Potion Making for Beginners

In this guide, I will guide you through how to make some of the most basic but useful potions in Terraria.

Potions; What are they?

Potions are an extremely important part of any Terraria play through. The first time I went through the game, I didn't use them at all, which was a HUGE mistake. Potions give you an edge in battle, not just against regular enemies, but more importantly, against bosses. Need to reach those hearts that are just out of reach during a huge battle with the Eater of Worlds? Get a heartreach potion! Taking just a bit too much damage against the Eye of Cthulu? Get an ironskin potion! These potions have a huge impact in the game. So lets begin, shall we?

Please note that this guide will mostly be focusing on buff potions.

Not So Fast!

Before we start to make potions, you are going to need a few essential items/areas. First, you need a potion crafting station! This can be done by placing a glass bottle on top of your already made workbench. Next you are going to need many bottles of water at your disposal (these can be found in chests or you can craft them using glass). Finally to turn these empty bottles into water bottles, you simply stand in water and craft them.

While it is not entirley nessecary, I personally feel that a herb/plant garden is essential. It will save you a lot of time trying to find plants. Mine is simply clay pots on top of platforms. If you find a herb bag early on, it is best to start growing those flowers immediately for later uses in your potion making journey.






Another not entirley nessecary but usful thing for potion making is the alchemy table. This table can be found in the dungeon randomly. What sets it apart from the basic potion crafting station is tha t it has a 33% chance to not consume the ingrideients! This is awesome when making potions out of harder to acquire ingridients.

Basic Potions

Alright, now you are ready to create some potions! Lets start with what I call "basic potions". These are early game potions that only require items that are easily found, but will still help you tremendously.

Gills Potion:A very under used potion throughout my journey, the gills potion allows the user to breath underwater for 2 minutes, which is very useful when you are trying to get chests that are along the ocean floor. All that's needed to make this potion is one waterleaf and a piece of coral.

Iron Skin Potion:The ironskin potion is made with one piece of iron ore and a daybloom flower. The ironskin potion boosts your defence by 8 for 5 minutes. This can be very helpful against bosses, or if you just want to make sure you don't die.

Magic Power Potion: This potion, crafted using a moonglow, deathweed, and a single fallen star, increases the damage dealt by weapons that use mana, wether that be a space gun, a staff or some other magic weapon.


Mana Regeneration Potion:The mana regeneration and the magic power potion are probably the hardest potions to aquire in this section. The mana regeneration potion, as it says, boosts your mana regeneration for 7 minutes, helping you be able to sustain the mana cost of the many mana weapons you may be using. The great this about this potion is that the duration of the potion is on par with the average duration of a boss battle, meaning you should have more than enough if you bring 2 of them to a boss fight. It can be crafted using a moonglow, a daybloom flower and one fallen star.

Regeneration Potion: This potion, like the name states, provides a boost to your health regeneration for 5 minutes. Bringing 2 of these potions into a boss fight will ensure you a health regeneration boost for the whole fight. It is crafted using a daybloom and a mushroom, two very easily aquired items.

Swiftness Potion: This potion is very useful not only while in battle, but expecially while traveling from point A to point B, without it taking all day. It increases your movment speed by 25% for 4 minutes for the ridiculously low cost of one blinkroot and one cactus.

Next Level Potions!

The basic potions weren't good enough? That's understandable, that's why I made this section. In this section we will be creating potions that will help you easily progress through the bosses and help you get up to hardmode. The main component that sets these apart from the basic potions is the increased challenge in finding the ingridients.

Battle Potion: I personally love this potion when it comes to farming mobs. Whether I need boss spawning items or just a piece of rare loot, this one always comes in handy. For the low price of one deathweed and a single rotten chunk or vertebrae, you can increase the spawn rate of enemies for 7 minutes.

Endurance Potion: This potion is a necessity during boss fights. Crafted using an amoured cavefish and a blinkroot, this potion reduces damage taken by ten percent.

Flipper Potion: The flipper potion makes swimming around in water a current (get it, instread of breeze... ha... ha...). With this potion you will be able to get out of water instead of inevitably drowning. The potion is crafted using a shiverthorn and a waterleaf.

Gravitation Potion: This potion is super helpful when trying to find skylands and all the loot they contain. Crafted using a feather, blinkroot, fireblossom and a deathweed, this potion allows you to change gravity (fall up) at will over a 3 minute period. This potion is very fun to use, even when you aren't planning to go to the skylands!

Obsidian Skin Potion: The obsidian skin potion negates all damage from fireblocks, including lava. This potion, crafted using a fireblossom, waterleaf and piece of obsidian, is useful when mining hellstone or just exploring the underworld.

Rage Potion: This potion is one of two crimson exclusive potions. Crafted using deathweed and a crimson exclusive fish, the hemopiranha, this potion increases your critical strike chance by ten percent. This potion is a handy addition to any boss fight.

Shine Potion: The shine potion is a great helper for exploration as it turns you into a human torch, easily lighting up caves. While its purpose is mostly during early game when still exploring the cavern systems of your world, it is still useful later on. Just be careful when you leave, as it won't be lit. You can easily craft this potion using a glowing mushroom and a single daybloom.

Spelunker Potion: This potion is EXTREMELY useful in early hardmode and mid pre-hardmode. The Spelunker Potion, crafted with a peice of platnium or gold ore, one moonglow and a blinkroot, makes all ores, chests, pots and heart crystals glow making it a lot more visible. You'll never miss something valuable again, just try not to cry at the thought of all the chests probably missed in all that darkness underground before you started using this potion.

Summoning Potion: This potion, crafted using a moonglow and one variegated lardfish, increases the maximum number of friendly minions you can summon. I personally used this potion to beat the queen bee in hardmode, and with such easy to acquire ingridients, I recommend you to do too!

Thorns Potion: This potion is great during boss battles. Whenever you take damage, the attacking unit gets knocked back and takes a third of the damage it dealt to you. Crafting this requires one cactus, a stinger, a wormtooth, and deathweed. It is a good buff to use when going up against any boss.

Water Walking Potion:Have you ever wanted to cross a body of water, but didn't want to use blocks to make an ugly looking bridge? This potion will have you saying, "I'm walking on riptide," that's right this potion will let you just walk over the water. Crafting this requires a sharkfin and a waterleaf plant. The duration of this potion is 5 minutes!

Wrath Potion: This potion is the corruption counter part to the rage potion. This potion provides a ten percent increases to all damage, which in my opinion is the superior buff. Crafted using a deathweed and an Ebonkoi, a fish which can only be caught in the corruption.

Fishing Potions!

Fishing potions! I love these, fishing in Terraria is lots of fun in my opinion, and I felt that I should dedicate a tiny area just for the three of them. So here they are:

Crate Potion: The crate potion is super useful when trying to get items from crates or farming crates before hardmode. Crafted using an amber, one piece of deathweed and a single moonglow. There's a time and place for crate potions, and that's always!

Fishing Potion:This potion is a huge help when trying to complete some of the fishing quests from the angler. Crafted using a waterleaf and a crispy honey block, this potion is amazing for trying to get those rarer fish like the Prismite or the Variegated Lardfish.

Sonar Potion:This potion is amazing when used in combination with the crate potion. If you are crate fishing, but don't want to pull in tons of bass or other basic fish, this potion helps a lot. Crafted using only a waterleaf plant and a single piece of coral, this potion tells you what is kind of fish is pulling on your line before reeling in, which would waste bait if it's a fish you didn't want. This potion lasts 4 minutes, but can be cancelled early by right clicking the icon.

Other Potions

These are potions that I wanted to put in the guide, but didn't have a section to put them in. These potions range from easily aquirable to requiring hardmode items, so keep that in mind when trying to brew some of your own.

Heartreach Potion: This potion is awesome when it comes to bossfights. The heartreach potion increases the pick up range of hearts that drop from enemies. This is usful not only for setting up heart statues in boss arenas, but also to grab hearts that drop from enemies. This potion requires a daybloom and a Crimson Tigerfish, which can only be caught in the crimson. Sorry corruption worlds!

Lifeforce Potion: This potion, crafted using one moonglow, one shiverthorn, one waterleaf and a Prismite (a fish caught in the hallow in hardmode). This potion increases your max life by 20%, for example, it will take your health from 500 to 600 for 5 minutes.

Mining Potion: This potion increases your mining speed by 25% for 8 minutes. This is really good early on when you are trying to get resources or making the most of your obsidian skin potion while mining hellstone. It is crafted using one antlion mandible and a blinkroot.

Recall Potion: This potion, also not a buff, is crafted using a specular fish and a daybloom flower. This potion is a potion form of the Magic Mirror item. When use, it teleports the player back to their current spawnpoint. Super useful when adventuring.

Wormhole Potion: While this potion may not be a buff potion, it is an super important potion for multiplayer. Crafted using a specular fish and a single blinkroot, it allows a player to teleport to another player on the same team as them. They can do this by opening the map and clicking on the other players icon. This potion serves no purpose when playing alone.

The Ingriedeints Guide!

I realized some of you might have some difficulties finding the ingriedeints, so excluding really simple ones, like the ores and flowers, here is a breif list of where to find some of the stranger ingredients.

Amber: These are found from running the fossils found in the under ground desert through the extractinator.

Antilion Mandible: These are gathered from killing antilions, enemies found throughout the desert biome.

Coral: You can find this scatered around the ocean biome.

Feather: These are found from killing harpies, not the poor defenseless blue jays and cardinals, or other birds you find.

Specular Fish: This fish can be caught basically anywhere underground.

Variegated Lardfish: This fish can be caught in the underground jungle.

Authors Note

Thanks for reading my guide! If you enjoyed reading it, or it it helped, please leave a rating! This is my second guide ever, so I apolagize if it's not the best, I'm still looking for tip for improving my guide, though I am trying the best I can with the limited knowledge I have on writing guides. I am always looking for new ideas for guides, so if you have one, please leave a comment down below. I hope to have you reading my next guide!

Check out my Twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/thelittletankthatcould

[Azzy Dreemurr]

You must like the Temmie I created, huh?

[DeathClaw]

Thanks. I totally forgot my Terraria potion making. This really helps.

[kokorothebad]

thanks ily

[SkeletorsLeftNut]

big pp

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

can you make an advanced potions guide to fill in the gaps of the missing potions?

[Cram Salesman]

Also, there are some food items that give you buffs, so don't those count?

[Cram Salesman]

I do recommend potions for expert mode, cause the bosses are hard

[Neo1708]

I can't craft potions ... I have all the necessary ingredients, but the options to make the potions won't come up when I'm near the Alchemy Table. Also, I tried placing a bottle on a table to make an impromptu crafting station, and I just consumed the drink. What am I doing wrong?

[Duke]

hey little tank can i ask you something?

[The Little Tank That Could]

@Ethril How does that look?