Mining Helmet

Mining armor barely protects you and was never meant to. You put it on to dig and take it off to fight. The full set speeds up every pickaxe swing and lights the space around you at the same time, which together turn a hellevator from an evening of work into a short job. Anyone planning a deep vertical shaft or a network of underground highways should have it on before starting rather than halfway through.

The Merchant stocks the Mining Helmet outright, so the light half is easy. The shirt and pants only come off Undead Miners down in the Cavern layer, and they are not stingy about it, so a short trip with a working weapon usually finishes the set. Undead Miners can hand you the helmet too if you would rather not spend the coin.

The set bonus is one input among several, and they all stack.

• A Light modifier on the pickaxe itself.
• The Mining Potion, any tier of Well Fed from cooked food, and a Slice of Cake.
• The Ancient Chisel or its upgrade.
• One of the genuinely fast pickaxes, the Picksaw, a Shroomite Digging Claw or a Luminite pickaxe.

Turn Smart Cursor on as well. For very large clears explosives still beat any of this, and once you own a Drill Containment Unit none of it matters anymore.

The Ultrabright Helmet and the Prospector pieces count toward this set, so any mix of them still gives the mining bonus. The only difference between them is defense, which was never the reason you had the outfit on.