I have gotten back into Terraria, and have played for several hours over the past week. I find that only low-quality ore seem to spawn in big chunks.
At my current level, most of my gear (Weapon, Pickaxe and Hatchet) are made from lead.
While I rarely find large chunks of lead, anything higher is lucky to spawn in quantities of 4-5.
I have read guides that detail accessing high-level ore in the quantities of a thousand, however, I find this an unrealistic expectation off my experience. So I have a "double-edged question".
Is there an efficient means for farming the higher-quality ore pre-Plantera, or am I deliberately expected to explore enough to uncover the patches of 3 or 4?
Best Answer
For the first 4 ores, the deeper you go, the easier it is to find the better ones.
Just above cavern layer is usually where iron/lead gets more common and silver/tungsten is in low quantities. Then poking around the caverns, while dangerous, will get you plenty of silver/tungsten and start assembling gold/platinum. Cavern layer has a background of entirely grey stone, as opposed to the brown dirt or dirt and stone backgrounds of the earlier underground layers, and you'll start seeing new creatures - black slimes, skeletons, and bats.
It's just a matter of how quickly you want to push the higher risk areas. Get better ore at a slow trickle, or risk doom for quicker riches.