I support this and have a suggestion how the reflect mechanic could be reworked:
The main problems I see with the reflect mechanic are:
- the reflected projectile retains its damage therefore enabling the Selenian to kill players in just one hit (from full health)
- the reflected projectile retains its velocity therefore enabling the making it difficult/impossible to react
- It is not very obvious what it reflects and what it doesn't
- the Selenian can reflect projectiles while not even on screen (only really a problem because of 1./2.)
- it's not always obvious whether a projectile is your own or reflected
My proposed solution:
Instead of reflecting projectiles the Selenian should instead release fireballs, similar to the Solar Flare projectile shot by Drakomires in appearance and damage, whenever it would be hit by any ranged or magic damage while spinning. The fireballs should either be homing but destructible or normal projectiles; both with fixed damage and velocity. This way fighting a Selenian should still be challenging for ranged / magic characters while making the fight less frustrating.
This would affect the problems I listed in the following ways:
- fireballs with a (reasonable) fixed damage value would not be able to kill a player (at full health) in one hit
- fireballs with a (reasonable) fixed velocity value would give the player(s) more time to react
- triggering a fireball with any ranged / magic damage would make it easier to tell which weapons will trigger the Selenian
- While this wouldn't be solved directly I believe it's not really a problem if problem 1./2. no longer exist
- this is solved by creating fireballs that are distinct from the projectile that hit the Selenian
Personal frustration concerning this mechanic (me rambling about how my character died way too many times, just skip if not interested):
I recently finished an expert mode play through with a ranged character and I kept track of all of my deaths. there weren't many, the first was because I accidentally summoned the WoF too early, the second falling through ice (fall damage), the third was a mechanical boss spawning before I was prepared. All of those could have been prevented by being more careful or preparing better. Next up was the lunar event stuff.. the first time I did it I died once to the Vortex pillar,
27 times to the solar pillar (23x Selenian, 3x Crawltipede, 1x Corite) and then to the moon lord. I went on to do the lunar event two more times with this character after preparing a bit better, this time I had no deaths fighting the Vortex, Nebula and Stardust pillars and I beat the Moonlord both times. The Solar pillar however makes the Moonlord fight with an undergeared character look trivial.. Killing the Solar pillar twice I died another
24 times(23x Selenian 1x Crawltipede), while this is less than my first attempt it took way longer because I kept running in and out of the area to have more control over the amount of enemies. In this play through (with 3x lunar event) I therefor had a total of
56 deaths and of those deaths
51(91%) of them were caused by the Solar Pillar and it's minions..
The Solar pillar is the main reason I'm not going to make a hardcore character, the sheer potential of it's minions causing cheap deaths (deaths that weren't really preventable) is really off putting when the characters death is permanent..
Conclusion:
I think the Selenians ability is a very interesting one and a good way to make the pillar more challenging for non melee characters BUT not the way it is currently implemented. I believe that a mechanic like this shouldn't be as punishing for characters not using specific weapons. While I think it's fair to have a fight that's more difficult when restricting oneself to a certain weapon type I do not think it's fair to make it more difficult in a way as frustrating as this mechanic currently is.
Thanks for reading and sorry for necroing this thread I wasn't sure if making a new thread would've been appropriate here.