Backstory:
This giant Silkwing appears to be some sort of Queen, along with the mother of most of the Silkwings found in the Clockworks, it is known by Gremlin recon teams as "Queen Bombyx"
Appearance:
Bombyx for the most part is just a giant Silkwing, but has 3 main differences in that her wings are more patterned (like a Greaver's), her abdomen in slightly larger (proportionally) and glows, and she has 6 legs as opposed to being legless like regular Silkwings.
Her tokens are called "Silkwing Eggs", each token reward costs 10 tokens, just like Snarbys.
Levels:
Bombyx's levels have a 'Dead Forest' theme to them (rather than a 'Lush Forest' theme like Snarby's forest). The enemies consists mostly of Chromalisks and Kats with Silkwing support, with the occasional Greaver showing up as an 'elite' enemy. The main 'gimmick' of these levels are that there are inactive flares that can be struck to light them, which scares away nearby enemies. The levels use Slime and Creepy Battle for ambience and combat music respectively.
Arena:
The Arena in which Bombyx is fought is an abandoned Gremlin camp filled with dozens of small Silkwing eggs. There are several respawning flares near supply crates that are essential to defeating the Boss. There is a small platform 'outside' of the arena that the boss flies down from when the fight starts, and occasionally returns to during the fight.
Boss Fight:
Bombyx has the following attacks, which deal Shadow damage (well, normal damage since she's a Tier 1 boss, but the SL variant does shadow damage):
-A 4-hit combo consisting of a jab from each of her front and middle legs.
-Flapping her wings rapidly, firing a wave of 4 bullets followed by a wave of 3 bullets, with a 0.5-0.75 second delay between the two waves.
-Firing a giant energy ball that explodes into damaging haze.
At 66% and 33% health Bombyx will fly up onto a platform out of the players reach to regenerate health, the players have to pick up flares and throw them onto the platform so the light forces/scares her back down. The first time she does this she summons 4 Kats, the second time she does this she summons 2 Greavers.
Shadow Lair Variant:
The Shadow Lair version of Queen Bombyx is Empress Bombyx, she is much darker in colour, glows a more electric blue and all her attacks inflict Shock. She is also accompanied by respawning Greavers
.
Token Reward 1: Silken Shield
The counterpart to the Bristling Buckler, the Silken Shield series is a series of shields with Shadow defense & Handgun damage in place of the BTB's Piercing defense and Sword damage. They are otherwise identical statistically.
They resemble the 'Skelly' line of shields, but with a different colour scheme (The borders are bronze rather than grey and the 'inside' is made out of Wood), in addition to this the 3 and 4 star versions have a Silkwing emblem painted on them (with the 5-star version having Bombyx as an emblem.)
Version Names:
2-star: Silken Shield
3-star: Serene Shield
4-star: Silkwing Shield
5-star: Bombyx's Barrier (Bombyx's Blockade?)
Token Reward 2: Orb Cannon
A Heavy Elemental handgun that resembles a sort of grenade launcher with a Spark gap just in front of the barrel that the projectiles are fired through.
The normal attack fires an orb of energy that attempts to move towards the mouse cursor. On impact they explode with a (very small) AoE, if the player attempts presses the fire button while an orb is already out the current orb explodes, which can be used to detonate them early. The orbs move at around the speed of a Pulsar shot and cannot turn very quickly, so they can have trouble hitting more mobile foes like Kats or cunning players. The gun itself fires at around the speed of an Iron Slug/Callahan and has 2 shots to a clip.
To prevent sequence breaking the projectiles from this gun do not trigger Switches, Breakable blocks or Ghost blocks. The orbs have a 'lifetime' of 5 seconds before they explode, and they also disappear with no explosion if the player changes weapons before impact.
The charge attack fires a faster orb with no homing capabilities, does not disappear if the player switches weapons and is capable of triggering Switches/Breakable blocks/Ghost blocks. Other than this they are identical to the Orbs from the regular attack. This attack charges faster than normal charge attacks.
Version Names (and damages at level 10)
2-star: Orb Cannon (3 bars)
3-star: Charged Orb Cannon (3.5 bars)
4-star: Supercharged Orb Cannon (5.75 bars)
5-star: Star Cannon (8.75 bars)
Token Reward 3: Repelling Field
The Repelling field is a normal-damage bomb that when placed will 'push' enemies out of its radius for a few seconds, like an inverse Vortex bomb. Players (and some of the heavier enemies like Trojans) are still capable of reaching the centre of the field, they just take longer to do so due to the field reducing their speed. The field has no effect on bombs, projectiles or movement-based attacks like the dashing of a Greaver/Flourish Wielder/Kat or the Charge of a Trojan.
Charge time is 3180 milliseconds with no CTR, identical to the Haze bombs. It's Radius is also of roughly the same size, albeit a block or two bigger.
Version Names (and damages at level 10)
2-star: Repelling Field (2.75 bars)
3-star: Repulser Field (3.50 bars)
4-star: Heavy-Duty Repulser (7.25 bars)
5-star: White Hole Generator (9.25 bars)
(I could've sworn it was "Repulsor" but my auto-correct says that's the correct spelling. Oh well)
Shadow Lair Reward: Silkwing Set
Empress Bombyx drops the 'Serene Essence' upon defeat, which can be used to craft the Silkwing Set, which consists of Silkwing's Splendour (the Suit) and Silkwing's Serenity (the Helm). The appearance of this set is a suit of light Plate Mail worn over a set of Robes, with the helmet consisting of a Solid Cobalt-style helm with a hood worn over it.
Each piece of the set has the following stats when upgraded to level 10:
7 Bars of Normal Defense
7 Bars of Shadow Defense
-2 Bars of Piercing Defense (as in, you take more damage from Piercing with it equipped)
Handgun Attack Speed Bonus: High
Movement Speed Bonus: Low
+4 Health
Description: "This Armour/Helmet grants the user both the Splendour of a Silkwing and the Savagery of their Greaver kindred. Sadly it also gives the user their major weakness as well."
This actually sounds like a really good idea for a Fiend-type boss. Here are some of my thoughts on how to further improve it:
- Since Silkwings are fiends, the levels preceding the boss should consist mostly of fiends (Greavers, multiple variants of devilites even), with a few enemies from the beast and undead families as you already mentioned.
- Having the boss leave the arena three times might make the battle more tedious than it should. I suggest reducing it down to two times, probably at 60% and 30% health. Also, have different enemie types spawn at particular points of the battle - for example, when the battle starts and when the boss retreats at 60% health, have variants of Chromalisks spawn; after getting the boss down and then making it retreat at 30% health, have variants of Kats spawn; finally, upon getting the boss down for the last time, have variants of Greavers (and maybe devilites) spawn. Additionally, since the boss is a giant Silkwing, give it the ability to perform a healing pulse in the last phase of the battle (similar to that done by the Battlepods).
- I would also rather this be a T3 (or maybe even T4) boss than a T1 boss, so at the very least, end-gamers have slightly more variety in their crown grinding. Early-gamers don't stay in T1 for long anyway.
- Gun ASI High on EACH piece of the set sounds a bit OP. Even though it's SL equipment, I suggest reducing it down to at least medium per piece.