rework Why We Need Fire Immunity

[Canis]

So, this forum is chaos at the moment, to the point where it's practically war against Pro-Immunity and Anti-Immunity. However, whenever I try and argue against someone who is Anti-Immunity, they don't really give a coherent counterargument, ever. So here I am, putting all of my reasons why we need Fire Immunity, along with popular counter-arguments and why they are not valid. Be prepared to see me be a little heated. (ha get it)

 

Also, the post is segmented into spoiler tabs so they're easier to read.

 

Perks Of Immunity:

Spoiler

Combat:

This is the point I'm most vocal about, and if Immunity was added (which it should) it would be the primary reason why I'd play Willow more than I already do. Anyways, I have tested the following strat in-game as Willow with Scaled Armor (which gives fire Immunity) and it works perfectly.

How to kill just about anything with Fire:

Step 1: Set the thing on fire (best option is Willow's Lighter, but a torch can work)
Step 2: Hold F until it dies
Step 3: There's no step 3 you did it

 

The reason why this works so well is because of the mob AI. When on fire, mobs don't attack and instead run around, aka panicking. However, if you are constantly attacking a panicking mob, they won't run around (because they're flinching to player attacks) and instead be STUNNED until they either die or get extinguished. No other character in the game fills the niche of being able to stun mobs. Yeah, it disallows others to help you kill it or else they'll take damage from fire, but honestly, you won't really need the help.

 

If Klei reads this, and I hope they do, I'd recommend adding the ability for mobs that are slain whilst on fire (specifically set alight by Willow) to not drop ashes. This is practically the only reason why this strat isn't being used already. If it were added, it would boost Willow's viability by a long shot.

 

I'd also like to point out the fact that bosses don't panic when on fire, so they're able to attack you. So no, it's not as OP as it sounds. Furthermore, I am NOT supportive of being able to light things on fire in your inventory, because THAT is when it would go into OP territory. However, if there was a DPS cap at maybe around 25-40 damage per second, I'd be all for it.

 

Sanity:

At the moment, Willow can't really capitalize on her sanity regen when near fire because said sanity regen gives the max amount of sanity when she's in fire, which is something she can't do efficiently without Immunity. So imo, either raise the amount of sanity gained from fire sources, or tick this off as another reason why we need Immunity.
Also yes, dropping 20 items on the floor and setting them on fire gains a stupid amount of sanity and I agree that it needs to be nerfed.

 

Misc:

Being able to mitigate some damage taken from Dfly and Klaus is, okay I guess. It's not a main focus and mostly just a side effect. Being able to use lava pools for stuff like lighting yourself on fire is really cool, and could be used for some creative strategies. You can also freely cook food on it, so that's a plus.

 

Fire Immunity Counter-Arguments, and why they are not valid:

Spoiler

 

"Immunity is useless, you never take fire damage at all"
The reason why we want fire Immunity is NOT to have safe-guards so we don't take fire damage in general situations. Instead, we want it so we can use fire to our advantage, and use strats that are otherwise not possible without full immunity (aka not possible with temporary immunity without taking damage). See "Perks of Immunity" to see how you could use Fire Immunity to it's full potential.

 

"Immunity is too OP!"
This is the same game that has:
-Someone that does double damage when having a full belly.
-Someone that can generate a near-infinite amount of food with one use of a book.
-Someone that can make an infinite amount of catapults and completely shred any boss.
-Someone that can heal a large amount of the team's HP by killing small insects.
-Someone that can upgrade to 400 HP and becomes invincible during a thunderstorm.

 

Now, tell me again how being Immune to Fire would be better than every single one of these examples?
Also, lets not even mention the fact that Winona and Wortox (two of the post-rework characters) are pretty up there in the "powerful" category. Why should Willow be any different?

 

Also, here's a quote from @Mr.Mulk that accurately sums it up.

Quote

"And yeah, I support [Fire Immunity] being re-added, not because fire immunity is some sort of insane OP perk (like so many people are claiming, but suspiciously can't give a good example of how), but because it already existed and was removed for reasons (griefing) that it didn't help satisfy in the slightest, so there's no reason to not bring it back. It's an integral part in my opinion of what made DS Willow so much fun, and since its purpose in DST was a flop (its removal didn't help griefing at all) it should be brought back."

 

"It encourages Griefing!"
How. Just.... How. Anyone can make a torch (which is dirt easy to craft), not to mention the fact that Wickerbottom is the best "griefer" character with her books. Griefers dont just stand in the middle of fire and let themselves die. This is a very bottom-of-the-barrel argument.

 

 

"It's not realistic! She is a human!"
Again, no. This is the same game where:
-Someone can instantly gain 40 pounds when his hunger is satiated
-Someone that can grow a beard in 5 days
-Anyone can heal from ANY TYPE OF WOUND by eating food.
-Magic exists.
-Basically the entire game throws logic out the window whenever it has the chance.

 

For those that want to argue in this thread, go ahead, in fact I encourage it, that is, if your argument actually has any merit to it. Also, stay on topic I guess.

Also if you want to raise points, whether it is pro or anti immunity, I'll add them to this post.

 

 

[Terra B Welch]

While I don't think klei will take a look at this thread, I can only hope they do, and actually think about it.

[reverentsatyr]

Another post on this topic? Jeez it seems like this will just extend the chaos. Also, there are plenty of valid points on both sides of the argument, and maybe you just missed some of them. I don't even really care anymore and I can see the reasoning on both sides. I'm just completely done talking about this because half the arguments just end up with people insulting each other, trying to make the other person seem inferior in some way. I was hoping things might have settled down by now.

[Pop Guy]

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 10:39 PM, Canis said:

[...]

 

I would like to add another reason in favor of immunity to fire: she is a pyromaniac.
When did you ever see an arsonist die with his own fire? Ridiculous 

 

[ButterStuffed]

Fire immunity wouldn't do much at all to make her more fun or useful.

If she were to be able to effectively use this fire fighting tactic that you've described with the no destroyed loot ability as well she'd just do damage that is negligible compared to Wigfrid and Wolfgang. Even if fire was buffed to do more damage so that it could be comparable to Wolfgang and Wigfrid then woo wee we've got another survivor that is good at fighting in a game where combat is arguably the least interesting system in the entire game. Granting Willow combat abilities will not make her more fun.

Being able to fully utilize the pyromania sanity gain if she was fire immune is also really boring. Even if the sanity gain was increased to the point where it's possible to go from 0% to 100% in moments I still doubt people would use it much. There are already easy ways to increase sanity in game and giving Willow a character specific way to increase a stat that most veteran players already ignore wouldn't make her more interesting.

The only perk of fire immunity that I would be interested in is that it would no longer be a bit dangerous to use the lava pools by the dragonfly for general things.

I mean, whether or not fire immunity is granted to Willow or not I couldn't care less but I think everyone is exaggerating how useful and fun it will be and shouldn't be the main part of her rework.

[Stonetribe]

While I'm definitely for full on fire immunity coming back, I was thinking that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if mobs set on fire could still fight back, albeit just much less frequently due to the panicking and whatnot.

[Canis]

2 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

If she were to be able to effectively use this fire fighting tactic that you've described with the no destroyed loot ability as well she'd just do damage that is negligible compared to Wigfrid and Wolfgang. 

So you're telling me that outright ignoring the kiting pattern of *any* non-boss mob is negligible?

I specifically said that the fire would act like a pseudo-stun mechanic, not to just do more damage.

[Leonardo Cox]

12 hours ago, Canis said:

How to kill just about anything with Fire:

Step 1: Set the thing on fire (best option is Willow's Lighter, but a torch can work)
Step 2: Hold F until it dies
Step 3: There's no step 3 you did it

 

The reason why this works so well is because of the mob AI. When on fire, mobs don't attack and instead run around, aka panicking. However, if you are constantly attacking a panicking mob, they won't run around (because they're flinching to player attacks) and instead be STUNNED until they either die or get extinguished. No other character in the game fills the niche of being able to stun mobs. Yeah, it disallows others to help you kill it or else they'll take damage from fire, but honestly, you won't really need the help.

 

If Klei reads this, and I hope they do, I'd recommend adding the ability for mobs that are slain whilst on fire (specifically set alight by Willow) to not drop ashes. This is practically the only reason why this strat isn't being used already. If it were added, it would boost Willow's viability by a long shot.

 

I'd also like to point out the fact that bosses don't panic when on fire, so they're able to attack you. So no, it's not as OP as it sounds.

Explain how being able to kill 99% of mobs by only holding F with no risk of being attacked is not OP. If this was going to be a thing I'd say keep the loot being turned into ashes so you'd at least can't just hold F forever and be rewarded for doing something that requires no effort. But I'm against this part entirely, infinitely stunlocking enemies shouldn't be a perk for anyone. 

[Mr.Mulk]

2 hours ago, Leonardo Cox said:

Explain how being able to kill 99% of mobs by only holding F with no risk of being attacked is not OP. If this was going to be a thing I'd say keep the loot being turned into ashes so you'd at least can't just hold F forever and be rewarded for doing something that requires no effort. But I'm against this part entirely, infinitely stunlocking enemies shouldn't be a perk for anyone. 

Combat fire strats don't actually make that much of a difference against a lot of (singular fight) enemies, especially bosses. It's not as simple as lighting an enemy on fire and holding f, if it was that way Willow would be the meta character in DS, which she isn't. Most, especially bosses will continue their attack patterns even when lit on fire with the occasional additional flinch, so it's not really providing a massive difference in combat (not totally insignificant either though).

In reality fire strats are actually used more for crowd control when facing multiple enemies:

Attempting to use them on singular targets will invariably burn all the loot that doesn't have cooked forms (yes including normally inflammable items). Attempting to use fire strats on bosses will have very little impact in the long run, especially when compared to combat characters like Wigfrid and Wolfgang. It'll still deal damage of course, but it's not a God-tier strategy (that's really more inventory burning's thing).

The real reason fire immunity should be added back in isn't because it's this super OP perk (nor is it insignificant however) it's because it's a perk that was previously taken out in a failed attempt to quell griefing. Because its removal did not end up stopping griefing in any way there's no reason to not add it back, as I considered it an integral part of Willow's character in DS.

Proper fire immunity also acts as a springboard for many great perk ideas, like bringing back a heavily modified inventory burning with proper animations, giving Willow a unique combat AoE role.

[Leonardo Cox]

1 minute ago, Mr.Mulk said:

Combat fire strats don't actually make that much of a difference against a lot of (singular fight) enemies, especially bosses. It's not as simple as lighting an enemy on fire and holding f, if it was that way Willow would be the meta character in DS, which she isn't. A lot of enemies, especially bosses will continue their attack patterns even when lit on fire with the occasional additional flinch, so it's not really providing a massive difference in combat (not totally insignificant either though).

Then OP is wrong and needs to update his post on how enemies on fire actually work. I'd still say leave the loot burning unchanged.

With that said, that was the only thing I had against fire immunity (if it was true). Since it isn't then I'm for Willow getting full fire immunity as there isn't any reason for her not to have full immunity.  

[Wexton]

You have my vote for bringing Fire-Inmunity back. But I personally see problems that would still need to be adressed with it.

Using fire to stun enemies will on many cases cause not-so-happy little accidents and set areas on fire,This will cause many new players to lose interest on using this mechanic and seeing her as boring as she currently is.

That is why I had the following idea: Perhaps Bernie could absorb fire when equiped

Spoiler

(This could also perhaps be the way he would grow bigger,as they mentioned on the rework post) This way Willow would not only have the ability to stun and to use an army of bernies for combat,but also work as the perfect character to save your base from fire hounds/smouldering or griefers. Which seems to be a better role rather than yet another combat based character.

It would also avoid the problem of not making sense with her character,It would't make sense for Willow to want to stop a fire,but Bernie could be the one to do it on an attempt to protect her (and to why bernie absorbs fire? Well,he's a walking teddy bear. Better not make any questions).

 

 

[Mr.Mulk]

2 minutes ago, Wexton said:

That is why I had the following idea: Perhaps Bernie could absorb fire when equiped

It would also avoid the problem of not making sense with her character,It would't make sense for Willow to want to stop a fire,but Bernie could be the one to do it on an attempt to protect her (and to why bernie absorbs fire? Well,he's a walking teddy bear. Better not make any questions).

In that same vein of ideas someone (credits to Revior from Discord) suggested Willow could have fire immunity but only while utilizing inventory burning and the rest of the time just fire resistance, which while I'm not sure I 100% agree with it is an interesting compromise. I think definitely being open to some fluidity on concepts here is alright, as long as it appears in some form or fashion that's usable.

[ButterStuffed]

3 hours ago, Canis said:

So you're telling me that outright ignoring the kiting pattern of *any* non-boss mob is negligible?

I specifically said that the fire would act like a pseudo-stun mechanic, not to just do more damage.

Yes.

I can face tank a beefalo with Wolfgang or Wigfrid and kill it faster and only take slightly more damage than using the fire method. I can take no damage and maybe take a couple seconds longer if I just kited. Any other character can do the same thing and only take maybe 10-15 seconds longer to kill a beefalo. Same could be said for pretty much any enemy this would work against. Also how many monsters is it useful against in the first place? Honestly not a whole lot and a lot of them it’s easy enough to kill the monster without using the method.

Like I said before adding back in fire immunity wouldn’t bother me in the slightest but I don’t think it should as big of a focus for rebalancing Willow as people make it out to be. I am 100% sure if fire immunity was given in the first place everyone would still be thinking the rework needs another rework.

[MondayNight]

I for one am really on the fence with this fire immunity perk. Sometimes I tend to find it problematic (theoretically providing more survivability for griefers - in regular Survival pubs a hefty number of Willows are done-in by fire on regular basis, with satisfying karma comic relief, heh), sometimes I see its uses but in the end I believe it won't be such a major thing either way. You will be able to cook on DF lava ponds, you'll warm up quicker by standing close to them or in fire, you can take enraged DF in a bit more lax manner (if you're not using Pan Flute.. which I think is a really rare occasion) and... that's it from the top of my head atm. Am sure there are more niche uses for fire immunity but all in all that alone won't make me wanna pick Willow more.

 

As for inventory burning, I guess it can be ok for so-and-so additional heat dmg - yet by no means in the single-player manner where is pretty OP (that Clops record disposal video comes to mind) - thus would need a hard cap on dealt dmg.

[axxel]

Burning mobs could drop burning loot instead of ashes but they should drop cooked meats. Then you have a chance to extingush the loot. This would mean items like gears and beefaloo horns are safe.

Why fire stun is OP is questionable. Many mobs have helping cohorts and carelssness results into fire, also you can farm some mobs semi-"automatically". It should at least help Willow to stay sane while fighting monsters and migrate a strenght of her to make her able to do so. Buuut sanity is currently the stat only Willow has to suffer more than any character. 

 

[Viktor234]

1 minute ago, axxel said:

Buuut sanity is currently the stat only Willow has to suffer more than any character. 

Webber has the lowest sanity ingame and besides his beard no other additional sources to restore his sanity. He's almost forced to keep his Top Hat on.
Wortox gets only 1/2 stats from foods and looses sanity from eating souls. Sleeping is not a good option because it's twice as expensive for him.
Wickerbottom has pretty much sanity but can't sleep (which can replenish your stats easily) and needs at least 3x 'Cooked Green Caps' or 3x 'Taffy' to stop shadow creatures from attacking her.

Willow on the other hand gains sanity while standing near a fire pit and has the only item ingame which can tank shadow creatures.

14 minutes ago, axxel said:

Burning mobs could drop burning loot instead of ashes but they should drop cooked meats. Then you have a chance to extingush the loot. This would mean items like gears and beefaloo horns are safe.

Agree with this one, there should always be a 2nd chance to restore your loot in case of if you failed to kill a mob while he wasn't burning.

[axxel]

I meant she would get freezing more quickly than others. Yes I agree on other characters' sanity game. But they would has to deal with shadows and she has the worst state while wet.

[Mr.Mulk]

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

I for one am really on the fence with this fire immunity perk. Sometimes I tend to find it problematic (theoretically providing more survivability for griefers - in regular Survival pubs a hefty number of Willows are done-in by fire on regular basis, with satisfying karma comic relief, heh), 

While I am not one to advocate for the intelligence of griefers, I will respectfully say I have never to this date seen a griefer so bad they decided to stand in fire long enough where they died to it, both as Willow or any other character (excepting when they were trying to die to drain sanity). I'm sure it's happened (I don't doubt that ), but I don't think adding fire immunity would cause a massive spike in griefers picking Willow because now they can stand on top of the structures they light on fire. As it stands in fact, burning stuff is weak in comparison to many, much more effective griefing strats I've seen used over the years.

• Getting out of bounds with the Ancient Key and hiding it out of the map's range entirely comes to mind.
• Repeatedly haunting a varg to wipe a server from the ensuing hound spawns (there's no limit on aggro range)
• Setting up spawn traps with impenetrable walls, and getting a webber to plant spider eggs on the spawn
• Wicker setting up tentacle traps similarly, except with the added stealth bonus they have
• Eating all the food in base or turning it into wet goop and disconnecting
• Or just taking all the valuables and disconnecting. Not particularly flashy but it gets the job done

I could continue but the point is that people will always find a way to grief, it's part of the nature of a survival multiplayer game. I find it hard to believe that the removal of fire immunity foremost contributed in any way to a reduction in griefing, and similarly I'm skeptical that the addition of fire immunity would contribute to an increase in griefing in any appreciable way. I completely admit that this is discussion of a possibility, and anything could technically happen, but I don't think the evidence suggests readding it is particularly risky on Klei's part.

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

sometimes I see its uses but in the end I believe it won't be such a major thing either way. You will be able to cook on DF lava ponds, you'll warm up quicker by standing close to them or in fire, you can take enraged DF in a bit more lax manner (if you're not using Pan Flute.. which I think is a really rare occasion) and... that's it from the top of my head atm. Am sure there are more niche uses for fire immunity but all in all that alone won't make me wanna pick Willow more.

I agree that it's not the most astoundingly amazing ability ever, but it does have some use, which I alluded to in a couple of my previous posts (both here and on other threads). Really my main reason however for wanting it back is less that it's neither OP or insignificant, more that it was previously an ability which got removed, but its removal didn't aid the issue it was attempting to help. Because of this I see no reason to not re-add it (it's ironically super easy to add). While it is subjective, I consider fire immunity a key part of what made Willow, well, Willow.

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

As for inventory burning, I guess it can be ok for so-and-so additional heat dmg - yet by no means in the single-player manner where is pretty OP (that Clops record disposal video comes to mind) - thus would need a hard cap on dealt dmg.

I used to take a really hard stance that I wanted inventory burning in its purest form from DS, but I've taken some time to reflect on the subject and honestly I'd prefer it to be altered to be more multiplayer friendly. This would likely mean a fair dps cap (not sure what it'd be that'd be up to Klei) and some proper animations with effects added to make it feel more natural in the flow of the game. I'm ok with its ignition being removed on concerns of it being used for griefing as well, that's fair and makes sense to me. Besides this, I do think it could make a wonderful addition to her character and provide her with a welcomed change to the combat and execution strategies, and vary the way one fights with certain enemies (especially, say, for example Bee Queen).

Cheers 

[Captain_Rage]

18 hours ago, Canis said:

So, this forum is chaos at the moment, to the point where it's practically war against Pro-Immunity and Anti-Immunity. However, whenever I try and argue against someone who is Anti-Immunity, they don't really give a coherent counterargument, ever.

Also if you want to raise points, whether it is pro or anti immunity, I'll add them to this post.

 

I could have sworn I was reading about anti-vaccination when skimming through this post.

[MondayNight]

40 minutes ago, Mr.Mulk said:

While I am not one to advocate for the intelligence of griefers, I will respectfully say I have never to this date seen a griefer so bad they decided to stand in fire long enough where they died to it, both as Willow or any other character (excepting when they were trying to die to drain sanity). I'm sure it's happened (I don't doubt that ), but I don't think adding fire immunity would cause a massive spike in griefers picking Willow because now they can stand on top of the structures they light on fire. As it stands in fact, burning stuff is weak in comparison to many, much more effective griefing strats I've seen used over the years.

• Getting out of bounds with the Ancient Key and hiding it out of the map's range entirely comes to mind.
• Repeatedly haunting a varg to wipe a server from the ensuing hound spawns (there's no limit on aggro range)
• Setting up spawn traps with impenetrable walls, and getting a webber to plant spider eggs on the spawn
• Wicker setting up tentacle traps similarly, except with the added stealth bonus they have
• Eating all the food in base or turning it into wet goop and disconnecting
• Or just taking all the valuables and disconnecting. Not particularly flashy but it gets the job done

Oh, am writing about newbie/noobish griefers you find in common Survival pubs, the Official Klei variety - maybe some aren't even griefers, and just read Willow's pyromaniac description and act accordingly, playing out the role or thinking that's how they are supposed to go at the game with this character. But yes, there really are the Willows dying via fire. Still mostly are the Wilsons - dying in a myriad of weird ways beside starving or night grue. Those trolling ways you mention are more common on long-running servers, the Endless variety of dedicated communities from what I've seen. But all in all yes, the griefers theoretically benefiting from a Willow fire immunity would most likely be in single-number digits (probably around [1;5]% interval), thus nothing to be really concerned.

 

For me, if Willow would get strong fire resistance (be it total immunity or 10s immunity to fire), fighting Bernie "army" that also reacts to Ruins shadows maybe even Shadow bosses while Willow's insane, and some character-specific mid-to-end-game useful item (be it "fiery weapons" aka weapons that deal some fire dmg when in Willow's use or/and this "Scale-fiery Lantern" proposal) - this re-balanced Willow would be an instant "MUAH! molto benissimo" picking for me, on par with re-balanced Winona aka very fun to play.

[axxel]

Klei, if you want something crazy for Willow, let her learn pyrokineses to store fire in her inventory or cast PK Fire - whoops wrong game.

About the inventory burning in DST I honestly think that under 10 HP (I suggest 7,5) damage per tick is enough and lighting more than one item (or stack) shouldn't add to the damage. 

[Well-met]

I don't know much about the burn state of mobs but I noticed attacking a regular hound with torch can stunlock them infinitely like a spider. Am I missing something here?

[BadScra]

Why everybody talks about Willow's Immunity fire so much?

If you don't like Willow new immunity fire, then why don't you... JUST. EQUIP. SCALEMAIL?

Geez... Sorry.

[GuyNamedChris]

13 minutes ago, BadScra said:

If you don't like Willow new immunity fire, then why don't you... JUST. EQUIP. SCALEMAIL?

If you're playing as Wortox why don't you just equip the lazy explorer?
If you're playing as Winona why don't you just craft the sewing kit?
If you're playing as Wigfrid why don't you just equip a football helmet and spear?
If you're playing as Woodie why don't you just craft an axe?

Characters making better use of other items isn't new. That, and scales can be used on other more useful things like chests and furnaces. Scalemail can light stuff on fire, which I don't think anyone wants either. If you strike a Willow with fire immunity, will you get lit on fire? Last I checked, no.

[BadScra]

@Chris1448 Okay, whatever you say.

Willow Immunity fire without limit (like DS) is fun, but Willow perks still not strong enough like Winona or Wortox.