Ancient Fuelweaver Bone Cage Tweak(s)

[GR33K]

I love the Ancient Fuelweaver fight, it's chaotic and requires managing a lot of things at once, from the Woven Shadows to the Unseen Hands, Health and Sanity, and some character exclusive things like the Maxwell shadow duelists and shadow prison for example.

As much as i love it there's one element that completely ruins it for me, and that's the bone cage.

(and let me point out that i know he doesn't do the attack whenever the shadow thurible is around, but i don't consider it a solution as it requires you to beat him in order to actually be able to use the strat)

The issue with the bone cage is not the CC itself (being unable to move), as the mind control is way worse since you're unable to do anything while under the effect, the real issue is the inevitability of the bone cage. Whenever you're being mind controlled, restoring your sanity will prevent it from stunning you, there is no such thing for the bone cage, if he's casting it everybody is trapped and he does it constantly.

And i get it, Lazy Explorer exists, and you can occasionally dodge it by getting really far away in the first phase, but still, with how hectic the second phase is, where one mistake can mean the boss getting half his health back, completely undoing any progress you made during the fight, that's where this attack becomes really unfair.

Escaping the cage is, in paper, easy, just teleport out, this is really clunky however, as it requires you to mess with your inventory to equip the staff, then you have to right click on a valid spot, then if you want to do anything else you have to equip a different item, which is often not on the same slot you left it (this applies to the staff too!), so you have to look for it, and what do you know, in the time you were fumbling to get out of the cage the boss has already either started hitting you, or even worse healed himself.

Some characters have an easier time getting out, Wanda and Wortox for example, Wanda can use her backstep watch and Wortox doesn't need to equip an item to be able to teleport, while i do think the fight being easier or harder depending on the character is only natural, i don't think this aspect of the fight should be the biggest factor.

 

So, enough talking about the issue, time to address it.

I gave it some thought and i think the best solution would be to change the targeting of the bone cage to make it (more) avoidable, at least for players, i don't think it's necessary to do the same for followers.

So, instead of putting the bone cage directly on the player, predict the future position of the player (around 1 or 2 seconds after he casts it) and place a visual marker there (could be the very tips of the bones sticking out the ground, for example), then after the time elapses any player inside the zone is caged. Alternatively the zone could last longer and trap any player as soon as they step in it instead of after the time has elapsed, creating a longer lasting obstacle.

The specifics of this tweak are not set in stone, they're mostly to give a rough idea of the behavior that one would expect with this kind of attack.

 

If any member has any other tweaks they'd like done on this boss I'd be happy to hear it, and i encourage discussing the aspects of this fight further. The main problem for me is the cage, though i mostly care to see that it is fixed, not how it's fixed.

also, please make F prioritize attacking anything other than the fuelweaver when he's got his shield up? thanks

[grm9]

you can already prevent the cage from appearing around you, stay at the border of the range (around 3 tiles) and start running after he starts raising his hand, he'll miss if you're more than 3.75 tiles away by the time his hand hits the ground, they should just make it more obvious that you can dodge it that way, a dark blast on the ground that depicts the range could appear after he hits the ground using his hand      

[Guille6785]

I think it's fine as is

[Mahoood]

If I’d change anything it’s the lazy explorer deaggro issue 

[zaptrap]

I've never had any inventory management issues. I mean, I never ever have to gain any items during the fight, so my inventory is always predictable.

[Waynel]

One of the very few boss fights that takes some decent amount of skill and where the player is actually punished for bad execution.

No thanks.

No nerf.

On 12/19/2023 at 12:26 PM, Mahoood said:

If I’d change anything it’s the lazy explorer deaggro issue 

This extra challenge is nice imo.

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Waynel said:

This extra challenge is nice imo

it's hardly a challenge, there just seems to be a seemingly random chance that he'll deaggro and walk into woven shadows, better to make it consistent (unless it already is and depends on distance or current animation and we don't know that yet) at least or just fix it