Part 37: Tarzan Boy

#35 - Tarzan Boy



Hello everyone and welcome back to Rivershire. I don't think the winged look works for Classic Sam, so we won't be keeping this appearance for long.



We're gonna make some last preparations, and then we're off to fight the master of the Jungle. Pictured here, we're making Holy Arrows. These things are amazing. 200 regular arrows, 3 piles of pixie dust, and a unicorn horn allows us to make arrows that call down a hail of stars around the impact zone.



Daedalus Stormbow brings the rain...



And the stars follow. It doesn't look very impressive in still shots, and it's impossible to get a good gif of it. But trust me when I say that these things shred boss health pools like nobody's business.



I mentioned last time that the Chlorophyte Shotbow is ridiculously good. Let's explore why.



Each shot that you fire creates 1 or 2 additional arrows to fire with it. These free arrows, like the Daedalus Stormbow arrows before them, proc any effects your arrows have. So with the boss shredding Holy Arrows... well, you'll see shortly. We'll be keeping this bow for a while.



Something I briefly touched on was that the arms dealer now sells empty bullet casings. We can use these to craft more specialized bullets than the regular musket balls.



The demolitionist, since the start of hard mode, sells explosive powder. We can combine 50 casings with a lump of explosive powder to create this monstrosity.



Now our bullets explode. Take care, though, as these explosive bullets can and will hurt you if you shoot something point blank with them.



Though with only the cost of a few casings and some explosive powder, our Megashark is now even deadlier than it was before. Because the last thing we needed was a machine gun that shoots explosive frostburn rounds.



This is something we could have made a lot earlier, but I didn't think to do it before now. A dark shard, a light shard, and 7 souls of light and night will allow us to make this devastating flail weapon.



The little ball on the mace has a yin yang on it. So that's pretty cool.



It's another of those weapons that does a number on the Destroyer.



I also hope you like Sam's armor. I thought the Hallowed armor would look nice as the vanity set for a while.



While preparing for the boss fight, another pirate invasion showed up. This is one of the only shots worth showing from it, however. It just shows that I upgraded Sam's wings from faerie wings to frozen wings.

In addition to being all around better wings, they also look better with plate armor.



I also made the discovery that if you combine Shadowflame knives, the frost armor, and our fire glove, then whatever you hit has a bad day.



One of the pirates was also kind enough to drop his legendary weapon for us.



It swings super fast and is decently sized, and I really wish we had gotten one earlier. Right now it's too little too late.



Anyway, the invasion passes and I get an idea. A terrible, wonderful, gloriously dumb idea.



Sailor man beware.
When there's money in the ground
There's murder in the air.



I'm so stupidly, ridiculously proud of this dumb little joke.



Anyway, it took a while but we eventually found enough life fruits to hit 500 HP. So now Sam is completely maxed out on health and mana. We've also meticulously cleared out an arena in the bottom of the jungle, just above Hell. This is where we're gonna face the boss.



We're also as prepared as we can get. In addition to the usual round of potions (regeneration, ironskin, archery, shine, night owl) we've also taken along a flask for the first time. See the little weird yellow bottle under the two stacks of explosive bullets? That's an Ichor flask.

Ichor is effortless to get. From our adventures in getting the last drops for the ankh shield, we have enough ichor to last us the rest of eternity. So if we take two pieces of it, and a bottle of water, and combine them at an imbuing station (sold by the witch doctor for a nominal fee), then we get a Flask of Ichor out.

The flask lasts for 20 minutes and causes our melee attacks to also apply the ichor debuff, which if you recall, lowers an enemy's defense by 20 points.





Terraria Soundtrack vol. 2 - Plantera

Give this a listen. It's super buttrock-y and it owns.

Plantera Boss Fight



Plantera is a gigantic flower, and it has a lot of health to chew through. Unlike other bosses that float through the world, Plantera uses its hooks to crawl around the terrain.



Brushing one of the hooks deals us 40 damage, so be careful of those. Plantera is a boss you want to slowly kite around your arena. It doesn't move too fast at the start, so don't be in a rush.



For the majority of the fight, I kite it around the platform in the upper right while whaling on it with whatever I have handy.



Also take care. Plantera can still float across terrain. So when you're kiting it around, don't take shortcuts. This part of the fight is about being slow and deliberate.



Besides lazily chasing you around the world, Plantera will occasionally shoot giant spiked balls at you. They're an environmental hazard, so just dodge out of the way.



It will also shoot seeds at you, similar to hornets shooting their stingers.



Once I unleash the holy arrows, the fight starts going quickly.



When Plantera is down to half of its max HP, it decides it's had enough of our shit and sheds the bulb exterior to reveal the terrifying maw underneath.



In the second half of the fight, it moves a lot faster and is now actively trying to eat us. It also spawned a bunch of little minions on tentacles with the second half, and these guys act like the Hungry from the Wall fight. They deal 60 damage, so try and avoid them if you can. Though with only 1000 HP, it's probably faster and easier to just blast them out of the way.



I don't think it has a chance to start, but in the second half of the fight, Plantera will also start shooting little spores into the air that deal 70 contact damage but have almost no health.



That was a short but incredibly violent fight. How short? The video I linked above is 94 seconds, and almost a third of that is showing off stuff pre-battle. The actual fight lasted about... 63 seconds.

I also want to take this moment to mention that you under no circumstances should let Plantera leave the jungle. It will go berserk if that happens, and deal double damage, have double the defense (or quadruple defense in the second half), move super fast, and start charging directly at the player.

Plantera's body deals 70 damage by default. So you do not want it to enrage. Stay in the jungle!



The key on the bottom of the screen is a temple key, which will finally let us into that jungle temple we've been seeing. The pygmy staff is the next tier up of minion summoning weapons.

I really wish the Grenade Launcher were better than it is. It's just... well, a grenade launcher. The wiki claims it deals 60 base ranged damage, which isn't too bad. I don't know, though. I'm a big fan of grenade launchers in games. Ask me sometime how often I'm carrying the Tonkor, for example. I'm just not a big fan of this one, though.

Anyway, Plantera has a truckload of drops. It alone drops an entire upgrade tier's worth of weapons. So, let's run down the list...

Seedling - 5% - (Summons a pet sapling)
The Axe - 2% - (72 melee damage. It's an auto swinging guitar that can break Altars and cut down trees.)
Pygmy Staff - 25% - (34 summon damage. Covered above, but you also need to have this in your inventory for the Witch Doctor NPC to start selling the next tier of summoner equipment.)
Grenade Launcher - 14.29% - (Meh.)
Rocket I - 100% With Grenade Launcher - (20-49 ranged damage. Ammo! The NPC we unlocked from beating Plantera will sell these.)
Venus Magnum - 14.29% - (38 ranged damage. Pretty high damage for a pistol. Has a super high fire rate, so you can potentially manually fire at automatic rifle speeds.)
Nettle Burst - 14.29% - (28 magic damage. Vilethorn Mk. 3)
Leaf Blower - 14.29% - (48 magic damage. Now you, too, can use Razor Leaf.)
Flower Pow - 14.29% - (65 melee damage. The next step up from the Dao of Pow.)
Wasp Gun - 14.29% - (21 magic damage. Remember the bee gun we had in normal mode? This its bigger, nastier brother.)
Seedler - 14.29% - (50 melee damage. Shoots an exploding nut projectile, that then explode like a shotgun blast.)
Thorn Hook - 10% - (I didn't show it off, but you can make a hook in normal mode from jungle materials. It can shoot 3 vines simultaneously. This is its bigger brother. It reaches a little farther and moves a little faster.)
Plantera Mask - 14.29% - (Every boss has one. Each one is awful.)
Plantera Trophy - 10% - (Every boss has one.)



That's not good...

NEXT TIME: