In a game about building and survival in a fantastic and deadly land, transporting resources is immensely important when setting up a base or exploring for natural goods in the wild. The ideal way of carrying water, lava, and honey in Terraria is to use a Bucket.
Crafting a Bucket is pretty easy, as all one needs is some Iron, however, the simplicity of the humble Empty Bucket is at odds with the fact that it, and its filled variants, are needed for a great deal of other crafting recipes. It's best to craft at least a couple of Buckets and keep them handy, as they can be quite useful for many reasons.
How To Craft A Bucket
To craft an Empty Bucket, players will need to possess 3 Iron Bars of any kind and must use an Iron or Lead Anvil, it's just that easy!
Since it is so simple, players might as well make a few while they're at it, as Empty Buckets can do a lot more than one initially thinks and they also get consumed when used in crafting recipes for other items. Many of such items are the various kinds of Sinks that can be crafted, such as the mystical Nebula Sink (6 Nebula Bricks + 1 Water Bucket) and the horrific Flesh Sink (6 Flesh Blocks + 1 Water Bucket).
Uses Of The Empty Bucket
Used With Water
An Empty Bucket can be used on any body of water to scoop up a single tile of the liquid, which will turn the Empty Bucket into a Water Bucket. When the player dumps out the water, the tool will return to being an Empty Bucket. This is the most common use for a Bucket.
Used With Lava
This is a bit riskier, as lava can be much more destructive than water, and a misclick with a Lava Bucket in hand can be deadly. Players can scoop up and manipulate lava as if it was water when using an Empty Bucket, though should be cautious for obvious reasons.
Used With Honey
Honey, known for its excellent health-restoring properties in this game, can be collected just like the above-mentioned liquids. More experienced players will know that standing in a deep enough pool of honey (2 tiles wide and 5/8ths of a tile deep) will grant a healing buff that regenerates 1 HP per second as well as tripling the rate of one's natural healing.
In an emergency, players capable of digging a 2 by 1 ditch and partially filling it with honey can potentially recover from near-fatal injuries.
Used As A Helmet
If one is worried about protecting their cranium and does not have access to any real armor, a player can don an Empty Bucket upon their head to gain 1 Defense. Just don't try to do this with any other variant of the Empty Bucket, as that would likely result in the player dousing themselves and their surroundings in water, lava, or honey.