J Bame
Terrarian
Video is laggy as hell, blame my computer for that one.
So, let me explain the fight and the strategy used.
Duke Fishron has 50/40 defense, which means all damage done to him will be reduced by a flat 25/20. Since there are barely any Pre Hardmode weapons that can sustain usable DPS after having their damage per hit reduced by 25, our weapon selection is very limited. There are only 3 weapons that I consider viable for this:
Star Cannon: Using this is cheating as it's basically a Hardmode weapon in terms of DPS so let's just assume it doesn't exist.
Demon Scythe: Probably the strongest weapon in Pre-Hardmode. With Mage's busted Pre-Hardmode gear its 35 base damage becomes a whopping 73, which is massive for this part of the game. Due to being fairly mana efficient and having multihit projectiles that let it get around 300 DPS on the Duke, this is the weapon I chose.
Molten Fury: Gets higher base damage than Demon Scythe when used with the best gear and Jester's Arrows (79 total), however it is not a multihit weapon giving it much lower DPS in practice. It's going to take a lot longer to beat him with this.
Speaking of optimal gear, let's get to the best armors for this. Even 1 damage point is significant when each hit does very little damage to Fishron's defense, so maxing out on DPS is optimal. Defense may as well not exist here since even in Post Golem this guy can kill you in 5 hits.
For Demon Scythe, I used Wizard Hat, Gypsy Robe and Meteor Leggings. This setup gives you +28% damage and +16% crit chance, making it insanely good offensively (Adamantite Armor for comparison only gets +17% damage and+15% crit). Having next to no mana efficiency is not a big issue in this fight, since with Fishron's abundance of destructible projectiles (the Bubbles and the Sharks) you are not going to be constantly spamming attacks.
For Molten Fury, you'd use Necro armor, substituting the Chest piece for a Gi to get higher DPS. Not a busted armor like the previous Wizard Set but Molten Fury is strong enough on its own to compensate.
So with this maximum investment we are stuck dealing 300 damage per second... to a boss with 60k health who can prove to be hard to hit and can also kill you in 5 hits. This will be easy.
Let's move to accessories, arguably the most important part of the fight.
Shield of Cthulhu: The dash is probably the only reason this is doable. Incredible mobility option that also allows you to block some hits if you dash into him with the right timing, I used this ability a couple times during the fight in the video.
Bundle of Balloons and Frog Leg: Three double jumps that gain incredible height thanks to the Frog Leg. Without either one of these moving vertically and avoiding the Sharks would be extremely hard.
Lightning Boots: Fishron is fought almost entirely in the air, and when you don't have Wings this is all you have to move faster horizontally. Their speed is slower than even Angel Wings but it's the best there is. At least the Rocket Boots can prove to be helpful when your jumps run out and you need to land on the platforms. Frostspark Boots are a redundant upgrade that doesn't change anything in this fight.
Worm Scarf: -17% damage reduction on a boss that hits for 200 damage is unsurprisingly helpful to let you take hits better. I initially used a Shark Tooth for a 10% damage upgrade for the Demon Scythe, that's till I realized I can't just dodge everything he throws at me in Phase 2 and I need to tank some hits.
Everything needs to be on Menacing because again, every damage point counts and you are not gonna get anything from Warding here anyways.
As for stuff that isn't Equipment nor Weapons, I had:
Bat Hook: Incredibly helpful during the fight due to its abnormally high pull speed. If you time the Hook's release right, you keep all the momentum you gained from it in the direction you were going, making it essentially a Tabi dash for any direction. Looking back, the fight would've been easier if I built the arena more around it.
Slimy Saddle: This messes with the momentum of your character: If you are going up when you activate it, you go up faster. If you are falling, you fall faster instead. You only use this in bursts when you really need to ascend or descend for a split second.
Potions: There are the basic stat ups as well as three unusual choices. I used Feather Fall to reach the platform above more easily as well as being overall better mobility with the Balloons; Inferno Potion to pop the Bubbles instead of burning Mana to absorb them with Demon Scythe, and Water Walking for Phase 2, something I'll explain later. Healing Potions used were the Honeyfin, which heal for 120.
The fight itself
Phase 1 Duke is not too big of a deal. The most dangerous thing he can do is leave Sharknados on the Ocean Surface and block your path with them. This is a real threat and I died to Sharknado/Fishron sandwiching many times, but I eventually figured out you can avoid this by simply staying in the top platform of the arena, since he can't actually spawn them on platforms and they end up far below where their hitboxes won't bother you anymore.
With the tornadoes out of the way he's just an annoying boss, since he won't be able to do much besides try to surprise you with Sharks from the bottom of the screen while abusing his extreme tankiness.
5 minutes later of picking at a boulder with a toothpick, we manage to get him to half health and start the second phase of the fight. This is when this reaches Moon Lord's level of difficulty, not only due to the improvements to all his attacks, but because you now have to deal with Cthulhunadoes with no Wings.
These things get in the way, and they are
ing tall. All three Bundle jumps with their height doubled by Frog Leg barely let you get over one of them, and that's only because the Feather Fall slows your descent. When the angered King of the Ocean is coming at you predictably yet aggressively, and the thing that is blocking your path is also throwing a wall of Sharks at you, you can't justify burning all your jumps in one go to avoid one Tornado.Another big problem with them is the spawner itself. It homes right into you, and without Wings' mobility it will always reach you. If it hits from below, when you are not on or near the ground, the Nado will spawn right on top of you dealing 150~ damage instantly. You can only avoid this if you let it hit your sides by only moving horizontally, but when you also have to dodge Fishron himself who hits and moves faster than the Nado Spawner does, this is not as easy as it sounds.
And this where Water Walking helps. If the spawner hits when you are near the Water, the Cthulhunado will spawn right at the bottom of the now flattened and deep Ocean, where it won't be able to get in your way nor instantly hit you when it appears. If we had a Platform built on the Ocean's surface then the Cthulhunado will spawn on it instead, and you definitely don't want a shark-shooting Skyscraper in the middle of the area where you move around the most.
However this is only a soft-counter. Some Nados will eventually end up in mid air or on the aerial platform, and the ones on the bottom will still spam Sharkrons, so there is no way to fully avoid them like in phase 1. Even if this method reduces the threat they impose, the Cthulunadoes are still by far the hardest part of the fight.
After 7 more minutes of the Terraria equivalent of shooting a heavily-armored fly backed up by its giant armed bodyguards, we deal 21k damage and he goes to Phase 3. And this is where the fight becomes a breeze in comparison to the two last phases. No Nados, no Sharkrons, no Bubbles, no attack that poses a threat to you. Just Fishron's linear charges with a set pattern you can easily adapt to. And because he only moves around you now, getting tons of multihits with the Demon Scythe is way easier than it was before. Because of all this the phase only ends up taking about two minutes. It's very relaxing after the tension of the second phase.
And that is how you kill a boss with gear obtained 4 tiers before you are supposed to face him. It's hard and takes many tries, but it can definitely be done.
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