I don't think I limit what it can pull at all right now. I can see how pulling armor stands could be annoying, but I guess the question is what things the cutter should be able to draw closer in the first place.

Its because armor stands are literally mobs simply with no real ai so ya anything that would effect a mob would effect a armor stand unless coded not too

I'm wondering if anything that's supposed to affect mobs ends up affecting armor stands too, they always had that sort of problem. Sweep attacks and Zephyr's wind ability also affects them, it isn't fun when I've got some set up and I have to be careful not to push them around by accident.

It also affects some projectiles like snowballs and eggs. Interestingly it doesn't seem to affect fireballs.

So here's the changes I think I'll make:

• Armor stands will no longer get pulled
• Fireballs will now get pulled

I also was thinking about slightly change the pulling a bit - I was going to make the range larger (about double the radius). but the speed will be affected by the distance much more than before. So pulling things that are far away will start out slowly, which I think makes sense. Would those changes be ok?

Edit: I also made it not pull things that are on the same team as you if friendly fire is off, but something tells me nobody will be noticing that change :P

I'm happy with those changes especially armor stands not getting pulled anymore, that will cause so much less frustration near the base now! I don't know if it's just me, but I think increasing the range might be better for an upgrade or an augment of some sort?

Also could the old pulling behaviour of the elemental cutter from TC2 return, where thing go straight to the front of the user? Also any upgrades the cutter may receive could be implemented as infusion enchants.

but I think increasing the range might be better for an upgrade or an augment of some sort

Normally I would agree, but I felt like the base range could be increased a bit, as I found that things that look like they should have been pulled were not. Infusion enchants might be a nice way to add upgrades in the future though.

Also could the old pulling behaviour of the elemental cutter from TC2 return, where thing go straight to the front of the user?

By that, do you mean that the point things get pulled towards is in front of the user, instead of being on / in them?

I think increasing the range would be good then if it makes it easier to tell on what it draws. As for the TC2 version I think they mean being able to grab mobs with it like on this video I recorded?
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/86805568/127794770-ef5704e8-3b11-45c0-b65b-224a274c407b.mp4

By that, do you mean that the point things get pulled towards is in front of the user, instead of being on / in them?

Yes, currently the pulling feature is just quite finicky and hard to use. This would make the pulling ability more usable in compat. Maybe it would pull items directly to the player and other things in front, or should it be consistent with its pulling?

It actually pulls the Ender Dragon as well, I've also had weird stuff that happened while it was getting pulled like getting pushed far away from the island during one phase and that made it impossible to finish the battle. o_o I'd add a check for that too.

Edit: I wonder if a blacklist for the pulling ability helps too? In case it gets weird with modded mobs and especially with bosses?

It actually pulls the Ender Dragon as well

Enjoy that while it lasts, because that is definitely getting fixed.

As for the pulling changes, I can try to change it to be like that. Should it still pull multiple things, or should it pick 1 thing closest to where the player is looking?

I think that with its arcing ability it would make sense to still pick up multiple things, it would synergise well in combat. If its too overpowered, pulling multiple enemies/entities would make a sense as an upgrade/infusion enchant.

I also should mention that currently it does not pull experience orbs.

I think it's better for it to still pull multiple things too and like Vapaman said, if it's too powerful it would be better for an infusion or an upgrade.

I actually do like TC2's version of pulling better. One thing I've noticed when comparing both is when pulling multiple mobs, TAs would cause them to push you continuously especially if they can't damage you such as in Creative, it's still the same case with TC2 but it isn't as strong with how much it pushes you. I also like how TC2's always tries to get the mob through the front no matter what direction you're in. The grabbing is a bit much though imo and I think it fits more for an infusion.

If I can keep my True Pacifist tag in Roots while still having a tool to get rid of all those annoying sprouts by dragging them off a cliff, I'm all for it.

I tried out what I said above and it didn't really feel right, so instead I went for a hybrid approach: the vortex is now centered at a point you are looking at (up to reach distance away). It can sort of be used like in TC2 this way, but it is pretty slow and works on everything around the vortex, not a specific entity.

To all those early build compilers out there - feedback would be appreciated before I rewrite the entry (which will probably be tomorrow).

I think at this point what I'll do is make the cutter still work almost as it currently does, but making the point it pulls things towards in front of you rather than on you. The TC2 style grabbing will either be an infusion enchantment or separate (impetus-using?) tool that will be added later.

I love the hybrid approach to it and funny enough I was going to suggest impetus being potentially used for the grab as well but I forgot about it during that post. I've tried it out by compiling and I actually found it a ton of more fun to use. It feels like a nice mix of the TA and TC2's versions. At the same time however, it can get very chaotic especially that you're now able to drag a ton of mobs upwards and kill them easily that way. To be fair though, lots of items in Thaumcraft are powerful already and you can even make cheap custom spells that obliterates mobs so it's mostly me just being nitpicky on balance.

I think having the vortex be on the ground only would be better, the current build one could be used as an upgrade for the weapon, but then this would become a problem when flying or on a small platform. I also find luring items to you a bit harder than previously, maybe it would be better by having two different modes? Sneaking while using the ability would slowly drag items to you instead just like the Collector infusion would do. (Or instead of that it can be similar to the current version that just drags entities to you)

I could completely remove any vertical velocity from the effect, to prevent throwing things up in the air a lot (and that's probably a good call, because someone smart out there could probably find a way to exploit that even though I already excluded vehicles and such).

As for the item thing, I can make sneaking do something like that. Not sure if having it only draw items or all entities like before would be better though.

That actually sounds much better than just having the vortex be on the ground only. For the other bit I'm now thinking all entities would be better, it's both a nod to what it did previously, and I can see a fair amount of uses for it other than drawing items to you.

I compiled it again to try out the new tweaks and it feels perfect now! I also love the new sneaking ability!

Also pardon me for asking this and I know this isn't a mod for fixing vanilla bugs but are there any plans to tweak Zephyr to have the same entity restrictions as the cutter? It has a lot of the same problems like being able to push the Ender Dragon but if it isn't something that fits the addon I completely understand that.

I outlined some reasons I don't do general fixes in this mod in #219 but the short version is that I only make invasive bugfixes to Thaumcraft in this addon when the content this addon provides requires that to happen, or there would otherwise be mass confusion if it was not changed. I pointed people to ThaumTweaks as a place to suggest changes to vanilla Thaumcraft before, but I just checked and that was not updated in a while, so maybe I do need to make my own fix addon after all...

[...] so maybe I do need to make my own fix addon after all...

Now that sound great (and quite a tedious task) and I would be willing to help, especially with finding all the bugs and issues that are not in the tc6 github.