Breath meter

When player's head is underwater, a Breath meter appears, consisting of ten air bubbles. These bubbles drain over time as long and the character's head is submerged. When the Breath Meter is depleted, the player begins to drown and health is depleted. Without equipment, the breath meter lasts around 22 seconds. With a Breathing Reed this time is doubled to 44 seconds. While wearing a Diving Helmet, the Breath Meter is greatly extended and lasts 1 minute 34 seconds. When both are used, the Breath Meter lasts a whopping 3 minutes and 8 seconds, equivalent to 3 hours and 8 minutes game time. The Neptune's Shell completely takes away the Breath Meter, effectively making the other items almost obsolete. The Gills Potion and Breathing Reed are still effective because the Neptune's Shell does require materials that can be difficult to obtain, such as the Shark Fin, Soul of Light and Soul of Night, with the souls being end-game materials and the Shark Fin obtained from killing Sharks, who have decent attack stats.

When the Fish Bowl is worn in the equipment slot, the Breath Meter appears because the players head is underwater. This effect can be counteracted by the Breathing Reed.

The Gills Potion allows the player to breath water instead of air, causing the Breath Meter to appear when out of water. All times that the Breath Meter would have appeared, now cause it to disappear, and vice versa. The drowning in air effect is slowed by both the Diving Helmet and Breathing Reed, and wearing the Fish Bowl in the equipment slot, will stop drowning. Use of the Breathing Reed with the Fish Bowl again causes drowning.

All circumstances regarding the Breath meter, Lava functions the same as Water.