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Terraria bosses: how to summon and defeat themHow to unlock Hardmode
How to unlock Hardmode
With all the updates toTerraria, there are just over 30 bosses to fight now. Some are completely optional fights, but others stand in the way of unlocking new NPCs and a harder difficulty setting.
For each boss, there’s some setup required to give you a fighting chance. This doesn’t just mean having the right equipment. You should also create arenas specifically designed around a boss’s attack patterns, making it easy for you to dodge them.
OurTerraria bossesguide will tell youhow to encounter bosses, detail their stats, and give youstrategies for defeating them.
Terraria bosses guide
For the main bosses (both pre-Hardmode and Hardmode), we’ll be listing their summoning requirements and the boss’s health for each of the game’s three difficulty settings chosen when you create a new world: Classic, Expert, and Master.
Pre-Hardmode bosses
These bosses can appear as soon as you meet their summoning requirements. Click a boss’s name in the table to go to the strategy guide for that boss:
Hardmode bosses
Event bosses
Event bosses work slightly differently to the other bosses. They aren’t as tough as the main bosses and have a chance to appear during certain waves, along with other enemies. For strategies on how find and defeat an event boss, click their name in the table below:
Pre-Hardmode boss strategies
King Slime
How to summon King Slime
Kill 150 slimes during a slime rain or use a slime crown.
How to kill King Slime
This is an optional boss and is one of the simpler ones to defeat. It attacks in much the same way as regularly sized slimes but as it is much larger, it’s harder to avoid its bounces.
There are a number of ways to beat the King Slime, but here’s the simplest one:
Eye of Cthulhu
How to summon Eye of Cthulhu
There is a 1 in 3 chance of this boss appearing at the beginning of nighttime if the player has:
How to kill Eye of Cthulhu
I highly recommend having a grappling hook and the Hermes boots before even trying to fight the Eye of Cthulhu. The first phase will have the Eye of Cthulhu floating above you while it summons Servants of Cthulhu (Demon Eyes that can float through walls).
I also recommend building an arena designed for the boss and preparing in advance for the fight. Here are some things to keep in mind while preparing for battle:
After the Eye of Cthulhu spawns three or four Servants, the Eye will try to ram you three times. It is quite slow while it charges up to ram you, so use this time to prepare your next dodge. The best way to kill the Eye is to stand underneath it and fire upwards with long range weapons.
When it reveals a fanged mouth, you’ll reach the second phase. It becomes more aggressive and deals more damage with its attacks, but it no longer spawns Servants of Cthulhu. Don’t attack it while it’s charging. Instead wait until after the third attack as it will pause for a brief moment. It shouldn’t be long before you defeat it.
Eater of Worlds
How to summon Eater of Worlds
Break three Shadow Orbs broken or use a Worm Food. Shadow Orbs are in the Chasms of the Corruption.
How to kill Eater of Worlds
A lot of this fight is about preparation. Purposefully building a place to fight the Eater of Worlds will make fighting it a lot easier. Here are some tips for building the arena:
After a segment loses all of its health, the Eater of Worlds will split up. When it does split, focus on the head segment as it can hurt you a lot more than the tail. If it splits into too many segments, prioritise the smaller segments as they’re harder to hit.
Brain of Cthulhu
How to summon Brain of Cthulhu
Every third Crimson Heart broken or use a Bloody Spine. Crimson Hearts are found in the Crimson area, usually at the ends of paths splitting from the main circular room.
How to kill Brain of Cthulhu
This is another boss where having a purpose built arena increases your chances of winning exponentially. These are the things to consider when making your arena:
During the first phase, you can only attack the Creepers that clump up near the Brain of Cthulhu. Use the platforms to avoid the Creepers as the Brain teleports around the arena.
When all of the Creepers are defeated, the brain will split and reveal a heart with an eye. The Brain’s second phase will teleport more often, ramming you as its main attack. It doesn’t have much health, but using weapons with high knockback will keep it off you.
Queen Bee
How to summon Queen Bee
Destroy larva encased within walls of bee hives found in the Underground Jungle or use an Abeemination in the Jungle biome.
How to kill Queen Bee
I highly recommend that you have at least 300 health and a full set of gold armour as a minimum requirement for this fight. If you get a higher max HP and better armour, then this will keep you alive for longer. Once again it’s recommended you build an arena, so here are some tips for doing that:
The Queen Bee is a lot like the regular hornets, in that she will fire stingers at you that can poison you. This poison effect lasts longer than the one that the Queen Bee gives you if you touch her.
In addition, she can fly to the left or right of you and charge at you three times. Use the platforms to avoid this attack.
She can also spawn bee minions from above you. This is where she’s most vulnerable so use your most powerful weapons to hit her.
Skeletron
How to summon Skeletron
Speak to the Old Man NPC at the Dungeon and activate the curse at night.
How to kill Skeletron
Before fighting Skeletron, make sure you have at least 300 health (15 hearts). This will ensure that you have some breathing room in-between its attacks. Also use Shadow or Crimson armour for defence. Items that grant higher mobility are mandatory as you’ll need to avoid some lethal attacks.
Wall of Flesh
How to summon Wall of Flesh
Throw a Guide Voodoo doll into a pool of lava in the Hell biome while the Guide is still alive.
How to kill Wall of Flesh
This boss is the last enemy in your way of Hardmode. You should be building an arena, but this one is a little different from the others:
As the wall moves towards you, use a weapon such as a yo-yo to take out the little arms known as “The Hungry”. Each one of these munching mouths will break free from the cords at their back if they take enough damage, so kill them as quickly as you can to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Once the Hungry are gone, try to target an eye on the Wall of Flesh with your attack. It takes a lot more damage than the mouth. The eyes will fire lasers, but these should be easy to avoid. Other than that, keep walking backwards and avoid other enemies as you attack the boss. Once defeated, you’ll unlock Hardmode.
Hardmode boss strategies
Queen Slime
How to summon Queen Slime
How to kill Queen Slime
You don’t really need a special arena to fight Queen Slime but it does help to make a simple long path. Creating an arena to trap it doesn’t work too well as its second form makes it fly around, so it’s best just to have equipment that makes you faster and able to dodge attacks with ease. Here are some general tips for this boss:
The Destroyer
How to summon The Destroyer
Craft and use a Mechanical Worm. To make it, you need to craft it at either a Mythril anvil or an Orichalcum anvil (made with either 10 Mythril bars or 12 Orichalcum bars at an Iron anvil) with the following ingredients:
How to kill The Destroyer
The first of the “mechanical bosses”, this is a variant on the Eater of Worlds boss that is much larger and can do a lot more damage. There is a method of beating it that does take a lot of preparation, but if you have all the pieces you should wipe out this boss within a couple of minutes.
Once you’ve organised everything, summon the Destroyer and rain down holy arrows with your Stormbow. It should be able to take it out relatively quickly.
The Twins
How to summon The Twins
Craft and use a Mechanical Eye at night. To make it, you need to craft it at either a Mythril anvil or an Orichalcum anvil (made with either 10 Mythril bars or 12 Orichalcum bars at an Iron anvil) with the following ingredients:
How to kill The Twins
Both eyes will chase after you, occasionally charging at you like the regular Eye of Cthulhu boss. Retinazer also fires lasers and Spazmalism projects a green flame.
Skeletron Prime
How to summon Skeletron Prime
Craft and use a Mechanical Skull at night. To make it, you need to craft it at either a Mythril anvil or an Orichalcum anvil (made with either 10 Mythril bars or 12 Orichalcum bars at an Iron anvil) with the following ingredients:
How to kill Skeletron Prime
Skeletron Prime is the third and final mechanical boss. If you’ve already beaten the Twins, you should have everything you need set up, though I would build at least another layer of platforms to help avoid some of Skeletron Prime’s attacks. I’d also put down as many campfires and heart containers as you can for health regeneration.
As for how to fight it, there are four arms. Focus on the laser hand and the bomb hand first as they are Skeletron Prime’s ranged attacks. The other two hands are melee weapons, so can be taken down before fighting the head. This boss’s head can hurt you quite a lot so try to avoid touching it.
Plantera
How to summon Plantera
Defeat all three Mechanical bosses, then go to Underground Jungle and destroy Plantera’s bulb. The Mechanical bosses areThe Twins,The Destroyer, andSkeletron Prime.
How to kill Plantera
This monstrous plant can be quite tricky without a purpose built arena and this arena will take some unique gadgets to create.
Golem
How to summon Golem
How to kill Golem
After defeating Plantera, you should be able to unlock the Golem boss inside the “Lihzahrd Temple” in the Underground Jungle. But finding the temple in the first place can be difficult.
My recommendation here is to build lots of bombs and just keep throwing them downwards in the Underground Jungle. Bring some wire once you find the temple and use that to work out where the traps are. There are tons of things to kill you here and deactivating the traps should be something you do constantly before reaching the boss. Loot all the chests and kill the lizards to get power cells to summon the boss room. I would then modify the arena as follows:
After you’ve finished setting up, go ahead and awaken the Golem. Take out one of the arms first before moving to the head. Once you’ve got it below half health, the Golem will detach its head and it will fire lasers at you. Use the platforms to dodge the laser beams and you should win. This boss can be summoned multiple times and drops great loot, so is a fantastic option for grinding.
Empress of Light
How to summon Empress of Light
Defeat Prismatic Lacewing at night in the Hallow. These are rare critter spawns on the surface at nighttime (7:30pm - 12:00am in-game time). You can catch the Prismatic Lacewing in a net and save killing it until nighttime.
How to kill Empress of Light
This is one of the newer bosses in Terraria. The Empress of Light cannot be fought during the daytime as she will instantly kill you, but fighting her at night is doable. Build an arena that’s at least 400 blocks wide with three rows of platforms as a minimum. Have a 30 block gap between each platform. Have some decent ranged attacks and wings for increased mobility. Once you’re happy with your setup, go ahead and summon the boss.
The best way to describe the Empress of Light boss is that it is like playing a bullet hell shooter. She has a lot of ranged attacks and all of them are devastating. Here’s how to avoid her first phase attacks:
When she disappears, this is the start of the second phase. All of the Empress of Light’s second phase attacks have a smaller break from one attack to the next. Here are the ways to avoid the additional attacks:
Make sure you kill this boss before sunrise, otherwise she will instantly kill you.
Duke Fishron
How to summon Duke Fishron
Use Truffle Worm as bait with a fishing rod in Ocean biome. Truffle Worms are found in a Glowing Mushroom biome. Catch it with a net, but make sure you use a grappling hook as walking or running up to it will make it disappear.
How to kill Duke Fishron
This giant pig/shark hybrid is a very tough boss without the right equipment and arena setup. Below are some tips for preparing for the battle against Duke Fishron:
Lunatic Cultist
How to summon Lunatic Cultist
Kill all the cultists at the entrance to the dungeon after killing theGolem.Slaying this boss will trigger the Lunar Event.
How to kill Lunatic Cultist
You should only take on this boss if you’re ready to take on the Moon Lord. Have some decent armour and weapons to hand (the ones you’ve been using up until now should still be okay for this fight).
Outside the dungeon entrance are some cultists. Kill all of them to summon the Lunatic Cultist.
This is a mini-boss technically, so shouldn’t be too difficult to beat, but he is the boss that starts the Lunar event. Once he’s dead, you’re on your way to taking on the Moon Lord.
Moon Lord
How to summon Moon Lord
Defeat all four Celestial Towers in Lunar Events or use a CelestialSigil. The four Celestial Towers are:Solar Pillar,Nebula Pillar,Vortex Pillar, andStardust Pillar.
How to kill Moon Lord
This is the final boss of the main game and is a gigantic space monster. He’ll fire laser beams, sap your health, and all sorts of nasty things. But you can easily exploit this fight with some key items. Here’s what you need to do to defeat the Moon Lord for the first time:
Fly using your Black Spot mount to the one end of the map. Moon Lord will appear out of nowhere, but since you’re going at a breakneck pace anyway, you should just need to fire behind you. The bullets will even hit the Moon Lord off screen, so just keep moving and shooting and you should be fine. If it all gets too much, use a recall potion to warp back to the nurse. Eventually you’ll beat the last main boss of the game!
Event boss strategies
Dark Mage
Tier 3
How to summon the Dark Mage
How to kill the Dark Mage
This is one of the simpler event bosses in the game. After a few waves of enemies, the Dark Mage will appear out of one of the two portals. It can hurl magical energy at players, summon skeletons, and summon a large rune that heals enemies. You shouldn’t really need to build a dedicated arena for this boss, but a flat path between both portals and the Eternia Crystal can help out if you’re struggling.
Ogre
Tier 3
How to summon the Ogre
How to kill the Ogre
He’s very slow, but theOgrepacks a big punch. His three main attacks are avoidable, so here’s a list of what the Ogre can do:
Betsy
How to summon Betsy
How to kill Betsy
This big dragon appears in the wave seven and will constantly bombard you with fire attacks, dash into you, and summon Etherian Wyverns. Here are some tips for dealing with this big dragon:
Flying Dutchman
How to summon the Flying Dutchman
Pirate Invasions have a random chance of occurring once or you can obtain a Pirate Map. This map has a 1% chance to drop from enemies close to, or in the Ocean biome during Hardmode.
How to destroy the Flying Dutchman
After killing a certain number of pirates, a giant pirate ship will swoop in from the air. I recommend creating a solid platform high in the sky with a wall to the left side and some platforms sticking out of it. Once the Flying Dutchman appears, it will get stuck on the platforms, leaving it open for a rain of arrows from a Daedalus Stormbow.
If you don’t get the The Black Spot - the most desired item from this mini-boss - wait for another one to appear. Don’t kill any pirates but kill any other enemies that spawn. This is so the event doesn’t end prematurely.
Mourning Wood
How to summon Mourning Wood
This is one of two bosses that appears during the Pumpkin Moon event. You will need to combine 30 pumpkins, 5 ectoplasm, and 10 hallowed bars at a Mythril anvil or Orichalcum anvil to make a Pumpkin Moon Medallion. Activate the Medallion when nighttime begins (7:30 in-game time) to begin the event. This mini-boss first appears during wave four, but multiple copies of the boss can appear in later waves.
How to kill Mourning Wood
Mourning Wood only has one attack, which is to fire spores that light up the ground and deal damage. The main difficulty with fighting Mourning Wood is also dealing with the other enemies. If Mourning Wood ever goes off-screen, it will warp to the nearest hard surface while continuing to fire burning spores.
Pumpking
How to summon Pumpking
This is one of two bosses that appears during the Pumpkin Moon event. You will need to combine 30 pumpkins, 5 ectoplasm, and 10 hallowed bars at a Mythril anvil or Orichalcum anvil to make a Pumpkin Moon Medallion. Activate the Medallion when nighttime begins (7:30 in-game time) to begin the event.
How to kill Pumpking
The Pumpking appears in wave seven and acts very similarly to Skeletron. It can appear alongside Mourning Wood in some circumstances. Multiple Pumpkings can appear in later waves of this event.
Pumpking follows you while constantly waving its sickle hands. In addition, it will also generate spinning sickle projectiles that are rather big and do a lot of damage if you hit them.
My suggestion here is to activate the Pumpkin Moon event near a purpose built arena with multiple levels. Once when the Pumpking appears, go to your arena and keep attacking with ranged weapons while dodging the sickles and its other attacks.
If you have unlocked the S.D.M.G and have chlorophyte bullets, this can make the fight a lot easier as you can focus on dodging while the bullets home in on it. Keep firing and you should beat it.
Everscream
How to summon Everscream
This is one of three bosses that appears during the Frost Moon event at around wave 4. You will need to combine 20 silk, 5 ectoplasm, and 5 Soul of Fright at a Mythril anvil or Orichalcum anvil to make a Naughty Present. Activate the Present when nighttime begins (7:30 in-game time) to begin the event.
How to kill Everscream
You’ll need to set up a trap arena beforehand to deal with this event with minimal fuss. I recommend watching this guide from “GrobeMan” for an example of creating a trap arena for this event.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
Everscream is very similar to Mourning Wood in that it only has one attack: firing pines that deal damage. The main difficulty with fighting Everscream is also dealing with the other enemies. Much like Mourning Wood, if Everscream ever goes off-screen, it will warp to the nearest hard surface while continuing to fire pines.
Santa-NK1
How to summon Santa-NK1
Santa-NK1 is one of three bosses that appears from wave 7 during the Frost Moon event. You will need to combine 20 silk, 5 ectoplasm, and 5 Soul of Fright at a Mythril anvil or Orichalcum anvil to make a Naughty Present. Activate the Present when nighttime begins (7:30 in-game time) to begin the event.
How to kill Santa-NK1
If you’re using the above trap arena in the Frost Moon event, then the only thing you need to worry about with Santa-NK1 is the missiles this robot fires at you. He can also bombard the area with presents that hurt you if you touch them.
As you damage Santa-NK1, his face will begin peeling off to reveal a Terminator-esque visage. He’ll also get faster and a lot more aggressive. Just dodge his attacks while keeping your health up and you should be able to defeat him.
Ice Queen
How to summon Ice Queen
The final boss of the Frost Moon event is the Ice Queen. She begins appearing in wave 11. You will need to combine 20 silk, 5 ectoplasm, and 5 Soul of Fright at a Mythril anvil or Orichalcum anvil to make a Naughty Present. Activate the Present when nighttime begins (7:30 in-game time) to begin the event.
How to kill Ice Queen
She attacks at range with ice shards while moving incredibly fast. It can be tricky to land a hit on her. My recommendation is to attack when she stops moving and spins. You’ll take some damage from the shards, but you can always drink a healing potion to heal if you need to.
If you’re finding her hard to hit, make sure you have unlocked the S.D.M.G and have chlorophyte bullets before taking on the Frost Moon event. This can make the fight a lot easier as you can focus on dodging while the bullets home in on it. Keep firing and you should beat her.
Martian Saucer
How to summon Martian Saucer
How to destroy Martian Saucer
Solar Pillar
How to summon Solar Pillar
How to kill Solar Pillar
Nebula Pillar
How to summon Nebula Pillar
How to kill Nebula Pillar
Vortex Pillar
How to summon Vortex Pillar
How to kill Vortex Pillar
Stardust Pillar
How to summon Stardust Pillar
How to kill Stardust Pillar
Whew, that a lot of Terraria bosses! Thanks for reading this guide.
There are few other guides featured for the game covering the Journey’s End update that came out in 2020, so if you want to learnHow to make a bed in Terraria, learnBest wings in Terraria, or everything about all theTerraria NPCs, then do have a look at our other guides.
