Video The pure loot playthrough

Alright guys, It's already fine as is now.

I'm not sure if I've said it already before here, but seeing how I can surpass some obstackles in normal mode just narrowly, and still with a lot of deaths, then I don't find Expert Mode really worth trying.
Expert Mode in general doesn't really changes as much as this challenge did, so for the majority I would be playing in the same way, but just making things even more tedious.

This challenge is already an Expert Mode on it's own right. :)
 
Well, expert mode does have the perk of bolstering many drop rates and having exclusive items... maybe I'll attempt that for the crowd!
 
Just taking a mention that due to the short time before vacation. I'll rather prefer leaving this thread alone untill after the vacation. (Somewhere mid-August).

Untill then. :)
 
And I've returned from vacation, and almost forgot about this thread again. :D

So it's time for another update on the progress:

I've returned back to the Golem to see if I'm able to grind it's content.
A certain someone had continiously suggested to use platforms from the start of the Golem fight. But I refused them as I've never needed to cheese to beat Golem.
But since I've beaten Golem in the traditional way, I've decided to try out the platforms regardless:
platform strategy.png
...Wow, this really made the fight a lot easier.
Guess the madly hopping Golem Body really was the big problem after all.

The fight was still not trivial though, the lasers can do a decent damage if you're too careless. So I even had to swap out my Djinn's Curse with the Cobalt Leggings for that extra defence. Even though the Possessed Hatched was a better weapon for the head and hands, the Dart Rifle could still fullfill a last purpose to destoy Golem's second form.

And eventually, I managed to grind Golem for enough times to get the item I've wanted for a looong time:
picksaw obtained.png

Picksaw.png
A Pickaxe! Weeeeeew!

I have...yet to realise what's all possible by now, not only am I able to mine the temple, but I'm now able to mine everything.
Another huge disability of the run is finally gone now, it's difficult to believe it's still legal after been all the time without. :D

I already went wild to rebuild the temple to my likings, to make the Golem farm and the summon grind much easier.
And after a while, I also got the
Sun_Stone.png
Sunstone. With both the Sun and Moon Stones, I basically have the effects of the Celestial Stone.
Though since I can't combine them, I still have to manually swap them out when the day/night time cycles.
Sun Stone Obtained.png

With that, I got all items I needed from the Golem.

Back home, I started to feel the huuuuge benefit from the picksaw:
- I can finally pick up chests!!!
- I can place things down without a second thinking, cause I can easily remove them!
- I can remove gravestones!
- I can mine with precision!
- I don't need to farm/use bombs anymore!

Truly, a pickaxe may not be a need to clear the game, but it still feels invaluable. :D

And I wanted to get started on a bunker for the martians.
But then a Solar Eclipse happened...followed by a blood moon.

Oh well, at least I was able to get some decent loot from both events:

Death_Sickle.png
Death Sickle and
Money_Trough.png
Money Trough obtained!
(And a Broken Eye of Cthulhu, which did less damage than the Kraken)
Solar Eclipse loot.png
solar blood moon pls.png


I think I'll leave the Martian preparation for a next time, but at least I'm able to go wild with my Picksaw and managed to decorate my cave a little bit, and due to the many chests recieved, I could clear up my inventory properly once again:
current progress pre martians.png

And the Dart Rifle has finally been archived. But even though it's been powered out, it'll still be remembered for how long it has carried me.
 
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And the time has come for the first time martians.

It's time to prepare for the true aliens.
Cause in places where you raid for aliens, in Terraria, aliens raid you.

To have a decent chance for mobility against Moon Lord, I'll have to get the UFO mount.
And to have a decent not-limited DPS against Moon Lord. The best I can go for is the Influx Waver.
So the Martians will be important to decide the fate of the run.

Starting off, it already feels amazing to have a picksaw (or pickaxe at all) in my hands.

I've made a floating alien bunker to protect myself from the Martian Saucer's attacks:
upload_2019-8-21_20-17-20.png

Floating Alien Bunker! Suited with a bed, clock, chest, and a ceiling to hang up all your martian banners. made with the most durable Lihzahrd bricks!
A floating rectangle bunker for all your defence against the most nasty aliens! Compact and effective!
(Prices not included)

Constuction aside, It was time to reach the high grounds and challenge these aliens.
Since I never had a need to revisit the sky islands again, I havn't even build anything towards them either, so it's been the first time in hardmode that I needed the Bee mount again to reach a floating islands. But afterwards I went literally jumping from island to island thanks to the airplane unicorn and spaaaace.
I even saw floating islands I havn't even discovered yet...I'm suprised I never went for the Starfury or the Shiny Red Balloon, and since I discovered the latter had warding, I start to regret it that I didn't found it sooner:
unknown.png


Afterwards, I went sitting for quite a while on the furthest island, waiting for the probe to spawn...
unknown.png

There we go!

Instantly back home, retreating to my Floating Alien Bunker right away. and figuring out how to deal with the martians untill a saucer spawns.
But it appears, I didn't need to think of a plan, the pirate minions were already doing that job right before me:
yarr.png

And dang, it keeps suprising me how much DPS they can do to grounded units. To even compete against Martains...over time.
Eventually, a saucer spawned, pretty early actually, way before the 50% progress. Oh well, the sooner the more, right?
martian bunker rockets.png Martian laser bunker.PNG Martian bunker.PNG
The tactic was pretty simple, which I've used a lot since I learned about it.
I'll throw out the Possessed Hatched on either side of the door, and the homing ability did the rest.
Because of my Floating Alien Bunker(tm), I was able to resist all damage the saucer could do to me, aside from a stray rocket every now and then.
And since it worked in both phases. the Saucer was done for.

I found it funny how I was fighting the martians in 2 layers, the top one where my saucer fights the bunker, and the bottom one where the pirates were fighting the rest of them.
After several ufo fights, the great treasure started to drop:
carrr keyyy.png

Car keeeeyyy

The loot was not bad either, I also got a Xeno Staff, which means flying precise DPS! probably the best minion I can obtain too!
unknown.png

Current in-game progress has already been put on hold so I can continue the finale once this thread is ready too.
That way the end result stays a suprise for me as well. :p
 
And to get through this grinding session go a little faster, have another update at the same week. :)

Another day, another grind session has begun.

Because of my preference to avoid NPC's secondairy options too, the only way to get better prefixes at items is to obtain them again.
It adds a twist to use other prefixes besides the most optimal ones. And in the early game cases, even decide to go with different accessories because of their prefix.

So I've farmed the Golem a few times to get a Superior Possessed Hatched, which will be close enough to Godly.
I can rather try to get the best out of the hatchet, since it'll probably be my last viable and homing weapon I'll obtain.
Suprisingly, I still can't take the Golem too lightly, as I'm getting smashed when I try to change my current strategy.
Eventually, after getting 4 picksaws already, farming for a prefix starts getting dull.

---
During the farming, I've thought about the chances against the Celestials:
- Ranged has limited, unrenewable ammo.
- Mages aren't effective to keep up without accessories.
- Summons have a low cap of 2.
- The only way to have potions renewable is with the rare chance of slimes obtaining them (And then daring to give a mining potion), so I can't rely too much on buffs either.
- So basically, Melee is my only decent option, with the best armor been one that only increases Melee Speed.
So yeah...The Influx Waver is quite my only hope.

Another option is to use the Coin Gun, since I saved up 15 platinum simply by not spending them. But since it's ammonution is difficult to manage. (picking up 1 coin messes up everything). I should rather save that up to possibly win a DPS race at the end.
---

Anyhow, after attempting some corruption grind for the Ancient Armor + Corruption Key, I decided to poke some Martians again.
Though, just for fun, I wanted to see how effective the Airplane Unicorn + Spaace really is:
spaaaaace.png

I can explore all islands with high speed and slow falls. I love doing this. :Y
I actually forgot that I got an UFO mount now, Lol.

After some long grinding/waiting sessions, some good loot can eventually appear:
unknown.png

Finally found a Moon Charm with Warding, now I feel much more confident against Moon Lord. :v (kuch)

And after like, 10-15 minutes, another Martian Probe is found:
unknown.png


And the waiting finally started to pay off!
Influx Waver Drop.PNG

Influx_Waver.png
And there we have it, Finally a replacement for the FrostBrand, weew! :D

It's started off a little ironic, since I've actually never liked the Influx Waver for been a drop replacement of the Terra Blade.
But I've thought of it as a different way: It needs a sword from outer space/dimensions to overpower it. So that's fine to me.

The first plus point is that the Influx Waver is much less noicy than the FrostBrand. Though it's projectile doesn't scream power to me.
So, to put the sword at a test, I've tried beating Plantera with it.

...and it completely destroys her.

This really gives me the good expectations of the Sword. A good offense is the best defence. :happy:
Let's hope to see if it can last well against the Celestials.
 
The time has come...

The time has come, to unleash the 4 pillars on earth and defend your world from the destruction you've created.

The preparations are not done yet to the ultimate max, there are still some accessories remaining in the dungeon, better reforges to drop, and I could get Ancient Shadow Armor for use with the Influx Waver. However, all these things are just small benefits, and and these shouldn't matter much anymore in a large scale event like this.
So, this celestial fight will more be a test if I can make a decent chance against the Moon Lord. Otherwise, the run will end right there.

The last preparations have been made:
pre-lunar prep2.png
pre-lunar prep.png

(Nasty Dart Rifle has returned the spot again \o/)
It's kinda funny how I barely have used the Influx Waver or UFO mount in all my playthroughs, and for this one I don't have much of an other choice.

I had to get through the first test: the Cultist.
unknown.png

Last time I couldn't manage it because I was too grounded to dodge his attack properly.
But with the UFO mount, I had enough air control do evade his attacks long enough.
The Influx Waver was too inaccurate for this fight, so I had to switch back to the Possessed Hatched again.
And after a while, the Lunatic Cultist was no more...The Towers have been released.

And now I've to bear the hefty rule of no-crafting-stations for a last time:
big oof.png


As for the Celestials, theoretically, if you can defeat at least 1 enemy and can at least inflict 1 damage to the pillar. Then you can beat the Celestial event.
Regardless of amount of deaths. But that's not a reason to be reckless of course.

I've written my strategy down in short sentences for each pillar, to take notes for later fights.
And maybe they come of use for you too.


General:
  • Long Grinds for better prefixes/armor isn't gonna be worth anymore seeing the huge damage scaling of the next events.
    • I can better rely on the Frozen Turtle Shell, Cross Necklace and Black Belt to stay alive.
  • No buff potions/food will be used to save them up. Except Greater Healing Potions because the Golem is farmable.
  • After each death, I slowly regained my health back to 500 to still have the best chance to survive again.
  • I'm not counting the amount of deaths, so instead I'll be picking up the graves found around, these may or may not be accurate.

Solar Pillar:
Solar Pillar.PNG

  • Why does the Solar Pillar always ends in the snow biome for me? At least I could use the mob farm as an arena.
  • Preferred to stay on the edge, so I can avoid the invasion from swarming me.
  • Influx Waver is the best choice, it has a good protection against these fireballs, and doesn't reflect by Selenians.
  • Swapped out the Djinn's Curse for Ancient Cobalt Greaves and Cloud in a Bottle for Black Belt, I won't need the airtime anyways
  • Preferred Unicorn over UFO mount
  • Scrollers are super annoying.
    • Most attacks from all enemies are at least 50 damage each hit, where Scrollers does at least 100
  • Black Belt has saved lifes many times, certainely a keeper.
  • After the Shield was gone, decided to heal up and charge to the pillar while shooting Influx beams, gave me a great head start to beat down the pillar.
  • Influx Waver does also incredible to take down the pillar without the charge, it's single target DPS is amazing.
  • Grave Count: 3 (All from Scrollers)

Vortex Pillar:
Vortex Pillar.PNG

  • Spawns at the Desert, could make good use of the desert pit to stall the enemies from approaching.
  • Night activated, so could use the werewolf charm for this. Defence is now up to 35!
  • Alien Hornets were quick to defeat and they should stay like that.
  • The Alien Hornet banner dropped already mid-fight, so made quickly a makeshift air-block to place the banner on.
  • Same Strategy used with the Solar Pillar once the Shield was down.
  • Shotguns and Alien goop are horrible
  • Grave Count: 3 (didn't survived the remaining aliens after the pillar was down)
Influx charges are beautiful to start the attack:
Influx Charge.PNG


Nebula Pillar:
Nebula Pillar.PNG

  • Spawned near the Corruptions, combining Brain Eaters with Soul Eaters is not a good sign.
  • Weapon switches between Influx Waver and Possessed Hatchet, these Brain floaters really have to be beaten fast.
  • I forgot about using the Xeno Staff, they were really helpful against these Brain Floaters.
  • Had to stay airtime so the Nebula Floaters and Headcrabs didn't get stuck in the ground.
    • Actually, Staying in the air will also prevent the ground enemies from interrupting. so that way I only had to deal with the brain floaters and eaters.
  • I kept making big circles around in the UFO mount helps to dodge most of their attacks.
  • Thought I was safe in the air to avoid the Nebula enemies, then got snapped by a Wyvern. rip
  • Death Count: ~3 (Couldn't be sure because the Corruption Chasms makes it difficult, still did quite well though)
There was also a fun discovery I found after the shield was down:
what if I just lined up with the Nebula pillar, out of all danger, and keep shooting projectiles at it?
Offscreen kill..PNG


Oh dang, it actually works! This way I've already won the fight at the moment the shield is down. Awesome!
offscreen kill works.PNG


And finally, the Stardust Pillar:
Stardust Pillar.PNG


  • I managed to use the Stardust Cells trick with the Influx Waver without getting swarmed, and then used the offscreen kill trick.
  • Easiest pillar of all.
And that were the four Pillars, as long as enough care is taken, you can beat them down without a ridiculous amount of deaths.
Which is good, I guess, because I'll have to beat them each time again to summon Moon Lord...ough...

But now...for the impending doom...
 
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And the moment has come to test the Moon Lord.

I started recording at the moment before I defeated the final Pillar. The battle starts at 1:22

To be fair, I didn't expected that I survived for this long. :v
I still had to get used to the UFO mount and had yet to decide which weapon performs better.
I do manage to dodge the big laser thanks to the UFO mount, But there's also a lot of small fast projectiles that are more difficult to dodge.
And I've made some mistakes in preparation, because of the fall damage. >.>

Though, even with the Influx Waver, I didn't really saw a significiant damage on Moon Lord. And since I'm almost at the maximum, I doubt about the possibilities.
As if the chances aren't straight zero yet, because the Three True EoC's hurts a lot in the second stage.

I'm not sure whether it's gonna be worth the remaining grind and rematch, I could try to go for better prefixes and Ancient Shadow Armor, but I would need a significiant change in strategy to make it possible.

...Should I use the Nurse? I find that too cheap to use as that makes the fight too much of a cheesecake.
Especially since I've never needed the NPC's beforehand. I would rather prefer to go without if that's going to be possible. But it's something to consider.
 
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Hm. I'm kind of skeptical you could pull off the Moon Lord like this. It's true, you don't have a lot of DPS. And yet... you've come this far. It seems almost foolish to doubt you.

Some thoughts.

-Have you looted Shadow Chests yet? You may be able to find Lifeforce potions in them, though the rest of their pots likely won't help you at this point.
-Does a Rod of Discord sound too outlandish? If you're fast at switching weapons, it's a great way to dodge his telegraphed attacks, especially the death laser and the True Eyes' charge.
-You do have a pickaxe now. If you kill queen bee and take the hive wand, you'll be able to create a honey pool, which will help your regeneration - though you won't be able to double-dip during the fight, as it kicks you out of the UFO mount.
-If absolute worst comes to worst, you do have the coin gun...

Not having access to teleporters or asphalt hurts your ability to play this cleverly. I think you may end up needing the Nurse. I wouldn't fault you if you did - I still need the nurse, and that's with the benefit of actually having defense.
 
Hm. I'm kind of skeptical you could pull off the Moon Lord like this. It's true, you don't have a lot of DPS. And yet... you've come this far. It seems almost foolish to doubt you.

Some thoughts.

-Have you looted Shadow Chests yet? You may be able to find Lifeforce potions in them, though the rest of their pots likely won't help you at this point.
-Does a Rod of Discord sound too outlandish? If you're fast at switching weapons, it's a great way to dodge his telegraphed attacks, especially the death laser and the True Eyes' charge.
-You do have a pickaxe now. If you kill queen bee and take the hive wand, you'll be able to create a honey pool, which will help your regeneration - though you won't be able to double-dip during the fight, as it kicks you out of the UFO mount.
-If absolute worst comes to worst, you do have the coin gun...

Not having access to teleporters or asphalt hurts your ability to play this cleverly. I think you may end up needing the Nurse. I wouldn't fault you if you did - I still need the nurse, and that's with the benefit of actually having defense.
I'm very skeptical about it myself, but I havn't met the run's limit yet, so I won't mind going deeper. :p

- I think I may have found some and used them during Plantera's Fight. Chances are that they're still some around, so I'll try looking there. Any kind of combat potion is helpful at this point.
- I've fought the Moon Lord once with a Rod of Discord drop too, It was an epic experience. Certainely would help me out in the first stage, I only wonder if it's going to be worth the grind. It would be amazing though.
- That's clever way to gain honey pools. I give you that! Though the risk of slowness and resummoning the UFO mount may not balance out the small regeneration it offers.
- Heheh, I'm suprised I havn't used the Coin Gun much since I obtained it. It's probably because the Dart Rifle was a more economic way of managing. It does save me on the cash though, so I'm not afraid to use it to win the DPS race at the end.
- I gotta say, even with the Nurse, the fight may still be difficult, or at least taking a while, so it may not hurt trying it at all.
I do have an Unicorn though, which has aided me really well during the other boss fights, I even did some Moon Lord fights on an unicorn because it's suprisingly fun to use it.
I can't remember anymore if that's a safer strategy over flying around in the UFO though, I'll have to recheck myself on that.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
I'll give myself some wondering on the next time, but I've also a Terraria playthrough planned with a friend. so I may give that priorities over this one. :)
 
I wonder if it'd be better to use the Possessed Hatchet due to its homing ability, create a map-long bridge, use your good ol' horsey to run along this bridge at the speed of sound with the Moon Lord following suit, throwing the Hatchet in his general direction, jump to dodge most of his incoming fire, and just scream 'Mommy!' over and over again until one of you dies.
But this sounds like a really mad plan to me.

Anyway, I hope you'll manage to finish it! So close...
 
In the meantime I've decided to give this another update while been busy. :)

Before further progressing, I've rewatched the video back several times to check and see where things went wrong.

I think as for survivability, I'm probably set enough, and there are barely any other choices left.
Maybe I could swap out accessories, but it's a very doubtful and competitive choice between them:
Accessories pre-lord.png

I'll probably swap out the Moon Charm with the Philosopher's Stone, Because the slight armor and melee buff will probably not make it up.
I know I could also just swap to Phil's Stone when I need it, but I don't like this form of micro-management while in the heat of the battle, and will end up forgetting about it.
Maybe the autopause might help on it? As long as I'm not using a weapon at the moment I pause (Because that locks your inventory).

While sitting with these thoughts, I decided to grind the Dungeon for a bit.
The dungeon farm is doing great:
dung.png


And an upgrade to the Cobalt Shield drops:
angreehh.png

+5 defence, it's an upgrade at least. :v

I also got a Sniper Rifle, and good dang, that weapon is loaded:
deadly.png

This damage, for a non-ranger build, is really impressive. :eek:
It looks like they've really buffed the weapon up since 1.3, it might actually be a decent DPS puller while saving on the budget bullets.
Would it still be a viable weapon against Moon Lord? With the lack of autofire, probably not though.


A martian grind also happened, in hope to get a Influx Waver with a better prefix.
But after another raid, I noticed that none of the Martian Saucer drops had a prefix.
after a check on the wiki, it seems that all the Martian drops will have no prefix at all...

That was the last drop, I've been done with all the extra grind for accessories with better prefixes.
So I've decided to break my additional 'no reforge' rule.

To be fair, to have managed to play through the whole game without needing the Goblin Tinkerer was already quite the road on it's own. And I've enjoyed it while it lasted.
But now that I'm reaching endgame and have to get the strongest I can be, I rather want to reforge the current items and be done with it.

...The Goblin is still alive in the shack where I found him, suprisingly.
Imagine just doing nothing in this dim cave for the rest of the game, the message hits hard:
oof.png


The road to a Legendary prefix reminds me of the 'normal' playthroughs again. Imagine if every 'tink' took one Martian Saucer to beat.
...yeah, I'm glad that I let myself use reforges now:
reeeeforges.png


Untill eventually, it happened:
legend.png

It kinda feels like the "Legendary Blacksmith" TV Trope. Existing just to forge the ultimate weapon to beat the final boss.

I've also decided to reforge my current accessories: 4x Warding and 1x Menacing.
This has blasted me through the platinum coins that I had saved the whole run, so a Coin Gun strategy seems to be unlikely now. I think this would've been a better place to spend the money on.

Later on, I also found a Frozen Key! And decided to loot the Frozen Chest:
unknown.png


...This chest though, 10/10:
ice chest.png


...11/10
ice chest 2.png

What was in mind with the people that made the chest?!...good thing I've allowed reforges now.

And so, more preparations have been set, all that's left to improve are the really rare drops, and I wonder if these are going to be worth it:
possible final prep.png

The TCF progress is now up to date with the current progress, probably only the rare drops remain as for now before attempting to deal with the Moon Lord again.
I've not tried the strategies yet, but I may consider it a possibility to work on.
 
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I love the sniper rifle for its ability to utterly destroy most enemies with one shot, but I wouldn't use it against the Moon Lord.
Your damage with it is way too low and the rifle is very slow firing. But that's just my opinion anyway. And it's pretty obvious you're not exactly drowning in alternatives. :p
 
I love the sniper rifle for its ability to utterly destroy most enemies with one shot, but I wouldn't use it against the Moon Lord.
Your damage with it is way too low and the rifle is very slow firing. But that's just my opinion anyway. And it's pretty obvious you're not exactly drowning in alternatives. :p
Truethat, I'll likely be sticking with the Influx Waver now that it's reforged. :)
 
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Finally returned to this playthrough again after a long break.

It's been a while since I've progressed in the pure loot playthrough again, I even almost forgot about the restrictions.
So to get a little used to it. I've decided to farm in the corruption again.

The Corruption holds still some value to collect, mostly the Ancient Shadow Armor, which I could use for 2 extra defence and more velocity for the Influx Waver.
And secondly, for the Corruption Key, having another strong homing weapon to your arsenal might help to grind through the Celestials.

And so, the farming has started:
1570907885072.png

Ancient Shadow Armor is pretty rare, along that Eater of Souls spawn less in Hardmode.
So I've decided to try out an autofarm for the first time since 1.2, by leaving the game running, and using my ufo minion to do the farming.

I think in like 20 minutes, the first piece of Shadow Armor started to drop, and things started to look hopeful:
1570907897242.png


But then Terraria crashed when I wanted to switch monitors.
Feared of data loss, or even corruption, I've tried to open it up again.
Autosave was not turned on, so all the progress of the session was lost.

It was kind of a bummer, especially that I lost a shadow piece again, but I've made another farm and went for it again:
Capture 2019-10-10 20_43_04.png


And well, things started to look brighter:
1570907910001.png

1570907919432.png

1570907932129.png


And after like 3 hours of semi-autofarming, (semi because of the tons of deaths and repositioning again), the Corruption Key and the full Ancient Shadow Armor was obtained:
1570907941846.png


It's just a small bonus, but at least the armor saves out on a Feral Claws accessory, and the increase in Velocity with 21% is pretty noticeable.
So the changes to at least hit Moon Lord have increased with 20%, where the changes of surviving it's attack is like...increased by 0,5%.
It's farming for what's worth, This is the best armor that I'm going to get. I start to feel bad that the Frost Armor isn't dropped anymore.

At the very least, it could've ended worse, like data corruption, so the run can still go on.

The main post has also been updated with all the previous logs as of now. :)
 
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