Use For Frozen Pellets Over Ice Staff?

[Bird Up]

Since Walter has exclusive freezing rounds, I feel like it should be better than the ice staff, but from what I can tell, the ice staff is generally better. The only big thing better about frozen pellets I can see is a stack size of 60.

1 spear, 1 blue gem =  20 ice staff uses

1 moon nugget, 1 blue gem = 10 frozen pellets

Areas where they're about the same

1. They have the same range.

2. 10 frozen pellets per blue gem and 20 Ice staff uses per blue gem, but they freeze at the same rate because pellets are twice as strong at freezing and the ice staff is twice as fast at attacking.

3. They both need prestihatitator to craft, so Walter can't make frozen pellets any earlier than the ice staff.

4. Both do no damage.

Areas where ice staff is better

1. Frozen pellet's extra freezing potency is wasted on enemies like bunnies/grass geckos/no-eyed deer etc because the ice staff freezes them in one hit anyway. Pellets use 1/10 of its uses here and ice staff uses 1/20 of its uses, so the staff would be faster and more efficient utility per blue gem used to craft.

2. Moon rock is required for pellets which is not terribly common early game, meanwhile spears for ice staff are very easy to make with common ingredients.

3. Ice staves can be used to douse flames and smoldering items to potentially save bases and save burnable items, frozen pellets cannot.

4. Ice staves can be used by every character while slingshot and pellets are exclusive to Walter.

Areas where frozen pellets are better

1. Pellets can stack to 60 and an ice staff occupies an inventory slot per staff.

2. Ice staff costs 1 sanity to use. Not much of an issue however.

[ShadowDuelist]

This.

It's sort of a waste of blue gems at this point, even if they stockpile in the late game.

Possible solutions I can think of:
 

• Make each pellet shot x3 freezing power instead of x2
• Get 15 rounds per blue gem instead of 10
• Both of the above? or at least one.

 

[gghhrr]

I believe increasing Walter's shooting speed will easily make this pellet works better on boss than frozen staff

maybe they should add pellet with red gem, that scald target upon shot, not burning one,

slow down target and continuosly deal very little damage over time

 

purple gem one should be reworked to trigger random effect

since purple gem belongs to mysterious in Dont Starve

"no one know what's gonna happen until it hit target" 

random effect is triggered between a list:

1. summon shadow tentacle

2. heal target for 500 ( 1% )

3. teleport target in very short distance (knockback or something)

4. rain a meteor on target

5. nothing happen

6. etc..

 

orange gem pellet do the knockback teleport

yellow gem pellet unfreeze and provide little warmt to everyone around target

( slingshot loaded with yellow pellet may choose target area to shoot like how you toss water balloon)

[Brubs]

I know both Ice staff and frozen pellets have similar effects, but you can't compare a slingshot to a staff. 

Yes, the staff has more versatility and its supposed to be a magic item, thus the (small) sanity cost. The slingshot however, is supposed to be a combat oriented item, meaning theres no other use rather than that.

I do think having 60 uses on frozen pellets is actually really good, however i must agree that the cost is quite high (despite the freezing effect being stronger than ice staff).

Maybe switch the moon nugget for other item like flint?

[Squirrel12]

Nobody is talking about this, but I seriously think the most disappointing thing about Walter is his ammunition.

It's basically just magic rocks that have powers that are already pre-existing in the game. 

I really hope in the inevitable re-work they make his ammunition less...magical? I would instead prefer to see him shoot flaming pine cones or bee mines...Something more creative than "magic rock does random magic thing".  

 

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

2 hours ago, Bird Up said:

2. Moon rock is required for pellets which is not terribly common early game, meanwhile spears for ice staff are very easy to make with common ingredients.

Moon rocks are no issue. If you are prepared to use blue gems, you are probably prepare to use moon rocks as well.

2 hours ago, gghhrr said:

yellow gem pellet unfreeze and provide little warmt to everyone around target

I like the idea of him having a bit of support role as well. Don't know, how can he be useful for the team in his current state.

[shadowDigga]

3 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Moon rocks are no issue. If you are prepared to use blue gems, you are probably prepare to use moon rocks as well.

Unless you are about to craft moon dial, you most likely not have moon rocks in your pocket as well whenever you're about to use blue gems. Moon rocks are not hard to get, but they are definitely not as common as materials for spear.

I think double freezing efficiency actually comes from slow shooting animation - much slower than the one of ice staff. However, it this state its only viable to use against targets that require exactly 2 hits to be frozen. Otherwise, ice staff is always cheaper and faster. That's not something you'd expect from character-specific item - being worse than its common alternative in every way.

Shooting speed should depend on type of ammo. In case of freezing pellets, it should be as fast as ice staff in order not to be inferior to it. Make it as efficient as ice staff but make 20 pellets from single blue gem. And obviously, moon rock has to go.

[jpmrocks]

3 hours ago, Squirrel12 said:

Nobody is talking about this, but I seriously think the most disappointing thing about Walter is his ammunition.

It's basically just magic rocks that have powers that are already pre-existing in the game. 

I really hope in the inevitable re-work they make his ammunition less...magical? I would instead prefer to see him shoot flaming pine cones or bee mines...Something more creative than "magic rock does random magic thing".  

 

Almost like the game is full of magic or something...