NPCs & Enemies Dreadnautilus as a Boss

whoneedsnamestbh

whoneedsnamestbh

Retinazer
Dreadnautilus is one of the coolest additions in 1.4. A colossal demon squid lurking in that scrawny little Oasis during a blood moon, and a threatening one at that. Probably one of the most unique bosses in the game. But it’s not a boss. The fight plays like a boss, looks like a boss, and even has the achievement to suggest it’d be a boss, but it has the injustice of not actually being a boss. So I opened Microsoft Word, and did it myself.


STARTING THE FIGHT​

For starters, Dreadnautilus and his drops will be tiered between the Mech Bosses and Plantera in terms of stats and drop strength, but can be summoned at any time from the beginning of Hardmode.

Dreadnautilus himself can be fished up the same way as before. He has an uncommon chance to be fished up instead of the other four Blood Moon fish. However, he can only be fished up naturally in the first half of the Blood Moon, for the same reason that Lacewings only spawn in the first half of the night. Additionally, he can be summoned manually by fishing using Bloodladen Bait.
Consumable
50% Bait Power
‘It shines under the Blood Moon’
100% chance to drop from Hemogoblin Shark and Blood Eel.

The Bloodladen Bait can be obtained from Hemogoblin Shark and Blood Eel. It has the round appearance of usual bait, but a bright red color matching other Blood Moon fishing items and blood tendrils hanging off from it.

If used during the Blood Moon, it has a guaranteed chance to catch the Dreadnautilus, regardless of other factors, and is always consumed. Outside of the Blood Moon, it behaves exactly the same as Master Bait.
Finally, to make Blood Moons more consistent to summon, Grooms and Brides that spawn in Graveyards will always drop a Bloody Tear. This allows players to obtain Bloody Tears without starting a Blood Moon, and allows players to grind for them, while still being thematically fitting.


THE FIGHT

PHASE 1​
Dreadnautilus appears and behaves similarly to his basegame fight. He has the same attack cycle, however there are some changes to each attack.

HP:
28000 / 35000 / 42750

Damage:
55 / 110 / 165 (contact)
60 / 100 / 150 (blood)

Defense:
18

Attack pattern:
The windup to the dash. The ability to reflect bullets now only happens in Expert or Master Mode.
This attack behaves the exact same way as it does in the base game, except the velocity is reduced by 40% (30% in Expert) to allow the player to flee the chase. Forcing the dreadnautilus to spin around you still works and takes less precision.
Works the same as in the base game. However, the blood is given a bright red “glitter” to make them more visible in the fight. The boss is also no longer invincible during this attack.
Dreadnautilus no longer needs line of sight to the player to spawn blood squids, and will only spawn enough to make the total alive equal to 3. Additionally, their stats are adjusted, as listed at the end.


PHASE 2​
Dreadnautilus gains a more advanced and fast paced attack pattern. Its stripes begin to glow a bright red-orange and the boss gains a particle effect of the same color.

HP:
14000 / 20125 / 24581 HP (50% in normal, 57.5 in expert and above)

Damage:
45 / 90 / 135 (contact)
60 / 100 / 150 (blood)
50 / 100 / 150 (fireball)

Defense:
24

Attack pattern:
The dash has 20% more velocity than the first phase but lasts much shorter at 1.5 seconds. The windup is also very short at about half a second, and does not deflect bullets in this phase

Taking contact damage from the boss, at all times, has a 50% chance to inflict Fleshburn for 2-3 seconds.
The Dreadnautilus slowly aims toward the player and spits out a wide spread of three Bloody Fireballs, three or four times in a row, before starting its next attack.

The fireballs are widely spaced from one another, travel in a straight line, move at a medium speed, and explode on contact with tiles.

Getting hit by these fireballs also has an 80% chance to inflict Fleshburn for 3 seconds.
Machine gun fires blood bolts in a wide spread rather than in several bursts at once. The projectile spread and velocity is reduced, but the boss can target the player actively during the attack, unlike the first phase.
Quickly summons a single blood squid that spawns on the player’s location when the attack started. It will skip this attack if there are already 3 active.
Dreadnautilus in second phase has a much longer and more advanced attack pattern:
  • Spin Dash
  • Bloody Fireball
  • Spin Dash
  • Summon Blood Squid
  • Spin Dash
  • Blood Bolts
  • Spin Dash
  • Summon Blood Squid
If the Dreadnautilus fails to summon a Blood Squid, it will also skip the next dash attack.
A debuff inflicted by Dreadnautilus on contact and with the fireball projectiles in the second phase While active, the player has a bright red-orange particle effect similar to other flame debuffs, and takes 18 damage per second, however the duration is short.

The debuff’s tooltip: “It both hurts bad and smells bad”


PHASE 3 [EXPERT]​
Dreadnautilus enters an enraged state, similar to Duke Fishron. The glow and particle effects on his body intensify, and the eye begins glowing. This attack cycle only occurs in Expert and Master Mode.

HP:
5250 / 6413 (15%)

Damage:
100 / 150 (contact)
105 / 160 (fireball)

Defense:
0

Attack cycle:
Upon entering the phase, Dreadnautilus instantly begins charging up for a dash. The boss will then dash at the player for 2.5 seconds, and then begin to spin in a wide circle while releasing blood fireballs in random directions for another 2.5 seconds, before returning to the dash. This attack loop will continue until the boss dies.

The boss will not change speed or stop during this phase, and will maintain the same speed for the entire phase. It transitions smoothly between its attacks without any change in speed.

Taking any damage from this phase has an 80% chance to inflict Fleshburn for 2-3 seconds.


BLOOD SQUIDS​
Blood Squids have a stat change to make them somewhat more fair to fight as well as to penaltize cheese.

HP:
666 / 1332 / 1998

Damage:
100 / 200 / 300 (contact)
60 / 120 / 180 (blood)

Defense:
16

The damage values on contact and the blood bolts have been swapped, to make the blood squids slightly more fair. Their HP has also been reduced substantially.

Additionally, Blood Squid will now always try to get line of sight on the player, which means that it can enter blocks and even enter melee contact range in order to shoot the player. This allows the Blood Squids to heavily damage anyone trying to cheese the boss using a box with their buffed contact damage.


DROPS​

As a boss, Dreadnautilus would need a much larger drop pool. I added three new weapons, some generic boss drops, and an uncommon utility drop. If anyone has any more suggestions for drops, feel free to comment them.

Drop table:
Greater Healing Potion (5-15) (100%)
Dreadnautilus Mask (14.29%)
Dreadnautilus Trophy (10%)
-
Bloody Tear (100%)
Bottomless Chum Bucket (5%)
Blood Moon Monolith (10%)
-
Red Pearl (33%)
Blood Wings (25%)
-
Only one:
Angler Impaler (25%)
Bloodshot (25%)
Shellfire (25%)
Sanguine Staff (25%)
-
Bloodied Shell (100%) (Expert)
-
Dreadnautilus Relic (100%) (Master)
Rotted Fish Food (25%) (Master)

Damage: 75 (melee)
Crit chance: 14%
Use time: 20 (very fast)
‘Not recommended for children’

The Angler Impaler is a large, bloodied fishing spear with a deep red-brown tint and blood tendrils rolling down the handle.

The weapon is thrown in a wide arc, similar to Daybreak. It pierces infinitely, and upon hitting a tile, it splits into 4 equally spaced pieces of shrapnel that are aimed against the angle that the spear hit at and travel 25 tiles before disappearing. Unlike Seedler bolts, they do not explicitely target enemies. The secondary bolts deal 40% damage.

Although the weapon only has middling single tarbet DPS, its infinite pierce and shrapnel should make it a prime choice for the underground jungle, Plantera, or invasions.
Damage: 28 (ranged)
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 30 (average)
‘Converts Musket Balls into blood bolts that suck the life out of enemies’

A deep red, slightly glowing shotgun with a black barrel and trigger. It fires a thin spread of 4 bullets per shot.

With Musket Balls, Silver or Tungsten Bullets, or the Endless Musket Pouch, all bullets are replaced with blood bolts that move slower than most bullets and are affected by gravity. It has a 1/16 chance (1/13 with silver or tungsten bullets) to fire a glowing bullet, that upon impacting an enemy, spawns a blood droplet.

The blood droplet hovers in midair where the enemy was hit, similar to the stars from the Mana Cloak, and can be collected by players in an 8 tile radius to heal 15 HP. They despawn after 5 seconds.

With any bullet other than musket balls or their equivalents, the gun has no special behavior and acts as a normal shotgun.

The gun would have below average attack power for a weapon of its tier, but has the ability to heal the player substantially if they play well. There is an obvious risk in going to collect the blood droplets, but it should pay off in a hefty amount of HP.
Damage: 60 (Magic)
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 50 (Extremely slow)
Mana Cost: 30

The Shellfire has the appearance of a scarlet colored spellbook with a red-orange sigil on the front. It also has spikes protruding from the spine, resembling the spikes on Dreadnautilus.

The book fires a single, large fireball. The fireball hits for double the listed base damage, at 120, and upon hitting any enemy or tile, splits into three smaller fireballs. The smaller fireballs will home in on enemies, dealing the full listed damage each.

The mini fireballs can slide on walls, allowing them to work in the cramped spaces of the Jungle. They expire if they don’t find a target for 3 seconds.

The weapon also inflicts Fleshburn for 8-12 seconds with a 100% chance.

The weapon has almost identical single target DPS to the Rainbow Rod, while being slightly easier to use due and is slightly more crowd-friendly with the small DoT and splitting mechanism, due to its higher tier
Equipable
Increases enemy spawn rates and heart drop chance

An accessory, a shiny and slightly opaque pearl with a deep red color.

The accessory increases enemy spawn rates by 25% and the chance for an enemy to drop a Heart on death from 1/12 to 1/8. Basically meant to greatly increase the number of hearts you get during an invasion.

It also can be tinkered into the Charm of Myths to create the Blood Bracelet, which combines the effects of the Charm of Myths and the increased heart drop rate, but not the increased enemy spawn rate.
Equipable
Allows flight and slow fall
Flight speed increases after taking damage

Red, mangled wings that visually drip blood. When flying, blood particles emerge from the player that fall quickly.

They offer the same flight stats as the Jetpack, minus the faster accelaration. If you get hit while wearing these wings, your flight time resets and your horizontal and vertical speed both increase by 70% for five seconds, like an indirect upgrade to the Panic Necklace that actually helps you get out of dangerous situations.
Equipable
‘Forms a protective shell from the damage you deal
The shell can block 30% of the damage of one attack and reflect it into your surroundings’

The Expert Mode accessory dropped by Dreadnautilus. Its sprite appearance looks like a miniature Dreadnautilus Shell with a somewhat more natural appearance. It has no vanity appearance.

After dealing 5000 damage, it spawns a dreadnautilus shell around the player. Taking damage with the shell active will reduce the damage taken by 30% and reflect 1.5x the full power of the hit to all enemies in a 10x10 block radius, and destroy the shell.

The shell has a minimum five second cooldown before it can regenerate. Damage can still be counted toward the 5000 in this time, but five seconds must have passed before the shell is given to the player. The 5000 damage will begin counting up again when the shell is destroyed.

The shell should be significantly protective to players who can dodge consistently, reducing the hits they do take by 30%, while being only somewhat helpful to newer players. It may be underpowered or too strong, I can’t really tell, feedback would be helpful.
The Dreadnautilus Mask is exactly what you’d think, it replaces the player’s head with a dreadnautilus. The trophy displays a large fragment of the boss’s striped shell.

The Bottomless Chum Bucket is exactly what it sounds like: a bottomless chum bucket. Basically a free, significant fishing power boost for anyone willing to farm for it. Very helpful for those adamant about fishing, but has no combat value.

The Dreadnautilus Relic will be your usual relic, featuring a front facing bust of the boss. The Rotted Fish Food is the Master Mode pet, and summons a mini Blood Squid.


CONCLUSION​

So, there it is. Dreadnautilus as a boss. A fun little project that turned into a serious idea, and I hope you all like it.

If anyone has any suggestions for balance or for more boss drops, go right ahead. I’d love to make this concept as expansive as possible.
 
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Very good idea, and one that I've thought about a lot since the achievement for beating the Dreadnautilus was added. For another drop, what about a whip that resembles a bloody tendril? It could have lower damage than other whips of its tier, but the unique effect of giving minions a chance to spawn blood droplets with their attacks. Perhaps to prevent minions who hit often like the Blade Staff from providing too much healing, it could have a brief cooldown effect.
 
CrazyDragon said:
Very good idea, and one that I've thought about a lot since the achievement for beating the Dreadnautilus was added. For another drop, what about a whip that resembles a bloody tendril? It could have lower damage than other whips of its tier, but the unique effect of giving minions a chance to spawn blood droplets with their attacks. Perhaps to prevent minions who hit often like the Blade Staff from providing too much healing, it could have a brief cooldown effect.
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That’s a pretty good idea. It would probably have ti be a chance on the first hit like Firecracker so it isn’t completely broken with stuff like the Blades and doesn’t spew out stupid amounts of pickups, but I love the idea.

Sometime later on when I have more ideas or suggestions, I’ll probably update with another several weapons and maybe something like wings.
 
Honestly the Dreadnautilus we have in vanilla already fits the criteria to be considered a boss.

Unique summoning method, more attacks than Plantera and every mech besides Prime, a unique achievement, a very valuable drop... all he's missing is a trophy and two Master mode items
 
J Bame said:
Honestly the Dreadnautilus we have in vanilla already fits the criteria to be considered a boss.

Unique summoning method, more attacks than Plantera and every mech besides Prime, a unique achievement, a very valuable drop... all he's missing is a trophy and two Master mode items
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TBH, Dreadnautilus seems kind of underdeveloped just because he isn’t a boss. It has unfair attacks and an incredibly obvious cheese method which suggests they didn’t try all that hard to playtest him, and only one weapon drop compared to similar enemies like biome mimics or Goblin Summoner.
 
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The fact that the Dreadnautilus is not considered a boss really bothers me, it's already more difficult than many hardmode bosses. I agree it could do with a few more weapon drops instead of just one, and maybe its dash attack could be nerfed or made more predictable, and I think it would be a really good boss. I really like the idea of the having a special bait that is guaranteed to summon the boss, as currently it can take ages for one to be fished up.
 
qwerty3.14 said:
Many of dreadnautelus's attacks feel cheap, from the dark blood colored, almost invisible blood shot to the projectile deflection to the charge attack. It weird that this is in the same update that added the Empress of light.
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Storm Diver said:
Its projectile attacks should glow in the dark, and its charge attack really needs an overhaul, also projectile deflection is cheap for any enemy
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Yeah, that’s where a lot of my changes in the first phase came from. I find the thing really unfair to fight in the base game, and although I hate to resort to cheese, usually I’ll use the box method against the dreadnautilus because he’s just an enormous pain in the :red: to actually fight.
 
qwerty3.14 said:
what's 'the box method' ?
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Sitting in a box full of honey and regen furniture, with hoik doors leading out the left and right sides of the box so you can shoot. When you do this, the only the dash can hit you and it will only hit once because the dreadnautilus will spin around you after that first hit. With the regen stuff, you can easily afford to sponge one hit once in a while from the dash, and it’s basically free.
 
locking another summoner weapon behind a pre-mech boss sounds awful. keep the cheese please. summoner does not need more grinds after most of them got removed.
 
I was thinking that you could use Blades, because they are fast and accurate enough for Dreadnautilus, and although Queen Slime is somewhat difficult for pure summoners, a mage hybrid with Forbidden Armor is more than capable of taking down Queen Slime. Sanguine also always felt a bit too strong for pre-mech and Leinfors said it was tiered after Blades. If you want I can try to come up with another flying pre-mech minion and add it to this page though.
 
whoneedsnamestbh said:
I was thinking that you could use Blades, because they are fast and accurate enough for Dreadnautilus, and although Queen Slime is somewhat difficult for pure summoners, a mage hybrid with Forbidden Armor is more than capable of taking down Queen Slime. Sanguine also always felt a bit too strong for pre-mech and Leinfors said it was tiered after Blades. If you want I can try to come up with another flying pre-mech minion and add it to this page though.
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This may be getting a bit offtopic but I actually have a pre mech flying minion in my mod, it's supposed to be the opposite of spiders in that it can keep up with bosses (as long as they don't move diagonally), but it's worse on common enemies because its sporadic movement struggles to hit small hitboxes
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@whoneedsnamestbh Ok so I have some suggestion for this.

Fireballs and fleshburn seem a little out of place for an aquatic themed boss.

I also question if we really need another DoT debuff, Maybye change 'Fleshburn' to 'Blood letting' and have it cause the victim to receive 10% more damage.

There are also some adjustments I'd do for the drops.

Bloodshot: Converting musket balls is boring, i'd have to use a weak ammo to get the special effect. How about instead with each bullet fired there is a 50% chance it will be converted to a blood shot. You still get to use bullets with other special effects without losing the gun's special effect.

Shellfire: I'm really not sure what this weapon's niche is supposed to be, rainbow rod is already stupid easy to use because of the homing. This weapon might find a more appropriate niche if it instead acted like a pre plantera razorpine. Dishing out high single target dps with somewhat limited range. Probably somewhere around the 400-450dps range.

Angler Impaler: Does melee really need another crowd control weapon? Like there's a fairly high chance you've got a drippler crippler at this point. I'd make it stick to enemies similar to the bone javelin and daybreak. Have it cause a new debuff "Deep wound" dealing 60dps and reducing enemy contact damage by 6% per javelin. With a max of 5 javelins impaled in the enemy.


Bloddied shell might be a bit too strong, late game the recharge rate on this thing will basically always be 5 seconds a If you're getting attacked every 5 seconds in the late game you're probably dead already so this is effectively a much stronger worm scarf.
 
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qwerty3.14 said:
Bloddied shell might be a bit too strong, late game the recharge rate on this thing will basically always be 5 seconds a If you're getting attacked every 5 seconds in the late game you're probably dead already so this is effectively a much stronger worm scarf.
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Yet, in my opinion it is somewhat underpowered when you gets it... I would suggest that the recharge rate scales with boss defeated. Pre-mechs it recharges every 2500 damage, pre-plant every 3500, pre-golem every 4500, pre-cultist every 6000, and post-cultist every 8000, something like that.
 
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