Abilities are timed attack patterns attached to enemies (mostly bosses). Each ability shows a visible telegraph (a bloom, line, cone, or ground circle) before firing so the player can read and dodge it. After the pattern resolves, the ability waits on a cooldown before triggering again.
Stats / variables
Available patterns
Pattern
Behavior
Telegraph?
Sustained?
radial_burst
N bullets fire outward in a 360 degree ring from the caster
yes
no
aimed_volley
N bullets fire toward the player’s locked telegraph-time position, optional spread
yes
no
cone_slam
Wedge of bullets fan out in front of the caster, reaches the cone tip in 0.6 seconds
yes
no
telegraphed_circles
M ground AOE circles paint and detonate; damage applies to player standing inside
yes
no
beam_sweep
Laser rotates from caster across an arc, applying DPS to player on the line
yes
yes
spiral_vortex
Rotating Touhou-style spiral emits bullet rings on a cadence
no
yes
wall_sweep
Wall of bullets crosses the arena horizontally or vertically with random safe gaps
yes
no
spawn_telegraph
Green ground circles paint, then spawn the configured enemy type at each circle
yes
no
death_beam
Single arena-bisecting kill beam; angle locks at telegraph start
Every enemy carrying an ability runs through the same loop: idle, telegraph, optional sustain, idle again.
On spawn, the first fire is gated by the start delay (warm-up grace before the first attack).
When the cooldown reaches zero, the pattern enters the telegraph phase and paints a visible warning (bloom, aimed line, cone shape, ground circle, beam charge, wall line, or green spawn circle).
The telegraph duration is fixed for that ability — the player has that window to reposition.
When the telegraph ends, single-shot patterns fire bullets or apply damage and immediately go idle; sustained patterns transition into the sustain phase and tick damage/emissions every frame until the sustain timer elapses.
The cooldown timer starts at the end of the telegraph/sustain phase, so a sustained beam does not double-count its sustain time against its cooldown.
For aimed_volley, the player’s position is locked at telegraph start — moving during the telegraph dodges the shot.
For death_beam and beam_sweep, the angle locks at telegraph start; the beam then sweeps or holds along that fixed line.
For wall_sweep, the starting edge alternates each fire — left/right or top/bottom flips between consecutive casts.
Interactions
Bosses — bosses-as-enemies references abilities by id from a roster ability list; abilities are the primary combat surface for bosses.
Boss arena — patterns no-op outside a boss arena; arena geometry (center, radius, diagonal, cardinal points, ring points, random points) drives wall sweeps, death beams, and spawn placements.
Enemy spawning — spawn_telegraph spawns regular enemy types with optional affixes at painted positions.
Combat damage — telegraphed_circles, beam_sweep, and death_beam damage the player directly through the standard damage pipeline (damage reduction, invuln, threshold scaling).
Enemy bullets — radial_burst, aimed_volley, cone_slam, spiral_vortex, and wall_sweep push bullets into the standard enemy bullet pool and despawn when leaving arena bounds.
VFX — telegraph blooms, lines, cones, circles, beam charges, screen tints, spark bursts, shockwave bands, and ground impact rings are painted by the VFX layer kit.
What it does NOT do
Does not allow the player to use abilities — abilities are enemy-only.
Does not target friendly fire or other enemies — only the player is damaged.
Does not auto-aim mid-flight — aimed_volley locks position at telegraph start, not at fire.
Does not chain or combo abilities — each instance ticks independently.
Does not pause cooldown when the host enemy is stunned or rooted — cooldown ticks every frame the host is alive.
Does not fire outside a boss arena — patterns silently no-op if no arena is active.
Does not deal damage during the telegraph phase — only the fire frame (single-shot) or sustain frames (beams) apply damage.
Does not retarget after telegraph — beams, aimed volleys, and death beams hold their locked geometry.
Does not allow silent ID collisions — duplicate ability ids throw at registration.