NPCs & Enemies Make Lunatic Cultist the difficulty of Duke Fishron

[trya]

or if you die the Sheild regenerates? like even at 1 enemy away its back to 100

 

[LisanPaez05]

The thing is you can farm banners that way

Maybe if Lunar Banners don't work until ML is defeated

 

[trya]

The thing is you can farm banners that way

remove banners for Pillar enemies then...?

 

[LisanPaez05]

Is an option, OOA banners don't work, are 100% decorative

 

[trya]

Is an option, OOA banners don't work, are 100% decorative

yea

 

[Russ Guss Doodles]

Is an option, OOA banners don't work, are 100% decorative

That’s not true. OOA banners do give a buff, it’s just a weaker buff compared to most banners.

From the wiki…

The banners of Old One's Army enemies will apply a weaker banner buff to the respective enemy, granting the players +10%/+20% (Expert Mode) damage inflicted and −5%/−10% (Expert Mode) damage taken.

 

[LisanPaez05]

1.4.4. update, I'm un actualized

 

[Orchamut]

I still think a lose condition or some other way of making the lunar events not just free endgame weapons would be way better and more effective than a cultist buff (and I say this as one of the most vocal stardust dragon glazers), since cultist seems to me like he's definitely meant to be a miniboss rather than being an actual progression blocker and so trying to force him into that role feels weird.

 

[The Mysterious Creature]

Either one could probably do the job. I personally just really like Cultist and so that makes me wish he was harder.

 

[trya]

both...

 

[Dapling]

I still think a lose condition or some other way of making the lunar events not just free endgame weapons would be way better and more effective than a cultist buff (and I say this as one of the most vocal stardust dragon glazers), since cultist seems to me like he's definitely meant to be a miniboss rather than being an actual progression blocker and so trying to force him into that role feels weird.

Cultist actually has the most elaborate attacks out of any required boss for progression in the entire game so if he’s a “miniboss” then he kinda throws a wrench into all the other bosses. Making pillars loseable or more difficult to defeat would definitely be a fix to the issues around rhe lunar events, but unlike buffing cultist it would be insanely difficult and ambitious to pull off without making an absolute nightmare design wise.

Also, I would like to point out that it’s extremely doable to kill master mode cultist without dodging with no defensive investment or healing potions of any kind as a mage right now because he dies on literally his 3rd attack with some setups. Making him moderately tankier would not be prohibitive for people with lower skill levels at all.

 

[Orchamut]

I don't think buffing cultist would be harmful, but I do think it wouldn't really do anything to fix progression.
Or at least, the problem I understand that people have here with post-plantera is that immediately doing golem and then cultist is better and more efficient than doing other content. OOA t3, duke fishron, and EoL are already such a large difficulty spike from golem that unless cultist was buffed to be much harder than all of them, doing him first would still be the easiest option, and there would still be not much benefit in getting weapons from the others. Part of this issue is obviously also golem being too easy but I can't really speak much on that.

If the problem people have here is just that, even ignoring all content outside of things mandatory for progression, doing everything up to finishing the lunar events shouldn't be able to be easily done with the same loadout you used for plantera, then yeah, I misunderstood and this is a fine solution for that by itself.

Cultist actually has the most elaborate attacks out of any required boss for progression in the entire game so if he’s a “miniboss” then he kinda throws a wrench into all the other bosses.

I had always assumed that was just because he was implemented a lot later than all the previous progression bosses and so the devs were better at making fancy attacks.

 

[LisanPaez05]

You understand it perfectly

A lot of fancy attacks, but not difficulty

A lot of good weapons, but the strongest ones are the easiest to obtain, and the weakest ones are the hardest ones

Spectacular, but not challenging...

 

[Dapling]

I had always assumed that was just because he was implemented a lot later than all the previous progression bosses and so the devs were better at making fancy attacks.

They’re a lot more multi-part and mechanically distinct overall than even Moon Lord’s though.

 

[The Mysterious Creature]

I don't think buffing cultist would be harmful, but I do think it wouldn't really do anything to fix progression.
Or at least, the problem I understand that people have here with post-plantera is that immediately doing golem and then cultist is better and more efficient than doing other content. OOA t3, duke fishron, and EoL are already such a large difficulty spike from golem that unless cultist was buffed to be much harder than all of them, doing him first would still be the easiest option, and there would still be not much benefit in getting weapons from the others.

I think you have a point here. I think in order to fix that problem you would have to buff cultist so much that the optional stuff would become a lot more relevant but it might be too high of a difficulty spike that way, but maybe it’d be fine, I don’t know. Other option is to make the pillars possible to lose to and then potentially even give Cultist more drops or something, so that way there would be a bunch of bosses at that tier that would give you stuff that helps you against the pillars, but the only one that would be required would be Cultist. But yeah, as Dapling has pointed out, might not be an easy thing to implement.

 

[Timey-Whimy]

Lunatic Cultist has 32000 base max hp.
Skeletron prime has 28000.
The twins have a combined total of 43000 and you can’t really attack them at the same time. Even if you take cultist’s 25% homing resistance into account that’s still only 40,000 effective hp.

How on earth do people think this boss is at an acceptable difficulty. Skeletron prime has comparable hp and size and is much, much more mobile, yet in spite of that is barely over halfway through the game as opposed to literally the final sequence. Skeletron prime also similarly resists homing weapons because they can and will go for the arms rather than the boss itself. Lunatic Cultist also has an insanely important role as a gatekeeper for the finale of the game as pillars drop insanely powerful weapons that almost unanimously outclass every single weapon prior. Not only that but pillars have no losing state and can be killed regardless of how many times you die to them. Because pillars have no losing state, they linger forever which can be insanely frustrating and result in a loop of deaths for new players while they chip away at the shield, and the pillar simply doesn’t leave through all of it and there is no way to dismiss it. This is frustrating design by itself even ignoring the fact that they don’t adequately protect the weapons they drop either way. Because of this lack of a loss state, the burden of protecting pillar weapons goes to cultist, which is very decisively not up to the task as he has comparable health (if not lower) to the mech bosses except with the insanely powerful post golem and post plantera options at the player’s disposal.

Cultist needs to at the very least have more base health than current golem does (40,000). He simply dies far too quickly and his design role is far too important for that. New attack patterns would be ideal, faster attack speed would be decent, more HP would be the minimum. Literally give this boss anything besides higher damage output (his current damage output is the only thing that is adequately menacing enough for what he needs to do)

For cultist to not need a buff, pillars need to have some kind of loss state, and I think we can all agree that giving pillars a loss state is a significantly taller order than buffing cultist is.

This pretty much sums up what I was thinking, if the Lunatic cultist had more health, players might think twice about rushing him.
If I had to throw a number out there, I'd think 90,000 is a good starting number for classic mode

 

[Dapling]

This pretty much sums up what I was thinking, if the Lunatic cultist had more health, players might think twice about rushing him.
If I had to throw a number out there, I'd think 90,000 is a good starting number for classic mode

That's more than Destroyer (which has the highest single instance of health in the entire game) so that might be too much.

 

[LisanPaez05]

More hp just make him more tedious to fight
Not necessarily harder

 

[Dispenser (Engineer)]

More hp just make him more tedious to fight
Not necessarily harder

True, but counterpoint he dies WAY too fast in all dificulties so he does need a bit of boost to health. Every other aspect of the fight (patterns, damage, etc) is good he just needs more sustain so he doesn't die in 15 seconds flat

 

[Dapling]

More hp just make him more tedious to fight
Not necessarily harder

It does make him harder, because currently his hp is so low that you can facetank him with 0 survivability accessories or potions and Mage armor (not even counting spectre hood's lifesteal, you can facetank him without that)