A Complete Guide to Master Mode

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

Whenever you create a world in Terraria, one of the choices you have to make is what difficulty to set it at. Classic Mode is best for beginners, Journey Mode is best for players who want to remove grinding or test certain things, and Expert Mode and Master Mode are for those who want more challenge. While Master Mode isn't much harder than Expert Mode, it is still pretty difficult. So I decided to make a guide on what gear to use, how to prepare for the boss fights and events, and how to dodge the bosses in Master Mode. Also, I won't be very specific for each of the bosses, so if you want in-depth guides for specific bosses, look elsewhere.

NOTE: The wiki does have guides for each of the bosses, but they may be inaccurate because multiple people work on them, and a lot of stuff is outdated since 1.4.

General Tips

• Be careful. In Master Mode, enemies have very high health and deal a lot of damage, so if possible try to stay away from them. This is why Melee is not as effective of a class in Expert and Master compared to in Classic. Hunter Potions are recommended for the Underground and Cavern layers, so that you don't get ambushed. Dangersense Potions are also very useful, mainly for the environments like the Dungeon or the Jungle Temple. However, do not move slowly through dangerous environments, because that gives time for enemies to spawn around you and swarm you, whereas moving quickly gives less of a chance for enemies to spawn and can make enemies that do spawn despawn rather quickly.
• Choose your class or hybrid class. Choosing a class can allow you to focus on dealing lots of damage in the late-game, and can help you know what gear to get next. Also, it may be helpful to do some research about what weapon and armour set you're going to use next before you defeat a vital boss to game progression has been defeated, such as the Wall of Flesh or Plantera, so that you can go for that weapon and armour set as quickly as possible to make the next portion of the game a bit easier.
• Make Potions. These are must-haves for Expert Mode and Master Mode, because they provide very useful effects, inside or outside of boss fights. To make potion-making infinitely easier, make Clay Pots out of Clay Blocks or buy Planter Boxes from the Dryad and set up a herb farm, and locate or create fishing ponds within major biomes such as the Cavern layer, the Crimson/Corruption, the Hallow, and the Jungle. Also store your extra herbs and fish so that you don't have to constantly go back and forth between fishing ponds and herb farms and so that you don't waste anything.
• Build arenas. In Master Mode, attempting to dodge the Pre-Hardmode bosses without an arena is very hard, and while you can only use wings for the Hardmode ones, arenas still make it easier. For the Pre-Hardmode bosses, arenas don't have to be big; they can sometimes be just one long platform.
• Use Menacing and/or Lucky instead of Warding. As the difficulty gets higher, enemy damage gets larger, and while defense also reduces more damage, it is less of an increase than the damage you take.
• Don't be overconfident. This is sort of related to the first tip, yet it is somewhat different. Don't go to places or fight bosses that you probably aren't prepared for, and always make sure to craft as many potions as you can.

Boss Strategies

Spoiler: King Slime

King Slime is a very simple and easy boss, with loot that is mostly useless, so unless you want the Slimy Saddle or the Royal Gel I won't recommend wasting your time on him. But if you do, here's the gear you should use:

Silver or Tungsten Armour
At minimum. If you find enough Gold or Platinum to make their respective sets, go ahead and use that. But if you can't, try to get enough for these sets, don't use Iron or Lead Armour, because the extra defense will help in case you get hit.

Gem Robes
If you're playing mage, you should get one of these and use pieces of ore armour to fill the other slots, or put a Wizard Hat or Magic Hat in the head slot if you get lucky enough to get one. The extra mage stat boosts are worth it.

Flinx Fur Coat
If you're a summoner, you should replace the chest piece of an ore armour set with this, because the extra minion slot and summon damage is worth the bit of defense lost.

Fossil Armour
As a ranger, Fossil Armour can be a useful alternative to a set of ore armour, if you can survive long enough in the Underground Desert to gather enough Desert Fossil. However, its ranged-specific stats are rather low, so it doesn't make too much of difference.

Projectile Sword
Using a regular broadsword is a horrible idea. You'll take lots of damage from King Slime himself, and his minions will quickly overwhelm you. A sword that fires or summons a projectile, such as the Enchanted Sword or Starfury, is much better option. You could use the Terragrim, because of its high DPS, but you'd have to get Gold or Platinum Armour and be careful to not get overwhelmed by King Slime's minions.

Flaming Mace or Ball o' Hurt
If you can't get a projectile sword, a flail is probably your best option. While flails have low range, they have more range than swords and have decent DPS. They can also pierce indefinitely, which can be useful for dealing with the minions. On a Crimson world, the Flaming Mace is the best option. On Corruption worlds, you could get a Ball o' Hurt instead, which is better, but is harder to get.

Gold or Platinum Bow
As a ranger, one of your best weapon options is a bow. Craft a Gold or Platinum one, because it doesn't take too much of their respective bar and if you do enough spelunking you should find plenty of the ore. Frostburn Arrows are the best arrows for the boss itself, but Jester's Arrows are great for dealing with the minions.

Grenades
Grenades can be useful for dealing good AoE damage, however they are inaccurate and can deal significant damage to you if you're not careful. They also be purchased in large quantities.

Gem Staff
At mimimum, get a Sapphire or Emerald Staff, because the Amethyst and Topaz Staves are too weak in my opinion. If your world has Silver, you should try to get Tungsten from Crates, because the Emerald Staff has pierce, which can be useful for killing the minions, while the Sapphire Staff doesn't.

Vilethorn
If your world has Corruption, you may want to get a Vilethorn, because of its infinite piercing. However, it does have short range, which might make a Gem Staff preferable.

Flinx Staff
The Flinx Staff is probably the best summon staff for this fight, because it doesn't require much grinding and has very good DPS when combined with a Leather Whip or Snapthorn and a Flinx Fur Coat.

Vampire Frog Staff
This staff is better than the Flinx Staff, but it is significantly harder to obtain, because it requires a natural Blood Moon to occur at least once, and it is dropped by very strong and agile enemies at a low chance. I wouldn't recommend going for this staff at this stage of the game, especially since the Flinx Staff can handle this boss pretty well.

Leather Whip or Snapthorn
Your minions will greatly benefit from a whip, and you'll also be able to deal damage without relying entirely on your minions. The Snapthorn is the better option, since it deals more damage and gives the "Jungle's Fury" buff, but if you're having trouble getting the materials from the Underground Jungle you can go with the Leather Whip, assuming you have enough money.


If your world is flat enough, you don't need to build an arena, since the best way to beat King Slime is running away from him. However if your world isn't flat, a single long platform over any obstacles should do the trick. It can also be used to help get over the boss and his minions when trying to turn around.

Spoiler: Eye of Cthulhu

The Eye of Cthulhu is an somewhat easy boss that provides useful weapon upgrades and a very good accessory: the Shield of Cthulhu. I'd definitely recommend fighting it. Here's what to use:

Gold or Platinum Armour
The best classless armour for this fight is Gold or Platinum, but it may take lots of mining to get. Silver or Tungsten could get the job done, but I'd recommend going for this.

Gem Robes
Though it's not absolutely necessary, you should use a Gem Robe if you're using magic weapons, because the extra mana and reduced mana usage if worth the lost defense.

Flinx Fur Coat
Summoners should replace the chest piece of an ore armour with this, like with King Slime.

Fossil Armour
An alternative to ore armour for rangers is this set, Fossil Armour, that provides small increases to ranged stats.

Projectile Swords
Swords that fire projectiles will come in handy, because the projectile can do decent damage to the boss and its minions, and the sword itself can be used to deal with Servants of Cthulhu that come close.

Feel free to suggest gear that you think works better than what I've suggested!

**This guide is still a work in progress.**

 

[Mug Not Found]

As someone who only plays on Master Mode (except for my recent hardcore character) I really appreciate something like this but I'd have to disagree with some of the points said.
I'll be talking about king slime first to keep things a bit simpler.

I'd agree about most of the loot being useless but I think a really underrated accessory (for Master Mode) is royal gel, particularly for exploring hell, though I'll say that for anything else it is mostly useless you have to remember that on expert lava slimes drop lava when killed which can be highly dangerous, and since hell has lots of money and the powerful demon scythes you have a good incentive to go there pre-EoC (or at least pre-BoC/EoW).

An armour I think you (and most other terrarians) overlook in that stage of the game is jungle armour, it can last from pre boss to post WoF, you can argue that the underground is too dangerous (and I will get to that) but even then it has 17 defence (better than silver, tungsten and gold) and a bunch of magic weapon bonuses.
As for weapons you were right about the star fury (especially since they're somewhat common) but a semi-decent bow and some jester arrows will still easily work most of the time because the arrows will tear his minions apart.
You don't really mention equipment or an arena so I'll put my recommendations here. the ground should be flat with two platforms above, you can use these platforms to continuously hop above the king slime until he dies and use the flat ground beneath to pop jester arrows into his minions.

Your first point has you saying Melee class isn't effective in Expert/Master Mode because of the high damage and health of enemies, I'm not sure how much experience you have with Melee but you couldn't be more wrong, just because you have high defence and can just sit in one place and tank everything in normal mode (for the most part) it doesn't mean you should do that in higher difficulties, from what I understand your point there says that because you have to be close to an enemy to attack it (which isn't true) you're gonna get hit and die because of the high damage.
Well, first of all just because the Ranger and Mage classes are longer range than Melee it doesn't mean Melee has a a short range (despite it's name) it just means that Melee has a shorter range then the previously mentioned classes, and secondly Melee generally has a much higher knockback so you should still easily have enough time to kill any immediate threats, and even then you can just dodge,
In Master mode (especially pre-Hardmode) Movement accessories should almost always come before anything else, when one or two hits could kill you it's important to make dodging as easy as possible which is why I agree with your fourth point.

In your first point you also say that hunter potions are recommended for the underground, I don't have anything to say about this but I do have something to add, when going through higher spawn rate areas like the jungle you can easily be overwhelmed, if you move through those places quickly you have less chances of enemies easily outnumbering you because if you choose to stay and fight enemies you don't need to kill you're just spending time waiting for more enemies to spawn in, this is an effective way to get jungle armour early on.

Something worth mentioning for your second point is that many high fire rate guns become more grindy to use the higher the difficulty is because when enemies have 3x their usual health they require 3x as many bullets to kill, effecting weapons such as the chain gun drastically to the point where you might as well lock it behind Journey Mode.

I'm going to make my comment on your sixth point brief, yes I do agree on the fact the you shouldn't fight bosses you aren't prepared for but isn't taking risks part of the fun, it's not like you have limited tries (unless of course you're playing hardcore) and seeing how well you do on a boss can be excellent to see where you are in progression anyway, and besides, you never know when you might surprise yourself.

I'm thankful that you took the time out of your day to type up what you did and help others but something like this could change someone's playthrough immensely, please consider this next time you make a guide.

-A Passionate Terrarian

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

An armour I think you (and most other terrarians) overlook in that stage of the game is jungle armour, it can last from pre boss to post WoF, you can argue that the underground is too dangerous (and I will get to that) but even then it has 17 defence (better than silver, tungsten and gold) and a bunch of magic weapon bonuses.
As for weapons you were right about the star fury (especially since they're somewhat common) but a semi-decent bow and some jester arrows will still easily work most of the time because the arrows will tear his minions apart.
You don't really mention equipment or an arena so I'll put my recommendations here. the ground should be flat with two platforms above, you can use these platforms to continuously hop above the king slime until he dies and use the flat ground beneath to pop jester arrows into his minions.

As I said at the bottom of the post it is incomplete. I will add more weapons and armour soon, as well as arena and fight strategies.

 

[whoneedsnamestbh]

You probably should have reserved the first post or two, a guide like this is probably gonna eat up the text limit.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

You probably should have reserved the first post or two, a guide like this is probably gonna eat up the text limit.

My accessory tier list is much bigger than how big I plan to make this guide, and it all fit in one post.

 

[whoneedsnamestbh]

Jungle Armour
If you want, you can rush the Underground Jungle once you've got a good Gem Staff or Vilethorn and some ore armour for the best Pre-Hardmode mage armour. You have two options for obtaining the materials: rushing through the natural caves as fast as possible, gathering Jungle Spores and occasionally killing Hornets, Man Eaters and Spiked Jungle Slimes, or taking it slow and building barricades to protect yourself from the enemies and leaving one-block holes to shoot through. However this is not a necessary armour set for the Pre-Boss stage, but it can help with your damage output if you manage to gather the materials.

You should probably add something about gem robes too. A lot safer to make than jungle armor and also offer mage bonuses, especially because not everyone would be able to survive the jungle pre-boss in Master.

 

[qwerty3.14]

I rarely ever use jungle for the magic stats, there simpley aren't that many magic weapons early game, and the jungle has none of them. I make jungle armor for a bit of extra defense if I have some spare materials. I usually just stick with the wizard set until meteor becomes available.

 

[Alasise]

Cool!