Is Bernie good enough?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

44 minutes ago, pedregales said:

 Do note, there are 2 bosses that Abigail outclasses Bernie because of utility: Antlion and Bee Queen, very likely also Ancient Fuelweaver because of the sanity mechanic he has; also any open ocean boss I suppose?

i see her better at fighting DF than bernie and there is no need of tank if you kite her at time. Also, with the speed elixir abi does well in the 1st and 2nd phase of toadstool

i dont understand why abi is good against fw because of sanity, can you explain it? she is great for killing the minions saving time/weather pain uses in the fight and boosting the damage between shields

[Stonetribe]

Am I the only one who only uses two Bernies at most? Is there any advantage to using 3 or more other than saving time from picking them up, repairing, and dropping them?

[Mike23Ua]

4 hours ago, Stonetribe said:

Am I the only one who only uses two Bernies at most? Is there any advantage to using 3 or more other than saving time from picking them up, repairing, and dropping them?

The little Bernie’s still draw shadow monster agro and will still take damage while little, in addition to that.. I tend to give EVERYONE a Bernie doll.. it won’t enlarge for anyone except Willow.. but it will animate to life and dance around for anyone who is low on Sanity helping them draw away Shadows.

Not an overly Amazing perk if your one of those people who cry Sanity is never an issue, but speaking for myself I’ve still died to shadow monsters despite knowing how to fight them. 
 

to top that off the more players that are near each other and low on Sanity, the more Shadow monsters spawn.. so you could end up with a screen full of crawling horror & Terror Beaks attacking in every direction.

I never said ANYTHING about you had to be the ONLY player carrying Bernie’s around, Every player could easily sacrifice one inventory slot & boom right there alone you got at least 6 Bernie’s ready to go.

[Stonetribe]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

The little Bernie’s still draw shadow monster agro and will still take damage while little, in addition to that.. I tend to give EVERYONE a Bernie doll.. it won’t enlarge for anyone except Willow.. but it will animate to life and dance around for anyone who is low on Sanity helping them draw away Shadows.

Not an overly Amazing perk if your one of those people who cry Sanity is never an issue, but speaking for myself I’ve still died to shadow monsters despite knowing how to fight them. 
 

to top that off the more players that are near each other and low on Sanity, the more Shadow monsters spawn.. so you could end up with a screen full of crawling horror & Terror Beaks attacking in every direction.

That's fair, though I think that this might be somewhat inefficient durability wise since little bernie only has 1,000 health as opposed to big bernie's 2,000, so any damage taken while small is effectively doubled once it grows big. So for boss fights I prefer to just keep one burnster out at a time, otherwise I'll just leave them at camp so that they can buy anyone under attack from shadows enough time to raise their sanity.

And not that it has any bearing on actual gameplay whatsoever, but lorewise Bernie is supposed to be Willow's cherished stuffed bear that she's kept since her childhood. So making more than one almost feels a little, I dunno, disrespectful to me? But since we have the Ashley skin, I can make two without cheapening the bond of a child and their beloved childhood toy because it's a different stuffed animal entirely!

[pedregales]

On 8/7/2020 at 7:52 PM, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i see her better at fighting DF than bernie and there is no need of tank if you kite her at time. Also, with the speed elixir abi does well in the 1st and 2nd phase of toadstool

Yeah, I guess DF too, mostly because she deals a lot of damage to mobs (specially if enraged), making the health difference not as wide. Also, Abby can distract the lavae which is always useful (to an extent, Bernie can as well). Bernie is still useful, but mostly because Willow does not care about fire and heat damage; so Bernie just becomes a nice utility mob and a sanity-safety net.

On 8/7/2020 at 7:52 PM, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i dont understand why abi is good against fw because of sanity, can you explain it? she is great for killing the minions saving time/weather pain uses in the fight and boosting the damage between shields

If you are insane the ancient fuelweaver "mind controls" you, Big Bernie can only exist if Willow is insane (so she is vulnerable to mind control), and I doubt Big Bernie kills the shadow hands that heal the ancient fuelweaver. This is a fight that Willow cannot do while insane.

Do note that I am assuming a solo situation; if you add more players Abigail wins almost any situation as she indirectly increases the damage of everyone fighting (so, more players = more extra damage) and Abigail has a better chance at surviving if everyone tanks (assuming the boss does not have AoE attacks). Add more to it, if you have hard hitting teammates (Wolfgang, Wigfrid, Warly, etc.) you get an even higher damage increase. For Bernie, 1 player or 6 players is pretty much the same thing. However, against the AFW Bernie might benefit a bit more than Abby from teammates as you have to stop attacking him in some points, forcing the Wendy to retreat her Abby to avoid her getting killed (and also losing the biggest benefit from Abby), but Bernie's health lets him keep attacking the AFW while you and your teammates deal with the other stuff (however, the Willow is going to be mind controlled almost all the time), even then, Abby is still probably a better option if there are many more teammates.

[Mike23Ua]

You still have to be within spear smacking distance to Abigail and press the button on your d-pad to recall her this is impossible to do in the middle of a fight if you were not already near her, (if a horde of hounds circle Abby and ignore You.. you have to fight you way back to Abigails side to recall her) often times this will get you killed if you were already low on health/without good armor.

Bernie on the other hand is triggered based on how insane you are, and you don’t have to be standing in spear slapping distance of him to get him to grow or shrink.