Steef's going Expert mode

[Galaxinator]

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
You have accumulated 666 deaths.
Challenger Approaches!
"Are you asking for death?"
*Bartimaeus has been awoken*

 

[tallsloguy]

You do know that the cultists are working for the wisp, yes? If not stopped they will bring about a great abomiwispian and a great wispapocolypse to the entire world. Your name will forever be 'wisp'ered throughout time as a wisp conspirator.

 

[ppowersteef]

You do know that the cultists are working for the wisp, yes? If not stopped they will bring about a great abomiwispian and a great wispapocolypse to the entire world. Your name will forever be 'wisp'ered throughout time as a wisp conspirator.

I'll make that part canon for his eventual return.

 

[ppowersteef]

"Oh, you're finally back from your adventure?"
"Yeah, My dungeon wisp told me to cease attacking the cultists"
"...wisp"

"Do you really believe those wisps? they and all the dungeon inhabitats are all in one big conspiracy, they are basically the same wisps as the dungeon spirits that attack you."
-"But how can I find trust in your source if they tell me something different"
-"What if those spirits escape the dungeon and invade that country, do you want your entire world to become a ghost island?"
"I'll tell you, you should really prevent those cultists to finish their things at all cost, before they manage to summon the pillars."
"I had to handle an entire christmas invasion to their leader in order to get the weapon I wanted, all you need to do is to catch a fish. You'll really be doing fine."
"In other words, Finish your playthrough!"

After the ... motivating method of Silvyne, Thardus went back and finish with what he has started.
Starting with the fish:

It certainely wasn't an easy fishron, I have already a hard time with the normal one, let alone Expert mode.
That said, I believe it was also the first time since I ever confronted Expert Fishron Solo. and dang, he is not easy, that's for sure.

With it's fast movement and Feral Bite debuff, the Tabi and the Ankh Shield are pretty much a 'must need' for this fight. The current weapon is fine, with razor sharp pine needles, He was able to destroy it.

Although, even with all the buff potions available, some fights ended with a close call. it took him around 7 tries before the Razorblade Typhoon dropped, but thanks to his thruffle enviroment, they spawned pretty quickly.

The Razorblade Typhoon, which should be really helpful during the invasions, are obtained. who can stop him now from the endless tidal discs?

 

[Gotcha!]

Perseverance! Nice job.

 

[tallsloguy]

Ha ha atta Thardus! Nice job.

 

[ppowersteef]

We're at the second-last chapter of the story.

Thardus managed to rip off some fishron wings. It's extra speed and water travel will really help him around for the invasions.

After Thardus kept his Wisp in a Bottle for eternity, he went back to the Dungeon Temple.
Not caring much about what the Wisp has lied to him, He knows that he should make an end of the ritual regardless. for the sake of the island and their consequenses.

He was by it's own certain mind that those cultists were training to absorb the tablet's magic.
The Typhoon proved it's power, in one wash he wiped out the people.
It doesn't go unpunished of course. as much as Thardus wanted to stop it, the Elder one managed to do it all by himself.

It's fight against the Elder cultist took long, but it was doable. The Razorblade Typhoons seemed to always aim at the right Cultist, and even if that failed, then it's piercing makes the Dragon also easy work.

When the Lunatic Cultist was almost done for, he layed down on the ground. Thardus decided to cease fire, he has killed already too much people than he wanted (most notable been the adamant pirates), and is not the one for the judgement of the lunatic.
But the Lunatic laughed with his head proned, "fool..." Then he fainted.

As the Wisp had foretold, the Celestial war started. But Thardus is not going to let it here.
"Bring it on.."

Now, to give a short summary of how the Pillar fights went,
Vortex Pillar: Washed! Those hornet swarms didn't got the change to grow bigger with the homing hyperspeed the Typhoon has.
Stardus Pillar: Washed! Same Story, but with Stardust Cells instead.
Nebula Pillar: I had to say, it is annoying, and it will remain annoying. They really combine the annoying attacks altogether.
And now, the Nebula Arcanium is obtained. and modified to Mythical as well.
Stardust Pillar: I don't even want to repeat this. This pillar...is horrible...Not only force it you to stay grounded, but also limits your weapons as most of them can be thrown back to you. The RazorBlade Typhoon did decent, but wasn't strong enough. and it was only a short time before the mana bar was depleted. Same story with the Arcanium.

Ah well, with the shield finally gone, I can go on and destroy the ...

...You gotta be kidding me

Managed to destoy it when there were too much spawns for the Crawltipede, but it wasn't certainely something enjoyable so see.

Thardus has now done 2 waves of Celestial invasions, and thus he has made an attempt at the Moon Lord as well. although a -little- unprepared.
The Second wave was pretty much a recap of the first one, Vortex and Stardus just as easy, and Solar just as hard, at least the second time id didn't went skyrocket.

Since Thardus knew what went wrong, he decided to give de grounded doors a makeover, so I can move in on his horse like a car drive. and move out just as quickly.

Maybe, tomorrow, he might finally be able to finish this all off, after a long while:

Also, random nightmare horse.

 

[ppowersteef]

After several attempts, defeats, and risen-up again. Thardus has realised it won't do him and his weapons good to keep moving all the time. so instead of his wings, he decides to entrust his powerful horse during the fight against the moon lord.

He also switched back to Chlorophyte armor, those provide better offensive stats, and it's set bonus is lesser random.
Thardus has build a small shrine that would provide him help to beat the Moon Lord. The Shrine doesn't include houses, so he would need to move back to the main base in order to heal himself up. The shrine is close enough though, so using the Magic Mirror would only distract him.

With his 3 main weapons, the Mythical Razorpine, the Mythical RazorBlade and the Mythical Arcanum. He decides to challenge the Alien once more.

The next day, he went off, leaving the world with the dangers of the celestial ceased.
When Thardus walked next to the Dungeon, he saw the cultists doing another attempt at breaking the seal.
"One day, they'll succeed again to break the seal and raise the Celesial army. but when that happens, but when that time comes, a different hero would be ready to save them. and so the cycle will go on."

"I've fought for peace in this land, but was it needed to kill so many creatures, who were just protecting their Territory?"
"If it was only possible to bring no harm to others, but sometimes there's no other choice but to fight for the peace."

"Sarah, I'm sorry for misunderstanding you."
"But at least, I do feel changed, feeling to understand thing better and knowing when to move on."
"...And I shaved my beard. which is also something to be proud of. "

And so, he returns to the group, where he can tell his stories about Expert Mode toward the others. The Expert Mage playthrough is finished.

It was interesting for sure, I havn't been doing a mage playthrough since I created this character. finally gotten more attention to the magic class since 1.2 was quite refreshing for a bit. I have however left the DD2 events a bit outside, there were likely too hard to deal with them as a single class.

So, Are there more Terraria Playthroughs from me coming?
Maybe, but if that happens, I would like to return to the classic Screenshot stories, because that way I can come more creative in storytelling. so I've decided to no longer stream playthroughs since that caused the playthroughs to delay untill I've really the time to set it all up. Streams will still happen, just no more full playthrough streams.

For all who have readen this, I hope you've all enjoyed it

 

[Gotcha!]

That must have been the most ineffective way to fight the Moon Lord. So many close calls, so much running around while doing no damage.
But hey, you can say: I defeated the Moon Lord on horseback in expert mode! Not many people out there can say that.
And it was rather exciting to watch.

Congratulations on finishing it!

 

[ppowersteef]

That must have been the most ineffective way to fight the Moon Lord. So many close calls, so much running around while doing no damage.
But hey, you can say: I defeated the Moon Lord on horseback in expert mode! Not many people out there can say that.
And it was rather exciting to watch.

Congratulations on finishing it!

Heh, I'm not entirely sure if it was cool, or just stupid.
Regardless, I've enjoyed the fight, and I find that's what counts.

I've also finally updated the OP with everything of the Mage playthrough, it was nonexistent before the edit. oops.


Also as a little bonus, death counter and notable killers:

Spoiler

The death counter stopped counting already after 60. I'm not sure how many that were, but he became too careless at the end.
I think doing a limited playthrough and keeping your death counter as low as possible don't really fit together. Might maybe doing one with focus on the least deaths.
Either way, I can be pretty certain that Thardus has more deaths than Silvyne.

And the notable killer list.

- Hoplites can easily 2shot you when careless.
- I remember when I wanted to flee from a bomb, but got hit by a worm, preventing me to get out of there in time.
- careless falling, remember to use glowsticks.
- Medusa seemed to be able to stunlock you.
- Early game Hardmode, enough said.
- A mimic, Nymph and Medusa were all at the same spot. I won't forget that part.
- Trying to beat plantera to progress seemed to be easier than grinding plantera.
- Frigging Solar Pillar.

 

[Gotcha!]

Well, if it makes you feel better, I can't count the times I died either.

 

[ppowersteef]

So, remember when I was talking about archieving the 0x33 Aviators?

Well, I had my ideas to make the next run to keep my deathcount as low as possible, and what's better than a clean zero?
I've had experience with hardcore before, back in normal mode. but hardcore expert is a whole new setup though.

I'm not going to make myself harder than it is, so there will be no weapon limitations, 'just' a hardcore expert run.

Progress is going well so far, the Meteor Armor and Space Gun outshines almost everything in pre-hardmode, although it is scary because my world generates without a lucky horsehoe, and that can sometimes lead to horrific consequences.

This was truly shocking, and afraid this run will end like a blunder like this.

But yeah, this playthrough will be All-or-Nothing, If I fail to finish this one, I won't be mentioning another one of the same kind again.
I've got only one chance, and hopefully I'll use this one well. if it's not about reaching the end, then it's at least about reaching as far as possible.

And with that said, the current base of operations:

I'll probably keep things boxed, it'll be awful if I spend the effort in it and then don't make it untill the end.

I've also been gathering large gems because why not they're fun when circling around me.

 

[ppowersteef]

Still alive and in one piece.

I've been trying to face the Eater of Worlds, but it's vile spit is much more dangerous than anything else of the boss.
You really should be aware to not fight it during a snowstorm or in the dark. <.< Thankfully I could escape it when I noticed that I'm not going to make it.

My former strategy was using Grenades, but that's not going to work well as it's too risky to use. therefore, the body can survive multiple explosions.
My best bet is to use the Space Gun. It does pierce for a little, so it works quite decent.

I did had to use the minimap several times to keep track of every work that could appear anywhere. it also felt like I was fighting a mini-Destroyer with all those vile-spits everywhere. but it's dead bodies still dropped hearts, so it was really doable to do with the space gun.

And thus, EoW beaten, and Warding Worm Scarf obtained. I was at a moment where I felt unstoppable.
I've also grinded the EoC for a few times, never have thought that I would even sell those 0x33 aviators. they still sell for 1 gold each though, so better make some profit of it.

Main weapons remains at Starfury and Space Gun. Sadly the world seed doesn't spawn a lucky horsehoe, but I managed to get one from my second Sky Crate. thankfully I don't have to mind at fall damage too much.

Also got the Bunny mount and FrostSpark boots. the final Item that I needed were the Hermes Boots, so it was a good experience to go from slow motion so super fast.

I've also decided to keep the extra graphical features at it's lowest, I don't want to risk a death by another framerate drop.

With that said, the current setup:

 

[ppowersteef]

It's been a busy day regarding my Expert Hardcore progress.

I've decided to take a few steps in the core of the planet, grabbed an obsidian skin potion and mined as much as I can.
It was a worthful potion, and the spawn limit also ceased the Bone Serpent to spawn, so that was a good bit of mining.

I couldn't do much with the hellstone bars yet though, decided to make the Imp Staff for an extra companion.
Before actually taking the risk against Skeletron, I wanted to be sure if there's truly nothing else left that should be done first.
I've decided to take a visit to the jungle biome, with ironskin, regeneration, dangersense potions and infinite lasers. the Jungle was doable.
I also decided to make Molten armor, just in case I'll need the extra defence, but at the cost of the space gun 0 mana, it wasn't worth the trade yet.
Went doing a few fishing quests as well, and reforged the gun to Mythical. I've also done calculations if it was the best choice against Skeletron, so far so good, I've done my preparation:

I could have used the known tactic Yrimir used, with the cover and Amazon, but I found that rather too risky. I preferred shooting at it from a bigger distance.
I did made use of the coverage sometimes, but if you've the featherfall potion, then you're also able to dodge the shooten skulls by circling around the head. (Gives a nice, but dangerous sight as well).
Tactic went well, Space gun was extra powered with the magic power potion, so the fight didn't had to take too long. I was glad when Skeletron was destroyed.

The dungeoneering happened after Skeletron is down, once again, ironskin, regeneration and dangersense, and you're safe.
Freed the mechanic, so I could swap the dnagersense with a pernament Mechanical lens. which covers at least the most dangerous traps.
Upgraded it later to the Grand Design, with also the ability to disable the traps before any possible harm.

After that, a bit of the common, exploring, placing torches everywhere. grinding a few rare catches, gathering more hellstone and obsidian. Grinding EoC for gold.
Later, I got my hands on the Handgun, and decided to upgrade it directly to the Phoenix Blaster, and reforged it to Unreal.
This, along with it's near-infinite musket balls, is clearly superior than the Space Gun in power. So I've decided to pick that as my main weapon.
I do have a loss in autofire, but I'm used to that with throwing Magic Daggers everywhere.

Then Queen bee, my common tactic for it's expert variant is to summon it on the surface, and then lure it to my arena. it's much safer without the hornets attacking everywhere. It was pretty much overkill at this moment with this gun. but I've rather prepared too much than too less.

As final. I decided to use the DD2 Event. with meteor shots and Jesters arrows.
The first 3 waves were done flawless. it went interesting when the wyvern appeared. (I forgot the crystal health/defence is not buffed in expert, makes it really difficult to protect for long). But when the Dark Mage strikes, it became serious.
It's ranged attacks did over 100 damage to me. It was really something I was not expecting at this moment. thankfully it was also down pretty fast, good that I didn't had to defeat multiple of them, I would not know how that would have ended.

And with this said, the current progress:

I don't want to go for the WoF next, I may be prepared for the boss, but not for hardmode.
I've had enough experience that the first hours of hardmode are the worst. So I really should prepare for everything I can and might expect.
Currently I'm almost unstoppable in pre-hardmode, I better can make use of that as long as I can.

 

[ppowersteef]

Man, it's addictive to prepare everything to the max, I've been another day busy with preparations.

There wasn't much left to do progress wise in pre-hardmode, so I've decided to place bridges, torches and safety houses throughout the entire surface.
I even covered all the desert surface with stone, to make sure the sandstorms will be a lot safer to cross.
I've never been playing Terraria this safe, there's also an intense risk bound too. So I can better prepare for everything possible.
I've also farmed for the rare Nazar, since the casters will get serious in hardmode, it's safer to obtain it right now. It took long (150+ skulls), but it eventually dropped.

Then the WoF...My heart was beating, knowing that it's the only boss that can kill you no matter what you try to escape. so I had to make the right preparations. including a bridge as long as half of the medium map. I had my Phoenix Blaster with Meteor Bullets, 80+ Beenades and a Hellwing Bow, along with Molten Armor, almost 40 defence and all kinds of buff potions. It couldn't go wrong, I thought...well

Except a glitching WoF... thankfully it's parts lowered later throughout the map, else I was really scared that it was my end.

I did managed to beat it though, I forgot to screencap that moment, because I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
Then...hardmode...I've decided to keep close to the safety houses I've set up. one of them became Corrupted, and the hallowed one was made in the meantime.

The cabins are a great spot to make a decent campsite/sanctuary. they're a good place to take cover and recover, and stay safe of all the dangers of the outside.
I've decided to open the crates later, they had a decent amount of bars, enough for the anvil upgrade and a Titanium Helmet. at the moment I prefer to keep my setup as defensive as possible. I've also gotten some good weapon drops, Including the Magic Dagger!
I havn't smashed any altars to prevent pirates and mechs from appearing.

That said, here's the current setup:

PS: I'm sorry for saying a lot of stuff at the moment, I've been doing this for an entire day.
Like I said, it's quite addictive.

 

[ppowersteef]

"Maybe I'll decide today to let this game aside and do something else"
"...Maybe not"

Yet another full day spend on this playthrough.

Today it was mostly preparing, preparing and preparation.
So, to summarize shortly what I've all obtained:
- Full Titanium Armor Archieved.
- Angel Wings obtained
- Steef's Angelic appearance returned.
- Adamantite Repeater crafted.
- Magic Quiver found
- Frozen Wings crafted.
- Star Cloak + Cross Necklace found
- Found and lost over 4 platinum coins for reforging.
- All Accessoires reforged to Warding
- Ankh Shield Crafted.
- The Twins defeated with an Adamantite Repeater.
- Unreal Hallowed Repeater Crafted.
- Squire's Great Helm obtained.

I've decided to keep all my accessoires slots defensive, with exception of the wings.
All that I wanted to do further is to get the Frozen Turtle Shell. which helps me staying longer in life during peril times, giving me more time to teleport home.

 

[ppowersteef]

Alright, this time I've only spend half of the day on the playthrough, yeeeey

Still made quite a bit of progress:
- Made the Optic Staff. but it's not gonna replace the spiders.
- Destroyer destroyed, with a hallowed Repeater and Jester Arrows.
- did attempts against the Old One army at Tier 2. but I was no match and retreated before they could kill me.
- Fought an Solar Eclipse, sadly nothing interesting dropped.
- Since there was nothing much to prepare, I've defeated Skeletron Prime.
- An Uzi dropped.
- Farmed tons of chlorophyte. Used Hunter potions and spider minions to stay alert of the surroundings.
- Made the Chlorophyte Shotbow, but I prefer the Megashark for now.
- Farmed for tortoised, it's faster to farm on the surface, but watch the skies.
- Fought a second Solar Eclipse, this time with Mothron appearing as well. it was a lot harder, but it was also more rewarding.
- 2 Broken Hero Swords and the Moon Stone dropped, exactly the items that I needed.
- Crafted the Terra Blade, first reforge became Godly.
- Crafted the Turtle scalemail. Offers a lot more defence.

My strategy is to use the Regenerator (Tank/Regen) guide I've made by myself in order to survive this playthrough. The armor build is surely powerful, but also really difficult to obtain, as it requires to beat the dd2 army a lot of times without dying. not to forget the amount of Eclipses I have to go to obtain the moonstones and Neptune's Shell.

It comes with a high risk, high reward system, and I'll really need that reward if I want to confront Moon Lord without too much worries.

The constant attention to surroundings is really tiresome sometimes.
I guess I'll leave it here for now and focus on my school this week. I'll probably come back to this playthrough in the weekend.

 

[ppowersteef]

I wanted to be prepared for Plantera to the max, I don't allow mistakes in a run where you cannot respawn.

So I made an arena, and by the time I thought it was big enough, I actually made it twice as big, resulting in the removal of the cabin (as you can see in the walls)

I also made the arena next to the safety zone, where I moved the Nurse into, although I have no intention to use her. Just in case of emergency.
And yes, about the honey flood, this was where the "Honey glazed character" joke came from.

For accessoires, I already had everything I needed, which was nice. I've swapped out the Frozen Turtle Shell for the Ranger emblem, as the turtle shell is only effective when it's getting peril. I've also gotten the Turtle Leggings in the meantime. which adds an extra defence point.

I've decided to wait for the night, so the Moon Stone effect could kick in.
I've decided to use my entrusted Chlorophyte Shotbow and Holy Arrows, as I can remember from the ranger run, these are likely the best setup to use.

I was scared at the time when I broke the bulb, but once I lured Plantera in the arena and used my buffs, it actually became rather flawless.
Plantera didn't deal more damage than 30-50 at a time, and along with the regeneration of the Helmet, potion and Stone, it restored up really quickly.

The point to nullify the damage the best is to keep dodging for a short while though, but it gets rewarded fast.
Shortly, Plantera was defeated.

I've zero intention to visit the Dungeon, so I've visited the Lihzarhd instead.
The visit went well, the Grand Design made the traps no problem. but I had to be aware of the flying snakes as they do some crazy amount of damage.

I've not defeated the Golem at this moment, because Post-Golem will promote the dd2 event to Tier3, which would certainely make it impossible to do.
So, for now I've got my focus on the Tier2 of the dd2 event and gonna farm some medals. Now I'm at the strongest possible for it's tier, I should be able to defeat them.

 

[ppowersteef]

Things were going so fast, that I rather wanted to continue on it instead of updating the thread, I'm sorry for that.

But, Like I said on the status, I've Defeated the Moon Lord on Expert Hardcore:

Now, to explain the story what happened between the last post and the final end:
Pre-Golem:

Spoiler

- I've been farming the DD2 Event, I could easily stay it alive, but the low offense made it hard to protect the crystal. So I had to risk a few accessoires away to add some offence emblems.
- I tried to go first with the Shadowflame bow, the Terra Blade, or hoped to get a Pulse Bow, Finally, I've used the Chlorophyte Shotbow and Holy Arrows, and it did REALLY well, against both group-packed and flying units. Even the Orge wasn't able to hold it up, for all sureness, I do have used the combat buffs that were available.

- I've farmed the dd2 event untill I had enough medals that I could buy the tier3 stuff I want.
- I noticed the Hallowed Key dropped, while I've no business in the hardmode dungeon itself, I did wanted to get the Rainbow Gun, as the chest spawned pretty close to the surface. And with my hallowed character, I did wanted to get the hallowed gun

- After the Event, I've confronted the Golem, compared with the tier2 dd2, the Golem was a whimp. I had used buffs the first time to make sure to play it safe, but didn't bothered using them when farming him.

Post-Golem:

Spoiler

The first thing I did was, indeed:

Valhalla Knight's Breastplate, the ultimate defensive chestpiece. With this, I don't have to fear the major part of Hardmode now.
I've worked hard to get this, but I find it a sweet reward for risking my life at the dd2 invasion.

As for the Weapons, I can entrust my Chlorophyte Shotbow for this, It should hold long enough untill I get the Phantasm.
So, All I needed was to get the accessoires. I've to grind a LOT of money out of EoC and Mimics in order to get all the accessoires to warding. I'm not going to leave that to a risk, 24 defence is quite a lot.

Once that was done, all that was left was the Moon Charm, I sadly didn't had luck last full moon...but...

Now I'm in big...BIG trouble....

I did my best to protect the NPC's I liked, but it was a lost cause:

But right now, I rather want to keep myself alive, the Tesla Turrets and Martian saucer are the worst.

The first 50% were not all too hard to manage, but once 50% was reached.

...help
The Deathray does 450 damage! Which is insane, even for the thickest armor, I'm no match into fighting it in the open field.
I preferred to not use Yoyo's so it was harder for me to managed to solve that.
Thankfully, I was able to safely reach my chest and grabbed a Stormbow out of it. it went slow, but at least safe.

At long last, the Martians were defeated and I was still alive, I never want to fight there things on hardcore again.

...slowly a moment of fear passes whenever I see a Probe floating around after these events:

Later I've gotten the Moon charm...after quite a lot of Bandages

Better hope I don't need these bandages later....

The Lunar Event:
These might provide some helpful tips to help you through the event without dying over and over again.

Spoiler

At long last, all accessoires I wanted are obtained, and thus it was time to fight the Lunar event:

I've decided to swap out the Squire Helm for the Chlorophyte Helmet, because heavy hitters will hit hard, and I think at that moment, I can better go for extra defence, the health regeneration right now is fine as is.

The Lunar Cultist wasn't a big problem, I was able to beat it up without the need of buffs, I could better save them for the moment after the cultist.
I used the Chlorophyte Shotbow as main weapon, but the rain of Arrows made it happen that it hit the wrong cultist during the summoning state.

But the Phantasm dragon is no match against the Rainbow Gun, and I am really glad to know that the Rainbow Gun have helped me to win this battle. XD

After the screenshot, I rather wanted to teleport right away. I don't want to stay any second longer near the pillars. I wanted to be prepared for them first.

For all of the Pillars fights, I've used all my combat buffs available:

The first one was the Solar Pillar, the most fearsome, and also the best to keep it done first.
I know I had to stay grounded, so I rather replaced my wing slot for the Frozen Turtle Shell. and used the Unicorn Mount to move around.
Out of all weapons I had Available, I had to say that the Terra Blade was the best choice:
- It's projectile gets not reflected by Selenians.
- It's fast speed protect you from dragomire fireballs.
- It's swing makes Corites an easy use.
Besides Crawltipedes, be REALLY aware of Scrollers, these are worse than tortoises if their landing explosion hits you.

So yeah, Terra Blade is likely one of the best options available against the Solar Pillar, even while it's melee atack is far stronger than it's ranged one does. but the ranged attack does it's job well to keep distance.
I'm not used to see the beam at a slow speed, so used with my normal speed set >.<

I kept grounded, and destroyed the Solar Pillar, then went to make, obviously, the Solar Eruption.

Aww yeah!!!

The motivation was strong, I felt like I could break through the intensity of this invasion now I got this beauty.

The Vortex Pillar followed, the hornets could swarm easily, but were also easily be swatted by the Solar Eruption.
After I got their banner, I already felt victorious.

After that pillar was down, I went crafting the Phantasm.
Sadly I went through all my cash so I was unable to reforge it more, but 'hurtful' seemed fine enough to survive.

After that, Stardust, for the Stardust dragon Staff.
I realised that I forgot to get a possessed hatched, so without homing ability, the Starcells were pretty dangerous when swarming, if it wasn't for the Solar Eruption.
Bit of the cheap tactic, but yeah, I lured the stardust cells outside the pillar range, and raised/killed them that way. risky, but effective.
Once again, it was much safer once the banner was obtained. Phantasm made easy use of the Pillar, and thus, the Stardust Dragon was obtained.

One pillar left, I didn't needed any weapon from the Nebula Pillar, but it was important to know that I had to prepare for the Moon Lord as well.
I decided to make the Vortex Beater and Chlorophyte Bullets. that way, the Nebula Pillar was much easier as long as you can dodge well with wings.
Pillar went down easily with Phantasm once again.

And then, the Moon Lord. I had already an arena prepared while I was waiting for the Full Moon.
I've converted the dd2 arena to make it fitting for the Moon Lord. it also has Dryad support from below.

The Laser Barrier was placed a little too high, but it still did it's job well. thankfully.
Everything ready, and the last bit of the night used to make profit of the werewolf buff.

...sadly I didn't recorded the fight, maybe I'll do it again someday.

Now, as for the final notes, I've made a honorable mention of armor sets used:

And a honorable mention of items used:

And that's all for now.

This playthrough started with just archieving to get the 0x33 Aviators, a lot of deaths happened there.
But once I finally got it, I was wondering how far that character could go.
And....wow....I didn't expected much, especially with the 60+ deaths I had in previous runs. Let alone that the char would made it untill the end.
It was really the least I expected when I decided to continue it.

This was the first time I did a playthrough with a huge chance that could fail, and thus it was risky to post about this, because it could end mid-way.
And man...I'm so thankful that it all went well in one go, everything I've done in hardmode was prepared to the max, from making safety houses around the world to even flooring the desert surface. I wanted to make it all as safe as possible.

But that was what made the run unique, the huge preparation and sensation of survival really felt like an amazing kick, For the pro's, I would really recommend trying this.

As for me, I'll rather just relax for now and take it easy on the flower walk of normal mode and softcore.

 

[ppowersteef]

...sadly I didn't recorded the fight, maybe I'll do it again someday.

I knew I forgot to do something.
I found this video while I was cleaning up some folders, and decided to upload it:

This was a rematch of the fight I had of the expert hardcore run. Basically done with exact the same strategy.
The record is not perfect, but eh..it's fine enough for me, I'll just keep it as a personal memory that I've beaten Terraria Expert Hardcore.

And yes, once again I've preferred my horse over wings. I might even use this strategy more in the future, as it's enjoyable and quite effective to save a slot.