Statues

Statues are furniture items. There are a total of 114 different statues: 31 decoration statues, 36 text and numerical statues and 47 functional mechanisms that have an effect when connected to wires and activated. Depending on the statue, upon activation it may spawn enemies, drop items, or teleport an NPC to the statue's location. Most statues can be found already placed in any area underground (most frequently in the Dungeon, Underground Cabins, and Cavern level), though Angel Statues also appear in Chests. Like all furniture, a pickaxe is used to collect them.

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. Before the 1.4 update they generally would drop their other usual items at a reduced rate, with the exception of the Mimic, which will only drop its banner after the designated amount of kills. Since the 1.4 update, this is only the case with certain statues. Aside from normal items, Slimes 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.

Enemy statues




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

Other statues
Bomb, Heart, and Star Statues will not produce anything if there are already 10 of their item in the world, regardless of origin, or if 3 of their item is present within 16 tiles. Boulder statues can only spawn a boulder every 15 seconds.

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 (No longer working in 1.4, Granite Golems do not drop loot when killed in lava) ( 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 statue is next best; the skeletons die 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 potential 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, indirectly; 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 Hearts and/or Mana Stars when killed, if the player is currently not at maximum health or mana respectively. If the statues are set up with a timer and lava near a player arena, this can provide a fairly steady supply of mana and hearts. For this purpose, the Crab and Wall Creeper Statues are best, as they are quick kills (one- and two-hits respectively with lava) that drop no other items.
 * On the one hand, this bypasses the Heart and Star Statues' tight limits on nearby spawns; on the other, the hearts and stars do not spawn in advance, only when the player is below their respective maximums.

Angel Statue

 * 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.
 * Redigit confirmed that it was originally intended as a placeholder sprite for the Cloud in a Bottle item that would grant the player a double jump.
 * The Angel Statue is similar to the Perfectly Generic Item in the action-adventure video game  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 the player's inventory.

Other statues

 * 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 Cobalt Shield.


 * The Corrupt Statue does not have a Crimson counterpart.
 * New statue graphics were added, but the items that place them were never implemented or given names until 1.4.0.1.
 * The Seagull Statue was teased in this spoiler: 1.4 spoiler.
 * The Unicorn Statue strongly resembles the knight chess piece.
 * The Reaper Statue resembles the.
 * Before 1.4.0.1, the spawn limits of Duck Statues could be bypassed by placing the statue in water, as swimming ducks did not count towards the cap. This could be used to max out the NPC count, meaning no new NPCs could spawn. This could be used to make the fights with some bosses much easier, and could even be used to skip the Lunar Events entirely.

History

 * Critter statues now spawn during worldgen.