The Complete Guide to Shimmer in Terraria

Terraria has recently added the Shimmer liquid in version 1.4.4. This liquid allows you to transmute objects into other things. With the amount of items transmutable, you’re sure to need a complete guide to shimmer in Terraria. We’re here to explain everything there is for you to know about this new liquid in the game.

Shimmer 101: An Overview

Shimmer in Terraria is a rare liquid that can be quite elusive since it doesn’t always spawn in every generated world. This liquid allows you to create powerful upgrades, obtain permanent buffs, and even allows players to un-craft certain items. With the introduction of Master Mode, the upgrades from Shimmer transmutations became more valuable to all Terraria players.

How to obtain Shimmer

Shimmer can naturally spawn during world generation post version 1.4.4 and is typically found at the side of the world where the Jungle spawns. This liquid can be found inside the Aether mini-biome in the Underground or Cavern layers. However, this liquid cannot be harvested using empty buckets as you would with Water, Lava, and Honey.

For small worlds, a quick way to find the biome would be to dig straight down from the tip of the shore of the Beach biome as it sometimes directly spawns in that area. For medium to large worlds, finding the mini-biome is easier to do from the edge of the Underground Jungle biome, with you digging towards the direction of the Ocean.

My world did not spawn the Aether! Help!

If your world did not generate the Aether biome, or if you’re using an older world, it IS still possible to introduce the Shimmer liquid into your world. This method would require you to have beaten Moon Lord.

Your first step would be to obtain the Bottomless Water Bucket from the Angler Quests, which has a 1 in 70 chance to drop after the 10th quest or is a guaranteed drop from the 25th quest. This bucket can then be combined with 10 Luminite Bars in an Ancient Manipulator to create a Bottomless Shimmer Bucket.

From here, you can create your own Shimmer pond anywhere in your world. If you want to get your Bottomless Water Bucket back, just throw the Bottomless Shimmer Bucket into a Shimmer Pond and it should transmute back. This method goes both ways to switch between Water and Shimmer buckets.

Transporting Shimmer

As we have mentioned earlier, Shimmer cannot be collected through buckets. That said, if you want to transport Shimmer before getting a Bottomless bucket, you do have the option of using pumps to transport it to your base OR you can just build a base around it.

This is the only way as of 1.4.4.9 to transport Shimmer before beating Moon Lord.

Unique Shimmer Transmutations

Shimmer’s primary use is to transmute items into other things. Throwing things into the shimmer will produce many different reactions. These range from creating new buffs, de-crafting items, and even creating “alternate” world ores (e.g. platinum to gold, titanium to adamantite, etc.). 

So without further ado, let’s dive into all the available transmutations in the game.

Permanent Upgrades

Here’s a quick guide to the permanent buffs you can get from the Shimmer Transmutations. These items can only be used once per player.

Ancient Bricks Transmutations

Ancient Armor Transmutations

Old One’s Army Weapons

For Old One’s Army Weapons, it goes in a cycle that stays within your weapon’s tier (T1 Rod, T2 Cane, T3 Staff)

For simplicity, the cycle is:

Flameburst > Ballista > Explosive > Lightning Aura > Flameburst

Unsafe Biome Walls and Arena Items

The shimmer in Terraria can also turn some crafted biome walls into their mob-spawning counterparts for easier artificial biome creation.

Dungeon Loot

Fishing Crates

Throwing any Hardmode Fishing Crate will revert it to its pre-Hardmode counterpart.

Examples: 

Hellstone Crate turns into Obsidian Crate, Titanium Crate turns into Golden Crate, etc.

There is no benefit to doing this as the items inside the crates will just have a worse loot table.

Crafting Materials: Ores and Gems

Ores and Gems are made to diminish in value each time they are thrown into the Shimmer. 

For a list of their diminishing values, refer to the table below.

Following this list, transmuting from Cobalt ores will result in Platinum ore. Transmuting any further from Copper ore and Amethysts will only yield Stone Blocks. Note that transmuting any Gem Critter (e.g. Amethyst Bunny, Topaz Squirrel, etc.) will result in their corresponding gems. However, Gold Critters will not give Gold Coins or Ores.

Building Materials

Aether-themed Items

The Chromatic Cloak is a unique item that allows you to control the Shimmered status when the player dives into a pool of shimmer in Terraria.

Accessories

Most of these accessories just cycle through one another. Some of the 

Miscellaneous Items

This section includes all the other items that can’t be categorized in all the previous categories.

Other Uses for Shimmer

Mob and NPC Transformations

Shimmer in Terraria can also be used to transform specific mobs into an Aether mob. These include transforming any Zombie into Skeletons, and any Slime into Shimmer Slime. Bosses like King and Queen Slime do not transform in the Shimmer.

Other mobs that transform are the Critters, with the exception of the Slime, Christmas, and Party Bunnies. Other exceptions include the Gold Worm and Gem Critters. Any other critter will transform into a Faeling when in contact with Shimmer.

Any Town NPC (except slimes, cats, and dogs) will also transform into their Shimmered forms when submerged in Shimmer.

Decrafting Equipment

Tossing crafted items can also decraft them into their basic ingredients. That said, there are some different ways in which the game decides how to do so. Items with multiple recipes will have a specific pre-selected ingredient list that it gets decrafted into. 

An example of this would be the Magic Mirror, which can be crafted using Glass, Diamonds, and either Gold or Platinum Bars. Throwing a Magic Mirror into the Shimmer, however, will only provide you with Gold Bars, even if your world started with Platinum.

Follow this guide for the complete list for multi-recipe decrafting:

Note that the only potions in the list above are the Ironskin and Spelunker potions. Any other item crafted from Placed Bottles or Alchemy Tables are decrafted into random potion  ingredients instead.

Decrafting boss-locked furniture

For furniture, themed items under Skeletron and Golem will require you to have beaten the boss first. For Skeletron, this includes any Piano crafting recipe as Pianos are only initially found in the Dungeon.

Non-decraftable items

Since there are some balance issues present with decrafting, there were some exceptions added to the transmutation table. 

These items are listed below:

Shimmering Debuff

The last thing on our list is the Shimmering Debuff which is applied whenever the player jumps into a pool of shimmer in Terraria. This debuff will make the player “fall” continuously through the world or until they reach a 2×3 opening that the player model can fit in.

While in this state, you are unable to use any tools or items while also being immune to any non-boss damage. This is a great and flashy way to build a Hellevator as it also automatically expires when you hit the Underworld Biome.

All the effects of the Shimmering Debuff can be controlled when using the Chromatic Cloak mentioned in the Aether-themed Items section.

If you have any favorite ways to use Shimmer that you think we missed, tell us in the comments below!

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