Wolfgang is overrated

[ZombieDupe]

I hear lots of people say he is one of the top characters. I don't see how that is the case, because dealing double the damage and having a slight speed boost, but only when having near full hunger is not that much compared to other characters. I don't really understand why it stands out so much to certain players. If he had dealt tripple the damage and double with average hunger that would seem more impressive because 2 players with other characters and canes can match this no problem. Having basically no downside I guess makes him more powerful overall, but hunger is something you need to keep in mind when playing as him. It is usually not a problem, but at times food can run out pretty quickly. Playing on your own makes him more of a boss rushing character, but in a group, there is nothing special you can do with him. When his rework comes about, his downside could be something like having low maximum sanity and if he is low on sanity he would freak out when attacked by monsters, which would stun him at times when not hit as that would match his trait of being scared of monsters. With decent power he could bring down individual opponents very easy, but would not do so good against a swarm. Wigfrid deals less damage but I see less players take Wolfgang because of easy helmets as pig skin is hard to come by and everyone needs armor.

[bruhmoment23]

11 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

If he had dealt tripple the damage and double with average hunger that would seem more impressive because 2 players with other characters and canes can match this no problem.

That's already possible, all you gotta do is change to Warly every now and then via Celestial Portal. Good job you now have spiced voltgoat jelly, most broken food in the game. It wouldn't really be impressive, rather even more broken than it already is. It's not "just a slight speedboost and double damage" this is a bulldozer if managed properly, you can literally keep up with these power and speed boosts for all eternity, depending on how far you're into the game. Just like Wickerbottom and Wx, he doesn't really have downside, average player can maintain him easily, the only mild annoyance is his animation frames while turning small, atleast in my opinion. I agree on his "teamwork" side not shining much, since all he can do is punch everything to death but with a far bigger blow and efficency.

[Viktor234]

7 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

If he had dealt tripple the damage

Wolfgang already deals 6x the damage, or 6.6x if he's getting supported by a young girl who also deals more damage than Wathgrithr.

[ansuman]

Wolfgang is one of best if not the best character if you are a experienced player.The are a couple of reasons for that

* Damage modifier is multiplicative meaning 2x modifier is kind big deal.

* You can control your hunger drain rate and you can optimize it by having his huger around 220 to get the speed boost and damage resistance without the downsides.

* 300 health with damage reduction modifier can make quick work of enemies. And sanity is more than compensated as you are killing them faster.

* When you heal at at lower health pool you are effectively getting more healing.

* Speed boost is a big deal in this game and any character with speed boost like WX or Wolfgang are extremely good that I cant stress enough. You are doing everything faster.I think this is best perk a character can get.

*Food is non issue past a year.

 

My personal opinion is people don't realise how good the character is.

[WereGoose]

Double damage and a speed boost is more than you're giving it credit for. Double damage also means 0.5 weapon drain, and speed boosts can make certain enemies kitable/ easier to kite to save on armor durability.

It's a BIT overrated, but not without reason. He's an objectively strong pick for a character with minimal downside considering starving is rarely ever the cause of death.

[Maxil20]

Personally, I find Wolfgang an overrated character, but for basically the opposite reasons. In my opinion, he is the most bland character in the game. There's a few reasons why I state this:

• Realistically speaking, he doesn't have anything truly unique compared to any other character. Even WX has a niche light and immunity to freezing when they get overcharged, which no other character can truly replicate (Warly being the closest exception). Wolfgang quite literally is stat adjustments and nothing else.
• Bosses are something Wolfgang excels at. It also just so happens that he excels at the 10% of the game where there are bosses. Otherwise, his damage is really only useful for depth worms, the ruins, and hound attacks late game. He might make them faster, but other characters only need to spend a few additional seconds to kill similar mobs. If you have chaud froid, a 3X damage modifier is almost always going to be enough to deal with most threats to the point where Wolfgang's 6X is truly overkill.
• He doesn't make me feel like my playthrough is anymore diverse. I prep in half the time, but the solution to said threat is almost exactly the same, you just do it in half the time. The only realistic scenario I can think that Wolfgang can pop off is being able to kill the shadow pieces with only his innate speed boost and a road. That is extremely niche, however, and is really only useful if you are attempting to pull off a fuelweaver speedrun. 
• He doesn't offer much to a whole team based scenario. Wigfrid can supply helms to everyone, and I can't undersell how good a decent durability with okay protection to boot matters in DST. Football helms can be made, but that usually requires preparing ahead of time, especially if you are trying to supply a server with them.
• He's so bland that despite me character swapping to various characters for perks, I have never swapped to Wolfgang in my recent 9000+ day world. I just personally find him a boring way to deal with bosses. I honestly would have more fun with Wes, because at that point you at least need to have sufficent prep and time your more frequent healing needs accordingly and it takes more skill to pull off. With wolf you literally hold F and if you have prep you will absolutely crush the boss, and if you are at full HP there's a possibility you don't even need to heal.
  
  Overall, he's my least favorite character in the game. He exists for crushing bosses, but that's all he does. I understand that is helpful for some people, but later on you have other methods, and it isn't exactly what I enjoy doing.

[DarkPulse91]

Wolfgang is a good character, he can get the highest amount of damage and all sorts of other stuff...
But... I fully agree that he is "over-rated". As I've seen some rather toxic comment sections on youtube videos of people saying that "every other character is useless when wolfgang is a thing". Or how if they saw anyone say anything good about a different character, the immediate response was "But Wolfgang...".
But this is sadly the thing with every community no matter what, you will have the toxic "meta huggers" no matter where you go.

[Mike23Ua]

I think he’s over-rated but he’s over rated for my own opinions of how he plays- Eat food be Mighty that’s it.. that’s all there is to it.

he doesn’t have to lift heavy things to maintain his mighty form, he can’t pick up heavy things with great ease or throw his team mates across gaps of land.. He’s just Superman with his only Kryptonite being not eating enough food.

His Compendium description proclaims he has a Myriad of Phobias but where does that actually play into the game at all?

Wendy currently has more phobias then Wolfgang because while fighting Shadow Monsters Abigail won’t help in those fights at all, meaning the amazing petal Bestowment buff that Abigail applies is not in effect here meaning Wendy’s hits weaker then average con is in full effect, making this the biggest danger to Wendy players.

Wolfgang however in his Un-Reworked forms only danger is when the fridge becomes empty. Dude is Over-Rated for a good reason.

And I hope his rework balances him out a bit.

[Dragonboooorn]

Wolfgang SUPPOSED to be the best damage dealer, isnt he is formal military officer? He sure saw what war is and what horrors it brings, so his "myraid of phobias" must be tweaked, like adding shadows pure bonus damage against Wolfgang (just like Bees do to Walter). Wolfgang also should move "heavy" type objects faster than other character. Thats all he need actually. As for Wigfrid, she never was best damage dealer, nor she is now even after her rework. 

 

[Well-met]

2 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

I hear lots of people say he is one of the top characters. I don't see how that is the case, because dealing double the damage and having a slight speed boost, but only when having near full hunger is not that much compared to other characters. I don't really understand why it stands out so much to certain players. If he had dealt tripple the damage and double with average hunger that would seem more impressive because 2 players with other characters and canes can match this no problem. Having basically no downside I guess makes him more powerful overall, but hunger is something you need to keep in mind when playing as him. It is usually not a problem, but at times food can run out pretty quickly. Playing on your own makes him more of a boss rushing character, but in a group, there is nothing special you can do with him. When his rework comes about, his downside could be something like having low maximum sanity and if he is low on sanity he would freak out when attacked by monsters, which would stun him at times when not hit as that would match his trait of being scared of monsters. With decent power he could bring down individual opponents very easy, but would not do so good against a swarm. Wigfrid deals less damage but I see less players take Wolfgang because of easy helmets as pig skin is hard to come by and everyone needs armor.

- As in most games, speed is everything as it directly contributes to every means to a goal

- I don't see how 2 players doing the same as 1 player is supposed to convince me of anything

- Combat is pretty much in every aspect of DST and can rarely be avoided

- Hunger is never a problem in DST, much less so now with the new farming

- I'm curious why you would suggest new downsides when you just claimed he's overrated and not worth the trouble

- Wigfrid is an all-time favorite mostly because kiting is an issue to high latency players, especially people of asia. Instead of failing kiting they simply rely on tanking permanently which is something that's easily managed by Wigfrid

[Owlrust]

I think if you are playing Wolfgang you're probably gonna be more interested in the statistical aspect of him than anything else. Characters like Wurt, Wormwood, and Warly significantly alter the way you play and have challenges from the way you have to use them. Wolfgang on the other hand has a pretty straightforward kit that can easily turn the tide in a battle, especially if you buff him enough; not only that but his lack of really imposing downsides (in comparison to his benefits) is what also makes him a very good pick in terms of fighting and as a starter character (in my opinion). 

Personally I don't find Wolfgang very interesting or fun from a gameplay, but I certainly understand how other people find him interesting in many different ways though.

[thegreatJash]

Honestly, not ovverated, because he has tons of potential in the hands of a good player. Though, I am sick of seeing him everywhere on a YouTube and speed running, would love to see something like a Wortox speedrun.

[TheGoldenDonut_]

You better hide, Edgy Rick is coming for you.

 

[ZombieDupe]

3 hours ago, WereGoose said:

Double damage and a speed boost is more than you're giving it credit for. Double damage also means 0.5 weapon drain, and speed boosts can make certain enemies kitable/ easier to kite to save on armor durability.

It's a BIT overrated, but not without reason. He's an objectively strong pick for a character with minimal downside considering starving is rarely ever the cause of death.

When you have to mass farm everything anyway, like living logs and nightmare fuel if you rely on dark swords, this will be less significant. Especially if you are sacrificing food and time to get food for saved weapon expense. He is very overrated and by that I mean that for some reason he is made out to be more powerful than he really is. I have never had a moment where I wished a Wolfgang was around to help, just that it is not bad to have a character equivalent to 2 Wilsons come to battle. I see Wolfgangs stand around not sure what to do more than anything and this is from experienced players. His perks stand out more only if you play alone.

3 hours ago, ansuman said:

Wolfgang is one of best if not the best character if you are a experienced player.The are a couple of reasons for that

* Damage modifier is multiplicative meaning 2x modifier is kind big deal.

* You can control your hunger drain rate and you can optimize it by having his huger around 220 to get the speed boost and damage resistance without the downsides.

* 300 health with damage reduction modifier can make quick work of enemies. And sanity is more than compensated as you are killing them faster.

* When you heal at at lower health pool you are effectively getting more healing.

* Speed boost is a big deal in this game and any character with speed boost like WX or Wolfgang are extremely good that I cant stress enough. You are doing everything faster.I think this is best perk a character can get.

*Food is non issue past a year.

 

My personal opinion is people don't realise how good the character is.

You still don't gain more than just the same with 2 regular damage character players. Leaving hunger not at near max doesn't give you the top x2 boost, but more like x1.6 not entirely sure on the math, but it isn't static. WX-78 has more max health and 300 is about the same as two regular damage character players, the bigger health pool doesn't change much without playing on your own. Health pool point I don't get. The extra speed boost isn't big enough to make that big of a difference, and again we have WX. Food doesn't change much about this but sometimes you can still have no food later in the game because everything rots. Compared to WX, Wickerbottom or Wortox this is nothing really. They are powerful characters, but I like them powerful, they just need a bigger downside. If Wolfgang got a decent downside, his upsides would never match it to make him actually be anywhere as powerful.

[Toros]

There's a lot going on in this thread and there are a couple points I'd like to make as I started playing Wolfgang in 2012 and he's been the main character I've played since then.

1) Stop suggesting making him panic or any form of self-stun.  It's a terrible idea to take control away from the player.  The biggest complaint people have while playing Wolfgang is already getting stuck in his transforming animations, no one would enjoy more than that.

2) Wolfgang is not overrated.  His mechanical strength is greater than or equal to every other character in the game.  If you can complete the simple task of getting surplus food, he has almost 2x damage, 2x health, and 1.25x movement speed of baseline.  He is correctly rated as one of the strongest characters, and his speedrun performance reflects this.  He does have some unique strategies like being able to kite bosses where you normally need a cane and being able to farm scales off of Dragonfly with just a darksword and armor, but for the most part he plays very similar to every other character.

The natural question to ask if you accept that point is: Then why isn't Wolfgang more popular as a choice?

There are two main reasons for this:

1) His upsides are not fun, just powerful.  Wolfgang does not bring any new playstyle and very few new strategies to separate his gameplay from other characters.  As such, he is not unique in his gameplay.  You don't produce different food, you just produce more of the same food (most of the time).  He does not bring any out of combat utility besides the speed boost.

2) His downsides are trivial and tedious.  Extra hunger drain as a downside is not difficult, but it is tedious until it becomes forgettable later on.

Combined, this makes Wolfgang a character that is not particularly fun to play in comparison, but he is powerful so he is picked by people that are fine with boring but optimal strategies.

So why have I played him for 8 years?

Pre-DST I played Wolfgang because the base game and RoG he does well in, and while learning the game his damage and high stats made the major things that would kill me (hounds and bosses) much easier.  After DST was launched, I usually played duo with my now-wife who isn't great at combat, so soloing raid bosses was a lot easier as Wolfgang, as was protecting her from hound waves.

Eventually though I got bored with his bland gameplay and started modding him to be more interesting and less overpowered relative to other characters.

What that eventually culminated in is My Wolfgang Rework which I originally posted 3 years ago and gives him more interesting upsides and more interesting downsides.  He can, as was suggested earlier in this thread, carry heavy objects much better while mighty, and while in normal or mighty form ignore the slowdown from marble armor and piggybacks.  Maximum hunger drain caps at 2x instead of 3x for the tedium and generally not difficult reasons I listed above.

Mighty rowing is also vastly improved which allows for cheap and fast trips to lunar island or to get salt.  In exchange, he loses the speed boost and never has more than 200 max health.  Also, you can cancel his transformation animations so there is no self-stun.

He also gained additional downsides in that if his sanity gets low more shadows spawn in exactly the same manner as a purple amulet, and he has lower max sanity (150) and higher sanity drain (1.3x) making it more dangerous to be low sanity, and also much easier to reach low sanity.

This gives him a real downside, makes him less overpowered (more on par with Wigfrid), and able to bring unique utility other characters can't.  I'm fortunate enough to be able to make those changes for my own use, and thanks to the steam workshop other people can enjoy it too.

 

[ansuman]

26 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

When you have to mass farm everything anyway, like living logs and nightmare fuel if you rely on dark swords, this will be less significant. Especially if you are sacrificing food and time to get food for saved weapon expense. He is very overrated and by that I mean that for some reason he is made out to be more powerful than he really is. I have never had a moment where I wished a Wolfgang was around to help, just that it is not bad to have a character equivalent to 2 Wilsons come to battle. I see Wolfgangs stand around not sure what to do more than anything and this is from experienced players. His perks stand out more only if you play alone.

You still don't gain more than just the same with 2 regular damage character players. Leaving hunger not at near max doesn't give you the top x2 boost, but more like x1.6 not entirely sure on the math, but it isn't static. WX-78 has more max health and 300 is about the same as two regular damage character players, the bigger health pool doesn't change much without playing on your own. Health pool point I don't get. The extra speed boost isn't big enough to make that big of a difference, and again we have WX. Food doesn't change much about this but sometimes you can still have no food later in the game because everything rots. Compared to WX, Wickerbottom or Wortox this is nothing really. They are powerful characters, but I like them powerful, they just need a bigger downside. If Wolfgang got a decent downside, his upsides would never match it to make him actually be anywhere as powerful.

what i meant is suppose you eat a perogi when you are at 100/150 health

and after that 2 meaty stew, you will have 280/300 health

Yeah you don't get just same damage as 2 regular characters you get more out of it.

Suppose you are fighting deerclops while tanking. Two characters will take more than 2x the damage due to aoe attacks of bosses because they don't have damage resistance. To maintain 2 characters you need to feed them 2x and maintain their sanity all the time which is not the case with Wolfgang .

If you season chilly flakes seasoning the damage becomes = base dmg * 2 * 1.2

for normal characters you will need 2x seasoning to accomplish that.

 

[ryvrdrgn14]

More is more. Math doesn't lie. He'll kill stuff twice as fast. Last I heard, two times more is really good.

[ShadowDuelist]

I'm gonna silently leave this here for the curious eye.
 

Spoiler

https://www.twitch.tv/hantears/clip/MoralQuaintRedpandaBlargNaut

 

[Scrimbles]

Double damage and 25% passive movement speed, the two most overpowered stats, rolled into one bonus for maintaining your hunger, which is super easy stat to keep up for any experienced player.

Wolfgangs main "downside" is his bonus sanity drain, and a lot of veteran players find it preferable to stay insane at all times, due to how easy it is to farm nightmare fuel off of shadows, one of the easiest mobe to fight.

No, Wolfgang is absolutely not overrated. Hes just not really that fun, imo.

[BeeClops]

He's not overrated, he's fairly rated. Maybe you could say he's not the best for late game once you have shootiuses goat jelly and all dat, and not the most fun maybe. Even so, you are still gonna save a lot of resources as Wolfgang, such as nightmare fuel and armors; food is the most trivial thing to mass produce after a certain point you never bother with that aspect.

Speed and damage are literally the most important traits in the game, i just don't understand how you can see them as no big deal to be honest.

[NoscopeFelix]

I think Wolfgang is probably one of the best characters in the game ,but I don’t like his playstyle so I never play him.

[MrNaxeros]

8 hours ago, thegreatJash said:

Honestly, not ovverated, because he has tons of potential in the hands of a good player. Though, I am sick of seeing him everywhere on a YouTube and speed running, would love to see something like a Wortox speedrun.

This ^

I wish he had something more to his combat. Some other way of maintaining his mighty form than just munching on 3x as much food as other characters, and also a more relevant downside. Sadly I can't come up with anything that would make fair.

Toroic's mod seems to look interesting. A lot of changes that make sense and makes insanity an actual threat.

I wonder how Klei will refresh him... To be honest, I'm terrified, since most characters that needed a rework got it already, and soon there will be only the powerful characters left. They WILL bring controversy and heated conversations. That is a guarantee.

[GrandTardigrade]

I think Wolfgang is not underrated, he's just pretty boring to play as. He has super strength and a speed modifier with little actual challenge. For someone who has a bit of experience in survival, but still learning to fight enemies and bosses, he is an excellent choice. However, in my opinion, his very small downside makes the gameplay of the character relatively plain and boring. 

For a more experienced player, I think Warly and Wickerbottom are the two strongest choices. Yes, the Celestial Portal is a thing, and some players just cook a bunch of Warly dishes then switch to Wolfgang (still, Volt Goat Chaud-Froid and Chili Flakes contribute more to the damage output than Mighty Wolfgang), but some other players, me included, try not to rely on the portal. In my opinion, using it like this kind of destroys the character experience - however, we can call Wolfgang the strongest character if we are using this method.

[Toros]

7 hours ago, GrandTardigrade said:

I think Wolfgang is not underrated, he's just pretty boring to play as. He has super strength and a speed modifier with little actual challenge. For someone who has a bit of experience in survival, but still learning to fight enemies and bosses, he is an excellent choice. However, in my opinion, his very small downside makes the gameplay of the character relatively plain and boring. 

For a more experienced player, I think Warly and Wickerbottom are the two strongest choices. Yes, the Celestial Portal is a thing, and some players just cook a bunch of Warly dishes then switch to Wolfgang (still, Volt Goat Chaud-Froid and Chili Flakes contribute more to the damage output than Mighty Wolfgang), but some other players, me included, try not to rely on the portal. In my opinion, using it like this kind of destroys the character experience - however, we can call Wolfgang the strongest character if we are using this method.

The analysis gets more complex when you look at team compositions but solo I’d probably agree that Warly and Wicker are top tier choices.

Duo I think it’s fair to say that Warly + Wolfgang are the strongest choice at the moment simply because chili flake volt goat jelly gives 1.8x damage, 3x while target is wet while wolfgang deals 3.6x, 6x while target is wet.

5.4x-9x damage with 2 characters is pretty absurd.

Warly is probably more fun to play though with Wolfgang as he is now.

[jpmrocks]

18 hours ago, TheGoldenDonut_ said:

You better hide, Edgy Rick is coming for you.

 

What's he gonna do, tell us to quit Dont Starve again?