User:Gearzein/Hardmode draft

"The ancient spirits of light and dark have been released."

Hardmode is a stage of a world's progression marked by the defeat of the Wall of Flesh and the appearance of new Environments, Enemies and Bosses, often in place of older ones. As the name implies, a world in Hardmode is considerably more difficult to survive in than a freshly generated world. Hardmode is a permanent state of a world independent of the player's progression, and any player that enters a world will encounter Hardmode content, regardless of whether they have personally defeated the Wall of Flesh.

The most obvious change brought by Hardmode's onset is the sudden expansion of a world's native Corruption or Crimson, as well as the introduction of The Hallow. They appear as a large V-shaped area of the world, converting certain corruptible blocks and overwriting biomes in their way where possible. These strips reach all the way to the bottom of the world, introducing additional new biomes in the Underground Corruption, Underground Crimson and Underground Hallow. In addition, both these new areas and existing patches of Corruption and Crimson begin to continuously spread at a much greater pace than before.

Both the new biomes and existing ones will begin generating new enemies as well. Some, such as the Ice Elemental and Giant Tortoise, are entirely new enemies, while others are improved versions of previously encountered threats, such as the Toxic Sludge, a variation on the Slime. In addition to normally generated enemies, many of the early-game bosses receive upgrades in the form of the Mechanical Bosses.

While most pre-Hardmode equipment will be outclassed by much tougher enemies, the Altars present since world generation become destructible. When smashed by the Pwnhammer dropped by the Wall of Flesh or a similarly empowered hammer, they will cause new, Hardmode-exclusive ores to generate in the world. These can be used to craft an entirely new suite of Weapons, Tools and Armor that can compete with the increased difficulty. In addition, several new Accessories, as well as crafting and construction materials, also become available from enemies or purchasable from a host of new NPCs that the player can add to their town after certain conditions are met. Many powerful items are gated behind Souls, a crafting material obtained exclusively from Hardmode enemies and required to craft many Hardmode weapons and items.

Biomes
Several biomes begin changing following the defeat of the Wall of Flesh, either directly through the onset of Hardmode or as a result of the spread of the Corruption, Crimson or Hallow.

Forest
While the forest's spawns are not as radically altered as some other biomes, it still sees the introduction of new enemy types, most often at night. While none of these are exclusive to the forest, the following enemies begin to spawn there during Hardmode:
 * , a Fighter-type enemy.
 * , which only spawns when the moon is full.
 * , a flying enemy similar to the Demon Eye that changes form on losing half its life.
 * , a hovering enemy that passes through blocks.
 * , a unique Blood Moon enemy that throws bombs at the player.

As the basis for all three spreading environments, however, the forest is most profoundly affected by Hardmode. The conversion of Grass accelerates, and can no longer be stopped by Sunflowers. Both the grass on the surface and small underground pockets are able to be converted, as are Trees, Stone and Sand, and too many corrupted blocks near settlements will make NPC Houses in those areas unlivable. Normal forest enemies will not spawn in these converted areas either. As so much of the forest's constituent blocks are corruptible, the complete loss of all Forest terrain is a distinct possibility in a world where spreading biomes go unchecked.

Snow and Underground Snow
The snow biome changes as well, though the sparseness of its pre-hardmode content remains. The following enemies are exclusive to Hardmode snow:
 * , a hovering enemy that fires icy projectiles.
 * , a fast ground enemy.
 * , a powerful enemy that appears during a Blizzard and shoots freezing lasers.

Snow biomes are somewhat more resistant to conversion into other biomes- while Ice Blocks convert easily, they are relatively sparse near the surface. Even when converted, the effects are minimal- normal Corruption, Crimson and Hallow enemies can spawn on exposed blocks of converted ice, but this does not typically prevent the spawning of normal Snow enemies. The density of resistant blocks can greatly slow biome spread on the surface.

Below the surface, however, ice blocks become more common, and underground snow areas begin to face near-total conversion as well, though the effects are generally the same- only one unique enemy, the Pigron, spawns in a converted Underground Snow biome. However, at this depth, adjacency to the Cavern layer puts the massed stone there at risk of more serious conversion.

Desert
Spawns in the desert normally remain largely unchanged. In addition to the original enemies, the following enemies spawn in the Desert:
 * , an ordinary fighter-type enemy.
 * , a Hallowed mummy.
 * , a Corrputed or Crimson variation on the Mummy.

Sand is susceptible to conversion, and deserts do not constitute nearly as much of the world's surface as forests do, so it is not at all uncommon for deserts to be lost entirely. Ebonsand, Crimsand and Pearlsand can still be used to make Glass and fired from a Sandgun, and all variations of Cactus continue to drop the same item, but for all intents and purposes a converted desert is the same as a converted forest of the same type, with the sole exclusion of their respective Mummy variants. Because of gravity's influence on sand, however, there are no air pockets between a desert and the area beneath it, giving biomes spreading on the surface a quick route to the stone-rich underground and cavern layers.

It is notable that if a Corrupt or Crimson desert created at world generation is caught in the band of Hallow generated at the beginning of Hardmode, it will be converted into a Hallowed desert just as a 'normal' desert would be.

Jungle
The jungle receives a notable spike in difficulty on reaching Hardmode; just as in pre-hardmode, it is a goal to be worked towards. Most of the new enemies are both highly mobile and incredibly damaging. The following enemies appear in a Hardmode jungle:
 * list them here

Jungles are, at first glance, highly resistant to corruption. If hit by the initial wave of conversion, the effect may go unnoticed, as neither Mud nor Jungle Grass can be directly converted, and stone is sparse in the jungle. However, jungles are subject to a more nefarious form of conversion. Given time, other sources of Corruption or Crimson will convert mud blocks in a Jungle biome into dirt, causing the jungle grass to become corrupted as well. Rather than creating a hybridized biome, a jungle can eventually be entirely destroyed in this way, leaving a converted forest that even purification by the Clentaminator cannot undo. Fortunately, the Hallow cannot spread in this way, though this does mean that if the Hallow band strikes a jungle, it is essentially lost and must be spread to the rest of the world through other means.

Ores
The Wall of Flesh always drops the Pwnhammer upon its defeat, which can be used to destroy Demon/Crimson Altars (note that bringing the Pwnhammer to a pre-hardmode world will not allow you to destroy Demon Altars there). The first three Demon Altars destroyed will trigger the creation of three new Ores, in the following order:


 * The first destroyed Demon Altar or Crimson Altar will trigger the creation of Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore.
 * The second destroyed Demon Altar or Crimson Altar will trigger the creation of Mythril Ore or Orichalcum Ore.
 * The third destroyed Demon Altar or Crimson Altar will trigger the creation of Adamantite Ore or Titanium Ore.

For every Demon Altar you break, 1-3 Wraiths will spawn immediately. The new ores are created by replacing existing World blocks.

Subsequent Demon Altars destroyed will begin the cycle again, though the fourth to sixth altars will drop half as much ore as the first ones, the seventh to ninth will drop only one third of the ore of the first ones, and so forth. This "multiplier" can be calculated with the formula 1/(ceiling(n/3) + 1 - sgn(n)) where n is the number of altars destroyed. So, destroying the 19th altar would yield one-seventh of Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore compared to the first altar.

Each time a Demon Altar is destroyed, there is also a chance that a single random tile of rock in the world will be converted into ebonstone/crimstone or pearlstone, which will likely grow to become a new underground Hallow or Corruption/Crimson given enough time.

No matter how many Altars are destroyed, Ore rarity remains set with Cobalt/Palladium being the most common, followed by Mythril/Orichalcum, then Adamantite/Titanium as the most rare.

Mining and crafting

 * Mining Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore requires at least the Molten Pickaxe or the Reaver Shark
 * Mining Mythril Ore or Orichalcum Ore requires at least the Cobalt Drill, Cobalt Pickaxe, Palladium Drill, or the Palladium Pickaxe. Crafting many higher-tier Hardmode items will require a Mythril Anvil or Orichalcum Anvil, which is crafted from 10 Mythril or Orichalcum Bars.
 * Mining Adamantite Ore or Titanium Ore requires at least the Mythril Drill, Mythril Pickaxe, Orichalcum Drill, or Orichalcum Pickaxe, however on the Console version you may use Palladium Drill or Palladium Pickaxe. Cobalt Drill and Cobalt Pickaxe however, will not mine Adamantite or Titanium. Crafting Adamantite Bars or Titanium Bars will require an Adamantite Forge or a Titanium Forge, which is crafted from a Hellforge and 30 raw Adamantite/Titanium Ore.

Bosses

 * Duke Fishron is a horrid pig-fish-dragon hybrid found in the Ocean. He is summoned using Truffle Worms which only spawn in the mushroom biome during Hardmode.

The three Mechanical Bosses are more difficult "upgraded" versions of the regular-mode bosses, and are summoned via new craftable items:

After the mechanical bosses above are defeated, Plantera becomes available for summoning: After Plantera is defeated and a Temple Key is collected from it, the Golem becomes available:
 * The Destroyer is the Hardmode version of Eater of Worlds, and is summoned by the Mechanical Worm. Even though the Eater of Worlds can only be summoned in a world with a Corruption, the Destroyer can be summoned in a world with a Corruption or Crimson.
 * The Twins are the Hardmode version of the Eye of Cthulhu, and are summoned by the Mechanical Eye.
 * Skeletron Prime is the Hardmode version of Skeletron, and is summoned by the Mechanical Skull.
 * Ocram is summoned using a Suspicious Looking Skull at night. This was the hardest boss in the console edition before the 1.2 update.
 * When Wall of Flesh is defeated, a pop-up box will appear briefly describing Hardmode.
 * Plantera is a giant plant-like monster summoned by destroying Plantera's Bulb in the Underground Jungle after all three preceding bosses have been defeated (one on console edition or mobile edition)
 * Golem is found in the Jungle Temple, which is opened by the Temple Key that Plantera drops.

All pre-Hardmode bosses can still be summoned in Hardmode.

Post-Plantera
Once Plantera is defeated, the world undergoes a second minor transformation:
 * New enemy types begin spawning in the Dungeon, which are even harder than ordinary Hardmode enemies. See Dungeon for the list of post-Plantera enemies.
 * The spread of the Hallow, Corruption, and Crimson is slowed.
 * The Cyborg NPC becomes available.
 * The Truffle NPC begins selling the Autohammer, which crafts Shroomite Bars.

As secondary effects, a post-Plantera world offers access to the following:
 * The Jungle Temple and its Golem boss, using the Temple Key that Plantera drops.
 * The Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon events, via the Pumpkin Moon Medallion and Naughty Present, respectively. Crafting these requires the Ectoplasm that new Dungeon Spirits drop.
 * Biome Chests, via Biome Keys. These require Temple Keys that Plantera drops, in addition to Biome Key Molds.

Enemies
• •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

See The Hallow, Underground Hallow, Corruption, Underground Corruption,Crimson, and Underground Crimson for lists of enemies that spawn in those biomes during Hardmode.

Most of these enemies are significantly harder, doing more damage and having higher health and defense than pre-Hardmode enemies. Most Pre-Hardmode weapons can prove ineffective, and until a player can obtain new Hardmode gear, they may be forced to avoid enemy swarms and/or play more strategically.

NPCs
Several new NPCs become available in Hardmode
 * The Wizard can be found in nearly any open area underground, initially bound, and speaking to him frees him (similar to the Mechanic and the Goblin Tinkerer). He will then respawn as long as a vacant House is available. The Wizard sells magic-related items.
 * Santa Claus appears between December 15th and 31st (based on your computer's time setting), after the defeat of the Frost Legion, so long as a vacant House is available. He sells the Santa costume, Red/Green/Blue lights, the Christmas Tree, and decorations for it.
 * The Steampunker appears after defeating one Mechanical Boss, and if a vacant House is available. She sells Teleporters and other steampunk items.
 * The Truffle appears once you make a house in a mushroom biome above ground when your world is in hardmode. He sells useful mushroom themed items and the Autohammer.
 * The Cyborg appears once you have defeated Plantera, so long as a vacant house is available. He sells rockets and other mechanical items. At night he sells more advanced items such as upgraded rockets.
 * The Pirate appears once you have defeated a Pirate Invasion, and sells a vanity set as well as other pirate themed items.

Events
There are several new events in Hardmode:
 * The Frost Legion is triggered by the Snow Globe and never invades on its own. The Snow Globe can be used to summon the Frost Legion in non-Hardmode worlds, but the Snow Globe itself can only be acquired from Presents in a Hardmode world.
 * Pirate Invasions are triggered by the Pirate Map, or can appear randomly at the start of the day.
 * Solar Eclipses behave like the Blood Moon, only during the day, and can appear after any Hardmode boss is defeated. During a Solar Eclipse, unique and powerful monsters will spawn in vast numbers, including Reapers, Vampires, Swamp Things, Frankensteins and Eyezors.
 * The Pumpkin Moon is the one of the most challenging Hardmode events. It can only be started at night by the player using a Pumpkin Moon Medallion, which is crafted with 30 Pumpkins, 5 Ectoplasm, and 10 Hallowed Bars. This turns the moon into a scary pumpkin face. The event has 15 waves, with each wave requiring a progressively higher score to progress to the next. Enemies that spawn are Scarecrows, Splinterlings, Hellhounds, Poltergeists, Headless Horseman, a mini-boss Mourning Wood, and a boss Pumpking. More and harder enemies will spawn at higher waves, and there can be several Mourning Woods and Pumpkings attacking at once. The event ends at the end of the night or when all 15 waves have been completed.
 * The Frost Moon is an invasion-like event similar to the Pumpkin Moon, though being a step up on the difficulty. It is started by using the Naughty Present at night. Featuring some of the game's strongest enemies and 20 waves, it is currently the most difficult encounter in Terraria.

In Hardmode worlds, Goblin Armies do still invade, and Meteorites still land, each at their regular rates. Blood Moons and Rain also occur just as frequently, though with new Hardmode enemies.

Items
Several new Tools, Weapons, Accessories, Armors, and crafting materials become available in Hardmode, as enemy drops, sold from NPCs, or via crafting. Drills, Chainsaws, and Repeaters are variations of Pickaxes, Axes, and Bows, respectively, which can be obtained once in Hardmode.

Equipment
Each of the many hardmode Ores have their own complete item set, including Armor, Drill, Chainsaw, Sword, Spear, and Repeater. In addition, Hallowed Armor and associated tools and weapons become available: the Drax, Excalibur, Gungnir, and Hallowed Repeater. Crafting Hallow-tier items required creating the item sets for what was then all the hardmode ores and defeating the Mechanical Bosses introduced with hardmode for set-specific boss souls. As of 1.2, their crafting recipes were simplified to need only Hallowed Bars, which dropped when the mechanical bosses were killed.

Many of the hardmode Armor sets have three different options for the Helmet slot, which each benefit players that use either Magic Weapons, Melee Weapons, or Ranged Weapons. Shroomite Armor is an exception - its helmet choices benefit ranged weapons in all cases, although only specific ones (see the article for details).

Magic weapons
New Magic Weapons that are obtainable or craftable after merely traversing the new Underground biomes for a reasonable amount of time include:

After killing The Twins, the following become craftable:

Other weapons
Before beating Bosses:
 * deals some very high damage at reasonable range.
 * is an upgraded Phaseblade, adding rapid-fire attack and double the melee damage.

After defeating The Destroyer:
 * s help you traverse the new biomes.
 * helps you beat the remaining Hardmode bosses.

After defeating The Twins
 * is an upgrade to the Water Bolt.
 * is the highest tier mouse controled projectile.

After defeating Skeletron Prime:
 * lets you use all that Gel you've got saved up as powerful ammunition.

Accessories
• •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Crafting materials
Six different types of Souls are a common requirement for crafting many Hardmode items, and are dropped from various sources.

In addition, the following common materials are used for consumables:
 * (from Pixies) is used in Greater Healing Potions and Holy Arrows
 * (from Unicorns) is used in Super Mana Potions and Holy Arrows
 * (from Clingers and World Feeders) is used in Cursed Bullets/Arrows
 * (from Ichor Stickers) is used in Ichor Bullets/Arrows
 * (grows in the Underground Hallow) is used in Greater Healing Potions, Super Mana Potions, and Crystal Bullets

Note: See The Hallow, Underground Hallow, Corruption, Underground Corruption, Crimson, and Underground Crimson for complete item drop lists.

Corruption and Hallow spread

 * If you've built a Corruption farm near your Town to farm Vile Mushrooms, or a corrupted Arena to farm the Eater of Worlds, you will want to either demolish them completely or seal them completely with Wood before defeating the Wall of Flesh. Corruption spreads very quickly and easily in Hardmode, including turning Stone into Ebonstone, but cannot spread past Wood (nor several other block types, but Wood is arguably the easiest to acquire).
 * If a world remains in Hardmode for a long time, the Hallow/Corruption/Crimson can completely devour the Jungle. To farm Plantera, Chlorophyte Ore, or other jungle enemies, consider sealing off part of the underground jungle with Wood to ensure it is never corrupted.
 * If you enter Hardmode while a Corruption farm/arena is still standing unsealed near your town, quickly purchase several full stacks of Purification Powder from the Dryad and drench the Corruption with it. Alternatively, you can choose to simply limit the spread of Corruption by digging a four-tile-wide gap around the affected area and sealing it in with Wood. You will need to move quickly, though.
 * Once you get the Steampunker, you might want to buy the Clentaminator for 2 platinum, along with its ammunition, named Solution. It is a quick and handy way of cleaning/destroying/creating biomes. Be aware that, both the Clentaminator and the Solution will cost a lot of money.

Difficulty

 * When beginning Hardmode, a player can easily become overwhelmed by the difficult new enemies, which have Health and Damage many times greater than regular-mode enemies. It is advisable to start by identifying your most damaging weapons and investing money in Reforging them to acquire high damage bonuses, as well as reforging your Accessories to add high defense bonuses. Low-tier Hardmode weapons begin at around 35 damage, so viable regular-mode weapons of use will be the Sunfury and Night's Edge as melee options, the Molten Fury and Flamarang as semi-ranged, and the Flower of Fire and Demon Scythe as magical. Reforging these and making use of other damage boosts from Accessories or Armor bonuses can easily push these weapons into damage ranges that will make Hardmode fights relatively balanced.
 * Because hardmode relies more upon drops than treasure chests (which don't suddenly respawn with more loot), players will need to kill large numbers of these tougher enemies for items like Souls or Pixie Dust. Consider building mini-bases with proper protections that involve shallow lava pits above small access tunnels that run between Underground Hallow and Corruption/Crimson biomes.  Use Active Stone Blocks to make the "doors" that let you jump up and grab floating souls.  Place walls to prevent spawns inside your mini-base.  You will still need to fight off the occasional Cursed Hammer, but it's a much easier job to farm these enemies when you reduce the threats to a few at a time.  Eventually, they will drop either a good weapon, or the resources needed to craft one.
 * Mechanical bosses and invasions can take the player off guard. It's best to leave and rejoin if you are ill prepared.

Resources

 * Don't throw away your Iron Ore/Bars, Lead Ore/Bars, Bones, Lenses, Vertebrae, and Rotten Chunks, as these are used for crafting Boss-summoning items in Hardmode. If you need to collect more, it may be easier to create a new non-Hardmode world and collect them there, along with any other pre-Hardmode materials you find yourself needing.
 * The Eater of Worlds and Eye of Cthulhu are commonly used by players as a good source of money, and this is still useful during the beginning stages of Hardmode. However, summoning them in Hardmode can be more difficult: eg. you've probably destroyed any close Demon Altars (needed to craft the Worm Food and Suspicious Looking Eye), you may have demolished your nearby Corruption farm or Arena, and trips to the naturally-occurring Corruption are now more hazardous (Eater of Worlds must be summoned and fought within Corruption). It is much easier to simply create a new non-Hardmode world to farm these bosses, then use the funds collected from them in your Hardmode world. The Wall of Flesh can be farmed and drops about, and items which each sell for approximately.
 * One way to farm money in Hardmode once you become reasonably able to traverse the Underground Hallow (aside from using a glitch) is to collect Crystal Shards, which are common and sell for   for a full stack of 999.  Since they grow naturally on any pearlstone surface facing air, you can mine away stripes of pearlstone in areas you visit often to farm crystals more readily.
 * Farming the Destroyer once you can beat it is another way to make a considerable amount of money, since you can farm it without too much additional effort. Because it is relatively easy to kill quickly and can easily be meleed to death (avoiding spending any money on ammunition), the Hallowed Bars it drops can be crafted into Light Discs, together with the Souls of Might it also drops, and with Souls of Light which can be obtained in the Underground Hallow. Each Light Disc sells for . As it drops 15-30 Hallowed Bars and 20-40 Souls of Might per kill, that is typically 3-7 Light Discs per run (if you have enough Souls of Light, that is). The Souls of Might it drops may also be sold for additional money, each, which is another 16-32  per run if you don't spend the souls on Light Discs, in addition to the  the boss drops. In total, you net 42-82, and due to the ease of crafting the Mechanical Worm and the relative quickness with which you can dispatch the boss, you can fight it multiple times in a single in-game night.

History
Hardmode