The Eater of Worlds is one of the seven pre-Hardmode bosses. It is the counterpart of The Crimson's Brain of Cthulhu and can only be fought in the Corruption. It is summoned either by destroying three Shadow Orbs or by using Worm Food (either method is repeatable).
Behavior
The Eater of Worlds uses the same AI as all of the other monsters in the Worms Family. However, unlike other worms, every individual segment has its own health. If you destroy a segment that is neither head nor tail, the Eater of Worlds splits at the spot that was destroyed and each half will continue fighting.
Notes
- There needs to be at least 500 Ebonstone Blocks nearby in order to be considered inside a valid Corruption area for the purposes of fighting this boss. For this reason, it is recommended to fight it in a horizontal chasm.
- The Eater consists of 50 segments that can split into smaller Eaters if a non-Head/-Tail segment is killed.
- From patch 1.0.5 and onwards, the Eater of Worlds would flee after a while if the player wasn't in a corrupt area. Until patch 1.0.6, the player would get the message "Eater of Worlds was defeated.", but now the message says "Eater of Worlds flees."
- When summoned in the Underground corruption after the Wall of Flesh has been defeated, it's a great source of Souls of Night due to its many parts. This method can also be used to farm Corruption Keys.
- If the section directly behind the head or directly in front of the tail is killed, both sections will die and drop loot separately. The same happens when the boss itself is shortened to two segments, at which point killing either of them is counted as a defeated boss, and the other section disappears.
- When displayed on the Mobile Edition minimap, there is no skull icon to indicate a boss, but there will instead be a separate white circle to indicate a normal entity for each segment. This also happens for other worm-type enemies.
- Surprisingly If you Break 3 orbs or Use Worm food in hard mode It can still be summoned
| Strategies | |
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Disclaimer: For the purposes of this guide, it's assumed that the player is using a new character in a new world, and would therefore only have access to appropriately-tiered equipment. Otherwise, this boss would be a piece of cake. General TipsThe head has 65 Whenever the Eater of Worlds splits, damage to each part remains. Therefore, trying to maximize damage equally across the entire body will generally result in the fastest kill. Because the head deals so much damage, it's strongly recommended that you avoid it at all costs, even if it means having to move through the boss's body segments (taking damage in the process). Also, it may be a good idea to aim for the head, as not only does it have less defense and HP than a body segment, but splitting the boss up by destroying body segments will only make it more difficult to dodge its attacks. (Focusing on the head should also increase the amount of loot dropped.) When the head is destroyed, the boss will stall for a bit, allowing you to take aim and fire at the new head. If the player is using one of the above-recommended weapons, then it's possible for the player to stall the boss this way almost indefinitely, leading to a quick, easy kill. It's ill-advised to fight the Eater of Worlds inside a chasm, as not only can it strike with little warning, but it could also knock you to your death. You could use the Grappling Hook to cling onto a wall, though you should still avoid getting struck by the head as, again, it deals heavy damage to players. If you don't want to fight the EoW by breaking Shadow Orbs, but don't have enough Rotten Chunks to make Worm Food, you can start building an arena above ground. Corruption enemies that spawn during construction can be killed to gain extra Chunks. Recommended ItemsSince this boss is composed of multiple segments that each have their own HP, weapons that can hit multiple enemies per attack are recommended. These include the Vilethorn, any kind of flail (such as the Ball O' Hurt) and a bow (preferably a Golden Bow or better) with Unholy Arrows, though a Gold Broadsword or better can be used if none of these are available. The Harpoon is also highly useful against this boss since it's more than capable of striking multiple segments on his body at once if the player stands close enough.
  The Eater of Worlds decided to "swim" horizontally along one of the rows of wooden platforms of this arena, which placed it in a good position to get massacred by a player with a bow and Unholy Arrows.
Silver Armor or better is recommended, as well as having at least 200 The following optional Consumables may also be of some use during this boss battle, if you're willing to use them that is:
Arena  This boss arena was built in the middle of a corrupted area. It was dug underground so that the Eater of Worlds could have some ground to move around in. Since this boss can only be fought in the Corruption, your arena will need to either be located in the Corruption, or be made out of enough Dirt Blocks covered with corrupted grass and/or Ebonstone Blocks (500 blocks should do the trick) for the game to determine that it lies within a valid corrupted area. The arena doesn't have to be very big (around 75 blocks is a nice width), though it should have a roughly flat surface at the bottom, and at least 2 rows of wooden platforms for avoiding the Eater of Worlds should it decide to swim along the surface of the bottom floor or one of the rows of wooden platforms. If you'd like, you can dig some holes beneath your arena (and to the sides and above it if it was built underground) to more easily spot the Eater of Worlds before it attacks. If you built your arena above ground, then you may have to deal with it becoming tangled up more often, as the boss doesn't have much earth to swim around in. However, if you built your arena partially or even fully underground, then the boss shouldn't tangle up as much, and can easily be set up for a quick kill (as mentioned before), though you will have to keep an eye on every side of your screen, as the boss can burst from the walls, or (if deep enough underground) even the ceiling. Bee MethodNote: this requires a Bee Keeper. With your Bee Keeper, get him in a good position(such as his head being above you). Then, keep swinging. The Eater of Worlds will try to charge at you, but it's segments will keep shattering along with the bees hitting the other ones, killing him in a flash. Minecart RamYou need a lot of iron for this strategy. Just 2 or more tracks (the less the better), and a minecart. Place the 2 tracks in a spot with barely anything surrounding it (works better underground) and then after summoning it, jump in the minecart and ram the eater of worlds' segments or head and reduce it's HP and segments very quickly | |
A much easier strategy that a player could use allows the player to kill the Eater of Worlds in less than a minute even in expert mode (This strategy can only be utilized if the player has a goblin tinkerer or has fought the goblin invasion many times up to this point, this strategy will cost money). This strategy requires the player to build a multi floor arena on the surface of the corruption (building it underground may lead to it attacking you from where you don't expect it) at least 20 tiles wide with at least 6-7 floors with 4-5 tiles in between each floor. The floors should also be built with platforms. The player must have approximately 100-200 spiky balls at the minimum (this strategy can still work with less spiky balls but it wont be as efficient.) and must spread them out on each of the floors until each floor is covered in spiky balls, the player must then summon the eater of worlds and bring it to the arena if you summoned it via shadow orbs away from the arena, or just let it come to you if you summoned it with worm food while waiting inside the arena. Once you've summoned the worm wait at the top floor of the arena and the worm will try to dig it's way up to you, as it does the spiky balls will quickly tear it's body apart until it finally makes it to the top floor and you. But by this point most of it's body should be destroyed if the player followed the strategy properly and it should be very easy to kill now.
Trivia
- This boss could possibly be a reference to the "Eater Of Worlds" from Stephen King's novel "Night Shift" from the first short story "Jerusalem's Lot".
- This boss could be a reference to the 1990 film `Tremors` where giant worms with teeth attack a group of friends.
- This boss could be a reference to Alduin from Skyrim, as Alduin is often referred to as "The Worm" and "World-Eater".
- The way this boss splits into more Eaters of Worlds could be a reference to the classic arcade video game "Centipede".
Bugs
- In the iOS version of Terraria, once you break the third shadow orb, the entire Eater of Worlds will spawn in the location of the shadow orb, and the message "Eater of Worlds has awoken!" will not display. "Eater of Worlds has been defeated!" will still display once it has been killed, however.
- Rarely, the boss will spawn as only a single segment, and nothing else. It will function the same as normal, but it's very ineffective at killing anyone.
- A possible bug may be that, when building over the Corruption, the boss will be summoned, as if incredibly displeased with the bridge, leading to much confusion and claims of griefing.
- One very specific bug may happen if the Eater of Worlds is fought in the Underground Jungle. Some of its segments may get "chained/fused" with a Man Eater and stand still.
- Another bug is that the boss will be summoned on world creation (i.e. make a world then enter it). This is most likely caused by defeating a boss and then immediately creating the new world.
- Sometimes when a Meteorite lands and the world is exited and re-entered, the boss will be summoned.
- Another possible bug is when the Eater of Worlds is cut into several segments and one kills the player, that worm will disappear but the others will continue to fight.
- Sometimes, on the console version, on a full server, only one segment will be visible, and only it can be damaged. Once destroyed, the next segment will become visible.
- Breaking 3 Shadow Orbs and simultaneously using Worm Food will summon 2 Eaters instead of 1.
- When trying to use a grappling hook or any other kind of hook, it is possible that the Eater will flee without the "Eater of world flees" message displaying
Update Info
- Sprite updated.
- Reduced damage of Vile Spit.
- New AI in Expert Mode; now shoots Vile Spit.
- Now drops a Treasure Bag when defeated in Expert Mode.
- Eater of Worlds now drops the Eater Of Worlds Mask.
- Eater of Worlds now drops the Eater's Bone instead of the Blend-O-Matic.
- Eater of Worlds has a chance to drop Blend-O-Matic (Bug).
- Eater of Worlds now drops the Eater of Worlds Trophy.
- Now spawns if a Shadow Orb is broken within the Hallow, but will still flee.
- Now says "Eater of Worlds flees" when outside of corruption.
- Head's health reduced from 80 to 65, damage reduced from 43 to 22.
- Body's health reduced from 210 to 150, damage reduced from 18 to 13, armor reduced from 7 to 4.
- Tail's health reduced from 300 to 220, damage reduced from 15 to 11, armor reduced from 10 to 8.
- No longer drops Shadow Armor and will flee if outside of corruption.
- Head's health reduced from 140 to 80, damage reduced from 50 to 43.
- Body's life reduced from 230 to 210, damage reduced from 25 to 18.
- Tail's life reduced from 350 to 300.
- Selecting Worm Food in the quick bar no longer summons the Eater of Worlds.
- Head's life increased from 120 to 140, damage increased from 40 to 50, armor increased from 0 to 2.
- Body's life increased from 200 to 230, damage increased from 10 to 25, armor increased from 4 to 7.
- Tail's life increased from 300 to 350, damage increased from 10 to 15, armor increased from 8 to 10.
- Added to the game.
Gallery
