Terraria – All Progression Pre-Boss

Preparations

 
Believe it or not, many weapons and armor can be obtained without killing any bosses. In the beginning, a hybrid of ranger and mage is the most powerful class, however, once you start exploring the jungle, melee and mage would be better, so the best class would be a hybrid of both of them if you are a beginner. You can do either crimson or corruption, just note that crimson is more difficult but generally yields better loot. For this guide, I will be doing corruption. This guide will be in Expert mode, though for beginners Journey Mode may be better(This guide will not be in Journey mode). I recommend a medium world for 2 or more players and a small world for a single player. Preparations aside, let’s get into it! 
 
 

Starting Out

 
First, make sure to make 3 houses, for the guide, merchant, and demolitionist. Next, if ranged, craft a bow, continue crafting until you get a good modifier. Find a stone deposit and then make arrows. If melee, try to find a desert and get a cactus sword. For all classes, cactus armor is a great starter armor set. If mage, unfortunately, there are not many mage weapons early game. Try to find wooden chests, which spawn near the surface in hope of getting a Wand of Sparking, but make sure you have wood/cactus armor before going down without a weapon. 
 
 

Finding a Cave

 
Next, try to find a cave. If you found one on your way to the desert, then simply backtrack. If not, continue going whatever direction you were going. If you run into the jungle or evil biome, then you either die and respawn or try to explore. If you end up dying along the way, go the other direction. If you are unlucky and can’t find a cave, dig straight down in hopes of finding a cave. This is called making a hellevator, a structure that will help you greatly later. To conserve time, make your hole(or hellevator) two blocks wide. To get back up, simply craft platforms (or rope if you have any) and put them at the height of your jump limit so that way you barely make the jump. Make sure you are holding the “up” key, as it makes it so that if your feet are 1 or 2 blocks below the platform, you will end up “pulling” yourself up. Also, you only have to place one block for every platform, as your hole is only two blocks wide. 
 
 

Priorities

 
Once you find a cave, there are some priorities that you should aim to get. First: bombs. You need bombs for the demolitionist, who sells grenades, which is a great ranged weapon early on. If you aren’t playing ranged, you don’t need him. However, if you are finding 50 silver hard to come by for the merchant, the demolitionist can be sold to as well. Bombs are pretty common, so you might bump into them by accident. They can be found through pots, chests, and enemies. 
 
Second priority: Hermes Boots. These are well known for being a great accessory early game and are great against most pre-hard mode bosses. You can find these in chests underground anywhere, so make sure you look out for them. If you somehow got a spelunker potion from a chest or enemy, use it, it shows all chests on screen. 
 
Third Priority: Cloud in a bottle. The ability to double jump is crucial in Expert Mode. This item can be found in the same chests that the Hermes Boots can be obtained in. However, there are many different variations, like the Blizzard in a Bottle, which is found in the ice biome, and the Sandstorm in a Bottle, which is found in desert pyramids. I recommend staying in the underground forest biome for your first caving session, as it is the easiest, but if you want a different variation, like the Blizzard Bottle, you can try the underground frost biome. Note that different bottles have different double jump heights. 
 
There are also many other good accessories that you can find in chests, like the Band of Regeneration and Magic Mirror. There is also the Mace, which is a good weapon for melee users. It can be upgraded with 99 torches to make the Flaming Mace. If you are unsuccessful, note that every single item that comes from a chest can be fished for. 
Fourth Priority: Armour. I recommend at this point full platinum armor for every class because it is high in defense. If you are a mage, you could get jungle armor, but that requires defeating powerful enemies. It is better just to get platinum armor first and then jungle armor. 
 
Last Priority: Gravitation Potion. In my opinion, this potion is one of the most useful early game. You can find them in the same chest where you can find the Hermes boots and the Cloud in a Bottle. Many times people only take the major loot, for example, taking the Mace from the chest. In the early game, resources are in key, so when you find a chest, take everything, including the chest. Many people overlook the minerals in the chests, like platinum and iron, which can be very useful to you. Another useful thing you want to look out for is heart crystals. They are not a priority because they only increase your max life by 20, and you don’t get a lot anyway. They are still great, but it is ok for now not to have any at this point in the game. Once your inventory is full with loot, you can head back to the surface, using recall potions or a magic mirror, depending on what item you got. Then again, you sometimes don’t find a cave on the first day, so if you are unsuccessful you can return home before night to upgrade your base. I recommend that you use your time to build more houses, set up a fishing area or storage system, and maybe start a new NPC housing area in the desert if you are strong enough to face the countless army of zombies. 
 
For the first days, you only need to cave. Although it is boring, it is essential if you want to progress. You need all of the Priorities, including some extra heart crystals, and the weapons below, before you go into harder biomes. 
 
If you are a mage, have your goal to get a diamond staff. All you need is some platinum bars and some diamonds. Before you do that, you should try to get a weapon as fast as possible. Mine every gem you see, and if you have enough, you can craft an amethyst or emerald staff before the diamond staff. (If your world is a gold world you can craft the ruby staff). Collect fallen stars to make mana crystals, you are going to need a lot of them. 
 
If you are melee, craft a broadsword out of any metal less than platinum or gold (you want to save those for armor). You then need to find either a Mace or some type of boomerang (enchanted would be best). Craft the Mace into the Flaming Mace. You now should be ready for the next biomes. 
 
If you are ranged, try to get a platinum bow. It is not that expensive and it is a huge upgrade. At this point, normal arrows are fine. Try to save up on jester arrows (or jesters) for EoW. 
 
If you are a summoner, you need a Finch Staff. If you are doing Journey mode, you should already have one. Since summoner is a limited class, I won’t be going over it in much detail. Get the Leather whip from the zoologist, and get yourself as high HP as you can. 
You will be getting summoner armor soon, so you don’t need a full set of platinum. 
 
 

More Exploration

 
Once you are done caving, it is time to go exploring again. We recommend going to the frost biome first, especially if you are a summoner. The frost biome isn’t that difficult, and it can offer new loot and weapons. For melee, the Ice Blade and Frost Boomerang, for summoner, the Flinx robe and staff, and for rangers, snowballs, and the Snowball Cannon. These can all be found in underground chests. After you get the weapons you need, you should then go to the corruption to break some shadow orbs. Since your pickaxe can’t break the ebonstone, you will have to use bombs. 
 
 

Blood Moon

 
The Blood Moon has around an 11.11% chance to occur once you have used a Life Crystal. It is a useful event, as many weapons and accessories can be obtained, as well as other fun items and vanity. During the blood moon, new stronger enemies will spawn like new zombies and demon eyes. It also increases that spawn rate. Fishing in the Blood Moon will yield occasional enemies that drop good weapons, like the Flying Eye Fish and the Zombie Merman. Watch out because these enemies are hard, so you may want to get better weapons before fighting them. A good trick is making a box for yourself, as well as covering up the top of the lake. This way, you cannot be attacked, though the enemies are trapped. You can dig a one wide hole to fish and attack through, or use summons. 
 
 

The Corruption + The underground dessert

 
By this point, you should be powerful enough to face the tougher biomes. I recommend starting with the corruption. If you go down a hole in the corruption and find it is a dead-end, cover it up so you won’t fall in. Once you find the underground horizontal area, locate an orb, and use the bombs or dynamite blow-up blocks. Sticky bombs and sticky dynamite are much more helpful for this, you can craft them with gel. The first one will always drop a musket, a great ranged weapon. The next orbs you destroy will give a random item out of the following: the Musket, Vilethorn, a great magic weapon that shoots an infinitely piercing thorn that goes through blocks, the Ball-o-Hurt, which is a powerful flail for melee, the Band of Star Power, which adds 20 mana to your character when worn, and the Shadow Orb, a light pet. Make sure you only destroy 2, since, after the 3, the Eater of Worlds will spawn,(although you can quickly break it and then teleport home). Once you have the weapons of your class, you can try for the underground desert now. It is very hard, a good way to prepare for the jungle, though the loot isn’t the best. The loot it gives is very varied, but not all that useful, though the Storm Spear and the Thunder Zapper are great weapons. You may want to try out this biome. (Just watch out for Rolling Cacti!). 
 
 

Exploring Space

 
Now that you are powerful enough to face the Harpies, it is time to use that Gravitation Potion you found. Make sure when you use it it is not a Blood Moon, because of increased Harpy spawns. When you go up, you can go left or right, it doesn’t matter. To be efficient, don’t go all the way up and down. Simply avoid being affected by the altered space gravity, but don’t go too low. There are also a maximum number of Floating Islands, as demonstrated by the chart below. Note that sky lakes, which are, of course, giant lakes in the sky, don’t count towards the maximum number of sky islands. From the chests in the sky islands, you can get The Starfury, a powerful melee weapon, which causes stars to fall from the sky, the Shiny Red Balloon, which increases your jump height, and the Fledgeling Wings, the only pre-hardmode wings in the game (you start with these in journey mode). Also, if you don’t get what you want, you can always fish in the sky lakes for Sky Crates, which will always drop one of the 3 items. 
 
 
 

Weapons + Armour + Accessories Checkup

 
By this point, ranger, mage, and melee should have full platinum armor(or gold). For summoners, you should have the Flinx Fur Coat as a chestplate, and the platinum/gold helm and greaves for everything else. 
 
For all classes, you will need accessory-wise: a double jump accessory or any kind, note that Sandstorm in a bottle is the best. A Shiny Red Balloon would also be good if you can get one. Any type of Hermies Boots is necessary, but the Dunerider Boots are the best, as they allow fast movement on sand. Fledgling Wings are also a great accessory for any class. 
 
If you are melee, you should have the Starfury, Ball o’ Hurt, and the Storm Spear. You should have gold/platinum armor, or if you have the time, you can get Ancient Shadow Armor, which drops from corrupt enemies and is much better. A counterweight of any color and a yo-yo string if you are using a yo-yo can be useful. 
 
For ranger, you should have the Minishark by now, a Platinum Bow with frostburn arrows, boomstick/quad-barrel shotgun, and the Blood-Rain Bow, dropped from the fished-up Bloon Moon enemies. You should also have gold/platinum armor or fossil armor(fossil armor is better but harder to get). You can also make some bone javelins and daggers if you have access to fossils. There are no ranger-only accessories at this stage, so just stick to the mobility accessories and try to fill your accessory slots. 
 
You should have the vilethorn, a ruby/diamond staff, and thunder zapper for mage. As for armor, you should have a diamond/ruby/amber robe, with gold and platinum armor to fill up the rest of the slots. You might want the wizard hat, dropped by a powerful wizard named Tim. If you run into him, I recommend trying to fight him, though he may be too powerful for you. He spawns in the caverns layer. There are other magic accessories/armor that you can buy and try out that are sold by the traveling merchant. For example, the Celestial Magnet. 
 
For summoners, you should have the Vampire Frog Staff, Flinx Staff, and the Leather Whip (DIE MONSTER!), with the Flinx Fur Coat as your chestplate and gold/platinum armor for the rest. Like ranger, there are not any summoner accessories at this point, so aim for mobility. 
 
 

Jungle Stuff

 
Finally, you are ready for your second to last area: the jungle. The jungle is by far one of the hardest biomes to explore, but with your new equipment, you should be ready. The jungle is always on the opposite side of the frost biome, so you know where to look. You may want to craft a bed or place a pylon there, as the jungle is key to progression. A few things to look out for in chests: the Boomstick, a powerful shotgun, the Anklet of the Wind, used for a later upgrade, a Nature’s Gift, found from destroying flowers, Feral Claws if you are melee or summinor, and the Staff of Regrowth, useful when farming herbs, which you will use later to get potions. Also collect lots of spores, vines, and stingers, as well as some rich mahogany. You will notice there are 3 types of structures: houses, shrines, and living trees. They contain different chests, and certain items come from certain chests. You will also notice huge hives. You will be going to this later on. With those stingers and spores, you can start crafting jungle-based items, like the Thorn Chakram and the blade of grass as well as the Amazon yo-yo(which requires rich mahogany)if you are melee, and the Snapthorn if you are summinor. If you are a mage, you can craft a full set of jungle armor. There is nothing for ranged, though you can make poison darts if you want. 
 
 

The Goblin Army

 
The Goblin Army is your way to get the Goblin Tinkerer NPC. They will attack once you have at least 200 HP and if a Shadow Orb is destroyed, so they might arrive before you have a chance to go jungle exploring. If you defeat enough goblins, it ends, so go out, kill a ton, until it says “The Goblin Army has been Defeated” in the chat. Now, you will want to go underground to find the Goblin Tinkerer. One easy way to find him is to go back and forth on a minecart track with a hunter potion until he appears. Once you find him, buy the Tinkerer’s Workshop and Rocket Boots(prioritize the Tinkerer’s Workshop). Then, return to base and do some crafting. Place down the workshop, and then craft the Hermes Boots/Flurry Boots/Sailfish Boots/Dunerider Boots with the Rocket Boots and craft the Specter Boots. With this accessory, you can craft a lot of things. I will be including a Crafting Chart in this guide. If you are mage, craft the Magic Cuffs, and if you have a Celestial Magnet, craft the Celestial Cuffs. Next, craft the Mana Flower with the Nature’s Gift and a Mana Potion. 
 
 

The Traveling Merchant

 
The Traveling Merchant is a npc that comes around often to sell you items you won’t get anywhere else. You probably encountered him multiple times by now. Some stuff he sells can be good for different classes, like for example, for mage, he sells the Mystic Robe and the Celestial Cuffs, both of which you should buy immediately if he sells them. For mage, he also sells the Magic Hat, which can be good for early game mage. For melee, the Katana can be useful early on, as a replacement for a broadsword. For ranged, once you destroy a Shadow Orb, he can sell the revolver, a gun that isn’t that good compared to the Musket. He also sells the Ammo Box, which is a buff station that gives you the “Ammo Reservation” buff. He doesn’t sell any summoner-based items, however, he does sell lots of pets. 
 
 

Miscellaneous Stuff

 
We are coming to the end of this guide, but there are still things to do. Before I fight a boss, I always want to finish the hellevator, mostly because there is a lot of good loot in The Underworld, mostly enemy drops. Kill hell enemies until you get the Obsidian Rose and the Magma Stone. Both of these can benefit every class because you can craft the rose into the Terraspark Boots. For melee, you can just equip the magma stone. For ranger, you need the magma stone for the Molten Quiver, which is a Hardmode crafted accessor. If you have an extra Obsidian Rose, you can craft the Molten Skull Rose, which is a great accessory for melee. As mentioned before, a wizard named Tim has a small chance to spawn in the caverns layer. He drops the Wizard Hat, which is extremely useful for a mage at any point Pre – Boss. If you are mage, you can also get a powerful weapon called the Demon Scythe, which is dropped from Hell enemies. I recommend getting the Terraspark Boots as soon as possible because they are a great accessory. Remember that all of the crafting ingredients you can fish for, so if you are having a tough time finding the Lava Charm, you can just fish for it using the s 
pecial Underworld bait, the accessory, or the lava fishing pole. 
 
I recommend fishing and doing fishing quests a lot, it is good practice for hardmode and you can get basically everything found from any sort of chest from fishing. It is also always fun to show off your Cell Phone to your friends. Set up fishing locations everywhere in your world, and get organized. Don’t throw the fish you catch away, because for most of them, you can craft them into potions. Although they are practically useless Pre-boss, it is good to stock up on Ironskin Potions, Regen Potions, Wrath Potions, and Wormhole Potions, if you are doing multiplayer. I like to have at least 3 pylons Pre-Boss, mostly because the more you progress the less you build, so you want to get them out of the way. I recommend the Jungle, the Desert, and the Ocean. Try to space out the pylons, like the Ocean Pylon, which will grant easy access to the far areas of your world. (If you already have a Magic Conch then don’t make an Ocean Pylon). At this point, try to explore as much of your world as possible, look out for things like Enchanted Sword Shrines and Desert Pyramids. Trap the Corruption with Sunflowers, simply find flat ground next to the Corruption and place at least 5 in a row, make sure they are all touching. 
When npcs are selling you stuff, their price will vary depending on their happiness. For example, the Arms Dealer overprices the Minishark when he is unhappy, so for him to sell it the cheapest put him in the desert biome with the nurse and a pet, just make sure there are no other npcs already there. 
 
 

Weapons + Armour + Accessories Checkup Pt. 2

 
This will be every class maxed out, to this point in the game. Do know that this is our preference, and we won’t be suggesting some weapons. You can also find the crafting trees for these items or drops on the terraria wiki linked here: The Official Terraria Wiki. You can search up the item names to learn about them. 
 
For accessories, a Horseshoe Balloon is necessary for mobility. If you are able to get all the colors, craft the Bundle of Balloons. For me, I like the Fledgling Wings more than the Rocket Boots, mostly because they are faster and they pair well with balloons. The cool thing is, if you have rocket boots, it will actually make your wing flight longer. For boots, you should have Specter Boots as a minimum. I recommend getting Lightning Boots because they are much faster and give better flight time. Try to get the best upgrade, as your speed and flight time will increase, as well as getting extra perks. An even higher increase in jump height will be the frog leg and any of its upgrades. It is obtained through fishing. The Sharktooth Necklace is also good for every class, as it increases armor penetration, as well as the Tiger Climbing Gear or the Frog Gear. As always, try to fill your accessory slots, even with stuff like a Shackle, +1 defense is still useful Pre-Boss. 
 
For mage, the Celestial Cuffs and the Mana Flower are great. If you have an extra Celestial Magnet and Mana Flower, you can craft the Magnet Flower as well, though I recommend saving the Mana Flower for later into hardmode. For armor, a Wizard Hat, a Mystic Robe, and jungle leggings are good damage-wise, but if you are going for a simpler, well rounded set just do a full set of jungle armor. For weapons, you should have the Demon Scythe, a Diamond Staff, the Vilthorn/Crimson Rod and a Water Bolt (only if you are playing pre-1.4.0.1, and there is a chance you won’t get one). 
 
For ranged, there aren’t any single classed accessories, giving you the ability to fill up your accessory slots with mobility items. As for armor, the only class set is fossil armor, though in normal/journey mode some simple ore armor will suffice. For weapons, there are many great choices. For guns, the Boomstick/ Quad-Barrel Shotgun and Mini Shark are great. For bows, you may want the Blood-Rain bow and a Platinum bow, though both are a bit out-classed by the guns. 
 
For melee, Feral Claws and the Magma Stone are good. If you are using the Amazon, then you should also use the White String and a counterweight. For armor, full platinum/gold is good, but a full set of Ancient Shadow Armor would be much better. For weapons, the Starfury, the Enchanted Sword/Ice Blade, Ball o’ Hurt,the Blade of Grass, Thorn Chakram, and the Amazon will be the best you can get. There are many, so just choose your favorites, but we recommend the Thorn Chakram and the Starfury. 
 
For summoner, accessory wise, there aren’t many class specific accessories, though the Feral Claws will help you immensely if you are using a whip. For armor, the Flinx Fur Coat is going to be your chestpiece, and just use any armor that has decent defence and attack for the other slots, like jungle or fossil armor. For weapons, by now you should have the SnapThorn whip as well as the Vampire Frog Staff as your summon. 
 
 

Epilogue

 
We are now ready to fight some bosses! With the setup we have here, you can generally use it all the way until the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, though if you see a cool weapon, try it out. Everyone has their preferences, and this is what we like, but remember that terraria is a very large game with endless different ways to play, so you should always be trying new setups and trying new things. What we like about this guide is that you don’t have to do the steps in any order. Some people like to go to the Corruption and destroy an orb as quickly as possible, which is a good strategy but isn’t that good for beginners. Hopefully, with this guide, you were able to get a sense of things and help you along on your journey. If this guide gets good enough support, we will make a part 2, covering the next steps in progression. As always, have fun! 
 
 

Resources

 
While writing this guide, we came across two sources that benefited us the most. The first is The Official Terraria Wiki. Although we know all of the ins and outs of this game, there is still some information we did not know yet, like how the Blood Moon has a 11.11% of spawning each night, or only Fire Imps dropped the Obsidian Rose. For every question we had, the wiki had an answer, which we were all grateful for. We would like to give the wiki a shout-out for being awesome. Click Here for the link to the wiki. In our opinion, the best page is the Class Setups page. The other source we used is Happy Days’s youtube channel. He had some great videos that were exactly what we needed. Click here to get to his channel and use these links for the videos we used: Melee, Ranger, Mage and Summoner. Just know that some of the videos may be outdated. When we were looking to check our work, we used these videos, and they helped a lot. Thank you to Happy Days! 
 

I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Terraria – All Progression Pre-Boss; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!