NPCs & Enemies Lunatic Cultist Rework

Which of the Cultist's New phases is your favorite?


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Dapling

Duke Fishron
This idea is a little more ambitious than what I've suggested before, but I'm sure it won't be too bad. The Lunatic Cultist's attacks are much easier to dodge than other bosses once you've learned them, and as a result, I feel like if a major rework isn't done for this boss, he'll just be killed and immediately forgotten. Plus, bosses with crazy elaborate attacks are usually fun, right?

The Lunatic Cultist now has six distinct phases, denoted by the appearance of his robes.

One of the Lunar Pillar phases is randomly selected as the Cultist's second phase, with only one appearing per fight. In Normal Mode, the fight is over after the second phase, but in Expert/Master there is a third.

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Lunatic Cultist (1st phase, dark blue robes):
Similar to the current fight. The only real difference is that he now uses his Ancient Light and Ancient Doom attacks below 80% health instead of 50%. Once he has reached 60% of his max health, he becomes intangible before switching to the Lunar Pillar phase (if the Phantasm Dragon or Ancient Vision are alive, he remains intangible and doesn't change into the next phase until they are defeated, and cannot summon any more.)

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Solar Cultist (Lunar Pillar Phase):
He no longer teleports, and uses the following attacks instead of his normal ones:

  • The Cultist dashes towards the player, stopping about 5 blocks away, before gathering orange dust into a large blade (takes about 0.6 seconds to do so, design could resemble the Tizona as a little nod) and slashing with it.
  • Stabs with a spear that fires a projectile that leaves other projectiles behind it, which fall afterward (similar to the North Pole, but the initial spear projectile isn't affected by gravity and the small projectiles aren't affected by wind.)
  • Summons a javelin similar to the Daybreak, before dashing towards the player thrice. The javelin dashes along the same path that the Cultist dashed a few seconds after the Cultist's first dash.
  • (Only when below 30% Max HP) The Cultist dashes to a position about 10 blocks above the player before immediately unleashing a rapid storm of projectiles similar to the ones created by the Solar Pillar, the difference being that they can no longer be destroyed.
  • (Only when below 30% Max HP in Expert/Master Mode) The Cultist stops moving and gathers energy for one second, before releasing a midrange non-damaging pulse that reflects all of the player's projectiles.
  • The Cultist creates a summoning circle similar to the one in the first phase. Hitting a fake cultist (or waiting too long) causes him to summon a Crawltipede and creates three hallucinations similar to the Brain of Cthulhu's expert mode ability, the difference being that the hallucinations now periodically fire the destructible homing projectile used by Drakomire Riders (cannot fire this projectile while they are within 15 blocks of the player.)
In Expert/Master Mode, upon reaching 15% of his max health, he becomes intangible before going into his Terrarian phase (he cannot change phases while a crawltipede is alive, and cannot summon any more.)

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Vortex Cultist (Lunar Pillar phase):
He keeps his normal teleport, and uses the following attacks instead of his normal ones, attempting to predict where the player is about to be (when applicable):

  • Summons a Phantasm and uses it to fire several arrows into the sky (they resemble a new arrow type with the Vortex Pillar color scheme) which fall down in random patterns for the next 5 seconds.
  • The Cultist warps offscreen and then dashes above the player while firing bullets downwards at a 45 degree angle using an alien version of the SDMG.
  • The Cultist aims with a bow that looks similar to the Tsunami (but with the vortex aesthetic) and fires five Luminite Arrows which create afterimage lasers 3 times instead of 1.
  • (Only when below 30% Max HP) The Cultist aims with a gun similar to a sniper rifle with a red targeting beam, before firing a very fast and strong bolt of energy which inflicts massive damage.
  • (Only when below 30% Max HP in Expert/Master Mode.) The Cultist laughs and summons 3 lightning portals above the player identical to the ones summoned by the Vortex Pillar, has significantly less commitment than his other attacks, meaning he can often teleport immediately after.
  • The Cultist creates a summoning circle similar to the one in the first phase. Hitting a fake cultist (or waiting too long) causes him to summon an Alien Larva (which falls to the ground, of course) and creates two clones (cap is four) that teleport towards the player before firing a shotgun blast with a vortex beater, repeating this attack until they die (stats are equal to a storm diver.)
In Expert/Master Mode, upon reaching 15% of his max health, he becomes intangible before going into his Terrarian phase (he cannot change phases while an Alien Larva, Alien Hornet, Alien Queen, or any of his clones are alive, and cannot summon any more.)

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Nebula Cultist (Lunar Pillar phase):
He keeps his normal teleport, and he uses the following attacks instead of his normal ones.

  • He fires several harmless pink stars (in a similar way to his first forms' Ancient Light attack), which he attacks with hitscan lasers after a while, causing them to send out small shockwaves for 5 blocks.
  • The Cultist creates several pink pillars of energy in random locations 40 blocks below the player which fire upwards after 4 seconds.
  • The Cultist fires pink shards in 8 directions, which travel for 20 blocks before changing direction towards the player.
  • (Only when below 30% Max HP) The Cultist charges energy for a few seconds before creating a large pink laser similar to the Phantasmal deathray, sweeping it slowly over 90 degrees.
  • (Only after he has been below 30% Max HP at least once in Expert/Master Mode) The Cultist stops in place, and gives himself a nebula Damage Booster (boosts his attack damage by 10% per stack) Health Regen booster (gives him 30 HP regeneration per second per stack, it can't regenerate past 60% of his maximum health) or Mana Regen Booster (boosts his attack speed by 15% per stack). All boosters are capped at three.
  • (Only after he has been below 30% Max HP at least once in Expert/Master Mode) The Cultist only uses this attack if he has three of each booster. He rapidly fires his boosters towards the player, these boosters have low velocity, homing, and do not disappear until the Cultist next gives himself a booster.
  • The Cultist creates a summoning circle similar to the one in the first phase. Hitting a fake cultist (or waiting too long) causes him to summon a Nebula Floater and creates two clones (cap is four) which mimic his movements a few seconds behind, casting Ancient Shadowflames towards the player.
In Expert/Master Mode, upon reaching 15% of his max health, he becomes intangible, clearing his boosters, before going into his Terrarian phase (he cannot change phases while a Nebula Floater is alive, and cannot summon any more or give himself any boosters, he still makes the homing boosters despawn at the right time, though.)

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Stardust Cultist (Lunar Pillar phase):
His teleport is now instantaneous, and uses the following attacks instead of his normal ones:

  • He fires three rings of 12 Ancient Light projectiles around himself.
  • The Cultist fires four blue bolts at 45, 135, 225, and 315 degree angles, which can change direction towards the player 4 times per second for 5 seconds, but can only do so at a right angle.
  • The Cultist creates an Ancient Spark, then teleports to the player's right and creates a second one, then teleports to the player's left and creates a third one, before teleporting below the player and creating a final one.
  • (Only below 30% Max HP) The Cultist teleports early, leaving behind a stationary cyan version of a Lunar Portal, which rapidly fires bolts of energy in random directions at the same rate as a Vortex Beater.
  • (Only below 30% Max HP in Expert/Master mode) The Cultist generates a wall of energy on the opposite side of the player from the Lunar Portal created by the previous attack, which is 7 blocks long and slowly drifts towards the portal.
  • The Cultist creates a summoning circle similar to the one in the first phase. Hitting a fake cultist (or waiting too long) causes him to summon a Star Cell and creates four clones which densely orbit around the cultist, do not attack, and can be killed with about the same durability as an Ancient Vision. (cap is eight clones, if the inner ring has four, then the rest of them create an outer ring that rotates the opposite direction.) (the clones do not inflict contact damage.) The Clones fire a dense cone of 3 ancient light projectiles towards the player on defeat.
In Expert/Master Mode, upon reaching 15% of his max health, he becomes intangible and despawns all clones, before going into his Terrarian phase (he cannot change phases while a Star Cell is alive, and cannot summon any more or create any more clones.)

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Terrarian Cultist (Final phase, Expert/Master mode exclusive):
He can now either teleport or dash depending on the attack.

  • The Cultist dashes towards the player, draws a Terra Blade which has significantly less startup than his Tizona attack from the Solar phase, and slashes thrice, dashing a very short distance (four blocks) towards the player between slashes.
  • The Cultist fires several arrows into the sky, which form a large diagonal pattern of 30 arrows which can either force you to move left or right.
  • The Cultist creates 6 bright green lunar portals in an evenly spaced ring around the player, which fire a stationary laser at the player's original position after a few seconds. (preferably after the arrows from the previous attack are gone)
  • The Cultist temporarily loses his ability to inflict contact damage, before creating a green Ancient Spark and teleporting on top of the player, redirecting the lightning towards the player when the Cultist is hit by it, repeating this until the Ancient Spark disappears.
  • The Cultist creates two large green lasers similar to the Phantasmal Deathray stacked on top of each other in the opposite direction of the player, which sweep in opposite directions until they leave a 45 degree cone of safety.
The Cultist only uses the following attack once he's cycled through all of his other attacks 3 times:
  • The Cultist stops and creates a summoning circle around himself (there are no fake cultists this time), and begins to draw in green energy which grows in intensity and brightness over 30 seconds. If the player does not kill him over the course of this time limit, he unleashes a rapid onslaught of projectiles with high damage and velocity in random directions which does not stop until either the Cultist or the player has been defeated.

Defeating this phase results in the end of the boss fight, and the beginning of the Lunar Events!

Possibly could gain some new drops:

Lunar Fulcrum:
Drops with a 100% chance.
The Lunatic Cultist has only one phase while this is in your inventory.
When equipped as an accessory, it grants one of the following effects depending on which damage type your gear increases most, picks one at random if there is a tie until you either reequip it or break the tie (with one exception):
  • Melee Damage: Striking enemies creates three homing fireballs where the hallucinations would be for them (if the player created hallucinations like the Brain of Cthulhu.) (75 melee damage each, no piercing.) Cooldown of 0.5 seconds.
  • Ranged Damage: Taking damage creates Mini-Vortex Cultist Clones (which resemble Vortex Cultist Clones, but scaled down to the player's size) which dash towards/through the enemy that inflicted the damage before firing a shotgun blast at them. (Dash does 100 ranged damage and pierces, shotgun bullets do 50 ranged damage each with no piercing.)
  • Magic Damage: A trail of four Mini-Nebula Cultist Clones follow you, which mimic your exact movements and fire projectiles similar to the Nebula Blaze, having the same accuracy and damage, as well as have a 5% chance of being blue instead of 20%, upon striking an enemy. (cooldown 2 seconds.)
  • Summon Damage: You generate one rotating Mini-Stardust Cultist Clone every second (capped at four) which can block one projectile each. Blocking a projectile destroys the Clone, and fires a homing blue star projectile towards the nearest enemy. (150 summon damage each, do not pierce). (cannot block all projectiles, and hitscan attacks like phantasmal/martian deathrays completely ignore them.)
  • Melee, Ranged, Magic, and Summon damage increased by the same amount: Taking damage causes you to send out a massive shockwave which ignores walls. Has a cooldown of three seconds. (500 damage of a random type.)
Dyeing your Light Pet slot dyes all clones.

Solar Lunatic's Robes/Mask:
Vanity items resembling the robes worn in the Solar Form, drop together with a 10% chance independant of other drops.

Vortex Lunatic's Robes/Mask:
Vanity items resembling the robes worn in the Vortex Form, drop together with a 10% chance independant of other drops.

Nebula Lunatic's Robes/Mask:
Vanity items resembling the robes worn in the Nebula Form, drop together with an 10% chance independant of other drops.

Stardust Lunatic's Robes/Mask:
Vanity items resembling the robes worn in the Stardust Form, drop together with a 10% chance independant of other drops.

Terrarian Lunatic's Robes/Mask:
Vanity items resembling the robes worn in the Terrarian Form, drop together with a 10% chance independant of other drops.


Credit to @Bry for the new sprites, @The Floof for the Support Banners, and @JohannSimm and @Bame Jouvier for some helpful input.
 
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Stardust pillar: AM I a joke to you? This seems good so far, I like how you add the 3 4 lunar pillar enemies and attacks into his boss fight, however this also means that celestial creatures invade before, well the celestial creatures invade message appears :dryadtongue:
 
Stardust pillar: AM I a joke to you? This seems good so far, I like how you add the 3 4 lunar pillar enemies and attacks into his boss fight, however this also means that celestial creatures invade before, well the celestial creatures invade message appears :dryadtongue:
Yeah, I submitted it too early, I only finished it about 5 seconds ago. Also it's unlikely you'll get an invasion of celestial creatures in any phase except the Stardust phase, and that's only if you guess incorrectly anyway.

Also, I really really tried to make the different clones unique... So please let me know how it turned out.
 
So if he reaches the Terrarian Cultist stage you have 30 seconds to kill him or your basically dead. Wow. Also this is the Lunatic Cultist not the Lunatic/Solar/Vortex/Nebula/Stardust/Terrarian Cultist.
The basic idea is true. The Lunatic Cultist does need some improvements but he does not need to be harder than the event that follows or the Moon Lord.
 
So if he reaches the Terrarian Cultist stage you have 30 seconds to kill him or your basically dead. Wow. Also this is the Lunatic Cultist not the Lunatic/Solar/Vortex/Nebula/Stardust/Terrarian Cultist.
The basic idea is true. The Lunatic Cultist does need some improvements but he does not need to be harder than the event that follows or the Moon Lord.
Wait he goes into his final form once he is below 75% health you made him impossible
 
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ACK! I just pulled a Bry-ccentric! I misclicked the submit button way too early. ;( I suppose you could give criticism on what I have so far...
HAHA, SEE, MOM?! I TOLD YOU THAT CAN ACTUALLY HAPPEN!!!
...*CoUgH* I am really down for this suggestion; I love the integration of the Solar Cultist, and am generally ecstatic about making the Cultist an actual extreme challenge, contrary to Spazmatism7's feelings on the matter. This kinda reminds me of part of an old suggestion of mine, though this is executed much more interestingly, and also looks fun.
Just an idea: maybe that item you proposed to allow skipping the Cultist's other phases could also allow for the conversion of one Celestial Fragment type to another (say, Solar to Stardust) without having to use the remaining types as well? I think the added convenience is well-deserved at this point.

Wait he goes into his final form once he is below 75% health you made him impossible
Yeah, maybe that should get lowered to 50%. Also, double-post, my guy. Try using the Edit button.
 
Wait he goes into his final form once he is below 75% health you made him impossible
No, I said:
Upon losing 75% health
Meaning that he enters the Terrarian phase at 25%, not 75%.
He just sits in one place and lets you whale on him without consequences, which not a single boss can survive for a full 30 seconds once they're at 25% health (especially with options like the Razorblade Typhoon, Tsunami, and Flairon, which have really high dps.) Also he doesn't actually have very much health to begin with, as rather than make his phase change at certain thresholds of health (which would make him change phases at 83%, 67%, 50%, 33%, and 17% respectively) he regenerates health every time he reaches 25% instead, (except when the Terrarian phase starts).

Also, the different cultist names won't actually change the name of the cultist once he reaches that phase, it just gives a way to distinguish between the different phases and organizes the post, he's not gonna change his name 5 times. :D
Finally, the lunar events are already so hard in expert mode that master mode will honestly make them even harder than this, trust me.
Just an idea: maybe that item you proposed to allow skipping the Cultist's other phases could also allow for the conversion of one Celestial Fragment type to another (say, Solar to Stardust) without having to use the remaining types as well?
I like that idea for that item, but I wanted this post to be less focused on loot than the actual attack patterns. I kind of wish that was just what the ancient manipulator did anyway, and was gonna suggest that another time.

Also, is there any particular reason that the Solar Cultist took your liking more than the other three pillar phases?
 
HAHA, SEE, MOM?! I TOLD YOU THAT CAN ACTUALLY HAPPEN!!!
...*CoUgH* I am really down for this suggestion; I love the integration of the Solar Cultist, and am generally ecstatic about making the Cultist an actual extreme challenge, contrary to Spazmatism7's feelings on the matter. This kinda reminds me of part of an old suggestion of mine, though this is executed much more interestingly, and also looks fun.
Just an idea: maybe that item you proposed to allow skipping the Cultist's other phases could also allow for the conversion of one Celestial Fragment type to another (say, Solar to Stardust) without having to use the remaining types as well? I think the added convenience is well-deserved at this point.


Yeah, maybe that should get lowered to 50%. Also, double-post, my guy. Try using the Edit button.
Oh thanks I see the edit button know.
No, I said:

Meaning that he enters the Terrarian phase at 25%, not 75%.
He just sits in one place and lets you whale on him without consequences, which not a single boss can survive for a full 30 seconds once they're at 25% health (especially with options like the Razorblade Typhoon, Tsunami, and Flairon, which have really high dps.) Also he doesn't actually have very much health to begin with, as rather than make his phase change at certain thresholds of health (which would make him change phases at 83%, 67%, 50%, 33%, and 17% respectively) he regenerates health every time he reaches 25% instead, (except when the Terrarian phase starts).

Also, the different cultist names won't actually change the name of the cultist once he reaches that phase, it just gives a way to distinguish between the different phases and organizes the post, he's not gonna change his name 5 times. :D
Finally, the lunar events are already so hard in expert mode that master mode will honestly make them even harder than this, trust me.

I like that idea for that item, but I wanted this post to be less focused on loot than the actual attack patterns. I kind of wish that was just what the ancient manipulator did anyway, and was gonna suggest that another time.

Also, is there any particular reason that the Solar Cultist took your liking more than the other three pillar phases?
Oh if it is 25% health remaining then you could definitely defeat him.
 
No, I said:
Upon losing 75% health
Meaning that he enters the Terrarian phase at 25%, not 75%.
Oh god damnit I misread that, too.
I like that idea for that item, but I wanted this post to be less focused on loot than the actual attack patterns. I kind of wish that was just what the ancient manipulator did anyway, and was gonna suggest that another time.
Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
 
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Actually, I just realized that the Stardust phase could easily be a master mode lunatic cultist on it's own, it does use upgraded forms of the expert attacks, after all. Just remove the Star Cell from the summoning circle and it's practically perfect.
 
Full support from me, I really don't like the current state of the Lunatic Cultist fight, and I think this would definitely improve it significantly.
 
Ok sorry I know you were just trying to help the Lunatic Cultist be better I support that idea. You were going a bit overboard you have to admit.
I don't see it as going overboard. This is the final update, and this is the penultimate boss in the hardest difficulty. Wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise if the boss you thought would be a pushover attacks you in ways you've never seen before and actually poses a fair challenge for once? Also it would be an actually valid way for the Tizona to have it's revenge.
 
I don't see it as going overboard. This is the final update, and this is the penultimate boss in the hardest difficulty. Wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise if the boss you thought would be a pushover attacks you in ways you've never seen before and actually poses a fair challenge for once?
Fair point. I am just trying to keep him not to hard for the less talented players.
 
Extremely good point. Actually I think you should make a support banner for this idea I would totally add it to my signature.
I can't sprite :sigh:, I would totally accept it if someone made it for me, though.

Actually, sprites for all of the different Cultist forms would be good to have in the OP.
 
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