Master Mode is the ultimate challenge for Terraria players. It not only ramps up the difficulty like crazy but amazing exclusive rewards are waiting for you here. There are many things to do in this mode, which can get overwhelming for the uninitiated. Even game veterans like myself will have difficulty, and this guide will help you survive this insane difficulty.
You should consider many things when diving into this challenge, and we will cover all of them here, as well as a guide to every event and how to beat them. This ultimate progression guide is everything you need to know about beating Master Mode.
Early Game
At the start of the game, you’ll be the weakest and the most vulnerable. The focus is on getting the necessary gear to beat the first bosses and getting your village ready for more NPCs.
Check out this article for a list of the best early-game weapons.
Goals
- Loot underground cabins
- Max out Life Crystals
- Get a set of Gold / Platinum armor and tools
- Get a grappling hook
- Loot the floating islands
- Start a village
- Fight the Goblin Army
- Obtain Terrapspark Boots
- Defeat King Slime
- Defeat the Eye of Cthulhu
Tips and Tricks
- At this point, exploration and mining should be your number one priority. Underground cabins in every biome should be looted for items, and movement accessories should be a priority.
- Getting Gravitation Potions early is highly recommended. With these, you can get a Lucky Horshoe, Balloon, and Starfury to help you survive better.
- Until you have some decent gear, combat should be avoided when possible. Enemies are too strong to face head-on, and getting the maximum amount of health is the best thing you can do.
- Underground traps have been massively revamped. There are trap chests, more explosives, and way more things to kill you in general. Holding a button or other electrical device will allow you to see the wiring and will help you avoid traps.
- Don’t bother crafting any armor besides platinum/gold at this point. It’s a waste of time that can be spent getting useful gear. However, if you are dying too much, go for whatever armor you can get
- Scarab bombs found in the Underground Desert are insanely useful for navigating underground. Try to get as many as possible while navigating that biome.
- Ruby hooks are insanely useful and pretty easy to make. I find them better than the Web-Slinger and Slime Hook due to the increased range.
- In my opinion, the early-game ends when you beat the Eye of Cthulhu. You’ll get the much-needed Shield of Cthulhu, as well as Demonite / Crimtane for crafting a Nightmare / Deathbringer Pickaxe even before you beat the next boss.
Late Pre-Hardmode
This stage of the game is where you’ll prepare yourself to beat the final boss of Pre-Hardmode, the Wall of Flesh. You’ll also make preparations for early Hardmode, and it’ll set you up for the most difficult part of the game.
Goals
- Get Molten Armor and tools
- Break Shadow Orbs / Crimson Hearts
- Beat the Eater of Worlds / Brain of Cthulhu
- Collect Meteorite
- Make a Hellivator
- Beat Skeletron
- Explore the Dungeon
- Loot Shadow Chests
- Craft a Night’s Edge
- Build an event base
- Beat the Wall of Flesh
Tips and Tricks
- You can actually get a Nightmare / Deathbringer Pickaxe without beating the EoW / BoC. You just need to get enough Shadow Scales / Tissue Samples from the boss to make one with the ore dropped by the Eye of Cthulhu.
- With this pickaxe, make every item you can with Hellstone. Molten Armor and gear will carry you all the way until Hardmode, and the weapons are necessary to defeat the remaining early-game bosses.
- Mining a ton of meteorite is good for crafting Meteor Shot, which will help you fight bosses if you decide to go with a ranged weapon.
- If you don’t have Terraspark Boots, now is the time to make a pair. Having these will save you the trouble of making a hell bridge to fight the Wall of Flesh, and will make it much easier to both explore and fight.
Early Hardmode
The Wall of Flesh has been defeated and your world has become much harder. In my opinion, this is the hardest part of Master Mode since you still have Pre-Hardmode weapons and armor.
At this point, I recommend reforging all of your weapons to the best possible modifier. Getting better gear is also extremely important at this point. There is a ton of gear to play with, so use whatever works well for you. Here are other things you can do after beating Wall of Flesh.
Goals
- Break Demon / Crimson Altars
- Obtain Adamantite / Titanium gear
- Get wings
- Beat Queen Slime
- Farm Pirate Invasion for The Black Spot
- Farm Hallowed Mimics for Daedalus Stormbow
- Beat the Mechanical Bosses
- Get Hallowed Armor and Gear
Tips and Tricks
- If you don’t have a base with lava traps already, it’s important that you make them. Events like the Pirates are insanely hard in Master Mode, and lava pits make them much easier.
- The Sunfury is probably the best melee weapon you can have at the start of Hardmode. You should also make the Dao of Pow ASAP to use for killing Wyverns.
- Farm the Wall of Flesh until you have a Ranger Emblem and a Warrior Emblem. You’ll need these to significantly boost the damage of your weapons.
- As soon as you can, break Demon Altars / Crimson Altars. Then, immediately go for the next tier ore. Skip the armor and get the Pickaxe, and then go for the next one. Make Adamantite / Titanium armor and tools ASAP, and you’ll have a much easier time surviving.
- Farm Hallowed Mimics for the Daedalus Stormbow, and try to reforge it to Unreal. That may cost you several platinum but it will be absolutely worth it.
- If any of the mechanical bosses spawn, you’ll likely not beat them without proper preparation. It might be better for you to just go underground if they spawn naturally.
Post Mechanical Bosses
The mechanical bosses are defeated and you’re ready to move on to the more difficult bosses. There isn’t a lot to do before Plantera, but there are a few essentials that will help bring you to victory.
Goals
- Max out Life Fruits
- Craft Chlorophyte Armor and gear
- Farm Solar Eclipse for Broken Hero Swords (guide on this further down)
- Beat Duke Fishron
- Craft a Terra Blade (if a melee character)
- Find a few Plantera bulbs and make an arena.
- Make a base in the Underground Jungle
- Defeat Plantera
Tips and Tricks
- Duke Fishron is hard, but beating him will grant you weapons that you can use for Plantera
- At this point in the game, buffs are absolutely necessary for beating bosses. Establish a large herb garden if you haven’t already
- Spelunker Potions are great for locating both Life Fruits and Chlorophyte Ore. Search for both during your times in the jungle
- The Hallowed Armor is still great armor since it allows you to dodge attacks. Consider using this and getting more defense by reforging your accessories to Warding.
Post Plantera
Once you’ve beaten Plantera, you’re done with the second most difficult boss of Hardmode. In this stage, you’ll prepare to beat Golem, as well as the optional Goddess of Light boss.
Goals
- Explore the post-Planera dungeon
- Explore the Lihzahrd Temple
- Obtain the best armor for your chosen class
- Defeat the Empress of Light
- Defeat Golem
Tips and Tricks
- Since Golem is actually much easier than Plantera, there doesn’t have to be a long period of time between fights.
- Explore the entire Lihzahrd Temple and clear out every single trap. This will make it much easier to survive.
- Clear out water candles in the dungeon to decrease the enemy spawn rate, which increases survivability. A Calming Potion will also amplify this effect.
- Duke Fishron’s weapons will wreck Golem.
- The Terraprisma is the best summon weapon in the game, but to get it, you need to beat the Empress of Light with 100% damage done in the daytime.
- The Master Ninja Gear is available to craft at this point and is insanely helpful for beating the Empress of Light.
Post Golem
Goals
- Mine a ton of Chlorophyte for bullets (if ranged class)
- Beat the Martian Madness invasion
- Farm Golem for the Picksaw and other weapons
- Farm the Celestial Towers for fragments
Tips and Tricks
- To easily farm Golem, take the Lizharhd Alter and place it above ground in an arena.
- Fly to space near the oceans to spawn Martian Probes for the Martian Madness event
- The Black Spot mount is needed to beat the UFO boss, as its laser can now go through walls.
- Farming the towers for their gear is a great option for getting end-game gear to use on the Moon Lord.
- Reforge everything you have to the best modifiers
Post Moon Lord
So you’ve beaten the final boss of Terraria on the hardest difficulty, but what is there to do now? Well, depending on if you want to keep playing your current character for a while, there are a ton of really fun things to do after the Moon Lord.
Goals
- Farm the Moon Lord for all the best items
- Reforge everything to the best modifiers
- Build pylons to every biome possible
- Do fishing quests
- Get the Cell Phone and the Ankh Shield
- Complete all the achievements
- Finish the Bestiary
- Build awesome creations
- Get all boss trophies and Master Mode relics
- 9 Things to Do After the Moon Lord in Terraria – Check this article for more things you can do after Moon Lord
Tips and Tricks
- Craft the Zenith Sword or the Celebration MK. II as soon as you can, and you’ll quickly become insanely overpowered.
- The Drill Containment Unit is an amazing item that’ll help you quickly dig out sections of land.
- Focus on getting the hardest-to-obtain items, as well as the ones with large crafting trees.
- Just have fun! You’ve earned all the great gear you have, so just have fun building awesome structures and wrecking enemies.
Event Strategies
Before entering Hardmode, I recommend creating an event base. This base should have lava pits on either side, a bed, holes on the top and sides for offense, and life regeneration items.
A base like this must defend against these special event attacks effectively. No NPCs should be close to this base, or else they’ll be easily killed by the invading enemies.
Even if you don’t have decent weapons, the lava pits will help deal with them. Without them, you’ll struggle with any event, especially early Hardmode.
Goblin Invasion
“A goblin army is approaching from the west/east!”. Board up your windows it is time to defend your base from these freaks. There are two approaches to this event i.e. Pre-Hardmode and Hardmode. Both are sim
Pre-Hardmode
The Pre-Hardmode Goblin Invasion is the easiest event in the game, but the goblins can still beat you up on Master Mode. For these guys, it’s best to use some weapon that can pierce through walls or take out many simultaneously. Here are some good weapon choices:
- Starfury
- Vilethorn
- Best bow you can get + Jester’s Arrows
For this strategy, simply sit in your house with the doors blocked off and keep firing your weapon until you take out a bunch of goblins. The only threat will be the Goblin Sorcerers, which you can destroy using your melee weapons.
It’s very slow, but it works 100% of the time. If you’ve managed to get higher-tier armor, you could even make a hole at the top of your base and attack them from the top. Watch out for the arrows they fire; you shouldn’t have that big of an issue.
Hardmode
While the Hardmode Goblin Army is nearly identical to the Pre-Hardmode version, one major enemy makes this event extremely difficult to complete if you’re early on in Hardmode.
The Globlin Summoner is a flying enemy that will spawn Shadowflame Apparitions that will fly after you. On Master Mode, this enemy is nearly impossible to kill if you’ve just entered Hardmode.
If you have The Black Spot mount, you can easily cheese the summoner and not have any issues with it. But, assuming you don’t have many good Hardmode weapons, here are the best ways to defeat the Goblin Summoner.
- Dao of Pao – this weapon was buffed by a lot in Journey’s End and should be a priority to get as soon as you enter Hardmode.
- Skybridge – if you build one early, you can use this and Terraspark Boots to run away from the summoner while attacking it with a weapon.
- Gravitation Potion – unless you have access to a good pair of wings or an infinite flight mount, this is your next best option. Just use a weapon you can control while flipping gravity.
Pirate Invasion
There are 2 main threats in this invasion: Pirate Captains and Flying Dutchmen. While the captains can be dealt with using a piercing weapon, they now spawn ghosts that fly through walls. Here are the things you’ll need to beat this invasion:
- Flying Knife (extremely effective for the Flying Dutchman)
- Lava trap base
- Crystal Vile Shard
- Any other Hardmode piercing weapon
Like other invasion strategies, you’ll usually be in your defense base. The lava pits will do most of the work, but you’ll have to watch out for the ghost that spawns after a Pirate Captain dies.
For this invasion, it’s extremely helpful to have actuators set to toggle the lava pits open and closed. This is needed for effectively farming Flying Dutchmen. When one spawns, close the pits so the event doesn’t progress when you fight him. After you beat it, open one pit until the next pirate ship spawns.
Flying Dutchmen will only start to spawn after the event is 50% completed, so until that point, you can farm the pirates using piercing weapons and lava pits.
If farming the Flying Dutchman isn’t your goal, you can finish the event as normal and wait for the event to be nearly finished to beat the Flying Dutchman.
Solar Eclipse
With this invasion, 2 enemies will trouble you: Reapers and Mothrons. The Reapers are fairly easy to deal with, but Mothrons are insane on Master Mode. Here’s the recommended gear for this event:
- Repeater (preferably Hallowed)
- Ranged-weapon such as a UZI
- Piercing weapons
- Trap base with an easy escape hatch
- Ranged armor
- Reaper Sickle
- Black Spot mount (for Mothron)
Since the hardest part of this is Mothron, you need to be prepared for when it spawns. This event is worth farming for Broken Hero Swords, which Mothron only drops.
The best way to farm Mothron is to use the Black Spot mount and ranged weapons. When it spawns, fly in one direction while shooting at it, and Mothron will go down easily.
The only thing that might kill you during the Mothron fight is when you reach the end of the world. When that happens, either go up or down and quickly change your direction.
Martian Madness
Although the UFO boss seems difficult, there’s an easy way to beat him and his alien minions that works almost every time. This invasion works almost the same as other invasions, with aliens attacking in waves and the Martian Saucer appearing to make life harder for you.
There are good reasons to farm the Saucer, but the best drops you can get are the Cosmic Car Key and the Influx Waver. Dealing with the alien waves is best done by using lava traps, but new strategies are needed to beat the Martian Saucer.
Here’s the gear you can use to beat the Martian Madness event:
- Flying Knife
- Daedalus Stormbow
- Black Spot Mount
- Flairon
- Reaper Sickle
Martian Saucer
In Terraria 1.4, the Martian Saucer’s death ray attack goes through blocks. This eliminates our old cheese method, making the fight insanely hard.
For the first phase of the fight, stay in the cover of a room with small holes in the top, and doing so will protect you from the missiles while allowing you to hit back with a controllable or piercing weapon.
The second phase, where the Saucer uses only the death ray, is the hard part, but it’s easily doable by using the Black Spot mount. When the second phase hits, fly out of the base and pick up speed with the mount. Hit the UFO with a ranged or homing weapon, and don’t allow it to ever go above you.
Celestial Pillars
Even though the Master Mode Lunar events are insanely hard, they don’t differ much from the Expert and Classic modes. The enemies do more damage, and you need to defeat more of them, but the attacks are all the same.
Even though they haven’t changed, some great ways exist to take out each event.
Before you start the pillars
Determine which pillar you will tackle first to get yourself a powerful weapon to deal with the other pillars. Each pillar corresponds to one different class type:
- Solar Pillar – Melee
- Vortex Pillar – Ranged
- Nebula Pillar – Magic
- Stardust Pillar – Summoner
Once you have your first target figured out, destroy the tower and gather the fragments. Use the Ancient Manipulator dropped by the Lunatic Cultist and craft yourself a strong new weapon.
Solar Pillar
This is probably the hardest out of all the towers due to the Crawlipede, a large flying creature that’ll destroy you if you fly in the air. While on the ground, you’re more vulnerable to attacks since you can’t dodge.
There is no easy way around it; you must stay on the ground. If you want to fly in the air, use a homing weapon like the Possessed Hatchet to defeat Crawlipedes quickly. They respawn rather quickly, so always be aware of where they are.
Vortex Pillar
This one is actually an easy pillar to defeat. If you have an infinite flight mount like the Black Spot or the Cosmic Car Key, fly high enough that the ground-based enemies can’t reach you and take out the flying ones as they come towards you.
Staying in the air, the pillar will allow you to bypass most of the annoying walking enemies and will generally keep you safe for longer than the other pillars.
Nebula Pillar
While this one is another hard pillar to complete, there’s no special trick to beating it. You can fly in the air with a mount, but there are still a lot of teleporting and flying enemies to deal with.
The best thing you can do here is to use some homing weapon. The light will turn out sometimes, and the homing weapon can deal with unseen enemies.
Stardust Pillar
The Stardust Pillar is by far the easiest one to complete. Using an infinite flight mount and a homing weapon, you should breeze through this insanely easily.
Once you’re done, you can craft the Stardust Dragon to aid you with the other pillars and the Moon Lord