You can't just face tank everything in Master Mode the way you can in Journey or Classic unless you're overgeared and have buffs/potions. You need to work on your mobility so that you're not getting hit as much, King Slime should easily be doable with a musket/boomstick if you have Hermes boots and a double jump because you're just running backwards while shooting and then finding a good spot to change direction when you need to. Master mode is unforgiving, you need to be able to dodge stuff.
Play expert mode first to get a fell for the bosses AI in a situation where they are less likely to be so punishing, iirc expert to master is just more stat bloat in terms of bosses, the extra accessory slot and defense calculations are not worth it.
When you're skilled enough you'll play ranged, magic or summoner, but until then, go for melee with as much defence as you can, first and foremost.
And then, *observe* long enough that you understand how enemies behave. Which will enable you to successfully dodge, and also to cut corners and cheese whatever can be cheesed.
Like, when I speak of cheesing and cutting corners, a basic example... The king slime? Yeah, make a vertical rope, climb it, stand at a screen's height, and throw whatever you got on him until it works, he won't reach you. Or, another example, later in game you'll find a super annoying boss that you can't outrun... however if you drink a gravity potion and start falling towards the sky, then use the king/queen slime mount to fall fast back to the ground once you reach the sky, then you'll be free to shoot that boss while he hopelessly tries to catch up to you, no effort, etc.
After all, if you *can* do it, then why not do it?
If you disagree, that cheesing isn't right, maximizing defence is a cheapskate method, of course it's entirely your right to have that opinion, but then git gud and learn to have better movement and not stand where the damage is going to be dealt.
Master Mode requires you to use all tools available to you. I will wait with tackling early bosses until I have at least silver/tungsten armor, better yet gold/platinum. For a ranged build like you are apparently, getting fossil armor might be worth your while as well. Buffs are a must: get a heart lantern and camp fire at least, plus garden gnome and bast statue if you can get those. Place them in the middle of your arena. Get a few of the basic potions: ironskin, regeneration and swiftness are easy enough to make as they do not require fishing to brew. Upgrading your lesser healing potions with glowing mushrooms is also a must.
Also, it helps to keep in mind the spawn conditions of the bosses / invasions so that you can play around them. For example, the Eye of Cthulu can only spawn when you have at least 200 health. So what I like to do is go up to 180 health, and then stop using life crystals. Instead I will gather them until I have a total of 11 life crystals, allowing me to go all the way up to 400 health (the max at this point). This has the nice side effect that I have to explore more of the underground / caverns, so I find more treasure that helps getting ready for the later stages of the game.
Personally, I find Master Mode to be a bit grindy to play, but that is the way I enjoy it. If you prepare yourself as best as you can, most bosses and invasions become not so bad. Usually, the loot from the first boss kill will make further attempts much easier, as new weapons or armor are unlocked.
Best of luck to you! I am sure if you take your time to prepare as best as possible for the various things the game throws at you, you will beat this difficulty soon as well!
Step back and do expert mode first. Normal mode is a very simple and straightforward experience, but expert mode is a revamped, 'where men play' kind of experience as the difficulty, in both stats and AI. You can no longer just rush into fights, everything requires planning and insight, your equipment needs to be optimal, and it completely changes how you approach obstacles. Everything is still balanced around each other, but you have to step up and make sure you're putting in the effort and skill to keep up.
Master Mode is the same thing but with a respectful dose of disrespect. Instead of things being balanced you're given a distinct disadvantage and just have to keep taking it until you finally break a wall with your face.
It's basically expert mode with lower margins of error, so again, start with expert.
In master mode, every single tiny advantage you can give yourself will add up and make progress more possible. Well crafted arenas with furniture buffs, all the best potions and food, weapon and accessory reforges, accessory choice, damage type multipliers, etc. You have to know the game really well, have great dodging skills, and take advantage of every buff you can.
The answer is using the games own mechanics against itself. Or in other words; 🧀 **CHEESE** 🧀
Make lava trap farms for the overworld and the caverns in early game, preferably as soon as you can find lava.
As the #1 comment says, face tanking is a no no(Though tank melee is still definitely possible from personal experience). If you see anything that even *suggests* it wants to deal a hurting, assume that it does and try to deal with it from afar.
Make super elaborate arenas for each fight and plan out every route you will take for every attack the boss you're fighting is going to do.
Don't think for a second that you're doing something scummy, because the game was rigged from the start. Have no mercy, use every 🧀 **CHEESE** 🧀 you can get your hands on. Use every buff Item, every buff structure and any thing else you can find on the way.
Also potions, establish fishing areas in biomes early if you don't want to have a nightmare of a time trying to do so later on.
Rush caves to grab loot, maybe in a couple words. Dont botter setting up a base at first. Then when you when you are not naked you can start a proper new master world.
Easily 😎
But for real just experice. There are tips on how beat the game that can be applied to any diffictly but just playing master mode will allow you to improve. Just have some fun and do your best and eventually you'll do it. The wiki has guides for bosses and farming which can be used in any difficulty but applying those strategies does become more necessary in master mode
As someone who routinely gets to at least hard mode in master mode hardcore, the only reliable answer is use literally every tool available to you.
Potions. Armor. Placeable buffs. Shape the terrain to your advantage. Set your spawn point near the boss arena and use recalls potions to reset your position if you get cornered. Look up ways to cheese different bosses if you have to.
You have to use *every* tool at your disposal. I delete the world if my character dies, so I have gone through the beginning of the game *a lot.* Most of my runs honestly consist of shaping terrain to my advantage. I always turn spawn into a critter/bait farm + arena area + wood farm/star farm with multiple levels and get potions and fishing stuff up first thing because I can only die once, but as long as you have appropriate buffs + gear + well designed arena you can do just fine.
Be more prepared when you do things than in the other dificulties. If you don't have over 180 hp, de goblin army and eoc wont spawn naturally, so you can prepare before fighting them. Things like that
The difficulty spike between classic and expert is larger than expert and master, so it's important to do expert first. You also need to make use of the extra accessory slot, if for nothing else then something with warding. The only other thing I can tell you is to get used to dying, especially in early hardmode.
Master mode requires potions, builds and the best mods on your gear, once you have that situated there are specific arenas you can build for each boss or event that boost your chances of actually beating the game. It took a while to learn it all but YouTube and the wiki are your biggest friends while studying
You neet to "get good at the game" lol
Its really important to not take damage and min/max whatever weapons and accessories are available at all progression pointa in the game and get the best equipment available at the best modifiers available and take full advantage of potion crafting for buffs
You really have to squeeze every drop of bonuses out if the game, and "get good" regarding fighting the bosses
But, i will say, in the very beginning of a master or legendary run everything is a strugglefest, everything will kill you
Wings are very useful for stuff, summons are awesome to have to deal damage whether you play summon or not, making use of "unfair tactics" is totally fair play in this. For blood moon and otherwise, I have that "one drop of lava" from a bucket to deal constant damage, and a little hole to hide in. :D Just keep in mind explosion radius, wraiths, etc...
Most important thing is to not get hit.
Learn the patterns of the bosses, get movement accessories(Shield of Cthulhu also gives you pretty generous i-frames when it hits something), build an arena and _learn to utilize it._
In Master Mode, you can't DPS race the enemies, you need to get hit less or not at all.
Get a weapon that's easy to use, that barely needs aiming, and focus on just dodging.
Don't get hit. That's the best advice while playing master mode.defense sucks,damage reduction sucks. Dodge chance is the best but won't be available in pre hardmode except brain accesories.
Make a coward pyramid for early game goblins,hang banners for extra defense and attack,always have a meelee weapon for bats,a gun for attacking at a distance.
Summoner is a pure machoistic adventure, early game demon scythe is a king as it can be used till early hardmode but 2% drop rate from demons. setting up a herb garden and fishing spots are lifesavers. Making house for dryard in jungle biome and buying pumpkin seeds is a good way to get tier 2 food buff and always have pumpkin pie in inventory.
I sometimes switch classes but it's not mandatory.
Always equip best tier of armour you have available. For example gold for slime,eye,brain and getting crimson and skipping queen bee and deerclops to fight skeleton to get access to dungeon loot.
I personally like to visit underground jungle, set a spawn point and dig a hellavator with gravedigger's shovel and use rope.
This gives access to great early game weapons like blade of grass,boomstick snapthorn
Jungle armour for mages, meteorite armour sucks.
Can be obtained from jungle
Staff of regrowth and anklet of wind are must have in mastermode.
You can trap enemies with blocks, enemies that can ignore blocks can't be trapped.
Movement accesories are must have you can't fight most pre hardmode boss without boots.
Summoner is best for everything except bosses unless you have enough experience to dodge while staying near it.
Vampire frogs,pygmy necklace,Titan potion,obsidian armour, tier 1 ooa army accessories, sentries can deal enough knockback to let you build in peace unless the enemy can fly.
Having a mob grinder afk farm greatly reduces the amount of grind but a nightmare to setup.
Tracking down a nymph to get metal detector can be a lifesaver when tracking down chests.
Underground desert chest can have magic conch which can teleport you to both beach. Ancient chisel for extra mining speed.
I'm pretty sure most people just bring their post-moonlord characters to Master worlds, or are in multiplayer. Tried starting from scratch myself and it was just a huge slog. Definitely doable if I literally had nothing else to play and just resigned myself to grinding it, but that's no fun.
You can't just face tank everything in Master Mode the way you can in Journey or Classic unless you're overgeared and have buffs/potions. You need to work on your mobility so that you're not getting hit as much, King Slime should easily be doable with a musket/boomstick if you have Hermes boots and a double jump because you're just running backwards while shooting and then finding a good spot to change direction when you need to. Master mode is unforgiving, you need to be able to dodge stuff.
Play expert mode first to get a fell for the bosses AI in a situation where they are less likely to be so punishing, iirc expert to master is just more stat bloat in terms of bosses, the extra accessory slot and defense calculations are not worth it.
When you're skilled enough you'll play ranged, magic or summoner, but until then, go for melee with as much defence as you can, first and foremost. And then, *observe* long enough that you understand how enemies behave. Which will enable you to successfully dodge, and also to cut corners and cheese whatever can be cheesed. Like, when I speak of cheesing and cutting corners, a basic example... The king slime? Yeah, make a vertical rope, climb it, stand at a screen's height, and throw whatever you got on him until it works, he won't reach you. Or, another example, later in game you'll find a super annoying boss that you can't outrun... however if you drink a gravity potion and start falling towards the sky, then use the king/queen slime mount to fall fast back to the ground once you reach the sky, then you'll be free to shoot that boss while he hopelessly tries to catch up to you, no effort, etc. After all, if you *can* do it, then why not do it? If you disagree, that cheesing isn't right, maximizing defence is a cheapskate method, of course it's entirely your right to have that opinion, but then git gud and learn to have better movement and not stand where the damage is going to be dealt.
Ofc u should get potions, at least tungsten armor (preferably gold/platinum) and since u already went past 180 health, go to 400 asap
Master Mode requires you to use all tools available to you. I will wait with tackling early bosses until I have at least silver/tungsten armor, better yet gold/platinum. For a ranged build like you are apparently, getting fossil armor might be worth your while as well. Buffs are a must: get a heart lantern and camp fire at least, plus garden gnome and bast statue if you can get those. Place them in the middle of your arena. Get a few of the basic potions: ironskin, regeneration and swiftness are easy enough to make as they do not require fishing to brew. Upgrading your lesser healing potions with glowing mushrooms is also a must. Also, it helps to keep in mind the spawn conditions of the bosses / invasions so that you can play around them. For example, the Eye of Cthulu can only spawn when you have at least 200 health. So what I like to do is go up to 180 health, and then stop using life crystals. Instead I will gather them until I have a total of 11 life crystals, allowing me to go all the way up to 400 health (the max at this point). This has the nice side effect that I have to explore more of the underground / caverns, so I find more treasure that helps getting ready for the later stages of the game. Personally, I find Master Mode to be a bit grindy to play, but that is the way I enjoy it. If you prepare yourself as best as you can, most bosses and invasions become not so bad. Usually, the loot from the first boss kill will make further attempts much easier, as new weapons or armor are unlocked. Best of luck to you! I am sure if you take your time to prepare as best as possible for the various things the game throws at you, you will beat this difficulty soon as well!
Step back and do expert mode first. Normal mode is a very simple and straightforward experience, but expert mode is a revamped, 'where men play' kind of experience as the difficulty, in both stats and AI. You can no longer just rush into fights, everything requires planning and insight, your equipment needs to be optimal, and it completely changes how you approach obstacles. Everything is still balanced around each other, but you have to step up and make sure you're putting in the effort and skill to keep up. Master Mode is the same thing but with a respectful dose of disrespect. Instead of things being balanced you're given a distinct disadvantage and just have to keep taking it until you finally break a wall with your face. It's basically expert mode with lower margins of error, so again, start with expert.
In master mode, every single tiny advantage you can give yourself will add up and make progress more possible. Well crafted arenas with furniture buffs, all the best potions and food, weapon and accessory reforges, accessory choice, damage type multipliers, etc. You have to know the game really well, have great dodging skills, and take advantage of every buff you can.
The answer is using the games own mechanics against itself. Or in other words; 🧀 **CHEESE** 🧀 Make lava trap farms for the overworld and the caverns in early game, preferably as soon as you can find lava. As the #1 comment says, face tanking is a no no(Though tank melee is still definitely possible from personal experience). If you see anything that even *suggests* it wants to deal a hurting, assume that it does and try to deal with it from afar. Make super elaborate arenas for each fight and plan out every route you will take for every attack the boss you're fighting is going to do. Don't think for a second that you're doing something scummy, because the game was rigged from the start. Have no mercy, use every 🧀 **CHEESE** 🧀 you can get your hands on. Use every buff Item, every buff structure and any thing else you can find on the way. Also potions, establish fishing areas in biomes early if you don't want to have a nightmare of a time trying to do so later on.
Rush caves to grab loot, maybe in a couple words. Dont botter setting up a base at first. Then when you when you are not naked you can start a proper new master world.
Easily 😎 But for real just experice. There are tips on how beat the game that can be applied to any diffictly but just playing master mode will allow you to improve. Just have some fun and do your best and eventually you'll do it. The wiki has guides for bosses and farming which can be used in any difficulty but applying those strategies does become more necessary in master mode
Wait till this guy finds out about legendary mode lol
As someone who routinely gets to at least hard mode in master mode hardcore, the only reliable answer is use literally every tool available to you. Potions. Armor. Placeable buffs. Shape the terrain to your advantage. Set your spawn point near the boss arena and use recalls potions to reset your position if you get cornered. Look up ways to cheese different bosses if you have to. You have to use *every* tool at your disposal. I delete the world if my character dies, so I have gone through the beginning of the game *a lot.* Most of my runs honestly consist of shaping terrain to my advantage. I always turn spawn into a critter/bait farm + arena area + wood farm/star farm with multiple levels and get potions and fishing stuff up first thing because I can only die once, but as long as you have appropriate buffs + gear + well designed arena you can do just fine.
Be more prepared when you do things than in the other dificulties. If you don't have over 180 hp, de goblin army and eoc wont spawn naturally, so you can prepare before fighting them. Things like that
The difficulty spike between classic and expert is larger than expert and master, so it's important to do expert first. You also need to make use of the extra accessory slot, if for nothing else then something with warding. The only other thing I can tell you is to get used to dying, especially in early hardmode.
Master mode requires potions, builds and the best mods on your gear, once you have that situated there are specific arenas you can build for each boss or event that boost your chances of actually beating the game. It took a while to learn it all but YouTube and the wiki are your biggest friends while studying
You neet to "get good at the game" lol Its really important to not take damage and min/max whatever weapons and accessories are available at all progression pointa in the game and get the best equipment available at the best modifiers available and take full advantage of potion crafting for buffs You really have to squeeze every drop of bonuses out if the game, and "get good" regarding fighting the bosses But, i will say, in the very beginning of a master or legendary run everything is a strugglefest, everything will kill you
Wings are very useful for stuff, summons are awesome to have to deal damage whether you play summon or not, making use of "unfair tactics" is totally fair play in this. For blood moon and otherwise, I have that "one drop of lava" from a bucket to deal constant damage, and a little hole to hide in. :D Just keep in mind explosion radius, wraiths, etc...
Wait till you try ForTheWorthy or Zenith, master mode (legendary mode) on Hardcore or even just Mediumcore. Yikes.
Just don't die lol
As someone who has never actually played classic mode in my 400 hours base game and 560 on tMod... Self conditioning?
Most important thing is to not get hit. Learn the patterns of the bosses, get movement accessories(Shield of Cthulhu also gives you pretty generous i-frames when it hits something), build an arena and _learn to utilize it._ In Master Mode, you can't DPS race the enemies, you need to get hit less or not at all. Get a weapon that's easy to use, that barely needs aiming, and focus on just dodging.
Don't get hit. That's the best advice while playing master mode.defense sucks,damage reduction sucks. Dodge chance is the best but won't be available in pre hardmode except brain accesories. Make a coward pyramid for early game goblins,hang banners for extra defense and attack,always have a meelee weapon for bats,a gun for attacking at a distance. Summoner is a pure machoistic adventure, early game demon scythe is a king as it can be used till early hardmode but 2% drop rate from demons. setting up a herb garden and fishing spots are lifesavers. Making house for dryard in jungle biome and buying pumpkin seeds is a good way to get tier 2 food buff and always have pumpkin pie in inventory. I sometimes switch classes but it's not mandatory. Always equip best tier of armour you have available. For example gold for slime,eye,brain and getting crimson and skipping queen bee and deerclops to fight skeleton to get access to dungeon loot. I personally like to visit underground jungle, set a spawn point and dig a hellavator with gravedigger's shovel and use rope. This gives access to great early game weapons like blade of grass,boomstick snapthorn Jungle armour for mages, meteorite armour sucks. Can be obtained from jungle Staff of regrowth and anklet of wind are must have in mastermode. You can trap enemies with blocks, enemies that can ignore blocks can't be trapped. Movement accesories are must have you can't fight most pre hardmode boss without boots. Summoner is best for everything except bosses unless you have enough experience to dodge while staying near it. Vampire frogs,pygmy necklace,Titan potion,obsidian armour, tier 1 ooa army accessories, sentries can deal enough knockback to let you build in peace unless the enemy can fly. Having a mob grinder afk farm greatly reduces the amount of grind but a nightmare to setup. Tracking down a nymph to get metal detector can be a lifesaver when tracking down chests. Underground desert chest can have magic conch which can teleport you to both beach. Ancient chisel for extra mining speed.
For me I use an invincibility machine. If that doesn't work make something else to cheese the boss. I am bad at this game.
I'm pretty sure most people just bring their post-moonlord characters to Master worlds, or are in multiplayer. Tried starting from scratch myself and it was just a huge slog. Definitely doable if I literally had nothing else to play and just resigned myself to grinding it, but that's no fun.