Half 'n Hat is an Event Boss in the Extended Tale of Diep, spawning as the midway boss of both the Edifice of the Lord and the IE Energy Reserves gamemodes. Idea by Diepmon.
Overview[]
Half 'n Hat is a sentient Hesperian hat, but is not in fact a hat given life by Lord Sassafras or whoever. Rather, he is a Hesperian whose essence has been transferred into an abnormally large hat, but he can shift between both his Hesperian and hat forms at will.
Half 'n Hat has the odd ability to instantly refine half of the unrefined IE Energy in the IE Energy Reserves located in Aegle with a single snap of his hand, making him a huge asset to the Hesperian League, for refined IE Energy is the backbone of all things Hesperia. However wondrous this ability may be, however, there is no way for Half 'n Hat to completely refine all the IE Energy in the Reserves - since his ability only affects unrefined IE Energy, if he's already snapped once, he will only refine a quarter of all the IE Energy left, leaving another quarter of still-unrefined IE Energy. Were he to snap again, he would leave an eighth unrefined and refine another eighth, and so on. As such, to maximize his efficiency, Half 'n Hat generally waits until the Reserves are sufficiently replenished, then he snaps once more.
Design[]
Half 'n Hat is a light purple Hesperian hat with yellow accents. He has a floating gloved right hand with palm, fingers and all, while his other hand is a purple hexagon with a Vulcan weapon with yellow barrel bindings.
Battle (The IE Energy Reserves)[]
Half 'n Hat's battle is relatively straightforward in the IE Energy Reserves. He has 36,000 health and only one phase.
Attacks[]
- Turret Volley: Half 'n Hat fires his cannon at a random player, dealing high damage with a small round of bullets.
- Fingered Out: Half 'n Hat gestures with his hand a "grab" motion, as a player suddenly rises into the air and comes right back down with a splat, dealing medium damage and interrupting any channeled abilities. Often used 3-5 times in a row, can target anywhere in the room, and can target the same player multiple times.
- Convex Lens: Half 'n Hat furrows his eyebrows as he fires off a series of missiles that home in on the nearest player.
- Tangent Autostorm: Half 'n Hat begins by spinning up his cannon, before firing off 7-9 bursts of 20 red-hot blazing bullets each at players. He has a 75% chance to change targets with each burst, and the bullets themselves inflict Burning for 2 seconds on hit and very low damage each (although players could be hit by the whole burst for medium damage if they aren't careful at dodging them.)
- Infinity Snap: Used if Half 'n Hat's attention is not kept on the player tanking him for more than 15 seconds. He snaps his fingers and uses one of the following disruptive attacks:
- Multiport: Half 'n Hat swaps the locations of all players within their color brackets while his eyes glow blue, causing them to teleport to their partner's former location. Can cause quite a lot of disruption.
- Hyperbolt: Half 'n Hat blasts the player furthest from him with a purple laser from his cannon, dealing massive damage and inflicting Broken for 12 seconds.
- Fortitudous Transfer: Half 'n Hat freezes 3 players in place for 2 seconds while his eyes glow green, and then sends them spinning into the nearest wall, dealing medium damage.
- Focus Within: Half 'n Hat causes one of the destroyed IE Energy canisters to suddenly reform in an orange flash, but without a shield. If not destroyed within 30 seconds once more, the unstable IE Energy within will leak out and spill everywhere, inflicting every single debuff in the game at the same time for 5 seconds.
- Suggestion: Half 'n Hat's eyes glow yellow as he implants doubt into characters' minds, making it so damage dealt by all players will deal damage to other players if they are caught in an attack for 10 seconds.
- Revealing Blast: Half 'n Hat's eyes glow red as he brings all players in invisibility out of stealth, and he deals massive damage to players within a 3-tile radius of him.
- Hat Overflow: Half 'n Hat jumps on top of a player, completely covering them while warding off other players with his cannon. The trapped player has to deal 500 damage to Half 'n Hat for him to get off.
- Hatblast: Half 'n Hat grabs a player with his hand, shoves them into his cannon, and launches them into the nearest wall, dealing high damage and inflicting Confused for 6 seconds.
- Hattery Beyond Belief: Half 'n Hat triples the size of his hand with IE Energy and scoops up 7-10 players with it. He then balls his hand into a fist, dealing high damage to all players that he caught and inflicting Broken II on them for 9 seconds afterward.
- Hatstrike: Half 'n Hat creates a bunch of hats corresponding to how many players are fighting him in his image and tosses them around the room like ninja stars. The hats will immediately latch onto players if they come into contact with a player, inflicting Dazed for 3 seconds, at which point the hat falls off and can be collected as a normal item.
- Divided In Two: Half 'n Hat explodes into two smaller versions of himself, one significantly larger than the other. The smaller one performs one attack at 30% power, while the larger one performs one attacks at 70% of the usual power. Both attack at the same time, and this attack cannot be chosen. Afterward, they recombine into Half 'n Hat once more. This attack always occurs at 50% health and can be used again afterwards.
- Halved IE: Half 'n Hat teleports two cans of IE Energy Drink (vanilla flavored) into his hand. He shoves them under himself, consuming them and gaining Frenzy for 15 seconds.
- Quartered Away: Half 'n Hat splits into four smaller versions of himself, but unlike Divided in Two, all of these clones are the same size. Each Half 'n Hat goes off and picks its own target, using any of Half 'n Hat's non-cloning attacks. This occurs at 25% health, and lasts for 20-30 seconds. It can be used multiple times.
- IE Conjure: Half 'n Hat summons two Tier 4 Legionnaires of random class in to distract players. Used at 15% health, and again at 5% health. While the Legionnaires are alive, Half 'n Hat is invulnerable, but is still attacking.
Death Animation[]
If Half 'n Hat reaches 0 HP, he looks confused, then his eyes and eyebrows spontaneously disappear. His entire body goes limp for the exception of his glove, on which the eyes and eyebrow appear, indicating that Half 'n Hat has transferred his essence into the glove. The glove then promptly "runs" away down the now-open hallway (imagine the fingers making a "running' motion while moving away from the players.)
Battle (Edifice of the Lord)[]
General Mechanics[]
Half 'n Hat has a much more complicated battle in the Edifice of the Lord gamemode. In Half 'n Hat's battle room here, there are eight shielded canisters of unrefined IE Energy on the walls, equally spaced around the circular room. Half 'n Hat waits in the middle of the room until all players have joined in. The battle does not start until someone damages Half 'n Hat. Around Half 'n Hat, there are eight circular markings on the floor, but these do not come into play until Phase 2.
Before entering the battle room, players must evenly divide themselves between the four colors of blue, yellow, orange, and purple, determined by a color selector. It is recommended that at least one player running a damage aspect class be in each color bracket for the mechanics in this battle to be executed correctly. Therefore, if there are 16 players, four are assigned to each color; if there are eight, then two are assigned to each color.
Phase 1 (Half 'n Hat)[]
In Phase 1, Half 'n Hat is shielded and completely immune to damage from players. However, there is a control panel on one of the four pillars surrounding the middle area. Once it glows a certain color, one player from that color must go over and interact with that panel. While that panel is being interacted with, one of the wall-mounted IE Energy canisters will lose its shield, and be able to be damaged. However, if the player on the panel is interrupted (how this happens is detailed below) during the process of channeling the interact ability, the shield will reactivate and players will have to wait for the color to come back into the cycle to reopen that shield. Either way, the panel color will cycle between the four colors in the order of blue, yellow, orange, and purple. If everything goes smoothly, only two cycles are needed to destroy all eight canisters; otherwise, more cycles might be needed. Each canister destroyed deducts 1/8th of Half 'n Hat's maximum health.
The channeled interact ability takes 30 seconds to fully execute. During that time, the shield on one of the canisters corresponding to the current color is deactivated and players can damage the canister. Each canister has 4500 health (9000 health in 16-player mode) and should easily be destroyable within that timeframe. However, it isn't that simple. Half 'n Hat is attacking while shielded, but he remains immobile in this phase. If the tank players don't hold Half 'n Hat's attention, he will target the player who is currently using the console. If said player takes over 800 total damage while they are activating the console, the ability will be interrupted and the shield will reactivate prematurely. However, if the canister was destroyed before that happens, the interact ability can be broken off manually by the player. Either way, to advance to Phase 2, destroy all eight canisters.
Attacks[]
- Security Support: Half 'n Hat gestures with his hand a "come here" motion, and 7 Legionnaires are summoned in, consisting of 1 Tier 3 Legionaire, 3 Tier 2 Legionnaires, and 4 Tier 1 Legionnaires of any class. Half 'n Hat will use this as his first attack, and every time once there are only two Legionnaires left in the whole room.
- Turret Volley: Half 'n Hat fires his cannon at the player who is currently interacting with the console, dealing high damage and potentially breaking the connection if the bullets are not blocked.
- Fingered Out: Half 'n Hat gestures with his hand a "grab" motion, as a player suddenly rises into the air and comes right back down with a splat, dealing medium damage and interrupting any channeled abilities, namely the interact. Often used 3-5 times in a row, can target anywhere in the room, and can target the same player multiple times.
- Convex Lens: Half 'n Hat furrows his eyebrows as he fires off a series of missiles that home in on the nearest player.
- Tangent Autostorm: Half 'n Hat begins by spinning up his cannon, before firing off 7-9 bursts of 20 red-hot blazing bullets each at players. He has a 75% chance to change targets with each burst, and the bullets themselves inflict Burning for 2 seconds on hit and very low damage each (although players could be hit by the whole burst for medium damage if they aren't careful at dodging them.)
Phase 2 (Half 'n Whole)[]
In Phase 2, after his Phase 1 health has been depleted, Half 'n Hat transforms into Half 'n Whole, his old name (and old body as well) before becoming a hat. In this form, his battle shifts to a more traditional battle that is the hallmark of the EToD while retaining the color mechanic.
Attacks[]
- Halving Protocol: Half 'n Whole lights up the eight circles on the ground in the center of the room and teleports there. The circles are either purple, yellow, orange, or blue, and there are two of each color in a random order. Players corresponding to a circle's color must run over it to deactivate it (two of each player in 16-player mode.) If all players fail to get to the circles within 5 seconds, Half 'n Whole uses very dangerous attacks corresponding to the colors that were not deactivated below, in that order. He will repeat the same attack after the first rotation if both circles of a color were somehow not deactivated. This attack is used after every 5 attacks, not counting the previous Halving Protocol.
- Yellow Decimation: Half 'n Whole unleashes a devastating energy blast that hits for raid-wide damage, dealing higher damage the closer players are to Half 'n Whole (which they likely will be, due to this being the first priority attack.)
- Orange Decimation: Half 'n Whole takes off his hat and spins around once, scooping up all players who come in contact with the hat into it. He then puts it back on with the players still inside, then spontaneously manifests an IE Energy geyser on his head, spraying liquid refined IE Energy everywhere and inflicting medium damage and Spiced for 5 seconds. If Half 'n Whole failed to catch any players, he will repeat the hat grab again up to 3 times, at which point he will give up and spray his IE Energy geyser as usual.
- Blue Decimation: Half 'n Whole fires out a thick purple laser from his eye that slowly sweeps back and forth around the room, inflicting extremely high damage if touched. After 10 seconds, the laser splits into two and operate separately for another 10 seconds, after which the attack ends.
- Purple Decimation: Half 'n Whole pulls out his cannon and disappears from view. A swooping sound can be heard as Half 'n Whole invisibly and intangibly dashes between players, firing fast-moving volleys of bullets at random intervals. Lasts 20 seconds.
- Buffet Creation: Half 'n Whole targets two players for decimation. One player must run to the other within 5 seconds so that if Half 'n Whole snaps, the used IE Energy will rebound toward him.
- Rapid-Righting Stack:
- Quad Laser: Half 'n Whole fires a quartet of purple lasers from his eye that quickly whiz together in a random direction, dealing medium damage if touched.
- Hat Hail: Half 'n Whole causes dozens of tiny purple hats like his to materialize above players, coming down at high speed approximated by any number of the sum of two hyperbolic functions. These deal low to high damage, depending on speed.
- Scarf of Infinity: This attack is only used by Half 'n Whole if players take more than 6 minutes to burn him down to 70% health. Half 'n Whole takes his scarf and begins to extend it infinitely for the rest of the battle. The scarf begins to cover the floors and walls of the room as it creeps around. Every once in a while, Half 'n Whole will make a sudden jerking movement, disrupting players' attacks as the scarf floor is disturbed beneath them.
- Hatstrike Deux: Half 'n Whole creates a bunch of hats corresponding to how many players are fighting him in his image and tosses them around the room like ninja stars. The hats will immediately latch onto players if they come into contact with a player, inflicting Dazed and Broken for 5 seconds, at which point the hat falls off. These hats cannot be collected.
- Infinity Snap: Half 'n Whole can now use this attack at random. The effects are all the same as his Reserves fight and are as follows:
- Multiport: Half 'n Hat swaps the locations of all players within their color brackets while his eyes glow blue, causing them to teleport to their partner's former location. Can cause quite a lot of disruption.
- Hyperbolt: Half 'n Hat blasts the player furthest from him with a purple laser from his cannon, dealing massive damage and inflicting Broken for 12 seconds.
- Fortitudous Transfer: Half 'n Hat freezes 3 players in place for 2 seconds while his eyes glow green, and then sends them spinning into the nearest wall, dealing medium damage.
- Focus Within: Half 'n Hat causes one of the destroyed IE Energy canisters to suddenly reform in an orange flash, but without a shield. If not destroyed within 30 seconds once more, the unstable IE Energy within will leak out and spill everywhere, inflicting every single debuff in the game at the same time for 5 seconds.
- Suggestion: Half 'n Hat's eyes glow yellow as he implants doubt into characters' minds, making it so damage dealt by all players will deal damage to other players if they are caught in an attack for 10 seconds.
- Revealing Blast: Half 'n Hat's eyes glow red as he brings all players in invisibility out of stealth, and he deals massive damage to players within a 3-tile radius of him.
- Division: Half 'n Whole transfers half of his consciousness into his Whole body and Hat body, simultaneously controlling each (but both share a healthbar.) He remains in this state for the remainder of this battle when transitioning into it at 20% health, with the hat using attacks from Half 'n Hat's IE Energy Reserves battle.
- Redistribution Balance: If players take more than 15 minutes to defeat Half 'n Whole, he performs this attack. Half 'n Whole looks at players and uses his hat's glove to snap. He then takes his current health and deals damage equal to half that amount to all players (before damage resistances are applied.) This effectively can wipe the raid if his health is still above 7,000, as level 75 players can only achieve a maximum of 3,500 health and thus can reliably survive this attack if the power level is equal to or lower than this amount. Half 'n Whole will resume attacking what's left of the raid after finishing the health redistribution.
Death Animation[]
Half 'n Whole returns to being one entity as his purple eye glows brightly. Neon yellow cracks begin forming on his hands before rapidly ascending and causing his entire body to rapidly crack and explode violently. The hat, however, comes back to life, but with two glove hands and no cannon. Half 'n Hat vanishes into thin air after a short outro.
Quotes[]
Both Gamemodes[]
- "Fun isn't usually something one considers when balancing out the volatile processes of refining IE Energy. I'm the exception!" (Intro)
Exclusive to the IE Energy Reserves[]
Exclusive to the Edifice of the Lord[]
Both Phases[]
- "You have my respect, <playername>. I hope your people will remember you as one who was mighty enough to challenge the Guardians!" (Said randomly using a random player name, only once per battle.)
Phase 1 Exclusive[]
Phase 2 Exclusive[]
- "Sometimes, the hardest refining processes require the strongest of wills. For the glory of Hesperia and my Lord!" (Upon transforming into Half 'n Whole at the beginning of Phase 2)
- "Perfectly balanced, like all things IE." (After performing Perfectly Balanced, As All Things Should Be)
Trivia[]
- Half 'n Hat is quite an obvious reference to a certain gauntlet-wielding purple villain, with his decimating "snap" and all.