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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stone Titan Primary: Seismic Shockwave

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!

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

• .score for the PluginConfig and for some AISkillDriver utils that I filched from Enemies++
• rune580 for RiskOfOptions
• Synodii for creating the cute little beetle buff icon.
• The many wonderful folks on the RoR2 modding discord for helping me with both code and ideas.