Difference between revisions of "Beast Forms"

Revision as of 13:44, 15 June 2021

Beast Forms are a unique feature of the skill system in Project: Gorgon. Beast Forms are transformations which can be discovered from consuming potions, failing to defeat specific bosses, participating in events, or leveling skills. While technically curses, many consider Beast Forms to be viable, powerful alternatives to living life in a humanoid form.

Skill Characterization

Cow

• Cows are viewed as a traditional tank archetype. Abilities such as Tough Hoof and Chew Cud help Cows improve their survivability in longer fights. Cows also have the sprint ability Moo of Determination, and the the ability to produce their own milk.
• 

   

  Bottle of Milk
  is a valuable item used in crafting skills such as Cooking and Cheesemaking. Cows with a Vegetarian badge can produce milk faster than cows with a varied diet, however skill level and the version of Collect Milk used also impact collection times.
• Adventurers can also milk cows, however consent must be given.

Deer

• Deer is considered to be a good foundation for an off-tank. While cows receive overt tank abilities, survivability in deer primarily comes from Deer Treasure Effects on equipment. Deer have the ability to jump faster and higher than other land-based Beast Forms using Bounding Escape. They also have AoE taunts, while cows only have single target taunts.
• Deer can use the ability Summon Deer to summon a wild deer to help them in battle.
• Some deer are actually Druids, using the Deer Form toggle ability.

Spider

• Spider form is useful for DPS/Assassin type builds. Spiders deal predominantly Crushing and Poison damage to quickly defeat enemies. Many spiders rely on Incubate, an ability that injects eggs inside enemies, dealing massive damage and spawning a pet spider. Spiders spawned through this ability will aid their parent in battle.
• Spiders have the ability to use Insidious Illusion to temporarily talk with Animal Hating NPCs. This ability has a 20 minute cooldown and consumes a
  

   

  Moonstone
  each time it is used.
• 

   

  Spiderweb
  can be produced by Level 60 Spiders using Webspin. This ability can give spiders an advantage in Textile Creation and Tailoring, which is helpful if they want to craft the spider-form Tailoring equipment.

Pig

• Pigs are often equipped for supporting roles. While they can hold their own individually, they shine in groups as healers or buff builders using a combination of Mudbath, Frenzy, and Porcine Alertness.
• The speed-boosting sidebar ability Terror Dash is often used by pigs escaping dangerous situations, or traveling across large regions of Alharth.
• A variety of mushrooms can be found by pigs using the Truffle Sniff abilities.

Rabbit

• Normally, rabbits are stealthy creatures. Using Play Dead, a rabbit can force enemies to ignore it for a few seconds. Traveling through dangerous areas, rabbits may alternate between the speed-increasing Hare Dash and the speed-reducing Long Ear, which slows a rabbit down in exchange for reducing the detection range of nearby foes.
• Rabbits are the only Beast Form capable of using Ice Magic. A special headgear item is required to activate this synergy.

Giant Bat

• Giant Bats have access to a variety of tools, including knock-back, recovery, heavy damage, and concussion abilities. These options made Giant Bat compatible with many skills.
• Giant Bats can use Echolocation, which allows them to see in the dark. This ability is especially useful in area like the deeper parts of the Labyrinth in Ilmari.
• Giant Bats also have the ability to fly, and to infect others in PVP with a disease which will eventually turn them into a bat.

Lycanthropy

Spirit Fox

The same can be said about Werewolves and Giant Bats, they're both known for their damage and their ability to keep the pressure on.

Druids by themselves should NOT be classified as a Beast Form. However Druids are given spells that will allow them to assume certain beast appearances like Deer, Raven and Mallard.

Advantages

Wolves have the ability to switch in and out of wolf form(except during Full Moon, when they are stuck for 3 days), they also have specific Wolf-Altar/Wolf benefits, the altar can unlock higher lvl abilities, has the option of being a storage space, and by completing quests for the Altar you can get bonuses like Extra Armor, Power, Health, Damage Mitigation, Bonus Attack %, or a Sprint Speed bonus.

Familiar's Recall

Icon	Level	Name	Description	Special	Effects	Stats	Source
	0	Familiar's Recall	Sends you back to your master. You must be a long-term animal with a bonded master, and you must be wearing a Familiar Recall Collar.	Can Be On Sidebar		Power Cost: 50 Range: 5 Cooldown: 1800	???

Using a Recall Collar, a character using one of the Beast Forms may directly teleport to their master using the Familiar's Recall ability. This ability can be used from anywhere, as long as the player has been in animal form for the past 3 hours of in-game real time.

This ability is learned from their master:

• Cinnamon the rabbit in Animal Town is currently the only NPC offering a bond, but he implies that other NPCs will offer this service in the future.

Recall Collars

Disadvantages

Becoming a Werewolf / choosing for Lycanthropy is a PERMANENT CHOICE. It has some impactful consequences when doing that. It CANNOT be reversed.

One of the disadvantages of being an animal is Beast Speech. While typing in chat certain words can be changed to a sound-representation.
Example: a Cow might type "I'll wait for you near the Serbule well". But after pressing Enter the sentence may read as "I'll wait moo you near the Moooooo mooo". The words that will be replaced will be random.

Certain NPCs will not speak to you while you are an animal. Especially the ones in Serbule. (Note: This also has the consequence that the storage for Joeh, Marna, Ivyn and Tadion may not be available. At the moment those storages are available to animals through the Serbule central storage closet in the room between Hulon and Marna). But to counter that there are Animal NPCs in Animal Town which is in Sun Vale, who will speak to you, but only after you have been an Animal for 3 in game hours.

Another disadvantage is your inability to use skills that require hands, such as Sword, Fire/Ice Magic, Shield, and your inability to cut/gather wood, and to milk cows and other animals, since skills that require the use of Hands do not work, since animals do not have hands (or thumbs).

Most weapons do not work for animals, including priest staff or necromancy orb. Animals using these skills will have to find other items that enable the ability, like necklaces.

Crafting Gear for Animal Forms

Observant players have noticed that it's hard to craft gear for animal-cursed players. There are few gems that cover all animal curses, so you often craft Deer gear when you really want Spider gear, and so on.

Preta can teach you to inscribe runes into those gems, so that you can attune the gem to one specific animal curse. You'll want to get your Sigil Scripting skill to level 25 to be able to use those techniques.

General tips regarding playing in an Animal Form

For general advice, avoid playing as an animal unless absolutely certain, and after you have explored zones such as Serbule and Etilbule as a human, and gotten at least some storage space, NPC favors done, and gotten used to the general feel of the game. Because starting off as an Animal can be hard or trying for a new player.

Be aware that the Animal Forms stack. If you are a cow, and drink a Deer Juice potion, you will appear to be a Deer. However you are also still cursed as a Cow. So after drinking an Un-Deer Juice, you will not be in human form, but will be a Cow again.

When just starting animal say something in Nearby chat every 5 min or so. That way you will get exp in your Beast Speech, and won't bother people in Global. You can also set up a new chat-channel with a unique name and use that as a private channel to randomly type in, to level up Beast Speech.

To (some) animals Joeh will not talk. Thus causing a problem for those players when trying to sell gear loot-drops. Please know that Roshun the Traitor talks to animals and also buys gear.

Storage unlocked in Serbule (from Joeh, Ivyn or Marna) will seem to be unavailable to animals since those NPC's wont talk to them. That storage can be accessed (at least as of the moment this is written) through the Bookshelf (between Marna's and Hulon's house).

3-sylabe word of powers include ones that will grant you illusion, making you look like elf for 2 min. can be helpfull when talking to NPCs. Note that Spiders can learn a spell Illusion (that consumes a moonstone) to take human form for some minutes.

You definately should start working on favor in Animal Town asap, especialy if you are full time animal (eg - not wolf)

Jumper, Raul and Norbert in Sun Vale's Animal Town offers Storage only for players in animal form.

Seek out special NPC's

There are unique opportunities for animal players. For instance, if you're playing as a Cow, Deer, or Pig, seek out the Suspicious Cow, an NPC cow in the fields of Eltibule. She can sell you some animal-specific abilities, and even has a unique dye recipe that is otherwise unobtainable ("drab grass green"). She also sells belts for each of those animal forms. Werewolves should look for Sanja the wolf, in the forests off the coast of Kur. And every animal player will find it helpful to talk to Flia, a fairy in the wilds of Serbule.

NPC & Animal Interactions

NPC Shopkeepers that speak to Beast Forms

NPCs that speak to Beast Forms and are not Shopkeepers

Returning to Human Form (temporarily)

In order to make "being an animal" a viable path through the entire game, the next update (Sept 2014) adds some high-level Words of Power that can help. These Words apply an illusion to you that makes you look like a human for a minute or so -- just long enough to talk to NPCs that ignore animals!

Completing quests this way is a fairly laborious process, because you have to research the Words and each Word is usable only once. It is intended that being an animal is a hard play style. The "human form" Words of Power just ensure that animals can access important skills and equipment that they will need at higher level, even though it will be a bit of a pain.

Spiders can learn the 'Illusion' spell (that consumes one moonstone each time) to assume a human form illusion for a limited time.

To permanently undo the transformation to Cow, a player will have the kill the Maronesa boss in the Crystal Cavern.
To undo the transformation to a Deer, Rabbit or a Pig, a player will have to obtain a random drop Un-Deer potion or Un-Pig potion and drink that.
To undo the transformation to a Spider the player will have to obtain an Un Spider potion from the Strange Spider in Serbule Crypts (who is guarded by the tough Rhino Guardian).
Please note: once a player has transformed to a Lycan (wolf), that CANNOT be undone !

Trivia

Animal forms (and specifically Cow at first), was at first 'a fluke' by the Dev's. Citan / Eric originally only intended the Animal forms to be a very temporary curse. Intended only as 'punishment' and to be cured ASAP.
He / they were surprised to find that certain players wanted to continue playing in that animal form. And subsequently the different animal forms and their abilities and playstyle were further developed.

Sources

• Making Armor Pt 2