My thoughts on Celestial Scion (and a bit on W.A.R.B.O.T.)

[ADM]

Intentionally putting on the side a couple things about the new boss phase, I had many crashes, bugs and weird interactions given the unfinished state of the area... but it's all things I far expect to be sorted out, but for the bread and butter of it, I have a bit of feedback to share !

This Celestial Scion guy, from the W.A.R.B.O.T. has a lot of potential to be an excellent ending boss for the Wagstaff side of things, I had a pretty good time exercising the two phases  mostly solo, but also with a friend, not too much for Scion because we would crash too often to keep going... but we tried.

 

W.A.R.B.O.T :

The most important when doing it multiplayer was for phase 1 because of the boss new threat level mechanism which overclocks its attack speed if fumbling too hard, we did feel a minor difference which I think was just right given we played very un-aggresively, and so he only locked to threat level 2 pretty much throughout the whole fight for 2 Wilsons just having fun, so the scaling and effect looked fair.

I don't have much issues to discuss myself about the first phase, so that's good, but since its the most... heated topic, I probably should have a word in regard to the Heat Seeking Missiles which I see brought up so often. I personally only rely on Fire Staves and burning preemptively placed stuff up right as the missiles are released (planted trees, or just flammable resources), and guys... it just works, for cheap and it's also a lot of fun to reactively deter the attack. I'd suggest you try this above using up your Thermal Stones in this, there's just better.

But it would be also nice if other heat sources were to be viable (not free, but at least so that they don't suck), while it's my favorite, Fire Staff shouldn't be having all of the cake for itself. The one option I think is the less justifiably weak right as of now is the Star Caller Staff. Poor stars get extinguished in a single missile, I'd say it would be a lot more fair if they were to take some of their duration taken away per missile so they can last a series of 3-4 rather than getting one shot, and probably it would be a good time to consider dynamically updating the star size to demonstrate the star lifespan left. Otherwise I also found Scorching Sunfish fun to use despite being highly expendable just like the Thermal Stone, but hey I like to go fishing so I'm completely content with that.

 

 

Now onto the Scion :

I'm not fully sure how its ground fissures are exactly meant to behave but them staying forever is definitively not the intended thing and I'll hope we'll get to see how it's meant to be soon so I can get the idea more right, but given this ability, and the other ones, it appears to me that the Celestial Scion is much less adapted to this whole arena setting... given its direction facing can take certain moves from stupendously powerful... to really just a wet planar fart.

 

I hope the boss behavior will try to account for some arena positioning because unlike W.A.R.B.O.T. I found it to be a lot more controllable, but most importantly I have the feeling this second phase is a lot more simple (assuming the fissures would work more like how I imagine it) and has the boss standing idle for too long given its slow attack speed. The change of pace between the two is super disturbing and I hope it won't drop like this, this fight should be a fair amount more dynamic.

 

Two other things I've found bothering is that there is strictly no effect with sanity and enlightenment during the combat. It's pretty cool that the arena turns to lunacy but it really has no impact, I hardly found myself bothered by any little Gestalts, and anyway if I was to make myself insane, the boss doesn't even have an aura to pull enlightenment up. I believe it would be a great opportunity to introduce some exclusive effects to enlightenment during this battle to aid the boss, perhaps something as simple as Gestalt Guards like in the Lunar Grotto, or new kind of mobs, traps... I don't know but there should be something and the Celestial Scion should have the highest aura we've ever witnessed.
Really not much equipment beside planar armors are suggested during phase 2 at first glance, so i think it would be nice if the Nightmare Amulet or Bone Helm were to be a good tool to take with us or lots of insanity foods to prevent the boss being stronger... if being enlightened was to be a danger I assume the fight would be fairly more active.

 

My other problem is with its base dash attack, it's gonna be hard for me to explain but I found it very unsuitable for this arena fight and especially annoyed by it when trying it in multiplayer, the boss would choose a target and lock on a direction very late before charging, I do not want to follow my friends because with our collisions we will bother each others but if we go in split directions there is a big chance the boss will charge in an undesirable direction, and we would prefer to be in different angles from the boss so we know who is being targeted by its facing, and that would end up more often than not into the walls and now the action is focused here, possibly far from the W.A.R.B.O.T. legs which sucks a ton if the Scion does its super nova. I anyway don't like what happens with the boss into corners because if it decided to do the fissure attack, it's all or nothing depending how you exploit or fail that move. Because of this I seriously wish the charge would do something like bounce off the borders and extend its duration, I expect that this would redirect it toward the center, and surely a little more dangerous which wouldn't be too much added.

 

That's all for me, I don't assume these are the best ideas to solve my issues with phase 2 but this is the area of concerns I've had and hope to be looked into

[JazzyGames]

1 hour ago, ADM said:

I personally only rely on Fire Staves and burning preemptively placed stuff up right as the missiles are released (planted trees, or just flammable resources), and guys... it just works, for cheap and it's also a lot of fun to reactively deter the attack. I'd suggest you try this above using up your Thermal Stones in this, there's just better.

Thank you! Fire staves worked great for me as well. Thermal stones have been nerfed so much in this patch that I honestly don't see the point in using them any more.

1 hour ago, ADM said:

I'm not fully sure how its ground fissures are exactly meant to behave but them staying forever is definitively not the intended thing and I'll hope we'll get to see how it's meant to be soon so I can get the idea more right, but given this ability, and the other ones, it appears to me that the Celestial Scion is much less adapted to this whole arena setting... given its direction facing can take certain moves from stupendously powerful... to really just a wet planar fart.

How certain are we that the field is not meant to last for the entirety of the fight? I'm sort of fond of the idea of a battle arena shrinking over time and making maneuvering more and more challenging as the fight progresses. There are ways to position yourself and the boss to minimize the amount of field that gets covered. Corners seem to be one of the best spots to direct the attack. The positioning only gets really tricky in the final phase when the boss is just as likely to do a charge or a slam without the growl warning; still haven't figured how to accommodate the possibility of either.

1 hour ago, ADM said:

I believe it would be a great opportunity to introduce some exclusive effects to enlightenment during this battle to aid the boss, perhaps something as simple as Gestalt Guards like in the Lunar Grotto, or new kind of mobs, traps... I don't know but there should be something and the Celestial Scion should have the highest aura we've ever witnessed.

Considering everything else we need to juggle in the final phase I'm sort of ok with not having to actively manage lunacy lol. Besides, wearing a bone helm would extend the fight considerably because the rift weapons would not be hitting as hard.

Everything else I more or less agree with, excellent feedback. Hopefully the devs read!

[HeatAndRun]

Agree on most of the points. Other than that, it's just my flavor but there could be some touches to Celestial Scion :

• Leaves trail of enlightened fissure thingy when performing the charge attack
• Timer to those enlightened tile gimmick

[ADM]

6 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

How certain are we that the field is not meant to last for the entirety of the fight? I'm sort of fond of the idea of a battle arena shrinking over time and making maneuvering more and more challenging as the fight progresses. There are ways to position yourself and the boss to minimize the amount of field that gets covered. Corners seem to be one of the best spots to direct the attack. The positioning only gets really tricky in the final phase when the boss is just as likely to do a charge or a slam without the growl warning; still haven't figured how to accommodate the possibility of either.

Looking at the code it doesn't look like it's planned for it to go away during the fight actually, not even hinted, so persistent might be the definitive idea  I only assumed that it'd go away given how it's presented with one fissure attack potentially eating over half of the island, all your W.A.R.B.O.T. leg safety spots.

Frankly if they are to really want this to be persistent, I could be okay with it, this has chances to be thrilling even ! But I don't want licking the borders to be the one main thing to do (especially if it's meant to electrify in the first place), nullifying the complete attack effect fells strange to me so I kinda hoped it would be a temp danger zone and the combat would take place on the whole island.

I trust they'll strike a good equilibrium so we see how that will move from this, can't wait to see the next patches.

[IAmAFurrz]

40 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

How certain are we that the field is not meant to last for the entirety of the fight? I'm sort of fond of the idea of a battle arena shrinking over time and making maneuvering more and more challenging as the fight progresses.

they could make it so its

1. less area (cone angle and length), but still permanent

2. last about 40 seconds and stay with the same area

[Waywarbler]

9 hours ago, ADM said:

I hope the boss behavior will try to account for some arena positioning because unlike W.A.R.B.O.T. I found it to be a lot more controllable, but most importantly I have the feeling this second phase is a lot more simple (assuming the fissures would work more like how I imagine it) and has the boss standing idle for too long given its slow attack speed. The change of pace between the two is super disturbing and I hope it won't drop like this, this fight should be a fair amount more dynamic.

It feels weird too because the Scion's theme (which I think is the current title screen theme) is quite frantic despite how slow and simple this phase is compared to W.A.R.B.O.T.

Edit: although the clanging in the theme makes me wonder if it's the W.A.R.B.O.T. theme...

Edited June 7, 2025 by Waywarbler