Guide:Surviving in the Jungle

Overview
The Underground Jungle is one of the tougher areas initially available in Terraria, as it has some of the harder monsters in the pre-hardmode game. Its caverns are relatively large but also fairly dark, due to jungle vines tending to cover most of your torches.

If you are new to Terraria, then you will find exploring the Jungle very challenging. For your efforts you can be rewarded with the best items you can get without fighting bosses, and gold seems unusually likely to spawn in the jungle's mud, but new or inexperienced players will very likely experience death in this biome while exploring its depths in search of treasure. For that reason, it may be worth preparing a spawn point close to the jungle.

The enemies here deal more damage than most, and they tend to have quite a bit of life too. Man Eaters will reach out to you through walls and the Hornets can shoot their stingers at you which may inflict the Poisoned debuff. Even the lowly Jungle Slime packs a lot more life than most slimes. Therefore, navigating the Jungle safely usually entails taking it slow and not trying to run past enemies, and tunneling around dangerous areas to reach the treasures. The jungle is in fact so treacherous that nothing short of hardmode-tier will allow one to run through it without rapid decreases in health.

As far as the "progression" of the game goes, the jungle should probably be tackled after you can easily handle the Corruption or Crimson, but before the Underworld.

After Hardmode has been enabled, the Jungle has become even more fearsome with v1.2. At the same time, the highest-tier material, chlorophyte, is also available, as are Life Fruits. There are also two new bosses and the Lihzahrd Temple to conquer, giving the player plenty of reason to return after hardmode.

Fear the Darkness
There are two principal threats in the Underground Jungle - Hornets and Man Eaters. The greater threat, by far, is Man Eaters. Hornets will fire stingers at you that you may want to run and jump to dodge, but when initially exploring the jungle, that may mean jumping into darkness - and into the waiting jaws of a Man Eater. Don't go anywhere you can't see, even if it means taking a few hornet stings to stand still. If you're in trouble, "bunker down" by putting a shell of dirt or other expendable material around you. This can give you time to regenerate, and let you place some extra torches.

Man Eaters are particularly dangerous for early game players. They can tear apart a unprepared player in seconds so there are a few things worth considering. They will bob back and forth a short range a couple times, and then suddenly extend forward a longer distance. You can take advantage of the predictability of this pattern by staying out of range, and waiting for it to come to you to attack it.

If you do engage one in the open, be careful about knockback as well, as it can cause you to be pushed back and forth between several Man Eaters (a Cobalt/Obsidian Shield will prevent this). Decent armor is also worth taking to give yourself some sort of buffer for the Man Eaters' powerful attacks (silver or higher is recommended).

It is possible to kill Man Eaters better if your reach is long- grab a spear or trident early on, and take advantage of their sweeping motions to dance in and out as they reach out and miss by inches. Spears work well against Man Eaters because their knockback resist keeps them still while they take the full damage of a single spear lunge, which is your goal in this scenario. You should not have to get TOO close but if you do keep to the spear- its stronger than most early-game swords if played right.

The Slow Method
Even fairly low-level players can survive the Underground Jungle with fairly good odds so long as you are willing to do the "bunker crawl" method. Simply explore the jungle by either digging through the mud, or else placing blocks to keep yourself "sealed" inside a protective layer of dirt. Hornets cannot fly or fire through dirt. Man Eaters can pass through dirt, but they are rooted to one position, and have predictable paths. Simply keep extending your bunker or tunnel until you get to the position where your sword can just barely reach the Man Eater when it bobs outwards, and hit it when it comes within range. Doing this, you can eventually chip away at its health with even the weakest of weapons. A good weapon for this method is however the Vilethorn, since it can fire through the walls you make.

As you go, place torches everywhere - this gives you the chance to actually run and fight later without worrying so much about the darkness.

An added bonus to this method is that you will probably find more gold burrowing through the mud than you will dancing around in the open.

Reworking the Terrain
Similarly to the previous, just work upon trying to cut away any major obstacles to your movement, and light up the place as well as possible. Build "working bunkers" of dirt or mud to give yourself breathing room, and flatten terrain, drain water, add torches, and otherwise make a better fighting platform to explore.

Then, when ready, break down your bunker, and go fighting again. Rinse and repeat as you advance.

From the Comfort of Home
A more work-intensive method, but one of the safest available, a player can actually just hoard (or craft) mud and a few Jungle Grass Seeds and simply build their own manicured jungle.

In this case, you only need, at bare minimum, a single jungle grass seed, (which can be obtained from the surface jungle,) and dirt and water to make mud.

If you want to make an aboveground jungle, which lets you harvest Rich Mahogany Wood without needing to plant acorns like you do for normal trees, you simply need a flat surface of mud and jungle seeds to work with. If placed near your NPC housing near the center of the map, their natural spawn-suppression rate will keep most of the hazards of the jungle away, naturally. (But be wary of the Blood Moon - you may want to have a safe-house out-of-reach from normal monsters if you don't wish to fight.)

If you want to farm Underground Jungle items, such as the Jungle Spores, Sky Blue Flower, or Life Fruit, the Underground Jungle doesn't start until you get down to the cavern level, and most of the items you will want do not spawn until you get to Underground Jungle levels. As such, it's best to excavate or wall off a large area to work with, with a rope chute to the surface. Although you can put up background walls to keep monsters out, it will prevent growth of farmable items if you don't keep cracks of background showing.

Place a horizontal row of mud blocks, with a horizontal row of stone (or any other) block underneath it to prevent vines from cascading below. You will need at least one row of open space above that, although 3 rows of open space is necessary for the player to move through. Once you place jungle grass seeds in the mud, it will spread to adjacent mud, so make a column of mud to connect all the mud. (Grass also cannot be "buried" when spreading, so clear stone away from at least one side of the mud.)

Your artificial underground jungle will eventually spread. It will take quite a while if you are only working with a single seed, however. If you are willing to put up with a slow return, a one-screen-large underground jungle will eventually provide you with everything you need that grows out of the mud, and is fairly safe, only having one or two monsters in well-lit areas where they can't maneuver well to contend with. Even larger areas can be fairly easily managed, so long as the place is fairly cramped and well-lit.

Just Toughing It
First, have at least gold or platinum armor, and probably a bezoar from hornets you've already killed. That means only the Man Eaters are any threat to you at all. Doing that, you can just stand and take the damage the hornets dish out, and take your time planting torches to watch for the man eaters.

Required items
To explore, hunt, and gather in the Jungle, very few items are required.
 * Pickaxe
 * Hammer
 * A weapon that can do at least 20 damage, or can attack through walls. (Vilethorn can destroy enemies from safety, but takes a LONG time to do so because of its low damage.)
 * At least 25 defense if you are going to fight
 * Wood and gel to make torches.
 * Healing Potion (optional but suggested if hunting)
 * Magic Mirror (optional but saves time storing items)

Getting There
The Underground Jungle is located directly below the surface jungle. Occasionally it may be generated under corruption, in which case it is advisable to tunnel in from the side rather than through the corruption. This is because the regular underground is easier to go through because digging through the corruption's Ebonstone requires a Nightmare Pickaxe, and the constant swarm of floating Eaters is more dangerous than the occasional bat or slime you may encounter at similar depths elsewhere in the world... However, there is often a naturally generated opening to the underground jungle.

Chests
Chests in the Jungle are a little different from normal chests. They typically occur in Shrines. These Shrines contain certain unique treasures that can't be found anywhere else in Terraria. Although most of the chests in the Jungle are in shrines, there are some that are on their own.

Vegetation

 * Jungle Spores
 * Jungle Rose
 * Jungle Grass Seeds
 * Nature's Gift
 * Moonglow
 * Life Fruit