Guide:Brain of Cthulhu strategies

This is a Guide page.
This means the page will walk you through a specific task, strategy, or enemy/boss fight.

This guide is about Brain of Cthulhu, which is exclusive to Crimson worlds. Player playing in Corruption worlds should check Guide:Eater of Worlds strategies instead.

Brain of CthulhuFirst Form

Map Icon

 Classic

 Expert

 Master

Statistics

Type	Boss
Environment	The Crimson
AI Type	Brain of Cthulhu AI
Damage	30/54/81
Max Life	1250/2125/2709 3000-4000 / 5700-7700 (with creepers)
Defense	14
KB Resist	55%/60%/64%
Immune to

Drops

Coins	51250

Sounds

Hurt
Killed

• Internal NPC ID: 266

"A horrible chill goes down your spine..."

The Brain of Cthulhu is Pre-Hardmode boss. It's The Crimson counterpart of Eater of Worlds.

Spawn Conditions

The Brain of Cthulhu can be spawned by fulfilling one of these conditions:

• Smash three Crimson Hearts.
• Use Bloody Spine.

It must then be defeated within the Crimson: getting out of it will make it retreat and despawn.

The Fight

Brain of Cthulhu has 2 phases, with the latter starting after all Creepers have been dealt with.

First Phase

The Brain cannot be attacked in this phase, only the Creepers can. The Brain will teleport to a spot in the arena, then slowly advance towards you. The Creepers will follow shortly after, and will clump up with the brain for a few seconds, before the Brain teleports again and the Creepers will follow. The idea is that the Brain will teleport behind you, which will make the Creepers to fly into you, causing damage. Jump out of the way, either by using your platforms or with an extra jump, then attack the Creepers. Use piercing weapons to speed up the process. When a Creeper dies it can drop either Crimtane Ore or Tissue Sample.

Second Phase

When all of the Creepers are dead, the Brain will split, revealing a Heart with an Eye on the inside. The Brain teleports much more frequently, often at unexpected angles, and will try to ram into you. He only has 1000 health, so he can be killed fairly quickly. Keep using your platforms to jump out of the way. Use your strongest weapon to take down the Brain. If you have a weapon with high knockback, it will excel at dealing with the Brain, so much so that it's possible to stand in one location and attack it whenever it gets close.

Expert Mode

The Creepers are much more aggressive. They will actively try to fly into you, even ignoring the Brain if it means an opportunity to land an extra hit or two. They can also inflict a large variety of debuffs:

• Confused: reverses the movement buttons;
• Poisoned: saps 2 health per second;
• Bleeding: stops health renegeration;
• Darkness: reduces vision;
• Silenced: makes you unable to cast any Magic weapons;
• Broken Armor: reduces your Defense by half;
• Weak: reduces Melee damage and Attack speed, Movement speed and Defense by 4.

During the Second Phase, the Brain will spawn clones of itself around the player. They serve as decoys, and while they cannot be attacked they can confuse the player. They start off as barely visible but as the Brain loses more health the clones will become more opaque. At low health the clones will be completely visible. The Brain will also become faster as it loses health. Life-draining debuffs such as On Fire and Frostburn, or a Hunter Potion will help distinguish them. Additionally, summoned Minions will always target the correct copy.

General Strategies

General Tips

This is a Guide page.
This means the page will walk you through a specific task, strategy, or enemy/boss fight.

---

Status: Revised (This Guide got revised and is up to date!)

There are many things in Terraria which are not evident from the get-go, and many other things that a player would definitely do differently on a rerun of the game. It is true that much of the joy lies in exploring, but sometimes some helpful advice is in order.

Items

• If the player can't find a Magic Mirror or Ice Mirror, then they can find or craft Recall Potions. They have the same effect and have a quicker use time.
• The player can make a Gem Hook after getting 15 Gems of the same kind. This makes exploration of caves much easier, and it does not require a Hook, an uncommon drop from skeletons and piranhas.
• Stacks of items can be bought and crafted quickly by holding the ⚷ Interact button.
• There are a wide variety of items in Terraria. It is best to separate chests into categories. Chests containing crafting materials are best kept near the crafting station where they will be needed - one for ores and bars, next to an Anvil and Furnace; one for potion materials, next to a Placed Bottle or Alchemy Table; one for potions, one for weapons, one for equippable items next to a Tinkerer's Workshop, and one or two for miscellaneous crafting materials.
• All Piggy Banks, Safes, Defender's Forges and Void Vaults (collectively, "personal storage") retain their items when broken. The player can put them into their inventory and place them at any time for access. This effectively triples () / quadruples () / quintuples () the amount of items a player can carry.
  • The Piggy Bank requires a flat furniture surface to set on; a Work Bench or two platforms will do. In most versions, you can get the Money Trough during a Blood Moon. This item summons a floating Piggy Bank that does not need to be placed.
  • In current versions, the Void Bag similarly acts as a mobile Void Vault; it also automatically collects items into the Vault when the player's inventory is full.
  • If the player dies, they will lose at least half the money they are carrying, and will likely have trouble retrieving it. Regularly stash money in a Piggy Bank, Safe, etc.; when buying items a player can automatically draw on any money stashed in their personal storage.
• Even with full health, Heart Crystals are still useful to craft Heart Lanterns, which provide health regeneration when placed.
  • Additionally, collecting Heart Crystals wherever found, allows for the Metal Detector to detect other, potentially more useful, items.
• The player can place Banners around areas where their respective monsters spawn, for buffs against those monsters.
• Fishing up a Reaver Shark from the Ocean, while possibly being time-consuming, allows the player to skip all the mandatory pre-Hardmode pickaxes – it has the same pickaxe power as the Molten Pickaxe and is faster. (In later versions the Reaver Shark has been nerfed -- still a good pickaxe, but not a sequence breaker.)
• Try not to fight Voodoo Demons above lava, otherwise they will drop the Guide Voodoo Doll into it, and the Wall of Flesh will spawn. The guide has to be alive for the boss to spawn though, but this enemy is uncommon.

Mining

• With few exceptions, you should upgrade your pickaxe whenever possible: not only will better pickaxes mine blocks faster, but certain tiles (especially ores) can only be mined with stronger tools.
  • The same goes for pickaxes/drills in Hardmode. They are mandatory for progressing to the next ore tier. The order is: Cobalt / Palladium, Mythril / Orichalcum, and finally Adamantite / Titanium. Adamantite and Titanium Ore should not be crafted into tools, as they do not unlock access to better ores.
• Do not jump down a large hole or cave without an extra jump, Umbrella, Featherfall Potion, Wings, or Lucky Horseshoe. If you do not have those, consider using Rope and platforms to safely descend.
  • As a rule of thumb, you should not jump down terrain if you cannot see the glow of a torch or glowstick that you threw down without a way to stop falling.
• Use Spelunker Potions or throw Spelunker Glowsticks if you're unable to find anything of value: they highlight any valuable treasure and ores that are on your screen.
• Mining Potions and the Ancient Chisel increase mining speed directly.
• The Light modifier (and any other modifiers that increase the speed of the pickaxe/drill) will greatly increase the mining speed of tools.
•     When the Minimap is expanded, hovering over an ore pocket will display its name next to the cursor.
  • Using items that light through walls such as the Starfury and Firecracker will light up the map, allowing the player to locate and distinguish ores.
• Pressing the Left Ctrl (pressing down the right joystick on Xbox) key changes your mining style to Smart Cursor, which is extremely useful for strip mining.
• You can descend relatively fast by auto-focusing the mining and digging a 2-block-wide shaft.
• Using Mining Armor is useful when mining. The helmet is especially useful as it mostly eliminates the need for torches.
• For quick trips to the various layers of the world, a hellevator can be a very useful structure. Dig a vertical shaft from underneath your base down to The Underworld and consider placing Ropes or platforms to conveniently ascend and descend (note that rope is faster).
• Do not look for Hardmode ores in the Underground Corruption, Crimson, or Hallow when you first start Hardmode unless you are very confident in your skill. Instead, if you have dug one, a hellevator is a good place to start looking.
• Hardmode ores cannot be found in all layers:
  • Cobalt / Palladium Ore can be found in all Underground layers;
  • Mythril / Orichalcum Ore can be found in Cavern layers;
  • Adamantite / Titanium Ore can only be found in the lower Cavern layer (which is where Lava replaces Water).

Combat

• For nocturnal bosses, starting the battle just after the sun sets (7:30 PM) will provide the maximum amount of time to defeat the boss. In Hardmode, the Moon Charm and/or Moon Stone and their upgrades are also useful at night.
• Boss battles can be won or lost before the battle ever starts. Choose your equipment and have it ready; find and/or make potions and placed buffs; use the highest-tier food you have available; set up an arena appropriate to the boss; learn the strategies for the boss you're facing.
• Prepare your Boss-fighting arena with adequate lighting, Campfires and Heart Lanterns for health regeneration, and Stars in Bottles for mana regeneration if you use magic. Bast Statues will provide a significant defensive boost. Garden Gnomes and (if underground) proper torch placement will reduce damage taken and increase damage dealt due to the luck. Note Torch God's Favor helps with this. Honey pools can also be used for extra health regeneration.
• Sunflowers provide the Happy! buff to players within a 50-tile radius, which grants a +10% movement speed bonus and 17% reduction in enemy spawn rate.
• Always carry around a stack of the highest-tier healing potion available, as relying only on natural Health Regeneration is not a good idea. Depending on the game stage, this can include items such as Mushrooms or Honeyfins. On the  PC,  Console,  Mobile, and  tModLoader versions, Restoration Potions are healing potions with a shorter cooldown.
  • Likewise carry mana potions, if you use Magic.
  • The Strange Brew is also an option, but its weak healing effect will trigger the Potion Sickness cooldown as well as Mana Sickness. On the  Old-gen console version,  Windows Phone version,  Old Chinese version, Nintendo 3DS version, and  tModLoader 1.3-Legacy version, Restoration Potions can save a slot, but will likewise trigger both cooldowns.
• It is suggested to build houses for the Dryad and the Nurse NPCs in your arena. The former casts the Dryad's Blessing buff, which increases your defense and provides you with a thorns-like effect, while the latter can heal and remove debuffs instantly, at the cost of some coins.
• Bosses are displayed on the Minimap: Follow the boss's icon to track it when you're struggling to find it. You can identify the boss icons by checking their respective wiki pages.
• Once you have freed the Mechanic in the Dungeon, you can use Wire to enhance your arena with Traps and helpful Heart and Star Statues. The former helps to damage the enemies, though be careful to set them up correctly in order not to hurt yourself during the battle. The latter will spawn heart and star pickups, respectively. Connect these devices to timers.
• It may be useful to summon and kill the Eye of Cthulhu or King Slime before summoning any harder boss in order to spawn an extra one-use pool of Hearts. Note that this will prevent any Heart Statues from spawning new Hearts.
• Remember to use the Sharpening Station, Ammo Box, Crystal Ball, Bewitching Table, and Slice of Cake before you go to explore or battle bosses/invasions. These will give boosts that are useful to take, with the first four being class-specific. They give Sharpened, Ammo Box, Clairvoyance, Bewitched, and Sugar Rush, respectively.

Travel

• There are various items and accessories that can affect movement speed:
  • The various Boots, allow the player to run faster, cutting travel time. Various upgrades provide a double-jump and other mobility features.
  • Swiftness Potions are common and easily brewed, and sharply increase movement speed (for a limited time). With boots, they allow reaching sprint speed more quickly.
  • The Aglet and Anklet of the Wind improve movement speed by 5% and 10%, respectively. Both stack with each other, and even with a Swiftness Potion. Once you get the Tinkerer's Workshop both accessories can be combined into Lightning Boots.
  • Any accessory can provide a minor movement-speed modifier: In order of increasing speed, these modifiers include Brisk, Fleeting, Hasty, and Quick.
• Several items are used for mostly-vertical travel: Jumping, safe falling, and/or flying.
  • If you can withstand screen flips, Gravitation Potions can be your best friend for vertical mobility. With precautions and practice, this can easily eliminate the need for an arena and can save you some resources to explore the Space biome.
  • A Featherfall Potion or an Umbrella effectively extends flight time by causing players to fall slower; the effects are even more pronounced when holding the UP directional key. This will also eliminate all fall damage risk from using a Gravitation Potion. The Djinn's Curse acts as a permanent Featherfall Potion when worn in the armor slot.
  • Several "Bottles" provide an extra jump of varying strengths: Cloud in a Bottle, Blizzard in a Bottle, Sandstorm in a Bottle,Tsunami in a Bottle, or Fart in a Jar. (Comparison)
    • The bottles can be tinkered with a Shiny Red Balloon for their Balloon variants, which add fall damage protection. You can combine the Cloud, Blizzard, and Sandstorm balloons to create a Bundle of Balloons.
  • The ascent speed of Wings can be greatly increased by equipping a Frog Leg. Balloon accessories provide a similar, though less dramatic bonus.
• A Hook can be used to grapple across gaps, including upward and downward. On flat open areas they can be used to pull a player across the ground, by shooting it at the ground ahead and then releasing it while being pulled in. This allows the various Boots to get to full speed without having to build up beforehand.
• There are several options for teleportation, each with different limits and trade offs:
  • Several items allow teleportation to the player’s spawn point: Magic Mirror/Ice Mirror, Cell Phone, Recall Potion, Potion of Return. This point defaults to the middle of the map at the surface, but the player can choose almost any other point using a bed. The Potion of Return also supplies a return portal.
  • The Magic Conch allows teleporting to either seashore (the outermost standable block). The Demon Conch allows going to the middle of the Underworld, but the player may need to provide a surface there.
  • The Pylons provide a point-to-point network. You can place one pylon per major biome, plus one more for underground. Each pylon requires 2 NPCs nearby in order to work. the universal pylon works in any biome and does not require two NPCs. Their can still only be one universal pylon in a world though
  • Teleporters become available in Hardmode, and can be used to setup point-to-point links or complex networks. The main catch is that you need to place wire between the teleporters.

Buffs

Each player is limited to 22 active buffs and debuffs at a time (10 on 3DS), and exceeding that will cancel buffs (but not debuffs) from the left of the bar. This looks like a lot, but once you start setting up "buff stations" and summoning pets and minions, they can add up to the point where even your own potions can interfere with other buffs, let alone if an enemy hits you with a debuff. Here is a list of common buffs to consider, some of which are clearly dispensable:

• Summons: Pet, Light pet, Minion, Mount (Up to 4 buffs).
  • Of these, the pet and perhaps the light pet are irrelevant in combat, so you might want to dismiss them for a major fight.
  • The minion and mount are another story: Overflowing the buff/debuff bar can unexpectedly desummon them -- and then re-summoning them will eliminate some other buff that you might have been counting on! Note that mixing multiple minion types takes a slot for each type.
• Furniture: Ammo Box, Bewitching Table, Sharpening Station, Crystal Ball, Slice of Cake. Four class specific buffs, and one short-lived generic one; stick to the ones you'll actually be using.
• Area buffs: Campfire, Sunflower, Heart Lantern, Star in a Bottle, Bast Statue, Peace Candle (and/or Water Candle), Banners (any number of them count for one slot), Honey (from taking a dip or certain accessories), Dryad's Blessing. That's 5-7 general buffs that can turn on or off as you move around, another that may be unexpected, and one triggered by an NPC. Maybe don't get greedy at your arena....
• Equipment: Various accessories, and mid- to late-game armor or weapons (especially whips) can all trigger buffs at odd moments, often when you hit an enemy or take damage. Keep track of which equipment can trigger a buff.
• Food buffs count, and you'll usually have one. So does Tipsy if you use that. A Flask imbue counts too.

Loading up on the above can add up to 18-20 buffs even before you start actually fighting, and several more that can be triggered at odd moments. All this before you start drinking potions, or getting debuffed by enemies!

If you're using the "Quick buff" control, be careful what potions are in your main inventory; fishing, building, and most "mobility" potions can be stashed in the Piggy Bank or such, along with options meant for other classes. Potions such as Feather Falling, Gills, or Spelunker can be saved for situations where they're warranted, and their places on the buff bar reclaimed if needed. Many mobility and defensive potions can be replaced by accessories, other equipment, or changes in tactics. Remember that using Healing or Mana potions will also trigger a cooldown debuff, as will a Rod of Discord.

You do get one freebie: Most luck effects (ladybugs, torches, garden gnomes) do not appear on the buff/debuff list, though a Luck Potion will.

Other

• Always use Background Walls in your buildings, as they stop Enemies to spawn in those areas.
• You will be getting a lot of NPCs – arrange a building that you can keep expanding; upwards is best, however Wyverns may cause problems on small worlds.
• To avoid possible Corruption/Crimson contamination of NPC houses in the future, it can be helpful to dig a 4-5 block trench around them; allow yourself some extra space for tree farms.
• You can right click with any Summon weapon on an enemy or boss to have your minions target it. You can tell an enemy is targeted when a purple circle appears over it and the enemy or boss starts trailing purple particles.
• If your mouse has side-buttons you can rebind them to restore Health, use Buff items or to restore Mana.

Terrain Preparation

Preface

The Brain of Cthulhu can only be spawned and fought in the Crimson. As such, it would be best to create an artificial crimson area to fight in. Alternatively, you can find naturally occurring Crimson and create an "arena" there. However, if you plan to create a floating arena, you may have to hollow out a large section of the Crimson to do it, as going too far above to it will be considered exiting it, causing the Brain of Cthulhu to despawn.

Remember that explosives such as Bombs and Dynamite, and Eye of Cthulhu are your best friend. Explosives can destroy Crimstone Blocks, while the Eye, when defeated, drops Crimson Seeds. You can use these to create small artificial floating islands made of Evil grass and Crimstone, which can help the boss to not despawn if you fly too high. This hint is helpful to all Biome-inclusive bosses that you will encounter later, by using biome-respective materials.

Building a small artifical island requires that you place a tower of blocks or platforms, and then place evil blocks when high enough. It's recommended to place these blocks as soon as you hear the Forest music, because at that point, Crimson ends. After placing enough blocks to make it evil, proceed to extend the arena with your own desired design, or use one of those below.

Arena Designs

Standard 5 layer arena.

• You'll want to set up a long platform in The Crimson, because it can only be summoned there. It should be high enough so ground enemies can't jump up to you, but low enough that you don't accidentally go high enough to make it despawn. An arena the size of your screen is preferred, since you can see the whole area in the middle, and enemies can't go jumping in.
• Since the Brain of Cthulhu spawns as soon as you smash a third Crimson Heart, you're likely to be in tight quarters when the attack begins. This can lead to you to being swarmed by the Creepers and get overwhelmed. This can be avoided by preparing the chasm's main chamber as an arena beforehand, and choosing which Hearts to break first:
  • For the first two, pick the least convenient hearts (distant, above the main chamber, underwater, etc).
  • For the third, pick the closest below the main chamber, and reshape its tunnel to guide a Bomb down to the Heart from the high end of the tunnel (you can test the route with Glowsticks).
  • Then, you can toss the bomb and leap for your arena while it falls.
• You can "box" the main chamber, by simply putting up walls and ceilings in the big chasm the crimson usually forms.

Gearing up

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

You're going to need at least Iron or Lead armor. Gold armor or Platinum armor is a great defensive choice with high defensive values for this point in the game.

For those playing during Halloween (or have planted some Pumpkin Seeds), you can harvest Pumpkins for Pumpkin armor which has the same defense value as Iron's, but it trades off the +2 defense bonus with a helpful 10% damage bonus.

Weapons

For Melee users:

• Any large sword, such as the Blood Butcherer will prove effective against the Creepers. The Falcon Blade is useful for the Brain of Cthulhu's second phase, as its rapid speed, somewhat high damage, and decent knockback will keep it at bay. The Katana, sold from the Travelling Merchant, is a fast sword with decent knockback and a high critical rate.
• A Spear is a great weapon against the Brain of Cthulhu, especially during the second stage. Suggested options are the Trident and The Rotted Fork.
• A Flail of some kind is beneficial for taking out the Creepers; the easiest to obtain would be the Ball O' Hurt, but this will require you to make another world with The Corruption in it, as it cannot be acquired in a Crimson world. You could instead try to obtain the Chain Knife, rarely dropped by Cave Bats, but unlike the previously mentioned flail, it cannot pierce.

For Ranged users:

• Tendon Bow is the most powerful bow at this stage. You can combine it with Jester's Arrows, which greatly help to kill the swarm of Creepers. However, you can also use the Flaming Arrows as a cheaper alternative; the On Fire! debuff will be helpful during the second stage.
• As The Undertaker can be obtained very easily (as it's a guaranteed first-time loot from the Hearts), it's a good weapon to use against the Brain. The Musket Balls that spawn with it should be sufficient, but you can craft (or buy) Silver Bullets, which deal sligtly more damage.

For Magic users:

• The Water Bolt and Crimson Rod are good choices, and are obtained fairly easily. They greatly benefit from fighting in an enclosed area.
• The Diamond Staff is easy to make, but it's time-consuming. But you'll find their piercing ability excel at dealing with the Creepers.
• If you're willing to make a quick detour to a Corruption world, the Vilethorn works fantastically against the Creepers and is a great weapon in general.
• If you already farmed a Meteorite, you can use the excellent Space Gun: it's piercing ability will clear out the Creepers fairly easily.

For Throwing users:

• Shurikens and Throwing Knives, with their Penetration, can be helpful for killing Creepers. Poisoned Knifes can be crafted using Vicious Powder and Throwing Knives and deal a little extra damage.
• If you are willing to risk, Grenades are great choices for dealing with the Creepers, but you have to watch out for the blast radius, as you will take damage from it.
• Molotov Cocktails, while expensive to make (as Pinkies aren't common), is a superb weapon. The splash damage and the fire that hits multiple times can keep the Brain away in its second Stage.

For Summoners:

At this stage of the game, it's better to use any of the already mentioned Gear tips, as there isn't much to use, unless you want to kill Queen Bee first, which is not recommended at this time.

Potions

• The Ironskin Potion, the Swiftness Potion and the Regeneration Potion will do you well.
• You should try to get the Well Fed Buff in some way; you can get this from Cooked Fish or Pumpkin Pie.

Accessories

The Cloud in a Bottle will give you a double-jump ability which will greatly help with evasion. Look out for the improved versions, such as the Tsunami in a Bottle, the Blizzard in a Bottle or the Sandstorm in a Bottle.

The Hermes Boots will increase your speed and aid greatly in evasion. You can upgrade them to the Spectre Boots for the added bonus of a few seconds of flight, but this requires the Goblin Tinkerer, which the player may not have yet.

The Band of Regeneration is a decent accessory which will slowly regenerate your life; it equates to one heart restored every 40 seconds. Not terribly useful but it's suggested if you have a slot you need to fill.

The Anklet of the Wind gives a basic 10% speed boost, which will help out with evasion. You can replace it with the Aglet which is much easier to find but only offers a 5% speed boost.

The Frog Leg will give you improved jumping abilities, including increased height and automatic jumping but it can only be found by fishing, with an incredibly rare 1:500 chance to get it.

If one is playing in Expert mode, the Shield of Cthulhu is a great choice for quick evasion, and extra damage in the Brain's second phase.