How can I improve my chances to find Hearts (Life Crystals)?
By James Williams
I'm having trouble discovering Hearts (Life Crystals) to increase my maximum hearts (health).
Is there a pattern on how to discover them or a certain depth range I should be looking? I've found maybe 3 hearts when I feel like I should have found at least double that.
9 Answers
It is particularly dangerous, but if you're really hurting for more health, you could try exploring the dungeon without killing Skeletron (assuming you can't, if you're low on health).
It's reasonably easy to avoid the Skeletron heads that spawn if you continue falling down further into the dungeon - just take out your hammer and head down, breaking any hearts you find until you die. I found a good 3-4 hearts before I was killed, and I wasn't trying very hard to stay alive.
5Carry light with you or place torches to make sure that you see the hearts.
Make sure that you explore natural caves; hearts are made with your world and thus don't spawn.
To overcome the depth problem you can explore all depths, which is a point of the digging aspect of the game. Different layers future different things, while I belief the hearts can be found on any layer and perhaps can be found a little more frequent on the lower layers.
If you don't care, a world viewer is a last solution.
There are two suggestions that I have for you, do not read this if you are still in the 'discovery' phase:
11So, I would suggest that you start digging a vertical tunnel called a Hellevator and explore natural caves along the way. Another thing you could do is to make a long horizontal tunnel at the Jungle / Lower Dungeon depth; together with Hermes Boots this makes crossing the map easy, instead of having to wait till you ever get those rocket boots...
Crystal Hearts can be found in the Underground and below. There is no place where they would've been created more often in this area.
The optimal way to find them would be with Spelunker potions as this will illuminate them if it is on your screen. Spelunker potions are easy to make with bottled water, Blinkroot, Moonglow and either gold or platinum ore at a placed bottle or alchemy table.
So after using a spelunker potion just dig straight down to hell. Whenever you see a Crystal Heart just dig to it and then go back and continue down the original hole. When you get to hell, recall back to the top move approximately 100 blocks to the side (depending on your screen size and resolution) so that when you go down you won't be covering the same area and then repeat.
Digging down is more optimal than digging horizontally for 2 reasons:
- Faster to dig down than across. To dig down you will need to dig out two blocks as compared to digging across you will need to dig out 3 blocks.
- (Assuming you have a landscape monitor) You can see more at a time since the screen is wider than it is tall.
Digging diagonal is even less efficient as it requires 4 blocks to be dug out.
You can dig diagonal or sideways occasionally to utilize natural caves to help you go down and explore faster but when you get to hell you will need to go across more so as not to cover the same area again.
One good way to find life crystals is to start by gathering material such as gold/platinum. Next make a hellevator (just dig strait down to hell.) You will want to bring a decent type of armor along with you such as silver/tungsten. I found at least twenty life crystals down there. Just be careful. Good luck:)
1Heart crystal are more common at the cavern layer so if you want them you should be at that level but I have found at least 3 in the underworld easily. I would suggest rocket boots and an ivy whip before that as it can be hard and time wasteful to make bridges plus you can get attacked or knocked into lava and there are hard enemies
1Sometimes it helps if you make the world multiplayer and have other people help look for them in different places. The only problem that can come from this is that if they find one, they will probably keep it to themselves. Also, another trick to getting them is to mine fast by using explosives such as "bombs" and "dynamite" which you can buy from the demolitionist.
1I find them in the small caverns and jungle. Also in the bottom of the underworld.
Caves have a nice amount of heart crystal their usely found in ponds rivers and lakes underground you can also go to the underworld
Another suicidal way to do it is to go to the underworld.
Note: as of Version 1.2.3 (early 2014) Terraria, Heart Crystals (wiki) no longer occur in the underworld.One alternative (if your world was generated since this changed) is to go as close to the Underworld as possible, since most rare items have higher spawn rates the lower that you go. All the advice still applies, you just don't need to dig as deep.
Have at least iron/lead armor so that you won't get killed by the monsters too easily. Make sure you have a grappling hook or a flying accessory.
- Ensure you are on Softcore, (where death only drops coins), you can check this on character selection if you are unsure. If not, suicide missions are just that, since Hardcore will lose you your character, and any Life Crystals already used, and Mediumcore will lose you all your items and tools
- Put your cash away safely in Piggy Bank, Safe or Chest (no-one wants)
- Make passage underground (wiki)
- Then just YOLO and get as many hearts as you can before you die. Don't bother with killing the monsters, you will die before you can kill one. Then just repeat until you have enough to go into the dungeon.
