Vikilum's guide to the Summoner
Look at this gal in the cart.
She has beat the entire game as a summoner, eschewing the melee, ranged, magic, and throwing weapons entirely.
She barely had to dodge anything because she is a summoner, and summoners do not dodge. Summoners ride in a minecart and AFK for the entire duration of the bossfight. You, too, can be a summoner, just like her.
This guide would not tell you to do stupid stuff like "cancel your Spiders buff and resummon everything on the Twins in the span of 1 second". If buff cancellation is required, you will be safe in your minecart going at mach speed, under no threat from the boss or the passage of time.
This guide would not require you to keep a mental note on how far your summons go, effectively limiting you to a confined space. You are a Summoner. You are not "limited" by the confined space. You are protected because you are travelling at mach minecart speed, dodging nearly everything the boss have to offer.
This setup has been tested with 400 max. life, no life fruits. It is possible in both Corruption and Crimson worlds, but Corruption is far easier to traverse if you lack weapons (and you can brew Wrath Potions).
This guide does not include abuse of invulnerability glitches or dupes, as those are likely to be patched. However, this guide will include considerably more farming than other guides, given that the Tempest Staff is the only way to attack the Lunatic Cultist when he is performing a ritual, and that the Summoner Emblem is basically required to beat the Twins on time.
This guide is intended to be done on a Small world - the hardest world.
General Tips
Mine every last block of iron (or lead) (and gold/platinum) ore!
Left-clicking with a Minion staff causes the minion to be spawned, which will then attack immediately.
Right-clicking an enemy causes your minions to target it exclusively. Not very good in most fights because most bosses have multiple targets and right-clicking would thus reduce DPS. Very useful once you get the Stardust Dragon, or during invasions.
Required structures (build when you are free)
A perfectly straight minecart track suspended somewhat in the air right below Wyvern spawn level that spans the entire world, with bumpers on both ends. Add a 1-block high roof exactly 13 blocks above it after building the track. Wire teleporters to both ends of the track, activated via. Minecart Pressure Plate on one end. Required for Moon Lord, recommended for Lunatic Cultist.
A 110 tall perfect diamond minecart track with a 55 block radius and the entire interior filled in with walls. Needed for Twins and Duke Fishron.
A Truffle Worm farm.
A 125x115 clear area in the jungle for Plantera. Make the walls extra-jungly (fill the entire thing with that pattern thing where every block can have Jungle Grass spread to it). No need to jungle-ify the floor.
Various plant farms, mainly Daybloom, Moonglow, and Deathweed. Use Staff of Regrowth for quicker (and safer) harvesting.
Starting out
Items to find: 1 Gold, Bait, Reaver Shark, every Iron (or Lead) you encounter.
Optional: Nature's Gift, Flower Boots
Aim to get the following things in this order: 1 Gold, Bug Net, Jungle, Reinforced Fishing Pole, Access to the Ocean. If you get Flower Boots that's a bonus, but we don't really need it right now.
Set-up your base on the side of the jungle closer to spawn. This is because you want to ensure that your hellevator reaches the section of hell with actual buildings, so that you can get your Hellforge.
The Jungle can be a bit of a pain to grind. In fact, I explored the entire thing before I even got enough bait for the fishing escapade! Just box yourself in and tunnel everywhere.
Granite Elementals can be blocked as long as they don't go too far, where they will get phased movement. They will stop having phased movement once they are outside of blocks and are close you. Create air pockets to trap them.
Use Magic Mirror/Relog/Recall Potion to get out of sticky situations.
Once you get around 20 or so bait, or Flower Boots, go to the Ocean and start fishing. You want a Reaver Shark. Box yourself in, create clefts so slimes can't jump in, and fish until you get it.
Once you have the Reaver Shark, make your hellevator, 3 homes within Hell, and fill them all with NPCs (if possible). Mine out 51 Hellstone and 17 Obsidian, and collect a Hellforge. Forge yourself some Hellstone bars, and make yourself an Imp Staff.
Pre-Hardmode
Items to Find: 3 Abeemations, every last block of Iron/Lead Ore you can find, Variegated Lardfish
Optional: Nature's Gift, Flower Boots, Ebonkoi
The Bee is pretty easy. Simply build an elevated track diamond in the Surface Jungle around 1 screen tall, get yourself a few Abeemations, then proceed to kill Queen Bee with no effort whatsoever.
Now you would have your Imp Staff and full Bee Armor.
You now need to summon a Goblin invasion (box yourself in with imps lol), free the Tinkerer, then reforge your Imp staff to anything with >10% bonus damage. Preferably Ruthless. Skip this and make a Wrath potion if you are on a Corruption world.
Now go into the Underworld, and make an Underworld-spanning track. In open areas, make sure it zigzags. When possible, make your track hide behind structures or natural formations.
Add ash walls to protect yourself from lasers on the latter half of your track.
Once you are done, just craft yourself a Minecart, some Ironskin/Regeneration/Summoning/Wrath potions, and go kill the WoF. Target an eye, and spam imps on his mouth.
Early-Hardmode
Items to Find: Nature's Gift (if not found already)
Find a Spider's Den and get all the Spider items. Make sure to keep recrafting Spider Staff to get the Ruthless modifier. You will need it.
Build this thing over here. 55 tracks per side, perfectly walled inside.
Farm WoF for Summoner's Emblem. Start at the barricaded part of the arena since spiders are much faster than imps at killing WoF.
Get yourself a Mythril Anvil, Mechanical Eye, buffs (Well Fed/Summoning/Bewitching/Wrath), hop into the track, and start the fight at 7:30 sharp. Just ride around the diamond and laugh as they cannot do a single thing to you (except ram you when green is repositioning). Don't panic if Red transforms and dies first, this is intentional. Even honey bottles (no heart lanterns) would be enough to tank everything, since everything just misses you anyway.
Now go craft yourself an Optic Staff.
Mid-Hardmode
Destroyer is easy - just make a long solid sky platform and dodge every probe. No biggie. Spam Optic Staff as needed. You can control probe spawn rates by moving into the middle of the platform, or resummoning twins.
Skeletron Prime is a little trickier. There are two schools of thought here: you can make a 220x220 diamond and cheese him there, taking 3 days to kill his heads, or you could just despawn 3 of his arms by running away in your little sky minecart thing. Either way works fine. Or just fight him normally. Works fine too.
Now that you have your Optic Staff and the Mechanical Minecart, it's time to fight Plantera!
Plantera
Plantera is a little tricky. You need to clear a 125x115 area out, then make a 10x6 box in the middle of the arena, then make a hexagon centered in the center of the box where the angled sides are 34 tracks long, and there is a 10 block long horizontal segment in both horizontal tracks. Make sure that the entire track is jungle.
Once you are done, just summon Plantera, chuck 10 spiders in her little box, and start the fight. You may need to alter your speed in order to get Plantera's head stuck in the box. She should miss everything and the spiky balls should stay in the box, where they belong.
Heal up before her second phase. Once it starts, just summon around 2 Twins and spam spiders. Once you are done, keep resummoning Twins to clear all the tentacles. Once they are controlled, just chuck a bunch of spiders in her box and watch her die.
Keep farming Plantera for Pygmy staff. Once you get it, move Witch Doctor to the Jungle (house him in Plantera's box, how convenient) and buy your Tiki Armor and Hercules Beetle.
Now kill the Golem. Actuate his entire Altar and move it somewhere else, I don't know. Place his altar in the middle of your Twins arena and build a box to trap him, then summon him and throw some spiders inside.
Make sure to clean up after you killed Golem. You still need that arena for Duke Fishron.
Duke Fishron
Items to Find: Deadly Sphere Staff, Truffle Worms
Start a Martian Madness invasion and go farm your usual Martian Madness things, like a Cosmic Car Key and a Xeno Staff.
Now farm a Solar Eclipse for the Deadly Sphere Staff. the Deadly Sphere Staff is the best way to kill the Duke, as it deals more damage and attacks more often when riding around in your Retinadiamond. Modify the track such that it's connected to the straight sky track and a track leading to the ocean, so that you can just summon the Duke and ride away to your little track.
Buy around 2 stacks of Greater Mana Potions and equip your Mana Flower. Summon Duke Fishron, ride to your little diamond, get an autoclicker to continuously summon Deadly Spheres at your position, and just do something else (until Fishron dies). Repeat until you have Tempest Staff.
Moon Lord
You should have finished your world-spanning straight minecart track, complete with ceiling, by now. Add a teleporter on both ends of the track, wire them together with The Grand Design, then connect it on one side to a Minecart Pressure Plate.
Lunatic Cultist is relatively easy. Use your Tempest Staff to hit the real cultists, as well as the cultists required to spawn him.
I will not get into depth with the Pillars.
Once you finished them, however, you should instantly buff yourself with Wrath/Summoning/Bewitching, equip all your damage accessories, swim in water using the Truffle mount, and resummon your dragon (do not summon more Stardust Cells). After that, just ride your minecart and take a break while your Stardust Dragon destroys Moon Lord for you. Make sure to heal every so often, though.
Congratulations! You have now beaten the entire game, without ever using a Melee, Ranged, Magic, or Throwing weapon to damage enemies. You can now consider yourself a true summoner...as well as a connoisseur of minecarts!
