DicemanX
Brain of Cthulhu
Many players think that the Daedalus Stormbow is broken in hardmode, but the Stormbow cannot hold a candle to the true terror of hardmode: the almighty cannon! The cannon allows one to cruise through most of hardmode effortlessly.
I updated the Cannonball Arena for 1.3 Expert Mode. The previous version was mainly for use against Pumpkin Moon, and used a Dungeon Spike for protection against projectiles. However, Spikes were nerfed, so I shifted to a Slime Saddle invincibility machine. I also added a plantera bulb spawn area and shifted the arena to the ocean biome to be able to fight Plantera and Duke Fishron. I initially had trouble using the invulnerability machine during the Moon events because I would get periodically ejected when using two dummies side by side. However, stacking the dummies at one position solved this issue, so my thanks to @Moartem for bringing up this idea in his thread (http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/thoughts-on-dummy-engineering-updated-1-2-16.39796/) and for @inomanoms for being the first to indicate that you can stack dummy ghosts with teleporters and hoiks. This ghost stacking is not needed for fighting bosses, but it is necessary for the Moon events.
Below is a video of the arena in action, and then schematics are provided. In my mini-playthrough in the video, I show how you can take a character with no starting gear except for the slime saddle, and use the arena to beat the mechanical bosses and Plantera. Then using the boss drops, I craft a hallowed armor set to take on Pumpkin Moon. Using the Pumpkin Moon drops, I craft the Spooky Set and add summoner accessories to summon Ravens for the Frost Moon and Fishron fights. In the end, I show just how easy hard mode can be, and how you can speed-run the game without needing any hard-to-find gear or time consuming arenas.
Video:
Schematics:
Note: the Plantera Bulb area and the deep lava pools are OPTIONAL. Use them if you wish to farm Plantera and/or Duke Fishron.
Arena Protocol:
After teleporting to the arena, mount the slime saddle and hop on top of the dummy ghosts. Fire the cannons after starting an invasion or event, or after summoning the boss.
To fight Plantera, step onto the teleporter (while still mounting the slime) to the immediate left of your position on top of the two overlapping dummies, and pull the lever. This will send you to the plantera bulb area, actuating and then deactuating the jungle grass blocks, and breaking a bulb if one is present. You are immediately returned to the same teleporter, so you then have to step back to the right on top of the dummy ghosts to create invulnerability frames.
To fight Duke Fishron, cast a Truffle Worm into the lava pool. Lava pools must contain at least 1000 tiles of liquid, and you must be in the ocean biome to be able to summon Fishron.
Just under 1700 cannonballs are required for each Moon event, and this costs just under 2.5 platinum. However, the profit from Pumpkin Moon is around 18-20 platinum.
Care must be taken using the cannons. The cannon to your side fires cannonballs that travel a short distance upwards before falling down to the spawn area below. However, cannonballs explode after hitting a certain number of targets, so it is possible for a cannonball to explode near the dummy ghosts and override the damage from the Slime Mount. If that happens, then you will lose invulnerability and take damage. This will happen periodically during the Moon events, so equipping a Shield and raising defense is important to not get thrown out of the invulnerability machine. This issue doesn't arise with any bosses except the Destroyer , but only if the Destroyer flies up vertically and causes the cannonball to strike multiple segments. Avoid this against the Destroyer by using the top cannons, not the side cannon, when the Destroyer is moving upwards near your position.
As a side note, the exploding cannonball issue is why you cannot build this arena with a slime invulnerability machine. The exploding cannonballs will kill the slime protecting you, and then you're dead in the water.
Key Dimensions:
The distance from the spawn surface to the top of the dummy statues must be at least 36 tiles to allow spawns to take place. The spawn surface itself is only 16 tiles wide. Lava must cover the surfaces beyond the arena up to 84 tiles to the left and right of the player's position.
World Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBOWJSZ3BMbEszT28/view?usp=sharing
This world download doesn't come with the option to fight Plantera or Duke Fishron - the video was shot using a test world instead. However, the Cannonball Arena in the world offered above can still be used to fight the Mechanical Bosses and any of the Events or Invasions.
Acknowledgements:
My thanks again to the folks working on MechMod, the T-MEC community mod:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/mechmod-a-t-mec-community-mod.38088/
I updated the Cannonball Arena for 1.3 Expert Mode. The previous version was mainly for use against Pumpkin Moon, and used a Dungeon Spike for protection against projectiles. However, Spikes were nerfed, so I shifted to a Slime Saddle invincibility machine. I also added a plantera bulb spawn area and shifted the arena to the ocean biome to be able to fight Plantera and Duke Fishron. I initially had trouble using the invulnerability machine during the Moon events because I would get periodically ejected when using two dummies side by side. However, stacking the dummies at one position solved this issue, so my thanks to @Moartem for bringing up this idea in his thread (http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/thoughts-on-dummy-engineering-updated-1-2-16.39796/) and for @inomanoms for being the first to indicate that you can stack dummy ghosts with teleporters and hoiks. This ghost stacking is not needed for fighting bosses, but it is necessary for the Moon events.
Below is a video of the arena in action, and then schematics are provided. In my mini-playthrough in the video, I show how you can take a character with no starting gear except for the slime saddle, and use the arena to beat the mechanical bosses and Plantera. Then using the boss drops, I craft a hallowed armor set to take on Pumpkin Moon. Using the Pumpkin Moon drops, I craft the Spooky Set and add summoner accessories to summon Ravens for the Frost Moon and Fishron fights. In the end, I show just how easy hard mode can be, and how you can speed-run the game without needing any hard-to-find gear or time consuming arenas.
Video:
Schematics:
Note: the Plantera Bulb area and the deep lava pools are OPTIONAL. Use them if you wish to farm Plantera and/or Duke Fishron.
Arena Protocol:
After teleporting to the arena, mount the slime saddle and hop on top of the dummy ghosts. Fire the cannons after starting an invasion or event, or after summoning the boss.
To fight Plantera, step onto the teleporter (while still mounting the slime) to the immediate left of your position on top of the two overlapping dummies, and pull the lever. This will send you to the plantera bulb area, actuating and then deactuating the jungle grass blocks, and breaking a bulb if one is present. You are immediately returned to the same teleporter, so you then have to step back to the right on top of the dummy ghosts to create invulnerability frames.
To fight Duke Fishron, cast a Truffle Worm into the lava pool. Lava pools must contain at least 1000 tiles of liquid, and you must be in the ocean biome to be able to summon Fishron.
Just under 1700 cannonballs are required for each Moon event, and this costs just under 2.5 platinum. However, the profit from Pumpkin Moon is around 18-20 platinum.
Care must be taken using the cannons. The cannon to your side fires cannonballs that travel a short distance upwards before falling down to the spawn area below. However, cannonballs explode after hitting a certain number of targets, so it is possible for a cannonball to explode near the dummy ghosts and override the damage from the Slime Mount. If that happens, then you will lose invulnerability and take damage. This will happen periodically during the Moon events, so equipping a Shield and raising defense is important to not get thrown out of the invulnerability machine. This issue doesn't arise with any bosses except the Destroyer , but only if the Destroyer flies up vertically and causes the cannonball to strike multiple segments. Avoid this against the Destroyer by using the top cannons, not the side cannon, when the Destroyer is moving upwards near your position.
As a side note, the exploding cannonball issue is why you cannot build this arena with a slime invulnerability machine. The exploding cannonballs will kill the slime protecting you, and then you're dead in the water.
Key Dimensions:
The distance from the spawn surface to the top of the dummy statues must be at least 36 tiles to allow spawns to take place. The spawn surface itself is only 16 tiles wide. Lava must cover the surfaces beyond the arena up to 84 tiles to the left and right of the player's position.
World Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBOWJSZ3BMbEszT28/view?usp=sharing
This world download doesn't come with the option to fight Plantera or Duke Fishron - the video was shot using a test world instead. However, the Cannonball Arena in the world offered above can still be used to fight the Mechanical Bosses and any of the Events or Invasions.
Acknowledgements:
My thanks again to the folks working on MechMod, the T-MEC community mod:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/mechmod-a-t-mec-community-mod.38088/
Last edited:
