Expert vs. Master

You can easily craft the item to summon King Slime. It takes 5 Gold or Platinum Bars, 1 Ruby, and 20 Gel. Craft the Crown first at an anvil then the rest at a Crimson or Corrupt altar.

For the Queen Bee,

- Max Health
- Band of Reg
- All Warding
- Best Yoyo available (Other options are available but this is the easiest to obtain)
- Rope & Grappling Hook
- Potions also help, Regeneration and Ironskin

Make a rope in the middle of the hive from the ceiling into into the honey. This will give you a quick vertical route to dodge her dashes. Build a platform too just above the honey from side to side to prevent the hearts from falling into the honey.

Be sure to dip in the honey frequently. It'll give you a regeneration bonus.

Build another platform towards the center of the Hive. You'll need this to grapple onto to prevent you from getting knocking around by the bees and her stinger attack.

Wait for her to get situated towards the top portion of the hive then attack her like crazy. I've done this numerous times and I rarely come close to losing.
 
Since you have also killed Brain of Cthulhu, you have the option of going down to hell and mining some Hellstone to get a Molten Fury. At that point, it's the strongest bow you can get and does quite a bit of work against both of the bosses you are struggling against. Mining just takes a bit of finesse with the stronger enemies, working with the buildings to avoid spawned lava and mining safely away from high damage Demons, Hellbats, and the Lava Slimes. Fire Imps are usually little threat because their projectile is destructible, and the Bone Serpent rarely spawns but it is somewhat easy to avoid with the Shield of Cthulhu.
 
First phase Skeletron is pretty easy if you decide to run away shooting when you need to and see how it telegraphs its attacks when it catches up. At first I thought phase 2 was difficult because it traps you with slow, but circular movements dodge well.
ZombieKillerX said:
I never get Slime rains, and how exactly do I kill Queen bee for bee's knees?
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I think it's a random drop.
 
Pro Superstar said:
First phase Skeletron is pretty easy if you decide to run away shooting when you need to and see how it telegraphs its attacks when it catches up. At first I thought phase 2 was difficult because it traps you with slow, but circular movements dodge well.

I think it's a random drop.
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I do know she drops it.
I just don't know how to beat her.
 
I'd honestly argue for master mode being slightly easier than expert mode, at least during hardmode. The extra accessory slot helps a lot, and the black spot is, without a doubt, the most overpowered item in the game.
Bosses aren't too much more difficult, and although mobs are a bit more annoying, all non-boss mobs can easily be steamrolled as per usual.
 
Pro Superstar said:
What are your thoughts on Master mode compared to Expert mode? Does the difficulty make combat feel quicker and exciting or slower and grindy to you?

One observation of mine is that even though you lose all your money on death, the extra rewards dropped moves the merchant in earlier and allows the buying of multiple piggy banks encouraged by the happiness system, reducing the punishment on death. A few stabs at the Eye makes NPCs start to feel like alternative storage to me.
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If you have like three boss relics next to each other that feeling you get is magical
 
I never use warding accessories in master mode. Why?
Cause chances are your benefit from dps. So you want damage or violent. When you die in juch a few hits come hardmode. It doesn't really matter. I've pretty much nailed the strategy down on pack to take down eater of worlds. The trick is to crate a long as platform in the horizontal part of the chasm. And to set up a bast+heart lantern+star bottle+camp fire combo. Hunter potion plus vilethorn or jester arrows. Ball of hurt is also useful. As for we summoner folks. Your gonna have a bad time.
 
I was an all-Warding all the time guy until Master mode. Granted the last time I played extensively, wall of flesh was endgame. But for the expert runs I did before stepping up to master, it was always Warding, and that just let me facetank everything with ease. That doesn't really work in Master mode, which is a good thing. I've started turning more to Lucky/Menacing and such and really started utilizing different weapons in my hotbar for different situations instead of just spamming whatever is "easy" to use, and I've had to actually practice most of the boss fights to properly avoid damage. Long story short, though there are no AI changes, I think Master has forced me to turn up my own gameplay and play less lazily. That's a good thing, and despite the extra tedium/grind, I have enjoyed Master much more for the boss content.

That said, exploration and regular enemies definitely feel too punishing in Master. It's not really the bosses that will kill you, once you understand them. It's the random trash mobs around the world. Hardmode Jungle and Dungeon get bonus points in this 'problem' category as areas I felt that I couldn't adequately fight the constant onslaught of monsters. I was instead forced to set up some lava farms and effectively wait out my drops from those environments, which was safe, but relatively boring. The alternative was just frustrating though. Oh also, screw the underground desert. If you get worm spawns there in master mode at pretty much any point in the game, you're in for a bad time. Skip it and fish for the loot if you even want it; it's definitely not necessary.

Overall it's a mixed bag. I think if I want to play a more creative, relaxing type of world, I'll stick to Expert. Otherwise, it'll be Master for me from here on out.
 
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Yeah face tanking is quite dangerous. Especially against boss fights. Damage Reduction Overall. (Worm Scarf and Endurance Potions) are exe
Interestingly enough Space Gun + Meteor vs queen bee is super effective with Lightning Boots and Quick Accessories. As she pretty much can't touch you. (they made her a total beast omg) I Think it's velocity is actually faster then she is. You need excellent aim though. With a large enough arena and right setup. You can basically kite her :red: and take zero damage from the fight. (what is with us and kiting bosses in master mode now or has this always been a thing?)
 
One thing im strugling with is skeletron with melee and mages. Summoners Just kite hoik and let your minions do the rest. Rangers use a star cannon. Not sure what to do for melee or mage yet.
Playing a mage right now. What should I do. :/
 
Make the area around the entrance as flat as possible. You are going to need a ton of open space especially towards the sky.

- Build a below ground level home for the nurse in the middle of this zone. She comes in handy. Also campfire, heart lantern, Ironskin + Reg + Endurance Potions.

- Use the Slime Mount. This helps for jumping over Skeletron or even bouncing on his head while he is spinning. Be careful not to jump too high though.

- Ideally you want to take out the hands first, as the head's defense gets lowered once they are gone. But with the right weapon spamming him works fine (Bees Knees is a great example)

- Mage Strategy? One of the best weapons is Demon Scythe, especially when his head spins and he goes at you. One blade can get numerous hits. Gem scepters work fine too but just not as great. I would suggest not using the Space Gun. It only hits once. The weapons above can land multiple hits. Mana flower is almost an essential item here.


Most importantly, dodge, dodge, dodge, and............................................dodge.
 
Skeletron is pretty free if you can split your damage evenly to kill the hands at the same time. He still won't fire or travel through blocks, so you can put a small roof to hide under when he's shooting homing skulls, then just DPS him and run in a straight line away when he spins.

For magic I'd also recommend demon scythe - the underworld can be easily accessed at any point, and demons can be farmed with even a wooden yoyo from inside a cheese box if needed.
 
Tamamo said:
I never use warding accessories in master mode. Why?
Cause chances are your benefit from dps. So you want damage or violent. When you die in juch a few hits come hardmode. It doesn't really matter. I've pretty much nailed the strategy down on pack to take down eater of worlds. The trick is to crate a long as platform in the horizontal part of the chasm. And to set up a bast+heart lantern+star bottle+camp fire combo. Hunter potion plus vilethorn or jester arrows. Ball of hurt is also useful. As for we summoner folks. Your gonna have a bad time.
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I relate that I am a Warding guy because the beginner in me says, "Yeah I'm a sucker for 20 defense. My reaction time is garbage. How does a dinky 4% do anything?" Maybe I should start thinking the same for 20%+ damage or crit chances.
 
Warding is still fine and really useful for general exploration, but yes, I've started swapping to damage loadouts for bosses. Keeping [class] emblem + avenger emblem + destroyer emblem + golem eye + putrid scent + any 2 other accessories you want for a boss has worked really well for me with any class type.

You're getting about 15% damage/crit per slot that way. The loss of defence is noticeable but I find that most of the dangerous boss attacks will 2 to 3 shot you an regardless. The defence is more useful for keeping smaller hits over time from punishing you, so if it isn't a bullet hell kind of boss where you can dodge, you should learn to do so.
 
I'd say that Master Mode starts off more difficult than Expert, however once you've defeated your first boss it gradually keeps getting easier because of the 6th accessory slot which helps a lot, especially during Hardmode where you have a good amount of options when it comes to powerful accessories available.
 
I hate master mode and am of the opinion that it was by far the worst addition and biggest disappointment of the entirety of 1.4. Literally nothing significantly changed for me as I already knew the attack patterns of almost everything inside and out. It didn’t take any effort to make and was exactly the same difficulty as expert, but what few mistakes I made were punished more. What was meant to be a test of your skill failed to deliver on that front completely and entirely became a test of patience.

Some of the health values for enemies are so specific that it really just seems like they took expert mode and ran it through an algorithm. You can’t just raise numbers and call it a new difficulty. In its current form, master mode feels unfinished and should not have been added at all. It’s a detriment to the game as it will scare even more new players away than Expert mode did.

Oh, and before you ask, no, master mode has no exclusive AI. Literally just higher numbers on everything. BOTW’s master mode was dynamic and actually contributed to its difficulty in creative ways, far better than whatever the hell this was supposed to be. I feel like they only added this for the hype and not to actually make a new difficulty. They said it was for the “dedicated tryhards” when in reality the difficulty has absolutely nothing to offer for them.
 
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Derpling Ω said:
I hate master mode and am of the opinion that it was by far the worst addition and biggest disappointment of the entirety of 1.4. Literally nothing significantly changed for me as I already knew the attack patterns of almost everything inside and out. It didn’t take any effort to make and was exactly the same difficulty as expert, but what few mistakes I made were punished more. What was meant to be a test of your skill failed to deliver on that front completely and entirely became a test of patience.

Some of the health values for enemies are so specific that it really just seems like they took expert mode and ran it through an algorithm. You can’t just raise numbers and call it a new difficulty. In its current form, master mode feels unfinished and should not have been added at all. It’s a detriment to the game as it will scare even more new players away than Expert mode did.

Oh, and before you ask, no, master mode has no exclusive AI. Literally just higher numbers on everything. BOTW’s master mode was dynamic and actually contributed to its difficulty in creative ways, far better than whatever the hell this was supposed to be. I feel like they only added this for the hype and not to actually make a new difficulty. They said it was for the “dedicated tryhards” when in reality the difficulty has absolutely nothing to offer for them.
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Exactly it is Expert with stat inflation unfortunately it strongly reminds me of Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode in Borderlands 2 where it just put a fat multiplier on enemy stats basically it is what I call fake difficulty. I don't really see any advantage for the mode aside from the one accessory slot and the pets/mounts
 
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