If you’ve beaten Plantera from the depths of the jungle, you have heard the screams echoing from the dungeon. In that case, you may want to head over there, delve into the depths of the crypt, and find that all the enemies have gotten much more challenging.
Every enemy can likely kill you in just a few hits, and you’ll notice you get crowded by tons of different skeletons, ghosts, and ninjas. But they’ll also all be dropping tons of new loot that is quite useful at this game stage.
One new drop you can gain from defeating the enemies in this souped-up dungeon is Ectoplasm; it’s more a helpful crafting material than a gross ghost byproduct. In this Ectoplasm Terraria guide, I’ll show you how to get it efficiently, what to use it on, and how to farm tons of it.
Bottom Line Up-Front
Ectoplasm can be obtained after fighting Plantera. When you go into the dungeon and defeat the enemies inside, a dungeon spirit occasionally spawn, dropping Ectoplasm when defeated. This can be used to start events or craft tools primarily for the Mage class.
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Key Info
- Item Type: Material/Mob Drop
- Useful For: Every Class, but Especially Mage
- Renewable: Yes
- Location: Hardmode Dungeon
- Difficulty to Obtain: High
- Available: Right after fighting Plantera
- Rarity: Yellow
What Is Ectoplasm?
While you may only know Ectoplasm as the stuff ghosts are made of, it becomes a beneficial material in Terraria due to the wide variety of things you can craft with it. It isn’t too valuable on its own, but you can turn it into Spectre bars, where you open up to an entirely new set of armor and tools.
Things crafted with Ectoplasm differentiate themselves from the rest of the tools and armor in Terraria, primarily due to their mysterious or spooky nature. As a result, every crafting recipe turns into something that may seem scary or ghastly but is inherently helpful because of those qualities.
Suppose you’ve beaten Plantera and want some great new items for Golem, Empress, and Moon Lord. In that case, Ectoplasm is one of the crucial ingredients for getting either Spectre armor or starting the Pumpkin and Frost moons, which will help you get more defense and some special weapons and abilities.
How to Get Ectoplasm
While you could delve headstrong into the dungeon with no clue of what you might find, the wise idea is to find out precisely what enemies you’ll fight in there and which ones you should probably avoid rather than take on and hope for the best.
Any enemy with more than 100 maximum health in the dungeon can spawn a dungeon spirit when killed, a tiny floating ball of flame that will phase through blocks and attack you. In addition, it will drop 1-2 Ectoplasm when killed, meaning you’ll have to take on quite a few enemies to build a stockpile.
While you may be tempted to down a Battle potion and leave the water candles in the dungeon intact, increasing your enemy spawns will only get you so far if you aren’t prepared to take what comes next. I’d recommend Turtle armor if you can get your hands on it, but Chlorophyte does just fine.
Any protection for this grind will be appreciated since no matter how sophisticated your farming setup is, you’re always going to get attacked by random enemies that get past every single mechanism you’ve set up to stop them. So maxing out your defense and keeping a summon or two on you will help immensely.
The Enemies in the Post-Plantera Dungeon
Every enemy has gotten quite a bit more dangerous, and you should be prepared for all the new ones that will surely try and destroy you if you make the wrong move in this labyrinthian crypt of chaos.
- Blue Armored Bones, Rusty Armored Bones, and Hell Armored Bones are similar to the normal skeletons, with quite a bit more defense and packing a ton of firepower. It would be best if you tried to kill these from a distance since they’ll mostly be rushing you down and jumping at you. Using heavy knockback weapons is usually not the best idea, but for this specific situation, they are beneficial.
- Necromancers, Ragged Casters, and Diabolists will cast beams and spells at you, sometimes going straight through walls. These guys are a pain, so target them if you see one spawn. You could grab a cobalt shield or one of its upgrades to negate the knockback these things do and avoid getting bounced around a ton inside the dungeon. Just rush towards them as soon as you see them, and you’ll be fine.
- Skeleton Commando will try to fire his rocket launcher at you, exploding into a giant fireball on impact. Keep sight of these guys and avoid their projectiles if you don’t want to get blown to smithereens. Having a decent ranged weapon or summons should usually help with these guys since they don’t have too much health and can be quickly dispatched if you can get close.
- The Tactical Skeleton and Skeleton Sniper prefer staying away, shooting you with their long-ranged weapons. However, they do quite a lot of damage, and you should rush them down and not let them get their shot off. Similar to the other ranged skeletons, getting a long-ranged option would be very beneficial for dealing with these annoyances.
- Paladin will walk around slowly and approach you, using its massive hammer to hit you if you get close. So don’t get close; simply outrange it and damage its enormous health bar. Any long ranged option will work, but you can also get away with mid-range options, like some of the bigger Melee weapons or whips. Every class can stay away but be careful not to get knocked directly into it by another enemy.
- The Giant Cursed Skull won’t seem like much of a threat since it floats slowly towards you and fires a slow projectile, but if you ever get hit by it, you’ll realize it inflicts the worst debuff in the game: Cursed. Cursed will make you unable to use tools, weapons, or do anything for a few seconds, which is incredibly annoying if you don’t take care of them immediately. Hit these guys away with something with great knockback, or outrange it.
- Bone Lee is the skeleton version of Bruce Lee and will brutalize you as much as you’d think. He tends to jump at you and deal significant damage, moving super quickly and jumping high. The only real way to deal with him is to stay high above him and shoot from a distance. Knockback is a lifesaver here. Anything that will keep him off will keep you alive better than trying to dodge his lightning-fast speed.
- The Dungeon Spirit is what we’re after here. It will spawn about 7% of the time you kill any enemy with more than 100 health in the dungeon. These guys will fly quickly toward you and not do much else. Just smack them away and kill them for some Ectoplasm. Just hit them with whatever you’ve got. They usually go down exceptionally quickly and aren’t hard to kill.
How to Farm Ectoplasm
You should have a decent pickaxe by now, so find a room with a few tunnels leading to it and carve out a large square, with one platform right at the top in the middle and high up enough so that Bone Lee can’t jump up to you.
Now we need weapons actually to do this. Since you’ve been in the jungle long enough to beat Plantera, you may have already gotten the jungle key. If you have that key, then feel free to use it on the jungle chest and grab yourself a Piranha gun, which will home in on enemies while keeping you safe. You could also try a Grenade launcher, chlorophyte arrows, or anything that shoots a projectile through a platform.
You can now safely put down a water candle, down a battle potion and watch as the enemies pour into your trap. Next, use your weapon of choice and watch as they all die, drop spirits, and give you Ectoplasm. You should also keep a summon active, and have thorns armor on, so anything that manages to get in your cage will die quickly.
You could also summon King Slime in Expert or Master mode for a ton of extra Ectoplasm. Unfortunately, the slimes he summons in classic mode don’t have enough health to make dungeon spirits appear. You could also put walls or blocks in the caves surrounding the dungeon to further increase enemy spawns.
If you want extra safety, make a room nearby, similar to an NPC house, minus the table, but with a bed instead of a chair. Then, you can set your spawn point right nearby the dungeon, and if you ever die, you’ll spawn right back at your farm.
Crafting with Ectoplasm
Ectoplasm only crafts a few things, but when you turn it into Spectre bars, you can gain a ton of new recipes that will unlock even more armor and tools to try out. The Spectre set looks cool as vanity and is an excellent mage set, the Spectre tools have extra range, and you can grab a decent pair of wings, something for everyone.
Ectoplasm on Its Own
- Spectre Bars are more or less what you’ll mainly want if you’re here for the ghastly blue tools and armor. While a few things are crafted without it, you’re probably turning most of your Ectoplasm into Spectre bars, which means using a ton of Chlorophyte. If only someone had made a guide on Chlorophte.
- Naughty Present is an essential item. This and the next thing will summon events at night that are score-based but give insanely good rewards. For example, the naughty present will call the Frost Moon, a Christmas-themed event that offers one of the best guns, magic weapons, and some stuff for Melee users. Plus, it has one of my favorite songs in Terraria and is a fun event.
- Pumpkin Medallion is undoubtedly the event to go for if you’re playing summoner. You can get new armor, a new whip, and a great summon, and for the other classes, there are a few things to go for with this event. The main reason I’ve done this event in the past is to get the Horseman’s Blade, a great melee weapon on the current patch and an ingredient in the Zenith—a great event, for sure.
While Ectoplasm might not make much on its own, these are all banger choices. If you want to get more out of your Ectoplasm, you’ll need to turn it into Spectre bars, where you’ll get many excellent new options.
Spectre Bar Recipes
- Spectre Armor is the best mage armor until the very end of the game. There are two different hoods to swap between, one for healing and the other for damage. I’d highly recommend grabbing this armor, putting in the effort to get both hoods, and swapping between them whenever the situation demands it. This is the premiere mage armor and is essential; plus, it is incredible looking; I love seeing this one as vanity.
- The Spectre Pickaxe might seem like a downgrade from the pickaxe-axe you probably already have, but it makes quite a lot of sense to create. You get an extra three blocks of range with this one; it looks great. Also, I love the look of Spectre items in general. They all look so ghastly and super cool.
- The Spectre Hamaxe, similar to the Pickaxe, gives an extra three blocks of range. This is one of the best hamaxes in the game and is one I see most builders have at the endgame because it’s just lovely having your hammer and axe bundled into one item, with an amazing-looking tool to boot.
- The Spectre Paintbrush, Scraper, and Paint Roller are all objectively better than the ones you can buy from the painter, given they have an extra three blocks of range like the other above tools. If you’re super into painting or want your entire builder loadout to carry the ghastly blue Spectre aesthetic, then sure, go for these. I don’t think I’ve ever made these since usually I’d instead get the accessories that increase building range.
- The Spectre Wings are just as good as Beetle wings for the wing flight stat, and they look fantastic if you’re okay with a plain white, somewhat spooky set of wings on your back. I’d rather these be the same cyan-blue color as the tools are, but the way they look now is acceptable, and they’re certainly a great pair of wings at this point in the game. If you have extra Spectre bars and some souls of flight, then go for it.
Questions and Answers
Question: What is the best Mage armor for Moon Lord?
Answer: The Spectre Armor is crafted with Ectoplasm from the dungeon plus Chlorophyte from the Jungle. It gives the best mage buffs in the game until the final boss has been defeated.
Question: How do I get Ectoplasm in Terraria?
Answer: Go into the dungeon after defeating Plantera and defeat many enemies there. Eventually, you’ll get dungeon spirits to spawn, which drop Ectoplasm.
Question: What is Ectoplasm for in Terraria?
Answer: Ectoplasm is mainly for a Mage armor set, but also used to summon the Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon, events that drop great items and weapons for every class.
Conclusion
Ectoplasm makes some of the coolest-looking items in Terraria. Light blue is my favorite color, so just for the aesthetic, I’ll usually grab the tools and keep them even when stardust tools become available. That, and Ectoplasm itself, is extremely useful, so I grab it anyway.
Ectoplasm makes something for everyone; while you may want to write it off as just for mages, you can make the spawners for the Pumpkin and Frost moons, which are super fun events that give a ton of amazing rewards if you’re willing to seek them out. So if you want a definite way to progress after Plantera, hop into the dungeon and grab some Ectoplasm.
Embark on a boundless adventure in the pixelated sandbox world of Terraria, where you can dig, build, and explore to your heart's content. With endless possibilities for creativity and discovery, join millions of players in crafting your own epic journey.
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