Overview
Master Mode is one of the Terraria game modes you can play. You can enable it at the World’s creation. It’s similar to Expert Mode but increases further the difficulty and allows you to unlock Master Mode-exclusive items.
If you’re playing in Journey Mode, you can toggle Master Mode at any time using the difficulty slider.
Changes
Master Mode changes a lot your gameplay. Enemies are now furthermore dangerous so you have to play safer.
All Expert Mode changes apply also to Master Mode (increased drop chance, modified AIs, Expert-exclusive content available, etc…).
Enemies
Some changes apply to enemies to make them more powerful and dangerous. Most of them have more than 50% increased damage and health and 10% increased knockback resistance compared to Expert Mode, meaning they have 3 times as much health and damage and 20% more resistance than in Classic Mode. Sometimes, they also have increased defense.
For example, here are the stats of a classic Zombie in the different difficulty modes:
| Stat | Classic Mode | Expert Mode | Master Mode |
| Health | 45 | 90 | 135 |
| Damage | 14 | 28 | 42 |
| Knockback Resistance | 50% | 55% | 60% |
| Defense | 6 | 6 | 6 |
Bosses also have increased stats. They gain a flat 50% increase in damage and a 27.5% increase in health compared to Expert Mode. It’s a lot and it makes now a big difference compared to Classic Mode.
For example, the Eye of Cthulhu has now 4641 max life in Master Mode compared to 2800 in Classic Mode.
As in Expert Mode, bosses have changes in their AI, making them much harder. For example, the Eye of Cthulhu has now a dash ability in his second phase and also spawns more Servants of Cthulhu.
Lastly, weaker enemies become stronger depending on your progression through the game. When you enter hardmode, enemies like zombies gain an additional multiplier to their stats’ increase, and they also gain another one when you defeat Plantera. It makes them challenging all the game long.
To compensate for this difficulty increase, enemies now have more chances to drop rare items and they drop more coins.
Player
Some changes affect directly the player. First, the player will now drop all his coins upon death, compared to 50% in Classic Mode and 75% in Expert Mode.
Then, while in a Master Mode world, the player gains an additional accessory slot. This slot is stackable with the Demon Heart (a Master Mode-exclusive item) meaning you can have up to 7 accessories slots in Master Mode.
Also, the player’s defense has a greater impact because the damage taken by the player in Master Mode is fully reduced by the value of his defense compared to 50% in Classic Mode and 75% in Expert Mode.
Finally, most of the debuffs have a longer duration in Master Mode. It’s increased up to 250% compared to Classic Mode.
Exclusive items
Master Mode comes with new exclusive items related to bosses. First, as in Expert Mode, bosses drop a Treasure Bag. This bag contains the Expert Mode-exclusive items of the bosses, but also the Master Mode-exclusive items which have a new rarity: Fiery Red.
Bosses also drop Relics when defeated. Relics are furniture items representing their respective boss on a golden base. They are purely vanity items.
In addition to these new drops, bosses also have a 25% chance to drop a Pet, a Light Pet, or a Mount themed after the respective boss. For example, the Wall of Flesh drops a skeletal Goat Mount.
Event mini-bosses also drop Relics and Pets as they are nearly considered bosses.
The last exclusive item is the 0x33’s Aviators. It’s a vanity item you can get in Master Mode after defeating the Eye of Cthulhu while in hardmode.
Differences with Expert Mode
Perhaps you’re still unsure whether you should play in Master Mode or Expert Mode. We’ll recap quickly the differences between Expert Mode and Master Mode to help you in your choice.
Expert Mode introduces new enemies and bosses’ AIs, and new treasure bags with exclusive boss items.
Master Mode resembles Expert Mode but is furthermore difficult because enemies have more health and do even more damage. Master Modes also have more exclusive items, but most of them are vanity items such as Relics or Pets. But there are some game-changer items you can get in Master Mode.
Indeed, some bosses drop Light Pets, and you can get the Black Spot, which is the fastest mount of the game with an infinite flight time. You can drop it on the Flying Dutchman with a 25% chance. It means you can get it in early hardmode, compared to the mount you drop on Duke Fishron.
You also get an extra accessory slot in Master Mode, allowing you to get a total of 7 slots in hardmode (with the Demon Heart you can get on the Wall of Flesh). Also, you drop all your coins in Master Mode compared to 75% in Expert Mode, meaning you have to be careful when exploring your world.
That’s all, Master Mode includes all the changes from Expert Mode so you won’t miss any content.
Tips for defeating Master Mode
Whether you’re a beginner or an experimented player, Master Mode can be challenging. Fortunately, there are some tips to help you through your journey to avoid dying too much time.
Avoid enemies as much as possible
As enemies have increased health and damage, you want to avoid them as much as possible, especially when you’re beginning in a new world because you start with little health and without defense or ranged weapons. So, you can try to fight enemies only when you need a specific drop.
You can also dig in your tunnels to find ores instead of exploring Caverns because Caverns are big open spaces where monsters can come from everywhere. It will be longer to find ores, but you won’t die so the time you lose while digging big tunnels, you will get it back because you won’t die. It’s better to keep enclosed to avoid monsters.
Then, you want to always have some dirt in your inventory. Dirt is the best defense against enemies, whether you’re in the early game or the end game. It allows you to block enemies and prevent them from attacking you. As Dirt isn’t rare and doesn’t have a lot of uses, you have no excuses to always have some in your inventory.
Keep as few coins as possible on you
When you die in Master Mode, you lose all the coins you have in your inventory. To avoid being frustrated every time you die, you should avoid carrying too many coins with you and store them in the base as much as possible. If you die with a lot of coins, you will try to get them back, and if you die one more time while trying to pick them up, you will be so frustrated.
Be correctly equipped
When exploring your world, you have to be equipped and prepared. You can’t just go out without any stuff, regenerative items, or potions.
It means you always must have a lot of regenerative items in your inventory, and optionally you can also have a lot of buff potions. Because you will lose a lot of health when exploring, and the regeneration can be quite slow.
To always have potions on you, you can build a herb and flower farm. It will allow you to quickly get all the materials you need to craft your potions without having to take the risk of farming them outdoors.
As fast as possible in the game, you want to craft good armor. It’s useful in the early game because it will prevent you from losing too much health or from dying many times, but it’s furthermore useful when facing bosses. You will see it for yourself, the first boss you will fight will be very hard because you won’t have good armor when fighting him.
You also want to find good accessories quickly. The best accessories you can get are these granting you movement speed or mobility because they will make it easier to avoid enemies, dodge bosses’ attacks, and explore your world. That’s why you want to quickly find the Goblin Tinkerer. To make it spawn, you have to defeat the Goblin Army, then you have to explore the Caverns and free him from its ties. He will also unlock the ability to reforge your equipment, which can be a huge advantage when fighting bosses.
Finally, your preferred class in Master Mode should be the ranged class. Indeed, this class allows you to fight enemies without taking the risk of taking damage and dying. You can also play the Sorcerer class because some magic weapons are ranged weapons.
Build bosses arena
It’s important to be prepared for boss fights, not only by finding powerful stuff like weapons, armor, or accessories but also by building an arena allowing you to optimize your mobility and your life regeneration.
In your arena, you can put campfires, heart lanterns, honey between bubbles, etc… You can also use Heart and Mana statues. These are statues that will produce hearts or mana stars when powered. You can automatize them using timers.
Is Master Mode the hardest mode in Terraria?
Well, in Terrarua Vanilla, it is. Indeed, the Master Mode is beyond the Expert Mode, which was the hardest Terraria mode before.
If you want to play Terraria with a furthermore increased difficulty, you should consider Terraria modded. Not only, do mods increase the difficulty by adding new bosses, enemies, and mechanics, but also, some mods such as the Calamity mod add new difficulty modes.
The hardest Terraria difficulty mode is probably the Malice Mode, added by Calamity. It changes all bosses’ AIs, making them a lot harder. Even King Slime can be challenging. It also adds a lot of items and mechanics to help you to defeat the game.
But it’s not balanced, meaning that even if you have more powerful items, the bosses are too hard making it very challenging. If you want the hardest Terraria experience, consider installing Calamity mod and playing in Malice Mode.
For more guides or tutorials, be sure to see our other articles as HOW GOOD ARE TERRARIA CELESTIAL CUFFS? or HOW TO MAKE A CHAIN IN TERRARIA?
