Enemy Abilities

This is a difficulty mod that increases the challenge of defeating the game's various enemies by giving them new skills! Most abilities increase the difficulty of fighting a given enemy, however some abilities will open up new counter strategies!

Alloy Vulture

New Secondary - Swoop

• Swoops towards the target, slashing with it's talons.
• Inflicts Bleed
• Will stun itself if it flies into a wall!

Alpha Construct

New Passive - Alpha Tripwire

• Creates tripwires between themselves and other Alpha Constructs.
• Walking into these tripwires deals a heavy burst of damage, and can both root and slow.
• Watch your step!

Beetle

New Special - Summon Reinforcements

• When Beetles are lonely enough for long enough, they gain the ability to call out and summon additional Beetles.
• This will summon another Beetle nearby, having a small chance to propagate it's elite affix (config adjustable).
• Only usable when more than 40m away from a player, and there are few enough beetles nearby, and they have not been attacked in the last 10 seconds.

New Passive - Strength in Numbers

• Beetles gain stacks of Strength in Numbers when nearby other Beetles. Beetle Guards grant 2 stacks, and Beetle Queens grant 3.
• Strength in Numbers gives them stacking armor and move speed up to a max of 10 times, and can grant additional stats via config options.

Other Changes

• Director Cost reduced from 8 to 7.
• Base Move Speed increased from 6m/s to 8m/s.
• Headbutt range increased from 2m to 7m, and grants a small lunge towards it's target. This range grows by 0.5m for each stack of Strength in Numbers! (also config adjustable).
• Custom buff icon by Synodii!

Bighorn Bison

New Secondary - Unearth Boulder

• Unearths a boulder in front of it. This boulder has a healthbar and can be damaged by both enemies and players. Melee-attacks from Bison will break the boulder instantly!
• When the boulder is killed, it launches three mini-boulders in a spread towards the nearest enemy of the boulder's killer. These mini-boulders explode on impact.

Other Changes

• Changed hitstun requirement from 15% to 30% of max health, to match Golems and Beetle Guards.
• Charge can be used from 80m away, which is the same distance Unearth Boulder can be used from.

Blind Pest

New Secondary - Thwomp Stomp

• Slams down with a poison explosion to hit targets directly beneath it.
• Enters a grounded state for three seconds afterwards.

Brass Contraption

New Special - Explosive Toll

• Tolls, then sends out a signal to up to 6 nearby embedded Brass Contraption projectiles.
• The signal causes them to explode after a short delay!

Other Changes

• Max Health increased from 300 (+90 per level) to 380 (+114 per level).
• Can no longer interrupt its own attacks at high attack speed.

Child

New Utility - Spatial Mischief

• Charges up an AoE that teleports it and a target caught inside to the most dangerous enemy it can find within 100m. It will always prioritise teleporting to parents, if it can!
• Deals a small amount of damage and applies a slow.
• Config option to make this ability only activate if it can teleport to a Parent.

Other Changes

• Frolic Away (teleport when airborne) will now attempt to teleport directly down to safe ground. If not, it will try and find the nearest safe node instead, rather than teleporting over 100m away every time.

Clay Apothecary

New Special - Tar Deluge

• Spawns a Tar Ball that it charges for 3 seconds. If it takes damage during the charge, the Tar Ball will get bigger and deal more damage!
• Creates a large lingering tar area upon landing. Deals low damage, but applies tar. The zone is larger the more charged the Tar Ball was!
• If killed during the charge, it blows up, damaging nearby monsters!
• Only usable below 60% health.

Other Changes

• Base Armor increased from 0 to 10.
• Max Health increased from 1050 (+315 per level) tp 1300 (+390 per level).
• Director Cost increased from 150 to 175.
• Custom buff icon by DTEE!

Clay Templar

New Utility - Grenade Barrage

• Launches a volley of five tar-filled grenades over cover to flush it's target out.
• Only usable if it doesn't have line of sight, and can draw an arc to the target.

Other Changes

• Minigun wind-down endlag reduced from 2s to 0.5s, to make it less cheeseable at close range.
• Tar Blast endlag reduced from 1.3s to 0.5s.
• Tar Blast knockback slightly increased, will roughly knock players back 30m instead of 20m.

Greater Wisp

New Special - Inferno Wheel

• Charges up a ring of powerful fireballs that spin around the Greater Wisp.
• Fireballs explode and leave behind a large DoT zone on impact.
• Each fireball can be damaged and destroyed.

Other Changes

• Max Health increased from 750 (+225 per level) to 900 (+270 per level).
• Director Cost reduced from 200 to 175.

Grovetender

New Special - Mass Resurrect

• Grovetenders passively collect gravestones when nearby enemies die.
• They then launch collected gravestones at the player, which explode into the ghost of the killed enemy.
• Ghosts provide armour to the grovetender.
• Only usable below 50% HP.
• Custom buff icon by DTEE!

Larva

New Utility - Caustic Pod

• Launches a small blob of acid towards their target. Deals no impact damage.
• Spawns a Caustic Pod at the location of impact that explodes upon taking damage.
• Deals light AoE damage to all nearby bodies (both ally and enemy!), and applies poison.
• Behaves similarly to Sulfur Pods (although deals less damage).

Other Changes

• To compensate for the additional self-damage of caustic pod, larval leap self damage reduced from 50% max HP to 33% max HP.

Lunar Golem

New Special - Laser Sweep

• Sweeps a laser along the ground towards the player, igniting the ground.
• Ignited ground deals light AoE, and explodes after a short delay.
• Only usable below 90% HP. Has 2 charges by default.

Solus Extractor

New Utility - Tendril Tether

• Fires off a tendril towards it's target.
• Hooks onto both terrain and units, pulling the Extractor towards them.
• If the Extractor hits a player, it slows them, gains an attack speed boost, and a reset on their Extract ability.
• Extractors now prioritise enemies that have items that they can actually steal.

Other Changes

• Will now prioritise targets that have items, meaning they are much more likely to target players over drones.
• Move speed increased from 11.2m/s to 18m/s.
• Acceleration increased from 40 to 60.
• Director Cost increased from 25 to 30.

Solus Prospector

New Secondary - Drill Burrow

• Burrows beneath the ground, then emerges beneath it's target shortly after.
• Is invulnerable whilst underground. Automatically re-emerges after 2 seconds.

Other Changes

• Director Cost increased from 11 to 16.

Solus Scorcher

New Utility - Jet Boost (new!)

• Dashes forwards in the direction that it's looking.
• Will use this to close the gap between itself and oiled targets.

Other Changes

• Full AI overhaul
• They now prioritise using their flamethrower directly on oiled targets before using it on oil blobs.
• Will use their flamethrower on non-oiled targets if they get too close!
• Oil puddles are now TeamIndex.Neutral and thus can be damaged and detonated by enemies with fire-based attacks such as Lemurians or Scorch Worms.
• Can no longer damage allies with it's flamethrower.
• Flamethrower total damage coefficient incraesed from 100% to 200%.
• Flamethrower cooldown reduced from 6s to 1s, but this cooldown now only starts once the skill ends.
• Director Cost increased from 18 to 28.
• Spawn duration increased from 0s to 1s.

Solus Transporter

New Utility - Tractor Beam / Fling

• Picks up monsters with a tractor beam, before tossing them at its target.
• Deals damage dependent on the flung monster's weight.

Other Changes

• Move speed increased from 10m/s to 14m/s.
• Acceleration increased from 14 to 20.
• Director Cost reduced from 200 to 150.
• Custom buff icon by DTEE!

Stone Titan

New Primary: Seismic Shockwave

• Jumps and upon landing creates a slow-moving radial shockwave.
• Can be jumped over!
• Knocks both players and monsters up into the air!

Other Changes

• Stone Construct summon animation duration reduced from 9s to 5s.
• Stone Construct delay before firing reduced from 6s to 3s.
• Delay between Stone Construct projectiles reduced from 1.5s to 0.75s.

Void Reaver

New Special: Summon Void Anglers

• Summons a Void Angler!
• Void Anglers float and fire extremely long-range lasers at players.
• They're fragile, and also disappear once their summoning Void Reaver is killed!
• Custom buff icon by DTEE!

Xi Construct

New Secondary: Core Launch

• Spins up to fire it's core at the nearest player.
• The core embeds in the ground for a few seconds, and transfers any damage it takes to the Xi Construct.

Notes

• All modules are enabled by default! Don't like a skill? You can disable it in the config!
• May contain bugs! Please report any issues that you find by using the github link, or messaging me in the RoR2 Modding Discord server.

Credits

• DTEE of Icons fame for creating the mod icon, and numerous buff icons! Go check their stuff out!
• .score for the PluginConfig and for some AISkillDriver utils that I filched from Enemies++
• Synodii for creating the cute little beetle buff icon.
• rune580 for RiskOfOptions
• The many wonderful folks on the RoR2 modding discord for helping me with both code and ideas.