Summon weapons

Summon weapons are a type of weapon that spawns secondary characters that will aid the player during battle by automatically attacking enemies within range. They cannot be hurt or killed, and deal summon damage.

Most summon weapons fall into one of three categories: Minions, Sentries, and Whips. Minions are mobile characters that follow the player, while sentries remain stationary. Additionally, the set bonuses of the Stardust armor, Chlorophyte armor, and Forbidden armor will summon an entity to fight for the player in a manner similar to minions.

Whips are related weapons that deal summon damage without summoning any minions. Hitting an enemy with a whip causes a player's minions and sentries to target it immediately. Some whips have bonus effects which can be activated by minions, but not by sentries.

There are currently 26 summon weapons on the, 25 on the , 19 on the , 11 on the , and 5 on the.



Minions
Minions are mobile characters. They follow the player indefinitely until the player dies, summons a replacement minion, manually cancels their buff, or exits the world. There are several different minions available, some of which can walk or fly, and attack using melee or ranged means. A minion costs mana to summon initially, but follows the player indefinitely thereafter at no further cost.

Minions provide an ongoing source of damage against enemies which requires little or no attention from the player. The common limit of all minions is that each has a limited rate of attack and damage, but the different types also have various limits to their movement and/or attacks.

Minions follow players in a manner similar to Pets, flying and passing through blocks as necessary to keep pace with the player's movements, though most cannot move through blocks for the purposes of attacking. Exceptions are the minions summoned by the Tempest Staff, Xeno Staff, Desert Tiger Staff, Stardust Dragon Staff, Blade Staff, and Terraprisma, which can attack through blocks.

On the, it is possible to press with a minion summoning item. This will direct the respective minion to target the entity nearest to the cursor. As long as the minions have their target within their line of sight, they will specifically attack it. The targeted enemy will show swirling purple particles which will trail behind a moving enemy, or circle in front of a stationary one (see images).

By default, a player can only have a single minion summoned at once. Various boosts can raise the player's minion capacity ("slots"), allowing multiple simultaneous minions. With minion cap boosts in effect, the same minion can be summoned multiple times, or several different Minions can be summoned. Minion cap boosts do not affect pets or light pets. If the minion cap later drops below the number of minions in use, minions are randomly chosen and dismissed until the number of minions is below the current cap. Minions vanish when their player leaves the world, and are not re-summoned when the player re-enters that or another world.

The Spider Staff (On the ), Optic Staff, Stardust Dragon Staff, and Desert Tiger Staff have special minion capacity logic. See their pages for details.

Sentries
Sentries are stationary characters. Unlike minions, sentries do not follow the player, and will instead remain rooted in place. In normal use, sentries will last for a fixed two minutes before vanishing; unlike minions, they can persist even after their owner dies. (But see "Tavernkeep's sentries" below for their special use in the Old One's Army event.)

By default, a player can only have a single sentry summoned at once. Tavernkeep armor and Old One's Army accessories (see below) can raise the player's sentry capacity, allowing multiple simultaneous sentries. Note that these accessories do not stack with each other, so the maximum sentry limit is 5: 1 by default, +1 from an accessory, and +3 from armor. With sentry cap boosts in effect, the same sentry can be summoned multiple times, or several different sentries can be summoned. On the, the player is limited to only summoning one of each sentry type, with no way to raise the cap.

A waiting sentry goes into a reuse cooldown after attacking, before it can try to attack again. This cooldown is bypassed initially on summoning, which can dramatically increase sentry attack speed at the cost of greater mana expense. Since sentries do not suffer from Mana Sickness, this can be a viable way to deliver high damage at long range when using a sentry that attacks instantly.

Whips
Whips are unlike other Summon weapons, and instead act more like a traditional weapon. When used, whips will perform a normal attack which costs no mana, swiping in a wide cone towards the cursor or wherever aimed. Whips deal Summon damage, and as such cannot deal a critical hit. All whips can pierce infinitely in their range, but will deal progressively less damage to each additional enemy they hit, until they start dealing 1 damage. Whips all vary in size as well. The severity of damage loss from piercing and the size of whips typically goes down and up, respectively, as whips get stronger.

Despite being Summon weapons, whips are affected by some effects which only work on Melee weapons, only get Melee modifiers, and have a limited range like Melee weapons. Whips are affected by any boosts to Melee speed, as well as Flasks and the autoswing feature of Feral Claws and its upgrades. Whips are not affected by boosts to Melee damage or the Titan Glove's boost to Melee weapon size.

A feature of whips is how they make minions and summons target the enemy hit, the same way that other Summoning weapons can target enemies. Whips can only target enemies by hitting them, unlike those other Summon weapons. The enemy targeted will always be the last enemy hit by the whip, usually the furthest enemy away from the player that gets hit.

The main feature of whips is their summon tag damage, which increases the damage of each minion hit by a set amount. Two endgame whips also feature summon tag critical strike chance, which enables summons to deal critical hits. This summon tag critical strike chance cannot be increased by any other boosts to critical strike chance. Summon tag effects will only affect minions, not sentries. Sentries will not have their damage increased or gain the ability to deal critical hits through whips.

Some whips feature unique buffs and debuffs, aside from the common debuffs of Poisoned and On Fire! that two whips can inflict. Two whips feature debuffs which activate an effect when the enemy with the debuff is hit by a minion. Like summon tag effects, these debuffs will only activate when hit by a minion, not a sentry. These two debuffs are also universal; even universally immune enemies like The Destroyer can be affected by whip debuffs. The buffs that whips have are mostly boosts to Melee speed, which get progressively more potent for stronger, later whips. These Melee speed buffs aren't exclusive to the whips that grant them, and will actually affect not only other whips, but also Melee weapons in general. Cool Whip currently features the only buff that doesn't affect Melee speed; its buff creates a damaging projectile that lasts for 3 seconds after the last time the whip hit something.

Tavernkeep's sentries
Sentries summoned by items from the Tavernkeep are associated with the Old One's Army event. They are purchased with Defender Medals (instead of coins), which are awarded only during the event. At first, they can only be used within the event, where they will remain placed until the end of the event. Each sentry summoned will cost 10 Etherian Mana; at the beginning of the event, the player immediately gets the 10 Etherian Mana for their first sentry, and can collect more as they kill enemies. Sentries summoned with Etherian Mana are not subject to sentry limits (see above). Other sentries can be used in the event, but will have their usual mana cost, duration, and sentry limits.

Each of the Tavernkeep's sentry summon weapons come in three tiers: Rod, Cane, and Staff; with the Staff being the most expensive and the most powerful. The Tavernkeep's various armor sets each enhance one of his four sentry types; see his article for full details.

After the event is completed once, these can be used outside the event, and will then function as normal sentries, costing ordinary mana to summon (5 points per tier) and lasting the usual two minutes. Etherian Mana cannot be used outside the event, so the usual sentry limits apply: By default only one sentry can be summoned at once, but armor sold by the Tavernkeep, and accessories dropped by event bosses such as Ogres, can raise a player's sentry limit. This limit increase does include non-Tavernkeep sentries such as the Queen Spider. Again, the accessories do not stack with each other.

Armor Summons
Certain armor sets will summon a unique minion when the full set is worn:
 * All armor summons can be obtainable on, and the Stardust Guardian is also obtainable on and . The Leaf Crystal (see bottom of this section) is obtainable on all platforms.
 * Each player can only have one armor minion that remains active as long as the armor is worn, and can be directed by double-pressing the key.
 * They do not count against either minion or sentry caps.
 * See also the Leaf Crystal from Chlorophyte armor; This is not controllable like a minion, but does provide ongoing attacks against nearby enemies.

Accessories
Additionally, any accessories which boost melee speed also boost whip speed, and the autoswing property of Feral Claws and its upgrades applies to whips. There are some melee accessories which have small boosts only to whips, not to the summons themselves.

Tips

 * Minions do not differentiate between enemies summoned by Statues and normal enemy spawns. This causes them to sometimes interfere with enemy-based engines, as they will zip off to slaughter any statue-summoned enemies in range (The Stardust Dragon is especially prone to this behavior).
 * Summon weapons are the only weapon type that is not regularly available in the first parts of the game. While the first summon weapon, the Slime Staff is technically the earliest obtainable weapon, it is extremely rare, and is likely to go unseen until far later in the game. It can, however, be farmed by the use of a Slime Statue as soon as the Mechanic shows up.
 * Even if not playing as a Summoner, it is always good to keep a minion around to help pick off minor or weakened enemies. Having a minion taking out some of the passing bats, slimes, zombies, and so on can sharply improve the player's quality of life while wandering around in the nighttime surface, Caverns, Jungle, and so on.  Doubly so if the player is trying to build, gather bait, chop wood, or otherwise do something besides fighting -- indeed, for such projects it may be worth adding a second minion to help fend off interruptions.
 * Note that minions will attack Slimes even during the day, when the Slimes are nominally "neutral". In areas where King Slime can spawn in place of a regular slime (surface layer, outer thirds of the map), the turnover can lead to repeat visits from the King.
 * All the Tavernkeep's Sentries can be constantly resummoned to automatically refresh their attack. This is, however, less efficient than using a weapon from another class.
 * In an Expert mode world, summoners can usefully wire a Bat Statue to a switch near the base or spawn zone. Spawning a bat and tanking a few hits (to contract the Feral Bite) lets the player summon their minions with an extra 20% damage bonus, but that's best done while safe at home.
 * The Kaleidoscope whip can prove to be more useful than the Morning Star, as the Kaleidoscope has higher drop rates from a specific boss than the Morning Star, the summon tag damage is higher and it's faster with more critical strike chance, which is better than simply a slightly longer range and more damage. The Morning Star, however, has high knockback and can be useful in events to keep enemies back.

Minion Count
The maximum possible minion capacity is 11. It requires equipping Stardust Armor (which grants a special minion, the Stardust Guardian), the Papyrus Scarab, Necromantic Scroll, and Pygmy Necklace accessories while being under the effects of the Summoning Potion and the Bewitching Table.


 * The maximum possible minion capacity is 9. It requires equipping Tiki armor, the Papyrus Scarab, Necromantic Scroll, and Pygmy Necklace accessories while being under the temporary effects of the Summoning Potion.
 * Before 1.4, spiders counted for 75% of a slot, though they couldn't be summoned with less than a full slot remaining.

Minion Damage
Note that damage is calculated in a two-step process. First the weapon damage itself is adjusted for the weapon modifier (and rounded to the nearest integer). Only after that are all other modifiers added and applied to the weapon damage.

Damage bonuses only need to be active while actually summoning the minions. This allows summoning some minions at maximum damage, and then unequipping some of the damage bonus for limit increases, to summon more minions at slightly lower damage.

Update 1.4.0.1 changes the damage bonus to be calculated concurrently, meaning any damage bonus that is removed while a minion is active will be removed from the minion. Thus, the following loadout is no longer useful as a "setup" procedure, though it remains a powerful summoner build.

A Ruthless modifier on the minion-summoning staff yields +18% up front.

Other modifiers can be maximized as follows:


 * A mixed armor set:
 * + 22% from the Stardust Helmet.
 * + 30% from either the Dark Artist's Robes or the Valhalla Knight's Breastplate.
 * + 25% from Red Riding Leggings.
 * Accessories:
 * + 15% from the Papyrus Scarab.
 * + 15% from the Hercules Beetle.
 * + 15% from the Summoner Emblem.
 * + 12% from the Avenger Emblem.
 * + 10% from any of the following accessories: Necromantic Scroll, Destroyer Emblem, Celestial Stone, Celestial Shell, any of the Ogre accessories (Apprentice's Scarf, Huntress's Buckler, Monk's Belt, Squire's Shield), or either the Sun Stone (during the day), or the Moon Stone (at night).
 * These all offer the same damage bonus for the actual summoning of minions, but they have different features for continued use: The Necromantic scroll grants players an extra minion slot, the Ogre accessories grants players an extra sentry slot, while the other accessories extend their damage bonus to other damage types, and provide other bonuses.
 * + 20% from reforging all five accessories to have Menacing (+4% damage ).
 * Buffs:
 * + 5% from Well Fed (from eating food).
 * + 10% from Wrath (from drinking a Wrath Potion).
 * + 45% from a 3-stack of Damage Booster buffs from Nebula armor (a teammate's, or see below).
 * Expert mode only:
 * from a second accessory from the "10%" list above, likewise reforged to Menacing.
 * from Cute Fishron Mount (riding the Cute Fishron in water and for 6 seconds afterwards).
 * from the Feral Bite debuff (inflicted by Bats in Expert Mode).

Total maximum: +224%. On top of the bonus for a Ruthless weapon, this will yield approximately +282%.

Examples

 * An ordinary Stardust Cell Staff would summon a Stardust Cell hitting for 60 summon damage. After reforging the staff to have the Ruthless modifier, the staff would summon a Stardust Cell hitting for 60 + 18% = 71 summon damage. After wearing the above gear, eating food, drinking a Wrath Potion, entering a body of water while riding the Cute Fishron, getting bitten by a bat (in Expert mode), and picking up a 3-stack of Damage Booster buffs in multiplayer, the staff would summon a Stardust Cell hitting for 265 damage.
 * A Ruthless Stardust Dragon has a modified damage of 47. With a Summoning Potion and Bewitching Table, the above will allow up to six summons (188 base damage).  With the above damage bonuses, the resulting dragon will do an average of 609  damage per hit.

The Procedure
To achieve "maximum minion power" in single-player, follow the following procedure. (auto-pause will help a lot; comments about extra spiders should be ignored as of 1.4.):
 * 1) All accessories being used to achieve maximum minion power must be reforged to Menacing, and all summoning weapons to Ruthless.
 * 2) Prepare a bat generator; set up one or two Bat Statues wired to (staggered) 1-second timer(s) in an enclosed area.
 * 3) *Expert mode: Set up a  next to the bat generator.  Make sure the statue(s) can be triggered from within the pool.  Enter the water pool and use the Shrimpy Truffle mount.
 * 4) Arrange the desired summoning weapons on the hotbar.
 * 5) Wear the following accessories:  Papyrus Scarab, Hercules Beetle, Summoner Emblem, Avenger Emblem, Necromantic Scroll.  Keep a Pygmy Necklace handy for later.
 * 6) * For Expert mode's, any of the other "10%" damage accessories from the list above can be used. When the procedure below to "ice the cake" is followed, the sixth accessory will be traded for the Pygmy Necklace.
 * 7) Armor: Start off in Nebula armor, with the mixed set handy (Stardust Helmet, Dark Artist's Robes/Valhalla Knight's Breastplate, Red Riding Leggings). Keep the rest of the Stardust armor set handy.
 * 8) Use the potions: Food, Wrath, Summoning.  Additionally, use a Bewitching Table to provide an extra minion slot.
 * 9) Start the timer(s) to spawn some bats.
 * 10) * In Expert mode: until they inflict Feral Bite before continuing.
 * 11) *Kill the bats until the Nebula Set's Level 3 Damage Booster is achieved. If possible, leave some extra damage boosters for future usage.
 * 12) Rush: All of the following steps need to be finished before the Damage Boosters start to expire.  If the Damage Boosters expire, reequip the Nebula armor and kill more bats to replenish them.
 * 13) Switch to the mixed armor set as above.
 * 14) *In Expert mode: and use the Shrimpy Truffle mount.
 * 15) Summon the desired minions. In total, there should be six minions (or pairs of twins, or Dragon segments, or 7 spiders and a ¾ slot) at the maximum of +224%  damage over the Ruthless damage rating.
 * 16) * Minion sources: Default, Stardust Helmet, Papryus Scarab, Necromantic Scroll, Summoning Potion, Bewitching Table.
 * 17) To ice the cake with five more minions at slightly lower damage:
 * 18) Replace the Avenger Emblem (or in Expert mode, the sixth accessory) with the Pygmy Necklace.  This brings damage values down to +212% .  (If  ¾  of a minion slot is available, a spider can be summoned to fill it)   Summon another minion.
 * 19) Wear the Stardust Leggings, and summon another two minions at +209%  damage.
 * 20) Wear the Stardust Plate, dropping to +201%  damage.  (If those last three minions were spiders, summon another spider now.)  Summon two more minions.
 * 21) Note:  If the player later loses some of the many extra-slot bonuses in use (removing accessories or armor, letting buffs expire), the minion(s) that vanish will be chosen randomly.  Each individual minion will keep the damage bonus in effect when it was summoned.
 * 22) Results: If the chosen summons are all Stardust Dragon segments, the "icing the cake" phase will likely reduce the damage bonus for the dragon as a whole, but even so this will yield diminishing returns rather than an actual drop in damage.   An 11-segment Dragon will end up doing an average of 893  damage per hit.  If all minions used were spiders, there will be 14 in total, half doing the max of 100, the rest trailing down to 93

Trivia

 * All minion summoning items (with the exception of the Terraprisma) and the Tavernkeep's tier three sentry summoning items have the word "Staff" in their names.
 * The Tavernkeep's tier two sentry summon items also all have the word "Cane" in their names. Same goes for the tier one items, which share the word "Rod". This can be used to help tell the difference between the sentry tiers.
 * That said, a number of other magical weapons and tools are also called "Staff" or "Rod". (e.g Nimbus Rod, Frost Staff)
 * The Sharknadoes summoned by the Tempest Staff turn translucent when going through blocks, similar to what Duke Fishron and Pigrons do.

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