Celestial Pillars

Type	Boss
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Celestial Tower AI
Damage	0
Max Life	20000
Defense	20
KB Resist	10000%
Immune to	All debuffs

Type	Boss
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Celestial Tower AI
Damage	0
Max Life	20000
Defense	20
KB Resist	10000%
Immune to	All debuffs

Type	Boss
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Celestial Tower AI
Max Life	20000
Immune to	All debuffs

Template:Pc only, , ,

The Celestial Towers (aka Pillars) are four bosses that appear during the Lunar Events, at 4 predetermined spots on the map (2 at the west and 2 at the east - see Pillar Spawning Mechanics). The Pillars are spawned when the Lunatic Cultist has been defeated. The 4 Celestial Towers are the Vortex Pillar, the Stardust Pillar, the Nebula Pillar and the Solar Pillar. The craftable gear from each Pillar correspond to the 4 main classes in the game; Vortex for ranged, Stardust for summoner, Nebula for magic, and Solar for melee. The Celestial Towers all drop between 12 - 90 fragments each, associated with their theme, depending on the world mode.

Initially, the Celestial Towers have a large force field around them, which prevents them from taking any damage. In order to remove the force field, the player needs to defeat 100 enemies (150 in Expert Mode) that correspond to that particular Pillar. After doing that, the Pillar can be damaged. Enemies will continue to spawn until the Pillar is defeated. If the player exits the game without destroying a Pillar, all damage done to it will be reset, and the kill count needed to remove the shield will also reset.

The bosses themselves are fairly easy, having only 20000 HP each and dealing no melee damage on contact. While they may not be a direct threat, the minions they spawn can deal high amounts of damage, move very fast or shoot fast moving projectiles, inflict debuffs, and can easily swarm the player if not dealt with swiftly.

Defeating each Pillar triggers the following status messages:

First Tower destroyed: "Your mind goes numb..."
Second Tower destroyed: "You are overwhelmed with pain..."
Third Tower destroyed: "Otherworldly voices linger around you..."
Fourth Tower destroyed: "Impending doom approaches..."

There is no set order in which the Celestial Towers must be defeated. These status messages will appear from whichever tower is taken down first, second, third, and fourth.

After defeating all four Celestial Towers, the screen will start to vibrate and become slightly dim, and the music volume will lower, indicating that the Moon Lord is about to spawn. It will spawn after about a minute.

What triggers the appearance of the Celestial Pillars in Terraria? toggle section

In the game Terraria, the Celestial Pillars, including the Solar Pillar, Vortex Pillar, Nebula Pillar, and Stardust Pillar, appear during the Lunar Events. These events are triggered once the Lunatic Cultist has been defeated. Each pillar represents a different damage type in Terraria: Solar for melee, Vortex for ranged, Nebula for magic, and Stardust for summoning.

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What is the significance of the 'your mind goes numb' message in relation to the Celestial Pillars? toggle section

The 'your mind goes numb' message in Terraria signifies the defeat of the first Celestial Pillar. This status message is a way to alert all players to the pillar's destruction, which may have occurred off-screen. The Celestial Pillars are a significant challenge in the game, spawning minions that can deal high amounts of damage and easily swarm the player. There is no set order in which the pillars must be defeated, so 'your mind goes numb' could refer to the defeat of any of the pillars, such as the Stardust Pillar or the Vortex Pillar.

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What are the differences between the Stardust Pillar and the Vortex Pillar? toggle section

The Stardust Pillar and the Vortex Pillar are two of the four bosses in Terraria known as the Celestial Pillars. Each Pillar represents a different celestial element and has unique characteristics. The Stardust Pillar, representing a glittering celestial remnant known as 'stardust', spawns different minions compared to the Vortex Pillar. The Stardust Pillar is known for spawning enemies like the Stargazer. On the other hand, the Vortex Pillar, representing a deep celestial void known as 'vortex', spawns enemies such as the Vortexian and Storm Diver. Additionally, the weapons gained from defeating each Pillar are different. The Stardust Pillar enables the Stardust Dragon Staff and Stardust Cell Staff, while the Vortex Pillar gives the Phantasm and Vortex Beater.

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What happens when a Celestial Pillar takes control of a map area? toggle section

When a Celestial Pillar takes control of a map area in Terraria, it changes the background to a pillar-specific one and spawns only pillar-specific enemies in large numbers. The pillar itself is completely stationary, apart from slowly bobbing up and down in place. Each pillar controls a circular area around it with a radius of 250 tiles or 500 feet. The area reverts back to normal once the Celestial Pillar is defeated, which requires killing a certain number of its spawned enemies to remove its protective shield.

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Vortex Pillar

The Vortex Pillar is the ranger-themed Celestial Tower, with fast, mobile minions capable of projectile attacks. When nearby, the background will display a green planet with lightning. It drops Vortex Fragments after it is defeated.

It will occasionally open a portal above the player that will spawn 2 Alien Hornets. This attack is incredibly dangerous, especially in Expert Mode, as it can reach the player almost anywhere near the pillar, rendering closed in "safe zones" useless.

The minions spawned by the Vortex Pillar usually move fast, fly towards players, and attack with long ranged projectiles.

Vortexians are usually easy to deal with. They occasionally summon a portal that shoots a lightning bolt that deals relatively low damage.
Storm Divers shoot a volley of projectiles that deal very high damage
The Alien Queens can fire stingers that cause the Distorted debuff, which causes the player to be unable to fly upwards or fall downwards for a few seconds, by distorting gravity around them. This forces the player to only be able to move horizontally, and make them easy targets for attacks from all of the minions.
The Alien Queen spawns 3 Alien Larva when killed, which will grow to Alien Hornets and into more Alien Queens if they are left for too long.

Summons :

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Stardust Pillar

The Stardust Pillar is the summoner-themed Celestial Tower, bringing large swarms of enemies that spawn smaller, weaker entities to attack. When nearby, the background will display a cyan moon and a sparkling effect. It drops Stardust Fragments when it is defeated.

The Stardust Pillar is able to spawn enemies above the pillar on screen . The Stardust Pillar will spawn multiple energy orbs above it, and will link together with lines and then disappear. Shortly after, the energy orbs will disappear and spawn in a random enemy.

Some of the minions spawned by the Stardust Pillar have abilities or attacks that occur after they die.

The Star Cell enemy, if killed, will split into smaller sized versions that grow into full sized versions after a few seconds, which can cause enemies to fill the screen. This can be very dangerous if the player can't dodge them effectively, or attack multiple enemies at once. However, leaving the baby Star Cells alone is an effective way to remove the Pillar's shield more quickly, since the full-grown Star Cells will contribute to the kill count needed before the pillar can take damage.
The Flow Invader will summon smaller creatures around it, which can shoot arrow-like projectiles at the player. The smaller creatures around it will become projectiles and shoot towards the player after the Flow Invader is killed.

Summons :

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Nebula Pillar

Map Icon

Classic

Expert

Master

Statistics

Type	Boss
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Celestial Tower AI
Damage	0
Max Life	20000
Defense	20
KB Resist	10000%
Immune to	All debuffs

Drops

Item (Quantity)Rate
Nebula Fragment (12-60 / 18-90)
100%

Internal NPC ID: 507

The Nebula Pillar is the magic-themed Tower, with minions capable of flight, teleportation, and other unusual attacks and abilities. When nearby, the background will display a purple planet with nebula-like effects, such as beams of energy pulling debris into the sky. It drops Nebula Fragments after it's defeated.

The Nebula Pillar is the only Pillar that doesn't have any kind of attack, although it is best that the player still watch out for its minions.

The Brain Sucklers can attach themselves to the player, blocking vision and dealing damage. While near the pillar, the player's screen will take on a dull purple shade, tinting the screen purple.
The Evolution Beast shoots projectiles that chase the player and deal high damage.
Nebula Floater shoots lasers that move very fast and deal large amounts of damage. The Nebula Floater will teleport around the player, making it more difficult to dodge its projectiles.
Predictor shoots 4 fast-moving projectiles at a time that deal very high damage.

Summons

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Solar Pillar

Map Icon

Classic

Expert

Master

Statistics

Type	Boss
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Celestial Tower AI
Damage	120 (solar fragment)
Max Life	20000
Defense	20
KB Resist	10000%
Immune to	All debuffs

Drops

Item (Quantity)Rate
Solar Fragment (12-60 / 18-90)
100%

Internal NPC ID: 517

The Solar Pillar is the melee-themed Tower, bringing minions with strong defensive abilities, heavy contact damage, and few projectile attacks. When nearby, the background will display a massive orange planet, with a shower of falling fireballs. It drops Solar Fragments after it's defeated.

The Solar Pillar will occasionally spawn fireballs from the top, which deal high contact damage.

The Corites deal larger amounts of damage and move faster if the player stays in the air for long, plus they can travel through blocks, making them harder to escape without coming across Crawltipedes.
The Crawltipedes that the Solar Pillar spawns can be devastating to players using flight, as they deal high damage and are very agile. However, despite their high health, the damage they take is multiplied by 10, and they stop attacking players that land on the ground. The damage multiplication makes healing weapons like Vampire Knives extremely effective. They can only be damaged on their tail, where they have an orb that gets redder when they take more damage.
- When fighting the Solar Pillar, take into account that the Crawltipede does not target players on blocks and platforms. The Scutlix Mount is recommended, as it allows you to stay on the ground while also providing additional weaponry (lasers).
The Selenian can reflect certain projectiles back towards the player and roll towards them at high speed, which all can make the fight very dangerous out in the open.
The Srollers can deal very high amounts of damage if they land near the player.

\l!--\_\n --\g\{\{#lstmap:$$$\!+\!@@@@\!\lesc1\g\l!--\n --\g\{\{#if:\{\{#var:ni:cateset:env:@@@@\}\}\!\!\l!--\n --\g\{\{#vardefine:ni:cateset:env:@@@@\!y\}\}\l!--\n --\g\{\{l10n\!npc_infobox\!cate_environment\!$env$\e@@@@\}\}\l!--\n --\g\}\}\l!--\n --\g\l/esc1\g\!\l!--no\_sep--\g\}\}\l!--\_\n --\g\l!--\n --\g\{\{#if:\{\{#var:ni:cateset:type:@@@@\}\}\!\!\l!--\_\n --\g\{\{#vardefine:ni:cateset:type:@@@@\!y\}\}\l!--\n --\g\{\{l10n\!npc_infobox\!cate_type\!$type$\e@@@@\}\}\l!--\_\n --\g\}\}\l!--\n --\g

Solar Fragment

Classic

Expert

Master

Statistics

Type	Projectile
Environment	Lunar Events
AI Type	Solar Fragment AI
Damage	120/240/360
Max Life	1
Defense	0
KB Resist	100%

Internal NPC ID: 519

Summons :

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Achievement

Star Destroyer • “Defeat the four celestial towers of the moon.”

Defeat all four Celestial Towers. Template:Pc icon

Tips

All Pillars

A player can tell if they have reached the kill count or not by seeing if after killing an enemy, a coloured line travels from the corpse to the Pillar. When those lines stop being created, the kill count has been reached. Another way to tell, given the player is using the lighting type "Color," is the moment the player reaches the kill count, the force field surrounding the pillar sends out a huge shockwave in all directions, which is very difficult to miss.
A quick and effective way to kill all of the Celestial Towers is to use the North Pole directly and vertically above a Pillar. Even if a player does not have any melee modifiers, if all of the snowflakes can make contact, the Pillar should fall in less than 20 seconds.
Another strategy is to use the Nimbus Rod and/or Crimson Rod (the Rainbow Gun might help as it lasts a few seconds) as the player can summon two above the Pillar and let it deal constant damage. If the player leaves a nimbus cloud above the tower and teleport away, it will still do damage until either the tower dies or the cloud runs out. This tactic can be combined with Spectre Armor and a Spectre Hood for long distance healing, as the healing effect has a very long range.
The player can also use Minions (or a Spore Sac) while taking cover in a hole to do a safe kill. Take a note that some enemies can travel through blocks. This is extremely effective for the Vortex and Solar pillars. Using something like the Daedalus Stormbow also helps.
Some other weapons might be more effective, but they are not obtainable until the first Pillar is destroyed. Therefore, if the player decides to start with the Vortex Pillar, using the Phantasm will be incredibly effective for the other Celestial Towers. The Solar Eruption (from the Solar Pillar) also deals massive piercing damage and is very effective as well.
Some Pillars and their enemies seem to be weak to their own weapons. For example, the Nebula Pillar is weak to the Nebula Blaze and Nebula Arcanum.
The longer the time taken to defeat a Pillar, it will sink deeper into the ground, but very slowly.
Repetitively throwing Vampire Knives will keep the player healed most of the time, and if health falls below 150 hp, use a Greater Healing Potion or higher. This will slowly take out the enemies and the pillar itself. Switching to another weapon is a bad idea, unless the player has full Spectre Armor with a hood, though following this strategy, the player should have Beetle Armor.
The shield surrounding the Celestial Towers becomes more transparent as it becomes closer to breaking. This is a good indicator of when the shield will break and leave the player able to damage the Pillar.
The Nebula Pillar could be more difficult to defeat than the others as it is the only pillar whose enemies can still deal a massive amount of damage if the player is underground or inside of a bunker.
The easiest way for players to deal with the Celestial Towers is to use a weapon which can hit through blocks, such as the Death Sickle, and mine tunnels starting from just outside the event zone until the player can reach the pillar with their chosen weapon. All that's left to do is to grind though any enemies which converge above the player's location.
It is strongly recommended that the player take down the Solar Pillar first as it will allow them to craft the Solar Eruption which will speed up the process.
Alternatively, defeating the Nebula Pillar first will allow the player to craft a Nebula Arcanum, which with a good modifier can take down all of a pillar's HP in the amount of uses it takes to use up all the player's mana. Using certain armor sets and/or equipment with the arcane modifier will make mana last longer, more effectively defeating the Pillar and remaining enemies.
Players can use the GPS to know the depth of one Pillar, then build/expand their nearest building of the pillar to this depth and shoot on it with Rocket Launcher with Rocket IV then Rocket III or Sniper Rifle. Rocket IV will destroy the obstacles and Sniper Rifle/Rocket III will kill the Pillar. The time the rocket takes to hurt the pillar can however be long : in a large map, a rocket IV takes ~1 min to travel from the center of the map to the farthest Pillar.

Vortex Pillar

If the player sees a swirling portal form in midair, they should keep their distance and move quickly. The portal will either shoot a lightning bolt similar to the Lunatic Cultist's attack or spawn an Alien Hornet. When the portal shoots a lightning bolt, there will be a blue swirling marker pointing towards the direction the lightning bolt will strike at. Lighting bolts will only shoot downwards. The Vortex Pillar will always spawn Alien Hornets on back-walls with a direct line towards the player if there are any on the player's screen. If not, it can spawn Alien Hornets anywhere within an approximate 300 block radius of the tower.
Because most of the enemies try to stay at the same elevation as the player, with the exception of Alien Queens, staying on the ground removes much of the mobility that Alien Hornets and Storm Divers have.
This is the only pillar where no enemies or projectiles can travel through blocks, making the strategy of taking cover very effective. However, it is somewhat slow as many enemies keep their distance.
Avoid getting swarmed by Alien Queens, as they easily grow from Alien Larvae and Alien Hornets and the Distorted debuff greatly decreases the player's flighting and agility. If overwhelmed, explosives may prove effective.

Stardust Pillar

Using splash-damage weapons on Star Cells is perhaps the easiest way to kill them, as it will destroy all of the split cells as well as the initial cell.
A quick and easy way to break the shields (especially on expert worlds) is to lead a star cell away from the tower, pop it into its smaller orbs, then let those orbs grow into full star cells. This creates an infinite loop, and the new star cells will also count towards the breaking of the shields.
On death, the Flow Invader will hurl up to three projectiles directly at the player (potentially fewer if it is freshly spawned and hasn't yet accumulated its full contingent of orbiters). Be ready to dodge when the player kills this creature.
Milkyway Weavers can be easily slain by using splash-damage weapons on them as soon as they burrow out of the ground. This will ensure that even if the projectile doesn't strike their head directly, it will still deal splash damage as it hits the ground next to it.

Nebula Pillar

When fighting, take caution to avoid getting hit by a Brain Suckler. They cause the Obstructed debuff, which is similar to Blindness but with a darker shader. It will persist until the player kills the Brain Suckler stuck to them, and for a moment thereafter.
Be very wary of Nebula Floaters. They do high damage with high accuracy, and their tendency to teleport - especially when harmed - can make them unpredictable. Nothing prevents a Floater from teleporting directly in front of the player and firing at point blank; if the player wouldn't survive another shot and can't heal up, it may be best to retreat and recover.
Kill Evolution Beasts quickly, because once they get in range they will fire a slow but highly damaging ball of energy that tracks the player, passes through walls can deal continuous damage, and only expires after a few seconds. These will force the player to move around into other hazards and enemies.
Keep an eye out for Predictors because they will stay at distance, not attempting to get close to the player, and shoot several Nebula Piercers in a similar fashion to how Storm Drivers fire their shotguns.
KEEP MOVING. While digging a bunker and attacking from there works for the most part for the other pillars, the Nebula Floater will make short work of the player if they try that approach here.

Solar Pillar

While fighting the Solar Pillar enemies, it is highly recommended to stay grounded. Airborne players are easy prey for the Crawltipede minions, who do an excessive amount of damage but only attack airborne players.
If the player has a skybridge set up in their world, standing on it will allow them to shoot down at enemies on the ground and even the pillar without being targeted by the Crawltipedes. Keep in mind Srollers will still be able to jump up to the platform and roll towards the player.
If the player already has problems killing the enemies to get the shield down, an easy solution is to dig a tunnel under the Pillar and use weapons that go through walls like the Death Sickle or the Nettle Burst. It will help a lot using the Spore Sac (Plantera Expert Item) and a random minion. The player can also kill the Pillar using a wall-piercing weapon. If it is stuck on a hill, the player can build a non-platform bridge to it without being assaulted by Crawltipedes. It may be wise to prioritize Corites, as they can and will attack the player without regard to intervening terrain.
If the player is low on health, and they are wearing wings, a good strategy for regaining health is to alert a crawltipede and hit it with Vampire Knives. Due to the fact that they take ten times as much damage as any other enemy and have a high amount of health, it is a good way to build up health fast; provided the player can dodge the Crawltipede itself. However, if the player is struck by the Crawltipede with low health, they will most likely be slain.
It is highly suggested not to use bullets, arrows, or a Meowmere, at least not on Selenians as they can reflect projectiles that deal the same damage they would have dealt to the enemy. Powerful weapons of those varieties can easily be turned against the player and they can die very quickly. Selenians, however, cannot reflect Rockets, so it is suggested to use those against them if the player is to play ranged.
If the player has a Neptune's Shell, a combined accessory with its effect, or Gills Potions, then standing in a large pool of water under or near the pillar will allow them to move around off the ground, without being targeted by Crawltipedes. In addition, this will also cause most enemies, with the exception of Corites, to move slower, and make it easier to target them. Srollers seem to stand still in the water, making it incredibly easy to target them. This strategy also works well with Vampire Knives, allowing the player to heal more efficiently. Can be done easily with pre-Plantera armors, such as Chlorophyte.
If available, the Scutlix Mount improves forward firepower and ground maneuverability considerably, making the fight much easier.
When fighting the Solar Pillar, try building a small building with doors, platforms, and make it two floors tall, right on the edge of where the tower starts spawning enemies, to help block off some enemies from swarming the player (especially the Srollers who can deal very large amounts of damage on Expert Mode), and to force them into a small and easy to defend area. Only the Corites will fly through walls.
Oddly, the enemies that the Solar Pillar spawns are not immune to the On Fire! debuff.
A Razorblade Typhoon can help out alot as it has a high velocity and fast homing effect so it can quickly stunlock several enemies at once keeping them from the player.

Pillar Spawning Mechanics

When it is time for the 4 pillars to spawn, the game follows these steps: (The coordinates are in tiles)

Randomly arrange the order of the 4 pillars.
Multiply the width of the world by 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 to find rough spawn locations for the pillars, equally spaced from each other and the world's edges.
(For example, a large world is 8400 tiles in width, so the 4 pillars will be spawned at somewhere near x=1680, x=3360, x=5040 and x=6720)
For each pillar:
1. Pick a random x₁ coordinate in the range [x₀ - 100, x₀ + 100], where x₀ represents the x coordinate of the location the Pillar was assigned to.
2. Try to find out a possible y₁ to spawn the pillar at (x₁, y₁). The y₁ is processed from the 0' surface point to somewhere 100 tiles below the top of the world, from low to high. This place is a valid spawning space for a pillar if:
  - There are no solid blocks (doesn't include platforms and other similar tiles) in the rectangle of x coordinate [x₁ - 10, x₁ + 10], y coordinate [y₁ - 20, y₁ + 15] (the smaller the y is, the higher height the spot lies)
  - The pillar will be outside the player's sight, checking whether tiles (x₁ - 10, y₁), (x₁ + 10, y₁), (x₁ - 10, y₁ - 20), (x₁ + 10, y₁ - 20) are all outside a rectangle centered at the player with a width of 1920*1.2 pixels and a height of 1080*1.2 pixels.
3. If a y₁ works then the pillar spawns at (x₁, y₁).
4. If none of the valid y₁ works, go back to the first step
5. If all steps have been run 15 times and failed, give up and just spawn at a settled point: (x₀, y₀ - 40), in which case the Pillar will always spawn at 80' Underground at a fixed x coordinate.

Trivia

The Nebula Pillar is the only pillar to not have an attack that damages directly, as the Solar Pillar attacks with solar fragments, the Vortex Pillar summons portals that spawn Alien Hornets or create bolts, and the Stardust Pillar attacks by summoning white portals that either spawn Star Cell, Milkyway Weaver or Flow Invaders.
The Celestial Towers, Lepus and Turkor the Ungrateful are the only bosses that don't drop trophies.
All of the towers have a humanoid enemy. Vortex Pillar: Vortexian and Storm Diver, Stardust Pillar: Stargazer, Solar Pillar: Selenian and Drakanian, and Nebula Pillar: Predictor.
If the Lighting mode is set to color or white, the shield will have a distort pulse effect, making players around it have a shockwave effect. And when the shield is down, the area nearby get the shockwave effect. When the lighting is on retro or trippy, these effects won't occur.
When in a lunar area, depending on the pillar, the entire area nearby will turn a color. (solar-orange, vortex-teal, nebula-magenta, stardust-blue) (the effect will only occur if the lighting mode is on color or white).
When switching lighting modes, the stardust pillar is the only pillar with a background with the color that's not another shade (the planet on color and white is blue, on retro and trippy it's white, the color shade in the background is light blue on color and white, and purple on retro and trippy).
Vortex Pillar is the only pillar that has a background planet with a ring.
Reversing gravity with a Gravitation Potion or Gravity Globe has a strange effect on a pillar's shield. Instead of being stationary around the pillar like it normally would, its vertical position changes according to its relation to the player. This is only cosmetic, as the pillar cannot be attacked when the shield appears to be removed.
If a pillar has no shield and the world is closed, it will have full health and the shield will be restored when the world is reopened.
This is one of the only events, along with the "Old one`s army" during which enemies don't drop coins.
The towers, Moon Lord and Martian Saucer seem to have a higher resolution than most sprites. (Most Terraria enemies are pixelized.)
The four pillars could be linked to the four classical elements of western culture. (Solar = fire, stardust = water, vortex = earth and nebula = air)
The NPC won't try to attack the pillar even if they are in range.

History

1.3.0.4: Vortex Pillar summons portals faster.

1.3.0.2: Buffed health from 15000 to 20000.

1.3.0.1: Introduced.

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Terraria Wiki

Celestial Pillars

Contents

Quick Answers

Vortex Pillar

Stardust Pillar

Nebula Pillar

Solar Pillar

Achievement

Tips

All Pillars

Vortex Pillar

Stardust Pillar

Nebula Pillar

Solar Pillar

Pillar Spawning Mechanics

Trivia

History

Fan Feed