Guide:Providence, the Profaned Goddess strategies

Providence, the Profaned Goddess is a post-Moon Lord boss that is fought after defeating the Profaned Guardians and, in most cases, the Dragonfolly. To fight her the player must use a Profaned Core in either The Hallow or The Underworld during the daytime.

This guide will mention items exclusive to Expert and Revengeance Mode with no special formatting and will follow the intended progression.

Terrain Preparation
Providence requires a lot of room. A good arena for the fight will require flattening out a large area. One or two long platforms set 30 blocks apart are useful as molten globs launch up and will stay on the higher platforms, allowing the player to more safely navigate the lower parts of the arena without worrying about the hazard.

If you don't want to create a huge platform arena and don't care about the Underworld's terrain, you can use Dynamite or similar explosives to demolish it. Furthermore, you can equip Angel Treads or any of its upgrades to use the lava as a floor. However, this can require a lot of gold to buy the explosives. Another option is to use the Onyx Excavator Key and the Drill Containment Unit in unison.

This arena can later be used to fight Signus, Envoy of the Devourer as well. If you decide to make an arena like this, Zen Potions can be very useful to reduce the amount of enemies interfering with your progress.

Great movement speed and agility are crucial for the fight as Providence's projectiles and the Guardians are very quick. This is important especially in the later parts of the fight as Providence's projectiles increase in rate and velocity as her health lowers.

Armor
Lunar armors are the preferred choice for all classes.
 * Solar Flare armor for Melee
 * Vortex armor for Ranged
 * Nebula armor for Mage
 * Stardust armor for Summoner
 * Empyrean armor for Rogue

Accessories

 * Lunar Wings or Seraph Tracers are the best wings available for the player and should be prioritized.
 * A long bridge-type arena will pair well with the Seraph Tracers for this boss.
 * The Heart of the Elements can be useful for this fight due to the many stat increases it provides.
 * Turning off the elementals by turning off the visibility of the accessory will increase the stats even further, but you will lose the damage and healing from the elementals.
 * The Void of Extinction is a great classless accessory as it gives the same boost as a class emblem, along with extra effects.
 * The Destroyer Emblem has good damage and critical chance boosts.
 * The Community is a powerful item as it provides stat increases which get increased as the player progresses through the mod.
 * The Absorber is another good all-class accessory due to the great movement and healing stat boost it provides.
 * Blood Pact provides a good survivability buff, which is especially good because the anti-healing stars' damage cannot be increased or decreased.
 * Statis' Ninja Belt is a great accessory as it provides great movement buffs, as well as dodge chance.
 * Asgard's Valor provides additional defense and immunity to knockback, which can prevent the player from being knocked into other projectiles after being hit.
 * The Celestial Shell is a good accessory for Melee players as it provides great melee boosts during the day.
 * Statis' Curse and the Star-Tainted Generator are great accessories for Summoners as they both provide a buff to both the number of minions as well as minion damage.
 * Statis' Blessing can also be used, which provides the same buffs as Statis' Curse except for the Shadowflame debuff, which Providence is immune to.
 * Since the effects of Statis' Blessing stack with Statis' Curse, the player can equip both alongside the Star-Tainted Generator for a total of 7 extra minions and a 27% increase in damage.
 * The Sigil of Calamitas is a great accessory for Mages as it gives several buffs for damage and mana consumption.
 * It also increases the user's max mana by 100.
 * The Artemis Emblem is a great Ranged accessory as it provides several range buffs and reduces ammo consumption.
 * It also increases life regen by 2 and Defense by 5.
 * The Dark God's Sheath can be a good accessory for Rogue players, provided they can gain stealth to perform stealth strikes.
 * It also provides several passive Rogue bonuses.

Melee

 * The Omega Biome Blade with its high base damage does incredibly well on both Providence and her guardians.
 * The Ark of the Elements is a great weapon choice as its fire-rate and projectiles make it a very powerful weapon.
 * The Swordsplosion works even better because of its higher damage and AOE but can be difficult to obtain due to it being a rare item variant.
 * The Devastation is a powerful melee weapon that performs well when in the Hallow biome, though is it difficult to aim correctly.
 * The Stellar Striker is a close ranged option that can deal colossal amounts of damage.
 * The Elemental Lance is a good weapon to use against Providence due to its projectile split and her large hitbox.
 * The Elemental Disk can decimate Providence due to its ability to summon many copies of itself when hitting her.

Ranged

 * The Onyx Chain Blaster is a great weapon due to its high damage and 50% chance to not consume ammo.
 * The Golden Eagle is another powerful weapon due to its incredibly high firing speed.
 * The Elemental Blaster is a powerful weapon due to its high range, high base damage and it not requiring ammo.
 * The Elemental Eruption is a surprisingly powerful weapon due to its capability of decreasing damage reduction.
 * Hyperius Bullets and Holy Fire Bullets are the best bullets for this stage of the game.
 * Elysian Arrows are the best arrows for this stage, with one exception.
 * Wooden Arrows are the best ammunition for the Planetary Annihilation.

Mage

 * The Elemental Ray's splitting projectiles and high damage is very powerful for the guardians, but not for Providence herself.
 * Genisis is a great weapon for the fight as it deals high DPS to Providence herself. However, it does require the player to get close to Providence to perform at its best.
 * Although it has incredibly high firing speed, it also has much lower base damage.
 * Rouge Slash is very powerful, sporting both high base damage and high firing speed.
 * The Ultra Liquidator can devastate Providence due to its incredibly high base damage.
 * It also inflicts Ichor and Cursed Inferno, neither of which Providence is immune to, greatly impeding her defense.
 * This effect can be used in conjunction with other mage weapons for much more damage and even with weapons of other classes, because the debuff will have the same effect.
 * Providence's cocoons are a great time to use this effect.
 * The Effervescence is also a great choice, having a very large bubble spray with high dps.
 * The Nuclear Fury's Typhoons work really well for the Guardians, as the homing typhoons in all directions mean the player doesn't have to aim, and can instead focus on dodging.
 * However, it is not a good choice for the rest of the fight, as it does very little damage to Providence herself.
 * The Mad Alchemist's Cocktail Glove is an extremely effective weapon against Providence; dealing high damage along with its additional projectile with the primary fire. While the alternate fire also deals high damage while inflicting several debuffs.

Summoner

 * The Elemental Axe is a powerful Summoner weapon due to its high minion speed and damage.
 * The Tactical Plague Engine is also a powerful option but it requires a lot of ammo to use due to its high fire rate.
 * The Energy Staff is another good sentry item to use as a support to other minions due to its high damage.

Rogue

 * The Rogue variation of Elemental Disk performs just as well as its Melee counterpart.
 * The Stellar Contempt can be a great weapon for Rogue players due to its high damage, at the cost of close range.
 * The Utensil Poker is a good choice due to the buff it provides when hitting an enemy.
 * Lunar Kunai can be utilised because of its homing aspect doing consistent damage on Providence.
 * Hell's Sun can be used to effectively make the arena into a minefield for the boss.
 * Combining this along with other rogue weapons can be used to damage Providence when she spawns the guardians, allowing the player to focus on slaying the guardians with other weapons.

Miscellaneous

 * The Well Fed buff provides a useful all around stat boost.
 * The Yharim's Stimulants buff provides another strong all around stat boost.
 * The Bumbledoge mount has a high running speed that can help you keep up with the boss.

Blast Phase
Providence will fly back and forth above you and will fire massive Holy Blasts which burst into Holy Flames on impact. The Holy Flames will spread out in all directions before homing in on you for a brief moment. Moving quickly and rapidly changing direction can prevent the projectiles from hitting you as the Holy Blasts are slow and the Holy Flames are quick but will only home for a very short time.

Flame Phase
Providence will hover above you and fire Holy Flames that stop in mid-air and split into more Holy Flames that travel either horizontally or vertically. To make this phase easier, avoid being directed to the left/right or directly above/below the initial Holy Flames.

Cocoon Phase
Providence will stop moving and hide in her cocoon, greatly increasing her damage reduction. After a certain amount of time, a status message stating "The air is burning..." will appear and you will be inflicted with the Icarus' Folly debuff for 50 seconds. The debuff cripples your mobility as it reduces wing time by 75%, decreases your horizontal speed and prevents infinite flight.

While she's in her cocoon phase she can use one of two attacks.

Cocoon Stars
Providence will emit waves of orange Cocoon Stars and green Cocoon Healing Stars. The cocoon stars will start spreading from her in a tight group and will grow faster and wider apart as they travel. Staying close to Providence will ensure you have enough time to react to the stars' positions, though you need to also keep some distance so the stars will be spaced out enough for you to be able to weave between them. The orange Cocoon Stars cause damage by "Healing" with negative hit points, thus ignores all defense stats. In Death Mode, the green Healing Cocoon Stars won't appear and will instead be replaced by more damaging Cocoon Stars.

Holy Spears
Providence will fire a barrage of Holy Spears from herself while other horizontally-moving Holy Spears spawn in the area around the player. The stream of Holy Spears will increase in frequency as Providence's health gets lower. Moving in a tight circle around Providence during this attack should be enough to dodge it successfully.

Molten Phase
Providence will fly above you, similarly to the Blast Phase, and fire Molten Blasts that explode on impact into several Molten Globs that stay on the ground for some time before disappearing. If you prepared several platforms in the arena, the Blobs will get trapped on higher platforms, making your main concern avoiding the Molten Blasts. However, if you didn't prepare platforms in the arena, concentrating the blobs in one location can make this phase and the following phases easier as it gives you more space to move around in.

Bomb Phase
Providence will fly directly above you and drop Holy Bombs that linger in place. The Holy Bombs will continually emit Holy Flames that drift towards you. This phase greatly resembles the attack of a Profaned Energy. Going in one direction and then flying over the Holy Bombs should make this stage rather simple to dodge.

Holy Ray Phase
This occurs when Providence drops below 75% health if she was summoned in the Hallow. Like her cocoon phase, her DR increases substantially. This phase can be discerned by Providence slowing down along with a sound cue of her charging up energy. The Holy Ray deals massive damage compared to the other projectiles, thus, it's better to run into another projectile than to get hit by the ray. This phase is very similar to the Moon Lord's Death Ray Attack.

In Expert Mode or below, dodging this attack can easily be done by flying around Providence in a circle or teleporting to the other side of the ray using the Normality Relocator. In Revengeance Mode or above, Providence will now fire two Holy Rays instead of one. The rays converge inwards towards each other like a pair of scissors, leaving a small gap in between. To dodge the attack, you need to thread the gap between the rays or teleport behind one of the rays in the same manner as for Normal or Expert.

Guardians
When Providence reaches 34% health, she will summon weaker versions of the Profaned Guardians, which act almost identically to the bosses themselves. Their strategy is to be combined with the strategy of any attack Providence uses while they're still alive. While the Healer guardian is alive, Providence will periodically recover 0.5% of her full health. The heals occur every seconds. The heals also change frequency depending on how many guardians are alive, occurring twice as often if all three are alive, and half as often if the Healer Guardian is the only one still alive.

When leaving The Hallow or The Underworld, the guardians will take very little damage until you return to the biome.

General Tips
Unlike other bosses, Providence herself doesn't deal any contact damage, so there's no need to avoid her sprite. However, do avoid the center of her sprite as that's the spawn point of most of the projectiles she fires at you.

When reaching 75% health when summoned in The Underworld, Providence will summon a giant crystal above you, which will rain down 10 smaller crystal shards that damage the player if touched. The crystal will follow you around, staying right above you, disappearing after seconds.

Providence's projectiles will increase in speed and frequency as her health gets lower. Upon reaching 15% health, Providence will attack much more aggressively and use every attack possible towards you. Going too far from Providence will inflict you with the Holy Inferno debuff, causing damage over time which will rapidly increase in severity. This effect will end once you return to Providence's proximity.

In Revengeance mode and above, Providence will continuously increase in speed when flying in the same direction for longer than 2.5 seconds, up to roughly double her original speed, making running and kiting strategies more difficult. However, her speed will return to normal upon changing direction.

In Death mode, Providence will have decreased attack delay as her health decreases, which can pose a problem for less experienced players.