What is the fastest way to farm Mimics in Terraria?

Question

Mimics look like chests and seem to spawn relatively rarely. Is there an efficient way to farm them for their drops?

Answer 1

The most efficient way to farm them is to make a farm for them, of course! But while it's the most efficient way, it's still not very efficient. You could be looking at several minutes between drops.

The general setup for a Mimic farm is quite simple:

1. Find yourself a mountain, or generally a place with natural dirt walls that isn't too deep (else you'll get golden Mimics with double health).

2. Dig down and and make a lava pit. Make several 3-high tunnels to the left and right of it.

3. Set up Dart Traps aimed at the ground of each tunnel. Wire them to a 3 Second Timer.

4. Activate the Timer and set up camp in the middle so that the Mimics will fall into the lava pit.

What happens: When a Mimic spawns in one of the tunnels off-screen, a Dart Trap will give it a poke, which sends it hopping towards you and ultimately, the lava pit.

Since this isn't a novel concept, here's two designs that I totally stole from other people.

• design 1 (source)
• design 2 (source)

Of course, there are also the general tips that apply to every grinder setup:

• Hold a Water Candle while idling.
• Chug Battle Potions.
• If other enemies congregate around your location, make another lava pit to get rid of them — they'll hog the NPC spawn slots.