Guide:Eater of Worlds strategies

The Eater of Worlds is arguably the most difficult boss a player will encounter. Preparation is almost vital, especially for the newer player. The following are some hints, tips, and strategies to help you defeat it.

Terrain and Gear
Like all Bosses preparing for the fight is probably the biggest factor in your success:

Standing on a wide, elevated platform (with either glass or sky below it) helps tremendously, as you can see him approaching from below. Further more, since Worms cannot navigate in the air, it will also drastically reduce the Eater of World's mobility. Under such a scenario, the Eater of Worlds can almost always be evaded: Getting hit is often a result of the player's own risk-taking to deal extra damage. Since the new update the eater of worlds can only be spawned in the corruption and also may only be fought in the corruption. The best thing would be to create a man made corruption area to fight him in.

The Platform can further be upgraded with several levels of Wood Platforms, to further increase the player's mobility. Rocket Boots can also help, but are not a requirement.

Armor is recommended but not necessarily needed,as it is not very hard to dodge the eater of world's attacks(Rocket Boots are recommended as it can help dodging), health potions are recommended, just in case you slip up and do manage to get hit by him, but they do not necessarily have to be in you hotbar as you can use the hotkey for healing (default is 'h') to quickly use a potion.

Weapons
Because of its large size and multiple body parts, weapons that can deal damage to multiple sections should be used:Vilethorn, Ball 'O Hurt, Shurikens, Vile Powder, Space Gun, etc... Guns can also be very effective at killing Worms of small size. Also, large swords like the Phaseblade, Blade of Grass and Fiery Greatsword can deal damage evenly if swung repeatedly at the long worm's arcing body.

Bows don't have a fast rate of fire, but if you farm Devourers for their teeth and upgrade to Unholy Arrows then the piercing effect makes it a great choice. The Demon Bow is relatively easy to get by this point and will work well.

Note that while weapons like the Ball 'O Hurt tend to damage the Eater of Worlds faster, it will also deal more focused damage, splitting the Eater of Worlds more often. The Ball 'O Hurt is excellent for killing the sub-Worms.

Vile Powder, on the other hand, will not deal its damage as fast (but still very fast), but will have a balanced damage distribution throughout the entire body. Vile Powder has the advantage of being easy to find and free. Furthermore, it is a very safe weapon to use against the worm: It can be placed before dodging the Eater of Worlds and running away, but it will still take damage. It is recommended to have 30 to 150 Vile Powders for this strategy, depending on how conservative you are, and how soon you make the switch from "Damage the Worm" to "Hunt the sub-Worms"

The choice of the weapon will essentially boil down to how safe you want play, or how fast you want to kill the Eater of Worlds.

Using dynamite will instantly kill any parts of the worm hit, providing an extremely fast (but expensive) way to kill the Eater of worlds, If you don't have the proper equipment, It's best to use things with fixed damage like grenades, which are very effective when destroying the main worm.

Managing the Worms
Killing a section of the Eater of Worlds will split into an additional Worms with the Head of the new worm starting where you destroyed the segment. Of course, the more worms that are out, the harder he is. A fundamental strategy when killing the Eater of Worlds is correct management of each sub-Worm. Avoid splitting the Worm when you can. If there are little Worms, concentrate on killing those first, before returning to the main Worm.

Death
Dying during a Worm fight will result in respawn at your spawn point. When you die, you will see the message "The Eater of Worlds has fled!" and you have to summon another in order to fight him again. However, all of the loot the sub-worms dropped will still be there, free for you to pick up.

"Surfing" the Worm
When using the above Platform scenario, and with proper movement, you can get the Eater of Worlds to chase you horizontally, as if it was surfing on your platform. This can be very useful once you are in the "Kill" phase of the fight, and to concentrate your fire on the Worms' Heads, which have less health than the Body. Using this strategy, entire sections of worms can be killed at once. The Ball 'O Hurt, Shurikens, or even a simple Gun, are all very effective. Note that it is much easier to get the Worm to surf by having a two Block wide platform.