How To Farm With Mimics: A Supremely Lazy Hardmode AFK Farm Model

Mostly about a particularity of the biome mimics I have used a lot and never really seen anyone talk about (not even in the wikis). If you want to farm keys, money, or items with no casualties, and minimal setup, this could be really useful for you. Feedback very welcome!

Let's Do This

1.4 NOTE: Currently testing this out on master. Looks ok at first.

On Mimics and Farming

I see people asking for help on this very topic quite often ever since I've picked the game up again. I think integrating or modifying my solution could resolve a few headaches. From what I can gather, there are two main problems when farming underground for precious loot:

1. Biome Mimics can pass through walls
2. Biome Mimics hit like a truck

It usually goes like this:
You've just killed the Wall of Flesh and took his loot. Good! You smash a few altars, discover the new biome type, and get in a few difficult fights. You have to search for ore and better items underground. Maybe in the new hallow biome? Yes. So you descend and try to get ahead before trying to fight bosses. Maybe you try your old farms? Or you go into new caves, trying to find new things. Then, while you mind your own business, you see a huge chest. Curious, you approach.
Then you get absolutely murdered. It's fast, it's strong, it goes through walls and it's hungry for some fresh blood. While it feast on your corpse, you can almost hear it cackle:
"WELCOME TO HARDMODE, B*TCH"

But I Am Not A Simple Noob

Three words. Rod of Discord.
Keep reading.

The Plan

I am here for you, my child. Those special mimics are fearsome at first, but they have a weakness, and this weakness is easy to exploit. Their stomach is too big for them to have any kind of brain. So here's what you do:

FIRST, you make a big room. You leave yourself a platform made of solid blocks to stand on, a couple wide, in the middle of it.
SECOND, attack with stuff. (minions, etc)

That's about it. I'm not joking. The mimics will hit right under your feet everytime they jump trying to get to you. They can't hit you. Hours and hours of testing. Not once.

Here's mine. Completely AFK, eclipses and blood moons combined with candle and battle potions, incompetently made in a bad area with no wiring in like 10 minutes: zero deaths.
(sorry if it's a little dark, but I am so lazy I don't even use torches in my builds.)

Here's the basic of it:

Since I never plan anything in my life, it's kinda hard to really make it foolproof, because most of my farms are made kinda randomly with the knowledge that I have, but I tried. sometimes I leave some blocks of the biome's stone above just to be sure it stays in the biome and also because I Simply Did Not Mine Those Do Not Judge Me. (but don't do that. I am a professional)
Clear the space using the hundreds of bombs you will have accumulated before hardmode, get a platform going and you can do this (you can place blocks beside rope)

have free range around you and especially below where the mobs will gather.
also: you can't be enclosed. I think it triggers the wall-phasing attacks. if you do this well, you won't need it anyway and you need free space to kill stuff.

It's easy to customise and modify to your needs. I put conveyor belts and banners to help me go faster, but if I wanted to, I could go even faster, crazier with traps and teleporters. You can fine-tune that and tell me about it. I tested it on all biomes but mostly hallow, with events, etc. I even went a full night's sleep on this build just for science. Improve upon freely.

So that's the first part.
Does it work?
It sure does.


bonk

(yeah, even with that one platform for the candle I didn't move for some reason. sometimes the mimic will land on it but it will still hit the underside of the blocks. for safety I guess you put it right beside you with the chests you will put your plentiful bounty in.)

Weapons

Second part is killing. Most enemies will spawn below you, but there are still bats, enchanted swords and ghosts that can hit you if you're not careful (the chaos elemental will sometime teleport on your platform and hit you but he does not stay there, so you usually only have to take one hit). The gear you have will determine if you can go fully AFK or not, but either way you will have an easier time not getting murdered. (or you can go a bit more involved and go for traps)

Obviously, you will go with minions and minions enhancing items first, since they home in and kill whatever is in the screen (here I went with the twins, from the first hardmode boss, really good summon). You have to be careful to be able to defend yourself if they are too busy, though. The only way you can go fully AFK is by auto-attacking with a HOMING or LARGE AoE weapon that you can hold down the mouse button with something and let it do it's thing. Here I am using the possessed hatchet dropped by golem because it is one of the best for this purpose. I have used bananarang/light disks before, and an auto-attack sword can do the trick if you put a little wall behind you so you only have to face one way. It does work with the daedalus stormbow you will inevitably get with this farm too, combine with an endless quiver* and you have like half the hardmode bosses done.

*Crafing the endless quiver: 4 full stacks of arrows (3996) crafted at a crystal ball, sold for 10 gold by the wizard. he spawns underground after the wall of flesh is defeated and you have to unbind him.

if you can't AFK or are really having a hard time, have sentries down to help, the etheria gear can help quite a bit to boost all your summons and sentries - you only need a water scepter (dungeon) and some practice, check out youtube to setup for that. You have to resummon them but they can help while you fight. Try to find a spider den to get some spider gear and summons if you can. If you are in a really bad place and can't really handle hardmode or weren't prepared for it, fishing crates give ores. Keep most of the ones you find before defeating the wall of flesh and open then after the world changes, or make yourself a little pond near your base where it's safe. It's gonna help a lot.

If it's still too much, try putting sunflowers and pink candles ((pink gel + wood) + gold bars) around to decrease spawn rate to a manageable level.

The important bit here is just to have strong enough stuff to be able to get to the place, build it, and kill the mobs as they spawn. So I while I do prefer to kill all the mobs by myself because I Have Stuff To Do, you can (and should) try traps and wiring to get yourself an edge.

So here's my current build (not even geared for farming anymore because I am tired) with the loot I got from 2-3 hours of farming while I was outside, not even in the same building as the Terraria Happenings.


note the 3 hallowed keys just for this time. The count for the gold is not good, I stashed it before I realised I should screenshot, it was at least a couple of platinums
overall, I got like 200-300 mimics killed, I also got a nymph banner and for now my kill count for chaos elemental (for the rod) is in the 4500's. STILL NO ROD THO LUL

TL;DR

• Clear a space a bit bigger than your screen in an underground biome with special mimics (hallow, corruption, crimson)
  
• Place a solid block platform in the middle, about 50-ish blocks from the ground, about 4-8 wide.
  
• You are now invincible to mimics
  
• Equip gear. (summoning gear/armor, spore sac, weapon of choice + buffing gear, easy to find ammo)
  
• Summon minions. (imp staff, optic staff)
  
• Select your weapon of choice or start your traps or both.
  
• Put a brick on your mouse so the left button stay down and just go have a nap or something.
  
• ??
  
• Hopefully a rod of discord gdi

Aknowledgements, Difficulties

I have to add a couple of things before closing off.

It's not a perfect farm. The real AFK moment will probably happen when/if you get Good Loot, for example: the bow of daedalus or the hatchet from golem. What I really whan to show with this is that it is possible, and very simple, to get it going. There are a couple of design flaws, though, and I will list them here.

1. The Loot Does Not Come To You
Unless you kill a mimic when it's right under you, you will probably not amass the loot and money directly in your inventory. this could be a problem, since I do think there could be restrictions on drops although I am not clear on that yet. The conveyor belts helps a bit by putting the things that can stack together, but leaving this farm for long periods of time might be counter-productive because of that. My sweet spot is 2 hours long sessions. I tried for a full night mostly to see if I would still be alive after 8-9 hours (and I was), but the loot was kinda lacking? or maybe I was just unlucky.

2. You Are Very Exposed
If you can't kill incoming flying enemies, and can't take one or two hits from the (very few) stragglers that could reach you, you will probably die. When my gear was less optimal, I would simply make a wall behind me and face the other way with my weapon. It might trigger the wall-phasing of the mimics, I haven't tested this specific thing enough to know. It didn't happen to me.

3. It Can Be A While To Mine And You Can Die
Bombs. Fish bombs. Keep all of it. Until the shroomite claws, I always use bombs to make farms. Put a little house with a bed not too far from your farm and just keep going, teleport if it gets too much, or use peace candle and sunflowers to decrease spawn rates.

4. Enemy Variety
Even though I have those kind of farms in every biomes, the only one with extensive afk research is in the hallow. I will try more afk farming for each evil biomes and see if there's a hitch, but there shouldn't be, with the hatchet at least. I know there might be more flying enemies there, but they typically would just get stuck under my platform because they are not bats.

5. Simple
It can be either good or bad, depending on how you resolve your problems. Simple mean it can be improved and build upon, but it also mean you have no safeguards. And if you are the kind of player who have a hard time coming out with solutions by yourself, it can be challenging. Since I haven't tested this from the very beginning of hardmode, it could be harder than I think it is.

6. I Don't Understand The Gear
Ok. Here are some of the best bets to help, see if you have any:
Bee's Knee (queen bee), Scourge of the Corruptor (corruption chest), Possessed Hatchet (golem)
Nimbus Rod (angry nimbus, hardmode when it rains)
Spore Sac (plantera, expert mode)
Bat Scepter (pumpking, pumpkin moon event), Daedalus Bow (hallowed mimics)
Hornet Staff (crafted with beeswax from queen bee), Imp Staff (crafted with hellstone bars), Optics Staff (black lens+lens+hallowed bar+soul of sight (last two from the twins boss))
The stuff the barkeep sells for medals, use your favorite sentry + the corresponding armor for a boost.
Summoner Emblem (wall of flesh), Spooky Armor (spooky wood, enemy trees in pumpkin moon event)
Tell me if there are some early items I could add.

Thanks for reading. Let me know about how it went for you! :)

[AlvarGD]

there IS a limit on drops. Its either 200 or 400. Also you can just put a little bit of lava, enough to damage the enemies but not the loot and maybe put some dart traps in the sides they pierce

[Pupp2000]

ok

[pyrite]

I like it. When I saw lazy and AFK in a sentence together, I clicked fast. But sadly, I am too lazy to follow these steps, and also too lazy to breath.
-Phoenix forgot to breathe.

[crumblor]

This is noice.

Mimic = no brain

[Tapasq]

ok

[cracka]

ok

[J-PAT]

ok

[FelixTheGamerFox]

I like how you said that the Hallowed Mimic cackled: "WELCOME TO HARDMODE, B*TCH" XD

[mosquirt]

ok

[River-Lynne]

:O