Classes and Accessories

Terraria has no locked class choice. You equip whatever weapon and armor you want, and you can switch at any time. But armor sets and accessories each boost one of four damage types, so spreading your gear across all four leaves you weak in every one. In practice players specialize, and understanding the four types plus the accessory and buff systems is what turns a struggling run into a smooth one. This page covers the systems that sit underneath every build.

The four classes

The four damage types share the same progression but play very differently:

Class	Tools	Strength	Weakness
Melee	Swords, spears, yoyos, boomerangs, flails, projectile melee	Highest defense and survivability; only class with health-regen bonuses	Some early weapons are short-ranged
Ranged	Bows, guns, launchers using ammo	High single-target and piercing damage	Needs ammo unless using endless-ammo items
Magic	Staves, spell tomes, magic guns that consume mana	Versatile: homing, lifesteal, area damage	Fragile and mana-dependent
Summoner	Minion staves, sentries, and whips	Minions fight while you dodge; whips buff and tag	Low armor defense

Summoner hybridizes well with melee, because whips scale with melee speed and attack-speed gear. The other three are usually played straight. Each class has its own gear path on its build page: melee, ranged, mage, and summoner.

Accessories and reforging

Accessories occupy a limited number of slots: 5 in Classic, 6 in Expert, and 7 in Master, plus separate vanity and dye slots. Each accessory adds a passive effect, and the mix of mobility, defense, and class-boost accessories you choose is as important as your weapon.

The Goblin Tinkerer, unlocked after the Goblin Army invasion, reforges accessories and weapons to add a modifier (prefix). Warding adds defense, Menacing adds damage, and Lucky adds crit chance, among many others. Reforging is the main late-game money sink, and it is a large, cheap power gain when your NPCs are happy.

Many accessories combine at the Tinkerer’s Workshop into single stronger items, so you free up slots as you progress. Mobility and defense accessories fold into lines like the Ankh Shield, the Celestial Shell, and Master Ninja Gear. Always check whether two accessories you carry can be crafted into one.

Buffs, potions, and health

Consumables grant timed buffs, and stacking the right ones before a fight is standard. Staples include Ironskin (defense), Regeneration, Swiftness, Endurance, Wrath and Rage (damage), and Well Fed from food, plus class flasks and potions like Archery, Magic Power, and Summoning.

Healing potions share a cooldown called Potion Sickness, so you cannot spam them; the Super Healing Potion is the top tier and the standard for the Moon Lord fight. For max HP, Life Crystals raise you to 400, Life Fruits push you to 500, and the Aegis Fruit and other permanent-boost fruits add further bonuses. Raise your HP before hard fights rather than during them.

NPC happiness and Pylons

Town NPCs move in when a valid house exists and their unlock condition is met. A valid house needs at least 60 tiles of enclosed area, background walls on every tile, a light source, a flat-surface item, a comfort item, and a door or platform entrance.

Each NPC has preferred biomes and liked or disliked neighbors. Happy NPCs give up to a 75% discount on purchases and reforging and sell a Pylon for fast travel between biomes (you need at least two Pylons networked to teleport). Strong pairings include Mechanic plus Goblin Tinkerer in the Snow biome for the cheapest reforging, and Dryad plus Witch Doctor in the Jungle. Because reforging cost scales with happiness, arranging your town well pays for itself.

Difficulty modes

You choose the world difficulty at creation, and it changes the underlying math:

Mode	What it does
Journey	Relaxed creative mode with item duplication (research), difficulty sliders, and free time and weather control
Classic	Standard difficulty. 5 accessory slots
Expert	Tougher enemies, altered boss behaviors, Treasure Bags with Expert-exclusive drops, and a 6th accessory slot
Master	Harder still, with more enemy HP and damage, exclusive drops (relics, pets, mounts), and a 7th accessory slot

Master Mode is the current top difficulty in standard play. The “Legendary” tier exists only on the “Get fixed boi” secret seed, which also spawns you in the Underworld and is the only place to fight Mechdusa. Other secret seeds like “For the Worthy” change the rules further.

Putting it together

The system loop is: pick a class, keep your NPCs happy for cheap reforging, reforge your accessories for Warding or Menacing, stack the right buffs before a fight, and raise your HP with crystals and fruit before you attempt a hard boss. None of these is optional at the higher difficulties.

Related: for the full boss order these systems carry you through, see the boss order cheatsheet. For the two pivotal fights, see the Wall of Flesh and Moon Lord deep guides.