Illusion

Illusion
Name	Illusion
Info
Total Cost	1727 Diamonds
Fusion	Nature + Time
Type	Superior Element
Damage	Low
Defense	High
Speed	Average

Illusion is a Superior Element (or Fusion Element) in Elemental Battlegrounds released on September 13th 2018. Its color palette consists of red, white, black, and orange. Its medal depicts the Penrose triangle, a popular optical illusion (more often called the impossible triangle).

Illusion is an Element based around confusion, primarily for defensive capabilities. As simple as it may look, due to its low damage, this Element requires various skill assets in order to use it correctly. This Element is also very flexible and versatile, but has restrictive mobility. It is also better at confusing enemies than damaging them, similarly to its parent element, Time, and as such is best used in combos with other elements.

This Element can be obtained by fusing Nature (450 Diamonds) and Time (500 Diamonds), costing an additional 777 Diamonds to fuse.

Summary

Illusion is an Element centered around confusion and trickery, being able to mess with opponents and limit their mobility. Because of the effects, Illusion could be considered defensive in a roundabout way. Its damage is fairly low, but most of its Spells are cheap in Mana and can be used at medium and long range. Ace Up The Sleeve can reverse the victim’s controls and possibly lead them into a combo. Trichotomy creates 2 clones of the user to confuse their opponents. Refraction can be used to blind and confuse opponents. Illusive Atake is useful in combos thanks to its ability to pull in the opponent. If one plans to use this Element, remember that it's not to be used offensively, as the damage its Spells can deal is low, but they can be used as a distraction. The learning curve for this Element is extremely high, as using it effectively heavily relies on the user's ability to take advantage of the debuffs and tricks played on the victims by following up with more damaging Spells.

Note: Damage was tested with 50 Power on a player with 50 Defense.

Spells

Spells
Ace Up The Sleeve
Spell 1 Type	Multi-Projectile
Spell 1 Description	"User fires zigzagging playing cards to deal low damage that also alters players' ability to move."
Spell 1 Info	The user shoots 4 playing cards at the cursor's direction that zigzags around and bounce off solid objects and automatically explode when they're near an enemy, doing 83 damage per card dealing 332 damage in total and temporarily reversing the enemy's controls for about 4 seconds. Consumes 225 Mana, and has a 4-second cooldown
Spell 1 Picture	(old version of the Spell)
Trichotomy
Spell 2 Type	Transportation
Spell 2 Description	"User becomes a beam of light that will then use magic mirrors to transport the user in the direction of their mouse cursor position and create 2 other clones of themselves."
Spell 2 Info	The user becomes a beam of light, dashes into their cursor's direction and into a mirror, randomly moves into one of 3 directions (diagonally left, straight forward, or diagonally right), and creates 2 clones that will mimic their movement and disappear after a couple seconds to trick their opponents. The user and their clones can dash into an enemy to knock them back a short distance. The Spell will not cast if the user is too close to a solid object. Costs 555 Shards, consumes 230 Mana, and has a 5-second cooldown
Spell 2 Picture
Refraction
Spell 3 Type	Projectile
Spell 3 Description	"User fires a beam that reflects off multiple mirrors that deal medium damage and create a dense darkness around their opponent."
Spell 3 Info	The user summons multiple mirrors into the air in the direction of the cursor's direction, and then fires a red beam that will bounce off the mirrors and land on the user's cursor's location, exploding upon impact and doing 250 damage to enemies that were hit, along with knocking them away and disabling their spells. Opponents hit by the spell will also suffer a visual effect where the world is darkened around them for a short period, heavily limiting their sight range. Spells that produce light can still be seen by the opponent if they have the visual effect. Costs 777 Shards, consumes 300 Mana, and has a 6-second cooldown
Spell 3 Picture
Illusive Atake
Spell 4 Type	AoE
Spell 4 Description	"User's mouse cursor is used to spawn a clone of themselves and any opponent that approaches it will be damaged and pulled toward the original casting location."
Spell 4 Info	The user summons an immobile clone of the user at their cursor's location, which can pull nearby enemies towards the user's location when the Spell was cast, before knocking them away and doing 130 damage to them. Costs 1111 Shards, consumes 275 Mana, and has an 8-second cooldown
Spell 4 Picture
Ethereal Acumen
Spell 5 Type	Ultimate
Spell 5 Description	"An intense presence of energy is used to darken the world and a 4D creation that will slowly deal high damage to all surrounding players."
Spell 5 Info	The user elevates into the air and summons a giant tesseract (a 4D cube) that will pull in nearby enemies, spin them around, darken the world around them, and attack them with multiple cards that deal 9/21 damage, before teleporting them to a random location near the Ultimate when it ends. The Ultimate can deal about 580-600 damage in total, and can possibly deal more damage the more enemies have been caught in it. Costs 1874 Shards, consumes 1000 Mana, and has a 95-second cooldown
Spell 5 Picture

Trivia

• Illusion was suggested on the 7th poll, however, it was beaten by Chaos, but got added after being suggested by the Discord community due to the belief of the poll being altered.
• Using Illusive Atake while invisible from Spirit's Spectral Embodiment skill will Make a completely Invisible Clone, Useful for Ambush Attacks.
• The sound that Ethereal Acumen emits is a high-pitched version of the time vortex noise from Doctor Who, a BBC sci-fi show.
• Ethereal Acumen is very unique by itself, as it's the first Spell that supposedly uses the "fourth dimension" and takes complete control of the camera.
• The 4D tesseract in Ethereal Acumen is actually the shadow of a real 4D tesseract exposed to light. When the real 4D tesseract is in the 3D dimension, it would look like a 3D cube that mysteriously changes size and shape. If a 3D shape projects onto a 2D surface, a 2D object will be created. Thus, if a 4D shape projects onto a 3D surface, said projection is 3D. Through this way, a tesseract's shadow is technically 3D.
  • Thus, making the Ultimate not fourth dimensional from a physical standpoint.
    • However it can be noted that the projection shows a tesseract rotating in a 4D space (which is in turn projected onto a 2d display for viewing).
  • Only the "interior cube" is outlined in red. The anomalous manner in which the outline shifts as the tesseract rotates is the product of both a rotating 4D object forced into a 3D plane and the cognitive limitations of a human mind having no basis for interpreting or comprehending a 4D perspective.

• The clones created by Trichotomy fall gently and do not create shadows.
• The range of Illusive Atake is the same as Slime's Slime Buddies.
• There is a bug when using Trichotomy, which causes the user to move faster than their clones, thus making it easy to spot the real user, however, this only occurs on slow devices.
• While the clones created in Trichotomy mimic the animations of the user, no medal is spawned, making it even easier to find the original player.
• Illusion's heavy emphasis on playing cards likely comes from magic tricks, which are illusions, and many magic tricks involve the use of standard playing cards.
• The Penrose triangle in Illusion's medal has been used before in a fan-made Illusion medal created by the Discord user Remora. Remora's medal was purple and featured writing, as opposed to red and silver, and it is unknown if there is a connection between these.
• The white lines in Ethereal Acumen were originally black, but were changed to white.
  • The reason for this was the addition of the Ultimate's ability to darken the world around the user and the enemies that have been caught in the Ultimate.
• Illusion's medal is one of the six medals that doesn't have a swirl, the others being Storm, Darkness, Phoenix, Sans, and Technology.

• There is a glitch that occurs when using Arcane Guardian while using Trichotomy, which causes a distorted and louder version of the Ultimate's theme to play.
  • A similar glitch can be pulled off with Illusive Atake and Flash Slash, which causes the clone to play the entirety of its charging sound (which is a high-pitched version of Arcane Guardian's theme).
• The clones created by Trichotomy and Illusive Atake will mimic whatever sound the user was currently making.
• Ace Up The Sleeve's explosion radius is the same as Divine Arrow.
• One of the developers of Elemental Battlegrounds, arlthmetic, released a model named Tesseract [1] on August 23th 2018, which is probably related to Ethereal Acumen, and was released before the Element was added to the game.
• Sometimes, when a user casts Ace Up The Sleeve in Survival Mode, they might end up altering their movement instead of the monsters’ if they are close enough to the caster.
• The cost of Ethereal Acumen is a reference to the birth year of Harry Houdini, a famous magician.
• Semantics:
  • Ace Up The Sleeve
    • The idiom "ace up the sleeve" means a surprise or secret advantage. This matches the Spell Ace Up The Sleeve, which reverses the victims' controls, thus giving the user advantage
  • Trichotomy
    • The term "trichotomy" refers to a division into three. The Spell Trichotomy appears to split the user into three, thus making the Spell's name fitting
  • Refraction
    • The term "refraction" refers to the bending of light, much like the Spell Refraction, which also bends a beam of light down towards an opponent.
  • Illusive Atake
    • "Illusive" is an adjective for illusion, which means something that seems to be there, but is not. The term atake means to overtake. The combining of illusive and atake would mean to overtake by tricking someone, hence the Spell's name.
  • Ethereal Acumen
    • The term ethereal means extraordinary, or strange, while an acumen would mean a depth of perception or sense. The Spell Ethereal Acumen rips open a window to a four-dimensional realm, in comparison to the terms' definitions.
• Explanation Behind the Fusion
  • It is currently unknown how Nature and Time make Illusion. One possibility is that the "Nature" part in the Fusion refers to the natural optical illusions. The fact that Time is also required, however, suggests that this "Illusion" Element refers to space and time.
  • One possible explanation is that Nature refers to entirety of the physical world and how our perception of it is limited by our anatomy and/or cognitive abilities. Additionally, some people believe the concept of time as a flowing thing is an illusion.
    • Time in this sense may also be related to spacetime, a concept in the interrelated theories of special and general relativity. Spacetime in these theories is used to investigate relativistic effects whereby different observers perceive the time and location of identical events to be different (e.g the simultaneity of distinct, spatially separate events is dependent on an observer's inertial reference frame).
      • Some people consider time being the fourth dimension, thus explaining the appearance of a tesseract (a 4 dimensional cube) in Ethereal Acumen.