Template talk:ElectricEnemy

Electrified?
Is this template necessary? I'm not sure. I think most enemies fall under other templates without needing this one. I'm concerned about having too many templates, some enemies now have three different templates underneath them and its getting a bit out of hand.

Aside from that, "Electrified" doesn't seem appropriate for enemies that simply use electrical attacks, like Agahnim or Demise. I removed a lot of enemies from the fire template because fire enemies should just cover enemies MADE of fire, rather than enemies that shoot fireballs (because there are hundreds that do that).

If there were enemies that were MADE of electricity I'd be happy for this template to exist, but as it is, these enemies aren't so much electrical as simply use it as part of their arsenal in some fashion. Hm. Thoughts anyone? 11:40, 19 February 2012 (EST)


 * Hi. Creator of the template here. I can understand your trepidation at including enemies by virtue of them having an electrical attack. I felt a bit dubious about including enemies based on a fraction of their arsenal myself, but I included them out of consistency with a decision that seemed to have been reached regarding the fire template. I will go with whatever the community's consensus is with this; if people want to include enemies based on attacks, they will stay here, and if they don't, they won't.


 * I do think that even without these, there are still more than enough enemies whose primary mode of attack is electrical and/or are electrified at all times that it's reasonable to have a template for it. I think this is a more reasonable definition than "made of electricity" because, even after your pruning, the majority of the enemies on the fire enemy template still aren't literally made of fire or lava, they just use fire as their main mode of attack and/or are covered in fire. Fire Keese, Red ChuChus, Fire Wizzrobes, Pyrup, Magma Spume...you get the idea. So unless you're going to remove all of them from the fire enemy template and restrict it to things like Podoboos and Magmanos, I think you're applying a double standard here.


 * For what it's worth, here's what the template would look like if we restricted its membership to the same degree as you've done with Template:FireEnemy, where things like Thunder Keese, Bari, and Buzz Blob stay in because their primary mode of attack is electrical (and, in the case of Thunder Keese and the ChuChus, continue the trend set by their fiery and icy equivalents of having elemental versions of the basic enemy type), but things where electricity is only one of a number of options go:


 * As you can see, the main change is that it contains fewer bosses. It's still significantly larger than, say, Template:IceEnemy. Electric enemies are relatively common in this series.


 * Lastly, I must confess I don't understand why having several templates at the bottom of a page is a bad thing, especially in the case of enemies like ChuChus, Keese, Bubbles, and Spumes that come in several varieties with different powers and properties. I could maybe see it more for pages that truly deal with a single enemy rather than a group of enemies, but I haven't seen one of those with more than three templates on it. Would you mind humoring my ignorance and telling me why this is a problem?


 * Again, I'm fine with the deletion of this template if we're going to restrict "elemental" templates to enemies that are literally made of that element (that would leave the Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks version of the Winder as the sole potential member of this one), but it doesn't look to me like we're doing that. --Osteoderm Jacket 15:01, 19 February 2012 (EST)


 * By the way: As for your hypothetical "sword-using enemy" template on Template talk:FireEnemy, one difference I see with this is that the games have electric versions of enemies in parallel to fire, ice, and in some cases other "elemental" versions. As with fire and ice, there is a significant population of enemies that are more or less defined by their use of electricity. It's a parallel category. "Sword-using" doesn't work like that. --Osteoderm Jacket 15:48, 19 February 2012 (EST)


 * I agree with Osteoderm on this one. (Admittedly it would be hard not to. Look at that paragraph! :P) The cut-down version of the template looks nice. I'm all for it.
 * For the record, if multiple templates was ever a problem, it's one that will easily be solved with the implementation of the new style of navigation templates, which has a convenient minimize/maximize (or hide/show) function. 10:46, 20 February 2012 (EST)

(Posting this both here and in the Fire Enemy discussion) Since this seems to have become a general debate about what determines whether an enemy should be included in a template, perhaps we should start a discussion at Hyrule Castle. That way we can arrive at a consistent policy more easily. --Osteoderm Jacket 21:00, 20 February 2012 (EST)

Just a heads up if the conversation continues here: As of this post the template has just been updated to the new style, and it has also been pruned slightly. Please check out the content page before commenting. --Osteoderm Jacket 03:44, 21 February 2012 (EST)