By Max_OverpowerMax_Overpower. Last updated 6 May 2020

Guide for 1.3.5.3 Moon Lord random seed normal/expert Solo/2p speedruns (on small crimson worlds).

Made by Maxoverpower on January 23rd 2020.

Ask any further questions in discord:

Max Overpower#5914

Contents:

1] Merchant house

2] Pre-Hardmode

3] Souls, Mechanical bosses

4] Plantera and Golem

5] Ducks, Moon Lord

The glitches used in this route are:

Item frame dupe (also known as soft dupe), Hard dupe (dupe with restart), Rope scan glitch, Duck glitch, Hoiking to shoot through a solid 1-thick wall.

I recommend practicing certain things in test worlds before you start, specifically:

Building a duck glitch, Dodging Moon Lord lasers in the ‘duck arena’, making a cave cabin into 2 small NPC houses, Fighting Wall of Flesh with dynamite, Performing item frame, 'hard' and door dupes, using rope scan glitch

Here are 2 runs to serve as examples of using this route, I recommend watching at least one After you’ve looked at the route:

https://www.speedrun.com/terraria/run/z018nvey - solo normal unseeded

https://www.speedrun.com/terraria/run/mk28qq1m - 2p expert unseeded (All Bosses run)

1 - Merchant house.

Merchant NPC is required for buying a bug net and a sickle, nurse is only necessary in expert runs.

In unseeded runs you only need 2 NPC houses - one is taken by guide, and the first to move in is always merchant. Merchant will move in even if you’ve killed guide via Wall of Flesh.

For expert runs, you will need the nurse, and she usually moves in second, before you have to free the mechanic in dungeon, but If not - make another house.

To build the houses, you can use a 11x5 platform design, but a faster way to do it is to make the first cave cabin you find into houses. When doing that, make sure you don't get Guide killed as he will slowly walk towards the new house, potentially drowning himself in some pool in a minute or two.

Getting merchant day 1 is not necessary, but if he moves into your cave house far from spawn, you could build another house at spawn to force him there at first night.

11x5 default house design: https://imgur.com/a/REerHwN

2 - Pre-Hardmode.

Things to remember to get in Pre-Hardmode are Dynamite, King Slime spawners, a vertebrae, a lens, two NPC houses, a duck or artificial water pool(s) for it to spawn. Keep stone, chain and gold/platinum bars for later.

The first thing you need to do is look for a cave to find 1 dynamite in. Jungle is always a preference for this part because it has its own cave entrance(s), on top of having the mountain-like ones, found anywhere outside of desert. Before going into a cave, try to get at least 2 tall trees of wood, this will usually supply for cave housing and platform movement.

Grenades are the strongest weapon against non-boss enemies you'll get in Pre-Hardmode, and they are only found in wooden chests, jungle has a lot of them and it's often worth checking the surface thoroughly before entering a cave, just to get them. A second option would be gold/platinum bow.

When you find a dynamite, it might be worth to very briefly check the easily accessible remains of the cave for ruby or chests. Getting any one gem for a hook is preferable before hard dupe, as it makes the initial descend a lot easier.

When you hard dupe, you can put anything in the chest, not just the items you have one of (in 2p remember to dupe useful accesories to give to your partner).

If you get two dynamite, you could skip the hard dupe, but keep in mind that you'll need the following to set up item frame dupe:

8 iron bars + any 4 bars, a chest and ~30 wood

OR

3 iron ore, 20 stone for a furnace and a bit more wood, then use door dupe to get the bars.

If you have some other things you'd like to double, And you are are able to restart the game quickly, it can be worth to hard dupe anyway (e.g. you have 6 lead bars, hard duping will let you skip the door dupe; you have 1 random teleport potion).

Use sticky dynamite for making a hellevator, and try to get mats for slime crowns before night - early first night.

When you get crowns and gel, run to crimson (ice biome is generally more likely to have it), kill all the demon eyes for 1 lens, get 1 vertebrae, 2 slime crowns to dupe and crimson blocks to potentially make an artificial biome.

Make one or several water pools just off screen at spawn for a duck to spawn.

When you do that, build a bridge with stone(!) towards jungle and kill Wall of Flesh with dynamite, this can take as little as <300 blocks worth of bridge, but if you’re having trouble, make a practice world for it and copy paste the world to retry.

If you haven’t gotten a wooden crate yet, preferably try to get the pwnhammer, always check the loot for an easy ranger emblem grab.

3 - Souls, Mechanical bosses

Just after Wall of Flesh don’t hurry to recall, as there might be a hallow or crimson biome right above you, and if there is, you should try to get 1 soul (2 if you’ve hard duped crates already) from random enemies. Summoning King slime for the souls here is optional. If the biome is crimson you can try to get ichor. If the biome is hallow you should always get some pearlstone to dupe.

From there your goal is either to kill 3 mech bosses at second night, or if that seems too hard - get an Enchanted Sundial asap and use it to rewind time to start the of the day, and you'll have 15 full minutes for all the early-hardmode prep.

Assuming you Didn’t get a free soul while in hell, you might find yourself at spawn with just grenades and no crates. If merchant is in - you should get a net and sickle from him and fish for one (wooden gives hardmode ore that is required for making chlorophyte, Iron also works, but you’ll have to smash altars, gold crate - not good).

When you have a crate, hard dupe it, as well as lens, vertebrae, duck if you have it, and some other optional stuff.

With crates, get a titanium set and some arrows, jesters’ are a nice upgrade but wooden arrows will be needed shortly.

You Need to get a unicorn horn for holy arrows before night time, if you don’t have a merchant by the start hardmode, or if you’re doing a 2p run and splitting tasks, one person should go for a unicorn right away, even with grenades. Make sure to get 3 pixie dust as well.

In surface hallow, get pearlstone for an artificial underground hallow if you don’t have the souls already. Optionally, build an artificial one for unicorn if it’s bad.

When you have a titanium set and holy arrows, dive into the hellevator to look for soul biomes, make artificial for ones you don’t have (remember about the crimson blocks from pre-hardmode).

If you haven't gotten a slime mount yet, get into a cave where King slime will teleport to you and farm for one (in expert, get 2 bags and dupe them). In 2p you can have one player 'use' the mount and pass it to the other player, so a second mount isn't necessary, but you can Hard dupe it later along with Daedalus or a duck, for convenience.

When you have the souls, make light keys, summon 8-12 (10-16 for 2p) mimics for Daedalus Stormbow while invincible on target dummies, kill them with holy arrows using this arena https://imgur.com/a/P2AhaSy .

Go to dungeon, kill Skeletron, get bones; wiring, levers and actuators from mechanic.

Add a horizontal layer of blocks to the top of your mimic arena and use it for fighting the 3 Mech bosses.

Optionally, if you have a blowpipe and ichor, you can use the piercing ichor darts to debuff mimics, Skeletron Prime and Twins.

(Needless to say, that's plenty of things to split up between the players in 2p runs, so these tasks are usually split on the go)

4 - Plantera and Golem

Plantera in random worlds can take any amount of time to spawn, so if you either have teleport potions or just want some consistency over super fast times - you should go to dungeon and set up the duck arena like this before Plantera

https://imgur.com/a/kh5Qtjs (add a nurse house below the box if you’re on expert). The target dummy set up is only for cultist, remove it before Moon Lord fight. Learn to build and use this glitch beforehand.

Before going to jungle take a hardmode anvil and forge, if you got iron crates and no hardmode ores, smash at least 3 altars. In jungle get 2 chlorophyte and set up item frame dupe somewhere there’s no background wall, roll for a good-modifier repeater, (If you choose to make chlorophyte armor, which I don't recommend, make sure to use the ranger helmet for higher damage).

An effective way to search for Plantera is to dynamite down from the middle of the jungle until you hit an open cave, explore it to the dead ends, continue going down to hell. When you’ve explored the open parts, use the Rope scan glitch to explore horizontal portions that you’ve missed. Jungle shape can be unpredictable. When you’ve located Plantera, put target dummies and kill it with wooden or ichor arrows (if you have them), fighting it face to face with just an armor set is very risky, so unless you’ve practiced it - don’t take the risk.

With Plantera killed, you can now actuate in through the bottom of jungle temple, and take the Altar & Golem summoning item with you. Fight it at mech boss arena.

5 - Ducks, Moon Lord

If you haven’t built a cultist arena before Plantera, make one when you get to dungeon, as shown in the Imgur link above. If cultist doesn’t spawn right away, run off screen for 10+ second periods of time and it should be almost instant.

Make sure to be in multiplayer at this point.

Turn on the 1-second timer attached to ducks and spawn cultist, fight him similarly to the mechs, make sure none of Cultist’s adds are alive when you finish him.

Ducks should prevent any pillars from spawning, and instantly start the 1-minute screen flashing before Moon Lord.

Use Chlorophyte shotbow for hands and the heart, and Daedalus Stormbow for the main eye. With holy arrows.

Make sure ducks are not capped to 200 when Moon Lord spawns, but activate the timer as soon as the fight starts.

Staying inside the box will protect you from all attacks except for lasers, so you’re gonna have to dodge some of those. You have the nurse in expert but dodging lasers is still preferable.

The method I like to use is stay on the platform in the middle, and just before the lasers shoot I press down, and about 1-2 blocks of fall later - jump back up using a double-jump bottle (dropped from crates).