Spectre armor

Spectre Armor is a late-game mage-style armor crafted from 54 Chlorophyte Bars and 54 Ectoplasm. It has two variants of headgear. The Spectre Mask provides a powerful magic offensive bonus, while wearing a Spectre Hood with a full set of Spectre armor will provide life-steal at the expense of dealing less damage and exhausting more mana.

The Spectre Mask is a purely offensive armor, and damaging enemies with magic weapons will launch aggressive homing projectiles from the impact site, which will fly off and hit other enemies or even return to hit them again. This effect is compareable with the Pumpkin-summoning effect of the Horseman's Blade, although it works faster and is overall less effective.

The Spectre Hood is a more support-type armor, and is very effective as part of a team. It is effective as a single unit, but since the life steal affects the player with the lowest health, it is a great support for allies who are getting up-close and personal with damaging enemies while the player stays back at a safe distance. It considerably lowers your damage output in exchange for the healing ability, however.

Tips

 * The Mana Flower is a great accessory to combine with Spectre Armor, since it allows the automatic use of mana potions so that the player would never run out. Another option is to use Magic Cuffs which provide large amounts of mana while taking damage. This makes it immensely useful in combination with the Spectre Armor during late-game invasions and boss battles, when the player takes near constant damage, since the healing effect changes it directly back into health with an additional mana bonus on top.


 * Multi-hit spells (such as the Heat Ray and Magnet Sphere) work extremely well against hardmode bosses like The Destroyer as well as when combating Hardmode invasions, such as the Pirate Invasion, a Solar Eclipse, and the Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon events. Against large amount of targets, the set bonus effects work to their maximum effect, due to the combined effect of the penetration.


 * Casting long-lasting spells (i.e. the Nimbus Rod, Rainbow Gun, etc.) is a great way to make effortless use of the set bonuses, as each raindrop counts as a new magic projectile and triggers the effect with every hit. During invasions, this effect is almost constant. With the Spectre Hood, this means that you can provide a constant flow of healing, and for the Spectre Mask, there is an endless barrage of missiles that seek out and attack several enemies at once.

Spectre Mask
 * Using the wasp gun is extremely effective, as the constant and numerous hits inflicted by wasps activate the effect nonstop to deal large amounts of extra damage. This is most effective against large groups of enemies.

Spectre Hood
 * When using the Spectre Hood, it is immensely important to use damage-increasing bonuses, as the -40% damage is devastating without them.
 * Using high-damage weapons is a very effective way of maxing out the healing effect, and the Inferno Fork is especially useful for this purpose, since it does high damage and hits multiple enemies multiple times over a large area.

Trivia

 * Spectre/Specter is another word for ghost or spirit.
 * The armorset could be a reference to Tyrael from the Diablo series, as the head and shoulders show a very close resemblance to Tyrael's armor.
 * The set's appearance is most similar to the Ghost Wings.