What weapons to use to kill the Destroyer?

I found it it pretty hard to do the destroyer with melee equipment (and that was with adamantium armor).

I think you will need the extra durability that is provided by hard mode armor to take down the destroyer, but if you are stuck with pre-hardmode equipment you will probably want to use a setup that has a decent amount of DPS and focus on dodging attacks.

• Weapons: Either Clockwork Assault Rifle (Wall of Flesh drop) and party bullets or Minishark with Meteor Bullets.
  • The former has more damage, but the latter is easier to get and can hit twice with each bullet, which is really useful against the destroyer.
• Armor: Necro Armor will give the best ranged DPS.
• Accessories:
  • Ranger Emblem
  • Cross Necklace
  • Leaf Wings (You can buy these from the witch Doctor as soon as you get into hard mode)
  • Charm of Myths
  • Obsidian Shield

If you can get the avenger emblem and the ranger emblem, that would be ideal. I expect that you will want to have these all forged to be warding so that you can survive, but you might try them with Lucky or Menacing to increase your DPS even more. It really depends on how good you are at dodging.

You will want to use potions during the battle as well. Endurance, Iron Skin, Wrath or Rage, and anything that gives the Well Fed buff will be very useful.

I think you will have to be very good to do this without hardmode armors, though.

Unlike John Clever's answer, I prefer to do it with melee equipment. It's a lot easier if you first get at least Mythril/Orichalcum armor and a Titanium or Adamantite sword. Set up as many heart statues as you can find (within a reasonable amount of time of course) and wire them up to 1-second timers.

I've never been able to kill the Destroyer in Molten Armor. If you're good at dodging, I recommend Menacing on all accessories. If you aren't, then go for Warding.

The good thing about the Destroyer is that he's REALLY long, which means you can camp beside him while he's digging around and rack up high damage.

Accessories... You'll probably want a Cross Necklace, maybe a Star Cloak as well (you can combine these to get a Star Veil, so you can save a slot). I'd leave off the Cobalt/Obsidian Shield and go for Charm of Myths, Warrior Emblem, Wings, and Frostspark Boots, if you have them. Lightning Boots work as well.

I say to leave off the shield because then you will be more aware of when you're being hit. And potions couldn't hurt. Lots of potions. All those defense/damage/critical strike buffs.

The Destroyer was relatively easy for me to beat. Let me share my method.

You want to have a good sword with good DPS, such as the excalibur, fiery greatsword, or a titanum sword. Go to hell, and mine some hellstone. (You can use meteorite as well, but I wouldn't advise this because it causes meteor heads to spawn)

Make a long line of selected material floating in the air or on the ground, and get a cross necklace. If you are wearing an obsidian skull, remove it. Make sure you have a shield of some sort to protect you from knockback. (Make sure it's not an obsidian shield because this will protect you from fire damage!)

When you take fire damage, it only deals one hp of damage if you have good armor. When you have a high amount of health, this will not matter. When you take damage, it'll give you immunity, making it far more difficult for the destroyer to attack you.

Make sure you have a good bow of sorts, I'd prefer one that does damage after the initial shot is fired, (like the sharanga) And make sure you always drink your potions.

If memory serves, I used golden shower and adamantite armour the first time I killed the destroyer, Though I hear flails are very effective too.

I'm a little late to the party, but with a Battle Potion and a Water Candle in the rain, you can farm up Nimbus Rods very quickly. The Nimbus Rod DESTROYS the Destroyer. It does so much damage that I went from having a rough time attempting it with other weapons (Sunfury) to buffing myself and oneshotting it. If you have enough defensive stats and regeneration and a Nimbus Rod you can kill it in less than a minute.

A strategy I would use is a high tower of wood platforms, high enough so the destroyer barely gets to you, and when the destroyer does get to you, it will have gone so high it will have a super slow velocity, giving you plenty of time to dodge, and then you can do some crazy DPS by using a melee weapon.

One of the most efficient, albeit cheap, methods that I've found that allows a Destroyer kill so soon into Hard Mode would be the use of the Cannon. To get the cannon, you'll have to follow a series of steps:

1. Kill enemies in the ocean biome until you get a Pirate Map (1/100 chance).
2. Summon the Pirate Invasion and defeat it to unlock the pirate NPC. This may also yield some nice beginning-HM loot for you (Cutlass, Pirate Staff).
3. Purchase a cannon from the pirate NPC for 25 gold.

Once you've got a cannon, place it high enough to where the Destroyer cannot attempt to collide with your character (the video here shows 400'+) and simply rain cannon balls on the Destroyer until you've defeated him. I would suggest getting creative with walls to stop the orbiting eyebots from using their lasers on you.

Additionally, I would suggest placing a campfire, heart lantern, and a pool of honey nearby as well as using a Regeneration Potion (if you've got one) to prolong your life as much as possible.

• Get a Phasesaber or a broadsword made from a Hard Mode metal such as the Titanium Broadsword or Adamantite Broadsword
• A good modifier on the weapon is helpful
• Orichalcum or Mythril armor
• Small box to stand in, two wide three high
• Put honey in the box, enough to get the regeneration from it
• Put a campfire outside the box, more regen
• Put a heart lantern outside the box, more regen
• Drink a regen potion if you have one
• Drink an ironskin potion if you have one
• This is how I beat the Destroyer

Try reforging items... And if you are on console/mobile, get a sharanga. It cans do 35 damage, and turns any arrow into ocram's dropped arrows. For mobile, you can make backup characters and duplicate with a chest for coins. I got 1345 platinum ?

One of the easiest methods of killing the Destroyer is to use the Daedalus Stormbow. This item has a 20% chance to drop from Hallowed Mimics. Hallowed mimics only spawn after you place a Key of Light into an empty chest of any kind, so you'll have to farm up some Souls of Light first.

The reason this weapon is so strong against the Destroyer is because it has a high rate of fire and also produces several projectiles for the cost of one ammo. Because the Destroyer is so long, it's nearly impossible to miss unless it's underground. The best ammo to use with the Stormbow is Holy Arrows, since each hit will spawn additional star projectiles for added damage. (Unfortunately, Holy Arrows are somewhat expensive, as they require fallen stars to craft.)

As for strategy, I usually set up a very simple arena shaped like a flat U. I make sure it's floating about 50-100 blocks above the ground.

*          *        * = Solid block
*          *        C = Campfire
*          *        H = Heart Lantern
*    C     *
************        (Actual width should probably be around 30 blocks)
     H

This shape prevents lasers from the main body from hitting you, which makes you effectively immune to the Destroyer itself (unless it approaches at an almost vertical angle and manages to jump straight up to the arena, which shouldn't happen often). The only thing you have to worry about are the drones - since they can travel through blocks and often end up above you, they will start shooting down towards you. This is why the arena should not have a ceiling - you can use the Stormbow to clear out those pesky drones.

Using this setup, with the right ammo and potions/buffs, possibly combined with other suggestions here (Nimbus Rod helps a ton as well), it's pretty trivial to kill the Destroyer in 30 seconds to a minute without much risk to yourself.

I'd recommend a Daedalus stormbow, but on mobile use the sharanga to get spectral arrows and use a adamantite/titanium repeater. Use full 2nd hard mode armor(Mithryll/Orichalcum), and stay where he can't get you.

1. After you defeat the wall of flesh, hard mode biomes will spawn, I recommend getting a spelunker potion, going to the jungle, using it and trying to find clorophyte to make the clorophyte armor.

2. First thing to do is get a good damage sword with good DPS. I recommend the Clorophyte Claymore, unless you have accessories that upgrade melee speed, then use the clorophyte war hammer.

3. Make about 300 wooden platforms to go 100-150 blocks high, were you can dodge the destroyer and it has slow velocity for very easy fast damage.

4. Make a honey pool on the top were you will need to stay. Also heart lanterns and campfires will be very helpful. And if you have one, a regeneration potion.

5. If you have the full clorophyte armor set, you will get a bonus crystal leaf, which does 40-50 damage every hit, which will be useful because of the destroyers long body.

6. You will also need wings, like the bee, demon, or angle wings which go 72 blocks and above.

7. Every time the destroyer's body slows down, this means the destroyer head will come up in 2 seconds. Look on the map every time and see where the head is coming from. This helped me much because I anticipated where he came from and dodged him easily.

8. Don't try to kill the probes, and you may need all golden hearts which I obtained by just going to the jungle with nothing but a sword, pick axe, and magic mirror and swinging the sword rapidly in every spot where you may get lucky and mine life fruit.

9. You may be wondering, " Well how did you mine chlorophyll without hallowed bars to make the drax and anything with 200% pick axe power." I don't know if I just got really lucky or what, but I found two draxes in two shadow chests, so you need to go to the dungeon and find a shadow key.

10. While in battle, you may need an iron skin potion to gain more defense. This is how I DEFEATED THE DESTROYER.

Ok. The method I used is going to the jungle with a drax. You can find it in hellchest. Mine clorophite. Thus getting a clorophite claymore. Dying several times is normal. Then get any hardmode attainable armor (cobalt not recommended ) after you do this, if you explored a sky island in prehardmode use that bridge to farm wyverns. Doing this allows you to get wings, this making him easier to dodge. Then while you are up there summon the destroyer. Using Hermes boots, spectre boots, ect. is recommended. So you can run away. Since he is as fast as Hermes boots he should chase you down. Then jump off the platform down right above his body and farm hits. This method works for mobile only. You can also get the ankh sheild before you fight any of the bosses but it is painful. Good luck.

The following is taken from an edit to the question

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We've tested a new technique yesterday with considerable success!

We used stacks of Grenades, along with a very very long skybridge about 100/150 above surface. In the middle of the skybridge, we've setup 3 levels high (about 50 in between). Camp fires spread accross.

Gear-wise, we have Molten gear, each a Obsidian shield, Harpy / Demon wings and a magic mirror. The strategy is to drop grenades at the worm, when our HP get's too low we rurn away from the spawn then teleport. Our spawn is setup next to the nurse. Heal up with her and return to fight.

This takes about 5-6 minutes, after which we gain access to Megashark + Explosive shot which unlocks the rest of the speed run.