The Ultimate Terraria Summoner Guide: Master Your Summoning Skills

Part of the fun of Terraria is customizing your character to your heart’s content. Maybe you want a build that focuses on a gun or magic weapon, or perhaps you’re interested in Spooky Armor or Master Ninja Gear. There are no set classes in Terraria, so you can combine items and weapons without limits.

That said, there are specific class gains you can focus on to create a specialized character. This guide details one such class, the Summoner. Here, we’ll tell you everything there is to know about the Summoner, including its Minions, how to counter the class’s weaknesses, and the best armor you can find.

Terraria Summoner Guide

Let’s clear something up right away: Terraria does not have classes or jobs. Your character is not classified as anything specific, and you can switch weapons, armors, and anything else whenever you’d like.

That said, there are classes and styles for weapons and armor sets, so when this article refers to a “class,” we’re talking about weapon or armor sets.

Essentially, there are four main weapon type classes in Terraria:

• Ranged
• Melee
• Summoner
• Mage

This guide, of course, will focus on the Summoner gear and overall capabilities.

What Is A Summoner?

As its name suggests, the Summoner focuses on summoning followers called Minions.

That’s right, the Summoner summons Minions — followers that move along with the Summoner — to do their dirty work.

What Are Minions?

As their Summoner, Minions will follow you around until you die or dismiss them. They’ll attack enemies to protect you, and some can even fly.

At first, you only have one Minion slot, meaning you can only summon one Minion at a time. However, higher-level Summoner gear will provide Minion capacity, allowing you to summon more over time.

You need a specific type of gear to summon certain Minions. For example, you can summon a Baby Slime by finding the Slime Staff or bring about a Vampire Frog through the Vampire Frog Staff.

Alongside Minions that follow you around are Sentries.

What Are Sentries?

Sentries are similar to Minions in that they’ll attack nearby enemies. But Sentries are stationary, remaining in one spot for ten minutes before disappearing.

Just like Minions, you only have one Sentry slot at the start. However, gear like the Tavernkeep’s Armors provide Minion and Sentry bonuses, allowing you to summon additional Sentries alongside the Minions we mentioned earlier.

Examples of some Tavernkeep Sentries include the Lightning Aura or the Flameburst Tower, which you can summon with their respective Summoner gear.

Finally, Summoners deal damage with Whips.

What Are Whips?

While summoning costs Mana, Summoners have another attack style in the form of Whips.

Whips are closer to other classes’ traditional melee weapons and are considered primary weapons for Summoners. They have a long attack range compared to their close range counterparts like a Sword, making them a viable counter to ranged users.

Whips can hit multiple enemies at once, making them decent crowd control options. However, Whips will deal less damage to each consecutive enemy.

Whips don’t deal damage like typical melee weapons do, however. They instead deal summon damage, which means they cannot deal critical hits. To counter this, most Whips put enemies in a targeted state (also called summon tag), meaning your Minions and Sentries will focus on them. A targeted state also means your summons do additional damage.

Like many melee weapons, you can modify a Whip’s melee speed through other gear.

A few Whip examples include the Snapthorn, which deals 18 base damage alongside its 6 summon tag damage, or the Spinal Tap, which deals 27 base damage paired with 7 summon tag damage.

Now that we’ve discussed how to utilize weapons with the Summoner class, let’s get into its defensive-centric capabilities.

Summoner Armor

By default, Summoners don’t have a lot of defense. They die easily, which is a healthy counter to their summoning capabilities.

As a result, you’ll want some useful armor to keep your Summoner alive and summoning.

While there are many armor sets you can focus on, like the Obsidian Armor or the Hallowed Armor, to increase your minion capacity and summon damage, there are two armor sets that summon a specific Minion when worn. Let’s focus on those.

Forbidden Armor

The Forbidden Armor is only accessible in Hardmode, which you unlock after beating the Wall of Flesh for the first time in a world.

Creating the Forbidden Armor requires 3 Forbidden Fragments and 46 Adamantite or Titanium Bars. Once you have a full set, which requires the head and leg slots alongside the feed, you’ll receive the following stats and magic bonuses:

• +2 Minion slots
• +25% magic damage and +15% summon damage
• +26 defense
• +80 mana

Alongside the full armor set bonus, the Forbidden Armor will summon the Forbidden Sign — a Minion that follows you around and emits light to help you see in the darkness.

While it’s summoned, you can double-tap the up or down arrow key to summon a tornado wherever your mouse is pointed.

This is a welcome distraction during boss fights, as you can keep a boss occupied while also sending your summons after it.

Stardust Armor

The Stardust Armor is another powerful Summoner armor set.

Crafting Stardust Armor provides the following benefits:

• +30% Whip range
• +1 Sentry slot
• +66% Minion damage
• +5 Minion slots

Of course, you also get the Stardust Guardian Minion. This Minion does not fill a Minion slot, meaning you can still summon a full army alongside it.

Otherwise, the Stardust Guardian will charge into enemies within 30 tiles of you, moving through blocks as well. This is far from a short attack range, providing significant melee support for a class that lacks it otherwise.

Each Stardust Guardian attack deals 30 summon damage.

Of course, these armor sets are later game goals to focus on. While building up to these sets, you can try out some wooden and ore armor sets to keep yourself safe. Just make sure to combine them with a magic weapon early on, like a Leather Whip.

Finally, we can discuss Summoner Accessories.

Summoner Accessories

Summoner accessories are Emblems, Necklaces, and other items that provide you with boosts.

For example, the Summoner Emblem, which you can get after beating the Wall of Flesh, provides a 15% summon damage increase.

You can also look into the Feral Claws for a 12% Whip melee speed increase, which also applies to a different weapon in the melee class, should you decide to switch away from a Summoner later on.

Note that a large amount of items are locked until you enter Hardmode, so it might be best to wait until you beat the game to focus on final tier Summoner gear. For example, both the Spectre Mask and the Pygmy Staff are two Hardmode items.

Combining accessories, weapons, armor, and Minion summons can help make up for the Summoner’s less than decent defense capabilities, and allow you to tap into the classes’ more complex abilities.

Now you’re aware of the basic tools and trades of the Summoner class. While it’s not a formal player class by any means due to the nature of Terraria, if you can focus summons and understand its complexities, you can become a deadly force in the world. It’s really all dependent on the player’s skill level.

However, you’re still missing out on area of effect damage and the other benefits that come with multiple classes. In that case, why not try playing Terraria with some friends to take advantage of all the different class types?

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