Moon Lord



Moon Lord is a Hardmode, post-Lunatic Cultist boss. He is the final boss of the versions of Terraria.

Moon Lord can be spawned by destroying the four Celestial Pillars or by using a Celestial Sigil in any world where Golem has been defeated. He will then spawn one minute after the status message "" appears, or 12 seconds if spawned using the Celestial Sigil. After this message appears, the screen will go dim, the music will gradually become quieter until it goes silent, and all objects and walls will oscillate back and forth. It will then go back to normal. This will happen 5 times; each time the screen will go darker and all objects and walls will oscillate more violently until the 5th time, when Moon Lord will spawn.

See below for the Moon Bite debuff inflicted by Moon Lord.

Behavior
Moon Lord has two hands and a head that must be killed before his core becomes available for attack. He positions his two hands on either side of the player some distance away.

Each hand, as well as his head, contains a vulnerable eye-like target that is each periodically closed off and opened via an eyelid. These may only be damaged during their "open" states. The core, which is the only part required to be destroyed in order to defeat the boss, only becomes vulnerable when all eye sockets are destroyed.

Moon Lord can teleport to players if all of them get too far out of range.

Attacks

 * Moon Lord's hands move away from the core and their eyes spawn six . After a couple seconds, they explode, dealing heavy damage. If the player is far enough away, they simultaneously charge at the player before exploding, though they cannot travel at an angle higher than approximately 30 degrees in any direction.
 * The hand eyes also spawn multiple, which move in all directions for a short while before homing in on the player. Like the Phantasmal Spheres, they cannot travel at an upward angle, so they can be evaded by swerving upwards. If they cannot get a direct lock and a player is in range then they will attempt to match the target's trajectory to stay in their path. They explode upon contact with a block or player.
 * The hand eyes also occasionally fire two in quick succession, aiming at the player, which pass through blocks, requiring swerves to avoid. Another viable option is to quickly drop down before the bolts fire, saving the player from getting hit.
 * When attached to Moon Lord's head, the head eye opens every 20–21 seconds for a few seconds, and then fires a : a large laser that sweeps 60 degrees upward over the player. This is by far Moon Lord's most damaging attack. Afterward, the head eye blinks a couple times, and fires two (similarly to those of the hands), and then closes.  As of 1.4, the Head eye will also fire two  before performing the Deathray attack, the Deathray can pass through solid blocks as well.
 * After the Deathray attack, the mouth attempts to attach a Tentacle to the player. The Tentacle can reach through solid blocks. Once attached, it spawns multiple, which are enemies that travel from the player to Moon Lord's mouth. Any Moon Leech Clot that reaches the mouth without being killed returns 1000 health to one of Moon Lord's parts (one that has not yet been defeated).
 * The Tentacle also inflicts the Moon Bite debuff, preventing any life-steal effects from weapons/armor like Vampire Knives or Spectre Armor for 14 seconds (16 seconds in Expert Mode).
 * Once the Head eye is defeated, the Tentacle attack becomes more common, with only about a 2 second break between attacks.
 * When a hand or head target is defeated, it becomes a thorny crevice that deals damage on contact.
 * Additionally, when a head or hand target is defeated, a spawns, which cycles through the following attacks:
 * The eye fires two at the player, similar to those from the hand eyes.
 * The eye spawns six in a hexagonal formation around itself, which after a few seconds will charge directly at the player, dealing a significant amount of damage to the player. This is by far the dominant source of damage in the second phase and should be avoided by swerving/dashing.
 * The eye spawns, which behave similarly to when before the eyes were defeated.
 * The eye charges and fires a lesser, smaller and dealing significantly less damage. Unlike the primary laser, these attacks cannot go through blocks.
 * Finally, the eye performs another attack.


 * The True Eyes of Cthulhu are invincible and will only despawn if either all players die or Moon Lord is defeated. The eyes remain stationary for most of their attacks.
 * Moon Lord will teleport to the nearest player if the player he is targeting dies or moves more than 150 tiles away.

Aftermath
After defeating Moon Lord on the, the Credits will appear while the song Journey's End plays. Besides his other loot, Moon Lord always drops Luminite, allowing the crafting of end-game materials.

Additionally:
 * The Traveling Merchant begins selling the Not a Kid, nor a Squid, a painting.
 * The begins selling Music Box (Journey's End).
 * The Dye Trader begins rewarding the player with Skiphs' Blood in exchange for Strange Plants.
 * The Cyborg will sell a Portal Gun Station if a player with a Portal Gun or Portal Gun Station in their inventory interacts with them.
 * The Zoologist will sell the Universal Pylon in the world where the Moon Lord has been defeated, and if the Bestiary is 100% complete.
 * The Clentaminator can be dropped into the Shimmer in exchange for the Terraformer
 * The Rod of Discord can be dropped into the Shimmer in exhange for a Rod of Harmony

Tips

 * Dodging Moon Lord's attacks is crucial. In particular, the Phantasmal Deathray should be avoided at all costs.
 * Useful items that increase the player's mobility include Gravitation Potions, fast wings like the Fishron or Empress Wings, items allowing to dash (e.g. the Tabi), the Soaring Insignia, and numerous mount-summoning items like the Gelatinous Pillion, Shrimpy Truffle, Cosmic Car Key, or Witch's Broom. The player might also consider constructing a skybridge made out of Asphalt Blocks or Minecart Tracks (especially if using the Mechanical Cart).
 * Hiding under a row of blocks while using a weapon that can attack through blocks, such as the Solar Eruption, can nullify Moon Lord's Phantasmal Deathray. Two rows of blocks can be quite effective. The player should make sure that the barrier has horizontal running room, in order to make space to dodge the Phantasmal Spheres.
 * Using homing weapons or ammo like Chlorophyte Bullets allow the player to focus on dodging.
 * If neither high mobility nor barriers are available, the Rod of Discord allows the player to easily teleport behind the sweeping motion of the Phantasmal Deathray.
 * Teleporting away from Moon Lord to get healing from the Nurse might result in her death, because Moon Lord will immediately teleport to the player.
 * In multiplayer, Moon Lord will attack the nearest player. Players can take turns teleporting home to get healing from the Nurse.
 * In, fighting Moon Lord in a low difficulty, then changing the difficulty during the exploding animation will still give the player the rewards of the new difficulty.
 * Moon Lord is vulnerable to almost all debuffs, most notably and Betsy's Curse, which can dramatically speed up the fight. However, since Moon Lord's eyes remove all debuffs when they close, the player will have to reapply them accordingly.
 * It is advisable to kill the eye on the head first. It is the only eye capable of firing the Phantasmal Deathray and remains closed for significantly longer than the eyes in the hands. If the player waits to kill the head last, they may have to deal with two True Eyes of Cthulhu for a longer amount of time.
 * While the frequently-applied Moon Bite debuff disables the healing effects of Vampire Knives and the Spectre Hood, it does not disable health regeneration boosts, hence the effects of Nebula armor and the Life Drain are not affected.
 * Some of Moon Lord's attacks can be avoided using the 200 NPC limit.
 * Moon Lord's attacks bypass typical invincibility frames, requiring special setups to bypass his attacks.
 * Moon Leech Clots will always reach Moon Lord's mouth in the same amount of time. They travel toward it at a variable rate, remaining completely stationary (or at least apparently so) if Moon Lord is in his default position behind the player. As a result of this, though it may seem counterintuitive, it is actually beneficial to be closer to the mouth to destroy Moon Leech Clots, as they will not move away as quickly.
 * Moon Lord's eye sockets still deal contact damage during his death animation. It is wise to move away from the boss after he is defeated.
 * The entire fight can be trivialised in Expert Mode via the use of the Mechanical Cart. Setting up a minecart track across the sky with bumpers at both end will force Moon Lord to constantly teleport to the player, and allow them to avoid nearly every attack. Using Beetle armor and the Vortex Beater with Chlorophyte Bullets will allow the player to shoot at the reeling Moon Lord, while keeping them relatively safe.

Trivia

 * Despite a mid-development comment by Cenx that this would not be the case, Moon Lord resembles common depictions of, a creature first imagined by in his story . Fans commonly speculated prior to the release of 1.3 that Cthulhu would be the final Terraria boss (which in turn arose partly due to an early concept design floated by the development team).
 * Terraria's final boss was originally going to be the Moon itself descending on the world, but Cenx later stated that this idea had been scrapped.
 * Due to the colors of the boss and the names of a few of his projectiles, this boss may have been inspired by the Vortex Pillar.
 * Despite being the final boss, Moon Lord has the fewest debuff immunities, being immune only to Confused.
 * In the same post where the developers, namely Arkhayla, joked that Moon Lord was Cthulhu's brother, they also said his name was Steve. However, this has been confirmed to not be true.
 * NPCs are unable to attack Moon Lord.
 * According to Cenx, spriting Moon Lord took over a month.
 * Moon Lord is the only boss with a unique death animation sequence.
 * Redigit has stated that, if 10,000 signatures and 15 dollars are gathered, he would make the lower half of Moon Lord a boss. However, the validity of this statement is questionable as both criteria have since been met.
 * In the update, the legs of Moon Lord have been introduced as the Moon Lord Legs item, obtainable from Chests in drunk worlds.
 * Moon Lord seems to share some mechanics of two bosses in pre-Hardmode including Skeletron, having multiple parts that each are destroyable, and the Brain of Cthulhu, requiring the player to defeat separate parts before truly damaging the boss.
 * Moon Lord is one of 7 bosses with exclusive music, the others being the Queen Bee, Deerclops, Queen Slime, Empress of Light, Plantera, and Duke Fishron.
 * He is the only boss that drops three Expert-exclusive items in his Treasure Bag.
 * Moon Lord drops the most coins of any boss, and overall any enemy, in the game.
 * In Expert Mode and Master Mode, his coin drops are higher than the total coin drops of all the Hardmode bosses in the game.
 * While fighting Moon Lord, an eye, presumably the True Eye of Cthulhu, appears on RGB-enabled keyboards.
 * According to Redigit, Moon Lord is the father of the Guide. It is unknown whether this is to be considered official lore.
 * If a body part of Moon Lord is spawned in separately, e.g. using mods or hacks, the music track Boss 1 plays instead of Moon Lord track. Autopause needs to be enabled for this.
 * While Moon Lord is spawning, music volume is decreased.
 * While the Phantasmal Spheres Moon Lord shoots can pierce all NPCs, the Phantasmal Bolts get destroyed upon contact with an NPC, potentially being a viable option for players trying to avoid the bolts.
 * The Moon Lord's summon message "" is redundant; "impending" and "approaching" are synonyms. Thus, an equivalent message would be "Approaching doom approaches..."
 * The Moon Lord's summon message "" is redundant; "impending" and "approaching" are synonyms. Thus, an equivalent message would be "Approaching doom approaches..."