Yeah, the thought crossed my mind when I was thinking of it. At first I even thought of it working like it does for players, making them walk sideways. I knew it would spark some controversy the moment I thought of it. The thing is tho, that for the most part you won’t be behind a boss / dangerous enemy. You’re usually with the group and in the cases that you aren’t they don’t move a lot (Oryx; Oryx 2; Thessal; etc.). Even IF you are behind a boss, he will change target and head back again, making it a repeating cycle if 2 people stay on opposite sides, permanently “locking” the boss on the middle of those 2, 3, 4, or more players (if players were to stay on opposite sides).
I also forgot to mention that routes that have to be as they are, remain unaffected (for example, Twilight Archmage going for the generators or Oryx 2 going to the middle of the room after the end of a phase).
The thing is,
The bosses are as follows:
Stationary/Pseudo-Stationary*:
Encore; Cnidarian; Shaitans; Forgotten Sentinel; Twilight Archmage (for all phases except Rage); Forgotten King; Bilgewater; Crystal Prisoner; Worm Father; Stheno; Malphas; Septavius; Null; Puppet; Dr.Terrible; Manor; Oryx Effigy; Slime God (except last phase); Nightmare Colony; Masked Party God; Daichi; Fountain Spirit (all except 1 phase); Esben; Crystal Entity; Worm Mother (when not circling arena); MBC (at center); Janus; Belladonna.
Fixed Route: Worm Mother (circling arena); Crystallized Boss Guardians; Void Entity; Avalon; Corruption Phantom; Bee Keeper; Tomb bosses (non-rage); Cultists; Stone Guardians.
Affected: Mammoth/Murderous Megamoth; Son of Arachna; Fountain Spirit (chasing phase); Limoz (chasing phase); Candyland Bosses; Queen Bee; Troll Matriarch (last phase); Skuld (last phase); Ghost Bride; LoD dragons; Pumpkin King; Grave Caretaker (last phase); Tomb bosses (Rage); MBC (chasing); Cult demons; Cultists (moving around the room); Slime God (rage); Null (chase).
*Pseudo-Stationary is for the bosses that wobble in the same place but aren’t technically stationary (Crystal Prisoner is an example)
Remember: It always inverts the direction while active which means that if an enemy switches target, their movement wont be in direction to the target but rather away from it.
So, since only Affected bosses matter, we have:
Mammoth/Murderous Megamoth: which no one stands too close and is always on guard as it can easily change its target and jump to someone, not to mention that most of the time those status effects are really annoying so people stay in the group to avoid them. Even if it did, it would change target and bounce back, making it unable to sit on a target.
Son of Arachna: Not really a threat once all eggs are broken, no one stands too close to it when battling anyway, because of the Web’s Slowness and the occasional surprise burst. Would be even less of a threat with confuse as it wouldn’t charge players.
Fountain Spirit: Same thing as Son of Arachna, isn’t super fast and changes direction multiple times. Players are on guard for whenever it changes direction and it wouldn’t be able to charge players as it would always switch target and move away.
Limoz: Same thing as Megamoth, would bounce back if it switched target after attempting a jump.
Candyland Bosses: Would move away from players, making it safer to dodge shotguns as they would spread more.
Queen Bee: Would be a LOT safer with this as you could control it if it got too close to the group or to yourself. No one in their right mind chases after the Queen’s butt when it chases players as the projectiles usually can’t even reach the target due to their speed and even if they did, she could suddenly target those before her, and have them popped in an instant. Even If they did, she would bounce back as well, after getting a new target. This also applies for the Bee Soldiers found throughout the dungeon since they like to charge players, this would make them charge the opposite direction, enabling the group to instead push rather than being pushed back.
Troll Matriarch: Would be safer as well, especially if players got pushed to a corner.
Skuld: This would favor players a lot as its last phase can be very tricky and with its paralyzing capabilities, it can sit on someone. With Confuse, this wouldn’t be the case.
Ghost Bride: She doesn’t move a whole lot other than getting close to players before firing her shots but this would again benefit the players as she would move away, not closer.
Pumpkin King: Same thing as skuld albeit to a lesser degree but players would still favor from it as they wouldn’t get shotgunned by its shots. His pumpkin minions would follow him as well, which means this would give more space for players to walk on.
Grave Caretaker: Confusing his flame things would help players a lot here as they would walk away from players instead of trying to sit on them. As for the boss, same thing as Pumpkin.
LoD Dragons: Not as useful here and couldn’t be exploited either. Dragons’ projectiles when they chase are slow and them running away from players when confused would benefit players if they were in a tight condition. Any players behind would just make the boss bounce back. This would be useful for if players were to be overwhelmed by shots and making the boss give them some space, would space the shots as well making it easier to dodge.
Tomb Bosses: Very useful here. Nut rage that paralyzes makes it a decision between staying or risking being sat on by her. With the quiver, even if someone else shot it trying to troll or something, it would benefit you more than hurt. If her focus was on you, she would walk backwards, spacing her shots the farther she was and giving you time to un-paralyze and run away rather than having to choose between your shots being enough to kill her or dying a horrible death by paralysis. If her focus was on someone else and you were to be behind her, she would shift focus to you when closer to you but this time move away from you rather than the someone else and maybe you would get paralyzed after she changed her focus to you as her shots would target you but you would have enough time to run away. Same applies for the other 2 bosses in the dungeon.
Slime God: No problems with this one as well, anyone behind him would just make him bounce back and maybe fire 1 or 2 of his shots before heading back and changing targets again and repeating the cycle if 2 people were on either side of him, essentially making him even safer than when non-confused as only half the shots would go to either side due to him constantly changing targets.
Null: Very similar to the Slime God. The only more dangerous thing would be the 7-8-9 shotgun but that wouldn’t really be a problem as they are almost or totally omnidirectional and his shots would be spaced. If he changed targets to someone close to the outskirts of the arena, they could just push him away by getting close and since his attention was on someone else previously, the place where this player would be wouldn’t even be cluttered with bullets and they could easily dodge and push him back. Would even be useful as you could push him into non-walkable floor where people get DC’d as Null himself can walk on it. What’s threatening of the chase phase is that he chases you, if he walks away while shooting at you its not really that hard to dodge them, in fact, its a lot easier as you can avoid the Slowness and the small slow moving projectiles that usually get you if the big ones dont.
MBC: Right after a jump, he doesn’t shoot for a short window giving you time to react if you happen to be on top of him. If he was to be confused and jump, he wouldn’t even jump at the players in the first place, running away and giving them more liberty of movement.
Cultist demons: They are already pretty slow and confuse would just make them move away from players. It would be easier to kill them by standing on the opposite side of someone else than it is usually.
(I actually am not sure if these follow a fixed route or if they circle around the player or somethin of the sort. Either way, there’s the explanation for if they don’t. If they do, confuse simply wouldn’t work on them.)
Cultists: This would only apply to the phases in which they run around the room, disappearing and reappearing. Not a problem here either. I actually am not sure if they classify as a fixed route or not since they tend to teleport around very strangely and seem to not chase players. Either way, if they do chase players, it would again make them easier by being able to push them to safer positions like around the pillars in the room.
Twilight Archmage: The archmage himself doesn’t attack during this phase, making his movement really not important. His ice spheres will orbit him making them easier to kill if the archmage moves away from the player giving more arena space for the player to move in.
You also seemed to have missed the part where I said that the shots remain unaffected. It won’t shoot in the inverted direction so it wouldn’t be a problem for someone behind the boss either way, they would just have to move back instead or in the case that the boss switched its attention, it would change direction again and go towards the group (firing in the opposite direction) and so on and so forth.
If the problem is that people would use confuse to stray away bosses like MBC away while you tried to damage them in the chasing phase, remember that organized raids have a discord which you join. Trolling like this would just be annoying and people would get suspended in them + kicked by the key opener, ending their troll right there.
If you were to be in a smaller group however, maybe in Pub halls as an example, and they confused MBC during his jump phase, you could just stand on the other side to the one trying to troll and MBC wouldn’t run away anymore. Since where they run off to is dictated by the players’ position you can easily manipulate where he heads if someone attempted something like this.
As you can see, it’s not exploitable. I know it seems like it at first. When you are greeted with this idea the first thing to come in mind is: “Oh no, players being able to alter boss movement? This calls for trolls.” but after you dig a little deeper, it’s not problematic at all and players would benefit a lot from it.
On top of all that: The Confuse would be applied with the Slow, meaning it would even be less troll-friendly.
Inflicts Slowed for 5 seconds
Inflicts Weak for 2 seconds
Shots hit multiple targets
Shots pass through obstacles
Inflicts Confused for 2 seconds.
Inflicts Paralyzed for 2 seconds.