Ever wondered how to defeat the Empress of Light in Terraria? The Empress of Light is a Hardmode Terraria boss that appears in the Hallow after having defeated the Plantera boss. However, she’s not necessarily an easy boss to take on, and she represents a significant difficulty increase compared to previous Terraria bosses. In line with this thought, today, we’re looking at how to find and summon the Empress of Light and how to defeat her in our Terraria guide. Hopefully, this will help you understand more about how to take down the Empress in your next game.

Who is the Empress of Light in Terraria?

First of all, we need to ask ourselves: who is the Empress of Light in Terraria? Simply put, the Empress of Light in Terraria is an incredibly powerful boss that appears in the Hallows after it is spawned. The Empress of Light is an optional boss, meaning that there is no specific requirement to summon and fight her; nevertheless, many players will still choose to take on the Empress for an additional challenge. Don’t expect a massive reward for defeating her, though; she only drops 25 gold when killed!

Once the Empress reaches half health, things get a little trickier as she’ll grow into her secondary form. In her Second form, the Empress of Light grows additional tendrils and her hair and outfit colors will change; the exact color scheme depends on whether she’s in her nighttime or daytime (enraged) forms. In addition, her defense jumps up to 60 in her secondary form, and she unlocks a new attack that’s definitely important to watch out for!

How to Summon the Empress of Light in Terraria

If you’re looking to summon the Empress of Light in Terraria, you’ll need to have set up your new private game of Terraria in Hardmode. Then, head over to the Hallow biome at night, between 7:30PM and midnight, and watch out for a Prismatic Lacewing. These creatures are pretty rare and will only appear after you have defeated the Plantera boss.

When you see one, you’ve got a choice to make: are you ready to fight the Empress right now? If you are, simply simply kill it on the spot to summon the Empress of Light and trigger the fight instantly. However, if you’re not quite ready to fight her (she’s not an easy foe!), make sure you capture the Lacewing with a bug net, as they’re not the easiest to find otherwise. This will allow you to summon the boss whenever you’re ready.

However, be warned—the Empress doesn’t give you much time to prepare, and as soon as she spawns in, she’ll likely start her crusade against you immediately. Given this, it’s a good idea to build a dedicated arena in the Hallow before you go hunting.

Keep in mind here that the time that the Empress is summoned will impact her behavior in the world. Specifically, if you summon the Empress at night, she will continue to attack you during the day. However, if you summon her in the daytime, she will despawn from the world at 7.30pm.

Terraria: Fighting the Empress of Light Guide

Taking on the Empress of Light in Terraria is one of the game’s most intense boss fights, and as such, keeping the following guide in mind could help plan your own gameplay approach to take her on. Before we look further at how to attack her, it’s good to know how her attacks work, to allow you to plan accordingly. Specifically, the Empress uses a variety of projectile-heavy attacks including Prismatic Bolts, Sun Dance, and Ethereal Lance. Given her ability to use projectiles and attack from a distance, dodging becomes the name of the game here, so having high mobility is pretty much essential. The Empress’s attacks are always in the same order, which makes it a little easier at least to predict her attacks. These are as follows: -Prismatic Bolts -Dash -Sun Dance -Dash -Everlasting Rainbow -Prismatic Bolts -Dash -Ethereal Lance -Dash -Everlasting Rainbow

Keep in mind that her attack order will change slightly once she’s levelled up. Moreover, any hit she lands during daylight hours will often result in an instant kill, so it’s probably better to fight her at night if possible. Still, if killed during the day, she’ll drop the Terraprisma weapon; a good strategy here could be to grind her down overnight but hold off on killing her until it’s just about become daytime.

With this in mind, keeping as much distance between yourself and the Empress (to buy yourself more dodging time) will often be helpful. To this end, ranged builds with fast projectiles or homing shots tend to work best against her. However, if you’re playing a melee-focused game, try to opt for fast weapons such as the Terra Blade or Daybreak to help you get in and out quickly from an attack.

FAQs

Is the second form of the Empress of Light more dangerous? Yes. The second form of the Empress of Light has more defense than the first form by 10. Given this, you’ll need to hit her more or harder to take her down once she’s reached the second level.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been looking to take on the Empress of Light in Terraria, it’s crucial you’ve planned in advance for this. Indeed, the Empress is one of the toughest bosses you’ll likely have encountered by this stage of the game, and while she is an entirely optional boss, it’s still worth keeping this in mind, as she’s an excellent challenge and a foe to take on if you want a challenge!