Stardust Dragon Staff

Using the staff again does not give you a second dragon. It lengthens the one you already have, and a longer dragon hits harder, because the damage is worked out from how many segments it is carrying. The decision is not how many minions to run, it is how long a dragon you want and what else you were going to spend those slots on.

You never aim it. It flies at whatever is nearest, dashes to close a gap, and passes straight through terrain, so it works in a cramped cave as well as an open arena. It damages by contact, which is why it coils around a target and stays there. The coiling is mostly theater: every segment shares one invincibility timer, so a target wrapped in eight segments takes hits at exactly the same rate as one grazed by two.

The first slot is enormous. A dragon with nothing else invested puts out roughly what four Terraprismas or five Stardust Cell minions would, which is why it shows up in builds that are not summoner builds at all. Every slot after the first adds much less, though still more than filling that slot with a different minion would. If your summon damage comes from Old One's Army armor, which grants the damage but no extra slots, this is the staff that makes that setup work.

Everything you invested is pointed at one enemy at a time. In the lunar events, surrounded by a pillar's worth of enemies, a fully invested dragon can look worse than a spread of independent minions that each pick their own target. Its leash is long and it will chase something you marked well past its normal range, then teleport back to you if it strays too far, which is ideal on a boss and wasteful in a swarm.

Whip choice matters more here than usual, because a single dragon hit is so large. The Firecracker tag effect multiplies that one hit into something absurd, at the price of standing close enough to apply it. Longer whips give up the spike for consistency and are the safer default. For the reforge, Fabled is the starting answer, and once your summon damage bonuses pile up Ruthless overtakes it. The more segments you are running, the sooner that crossover arrives.