This guide is by no way the definitive way to play the ranger class. There are a ton of weapons, accessories and buffs that you can include in your build. This guide is simply an example of how one might play the ranger class.

It is recommended to start on a small, Crimson world. But you wouldn't be too disadvantaged if you choose Corruption. This guide was not designed with Master mode in mind; good luck if you try it on Master 🤞

The mob values such as HP and Damage are presented for the Classic game difficulty[terraria.gamepedia.com]

This guide is for the PC version of the game (version 1.4.3.6[terraria.fandom.com])

Hover over the spoiler to view the boss progression in this guide.
1.4 Boss Progression

First you'll want to acquire ~50 Wood to craft yourself a Work Bench. Afterward, keep crafting Wooden Bows (10 wood) until you get a "Demonic" modifier, since knockback is not a factor.


Next, you'll want to search for either a Crimson or Corrupted Biome and chop down the trees; you need a minimum of 75 Shadewood / Ebonwood to craft a full set of armor which will provide you with 5 defense.


In addition to the armor, consider crafting a Shadewood / Ebonwood Bow which deals an additional +4 damage over the Wooden Bow.

For your ammo, you're going to be looking at Frostburn Arrows which are crafted by combining 10 Wooden Arrows (found in pots, chests and sold by the Merchant) with a single Ice Torch. To create these, find an Ice Biome and gather Ice Blocks which are combined with regular Torches to create Ice Torches.

A Frostburn Arrow deals an additional +4 damage over Wooden Arrows, as well as applying the Frostburn debuff for 4/8 seconds which causes the afflicted target to lose 8hp per second!

A debuff that prevents health regeneration and causes the afflicted target to lose 8 health per second. "It's either really hot or really cold. Either way it REALLY hurts"

Your next stage is maxing out your health, head into the Underground levels and below to find Life Crystals; you can raise your health up to 400.
A good place to search is the Jungle biome, as it has vast amounts of open space.

This stage is all about exploring the Underground/Cavern levels for mobility items such as:
An optional location for loot is the Jungle Biome, although it features tough enemies it can be rewarding to obtain some of the rare loot which can be found there such as:

The Travelling Merchant has a 1% chance to have the Ammo Box available for sale when he arrives; keep a lookout!


The Ammo Box buff provides a 20% chance per shot of a ranged weapon not consuming ammunition. "Reduces ammo usage by 20%"

At this stage you should have unlocked the Merchant, the Demolitionist and the Arms Dealer, you should purchase the following:


An optional weapon which can be obtained in 1.4 is the Quad-Barrel Shotgun for 35 gold coins. This item is sold by the Arms Dealer in the Graveyard biome.


The Quad-Barrel Shotgun has the same damage, knockback, and fire rate as the Shotgun, but is obtainable much earlier and has more consistent DPS, assuming all shots hit. It's a great alternative if you're unable to obtain a Shotgun.

1.4.1 Changes for the Quad-Barrel Shotgun

• Damage decreased from 24 to 17
  
• Projectile count increased from 4 to 6
  
• Use time increased from 45 to 55
  
• This can only be obtained after the Skeletron is defeated

The Graveyard is a mini-biome that appears when several Tombstones are in close proximity. You need 7 tombstones (1.4.1) in close proximity to trigger special NPC items.

Another great item you got obtain from this biome is the Gravedigger's Shovel which destroys soft-tiles in a 3x3 radius from the cursor.


Your next goal is to upgrade your pickaxe and summon the meteor shower. To do so, head to the Corruption/Crimson region and break three (3) summoning items:

Which will spawn the Brain of Cthulhu/Eater of Worlds:


After defeating the boss, you'll hopefully have enough Crimtane/Demonite Ore to craft a pickaxe upgrade. In addition, the victory should have triggered a meteor shower.

The next stage involves acquiring Meteorite from the Meteorite Biome. In order to spawn Meteorites, you need to destroy Crimson Hearts/Shadow Orbs after defeating the aforementioned bosses (EoC/EoW) which are located in their respective biome. Note that if you destroy 3 then another boss will spawn.

Note: As of the 1.4 update, a meteor can sometimes be seen in the background before crashing

Once you receive the "A meteor has landed!" message, begin exploring your surface world until you find the crash site. Note that if you step on meteorite blocks, you will suffer from the Burning debuff.

"The player takes continuous damage and has their movement speed reduced until they step off the block. Damage is taken at a rate of approximately 50 points per second."

As of 1.4.1 you cannot blow up (until Hardmode) Meteorite Ore so it has to be gathered by mining. It takes 3 Meteorite to craft a single Meteorite Bar, you'll need at least 20 Meteorite Bars (60 ore) to craft a Star Cannon. Note that the region also summons Meteor Heads which deal 40 damage, but only have 26 health points.

Your next challenge is to find the uncommon Goblin Scout enemy which can be found on the edges of the world. You need 10 Tattered Cloth which will drop from 5-10 Goblin Scouts. Afterwards, you will be able to craft the Goblin Battle Standard (10 Tattered Cloth + 5 Wood @ Loom) and summon the Goblin Army.

Your next challenge is to summon the Goblin Army and defeat it. The event is completed when the player(s) defeat all goblins in the army.

The size of the army is based on the number of players currently in the world, and their health capacity:

• There will be 80 base goblins
  
• There will be an additional 40 goblins for each player that has a maximum health of 200 or more.

This means that in single player, the army will consist of 120 goblins
Once the Goblin Army is defeated, the Goblin Tinkerer will spawn randomly in open areas in the Cavern layer. He will appear to be bound at first, talking to him in this state will free him. He will then respawn as long as a vacant House is available.

From him, you can purchase the Rocket Boots (5 gold) and the Tinkerer's Workshop (10 gold). The Rocket Boots provide mobility and the Tinkerer's Workshop will be used to reforge items.

It would be useful to consider crafting the Terraspark Boots[i.imgur.com] at this point as they provide valuable mobility.

At this stage, you are ready to descend into the depths of hell. But before you do, craft an Obisidan Skin Potion:

This provides you with the Obsidian Skin buff for 6 minutes. "Immune to lava"

In addition to the potion, you should be able to craft the Star Cannon.

Note that this weapon uses Fallen Stars as ammunition which may be a hassle to gather so it's completely optional ⭐




To build a Hellevator, dig straight down (2-3 blocks wide). As you do, consider mining any near-by Obisidan which will save you time later.
Here are a few factors to consider when building:

• Protecting the tunnel from enemies with blocks on either side even through large caves is recommended so that traveling characters do not end up being attacked (and potentially knocked off the shaft's path).
  
• Lighting, typically Torches, helps a player know in what part of the shaft their character is as well as illuminating enemies and collectables.
  
• A character can travel down a rope or chain as fast as falling with out suffering fall damage upon hitting the bottom. Further more, little effort is needed to move back up

Once you've reached the Underworld Biome (Hell), jump into the lava and begin mining Hellstone. You need at least 135 Hellstone Ore for a full set of armor; and an additional 45 ore for the Molten Fury bow.


Note that it's useful to steal the Hellforge found in Ruined Houses in The Underworld, as it will be needed for Hardmode crafting.

This stage is optional but very useful in later game so it's recommended to take your time and build it. A boss arena is a dedicated area which can be used to fight basic and more advanced bosses, for a starter arena you can use the following design:
Most boss arenas have the following features:

• Campfires can be very useful for earlier bossfights, as they provide passive healing.
  
• Heart Lanterns and a Star in a Bottle can also provide useful passive regeneration.
  
• Open space to move around and use ranged weapons in
  
• Walls and a ceiling: Many players may wish to fight these bosses without having to worry about interference from normal monsters such as Zombies

The lamp provides you with the Heart Lamp buff: "Life regen is increased"


The star in a bottle provides you with the Star in a Bottle buff: "Increased mana regeneration"

A blood moon has a 11.11% chance to spawn during a full moon (and if the player has 120+ hp max). This event can be very beneficial as the Blood Zombies & Dripplers have a 0.67% chance to drop the Shark Tooth Necklace.

This stage is all about equipping yourself with strong potions that will aid you in combat. Note that this is not a definitive list of available potions but merely a showcase of some of them.

A Skybridge is a player-made structure, built at any altitude, that spans parts or all of a world's horizontal length. This will be your method of farming Fallen Stars during the night as well as an easy method of world traversal. It's up to you how far you wish to go out with your Sky Bridge; try to aim for at least for 200 blocks

A Skybridge can have many different uses, the more common ones include

• It can be used to fight bosses and other monsters.
  
• Can be used to prevent Meteorites from destroying Structures.
  
• Can be used as a fast way to collect Fallen Stars, by running back and forth across the length of the Skybridge.
  
• It can be used to more easily get around your world, especially if you add makeshift ladders.
  
• A Skybridge can make finding Floating Islands much easier.
  
• A player may find a lot of Blinkroot growing on a dirt skybridge, so having one is a good way to farm Blinkroot and mushrooms.

Note: As of 1.4, NPC sale and purchase prices are no longer exact as they depend on the Happiness[terraria.gamepedia.com] level of the NPC!

See this chart [i.redd.it]for a breakdown of the optimal NPC housing set-up!

There are many ways in Terraria to make money, and you will need heaps of it to reforge all of the sweet weapons and accessories you own. Here are a few ways:

• Bee Wax: 96 make 12 Bee Headgear (10 Gold & 80 Silver)
  
• Jellyfish are weak bait but sell for a decent price (3 Gold & 50 Silver)
  
• Collect all the Silt, Slush, and Desert Fossils you can find. Once you get an Extractinator, these can be converted to money, ores, and gems.
  
• Selling Hellstone Bars, 99 bars sell for 39 Gold & 60 Silver

Once you've acquired a substantial amount of Coins, and you have found the Goblin Tinkerer, you should be able to reforge all of you weapons and accessories at the Tinkerer's Workshop.

For accessories you are aiming for either the Menacing (Damage) or Warding (Defense) modifiers; this will depend on your skill and ability to survive battles.

By now you should have acquired strong tools & weapons, these are the modifiers you are looking to obtain:

This is what your final load-out should look like at this stage.

Now that you're armed to the teeth, head to the Jungle and find the Queen Bee, feel free to defeat her several times for the loot and coins.

The Queen Bee has a 33% chance of dropping The Honey Comb which when combined with The Sharktooth Necklace creates The Stinger Necklace, a neat accessory that can be stacked with The Sharktooth Necklace to boost your penetration, provide small healing and have bees swarming you enemies! - Thanks to Polaris for the suggestion!



Defeating the Queen Bee will also allow the Witch Doctor to spawn. He sells Leaf Wings. While in a Hardmode, Jungle biome, during night only.

These wings cannot be obtained until Hardmode but setting up housing in the jungle now is much easier than when you're in Hardmode!


As a result, you should build a small housing for the Witch Doctor to move into and consider building a miniature hellevator to reach the Witch Doctor quicker; as the hard mode jungle mobs pack a punch.




Here we fight the Skeletron so we can go into the dungeon, we need bones from the dungeon to craft ourselves a Necro armor set.
Once you reach the depths of the Dungeon we need two things:

• 150 Bones, which drop from Angry Bones, Dark Casters, and Cursed Skulls
  
• A Cobalt Shield, which an be found from the Locked Gold Chests in the dungeon.

The Cobalt Shield can further be combined with the Obsidian Skull (20 Obsidian @ Furance) to create the Obsidian Shield:


Another optional item which can be obtained from the Locked Gold Chests in the dungeon is the Handgun. Remember that you need a Golden Key to open this chest, these are acquired by:

• Finding one in an unlocked normal Chest in the Dungeon.
  
• Killing a Dungeon Slime (100% chance).
  
• Killing any other Dungeon enemy (1/65 chance).
  
• Breaking a Pot in the Dungeon (1/40 chance).

The Handgun on its own is okay, but it can be further upgraded into the Phoenix Blaster which features increased bullet damage and velocity but slightly less knockback; making it on par with the Quad-Barrel Shotgun.


The Phoenix Blaster is useful into early-mid Hardmode, outclassing many early-Hardmode weapons.
With reasonably rapid manual taps, the Phoenix Blaster can eclipse the Minishark in damage rate.

Note that the Necro Armor also requires 135 Cobwebs to be crafted. Although this armor set has decreased defense, the damage buff is in my opinion more substantial and useful as long as you're able to stay alive. However, if you feel you're lacking defense, then you can keep the Molten Armor set.

This is what your final load-out should look like at this stage.

Optional Accessory

What?! An unexpected cross-over update? Yes!

This update brings a new ranged weapon to our arsenal, the Pew-matic Horn which can be obtained as a 25% drop chance from the new boss The Deerclops[terraria.fandom.com]


This weapon consumes bullets or musket balls, but fires out visually-different item blocks which yield a damage multiplier (x0.1 - x2.0). This multiplier is applied to the base damage of the ammunition used.

The projectiles fired also have a high drop off which appears to be correlated to the visual of the item (i.e. stone blocks drop more rapidly than mushrooms)

You are now ready to fight the Wall of Flesh and unleash Hardmode upon your world! Head down to Hell. To summon the Wall of Flesh, you need to find a Voodoo Demon which carries the Guide Voodoo Doll.


Once the Voodoo Guide Doll is thrown into lava, the Wall of Flesh will spawn; it's direction will be determined by which side of the world the Voodoo Doll was sacrificed.
It's recommended to build a flat ground bridge running across hell, this will allow you to run backwards and shoot at the wall simultaneously, without worrying about lava. In addition to this, consider bringing the Ammo Box purchased from the Travelling Merchant to reduce ammo consumption.

Once the big baddie spawns, there are some points you should keep in mind:

• Attacking the eyes causes the most damage, as they have the lowest defense.
  
• Focus on The Hungry first before significantly damaging the Wall itself due to their increases in damage and defense.
  
• The Wall of Flesh is one of the few bosses that does not despawn based on player distance. Once summoned, it only despawns once it reaches the far edge of the world; if you die, you may return to it.
  
• To defeat the Wall of Flesh, you must attack either its eyes or its mouth. They all share the same life counter, so attacking any of the three will deplete the total health of the boss.

Upon defeating the Wall of Flesh, it will drop certain 100% chance items such as 5-15 Healing Potions and the Pwnhammer; this will be your main hammer for a long duration, keep it close.

As well as the guaranteed drops, the Wall of Flesh will drop 1 of 7 items, the item that were most interested in is the Ranger Emblem:


It's recommended to farm for several of these (can be done later) as we will use them for a Hardmode Recipe (Stage 4.2)

There are some essential item upgrades that you should get as soon as Hardmode begins, note that these will set you back 1 Platinum and 25 Gold coins.

The Wall of Flesh always drops the Pwnhammer upon its defeat. This allows the destruction of Altars to bless the world with Hardmode ores.

Based on the type of world you have, you will either have to destroy the Crimson Altar, or the Demon Altar; both can be found underground in their respective biomes.

Some notes on Altars

• First Altar: Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore, chosen randomly.
  
• Second Altar: Mythril Ore or Orichalcum Ore, chosen randomly.
  
• Third Altar: Adamantite Ore or Titanium Ore, chosen randomly.
  
  
• Altars are needed for crafting certain items; destroying every Altar in a world is not recommended.
  
• Subsequent Altars destroyed will begin the cycle again, though the fourth to sixth Altars will drop half as much ore as the first ones.

Once your world has been blessed with Hardmode ores, it's time to go mining. I recommend brining a few potions with you to speed up and ease the process:

This potion will illuminate any valuable nearby objects, including the ores you're after.

Your goal of this mining is to upgrade yourself up to a set of Titanium Armor. Note that you need to follow the ore progression system in order to obtain the armor:

Before we continue with the farming session, you should have enough materials from Mining to craft yourself a full set of Titanium Armor with the Titanium Helmet that boost ranged attributes. This set features the Titanium Barrier buff as of 1.4.0.1


Titanium shards spawn and rotate around the player, damaging enemies who come in contact with them.

There can be a total of 7 shards spinning around the player, each dealing over 50 damage; incapable of achieving critical strikes, and lasting 10 seconds. The shards will immediately spawn again after hitting an enemy, regardless of damage class.


In these biomes you will be hunting Skeleton Archers for some sweet loot.


* Has a 1.25% chance of dropping

* Has a 0.5% chance of dropping

The Hallow will be your next target, note that it features some strong mobs such as the Chaos Elemental and the Enchanted Sword.


The Chaos Elemental has a 0.2% chance to drop the Rod of Discord which is extremely useful as it allows the player to teleport to the cursor location!

Your goal here is to farm Souls of Light which have a 20% chance to drop from enemies located in this biome.

There are several items which require these souls, so it's a good idea to collect at least 100.


* Used to summon Skeletron Prime, the hardmode version of Skeletron.

The crafted Keys of Light will be used to summon Hollowed Mimics which when killed, drop some great loot including the Daedalus Stormbow (25% drop) and the Illuminant Hook (25% drop). The mimic is summoned by placing the key into any chest.


Drops
* The Daedalus Stormbow is a Hardmode bow which rains arrows down from the sky, instead of firing from the bow itself. It fires three to four arrows per shot, while only consuming a single arrow per shot from the player's inventory. The arrows fall in a wide spread towards the area the cursor was pointed.


Just like with the Underground Hollow, your goal in this region is to farm Souls of Night which we will use to craft the Key of Night


We will use these keys to farm Corrupt Mimics for Putrid Scent which has a 20% chance to drop from the enemy.


Drops


I recommend farming at least 2 Putrid Scents as we will use them later to craft the Stalker's Quiver and the Recon Scope

Ichor is a Hardmode crafting material dropped by Ichor Stickers and the Tainted Ghoul in the Hardmode Underground Crimson and Crimson Underground Desert respectively.

I prefer these to Cursed Bullets due to their increased damage, velocity and debuff duration.



The Ichor can be combined with other ammunition (musket balls, arrows) to create a type of ammuniton which causes the Ichor debuff: "Reduced defense"

It decreases the enemy's defense by 20 points, which effectively can increase the damage from the bullet an additional 10 hit points from its base value of 13, totalling the effective damage of up to 23.


In addition, by killing enemies in the Underground Crimson/Corruption, you will obtain Souls of Night which are needed for the Mechanical Skull and the Onyx Blaster. I recommend using Ichor Bullets alongside the Blaster to debuff enemies.


Note that you also need 2 Dark Shards to craft this weapon. The item has a 10% drop chance from the Dark Mummy located in the Crimson Dessert.


* Fires a spread of 4 bullets while only consuming one unit of ammunition, but it also fires a single dark energy projectile that explodes upon impact with an enemy or a block, or after travelling 36 tiles.

1.4.1 Changes for the Onyx Blaster

• Damage decreased by 4 (table adjusted)
  
• Use time increased from 45 to 48

This is what your final load-out should look like at this stage.

Fighting Duke Fishron is optional, but he drops the Tsunami; an execellent bow. To summon this boss you need to obtain a Truffle Worm which is a rare critter that spawns in the Glowing Mushroom Biome during Hardmode.


It's recommended to use an Invisibility Potion when catching this critter as they begin to burrow once the player comes near them. In addition, you may use a Rod of Discord or a Golden Bug Net which is faster and has a longer reach than the default Bug Net.

Once you've obtained the bait, head to the Ocean. After casting the Truffle Worm via a fishing rod, the boss will be summoned.


When hitting the player, Duke Fishron has a 33% chance to inflict Bleeding, and in Expert Mode a 33% chance to inflict Feral Bite.

"Cannot regenerate life" for approx 6-20 seconds.

"Increased damage, Decreased life regen, Causes status effects" for approx 3-10 seconds.


Bleeding can be ignored with an Adhesive Bandage or the upgraded version, the Ankh Shield.

Adhesive Bandage has a 1% (1/100) chance to drop from Rusty Armored Bones, Werewolves and Angler Fish.

The Inferno Potion can be utilised to destroy Duke's homing bubble attacks. Given the Ring of Fire will block them off completely.

There are three main drops were looking for from this boss:

• Tsunami (20%) - Auto-fires five closely-grouped arrows per shot, while only consuming one arrow from the player's inventory each time
  
• Fishron Wings (6.66%) - The Fishron Wings work in water just as they do on land, with the same speed, unlike other wings.
  
• Shrimpy Truffle (100%) - Moving through liquids causes Cute Fishron (mount) to gain a drastic movement speed bonus of about +150% (to 82 mph, the fastest of any mount in Terraria, being tied with The Black Spot), as well as providing the rider with a +15% damage bonus

The Tsunami bow will be the bread and butter of this build until end-game, it's recommended to use either the Holy Arrows or Ichor Arrows with this weapon.

1.4.1 Changes for the Tsunami

• Damage decreased from 60 to 53

With your current set-up, you should be able to defeat the mechanical trio with relative ease!

The Destroyer can be summoned manually using a Mechanical Worm at night in any biome. It can also spawn naturally upon dusk with a chance of 10% once a Demon or Crimson Altar has been smashed, as long as it has not yet been defeated in the current world.



The Twins can be summoned manually using a Mechanical Eye at night (7:30 PM to 4:30 AM). They also have a 10% chance to spawn randomly at dusk once a Demon or Crimson Altar has been destroyed, as long as The Twins have not yet been defeated at least once in the current world.



TIP: Focus on defeating one eye completely first without doing too much damage to the other one. Battling The Twins when both are in their second form makes the battle much more difficult.

Skeletron Prime can be manually summoned using a Mechanical Skull at night. It can also spawn naturally upon dusk with a chance of 10% once a Demon or Crimson Altar has been smashed, as long as it has not yet been defeated in the current world.


Consider focusing on the arms first. Once Skeletron Prime's head is no longer shielded by anything, the fight gets a lot easier. Prioritize damage on the arm which is causing the most damage or disruption, so it can be destroyed and removed from the fight as quickly as possible.

The Ichor debuff works well against this boss, lowering the boss' defense by 20!

After defeating the mechanical trio, it's time to fight the Plantera. But before the boss, there are several upgrades we can make to our equipment.

The first step in our upgrade path is to create an artificial surface (above depth 0), the Glowing Mushroom farm. This can be done anywhere on the surface level but you could save time by utilising a sky island as it comes pre-built with housing.

To build the farm you need at least 1 Mushroom Grass Seed and for a biome, you require 101 tiles covered in a mushroom-related block.

To get the Truffle NPC to move in, there must be a vacant House in (or near) a surface Glowing Mushroom biome during Hardmode. This NPC will become useful only after the Plantera is defeated, however as we require a lot of glowing mushrooms we're setting up the biome farm early on.



As we defeated the mechanical bosses we're able to craft the Pickaxe Axe:

This tool will speed up the next farming stage immensely


Your next goal is to gather at least 324 Chlorophyte ore which will let you craft 54 Shroomite Bars (with the addition of 810 Glowing Mushrooms). Note that the Shroomite bars can only be crafted after Plantera is defeated but you might as well gather the ore as you're searching for Life Fruit.

Once harvested and used, a Life Fruit permanently increases the player's health capacity by 5, turning one of the hearts in the player's health meter golden.

You need 20 Life Fruit to reach the full health cap of 500. I strongly recommend bringing a few Spelunker potions to speed up the grind.

Once you've maxed out your health, you are ready to face the Plantera

To summon the Plantera you need to destroy Platera's Bulb, which is found naturally in random Underground Jungle location. They emit a faint pink light which makes them easier to spot.

Once the Bulb is destroyed, Plantera will be summoned.

Tips:

• Clear out a large area to allow easier dodging before summoning Plantera.
  
• Using a Gravitation Potion can help the player avoid damage from Thorn Balls laying on the ground, as the Thorn Balls obey gravity and fall to the floor.

The main drop that you're looking to get (100% drop chance) is the Temple Key, which gives access to the Temple.

Once the Plantera is defeated, Truffle will begin selling the autohammer for 1 Platinum. Head to the surface Glowing mushroom biome you've created previously gather 810 Glowing Mushrooms and purchase the autohammer.

Once purchased, turn your Chlorophyte ore into bars, and then turn those bars into Shroomite bars. As previously mentioned, you need 54 Shroomite bars for a single set and 78 bars for all the headgears + set


Note that full stealth will provide you with: 60% damage, +10% critical chance, and +50% knockback.

This set features 3 types of headgear, my preferred is Shroomite Headgear for the damage boost to arrows.

This is what your final load-out should look like at this stage.

The Pumpkin Moon event is summoned by a Pumpkin Moon Medallion at any point in the night, ending at dawn (04:30AM).


The goal is to eliminate 15 waves of enemies before the event ends, with said enemies dropping powerful weapons! One such notable enemy is the Mourning Wood


This mini-boss has a 20% chance to drop the Stake Launcher (and Stake as ammunition)


This ranged weapon pierces up to 10 enemies (decreasing by 10% in damage per) with additional damage dealt to vampires. The Steak as ammunition boasts 25 damage with 4.5 knockback.

The Temple is located in the Underground Jungle. The entrance to it can be usually found in the top-left or top-right of the structure itself. The Temple Key you've attained should allow entry.

Once inside consider farming some Lihzahrd Power Cells which have a 2% chance to drop from Lihzahrds and Flying Snakes



These cells will be used at the Lihzahrd Altar to summon the Golem boss.


Before summoning the Golem I recommend clearing out a small arena and flattening the room the altar is located in which should make the fight easier.



The main item we're interested in is the Eye of the Golem (12.5% drop rate) as it will be used to craft the Destroyer Emblem when combined with the Avenger Emblem.

Note that you're able to stack the The Destroyer Emblem atop a Ranger Emblem which will increase your ranged damage by 25%!


The 1.4.0.1 Update introduced a new accessory, the Recon Scope. Although it's somewhat difficult to craft it's definitely worth the detour for the bonuses if you're using a bullet-based weapon!

The crafting path is as follows:

The Lunatic Cultist can be summoned by defeating the Cultists which are located at the surface Dungeon's entrance. The only threat from these is the Cultist Archer which deals 45-80 damage; but only has 210HP and 14 defense

Once the Cultists are defeated the Lunatic will be summoned from their portal. After moving away from his spawn point, the Lunatic Cultist will begin to cycle through three attacks:

1. A rotating ball of ice that fires six shards at equal intervals before disappearing
   
2. Three homing fireballs that explode on impact
   
3. A stationary orb similar to the Magnet Sphere that summons streaks of lightning in a straight line.

Once defeated the Lunatic Cultist will drop the Ancient Manipulator an endgame crafting station used to craft items from Luminite and Lunar Fragments.

In addition, the defeat of the boss spawns the Lunar Events which summon the different Celestial Pillars in four different sections of the world.

Each Lunar Pillar shows a large moon in their background and spawns several unique enemies at high spawn rates, with one corresponding Celestial Pillar in each. These areas can be found on the minimap via icons that represent each of their Celestial Pillars.

The Solar Pillar is the melee-themed Pillar, with minions that bear strong defensive abilities and deal with heavy contact damage. It is often the hardest to tackle as a ranger due to the Crawltipede forcing you to stay grounded.

• The Crawltipede is a long, fast-moving worm-like enemy that can only be damaged on its tail. It is passive while the player has blocks under their feet, and only starts attacking once the player takes flight. While it has high health, damage against it is multiplied by 10.
  
• The Sroller can curl into a ball and roll at the player, potentially dealing a large amount of damage on contact.
  
• The Corite is a flying enemy that can shroud itself in fire and charge towards the player at high speeds, travelling through blocks.
  
• The Selenian is a ground-based enemy that wields two flaming swords. It can curl up and fly towards the player at high speed. When it does so, it will reflect certain player-fired projectiles.

The Vortex Pillar is the ranger-themed Celestial Pillar, with fast, mobile minions capable of long-ranged projectile attacks.

• Storm Divers shoot a small volley of projectiles that deal very high damage.
  
• Alien Queens can fire stingers that cause the Distorted debuff, which causes the player to be unable to fly upwards or fall downwards for a few seconds, forcing them to only be able to move horizontally.
  
• The Alien Queen spawns 3 Alien Larvae when killed, which will grow to Alien Hornets and into more Alien Queens if they are left for too long.
  
• Vortexians are fighters that, on death, summon a portal which shoots a lightning bolt that deals relatively low damage.

The Vortex Pillar drops 12-60 Vortex Fragments which should allow you to craft a weapon upgrade.

Constantly shooting with the Phantasm will gradually increase its firerate from once per 24 frames, up to once per 18 frames. The best modifier for this weapon is Unreal.

I recommend using Chlorophyte Bullets with this weapon as they home in to the nearest enemy



The Nebula Pillar is the mage-themed Celestial Pillar, with minions capable of flight, teleportation, and other unusual attacks and abilities

• The Nebula Floater shoots lasers that move very fast and deal large amounts of damage. It will teleport around the player, making it more difficult to dodge its projectiles.
  
• The Brain Suckler can attach itself to the player, inflicting the Obstructed debuff and dealing damage.
  
• The Evolution Beast shoots projectiles that chase the player and deal high damage multiple times.
  
• The Predictor shoots 4 fast-moving, very high-damage projectiles at once.

The Stardust Pillar is the summoner-themed Celestial Pillar, with large swarms of enemies that spawn smaller, weaker entities to attack.

• The Milkyway Weaver is similar to the Crawltipede by flying and attacking players in midair, but it is smaller and can only be damaged on the head.
  
• The Star Cell enemy, if killed, will split into smaller sized versions that grow into full sized versions after a few seconds, which can cause enemies to fill the screen.
  
• The Flow Invader will summon smaller creatures around it, which will shoot themselves like projectiles at the player after there are three around the Flow Invader. The smaller creatures around it will become projectiles and shoot towards the player after the Flow Invader is killed, and can deal massive damage.
  
• The Twinkle Popper, along with dealing contact damage, releases a small enemy called a Twinkle that chase players and explode to deal heavy damage.
  
• The Stargazer runs after players and conjures powerful lasers to damage them.

After defeating all four Celestial Pillars, the screen will start to vibrate and go in and out of focus, and the music volume will lower before eventually going completely silent. A minute after the Pillars' defeat, the Moon Lord will spawn.

This is the goto build when the 1.3 was the latest version, it's defence and dmg is based on the modifiers you put on your accessories. I personally recommend either Warding for survivability or Menacing for damage.

Note, if you're playing in 1.4 there's no real reason why you shouldn't upgrade the Magic Quiver to the Stalker's Quiver.



Max Defense: 51 (armor) + 4 (shield) + 20 (full warding) = 75 defense






Max Defense: 51 (armor) + 7 (Celestial Shell) + 20 (full warding) = 78 defense

If you are struggling or don't mind mixing your pure archer build then you might like the idea of combining the benefits of several sets in this build.

The main change in this build is the Valhalla Knight's Breastplate which provides you with 24 defense, 30% increased minion damage and massively increased life regeneration. This allows us to be a more tanky ranger, and take on a few extra hits.

To further profit from the Breastplate we can take the newly introduced Terraprisma:
This weapons damage will be further boosted by 30% thanks to the Breastplate which puts its damage at 117!

An alternative weapon I've mentioned is the Electrosphere Launcher due to its constant DPS projectile type which lasts for 8 seconds.

At the end of the day, the builds depend on many factors such as the modifiers you have, the buffs you use and even boss RNG. Don't feel restricted to mix and match your best equipment, explore and have fun with your build ⚔

The arena should be well lit and contain the essentials such as Campfires, Heart Lanterns and Stars in Bottles (if you're using mana weapons; mixed build).

If you have access to the Mechanic consider adding traps, and Heart Statues as an additional healing source.

If you have access to the Shrimpy Truffle (an expert mode drop from Fishron) then consider waiting till it rains (1.4) or building a water area to trigger the +150% movement speed buff

In addition, it will help to make the base of the arena out of Asphalt Block as it provides a movement speed buff atop speed-boosting accessories. It's crafted with Stone Block (2) and Gel (1) at the Blend-O-Matic


The Moon Lord has two hands and a head that must be killed before his core becomes available for attack. Note that as of 1.4 the death ray goes through blocks, and cannot be cheesed with traditional methods!


This boss is able to inflict the Moon Bite debuff which prevents lifesteal and lasts for 14 seconds. Note that this debuff can be cured by simply going to the nurse

The Rod of Discord is near essential as it instantly teleports the player to the mouse cursor. This is used to avoid Moon Lord's Phantasmal Death Ray

If you don't feel like fighting the Mood Lord legitimately there are some methods you can use to make the fight much easier.

A Hoik is a sawtooth series of sloped blocks, sometimes referred to as "teeth", which can rapidly move entities across distances. You can set them up in a radius around the moon lord to create an infinite moving loop.

As previously discussed it's possible to use the speed buff of Shrimpy Truffle to dodge most of Moon Lord attacks

By using the The Black Spot its possible to out run the boss whilst flying in one direction and using homing ammo.

There are several items were interested in gathering from the Mood Lord, except the obvious Luminite Ore

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If you've made it this far hats off to you 🥳, you have officially completed Terraria! Now for the fun part - endgame builds!

This build is just a whole-lotta fun, and what a reward for beating the game than launching fireworks at your foes 🎇!

We're using Mini Nuke I instead of Mini Nuke II because it doesn't destroy tiles, but if you want to destroy your world - then use Mini Nuke II 😉

Extra Accessories
Feel free to mix and match these if you're in Expert/Master mode!




The bow build is a slightly modified Rocketeer build as in the end game there are a limited number of accessories you can mix and match, the main difference is the weapon used (obviously) and the 3 quivers we utilise for the arrow/dmg buffs


As this build doesn't have flight capabilities, I recommend using The Black Spot mount for mobility.

The best modifier for the bow is Unreal. Since it does not benefit from speed modifiers, Godly and Demonic provide the same DPS bonus as Unreal.

The best modifiers for the accessories are either Menacing or Warding - dependant on your playstyle

This section outlines any 1.4.1/1.4.2/1.4.3 changes which affect this guide as well as any general changes to the guide

• Reaver Shark's power has been decreased from 100 to 59, making it essentially useless when going after obsidian. This has been updated in the guide, the next best alternative comes from EoC/Eater of Worlds. (29/05/2020)
  
• Celebration MK2 an end-game weapon, will be considered for one of the final viable builds (03/06/2020)
  
• Added Quad-Barrel Shotgun as an optional weapon (05/06/2020)
  
• Added Gravedigger's Shovel as an optional tool (21/06/2020)
  
• [Bug-fix] Fixed an issue where Star Cannon's projectile could not land critical hits, and wouldn't always receive proper stat bonuses from player equipment (07/07/2021)
  
• [Bug-fix] Fixed an issue where Star Cannon's projectile could not be fired through platforms (07/07/2021)
  
• Added Pew-matic Horn to Section 2.1 as an optional weapon (02/12/2021)

• Titanium Armor - The Titanium Barrier buff has been discussed in Stage 3.1 (30/05/2020)

• Added information about Duke Fishron (30/05/2020); including drops and tips
  
• Added mechanical bosses to Stage 3.1 (30/05/2020)
  
• Added Plantera fight to Stage 4 (31/05/2020)
  
• Added Golem fight to Stage 4.2 (31/05/2020)
  
• Added Lunatic Cultist fight to Stage 5 (31/05/2020)
  
• Added Lunar Event to Stage 5.1 (01/06/2020)
  
• Added Pre-mood lord builds to Stage 5.2 (02/06/2020)
  
• Added Moon Lord battle to Stage 6 (03/06/2020)

• With the additional features for Putrid Scent such as the Recon Scope and the Stalker's Quiver the hardmode farming will be altered to include Corrupt Mimics as these accessories provide a strong (20%) increase in damage
  
• Celestial Starboard will be considered for one of the final viable builds
  
• Terraspark Boots have been added to Stage 1.2
  
• Stalker's Quiver discussion added (02/06/2020)
  
• Black spot mount discussed in Stage 5.3

• Added discussion about Happiness levels of NPCs and the optimal pylon set-up for NPC housing. See Stage 1.5 - Money (29/05/2020)
  
• Added boss progression guide to introduction (29/05/2020)
  
• Updated potion times to reflect actual values from in-game data (30/05/2020)
  
• Added boss kill gifs to some bosses (30/05/2020)
  
• Added final stages (empty) to the guide as a preview of what is to come (31/05/2020)
  
• Added End-game builds to Stage 6.1 (03/06/2020)

This section outlines changes which are relevant either to the guide or rangers in general

Quad-Barrel Shotgun

• Damage decreased from 24 to 17
  
• Projectile count increased from 4 to 6
  
• Use time increased from 45 to 55
  
• The Arms Dealer now only sells this after Skeletron

Onyx Blaster

• Damage decreased by 4
  
• Use time increased from 45 to 48

Tsunami

• Damage decreased from 60 to 53

Chlorophyte Bullets (Nerf)

• Damage decreased from 10 to 9

Cursed Bullets (Buff)

• Increased speed to match Ichor Bullets
  
• Also, see Debuffs section for details of Cursed Inferno changes

Crystal Bullets (Nerf)

• Only generate 2 shards on impact instead of 3

Jester Arrows (Nerf)

• Applies a 10% damage penalty to the next hit for each enemy a projectile pierces

Graveyard Threshold (Buff)

• The number of graves required to trigger both a full graveyard and the various levels of graveyard ambience has been increased by 1

Meteorite Ore (Buff)

• While still immune to explosions under normal circumstances, like other materials, they will become breakable with explosives after entering Hardmode

If you have suggestions there are 3 ways you can suggest them:

• Leave a comment below with the suggestion
  
• Add me on steam and DM me the suggestion
  
• Add me on discord: Twi#5077