Yer a Wizard, Harry! A Mage’s Guide to Terraria

Hello, I was noticing that there have been a lot of people posting about mage being a difficult class. Since this is my favourite class, and I’ve picked up some good strategies for it, here is a guide to being a mage, from the start to the end.

General strategy

Mages are different than every other class. They have insane damage and versatility, so to make up for this, they have to consume mana and have weak defense.

Some knowledge that you should have, is that your mana regenerates depending on two things: if you’re standing still, and how much mana you have left. This means that while standing still and having almost full mana, you will regenerate your mana incredibly fast. However, if you’re running at full speed with no mana left, you’ll generate almost no mana whatsoever.

So, into the strategy. As a mage, you’re gonna want to spam for 3-5 seconds with your weapon, depending on how fast it consumes mana. After this, you wait for your mana to regenerate, and you repeat.

If you don’t want to have to wait for your mana to regen, there are some accessories and potions that help.

• The mana flower is the most foolproof way of getting your mana back. It reduces your mana usage and auto-drinks mana potions for you. For this to work, you must have some kind of mana potion in your inventory. The negative side to this is that drinking mana potions can reduce your magic damage by up to 50%. That’s a lot, however, in my experience, the fact that you rarely get all the way down to 50%, and the high damage nature of magic weapons kind of cancels this out. It is however, still annoying.
• Celestial cuffs are probably the most reliable and least punitive way to regain your mana during events and normal play. They are, however, less effective against bosses. They work by giving you back mana every time you get injured, and they increase the pickup range for stars by 20 blocks. This is great for low damage enemies and low earth enemies, as they give you mana back every time they hit you, or you kill them, but you generally want to avoid being hit by bosses and they don’t drop stars as often.
• The mana regen potion is a great potion for boss fights and events. It makes your mana bar prentend that you’re standing still and that it has much more mana than it does. Basically, if makes it so that you’re always regenerating your mana at maximum speed. You still have to stop casting your spells for a bit for this potion to take effect, but it’s the easiest and most effective way of regaining mana without punishment. The only problem is that it’s a buff, and you have to constantly re-drink a potion.

So.. onto the…

Early game

First thing after spawning in a world, you want to explore the surface. Open any chests you find, make cactus armor, equip all accessories, and pray to find a wand of sparking, your first magic weapon. This weapon is incredibly mana intensive and weak, and is only for surviving until you find your next weapon. The next thing to do then, is look for the dungeon. Once you find the dungeon, look for the water bolt. For those of you new to the game, the waterbolt is one of the books on the shelves of the dungeons. If you find one high enough to not have the dungeon guardian spawn on you, good job, your next part just got a lot easier, otherwise, I hope you can dodge.

The next step is to break all the pots you see. Get a bunch of bombs, make a house, let the demolitionist move in, and buy more bombs. Use your gel to craft sticky bombs, then head to the crimson/corruption. Using those bombs, break open the shadow orbs or crimson hearts in your world. Only two of them though, then head back to your spawn. During the following night(s) waiting for your meteor to fall, your priority should be to find fallen stars, and craft mana crystals to increase your mana. This will let you use your spells more often. When your meteor falls, go find it, and mine all the ore with your sticky bombs. With this ore, craft meteor armor, and the space gun. This will be how you go around the world until you get better weapons.

Once your mana is full, and you have your space suit, go underground and find some heart crystals. Most of that ore is pointless now, but grab it anyways. Finally, with your health at 200 or more, get ready to fight your first boss. The Eye of Cthulhu.

To fight this boss, you have two options. One, is to just set up a couple of platforms and jump around shooting at it with your space gun. The second way is to set up a box of blocks, and spam your water bolt, which will then bounce off the walls and kill the boss incredibly fast. Whichever one you choose, this boss shouldn’t cause much trouble. Continue doing this with the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, Queen bee, King slime, and Skeletron, increasing your health appropriately. By Skeletron, you should have a full 400 health.

Some worthwhile loot from these bosses:

• Crimtane armor is great, with higher defense than meteor armor, increased health regen, and an all around damage boost. You may choose to use this instead of meteor armor.
• The bee gun is one of the best mage weapons pre-hardmode. It shoots out 1-3 homing bees doing insane DPS. I advise farming for this.
• The bee mount, or honeyed goggles, is the first long-distance flight tool you will have. Although not necessary, it’s a very nice mount.

Now, it’s time to confront the dungeon. The wayerbolt will be your best friend in here. It bounced off the tight confines and pierced through the rapid spawning enemies. If you weren’t lucky enough to get the water bolt at first, this is your chance to look on all the shelves. The only REALLY worthwhile loot for us mages in the dungeon is the water bolt, the shadow key, and the cobalt shield. The aqua scepter is good, but is outclassed by most weapons you have at this point. It’s now time for…

Something. Sorry to interrupt, however, I ran out of space… The rest of this guide will be in the replies.

Everybody who reads this, make sure you upvote the continuations of this guide so that anybody looking through this post see those first.

Hell

When you get to hell, it should be pretty easy at this point. Build a hellbridge for your WoF fight, and open any shadow chests you find.

Before fighting the wall of flesh, you’ll want at least one of these weapons:

• The demon scythe is a great, high damage weapon that drops from demons. It takes time to charge up, acting like a shield against melee, and some ranged attacks, and then it charges forward doing high damage. My general strategy with this weapon is to spam 8 of them in the general direction of my enemy. It generally kills them.
• The flamelash is a controllable high damage spell similar to the magic missile or rainbow rod. It follows your mouse while you hold down the left click, and shoots off in the last direction it was moving when you let go. My advice is to just spam it like a non-autofire gun. The controllable aspect is cool, but it has much better DPS if you just spam.
• The flower of fire is a Mario themed weapon that shoots out a high damage bouncing fireball. Again, just spam it.

The reason for these weapons is that these are the only things that do any damage against hardmode enemies. All other weapons you have will be significantly weakened, to the point where they are unusable.

Ok. Now for the

Wall of Flesh fight!!!

Being a mage against the Wall of Flesh is easy. Chug a couple potions, throw in that pesky doll, and run. Use the bee gun. I know you guys are probably thinking “oh, but the demon scythe has soooo much more damage”. This is true, but use the bee gun anyways. The reasoning for this is… the WoF has NO DEFENCE on his eyes. This means that the bee gun gets its full 9 damage, 6 TIMES PER SECOND!!

Now, since he has two eyes, multiply that by two. So now we have 108 DPS. But then, we have the mouth, which has 15 defense. On normal mode, this is 12 extra DPS, and 6 extra in expert. This gives us a total of 120 DPS on the WoF, which only has 8000 health. This lets you kill it in 67 seconds with no critical hits whatsoever. WITH crits, it would probably take 40 seconds. So yeah, use the bee gun.

HARDMODE

Congratulations!!! You beat the WoF. Now, get ready to be destroyed, it’s HARD.

By now you should have:

• Either demon scythe, flower of fire or flamelash
• Meteor armor
• Meteor bars
• Celestial cuffs
• Mana flower
• A potion farm
• 1 Platinum
• Mobility and necessary accessories such as frostspark/lightning boots and the cobalt shield.

Checked all that? Good, now we can continue.

The first thing to do, for any and every class, is go buy the leaf wings from the witch doctor. They’re the best wings pre-mech, and they’re tied for 3rd best post-plantera. You buy them for 1 platinum from the witch doctor when he lives in the jungle during a hardmode night. Got those? Good.

Farm the Wall of Flesh for at least the sorcerer’s emblem and one other emblem. These will be useful. Equip the sorcerer’s.

Go open all your crates from fishing. If you did fish, and you have crates to open that is… If not, go smash some demon altars. Either way, get yourself at least mithril/orichalcum armor. While doing this, fend off the monsters by using the weapons with their strategies that I gave you.

Ok. After you get yourself that armor, or during when you get yourself that armor, here are some things to collect. The last 2 only apply if you have a crimson world.

• 10 pixie dust
• 25 souls of light
• 20 crystal shards
• The wizard
• 20 ichor
• 15 souls of night
• If you like fishing, you can try to fish up the crystal serpent or scaly truffle. (I hate fishing because I tried to fish these, spent 2 hours with 30 enchanted nightcrawlers and the flesh catcher in a huge underground ice/hallowed lake, and didn’t get either of them.)

Now, with these resources, craft these weapons:

• The meteor staff: basically a really buffed mana consuming version of the starfury. Great for aboveground, does nothing underground.
• Crystal storm: Basically the mana equivalent of a megashark. Pretty good DPS, low mana cost, main purpose is to keep you alive underground when your meteor staff doesn’t work, or when you run out of mana potions (me fighting the twins:( )
• Golden shower: Great Mage weapon. Pierces a lot, inflicts ichor debuff, does crazy damage. Makes your meteors do even more damage.

Ok now that you have these weapons, it’s time to…

Take on the Mechs!

Now, we have a dilemma. The Destroyer will die like that when you fight him with all this preparation, but other than hallowed bars, he doesn’t drop anything of use to you. The Twins, on the other hand, are much harder to fight, and they can kill you if you’re not good enough at the game. They do, however, drop souls of sight, which give you the magical harp, which will kill the destroyer even MORE like that. It’s your choice for who you want to kill first, just remember that Skeletron prime will always be last.

Strategies for each boss

• Twins: for these fast movers, you want to STAY AHEAD OF THEM!! Just make a long platform out ignore platforms (lol) and run along it, dodging with your wings. Aim at spaz first, the dude who shoots green flames at you. To kill him, spray with the shower, rain meteors on him, spray with shower, rain meteors. Repeat. The meteor staff has enough damage that the potion sickness debuff won’t ruin your DPS, so you can use the mana flower if you want. When spaz dies, switch to retina. Do the same thing. Remember to use potions, and they will die.
• Destroyer: hahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahhahahahaha. No seriously. This fight is THAT funny. Just take your golden shower, maybe the nimbus rod if you have it, and just spray down his length. If you buffed up with potions, he should die to your shower of disgusting liquid incredibly fast. Hahahhahahahahhahahahhahaha.
• Skeletron prime: honestly, you should be so buffed up by potions and the hallowed armor you crafted from the previous mechs that this guy Is no trouble. Same strategy as for the twins. Just spray, meteor, spray, meteor.

Plantera

Yay! You beat all the mech bosses, tin to move onto plantera.

By now you should have:

• Shadowflame hex doll (not very useful for the fast moving mechs, but great against Plantera.)
• Golden shower
• Crystal storm
• Hallowed armor
• Leaf wings
• Lighting/frostspark boots
• Sorcerer’s emblem
• Celestial emblem (that’s what you make out of that other emblem you didn’t need)
• Mana flower (trust me, you’re not standing still, or getting hit for this fight)
• A bunch of chlorophyte bars for later

So, hollow out a big arena, at least as big as your screen, in the jungle near a plantera bulb. When you’ve done that, just chug the usual potions, break the bulb and wreck plantera. Seriously, most people find Plantera really hard, because she has so much damage, health, and defense. It’s just impossible to tank her. Well fortunately, us mages can’t tank anything anyways, and we know how to dodge. Plantera is the EASIEST boss to dodge EVER. She moves so slowly that with leaf wings and lightning boots, her melee can’t hit you, the spiky balls can only hit you if you stay near the ground (don’t) and the seeds are easy to dose if you just circle her. Just keep circling her using the shadowflame, the shower, and the crystal storm alternately. Don’t worry. It’s easy.

Farm her over and over until you get the leaf blower. This thing is OP. With the right equipment, it can get 100 damage at an insanely fast speed. This is with spectre hood, celestial emblem, and socerer’s emblem, bringing me to my next point. The hardmode dungeon.

Now that plantera is dead, spectre armor opens up to you. While invading the dungeon to get this armor, here are some tips: treat it like a boss fight. Drink potions and bust out your best weapons (the leaf blower). Just wander around killing things. See how many of the rare drops you can get before getting all the ectoplasm you need. Craft the spectre hood before the spectre mask. The hood will keep you alive in the dungeon, stopping you from wasting valuable time running back over to the dungeon. On that note, it may be a good idea to make a teleporter to the dungeon. Now grab your spectre gear, your leaf blower, and your potions, and let’s go visit…

Wait… first, let me tell you a story with a moral. Once soon a time, I was a vain mage, and wanted to look like a mage, so I wore Tim’s hat in my vanity slot. So, I was selling a bunch of useless stuff in my inventory. It was only later that I realized that I had sold my spectre hood. Back to the dungeon. The moral of this story is to always wear your spare spectre hat in the vanity slot. Anyways…

Temple

The only new thing necessary for this is a grand design and some potions.

First things first, run through the temple and use your grand design to slice the wires that will kill you. Once you’ve done that, use platforms, campfires, and heart lanterns to set up an arena. This is just a precaution, because golem is so laughably easy. Summon him, and then just run around leaf blowing his fists and head. If you ever need healing, just switch to the hood. Actually, that’s good advice for always. Wear the mask and switch to the hood for healing.

Ok. Since you beat golem with no problems at all. (I hope) it’s time for…

FUN EVENTS

The fun events in question are as follows

• The Martian madness
• Pumpkin moon

Optional

• Frost moon
• Old one’s army

The pumpkin moon is necessary because the bar sceptre is great against fishron. The Martian madness is great for the UFO mount.

So, PUMPKIN MOON

• Look up a pumpkin moon arena
• Use nimbus clouds, temple traps, and heat rays to get through it. Honestly, just have fun. This one is pretty fun, and the bar sceptre is a pretty common drop.

MARTIAN MADNESS

Remember that old meteor staff you had? The one at the bottom of your chests? Dig that out. Just hide yourself in a little bunker, and nothing will get you (no attacks go through blocks in this event). When a Martian saucer comes along, spam at it with the meteor staff. Repeat until you have the UFO mount. Congrats, you can now throw away your wings and replace them with a more worthwhile accessory.

Fishron

Honestly, at this point, the hardest part about fishron is finding truffle worms. Using the UFO and bat sceptre, you shouldn’t get hit by anything other than sharknadoes, and he’ll be down pretty fast. Just dodge perpendicular from where he’s coming from, and spam your bat sceptre. Have fun. The drop yore aiming for, the razorblade typhoon, is the best pre-moon lord mage weapon. Once you’ve got that, give the poor fishy a break and stop demolishing him. Finally, we’re on to…

Moon lord/lunar events

Firstly, if you still have trouble with he lunatic cultist at this point, go seek help. This should be NO TROUBLE AT ALL. Same with the lunar events. With the spectre hood, just spamming the razorblade and with the celestial emblem, you won’t die, and you won’t run out of mana. Just remember to not fly during the solar pillar and you’ll nebula fine.

Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the final boss as a mage. Now, there’s two ways of doing this. One, is make a house for your nurse, and go to her like a wimp every time you need to heal. This is a sad way to do it, but it’s guaranteed to work, so if you have trouble, you know what to do.

The second way will require:

• Spectre mask
• Razorblade typhoon
• Rod of Discord
• UFO mount
• Nebula arcanum
• Mana flower
• Paladin’s shield
• Celestial shell
• Celestial emblem
• Sorcerer’s emblem
• Super healing potions
• Every buff potion you can make
• All accessories reforged to menacing

So, the UFO moves faster than the moon lord while moving diagonal, so keep moving diangonal. When he shoots anything other than the eye beam, just fly upwards (most of those attacks can’t move upwards). When he fires his eye beam, teleport through it with the ROD. Keep spamming the razorblade typhoon. When all the eyes are out, stop moving and start spamming the nebula arcanum. This will do insane damage and hopefully take out the core before you die. You have to stop moving because the arcanum is too slow to keep up. DO NOT USE THE MASK. It has no effect during this fight. Good luck.

Post-Moon Lord

Yaya!!!!! You beat terraria as a wizard!!!! Keep farming the moon lord for enough luminite to make the nebula armor, get the last prism and the lunar flare. Then do whatever you want. Cya.

Hope this helped all you beginning mages out there. Criticism is appreciated, once I finish my summoner playthrough, I’ll probably to one of these for summoners.

Thanks for reading the Wall of Text.

Original Link – Continuation of discussion