A Fully Comprehensive Guide for Terraria

Are you giving Terraria a shot, but have no idea what to do? Do you have a fair amount of experience with the game but think you could use some extra tips? Well, this guide is for all of you out there. Having played Terraria for about 6-7 years at this point and having around 1200 hours on it on PC alone, I am here to share all my personal experiences and tips (all the way from beginner to expert) with you. This guide will not include Boss fights and those will be in a seperate guide I'm working on as of right now so for Boss fight tips refer to YouTube videos or the Terraria wiki.

Character/World Creation

First and foremost, unless you're a beginner, I'd recommend you to skip this part.
When you're starting for the first time, you'll need to create both a character and a world. On the character creation screen, there is only one important thing to note, and that is the difficulty setting. There are 4 difficulty settings which consist of Journey, Classic, Mediumcore and Hardcore. I'd recommend you to stay away from both Mediumcore and Hardcore for a while, as they are the definition of pain, especially for newer players. You'll want to select either Journey or Classic. Journey mode is very similar to creative mode from Minecraft, but you have to actually get a certain amount of said item normally to have infinite access to it, and you're also provided with a lot of tools to make the game a lot easier, such as changing time and weather. Personally I'd go with the Classic, but it's really up to choice. If you want a more relaxed approach to Terraria, you can always choose Journey mode. In this guide however, I'll be assuming that the player is on Classic difficulty.

After creating your character, you'll want to create a world. (Note that one character can enter any world while keeping their items, progress, etc.) I'll leave the size up to you, but I'd personally pick Medium if I was starting out. There's also a difficulty option like the one in the character creation, but this one is different. Journey mode is specifically for Journey characters, so if your character is a Journey character, you're pretty much forced to pick it, if you're not a Journey character, you can't pick it. Between Classic, Expert and Master Mode, let me tell you the most notable differences between each one.

In Classic mode, you lose %50 of your coins upon death

In Expert mode, enemies are stronger and have more HP, but have a higher chance to drop a certain item when killed. For example, in Classic mode Hornets have a 66% chance to drop a Stinger when killed, however in Expert/Master mode this is increased to 100%. On top of that, a lot of enemies and bosses receive new, harder AI patterns and bosses drop unique items, such as the Shield of Cthulhu dropping from the Eye of Cthulhu in Expert/Master mode. Players drop %75 of their coins upon death.

In Master Mode, the player loses all their coins upon death, most enemies have increased stats and coin & item drop rates are slightly increased.

The evil biome choice is not available until the player has reached hardmode in at least one of their worlds, but if you're beginner you're probably better off choosing random anyway.

Getting Started

Once you've spawned in, your main goal should be to gather loot and make houses for NPC's. I will elaborate on NPC's and how to make houses for them (and what they do obviously) later on in the guide. First thing you should do is chop down some trees for some wood. You're already provided with a sword, a pickaxe and an axe. Note that you should break trees from the roots since the entire tree breaks that way.

Now that you've gathered some wood, let's talk about the crafting system.
When you press Esc to open your inventory, you can find the crafting menu in the bottom left corner. Here you can see what you're able to craft. Since you only have Wood and Acorn at this point, you can only craft Wood Platforms or a Work Bench. Similar to Minecraft, you gain access to more crafting recipes after making a Work Bench. However you don't have to interact with the Work Bench in any way, you just have to stand near it. This applies for every crafting station in the game. After placing a Work Bench down, you'll have the option to craft a variety of items. Personally, I'd just make around 50-100 Wood Platforms and a Wooden Sword. Wood Platforms help with exploring the world, and the Wooden Sword is a much more reliable weapon compared to what you're given. I'd recommend you to stay away from shortswords entirely. You can craft other items such as the Wooden Bow or Wood armor if you'd like to.
After you've made your basic gear, you can either go explore the world or make a house. For a newer player, I'd say building a house is the better option. But don't just make a house randomly, remember when I mentioned making houses for NPC's? It's time to learn about the NPC's.

NPC's

NPC's are friendly non-player characters. You can interact with them to mostly purchase items from them, but there are other things you can do depending on which NPC you're speaking to. In Terraria, the currency is coins. You can obtain coins by killing enemies, selling items to NPC's, looting and etc. But let's save that for later. Let's talk about how to actually get the NPC's to come by. For that we'll have to talk about housing. Every NPC requires a house that meets the following conditions:
· There must be an empty house that is at least 10 blocks wide and 4 blocks tall
· The house must be covered with walls on every side
· The house must be filled with background walls (these can be crafted with the Work Bench)
· The house must have a door, a table (a Work Bench can be used instead of a table), a chair and a light source.
· The house shouldn't be in an evil biome (corruption/crimson)

If you're confused, this image shows a very simple house that meets the requirements for an NPC to move in
Once there is an empty house that meets the requirements, an NPC can move inside it. Your first house is always going to be occupied by the Guide since the Guide spawns in the world with you. After on, other NPC's may move into additional houses you make if other special requirements are met. For example, the Merchant moves in if there's an empty room (which is not occupied by another NPC) and the player has at least 50 Silver Coins in their inventory. To get every NPC to move in (excluding Santa Claus who only comes by between 1 December - 15 January in real life time), you'll need 25 different houses that meet the requirements. You can of course make one house that consists of several different rooms.

You shouldn't make a big box with 25 different rooms inside it though, as every NPC has a preferred biome. This is where we're going to talk about NPC happiness. NPC happiness is a new feature added in 1.4. An NPC's happiness meter depends on which biome they're in and which NPC's are around them. For example, the Guide likes being in the Forest, likes being near the Princess, Clothier and Zoologist, dislikes the Steampunker, and hates the Painter.
You can find out which NPC likes which biome and which NPC by using the wiki page https://terraria.fandom.com/wiki/NPCs#Living_preferences


So what does NPC happiness do? Once a vendor NPC reaches a certain level of happiness, they sell an item called a Pylon. There's a different Pylon for every biome an NPC might like (such as Forest, Desert, Jungle). When 2 or more different Pylons are placed in their appropriate biome, they form what is known as the Pylon Network. With this Pylon Network, you can teleport from one Pylon to another if you're near one. This allows the player to travel from one point to another very quickly, saving you a lot of time. To teleport from one Pylon to another, open your map with M and click on the Pylon you want to teleport to. Note that you need to be standing near another Pylon in order for this to work.


Here's an image of a Forest Pylon.

Exploring

Once you've made your house, you'll want to explore your world a bit. Pick either the left or the right side of your world and start running down that way, smashing any pots and looting any chests you might find. If you'd like to you can also go down the caves to get more loot, but caving is going to be a different section of this guide. Now you might encounter different structures and biomes, let's go over a couple of things you might encounter on the way.

• The Desert Biome
This biome is usually the first different one you'll encounter, notably these two enemies can spawn in the surface of the Desert:
⮞ The Vulture: This little fellow is generally found asleep somewhere in the Desert, but if you come close by they will wake up and start attacking you. To avoid fighting, you can build up and jump over it.
⮞ The Antlion: This thing remains stationary on the Desert surface, shooting sand at you.

The Oasis mini-biome can usually be found as well, and the lake can be used for fishing.

• The Evil Biome (Corruption/Crimson)
This biome is the one you're most likely to die in especially early on, so be wary. There are 2 different evil biomes being the Corruption and the Crimson, These two have different enemies, different loot and different bosses. In the Corruption, you'll encounter these two enemies:
⮞ Eater of Souls : This enemy attacks you by flying towards you, if a lot of them attack you at once you might be overwhelmed.

⮞ Devourer: This enemy comes at you from the ground, it can pass through walls and will charge towards you. You can hit multiple segments at once.

And in the Crimson you'll encounter these:
⮞ Face Monster : This enemy just approaches you and hits you on contact just like a Zombie.

⮞ Crimera : Similar to the Eater of Souls, this enemy flies towards you.


⮞ Blood Crawler : This enemy is only encountered when you enter the chasms in the Crimson, they'll crawl towards you.


• The Dungeon : This structure is always on the opposite side of the Jungle biome, and on the same side of the Snow biome. Do not go down the stairs until you've freed the Old Man of his curse, which requires a boss fight. So don't touch this structure at all until you've beaten the boss. Why not go down the stairs you may ask, I'll say this much. Don't go down.

Caves

Before starting a boss fight, we'll need some good gear, and what better way to get gear than going to the caves? Generally you'll find cave entrances like these which allow you to easily go down the caves.

Down in the caves, you'll often come across Chests, whether it be a normal chest or a special one like a Gold Chest. All have a unique loot pool to them, but what you should really look for are Gold Chests. These chests contain very good items such as the Hermes Boots and the Cloud in a Bottle, which give you tons of extra mobility to work around with. Let's go over some of the useful items you can obtain from chests.

Hermes Boots: This item allows the player to sprint towards a direction with a very fast speed boost when they run towards a direction continuously. Can be replaced Flurry Boots and etc.
Cloud in a Bottle: Allows the player to perform a double-jump. Has other counterparts like Blizzard in a Bottle which provide a slightly higher double-jump.
Band of Regeneration: Provides the player with extra health regeneration when equipped. Unlike natural regeneration, doesn't have a penalty upon moving or taking damage.

Let's talk Ores. Ores can be mined and then turned into Bars to upgrade your gear or make other items. You'll mostly want to look for Gold/Platinum or any type of Gem (Ruby, Emerald, Amethyst etc.). You'll often find Bars in Chests which is very helpful. You'll want to collect Gold/Platinum for both a better pickaxe and a set of armor. Once you have a good set of armor, a good weapon and at least 2 of the items that were listed above, you'll be ready to fight your first Boss. But let's save that for later and keep going over loot you can get from the Caves.

Life Crystal: This one is extremely important. Life Crystals can be found everywhere below the surface, and they give the player +20 maximum Health upon using. You can use Life Crystals for a total of 15 times netting you 400 maximum Health. They can also be crafted into Heart Lanterns which provide you with increased health regeneration when placed near you, just like a Campfire.

You'll have a much easier time finding any of these by using a Spelunker Potion. To craft one, you'll need the following items while near a placed Bottle or Alchemy Engine:

Empty Bottle: Crafted with Glass while near a Furnace. Glass is crafted with Sand while near a Furnace. Needed for Bottled Water and used as a crafting station.
Bottled Water: Crafted by being submerged in water while having an Bottle in your inventory. Required for most Potions in the game.
Blinkroot: Grows naturally on Dirt or Mud blocks. Doesn't grow on Grass and is common below the surface because of that.
Moonglow: Grows on Jungle grass, only blooms at night. Easily collected by going to the Jungle surface at night.
Gold Ore/Platinum Ore: Found below the surface layer.

Drinking a Spelunker Potion provides you with the ability to see any form of Loot (Ores, Gems, Chests, Life Crystals, etc.) on your screen by highlighting it.

⮞ Traps

When underground, you'll also come across various traps, most likely dying to them a couple of times until you're used to them.

Boulder: You're going to hate this thing for the rest of your life. Some Pressure Plates are going to be connected to a Boulder above your head and when you step on the Pressure Plate it'll almost one shot you unless you have a lot of health. I still die to this sometimes and I hate it.
Dead Man's Chest: This is basically a Gold Chest with several traps attached to it. Upon opening it, unless you've disarmed the traps you're basically dead. It still has loot though.
Dart Trap: This one is also attached to a Pressure Plate, and when you step on it it sends a dart towards you, dealing some damage and poisoning you for 10 seconds if it hits. Not as deadly.

Bosses

Now that you've acquired enough gear to fight a Boss, let's talk a little more about them. A Boss is a very strong enemy that offers a good amount of challenge to the player in order to beat. Defeating Bosses usually allow you to advance the game, except for some Bosses like King Slime, Queen Slime, Duke Fishron etc. which are Bosses that just provide you with extra gear, some only being accessible by defeating said Boss. For example, defeating Duke Fishron isn't required and doesn't help with advancing the game, however you can obtain really good gear from him such as the Fishron Wings and the Razorblade Typhoon. I'll be talking about every Boss fight in an entirely different guide I'm working on seperately. The rest of this section is just to provide you with extra information regarding Bosses, so if you're not interested you can skip the rest of this part.


⮞ Summoning

In order to fight a Boss in the first place, we need to summon them. Most Bosses don't just come naturally, although there are Bosses that will attack you naturally if you meet the requirements (gear, HP, etc.). Every Boss has their own particular way of being summoned, whether it be by using summoning items or interacting with the environment in a specific way.

⮞ Arena

Arenas are manually constructed by the player in order to have an easier time fighting a Boss. This is usually done by placing rows of Wood Platforms going upwards with gaps inbetween, and Campfires/Heart Lanterns scattered around to provide extra health regeneration.


Here's a very basic arena for starters.
By constructing an arena, you're able to fight Bosses much easier because of all the extra space you have to run around.

Game Progress

So let's talk about the game progress now that you know about the basics. A Terraria world is divided into two sections, namely pre-Hardmode and Hardmode. Hardmode starts once you've defeated the Wall of Flesh, and several changes happen to the world such as:

⮞ A new evil biome generates in a random area in your world along with it's underground version - The Hallow Biome.





⮞ The evil biomes start spreading to other blocks like Grass, Stone, Mud, Sand, Snow, etc. however a lot of blocks are non-corruptible such as most artificial blocks like Wood. Also note that the Jungle biome cannot be fully corrupted as most blocks in the Jungle biome are non-corruptible.

⮞ Mobs become tougher and a lot of new mobs are introduced such as the Angry Nimbus (which spawns during rainy days), the Wyvern (which spawns around the Space) and the Mummies (which spawn in the Desert) and etc.
Here's an image of a Wyvern.



Now that we've talked about Hardmode, let's look at how progress is made inbetween boss fights.

After defeating the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, you'll want to make a Nightmare/Deathbringer Pickaxe along with other gear you'd like.

After defeating the Skeletron, the Dungeon will be safe to enter as the Old Man's curse is lifted. In the Dungeon, you'll want to find Golden Keys and open some Locked Gold Chests to get some good equipment such as the Cobalt Shield.

You can mine Hellstone in The Underworld, and can make them to Hellstone Bars with Obsidian while near a Hellforge which can be found in the Ruined Houses. With Hellstone Bars, you'll want to make a Molten Pickaxe along with whatever you want.

The Wall of Flesh drops an item called the Pwnhammer. With this item, you can smash Demon/Crimson altars to unlock Hardmode ores like Cobalt, Mythril and Titanium. After smashing your first 3 altars, your world will be blessed with 3 of either those ores or their counterparts (Palladium, Orichalcum, Adamantite). You can smash more altars to increase the amount of Hardmode ores generated in your world. You can make whatever gear you'd like with these ores. However some are better than others, and are listed into tiers. Tier 1 Hardmode ores would be Cobalt and Palladium, tier 2 Hardmode ores would be Mythril and Orichalcum and Tier 3 Hardmode ores would be Titanium and Adamantite.

So the optimal route to take would be to make a tier 1 pickaxe, use it to mine enough tier 2 ore to make both a Pickaxe and a tier 2 Anvil, and then mine tier 3 ore to make armor out of them along with whatever gear you'd like.

You'll also want to get yourself a pair of wings. The easiest way to do this is as follows:
If you've defeated Queen Bee, the Witch Doctor NPC should have arrived if you have an empty housing. You'll need to move him into a house in the Jungle, and then buy Leaf Wings from him at nighttime which costs around 75 Gold Coins.

After defeating the Mech bosses, you'll want to make a Pickaxe Axe with your Hallowed Bars and then make either Hallowed armor or Chlorophyte armor. I personally prefer Hallowed armor, but if you'd like to make Chlorophyte armor you can go to the Underground Jungle and mine Chlorophyte ore for it.

After defeating Plantera, you'll find newfound enemies and gear in the Dungeon. You'll also want to go to the Jungle Temple. Chances are you've already found the Temple by your previous explorations, but if you haven't you'll need to look for it. After you've found it, you need to find the entrance door and unlock it with the Temple Key that dropped from Plantera.

After defeating Golem, you'll find Cultists in the entrance of the Dungeon. By killing them you'll start the Lunatic Cultist fight. If you have any building stuff you want to do very soon, do it before the Lunatic Cultist fight because Celestial Pillars will make it a pain for you.


After defeating the Lunatic Cultist, the Celestial Pillars will appear in the surface. By defeating these Pillars you'll have access to Lunar Fragments which you can craft endgame loot with. You'll need to be near an Ancient Manipulator (drop from Lunatic Cultist) to craft with them.

After defeating all four of the Celestial Pillars, the Moon Lord fight will start after 1 minute. After you've defeated him, congratulations, you've beaten the game! However if you die to Moon Lord, you'll have to do the Lunatic Cultist and Celestial Pillar fights again to fight him unless you have 20 of each Lunar Fragment, in that case you can make a Celestial Sigil to spawn him.

The End

This is the end of the guide! Thank you all for checking it out, and if someone actually went through the entirety of the guide and implemented the tips to their own gameplay, I'm deeply flattered. My intentions behind making this guide were to help people out and share my knowledge with the game. If you just read through a few sections or literally just skipped to the last section, I still want to thank you for even clicking on this guide! I have an up and coming guide talking elaborately about every Boss in the game and how to defeat them, though I'm afraid it might take a long time to finish. Until that time, I'll see you guys around!

[the]

Could not comprehend Not skibidi at all

[bigzthegreat]

also magiluminescence is basically a hermes boots you can craft and definetly deserves and honourable mention.

leaf wings got nerfed so it would be helpful if you also mentioned ice wings and fairy wings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HHRZY9RDks

this also deserves a mention

[bigzthegreat]

first 3 sections are pretty slow and could be more concise, gets way faster after that.

[Deechi]

Hello @Neptwo I had been playing Terraria for 600+ hours total, and i would say that this guide really helps newcomers! Before you ask which platforms of Terraria I play, it's the Xbox One, which was my first time of playing this awesome game, (and yes, it was in 1.3.5.3) Nintendo Switch, which was my second platform, (yet again in 1.3.5.3) and then PC. Also, I have all 104 achievements unlocked in Terraria! also i have Hollow Knight lol

[hook dweller]

glad it helped! I had dug many holes back in the day lmao

[TotalBlackout]

Holy shit, thanks a lot for this. For 50 hours, all I've been doing is digging holes lmao.

[Fishlord]

If you insist on not using an arena for these fights,wait until hardmode before you take on skeletron.You dont miss out on much until plantera has been defeated,but skeletron has to die after golem,otherwise the cultists wont spawn due to the old man taking priority over them.

[Fishlord]

Lunatic cultist will also be harder than usual because he usually sucks at his job cause you can dodge him easily.In a small space,this is much harder to do.He does become easier to hit though.
Skeletron and the cultists tend to require the opposite arena style,the skeletron requires a more left to right type while the cultists need arial space to dodge.

[Fishlord]

However,a big issue comes up with fighting skeletron and the lunatic cultists.This is because the dungeon area where the old man,who you interact with to summon the boss,is inside of the dungeon,and you have to climb the entire tree to get outside.You can do two things:
1.Set up a system to get outside fast.In pre-hardmode,this means either a hoik system or a quicker climb through a mined orange tree.This also means you'll need a long arena outside.
2.Build a long arena underground.The issue with this is that it takes time and I believe you need a molten pickaxe,so not bombs,to make the arena.
Your gonna need some sort of arena for this fight,even on normal mode,due to how the dungeon is.

[Fishlord]

Another quick guide:When certain seeds are used,some properties of the world change by a lot.If you wish to use these seeds,you can upon world creation.I don't remember exacts,so they wont be listed here.One of these seeds changes the dungeons entrance to a giant orange tree.In this version of the dungeon,you can get a gold chest with dungeon loot,bones,and dungeon mobs before any bosses are defeated,without triggering the dungeon guardian.Gather a large supply of bones,go to the normal underground or a spider biome to nab cobwebs,and create necro armor,skiping any usefulness the underground desert had with fossil armor.You can also make the spinal tap,the strongest pre-hardmode whip,as early as finding the dungeon.Just dont get cocky,the dungeon guardian still waits for you to head just a bit deeper.