NPCs & Enemies Lunatic Cultist Rework

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


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It's terrible because 75% of the time it will do nothing for your main weapon, and when it does it just makes it inflict a pointless DoT debuff or Confused, which all important enemies resist.
You should probably make him only have 6 phases in the very first fight, since that's basically what that item guarantees anyways.
But what if people WANT to refight full-power Cultist? Having the choice would be nice, no?
Bry basically explained exactly what my logic was. Also I didn't want to make it very powerful because you don't even have to equip it for it to take effect, and it's also basically permanent.
Plus, everyone uses a single minion alongside their weapons even if they aren't summoner, right? Wouldn't it be active 50% of the time then? 75% if you're a melee/ranger using the Golden Shower/Betsy's wrath?
 
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But what if people WANT to refight full-power Cultist? Having the choice would be nice, no?

True that.

The item probably works better as an accessory with an actual, significant effect. Something like letting you use his own cloning ability, with it spawning clones depending on what fragment weapon you are using. So if when you use a Nebula Blaze you'd have a pair of Nebula clones firing the Ancient doom attacks. No idea how that can be balanced but it's just a fun little concept I have.
 
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True that.

The item probably works better as an accessory with an actual, significant effect. Something like letting you use his own cloning ability, with it spawning clones depending on what fragment weapon you are using. So if when you use a Nebula Blaze you'd have a pair of Nebula clones firing the Ancient doom attacks. No idea how that can be balanced but it's just a fun little concept I have.
Or it could just be decided by what damage type your gear increases most. I'll definitely try to think of a way to balance that, as it does sound much more interesting.
 
I would rather no one work on support banners for this, as I'm already working on some for it with Omega's advice.

Unless I have no right to say this, and you could still work on one if you like, as it will probably be better than mine, but I think mine is still pretty good. I'm doing one for each cultist, and a special one for all 5 + maybe lunatic? I'm using Bry-ccentric's sprites.
 
I would rather no one work on support banners for this, as I'm already working on some for it with Omega's advice.

Unless I have no right to say this, and you could still work on one if you like, as it will probably be better than mine, but I think mine is still pretty good.
inb4 someone was literally 5 seconds from hitting the "post reply" button.
 
Ok, updated the drops again. The Lunar Fulcrum should be much better now, also VANITY!!!!

The Nebula Cultist also was minorly reworked, because he didn't have as many attacks as the others, and his boosters just didn't feel right to me.
 
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Vanityyyyyy
Ok, updated the drops again. The Lunar Fulcrum should be much better now, also VANITY!!!!
I think the shockwave should be affected by ALL damage types (you're gonna have a hard time selling the "damage retaliation" concept otherwise), but I like it otherwise.
Yeah, I know you'd really have to go out of your way for the shockwave, but shshhshshsh

EDIT: Maybe the cooldown should also go? 500 damage isn't really much at this point in the game, I think, especially if health's been sacrificed.
 
Vanityyyyyy

I think the shockwave should be affected by ALL damage types (you're gonna have a hard time selling the "damage retaliation" concept otherwise), but I like it otherwise.
Yeah, I know you'd really have to go out of your way for the shockwave, but shshhshshsh
Well, if it selects a random damage type, doesn't that mean that it does the same amount every time anyway? (plus it does 500 damage, I don't think we should buff it too much.)

The cooldown was there to prevent you just standing on a spike and obliterating everything on screen.
I mostly had that in there just for the sake of completion anyway.
 
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Melee Damage: Striking enemies creates three homing fireballs where the hallucinations would be for them. (75 melee damage each, no piercing.) Does NOT effect aggro.

As in, with every single hit? So like, this pretty much increases each hit's damage by 225? Or is there a cooldown to that?

Also, what hallucinations? And why did you specifiy that it didn't affect aggro when nothing suggests that it can?

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.)

What's this? A "when taking damage" effect that is actually good? Really like it.

Magic Damage: A trail of four Mini-Nebula Cultist Clones follow you, which mimic your exact movements and fire the same projectiles as you in the same position and direction you fired them. (Projectiles do 25% the damage of the original.)

No.

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.)

This one is really cool too. You may overestimate how long a second is though, if the Cultists are big enough this can make you practically immune to most projectiles.
 
As in, with every single hit? So like, this pretty much increases each hit's damage by 225? Or is there a cooldown to that?
Also, what hallucinations? And why did you specifiy that it didn't affect aggro when nothing suggests that it can?

No.

This one is really cool too. You may overestimate how long a second is though, if the Cultists are big enough this can make you practically immune to most projectiles.
Alright, I did have nerfed versions for melee and summoner in mind, just in case I didn't balance them correctly, so that means I'm giving a 0.5 second cooldown to melee then, and a 2 second cooldown for summoner.
I meant it would fire the projectiles from where your character would be if he created hallucinations like the Brain of Cthulhu, as that is how the Solar Clones work in the fight. I did a terrible job of explaining that... :sigh:The "does not affect aggro" part was just to clarify that just because you might create hallucinations doesn't mean enemies target them.

Also is there any way to save the magic bonus? Like lowering it to 10% of the original projectile's damage instead of 25%? I didn't think it would be too powerful, because if you're fighting a fast and small opponent then they would almost always miss and shoot at the spot the enemy was at 1+ seconds ago. I also could lower the amount of clones, too.
 
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Well, if it selects a random damage type, doesn't that mean that it does the same amount every time anyway? (plus it does 500 damage, I don't think we should buff it too much.)

The cooldown was there to prevent you just standing on a spike and obliterating everything on screen.
I mostly had that in there just for the sake of completion anyway.
True. I also didn't really register the fact that this was a radial effect instead of a direct retaliation like the Turtle Armor; I guess it would kinda help with crowds.
I meant it would fire the projectiles from where your character would be if he had created hallucinations like the Brain of Cthulhu, as that is how the Solar Clones work in the fight. I did a terrible job of explaining that... :sigh:
I must be some sort of freak; I've understood pretty much everything you've said thus far. The idea's pretty easy to figure out if you read the Solar Cultist's attack info:
The Solar Cultist info said:
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.
The Lunar Fulcrum info said:
Striking enemies creates three homing fireballs where the hallucinations would be for them.

Also is there any way to save the Nebula Cultists? Like lowering it to 10% of the original projectile's damage instead of 25%? Also, I didn't think it would be too powerful, because if you're fighting a fast and small opponent then they would almost always miss and shoot at the spot the enemy was 1+ seconds ago.
I think the damage is fine; I think it's the Cultists themselves that need adjusting. Maybe you could also shrink the size and velocity of projectiles to half?
I'm a little strapped for ideas right now.
 
Also is there any way to save the magic bonus? Like lowering it to 10% of the original projectile's damage instead of 25%? I didn't think it would be too powerful, because if you're fighting a fast and small opponent then they would almost always miss and shoot at the spot the enemy was at 1+ seconds ago. I also could lower the amount of clones, too.

You are quintupling the amount of projectiles you are firing. The DPS increase that results in is half the problem here; the extra projectiles could deal 1 damage and it'd still be incredible for the sheer disruption alone (and heck, even with that damage all the extra firepower could still be decent for DPS). And you need to remember, this is for mages. You know, the class that mostly has stuff that spams projectiles as viable weapons at this point, that being Razorpine, Blizzard Staff, you know the deal. You would be flooding the screen with tons of projectiles (and the lag that would make, jeez)

Maybe keep the 4 Clones, but instead make them shoot their own little Nebula Blaze projectiles or something at their own rate. Duplicating your own projectiles is very dangerous balance wise.
 
You are quintupling the amount of projectiles you are firing. The DPS increase that results in is half the problem here; the extra projectiles could deal 1 damage and it'd still be incredible for the sheer disruption alone (and that wouldn't even be that bad for DPS either). And you need to remember, this is for mages. You know, the class that mostly has stuff that spams projectiles as viable weapons at this point, that being Razorpine, Blizzard Staff, you know the deal. You would be flooding the screen with tons of projectiles (and the lag that would make, jeez)

Maybe keep the 4 Clones, but instead make them shoot their own little Nebula Blaze projectiles or something at their own rate. Duplicating your own projectiles is very dangerous balance wise.
What if I just remove all knockback from their projectiles, then? while ALSO lowering the damage and/or number of clones?
Edit: Actually, nebula blaze projectiles would be more faithful to the original phase, so if all else fails I'll probably just do that.
 
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As I said:
Duplicating your own projectiles is very dangerous balance wise.

Just look at how much stronger Holy Arrows get when you use them with a multishot bow. If it's just one guy with low damage then it's probably fine since I don't think any magic weapons would truly break when doubled (Besides maybe Magnet Sphere), but then again late game Mage is the last thing you'd want to double the projectiles of just because of how ridiculous that'd look, even if it's not that strong.
 
As I said:


Just look at how much stronger Holy Arrows get when you use them with a multishot bow. If it's just one guy with low damage then it's probably fine since I don't think any magic weapons would truly break when doubled (Besides maybe Magnet Sphere), but then again late game Mage is the last thing you'd want to double the projectiles of just because of how ridiculous that'd look, even if it's not that strong.
Alright, I made them just use nebula blazes with a lower fire rate. I don't have enough expertise to fix the clones in a way that's just moderately powerful/not game breaking.

Oh, and they only do it when you actually hit something, because just being able to spam four nebula blazes, however slow, whenever you want is pretty busted.
 
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four Mini-Nebula Cultist Clones follow you, which mimic your exact movements and fire projectiles identical to the nebula blaze in damage [I assume it ignores your buffs], gimmicks [The blue shot?], and accuracy upon striking an enemy. (cooldown 0.4 seconds.)

Nebula Blaze is bad, but it's not "You can multiply its base DPS by 3~ and leave it as an accessory" bad. Cooldown of 2 seconds and no chance for blue shots is hopefully balanced.
 
Nebula Blaze is bad, but it's not "You can multiply its base DPS by 3~ and leave it as an accessory" bad. Cooldown of 2 seconds and no chance for blue shots is hopefully balanced.
Alright :p what if I quarter the chance of blue shots instead of getting rid of them entirely?
 
Alright :p what if I quarter the chance of blue shots instead of getting rid of them entirely?
That would have a base damage of 390 for each blue shot. That would be crazy since you have 4 minions with those projectiles. Also 1/12 will not be low enough....
Nebula Blaze is bad, but it's not "You can multiply its base DPS by 3~ and leave it as an accessory" bad. Cooldown of 2 seconds and no chance for blue shots is hopefully balanced.
The Nebula Blaze is not bad. A base damage of 130 is not bad. The Nebula Arcanum is worse then it. If you are saying the NB is bad then you are saying the Nebula weapons are bad. Trust me they aren't.
 
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