Winona apreciation and my experience with her creations

[maquinarara1]

Hi, I wish to write about my under estimated girl Winona.

While some may say that she is a Wilson clone and others say that she is for new players, I think there is more that meets the eye.

I see her as a character that rewards players to plan ahead. Let´s look at her perks.

She gets a free hit from Charlie. This means that you can stay in the dark longer safely, saving torches, but most importantly you can lower your sanity faster, without having to switch to torches constantly, even faster while using dark gear near a mob. This is to farm nightmare fuels.

But that perk is arguably the weakest, the next is a little more useful.

She crafts things faster while not starving. That is a moderate saving of time in constructing things in rapid succession, like refining materials or building pens. The catch is that she gets hunger after a minute of crafting. The best way to use her is to extimate how many resouces you must create and do it all at once, it is better to over create thant to create less and have to finish later. And never craft while having low hunger, she takes ages to do it. Have a snack ready when crafting.

But her main perk is her engineering tab, where she has interesting things:

First her tape, which has the same application as the sewing kit, but has only one use. But it is so much cheaper to fabricate, using only silk and grass. And it is stackable. Also you can repair boat leaks with it, though it may not heal it like a boat repair kit may, but you can use the logs saved to restore it.

Tape is essential for the other creations.

The spotlight may seem useful at first, but then you can see that a single firepit, miners hat and/or torch can do it better, sure it can illuminate you whenever you go, but the light is fixated on you only, making it not as useful at choping trees, mining rocks or fighting foes. 

Catapults is where the money is at, but they must be powered by generators, which we have two kinds,

The Normal one uses nitre as its fuel, and needs 2 of them to be filled. A full generator has 480 charges, each structure drains 1 charge per second. So a single catapult/spotlight will last about a day before turning off. Lets say that you can put around the generator 8 catapults, this means that you only got a minute of using the catapults with 2 nitre, which is not too long, but there are 8 things helping you in defeating a foe, Down there I will calculate DPS and total damage.

This catapult is better suited for the early days and for basic farms, for boss fights stick with the longer lasting generator:

The G.E.M.erator uses any kind of gem, but needs 3 of them to be filled. More expensive in its creation and fuelling but a full one can have a whooping 2880 charges. This means a single connected structure can last for about 6 days, and 8 of them will last for 6 minutes.

Each catapult does 42.5 damage and has a small AoE attack, which can hit multiple foes that are together. They have a fire rate of 2 shots per 5 seconds (2.5), in contrast, all characters can attack twice per second, and can have better damage per attack. But you can have 8 catapults firing at once. This means each volley has a damage of 340, in a period of 5 seconds it is translated to 680 damage, while a dark sword has a damage of 68, swinging it twice per second over 5 seconds it does the exact same damage as 8 catapults. This means each group of 8 catapults can be a replacement for a player with a dark sword and without other buffs. This is huge for solo players.

The catapults need to be fuelled each minute or 6, depending on the generator, so the total damage a group of catapults can do in a minute is about 8,160, which for a full G.E.M.erator is translated to 48,960 damage done to a single target, if all rocks hit.

Each catapult and generator has 400 health points, and they can regenerate a little more than 8 hp each 10 seconds, they can tank some damage, but try to keep them safe from too many mobs or structure destroying giants.

There are multiple aplications of the catapults, below will list some of the most relevant.

Spider farm, select a peninsula location, plant several egg nests at the peak, put 2 row of indestructible blockages (fossils, or end tables) then put one or two half groups of catapults at the other side, put them so they cannot hit the eggs, you can use nitre generators for this one. Now put a boat in the sea next to the blockage and you are set. To activate the farm you must step on the sider web and draw agro of the spiders, jump to the other side and watch how the spiders are massacrated by your machines, stand not too near of the blockage though as warrior spiders may jump the blockage. The 2 rows of blockage is to prevent the spider queen to spawn spiders to the other side. At the end you can harvest all your rewards and have more materials for your tape.

For hound protection, you can have 1 or two groups of catapults fuelled by nitre, the problem is that the hounds are too fast for the catapults, you can help by adding teeth traps, it is not much, but any help is welcome.

Pig/bunny farm. The peninsula strategy can work here as well, but you must make sure to attack one of them and prevent them from reaching you from juming from the boat, draw the agro by using a blow dart or an boomerang...or using meat or a disguise, you must reaquire agro periodically.

Deerclops. They are excellent at killing the winter giant, and you can use nitre generators on this one too. Have 2 groups of catapults and draw it towards a point where all 16 catapults can hit it, then kite it and it will be down in no time.

Bearger is another story, keep him away from the catapults at all times, and never lose its agro, or else it will go straight to the catapults and smash them to smithereens. You can keep the same strategy from deerclops, just be more careful.

Moose/Goose. A single group of catapults will destroy it, and its offsping. You need to protect the catapults with blockages, you can use a GEMerator with just two gems and everything will be alright.

Antlion. Poor thing, just 2 halves of catapult´s groups will make short work of it, just be careful to not ut them too close to it, or else the raised pilars will destroy them, otherwise, 4 nitre is all you need for a quick victory.

Dragonfly. Easily soloable with 3 groups of catapults, but you need preparation. For the very first battle, put a long line of stone walls and in the center put indestructible blockage (fossils work well here) and at the other side of the wall put 2 groups of catapults , with full GEMerators, at the center you will fight with the boss, you will need at least 1 pan flute, 5 marble armor and 3 dark swords, and many healing food like dragonies or pierogies. Draw the agro of the firefly using a walking cane and a log armor, run past the line of fossils and put the last one, then stay in the middle with the marble armor and hack away with the dark sword, if done correctly, you can make it in time before being hit and you will down the firefly and be rewarded with a scale, do not follow the firefly, stay put, and use the pan flute to prevent the rage phase, after less than 5 minutes, she will be killed. After it is done, you can surround with stone walls each lava pit, the one closest to the catapults you can use fossils to prevent them to be destroyed. After it is done, you can calculate the range and have up to 3 groups of catapults, a single flingómatic (for any lavae that escapes the enclosure) and use just 2 dark swords and 2 marble suits. For 3 groups of catapults you can use only 2 gems for each group, 6 in total. And the main benefit is that you can skip the rage phase completely, as she will fall to the ground each time she comes to fight you. Saving uses of the pan flute.

Beequeen. Surprisingly easy with 3 groups of catapults. First, clean the area, then surround the beehive with cataults fuelled by gems, have 2 dark swords, some healing snacks, and a single beekeeper hat. The startegy is to let the catapults do almost all the workk for you. In the first phase, get close and personal with the queen, try to stay at the center for maximum dps, when she gets to half hp, it is time to avoud her. Kite the bees around the center area, and the catapults will smash the bees, if needed you can refill the generators, but most likely it is not necessary. Keep an eye if the bees target a single catapult, you may lend a hand in avoiding it getting destroyed.

Shadow pieces. This is a hard fight but doable with a strange strategy. Have 2 or 3 groups of catapults surround the pieces, have 3 dark swords or better yet some glass cutters, 5 marble suits (we will not be kitting) and many healing items. When you hammer the first chess piece, you must not have activated any catapult, instead focus on the bishop. Kill it asap, then you can power on the catapults to destroy the rook. Yep, we will be fighting level 3 night, this is for 3 reasons. 1.- The shadow bishop will drain durabillity of the armor at an alarming rate and has a long period of invulnerability. 2.- The rook attacks slow, but has a wide range and strong attack, meaning it will destroy the catapults easily if being careless. 3.- The knight has a long range attack, and tries to kites you, you can abuse this by staying close to the center and just wait for it to get near you, and the catapults will still hit it continuously, and it´s attack is not too strong, so you can tank it and hit him when he gets close, it will fall shortly after.

Toadstool. Try the freeze cheese with 3 or 4 catapults groups, it is still a mechanic heavy battle so try to avoid spores and cut down those mushtrees, becareful using the weather pain, as it can destroy your flingos and your catapults. Also beware of the toads smash attack, you must keep him in the center at all times. If done correctly, you can defeat the Toad in under 8 minutes.

Ancient guardian. Not tested yet, but I imagine cheesing it behind some tombstones or pillars may accelerate this battle, just be careful with it smashing your weapons.

Ancient fuel weaver. Not tested yet, but I imagine that the only safe place to put the catapults is just before the entrance, the cataults may help in preventing the fuel weaver in regaining health, but i wouldnt count for them to destroy the hands.

Klaus. Nope, dont do it. The catapults will kill the gem deers and will enrage Klaus, making the fight much harder. You can try to block the gem deers with stone walls/fossils, but it is very hard to do and I wouldn´t recommend it. Just stick to hiting him with your hambat and kite his attacks.

Malbatross. Not tested yet, but I imagine that the catapults may help in getting some hits from far away. But the swooping attack may destroy them, making them useless. Still a somewhat easy battle, but tedious one.

Crabking. Not tested yet, but I imagine that you should place the catapults some what away from the crab in many boats, then the geisers attack may destroy the catapults. You can stop this attack by freezing him. But you should bring lots of tape if you wish to keep the catapults. Oh and bring beemines, they will help alot of things get awry.

As you can see Winona is a character that rewards preparation and foward thinking, allowing you to play alone and have automatic farms. Of course, once you have all the structures and tape that you need, you can switch to another character via the celestial postern and still benefit from her machinations.

Have a nice day everyone, I hope this post help in deciding which character to use and how to use her at her full potential.

[ShadowDuelist]

Very detailed info, learned some numbers I didn't know, thanks for sharing.

Winona catapults are great! I think what makes Winona rather unpopular is that after building said structures and getting a stack or two of the tape, you could get a lot more for your money by just switching to basically any other character. Then you get all the advantages of Winona, plus, the advantages of the other character. All while playing solo!

Winona is not a bad character at all, its just that her free hit from the darkness and fast crafting are not interesting enough for most players to stay as her after the catapults have been made, I believe. 

[MondayNight]

On 7/18/2020 at 9:41 AM, maquinarara1 said:

...

Ancient guardian. Not tested yet, but I imagine cheesing it behind some tombstones or pillars may accelerate this battle, just be careful with it smashing your weapons.

...

I can summarize that "fight" at the below image:

Even with 2 Catapults is super-effective plus danger-free given general shape of labyrinths and players' propensity towards "cheese". Only downside is potential boredom and fact Horn may fall into Abyss (meat on other hand really doesn't matter).

Been for a long time a Winona-main because of her (planning-wise) versatility - yet switched to Willow at some point mostly because nomad with her is more interesting and fun for me.

[Scrimbles]

Aight I'm going to just say I didn't read all that, all that matters to me is that her crafts could be given to any other character and nothing would be lost.

She is nothing without exclusive crafts that don't have any synergy with her entire character.

 

There's a reason she is almost exclusively a swap character, nobody cares when shes gone, they only care if her catapults are around. There's nothing interesting about playing Winona.

[warlepidoptera]

Thank you for this! I love Winona so much! I love the character and tbh one of my favorite part is the fast crafting. Every other character feels slow in comparaison. She's also very strong choice for people who play mostly solo!

[Sir Noel]

2 hours ago, Ogrecakes said:

She is nothing without exclusive crafts that don't have any synergy with her entire character.

 

Yeah, this is sadly the problem with Winona. You make the catapults and then put her on the bench. She doesn't have anything else going for her except crafting speed, and tape isn't the most unique thing either.

Along with the fact that she is a very, very boring character in general and can be described as, "Wilson but can make catapults/tape and craft a little bit faster."

If you can summarize a character in one very short sentence there is something wrong there.

[bagherthegamer]

Its true that winona loses her "reason to play" after building the catapults but still it dosent mean that she is a weak charecter or a flawed one. 

The problem is that you CAN change charecters. Not that winona is a bad charecter. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 hours ago, bagherthegamer said:

Its true that winona loses her "reason to play" after building the catapults but still it dosent mean that she is a weak charecter or a flawed one. 

The problem is that you CAN change charecters. Not that winona is a bad charecter. 

I guess people change because she is boring. Its just wilson with 2 estructures and a sewing kit

[wigfrids hat]

3 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I guess people change because she is boring. Its just wilson with 2 estructures and a sewing kit

or they have a char they like more and fully intend to go back to and they only chose her temporarily  for the 'pults

[maquinarara1]

On 7/18/2020 at 1:41 AM, maquinarara1 said:

Hi, I wish to write about my under estimated girl Winona.

Blablabla, First post on thread.

Well, I have finally done more tests with other bosses, here are my results:

 

Klaus: You can actually kill him very easily using catapults, the key is to avoid hitting the deers. How to do it? Using fosils in a "V" shape can block a deer, and Klaus walking in the middle of 2 "V´s" will allow him to walk right into our trap. Using 2 sets of catapults is enough by kitting his pattern and the deer will be unable to burn the catapults. Just don´t separate them too much.

Malbatross. It actually cannot destroy the catapults, his swooping attack only hits masts. Although, It moves too much and the catapults use too much space in a boat. You can do it, but just stick to your sword and (at most) 4 catapults.

Ancient Guardian. The key resides in not putting the catapults in his arena, but outside. If you manage to keep him in one place (cheese methods) then it should be an easy battle. Of course, for this method you cannot use many catapults.

Ancient Fuel weaver. Same as Ancient Guardian, but you cannot leave the arena, so it will be very difficult for the catapults to finish him alone. The good news is that you can actually put some catapults, but avoid the inner ring. Expect heavy loses though.

Crabking. So, you want to kill crabking alone and don´t want to use bees? The catapults may hold the answer for a way to do it. Each boat can hold a set of catapults, so you can surround him with as many as 5 or 6 sets. Even more could, but then some catapults may be out of range. The key is to use purple gems to avoid the other attacks and  avoid his freeze resistance. Each time you see him casting a geiser attack, freeze him, he will be tawned inmediatelly because of the catapults, but he will be interrupted, keeping the boats safe. The only thing that can (and will) destroy the boats are the imposing claws, you can try to destroy them, but you cannot save all the boats, expect for 2 or 3 boats to only remain. Extremelly costy battle, inefficient, not very reliable, sometimes effective, but fortunatelly you need to do this once if you put pearls pearl for his true reward. Also, don´t try bees with this method, they will be destroyed by the catapults inmediatelly, Commit to either method, but not both at the same time.

Misery Toadstool. Exactly the same as Toadstool, but ou may need additional catapults, for his HP is through the ceiling. You WILL need to refuel the generators, depending on the number of sets, you may need 1 or 2 extra gems for each generator.

[ZTheNecromancer]

41 minutes ago, maquinarara1 said:

Ancient Fue weaver

Ah yes, the most important and lore heavy of bosses.

The Fue Weaver.

Spoiler

Fue is spanish for "Was" so it would be the "Ancient Was Weaver"

Or

It's also a acronym for Follicular Unit Extraction.

Which is, uh.

This

 So in that case it would be "Ancient Follicular Unit Extraction Weaver

 

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, maquinarara1 said:

sninp

An earnestly friendly reminder, you can edit the words of what you're quoting so as to not distract too much from the overall thread/make the page longer than it needs to be while still making others understand what you are responding to.

On 7/18/2020 at 10:40 AM, Ogrecakes said:

Aight I'm going to just say I didn't read all that, all that matters to me is that her crafts could be given to any other character and nothing would be lost.

She is nothing without exclusive crafts that don't have any synergy with her entire character.

There's a reason she is almost exclusively a swap character, nobody cares when shes gone, they only care if her catapults are around. There's nothing interesting about playing Winona.

i swapped to wolfgang for all of 3 days to kill dragonfly before instantly swapping back so as to avoid the hunger drain and get back to the characters i actually like to play, like winona

you need to understand that swapping sounds like it makes characters bad to play on paper, but in actual practice and reality, doesn't break anyone and what you can do with the character still stands whether or not such things stay after swapping out of such a character

[maquinarara1]

45 minutes ago, zee_dragon said:

Ah yes, the most important and lore heavy of bosses.

The Fue Weaver.

  Hide contents

Fue is spanish for "Was" so it would be the "Ancient Was Weaver"

Or

It's also a acronym for Follicular Unit Extraction.

Which is, uh.

This

 So in that case it would be "Ancient Follicular Unit Extraction Weaver

Upps, I made a typo there, good eye my friend.

Spoiler

What I meant was actually "FUA" (Fuerza Universal Aplicada) which means Applied Universal Force. So he is actually The Ancient Applied Universal Force Weaver.

 

[SinancoTheBest]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:39 PM, UraniumXI said:

Along with the fact that she is a very, very boring character in general and can be described as, "Wilson but can make catapults/tape and craft a little bit faster."

If you can summarize a character in one very short sentence there is something wrong there.

Umm, basically any character's premise can be described as Wilson something, that doesn't make them less interesting imo. and I find Winona's quotes, voice and aestetic quite interesting; ever since her rework I don't find her gameplay remotely close to Wilson. She's feels closer to Woodie or Maxwel for her resource amassing oriented gameplay, Wickerbottom and Wagstaff for her setups and most closely to Hunger-heavy characters like Wolfang, Wortox, Wes and Warly for her playstyle being much more hunger oriented than the more "basic stats" characters.

 

Let me try the Wilson Somthing descriptions:

Spoiler

Willow: Pyromaniac wilson with guardian bear.

Wolfgang: Strong wilson with big stomach.

Wendy: Weak depressed Wilson with ghost follower.

WX-78: Robot Wilson that gets his stats up with gears.

Wickerbottom: Nerd Wilson with spellbooks that doesn't sleep.

Woodie: Luöberjack Wilson with faster axe and transformations.

Wes: Weak mime wilson with more hunger.

Maxwell: Low HP boss Wilson with shadow slaves.

Wigfrid: Battle wilson that only eats meat.

Webber: Spider Wilson.

Winona: Engineer Wilson with Buildings, tapes and fast crafting but hungrier.

Warly: Chef Wilson that only eats dishes.

Wortox: Warlock Wilson that heals, teleports and always hungry.

Wormwood: Plant Wilson that plants seeds on ground and cant heal with food.

Wurt: Merm Wison that expand her race and only eats veggies.

Walter: Ranged boyscout Wilson with private chester and half beefalo that loses sanity when hurt.

 

[Notecja]

On 7/18/2020 at 7:41 AM, maquinarara1 said:

Crabking. Not tested yet, but I imagine that you should place the catapults some what away from the crab in many boats, then the geisers attack may destroy the catapults. You can stop this attack by freezing him. But you should bring lots of tape if you wish to keep the catapults. Oh and bring beemines, they will help alot of things get awry.

Some time ago I tried to get rid of Crab King with catapults and nope, he destroys boats faster than I can fix it. I had tons of resources so I could try experiments... And it just went wrong.

And bee mines didnt work too.

[1bubbainpa]

I’m glad you’re loving Winona and having a blast with her, but she doesn’t really click with me at all. For me, other characters offer a more enticing experience.

I feel like generators are a bit too expensive especially in early-game for what they do, and the catapults are subpar when compared to other methods.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just delete winona and add swagstaff like nothing happend

[maquinarara1]

7 hours ago, Notecja said:

Some time ago I tried to get rid of Crab King with catapults and nope, he destroys boats faster than I can fix it. I had tons of resources so I could try experiments... And it just went wrong.

And bee mines didnt work too.

I did kill him using catapults, Just stick to one boat and pray for the best. You can switch to wolfgang to aid in Damage dealing. You will lose most boats, but after a few tries and some ice staffs, he will fall. And you only need to do it once and that´s it.

[hoppin mandrake]

I decided to make Winona my first time completionist solo character. I like her because her catapults can easily cheese and take out bosses like the bee queen.