great resource for learning is the calamity mod wiki page. However, there is a lot of content, which may make it a bit hard to grasp at first. Personally, what I did was find a cool looking or sounding weapon, and then that was my goal, which was really fun. Almost all weapons in Calamity are decent, so just pick whatever looks the most fun. In my opinion, especially for a first playthrough, don’t restrict yourself to single class, but be open to discover and try new things.
Also, the boss progression list (found on either the wiki or in the boss checklist mod) helps guide your playthrough. This gives you and understanding of when bosses should be fought (ex. You can spawn Siren/Leviathan pre-hardmode, but it is not intended until post-plantera).
As far as difficulty goes, I don’t think you should start out with revengeance (harder difficulty that can be activated in expert). I think that normal mode is good for learning, but it does restrict you on a lot of expert-items. If you are comfortable with expert, then it is probably the better choice.
If you ever want to talk to other calamity mod players and even devs, check out the calamity mod discord, the link to which can also be found on the wiki.
Always use Calamity equipment. At any tier, it’s the strongest equipment available. If you aren’t overly concerned with the purity of intent, I recommend defeating the Desert Scourge after the EoW or BoC, because you’ll be able to obtain strong piercing weapons then and it makes the Scourge a cakewalk for platinum farming and to obtain fishing items.
You can also put off the Perforators/Hive until just before the WoF. Defeating them spawns Aerialite but it’s not a large step above the tier they’re at, expect for the wings. You will need to kill the Slime God to get gel equipment because it’s substantially stronger than anything else pre-hardmode. You don’t really need to go into the Abyss at any time, to be honest, but if you luck out you might find a good weapon or a useful item in the chests - they’ll be at the top of the pre-hardmode tier but the Abyss is a pointless death trap from then on. There is hardmode ore in there, but it’s not that amazing.
You can beat the Aquatic Scourge pre-hard mode. It’s not hard if you know what you’re doing, but he won’t drop anything besides potions so there’s no real reward. However, during hard mode, the Aquatic Scourge will drop souls of sight (because it has good eyesight, I guess?), which messes with progression. Cryogen, a magic creature, drops souls of might (go figure, don’t get this either). The Brimstone Elemental drops souls of fright because it can be intimidating to approach women.
As you might guess, getting souls from Calamity’s bosses trivializes the mechanical bosses. You only have to beat one mechanical boss to get chlorophyte, and Plantera bulbs will spawn earlier. But above that, the Steampunker spawns at the start of hardmode and you can simply craft a jungle key, meaning that if you know what you’re doing you can jump to moonlord pretty much instantly - eliminating 90% of hardmode from the game. Just fish up some gold crates and you could be ready to fight the Cultist within twenty minutes of beating the WoF.
Post-Moonlord, the bosses will start to get overcomplicated and it’ll be up to you if you want to push through it.
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I want to do mage, but I have been subconsciously doing melee and ranged together because I have basically been playing the same I do in vanilla.