NPCs & Enemies The Seraphim of the Sky: The new gateway into Late Pre-hardmode!

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

Back in the day, in the hardmode skies, we mobile & console players would find Arch Wyverns, a super-powered Wyvern that drops... a shadow key? That made no sense, as Shadow keys were also pre-hardmode dungeon loot, which got us pre-hardmode underworld loot. (And the Drax, but we don't talk about that!) And I was looking back on those memories, when I had a realization. Late Pre-hardmode gear is SO EASY TO GET!
You fight 1 easy boss (EoW/BoC) and immediately get MOLTEN GEAR, which is the best in Pre-Hardmode, and then you fight one somewhat hard boss (Skeletron) for OP dungeon/shadow chest loot, but wait, with molten gear he becomes a joke!
What if there was a difficult boss which gave love to the sky, and became the new gateway into Late prehardmode?
Here's a small idea:
New Boss name: The Seraphim of the sky
Appearance: They look similar to a wyvern, but with 4 sets of harpy wings (8 wings), 1 of these sets (2 wings) covering their face. These harpy wings have eyes on them, and they have several golden rings on them, similar to a biblically accurate angel.
Summon: Pearly Gate Key
Crafting recipe:
1x Golden Key
20x Cloud
15 Demonite/Crimtane bars
10 Shadow Scales/Tissue Samples
Health: 6500 (Classic)
Average damage: 32 (Classic, Phase one), 51 (Classic, Phase 2)
Defense: 5 (Classic) (-5 when curled into a ball)
Attacks:
Simple charge attack, similar to how wyverns work, but less strong & slightly faster.
Firing stars (similar to the starfury) out of their tail.
Summoning harpies to help them fight.
A weaker version of the EoL's sun dance, but instead of rainbow, they're bright sky blue, and form a 5-pointed star.
In phase 2, the wings In front of their face lower, showing that they've got one giant eye there. They become quicker and deal more damage, with the following new attacks:
Standing still and curling into a ball, absorbing your attacks, before spreading themself back out, shooting out every projectile that hit them back out at you (They take double damage during this, and the attacks you shoot at them deal double damage to you.)
Causing stars to rain from the sky (similar to the ones from the Star Cannon)
and summoning angels to help them fight.
Some drops could be:
Shadow Key (guaranteed, as long as you don't already have one in your inventory)
Wyvern's tail (rare). Allows flight & slow fall, being better at it then the fledgling wings, but not as good as Demon & Angel wings (It flies about 32 tiles high). It has about a 6.67% chance to drop.
Tooltip: Allows flight & slow fall
-Only one of the following items drops per fight, all with equal chances-
Star Guard: Allows you to parry attacks with any weapon. Parrying makes you take no damage, reflects projectiles that can be reflected, and grants the Striking Moment buff.
Tooltip: Have a taste of your own medicine!
Holy Sheath: Striking enemies now has a chance to spawn holy light that smites your foes. The light comes from the sky, and has very sharp homing. It scales with weapon damage, and ignores tiles.
Tooltip: Holy sheath, dude! Are you okay?
Cherubim's Sigil: When placed, creates a 300x300 circle of holy energy. Evil biomes cannot spread, and the area is slowly purified.
Tooltip: Cleanses the sins of those around it.
The Following always drops
Ophanim's Ringdrill. The new pickaxe needed to mine Hellstone. Nightmare & Deathbringer now just unlock the ability to mine evil biome stone.
Tooltip: Can rapture Hellstone.
10 gold coins
You see, by doing this, there would now be actual difficulty in Pre-hardmode, because as of right now, all I have to do to beat it is set up a minecart cheese for EoW, go to hell with an obsidian skin potion, and then suddenly appear at the dungeon with full molten gear.
This is a post EoW & Skeletron boss with genuine difficulty that is required to be beaten in order to get Molten gear & Shadow Chest loot.
Also, the other items are quite cool, and could allow for some really cool loadouts!

 

[MoultonLava]

Wyvern's tail (rare). Allows flight & slow fall, being better at it then the fledgling wings, but not as good as Demon & Angel wings (It flies about 32 tiles high). It has about 2% chance to drop.

I think it should have a 10% chance to drop, but everything else is REALLY good! However, I do think you can shorten the name to simply The Seraphim. I should note that this boss is, in theory, the first boss you can fight and defeat. How? It is possible to get Gold Keys pre-Skeletron from a wood chest above the DG line. You can also purposely lose to the evil boss after defeating parts of it for the SS or TS. Demonite is easy to obtain from the Eye. I like this idea a lot!

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

Alright, then how about it requires 25 bones too?

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

And The Wyvern's tail shouldn't be that common.

 

[MoultonLava]

Alright, then how about it requires 25 bones too?

No, I think that the current recipe is fine. You would have to go out of your way to do this pre-boss, purposely losing to the evil boss. It is fine. (I should note that if it requires bones, it is still possible to do pre-boss if you play in GFB or Drunk, since you can go further in without the DG spawning in.

And The Wyvern's tail shouldn't be that common.

Fledgling wings are absurdly annoying to get, and a 2 percent chance is worse than Fledgling. However, some might be willing to grind it because most Terrarians would rather themselves in public than fish.

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

No, I think that the current recipe is fine. You would have to go out of your way to do this pre-boss, purposely losing to the evil boss. It is fine. (I should note that if it requires bones, it is still possible to do pre-boss if you play in GFB or Drunk, since you can go further in without the DG spawning in.

Fledgling wings are absurdly annoying to get, and a 2 percent chance is worse than Fledgling. However, some might be willing to grind it because most Terrarians would rather themselves in public than fish.

[ight]
[how about 6.67%, similar to empress wings & Fishron wings?]

 

[MoultonLava]

[ight]
[how about 6.67%, similar to empress wings & Fishron wings?]

That makes the most sense. Yeah, pretty good.

 

[J Bame]

There really needs to be something inbetween Dungeon and Shadow Chests and Hellstone, especially becausd a lot of dungeon weapons are just worse versions of Underworld Gear

I dont like how this thread forces you to the intended progression path, Prehardmode is open in its progression and it doesnt hurt anything for being this way. Hellstone being too strong for post evil is actually an issue with the Underworld being way too easy, meaning you can just walk in there and grab as much as you need

Star guard. Causes solid ranged attacks that hit you to deflect. You still take damage, but the attack reflects after which can hurt enemies.

This is just a Thorns potion for projectiles, it doesnt prevent the damage and that's the only reason you'd use something like this.

Reflecting projectiles is also a ton of programming and QA work to implement because half the projectiles in this game are things that are not supposed to just turn around and go the other way

Holy Sheath. Allows other swords that you swing to have stars similar to the Starfury fall out of the sky. They're weaker, though
Tooltip: Holy sheath, dude! Are you okay?

Not different enough from Bone Glove, another accessory that gives a fixed projectile to your weapons

Cherubim's Sigil. Only one can be placed in the entire world, and all it does is prevent any corruption growth within a 100x100 square radius. Any corruption within that radius when placed will not be cleansed.

This shouldnt be limited to 1 per world given you can do a similar thing with sunflowers or just uncorruptible blocks

100x100 is much less than you think it is, its not even a 1366x768 screen

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

Do you have any ideas for how these items could be buffed?
I could change it to where star damage scales with weapon damage, or increase the Cherubim's Sigil to 300x300, or making the Star Guard give damage reduction

 

[MoultonLava]

Do you have any ideas for how these items could be buffed?
I could change it to where star damage scales with weapon damage, or increase the Cherubim's Sigil to 300x300, or making the Star Guard give damage reduction

Star Guard: Allows you to parry attacks with any weapon. Parrying makes you take no damage, reflects projectiles that can be reflected, and grants the Striking Moment buff.
Cherubim's Sigil: When placed, creates a circle of holy energy. Evil biomes cannot spread, and the area is slowly purified.
Holy Sheath: Striking enemies now has a chance to spawn holy light that smites your foes. The light comes from the sky, and has very sharp homing. It scales with weapon damage, and ignores tiles.

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

Editing the suggestion to contain Moulton's ideas.

 

[Big Sammich]

I don't know, man. If people want to skip progression that bad, why not let 'em? I'd be in favor of making it more difficult to skip progression, namely by making the Underworld more dangerous, but locking it away entirely and forcing players to progress more linearly just feels lame.

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

I mean, it would make only 3 pre-hardmode bosses required, which still leaves most of the PHM progression up to you. It just makes late pre-hardmode more linear.
I think it's cool, but I completely understand & respect your opinion.

 

[Asternove]

You see, by doing this, there would now be actual difficulty in Pre-hardmode, because as of right now, all I have to do to beat it is set up a minecart cheese for EoW, go to hell with an obsidian skin potion, and then suddenly appear at the dungeon with full molten gear.

You can just minecart cheese Skeletron and brute-force your way through the Dungeon. You’re still going to be able to cheese your way into better loot no matter what Re-Logic does.