Statues

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Functional statues
These statues can be wired and activated to spawn enemies, drop items, or teleport a random NPC to their location. Statue-spawned enemies do not drop coins. They generally drop their other usual items, with the exception of the Mimic, which will only drop its banner after the designated amount of kills. Aside from normal items, enemies spawned from statues may also drop hearts and mana stars, potentially granting an alternative source of health and mana. Statues found in Underground Cabins may be connected to Pressure Plates, and can easily spawn enemies that kill early game players.

See spawn limits (below) for limitations that apply to functional statues.  

Critters spawned from statues cannot be caught with the Bug Net. Attempting to do so will cause the critter to disappear in a puff of smoke.

Decorative statues
Decorative Statues have no function and only serve as decoration. They are generally found placed underground. The three Lihzahrd statues are only found in the Jungle Temple, and are the only statues that do not appear to be made of stone. The Angel Statue is sometimes found in Chests. The Armor Statue can also be crafted with at a.

Text Statues
These are crafted at the with  each.

Spawn limits
Activation of a spawning statue will not produce an item/character if a certain quantity of that entity already exists within a certain range. The range boundary is square, centered on the statue's spawning point.


 * Example: A new Bunny will not be spawned by an activated Bunny Statue if 3 or more Bunnies already exist within a 200 pixel radius.

All statues (even those that appear shorter) have a footprint of 6 tiles (2 × 3). Each of these 6 tiles could be used as a wire input. Since the 1.3 update, each input shares the cooldown period with each other after activation. During an input's cooldown, activations from any trigger devices (Switches, Timers, Pressure Plates) will be ignored. For enemy and critter statues, this cooldown lasts exactly 0.5 seconds. Item statue inputs have a 10 second cooldown.

Creatures spawned by Fish and Bunny Statues during a Blood Moon will immediately become corrupted. Corrupt Goldfish and Corrupt Bunny enemies do not count against the spawn limits, allowing quicker farming. The same is true of Goldfish which start walking during rain. Another exception is the Bomb Statue, since Bombs may group together into stacks of up to 100 and each stack counts as a single item.

Tips

 * When spawning weak enemies into lava, the spawn limit is beside the point -- the important constraint is two activations per statue per second. Given enough statues and wiring to stagger their activation, enemies can be spawned as fast as they get killed.
 * The most valuable statue in terms of rare drops is the ( per Night Vision Helmet); it does produce a fair bit of granite, but that stacks to 999, so it averages 1 stack for each 133 spawns (and the granite can be monetized as well).  It also takes a little longer to kill than the next contenders (three hits from lava).  The Skeleton statues is next best and dies in two lava hits.  (The Hoplite has slightly better average drops, but also produces a flood of unsalable Javelins.)  The Piranha is third, with only 80% of the Skeleton's per-spawn yield (but it's a one-hit kill).   For both Skeleton and Piranha, 80% of the profit actually comes from crafting Hooks into Grappling Hooks.  The Jellyfish statue trails distantly and produces a flood of near-worthless Glowsticks. The Unicorn statue is another option; the unicorns take much longer to die, but the horns have other uses beyond sale.  (See Guide:Making money for more details.)
 * The Metal Detector can help find statues. It can find Underground Cabins (by detecting the chest within), where statues often spawn. Note that Hardmode ores, Life Crystals and Life Fruits have priority over chests.
 * Slimes spawned by the Slime Statue during the event can help add to the number required to summon the King Slime.
 * Bunnies can be caught from the Bunny Statue and be crafted into Explosive Bunnies (which would otherwise cost if purchased from the Pirate NPC).
 * Another way to make money or grind for Ectoplasm is to place a Chest Statue or Shark Statue in the Dungeon after Plantera has been defeated. Since only enemies with above 100 health have a chance (6.67%) of spawning a Dungeon Spirit (drop 1-2 Ectoplasm, each).
 * Spawned enemies from statues will drop Mana Stars when killed if the player is currently not at maximum mana, and Hearts if the player is not at full health. This can be used to create a spawner on a timer near or above a player arena, and give them a semi-steady supply of mana and hearts, at a faster rate than statues alone. For this purpose, the Crab and Wall Creeper statues are best, as they are quick kills (one- and two-hit respectively, with lava) that drop no other items.

Trivia

 * Before the 1.1 update, the Angel Statue could be neither placed nor sold, and had no apparent use in the game. It was (and still is, even after the update) the subject of a running in-game joke, whereby NPCs will make reference to its useless nature. It was speculated to be a replacement for developer testing items, to prevent the overpowered test items from being hacked in. It could also simply be an in-joke among the game's developers. If the player acquires a Zapinator (except on the 3DS version where it is dropped by Plantera), Soul Scythe, Scythe, or Icemourne with an Inventory Editor, it will become an Angel Statue.
 * The Angel Statue is similar to the Perfectly Generic Item in  in that if an item is invalid it will be replaced with another item.
 * The Angel Statue is listed to have five separate item IDs, but all five different statues will stack upon one another in your inventory.
 * The Pillar Statue is the only statue that does not have a base.
 * The Mushroom Statue, though not being a functional statue, will react when stimulated with wire by lighting up.
 * The Shield Statue, when placed, has a design similar to the old Cobalt Shield.


 * New statue graphics were added, but the items that place them were never implemented, nor were they given names. The first statue appears to be a sort of bird, while the other seems to be an owl.
 * In the Console 1.0.750.0 patch, new splash screens were added to the game in similar vein to those teased for the upcoming 1.4 update. One of these is an ocean themed splash, which features a bird that bears a resemblance in shape to the one in the first statue.
 * A critter with a similar shape has been shown in another 1.4 spoiler.
 * The Unicorn Statue strongly resembles the knight chess piece.
 * The Reaper Statue resembles the.
 * As of 1.3.5, the spawn limits of Duck Statues can be bypassed by placing the statue in water, which will remove the limit and can be used to max out the NPC count. This can be used to make the fights with some bosses much easier, and can even be used to skip the Lunar Events entirely.

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