PC Staying alive

Sargon

Terrarian
This guide is about staying alive in Terraria. In other words, it will teach you how to not die. The guide will not give you a full walkthrough of Terraria. One should read it along with an actual walkthrough guide (this for example). It is designed to be suitable for beginners and experienced players.

Rather than telling you how to beat a boss or an invasion, the guide will tell you how to stay alive against them. I am willing to read any feedback and advices you might write below. I'll respond to them as well as I can and consider adding them on the guide. I'm letting readers to decide, which tips are “legit ways” to use in their adventures.

Survivors act patiently and cautiously. They are always on guard unless they are 100 % certain that nothing threatens them. Let me illustrate this with a personal example:

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This is one of my hardcore characters which was killed by a Granite Elemental. I had confined a small cavern for myself and I thought I was safe because I had encountered nothing suspicious for a long time. While I was immersed in my thoughts, the Granite Elemental surprised me from the darkness to the right. I was not able to observe it before it was right next to me and it gave me one second to react. Unfortunately, before I could drink a Recall Potion, the Elemental murdered me in three swift hits. In other words, I had let my guard down.

This example shows how vulnerable you are during the early game. In addition, Terraria is full of instadeath scenarios. You may find it troublesome to avoid them at all times. Even if you fail, you can learn from your death and try harder in your next life. Staying alive is nothing but persistence.

One could argue that dying is a good way to undertand how to not die again. For the sake of this guide, I'm not primarily recommending it. If nothing else, the guide will try to decrease the amount of your deaths, not increase them.
Character creation has softcore, mediumcore and hardcore options. They don't increase the real difficulty as much as they make your deaths more punishing. A softcore character loses some of its money on death, a mediumcore character loses all its items and a hardcore character dies permanently. You will find these difficulties to be emotionally different experiences. In hardcore and mediumcore, you'll think more emotionally than in softcore. You must undertand whether you are mentally prepared to face a challenge. If you are not ready, you may panic and act in a way which can result in your death. Anyway, if you play a mediumcore or a hardcore character (assuming that you don't delete your world on death), you will benefit from storing your old equipment in your chests. At least your new or reborn characters will have a good start for surviving.

World creation has normal mode and expert mode. The former difficulty mode is easier than the latter one. In expert mode, you must proceed more carefully and make extra preparations. Generally speaking, enemies cause 2x more damage, they have 2x more health and they are 10 % more knockback-resistant. Some bosses (The Eye of Cthulhu, Skeletron, Plantera and Duke Fishron) have harder AI aswell. It is obvious that staying alive is much harder in expert mode than in normal mode. If you are a new player or want to play it safe, you should choose normal mode. If you are an experienced player and want some additional difficulty, you should choose expert mode.

Moreover, there is a difference between singleplayer and multiplayer. In normal world mode, multiplaying with other players will make encounters easier to deal with. In expert mode, multiplaying with other players will make encounter either easier or harder because enemies and bosses have increased health for every additional player. For this reason, the whole group should fight the bosses at the same time. If everyone have right weapons to cause enough damage per second, the bosses can die faster than with just one player. The group can also help individual players to survive. If someone is close to dying, another player can distract the boss so that the first player can heal him-/herself. Even if the person dies and he/she was a mediumcore/hardcore character, other people will make it easier to get his/her items back. However, if you ever consider multiplayer, you should consider your internet connection. If your connection is bad, the game may lag which can result in your death. In this case, it is wiser to stay in singleplayer.
Health, defense and mobility are the main factors which determine your survivability. Your damage per second is also important when you'll have to kill an enemy before it will kill you. You can raise your health with Life Crystals and (once you have killed a Mechanical Boss) with Life Fruits.

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- Don't take unecessary risks. Statistically speaking, you will eventually die if you take them.

- Don't use your Copper Shortsword. It is too dangerous so kill slimes with your Copper Pickaxe.

- Shelter yourself with blocks. You can avoid some enemies by doing so and it is recommended to shelter your spawn point.

- Build and an underground base. Bosses and invasion enemies will not spawn while you are underground.

- Build a floating base. If your house is at least 7 tiles above the ground level, ground enemies or wraiths can't enter it from below.)

- Build a lava roof to your base. It will prevent enemies from spawning on the top of it. (You can also use player placed walls to prevent the spawning.)

- Use a Pressure Plate or a Dangersense Potion for locating traps.

- Don't dig straight down . A Medusa, or an enemy that might drop on you, may kill you.

- Avoid flying while you are underground. The Medusa can surprise you.

- A Reaver Shark is safer and easier to get than Molten Pickaxe.

- Store your crates till hardmode. They'll give you hardmode ores and thus lessen the amount of mining them.

- Don't raise your health above 180 before you are certain that you can beat the Eye of Cthulhu.In addition, don't break a Shadow Orb or a Crimson Heart before you are certain that you can beat the Goblin Army.

- Move the Nurse to your spawn location. When you teleport to her, you can instantly heal yourself, assuming you have enough money. Always keep some money for this purpose.

- When you must escape a dangerous situation, use Recall Potions instead of a Magic Mirror. The Recall Potions are almost instantaneous whereas the Magic Mirror requires almost one second before it teleports you. This delay can be the difference between life and death.

- When you fight the Solar Pillar, stay near the ground level and use the surroundings to your advantage. (Either bury yourself or raise yourself by standing on Platforms or a small hill.) Other Lunar Pillars are doable with flying and dodging.

- Don't enter the Dungeon before you have released the Old Man from his curse by killing the Skeletron. The Dungeon Guardian will instakill you.For this reason, you shouldn't even dig near the Dungeon until you have killed the Skeletron (You may accidentally activate the Dungeon Guardian.)

- The world generation may occasionally put the Jungle Temple Door deep inside the Temple. Don't walk to find it in pre-hardmode because the Temple enemies may spawn in the corridor if there is enough Lihzahrd Brick Wall.

- If you like play in a server, play with people whom you can trust. Griefers may try to kill you.

- In expert mode, have well fed buff active at all times for increased health regeneration.

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users who have contributed to this guide:

The guide is a work in progress. I'll add more information or change/remove the information if it's necessary and whenever I have the time. Feel free to correct me and give me suggestions. Either post your opinions below or send me a PM. I don't mind if you give me feedback about my writing or the grammar. I want to keep the guide as clear and readable as possible. Thank you in advance! :gslime:
 
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