Shilaila
Official Terrarian
In this tier-list I will be looking at all sorts of traps from vanilla terraria as well as traps from different mods and ranking them based on the deadliness of the trap as well as the traps usefulness.
All ranks are based on the following scale:
S rank: Trap is so deadly it makes players not want to keep as far as way as humanly possible. Has massive trolling potential.
A rank: You need to be very weary around these traps or something bad could happen. Has big trolling potential.
B rank: Keep an eye or two open for traps like these as you never know what could happen if you don't. Has different uses.
C rank: These could definitely be considered safety hazards, probably not lethal however. Has uses.
D rank: More of a nuisance if anything, probably worth breaking when passing by. Has some uses.
F rank: Kind of just gets in your way, not much you can do with it.
Although some traps may seem more like "hazards" I will also be considering those traps. This tier-list is mostly based on my own thoughts and experiences with the trap so you may think about the traps differently.
The tier-list includes all vanilla traps from 1.4.4.9 as well as traps from the Calamity mod, Thorium, Mod of Redemption, and the Challenge Vaults.
(The tier-list is no longer being updated)
Vanilla
Statue Traps: D+
Dart Trap: C
Geysers: B+
Venom Dart Trap: B
Super Dart Traps: A
Spiky Ball Traps: A+
Spear Traps: A
Flame Traps: A+
Spikes: C+
Wooden Spikes: C
Boulder traps: A
Bouncy Boulders: A+
Dead Man's Trap: A+
Detonator Trap: B+
Sand Trap: D-
Lava Trap: D-
Spike Pit: B
Cactus Boulders: A+
Life Crystal Boulder: S
Gas traps: B+
TNT Barrels: A
Land mines: S
Bee Hives: C+
Antlion Eggs: C-
Thorny Bushes: F+
Trapped Chests: C
Tiny Boulders: A
Moon Boulders: S+
Explosive Bunnies: A+
Spike Ball: C+
Blazing Wheel: C
Calamity
Scoria ore: A-
Auric ore: S
Turrets: S
Vents: B+
Thorium
Fragile Chandeliers: C+
Mod of Redemption
Nuclear Warhead: S+
Radioactive Blocks: A
Electrical Hazards: D
Red Lasers: S
Challenge Vaults
Energy Cannons: A+
Spike Traps: A-
Flame Engines: A
???
I kind of wish that terraria had some sort of oil pot trap like in skyrim, that could be crafted using explosive powder, which explodes when broken and can also be hung on blocks and fall down if hit (similar to thorium's fragile chandelier traps).
All ranks are based on the following scale:
S rank: Trap is so deadly it makes players not want to keep as far as way as humanly possible. Has massive trolling potential.
A rank: You need to be very weary around these traps or something bad could happen. Has big trolling potential.
B rank: Keep an eye or two open for traps like these as you never know what could happen if you don't. Has different uses.
C rank: These could definitely be considered safety hazards, probably not lethal however. Has uses.
D rank: More of a nuisance if anything, probably worth breaking when passing by. Has some uses.
F rank: Kind of just gets in your way, not much you can do with it.
Although some traps may seem more like "hazards" I will also be considering those traps. This tier-list is mostly based on my own thoughts and experiences with the trap so you may think about the traps differently.
The tier-list includes all vanilla traps from 1.4.4.9 as well as traps from the Calamity mod, Thorium, Mod of Redemption, and the Challenge Vaults.
(The tier-list is no longer being updated)
Vanilla
Statue Traps: D+
Sometimes in caverns you could come across a statue of some sort of easy mode monster like a skeleton, or bat wired to a button. The statue traps are usually found in old wooden box houses alongside gold chests and really don't pose much of a threat unless you are low on health or not fully geared. The statue can also be easily broken in a few swings of a pickaxe. But sometimes hardmode monster statue traps could be found naturally generated and hooked up to some sort of trap like a dart trap which can be lethal if you get hit but then you also have to run or box yourself in from the mimic or unicorn that just spawned in. Statues are handy for farming for rare enemy drops as well as making invulnerability mechanisms so they aren't entirely useless.
Dart Trap: C
These trap can be found in all sorts of places underground and are good at picking off players who have low defence and health. The poison debuff they inflict can easily kill players with low health. However once they player reaches hardmode these traps do little damage so they aren't much to worry about. Dart traps can be used in wiring but also as a recipe for venom dart traps once you enter hardmode.
Geysers: B+
Found deep in the caverns with lava, geysers cannot harm enemies but when a player or NPC walks into a geyser they will take big damage if they do not have a lot of defence, meaning geysers can be used to troll players. Once you get full health from life crystals, geysers don't do as much damage so they won't immediately kill if you happen to walk into one. They cannot be crafted but they can be hooked up to a timer in your builds if you want it to look more explosive.
Venom Dart Trap: B
These dart traps do more damage than normal dart traps and cause your health to rapidly start shrinking if you get hit. The venom debuff does less damage to enemies than players so I prefer super dart traps over these. I'm pretty sure there isn't any accessories that cancel the venom debuff also.
Super Dart Traps: A
These dart traps really are super. Super dart traps deal around three times more damage than normal dart traps and also inflict poison a danger sense potion is usually all that is needed to stop them from killing you, then they can be harvested while in the temple to make mob farms for the future events like frost moon and pumpkin moon.
Spiky Ball Traps: A+
With each bounce of these spiky balls as they rain down from the ceiling, heavy damage is caused to the victim. This is the last trap you would want to get stuck in a box with.
Spear Traps: A
These traps send out spears from the ground capable of impaling tanks ( by this I mean things like Santa-NK1s but they do not deal much damage to actual melee players with tank builds however) making them good for farms and a bit of trolling.
Flame Traps: A+
These are my favourite temple traps. Although they are probably the most rare temple trap they are also probably the mightiest temple trap. The best spot for flame traps is in the core of the mob grinder as they have barely any cooldown and do lots of quick damage.
Spikes: C+
When exploring the dungeon just after defeating skeletron spikes are almost as deadly as the other skeletons down there. Spikes also inflict bleeding, however spikes do not hurt NPCs so you can make perfectly valid housing with them. In post-plantera dungeon spikes barely do any damage so you could easily remove them like if they were just thorns.
Wooden Spikes: C
Although they are wooden they still deal more damage than normal spikes. They can be quite dangerous but can be easily disposed of using explosives since you do not require a picksaw to mine them.
Boulder traps: A
Boulder traps have little mercy when killing players. One wrong step on a button underground and the player could be crushed in seconds. Boulder statues can be crafted at a heavy workbench meaning players can make contraptions that drop multiple boulders at once on bosses.
Bouncy Boulders: A+
If getting crushed once by a boulder wasn't bad enough, a singular bouncy boulder could crush you several times!
Dead Man's Trap: A+
Be careful when opening a stray gold chest underground as it may just explode and trigger multiple traps at once and insta-kill you. Although these traps can one shot players I would not consider them that dangerous as they are not that hard to spot out, defuse and loot. If you're playing multiplayer you probably should not huddle around these traps.
Detonator Trap: B+
Detonators with explosives attached to them are a pretty two-sided trap, at one side the trap has a chance to blow you up, on the other side you could use the detonator to explode a big vein of ores. Detonator traps also have a slightly more rare but deadly variant where instead of a detonator there is a button attached to explosives meaning the player could easily not see the button and set off the explosives by accident.
Sand Trap: D-
These traps are quite basic and causes a bunch of sand to collapse on you. They are easy to dig out of so it is quite negligible.
Lava Trap: D-
Causes lava to start falling from above. Can be dangerous but usually the most harm these traps can cause is delay you for a few seconds or make you change direction.
Spike Pit: B
Spike pits are pretty avoidable as the cracked brick can easily be spotted and grappling hooks exist. Later on however they can be used as spots to farm monsters in the dungeon and fishing spots in the dungeon.
I remember one time I made a spike pit of my own.
I remember one time I made a spike pit of my own.
Cactus Boulders: A+
These are the menace of the underground desert. Cactus boulders are found in tight places usually close together and can roll at high velocities before breaking into spikes. You can use cactus boulders to your advantage however, as they also deal damage to monsters such as antlions. Cactus boulders are still dangerous even in hardmode and are the main reason you can never be too reckless while in the underground desert.
Life Crystal Boulder: S
These are fake life crystals that are actually just boulders when broken. If you manage to dodge the life crystal boulder, they still drop a life crystal when they break. These traps probably have the biggest trolling potential so far.
Gas traps: B+
These traps are more of a prank than some sort of death trap like a boulder for example. They are quite impractical but funny.
TNT Barrels: A
TNT barrels can almost insta-kill any player and can also be crafted at any stage of the game. Although they are more damaging than mines I think land mines would be better than TNT barrels when using them to kill crowds of monsters or players as using TNT barrels could result in you self-detonating yourself while mines still do a lot of damage and are set off by the enemies and players. Also note TNT does less damage to monsters.
Land mines: S
These are a classic hardmode trap. They deal a fixed amount of damage making them hand for killing all sort of things but especially players. A common troll is to paint the landmine the same colour as the block it is on so it is harder to see.
Bee Hives: C+
Although bee hives can easily be destroyed as well as the bees it spawns, the bees can be very pesky buggers and could even kill you if you are low on health. Bee hives can easily be crafted in case you ever feel like doing a bit of trolling and placing a bunch in your friend's room.
Antlion Eggs: C-
Since antlions rapidly gestate, their eggs can be found all over the underground desert. If broken these eggs will spawn an antlion larva which can easily be dispatched. Antlion larvae cannot grow up into adult antlions.
Thorny Bushes: F+
Simply just thorns that can be found in the jungle and evil biomes. However, Fortheworthy plantera is able to spawn in pink thorns that are capable of dealing a lot of damage, but luckily these pink thorns can be destroyed just like normal thorns.
Trapped Chests: C
Trapped chests are like normal chests but they send a signal and cannot be used to store items. They do have some uses such as making fake biome chests, explosive traps, and probably more if you use them in adventure maps.
Tiny Boulders: A
In Fortheworthy and Getfixedboi boulder break into even tinier boulders that do not do as much damage but are still very dangerous. I still think bouncy boulders are more dangerous than boulders that break in to tinier boulders but some times piles of normal boulders can be found naturally like in places in the temple which makes them even more deadly.
Moon Boulders: S+
Getfixedboi moon lord will launch a volley of moon boulders after his laser attack, and these moon boulders are guaranteed to be damaging if you get hit. These moon boulders are like bouncy boulders, but from space. The only way to stop moon lord's moon boulder attack is to make sure blocks are in the way of his top eye during the laser attack, as these blocks would break the moon boulders.
Explosive Bunnies: A+
These kamikaze bunnies can one-shot players who are too close to it and are probably more scary than mines from a proximity mine launcher. The bunnies can be captured with a bug net and used to kill enemies such as goblins if you want to be a pacifist and can also be used as ammo for the bunny cannon after you fight the pirates.
Spike Ball: C+
The spinning balls are never really enough to kill the player but when in the dungeon pre-HM these can pack a punch if you get caught by one while fighting off skeletons, and can also be a bit of a barrier that you do not want to be too close to if you are almost dead. Another thing about spike balls and blazing wheels is that there actually enemies so if you go into the dungeon with high spawn rates expect to come across a couple of these traps.
Blazing Wheel: C
Although getting chased by a few hot wheels while in the dungeon is usually not good, blazing wheels can quite easily be avoided and you can also break the blocks around the wheel so that it won't be able to go anywhere.
Calamity
Scoria ore: A-
Scoria ore can be found in the deeper layers of the underwater abyss biome and can be used to craft various useful things. Volcanic rock drops from scoria ore but there is also a lot of other things that can kill you while in the abyss. The volcanic rock that drops from scoria will still fall from scoria when it is out of water.
Auric ore: S
Auric ore is found in the caverns after Yharon is defeated. If the player makes contact with auric ore they will be "rejected" and blasted away a great distance and will also get electrified, NPCs will also take damage from auric ore and get blasted away. The only way to avoid "auric rejection" is by wearing auric tesla armour and auric ore can only be mined with pickaxes that have a lot of mining power. Auric ore can be used to craft various other things such as auric repulser panels which repel the NPCs and players away like auric ore but does not damage them.
Here is what auric repulser panels look like in action.
Here is what auric repulser panels look like in action.
Turrets: S
In the draedon arsenal labs you can find the materials to build different types of turrets which are: Lab turrets, water turrets, onyx turrets, ice turrets, laser turrets, fire turrets, and plague turrets. You can either craft friendly turrets which will attack enemies (but not bosses however) or hostile turrets which will attack players. Lab turret shoot laser blasts, water turrets shoot water blasts, onyx turrets shoot shotgun blasts, ice turret shoot freezing bombs, fire turrets spit out fire, and plague turrets shoot plague missiles. Hostile turrets can be very deadly to players but when the turret is broken it will only drop some materials used to make it. Turrets are also great for placing around your base if you want good home defence.
Vents: B+
there are three types of vents: steam geysers at the sulphurous sea layer, abyss vents at around the entrance of the abyss, and thermal vents deeper down in the abyss. Each vent is naturally generated, inflicts a debuff, and the deeper vents deal more damage. They are pretty easy to avoid and break though.
Thorium
Fragile Chandeliers: C+
Fragile chandeliers can be hung onto a block like a normal chandelier but if it gets hit by a weapon it will fall and break into damaging flames. The flames do not hurt the player but do hurt enemies and bosses meaning they could be used by all players who want to kill stuff without getting into an accident.
Mod of Redemption
Nuclear Warhead: S+
This one is more of a war crime than a trap but I will include it anyways as you could do a little trolling with it.
The nuke can only be used around the outer areas of your world and to activate it you will need to go through some safety procedures such as flipping a few switches, lifting up some covers, and pressing a big red button. After the button has been pressed a 30 second countdown will begin before it detonates or you could speed the process up by mining it. Once it detonates it will leave a big crater and create a nuclear wasteland which is a radioactive biome with all sorts of monsters.
The nuke can only be used around the outer areas of your world and to activate it you will need to go through some safety procedures such as flipping a few switches, lifting up some covers, and pressing a big red button. After the button has been pressed a 30 second countdown will begin before it detonates or you could speed the process up by mining it. Once it detonates it will leave a big crater and create a nuclear wasteland which is a radioactive biome with all sorts of monsters.
Radioactive Blocks: A
The three radioactive ores to worry about getting irradiated from is uranium, plutonium, and corium (with corium being the most radioactive and will quickly make you start seeing green fog and make your health shrink if you are too close to it but corium is indestructible and can only be found in the reactor room of the abandoned lab). Uranium radiation sickness can cause debuffs such as permanent headaches, fatigue, nausea, and hair loss. Plutonium radiation sickness can cause even more effects like skin burn and fever. If radiation gets too bad and the player is unable to stop it they would loose their hearing and probably die. The only way to lessen radiation sickness is to equip a hazmat suit/ HEV suit as well as plenty of medicines (or just avoid it).
Electrical Hazards: D
Electrical hazards are like thorns than can be found in decrepit places that have become worse for wear. Electrical hazards deal damage when you walk in to them and make you electrified but they are blocks so you are able to break them and then put them into your inventory.
Red Lasers: S
Red lasers are a type of block you can walk through but when you make contact with it you will almost instantly be incinerated. In the lower sections of the abandoned lab there is a room with an underwater red laser maze so you would need to be good a platforming to get past them. They can be crafted using halogen lamps and corrupted xenomite which drops from the omega prototypes. Green lasers are a counterpart to red lasers and do not cause any damage.
Challenge Vaults
Energy Cannons: A+
All challenge room traps can be obtained as a reward for completing challenge vaults and can also be found in the vaults. Every challenge vault trap will always be active even if not powered by wires unlike ordinary traps. Energy cannons shoot heavy hitting energy orbs that do more damage than super dart traps but are slower making them great as obstacles. Since all challenge room vaults can be obtained in easy mode they are quite powerful and efficient.
Here is a picture of me using all sorts of traps in this challenge vault mob farm.
Here is a picture of me using all sorts of traps in this challenge vault mob farm.
Spike Traps: A-
These traps sent out piercing spikes from the ground that cause bleeding and are sort of like a more quick and convenient version of the temple spear traps, the spikes are kind of small though, but they are quick.
Flame Engines: A
Flame engines can be attached to the ground and shoot out quick but deadly fire that can flash-fry your enemies. Most of the challenge room traps would be handy if you happen to get some and want to use them to get extra damage when killing crowds.
???
I kind of wish that terraria had some sort of oil pot trap like in skyrim, that could be crafted using explosive powder, which explodes when broken and can also be hung on blocks and fall down if hit (similar to thorium's fragile chandelier traps).
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