Guide:Hardcore master mode for the worthy

Hardcore x Master Mode x For The Worthy is an extremely brutal challenge, yet very rewarding.

The Start
You start off with nothing but a Copper Shortsword, a Copper Axe, and a Copper Pickaxe. The first thing you should start doing is getting enough wood to build your first basic house. You should stay well away from any slimes as slimes will kill you very quickly. It is also worth noting that this world will have explosive bunnies that will one-shot you easily, if attacked. Once you have completed your first basic house, you should craft a wooden sword and then craft and equip wooden armor. However, you should not trash your Copper Shortsword, especially if it is a Tin world as you will need it later to craft the Zenith.

For the rest of the day, chop trees and replant acorns for a sufficient supply of wood, but exercise caution since trees can drop lit bombs. When nighttime hits, the surface will become extremely dangerous so it is advisable to go mining. The best way to do this is to dig a 2-tile wide hole. You may want to place platforms or ropes every so often so you have the option to get back up when needed. Remember to keep tunnels well lit, and if you have spare wood, craft and place walls in the tunnel to stop enemies from spawning there. Should you encounter enemies, it is recommended to avoid taking any damage because enemies can kill you in one hit. If the enemy is too strong, you may consider blocking off the section it is in. Keep mining until day and remember that pots can spawn lit bombs.

When daylight hits create some more simple houses for NPCs. All that is required is a wooden box with a chair, work bench, torch, and door. Afterwards, work on making a Hellevator but do not go down into cavern levels since enemy spawn rates are greatly increased there. Look for Iron or Lead as you can then make better armor, take all Life crystals if found but only use one for the time being as using more can allow Blood Moons, Eye of Cthulhu spawning, and Slime Rains to happen (Slime rains may occur anyway however they will be far less common). Upon reaching 120 health, if there is a suitable house, the Nurse NPC can spawn.

Exploration
Go underground and look for Underground Cabins as the cabins can sometimes contain Magic Mirrors or Hermes Boots. Magic mirrors will be useful for getting out of tight situations, and also serves as fast travel to your spawn. However, note that Recall Potions have a much faster use time, which may be essential in escaping death. After looting the underground, go out to explore the world but try not to stumble into the Crimson/Corruption or Jungle as those biomes will kill the player very fast. Once players have scoped out their world a bit they should go mining some more, as they can find Platinum or Gold. Spelunker Potions or Spelunker Glowsticks will speed up the process. Getting as much Defense as possible should be a priority.

King Slime [[File:King Slime.gif]]
This one will be very tough but worth the time. Because king slime is a lot larger than normal it would be best to keep your a reasonable distance, however going too far will cause him to telsEX

melee, gem staves if you are mage, and for Summoner, I recommend that you use either the Finch Staff, Slime Staff, or Flinx Staff for the minions, and the leather whip for the whip. Armor recommendation is platinum or gold Armor. Accessory recommendations are: Hermes boots, Aglet, and any damage boosting accessories that you can find. Once you have gotten the weapons, use the Slime Crown and start running. Always keep an eye on him, and try to get in as many hits as you can! Once you have killed King Slime, make sure to get rid of the slimes that have spawned during the fight and go pick up your Treasure Bag. Now with your new royal gel, you can now safely go to the underground jungle, where the spiked slimes will not kill you.

Goblin Army
After the king slime you should have 300-400 max health and some pretty decent gear. The first step is going to the edge of the world and hunting goblin scouts until you have at least 10 tattered cloth, after heading back to base or using a magic mirror/ recall potion craft a goblin battle standard with the 10 tattered cloth and 5 of any wood at a loom (do not use the battle standard yet). The next step is to make a pit 5 tiles deep and 27 tiles long (put it near world spawn/ near your base) then put 3 buckets of lava into the bottom, next tunnel a 3 tile high area under the lava leaving only a 1 tile thick line between your head and the lava. Next, blocking up all entrances to you base and npc houses is the best idea. At this point you're ready to use the battle standard which summons the army, after the army has been summoned; stand in the tunnel under the lava and block up the entrance. If built correctly the goblins should fall into the lava and die allowing you to pick up drops such as coins from under the lava, you can run back and forth to dodge magic attacks shot by the goblin sorcerers. After 120 goblins have been killed; exit the tunnel and finish off the remaining enemies, then put blocks across the pit so you can safely walk over it (after skeletron, it is best to wire this up to a lever with actuators for later use to toggle the pit on and off). Do net get rid of this trap setup as it is surprisingly effective for for other events like blood moon, pirate invasion, frost legion, and solar eclipse. After defeating the goblin army search the underground and cavern area for the goblin tinkerer, when found and spoken to buy the rocket boots and tinkerer's workshop, then head home. Make sure to have an empty npc house for the goblin tinkerer to move into. Once home place the tinkerer's workshop and use it to craft spectre boots out of the newly bought rocket boots and Hermes boots (providing you have found and located them), then if able to craft the lightning boots out of the anklet of the wind, aglet and spectre boots do so as they provide a massive speed boost which is even more useful with wings in hardmode.

Eye of Cthulhu [[File:Eye of Cthulhu phases.gif]]
So, once you have killed King Slime you have hopefully obtained the mount and the hook, the Royal Gel is a 100% from the treasure bag; so now there's no need worry about the slimes anymore. Now, use all the life crystals you have obtained, then get a lot of platforms and make 5-6 straight lines short enough for you to jump from each platform yet tall enough to dodge the attacks. Make sure it is around 200-400 platforms in length. You should be using the same weapons as before. Once you get the Eye of Cthulhu into its third form, watch out for the dash attacks as it can kill you extremely fast if you lack an average amount of health and defense. Just keep running and dodging the attacks. Be sure to keep attacking no matter what! Once you have defeated it, it will drop Demonite or Crimtane Ore and the Shield of Cthulhu. With the newly obtained Shield of Cthulhu, you can now dodge attacks from enemies, and deal damage if you dodge towards them!

Material Gathering and/or Farm creating
At a few points in your playthrough you will encounter an item you want that is rare or that you require money to acquire. And there is one main way to get it, farming. So this is where the lava trap you used for the goblin army comes in useful, once a blood moon occurs, if you are above ground you just sit there and wait. Now it depends on what item you want. If the item is dropped by enemies from the granite or marble cave enemies then set up the same type of farm there. The same thing applies to any enemy in any biome. just set up a farm and then go afk. Now for another type of farm. Once you have gotten some gems it would be advised to go underground clear out an area around 400 tiles in length and around 13 tiles tall. fill the entire floor with stone then plant some gem corns (crafted with 1 of any gem and an acorn) space each gem sapling 3 tiles apart just like normal trees and then wait for them to grow (it is advised to afk at the lava pit farms while they grow). once the gem corns have grown full length go underground and harvest them, once you have harvested them add new gem corns (what you should do is focus on diamond and ruby gem corns as they sell for the highest price thus bringing in more money) and then go to the desert and get sand. make glass with the glass and gems and then make stained glass and sell it.

Upgrades
So now you have a steady stream of money coming in you should get upgraded tools. So start off by turning all demonite/crimtane ore obtained from the eye of Cthulhu into bars and craft 2 things, the axe and fishing rod out of their respective materials. For weapons craft either light’s bane/blood butcherer (swords) or malaise/artery (yoyos) or maybe even both if you want to, another option is to head into the jungle and collect jungle spores and stingers to craft a thorn chakram and amazon. As for ranger stick with the bows crafted from demonite/crimtane bars and we’ll get onto mage soon, but with summoner you can’t change much quite yet. Next is to use all of that cash to (hopefully) reforge your weapon to legendary (melee), unreal (ranger) and mythical (mage), then reforge all accessories until you have warding on each one for a large boost of defense now you have more defense make sure you have full platinum armor. Now for the mage upgrades you want to go into the corruption/crimson then go into the chasms/heart and find and break 2 shadow orbs/crimson hearts (DO NOT BREAK 3 YET AS IT WILL SUMMON THE EATER OF WORLDS/ BRAIN OF CTHULHU)

Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu
Go to The Crimson/Corruption and then make a huge arena above ground for Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu once you have made a Bloody Spine/ Worm Food go to your arena and summon the boss. Make sure to keep your distance from the boss and make sure to watch out for the vile spit from the Eater of Worlds, remember to continually hit the boss at all times. If in a Crimson world, you may use a flail to defeat the Creepers. Once you have reached the Brain's second phase switch to your ranged weapon of your class. If melee use a yo-yo, flail, boomerang, or any other ranged weapon for melee. If ranger use the most damaging gun or bow you have. For Corruption worlds. Be sure to have an arena that is 200 blocks wide, and when you fight Eater of Worlds be sure to stay on a platform above it. When above the worm use your best ranged weapons, the same weapons as Brain of Cthulhu. once it starts splitting into different segments make sure to switch to a weapon that has multiple projectiles (For example, prior to 1.4.1 a quad barrel shotgun may have been used for ranger). After you are done with the Eater of Worlds/ Brain Of Cthulu pick up the scales or brain tissue and make their respective armor and pickaxe.

Exploration
We should be safe enough to go exploring out into the unknown for a bit. Remember, If any mobs come nearby, Block yourself off. Don’t go into the jungle, as it is a easy way to massively fail this challenge. Don’t forget to also go underground as you can easily find red potions over there. Although one thing, DONT USE IT UNTIL BOSSFIGHTS (Unless you are literally about to die.).

'''Now we have a choice here. You can either go for skeletron THEN queen bee or Queen bee THEN skeletron. Personally I would do queen bee then skeletron, but it’s your choice. And it’s your call for your timing. Just do it eventually though.'''