I wanted to tackle this Eye of Cthulhu guide because this boss fight got me addicted to Terraria.
For most of the early game, there is an annoying curve where just nighttime can be your downfall. Wandering into the Crimson or the Corruption is murderville. A quick jungle romp is rewarding but a challenge.
Of course, the needed digging into the underground is hard, but you’re only surviving the spots under the forest. Eventually, you’ve got a nice grasp and get a few achievements. Woo Hoo! You can handle this game.
Build some houses, craft some armor, fight some…what is that eerie red text on the screen as night comes around.
“You feel an evil presence watching you….”
If you’ve faced a Blood Moon, you’re thinking you can hold up in a doorway and get some kills. Yet, the moon is not red. So, what is happening?
The Eye of Cthulhu is coming to kill you. As it passes through blocks and has vastly more HP than non-boss enemies in your run thus far…it likely will.
Unless, of course, you’ve read this guide. Let’s get you ready to kill an eye.
Bottom Line Up Front: This Eye of Cthulhu guide will cover all the reasons to fight the eye and how to best combat it.
Key Info
The Eye of Cthulhu is a flying enemy.
It passes through walls.
It does have ranged attacks, but its charging attack is the most damaging.
It only spawns at night and will not attack you if you are deep enough underground.
It can spawn randomly throughout Pre-Hardmode.
It spawns anywhere on the surface, unaffected by Biomes.
Fighting it without some range on your weapon will be difficult.
It despawns when morning comes.
Preparations
Sickle
Craft a long enough Sky Bridge to run comfortably back and forth while attacking.
Triggering too many events before crafting the bridge can cause the eye to spawn while you are building.
The Merchant is who you want in your town. Build two houses and explore enough that you get a few gold coins and iron/lead bars, and he should show up.
Buy the Sickle and the Iron Anvil from him. Don’t waste your ore crafting it. Use the ore for a better pickaxe.
Run around the map with the sickle, cutting up grass for hay.
Use the hay to build your Sky Bridge.
Make sure the bridge is above the tree tops but not too high so that you are fighting Harpies when you jump.
With your Sky Bridge built, you must get a good weapon for flying eye combat and some decent armor.
With the iron/lead pickaxe, it’s time to start digging.
To save time on digging, walk the map and look for large trees or caverns. Pillaging chests helps a ton.
Once you’ve farmed some silver/tungsten ore and gotten some better weapons, you can build more houses and advance the game until that eye pops up.
Minimum Equipment
Good Arrows Help
While there is no real minimum or maximum equipment, this is to help you better prepare.
Armor above ten: Silver or Tungsten Armor can do this. It is possible to get this with bonuses from accessories. I defeated it with Shadewood Armor while snapping photos for this article. My armor was only 14. It was harder than I remembered but doable.
Melee Damage above 20: There is a good Zombie Arm drop you can get at night to kill most pre-Hardmode enemies. It won’t do much against the eye. My suggestion, brave the skies or hunt the icy underground. Build up to the cloud cities and look for the Starfury sword. This weapon will serve you well pre-Hardmode and is just sitting in a sky chest. It’s okay to die a few times looking for it. It’s worth it, and it is faster than digging. If you brave the icy underground, you’re looking for an Ice Blade. It is not a guaranteed find, but it fires ice projectiles, making it one of the better pre-hardmode swords.
Ranged Damage 10(Bow): Yes, smaller range damage is enough if you craft certain arrows. Collect lots of fallen stars to craft Jester Arrows. Use gel and wood to craft plenty of torches and thus fire arrows. The easiest bow to use is a Shade or Ebonwood bow, it’s a quick craft, and you can get it early on if you’re nimble. However, a bow of greater damage is clearly preferred. Fishing during the Blood Moon behind a protected spot, you may be able to kill a mini-boss for a Blood Rain Bow. That’s the best option.
Yoyo: Doing great damage with a yoyo will require so much digging and farming that you may not have a good yoyo ready for the first steps of this fight. I suggest against yoyo tactics until you’ve got enough equipment to dig deep and buy some counterweights and a decent yoyo from the skeleton salesman. If you have one, it is very effective against The Eye.
Magic Damage: If this is your goal, you will be waiting longer to defeat this than an archer or a swordsman. You can find a decent wand in chests and a spark wand in large trees. You really want to collect many stars from your sky bridge. Max out your mana, place some stars in a jar for mana regen and collect emeralds/rubies by digging. With some silk and a decent crafting area, you can make robes and wands with these. You will have low defense, a proper mage in this game needs to be fast. A steed is pretty much a must.
A Mount: I suggest getting an early steed by completing five angler quests. You’ll get yourself a fuzzy carrot, this will let you ride a bunny. Yes, a bunny. It can run up to 40mph and has a very high jump. It’s a great early boss fighting mount.
Grappling Hook/Boots: Crafting boots is a little longer, and you may end up fighting it before you get anything resembling decent footwear. Craft chains with your iron and build a grappling hook as soon as possible.
Health Potions and Accessories: Honestly, any accessory is good at this point. The main point is they boost your speed, armor, or overall damage.
Life Crystals: Ultimately, you want as much life as you can. Life Crystals are found underground, a minimum of 100 Life is my suggestion.
The easiest choice, be brave and farm meteorite ore. Once you got a grappling hook and a platinum/gold pickaxe. The armor and weapon from it can handle all pre-hardmode bosses.
Early Encounter
This boss is one of the first you are likely to encounter. It may start raining slime first, or you could have gotten bold and gone underground jungle hunting, accidentally summoning a Queen Bee.
Maybe you decided to attack the dungeon boss at night. Well, except for the King Slime, those other enemies are harder. In fact, beating The Eye can help you with them.
I would try killing the eye first.
That being said, your first encounter with The Eye will still be hard. The game has a learning curve, and it is paved with tombstones.
The Stats
Normal/Expert/Master
Damage: 23/36-40/54-60
Life: 1400-2800/2360-3640/3016-4641
Defense: 0/0/0
Resists: Confusion
Knockback: Resists 100%
Attack Types
Spawns Minions. It will float above you and spawn mini-versions of itself. Killing these will yield hearts and mana stars. This is the easiest time to do damage.
Charges. After spawning minions for a short time, it will begin to charge you. It charges at a high velocity across the screen up to three times. A grappling hook and/or double jump will be useful to dodge this.
Enraged Charge. It sheds its skin when it gets low on life, under 50% on normal mode and around 65% on harder modes. The new, teeth-showing form has a faster attack and does more damage. It also charges more often and stops spawning minions.
Strategy
If you have a mount you will be fast enough to run back and forth over your sky bridge. Fire projectiles at it or hold your yoyo in its direction for constant damage. Otherwise, try to add some movement speed items so you can run faster for this fight.
You’ll want to acquire a cloud in a bottle or craft a grappling hook before the encounter. When it starts charging, you can double jump and grappling hook back down to quickly avoid it. It isn’t a guarantee, but it is effective.
You’ll want to ensure campfires are placed around, so your health has some extra regeneration.
Fire arrows or other projectiles that can cause status effects are a great boon.
If using a sword to fight, you’ll want some sort of boots or double jump and the ability to ignore fall damage. Hitting it when it isn’t charging will be your goal, so you need to be able to reach it.
At 20 damage a strike, you can kill this boss in around 100 blows. Let’s say you have 100 life and no armor. It kills you in five hits. At ten armor, you increase your survival to twice the time. You need to hit it about eleven times for every strike it lands.
Setting it on fire or giving it poison will halve the time it takes to slay it in normal mode. Fire arrows and a good bow are my stronger suggestion for your first encounter.
Keep some health potions on par. That’s all you need to know to win. The rest is up to your fingers.
The Drops
In a world that started with Corruption:
Demonite Ore (30-90) Needed for high-end pre-hardmode equipment.
Unholy Arrow (20-50) Great ammo for bows.
Corrupt Seeds (1-3) Creates Corruption on dirt.
In a world that started with Crimson:
Crimtane Ore (30-90) Needed for high-end pre-hardmode equipment.
Crimson Seeds (1-3) Creates Crimson on dirt.
Sometimes drops these rare items:
Binoculars (holding them allows you to shift your view by holding the cursor down).
Eye of Cthulhu Mask. Vanity Item.
Eye of Cthulhu Trophy. Wall Decoration.
Always drop the following:
Lesser Healing Potion (5-15)
Gold Coins x3
If you defeat it on the same day you defeat the Wall of Flesh:
Badger’s Hat. Vanity Item.
On Expert Mode, you can get the following:
Shield of Cthulhu. This is a very good accessory that gives you the ability to dash. The dash attack does 30 damage and has a strong knockback. It also provides extra defense.
On Master Mode, you can get the following:
Aviators. Vanity Item
Eye of Cthulhu Relic. Cool moving statue of The Eye. Furniture.
Should You Farm It?
Yes. It is the easiest boss to craft a summon item of. Making full equipment, weapons, and a fishing pole out of the ore it drops is an excellent way to maximize your pre-hardmode gains.
How to Summon it?
You’ll need to craft a Suspicious Looking Eye if you want to manually summon it.
You can only summon it at night. It will despawn at dawn.
You can not summon more than one at a time.
Suspicious Looking Eye recipe: Lensx6 next to a Demon/Crimson Altar
What is Cthulhu?
A horrifying creature from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft. It was created in 1928 by the genius of a writer and has since become synonymous with horror lore. Terraria makes a lot of references to the great and cheesy horror-fantasy history of our time throughout its game.
The Eye of Cthulhu is another way for them to pay homage to the talented writer who has inspired many horror fans to craft their own literature. Many other authors used Lovecraft’s Cthulhu in their own work, including Stephen King, turning the name into a legend to all fans of the genre.
You can read more on that here if it piques your interest as it did mine.
Eye of Cthulhu Guide: FAQs
Question: Is the Eye of Cthulhu Hard?
Answer: No. It did kill me the first time, though. So, it’s a no regarding other Terraria bosses.
Question: Are there Two Eye of Cthulhus?
Answer: No. That would be The Twins, a Hardmode boss.
Question: Is there a Cthulhu Boss?
Answer: Nope, you only fight its missing eye. However, the Moon Lord, the final boss, resembles H.P. Lovecraft’s description of Cthulhu. Like the Moon Lord, Cthulhu is also a horror from another planet.
Question: Do I have to Defeat the Eye of Cthulhu to Beat Terraria?
Answer: No. However, if you don’t defeat it at least once, it will continue to spawn on random nights until you do.
Happy Eye Hunting
That is all you need to know to turn the lights out on the giant eye. You may hear it coming before you see it, but it sees you long before you hear it.
Bryan is a writer and a gamer that loves to seek out the most emotional tales throughout the video game world. Discovering hidden gems, unique gameplay concepts and new takes on traditional genres are his reasons for constantly trying out indie titles. He’s had a membership to Newgrounds since 2004 where he has seen titles like Monster Sanctuary go from online passion projects into full-fledged indie games. He has worked as a screenwriter for films in China and the US for the last 15 years, including two currently in pre-production television series, Blood Lungs and The Girl From the Gate. His passion for storytelling is only rivaled by his passion for gaming.
