Macrauchenia sommesonus- Battle boom box- Kill a giga in 20 seconds

[Normandem]

Hi all,

I would like to introduce a new way that herbivores could be used to join the fight, Macrauchenia sommesonus! Macrauchenia was a lipotern ungulate living during the Pleistocene epoch until around 10,000 years ago and looked like a giant llama with a trunk. In Ark its trunk could be used for sound-based combat and deafening opponents. Macrauchenia was a large herbivore that would be able to hold its own against most predators on Ragnarok as well as harvest thatch and berries. As a pack animal Macrauchenia is specialised at carrying building pieces, perfect for assisting cave runs and boss fights.

Here's some reasons why Macrauchenia would be great for Ragnarok-

·         Shout attack- the more Macrauchenia are using the attack, the louder the sound! Damage caused by their attack will stack, eventually preventing enemy command whistles and courage roars and doing crazy high damage.

·         Has a sound buff caused by enemy roars

·         Reduced carry weight on building pieces

·         Tamed using wardrums

·         A herbivore that’s good in combat, and a more unique mechanic to fight with

Dossier

Wild

Since humanity all but disappeared, the Arks became much quieter. That is, except for one creature who’s booming calls fill the silence- Macrauchenia. These giant, long-nosed llamas wander across the plains and communicate at distance with deep, trumpeting calls. And the more Macrauchenia that get involved, the more deafening the noise becomes.

Wild Macrauchenia are drawn towards other loud noises; more musical tribes have been able to domesticate them by playing wardrums. They are the only creatures I have seen that even enjoy the roaring of predators and are able to defend themselves against a louder foe much more effectively than a silent one.

Domesticated

Macrauchenia can be used as a beast of burden just as well as camels back home. They are particularly adept at carrying walls and flooring material to wherever you plan to build.

One single Macrauchenia is not very powerful in combat, however a large group of them can be devastating. With enough Macrauchenia you can completely deafen your opponent, making them unable to hear commands. The only protection I have found from this is to wear a fur hat to muffle their sound.

Wild behaviour

·         Lives in the plains, desert and snow (near rexes and yutys)

·         Only attacks when provoked

·         If nearby rexes or yutys roar, then will become aggressive to all nearby enemies (and receive a defence buff)

·         Herbivore

Taming

·         Will move towards wardrums when played

·         Starts a minigame where you play the wardums to the same rhythm as the Macrauchenia’s noise. Good timing will tame more quickly. Losing the beat will reduce taming effectiveness.

Utility

Pack mule

·         Fast walk speed and slow stamina drain

·         Reasonably fast swim speed for a large herbivore (similar speed to an Amarga)

·         High stamina (450), weight (800) and health (720) stats

·         Weight reduction of 50% on all building materials

In combat

·         Bulky herbivore with a similar power level to chalicotheriums and woolly rhinos

·         Significant power buff when roared at, either by rexes or yutys. Similar buff to bug killer on Megatheriums.

·         Immune to enemy fear roars

·         Main attack is the sound attack but can also kick and bite for reasonably good damage.

·         As it’s a herbivore can eat sweet veggie cakes

Sound attack

·         Attack that has a medium distance and large AOE (meaning they can stand behind your more tanky tames and still do damage)

·         Disables nearby enemy parasurs

·         Takes damage twice per second and has fast stamina drain

·         Very low damage when only using one Macrauchenia but stacks as you add more creatures becomes exponentially more powerful. Damage is also increased by levelling.

·         Three or more using a sound attack will trigger the deafened debuff- blocks targets from hearing commands and courage roars

·         Damage caps at six Macrauchenia- at this stage the damage would be insane and probably enough to shred through many bosses

·         Can be blocked by wearing a fur hat or Tek helmet

Damage calculations for sound attack

·         Starts at base 1 damage per tick if 100% melee

·         Every Macrauchenia added doubles the power of the attack

·         Although these numbers don’t seem too huge this attack has a longer range than biting, and is much faster. The DPS is probably not far behind that of gigas and would be much higher than many rexes.

Number of Macrauchenia attacking	Base DPS at 100% melee	Total DPS if all have 100% melee	Base DPS at 1000% melee	Total DPS if all have 1000% melee
1	1	1	10	10
2	2	4	20	40
3	4	12	40	120
4	8	32	80	320
5	16	80	160	800
6	32	192	320	1920
7	64	448	640	4480 (is this too broken?)

·         6 Macrauchenia with 1000% melee will do faster damage to most bosses than Deinonychus bleed (so there may need to be a damage cap to stop this being completely broken). 7 1000% damage Macrauchenia could kill a level 1 wild giga in less than 20 seconds

·         These calcs are not even using the yuty courage buff or sound buff mentioned earlier- maybe these should not affect the sound attack to stop Macrauchenia from absolutely destroying everything

 

What are your thoughts? I've tried to make this concept a little balanced (but have got carried away with damage calc at the end). Are there any changes you would make? Thanks for reading!

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Normandem

[Normandem]

I made a change to the damage calculations- if using 7 of them together, damage stacks high enough to kill a giga in 20 seconds! As crazy as the damage is, In PVP I imagine this would be quite difficult to actually pull off since they would all be unridden and attacked by other gigas or shadowmanes.

And should rock elementals take reduced damage from the sound attacks? As otherwise they are so slow they would die before reaching a Macrauchenia to attack