Rarity

Rarity is a statistic that applies to all items, loosely indicating their value and the difficulty with which they are obtained. An item's Rarity is indicated in-game by the color of its name text, as displayed, for example, when rolling the cursor over the item in an inventory slot. An item's Rarity can be raised or lowered by up to two tiers depending on its Modifier.

Any item with a Rarity of White or Gray, with few exceptions, will be destroyed upon contact with lava (exceptions being Obsidian, Clay Pots, Living Fire Blocks, Fireblossom, and Fireblossom Seeds).

Tiers

Click a rarity color to see a listing of items of that rarity.

Tier	Color	Description	Example
-1		The lowest tier. Only "junk" Fishing items have this as a base rarity: Tin Can, Old Shoe, and Seaweed. This tier mainly accommodates White- or Blue-tier equipment with poor Modifiers, such as a Shameful Iron Broadsword.
0		Items without a Rarity value specified in Terraria's game code default to this tier. It is by far the Rarity containing the most items, many of which could be considered the most common items in the game. It includes most furniture; building materials (blocks and walls); early Tools, Weapons, and Armor made from low-tier Ores or Wood; common crafting materials like Gel and Herbs; Paints; and most Vanity items. Items from this tier will be destroyed in Lava, with a few exceptions.
1		Weapons and armor crafted from early ores, along with early dropped/looted items like the Shackle and Lucky Horseshoe. Also includes Banners, Trophies, Masks, and Pre-Hardmode Dyes. Items in this tier and above will not be destroyed in Lava.
2		Midway Pre-Hardmode items. These are mostly looted, dropped, or purchased (non-craftable) items, with the exception of Necro armor, Sandgun, Sunglasses, Obsidian Skull, Star Cannon, Diamond Staff, and Tinkerer's Workshop combinations.
3		Late-stage Pre-Hardmode items: Weapons and armor made of Hellstone, Jungle and Underground Jungle items, Underworld items. Several Hardmode ores, crafting materials, and consumables (Greater Healing Potion and some ammunition items) also fall into this category.
4		Early Hardmode items, including those crafted from the six Hardmode Ores spawned from destroying Altars, and item drops from early and/or common Hardmode enemies. Also includes Flasks, and some items that are rare, but still obtainable very early on, such as the Golden Bug Net and Slime Staff.
5		Mid-Hardmode (pre-Plantera) items, including those acquired after defeating Mechanical Bosses, eg. Flamethrower, Optic Staff, and Hallowed armor. Also includes the more expensive Hardmode NPC purchases like the Clentaminator, and the rarer Hardmode drops, including the special mid-tier Wing ingredients (Tattered Bee Wing, Fire Feather, etc).
6		A smaller tier consisting of the rarest pre-Plantera items, mostly purchased or dropped, like the Death Sickle and Coin Gun. Also includes some higher-tier Tinkerer's Workshop combinations, like the Ankh Charm.
7		Items acquired around Plantera and Golem, and the Hardmode Underground Jungle. Chlorophyte tools and weapons, Ankh Shield, Temple Key, and some Frost Moon drops. The Pre-Hardmode Cell Phone, Frostspark Boots, and Lava Waders are also included this rarity.
8		Items acquired or crafted from loot obtained in the post-Plantera Dungeon: Shroomite items, Spectre/Ectoplasm items, Biome Chest items like Vampire Knives, Martian Madness, Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon drops. Betsy and Duke Fishron drops, Shroomite, Beetle, Spectre armor sets, Spectre tool set, The Terra Blade, all Mounts (except for the Minecart), and the Portal Gun.
9		This smaller tier contains early items acquired from the Lunar Events, primarily Lunar Fragments and Monoliths, and some Moon Lord drops. Also contains the developer items that can be obtained rarely from Treasure Bags in Expert mode. For  Old-gen console,  Windows Phone, and 3DS, only reforged Weapons and Accessories with a base rarity of lime or yellow.
10		Items crafted at the Ancient Manipulator from Lunar Fragments and/or Luminite. Also some direct Moon Lord drops, and the Ancient Manipulator crafting station itself. Also includes high Reforges of weapons like the Terra Blade or accessories like the Frostspark Boots.
11		This tier consists of Cyan and Red items that have high-level modifiers. No items currently have this as a base rarity.
Expert (-12)		This special tier only contains Expert mode-exclusive items contained in Treasure Bags dropped by Expert mode bosses, as well as the Treasure Bags themselves. All Expert-exclusive items from Treasure Bags have this rarity, with the exceptions of 0x33's Aviators, developer items, and the Suspicious Looking Tentacle. In the game code, these items contain other tier numbers, despite displaying the animated rainbow rarity color in-game.
Quest (-11)		This special tier contains only "quest items" to be turned over to quest-giving NPCs (currently the Dye Trader and Angler) for rewards. Quest items have no other use, though the Strange Plants can be sold for 20 each, and could be used as decoration.

Notes

• Certain Rarity colors appear very similar to each other in-game and are easily confused, e.g. Green/Lime, Orange/Light Red.
• Using the Announcement Box to display a quest item with a prefix that increases rarity will make it gray rarity.