Guide:Plantera strategies

Plantera is a moderately hard boss; it can spawn after defeating all three of the mechanical hardmode bosses and destroying a pink flower in the underground jungle.

=Basic Information= Plantera will attempt to chase after the player, always trying to make its main bulb overlap with the player's space. It moves fairly slowly, relative to a player with speed-boosting equipment, so a player in a large enough arena can easily keep a distance, so long as they just keep moving. Because of this, a good arena can make the fight much easier. After falling to half health, the second stage begins, and Plantera's pink petals rip away to reveal a green maw, and Plantera moves faster and deals more damage.

Plantera spits projectiles frequently in the first phase - needles that are direct projectiles, similar to the stingers of the hornet enemies, as well as a pink spiked ball, similar to the goblin's Spike Ball weapon, which lingers on the ground for a significant amount of time, dealing around 50 damage. These balls fall through platforms, so use of platforms in an arena is recommended.

Plantera in the second stage will have small gnawing critters on a short "leash" spawn. They simply wave themselves around at the end of their leash, and get in the way of the player's attacks, making piercing weapons more valuable.

Plantera also uses vines for its locomotion, apparently similar to a larger version of the Ivy Whip. The ends of these vines deal damage if the player touches them.

The bulb Plantera spawns from cannot be moved or controlled, so it may be best to simply build an ad-hoc arena anywhere you find a bulb, or else build a few arenas near places where you have found bulbs, and lure Planteras towards a pre-made arena by making a run for the arena.

= Arena Preparation = First, Plantera has plenty of health to chew through, and a good amount of damage, so it would be best to set up a Heart Statue and Star Statue if you use magic. Set them to timers. Add a Heart Lantern and Campfire to boost your health regen further, and a Crystal Ball if you use magic. If your arena is fairly large, try to set up more than one healing station like this, so that you can run in a big circle (or oval) and collect hearts on both ends of the loop.

The actual shape of your arena depends on how you want to fight. For a player who wants to have plenty of evasive space, excavating around a screen's worth of space inside the Underground Jungle, and filling it with rows of platforms can work well. For more aggressive players, a smaller space excavated right next to a bulb can work, as well. Others will just use a stack of bombs to excavate a large area for flying and grappling.

Honey can be used for its regeneration, so make little pools to dip into if you can be bothered.

Currently, Plantera will "go berserk" if the player leaves the Underground Jungle, (including to go to the surface,) so surface-level arena strategies are generally obsolete. One exception is taking advantage of Plantera's need to "grapple" to move by building a large enough space that Plantera cannot grapple up after you, and then firing down upon it.

= Equipment Strategies = Fighting Plantera goes faster when you use weapons that can either linger and hit a single target multiple times (as it is quite a big target), or at least pierce, as it has multiple sub-sections in its second form.

Equipment like the Nimbus Rod, Magnet Sphere or Piranha Gun, which can deal continuous damage so long as you can lure Plantera into walking into it, can make the fight much easier. More vertical arenas make this task simpler for the Nimbus Rod. You can simply leave a rain cloud out for Plantera to die upon while you focus on jumping.

For melee weapon users, the Terra Blade or True Night's Edge are fine choices for high ranged damage, as is the Vampire Knives, if you have it. Otherwise, the best spear you can make is effective - if you are willing to risk proximity to Plantera. The Death Sickle can also be a great weapon for fighting Plantera. Due to its high damage projectiles, it is possible to continually circle around plantera with wings, dealing constant damage. Its projectiles do also pass through blocks, which can be very convenient as the dense environment of the underground jungle will trap or stop most block-interacting projectiles. The Chlorophyte Partisan is an exception to this, as it shoots a small projectile that hits multiple times, making it a very useful spear for this fight. Using the Turtle Armor with "warding" modifier (+4 Defense) accessories can boost defense to the point where the player takes only single-digit damage.

For ranged weapon users, the Uzi is a popular choice, although the Megashark or Flamethrower perform admirably. Whatever you have that can put out the most DPS while still allowing you to spend most of your time dodging without having to think about aim too much. Shroomite Armor is recommended.

For magic weapons, try the aforementioned Nimbus Rod, in conjunction with anything else that can deal a fair amount of run-and-gun damage, such as a Crystal Storm, Magical Harp, Poison Staff, or Magic Dagger. Spectre Armor is ideal, but requires you defeat Plantera to get the resources for it. Hallowed Armor, and its additional movement bonus, might be best otherwise.

Any potion you would normally use against a boss is also of help, especially Ironskin Potions, Regeneration Potions, and of course, Greater Healing Potions.

=Specific Strategies= Note: Strategies that require spawn points are no longer valid as with the 1.2.3.1 update - Plantera now vanishes after you die, so when battling solo be forewarned.

The homing pumpkin heads
Make a hallway with bunny,slime,goldfish and piranha statues connected to 1 second timers.Use a horseman's blade and keep swinging the blade while Plantera is chasing you.Pumpkins will chase Plantera. Good way to farm banners too.

Weegee31647's Sacrifice
Put 3+ slime/other mob statues above your head over lava, connected to a 1-second timer. The slimes will constantly be killed, giving you mana and health as you take damage from plantera.

The Teleportation Trick
Make a long hallway (preferably longer than 150 tiles, but still shorter than 250 due to the bug shown below, because of Plantera's movement speed in the second phase) out of any material you desire, and place a teleporter on each end, and wire them together. Test it first. Then, summon Plantera.

When it's climbing down toward you on one side, flip the lever by the teleporter. You will teleport to the other side, and Plantera will have to climb back at you.

Note that if the hallway is too long, Plantera will despawn. This was observed with a 250 tile long hallway.

The Death Grind
(Note: This method no longer works as of version 1.2.3 as Plantera will disappear upon player death.) Prepare a small arena directly next to a bulb with every health-regenerating effect you can cram in, and all the defense bonuses you can muster. Using turtle armor, and "Warding" accessories, you can pretty easily get 90 defense, and over 100 with potions/Well Fed. This reduces the damage Plantera can do to almost nothing, and if you are standing on top of a Heart Statue on a repeater, in a puddle of honey, with a heart lantern and campfire nearby, you should be able to just plain ignore the damage Plantera does to you, and stand still, whacking it with whatever high-DPS melee weapon you favor. Additional damage from a Nimbus Rod helps. Another good weapon can be a cannon. If you put one beside yourself then continually fire it, it will defeat Plantera astonishingly fast. You only have to use downwards of 100 cannonballs.

Plantera's second form will probably out-damage your ability to regenerate (unless you have Vampire Knives), so it comes down to who can grind away the HP bar of the other first. With weapons like the Terra Blade, you should come out on top without even needing a healing potion.

The magic-user equivalent is to use Spectre Armor with high-damage magic weaponry (Razorpine, Leaf Blower) to trigger high health regeneration.

This method has the advantage of needing far less prep time, allowing players to hunt down bulbs much more rapidly if you are hunting for specific drops, like the rare The Axe.

Semi-Continuous Magnet Sphere
Prepare a long vertical shaft that is 4 or so blocks wide. Once Plantera is summoned, lead him up or down the shaft. Get close enough and fire the Magnet Sphere away from him and lead him in the same direction. For the most part, Plantera will travel at the same speed as the Magnet Sphere, allowing you to use other range weapons and limiting the need to recast the Magnet Sphere until it dissipates on its own. A large enough room at either end of the shaft will be helpful to change directions in. The projectiles aren't too hard to deal with if being healed using a Cobalt Shield or Obsidian Shield paired with Spectre Armor set. This method, while effective is not possible to use the first time fighting him, because Plantera must have already been killed to get the Magnet Sphere.

Papercut method
Prepare a long horizontal tunnel. With full Spectre Armor and Magic Cuffs, run back and forth into Plantera while shooting with a Leaf Blower or a Razorpine. The collision with Plantera and the high damage output of the Razorpine/Leaf Blower will keep your mana and health always high with the set bonus of the Spectre Armor and the Magic Cuffs.