The 2 hp feels shoehorned and doesn't do much for the actual difficulty.
#Make Doom of Mokhaiotl's Larvae 1 hp
median schooner
median schooner
Make Doom of Mokhaiotl's Larvae 1 hp
dry grove
If you want them to be lowered, doesn't that mean it's adding too much difficulty?
I don't think this change is necessary. Slayer staff is a discount option for demonbane spells, darklight/arclight is free, and darts are 1t so you kill em in the time it takes for a demonbane attack anyway.
median schooner
No, like you have pointed out, slayer staff, darts, and darklight are already easy alternatives.
The problem is it's a shoehorned design where it doesn't really affect the difficulty
A comparison is Yama, where something like speccing with purging staff adds a change to the fight, where at doom you're just doing weapon swaps but shoehorned demonbane version.
dry grove
If you don't need to use it since you have very viable alternatives then it's not really shoehorned is it?
It's odd you mention Yama as a good example since purging staff does feel shoehorned there as you need to use a completely different strategy if you didn't have it.
median schooner
It's shoehorned in the sense you're not doing anything different other then switching weapons, and the "very viable alternatives" are all basically still demonbane.
Yama is the opposite in that you "need to use a completely different strategy" if you have a purging staff.
median schooner
I think the difference is the design space into which demonbane is shoehorned. My question is "how much does this actually affect the difficulty/strategy of the fight?" And from that, I ask "why add it to that part of the fight"?
Yama's Orbs has a change in difficulty/strategy where you use can special attacks (from purging staff) to speed up killing the orbs.
Doom of Mokhaiotl's Larvae has no real change in difficulty/strategy as you are still just weapon swapping.
Thinking about it more, there is a case of "increased difficulty". Maybe Jagex wanted Larvae to be 2hp to:
- make mage larvae feel different, because the delay with casting demonbane doesn't happen with powered staves.
- make melee larvae more punishing, because hally would give 1 extra distance.