The (un)Official Terraria 1.3.5.2 Mod Listing

    ~ MAJOR MODS ~

Thorium - Pretty good shit. Well-balanced, fills a few holes in the vanilla progression, adds some great NPCs (Cook especially) that really add to the game without being too much. Great for multiplayer with the mod's "Healer Class" (that can be somewhat annoying in singleplayer the way it clutters everything and is basically useless solo). Also adds the Bard Class, which is great. I personally add it to basically every modded run I do. It's pretty damn good overall.

Spirit Mod - Adds a few nice biomes, adds a bunch of weapons and bosses. It's minor compared to Thorium and a little underpowered at times. Still nice.

Tremor - Do not even attempt to play this. Apart from horrible design, balance and spritework that I, aged five, could do better, it's a mod made by a bunch of russian kiddies who steal and copy from other mods (badly). It was even abandoned by its own creators, after which they splintered into two groups consisting of the russian kiddies on one front and the rest on the other. Events are still ongoing.

Calamity - Steadily getting worse and worse. Before a bout of autistic screeching from the disgusting brony mod author, it was bad. The very definition of power crawl, it just adds a deluge of dubiously balanced items, NPCs and especially bosses. If the balance of the vanilla game (and all other good mods) was an x^2 exponential curve, Calamity's is x^4. With Calamity, you will destroy all the vanilla bosses and all the bosses from other mods in an instant with overpowered zeal, but its own bosses are infamous for being horrifying HP sponges with terribly coded gimmicks that make them a true pain. The final boss *requires* an arena the size of an entire large world to beat properly.
    Calamity is worth a try, but not really with any other major mods. It just overshadows them completely. And if you do plan on playing it, use an older (1.3.5.2 compatible) version of the mod. The bronyfaggot author went on an autistic rampage after everyone rightfully called him out for horrible balancing when he added a permanent regen and defense debuff after defeating Moonlord. So he took the mod off the forum and the mod browser and kept it only in his little circlejerky echochamber on (((Discord))) where he continues to add even shittier balance (notably adding Darkest Dungeon "inspired" mechanics that make fighting bosses the most painful experience you will ever endure. And not the good kind of pain.) This version should be one without the Moonlord debuff (ie. playable): https://files.catbox.moe/q14kp6.7z Just unzip it and shove that in the mod folder along with all the other .tmods.

Unusacie's Battle Rods - Major simply because it considerably changes the balance of the game. A mod which, very specifically, adds only one thing - Battle Rods. Fishing rods what for attacking things with and fishing while at it. A combination of MultiLure and other fishing mods, it's a great addon that makes fishing not suck a barrel of monkey dick. The Angler is still a cunt though. Do get it. It's great.

Fargo's Mod - Shitty name and presentation, but pretty good albeit a little overpowered - Adds a variety of hardmode and much later accessories that greatly buff specific classes and damage types if you're prepared to invest a lot of materials and hard-to-get items. But, more importantly, it adds the Abomination and the Mutant, who sell spawn items for events and bosses respectively. Even more importantly, with the Mutant, you can spawn multiple bosses - up to 90 (!!) at once. Great for very later game. Highly compatible with most popular mods, especially Thorium and Calamity.

Super Terraria World - Imagine, if you will, Terraria without all its outstanding features. No mining, no building, no crafting, ARPG stats, a forced story line and a lack of multiplayer. That is basically what Super Terraria World is and strives to be - Terraria except without the Terraria. The only redeeming quality about it is the multiple world system which, by the way, cannot be attained outside of this shitass mod. Therefore, it is completely irredeemable. Play it only if you love watching ensuing trainwrecks with your entire bloodline onboard.

Terraria Overhaul - Debatable. Controversial. Kind of dumb, really. It's the archetypal "would have been really great if it were a bunch of individual mods." Instead, it's a memory-heavy, buggy and crashy mess that adds really good gore effects, fire, flashier combat - but also adds BLOODY SCREEN SO REAL, cringy animations straight out of minecraft, shaking screens and a deluge of awful mechanics that are all advertised as "very enjoyable", among which are: item durability; not starting at the spawn point after you save, exit and come back; all items on the ground staying on save and exit; the complete removal of invulnerability frames for the player (unless you have the cross necklace, but of course); incredibly loud jumpscare screeching every time you summon the wall of flesh. It also adds dubious mod compatibility, a true achievement with TModLoader.
    But all of that is perfectly fine because you can turn off some of it in configuration. Right? I wholly don't recommend it.

    ~ MUST HAVES ~

Jopojelly mods. Seriously. The guy is a wonder.
Among his mods and tools are:
Terracustom - Fully customizable world generator that is fully compatible with every mod you can think of. You can set any custom size, ore abundance, biome frequency, amount of chests; hell, you can even change backgrounds and trees and moss types! You can even entirely disable trees, or hell, or dirt, or anything!
Large World Enabler - To be used with Terracustom, it allows the usage of worlds up to 2 times the size of a large world. Maybe even larger, but that'd probably end the 32-bit Terraria.
World Previewer - Again, to be used with Terracustom - allows the live viewing of the game world as it is being generated, so you can abort at any moment if the corruption gobbles up the snow biome again or anything.
Banner Bonanza - Adds a banner rack where you can shove all your collected banners into one neat little 3x3 piece of furniture where they will still apply all effects. Wunderbar.
Item Checklist (and the related Boss Checklist, which does the obvious) - A menu where you can catalog all the items you've collected so far. Great for completionists.
Helpful Hotkeys - Adds several hotkeys for instant recall, ammo cycling, torch placing, quick stacking, quick buffing only favorited, etc. Nice.
Where's My Items - Simple thing that, when you press a bound key, will pop up a menu that allows you to type in the name of whatever you're searching for. It'll then highlight any visible chest that contains said item. Incredibly handy.
Recipe Browser - You ain't gonna need the guide again. It's a little menu that works just like and surpasses the crafting dialog of the Guide. You can search for any item in the game and see how it's crafted (if it can be crafted) including any and all mod items. Great-o!
Shorter Respawn Time - Expert mode ain't so shit no more. Reduces all the atrocious respawn times. Simple, done.
Autotrash - Tired of picking up useless bullshit and never having any space in your inventory? Well, this won't fix it, but it'll trash any designated items without cluttering up your inventory. Fuck off, dirt.
Summoner's Association - Adds a few handy items for summoners, including a readout of all your summoned minions and their damage, a rod that teleports them around and an item that buffs them in exchange for some health. Handy.

Piercing Projectile Fix - Not necessary, but changes hit behavior to register multiple projectiles from the same weapon. IE, if you used a shotgun that fired 5 bullets at a big enemy, one or at most two bullets would actually register. With this mod, all five can hit them. May or may not be in the mod browser, but it still works just fine.
Clear Events - A /tg/ mod that adds two items - a consumable that instantly ends whatever event (be it a wave or otherwise) is currently underway and a statue that does the same when activated. Incredibly useful when you're just trying to build shit and don't want to deal with yet another blood moon.
Which Mod Is This From? - Simply enough, lists what mod adds whichever item when you mouse it over.
Boss Health Bar - Adds the usual boss health bar to the bottom of your screen.

    ~ GOOD SHIT ~

Max Stack Plus - Changes all item stacks to either stack up to 999 or 9999.
Solutions mod - Enhances the clentaminator with a bunch more useful solutions and accessories including increased range and modifiable spread.
Boss Expertise (or equivalent) - Allows the use of the demon heart in normal worlds as well. Not like I ever go to normal worlds anymore.
Googly Eyes - It should be pretty self explanatory. Adds googly eyes on all the bosses. What more could you want?
Omni Swing - Allows holding the mouse button to keep firing/swinging basically any weapon in the game. Not for everyone.
Imksushi's Mod - Pretty cheaty, but allows for the creation of hard to get items. It's mostly about the recipes - which is why I HIGHLY recommend getting the "Imksushi Old Recipes Enabler" mod along with it, because the latest version adds dropping tokens for literally every biome in the entire game, which fill up your inventory like a motherfucker. Still very useful in multiplayer, where not all the players can get all the cobalt shields and handguns and whatnot.
Magic Storage - Adds an expandable central storage system where you can dump off all your useless and mildly useful junk so you don't have to make huge arrays of labeled chests to store them all. Very useful, especially when you're a hoarder. Comes with a not so user friendly crafting interface that allows you to combine a bunch of crafting stations at once.
Expeditions ( and the base content pack) - Adds a pseudo quest system that adds entirely optional progression quests (with rewards) as you go along. Nice little thing that gives you something to do while guiding you through the game.
Dual Wield - Queer balancing. Fucking satisfying to use. Gives you the ability to use two weapons/tools at once (at a slight nerf to both). Dualwield megasharks and conquer the world.
WeaponOut - Displays whichever item you're currently holding holstered on your sprite when you're not using it. Pretty cool.
Equippable Lanterns - Adds accessory light sources that, well, light shit up. Some also give interesting buffs. Very useful.
Infinity - Cheaty as fuck, but still better than Luiafk. Adds infinite versions of potions and ammos at a somewhat high price. Still nice, though. Doesn't add any infinite mod items, sadly.
Wing Slot - Adds a separate wing slot. Considering there are currently no mods whatsoever that add an additional accessory slot other than now defunct ones and Calamity, it's a welcome addition. For me, at least.

    ~ MUST NOTS ~
The not so good mods.

Tremor, for obvious reasons. Obviously.
Luiafk - Does basically what Fargo's, Infinity and a handful of other mods already do, except worse and without any fancy sprites. The cheatiest. It's nice if you just want a sandbox world or easier building, but I don't recommend it for actual play. Go with Fargo's instead if you want to spawn events and bosses (for the requisite price), increase spawn rate and respawn NPCs, go with Infinity if you want infinite ammo and infinite potions. Infinity's potions work slightly differently, in the way that they are no longer consumable and their effects last for half an hour, but otherwise they function just like normal potions.
Rocko's ARPG Legacy - Similar to other mods that add levels, but not creative in the least and not balanced, either. Every skill in its oversized "skill tree" is just a straight buff to something. You can also get thousands of HP and MP. Might be fine with Calamity, but not really with anything else.
AlchemistNPC - Incredibly cheaty, incredibly lazy, bother bother. Adds NPCs that sell you basically all the potions (basically all means majority except for some fish potions), all the gems and all the everything. Completely invalidates ever needing to mine for gems or make a farm or fish anything. Similarly to Luiafk, I wouldn't recommend it for any actual play, just hardcore fucking around in a sandboxy world.
Reduced Grinding - Ain't no good. Do you want an inventory entirely filled with fucking nazars? Do you want to go through a fucking config used as an excuse to not code well or balance this shit? Good, then this is the mod just for you! Otherwise, stay away.
/tg/ mod - It cannibalizes MultiLure and adds a shitty, shoehorned "class" system based on some class rolling images posted around Terraria general. It restricts you either to the overground or the underground with a bunch of additional restrictions. Only useful in multiplayer, and conflicts with a bunch of mods (notably Battle Rods) while at it. There's no point in using this in singleplayer.
/tg/ waifus - All it does is add a Nurse pet that shits out hearts. Not inherently bad just... not notable.