Guide:Harvesting Souls

Souls are a valuable endgame material used for virtually every endgame piece of equipment.

Light
Souls of Light are found deep underground places of the Hallow.

Any enemy killed in the Underground Hallow, by any means, has a one in seven chance to drop a Soul of Light. For rapid gathering, the optimal method is to locate or create a large open area deep underground, with plenty of room to maneuver and within quick access of your spawn point. Put on your best equipment and kill everything that appears. Advanced players may wish to bring a Water Candle or several Battle Potions.

The presence of lava may speed up the process; as Souls do not fall and are not destroyed by lava, a lava pool or two may gather quite a few souls for easy collection over a few minutes of fighting. Additionally, try to ensure that every area within a reasonable distance has a path to you; extended fights may lead to enemies clustering in unreachable areas.

Placing 50 or more tiles of Meteorite will replaced the natural spawns with Meteor Heads, which will still drop Souls of Light. Not only are Meteor Heads weaker than the local spawns, but they will also fly through solid blocks, so they will not get trapped trying to reach the player. The video to the right illustrates this method. This can also be done while AFK: With enough defense and a Star Cloak, one can simply come back every 5 minutes to refresh potions. Stack accessories with +defense (even Warding Shackle and Cobalt Shield are useful here, since mobility accessories are of no use while AFK), drink an Ironskin Potion and Life Regeneration Potion and stand in enough water to prevent the On Fire debuff.

For the ambitious, a fully designed arena can make for fun and easy soul collection. Alternately, players may wish to simply gather Crystal Shards across a large cave system and kill every creature that they come across.

Another way for getting tons of Souls of Light is making an automated Bunny and/or Fish farm in the Underground Hollow. Any other kind of statue-based farm will not work with this method. Spawned bunnies/fish, like all other statue spawns, don't drop "extra" items -- but Corrupt Bunnies and Fish do (i.e., coins, bunny hoods, etc). But visit that same bunny/fish farm during a Blood Moon, and these Corrupted Bunnies and Corrupted Fish will now drop Souls of Light, just like every other enemy killed in the Underground Hallow.

Night
Souls of Night are found deep underground in Corrupt caverns.

As in the Hallow, any enemy killed here has a one in seven chance to drop a Soul of Night. Most of the same rules apply, from lava to battle potions. Note that Corrupt Slimes spawn three more slimes when killed, leading to four chances to get souls from one enemy.

As in the Hallow, an artificial Meteorite biome can make collection of souls much easier. Players can summon the Eater of Worlds, as by this time they will probably be able to 1 hit the segments, each of which will have a 1 in 7 chance of dropping a soul. Other drops can be easily sold for profit.

Flight
Souls of Flight are only used in the creation of wings, and can only be gathered from Wyverns. The fastest way to gather these is to build a quick wall of dirt up until you spot your first Harpy, and then build a horizontal platform to fight on. Fighting wyverns can be difficult as they deal respectable amounts of damage and are very fast.

The first tip is to play on fullscreen. A bigger field of view gives you more warning about its attacks. Not playing on fullscreen makes it pretty much impossible to dodge.

Secondly, learn how to dodge. As long as you are moving at a decent speed in a straight line, as perpendicular to the next attack as you can manage, the wyvern should miss you most of the time. Ideally, you can alternate dodges left and right to make the wyvern's movements more predictable - it should follow a big figure eight. In practice, this isn't always the case, and you'll be fending off Harpies during the fight anyway. Full Adamantite armor is generally a good idea, full Mythril could be considered a minimum.

Your actual weapon doesn't matter terribly much; most melee and ranged weapons work well. Multihit and rapid-fire projectiles are especially effective, which encompasses the majority of available weapons by this point in the game.

One approach that seems to work well when fighting this monster (especially on Large-sized maps) is to let one spawn and then fall downwards without moving to the left or right. The Wyvern will follow you, ending up in a perfectly vertical angle. You could then attack it with any high-damage, high-speed weapon, such as the Minishark, Muramasa or Megashark. This works even better when you use piercing projectiles, as each projectile hits each segment once, resulting in huge amounts of damage. The Laser Rifle for example is a great choice because its shots go straight through the Wyvern and hit it multiple times as they do so. Combine this weapon with mana and magic buffs and you ought to be able to handle them pretty easily.

When fighting the Wyvern for the first time, it is recommended to use Rocket Boots in order to change altitude quickly to avoid its sweeping passes. Featherfall Potions could optionally be used to help avoid contact with any part of the body as it passes. While fighting, wait until the Wyvern is visible flying at you, then use the Rocket Boots quickly to get as high as possible in the air, avoiding the pass. Once in the air and above the sweeping Wyvern, blast away at it with your weapon of choice until it passes you completely. Then allow yourself to land and repeat until the Wyvern is dead.

Once the player has access to the Angel Wings or Demon Wings, simply repeat the process above, but using the wings to stay in the air easily. This makes fighting the Wyvern far easier. A Cloud in a Balloon makes the fight very easy when paired with one of the "wings".

Another method is to take advantage of it's attack pattern, which is highly predictable. The Wyvern will always sweep next from the opposite side it just attacked from. IE:If it just attacked from the left, it will attack from the right, and vice versa, provided that you maintain the same horizontal position. With the rocket boots, jump and fly in the same direction the Wyvern is going to attack from. It will be tricky at first but once you get the timing down you will be hit less often. Use the Grappling Hook or Ivy Whip to pull yourself back to the ground to quickly prepare for the Wyvern's next sweep as well.

By combining a Sky Bridge, a flail, Hermes Boots, and a Shiny Red Balloon, you can easily take out the Wyvern. The Sky Bridge must be high enough for you to take advantage of the lesser gravity. You first run along the Sky Bridge until it spawns. Continue running and it will soon appear at the edge of the screen, chasing you from behind and a bit above the horizontal for best results. You should throw your flail at about this point. The flail should be able to fully extend and return, at which point you should jump and turn around so the Wyvern passes under you. Then throw the flail again such that most of the Wyvern's body passes through it. This second throw can get seven hits or so if everything is timed correctly. Then run in the opposite direction to repeat. With a Blue Moon each pass can take off 300 HP from the Wyvern. You should preferably bring another high-velocity ranged weapon to deal with Harpies.

Might
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The Destroyer is generally the first hardmode boss you will fight. Adamantite armor and a Phasesaber or better are recommended.

Sight
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The Twins are generally the second boss you will fight. They require a powerful ranged weapon, such as the Megashark.

Fright
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Skeletron Prime is the hardest boss in the game as of 1.1. Even players with access to every item available may have difficulty with him.