Lord's Guide to Terraria Survival: Welcome to Hell!

With the Jungle, Dungeon, and the Sky fully explored, there is only one place we haven't gone... Rock Bottom. In this guide we are going to the Underworld and seeing what kind of fun things we can do while we explore the lava infested lands of Hell.

Oh there are some rocks here... lets do what all good sandbox characters do and make freaking armor, weapons, and building materials out of it!

Lord's Guide to Digging Excellent Hellevators

First off, we are going to finish that there Hellevator. Here are some quick tips on how you can dig your Hellivator and my reccomended dimentions of them.

• have a 3 block wide hole for symetry for later.
  
• Have a rope run down the middle of the hellevator just in case you might need it.
  
• Block off water sources as your digging to limit the amount of water going into the hole (for now)
  
• once you hellevator hits lava, start pouring water from the side of your hellevator into the hole so that you can dig past the lava (free obsidian!).
  
• if you really don't care enough for any of that... you can always use bombs (but I like having my hellevator walls clean and neat... so I don't do that)
  
• if you hellevator goes through a spider biome, make sure you break the walls within your Hellevator, as the cobwebs can spawn and make your decent slower.
  
• fun tip on decending down your Hellevator, the Slime Mount makes you fall faster.

Once you breach the ashy cealings of our new biome with your hellevator. You have entered the last biome we will be visiting before Hardmode begins!

Digging the last of the Hellevator. Careful not to fall into a pool of lava!

Welcome to Hell Part 1: Exploring Hell

Welcome to Hell! The weather is nice, the lava is bazing hot, and there are new monsters and treasures to be had in the bottom-most parts of your world.

A typical view of the Underworld, note the rope at the top corner of the screen is the end of my Hellevator, and it is suspended in mid air with a dirt platform.

Biome Bio

Located at the bottom part of your world, and with the imense amount of lava present, navigation and overall survival in Hell is acually pretty challenging if you are not prepared.

Enemies
Hellbat
-Damage: 35/70
-Max Life: 46/92
-Notable Drops: Magma Stone (vary rare)
Lava Slime
-Damage: 15/30
-Max Life: 50/100
-Ability (Expert Only) Drops lava upon death
-They have no drops besides coins.
Fire Imp
-Damage: 30/60
-Max Life: 70/140
-Debuff: On Fire! 7 seconds/14 seconds
-Notable Drops: Obsidian Rose, Plumber's Hat (very rare)
Demon
-Damage: 42/84 (magic), 32/64 (meele)
-Max Life: 120/240
-Debuff: Darkness 15 seconds/30 seconds
-Notable Drops: Demon Scythe (rare)
Voodoo Demon
-Damage: 42/84 (magic), 32/64 (meele)
-Max Life: 140/280
-Debuff: Darkness 15 seconds/30 seconds
-Notable Drops: Guide Voodoo Doll, Demon Scythe (rare)
Bone Serpent
-Damage: 30/60 (head), 15/30 (body), 10/20 (tail)
-Max Life: 250/500
-they don't drop anything besides coins.

All the enemies in this area are immune to Lava, and any fire effect (except frostburn, nothing is immune to that so far...)

Notable Resourses
Fireblossum: the last of the 7 chaos emeralds Alchemy herbs for you to collect. They will bloom when it is dusk and not raining (any time between 3:45 PM to 7:30 PM in game)
Hellstone: This is the stuff you will be mining later in the guide. It produces lava when you break it.
Hellforge: inside the ruined houses you might find a Hellforge (it looks like a furnace looking thing) This is the upgrade to your forge you need to smelt Hellstone Bars. I would suguest you take one here.
Guide Voodoo Doll: This is the next boss summoning item dropped by the slightly rare mob, Voodoo Demon. Keep it away from lava, something bad might happen.
Cascade: After defeating Skeletron, all the mobs will drop this yo-yo sometimes.

Notable Structures
Ruined Houses: clustered around the inner two fourths of the map, the Ruined houses are what you will be mainly exploring, as these areas tend to have the Shadow Chests in them.
Shadow Chests: they are purple chests that are locked. Fortunately if you have found a shadow key in the Dungeon you can open them! (the key is reusable).

Exploring the Underworld

Before you dive right in, here are some things you might want.

• Movement Accessories: Spectere Boots, Cloud in a bottle variant (or ballon) are a must to avoid lava.
  
• Obsidian shield: I say the shield in praticular because the immunity to Knockback is pretty useful, expecially in places like this. However just bring Obsidian Scull variants, you should be fine as long as you have immunity to fire blocks (hellstone is a fire block)
  
• Grappling Hook: Grapple is a must in the Underworld. If you by any chance not have one yet. get one... NOW (goblin tinkerer sells one)
  
• Shadow Key: you only need one key, it is so that you may open all the shadow chests you might find.
  
• Piggy bank: this is optional, but the extra storage space is nice.
  
• Nightmare/deathbringer pickaxe or better: Just in case you wish to mine a bit of Hellstone, you can.

Now, when exploring the Underworld, Lava is your greatest enemy. If you cannot clear a lava pit somehow (spectere boots with cloud in a bottle and ballon should be able to clear any and all lava pits) use the cealing to grapple to and reset you jumps. If you have Lava waders (lucky little...) you don't need to worry about lava at all, just walk on it you little lava Jesus you... (obviously jelious). For the rest of us plebians, we can use the water walking potion for the same effect, however be careful not to dip under the lava. That would hurt.

Your main goal is to raid the ruined houses and loot any and all pots and chests. You are also here to grab a hellforge, but you only need one (and they are quite common). A side goal is to try and get your hands on as many Guide Voodoo Dolls as you can procure, as well as as much Fireblossum as possable (we will be using fireblossum to craft something later). You don't need to worry about Hellstone for the time being, just ignore it for now. However if you are so inclined to limit the amount you mine later, you can dig some up if they are near the walls of the Ruined house, just keep in mind you have a pickup range of three blocks in any direction.

Caution: Take extreme caution when you are exploring the underworld with a minion or a weapon with bouncing or homing projectiles. the LAST thing you want is to accidently kill a Voodoo Demon over lava. While these mobs are uncommon, it is VERY likely to acidentially spawn the next boss if you are not careful. To avoid any problems regarding walls of flesh coming your way, I would highly reccomend dismissing your minion (right click the minion's buff icon under your hotbar) and stick to a non-homing weapon, like the handgun/pheonix blaster or a sword, and avoid using weapons that have homing or bouncing properties

Shadow Chests

This is the bread and butter of you exploration. And here is some of the sexy loot you can get from Shadow Chests.

Looting a shadow chest clost to the bottom of the map

Dark Lance: a decent spear. Useful if you hate Yo-yos on the next boss.
Sunfury: another flail. it is acually pretty decent, but nothing like a similar fial weapon you get later Solar Eruption
Flamelash: an upgrade to the Magic Missile, just with added fire.
Flower of Fire: a magic weapon that shoots a bouncing fireball. Hey, you can be Mario now!
Hellwing Bow: an inacurate bow that shoots a bunch of bats instead of wooden arrows. Molten Fury or the Bees Knees is better in my opinion.

Once you have explored the ruined houses and are ready to mine some hellstone, head back to base and prepare for the EXTREME MINING Hellstone brings.

Welcome to Hell Part 2: Mining Hellstone

There are two ways to mining hellstone, there is the easy way, and the hard way.

The Hard way is going strait back down there and shafting around lava and avoiding lava. It is generally not fun dealing with the geothermal hydrolics of slow lava flow. So I would only reccomend it if you are too lazy to do crafting right now (which in a game like this, why would you be too lazy to craft anything that makes your life easier?)

The EASY way is to cheat the lava and the first time I am acually going to mention potion crafting in this guide!

If you get a fireblossum, waterleaf, a piece of obsidian, and a water bottle; you can make the Obsidian Skin Potion, a potion that grants full immunity to lava for four minutes. gee, that sounds useful already! You can also make some flipper potions (water bottle, shiverthorn, waterleaf) or some water walking potions (watter bottle, waterleaf, shark fin), but you should be fine. Craft a few of these, it depends on what you acually want to make, but you could easily get 300 or so hellstone ore with 8 minutes worth of potion (2 potions). I'd say make 3 or 4 to be safe. (or 30... 30 works too)

NOW we are going back to the underworld and we are going to do some EXTREME HELLSTONE MINING!

A prime example of mining hellstone... TO THE EXTREME! Don't try this without proper equipment!

Once you get to the underworld, find a sutable, decently large pit of lava. take a swig of your potions and dive into the lava. Fortunately for you, nothing really can acually follow you down here (imps can try to snipe you, and bone serpents can still reach you though). But keep an eye on the Obsidian skin timer while you are down here, or your death will be very swift (potion effects do not stack, so you will want to drink one at a time). Continue mining (either the easy way or the hard way) until you come up with enough Hellstone to make everything you need (and if you want a mount for much much later on, an extra 120 ore (40 bars worth) for later use)

Crafting with Hellstone

There are many things you can craft with Hellstone. If you wish to obtain everything (except Hellfire arrows) you will need a wopping 576 ore (that is 192 bars). A unique thing about Hellstone is that you need Obsidian to smelt it. You will need 3 hellstone ore and one piece of Obsidian in order to craft one hellstone bar (so for everything except hellfire arrows, you will need 576 ore and 192 Obsidian to craft the bars to make everything).

Note when I say "bar" I hope you know I am talking about Hellstone bars.

100 Hellfire Arrows

Recipie: 100 Wooden Arrows, one bar
This is your explosive arrow. Explosive bullets coming very soon. Pretty good if you are playing full ranger, as it is one of the few AoE Rnage options in the game, and the only real one pre hardmode besides the Bees Knees. There are two bullet types with AoE effects and an entire bow that rains arrows from the sky... we will be getting back to you on that ;-)

Fiery Greatsword

Recipie: 20 bars
Your next sword of intrest. However, being the last one you get, you won't be using this sword for long. However I would HIGHLY reccomend melee users or trophy collectors to still get this item for the item you can craft with it.

Flamerang

Recipie: Enchanted Boomerang, 10 bars
If you wish to upgrade your trusty enchanted boomerang, you can get a flamerang!

Phoenix Blaster

Recipie: Handgun, 10 bars
Well the reign of the handgun was short. If you plan on using the handgun a lot more later, you can upgrade it to the Phoenix Blaster, which is the same weapon, just stronger.

Molten Fury

Recipie: 15 bars
A bow that turns wooden arrows into flaming arrows. It is a pretty nice bow to use along side the Bees Knees, expecially since this bow acually works underwater.

Imp Staff

Recipie: 17 bars
Summoners, this is your next upgrade, and the last one before Hardmode. You might want to hold on to the Hornet staff though, the imp staff does not work underwater.

Moten Hamaxe

Recipie: 15 bars
If you wish to upgrade your Meteor Hamaxe or get a hamaxe in general, this is a good thing to upgrade to.

Molten Pickaxe

Recipie: 20 bars
If you plan to do any Hardmode mining, you need to get one of these (or fish up a Reaver Shark). That said, this is one of the two pickaxes in Pre-Hardmode that can mine the new hardmode ores, so get one now before your have to come back during hardmode!

Molten Armor

Molten armor has the highest base defence rating in Pre-Hardmode and is a Melee set technically (just in set bonus). I would suguest picking up a set for Hardmode if you are a newer player, as every point of defence counts.

Helmet (10 bars)
-Defence: 8
Breastplate (20 bars)
-Defence: 9
Greaves (15 bars)
-Defence: 8
Total (45 bars)
-Defence: 25
-Set Bonus: 17% meele damage

Thank You!

I know this one was pretty short, but thanks anyway. If there are any inconsitancies, please let me know, k thanks :)

Next time of Lord's Guide to Terraria Survival, we do the finishing tounches on our world to prepare it for the Impending Hardmode. (basically a lot of building and grinding).

Question for the Readers: When you explored the Underworld, how many coin portals did you get? What was the most coin portals you have gotten in one trip to the Underworld? I got two while exploring the Underworld this time. But I have gotten five in one trip before!

Change Log

March 17, 2016
-Fixed the spelling of "melee" from "meele"

March 20, 2016
-I was gone for two days... and 11 comments on this. Fortunately there was a lot for me to do including.
--Added cautionary warning about minions, homing, and bouncing weapon use in the Underworld.
--Added the sugguestion about mining Hellstone from the safty of the Runined Houses (however not as effective in most cases)
--Added the fact that Hellfire arrows no longer do self damage (as of 1.3.0.1).
--fixed spelling of "nightmare" from "nightmere"
--could not find the mentioned typo... could I get a hint?

November 15, 2017
-Revamped the guide
--Made everything easier to read.
--Fixed some typos that were sugguested

[Lord Washington of America]

An sdmg is impossible to get at this point in the game without pulling for another world, which is sorta cheating...

I have gotten all the Moon Lord drops, Gravity Globe and tenticle included, at least once and have used most of the weapons in the game in a semi-meaningful way, but I don’t use anything I have gotten previously on my new characters. There is no fun in that.

[Enveil]

i have S.D.M.G and it gets killed in a snap, not to brag but what weps do you have?

[papa nurgle's pizza]

*Phoenix

[Lord Washington of America]

@warm: your welcome!

[Elllll]

Oh thanks!

[eggs]

you're guides are the best ive seen in a while thanks so much!

[Lord Washington of America]

I have already made one! Just check the Pre-Hardmode prep guide. The fight is at the end!

[Elllll]

Please could you make a guide or section on dealing with the WoF?

[Vidyo]

ps: ok last comment for now, if you do want to play, friend me

[Lord Washington of America]

I see...