Terraria Beginner’s Guide, Part 3 – Fighting giant eyeballs.

This guide is the third part of our Terraria guide (read more).

This week, in our Terraria Guide series we will be looking at fighting your first Boss. Although I will state how I beat my bosses there are also other methods, and slight variations. It’s really down to how skilled you are and what gear you managed to scavenge or make. Let us begin, how to defeat the Eye of Cthulhu?

Give the Eye of Cthulhu a red eye!

 Most bosses can only be fought during the night, and the Eye of Cthulhuis no exception. The moment day comes the Eye of Cthulhu will leave… and your attempt in killing it will be a failure. You can summon the Eye of Cthulhu the next night, and as such, it is best to summon it at the start of the night. You know the night has started when the music changes, but in order to be certain of the time you need to be close to the surface. There are three ways the Eye will appear. One way is to have over 200 health, in which case the Eye of Cthulhu will arrive some time after, during the night. The second (lengthy) option, is to have four NPCs on the map, not counting the the Old Man (near the dungeon). So, the Guide is one of them, and then you need three other “stores”. If you do not want to wait, the simplest option is to use a Suspicious Eye. These can be made using lenses, at a Dark Altar, or found in Golden Chests. It is likely that at first you will find plenty of them. It is important, that once you summon an Eye of Cthulhu, that you do not summon another one, it means instant death.

Before we summon the Eye of Cthulhu, we should prepare, right? Let us talk about the preparations. Like mentioned in the previous guide you should aim at having top tier armour, weapons and tools. Gold is the best you can have without having to fight bosses, but I defeated the Eye of Cthulhu wearing Silver armour and using Gold weapons. The benefit of making Golden armour, is that it is later used to make one of the best suits of armour, much later on, Molten armour. When fighting the Eye of Cthulhu you will also realise, that it is a floating monster. It will most often be above you, but also bury itself underground, only to spring up where you are standing. Some of the expert players suggest building an Arena to fight Cthulhu. Essentially, you create a big box for you to move around in, so that you have easy access to hitting the Eye, using spells, arrows or even melee weapons. But, it is just as possible to defeat it on flat ground, outside your house. But if you opt for the non-arena option, use distance weapons.

Is it safe?

The Golden Bow will act as your cart horse. It is the strongest bow you can make, before you start farming bosses. Together with the bow, you have to decide on ammunition, and flaming arrows are a good bet. To make ordinary wooden arrows you need wood, and stone (plenty of both around). Then, in order to make flaming arrows you need torches and wooden arrows. Once you have more than enough flaming arrows (I would say, around a stack of a hundred) you have your weapon. Other weapons can also be used. Shurikens and Throwing Knives are good, because they are fast, and they pass through multiple enemies, meaning that you could harm the Eye of Cthulhu twice, with a single shuriken or knife. Meanwhile flaming arrows could set the Eye of Cthulhu on fire, causing a bit more damage to it, than they would otherwise. I do not recommend melee, because reaching the Eye will be problematic, and more often than not, you do not want to get hit.

Potions I would say that are “Must Haves” include the Ironskin Potion, greater healing potions, and if you decide on using ranged weapons, Archery Potions (increased Ranged speed and damage). The Ironskin potion reduces any damage you get to a minimum, allowing you to survive multiple hits from Cthulhu easily. Meanwhile, having a few greater healing potions will keep you safe, in case you do suffer too much damage. There are numerous magical items which could help you in fighting Cthulhu, but in essence you want something to move around quickly. Hermes boots, cloud in a bottle and the grappling hook will help you greatly.

Not a situation any of us would like to end up in.

 Let’s talk about the fight itself. The Eye of Cthulhu has a lot of health, that is the first thing you will notice. If you drank the Ironskin potions, and have silver or gold armour touching the eye will not cause much damage. At first the eye will float around, and try smacking into you, while also summoning small helpers from the centre of its iris. These helpers will do a bit of damage to you, but they die from a single arrow or swing of any blade. If the eye is directly above you, keep firing at its iris. Any smaller helpers you kill could drop “hearts” which replenish your health. If you did not prepare an arena for yourself the Eye will often “melt” into the ground, but if you hold your mouse underground it will highlight Cthulhu, but often, expect it to spring up wherever you are standing, and chase you.

After losing about half of its health the boss fight will go into its second stage. The Eye of Cthulhu will look less like an eye, and more like an… eyeball with teeth. It will no longer summon smaller eyes, and its defensive value drops, while its attack value increases. Although it will be easier for it to damage you, you in turn will have an easier time finishing it off. Just keep dodging its attacks, and fire away your arrows/knives/shurikens and everything will be fine. Once the eye dies it will drop two items of high value to you. Demonite Ore, and Unholy Arrows. Demonite Ore is used for armour and tools which are stronger and better than Gold Armour/tools. Unholy arrows are mildly high quality arrows which will make future boss fights much easier.

Collecting the spoils from your boss battle. Remember to collect all the ammo that wasn’t used up in the surrounding area!

 What should you use the Demonite Ore for? Turn it into bars, and then make yourself a Battleaxe of the Night. It is just like an ordinary axe, and can chop down trees, but it also makes for an excellent weapon. If you are lucky and the forged Battleaxe has a “Demonic” property (like mine did) it will be a weapon capable of defeating most creatures with just a few blows.

It should be noted, that once you defeat the Eye of Cthulhu you can summon it again. All you need is a Suspicious Looking Eye which you can create at an Altar, all you need are 6 lenses. As such, once you get even better gear, and even better weapons you can “Farm” the Eye of Cthulhu for Demonite Ore. But, now comes the next step. You have an “awesome” weapon, you have decent gear, what now? Now, we explore further… we go into the jungles, and into the Underworld, we look for treasure worthy of our attention and prepare for the Eater of Worlds. Stay tuned for the next part of the Terraria Guide.

This guide is the first part of our Terraria guide (read more).

Rating:7/10 Pros:Simple!
Fun!
You can't go any more "sandbox" than this. Cons:Can get boring quickly.
Best with friends. Game producer's website:RE-Logic Official website:Terraria Website Game available at: