Overview
Description
The Turtle Shell is an item available as soon as you enter hardmode. There is a 5.88% rate to drop it from Giant Tortoises, which are enemies you can find in the Jungle and the Underground Jungle.
Usage
In Vanilla, this item is solely used to craft Turtle Armor which can be turned later into Bettle Armor.
The Turtle Armor is an armor you can craft using 3 Turtle Shells (1 per piece). It’s a melee armor giving a lot of defense, increased melee damage, and increased critical strike chance. The full set bonus gives a 15% damage reduction and gives you an improved thorns effect as attackers take twice the damage they inflict to you.
The Beetle Armor is the direct upgrade of the Turtle Armor. It’s a post-Golem armor. You craft it using pieces of Turtle Armor and Beetle Husks (you drop it from the Golem).
To craft the full set, you need 18 Beetle Husks, so you will have to fight the Golem at least 3 times. As there is a chest plate variant, you will need to fight a few Golems more if you wish to have all the armor’s pieces.
Additional Information About Turtle Shells
How can I kill Giant Tortoises easily?
Giant Tortoises are quite hard to kill as they deal a lot of damage and they have a lot of defense. They walk around slowly and when they see you, they retract into their shell and they start spinning. Then, they run into you gaining increased defense and dealing high contact damage.
Their spin attack cooldown is 6.67 seconds by default, but if you hit them you reset this cooldown. So a good strategy to kill them is to inflict the most damage to them in one attack after their spin attack. You want weapons such as the Sniper Rifle (to know more about it: THE BEST WAY TO FARM THE SNIPER RIFLE IN TERRARIA) to farm them efficiently.
You can only craft Turtle Armor after defeating all 3 Mechanical Bosses, so it’s pointless to try to farm Giant Tortoises in early hardmode (except for coins eventually as one turtle gives 5 silver coins).
How many Giant Tortoises do I need to kill to get full armor?
As there is a 5.88% chance to drop a Turtle Shell when killing a Giant Tortoise, you will have to kill on average 90 Giant Tortoises to have a 90% chance to get 3 Turtle Shells. If you want a 90% to get 4 Turtle Shells, this number raises to 110 Giant Tortoises.
What is the Frozen Turtle Shell?
The Frozen Turtle Shell is the Ice Biome equivalent of the Turtle Shell. You can drop it from Ice Tortoises in hardmode at a 1% rate. These are enemies you find sometimes in the Ice Biome in hardmode. The Ice Tortoises behave exactly like the Giant Tortoises.
The Frozen Turtle Shell is an accessory granting the Ice Barrier buff with effecting varying depending on the version:
- It gives the player a 25% damage reduction as long as his health remains at or below 50% on all the platforms except 3DS.
- On 3DS, it gives the player 30 defense when the player’s health is below 25%.
It’s a very useful accessory especially when fighting bosses because you are constantly exposed to damage in these situations. But it’s an accessory useful only when you are below 50% health so a good thing to do is to swap accessories when your health is above 50% so that you optimize all your accessories‘ slots.
Combined with a Paladin’s Shield, it can be used to craft the Frozen Shield which is an item redirecting some damage done to teammates to the player, increasing defense by 6, and providing the player with a damage-absorbing shield when they are at low health.
For more guides or tutorials, be sure to see our other articles as GETTING THE LIGHTNING BOOTS IN TERRARIA or THE WORMHOLE POTION: ONE OF THE BEST POTIONS IN TERRARIA
