Circles: A Suprisingly Effective Boss Strategy

An actual guide on something that could actually be useful to people playing Terraria; A strategy devised to assist in the destruction of bosses. However, as opposed to making a step-by-step guide to every boss in the game, this will be talking about a strategy I find personally quite good against most bosses even without an arena... or potions... or any real strategy to them.

And that, my dear viewer, shall be mentioned within the guide...

Circles, You Say?

Yes. Circles. In a game where all but 1 unused particle effect is made of squares. However, I'm not talking about blocks, I'm talking about...
Movement

Yes, the very act of moving in circles, round and round, and how suprisingly effective it is against bosses when you're trying not to die.



(Yes, this picture was a 'round' joke. I'm both really sorry and not sorry for the jokes already starting to escape into the guide...)

The Concept

The concept of moving in circles is a simple one:

Melee:
-Bosses will often attempt to make melee contact with the player via moving in a straight line towards them
-If they don't then they are often performing a pseudo-homing attack that is slightly less mobile than the player
-Most of the time, when not doing either of these, they are not trying to hit you. You just ran into them.

Projectiles:
-Most projectiles move forwards in a straight line in the player's direction
-Some bosses fire giant lasers that 'sweep' across the floor in a slow-moving circle
-Other projectiles, like homing ones, often can either be destroyed or aren't able to do sharp turns

So, moving in a circle counters these:

Melee:
-You're already out of their path when they begin their melee attack if moving in a fast enough circle
-You'll probably outspeed foes if using circles via grapples, wings, falling, etc.
-You'll still probably outspeed or out-maneuver them

Projectiles:
-Same thing as with boss melees, though the things have smaller hitboxes and require a little more movement due to increased velocity
-Circling in-time with the sweep allows you to dodge the lasers as you'll be moving with them... so getting hit is almost entirely your own fault with this
-Homing projectiles with only mild homing can be out-maneuvered with a good enough circle

To explain this easier, here is a diagram I made in MS Paint in about 30 seconds that explains pretty much everything I wrote, though far easier

The Best Circles

Circles really only require 2, or maybe 3, things to pull off well
-A Decent Radius
-Horizontal Mobility
-Vertical Mobility

Put the mobilities together and it counts as 2, you see.

-A big radius is crucial since small circles will often lead to you running into a boss, though not too big as to accidentally de-spawn the boss or make hitting it too hard. I can't explain the best size, though the boss should at least remain partially on-screen a decent chunk of the time.
-Horizontal and Vertical mobility allow for more circling faster, meaning more dodging.

DO's:
-Use mobile accessories and armour, like the Tabi, Shield of Cthulhu, Wings, Lightning Boots, etc.
-Have the ability to free-fall, but with something to stop fall damage, like Wings or a Horseshoe
-Some way of being able to move around and accelerate quickly, like a Grappling Hook

DON'Ts:
-Use accessories that don't help mobility or actually slow you down (Can't think of a vanilla one, but for mods there are a few)
-Have rows of platforms that you are forced to drop through to properly descend without any free gaps, you lose momentum
-Go into a fight without some sort of mobility enhancing effect, like a hook or wings or alternatives. (Though, when you have the option, you shouldn't really ever do this in any boss fights unless you have some sort of decently-good alternative)

Effectiveness of Circles

The circle strategy works on the multitude of bosses I can think of, but I decided to make some lists to give my current list on who I think it works on best:

Good:
-Eye of Cthulhu - Cannot charge into you when moving in a circle, sometimes works in Expert Mode as well.
-Skeletron Prime - With good wings you will be slightly more mobile than prime, allowing you to circle him and mess up the targeting of his laser, vice and saw. Even the lunges and swipes when spinning will often be too slow when circling properly.
-Plantera - Circles can actually lock it in-place when not enraged and it will often not be able to hit the player due to the movement of its seeds. Phase 2 can also be for a brief moment, but is not guarenteed to last the whole fight. Use platforms and pits to remove the spike balls from the fight.
-Duke Fishron - Its charges will actually make it distance itself and its bubbles are often destructable. Detonate as many Sharknadoes outside of the circle as possible to reduce their annoyance.
-Lunatic Cultist - Messes up fireball patterns, avoids lightning, might distance you from the icicles.
-Moon Lord - Messes up some of its targeting, especially the giant sweeping laser. Can out-maneuver some of the homing eyeballs and, in phase 2, some of the True EoC attacks as well.

Maybe:
-King Slime - Grounded enemy: cannot get under it often, cutting off the circle.
-Brain of Cthulhu - Teleports near to the player. May teleport directly into their path.
-Queen Bee - Lack of mobility without hardmode items.
-Skeletron - Same problems as Queen Bee.
-Twins - Two enemies that attack from different angles. Makes it hard to circle. However, circling is possible when one of them has been defeated.
-Golem - Same problem as King Slime; it's grounded.

Bad:
-Eater of Worlds - Giant Worm. Takes up too much room.
-Wall of Flesh - Its body and tongue block too much of the screen to circle it.
-Destroyer - Same problem as the Eater of Worlds.



Mods?:
-Yes, some bosses. Some bosses are weak to it, though others will have attack patterns where they hang near a certain place for a while or have bullet-hell attacks.
--Bumblebirb is weird and it only works sometimes, depending on luck.

The Overall 'Counters' to the Circle

Alternative Comment: "Haha, I made a reference to a circular object in a guide about circles"

-Large worm enemies are a problem to deal with as their size is often too big to properly circle.
-Highly-mobile enemies that follow the player directly: often bad design when not used well for bosses, ends up working when dealing with circles.
-Teleporting bosses may teleport into the player's path, getting a free hit.
-Grounded bosses cannot be moved under very easily. Rod of Discord followed by a charge or grapple for mobility might work, but isn't tested.
-Bosses that summon attacks from yonder, for whatever reason; they can sometimes have their projectiles land in your path and hit you while you're busy focusing on the boss. Can be dodged with practice, but is still annoying. Bullet-hell bosses are even worse.
-Multiple enemies in one fight can, depending on their actions, position them in ways that force you to break the circle.
-Enemies that summon stationary, lingering attacks may spawn them somewhere in your circling pattern, forcing you to break it once again.

"If a boss doesn't fall under one of these, circles will probably work"

Q&A

Q: "Are you being serious with this?" (Or something along those lines...)
A: Yes... kind-of. The info's true but I'm not taking it too seriously. It's hard to talk about circles dead-seriously as it's either too hard to take seriously or too boring to listen to.

Q: "How's about a 'how to die'?
A: While it was a joke comment I might just end up doing it anyways... if this guide reaches 1,000 views or Boss Page 5 reaches 500 :P

Q: "What about Hexagons?"
A: Circles with points; hexagons are just a way of being kinda smug about not using the circle strategy while benefiting from it. To be fair, though, straight lines being involved at all makes it slightly worse then circles, though only in exceedingly rare circumstances. So, yeah, why not :P

Thanks

I somehow forgot to put this, but thanks for viewing this page!

I will admit this was a smaller side-project to the Boss Pages, but I'm glad to see this one also manage to gather quite a large sum of views as well :)


The Trending Tomato award for reaching the top of the Terraria Guides page
A 2nd Trending Tomato award for somehow doing it again

[dude guy]

another mod boss is yahron (sorry if i cant spell it) it gos fast and is good with it i have not played calamity cus idk how to play mods but i can say that merg did it and it was a good boss to use it on calamitas way to fast supreme calamitas blah blah blah hive mind phase 2 and 1 are kinda good looking phase 1 you sadly cant do it phase 2 brain of cutolho (im bad at spelling) again yahron is basicly duke fisher ron DoG aka Destroyer of Gods is maybe good it flys so you can atleast do the trick letiathen (I SUCK AT SPELLING) its big but maybe good? thats all i can think of wait ravager golem ok CUT (like a movie)

[dude guy]

I DO EXPERT


























NOOB








(its a joke)

[dude guy]

EPIC GAMER

[dude guy]

if you dont want to fight a boss and have calamity on just use that item called The Good Time it will despawn it if it wont despawn wait for it then do the blah blah blah to the other side if it STILL is not despawned then win or be poor with no money

[dude guy]

no tags

[dude guy]

(test if its like roblox tags) gsdnbxtgasaNGKnulgnlqwfngl

[dude guy]

it wont despawn it i was at the end of my large world when the destroyer spawned i used the magic blah and it was coming for me not despawned after using it

[RWposting]

Ah.

[Okami Tomato]

I ended up unintentionally rotating which games I pla: currently it's TF2 but it will likely end up back on Terraria at some point soon like it usually does; just depends on my mood :P

[RWposting]

wait he dont play terraria anymore
he played before,but no more he dont