So I’ve recently done a little mental list for myself of the top 10 enemies I dread seeing in SR boss rooms. I realised, as you would expect, that most of these were super tanky, melee heavy hitters like Gargabol, Korvaak or Rashalga. And then a thought popped into my head. Where are all the dangerous ranged enemies in GD? And I don’t mean casters, there’s plenty of caster bosses you run into SR, and though not too many of them are super dangerous, casters are well represented among the high tier enemies of GD. But what about shooters? Guys and gals with crossbows, pistols, rifles. Try to think of a notable, dangerous enemy in the game that uses ranged weapons to attack. I can think of exactly one in all of the GD campaign and SR: Rutnick, an enemy added only relatively recently and one that doesn’t appear in high SR. Obviously attacking with ranged weapons immediately presumes that the enemy is human or, at the very least, humanoid, like a troll or groble. But even among non-humans the main enemy I can think of that uses ranged attacks without necessarily being a caster is Slathsarr. Other than that, it’s all casters or fighters. This isn’t just limited to SR bosses either. Among heroes, even though there are some that wield ranged weapons, like the Ugdenbog canibals, the majority of their abilities doesn’t involve the weapon at all. They mostly cast and shoot only in the downtime.
Do you think there is a design reason for this? Like if an enemy is going to use dangerous, non-telegraphed autoattacks with fast projectiles, they have to be melee so you can kite them if need be? Cause I find it super odd that one of the four core playstyles available to the player (melee, shooter, caster, summoner) is almost entirely absent from the repertoire of enemies. Or is there an enemy I forgot about?
I know this is absolutely not going to happen but since we’re in the suggestions/ideas section, I might as well try: I totally wouldn’t mind a good number of shooter bosses or even a nemesis being added to fill out this void (I know, I know, how in the hell would a new nemesis make sense at this point; a man can dream).
no idea, i never actually “missed” it/took note of it in a special way until you mentioned it like that
gunners in general feel rare and far between, and as you say rutnick is really the only real ranged boss, i don’t even really count sneks because they are essentially just casters globbing orbs at you even if technically ranged
mogdrogen using stun jacks probably also classifies as a caster even if it’s a mid range spam attack too,
maybe long range enemies would have been too strong/annoying, killing you from afar, or if dmg was low enough to not be scary, have their long range attacks “Negated” too quickly by being close range, making gunner or long range enemies sorta superfluous?
^right now we have regular enemies “encouraging” you to be close or mid range by having long range hard hitting skills, like Loghs doom bolt etc, obv something like that wouldn’t really benefit a gunner boss as much, just facetank and invalidate half their arsenal
but since we/player do pew pew, and at close range, deliberately so sometimes to benefit from shotguns, seems like there could be ways in addition to Rutnick, without 1shot dmg at 40yards
maybe gunner enemies are just considered boring in a “facetank simulator” game, or Crate just don’t like guns that much?
actually curious so i kinda do hope Z or someone from Crate might jump in with potential reasons why they are so sparse "hard boss"wise
since there is plenty regular trash ranged
the celestials and eldritch horrors in grimdawnverse seems to be allergic to guns/crossbows.
heck, even the aetherials are perplexed by humanity’s love for gunpowder and cannons in some of the lore notes.
maybe ulzuin will make his grand dynamic entry in the future with his hordes of demolitionist and gunslingers hellbent on throwing around gunpowder destructions everywhere…
its a statement from the aetherial that possessed commander lucius in fort ikon. the aetherial was confused why the humans had not exterminated themselves over the countless years of deadly conflicts when it observed the vast amount of GUNS AND XPLOSIVES in fort ikon armory.
which kinda makes me think, perhaps the celestials, aetherials, and chthonians in the ancient age was 99% leaning toward warrior/dualmeleerogue/caster builds rather than doing sciences that could lead to utility focused builds that rely on lots of contraptions and mechanisms of the shooty and xplody department.
celestials in grim dawn are all about MAGIC IS MIGHT. maybe in gd 2 the inqs and demos of the human resistances will show them the true coolness of SCIENCE DAKKASPLOSION SPAM. and some arrow bolts fwip-fwipping (crossbow bolts sfx in gd are too silent to be ‘cool’)
still doesn’t really explain the absence of ranged bosses tho
we have the gunner aetherial bois still, cronley western cowboys - which finally got a boss, groble and mistborn has some ranged too but no bosses, bloodsworn cultist pistoleros (yes yes i know “caster gun”)
also doesn’t relate super much to the pseudo ranged bosses, of which sneks like Slathsarr is the rare one, despite probably being plenty options of more races and types have been incorporated
again making it potentially seem more like a design choice than purely lore related, considering the enemies still do exist in various white/yellow or even hero monster grade form
now i really want to see korvak wielding pistols and hand crossbows in all his arms as his ultimate form. maybe yugol too with all its tentacles for lulz.
yugol: my tentacles can shoot bullets and arrow bolts. your arguments are invalid.
Obviously the pre-gunpowder enemies, most Eldritch and undead, will have a lower occurrence of guns but that doesn’t preclude them from using crossbows. Like Inqui said, there are plenty of shooty dudes among whites and yellows, and there is the occasional crossbow wielder like Rhovena Kur. But again, while a crossbow wielder, her attacks are an afterthought, the most prominent attacks are spells (cold wave, phantasmal blades). You could have plenty of ranged attackers among Kymon’s and Korvaak’s Chosen, they got guns galore. Yet when you look at Korvaak’s Chosen heroes and bosses like Astros, Sister Crimson, Brother Segarius, no shooters. The witches and cult defectors: Inarah, Navan, Tirgan, Janaxia, Larria, Anasteria, all casters, not one shooter. Avris Marrowill often wields a crossbow but most of her abilities are spells.
It’s not even like there wouldn’t be cool options to make those enemies memorable. Imagine a bounty hunter akin to Valdun chasing you down to snipe your ass (come to think of it, are there any ranged dudes among Riggs’ Associates? That would be the perfect place to put someone like that). Bolvar is already a fairly dangerous ranged attacker (depending on your stats when you first encounter him), but he doesn’t appear at high SR and doesn’t have any special attacks on top of his base, only spells. You could totally design a Harbinger set Bloodsworn akin to Bolvaris too. Or a savage Shaman with Northern Wyrm popping Upheavals and Primal Strikes on you, and camping among Storm Totems to punish you for getting close. Or some sort of a fallen Nightblade that has joined the Bloodsworn and starts pumping you full of ABB’s (not BB’s that’s something else). And that’s just working off of existing attacks that are in the game. There are plenty of abilities enemies have that the player doesn’t have access to, so ranged attackers could have been spiced up in a variety of ways.
If the issue with ranged autoattackers is telegraphing and casters are thus favoured over them, this could be solved by slapping an animation onto the memorable attacks. Say, if the Shaman were to Primal Strike you, he can take a knee similar to when the player pops a salvo off of an item WPS. We’re used to these animations being fast but enemies aren’t usually pounding into you at 170+ % AS, I think that would give time to the player to dodge as needed. And the animations can always be slowed down. So in that respect, I’m not sure there actually is a design reason for avoiding ranged bosses, it might just be an oversight.
come to think of it, abominations and eldritch beings can be shooters too through methods of shooting quills or thorns like the razorbacks and starcraft hydralisks. or grow some magical crystals on their bodies and launch them like machine guns. or just mutate summon some fleshy abominable turrets that shoots all of that simultaneously.
maybe some players want to face dangerous endgame shooter enemies because they are the epitome of fastest enemies that can turn the battlefield into your typical touhou bullet hell level. also like op said, they typically have really fast animation speed when they spam their dakkas.
all these wishes for more badass shooter enemies kinda makes me want to put cowboy hats and dual pistols into all these grim eldritch abominations. slith gunslingers! aetherial blob of pirate ship chockfull of cannons! loghorrean and yugol doing wild west standoff with cowboy hats! that invincible maggot doing cowboy build and shooting maggotchinegun! guns really upgrade the coolness factor of them eldritch celestial gang!
