So, with the player in Hardmode, a lot of the game opens up and the player typically has the ability to pick what bosses they get to fight next.

With Calamity's attempt to non-linearise the game the player actually has a lot of things they could choose to accomplish, but I'll try to keep stuff in an order similar to how Boss Checklist tends to display the bosses.



I will not be adding the rules page again, since there's only 2 rules on it and one of them is literally just the title of the challenge and the other is in constant display throughout this page as well, so please check the Pre-Hardmode page if you ever need a refresher.

There is... one predicament though. Calamity reduces the damage of minions when the player isn't holding a summoner weapon. This would be an issue, however holding a weapon isn't against the rules, just using it to summon minion-slot-occupying minions to attack stuff and this just holding a weapon to not have your damage hampered is entirely fine.



Anyways, onto the changes.

At this point, the player has amassed a range of items that they are able to use. Some of these items are better than others, especially for the beginning of Hardmode, so I'll break them down into a Tier List format to give an example of how good they are going to be in Hardmode as well.

Also bear in mind these aren't the only accessories and stuff the player should have, I'm just not addressing the more standard things like Bundle of Balloons or Frostspark Boots as those are basically the same as any normal Calamity playthrough.


S:
-Luxor's Gift is useful throughout the entire challenge, as stated a few times prior.
-The Abyssal Amulet's Crush Depth effect goes from 30 damage to 200, making it a massive buff throughout all of Hardmode
-The Slime Staff's mobility from fast-falling is still useful, making it an amazing mount even now
A:
-The Obsidian Shield has knockback immunity, which is generally helpful. Most of its other upsides come later, though
-Statigel Armour's bonuses are good for early Hardmode before the player can obtain more useful armour sets
-The Shield of Cthulhu is once again here for the added mobility a dash provides
B:
-Aerospec Armour's bonuses are ok, but the Valkyrie's damage isn't really even that good for early Hardmode
-The Gel-Charged Battery is still decent, but falls off a little due to minion limitations
-Amidias' Spark gets buffed in Hardmode, but you should be trying to avoid being hit too much at the moment
C:
-The Gladiator's Locket is too risky to be worth it now, as its damage is too poor to realistically take the risk of being close to Hardmode enemies with Pre-Hardmode gear
-The Shark Tooth Necklace falls off here a bit, but it does still have a future use
No:
-Victide Armour is bad for WoF and bad for Hardmode. It does no damage and its buffs are generally not that great compared to other options.
-The Fungal Clump does like 1 damage now. Against things with several hundred or several thousand health.

At this point the player should be looking to upgrade their items and weapons in order to compete with Hardmode's increased difficulty. Normally I break Calamity Hardmode down into 3 tiers:
[Tier 1: Mechanicals, Cryogen, Aquatic Scourge, Brimstone Elemental]
[Tier 2: Plantera, Calamitas, Astrum Aureus, Siren & Leviathan, Golem]
[Tier 3: Plaguebringer Goliath, Duke Fishron, Ravager, Lunatic Cultist, Astrum Deus]

However, for this page, I will break them down further based on any useful items the player can obtain



New Items:

-The Shellfish staff is the summoner weapon with the highest base damage all the way until Plaguebringer in terms of raw numbers, so I'd recommend picking it up by defeating a Giant Clam before fighting any bosses to ensure Luxor's is at full power
-The Rare Elemental in a Bottle provides a good source of fairly consistent healing, which is good considering most bosses will take longer than normal
-The Eye of the Storm's Cloud Elemental has fairly consistent DPS and can be obtained before fighting any Hardmode bosses and thus is typically a good thing to hunt for
-The Deific Amulet provides a few useful buffs, such as a reduced potion cooldown, increased immunity frames, and 10 armour penetration; all of which are very helpful
-The Ankh Shield is the Ankh Shield and needs no introduction
-The Abyssal Amulet buffs itself in hardmode. I... might need to give it its own sub-heading.



Progression Plans:
I would recommend, at this point, gathering Life Fruit in order to max out your health (or at least get a decent buff to it) due to Calamity allowing Life Fruit to grow even in early Hardmode.
No bosses until Plantera drop anything immediately helpful to the player, so I would recommend fighting the bosses the player finds easiest.
Armour-wise Statigel is fine since the Spider Armour's buffs do not really outweigh the additional minion and mobility perks of Statigel right now.

I would personally say fight Cryogen and the mechanical bosses first since 2/4 are weak to crush depth and Destroyer, the only mech immune, generally dislikes piercing attacks which the Cloud Elemental and Luxor rune are.
Defeating Cryogen, on the other hand, grants access to Daedalus Armour; the first available Hardmode armour to provide a minion with the summoner set bonus.

Defeating the mechanical bosses grants only a few small perks, mainly the Pickaxe Axe, Angel Treads and the Blood Orange and defeating Cryogen grants new armour to use.

So in Pre-Hardmode the Abyssal Amulet was a solid item, but nothing game-breaking.

That changes a little in Hardmode, however, where it becomes the most important accessory throughout the entirety of Hardmode for this challenge (aside from just having something to deal damage).

Crush Depth can deal up to 200 damage per second and, through the Amulet, any damage source directly linked to the player can deal it.
Better yet, aside from Destroyer and Lunatic Cultist I believe, no vanilla bosses are immune to it.

While, yes, Calamity's bosses are immune and, yes, it's useless Post-Moon Lord, it deals staggering damage to half of the upcoming bosses and thus should not be underestimated, especially in a challenge where DPS is limited.

Now, with the beginnings of Hardmode defeated, the next trio of bosses awaits. Aquatic Scourge, Brimstone Elemental and Plantera will be covered here, breaking into the start of my 2nd stage of Hardmode.



New Items:

-Daedulus Armour provides a decent Hardmode armour set and provides the Daedulus Crystal minion as a set bonus, which is a lot more useful than Statigel's slime
-Normally I wouldn't show things like the Blood Orange since they're a general upgrade but... there's not much you can do at this point in terms of upgrading anything aside from just getting the Cryo Stone for later I guess



Progression Plans:
Honestly, there isn't much of a reason to fight anything except Plantera at this point since the other two have only a few drops that aren't even useful until Post-Plantera at the earliest. However, in order to keep progression somewhat ordered I'll place them here as well
-Aquatic Scourge drops the Aero Stone directly but so does Desert Scourge, so the main thing is getting the Nuclear Rod from the Post-Scourge Acid Rain event
-The Brimstone Elemental drops the Rose Stone, useful for later, and the Abaddon which is... also useful for later
-Plantera, on the other hand, doesn't directly drop anything excessively useful aside from the Temple Key and Living Shards for the Miracle Fruit, but they do however gatekeep several useful things such as the Post-Plantera Dungeon having Ectoplasm and the two 'Moon' events, plus a few items sold by the Witch Doctor

Generally, I thought about merging this and the next part since this only covers Astrum Aureus, Anahita & Leviathan, Clonelamitas/Calamitas Clone and Golem which do not give too many unique upgrades for this point in progression, especially when compared to Pre-Hardmode's assortment



New Items:

-Statis' Blessing can be obtained by farming the Pumpkin Moon, buying some items from the Witch Doctor, and exploring the Dungeon a little. Being able to cut 15 defence off of enemies is generally fairly useful if the player has accessory slots left to equip it
-The Asgard's Valor has three perks at this point. First it is a defensive buff due to its increased defence and debuff immunities, second it helps with mobility with its dash, and thirdly the dash can also be used as a means to attack enemies since it deals damage.
-Reaver Armour's summoner set bonus is having a Reaver Orb above the player that acts similar to the Victide Armour's bonus. If you can get enemies close to it the attacks from the orb can deal fairly decent damage



Progression Plans:
Unlike before, at least one of the bosses here provides an immediate buff for the player to access.
-Astrum Aureus mainly just grants access to the Starbuster Core upon defeat, which becomes more useful Post-Golem
-Anahita and Leviathan are the first boss in a while to directly drop a useful item; the Pearl of Enthrallment. The accessory minion provided is generally a more solid source of damage than the Eye of the Storm now, allowing for the first direct damage upgrade in some time.
-Golem grants access to Scoria Bars and, by extension, Bars of Life. These are useful for later, such as making the Star-Tainted Generator and an armour set.
-Clonelamitas, aside from the Chaos Stone, doesn't drop anything too helpful right now

This part will cover all the bosses up to cultist, though I will exclude Astrum Deus since it is listed as a Post-Cultist boss and because doing so doesn't affect anything.


New Items:

-The Pearl of Enthrallment as established prior is a more reliable damage-dealing accessory that the Eye of the Storm is; with a faster attacking speed, more damage, and positioning easier to work with due to her floating above the player.
-The Star-Tainted Generator allows your accessory minions to deal more damage via debuffs and its additional effects. It can be obtained basically as soon as Golem is defeated.
-Hydrothermic Armour, the summoner set specifically, grants an overhead summon that is generally more reliable and deals more damage than the Reaver Orb



Progression Plans:
Ravager, Plaguebringer Goliath and Lunatic Cultist are the 3 remaining bosses for this point in progression. I will discuss them in general order of importance
-Ravager doesn't provide many useful items for the challenge, aside from the Fleshy Geodes being a fairly good source of some useful materials
-Lunatic Cultist needs to be defeated either way, and as expected its only useful drop is the Ancient Manipulator
-Plaguebringer Goliath, however, has the potential to either be incredibly helpful or mostly pointless. In total it has 4 drops that can be useful, being its Infected Armour Plating, the Toxic Heart, Infected Remote, and the Bloom Stone. The Plating for armour, the Heart for an accessory to synergise with the armour, the Remote for Luxor's final damage upgrade pre-Moon Lord, and the Bloom Stone for the best accessory in the challenge...

This is it. The final 2 bosses before the player moves onto Post-Moon Lord. The player has their Ancient Manipulator and is breaking down the Celestial Pillars... so what are the final things to make note of?



New Items:

-Luxor's can get the final damage upgrade for now from the Infected Remote. While it is technically only an increase from 70 to 75 I do not know if the additional effects of 'being stronger the more minion slots used up' is ported over to Luxor's or not. For safety I'll say 'no' though
-The Heart of the Elements is probably the most useful accessory for the rest of the challenge once it is obtained. 5 minions who all can attack independently, a few extra buffs, and healing from the rare Sand Elemental make this accessory a must-have for the challenge
-Statis' Curse is also an option for allowing the accessory minions to deal more damage, with Shadowflame's DPS and Temporal Sadness' defence cuts. Has competition with the Star-Tainted Generator, though, due to limited accessory slots
-The Absorber's defensive buffs are always welcome, since the challenge makes most fights an endurance fest either way
-The Plague Hive is only really useful alongside Plaguebringer Armour; buffing its bees up noticeably.
-Plaguebringer Armour is the final new armour choice before Moon Lord, granting a whole lot of bees that deal a surprisingly high amount of damage



Progression Plans:
Honestly, it's just a simple path of Astrum Deus and then Moon Lord. Deus doesn't provide anything directly useful for the challenge, so no more upgrades are needed once the player reaches this point.

All that stands between you and the final stretch of the playthrough is the self-proclaimed lovecraftian Lord of the Moon...

Well, that was part 2 of beating Calamity without weapons.

We're finally reaching a point in where boss fights start becoming lengthy endurance challenges, a pattern that persists throughout all of Post-Moon Lord as you may have imagined.

As with before I will not be explaining how to defeat bosses on this page, since most of the stuff is the same in terms of pattern recognition. It's the technical stuff that's important for this run, such as what you plan to use accessory slots for.

However, next time I will begin perhaps giving expected times for each boss, since once you enter Post-Moon Lord I feel like I should make you guys aware on what I mean when I say 'endurance fight's

Anyways, that was Hardmode, up next is Post-Moon Lord. See you then :)