Guide:Skipping ahead

Foreword
This guide is called Skipping Stones because it is about skipping certain stepping stones in gear progression effectively to advance into higher tier gear sooner than normal. This means you will often be pointed towards something that can kill you before you will be truly prepared for it, often this will be done by sending you at a boss that is meant to be fought with far better gear than you have or an enemy that is stronger than you are prepared for. This is done by having you get some particular piece of equipment as soon as it is a feasible concept and then using it to defeat an enemy stronger than you before one would point you in that direction normally. So to show this effect I will flag certain areas as the "flirting with death" moments, which will have you taking a calculated risk. I also want to draw attention to the fact this guide is for the PC version of the game, some of these tips are not possible on console.

Your House
Your first action with a new character needs to be to build a home, I prefer a floating tower, with each floor being about 5 blocks tall, with a wide first floor for crafting, a wide basement like area for storage. I then add additional floors above that are each 5 tall and 12 wide, this leaves a room with an area of 60, allowing for an NPC on each floor, I normally build it to have 18 floors for NPC with the floor that I enter on being empty for just myself to craft and set my spawn point and the floor below that to be full of chests. I then set it to be floating in the sky at least 3 blocks above the ground to make sure it can not be infected during Hardmode. This allows quick access to everything, and makes sure I can reach every NPC quickly. This isn't the only way to build a house but I find this to be effective because if you make it so you can use wooden platforms to jump up the floors everyone is right there. If you want you can build some other home, but build a home for 18 NPCs as soon as you can, this is important for future proofing as well it will let you get NPCs all the sooner.

Your Equipment
Next you need to make a wooden sword and start mining, you want to mine until you can make a full set of Platinum armor/Gold Armor, as well as a Ruby Staff/Diamond Staff, with their respective swords. You also want a Emerald Hook or better and lastly you want to have about 200 health at the least. Don't waste time or resources making the copper/tin or the iron/lead tiers, you should hold onto that ore for later down the line. After this you want to head back up to the surface and collect 45 Fallen Stars. While you are mining it might be wise to collect silver and upgrade your pick into a Silver Pickaxe at some point. You may also want to try to find Hermes Boots, or Water Walking Boots, and any other accessories you can find will also be very useful.

Eye of Cthulhu
You are now geared up enough to start a boss battle, now you should prepare an arena. The first boss is Eye of Cthulhu, to prepare for this guy build an arena roughly the size of your screen, you want it to be 5 layers, of wooden platforms, with a campfire in the dead center of the arena. You will now want to farm lens from Demon Eyes until you have about 30, this will allow you to make 5 suspicious looking eyes. Now make either a Silver Watch/Tungsten Watch, a Gold Watch/Platinum Watch or a grandfather clock to tell the time and stand in your arena, at exactly 7:30 PM (the official start of the night cycle), use one of your eyes, and battle the boss using your sword to hold off his minions as well as your staff, make sure to hit him with your staff whenever your mana is full then use the sword until your mana recharges fully. You want to try to battle the Eye of Cthulhu all 5 times in that night.

A Bit of Preparation
Your battles with Eye of Cthulhu will allow you to make the Light's Bane/Blood Butcherer and War Axe of the Night/Blood Lust Cluster, it will also leave you with enough left over Demonite Ore/Crimtane Ore to make their respective bows as well if desired. For the bow, if you choose to make it, also make some Jester's Arrows. Now your next task is a bit harder, you want to try to use explosives to access and destroy the Shadow Orbs/Demon Hearts to summon Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, depending on if you have corruption or crimson in your world. Make sure to only destroy the Orbs/Hearts between the time of 12:00am and 4:30am. Before you break the third Shadow Orb/Demon Heart find a close semi-flat area inside of the chasm containing the Orb/heart and build a 2 or 3 layer arena, make sure that this one is fairly wide since both of these bosses like to make you dodge more than Eye of Cthulhu did, and place campfires so that anywhere you plan to fight is within range of a campfire so that you get the buff.

Eater of Worlds
This battle is best fought by using your staff to shoot down the length of the boss to hit multiple segments, if you choose to use a bow shoot your jester arrows down the length of the boss to hit multiple segments as well. When he arches over you use your sword to hit multiple segments with its overhead arching sweep, damaging as many segments as you can with your swing.

Brain of Cthulhu
This battle is a little different than the Eater of Worlds, you want to use your staff to hit as many of the creepers as you can when they dash towards you, when you are low on mana you can use your jester arrows for the same effect. Once you bring down the last creeper you will have to fight the Brain itself, this is an easy battle, just shoot it with your staff rapidly and use arrows when mana is low, and your sword if it gets too close.

More Preparation
After this battle you should use your demonite/crimtane and your Shadow Scales/Tissue Samples you got from the battles to make Shadow Armor/Crimson Armor as well as Nightmare Pickaxe/Deathbringer Pickaxe. Now if any meteorites fell now is a good time to decide if you want Meteor Armor and the Space Gun or not, if you do but need more meteorite smash more Orbs/Hearts between 12:00am and 4:30am for maximum meteor landings. Remember you typically won't get more than 3 Meteor crash sites at a time in a world, so make sure to clean up each crash after you get about two to make sure you get the most possible. Once you got enough meteorite create your armor and gun if you want them, either way it is highly suggested you get the Meteor Hamaxe. If you choose to make the Meteor Armor and Space Gun use it in all situations it is suggested you use your bow, and also in most situations it can replace your staff as well. From here on out it is also suggested you begin using potions, healing potions and ironskin potions. I had neglected them until now since they were not critical, but the following battles will start to show some need for them.

Next Steps
Which Direction you go from here is dependant on your wants, you can either hunt the dungeon and attempt to battle Skeletron or look for the Jungle and go underground and collect the rewards there. Where you go first is up to you. You should also look out for Goblin Army events, as defeating these armies will allow you to get the Goblin Tinkerer NPC who sells many useful items, namely the Rocket Boots and Tinkerer's Workshop.

Jungle
Look for the surface jungle and try to find a cave going down into the Underground Jungle, if not just dig a path down to the underground jungle, make sure to get the Bezoar accessory as soon as you can, as it makes the Underground jungle far easier, also make sure to get Jungle Spores, Stingers, and vines to make the Blade of Grass and Ivy Whip. If you want you should also make the Thorn Chakram, and Jungle Armor if you plan to make heavy use of magic items. Once you are satisfied with everything you desire look for a Bee Hive to find a Larva, once you do set up a basic arena with a campfire and wooden platforms. Then kill the larva and begin the battle with Queen Bee

Queen Bee
This battle will be fairly easy, just drink an iron skin potion if you have it and use your staff and bow with jester arrows to shoot her and the bees she summons with their piercing effects, use the sword to hit her when she's in reach and just basically keep dodging her attacks. This battle will go rather quickly in the end. Nothing too complicated just don't hold still. If you have already visited the Dungeon then use Blue Moon to tear her down fast, the Cobalt Shield also helps greatly to resist knockback. Replacing your staff with Water Bolt is a must in this fight if you are able to.

Dungeon
The dungeon can not be accessed until Skeletron is defeated, otherwise you will be instantly killed by the Dungeon Guardian. Before this battle check the entrance area of the dungeon for Books, look for a blue book with line near the bottom, this will have a special mouse over that will indicate that it is the spell rather than just another book. If the book is not here then use your staff for this battle, if it is the spell will grant an advantage in this fight and will allow you to replace your staff.

Skeletron
This will be the hardest battle you have fought so far, to prepare turn the area above the Old Man into a flat battle arena with a campfire and a few layers of wooden platforms, pretty standard for you now. This fight should be begun at 7:30pm and completed by 4:30am just like you did back when you fought the Eye of Cthulhu, but this time it should be noted that if you take too long Skeletron will become impossibly strong for you at this point unless you are a very skilled player.

To battle Skeletron lead him to your arena and focus on using your piercing attacks to hit his hands and head with the the same attack, you need to destroy the head to defeat him, but the hands pose the greatest threat, so eliminate them first if you can, but they are technically optional. The hands tend to swing around and distract you, but remember that only the hands count and the arms do not matter. If you have been to the Jungle the Thorn Chakrum will help in this fight. This battle will be a quick and brutal fight for most players, but up until here you should be prepared to handle it.

After Skeletron is Defeated
Once you defeated Skeletron work your way into the dungeon, make sure to remove the Water Candles and any spikes on the floors that you can. Battle all the enemies you see as you want to explore the dungeon completely and collect Muramasa, Water Bolt if you do not have it, Cobalt Shield, and a Shadow Key at the very least. You will have a tough fight here and should use Water Bolt frequently since it bounces as you fight through here until you clear the entire dungeon of all its golden chest loot. If you want you can gather materials for the Necro Armor while you are here.

Tying Up Loose ends
Once you complete both the dungeon and the Jungle areas you should wrap up some loose ends, make sure to get the Frostspark Boots collect the last of your NPCs, and make sure to craft the Lava Waders. You should also get 400 health and make a surface Mushroom Biome before you go any further. Other than that all that you actually need before you go to The Underworld is a Nightmare/Deathbringer pickaxe, Muramasa, Blade of Grass and Light's Bane/Bloody Butcherer, as well as about 100 Obsidian.

First Steps Into Hell
You have just a few tasks here, first thing first is you need to hunt down and collect a Hellforge, as well you need to hunt down loot all the Shadow Chests. After that your only task is to mine Hellstone, you need enough to make a Molten Pickaxe and Fiery Greatsword. Anything more is optional. Once you have the Fiery Greatsword use it to craft Night's Edge.

Preparing for battle
The Wall of Flesh is both the metaphorical and literal wall in the way of you advancing your world into hardmode, and so you need to make sure you defeat this boss. This boss is also designed to be difficult to defeat so as to deter the unprepared from going into hardmode. So naturally you should prepare for this battle accordingly. Do this by building an easy to walk path from one end of the Underworld to the other, it will need to be roughly 2000 blocks long. Place campfires along the path until you have the buff throughout the entire route. After killing a few Voodoo Demons to get the Guide Voodoo Dolls needed (you should collect around 5-6), go to the edge of the map (whichever end, it doesn't matter) and drop a voodoo doll into the lava...

The Final Pre-Hardmode Boss
Freaked out huh? Here are some tips:

1. Aim for the eyes! They have no defense, versus the mouth having 12. 2. Kill the Hungry for hearts and mana stars. 3. Melee is a very bad idea, as the WOF has a ton of different ways of attacking you up close, but from a distance, he is virtually attackless 4. Be prepared to fail. This boss is not easy, even for Op gear. Be ready to attempt this over and over again.