Guide:Wall of Flesh strategies

Wall of Flesh (or WoF) is a huge... well, wall of flesh. It has two eyes, which shoots lasers at you, and one mouth. It also has many small creatures near it called The Hungry. They are connected to the WoF with long tendrils, which break once that Hungry takes enough damage, causing it to fly toward you. Once beating the Wall of Flesh, you will receive an ominous message and your world will enter Hardmode.

Summoning The Wall of Flesh
To summon the WoF, go to the underworld, kill a voodoo demon carrying a voodoo doll and collect it. Drop it into lava in hell to spawn the WoF.

Note that this will not work if the Guide is not currently alive, or if you still have the Horrified debuff from a previous fight for some reason. It has to be the lava in the Underworld. Some people report better success summoning by dropping the doll from their hotbar. A word of warning, the WoF can accidentally be summoned by killing a voodoo demon over lava and allowing the voodoo doll to fall into the lava.

Preparations
Before you start, make sure the guide is alive and the horrified debuff (if you tried defeating it beforehand) is gone, otherwise Wall Of Flesh will not be summoned when you throw the voodoo doll into the lava.

There are multiple approaches you can take for fighting this boss, each having several strategic implications.

Full Arena Preparation
The Wall of Flesh, more than any previous boss, benefits from preparing the area ahead of time. An optimal arena is a perfectly flat land bridge of length at least 500 blocks (several screens). Lighting is relatively optional as the area will be well-lit from lava and other effects. Note that the height of the bridge does not especially matter, as the Wall of Flesh will move its eyes and mouth to the appropriate height for combat on its own.

Headroom to maneuver above the bridge may be useful, and additional wooden platforms can provide further mobility options. A fancy lava altar for sacrificing the voodoo doll can be a nice touch.

A fully fleshed-out arena allows for extended melee combat and makes the fight go much faster. Conversely, ranged weapons lose many of their advantages.

The following potions are recommended.


 * Ironskin Potions will give the much needed defense boost. Each point of defense is more valuable than the last; the effects of this potion will be quite noticeable to most players.


 * Regeneration Potion is another useful survivability boost.


 * Several Healing Potions. The fight lasts a few minutes, so bring at least five to be safe.

Partial Preparation
If a full arena isn't desired, or you're not interested in wasting time on a world you don't intend to keep, you can make less extensive preparations. Run your bridge over any lava pits, make sure there aren't any especially difficult jumps to make, and clear a path through any major outcroppings. You may want to extend your work to closer to 750 blocks, as the fight will drag on while you jump over obstacles.

Partial preparation favors ranged combat, as you won't be within melee range often. You also will need to keep a bigger distance to account for any slow climbing you'll need to do. If you have large flat segments, those would be good times to close to melee.

No Preparation
Diving right in headfirst is not recommended for the first attempt.

Without any preparation, melee combat is all but impossible, and you may even run into impassible places where you'll have to dig ahead with your pickaxe. Without hardmode gear, the fight becomes nearly impossible for a single player on their first attempts. Experienced players, players looking for a challenge, or simply cocky players are welcome to try this fight without an arena.

With no arena at all, the following potions are recommended:


 * Gravity potion. Yes, walking is something you got used to, but it is easiest to hold left or right and press up and down sometimes while concentrating on fighting than planning how not to be smashed into wall.


 * Featherfall potion is good addition to gravity potion.


 * Obsidian Skin Potion is good thing too, but only if there is exposed lava left.


 * Water Walking Potion may be advisable if you have trouble getting out of liquids, as you will be able to walk on lava. This potion is recommended in combination with the obsidian skin potion. This will prevent lava damage as well as giving you ability to disregard the danger of the lava pits.


 * Shine Potion and Night Owl Potion can help a lot more than you'd think, since Hell is pretty dark.

Equipment
Since the Horrified debuff prevents you from running away from the boss, do not use your mirror, even if you are about to die, as you will just die instantly if you do. It's better to spend your last seconds landing on a spot where your items won't burn up in the lava.

Defense
Molten Armor is recommended, though Necro or even Shadow are valid options. A Cobalt Shield and Obsidian Skull are recommended accessories (or an obsidian shield). Choose mobility accessories as appropriate for your preparations.

Melee weapon
A primary concern about melee in this fight is that you are constantly moving away from the boss. As it is impossible to back up while swinging a sword, weapons like Night's Edge are forced to stay dangerously close to the boss and catch it on the backswing if they wish to damage it directly.

Non-sword melee weapons, on the other hand, are at their best here. Spears like the Dark Lance and flails like Sunfury are devastating to this boss's large body and numerous small creatures. The player can keep a comfortable distance away, keep pace with its movements, and push out steady multihit attacks for massive damage. Getting either the Dark Lance or the Sunfury is recommended if the player intends to focus on melee.

A melee weapon especially helps when fighting the numerous Hungries, as one swing can hit many at once. Balanced characters may wish to start with a melee weapon to clear out the little creatures before switching to range or magic to fight the boss. The Wall of Flesh has a low defense, so the player isn't limited to necessarily using the strongest weapon that they have available.

The speed and auto-attack of the Muramasa and the spread damage of the Starfury make them viable options for thinning out the Hungries. Their low damage output and frontal swing makes them suboptimal for damaging the wall directly. Starting the fight by wiping out a large number of the Hungries with one of these two weapons is an option.

Night's Edge, despite being the strongest weapon available to the player at this point, is not as powerful in this fight as it is in others. It's viable for fighting the Hungries, and thus is a good way to start the fight, but probably shouldn't be relied on for completing the entire battle.

Ranged weapon
The ranged approach is safer and slower for this fight.

Ranged fighters start off the fight both overwhelmed and at a considerable disadvantage; the numerous Hungries are both dangerous and protect the Wall's vital areas. Piercing or explosive weapons are a must; high end arrows and Meteor Shot are necessities for a successful opening. Balanced characters may wish to use a large melee weapon early on to clear a hole in the Wall's defenses. You will want to bring around 1,500 to 2,000 ammunition of your choice.

The Molten Fury (with either Hellfire Arrows or Jester's Arrows), and the Phoenix Blaster are both recommended and your only real options. Once the Hungries have been thinned out, breaking out the Star Cannon can speed up the fight immensely.

Use of the Flamarang and Thorn Chakrum after the Hungries have been mostly dealt with is a safe, reliable, and inexpensive way to whittle him down. If several players are available for the fight, equipping each with a Flamarang is an easy way to take this boss down with minimal risk of death.

Though normally overlooked, a Minishark with performs exceptionally well here due to the Wall of Flesh's low defense. Though a bit more cash consuming, the bullets are dealt out quickly for good damage in a decent amount of time. If done on multiplayer with more people it grows even quicker. As the weapon is automatic, it also allows the player to focus more on their movements.

Magic
Magic weapons are good as a ranged option for a melee character. Depending on your options, they can be quite potent.

If you have a Demon Scythe, then you should definitely use it for this fight. It combines the multihit clearout capacity of flails and spears with the safety of range, and is probably the single most potent weapon you can use for this fight. Rapidly dump out your mana bar as the fight starts and the Hungries will suddenly be much less of a problem.

If you don't have it, then a Space Gun is a good alternative. As of 1.1, it can be reforged for free and get the best possible bonuses, it fires piercing shots that hit both the Hungries and the Wall itself, if you wear Meteor Armor you won't even have to recharge your mana. An Ironskin Potion can compensate for the defence loss compared to the Molten Armor.

Flamelash and Magic Missile perform poorly in this fight. The rate of damage is abysmal when dealing with Hungries or the wall itself. They are good at hitting mobile enemies in a static environment, which is the exact opposite of the situation here.

If you plan on using magic, you should probably have a backup plan for while your mana recharges. Melee weapons or a Flamarang are both viable choices. Also, use of the Jungle Armor is not recommended as a high defense rating is a must for this fight.

Other considerations
If everything just not working out for you, try tackling this beast with friends. It will definitely help, considering that the WoF has three separate damage points sharing the same health. This will be more efficient if you just want the Pwnhammer, as you can trade with the player who gets it, or just grab it by yourself. If you feel like going lone wolf, try using all the buffs at the same time. The default key for quickbuff is b. Using quickbuff will save you time nitpicking which potion to use. Using quickheal (default h) will heal you with the healing potion closest to the top-left of your inventory (not including the hot-bar).

Explosives are an additional effective option. Grenades work particularly well if you're on a wooden platform, since they do not destroy tiles. If your platform is made of Hellstone or Hellstone Bricks, (which it's probably not, since there just isn't enough time to mine for that much ore) use of Bombs or Dynamite will work just fine. Hellstone will not be destroyed by Dynamite, making it a perfect choice for those who want to make quick work of WoF. Unlike the Grenade, the Bomb and Dynamite will not explode upon contact with WoF. Timing is of the essence when using those two explosives.

Threat Analysis

 * It has two large eyes. They shoot lasers at you, so it is good idea to be as far away of them as possible.
 * These share health. Defeat these to defeat the boss.
 * The eye lasers do noy penetrate blocks, so a land bridge effectively eliminates half of the lasers.
 * There is also a mouth, which will deal heavy damage to you if you get caught inside.
 * This shares health with the eyes.
 * It seems to have a slightly higher defense, so you may favor attacking an eye instead.
 * There are many small creatures in front of it called Hungry, held to the wall by long tendrils.
 * If you kill them, they disconnect with one third health and will fly toward you.
 * These small creatures mostly block you from being able to attack the WoF until they are killed.
 * As you whittle down the WoF's health, the tendrils on any still-attached Hungry can reach out further, making it easier for them to reach you as well as interfere with ranged attacks.
 * WoF's travel speed will increase as it's health is diminished, allowing it to catch up faster/forcing the player to retreat quicker.
 * The WoF's Mouth will spit leeches, which can damage you, but will also always drop a heart, making them useful to kill when you're low on health.

Strategy
The Wall will steadily move toward you, so keep your distance and plan ahead. If you get behind the Wall, it will pull you in front of it. You will be a little bit disoriented and possibly heavily damaged, so staying in front of it is absolutely a top priority.

In general, the fight should start with the player unloading attacks in the general direction of the WoF. The first minute of the fight benefits strongly from piercing and explosive weapons, as the dozens of Hungry creatures block you from being able to damage the boss directly. (Grenades are great for taking down the Hungry, as grenades are relatively cheap [4 silver] and deal large amounts of splash damage.) Flails and lances are moderately effective here. The best weapon of all, perhaps, is the Demon Scythe.

When the little creatures have been mostly eradicated, you can now focus on the eyes and mouth. Ranged players should, from about this point, take very little damage for the rest of the fight. Melee players, in contrast, may take hits from newly spawned Hungry and the occasional direct hit from the Wall, but will start to deal massive damage if they have a spear or flail. Swords are ineffective during this phase unless you are skilled and have a well-prepared arena.

Note that the Hungry tend to drop hearts when killed, so focusing on these can help you survive if you get low on health. The most common ways to die during this fight are falling into lava, or the WoF catching up with you. If you are unable to kill this boss, try making or improving an arena bridge.

After defeating the boss, the loot will be enclosed suspended in a box, so lava is not a problem.