Tactical Skeleton

Nothing summons it. It joins the Dungeon population the moment Plantera dies, and it is one of the rarer things in there, so you meet it by accident far more often than on purpose. Where it appears is not even across the Dungeon either: stretches backed by the tiled wall types produce it far more often than the brick corridors, so a farm built anywhere else will feel broken when it is only working as intended. A Lifeform Analyzer will announce one before it has line of sight on you, which is the whole point of carrying one down here.

It walks slowly and looks harmless until it sees you. Then it stops dead and puts a spread of four rounds into you, and a full spread landing at once is not something most builds at this point simply walk off. The dangerous moment is rounding a corner into one, because the first volley comes out much faster than the ones that follow. After that opening shot the rhythm is slow and easy to read.

Two mechanics hand you the fight. Every hit you land pushes its next volley back, so any weapon with a real rate of fire holds it in a loop where it never gets to shoot at all. It also cannot fire while it is in the air, so it is harmless the whole time it is jumping down a shaft at you.

Between those two, closing in is safer than backing off, which is the opposite of what the enemy looks like it wants. It also only shoots when it can actually see you, so a single block of cover between you and it buys as much time as you need to reposition.

• The SWAT Helmet it leaves behind and its flavor text both point at it having been part of some elite unit before it was bones.
• The gun on its sprite looks like a SPAS-12, a weapon that appears nowhere in the game, and it matches neither of the guns it can drop.