This fearsome foe from below can be a life-ending encounter for unprepared players in Terraria, as it does crazy amounts of damage and can assail gamers with a barrage of ranged attacks. However, this huge cephalopod within a spiraling shell is mighty, but not unbeatable!

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With the proper planning and insight into how the Dreadnautilus fights, players can come up with some tactics to defeat this sea fiend that rises with the Blood Moon. It is important, even for veteran Terraria players, not to underestimate this briny beast due to it not being a boss, as its stats are comparable to one.

Dreadnautilus Stats & Attacks

Charge & Dash

The foe will turn away from the player and charge up an attack move for about 1 second. While charging, any projectiles that hit it will be deflected automatically. When fully charged, the Dreadnautilus will dash at the player swiftly and will circle them a few times, trying to tackle them.

Projectile Attack

While facing the player, the Dreadnautilus will charge up a ranged attack, however, during this 1-second charging phase, it will not be able to deflect incoming attacks from the player; this is a great window to land a shot or two. After charging, it will unleash 3 volleys of dripping red projectiles at the player, with each volley pushing it back a short distance due to recoil.

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Blood Squid Summoning

Using foul cephalopod magic, the Dreadnautilus will create up to 3 symbols in the air or water around the battlegrounds. Each of these glowing red symbols will summon a Blood Squid enemy, however, only a maximum of 3 can ever be present at once. These foes will complicate matters if the player cannot either take them out quickly or somehow shield themselves from the trio of Blood Squids.

How To Find The Dreadnautilus

The Dreadnautilus is 1 of 5 powerful enemies that can be encountered when the player fishes during a Blood Moon. The others (the Wandering Eye Fish, Zombie Merman, Blood Eel, and Hemogoblin Shark) are quite fierce in their own rights, however, most players consider the Dreadnautilus the toughest out of all of them due to its ability to automatically deflect incoming ranged attacks.

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The chances of the Dreadnautilus spawning from this summoning method is about 10%. It should also be mentioned that the sea fiend will disappear at dawn, so it is imperative to slay it before the sun rises if one wants its drops.

How To Defeat The Dreadnautilus

Attack Counters

Firstly, players should come up with a way to defend themselves from the hard-to-dodge projectile attack, which can be relatively easily done by staying behind a solid wall. Since the Dreadnautilus can fly around, enclosing oneself in a box can be a safe approach to this fight if one has a powerful enough ranged weapon to defeat the fiend before dawn.

The charging dash attack is more difficult to deal with, though staying above ground-level will allow players to track its swift movements better for blocking or dodging. It should be mentioned that the Dreadnautilus is vulnerable to taking damage during the dashing phase of this attack, so using a melee weapon through a gap in a wall to hit it could be a useful tactic.

To deal with the pesky Blood Squids that get summoned, players can counter this with some summoning of their own! One can call for backup with one of the many Summon Weapons to have one's own minions or sentries take out the trio of Blood Squids.

How To Deal More Damage To The Dreadnautilus

Since this foe has a lot of Defense, it can take a long time to defeat this beast from below. Thankfully, players can drop the Dreadnautilus' Defense stat by utilizing the Ichor debuff, which reduces a target's Defense stat by 15 (PC version) or 20 (console version). Here are all the weapons and projectiles that can cause the Ichor debuff:

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