Guide:Enemy farming

There are many rare drops from enemies that are vital to progression. Farming for some of these items can take a long time, but there are many different methods that can make it a significantly simpler task.

Basics
An essential part of enemy farming is knowing the basics of NPC spawning.


 * Hostile and friendly NPCs can only spawn in a 168x94 area around the player, and there is a limit to how many enemies can exist in an area at the same time.
 * Spawn rates are different depending on the Biome, depth, and the time of day. These factors also change what type of enemies spawn, so you will need to pick the right location.
 * Various special events can increase the spawn rate and limits. Additionally, they offer their own list of enemies. Most of these events can be manually summoned by the player with an appropriate item.
 * A notable mention is the Blood Moon, as it increases the global spawn limit, meaning that it increases spawn rates anywhere in the world.
 * Enemy spawns are suppressed near friendly NPCs, including not only the "town" NPCs, but the Traveling Merchant and the Skeleton Merchant. If there are three friendly NPCs on screen, no enemies will spawn. Friendly NPC presence does not affect spawning during events such as the Blood Moon or invasions.
 * Use of a Water Candle and/or a Battle Potion will increase spawn rates. Contrarily, a Peace Candles, Calming Potions and the presence of a Sunflower will reduce spawn rates. Invasions are not affected by these items, but Blood Moons and Solar Eclipses are.

It's also important to know the limits on dropped items: while they do not expire, there is a world-wide limit of 400 such items that can exist at once. If more items are dropped into the world, the oldest item will despawn. This becomes particularly important when large numbers of enemies are being killed and dropping items.

Farming Area
The basic idea of farming enemies is to find or build an area where they can be easily gathered and killed in one place. When looking for a good place for farming, wide and open areas are preferred. Examples include a large section of a Cavern, or a big room in the Dungeon. Once found, the location can then be expanded further to improve its efficiency and reduce the enemies that spawn outside of it, something that is easily accomplished by the use of Explosives and Mining Potions. It can also be built artificially, which can prove to be the most efficient method although time consuming.

Areas for farming also include a Safe zone which is protected from enemies, allowing the player to recover health and, with weapons that can attack through walls, kill enemies much more easily. While Doors prevent most enemies from coming in, some can also break them down or simply phase through them.

The farm can be improved with Campfires, Heart Lanterns and Honey to increase health regeneration, and Water Candles increase enemy spawns.

The farming process itself can be automated with Minions or other methods.

Lava Pits
The simplest way to keep most enemies contained is with a pit filled with Lava. It can deal effectively with most basic grounded enemies, as well as some flying ones, however it is ineffective against Casters and those that can phase through blocks.

The Pit should be at least 8 blocks deep so grounded enemies cannot jump out. Lava will destroy any item of Gray or White Rarity including Coins, so the Lava pool should be very shallow to not burn your loot.

A common application of this method is seen in "Volcano farms": a Lava Pit in the middle of two ramps, made with hammered Blocks. When the player is standing below the pit, enemies that spawn will climb up the slopes and fall into the Lava Pit.

Note that flying enemies will usually avoid the Lava, although they can still be killed by other methods, such as Minions or Traps. They also lack the ability to drop down from Platforms, which can be exploited to effectively trap them in a certain part of the farm.

Mechanisms
Once the Mechanic has been rescued, Dart Traps and their improved variants, Geysers or Flame Traps, Spear Traps, or Spiky Ball Traps can all be used to speed up farming.

Actuators can also be used to make safer entrances and to improve Lava Pits; covering them with a layer of actuated Blocks makes it so they can be activated only when in use. Once the Steampunker has arrived to the world, the player can buy Teleporters to create instant and safe entrances and Conveyor Belts to more easily collect the loot from enemies.

Statue Farms
With a Mechanism, Statues can be used to spawn particular enemies or critters on a mechanical trigger, usually via a Timer. By putting the statue in an enclosed box with Traps or Lava, it's possible to automatically kill the enemies with little effort.

They can be used in order to easily obtain special items from different enemies, however there are limits to Statue farming:
 * Statue-spawned enemies do not drop coins and often have reduced drops. An already-rare drop with reduced chances can require considerable amount of time to farm.
 * Some statue-spawned enemies will not drop items at all if they are killed by Traps.
 * You can circumvent this limitation by using a lava-based setup.
 * If a statue for a Hardmode enemy is used before Hardmode, it either will not spawn or will not drop loot.
 * Statue-spawned critters cannot be captured. Critters converted to evil forms by a Blood Moon will not drop coins, but can drop other items.

Ocean Farm


With the use of Jungle Grass Seeds on Mud Blocks or Lihzahrd Bricks, one of the Oceans can be easily turned into an Artificial Jungle biome. This will cause Arapaimas to spawn in the water at a very high rate. When standing on a puddle of water built above the Ocean, all Arapaimas will enrage and try to attack the player, being unable to do so and instead standing just below them, where they can be automatically killed by Minions, Traps and Lava.

While this specific farm is mainly used for Biome Keys, it can also be an effective Money farm.

Enemies to Farm
There are many different items that can only be obtained for specific enemies, especially in Hardmode. These items can be very useful for game progression, but some of them can be harder to farm than others.

Pre-Hardmode

 * During a Blood Moon, Blood Zombies and Dripplers drop the Shark Tooth Necklace and Money Trough, both being very useful items.
 * This is also a good time to farm Demon Eyes for the Black Lens required to make an Optic Staff.
 * Angry Bones in the Dungeon drop the Clothier Voodoo Doll, which can be used to summon Skeletron again.
 * Demons drop the Demon Scythe for Mages, and its Voodoo variant drops the Guide Voodoo Doll that is required to summon the Wall of Flesh. The player may want to kill the boss multiple times due to the very useful items it drops, so farming them in Pre-Hardmode is never a bad idea. If a Voodoo Demon drops its Voodoo Doll in Lava, the Wall of Flesh will be summoned, hence it is better to cover all nearby Lava lakes before farming. If a Hellbridge has been built for the Wall of Flesh, it can be used as a Farming Spot.
 * Pinkies are also very useful to farm, because they drop Pink Gel, which can be used to craft Peace Candles.

Hardmode

 * At the beginning of Hardmode, Mimics found Underground can be farmed to obtain a large amount of money and very useful drops. The Lifeform Analyzer and Hunter Potions greatly help when looking for them.
 * Skeleton Archers drop the Magic Quiver, which increases Arrow damage by 10%, and the Marrow Bow.
 * Many enemies have a small chance to drop the components for the Ankh Shield.


 * Unicorns and Pixies from the surface Hallow can be easily farmed and drop useful crafting materials that can also be sold for a decent amount, such as Pixie Dust and Unicorn Horns.
 * The Ice Sickle is dropped by many enemies in the Underground Snow Biome. Additionally, the Frozen Turtle Shell can be obtained from Ice Tortoises.
 * The Wyvern miniboss needs to be killed in order to obtain Souls of Flight used on Wings. It only spawns in Space, so it is better to farm in a Floating Island. Like many Worm type enemies, it is very vulnerable to piercing weapons.
 * Souls of Night and Light are required for many early Hardmode recipes. They can only be obtained from enemies in the Underground Corruption/Crimson and Hallow, respectively. Farms built in the Caverns work just as well for both of them, as any enemy killed can drop them.
 * If you previously made a Hellbridge with corruptible blocks, you could use converted blocks to farm Underworld enemies for souls. This makes it easier, as Hardmode enemies don't spawn until a Mechanical Boss is defeated.
 * Spawn King Slime in the Underground Hallow, Corruption, or Crimson. As Blue Slimes are common enemies, they can drop souls when killed.
 * Ichor and Cursed Flames can be obtained from certain enemies in the Underground Crimson or Corruption respectively. They are used for multiple Ammo types.
 * Chaos Elementals will very rarely drop the Rod of Discord used to teleport. They can only teleport to the ground, and cannot appear on top of a player. These two traits should be exploited when farming them.
 * The Uzi and Turtle Shells can be obtained from Angry Trappers and Giant Tortoises respectively. Due to the nature of the Hardmode Jungle, these items are hard to obtain before killing a Mechanical Boss.
 * Solar Eclipses spawn many enemies, most of them having different drops:
 * Creatures from the Deep will drop the Neptune's Shell.
 * Vampires can drop the Moon Stone and Broken Bat Wing when killed.
 * Reapers can drop the Death Sickle.
 * Mothron can drop Broken Hero Swords and, once Plantera has been defeated, its Wings and The Eye of Cthulhu yoyo.

Post-Plantera
Plantera's death unleashes many new enemies, each with their drops:


 * In the Dungeon:
 * Shadowbeam Staff, Inferno Fork and Spectre Staff from Necromancers, Diabolists and Ragged Casters respectively.
 * The Paladin will drop its Hammer and/or Shield when killed.
 * Bone Lee will drop the Tabi or Black Belt.
 * All variants of Armored Bones can drop the Magnet Sphere and Keybrand.
 * Skeleton Commandos, Tactical Skeletons and Skeleton Snipers can drop their Rocket Launcher, Tactical Shotgun or Sniper Rifle respectively.
 * All enemies have a chance to spawn a Dungeon Spirit when killed, which will drop Ectoplasm used for many recipes.
 * Farming these enemies is harder with common methods due to most enemies having the ability to attack through blocks.
 * During the Solar Eclipse:
 * Butchers can drop their Chainsaw.
 * Deadly Spheres can drop the Deadly Sphere Staff.
 * Dr. Man Flies can drop the Toxic Flask.
 * Nailheads can drop the Nail Gun.
 * Psychos rarely drop their Knife.
 * In the Jungle Temple, Lihzahrds and Flying Snakes can drop Solar Tablet Fragments and Lihzahrd Power Cells.
 * From the Martian Madness event, the Martian Saucer and Scutlix Gunners can drop unique weapons and mounts.

Examples
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