Guide:Moon Lord strategies

The Moon Lord is the Final Boss of Terraria, and predictably, there should not be much argument to say that he is quite the most difficult boss in the game. Cthulhu's brother is no joke. With lasers, orbs, and explosions shooting at you in every direction, each dealing around a whopping 80-150 damage, a leech attack crippling your precious healing abilities, the fact that he possesses almost TRIPLE the health of Duke Fishron, AND the fact that he takes up almost the entire screen, you might have some difficulty dealing with him. However, there are way to escape his devastating blows, and return some back to him. The strategies down below can help you dodge his attacks, take him down, and become champion of Terraria!

Movement
An almost essential item for fighting the Moon Lord is the Blessed Apple or Cosmic Car Key. While moving diagonally away from the Moon Lord with the UFO mount, the player is slightly faster than him, allowing for you to take out one hand going one direction across the map and take out the other one vice-versa. The Unicorn Via Blessed Apple is much faster than the Moon Lord, although it is recommended you equip an item with dash such as Master Ninja Gear in order to dash-boost to the max speed of the Unicorn. This makes it extremely easy to escape/kite the Moon Lord on a long open bridge.

The other (more risky) way is to fly circles around him, this is once again, much easier when performed with the Cosmic Car Key. Going around him allows for the player to dodge the head laser. The head laser can also be completely avoided by riding far in front of him and using a long ranged weapon such as any gun with Chlorophyte Bullets.


 * Note that this strategy requires much more dodging than the previous one, and that some of these items require rare drop(s) from the Martian Madness event

Terrain preparation
The easiest way to fight the Moon Lord without cheese is to build an enormous sky bridge, like you've probably already created to a certain extent for earlier boss fights. The skybridge needs to stretch quite far from either side of your spawn point for ideal kiting of the Moon Lord. The The Moon Lord will not despawn unless all players are dead, meaning you can outrun him and heal for a while if need be without him vanishing on you. It also makes teleportation a very valuable tactic. The goal here is to be able to run away from the Moon Lord while shooting at him, and the teleporting back to your spawn once you reach the end of the bridge via a Magic Mirror. In order to do this successfully you will need a Blessed Apple ideally, although a Cosmic Car Key can work as well. The unicorn from Blessed Apple is substantially faster than the Moon Lord, where-as the Cosmic Car Key UFO mount is roughly the same speed. It is highly recommended that you have any of the dash items that can be used to immediately reach the unicorn's full speed.

If you have more time on your hands you could also set up teleporters along your bridge for convenience/fun, but a Magic Mirror should work just fine.


 * Note that some of the Cosmic Car Key is a fairly rare from the Martian Madness event, and the Blessed Apple is a rare drop from the hallowed biome, and Hallowed Mimics.

This strategy should work perfectly well for both normal and expert mode, and is especially easy with a group of players.

Gearing up
A set of Spectre Armor (either version, but he does have a tentacle attack that disables healing via this armor or vamp weapons for about 17 seconds. You can potentially outrun the attack that inflicts this debuff using the Blessed Apple as mentioned earlier) or Beetle Armor will do well on him. Nebula Armor is also very effective against the Moon Lord. Also a good pair of wings such as Fishron Wings will help you dodge his lasers. For melee, equip a Flairon or another melee weapon with an equal or higher DPS rate. For a ranged weapon, a Phantasm Bow with Holy Arrows, or the Vortex Beater with Chlorophyte Bullets. Make sure you bring plenty of Greater Healing Potions. You may craft the Phantasm Bow and Vortex Beater by intentionally dying during the Moon Lord Boss fight to destroy the Vortex Pillar again when the event is reset.
 * A good idea would to use a 2 floor arena, with the 1st floor being platforms, the second made of thick blocks such as wood.This prevents his strongest attack, the Phantasmal Deathray, from coming into contact with your character. Run along the 1st floor constantly while spamming Vampire Knives, while wearing Beetle Armor, to heal while he attacks. A good weapon to assist would be the Solar Eruption,to blast through the thick blocks to hit his head.
 * It is best to first kill the head first, as it may be harder to damage later on.
 * REMEMBER: You have to kill all his body parts BEFORE you can damage his core.

Caster
Armor Weapons
 * Spectre Armor either version will work, but he does have a tentacle attack that disables healing via this armor or vamp weapons for about 10 seconds. You can potentially outrun the attack that inflicts this debuff using the Blessed Apple as mentioned earlier.
 * Razorblade Typhoon
 * Nebula Arcanum
 * Spectre Staff
 * Laser Machinegun
 * Blizzard Staff
 * Heat Ray
 * Shadowbeam Staff

Accessories
 * Master Ninja Gear/Shield of Cthulhu (Master Ninja Gear is much better for boss fights, but both work)
 * Celestial Cuffs
 * Ankh Shield
 * Celestial Shell
 * Sorcerer Emblem
 * Any wings.

Melee
Armor
 * Beetle armor, it is recommended that you use the shell as tanking will be much more important than being able to move fast against the moon lord, as the only way to outspeed it involves mounts, such as the Cosmic Car Key

Weapons
 * Terra Blade
 * The Eye of Cthulhu
 * Vampire Knives
 * Flairon
 * Golem Fist
 * Scourge of the Corruptor
 * North Pole

Accessories
 * Warrior Emblem
 * Master Ninja Gear
 * Avenger Emblem/Celestial Shell
 * Destroyer Emblem
 * Star Veil

Summary
Moon Lord is a pretty hard boss to beat as a solo caster as he will rip you apart at close range, and few spells have the range needed to actually hit him. It is still doable as a caster; but in general I highly recommend a Ranger setup, especially for Expert Mode. If you are playing in expert mode it is important to keep in mind that defense is worth more, and enemies deal massively more damage, so ALL of your accessories should be reforged to warding. In normal you can probably get away with reforging some items as damage though. If needed, the Nebula Arcanum can be crafted prior to fighting the Moon Lord as its materials drop from the precursor events. The Ankh Shield can be replaced with a Destroyer Emblem, but you lose 4 defense and dealing with the knockback effects can be rough.