Guide:Surviving in the Corruption

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This means the page will walk you through a specific task, strategy, or enemy/boss fight.

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Status: Revised (This Guide got revised and is up to date!)

Surviving in the Corruption can be tricky for new players. Even enemies on the surface will aggressively chase the player, and you can easily fall into its deep chasms. Compared to its counterpart, the Crimson, Corruption enemies are more difficult to avoid and the terrain is harder to navigate, but enemies have lower stats.

Traversing the Corruption may be important in the earlygame to explore the surface and find other biomes, especially if the world starts with Corruption on both sides of the player. Shadow Orbs can also provide useful loot earlygame and summon the Eater of Worlds, which can be killed to spawn a meteorite and get Shadow Scales for Shadow armor and a Nightmare Pickaxe, which in turn allows you to mine Hellstone. In Hardmode, the Underground Corruption can provide Souls of Night and Cursed Flames.

Terrain

Most of the terrain consists of whatever biome the Corruption is generated over, converted into Corruption blocks. Throughout Corruption patches are chasms, which generate as vertical holes made of Ebonstone with wide vertical entrances either ending abruptly in Ebonstone or leading to a horizontal cave system with Demon Altars and Demonite Ore. Below the horizontal tunnel at various depths lie Shadow Orbs, which can be broken with either bombs or a hammer.

This makes the difficulty of traversing the Corruption dependent on the natural terrain it generated over. Platforms are very useful both for traversing chasms and avoiding fall damage, while Rope is a convenient option for climbing into chasms safely and with an easy escape route.

Corrupt grass will grow thorns over time, which will damage the player when touched. You can break them with any weapon or tool, or jump over them with the help of platforms. It will also grow Vile Mushrooms, which can be harvested and crafted into Vile Powder, and Deathweed, which can be harvested during a Blood Moon or Full Moon, or using a Staff of Regrowth. Trees grown on Corrupt grass will provide Ebonwood, which provide stronger alternatives to normal wooden equipment early on, particularly the hammer.

The entrance chasms in the Corruption are always primarily vertical, with some variation on the sides that can give small places to land. However, if you jump blindly, fall damage will kill you. Rope, blocks, and platforms are all options for avoiding fall damage as you descend; because the chasm has background walls everywhere, you can freely place blocks and platforms in open air to stop your fall.

Shadow Orbs

Each Corruption chasm contains several Shadow Orbs, surrounded in Ebonstone. Early on, you will not have a pickaxe strong enough to mine Ebonstone, but explosives and Purification Powder can be used to reach the Orbs. There, you can smash them with a hammer or with another explosive.

Destroying the orbs will cause the following effects:

• When the first Orb is broken, Goblin Invasions will start spawning naturally once a player has 200 max health or more.
• A usable weapon, accessory, or light pet will drop. The first Orb will always drop a Musket.
• Every third Orb smashed will summon the Eater of Worlds in addition to its item drop.

The game will produce a message with each Orb smashed, with messages depending on whether this is the first, second or third Orb smashed in a cycle:

• First: "A horrible chill goes down your spine..."
• Second: "Screams echo around you..."
• Third: "Eater of Worlds has awoken!", accompanied by the boss' spawn.

The Eater of Worlds will despawn immediately if you teleport out of the Corruption after it spawns, such as with a Recall Potion. This lets you safely break Shadow Orbs and collect their loot without worry. There are a finite number of Shadow Orbs generated with each world, but the Eater of Worlds can also be spawned using Worm Food crafted at a Demon Altar without limit. The main downside to smashing Shadow Orbs is the chance of natural Goblin Invasion spawns. For that reason, you should avoid smashing Shadow Orbs until you feel ready fighting a Goblin Invasion^[a].

If you want to fight the Eater of Worlds, consider checking out Guide:Eater of Worlds strategies for more information on that fight.

Pre-Hardmode

Early on, the best way to deal with Corruption enemies is to avoid them, but with Eaters of Souls being able to fly and Devourers traveling through blocks, this can be difficult.

Platforms can be used with Smart Cursor to place stairs, which you can then walk up and jump off of over enemies. Blocks can also use Smart Cursor for fast and consistent placement, provided Smart Block Placement is turned on.

• 
  Eaters of Souls have low knockback resistance, but fly around and can be hard to hit. When one approaches you, you can either stop it from reaching you by placing solid blocks between you, jump or move out of the way to exploit its poor acceleration, or hit it away with a good weapon. Bows with Flaming Arrows or Frostburn Arrows are also good options for hitting them.
• Devourers are worms, and will travel through blocks to reach you. You can tell when one has spawned by the sounds of it tunneling through the ground, which get faster as it gets closer to you. However, they cannot fly through the air, so staying off the ground using platforms or blocks can let you safely attack them from above. Grenades and other piercing weapons are great against worms due to them having multiple segments.
• Corrupt Goldfishes uncommonly spawn in pools of water in the Corruption. They swim back and forth aimlessly until you enter water, after which they will start pursuing you until you exit the water. While not completely harmless, even a Wooden Sword or Bow is enough to deal with them.

Corrupt Goldfishes will only drop coins, but the other two pre-Hardmode Corruption enemies will drop Rotten Chunks and rarely the Tentacle Spike. Eaters of Souls rarely drop Burgers and pieces of Ancient Shadow armor, while Devourers drop Worm Teeth.

Consider using bombs to collect large amounts of Ebonstone from a chasm entrance. Ebonstone can be used to make an artificial Corruption biome or farm Corruption enemies later on, and can also be used to grow Deathweed in a pinch.

Chasm entrances can be very dangerous early on, with their depth making it easy to die of fall damage or otherwise be trapped in them. Enemies can easily knock you into a chasm if you're not careful. Place either platforms or blocks above chasm entrances to prevent yourself from falling into them, and use the cover to help you cross the chasms.

For entering and exploring the chasms, bring something to help deal with fall damage. Extra jumps, a grappling hook, an Umbrella, or even just Rope are good options for preventing an accidental death. The chasm itself has Ebonstone walls through its entire area that you can directly place rope, platforms, blocks, and torches onto, which you can use to save yourself while falling. As the main reason to enter a Corruption chasm is to break a Shadow Orb, make sure to bring Bombs, Dynamite, or Purification Powder as a way to reach the Shadow Orb and more explosives or a hammer to break it.

The chasm system in the Corruption has multiple fake entrances that do not properly connect to the main horizontal chasm. You may have to check a couple entrances before you find the main chasm, making it important to be able to climb out of chasms you dive into.

The main chasm is largely horizontal and easier to move around in. You can spot Shadow Orbs by their purple glow beneath the main chasm, and use explosives to reach them from above.

Hardmode

With the start of Hardmode, a diagonal strip of Corruption biome will appear on one side of the world, and Corruption will start naturally spreading over time from all Corrupt blocks to all convertible blocks.

The Pwnhammer you got from killing the Wall of Flesh can be used to smash Demon Altars. They will generate new Hardmode ores, which are very important for early Hardmode progression. The Corruption chasms from Pre-Hardmode are the best places for this, with a high density of Altars to smash. 9-12 Altars smashed can be a nice goal to start with, providing around twice as much ore as smashing 3 Altars. Altars are valuable crafting stations, but you only need 1 Altar for this, for which you can either choose to not smash an Altar, or find one elsewhere in the world, outside the Corruption, and put a Pylon there.

Each Altar smashed will spawn Wraiths, so it is best to move quickly when smashing them. Smashing any Altar will allow Pirate Invasions and mechanical bosses to spawn naturally, which can be problematic, but the benefits of smashing altars are well worth it.

Underground Corruption

Besides Altars, the value in the Hardmode Corruption lies in the cavern layer, within the Corrupt portion of the Hardmode V spread. Each enemy here has a 1/5 (20%) / 9/25 (36%) chance of dropping a Soul of Night, while Cursed Flames are dropped by World Feeders, Clingers and Vile Ghouls. Both of these items are valuable crafting materials.

Hardmode ores produced by smashing Altars are easier to mine in pure caverns, and, if the player is willing to take a bit more time, an enemy farm will provide a safe and efficient way of getting the valuable enemy drops from the Underground Corruption.

There are many new enemies for you to deal with: The World Feeder, Corruptor, Clinger, Corrupt Slime, Slimer, Cursed Hammer and very rarely the Corrupt Mimic.

• World Feeders are a stronger version of Devourers that otherwise behave the same way. While they drop Cursed Flames despite being able to spawn on the surface, they are too rare to efficiently farm.

• 
  Corruptors are upgraded Eaters of Souls, which are able to fire a destructible Vile Spit projectile at the player. They cannot fire shortly after taking damage, making them less threatening if you can keep hitting them; alternatively, weapons with large area hitboxes such as whips can efficiently break Vile Spit projectiles before they reach you.

• Clingers are common enemies attached to the block they spawn on. They can move through blocks over a short range, and will fire cursed flame shots at players they can see, which can inflict Cursed Inferno for high damage. However, they are susceptible to knockback, and they cannot attack while taking damage, so long-range accurate attacks such as from a Phoenix Blaster can let you effectively close the distance and kill them.

• Corrupt Slimes are effectively a stronger variant of Mother Slimes. Due to the limited mobility of slimes, they are generally less dangerous than other enemies.

• Slimers move like bats initially, before turning into slimes when their wings are clipped. Together with their low knockback resistance, they are most vulnerable to weapons that can cover wide areas.

• Cursed Hammers are an uncommon enemy that can move through blocks and can inflict Cursed on hit. This makes them potentially the most dangerous enemy to be hit by, but due to low knockback resistance and tendency to stop moving when hit, you can knock them away with any weapon that can attack through blocks, such as whips or the Night's Edge. They are very easy to spot.

• Corrupt Mimics are the Biome Mimic of the Corruption. They are passive until damaged by the player, but have immense health, damage, and the ability to move through blocks. Their loot is very valuable, and there are a number of ways to defeat them, such as with decent open space, but depending on the situation you likely want to leave them alone. You can craft Keys of Night later to summon them manually in a more open area.

Alongside these enemies, purple Pigrons start spawning in corrupted Ice biomes, while five new enemies can appear in a corrupted Desert: Dark Mummies on the surface, along with Dark Lamias, Vile Ghouls and Desert Spirits underground. Bone Biters can appear on the surface during a Sandstorm.

• Pigrons can become nearly invisible and appear when they are about to attack you, but make audible growls as they approach. Any weapon that can attack through blocks can be used to kill them. Pigrons may drop valuable Bacon.

• Dark Mummies will start running faster once reduced to 50% health or lower, but otherwise behave similarly to Zombies. They can drop Dark Shards, which can be used to craft the Dao of Pow or the Onyx Blaster.

• Dark Lamias aggressively chase you, attempting to deal contact damage. It is best to carve out a larger area in the Underground Desert, preferably in pre-Hardmode, so that they are less likely to reach you.

• Vile Ghouls will inflict the Cursed Inferno debuff upon contact, making them a bit more threatening in close quarters. Any long-range weapon can be used to kill them. They may drop Dark Shards.

• Desert Spirits are by far one of the most dangerous enemies that can be found in the corrupted Underground Desert. They will stand still and sometimes teleport, casting homing projectiles that pass through blocks and explode after a few seconds. Be sure to fight them in an open area, and keep in mind that only the explosions deal damage. They may drop the Desert Spirit Lamp, used to craft the Spirit Flame.

• Bone Biters "swim" inside sand blocks and jump out to deal contact damage, although they cannot swim through any other blocks. You can take advantage of this by baiting them into jumping out of the sand and into non-sand blocks where they become more vulnerable to attack. The best way to deal with them, however, is to place platforms above a height that they cannot reach, and attack from above with any weapon that shoots projectiles. They can only jump up to a height of 16 blocks for reference. Bone Biters can drop Dark Shards and Shark Fins.

Footnotes