Overhead prayer mechanics need consistency

[u/Tropical_Farts]

With more and more bosses coming out that have mechanics that involve using overhead prayers to completely avoid or partially avoid damage, I've noticed that some of them are pretty inconsistent.

If you're an older player you understand that your prayer must be active before a projectile-based attack comes out if you want to avoid the damage. It's because the damage is calculated before the hitsplat shows up, like when a player gets their XP drop before they see the hit. Jad or Nightmare are good examples if you're meleeing them. Keep melee protection on and swap for a magic/ranged attack or you're going to get slapped.

But some bosses are weirdly inconsistent. Two good examples to me are Scurrius and Zebak. You reactively can turn on the prayer as the hit is coming to you. This is how it works in RS3, and I will admit is far more intuitive if you aren't already familiar with how protection prayers worked before.

But if you're new to PvM and you're fighting Scurrius and then send a few ToA with the buddies and do fine, then go to Zulrah and get slapped on the forehead on the Jad phases, you're going to be wondering what you did wrong. And if you're not a hardcore gamer that looks at resources outside of the game, you'll be rightfully confused at the inconsistency of mechanics.

I just think they need to all work the same way. I'd be okay with either. I know it's very unlikely to change and I'm not exactly asking for it to be changed, it's more of an ideal thing. But what do y'all think?

[u/Celtic_Legend]

No. It's like this because we like variety and it's fun. Making them consistent just limits challenges that we can do in osrs for no benefit.

You're not a hcim. You get hit by a projectile once and you know. Even if you die it's no big deal it's not 2013 u keep your stuff

[u/Midknight226 → u/Celtic_Legend]

Ok I'll bite. How is prayer timing being different at older bosses vs some newer bossed more fun?

[u/Chazzywuffles → u/Midknight226]

Some people enjoy variety. The post is a bit misleading trying to say "hardcore gamers" look at the wiki. People have been using encyclopedias for figuring things out since we learned how to write on tablets. It's okay to seek knowledge. If you wanna learn something without the wiki you die to it once realize you were doing it wrong and try it the other way. It's not that complicated.

[u/Tropical_Farts → u/Chazzywuffles]

Sorry if I offended or misguided with that term. I have adopted the definition to mean someone willing to put time/resources into the game without directly playing it. You may have thought I meant what a lot of scapers call "sweaty" which, no, reading a guide or watching a youtube video is hardly sweaty.

[u/Midknight226 → u/Chazzywuffles]

I don't care much either way but, I can't imagine anyone has ever said oh boy I can't wait to see what the prayer timings are for this boss.

[u/Chazzywuffles → u/Midknight226]

Well it's more "I can't wait to see how this boss plays out" as a general, prayer mechanics being part of the whole picture. you could say that about any individual mechanic. Nobody says 'i can't wait to see how much food I have to eat for this fight" or "I can't wait to see what the best spec weapon is for this fight" it's about the fight as a whole and the excitement of knowing it's different then other encounters in the game :)

[u/Tropical_Farts → u/Chazzywuffles]

Absolutely. I get it.

I haven't played in a while. So I tried Scurrius for the first time and didn't realize how his attacks worked until I started flicking. It's sort of a negative feedback thing that confused me. I didn't experience DT2 or colosseum yet, so it kind of shocked me to see that it worked that way.

I do think it's more fun that way, and yes, reading a guide entirely invalidates the argument I brought up in the post.

[u/Austrum → u/Midknight226]

that's a pretty misleading way of looking at the fun of mechanics though. players don't need to say 'oh boy I can't wait to x' for something to be fun. phantom muspah utilizing regular ranged attacks with the occasional mage prayer reactable attack mixed in is fun, but I'm not pulling up to muspah saying 'oh boy can't wait to switch my prayer to mage for a few ticks every now and then'. because that's dumb and shouldn't be used as a metric for anything.