Terraria Nightmare Pickaxe is an excellent pre-Hardmode tool that you can assemble rather easily. It’s one of the few items that allows you to collect obsidian, hellstone, ebonstone, and crimstone during this phase of the game.
There’s a good chance that you’ll use this item during the entire pre-Hardmode until you gain access to better mining tools. Experienced players often rush it, as it allows them to extract just about anything during the early game.
Terraria Nightmare Pickaxe stats and features
Here are the item’s basic stats and effects:
| Requires | Demonite Bar (12) and Shadow Scale (6) assembled at Steel Anvil or Iron Anvil |
| Type | Tool |
| Pickaxe power | 65% |
| Damage | 9 |
| Knockback | 3 |
| Critical chance | 4% |
| Use time | 20 |
| Tool speed | 15 |
| Rarity | Blue |
| Sells for | 36 silver |
Like all items from this category, Nightmare Pickaxe is primarily used for mining. It is a major upgrade over its Silver and Tungsten counterparts and slightly better than the Gold and Platinum variant. You can use it for the entirety of pre-Hardmode without having any issues.
The item allows players to destroy crismtone and ebonstone blocks, making it easier to venture through the Crimson and the Corruption biomes. In turn, you can create passages to Crimson Hearts and Shadow Orbs, whose destruction summons Eater of The Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu.
Most importantly, Nightmare Pickaxe allows you to dig obsidian and hellstone. By combining these two materials, you can create Hellstone Bars, which are a necessary ingredient for Molten Pickaxe. Once you have this tool, you can start extracting the first Hardmode resources, that is, Cobalt and Palladium Ores.
Nightmare Pickaxe as a weapon
Like all other items from this category, you can use Nightmare Pickaxe as a melee weapon. The tool has the same damage as Silver Shortsword, although it attacks at a slower speed.
Most players use it in such a capacity when creating new mine shafts and stumbling upon random opponents. If you’re too lazy to swap gear, you can just keep swatting with the mining equipment and destroy low-tier enemies. Of course, you shouldn’t use it against bosses as this would make the fights cumbersome.
We always recommend players to first create a pickaxe when they gain access to a new ore. These tools are crucial for your progression as they allow you to mine new resources and, thus, create new armor sets and weapons. Although Nightmare’s damage cannot compare to that of Light’s Bane, it’s not a big downgrade compared to something like Golden Broadsword.
How to get the item?
To acquire this tool, you need just two components: Demonite Bar and Shadow Scale. If you know what you’re doing, you can get this item extremely quickly, almost at the start of the game.
Demonite Bar is a material that you make from Demonite Ore. This is one of the best resources pre-Hardmode that you can extract with Gold or Platinum Pickaxe. It’s found in the deep layers of the earth, close to lava level, so you’ll need to do some digging to reach it.
Before you get to the ore, you’ll get enough gold and platinum to assemble the tool required for its extraction. Once you have it, you can easily smelt the material into bars with a regular Furnace.
Getting Shadow Scale is a bit trickier. It only drops from Eater of Worlds, which you can summon by offering Worm Food at Demon Altar. You can make this item from Rotten Chunks (15) and Vile Powder (30). Alternatively, you can call forth the boss by destroying three Shadow Orbs.
Rotten Chunks drop from several Corruption enemies. Vile Powder is made from Vile Mushrooms, which are easily obtainable from the surface of the Corruption biome. To create Vile Powder, you’ll also need Placed Bottle or Alchemy Table. We suggest using Placed Bottle for assembly, as you can get it much quicker.
Rushing Nightmare Pickaxe
In theory, you can get this tool immediately, as soon as you get the first few Bombs. Going all the way to the bottom of the map to get Demonite Ore is unnecessary as you can get the material from Eater of Worlds.
To quickly access the boss, you can go immediately to the Corruption biome and grind materials for Worm Food. Alternatively, you can start exploring the Caverns below Forest and get Bombs from Chests. With explosives, you can destroy ebonstone tiles blocking the way to Shadow Orbs. Then, you can use the same items to destroy the Orbs.
If you choose to go with Bombs, you’ll need approximately 15 to 20 pieces. The number of explosives depends on your ability to hit Shadow Orbs, which are levitating in the air. After you destroy three of them, Eater of Worlds will automatically appear nearby.
