How many altars do you need to smash in hard mode?

[the bunny queen ♥]

I've destroyed about 3 so far but I think that the hallow/corruption spreads the more that you destroy them, should I do more than 3? Not sure, thanks for any suggestions

 

[Dragonlord]

That depends on how much you feel you need the three hardmode ores, and how much fishing you enjoy; there are people on the forums here who have admitted to something like a combined several hundred crates they saved for hardmode to get enough ores to not need to break a single altar.

You are mostly right though, about the spread when you break an altar. According to the wiki, there's a 2 in 3 shot that each altar you break will either turn a single stone block in the Caverns depth into either ebonstone (or crimstone in crimson maps), or pearlstone, and those will spread at the same rate of spread as the stuff that showed up when you beat the Wall, and the corruption you already had at the start.

If you discover you don't have enough Mythril/Orichalcum for the improved anvil, or Adamantite/Titanium for the improved hellforge, plus gear (weapons, armor), you'll either need to break more altars, or decide to take up fishing to fish up crates.

 

[the bunny queen ♥]

That depends on how much you feel you need the three hardmode ores, and how much fishing you enjoy; there are people on the forums here who have admitted to something like a combined several hundred crates they saved for hardmode to get enough ores to not need to break a single altar.

You are mostly right though, about the spread when you break an altar. According to the wiki, there's a 2 in 3 shot that each altar you break will either turn a single stone block in the Caverns depth into either ebonstone (or crimstone in crimson maps), or pearlstone, and those will spread at the same rate of spread as the stuff that showed up when you beat the Wall, and the corruption you already had at the start.

If you discover you don't have enough Mythril/Orichalcum for the improved anvil, or Adamantite/Titanium for the improved hellforge, plus gear (weapons, armor), you'll either need to break more altars, or decide to take up fishing to fish up crates.

This summed everything up perfectly thankyou!

 

[Sigma90]

In addition to what Dragonlord said, smashing more altars has diminishing returns. Each smashed altar creates less and less ore.

If you're concerned about the spread of Corruption / Crimson / Hallow, create a new throwaway world. Smash as many altars on the new world as you like and harvest the ore from there. Then bring the ore over to your good world.

 

[Mental Mouse]

That depends on how much you feel you need the three hardmode ores, and how much fishing you enjoy; there are people on the forums here who have admitted to something like a combined several hundred crates they saved for hardmode to get enough ores to not need to break a single altar.

Hey, my ears are itching! ;-) Seriously, the other advantages to doing that are, (2) you get your ores up front instead of having to mine among Hardmode enemies before you have Hardmode equipment, and (3) the Mechanical Bosses don't show up until you summon them.

In fact, my massive oversupply of crates didn't start out as on purpose, I was doing Angler quests (and stocking up on extra quest fish). But when I found out about the possibilities, I ran with it. Selling off the surplus equipment from crates also gave me a nice bank balance for starting Hardmode. I still have a couple of stacks of crates in storage, but I've been setting up to equip a second character anyway, so those will come in handy for that.

 

[Asteroidal_Assassin]

Well assuming you smashed a bunch of alters you might as well continue and smash all of the alters. Here is also a gameplay feature relating to the alters: When you smash one it converts one random block into your world into the hallow or corruption.