PC Hardmode and beyond - Getting into hardmode to the lategame bosses

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Clockwork Alpha

Skeletron Prime
Work-in-progress guide: This guide isn't complete. I am accepting suggestions, and I will often expand on it.

****NOTE****
I am currently working on revising this, both for recent game versions and so it just is much better overall. The old guide can still be viewed in the below spoiler.


Update 11/18/15-11/19/15 Did lots of spellchecking and minor improvements, will soon start adding info going past preparing for Skeletron Prime. Will likely add pictures also sometime.

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Introduction
Hardmode is the harder version of your regular world. Defeating the Wall of Flesh is only the beginning of hardmode, and the end of peacefully living in your wooden hut. Hardmode can be overwhelming, and once hardmode starts, your world will go through 1 major transformation, and 3 smaller ones.

Misc Information
This guide is intended for the PC, although it would probably still work similarly for other platforms. The only notable differences is that on other platforms of Terraria, things often do different damage, and have some other small differences about them. If you want to use this guide for mobile, I'd recommend checking out the wiki page for whatever topic you are interested in as well.

The spread is a tiny issue pre-hardmode, as only crimson grass spreads at a very slow rate. It becomes a massive hurdle when you enter hardmode.
When you destroy a demon altar, there is a 2/3 chance that a random block in the world will turn into Pearlstone or Ebonstone/Crimstone, potentially creating a new underground hallow or corruption/crimson.
Jungle grass can convert mushroom grass, but nothing else can.
Neither Ebonstone, Crimstone, or Hallow can convert each other.
Hallow can't convert jungle grass.

Progressing in the Game
The WoF (short for Wall of Flesh) is a challenging boss until you are further into hardmode. If you are not yet into hardmode, take this advice: Use melee for ONLY attacking The Hungry (the small mouths attached to the wall by tendrils) and attacking the leeches (the worms spit out of the mouth).

Attack the hungry before you attack the wall. The hungry will otherwise constantly bug you and get in your way. The wall occasionally spits out leeches in groups of 2 or 3, which are annoying worm creatures that can sometime bump you closer to the wall if you don't have knockback resistance.

Armor is a must (obviously). A full set of molten armor is highly recommended, but isn't required. Crimson/corruption armor in the minimum though, and is still unrecommended. You will probably want a molten bow with Hellfire arrows. Neither of these should be a problem getting, as Hellfire arrows are abundant in underworld pots. With molten armor and a molten bow loaded with 500+ Hellfire arrows (use as much as possible just to be safe), you are almost ready to fight the wall of flesh.

There are, however some accessories you should use. Hermes boots, Spectre boots, lightning boots, or Frostspark boots can help you get away from the wall as it moves towards you. No matter what, you need some way to outrun the wall, or else it's next to impossible to kill, because when it is almost killed, it will be moving as fast as Hermes boots at full speed.

On a small world, your arena should be a large platform of any block going over all of your world just to be safe. On a medium world, it should go over about half of your world. On a large world, it should be about 1/3 of your world. You can make it shorter, but this is just to be safest.

Now lets move on to the summoning. While building your arena, you may encounter demons carrying guide voodoo dolls. Unless you are a mobile user (in which case the doll is a consumable) do NOT let the guide doll drop into lava, as that is how you summon the wall of flesh - by dropping a guide voodoo doll into lava into the underworld. Now dropping the voodoo doll into lava yourself will spawn the wall of flesh.

The Wall of Flesh has 8000 health on normal mode, and 11200 on expert mode. It does 50 melee damage on normal mode and a significantly higher 150 damage on expert mode, and it also has 12 defense. The wall has some key attacks, and a weak point that you should take advantage of. It's mouth has 15 defense on it, and is generally the easiest part to hit. However, the eyes have no defense, so aim for the eyes whenever possible. The rest of the wall's body is invisible to weapons. If you go behind the wall, too far away from it or try to escape the underworld, the tongue will pull you back in front of the wall. If you manage to flee the underworld, the wall will instantly kill you. The wall also spits out leeches faster and faster as it takes in damage. These leeches have 60 health on normal mode and 96 on expert mode, making them fairly weak. The leech head has 2 defense, and does 26 damage on normal mode and 52 on expert mode. The leech's body has 6 defense, and does 22 damage on normal mode and 44 on expert mode. The leech's tail has 10 defense, and does 18 damage on normal mode but 36 on expert mode. A more harmful attack is its eye laser. These are only a slight problem until the wall goes below 1000 health. Then the lasers will get to the point where they shoot so fast, you can't even dodge them, and it just more or less turns into a race to the finish. The eye lasers do more and more damage as you attack the Wall of Flesh, doing anywhere from 44 damage to 60.

When you summon the Wall of Flesh, it will spawn with the hungry attached to it. Take them out before you focus on the WoF, as they become stronger as the wall takes damage. After you "kill" the hungry, they will turn into The Hungry II, where they detach and chase the player, and attack like demon eyes but more harmful. The stats of the Hungry change a lot, so to see exactly what it becomes throughout the fight, go to this wiki page.

After the hungry are gone, focus on hitting the eyes as much as possible. If the eyes are being blocked by ash, etc, attack the mouth. There isn't much to the fight after this, other than the wall's attacks speeding up. The wall will also move faster and faster, along with its attacks. Just keep up with the wall, and watch the wall's health drain. If you are using explosive ammo such as Hellfire arrows, you can hit the mouth also and you can deal damage to multiple segments of the WoF at once (credit given to @Piterros990 for this tip).

When the wall is defeated, a box of Demonite or Crimtane bricks will appear, which will include health potions, hearts, and a Pwnhammer. The Pwnhammer is special in that it can destroy demon or crimson altars. When hardmode starts, 2 strips going to the bottom of the world from the top will generate in either a V or X shape of the Hallow, and the corruption or crimson depending on what your world originally had. Only 2 biomes in the game aren't affected: The underworld and the dungeon. The underworld and dungeon will change at later points in advancement.

When you start hardmode, my advice to you is to completely avoid the corruption/crimson, underground hallow and jungle except for smashing demon altars. They become extremely challenging and some enemies can do 70 damage to you in 1 hit even in molten and palladium or cobalt armor. Despite trying to avoid the corruption/crimson completely, here is one exception. Go into any crimson/corruption chasm and break as much demon altars or crimson altars as you can find. At least 3-9 will be good, and try not to worry too much about the spreading, as your world already is doomed to become either hallowed and corrupted. If you don't want to break demon altars and risk corruptions and hallows appearing all over the place, and if you actually want to remove it from your world completely or just control its spread, you can also fish for crates which in hardmode will sometime contain hardmode ores which you can use instead. If you break only 2 demon altars, your world will not have titanium or adamantite and if you only break 1, your world wont have titanium/adamantite or mythril/orichalcum. If you break none, your world won't have any hardmode ores which makes advancing through hardmode a lot harder and more restricted. You can also prevent the crimson/corruption or hallow from spreading over your hellavator by making sure it's at least 3 blocks wide. You will also notice that living fire blocks sometimes drop from things in Hell at a 2% chance per mob. It's just a decorational block though, and doesn't really serve any real purpose. It's already time to prepare for the destroyer, the first mechanical boss you will encounter. There is a chance that it will spawn on a random night (on PC only) if it hasn't already been defeated with the message "You feel vibrations from deep below..." If you see "This is going to be a terrible night..." then the Twins will spawn. If you see "You feel the air getting colder around you" then Skeletron will spawn. I'd recommend going down to the underworld or re-logging to prevent them from spawning unless you are fully prepared or can get prepared in the small amount of time you are given before they actually spawn, as they require a whole different arena setup and are much harder.

It's boring waiting for the destroyer to spawn on it's own, and can often catch you off guard and unprepared. That's why most prefer to spawn it themselves with a mechanical worm. To craft the worm, you need an orichalcum or mythril anvil. To be able to mine orichalcum, start by using your molten pickaxe to mine some palladium or cobalt, then make cobalt bars at a furnace. Make a cobalt/palladium drill or pickaxe (i prefer a pickaxe, as the sounds drills make are pretty annoying) and use your new pickaxe or drill to mine enough orichalcum or mythril to create a mythril or orichalcum anvil. Then make a mythril or orichalcum pickaxe or drill to mine adamantite. The easiest ways to find these new ores are by exploring the caves you found with your hellavator again, or by looking for openings to caves at the top of the underworld.

Keep an eye out for rain. In forest biomes, rain can cause uncommon Angry Nimbuses to spawn, which have a 14.67 chance to drop the nimbus rod. This is extremely important, as it can kill the destroyer before midnight. This however turns your issue into probes. My strategy is to find a Beam Sword, which is a rare 0.67% drop from skeleton warriors. A titanium sword works too, but not as efficiently, although is probably a lot better. If you think you are good enough and have plenty of health potions and good accessories, then you could probably do it with a Night's Edge or a breaker blade.

Bring greater healing potions though if you can, cause you may find yourself fighting over 10 probes at a time. I will post my strategy for destroying the destroyer with pictures here soon, too. So all in all, you want full palladium armor or better, a Beam Sword or titanium sword and a nimbus rod so can quickly destroy the destroyer, and luckily this isn't incredibly hard to get besides for the Beam Sword, which is just my weapon of choice and can be replaced.

Ready to destroy the destroyer? Like said above, you will want palladium armor at the least, with a titanium sword or Beam Sword, and a nimbus rod. At the very least, a night's edge or breaker blade will work, which is a drop from the wall of flesh. A breaker blade is not recommended, but if it's the best you can get, use it. A Minishark is also useful, to get some extra hits in when you are not fighting probes.

Probes are let out by the Destroyer as you attack it, and will be the only kind of damage you are taking if you are going with the nimbus rod method. Their lasers do 50 damage on normal mode and 88 damage on expert mode, and their melee damage is 50 damage on normal mode and 80 on expert mode. Probes have 200 life on normal mode and 300 on expert mode, and also have 20 defence. Probes often drop hearts which will aid you in the fight.

For the arena, make a large box in the sky; occupying most of your screen, but not to the point where monsters can spawn. Also, make sure your arena isn't high enough for wyverns or harpies. That's the last thing you want while fighting the destroyer, or any boss for that matter. Without hallowed armor or better, wyverns can pose a real threat, and especially in a confined space, are extremely hard to dodge. Don't build you arena too high or too low, cause if you can't even see the destroy while you are fighting it, then it's kind of confusing and you kind of just have to hope you are hitting it, and you will usually know you are as long as probes are swarming you for most of the fight, but less during the end.

Make a bunch of 1 block wide holes in your arena. The destroyer still wont be able to shoot you, and you can use these holes to shoot out of and summon nimbus clouds through. Fighting the destroyer is just summoning nimbus clouds, replacing nimbus clouds when they despawn every minute, fighting probes, and shooting the destroyer through the holes when you arent dealing with probes. Continue doing this, and eventually the destroyer will die and you will be rewarded with hallowed bars and souls of might. The Destroyer has 80000 health on normal mode and 160000 health on expert mode. The destroyer has 3 segments, being the body, head and tail. Nearly the entire destroyer is its body, and will likely be the only part you are hitting. The destroyer will also fire lasers if you are not firing down through 1 block wide holes. The lasers will fire faster and faster as it loses health. These lasers do 44 damage on normal mode and 72 on expert mode, and near the end of the fight they will becoming more and more of a hazard if not protected from them.

After killing the destroyer you will get a decent amount of souls of might. You should definitely craft a Megashark using 5 shark fins, 1 illegal gun parts, 20 souls of might and your minishark. The rest of the souls of might should be later used to make a Drax, but you may need to fight the destroyer again if you don't have enough left. The megashark is essentially a hardmode minishark, doing a lot more damage and firing faster. This will be very good for fighting The Twins and probably Skeletron Prime, although is a lot harder to shoot at. Instead of having a chance of the Destroyer spawning every night, the Twins will have a chance of spawning each night. Your world also goes a chance that would happen for defeating any Mechanical boss. Lava bats and Red Devils start spawning. Lava bats are still pretty easy to deal with, but Red devils are thankfully pretty rare, because they are very dangerous even with endgame gear. They are basically like normal demons, but shoot faster moving and deadly tridents instead of demon scythes.

The twins are the second easiest mechanical boss, easier than Skeletron Prime but harder than the Destroyer. To start, a megashark is a must. You should also have hallowed armor to be fully prepared, but isn't required as you could just use gear made from hardmode ore instead. Molten armor or any other pre-hardmode armor and weapons won't get you very far unless there happens to be 5+ fallen stars end up hitting the twins while you shoot them, which probably won't happen unless you are incredibly lucky. So basically, all you need is a sky bridge, preferably out of asphalt to help you move faster, hallowed armor or slightly worse, and a megashark. The skybridge doesn't need to be too long, since unlike with the wall of flesh you can go back the other way once you reach the end, but may take damage doing so.

The Twins boss fight is pretty straight forward, but you should understand how the boss functions. It is a boss that is 2 large eyes connected by a tendril. Think of if as a hardmode Eye of Cthulhu. Each eye has a first and second stage. The green eye (Spazmatism) is probably the hardest one and has the most health, having 23000 health on normal mode and 34500 health on expert mode, and also having 10 defence, so it might be best to take it out first. In its first stage, it frequently shoots green bursts which can inflict the cursed inferno debuff and will do 50 damage in normal mode and 88 damage in expert mode. It will start its second stage once it reached 9000 health in normal mode and 13500 health in expert mode. In addition, it now has 28 defence and stronger attacks. In its second stage, it periodically shoots a short range beam of this constantly from its mouth that does 60 damage on normal mode and 108 on expert mode. Due to moving slowly while it's doing this, it's not too hard to deal with unless you have an enclosed arena, but if it gets in the way, it can do severe damage to you, possible ruining the fight if you are unable to get away from it. Touching the eye itself will do 50 damage on normal mode and 85 on expert mode if it is in its first stage. On its second stage, it will do 75 melee damage on normal mode and 127 on expert mode. The other eye with a red iris shoots lasers at you dealing 40 damage on normal mode and 76 on expert mode. In its second stage, it basically does the attack same thing but a lot faster and does more damage, and will continue to speed up until it's dead. During its second stage, the laser will do 50 damage on normal mode and 92 damage on expert mode, but while using its rapidfire attack, it will do 36 damage on normal mode and 68 on expert mode. In general, the red eye does 45 melee damage on normal mode and 76 on expert mode during its first stage. On its second stage, it does 67 melee damage on normal mode and 113 on expert mode. The eye has 10 defense on its first stage and 20 defense during its second stage. The red eye has 30000 health and transforms into its second stage at 12000 health. Anyways, back to the fight. Assuming you have a decent skybridge, simply run across it while shooting one eye only. Getting them both into their second phase at the same time will make the fight a lot harder, as the green eye will also try to ram you more, and the red eye will quickly shoot at you while you are too busy trying to avoid the green eye. Whichever eye you choose to kill first is completely up to you though. The red eye has less health also. To fight the eyes, just choose which one you want to kill, and shoot at it with your megashark while running backwards, hopefully not loaded with regular musket balls, and preferably something better than silver bullets. Explosive bullets are a good option, but once again this is based on your own preference. If you did it right, you should be rewarded for souls of sight and more hallowed bars.

After you have finished the Twins, you are pretty much ready to go onto Skeletron Prime. However, you might be able to use the Twins skybridge for Skeletron Prime. Also, you should make an optic staff with 1 black lens, 2 regular lenses, 12 hallowed bars, and 20 souls of sight. This is a minion summoning staff which you can find very useful. It summons a mini Retinazor (the eye with the red iris) and a mini Spazmatism (the eye with the green iris) to fight for you. Both eyes appear to be in their second stage, and may provide some assistance with Skeletron Prime. There are also some other items which use souls of light, but most aren't really significant. The Twins are probably the least significant of the mechanical bosses, but is still required to progress in the

Skeletron Prime is a pretty hard bossfight. You should atleast have hallowed armor if not something better, although hallowed armor is one of the best obtainable armours at this point. For skeletron, you will probably want an arena made out of platforms, and wings are highly recommended. Skeletron has 5 parts. He has a head, a Prime Saw, a Prime Laser, a Prime Cannon, and a Prime Vice. Only killing the head matters, but killing the limbs is recommended as it will help tremendously, especially if you have a homing weapon. If you have a good piercing weapon that can go through at least one of the limbs, then skipping them all together would probably make the fight easier. The head has 28000 health on Normal Mode and 42000 on expert mode. The head has 24 defence, and double that when spinning. He will do 47 damage on normal mode and 79 on expert mode, but he will do twice his normal amount while using his spin attack. His Prime Saw is the most dangerous limb. It will frequently swipe at you, doing heavy damage. It will do 56 on normal mode, 95 on expert mode. In addition, it also has more health than most of the limbs except one which has the same amount of health. Prime Saw has 9000 health on normal mode and 13500 on expert mode. Despite having a lot of health, it will probably be one of the easier ones to destroy, because it frequently hovers around the player before and after hitting it. Prime Laser is the next hardest. It has the least amount of health and defence, only having 6000 on normal mode and 9000 on expert mode. It has 20 defense and its lasers do 50 damage on normal mode, 100 damage on expert mode, and touching the laser itself does 29 damage on normal mode, and 49 on expert mode. Next, you should try to get rid of the Prime Cannon. It shoots bombs into the sky at a fast rate, which is why wings are recommended. Its bombs go right through platforms too, which is why platforms are recommended. If you have a platform arena, then the only thing you will need to worry about is bombs hitting you directly, which is pretty easily avoidable. The bombs do not damage blocks. The Cannon has 7000 health on normal mode, and 10500 if you play on expert mode. It has 23 defence. Touching the cannon will do 30 damage on normal mode and 51 on expert mode. On both normal and expert mode, the bombs do 40 damage. The last limb you will want to take out is Prime Vice. It has as much health as Prime Saw, but does slightly less defence and damage, and will also probably not hit you as much. It does 52 damage on normal mode and 88 on expert mode, and has 34 defence. Like the Prime Saw, it has 9000 health on normal mode and 13500 on expert mode. With all of this in mind, you will definitely want a ranged weapon. Melee will probably be a disaster unless you have a Terra Blade or similar. Like with all boss fights, you will probably want to have a minion, a bewitching table, a campfire, a heart lantern, and a star in a bottle if you are using magic.
 
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A couple of brief pointers:
  • The WoF can also be defeated easily with the platform and (For ranged) Necro Armor and Minishark w/ Meteor Shot, or (For Magic) Jungle/Meteor Armor w/ space gun (0 mana w/ meteor armor) and water bolt (bounces and pierces, I believe).
  • I usually son't even target the hungry during the WoF fight, they die because collateral.
  • I'm pretty sure the original V or X of corruption/crimson and hallow can affect beaches from the start
  • Jungle can't take over mushroom biomes ever.
  • It's Demon Altars/Crimson Altars for hardmode, not Shadow Orbs/Demon Hearts.
Otherwise, pretty good guide, I would use it if I just started the game.
EDIT: Oh right I forgot, mobile (at least iOS) has hardmode as well, so most of this applies to all versions.
 
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A couple of brief pointers:
  • The WoF can also be defeated easily with the platform and (For ranged) Necro Armor and Minishark w/ Meteor Shot, or (For Magic) Jungle/Meteor Armor w/ space gun (0 mana w/ meteor armor) and water bolt (bounces and pierces, I believe).
  • I usually son't even target the hungry during the WoF fight, they die because collateral.
  • I'm pretty sure the original V or X of corruption/crimson and hallow can affect beaches from the start
  • Jungle can't take over mushroom biomes ever.
  • It's Demon Altars/Crimson Altars for hardmode, not Shadow Orbs/Demon Hearts.
Otherwise, pretty good guide, I would use it if I just started the game.

Aha, thanks, I'll edit the guide based on what you said.
However AFAIK beaches are too far out to be affected by the X or V pattern.
 
Just saying, you don't have to add this, but my first hardmode boss kill was the twins, on console, on 1.1, in multiplayer. I can't even explain how many tombstones were on the ground from our deaths. The point is, if you're going for a boss kill, multiplayer helps A LOT. (it works because if at least one player is alive the boss doesn't despawn)
 
Finished the destroyer boss fight chapter.

Just saying, you don't have to add this, but my first hardmode boss kill was the twins, on console, on 1.1, in multiplayer. I can't even explain how many tombstones were on the ground from our deaths. The point is, if you're going for a boss kill, multiplayer helps A LOT. (it works because if at least one player is alive the boss doesn't despawn)

Lol. And i agree with multiplayer helping, which ill add that, but not everyone can use multiplayer for defeating bosses. If you use a public server, then other people online will most likely take the loot for themselves.
 
I know, and I almost never play multiplayer on PC. Console, however, since so many of my friends own Terraria and Xbox live gold, it's a lot easier to pull off.
 
I actually wonder why some people said this was bad. The guide puts in some really great tips.

You did a great job Clockwork Alpha!

P.S. You could put all the possible drops for the WoF and the mech bosses
 
Bump. Starting to work on this guide again, but for now I've improved what I already have in it, as well as fixed the surprising amount of mistakes i made in this guide, such as the nimbus cloud drop being 6.67% chance when it's really 14.67%.
 
Instead of mining for ores in hard mode,you should save up crates to get a bunch of the new ore right from the get go, I have full adamantite armor right now and I haven't even broken an altar yet :p
 
After the hungry are gone, focus on hitting the eyes as much as possible. If the eyes are being blocked by ash, etc, attack the mouth. There isn't much to the fight after this, other than the wall's attacks speeding up. The wall will also move faster and faster, along with its attacks. Just keep up with the wall, and watch the wall's health drain.
Better focus on mouth. It has slightly more defence, but it can take multiple damage from explosions, while eyes get only 1x dmg per explosion. I think there is a difference between 50 dmg (eye) and over 150 dmg (mouth). I found that while I was killing WoF for second time - first time I was shooting the eyes, then I focused on mouth and the Wall has gone faster. Btw very good guide.
 
Updated guide again. Did some spellcheck and also added precise numbers for the bosses on how much defence, health, and damage they do in normal and expert mode. Also finished section about preparing for skeletron. With those improvements done, I will soon start adding onto the guide even more.
 
A small tip. I said that already, when you are trying to kill WoF using explosives, like Hellfire Arrows, focus on mouth - you can deal multiple damage on it.
 
A small tip. I said that already, when you are trying to kill WoF using explosives, like Hellfire Arrows, focus on mouth - you can deal multiple damage on it.
Added, and did more spellcheck.
EDIT: Also organized it into sections and prettified it a little bit.

Also, I thought you might be amused by what spellcheck thinks of your username.
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Will you continue it after Skeletron Prime? Cuz the Mechs just about %33 of the whole Hardmode. Oh, I almost forget, a good guide, but needs lots of work.
 
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