Wings Guide: All 46 Types, Best Wings & How to Get Them (1.4.5)

What do wings do?

Wings are accessories that grant real flight: hold jump and you climb until your flight time runs out, then glide downward. They reset the moment you stand, climb, or hook onto anything — and they make you completely immune to fall damage. With 46 different wings in the game, the system is less “when do I get wings” and more “which wing tier am I in.”

One caveat: wings do far more than fly — they control flight. Compared to Rocket Boots’ vertical burst, wings let you steer, hover, and land precisely. That precision is what turns aerial boss arenas viable.

The crafting spine: Souls of Flight

Almost every craftable wing is the same recipe shape — 20 Souls of Flight plus a biome/loot material, at a Mythril or Orichalcum anvil. Souls of Flight drop from Wyverns, the serpents that spawn in the Space layer once Hardmode begins — the first “wing run” is a rite of passage for every Hardmode world.

The material slot decides the wing:

The real progression ladder

• First wings: Angel/Demon/Fairy are the standard first craft — there is no early vendor shortcut anymore. The Witch Doctor does sell Leaf Wings (1 platinum 50 gold), but only at night, while housed in the Jungle, and after Plantera — they’re a mid-tier convenience buy, not the Wyvern-skip they used to be.
• Midgame: Bat Wings (Broken Bat Wing from Solar Eclipse vampires), Butterfly/Flame/Frozen lines — incrementally better.
• The boss wings era: Fishron Wings from Duke Fishron — the longest flight pre-pillar — then Empress Wings (Empress of Light drop), Betsy Wings, and Nebula/Vortex-tier pillar-crafted wings.
• Endgame: Celestial Starboard — Expert-mode Moon Lord drop — is the final answer: fast ascent, hover, and the highest stats in the game.

Hover, boost, and glide — the hidden stats

Wings differ on more than raw flight time:

• Hover wings (Hoverboard, some late wings): hold down + jump to hover at a fixed height — doubles effective hover duration and massively improves horizontal speed while hovering. Toggle vs hold behavior is a settings option.
• Boost wings (Jetpack, Empress Wings, Celestial Starboard): hold up to burn a fast vertical climb at 2× flight-time cost — the escape button.
• Glide: all wings — when time runs out while falling, keep holding jump to descend slowly.
• Stacking: Terraspark Boots add a flat +0.7s to wing time; Soaring Insignia (Expert Empress drop) grants infinite wing time entirely.

Which wings should you actually aim for?

• Plan the Wyvern farm early: there’s no vendor shortcut in early Hardmode — your first real wings come from 20 Souls of Flight plus a biome material, so a Space-layer platform pays off immediately.
• Fishron Wings for the midgame — the boss is hard but the wings carry through the pillars.
• Celestial Starboard is the reason to beat Expert Moon Lord — it’s not just the best wings, it replaces the mount slot for most players.

Meanwhile the pylon network shrinks your overland travel to zero, and our Hardmode guide covers when each wing tier realistically unlocks.

Screenshot source: cover — official Steam store screenshot (Re-Logic).