Overview
Traps are items you can place in your world to harm players or enemies. Most of them are actionable items and are naturally generated in your world, either in the Underground, the Dungeon, or the Lizard Temple. When you find them in your world, they are connected to wires and pressure plates so that you take damage or die when you’re not paying attention.
You can use a Dangersense Potion to illuminate them allowing you to avoid them easily and collect them. Another way to spot them is to use a mechanism-related item such as a pressure plate or a wrench. You can also see them if you have a Mechanical Lens or a Grand Design in your inventory.
Some items are not considered as traps, such as the Spikes or Wooden Spikes. Indeed, they are not mechanisms items as they are just items placed in the world and dealing damage on contact. The Land Mine is also this kind of item even if it’s not generated naturally in your world.
Main uses
In Terraria, when you want to farm things easily, you can build things called “Farms”. These are structures allowing you to optimize the farming of something. You can even build AFK farms, allowing you to just leave your screen and drink a cup of coffee while you get resources.
Traps are used to build farms because they allow you to kill enemies automatically using mechanisms. It goes from the simple Rotten Chunk farm consisting only of some lava (check it here: THE BEST WAY TO FARM ROTTEN CHUNK IN TERRARIA) to the Pumpkin Moon farm or Frost Moon farm, or even the Lunar Event farm (even if in theory there are not really traps that are used in this case but other complex mechanisms).
Another use of traps can be to just have fun trolling your mates. For example, you can place a pressure plate somewhere in your world connected to an exploding trap so that when your mate will walk on the pressure plate, it will explode, killing him.
traps list to kill enemies easily
Reusable traps
Reusable traps are the best traps to build farms as they are persistent. Once they are placed, you can trigger them using mechanisms each time you want. They won’t be destroyed or disappear.
Statue Traps
Sometimes in your world, you can find Statues. Some of them are actionable, including the Slime Statue, the Bat Statue, the Skeleton Statue, and the Crab Statue.
When you trigger them using a mechanism, they will make the corresponding enemy spawn. You can make enemies spawn until the spawn limit is reached.
Some of these statues are very useful, such as the Slime Statue, because you can drop Gel on the Slimes spawned by the Statue. Other statues such as the Crab Statues are used in complex mechanisms because the Crabs spawned can be used as timers to trigger other mechanisms.
Dart Traps
One of the most common traps you can encounter is the Dart Trap. It’s just a trap firing a poisoned arrow when you trigger the mechanism.
They are wired to pressure plates when they’re naturally generated. They are found in the Underground, the Caverns, and the Dungeon.
Geysers
They are traps throwing fire pushing up the player when touched or trigger through a mechanism. They do not inflict the On Fire! debuff, they just deal some damage.
They are found mostly deep Underground, near lava sources.
Super Dart Traps
They are a direct upgrade to Dart Traps. They work the same way, except they deal double damage.
You find them in the Lizard Temple and you need at least a Picksaw to mine them.
Spiky Balls Traps
You won’t like this trap when you will trigger it as it’s very powerful and can deal a lot of damage to you. But it also makes this trap very useful because it can just destroy enemies. It throws a single spiky bouncy ball persisting for a long time before despawning.
It’s the most common trap you can find in the Lizard Temple, and you will always find multiple Spiky Balls Traps lined up. You need at least a Picksaw to mine them.
Spear Traps
These traps deploy a long spear when triggered. The spear stops if the path is obstructed, but can reach big distances if it’s not. This trap has a short activation time.
You can find this trap in the Lizard Temple. It’s the second rarest trap found in the Lizard Temple. Mining it requires at least a Picksaw.
Flame Traps
Flame Traps are traps firing a horizontal flame when triggered. They inflict the On Fire! debuff burning players or enemies for a short time when they are hit by flames. The flames extend 23 blocks horizontally, with 1 block below and 1 block above.
You can find Flame Traps in the Lizard Temple but they are very rare, and often they won’t be naturally generated in your world at all. You need at least a Picksaw to mine them.
Spikes
Spikes and Wooden Spikes are not really traps as they are not mechanisms, but they are also a way of dealing damage to enemies and players. They do damage when an enemy or a player is on touching them.
You can find Spikes in the Dungeon, and Wooden Spikes in the Lizard Temple as they are the direct upgrade of Spikes.
Structures
When blocks are arranged in order to kill the player or the enemies, they can be considered as traps.
Boulder Traps
Your first death in the Underworld will be often caused by this trap. A pressure plate is wired to an arrangement of Active Stone Blocks so that when you walk on it, it throws a boulder on your head instantly killing you.
This boulder affects all entities and you can craft it using stone, so using it properly can allow you to deal big damage to enemies or bosses.
Explosive Traps
These traps spawn naturally in the Underworld. They consist of a pressure plate or a detonator wired to Explosives dealing big damage to all the entities in the blast of the explosion when they explode.
You can craft these traps using Dynamites and Wires.
Sand Traps
Sand Traps are generated naturally in your world and consist of sand placed on Active Stone Blocks. When you walk on a pressure plate, the sand will fall on your head, killing you. You can build these traps anywhere in your world and trigger them to kill enemies thanks to the sand.
Lava Traps
These traps are similar to Boulder Traps because they trigger when you walk on a pressure plate and they will make lava fall on your head.
They are found mostly in the Dungeon and in the Caverns. You can build these traps anywhere in your world and use them on enemies, or you can just put some lava on the ground and the enemies walking on it will take a lot of damage. These traps are used in a lot of farms as lava is the easiest way to kill enemies while being AFK.
Man-made
Man-made traps are traps that are not generated naturally in your world. The only way to make them is to build them yourself.
Land Mine
As soon as you enter hardmode, you can buy Land Mines from the Demolitionist for 5 Gold Coins. These traps consist of items you can place, exploding in contact with an enemy or a player.
They deal a lot of damage and when exploding, they don’t break the blocks around, so they are good to kill enemies without destroying your world.
Trapped Chests
Not really a trap, but more something to trigger traps as a Lever or a Pressure Plate. They send a signal when opened. They can be useful to bait your friends and make them explode!
For more guides or tutorials, be sure to see our other articles as HOW TO USE THE TERRARIA FAVORITE ITEMS FEATURE or 7 BEST TERRARIA HOUSE IDEAS.
