New Tier 3 Boss: 'Gemlit'
sam, 08/11/2012 - 06:32
Backstory:
Appearing to be some sort of Guardian of The Core, these strange creatures have been awakened by the increased energy flow to the Core caused by the Spiral Order's mineral harvest. Their abilities seem to vary depending on what sorts of Minerals were used in the construction of the floors above them.
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Appearance:
A large (about 50%-75% of Vanaduke's size),thin, Angel-like humanoid with a crystalline body & wings. His 'arena' is a platform (like the Roarmulus one) and not walled-in (like Vanaduke's or Snarby's is.) Uses 'Boss 2' as his battle theme. The levels that come before him are Gauntlet-like levels that contain monsters from every family and status.
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Attacks:
Gemlit has 5 attacks, one corresponding to each Stratum, the attack varies in nature depending on what its respective Strata is
Attack 1:
If Stratum 1 is Beast or Slime: A 4-or-5-hit-combo that consists of Gemlit repeatedly punching the ground, these attacks are similar to Vanaduke's mace swing, but have a much smaller AoE, less damage and have no AoE knockback shockwave.
If Stratum 1 is Gremlin or Construct: Fires out 5 Retrode beams (one directly to either side, one directly ahead and the last 2 in-between, if that makes sense)
If Stratum 1 is Undead or Fiend: Gemlit conjures a sword made of dark energy and performs a 3-hit combo with it, this combo is somewhat reminiscent of the Leviathan Blade's one, albeit far slower (somewhere around a Troika's swinging speed) and with far greater reach thanks to it's sheer size.
If Stratum 1 is Lightning or Fire: Fires a wave of 5 Shock bullets, followed by a wave of 5 Fire bullets, finishing with another 5 Shock bullets.
If Stratum 1 is Poison or Frost: Gemlit fires 3 large Frost bullets that leave a Poison haze in their wake.
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Attack 2:
If Stratum 2 is Beast or Slime: Both of Gemlit's fists begin to flow as he drives them into the ground, creating a ring of ground-spikes around him, along with sending out 8 lines of ground-spikes in a '*' pattern
If Stratum 2 is Gremlin or Construct: Fires out 4 shards in a 'X' formation like one of the new shard bombs, when these shards blow up they send out 8 bullets in a '*' formation.
If Stratum 2 is Undead or Fiend: Gemlit charges at his target, leaving behind a damaging haze as he does so.
If Stratum 2 is Lightning or Fire: Gemlit calls down several Lightning bolts, which strike random parts of the arena and leave behind small patches of fire (like lit Oiler slicks)
If Stratum 2 is Poison or Frost: Gemlit starts to send out damaging 'pulses' that hurt anyone near him every few seconds, while this attack is active he has a small countdown over his head (like Vana's mask or an exploding Blast Cube) that players can use to work out how long it is until the next 'pulse'.
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Attack 3:
If Stratum 3 is Beast or Slime: Similar to Royal Jelly's 'Rampage' attack, only Gemlit also fires the occasional 8-bullet pulse while he does it.
If Stratum 3 is Gremlin or Construct: Gemlit summons a random mixture of Shankles & Wisps that then start to move around the arena randomly. If Gemlit summons a second set it will kill the 1st set (like how Slag Guards die if Vana summons more.)
If Stratum 3 is Undead or Fiend: Gemlit summons a 'deadzone' (something akin to a mobile Swarm Seed) that damages Knights inside it. The deadzone is independent of Gemlit and capable of moving and chasing targets of its own accord. Gemlit can only have 1 deadzone at a time.
If Stratum 3 is Lightning or Fire: Gemlit flies off to one of the topmost corners and begins to fire a beam, which he then slowly sweeps to the opposite side of the arena. He only does this for 90% of the arena (i.e. start at the left, go 90% to the right with the beam and then stop, or vice versa) to make sure this attack isn't undogeable.
If Stratum 3 is Poison or Frost: Gemlit flies to the center of the top edge of the arena and breathes frost in a 180-degree sweep that covers the entire arena, save for the bottom corners (which this attack can't quite reach, giving Knight a safe spot to hide.)
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Attack 4:
If Stratum 4 is Beast or Slime: Gemlit randomly teleports to another part of the arena. He may or may not chain multiple teleports in a row.
If Stratum 4 is Gremlin or Construct: Gemlit temporarily summons force fields to divide the arena into a 3x3 grid. He can go through these fields but the Knights cannot. While the fields are active Gemlit cannot use Attack 3 (as most of the Attack 3's involve moving to a specific area to avoid being hit.)
If Stratum 4 is Undead or Fiend: Gemlit moves to the center of the arena and summons 2 'walls' of Shadow orbs (long enough to reach each edge of the arena) to either side of him, which then proceed to orbit around him in a clockwise fashion. Gemlit cannot move while he is using this ability, though he still has access to all his attacks (except Attack 3, for reasons stated above.)
If Stratum 4 is Lightning or Fire: Gemlit summons 4 clones of himself, these clones use Attacks 1&2 but only do half a 'pip' of damage and die in 1 hit.
If Stratum 4 is Poison or Frost: Gemlit turns invisible for a few seconds, during which he can still attack and be attacked (though while invisible his 'attack telegraph effects' are still visible, which can be used to work out where he's going to attack)
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Attack 5:
Summons several opponents of Stratum 5's type (so if it Stratum 5 were a Construct strata he'd summon some Mecha Knights)
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Damage Types & Weaknesses:
Gemlit has a mild weakness to Shadow and a mild resistance to Elemental. His attack damage type varies depending on what stratum the attack in question is linked to (so if Stratum 1 is a Beast/Slime strata Attack 1 will do Piercing damage, Status strata attacks do Normal damage)
sam, 08/11/2012 - 09:15
#2
Something intelligent for once
You deserve your own sublisting in my index at the least.
This enemy seems to adapt to its environment, taking on characteristics of the stratum people would find it in. Though each variation could potentially be its own version of this enemy, all of which rewarding players upon its defeat with the same kind of token, that would counter having an adaptive enemy.
The armor is too powerful as a defensive tank. It has defense against everything, which accumulatively is a lot to begin with (average 5* armor has about thirteen bars of defense in total, this one has 17.5) and about two and a half bars of resistance to one status (this one has accumulatively six) and there is no weakness to these other than the lack of offensive bonuses. Not that defensive based armor is bad, but this thing is too powerful. If it absolutely has to have its defenses everywhere there has to be a tradeoff.
For example, it could have a bunch of damage type defenses but general status weakness; five bars on each of the three specialized damage types, no normal defense, but negative one and a half bars for the average statuses (fire, shock, freeze, poison). Inversely it could have significant resistance to all statuses (two and a half bars per part) but subpar defenses (two and a half bars of all four damage types).
The laser gun seems to be too versatile, but the lack of a specific weapon mechanic makes me want to scream. For a gun its damage is acceptable, but with the ability to inflict any of the four major statusesuses is unpredictable and unnecessary. The focus of the equipment here seems to be diversity, yet the gun has a single distinct damage type. I would say take the random statuses off and replace it with a random damage type (when attacking with the gun a randomly colored bullet fires, each color deals a certain damage type: red for normal, yellow for pierce, green for element, purple for shadow) so anyone using this gun would sit there thinking how the liquids they are supposed to use an unpredictable gun which does not have a weapon mechanic but is apparently fast and slow at the same time. I can tell the animation speed for firing from the perspective of the gun would be somewhat slow, but how many bullets per clip? The bullets are obviously fast, but how many bullets are in a clip?
For the equipment, are these the 5* variants? Are there any 4*- variants? Is crafting involved anywhere? Would these be unbindable?
sam, 08/11/2012 - 09:38
#3
Yay feedback!
Tried to make a few edits to make the items more balanced according to your suggestions & added some info about what star gear this is. Still not sure what the final token item will be...
Also: My own place on the index? :D
sam, 08/11/2012 - 09:55
#4
Honk
Under new enemies you have your three threads are under your name.
You could use one of the many new shard bomb branches. The normal one. Anyone who has one right now would get UV ticket compensation or something but the item would be taken from them. When Nick said "new bombs" I expected new mechanics, not four recycles of the new shard mechanic which could have been separate. Two disappointments in one update.
And now for a moment of sailing.
sam, 08/11/2012 - 10:13
#5
I considered a Shard bomb but
I considered a Shard bomb but I thought that might be spoiling people for choice (we already have 6 Shard bomb lines now, adding another one would just be redundant.)
(Also added the final Token item for anyone else whose reading this...)
sam, 08/11/2012 - 12:00
#6
Processing Thoughts of You Always
Hmm... looks good, but could probably do with a MSD Low per piece on top of the ASD Low per piece. It's better than the Ancient Plate, but has less drawbacks as it stands. I also find your weapon concepts to be interesting, although I'm not sure whether the devs would want to put in a split specialised bomb when they just took out RSS's split damage, as well as Sentenza's and AP's before that.
+ 1
sam, 08/11/2012 - 12:28
#7
+1
Except the rewards. These are just badly broken.
But I really like the idea of a boss that basically represents the current clockwork with its attacks. And the idea as a whole seems very well thought out(except the rewards, which are just so overpowered it's silly).
dim, 08/12/2012 - 01:09
#8
EDIT:
Had a brainwave regarding the Prism Cannon and completely redesigned it, I've put the new design up with the old one.
The tokens for this boss are known as 'Gemlit Shards', their description is "A shard of the massive gemstone monster known as 'Gemlit', taken as proof of your victory."
Items:
Each item costs 30 tokens. These token items are all 5-star and are bind-on purchase but can be unbinded as usual
Prismatic Plate Set:
A set of armour consisting of the Prismatic Plate and the Prismatic Helm. It resembles the Plate Mail set, but has a more crystalline aesthetic. The armour also has a mild 'Sparkle' aura by default, similar to Skolver.
Each piece of the set has the following stats:
4 bars of Elemental resistance
3 bars of Piercing resistance
2 bars of Shadow resistance
3 bars of Normal resistance
Attack Speed Reduction:Low
1 bar of resistance to every Major status (Fire,Freeze,Shock,Poison)
(Possibly Movement Speed Reduction:Low as well?)
Armour Description: "Constructed from numerous carved gemstones and polished to perfection, a good bit of light makes this armour shine like a star."
Helm Description: "A crystalline helmet imbued with many different kinds of protection, this helm will keep you safe from almost anything Cradle can throw at you!"
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Prism Cannon (Old):
A laser pistol resembling a Retro Sci-Fi ray gun, it uses a shard of crystal as its 'Laser focus'. The projectiles resemble small 'chunks' of a laser beam. There is a small light on the gun that shows what damage type the next bullet will be.
Weapon stats:
4.50-4.75 Bars of Damage
Firing speed is slightly slower (but still on par) with Valiance.
Projectile speed is slightly slower than an Argent Peacemaker's
4-shot Clip.
Damage type is random, and the bullets fired are colour coded according to their damage
Charging the weapon will 'lock' the current damage type in place for a 3-5 seconds (so using it when the light is shining red will mean the gun only fires normal damage bullets for a few seconds, after which the gun switches to a new random damage)
Description: "Built to try and harness the chaotic energies found inside Gemlit Shards, there's no telling just what this gun might do to those it hits."
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Energy-Entropy Bomb:
This bomb resembles a large (BAB-sized) see-through containment unit containing a shard of Luminite and a shard of Dark Matter, with a beam being fired through each that both meet in the center. The explosion has a 'ying-yang' effect with one side of the blast being Light with a Dark core and the other side being Dark with a light core (this is only an aesthetic, the bomb damage is always the same)
Weapon stats:
295-305 Damage (50-50 split between Shadow & Elemental)
Charge time of 3180 milliseconds (Same as a Haze bomb, as opposed to the 2200 milliseconds of the Nitro and DBB)
Compared to a Nitro the E-EB has equal knockback, one square less blast radius and a slightly faster fuse.
No speed penalty while charging
Description: "This bomb harnesses the reaction between the Energetic Luminite and the Entropic Dark Matter to create a truly powerful explosion!"
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Prism Cannon (New/Alt.):
A laser pistol resembling a Retro Sci-Fi ray gun, it uses a shard of crystal as its 'Laser focus'. The projectiles resemble small 'chunks' of a laser beam, they grow in size depending on the amount of shards currently active (see below).
Weapon stats (assuming no shards):
70-75 Elemental Damage per shot
Above average firing and projectile speeds, somewhere between Valiance and an Argent Peacemaker
4-shot clip
Charging the weapon will summon a small 'shard' that orbits the Knight, for every shard the Knight currently has orbiting him the gun deals 10% extra damage but also receives a 6% speed penalty on both firing speed and projectile speed. You can only have 4 shards at a time, and charging the weapon when you already have 4 shards will destroy all 4 of them, as will swapping the weapon out for another one.
Description: "Built to try and harness the chaotic energies found inside Gemlit Shards, this handgun can be powered-up by adding extra shards to it, though this also makes it more cumbersome to use!"