User blog:Mathmagician/Hard Mode Bosses Solo Walkthrough

Introduction
Hey everyone! Mathmagician back again with another single-player walkthrough. This time I'm going to show you a simple strategy that works against every single Hard Mode boss. No, I'm not going to be using Gravitation Potions and flying around like a madman. No, I'm not going to be using Hallowed Armor, the Magical Harp or any other gear that you can't get without first beating one of the bosses. And, in fact, I'm going to take them on all at the same time (but you don't necessarily have to).

Offense
I'm going to need a powerful weapon if I want to kill the bosses before dawn. One particularly good option is the Crystal Storm spell, which isn't that hard to craft. It shoots insanely fast and has very high DPS (damage per second). Next, I'm going to power up my Crystal Storm with virtually every bonus known to mankind: The results are quite nice--maybe not the best ever, but they'll suffice: 48 damage with 22% critical. Also note that I have Thorns Potions to help out in the damage department a bit.
 * Any damage-boosting prefix--Deadly, in my case
 * Mana Flower (so that potions are used automatically)
 * Sorcerer Emblem (+15% magic damage)
 * Magic Power Potion (+20% magic damage)
 * Bowl of Soup (+10% magic damage, +1% critical)
 * Clairvoyence from the Crystal Ball (+5% magic damage, +2% magic critical)
 * Adamantite Armor Mage Set Bonus (+11% magic damage, +11% magic critical)

Defense
To minimize the amount of damage that I take, I'm going to do 2 things: 1) Have a reasonably high defense rating, 2) Make use of Hellstone Bricks wear a Cross Necklace. Notice that "dodge" didn't appear in that list. That's because I'm not going to be dodging the bosses attacks very much. In fact, I'm not going to jump a single time during the battle. The Cross Necklace will make me invincible for about 1 second after I take damage from something. And if what I just got hurt by was fire damage from some Hellstone that I was walking on, then that effectively means that over a 1 second period of time I only took 1 point of damage.

Now, I will be taking damage from the bosses sometimes as well. To mitigate that, I'm wearing full Adamantite Armor, and I've brought the melee helm with me as well. The melee helm gives 18 more defense than the mage one, which is very significant. Also, every single one of my accessories has been reforged with a good defense bonus. After drinking an Ironskin Potion, which I have plenty of, you can see that my defense rating is 54. I can optionally boost it up to 72 by switching out helmets. Of course, I'm wearing a Cobalt Shield so that I don't take knockback.

Healing
My healing options consist of 4 Heart Statues and a sufficient number of Greater Healing Potions. I also have a Philosopher's Stone to reduce the cooldown of healing potions. Let's do a little bit of math. Four Heart Statues are worth 8 hearts every 8 seconds, which is the same thing as 1 heart per second. So, in 45 seconds, that's 45 hearts. A greater healing potion is going to be worth 7.5 hearts once every 45 seconds. That means I'll be getting 52.5 hearts every 45 seconds, or roughly 1.17 hearts every second, which translates to a healing rate of about 23 life restored per second.

Now, with the Cross Necklace, I can only take damage once per second. So the real question is: Considering my defensive setup outlined above, will I be taking less than 23 damage per second on average... or more? It turns out, the answer is less. But it's very close. That means that I will need make sure to utilize my healing options as effectively as possible. If I'm below full health, I need to quickly step on those pressure plates and grab those hearts. If my health drops into the 250-300 range, I need to immediately consume a Greater Healing Potion.

The Summoning
Alright, let's get this party started. I've summoned all 3 bosses, so for better or worse, it's done. I'm going to begin by targeting The Destroyer. Notice that I've already activated all of my buffs.

1 Minute Later...
Based off of the timings on my buffs and the position of the moon, I've been fighting for about 1 minute. Just slowly walking left and right, picking up hearts from the statues and probes. I haven't even had to use a health potion yet. The Destroyer is down to almost half health, so this is good. Remember, night time lasts 12 minutes.

3 Minutes Later...
The moon is hiding behind Retinazer, which means the night is about 1/4 over. The Destroyer died some time ago, Spazmatism is below half health because he's in his second form, and Skeletron Prime has lost about 7000 HP. I've also replenished my buffs.

One thing that's quite scary is the fact that my health has plummeted down to 250 and I'm still on potion cooldown--that's largely because The Destroyer is gone, so I'm taking damage at a greater rate. No need to panic though, I'm just going to equip the melee helm for extra defense, work a bit harder at collecting those hearts, and try to walk away from Skeletron Prime's headspin attack a bit. It does 100 base damage, which is very, very painful. I'm going to finish off Spazmatism now, since he's an easy target.

6 Minutes Later...
Once again the moon is hiding behind Retinazer, this time directly at the top of the screen, so the night is about half over. Spazmatism is dead, Retinazer's in his second form, and Skeletron Prime is on his last legs. Or arms, rather. In any case, you can see that my health has stabilized thanks to the extra defense. I'm just going to finish off Skeletron Prime next.

8 Minutes Later...
Good riddance, Skeletron Prime. Now I can finally re-equip my mage helm and finish off The Twins. Or what's left of them, at least.

28 Days Later. Just Kidding.
And that's a wrap. Now to go dig up those souls that The Destroyer probably dropped somewhere underground...

The Destroyer
If you just want to take on The Destroyer by himself, you can easily do it with this strategy. You don't even need Heart Statues. Just kill the probes and collect the hearts that they drop instead. Choose whatever weapon suits you, but make sure that you have enough defense.

The Twins
If you only want to fight The Twins, this strategy will make mincemeat out of them. You won't need all 4 Heart Statues. If you have enough defense (75+), you technically don't even need any Heart Statues at all as long as you stand on/in the Hellstone, Meteorite, Sand, etc. and as long as your weapon can kill them quickly enough.

Skeletron Prime
This guy is the bringer of pain. If you're not going to dodge him, then you'll really need some powerful healing. That's why I have 4 Heart Statues in the first place. As long as you have enough healing, fighting Skeletron Prime at nighttime isn't a challenge.

Additional Notes

 * For those of you wanting to kill all 3 bosses at the same time, I cannot emphasize enough how important each piece of gear that I'm using is. If you try this strategy, but you forget to bring, say, Magic Power Potions and the mage helm, you may not kill the bosses before dawn. If your healing/defensive setup is worse than mine, you may die. You have been warned.


 * If you have access to them, things like Explosives, Hallowed Armor, Magical Harp, more Heart Statues, etc. can make boss battles much easier. The strategy I used in this walkthrough is merely sufficient, not necessarily optimized.