Calamity: Fun Mode (Hardmode)

Calamity challenge runs have been a thing I've done for a while, but most of them have been about removing my own abilities vs actual game difficulty... so why don't I change things up a bit.

Fun Mode; potentially the new hardest Calamity run I've done and potentially the hardest one I've seen. Current hardest difficulty, removal of features like Adrenaline and rage, and doubled boss health. A run so difficult it begins leaving the realm of 'fun challenge' and begins delving into a rage-inducing gauntlet.

Here's how things went throughout Hardmode:

[Prior Notes]

So, here's the second part of the run; Hardmode

The difficulty here begins ramping up significantly as all enemies begin dealing significantly more damage, new boss drops rarely scale above current progression, and everything just takes ages to kill

With the difficulty ramping up so much most bosses take far longer to defeat than normal, so the page took a lot longer to gather data for and write-up. The other effects of having to fight the same boss over and over for several hours... will become clearer as we go amongst my writings I imagine...



If you want a run-down of the rules I would check the original page, but in summary:
-GetFixedBoi seed
-Death and Master difficulties
-Rage & Adrenaline banned
-Doubled boss HP
-Most potions and exploits banned
-On-demand teleportation (Rod of Discord/Harmony, Normality Relocator) banned

With that all said, onto part 2 of Fun Mode:

Early Hardmode

Difficulty: ooo
Attempts: 25
Time: ???

With the Wall of Flesh defeated I must now begin the usual hunt for materials to prepare for the upcoming bosses. Given the difficulty curve at this point I am generally expecting terrible things.

Firstly, with the Light Disc now caught up to in progression, I decided to try out some other classes. Summoner was one I wanted to try given the general power of things like the Firecracker whip and Sanguine Staff with some Spider Armour, so those were my first goals.

Getting the whip and armour weren't too bad, but fighting Dreadnautilus was. The boss kept despawning during charges because both of my oceans are currently very close to space and so my assumption was that it would keep flying out of bounds during its charges. After multiple attempts across several blood moons I managed to get my hands on the staff from the first Dreadnautilus defeated.

Afterwards I began my usual hunt for the materials for the Ankh Shield and Charm of Myths; the former for the defence and knockback immunity primarily and the latter because I was hoping the reduced cooldown on health potions would generally help keep me alive.

Lastly, I spent roughly an hour trying to locate the Aether biome under the ocean on the left of my world. Given all the Hardmode corruption enemies spawning it was a nightmare digging anywhere down there, but the patch of Hallow that surrounded the Aether granted me some safety after a while. Once I was here I threw various items into the shimmer pools to get further permanent buffs.

With that, I cautiously moved forward onto the bosses...

Queen Slime

Difficulty: oo
Attempts: 2
Time: 7:38


The Fight:
Queen Slime was actually a lot less threatening than I'd anticipated, perhaps due to reasons similar to Deerclops in that few changes were made for GetFixedBoi. In fact, I'd argue the boss is even easier than in vanilla since the bouncing projectile spam had been changed significantly.

I opted to still use the standard Queen Slime strategy of using my massive WoF arena to run in one direction to keep away from her and her attacks. My mobility was good enough that she couldn't keep up with me very well. I did make one small slip-up and so did lose my first attempt, but the second had her down to half health.

Phase 2 is similar in terms of movement and strategy to Phase 1. Keep moving along a long bridge and you should be alright. Overall, a nice and simple introduction to Hardmode.


Post-Boss:
So the first thing to note is that they let the Queen Slime drop a Bottomless Shimmer Bucket, immediately invalidating the hour spent looking for the Aether previously by electing to just give me access to shimmer wherever and whenever.

Outside of that, though, I didn't end up using any of the Queen's other drops outside of the Gelatinous Pillion as an upgrade to the Slimy Saddle.

Wow, my first Hardmode boss down and in so few attempts. Surely things won't be that bad after all-

Mechdusa

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: ~50
Time: 6:21


The Fight:
haha what a fool i was thinking this wasnt going to be that bad.

Mechdusa wouldn't have been too bad of a fight it its movement patterns were the same as in vanilla Terraria. Normally, Mechdusa simply moves towards you slowly while the segments attack you, giving you space and room to dodge and distance yourself from the boss and its many, many attacks.

Here, however, things are different.

Because of the Revengeance/Death mode AI changes, Skeletron instead will try to rapidly fly the Destroyer's body into you when it moves near you for its 'circle' attack. This attack is very difficult to dodge at all and dodging it reliably isn't really an option. Flying upwards here is death since Prime will just fly the Destroyer's head into you, running across the bridge doesn't grant enough speed, and dropping down works... sometimes.

The solution seems to be to destroy the Destroyer's body first then, right? Unfortunately given all the health buffs granted through the difficulty changes the Destroyer itself takes an incredibly long time to kill. I eventually had to get stronger piercing weapons and an entirely different loadout, as well as some teleporters around the arena, just to deal with the Destroyer for each attempt.

Even after Destroyer was down, the fight was far from over. The Twins and Prime dealt a lot of damage, had highly aggressive AI, and also had a large health pool that made the time limit a massive concern. In fact, I had to stop fighting Mechdusa after 20 or so attempts to farm a Coin Gun and Platinum Coins for ammo just to deal enough damage to keep up with the boss.

My next targets were Prime's limbs, which would minimise Prime's effects on the fight and grant me some additional breathing room. Trying to defeat Prime's head at this point isn't really worth it, since you're bound to hit the Twins enough to send them into Phase 2, so focus on the Twins instead for the time being.

Once the Twins are downed, in whichever order you prefer, you then get the space to fight and finish off Prime's head to win the fight. After around 50 attempts I barely had a minute left on the timer before Prime would have enraged, so I'd say it was a rather close fight.

This boss sucks and I don't want to fight it again and it is 90% Destroyer's fault.


Post-Boss:
Waffle's Iron... exists... and most of the bonus drops from the mechs aren't really worth using compared to other options available.

We also get access to the other sets of Hardmode ores... at a time that they are probably not worth using anymore for anything more than the anvil and forge.

The Souls and Hallowed bars, however, remain very helpful. Blood Orange is another 25 health, Pickaxe Axe grants access to things like Chlorophyte and a better pickaxe, and Angel Treads are a nice buff to mobility.

I think the difficulty difference between Queen Slime and Mechdusa is one of the most staggering in the game. Not a fun time.

Cryogen

Difficulty: ooo
Attempts: 12
Time: 5:27


The Fight:
This is another Coin Gun fight since the increased boss health means that absolutely nothing else does anywhere near enough damage.

'Cryo'gen throws a lot of damage around and spawns annoying enemies, though thankfully I'm so used to the Cryogen fight nowadays after so many challenge runs where it took forever that it didn't take too many attempts.

An alright fight, so that's 2 for 1 so far


Post-Boss:
The Bloodflare Core is a pretty amazing item when I get to run tankier loadouts. This will definitely be seeing use later, but for now my defence isn't good enough to make a difference yet.

Cryogen's other items are decent, but nothing too exceptional for me to pick up and use.

Brimstone Elemental

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 24
Time: 3:34


The Fight:
Brimmy has 2 simple problems making this fight so difficult. The first is that her movement speed is insane, catching up to you through Angel Treads seemingly effortlessly. Keeping away from her is a massive problem and will be the thing probably most likely to either directly kill you or indirectly get you killed.

I managed to keep away from her using the Hexed Branch's tree mount. Now, this is normally a Post-Plantera accessory, so how did I get it? Well the Diabolists spawned by Skeletron actually dropped a total of 6 Ectoplasm among my Skeletron fights which gave me enough to make the Medallion and defeat enough Mourning Woods for it to drop.

The second problem is the cocoon attack. Not only is it stupidly fast now but I also suck at dodging it consistently. Sometimes I'm fine but getting hit once is roughly half your health gone so you only get to make 1 or 2 mistakes maximum in a fast-paced, 3 and a half minute fight.

The final phase at 20% is, surprisingly, the easiest part. The second issue is mostly gone so it's mostly just a case of trying to out-manoeuvre her.


Post-Boss:
Stuff is fairly standard after defeating the Brimstone Elemental. Not much else to talk about.

Would put this fight on the 'bad' end of the scale though just from how fast she is so that's now a 2-for-2 on me liking the fights or not. She also cost me over a stack of Platinum Coins in ammo and I had to farm Crabulon a LOT for that.

Aquatic Scourge

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 40
Time: 19:28


The Fight:
Aquatic Scourge's fight can be broken down into 3 separate phases - the deadly part, the free part, and the awkward part.

The deadly part is from when the fight starts to the beginning of Scourge's spin attack. The toxicity meter added to the fight deals damage rapidly as Aquatic Scourge flies away from you while moving. You will die a lot here. There is nothing you can do about it. You are entirely at the mercy of Scourge's RNG.

Once Scourge starts spinning you actually have to try and get inside the spin, which allows you to enter the 'free' phase of the fight.

When spinning, the best thing to do is box yourself in. Yes, during this boss you WANT to sit inside a tiny little shack. Build a box large enough to manoeuvre in while small enough to not allow Scourge's segments inside as to avoid the teeth projectiles killing you. Now you get to spend 10 minutes slowly chipping away at Scourge...

Once Scourge reaches around half health it will begin circling tighter and begin releasing bursts of green toxic clouds. Due to the Scourge's spinning being a set speed the pattern made by the toxic clouds will eventually loop, so it is possible to learn the pattern and again make modifications to your 'safety box' as you go but this might take a while. There is a chance to screw up here but if you're careful you should be alright in the long-term.

New worst-designed fight in Calamity yippee that's 2 for 3


Post-Boss:
More fairly unnecessary fishing gear, more weapons outclassed by the coin gun, not a great time because I also learned by this point that they Nerfed the Abyssal Amulet my beloved

But, hey, with that boss down we're at my first 'checkpoint' of Hardmode content, so onto the Plantera-tier content.

Calamitas Clone

Difficulty: ooooo
Deaths: 33
Time: 22:02


The Fight:
Another fight where you can be 'RNG'd to death', yay

Plantera's second phase at this point was proving challenging, so I decided to try Cal Clone instead... which did not fare much better... as you might be able to tell from the timer

Calamitas tries to spawn a box around the player and also has the nasty ability to keep a permanent bullet-hell going the entire fight, which I do not like at all. I decided immediately to escape the arena using platforms which didn't really seem to change Calamitas' aggression to any noticeable degree.

Calamitas is very tanky so you've got 2 options; run away constantly or stand your ground. Both run the risk of being caught in a bad spot due to bullet hell RNG and taking a nasty chunk of damage, so I chose to run to minimise the risk of Calamitas' main fireballs hitting me.

Eventually the brothers spawned which is another point where you're more likely to die. Calamitas, Cataclysm, Catastrophe and the bullet hells give you a lot to dodge and the brothers are more than tanky enough to withstand tons of punishment, even with something as powerful as the Coin Gun. Also good luck ever dodging all that in the intended box.

Around this point 4:30 AM arrived and I expected the worst, but I did not notice any real differences in Calamitas' attacks, so either she didn't enrage or being out the box enraged her and I just didn't notice. It is at least nice that I don't have a time limit.

The Soul Seeker phase is fairly tame but proved to be annoying since my weapon doesn't have homing projectiles and so 1 or 2 of them were hard to take down.

Overall, the fight would've been fine if not for the constant bullet hell - I might have even attempted to fight it 'legit' inside the box - but because I'm not here to die 200 times to stray fireballs spawned 15 minutes into a fight so no. 2 cool fights to 4 I didn't enjoy the changes to.


Post-Boss:
The main thing I got from this fight was the Asgard's Valor; a shield that grants a powerful dash and some defensive abilities as well.

Plantera

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 18
Time: 23:48


The Fight:
Ended up swapping to melee for this fight since I wanted piercing damage for Phase 2 and the Coin Gun just wouldn't cut it. In hindsight could've swapped mid-fight and kept the better single-target damage for Phase 1 but it's too late now.

Phase 1 is completely fine and I actually greatly enjoyed that part of the fight. Plantera has a lot of interesting and unique tools at this point that make the fight fun that rewards good positioning, movement and timing. My problem comes with a specific bit of Phase 2.

Phase 2 has Plantera spawn the tendrils en-masse which surround her for a while, though seemingly after taking enough damage they all break away from her and swarm the player similar to the Hungry spawned by the WoF. My problem was that I simply could not kill them in the 3 or so seconds I would have to do so before I was swarmed and killed, seemingly due primarily to the doubled boss health also doubling the health of Plantera's minions.

I ended up having to set up a small teleporter in the arena that kept me away from the tendrils but close enough to Plantera to not immediately despawn her; something that unfortunately happened more than once. The teleporter ended up being used exclusively for this specific part of he fight and never again.

The rest of Phase 2 was fine after the tendril incident; with later spawns/releases of them being in small enough numbers that they could be dealt with reliably.

I am willing to look past the issue created by my own silly rule and count this fight as another 'good' one, so that's 3 to 4.


Post-Boss:
I got 4,000 Life Fruit from this I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with all this honestly. I managed to craft the Terra Blade and got my hands on the Vampire Knives and Scourge of the Corruptor from the dungeon.

I also tried to fight Aureus after this and that did not go well. Further details on that later.

Anahita & Leviathan

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 34
Time: 30:55


The Fight:
Anahita and Leviathan spawn at the same time, so I would recommend dealing with Anahita first since her health is significantly lower and her hitbox larger here.

Anahita's main issue is that, well, she's Leviathan sized now. Anahita's attacks and positioning were designed with her small size in-mind, so there's a very good chance she just 'drifts' into you when trying to position herself above you, especially when you're moving upwards (which you will need to do a lot). When Anahita is down you can focus all your attention on Leviathan.

Leviathan is one of the biggest reasons why I had an asterisk next to the 'no potions' rule. You need Tesla Potions for this fight. Why? Well the Aquatic Aberrations are another boss minion buffed to a stupid degree from the health scaling. They will swarm you and give you no space at any point, refuse to die and then respawn immediately even if you do kill them in time, so I made the executive decision to allow Tesla Potions for this fight.

Even so, Leviathan is no joke. Insanely tanky, deceptively fast and able to deal immense damage with its new bouncy boulder projectiles. Leviathan refuses to die and so you will be in for a long, gruelling fight no matter the setup. Make sure your arena doesn't have a wall at the ocean side or you're going to have a fun experience of having colossal bouncy boulders overrun the entire bottom of your arena.

I was dreading this phase since I was initially relying on muscle memory with dashes to dodge the boulders when moving downwards. One time I dashed wrong, hit a boulder, and... took no damage? It happened again, and again, and even though it was inconsistent at times I began wondering... could you dash... through the boulders!? I can't confirm it wasn't just hitbox shenanigans but it happened consistently enough that it has me convinced. Would've tested it more but, again, I don't want to have to redo this fight if I can help it.

Overall, as much as the "Boulder Parry" was fun, I can't really call it a 'good' experience since Anahita feels weird and Leviathan won't die, so I must begrudgingly make this a 3 to 5 ratio of good to bad experiences.


Post-Boss:
I got the Atlantis and Anahita's Arpeggio from the fight, as well as the Leviathan Ambergris. The latter is great for defence while the former two convinced me to switch to Mage for almost the entirety of the remainder of Hardmode.

The Pizza was also pretty cool but I do have to ask why Anahita drops it and... how she managed to get so much pizza...?

Duke Fishron

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: 57
Time: 14:02


The Fight:
'I don't think they changed Duke Fishron' were the words that encouraged me to attempt Duke now and oh boy they were wrong. Duke has one, very simple change... they took his acceleration.

Now the change seems simple but what it means is that Duke has almost no time between individual charges or going from using its projectiles to going back to dashes. That one change makes Duke incredibly mobile and aggressive to the point where I genuinely have to ask why I tried fighting it this early after I saw the changes.

Phase 1 and 2 are fairly standard Duke affairs except that you want to try to bait Duke into 'awkward charges' where he has to zigzag towards you as opposed to a straight, mad dash like he wants to. You will not outrun a 'good' string of Fishron charges so this should be high priority.

Phase 3 starts at half health and, while the same in concept, is nightmarish in execution since the Duke's teleports let him line himself up with the player even if you did previously bait him into bad dashes. There's also the ever-present chance he teleports into a very unfavourable position where you're almost guaranteed to take damage so have fun with that.

The ratio becomes 3 to 6. I'm not doing this again.


Post-Boss:
I got the Razorblade Typhoon which I never used, the Tsunami which I never used, and several tens of thousands of fish-related items I never needed... or used.

Astrum Aureus

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: 46
Time: 6:25


The Fight:
The simplified version of my problem with this fight is purely that I suck at dealing with Aureus' homing projectiles that is basically my whole gripe with the boss. Well, that and its newfound ability to sometimes overshoot a jump and hit you with >450 contact damage that too.

Aureus thankfully takes absurd damage from the Atlantis so I was able to shred it as much as possible while running away. Unfortunately it could also shred me with the homing crystals unless I moved in a weird pattern that sometimes let me avoid it smoothly.

This fight caused so many problems that it made me nearly quit the run right here, but I cannot adequately put it into words.

3 to 7 on the board and a new candidate for least favourite experience so far ;-;


Post-Boss:
The main thing I got from beating it was a great feeling of relief... also a Post-Moon Lord magic weapon that I ended up barely using due to how few bosses that could be kept on-screen without imminent death being the result.

Golem

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: 18
Time: 11:02


The Fight:
So, for starters, my temple was bugged and the Golem room was consumed by the surrounding landmass, which isn't a great start. The altar was in-tact but the room wasn't, so looks like I have to fight enraged Golem.

For the first time ever Golem is actually a serious threat, whether it's purely due to the enraged buff or not. It goes ballistic with its lasers and covers deceptively high ground with the leaps and took way too long to kill like every other boss.

In-short, while there isn't much to talk about for the fight other than Golem being able to outspeed Angel Treads when its body is vulnerable, this was the point in the run where the uphill battle of some of these fights was starting to get to me a little... and it only got worse from here...


Post-Boss:
Golem drops a bunch of potions that are nearly entirely redundant this late into the run... not to mention most potions are banned anyways. Didn't drop anything too crazy from its normal item pool, either.

However access to Scoria Ore means I can make the Miracle Fruit now which is nice

Plaguebringer Goliath

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 30
Time: 9:52


The Fight:
Plaguebringer is normally a fight I'm very good at and enjoy a lot, and some of the changes made were great, but some of my experiences were, again, not so great.

In terms of my progress I was able to get it down to half health by attempt 1 and was mostly going great. The honey was annoying but manageable and PBG itself took decent damage from the Atlantis and Spectre Armour. Even got to try out things like the Infected Jewel for resistance to its new debuff spam.

The Plague Nuke Barrage changes were also great. PBG actually got a nuke attack which was fun to dodge and spices up the usual dodge patterns and the peanut rockets were silly.

So what was my problem? For the third time now it was the minions and oh boy these were much worse than the others.

For some reason the rockets and mines seemed significantly faster than normal, which combined with their buffed explosion radii meant dodging them consistently was a massive problem. I couldn't use the Tesla Potion to stop them because, again, the buffed explosion radius change means they'd hit me anyways. Worst of all, the mines could deal over 500 damage a hit; allowing me to effectively just get 1-shot at any point in a 10-minute battle because a floating disc didn't want to die fast enough.

If the minions were nerfed I'd have loved this fight, but because of the hours of grief I got from 'em I have to go with a 3 vs 8 in terms of fights I actually enjoyed in this run. This is why I told you not to try Fun Mode earlier, if you couldn't tell.


Post-Boss:
After getting my butt handed to me by evil detonating circles I decided to try switching back to melee with some Beetle Armour to give me the most durability I could accumulate. Also got the Virulence which is pretty useful since it gives me a sword with piercing and debuffs.

I was somewhat worried about what was soon to come but by the looks of things...

...I wasn't worried enough.

Ravager

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: 67
Time: 19:50


The Fight:
Introducing 'Meat Sans', a boss that I simply do not have words for. The fight, however, I do:

First, bring an Anti-Gravity Hook with you. Don't have it be your main one if you don't want but I promise you it's worth bringing.

Meat Sans requires a massive arena lined with platforms that spans thousands of blocks if you want a fight that isn't quite as hair-pullingly stressful as what I tried to contend with for the first 2 hours. Move in one direction, dropping down a row of platforms each time pillars are summoned to keep yourself safe from them and most of Meat Sans' attacks.

If you reach the end of your arena you just have to fly up and do the same thing in the opposite direction... if you don't die on the ascent that is.

Phase 2 manages to be both easier and harder than Phase 1. Move a few platforms up from the floor and you will eventually find a spot where Meat Sans can't actually leap up to you and just keeps jumping up to a point a few blocks below you before crashing back down to the solid-block floor. The lasers are now your biggest issues so focus on them as much as possible.

Eventually it summons the 'laser death spin', which is where the Anti-Gravity Hook shines. Hook onto a block and spin in time with the lasers for a stylish but safe victory.


Post-Boss:
If it didn't summon rock pillars every nanosecond I feel like it'd be way cooler than it was.

The accessories it drops are always helpful, if not now then later.

It will also give you several thousand Hotdogs but idk if it's safe or sanitary to eat Hotdogs produced from some sort of undead meat behemoth...

Lunatic Cultist

Difficulty: ooooo
Attempts: 22
Time: 30:43


The Fight:
I shouldn't have gone melee for this I brought no good options with me to the fight and just brute-forced it with my Ravager arena and Hexed Branch.

You will spend half the fight running away because of the Cultist's projectile spam and because it seems to just stop the Phantasm Dragons spawning properly which is neat. If you stay close you die to the ice barrages and fireball spam, so running is really your only consistently good option.

As you progress the fireballs summoned by it and its clones speed up but good luck killing it before then, so dodging is just going to get worse and worse. Expect 10-15 minute fights to end abruptly by a shower of projectiles at least a few times.

I might have to call this the least fun boss thus far, even.


Post-Boss:
Pillars are here, which is the only thing I got from the Lunatic Cultist outside of the Ancient Manipulator.

Pillars were also hell because they all spawned underground and tunnelling while being harassed by enemies that can deal hundreds of damage a hit is never fun.

I did get the Daybreak and Solar Eruption from the Solar Fragments I had, so I did get a big damage upgrade from this in the end. I only targeted a couple since I have 2 more bosses to deal with before the end of Hardmode...

Empress of Light

Difficulty: ooo
Attempts: 5
Time: 7:38


The Fight:
Introducing the best, most fun boss of the run.

Empress has high health, decent damage, a broad array of moves, and most notably hasn't been made a nightmare to deal with due to GetFixedBoi changes or any weirdness from the health scaling.

Was lacking in DPS on my first couple attempts and so switched over to Menacing accessories later. Daybreak was also 100% necessary here so I'm glad I waited until Post-Cultist to attempt this.

This boss was honestly such a relief after multiple bosses back-to-back-to-back that caused me endless grief. This one had challenge and required me to strategise but in a fun and fair way.


Post-Boss:
Didn't end up using any of the Empress' items initially, but did return to farm for the wings later due to some mobility issues with a... later boss

I also... kinda made something I can only call 'reverse vent art' because I was so ecstatic about having a fun fight in this challenge that I drew the Empress of Light a couple times.

...so yeah if you wanted another reason to not do this run 'Empress of Light-induced insanity' can be added to the list I guess?

Astrum Deus

Difficulty: oooo
Attempts: 18
Time: 72:32


The Fight:
Introducing a very strange boss and one I can guarantee you aren't beating without teleporters. Astrum Deus, possibly more than any other fight, needs to be broken up into 2 sections for its different phases.

Phase 1 Deus is very similar to how it normally goes. It doesn't have many new tools to work with or anything and is still shredded by the Solar Eruption, so nothing bad to say here. Dare I even say this phase was... fun?

Phase 2 was interesting. Taking a page out of 'Old Astrum Deus'' book the boss splits into 10 copies of itself, all smaller than the original but boasting a grand total of 5,120,000 health. Yes, 5 million health on a Pre-Moon Lord boss.

At this point you cannot realistically take on the horde alone. Their sheer numbers mean you will be overwhelmed, cornered and headbutted to death by the various worms within a very short span of time. This is where the teleporters come in.

Six teleporters. One on the far left of your arena and one on the far right, connected by pressure plates and with walls between them and the arena to protect you from being telefragged by lasers. Near to them both are other 'backup' teleporters that both connect to a box above the centre of the arena, only used to draw the worms away if they are camping either of the main teleporters. This is where the fun begins.

Using the main teleporters, teleport to either side of the arena and begin firing. As I was going melee I decided to use the Entropic Claymore here for its long-lasting and plentiful projectiles and homing abilities. These will hit the worms from far away. When they got closer I used the Daybreak and, if it was safe, tried to sneak in some Solar Eruption hits. When the worms reach the teleporter, simply teleport to the other side of the arena and repeat. If they camp both teleporters go to the 'backup chamber' in the middle of the arena, draw the worms to the middle, and then go back to the main teleporters again and continue the original cycle.

Ended up becoming a fairly fun cat and mouse game, though it did drag on for a long time because I was playing it so safe. More reckless Solar Eruption use would've sped things up, sure, but I didn't really want to risk losing so much progress.

First worm was defeated after 40:14 because so focusing down 1 was nearly impossible.
Second was defeated at 40:44, which was also very low due to being very close to one of the teleporters often.
Third was defeated at 48:15 and by this time I realised the health bar wasn't reading thousands, but millions. I also learned that, if using the Bloodflare Core, setting up somewhere with regular enemies still spawning to hit you can help you regenerate stray laser/mine damage.
Fourth was defeated at 56:46
Fifth was defeated at 68:32 - on a previous run with similar times I died shortly after this due to bad worm management. Notice the fact that said runs take an hour to get here and you can probably guess I was not happy
Sixth was defeated by 71:21
Seventh was defeated at 71:26, 5 second later due to staying close to the opposite teleporter to the sixth
Eighth, aside from making me realise I don't like how 'eighth' is spelled, was defeated at 71:35. Lots of them going down rapidly because the inability to focus them down reliably left them all at similar health by now it seems.
Ninth was defeated at 71:41
Finally, the tenth was defeated at 72:32


Post-Boss:
I hope I don't have to farm this for anything like fragments later. I did craft the Celestial Sigil soon after because I'd rather rematch Deus than Cultist even though it takes twice as long.

Deus drops a lot of worms, and I mean a Lot. Basically Duke Fishron's joke drops but worm themed instead.

Aside from that I got the Microwave which I didn't really end up using and the Star Sputter which, again, I didn't end up using due to my melee build.

With the last boss down before Moon Lord I might as well get this show on the road...

Moon Lord

Difficulty: oooooo
Attempts: 76
Time: 11:30


The Fight:
Introducing the clear winner of the worst time I've had on the run so far... including what Post-Moon Lord content I've experienced as of the time I'm writing this. Moon Lord is projectile spam with an additional hard to avoid near-instant-death laser thrown in there for good measure and was another point that I had to just leave a boss for a few days before coming back to it.

The hands are alright and haven't changed much; instead my problem almost entirely comes in the form of the main 'central' eye.

The laser now does a 360-degree sweep that takes about the same time as the normal sweep does so you need to move fast when you see the laser begin being fired. You also can't just fly up when the eye opens initially to prepare, either, since Moon Lord is also faster now and so he will just catch up to you and laser your face off anyways. This all comes without mentioning the moon boulders spawned after the laser.

Phase 1's laser can, admittedly, be dodged by pushing Moon Lord's head into some solid blocks, something I was happy to learn part way through attempt 8. This does not work in Phase 2, however, so you cannot avoid the issue and just have to learn how to ascend fast. Bean mount + well-spaced platforms, fast wings, hooks, speed boosting accessories, you name it and you'll probably want it.

On top of this you have the doubled health and other health scaling stuff from the various stacked difficulties so it wasn't even a quick fight; clocking in at over 10 minutes for a successful run that can end with a single misstep.

Eventually, though, I got a run where I was careful with my movements. Kept my head down while the main eye was closed and hauled butt when the laser was being charged. Took down the eyes, exposed the core, and after several hours of failed attempts... took it down.


Post-Boss:
Of course, the first thing that comes from this defeat is the feeling of satisfaction and, moreso, relief that I likely won't have to fight Moon Lord again. Of all the bosses so far this felt like one of the best; both because of how tough the fight was... and also because this was the main gatekeeper of the final part of out journey.

Moon Lord's special drop is the Calamari's Lament; an interesting item that, as of writing this, haven't really made much use of.

From the treasure bag I got the Meowmere and Star Wrath right out the gate and was incredibly happy about that because I really, really don't want to fight Moon Lord again. I also used what Luminite I got to start work on some more upgrades that I will delve further into next time...

[Final Notes]

That's the second part of Calamity: Fun Mode beaten and perhaps the longest part in sheer quantity of bosses thrown the player's way. On-paper I'm at the final stretch of my journey now - but that definitely doesn't mean things get easier from here.

Coming back to Calamity and Terraria as a whole with a challenge like this was probably incredibly silly of me, since this challenge would have probably gone way smoother with a lot of prior prep. But sometimes winging it just makes for a more... 'emotional' experience I suppose?


The next part is currently being worked on - in terms of fighting the bosses, that is. The one issue with these tougher challenges is that actually gathering the data from bosses and making progress in the run takes a lot longer, which may slow production on these a little (or a lot). That, combined with things like University, mean that I can't currently say when the next part will be out - but hopefully I'll have some updates soon?


(One more small thing. I know this page has a lot more... 'slander'... than some of the others but I'd like to just remind people that this is definitely not how the devs intended you to play this. Some of the problems here might purely due to my own imposed rules. Some stuff does need tweaking, yes, but this isn't a 'Calamity bad' situation this time I'm like 90% sure it's my fault this time)


Anyways, that aside, thanks again for taking a look at the second part of the worst Calamity challenge I've ever had to experience. The first part seems to have garnered some attention which makes me happy to know that my dumb gauntlet of a playthrough isn't entirely in-vain :P

Anyways, see you next time for the third and final part of the run 'v'

(Until then, here's an illustration of the 'boulder parry' moment from the Leviathan fight that stuck with me enough to draw it)

[Okami Tomato]

Thanks 'v'

[Atum namber too]

bravo bro, bravo

[NotVeryUltraGuy064]

damn

[Okami Tomato]

Because GetFixedBoi is new and I at least wanted to try it while making a page about it that wouldn't immediately be completely overshadowed by YouTube videos in a week

[FrazzleFlib]

why do you play the objectively bad unfun game mode

[Okami Tomato]

Thanks 'v'

I've done a lot of silly, odd or just outright infuriating challenge runs over the years so I've gotten used to writing a fair amount for each boss, though this run in particular required a lot more writing given how much new stuff there is for each boss

[don_chesta]

Just for writing so much for one playthrough i have a shit ton of respect for you, for i cant even beat neither the exo mechs or calamitas in classic (my first ever calamity playthrough and ive never played master or expert mode on terraria lol)

[Okami Tomato]

I mean you don't necessarily need to do runs on stupid high difficulties; even something on Normal mode with fairly lax/simple rules is entirely fine so long as you have a good time playing 'v'

[BoneWhite]

these are the challenges runs i want to do...
only to remember that i suck and die to everything (though maybe that is because of my permanent insistence to play summoner)
regardless, these are fun to read, so don't worry, your suffering very much is not in vain

[Okami Tomato]

Average Challenge Run Astrum Deus Experience