PC Taming the Big Green Fish Pig Dragon

Terry N. Muse

Terrarian
Look, I get it. You've just beaten the Wall of Flesh in Expert Mode and unleashed the power of light and dark into the world. With them comes the promise of exciting new gameplay, tougher enemies, more rewards! Except everyone is too strong, and the armour that served you so well an hour ago suddenly feels a lot like paper now. Everything is locked away behind deadly opponents, and old enemies return plated in steel and burning with vengeance. What are you supposed to do now?

You dig up a few Truffle Worms, summon Duke Fishron, and then farm him pre-Mechanical Boss. Obviously. What's game progression?

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That wasn't a joke. While he's obviously miles easier to handle when you have something like post-Plantera gear, killing Duke Fishron with only equipment attainable without killing a single Mechnical Boss is entirely possible (albeit heinously difficult). You won't be expected to do this, but by this guide's end and with just a bit of practice, you will certainly be able to utterly crush Fishron with anything better.

However, please allow me to clarify now: this guide won't teach you how to "cheese" bosses or perform effortless autokills. If you're looking for the exact weapons, arenas, and setups needed to put Duke Fishron down with as little effort as possible, the answers you find here will be limited. What you will find here is an in-depth guide to Duke Fishron's attack patterns, how to dodge them, and then how to lead the dreaded Duke around like a dog on a leash. It will require practice and is very likely to involve a death or two, but the skills developed will apply themselves to any class build you choose and give you a little extra edge in any battle you participate in - not just one specific situation against one specific enemy.

Let's get started.

Part 1, Phase 1

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As soon as you summon the mutant, you'll get about one second before he tries to run you down. Duke Fishron always follows the same looping pattern: five rams, bubbles, five rams, typhoons. His charges are fast, go a long distance, and he can turn alarmingly quickly when he needs to; don't attempt to outrun his dashes without a very large distance between you two or the mobility of endgame gear. Definitely don't let him chase you in a straight line for all five charges.

The solution is to lead him in a zig-zagging pattern by using burst movement - double jumps and dashes. Wings are an obvious boon for the mobility they provide, but they require time to accelerate. Duke Fishron will not give you that time. The Cloud in a Balloon and its family provide instant velocity at the tap of a button. This grants you the vertical speed you need to leap over his dashes and get yourself into position. For horizontal burst movement, your only real option is the Tabi... unless you're playing Expert Mode, in which case the Shield of Cthulhu is also available. Put down your Master Ninja Gear and take up the Shield; you'll learn why later.

When dodging Duke Fishron's rams in phases one and two, your goal is to run along the length of the ocean while luring him into diagonal rams. Done right, he will constantly shoot just above your head or below your feet with each pass (sprint boots may be necessary if the top speed of your wings doesn't cut it). This is the most crucial part of the battle; more than anything else, mastering the art of controlling Fishron's movement is a must. If you have to devote your focus to any one aspect of the fight, this is it.

Bubbles are a trivial attack. If anything, they're a break from the action. Any piercing weapon or just a rapid fire gun like the Minishark will clear them out - but the tornadoes he summons are less of a joke. Maintaining your zig-zagging pattern will become difficult if they spawn somewhere like the dead center of your arena. However, Duke Fishron will always summon them from the position he stops in after the five rams leading up to it; the ability to lure him to one side of your arena and make him cast his typhoons there can easily make or break your battle.

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Should they spawn in a bad position, you will have to improvise; use your rocket boots or wings to fly over them. So long as you're moving in a straight line in any direction except directly towards/away from the tornadoes, the sharks will always harmlessly fly by a short distance behind you. Your Shield will provide the aerial agility you need; an additional level of platforms or even a layer of rails to grapple onto and refresh your double jumps/flight timer may benefit you as well.

Inflict damage however you wish. If ichor is available, put it to use; Duke Fishron has 50 defense by default, so your attacks will likely do alarmingly little damage if you really are taking him on pre-Mechanical Boss. Regardless of your overall progression, you will gradually whittle away at his health pool - and once he dips below half health, the next phase begins.

Part 2, Phase 2... 1 'Nado?

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Don't let the glowing eyes or boosted speed intimidate you; the more you practice, the more you'll come to realize that Fishron just got a little easier. The delay between his dashes is slightly longer than before - not by much, but every moment counts in this frenetic fight. More importantly, his amplified speed and the fact that his number of rams drops to three has two huge implications: you can lead him from one side of the arena to the other with much less fiddling, and you can begin counter-dashing with the Shield.

Allow me to explain. Whenever you ram into an enemy with the Shield of Cthulhu, you receive a few frames of invincibility to prevent you from taking contact damage from the enemy you just bumped into. While it's not easy to abuse in most cases, Duke Fishron's speed has gone high enough that if you shield bash him at the same time he runs into you, he will likely zip right past you by the time your invincibility wears off. It's a very gutsy tactic, and the cooldown between shield charges makes it exceptionally difficult to apply this aggressively. However, this still means that using the Shield gives you a valuable safety net in the event that you fumble a dash - one of two major reasons you might have an easier time facing down Duke Fishron in Expert Mode than out of it.

Bubbles are as unintimidating as ever. Deal with them the same as always. Due to how tall his Cthulhunado is and how long it persists in phase two, making any mistake in manipulating its position can spell disaster... but on the other hand, you only have to handle one tornado-spawning typhoon at a time. That it tracks you down just makes your job easier - instead of trying to control Duke Fishron's positioning, you just have to control your own positioning and let the typhoon catch up to you near a far end of the arena!

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Overall, the fight hasn't changed all that much. Any mistake will lead to taking calamitous damage (and death probably won't be far behind), but the Shield of Cthulhu will help protect you, and you'll be less likely to make a mistake in this phase once you've gotten familiar with it.

If you're not playing in Expert Mode, this is where your battle with the Duke will come to an end. If you are playing in Expert Mode, the massively increased damage, life pool, and infuriating deaths by Feral Bite-induced confusion will come to a head as you take him down to his last slivers of health - and your effort will be very well rewarded in the final phase.

Part 3, Phase 3: Just a Sharkron Balloon Full of Hot Air

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When you get him down to his last legs, Fishron will shroud the entire battlefield in thick fog and vanish into it - but his eyes never stop glowing, and he becomes visible as he charges. He will charge a lot. In fact, flinging himself into you is the only thing he really can do to hurt you now, so if you gave him a fair fight and got this far, you probably won't start having much trouble at this point. Equipping the Shield truly pays off here.

The major gimmick of this Expert Mode-exclusive phase is teleportation. Once every few dashes, Duke Fishron will vanish entirely, reappear somewhere else, and resume attacking from there. In truth, this is not only predictable, it just makes your life easier (seeing a pattern here?) as he takes his sweet time preparing to run you down again. When Fishron teleports, he will always cross you up - reappearing on the side of you opposite from where he disappeared. When you first enter phase three, he teleports after one dash. Two dashes later, he'll teleport again, and then again after three more dashes. After that, he'll teleport after one dash again, then two, and so on. Considering how fast he's moving and the utter lack of projectiles to worry about, leading him around the arena isn't even necessary. All you need do is double jump when he charges, dashing when necessary, and count 1, 1-2, 1-2-3.

Learn his pattern, and you'll quickly come to realize that this is the Duke's weakest phase in almost every way - low health, no projectiles, completely predictable, even his damage is a little lower than in the previous phase. You've gotten this far; you ought to have no problem putting him down.

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Oh, but don't do what I did here and provoke phase three just as a Cthulhunado spawns. Keeping an eye on Duke Fishron's health and holding your fire around 9000 when you know he'll fire a typhoon might help, but this is a fairly rare circumstance, so you probably don't need to worry about this... probably.

Aside from mobility accessories, I'll leave a lot of details vague; this boss can be tackled at any point in hardmode, so the loadout you bring to the fight is all up to you. That said, if you're really gunning for pre-Mechanical, I'd recommend an Onyx Blaster with Ichor Bullets and/or Amarok with a Flask of Ichor to get through that iron defense, plus a Crystal Vile Shard or a Minishark/Uzi to remove those pesky bubbles. Your armour probably won't play an overly significant part in this fight, but you'll need a good set of wings such as Leaf or Frozen to stay on the move. Don't forget to bring all the buffs you can!

Thanks for reading all the way down here! Hopefully, I managed to provide some insight on the workings of the Duke and gave you a few ideas on how to take him down. I'm considering doing other boss in-depths in the future... If you happen to have any feedback, feel free to bring it up, and happy hunting!

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Thank you for writing this! I wasn't able to kill the Duke until I read this guide.



...and switched to melee because I was too lazy to grind for the bat staff. :D
 
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