The Perforators

"An abomination of comingled flesh ... infested primarily by blood-slurping worms."

The Perforators are a group of Pre-Hardmode bosses fought in The Crimson. They consist of 3 worms with varying appearances, sizes, and behaviors, and a crimson, fleshy hive.

They are the Crimson counterpart to The Hive Mind.

Spawn
The Perforators do not spawn on their own. The player can summon them manually with Bloody Worm Food or by killing a Perforator Cyst while in The Crimson.

Behavior
The Perforator Hive will hover above the player and shoot falling projectiles, accelerating towards the player to attempt to actively stay above them at all times. As it loses health, it will spawn Perforator worms with different sizes, stats, and appearances. All three worms can exist at a time.

The Perforators all behave like typical worms, burrowing through blocks and charging at the player. However, if their heads are too far away from the player ( tiles), they gain the ability to fly in order to return to the fight or reach an elevated platform more easily. Each worm has a trait that differentiates one from another, from increased speed to the ability to lunge itself above the player.

The Perforator Hive enrages outside the Crimson biome and on the Surface, increasing their maximum movement speed.

The Perforator Hive

 * Fires an even and parallel spread of  or  every 1.25-15 seconds, which inflict the Burning Blood and Ichor debuffs respectively. The type of projectile chosen is random.
 * These projectiles arc slightly upward, which then spread out and fall down to cover a large area. They can only pass through tiles within the first two seconds of being fired.
 * The fire rate is lower for every worm alive. Each worm equally reduces the fire rate by the same factor.

The Small Perforator

 * Spawns when the Perforator Hive reaches 70% health.
 * This small worm is much faster than the other two.
 * This worm has segments in total.

The Medium Perforator

 * Spawns when the Perforator Hive reaches 40% health.
 * Similar to the Eater of Worlds, each segment has an individual health pool and it can split up into smaller worms when a body segment is killed.
 * Each segment has an HP of, and there are segments in total.

The Large Perforator

 * Spawns when the Perforator Hive reaches 10% health.
 * Similarly to the Desert Scourge, upon reaching health, The Large Perforator will occasionally burrow underground then rapidly lunge at the player before burrowing again from a height 37.5 tiles above the player.
 * This attack occurs every seconds. After performing the attack, this timer resets on the apex of its lunge.
 * If the attack takes longer than 10 seconds, it will automatically reset to its default behavior.
 * This worm has segments in total.

In Expert Mode

 * All Perforators can be enraged similarly to the hive, increasing their acceleration and speed. The enrage is linearly more effective the lower their health, up to doubled base movement.
 * All Perforators gain 2, 4, or 6 segments from smallest to largest and a size increase of 10%.
 * The Perforator Hive becomes invulnerable to damage while the Large Perforator is alive.
 * The Perforator Hive shoots 12 projectiles per volley instead of 10.

In Revengeance Mode

 * All Perforators gain 1, 2, or 3 segments from smallest to largest and a size increase of 5%.
 * The Perforator Hive shoots 14 projectiles per volley instead of 12.
 * The Perforator Hive attempts to ram the player.
 * If there is only one Perforator alive, it will not ram the player but instead gain slightly increased acceleration and maximum speed.
 * It there are multiple Perforators alive, it will accelerate faster but lower its maximum speed.

In Death Mode

 * All Perforators gain 1, 2, or 3 segments from smallest to largest and a size increase of 10%.
 * All Perforators' enrage are more effective.
 * The Perforator Hive shoots 16 projectiles per volley instead of 14.
 * The Perforator Hive accelerates faster but has a lower maximum speed.

During the Boss Rush

 * The Perforator Hive does not enrage outside of their biomes.
 * The Perforators and their hive gain significantly higher acceleration.

Aftermath

 * Upon defeating the Perforators, the status message "The ground is glittering with cyan light" displays, indicating that Aerialite Ore generated in the world.
 * Sky Crates will contain Aerialite Bars.
 * The Dryad will begin selling Bloody Worm Food.
 * The Dryad will also begin selling the Rotten Brain in Expert Mode.
 * Aero Slimes will begin spawning Underground.

Resistances

 * All Perforator segments take reduced damage from non-minion piercing projectiles in Expert Mode. Projectile damage is divided by the number of times it pierces. Infinite piercing deals 50% damage.
 * All segments reduce damage from grenade-type projectiles by 80%. A list of affected projectiles is below.

Tips

 * Building a few layers of platforms across The Crimson will make avoiding the Perforators much easier.
 * The Perforators have extremely high speed when tunneling horizontally, and can tunnel through platforms if they reach them. Keeping platforms around 15 blocks above the ground and each other can help prevent this.
 * Be careful: If platforms are too high the player might leave The Crimson while standing on them, enraging the boss and making the Hive and worms invincible.
 * The projectiles that the Hive shoots are destroyed by blocks, meaning the player can stand below a thick ceiling of blocks to make the fight easier.
 * The player can also use the roof of a Crimson Chasm to block the projectiles. However, this is risky due to blocks being all around the player, allowing the worms to easily attack.
 * When a Perforator worm is spawned, the player should target it until it's dead while avoiding damaging the Hive, this will make sure the player isn't overwhelmed by multiple worms at once.
 * The worms will drop hearts on death, the player should remember where they killed the worms so they can use these hearts later unless they are hurt enough to warrant their immediate use.
 * The Perforator Hive will consistently float above the player, so weapons with projectiles are recommended as getting close is extremely difficult without high jump speed and vertical movement accessories.
 * If using the above strategy of having a roof to destroy projectiles, a weapon that can hit through blocks or that can set up "traps" to lure the Hive into will be more effective.
 * During Hardmode, The Perforators can be fought to get an effective amount of Ichor. This is a highly effective way to get Ichor in a Corruption world, as The Perforators can be fought on a Crimson island.

Trivia

 * The Perforators' theme is Blood Coagulant, which was composed by the artists DM DOKURO and SixteenInMono.
 * If the Calamity Music add-on mod is disabled, Boss 2 will play instead.
 * The Perforators could be considered the Crimson's version of the Eater of Worlds, while The Hive Mind could be considered the Corruption's version of the Brain of Cthulhu.
 * If the player deals sufficiently high damage in a short time, the Perforator Hive can be killed before its invincibility activates. This causes the worms to move away off-screen and despawn.
 * In older versions of the mod, the Perforator Hive did not exist, and instead the three Perforator worms would spawn and attack at once.
 * Previously, when any worm was killed, several smaller worms known as Perforator Mini would spawn.