Guide:Eater of Worlds strategies

"Screams echo around you..."

The Eater of Worlds (or EoW) is one of the bosses in Terraria. It is found in The Corruption. Preparation for this boss is extremely helpful in the fight and is relatively simple to complete. The following are some hints, tips, and strategies to help you defeat it when first encountered.

Spawn Conditions
Eater of Worlds is spawned by fulfilling one of these conditions:


 * Breaking three
 * Using

You must then defeat Eater of Worlds within the Corruption: leaving the biome will make it retreat and despawn.

The Fight
Eater of Worlds is a huge multi-segmented worm, and thus, its parts tend to linger for a while. You can attack its segments with penetrating weapons and arrows to deal a lot of damage. If a segment is destroyed, the Eater of Worlds will split into two different sections. This will continue until all segments are completely destroyed. Note that it can be difficult to hit if you choose to fight it in the Corruption's chasms, so it may be easier to lure it to the surface (and its arena if you made it, check below for more info).

Beware that, when a segment dies, the segments in front and behind will detach and separately attack the player.

Managing the Split Worms
When a segment is defeated, the Eater will split into two more worms that each follow the same attack pattern. These worms form a new head and tail, and they will make the fight more difficult. To prevent that, you can try to prioritize the Head segment, which has the lowest defense of the segments. However, the head is also the section that deals the most damage, so caution is advised. Alternatively, you can prioritize the tail segment, which is the opposite of the head (more Defense, less damage).

Careful management of segments can reduce the number of smaller, harder to hit worms. In this case, prioritize the use of non-penetrating weapons, and hit its head and tail. If you destroy a middle segment, concentrate on the smaller worm, since the larger one can be easy to predict and dodge.

Expert Mode
In Expert Mode, the Eater of Worlds gains a variety of upgrades:


 * The ability to shoot, a projectile that deals very high damage and has a 5% chance to cause the  debuff.
 * Increased defense against explosives, making them considerably less viable in the fight.
 * When on land, has increased movement speed and fire rate for Vile Spit.

Vile Spit is the Eater of Worlds' most dangerous attack, so it is important to bring sufficient mobility accessories and make an arena that allows you to dodge. Due to the nature of the attack, the player will likely have the Weak debuff for most of the fight. This makes melee a less viable option, due to the decrease in movement speed, melee damage and melee attack speed.


 * An option that can trivialize the fight, given a little patience, is to use one of the various Flails' spinning attack to block the Vile Spit projectiles, as they are blocked by attacks. Doing this ensures you have time to heal after being hit, providing you can dodge the Eater of Worlds' body segments.

Terrain preparation
The player must be in The Corruption to summon the Eater of Worlds; moving too far away from the biome during the battle will cause it to flee.

The Eater of Worlds is a very large Worm enemy, so dodging it may prove to be difficult. You should try and fight it on the surface instead of the underground as the caves will make it hard for you to dodge, but the Eater of Worlds summons extra attacks if you decide to fight it on land. If you are summoning this boss by breaking Shadow Orbs, be sure to provide yourself a quick and safe escape back to the surface where your arena will be. A room with a next to your arena can let you teleport there easily, but be careful that the path from orb to arena does not go through any non-Corrupted areas (lest the boss despawn). When making your arena on the surface, you have some options:


 * In Normal mode, make it fairly tall, thin, and easily climbable with many Platforms. That way, not only you can see it coming, but this will force it to climb in a relatively straight line, leaving large portions of its body exposed, and vulnerable to piercing attacks.
 * In Expert mode, due to the frequency of the Vile Spit attack, the Eater of Worlds will become much harder to dodge. Arenas built on the surface make dodging the attacks easier, but they come at the cost of increased movement and attack speed from the boss. Multiple wide platforms are normally sufficient for the fight, but you can enhance the arena by adding walls to prevent normal enemies from spawning.
 * Whichever option you choose, make sure the arena doesn't go too high. If it goes too high and the Corruption background disappears, the Eater of Worlds will start despawning.
 * It's also not recommended to build your surface arena above a valley. While it's still above the ground, the hills on either side will provide higher ground for the Eater of Worlds to get to you and make your arena less effective.
 * To not get interrupted by Eater of Souls, it's recommended to place an Eater of Soul Banner to minimize their damage. You can obtain one by killing 50 Eater of Souls.

If you don't want to fight the Eater of Worlds on the surface, it's possible to fight it underground instead. If you are breaking, hollowing out an entire arena every third orb or escaping to a surface arena may not be practical; you should modify the terrain around you to have a quick path of escape to a space with good horizontal clearance and any hazardous terrain smoothed out or boarded over. Consider placing platforms periodically to provide extra maneuverability.

If you have an Autoswing weapon such as the or a, you can use a Grappling Hook and hook it to the ground to be able to remain stationary. Alternatively, a or an  can be used to become immune to Knockback. If you happen to have any, it could be useful, as it increases your melee speed. Once the Eater of Worlds has been summoned, begin swinging. As the Eater of Worlds tries to inflict damage by passing through you, the Autoswing weapon will destroy its sections fast and effectively, and the fight will be over fairly quickly. This can also be used as an effective farming technique.

Armor and Accessories
It is recommended to have at least 200 Life and 100 Mana, which requires 5 Life and 4 Mana Crystals: if you've done some spelunking you're bound to have come across this many.

or is recommended. You can get by killing enough segments of the boss without defeating it, or  by farming the Eaters of Souls.

It is possible to kill the Eater of Worlds with just or, but the fight will be a bit more dangerous. or works as well, and is safer than Lead or Iron. is another viable option, rewarding slightly less defense than iron, but increasing your damage output, which can ensure the fight is completed quickly.

is a great choice for rangers, although it doesn't have as much defense as other available sets.

The is the best offensive mage set available, but has little defense. The gives higher defense but has weaker magic offensive stats.

or its upgrades are recommended as they can help with dodging.

Accessories with Menacing or Warding will be most efficient here, but are not required.

Summoners should use the Flinx Fur Coat.

On the, drop from Skeletons, so  can be used here.

The Slimy Saddle mount bounces when hit by the Eater of Worlds and does damage. When used in the open, it can protect you from being trapped. When used against a ceiling, the mount bounces rapidly, dealing large amounts of damage even in higher difficulty modes.

Weapons
For Melee users:


 * Large swords like the or the  can deal damage evenly if swung repeatedly at the long worm's arcing body.
 * The is also a good weapon to kill the boss, but takes a while to kill it. If you have a  from breaking Shadow Orbs (or a different flail), you can easily swing it into the EoW and inflict massive damage to many of its segments. This method requires more defense and/or health however, and preferably a way to avoid knockback.
 * If you are lucky enough to find an Enchanted Sword Shrine and obtain an (or ), you may find it to be very effective against the worm.
 * As mentioned above, an Autoswing weapon such as the or a  could be very useful. If you manage to find one with one of the speed increasing Modifiers, it may prove even more useful.
 * The is a very strong choice as it deals significant damage and is obtainable prior to defeating any boss.
 * Flails can block nearly all Vile Spit when used as long as you stay ~2 blocks away from the body, which can effectively make the fight trivial yet drawn out in most cases.

For Ranged users:


 * Guns can be very effective at killing worms.
 * The does decent damage, is easily obtained by breaking Shadow Orbs and is a great gun to get for killing the Eater of Worlds.
 * The is a excellent choice of weapon, but it works best close to the Eater of Worlds and requires the Goblin Army to be defeated first.
 * Bows don't have as fast a rate of fire, but by farming Devourers for their teeth and upgrading to, the piercing effect makes them a great choice.
 * are a good alternative because of the shared pierce effect they have, and are also fairly easy to get.
 * The is also relatively easy to get by this point and will work well, but even a  can be used. If a shot can be lined up, about 30 damage can be done to 10 segments, finishing the fight very quickly.
 * The, available after defeating the Eater of Worlds at least once and enabling meteorite strikes, makes a mockery of it- ripping through multiple segments and destroying virtually any segment in one hit.
 * The Flare Gun is a very effective weapon, as it pierces indefinitely and inflicts the On Fire! debuff.

For Magic users:


 * The will not deal damage as quickly as other methods, but will have a balanced damage distribution throughout the entire body. It's obtained from  in the Corruption. Furthermore, this is a relatively safe weapon to use against the worm as it can be deployed in the worm's path. It will continue to deal damage for a short time while giving you time to dodge.
 * or can also pierce multiple parts and deal great damage, while using little mana.
 * A can be very effective against the Eater of Worlds because of its fast-rate homing bees, and can be further enhanced with the, for Expert players. However, it is dropped by the Queen Bee, which is a much more difficult boss than the Eater of Worlds.
 * You could also use the which is easily obtained by looking in the books in dungeons. On the, it is only found in the lower parts of the Dungeon, requiring defeating Skeletron, which is not recommended at this time
 * If one is having significant trouble with the fight (particularly in Master Mode) the is a very effective weapon when combined with good movement accessories (like the / and Horseshoe Balloon)
 * If the player has obtained it, the is ideal as it can pierce and its erratic nature may cause extreme damage.

For Throwing users:


 * Non-explosive consumables, such as and, can be effective since they penetrate segments, meaning that they hit multiple times while allowing the player to keep a safe distance.
 * Explosive consumables, like are very effective, killing all pieces caught in the blast. The player should be careful, however, to not get caught in the blast themselves.
 * are especially useful, as they can be thrown down where the Eater of Worlds is likely to surface. Lining a platform in the air with a layer of spiky balls creates an effective barrier against Vile Spit projectiles while also dealing a good amount of damage.  It is also possible to lure the Eater into traveling parallel along the platform, causing massive damage across all of its segments.
 * are extremely effective against the Eater of Worlds, leaving behind multiple flames on the ground that do ~40 damage each and hit every segment that moves through them.

For Summoner users:


 * The is a great summoning weapon against the Eater of Worlds, due to the fact that the finch summon pierces through its segments.
 * The and  also perform decently.
 * A whip such as the will destroy the Eater of Worlds

Potions

 * and can really help mitigate any hits you take.
 * can be very useful in spotting the Eater of Worlds as it burrows, making it easier to fight even without a raised platform.
 * A or other food item will also give you a small buff to all stats.
 * The will damage the Eater of Worlds every time it hurts you and is easy to craft.
 * An easy way to get out of the chasm if you wish to fight on the surface is to use a and a.
 * Inferno Potions will destroy Vile Spit on contact, making them a useful tool in the fight, despite their rarity and difficulty to obtain.

Farming
The EoW can be a good source of money if you sell the and  that it drops. With endgame (or even late pre-Hardmode) armor and weapons you can quickly defeat this easy-to-summon boss. Once you have recruited the Tavernkeep, his Lightning Aura sentries are deadly against the EoW, because once the head has passed a given point, all the body segments must follow. Even the Rod can kill the boss "cleanly" (from the head back) in a few passes, while the player simply evades the worm and renews or moves the sentry as needed.

Hardmode weapons that swing continuously such as the and  are extremely effective against the Eater of Worlds. Spears and higher tier Flails can also quickly dispose of the EoW. Simply grapple yourself to the ground (or use a ) and keep attacking/keep your flail below you by holding. If you have Molten Armor, you will be able to take any damage the Eater of Worlds dishes out, as its killed segments tend to drop Hearts, which will heal you.

The (easily obtained with a statue farm) offers a fairly quick execution, because it hits every segment in line-of-sight. With an arena high enough for the EoW to emerge completely from the ground, plus a modest damage bonus (+15% or better), it can destroy the entire boss in three strikes. However, this is much less practical in Expert mode, due to the Vile Spit projectiles. One strategy is to get the slime mount and bounce up and down repeatedly inside the chasms.