Palladium Bar

Palladium armor is the sustain option at the bottom of hardmode. Landing a hit kicks your health regeneration into a much faster gear, which suits a player who is happy trading blows and gives you a way to recover between waves without burning potions. The Cobalt Bar set aims at raw output instead. Neither roll is a bad one, but palladium is the more forgiving of the two if hardmode enemies are still killing you.

The pickaxe first, since you cannot touch the next ore tier without it, then the armor. Weapons here are skippable if you walked in carrying something good from pre-hardmode. Keep a stack of leftovers instead of spending them on decoration, because later recipes keep asking for them.

• The palladium gear is drawn as European knight kit, all plate helms and straight blades, while cobalt goes the other way with an eastern look.
• The real metal is a close relative of platinum and spends most of its working life as a chemical catalyst rather than as armor.