I attempted this suggestion before, and the ideas brought up here were talked about in a separate game discussion topic, linked in the suggestion itself. I also thoroughly explained the entire point of the suggestion, the reasoning and the arguments related, so I will not be going over it again.
The original idea was a two-part: either give Strength players the Tidestone Harpoons tool, a ranged projectile that can be thrown to deal damage, but does nothing to players, or give bosses that are for any reason too dangerous to fight up close moves that won’t have such issue for their duration.
From the discussion, key points emerged that defined this follow-up. Strength must: 1) Retain its melee identity. 2) Be more rewarded for staying in close range of foes that are obviously much better to keep away from. 3) Have better mobility. 4) Increase its survivability. 5) Have some sort of way to combat unapproachable foes. 6) Not be given any sort of a weapon.
Thats a whole bunch of confusing requirements. How can they be combined? Well…
Strength route-exclusive tool: Mask of Momus.
Hearing his name for the first time? Yeah, me too. I just searched up “ancient greek god of mockery”, and this is who I found. But, he’ll do just fine.
Mask of Momus is a tool the player is able to find outside Poseidon’s temple after they got their first awakening as a Strength hybrid/Berserker. The design of the mask is better left to be decided on by those who know Greek mythology better than me.
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To use the mask, it has to be selected on the hotbar or in a pouch slot, functioning basically exactly like a fighting style with only one move: Vicious Mockery. The keybind for that technique is the same that your normal fighting styles’ first ability’s, which most often is Q.
By using the ability, the player will emit speech-imitating mumbling and fire a “projectile”. This transparent orb flies like a thrown polearm, with the similar hitbox, and must be landed on a non-player enemy. If landed, it won’t do any damage, but it will give the Strength user who fired it a Mockery Stack. Vicious Mockery has a recharge of a Crash technique.
Mockery Stacks give the user various buffs, but must be upheld by continuously landing Vicious Mockery. All stacks will expire after a bit longer than twice the move’s cooldown, so if you miss one, you still have one last chance to land another before losing your progress. There can be a maximum of 4 stacks, and gaining another, or a stack past 4, will refresh the expire timer. How long the stacks have left until expiring is shown as a meter below the effect’s icon, which appears under your HP bar, like other effects.
1 stack: The target will prioritise the Strength user, if in a fight against multiple foes. If multiple players are inflicting Vicious Mockery, the target won’t change their priority until the first player either dies or leaves the battle. Several bosses that are dangerous to fight in melee range will close the distance with the user and keep it for as long as the stacks are active, as well as stop using moves that would kill a player in such close range in seconds, or have those moves deal reduced damage. Dragons won’t fly as high and have their melee abilities weakened, Krakens will bring their tentacles close enough to be punched, Allanon won’t airstall anymore and will lose his 2000 damage grab and the massive self-explosion…
Alternatively, entirely new movesets can be made for these bosses. The main purpose of this is to let the Strength user fight these enemies at their only available range while not instantly dying upon bringing a full-grown dragon into sneezing distance from themselves.
2 stacks: Accuracy of the afflicted enemies decreases, as long as their target is the user.
3 stacks: The user’s energy/stamina recovery, Haste and Agility is boosted. The effects would roughly be equivalent to having Energy Recharge III/Energizing III effect and cooldowns/movement speed being reduced/increased by 10%.
4 stacks: The user gains lifesteal, the same as the innate one Spirit possesses. A mask that gives you vampiric powers? Huh…
With this tool, Strength still fuctions as melee-only route in PvP and PvE, but now it has a way to play the game with the recent additions in the “bosses” category. I’ll mention it again - this tool does nothing against players. The PvP side of Strength is left intact. The aim required to continuously land what is essentially thrown polearms is rewarded with buffs that will prolond their survival in such harsh conditions. So, what does the community think about this? Should the fighters be taught swearing and trolling?
