Shadow Duelists' Questionable Uses

[Tosh]

I've recently been playing Maxwell more, and wanted to start a discussion on his Shadow Duelists and the things they're actually able to do well. I realize that Maxwell's strengths lie with his ability to gather resources quickly, but I want to explore what can actually be done with his less useful minions. Given their kiting and squishy nature, they're ill suited to fighting either groups of mobs or bosses. The use that I've found so far are:

1. Keeping Maxwell's sanity below the threshold for shadow monsters spawning. Probably their best known use, this allows Maxwell to farm nightmare fuel indefinitely.
2. Early game butterfly wing farming. Like Abigail, Shadow Duelists can easily chase down butterflies, giving Maxwell slightly easier access to butterfly wings and butter muffins as early game healing items. This quickly becomes outclassed by any character with a walking cane or magiluminescence. The one late game use that I can think of for this would be to combine this with number 1 and have your minions farm wings while you farm fuel, making sure you can quickly heal in between bouts with shadow creatures.
3. Farming volt goats and electric milk. Due to their lack of a herd mentality, volt goats can easily be taken down by a pair of Duelists without any help from Maxwell. If you want to get electric milk, make sure to keep track of the number of times your duelists have hit a particular goat so you know when to charge it with an electric dart. You can one-shot a goat if you shoot the dart when it's been hit 16-17 times, though you might be able to get away with 14-15. Charging the goat too soon will end in it completely decimating your minions. 

 

Let me know what you guys think, or if you have any other ideas.

[Tumalu]

You can probably use them to solo farm werepigs from monster meat a lot easier? I haven't personally tried, but you get so long during their transformation to beat on them, having the duelists throwing in several extra hits... hmm. As long as you're using a decent weapon (hambat/tentacle spike, maybe even a shadow sword since maxwell) it'd probably make things manageable.

I recall them being hard to kite since -they- kite, so you can't just do it by getting gud like most fights. But I haven't fought one in awhile.

[Soulk]

How much HP they has? and damage?

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Jurgens said:

How much HP they has? and damage?

75 health
40 damage

[Soulk]

Just now, Donke60 said:

75 health
40 damage

thank you, i never used them before the few times i played as maxwell i did it on normal DS when i bought DST i used him once and only crafted the axe and pickaxe shadows.

What about their AI, are you able to stunlock mobs (spiders, bees...) and whats the best way to keep them alive, you do the tank job?

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Jurgens said:

thank you, i never used them before the few times i played as maxwell i did it on normal DS when i bought DST i used him once and only crafted the axe and pickaxe shadows.

What about their AI, are you able to stunlock mobs (spiders, bees...) and whats the best way to keep them alive, you do the tank job?

I don't know how to keep them alive and there AI in don't starve is basically the pigs so they can't stunlock

What is the Tank Job? I don't main Maxwell @Sinister_Fang? (sorry your the only maxwell player I know.)

[Soulk]

1 minute ago, Donke60 said:

I don't know how to keep them alive and there AI in don't starve is basically the pigs so they can't stunlock

What is the Tank Job? I don't main Maxwell @Sinister_Fang? (sorry your the only maxwell player I know.)

Oh haha, i mean you take the mob dmg while the shadows attack.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Jurgens said:

Oh haha, i mean you take the mob dmg while the shadows attack.

Well you can do that but I wouldn't Adise doing it on anything substanial. As Maxwell health can just dissappear in a fight so must of the time its just better to kite. The Shadow duelists could help but must of the time they are too slow to get out of the enemies range. And they don't have any natural armor to protect them either.

[Thieverpedia]

Personally, I've always found the Shadow Duelists to be a bit underwhelming. They can kite, yes, but with the kiting power of a pig. If pigs kited as well as a player, they wouldn't die to half the mobs we aggro them onto. Mayhaps they could attack faster, harder, and kite sooner? An excellent trade-off for Maxwell himself fending off the shadow creatures and their innate low health...

Although I have found fun uses for them. Obviously, there's the Nightmare Fuel farming, but a Koalafant can easily be aggro'd without cornering them, with the right maneuvering. They're also handy for the rare boss that doesn't have an AoE attack, so you can keep the aggression on you and still fight like a decently large team would.

[FloomRide]

Sadly, the Shadow Duelists are really just underwhelming in every way. There isn't any "hidden use" for them, other than lowering max sanity to farm nightmares. Apparently they see a lot of use in PvP, but Maxwell himself is just so useless in the mode because of his low max HP. Pigs make a better fighter companion, and are much cheaper.

Though, I personally haven't experimented much with the Duelists. For fighting, they aren't really helpful, and they don't do any other jobs.

[JohnnyTwoShirts]

40 minutes ago, Thieverpedia said:

Personally, I've always found the Shadow Duelists to be a bit underwhelming. They can kite, yes, but with the kiting power of a pig. If pigs kited as well as a player, they wouldn't die to half the mobs we aggro them onto. Mayhaps they could attack faster, harder, and kite sooner? An excellent trade-off for Maxwell himself fending off the shadow creatures and their innate low health...

Although I have found fun uses for them. Obviously, there's the Nightmare Fuel farming, but a Koalafant can easily be aggro'd without cornering them, with the right maneuvering. They're also handy for the rare boss that doesn't have an AoE attack, so you can keep the aggression on you and still fight like a decently large team would.

Im curious about nightmare fuel farming with shadow duelists. How is this done? I find it hard to be insane while Maxwell. Does he get lower insanity with shadow duelists? How many do you need to induce insanity?

If someone could shed some light on this that would be great.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, JohnnyTwoShirts said:

m curious about nightmare fuel farming with shadow duelists. How is this done? I find it hard to be insane while Maxwell. Does he get lower insanity with shadow duelists? How many do you need to induce insanity?

Yes he needs two workers and one duelist I belive is the norm this will drop you in the state of being constantly insane because Duelists require more sanity to use.

[PurpleHatEvolution]

2 minutes ago, Donke60 said:

Yes he needs two workers and one duelist I belive is the norm this will drop you in the state of being constantly insane because Duelists require more sanity to use.

nah, you can do 2 duelists and 1 worker of anykind to make him insane

[KilliasK]

They are decent for helping you to down enemies with single target attacks. Their primary use is as bodyguards. If something aggros you, they will interfere. Sometimes if you get mass aggro'd, they will thin the herd for you (or at least provide a distraction). They aren't terrible useful, but they aren't useless either.

[Sinister_Fang]

57 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

They are decent for helping you to down enemies with single target attacks. Their primary use is as bodyguards. If something aggros you, they will interfere. Sometimes if you get mass aggro'd, they will thin the herd for you (or at least provide a distraction). They aren't terrible useful, but they aren't useless either.

I don't really consider a 2 second distraction to be all that useful. Duelists go down really fast and whatever was going after them is likely gonna come after you next.

[KilliasK]

47 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

I don't really consider a 2 second distraction to be all that useful. Duelists go down really fast and whatever was going after them is likely gonna come after you next.

Do you think it's better that they spend those 2 seconds draining your 75 health? 2 second distraction=2 second lead. That's point. As I said, they aren't terribly useful, but they aren't useless.

[Tumalu]

Duelists can help you fight, but the problem is just that they mostly only help you fight things a good player shouldn't have trouble fighting anyway- stuff you can put in traps instead, or that you theoretically should be able to kite. Werepigs is really the only thing that comes to mind that you can't fight a better way, but if you can't kite you could use them against tallbirds I suppose, and they might be able to get the drop on koalaphants so you don't have to pin them down first. And yes, for going insane, but you don't really use them so much as just the fact that your sanity goes down if they're present...

HP is really low, but they regen health really fast too, so they stay alive if they aren't mobbed or put against something that one-shots them. They actually do a pretty good job holding off hounds before your waves get too large (at which point you should have a better countermeasure in place anyway).

...actually, they might be pretty good for fighting MacTusk, as those can be a pain with only 1~2 people; especially if duelists non-aggro nature makes them good at getting hitting mactusks. The blowdart doesn't even do half their hp (also giving them time to regen), and they perform decently against hounds (not to mention you can kill the two ice hounds pretty fast with duelists helping)

 

[Tosh]

I'd have to test them against MacTusk and tallbirds, but two shadow duelists can easily solo a Koalephant (or a lone beefalo). The advantage against Koalefants (as @Tumalu pointed out) is that a Koalefant won't run away from minions. They can even take down a Ewecus, but this requires more involvement from the player. So long as you constantly draw the Ewecus' agro, or keep it panicking, the duelists' health regen should outpace the damage that can be dealt to them. One option is the firestaff/fire darts to keep her panicking, but this won't always be viable as you can't control where a Ewecus will show up. Sleep darts seem to be the best option as they can be used to constantly draw the Ewecus' agro, while having the added bonus of delaying the Ewecus' attack for a few seconds after every fourth dart (I've tried this with the ice staff, but it doesn't work as well). A better player might be able to take advantage of the Ewecus running away to cycle through disengaging and reengaging in order to allow the duelists time to heal.

In addition, one combo that I want to play around with more is shadow duelists and the tail o' three cats. The whip's increased range and the 1 in 4/5 chance to stun could synergize well with duelist combat.

 

EDIT: Duelists versus buzzards would be a good way to farm jet feathers for sleep darts.

[ButterStuffed]

I've found that the duelists are very effective at killing slurtles. While you distract the horde of slurtles your duelists can easily go in and kill them one by one. If you ever run into the problem where your duelists are attacking a single slurtle too quickly and it's hiding or they're being overwhelmed by the slurtles you can /dance and pull your duelists back temporarily.

EDIT - Actually tested in game with about 5 slurtles and had no problem having my duelists kill them one by one while I distract the majority.

[Tosh]

1 hour ago, Weird Wanderer said:

I've found that the duelists are very effective at killing slurtles. While you distract the horde of slurtles your duelists can easily go in and kill them one by one. If you ever run into the problem where your duelists are attacking a single slurtle too quickly and it's hiding or it's they're being overwhelmed by the slurtles you can /dance and pull your duelists back temporarily.

EDIT - Actually tested in game with about 5 slurtles and had no problem having my duelists kill them one by one while I distract the majority.

Don't forget you can combine this with using fire and an ice staff to draw the slurtles out of their mounds. The sanity cost of the staff is pretty negligible for Maxwell too.

[Sinister_Fang]

4 hours ago, Weird Wanderer said:

I've found that the duelists are very effective at killing slurtles. While you distract the horde of slurtles your duelists can easily go in and kill them one by one. If you ever run into the problem where your duelists are attacking a single slurtle too quickly and it's hiding or it's they're being overwhelmed by the slurtles you can /dance and pull your duelists back temporarily.

EDIT - Actually tested in game with about 5 slurtles and had no problem having my duelists kill them one by one while I distract the majority.

Huh. That might actually be a decent use for them. Trying to get shelmets is usually a pain in the butt without Wickerbottom's On Tentacles book.

[The Curator]

They're effective for dealing with incredibly low-end mobs like spiders, because of their high damage and ability to avoid attacks.

However, Maxwell himself cannot tank to save them as the enemy A.I can at any time decide to turn on a duelist and potentially hit them. And because the duelists have such an absurdly low amount of health they likely won't survive against anything even remotely threatening.

That's it really, they're a fun minion to have because they run around and deal lots of single hit damage; but you can't take them into any serious situation. And because they'll proc on things you don't want them to, it will further lead to their death or improper attraction of enemy aggression.

 

Maxwell is really one of the trio of underwhelming characters in Together. Willow still has no special super powers, Woodie's Beaver form was nerfed; and Maxwell's puppets are just bad. Their A.I is bare bones so they interact with everything they possibly can, the duelists and diggers really aren't worth existing, the max sanity cap simply just punishes players for having puppets out by gimping the screen colour and flooding them with noise, and the puppets are designed to be long lasting high-cost allies yet because they only fulfill niche roles; so players are encouraged to dispel and recall them to suit the situation.

Which is a design contradiction, if the puppets have narrow uses they should be fleeting and disposable so they can be cycled through more easily. Yet you have to choose which ones to pay the price to summon to hang around for long periods, yet they are only capable of being useful part of the time.

For some reason minions in specific are Klei's design weakness.

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

diggers really aren't worth existing

Really? Because those are the ones I use the most frequently. Especially in the early days when I'm randomly cutting down trees and running across graves. They're also the least destructive worker as well, so having them following you at all times isn't an issue.

[Donke60]

I like using the puppets as recyclables because of all the almost broken stockpiles you get later
I use shovel the most to for the Reason you mentioned and there useful and save a slot.

[The Curator]

2 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Really? Because those are the ones I use the most frequently. Especially in the early days when I'm randomly cutting down trees and running across graves. They're also the least destructive worker as well, so having them following you at all times isn't an issue.

Still a cost of two nightmare fuel, so while the two cutter one digger combination works in the early days when you start off with six fuel; the same cannot be said for later on when you have to manually farm it yourself. By comparison, the time and cost of the fuel isn't very much worth such a minor helper.

The digger is certainly a nice boon, but it's the fuel cost which really drives the value into the ground.