking nature of the innate crit power)


And I do get what you mean about allowing players to find their own best, I will say a lot of stuff said does come down to simple matters of rhetoric though, disallowing yourself from offhandedly saying something is better, worse, etc. than another option simply because you want another to have the least impacted experience is rather pointless when it doesn't fundamentally stop them from pursuing anything themselves.

For Defense, it depends on how you look at it. The main benefits are time and money, of course. The timeloss of switching to an item, consuming it, and switching back to whatever you were doing. Which in single player isn't *so* bad but in Multiplayer is quite bad, and even in single player it's time wasted, and time is the most valuable thing there is imho. That time gained in not having to deal with it is indeed scaling in benefits, the more defense you have the more proportionally one more point will do for you, which is why I tend to indeed double down on it (again I'm planning on normally running with two crabshell rings, dragonscale boots, *and* the dwarf sword). But there is the actual raw money saved in consumable healing items, which if you're buying salads is easily measured and quite linear - for every 5 points of defense, that's 1 less salad after 10 attacks received, meaning for every 5 points of defense it's 22G saved per enemy attack on you. Given that when I'm ignoring enemies it's not uncommon for me to take 30, 40, or even 50 attacks throughout the day, that's like an extra diamond per day, or the equivalent of 5 diamond crystalariums for free just by tossing on a crabshell ring. Eventually when you're omegawealthy, sure, it doesn't even move the needle. But for early farmers that's a substantial benefit unlikely to be matched through the marginal time savings associated with switching to the other weapon.

Speaking of - the reason I'm comparing the Dwarf Sword with +75 Crit Power Inherent to the Dragontooth Cutlass / Club with +4 Speed Inherent is that the Speed is undoubtedly better on the latter ones. Especially if you're going desperado, and already doing 600+ damage on a crit, more crit damage (x11 instead of x8) will just be increased overkill damage on the vast majority of enemies, and that'll be increasingly true for every non-crit hit you get before the crit occurs. There are exceptions, quite notably the dangerous purple slime and royal serpent, but the royal serpent you're not one shotting anyway and for the dangerous purple slime it doesn't significantly change your average hits to kill. Meanwhile the +4 speed on the cutlass moves the time to attack from .4 seconds to .24 seconds, meaning you get 3 attacks off faster than you would otherwise get 2. It's a more than 50% increase in damage output over time, and a more than 33% reduction in average time to kill, across all targets, including those mentioned above. Though the club gets Less benefits than the Cutlass from speed, it's still the superior option there.

So given that assumption, that you're going speed on them, the Dwarf Sword is in a different spot. It has lower damage and needs the help on damage more, doesn't already have inherent crit power, and most importantly already has +2 speed. Which since the speed inherent is capped at +4 between the weapon speed and the inherent combined, means it's a choice between +2 speed and +75 crit power, which is a much more competitive choice. Thus at this time my assumption for the optimal choices for each is the + Crit Power Dwarf Sword (+75 Crit Power, +2 Speed, +4 Defense) vs the + Speed Dragontooth Cutlass (+4 Speed, +50 Crit Power, higher base damage). Given that, the Dwarf Sword is around 630 average damage on a crit (before things like Iridium Bands) while the Cutlass is 720. Higher, but in truth there's not a single enemy killed by 720 damage which is not also killed by 630, thus similar damage.

If you stack crit power then sure, substantial difference - 900 average damage on a crit from the cutlass at that point instead of 630 for the dwarf sword. But that kills the dangerous purple slime in 1 crit instead of 2, and is otherwise functionally identical damage still. Attacking more than 33% faster will do far more for your kill time for that particular enemy, and infinitely more for your kill time (something is infinitely better than nothing after all) in all other cases.

And I agree in general about not limiting your ability to communicate effectively by artificially limiting the language used. Note I don't think it's a problem at all to say that something is better or worse than other options, much like I'm calling out speed as the far better inherent for the dragontooth weapons here, pretty much universally. I just don't think "best" is justified in this particular case, as I'm not convinced it applies. For example, in my cropless farmer's run, right now she's using a dwarf sword with 3 aquamarines, a +75 crit power inherent, and fighter / brute. I ran the calcs and based on the low base damage of the dwarf sword, the targets I care most about (really just tiger slimes, purple slimes, magma sprites and sparkers, and serpents) it was the better option; I either OHKO with a crit or kill with a Crit + Hit for all those targets with this setup and I guarantee a 2 hit kill on serpents or a 3 hit kill on sprites instead of it being a potential 3 or 4 hit kill respectively if I don't crit. Now once I enable dangerous versions of the mines / skull cavern, that'll change, but for now this is actually the superior setup.

So for most things in general but *especially* combat context is everything.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

For Defense, it depends on how you look at it. The main benefits are time and money, of course. The timeloss of switching to an item, consuming it, and switching back to whatever you were doing. Which in single player isn't *so* bad but in Multiplayer is quite bad, and even in single player it's time wasted, and time is the most valuable thing there is imho. That time gained in not having to deal with it is indeed scaling in benefits, the more defense you have the more proportionally one more point will do for you, which is why I tend to indeed double down on it (again I'm planning on normally running with two crabshell rings, dragonscale boots, *and* the dwarf sword). But there is the actual raw money saved in consumable healing items, which if you're buying salads is easily measured and quite linear - for every 5 points of defense, that's 1 less salad after 10 attacks received, meaning for every 5 points of defense it's 22G saved per enemy attack on you. Given that when I'm ignoring enemies it's not uncommon for me to take 30, 40, or even 50 attacks throughout the day, that's like an extra diamond per day, or the equivalent of 5 diamond crystalariums for free just by tossing on a crabshell ring. Eventually when you're omegawealthy, sure, it doesn't even move the needle. But for early farmers that's a substantial benefit unlikely to be matched through the marginal time savings associated with switching to the other weapon.

I do agree for a subjective advantage for multiplayer where eating can be a substantiative time loss over a run, though if you are attacking anything, even a single additional hit on a monster will more than nullify the reduced number of times eating. It is also possible to basically nullify any time loss in eating too, by pausing, using number keys or rearranging the inventory to practically instantly be in the eating menu, one can reduce the time loss to a matter of single digit frames if that.
I will still say that I would never recommend a defense build though for many the same reasons you do. First, running double crabshells alone is probably diminishing your monetary return enough to render the gain from defense meaningless. If you are killing anything, something like a burglar ring would more than make up for that loss in the sell value of the drops (which in a practical setting could easily be more valuable than max of a few thousand you save in food value. There's also matter of opportunity cost in actually buying the food but I think that's rather negligeable on the smaller scales we're speaking of, even early game). Giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming something like an iridium/crab burglar/crab, that only leaves a single magnetism ring, which is a substantial time loss in collecting items if you use bombs or ammo. You could of course ring swap though that removes the benefit of less time loss in not eating, or you could be running 2x iridium/crabshell (2 magnet rings is generally enough for single bombs/mega bombs) though we run back into the issue from not having burglar (I'm assuming you are killing monsters a) because you said you were and b) because you're running dwarf sword over dwarf dagger and haven't mentioned your using it as a side weapon (which I'll bring up as also being probably the only way I'd bother with a defense build)).
Also, many if not all of these builds and their components are entirely outside the sphere of early game, or whenever triple digit cash per day would make any meaningful difference to most. Food is incredibly low in cost and accessible in this game, and generally the sacrifice you're making in avoiding it isn't worth the loss in efficiency, even if next to marginal as you've established.

I do like your analysis on speed, I'm someone who animation cancels and has been for most of the time I've played, so it plays little into my consideration. It's a reason towards why I was so quick to call the dragontooth club the best crit weapon, the ability to animation cancel rendering speed as a stat entirely useless. Context of course matters, though my considerations in calling it that were more so in thinking of combat scenarios in general, and factors outside of game mechanics, such as in using the objective best platform for actually engaging in combat (pc). Maybe in that regard you can agree with such a label.