Spider Mastermind magic attack

[neoworm]

I've mocked up animation for the unimplemented Spider Mastermind magic attack based on the one sprite Romero posted just for fun, but I kinda like the animation in the end and I would like to make it properly. The problem is that not even id had idea what the attack should actually do. So what about a little brainstorming?

I am kinda inclined to make it spawn some orbiting drones (probably using the bosscube for these) that make the Spiderdemon invulnerable unless they are destroyed. It is kinda fitting for him as a boss, pretty much turning the trivial combat into a multiphase battle. But it can be annoying when he's used as normal monster.

Second idea is to make him spawn a giant BFG-like ball above it's head and throw it at player, dealing huge damage with large blast radius forcing player to search for even better cover. Problem is, it can be really situational - it can't be used when not enough space above, it would be less effective than chaingun in tight spaces generally, it could be used as free nuke against other enemies etc.

Third idea is pretty much a archvile ressurect spell, only applied to multiple corpses. Pretty much making the Spider demon a necromancer with a wall of cannon fodder between him and player.

[Matt]

I'm imagining fighting it in a big arena filled with corpses... and every so often it casts mass revive.

[Vegeta(dw)]

-Regeneration
-Power up: It gives itself a random power up (inmortality, quad damage, time freeze). The color of the flash used in the animation varies with each power up (blue for inmortality, red for quad, green or yellow for time freeze)
-Spawn mini brain monsters
-Morph feets into jet packs and start flying (then another one to return back to normal)
-If arg1 is 1 then when you do certain amount of damage the brain uses this animation (without the yellow flash) to abandon the mech legs and start flying
-Teleport
-Without the yellow flash it could be used to make the monster jump

[Tartlman]

Holy moly, that looks amazing

A mass resurrect probably wouldn't synergize well... the mastermind would end up infighting with everything and make it trivial. I'd say that maybe fire a bunch of projectiles that redirect on impact with a surface towards their target. That would help chase the player out from cover.

[MFG38]

Where's his Gatling gun, though?

[kodi]

Go with telekinesis. Make it damage and throw the player back forcefully if they get to close, to discourage the easy BFG and SSG tactics. You can also give it a chance to telekinetically redirect rockets, plasma and bfg balls back at the player.
Instead of resurrecting monsters, it could just throw the corpses at you!

[Matt]

Where's his Gatling gun, though?

maybe have it summon a bunch of guns out of the air that start shooting the player...

[neoworm]

Where's his Gatling gun, though?

It's still just mockup, I will edit it in when the animation is done.

Go with telekinesis. Make it damage and throw the player back forcefully if they get to close, to discourage the easy BFG and SSG tactics. You can also give it a chance to telekinetically redirect rockets, plasma and bfg balls back at the player.
Instead of resurrecting monsters, it could just throw the corpses at you!

Hmm... I think player is too fast for Spider Mastermind to react to prevent SSG or BFG hit and run shots. But the redirecting... I think combining it with the shield drones can make interesting dynamic - you miss the drone and hit the Mastermind? Expect the shot get back at you. You will be forced to shoot at him to hit the drones, but at the same time every time you miss you get punished for it.

A mass resurrect probably wouldn't synergize well... the mastermind would end up infighting with everything and make it trivial. I'd say that maybe fire a bunch of projectiles that redirect on impact with a surface towards their target. That would help chase the player out from cover.

I would like to avoid adding bunch of new multicolored shots to it. It always seems really cheap when I boot up some cutom monster and it just uses 3 different colore projectiles attack randomly.
The attack that homes on player after hitting a wall could be mechanic for a standalone Revenant class monster.

[Gez]

Make it spawn arachnotrons, and if it's invulnerable while the arachnotron minions are alive it'll avoid getting it destroyed by infighting. Or at least, use the species property so that it won't be hurt by its minions' plasma. (Regular arachnotrons shouldn't be affected, though.) Maybe the arach minions could be smaller than the regular 'trons to make the difference more perceptible.

The best tactic against the mastermind is to rush it with a BFG or SSG and shoot point-blank. With the BFG you can one-shot it. So a Disc-of-Repulsion effect to repel players that are closing in would make sense.

Finally, from the arch-vile, I'd take the pyrokinetic attack instead of the resurrection. It's a long-range, precision attack that does not risk triggering infighting, contrarily to the chaingun fire.

[Matt]

Another possible attack: command all nearby monsters to stop infighting and attack the player.

[gdm413229]

My idea for a spider mastermind magic attack: apply a damaging curse to the floor that inflicts spiritual damage. (not absorbed by physical armor!)

[Tartlman]

A mass resurrect probably wouldn't synergize well... the mastermind would end up infighting with everything and make it trivial. I'd say that maybe fire a bunch of projectiles that redirect on impact with a surface towards their target. That would help chase the player out from cover.

I would like to avoid adding bunch of new multicolored shots to it. It always seems really cheap when I boot up some cutom monster and it just uses 3 different colore projectiles attack randomly.
The attack that homes on player after hitting a wall could be mechanic for a standalone Revenant class monster.

Who said that it has to be a bunch of colors? it would probably look better if it was an cacodemon ball with the palette translated to be green, or something

[StroggVorbis]

Maybe the magic "attack" could involve freezing the player in place to finish him off with the chaingun.

The effect kinda already is there; players who get hit by the tomed phoenix rod in Heretic multiplayer.

[Matt]

The damage-floor-idea might be workable by having a slight warning delay and a limited radius - say, summoning a big delayed-blast fireball from the ground the player is standing on that on detonation lights a 128-radius area on fire for 5 seconds... would be a heck of a frustrating but still not-completely-bullshit way to flush someone out of a hiding spot.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

I really like this animation. Although for casting spells, he has a huge brain, so the Spider Mastermind would use his psychic abilities. Something like teleporting the doomguy close to Mastermind no matter where he's hiding. Imho it would be more realistic and cooler looking if he used his little hands to wrap his head and use his big brain's full potential to do Magic. Something like you would see him doing at 01:54 in this video: