Render Pink Bean Susceptible to Debuffs

Pink Bean is immune to debuffs, i.e. the Hamstring, Blind, and Threaten trifecta, if you will. This is something that's long been known but has never really been mentioned or brought up by staff or by players and is simply something that is accepted to be true. This "immunity" is entirely unique to Pink Bean as every other boss in the game is susceptible to these debuffs, which makes it a bit of an oddity.

I assume this to be an arbitrary characteristic that simply carried over from the GMS implementation of PB, but I wonder if there is a compelling reason for it to remain this way. My only thought in this regard is that the Blind and Threaten debuff animations alternating with and obscuring the DR symbol could prove potentially problematic, but on this I have two things to say: one is that Hamstring does not share this issue as the debuff animation would be on the body and so does not contest the DR symbol, and two is that the issue above could be addressed by simply having the DR symbol take priority over the other two debuffs (that is to say, when DR is active the symbol should not swap with the other debuffs).

Now, hypothetically, if Hamstring could work on PB, would it somehow trivialize the fight? I think not as it would have very little impact on how ranged characters engage with the boss. It would however have the benefit of making the boss more friendly and inclusive towards melee characters, which is a cause I assume most of us champion, while also furthering the relevance of BMs in the fight who are often entirely overshadowed by MMs there. Blind functioning on the bean would have a similar effect in that warriors (and mages) stand to gain by far the most from it (by virtue of how blind works) whereas the benefit to other classes is barely noticeable. I would say something about Threaten but in its current state it probably wouldn't be too relevant.

I believe that the benefits in allowing debuffs to work on the bean would significantly outweigh any perceived cons associated with its allowance and am thus proposing that PB be stripped of its unique debuff immunity privileges.

 

If they were telling you not to use it during body, I don't have any idea what they're on about. But during statues, hamstring apparently makes statues look frozen.

Could you shed some insight on why that might be the case?
As far as I can tell, I don't think hamstring would normally affect ability to maintain aggro or how often the bean would face left so I can't personally see why it would make dual client attacking significantly more feasible, especially given the seds and zombifies, but I may be missing an angle.

I can see that it could make mistakes via delayed reverse barrages for those who dabble in the art of barrel dancing a bit more forgiving but unless the bean ordinarily makes use of guerilla warfare tactics and frequently employs hit-and-runs on the heart of the ranged squad, I see the only real beneficiaries from this leniency being the melee attackers, which is rather sort of the point. As for the snatchbots, I don't see hamstring having a particularly positive impact on their control other than on the frequency at which they'd have to snatch.

 

That's fair. I guess the differing squad experiences made it a bit harder for me to understand as I've personally never had to move out of my ducking safe zone on my archer.

 

Okay, let me clarify by saying I've never had to when there was actually a bucc present doing their thing :^)

 

To be fair, I would also say looking at a worst-case scenario where the buccs are MIA (when buccs would ordinarily be present in every run) to demonstrate that hamstring would be too strong is a bit lopsided. Also, I'm in no way disregarding the utility of the skill since one of my main arguments is that it would be a large boon to melee characters and allow them to perform at a level closer to range.

 

I guess the question I would present is whether the benefit of having melee characters be much more viable at the end game boss (in addition to giving BM more utility) outweighs the negative associated with lessening the severity of such rare scenarios. I would say yes, though I do not discount your concerns.