Guide:The Destroyer strategies

The Destroyer is one of the three Hardmode mechanical bosses. It is recommended that you fight The Destroyer before any other Hardmode bosses, considering that it is commonly considered the easiest of them all, though only when using a weapon that specifically counters multi-segmented enemies. It is the mechanical version of the Eater of Worlds, which is represented by its massive length. A good idea would be to build either an Asphalt skybridge or a normal high arena with wood and wood platforms, and have Heart Statues with pressure plates on each platform. A good strategy to fighting it would be to be highly mobile, i.e. jumping around from platform to platform and constantly moving. Obviously, avoiding getting hit and having a campfire and Heart lantern at the arena to recover health fast. You could even set your spawn near the Nurse and Magic Mirror to her when you have taken too much damage to recover health instantly, as The Destroyer will not despawn no matter how far you get away from it or if you use a Magic Mirror, or another item that teleports you, it will follow you all the way back to spawn. Kill its Probes, which drop hearts, as often as possible to recover health. If you have a good rhythm going then you only need to worry about the night ending, rather than dying.

Terrain Preparation
The type of preparation you'll be making depends on your approach. If you are using melee, The Destroyer is best fought on an arena consisting of tall walls with multiple layers of Wood Platforms. This will allow players to move around the arena freely, and to keep a good watch on where the boss is. If you are using ranged, pick a wide, open, flat area, with plenty of clear space for flying and dodging. The Destroyer can clear a lot of vertical space. Like any other burrowing enemy, it can only control its movements in tiles/blocks.

Another method of defeating The Destroyer utilizes a Nimbus Rod, ropes, and Platforms. Build a platform up high enough so that the Destroyer can just barely reach the player, but not so high as to despawn the Destroyer when standing atop it, and make a rope up. Since the Destroyer struggles with the ability to fly, you will be able to kill it easily. Piercing weapons will be most effective e.g. Flamethrower or Titanium Repeater. Place Nimbus Clouds, and then use the Mechanical Worm. The clouds will damage the Destroyer while you fight off the Probes. You may need to replace the clouds mid-fight. If you wish to do additional damage, shoot down at him with a Poison Staff, preferably at an angle as to do damage to multiple segments per shot.

It may be useful to summon and kill the Eye of Cthulhu (he will usually be defeated quickly when engaged with hardmode weapons) before summoning the Destroyer in order to spawn an extra one-use pool of Hearts. You can also choose to add a few Heart Statues wired to a Timer to supply you with some additional health. Another great help is building a few small pools of Honey and building Campfires and Heart Lanterns around the arena.

A tricky alternative way of building an arena is by creating a small box, wire up a few Heart Statues around it and some honey inside it. Combine this with high defense, a Cross Necklace and a Charm of Myths. The Destroyer himself will only deal relatively low damage, less than your healing potential, making the fight very easy. Another way is to build a horizontal platform very high in the sky (200 to 300 blocks), with one block replaced by a Wood Platform. The Destroyer will be unable to reach you, allowing you to easily kill him with ranged weapons.

If you don't want to spend time making an arena, all you really need is a large flat area of land for the fight (similar to the ranged approach listed above). This strategy is useful for Mages since they are fragile. Move back and forth across your battlefield until he surfaces, then attack with the weapon(s) of your choice. The idea is to prevent the Destroyer from attacking directly below you, which can easily wreck a player who isn't quick enough to avoid the head. Lightning Boots and/or Wings can be used to greatly increase the potential of this method, although they are both optional.

For good results, put down Heart Statues rigged to 1-second timers to get lots of hearts.

Armor
Generally you want to use Adamantite or Titanium armor with the respective Helmet. Orichalcum armor is also a good, albeit riskier choice to use against The Destroyer, because while it has lower defense than higher tier armor, its set bonus creates projectiles that deal lots of damage to The Destroyer because they can pierce. Summoners are quite weak against The Destroyer as their summons release too many probes for them to fight against, but Spider armor can help. Another choice is using Frost armor, however Destroyer is immune to the Frostburn debuff so the armour will not be fully effective.

Weapons
This boss is very large, not at all agile, and features many segments. Any weapon that pierces, has an area of effect, ricochets, or fires multiple projectiles will do well against it. If none of these are available, a fast autoswing weapon can be deadly against the main body, as you can dodge its lunge and attack continuously as it passes by. However, you will still need some way to attack at range, to deal with the Probes (all the features above will remain useful). As always, it's helpful to reforge your weapon(s) to get a good modifier. If you have already defeated a mechanical boss, using the Excalibur is recommended.

Melee
The Destroyer is the easiest of the 3 mechanical bosses for a melee character, considering its movement in the air is limited.
 * The weakest form of the destroyer is when it attacks vertically. If it does so, it is best to use an effective sword and swing at it multiple times. This takes out a lot of its health and if it keeps attacking you vertically, it will take a short amount of time to defeat it.
 * Right from the start, before you get better swords, the Night's Edge can be very useful, seeing that if you spent enough time farming the materials, the damage count (with the right Modifiers), can make the boss fight last about 2 and a half minutes, plus it will easily destroy probes.
 * Spears have great potential. If you've already defeated a Hardmode boss, the Gungnir is very effective. If the Gungnir is not available, spears such as the Titanium Trident or the Adamantite Glaive are acceptable alternatives.
 * The Shadowflame Knife is an excellent choice too because of the rapid speed and its ability to ricochet which is extremely useful when The Destroyer is moving horizontally.
 * The Dao of Pow can do significant damage across multiple body parts.
 * An Ice Sickle would also be able to deal significant damage, while allowing you to maintain some distance from The Destroyer.
 * A large sword would be reasonably effective, or used as a backup for defeating the Probes. Good choices include; the Phasesaber, Titanium Sword, Cutlass, Bladetongue, and if you have already defeated a Hardmode boss, Excalibur. Also if you have had the luck of a drop from a Crimson Mimic, the Fetid Baghnakhs will work wonders.
 * If you are a hardmode starter on the, consider using a Mythril Halberd or if possible, an Adamantite Glaive with the godly modifier.
 * After defeating another Mechanical Boss, the Mushroom Spear sold from the Truffle NPC will be very useful against it.
 * The high speed and damage of the Fetid Baghnakhs can destroy it in a matter of seconds, provided you have enough defense to take head on attacks.
 * Using the Chik, Hel-Fire or Amarok, along with a Yoyo Bag, can easily damage multiple coils of The Destroyer quickly and with high accuracy and wide attacking area, as well as kill the heart-dropping probes without having to directly target them. Using Heartreach Potion with Yoyos allows you to get some hearts dropped from far probes well.
 * Pairing any melee weapon with a Nimbus Rod (or Clinger Staff, though its wall will need to be replaced) set up before the battle will do ongoing damage without forcing you to invest in a magic build.
 * The Flying Knife can be very useful for the fight due to its good range and infinite piercing ability.
 * The Cutlass, if you were lucky enough to get it, is very effective with a good modifier like Godly or Legendary.
 * If you defeated The Twins or Skeletron Prime, you can use a Mushroom Spear. The point will go through many segments, while the spinning mushrooms deal more damage.

Magic
For magic users, the destroyer can be defeated with ease depending on the weapons used.


 * Medusa Head (💻🎮) and Life Drain (💻🎮) can be a great weapon for fighting The Destroyer, as it damages multiple segments at once, and can also strike down the Probes.
 * Thanks to its piercing ability, the Nimbus Rod is extremely effective against the Destroyer, regardless of whether you are geared for magic or not. The Clinger Staff can be used similarly to deal high amounts of constant damage, but must be refreshed constantly. Golden Shower is a good choice due to the fact that it can pierce multiple segments at once.
 * Various other piercing magic weapons can obliterate this boss in no time. Most notably the Magical Harp, the Poison Staff, and the Golden Shower due to their piercing ability, although to acquire the Magical Harp you'll need to defeat The Twins. However, if you are unable to obtain any of those you can settle for a Diamond Staff, Cursed Flames, Water Bolt, Crystal Vile Shard, Frost Staff, or a Magic Dagger as well.
 * The Meteor Staff deals extreme amounts of damage at a high speed, but it burns through Mana extremely quickly. One may wish to bring along a backup weapon if using it.
 * The Shadowflame Hex Doll is a fantastic choice. It has a wide range with decent reach, deals respectable damage even without its debuff and has a very low mana cost.
 * The Space Gun can be a possible choice with good modifiers and accessories, But it can take a whole night to defeat The Destroyer.

Ranged
As with most bosses, ranged weapons would be easier to use than melee weapons. And even while this is one of the easier bosses for melee, a ranged weapon with enough piercing can simply hit so many parts at once that it out damages melee weapons by a great amount.


 * The Daedalus Stormbow is a great weapon dealing large amounts of damage to any of the mechanical bosses killing them quite quickly especially when combined with Holy Arrows or Hellfire Arrows. The Adamantite or Titanium Repeater also works well with these arrows.
 * The Dart Pistol combined with Crystal Darts or the Dart Rifle combined with Cursed Darts can be obtained somewhat easily and will kill it quite easily even on Expert Mode.
 * Crystal Bullets used on any weapon with a fast firing rate will deal very high amounts of damage very quickly.
 * The Megashark or the Uzi are auto-firing guns with different bonuses; the Uzi deals more damage and can be acquired before killing the Destroyer but the Megashark has a chance to not consume ammo and fires faster.
 * The Shotgun and its upgrade, the Onyx Blaster, fire shots in a wide pattern which spreads out the further the shots travel; ironically, despite shotguns generally being close-ranged weapons, their effectiveness does not suffer at all when used at long range against the Destroyer.
 * The Gatligator with Exploding Bullets is good against the Destroyer, as it is very easy to hit many segments at once even with the Gatligator's inaccuracy, and the Exploding Bullets can cause splash damage, hitting multiple segments.
 * If you already defeated mechanical boss Skeletron Prime, a Flamethrower could be used for this fight.
 * Another interesting weapon is the Cannon, which should be placed instead. It can deal high damage and pierce through multiple parts, giving great damage potential, however, it may be hard to get a good shot, aside from aiming up and simply waiting for The Destroyer to charge you. It is best to position the cannon on platforms high up (above the Destroyer's range), point the cannon straight up, and fire. The cannonballs will fly up a short distance, then fall back down, doing large amounts of damage.
 * Another effective but expensive method is to use a Star Cannon, lining up shots to deal damage to as many segments as possible.
 * The Hellwing Bow with at least 700-1000 Wooden Arrows can do a lot of damage to the destroyer if you build mine cart tracks about 300 blocks in the air and at least half the world long. Just keep firing the bow in the opposite direction that you are moving and hammer the ends of the mine cart rails, set to bounce you back. You will receive a minimal amount of damage.

Summoning

 * A Pirate Staff or Spider Staff is the best available at this point.
 * A Queen Spider Staff is the only viable Sentry at this stage, and can contribute a small amount of damage at no cost.
 * If you have already beat The Twins, you can use the Optic Staff.
 * If you defeated Skeletron Prime or The Twins first, you can buy a Ballista Cane or Lightning Aura Cane, which can deal excellent damage to the Destroyer.

Accessories
There are many great accessories available at this point.


 * The Cross Necklace (or any of its upgrades such as the Star Veil) will make the barrage of laser bolts much more survivable.
 * Frozen/Flame Wings are the best wings available at this stage, but Harpy Wings or Leaf Wings are reasonable substitutes. Lightning Boots or better will provide ground movement and jumping. Those two accessories will allow you to move almost freely through the air and on the ground, making it easier to evade The Destroyer's body.
 * The Obsidian Shield prevents knockback and is practically mandatory for melee users, but useful for any class.
 * If your defense is lacking, Flesh Knuckles can be equipped for a beefy defense bonus. The Frozen Turtle Shell is another defensive accessory that can potentially save you if your health is critically low.
 * The Charm of Myths enhances survivability by providing regeneration and reducing the duration of Potion Sickness. To reduce the potion cooldown, it only needs to be equipped during the instant a health potion is drunk.
 * An Emblem provides additional damage for your primary damage type; the Summoner Emblem and your best summoner equipment should be worn before summoning minions.
 * Yoyo fighters should consider using a Yoyo Bag, as it can fend off the Probes while you fight the Destroyer directly, and deal extra damage to the body when fewer Probes are present.
 * Those lucky enough to obtain a Magic Quiver should use it if they plan on using a Daedalus Stormbow or any Repeater with Jester/Unholy arrows.
 * Magic users who wish to rely less on Mana Potions can equip a pair of Magic Cuffs/Celestial Cuffs. Probes drop mana stars frequently, so a Mana Flower should not be necessary.
 * Since the fight takes place at nighttime, the Moon Charm will be active if equipped, and is a viable choice for melee users.
 * Putrid Scent provides a generic increase to DPS and is a decent filler accessory.

As with most situations in general, it is best to reforge your accessories with damage, critical strike chance or defense increasing modifiers.

Potions

 * As with all boss fights a good supply of Healing Potions or Greater Healing Potions will help you survive longer. If you are depending on magic weapons, add a supply of Mana Potions.
 * One of the most useful potions would be the Ironskin Potion, helping you survive longer. Regeneration Potions also help for this.
 * A Bowl of Soup, Pumpkin Pie, cooked fish, or Cooked Marshmallow can never hurt and are quite easy to make.
 * A Hunter Potion could be useful, so you can see where The Destroyer is going to surface and a Swiftness Potion to evade him.
 * If you are going to use a repeater, the Archery Potion is a must have and since they last four minutes you should make 2-3 of them.
 * If you prefer magic weapons, instead of a Magic Power Potion, Mana Regeneration Potion should be used instead. Also the buff from the Crystal Ball would give you some advantage.
 * If you are going to use melee the Thorns Potion could come in handy, but avoid using flasks, because The Destroyer is immune to all debuffs.
 * Shine Potions and Night Owl Potions are helpful, but not really essential. They just make seeing other mobs and terrain easier.
 * Featherfall Potions and Gravitation Potions are also useful if you want more control while in the air or have limited access to the flight accessories.
 * If you have trouble with the fight and have an alchemy setup, you can catch a few Prismite in the Hallow to make Lifeforce Potions, which increase your max health by 20%, making the fight easier.

The Fight
The Destroyer is almost exactly the same as the Eater of Worlds, in that it digs around and launches up at you every chance it gets. Just sidestep the body and keep wailing away at it. Occasionally it will launch a few volleys of Death Lasers at everyone fighting him. These hit for about 15-20 damage on players with 40-50 defense. The Destroyer also spawns Probes throughout the fight. It spawns one each time a new segment is hit, and provides a visual representation if a particular probe has been sent out. Each Probe drops has a 33% chance to drop a 20HP heart when killed, so for the most part, health isn't too much of an issue with this fight.

The Probes are both a blessing and a curse. They are a curse because they get in your way and can attack you for decent damage with their lasers (a bit more if you collide with them). They are a blessing in disguise, however, as they can be a source of health by killing them when you have less than full health. Careful management of Healing Potions and Heart collecting will keep you nice and stocked on health. Just drop to the ground when it's relatively clear and gather some. The Hunter Potion will let you see The Destroyer in the ground, so you'll know if you have to evade instead or can keep going for the hearts. For people new to hardmode, and fighting him for the first time, it is important to realize that the probes spawn as you do damage to the Destroyer. So while it may seem like a good idea to front-load a large amount of damage (a Nimbus Rod over the spot where he first spawns, for example), you will probably find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of probes spawning at once. Find a balance between damaging the boss and dealing with the probes to survive the fight. Heart Statues and hearts from Probes will give you lots of hearts, giving you lots of health when you need it most.

If you're fighting on a wide, flat plain, it might pay off to occasionally just run across it until The Destroyer appears. Doing so might cause it to spread a large portion of its body along the ground, making it an easy target from above. Now would be a perfect time to use projectiles. If you have the horizontal space (and speed), make use of it by flying a decent distance back and forth instead of only staying in a particular (horizontal) area to help spread its body out. The more of the body you can keep exposed (and accessible to attacks), the more opportunities you have to deal damage.

On the other hand, if you want to hit the ground (say, to gather Hearts), you can fly straight up and hover a while until The Destroyer jumps straight up at you. You can then drop to the ground quickly to gather what you need while The Destroyer recovers from its attack attempt. It takes a while for it to loop back around from a high jump. Remember, outside of solid blocks/tiles, burrowing enemies have little control of their movement. This gives you the time to take a breather.

If you are fighting The Destroyer in Expert Mode, it is very important not to get touched by the head, as it can deal massive damage, and can kill some players in two hits, possibly even one if they have been weakened by the probes.

Like most other bosses, if everyone is killed, The Destroyer leaves. The Destroyer will also leave if you cannot kill it before sunrise. Loot from the Destroyer will be dropped from the segment nearest to a player.

There is also a second method where you build a sky bridge about 5 stories high made of platforms. Due to the height, The Destroyer will get only as close as 3 blocks away from the bridge so you can easily kill it with around 43 defense points and two life fruits used and max health (Life Crystals). The suggested weapons are any spell books.

You can put lava in a box and put platforms four blocks under so when he charges, he will get burnt

Another tactic for melee users is to create a 6 block high and a screen long rectangle with a line of platforms in the center. This will protect you from the body's lasers and some of the probes while you hack away with your sword.

There is another way for people who has a lot of money. Buy a lot of fireworks from the Party Girl. Place them on your bridge and wire them all up to a switch. Wait until The Destroyer is oriented in such a way that he is parallel to the bridge, then flip the switch and launch the rockets. The Destroyer will die quickly, although you will have to farm money for this because you will need a great amount of fireworks and wires. Alternatively, if the player has trouble getting the Destroyer lined up to their exact location, they can create multiple platforms over each other, all filled with fireworks, then make sure that the Destroyer's body covers the firing range, before setting them off.

Another way to defeat The Destroyer is to wait for a Pirate Invasion, buy the cannon from the pirate once the event is over, also buy many cannonballs, place the cannon on wood platforms aiming the direction you wish and fire the cannon. This is one of the most expensive but very effective strategies to defeat The Destroyer as the cannonballs do 300 damage and pierce, resulting in massive damage. You can also use traps to create a semi-afk farm to easily kill The Destroyer. A perk of this is that you can get a Cutlass, resulting in getting even more damage.