is wurt good?

[Souper]

4 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

because she doesnt have x2 damage, 300 hp, ridiculous speed and sanity for almost free?

Are you suggesting that other obscenely strong characters should potentially be brought in line so that other comparatively weaker characters can be considered more "viable"? What an odd suggestion. Wolfgang should NOT be nerfed! /s

In all seriousness though, Wurt definitely could use some tuning. It's weird because on paper she seems incredibly unique, but I don't really find myself having that much fun while playing her compared to others. I don't think she's underpowered though. But some adjustments would be nice.

[Primalflower]

Just now, Souper said:

But some adjustments would be nice.

what do you suggest?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Souper said:

Are you suggesting that other obscenely strong characters should potentially be brought in line so that other comparatively weaker characters can be considered more "viable"? What an odd suggestion. Wolfgang should NOT be nerfed! /s

In all seriousness though, Wurt definitely could use some tuning. It's weird because on paper she seems incredibly unique, but I don't really find myself having that much fun while playing her compared to others. I don't think she's underpowered though. But some adjustments would be nice.

i just bring it because he is calling a character bad but an op character (im okey with op character in a sandbox) are balanced because potato

[Souper]

Just now, Lbphero said:

what do you suggest?

I'm no game designer, and my suggestions would be laughable. All I can say is that her upsides are underwhelming for something that seems like it would be much more beneficial based on her design. Spawning the merm king doesn't really provide anything incredibly useful, IMO.

But then look at something like Wigfrid's helmets. From the get go, she can create extremely cheap helmets that replace the need for pig skin for football helmets.

Wurt's merm helpers are kinda just a lackluster version of Maxwell's puppets that require more resources.

Webber, at the moment, is just a simpler version of Wurt without the downsides, really.

She just feels like she's lacking definitive features. I still think she's good though. Just out shined.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, Souper said:

Wurt's merm helpers are kinda just a lackluster version of Maxwell's puppets that require more resources.

 

but when you have them they are cheap, you can hire them for seeds, kelp, honey, etc

also they look more expensive than they actually are since they drop fishes and help chopping so, when you get few (easy if you make wars in the swamp) then you can make more in a exponencial way. And her king giving spots makes having warriors very easy

but, ofc, dont expect this to happen in early so i understand that some players dont enjoy her

1 minute ago, Souper said:

Webber, at the moment, is just a simpler version of Wurt without the downsides, really.

 

weeber has standart hp and hunger and 100? sanity, wurt can have strong stats for players that doesnt kite 100% of the time and the sanity helps to be more relaxed in fights like fw

 

2 minutes ago, Souper said:

But then look at something like Wigfrid's helmets

its a very good perk but compared to crowns they are nothing and, if the players are experienced, they will have easy access to them 

 

all characters can be better or worst depending on the playstyle, experience, etc

 

also, her best perk imo because how confortable is, is being able to pet fishes which makes winter and summer much less annoying without stopping to cold down or warm yourself

[ShadowDuelist]

2 hours ago, FairyInABottle said:

The main problem being kelp for Merm King. Running around the edge of the landmass trying to find lunar island using world generation knowledge is not fun.

You only need a limited amount of kelp for which you don’t need to have the kelp plants, or know the lunar island location. It helps to have them, but you can just make a boat and sail around randomly, you will start finding enough kelp to make a king.

2 hours ago, FairyInABottle said:

Merms not having a natural food source in the swamp is also a thematic fail. I know its not a huge deal but it really bugs me.

I like characters with long term goals. I think Wigfrid does it best in that her songs take her to different parts of the map for materials. Wurt has to do the same thing every game. I really hate to say it, but Wurt doesn't really offer anything to the group and really takes from it.

I’ve noticed that the real producer of food is the merm king. Once you’ve built enough merm warriors and the king you can make them kill each other, and gift the fish to the king.

The king will then produce large amounts of seeds (which when planted you can either care or neglect, it doesn’t matter much you get vegetables anyway. Or you can also just eat the seeds) and a decent amount of kelp, which you can use to keep the king himself alive. The frog legs of the deceased Merms works to feed your friends, or turn them to eggs for crock pot fillers.
 

The warrior Merms respawn every half a day so you can do this process twice a day if you want to, and the more warriors you have the more profit you will get. Repeating this process also grants you trinkets (Gold, with friends help) tentacle spots (more Merms) and Rot (Compost).

So essentially you eventually start making unlimited food just with your setup, you get protection, great Workers to mass produce items, and the means to solo kill dragonfly and bee queen every 20 days with little to no preparation. 
 

My only complain about Wurt is the game breaking problem of the Merms getting stuck and lost in corners of the world when their friendship ends. 
 

Back to OP’s topic, before having a merm army you pretty much suck and you are forced to start building your town somewhere. The process itself can be a bit repetitive and boring, and the reason we don’t see many in public servers: By the time you start having fun with Wurt’s perks, the server is dead and probably resets.

 

 

[Muzarello]

the king is awful, wurt is awesome, even tho I don't play her that much nowadays, I always feel that I need to build a kingdom for her in my worlds.

[Mahoood]

7 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

she isnt underpowered

her army gives resources, food (merms drop frog legs and fish, 2 good sources of healing and hunger), help in boss fights, etc

also her afinity with fishes+inmunity to wetness makes her surviving the seasons with less items in her inventory. Just a fish (scorch fish or the icy fish) in her inventory and another in a tin fishing bin to refresh their live

the only "bad" thing is that her perks have no impact in the first days like wendy, wigfrid and other early characters, but in mid and late she shines. But, as any good character, she has downsides and these are some of them

another bad thing is her king, if you are experience, the stats boost doesnt do much and the loot from giving fishes isnt so good.

Also, she cant get gold from pig king but there is many gold in the map+other ways of getting it and anyways, she only waste gold on making scaled chest since all the work is made by the merms

Tell that to the traumatized beequeen seeing wendy coming with her marble clanks.

wigfrid does have a good upstart in the spear and armor, reminds me of a certain day 8-10 toadstool rush. 

[DinsdaleP]

10 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

-big snip-

My only complain about Wurt is the game breaking problem of the Merms getting stuck and lost in corners of the world when their friendship ends. 

Couldn't that be (partially) solved by console commands? there is a delete all command on DS wiki, if removing all Loyal Merm Guards with it doesn't mess with the respawn mechanics, that could be a low cost solution, since they respawn every 4 minutes.

So, while I haven't tried it yet, this might work wonderfully:
for k,v in pairs(Ents) do if v.prefab == "mermguard" then v:Remove() end end

[Zeklo]

She's in a really good spot right now. Merm King & Merm AI in general just need to get touched up and she'll be perfect.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 minutes ago, Mahoood said:

Tell that to the traumatized beequeen seeing wendy coming with her marble clanks.

wigfrid does have a good upstart in the spear and armor, reminds me of a certain day 8-10 toadstool rush. 

in early. In late wurt waste less resources and time to kill her depending of the number of hourses

also, as wurt and any other character, you can kill her without help. Is actually what i did in my save playing as her. I kill beequen to have the recipes and the crown by myself meanwhile i was raising my empire

and you arent taking in count that wendy and wigfrid dont gather resources as fast as wurt and doesnt have the power of bringing to the team fish and frog legs. Ofc, wigfrid and wendy are so good for killing small mobs and bosses but only that, wurt can make more things so is unfair to compare characters in that way. In the global aspect, wurt brings more to the team imo

[minespatch]

13 minutes ago, Muzarello said:

the king is awful, wurt is awesome, even tho I don't play her that much nowadays, I always feel that I need to build a kingdom for her in my worlds.

Merm king is her adoptive daddy. Wurt needs to send him to a counselor . 

[Mahoood]

4 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

in early. In late wurt waste less resources and time to kill her depending of the number of hourses

also, as wurt and any other character, you can kill her without help. Is actually what i did in my save playing as her. I kill beequen to have the recipes and the crown by myself meanwhile i was raising my empire

and you arent taking in count that wendy and wigfrid dont gather resources as fast as wurt and doesnt have the power of bringing to the team fish and frog legs. Ofc, wigfrid and wendy are so good for killing small mobs and bosses but only that, wurt can make more things so is unfair to compare characters in that way. In the global aspect, wurt brings more to the team imo

i think i misunderstood a typo you probably meant "unlike" wendy and wigfrid

what's your solo method and how early is that?

[Toros]

“Is Wurt good” is a question that can be answered in several different ways depending on your perspective.

Like Warly, she mechanically peaks in the lategame and when she does, she is very strong.  Probably one of the better choices for a long term solo world without character swapping simply because there are few problems that can’t be overcome with mass merm armies.

With a merm army Wurt has a cheap labor force that works day and night and can fight each other to produce resources.

Mechanically she’s definitely good outside of pub servers where you restart the first day of winter.

Design-wise I think it was a huge mistake to not have Wurt be able to swim.  The king is awkward to keep alive and his trading is largely mediocre.  
 

With two exceptions, Wurt has no use for fish beyond trading to the merm king.  Farming is the clear winner for food production as Wurt is vegetarian, which brings to question why you would bother sailing after getting the initial kelp for the merm king platform?

It will always be weird to me that the fish monster can’t swim in any useful capacity yet one of the other characters can turn into 3 swimming creatures... but at least the goose can still cross water.

Design-wise I’d say Wurt has a huge design hole around swimming, and it didn’t need to happen.

[Seero]

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

because she doesnt have x2 damage, 300 hp, ridiculous speed and sanity for almost free?

If we wanted to compare her to Wolfgang then yes, absolutely

But there are a ton of other reasons why she's awful.

As long as OP wants to hear my opinion, I'll share it

 

[FairyInABottle]

22 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

You only need a limited amount of kelp for which you don’t need to have the kelp plants, or know the lunar island location. It helps to have them, but you can just make a boat and sail around randomly, you will start finding enough kelp to make a king.

I’ve noticed that the real producer of food is the merm king. Once you’ve built enough merm warriors and the king you can make them kill each other, and gift the fish to the king.

The king will then produce large amounts of seeds (which when planted you can either care or neglect, it doesn’t matter much you get vegetables anyway. Or you can also just eat the seeds) and a decent amount of kelp, which you can use to keep the king himself alive. The frog legs of the deceased Merms works to feed your friends, or turn them to eggs for crock pot fillers.
 

The warrior Merms respawn every half a day so you can do this process twice a day if you want to, and the more warriors you have the more profit you will get. Repeating this process also grants you trinkets (Gold, with friends help) tentacle spots (more Merms) and Rot (Compost).

So essentially you eventually start making unlimited food just with your setup, you get protection, great Workers to mass produce items, and the means to solo kill dragonfly and bee queen every 20 days with little to no preparation.

Yet, every proponent of the new farming system keeps telling me how the new farming system is "effortless infinite food" so what do you need the Merm King's seeds or rot for? And aren't you going to have a farm up and running before Merm King is up? The only real worthwhile drop in my opinion is the Tentacle Spot.

6 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

and you arent taking in count that wendy and wigfrid dont gather resources as fast as wurt and doesnt have the power of bringing to the team fish and frog legs. Ofc, wigfrid and wendy are so good for killing small mobs and bosses but only that, wurt can make more things so is unfair to compare characters in that way. In the global aspect, wurt brings more to the team imo

Wendy just has to stand by the frog ponds, set Abigail to aggro to pull in a stupid amount of frog legs. The same for spiders and monster meat. The number of times I've seen a Wendy signal by mod that "this fridge has 50 monster meat" is silly. Wendy is without a doubt the best at farming mob drops. One measly fish and frog leg from a Merm doesn't compare. And Wurt can't even eat said fish or frog leg!

So, the merms? You can do the same thing with Pigs or Bunnymen.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

4 minutes ago, Toros said:

which brings to question why you would bother sailing after getting the initial kelp for the merm king platform?

to get scorch fish and icyfish but other than that you are right

[ShadowDuelist]

4 minutes ago, FairyInABottle said:

Yet, every proponent of the new farming system keeps telling me how the new farming system is "effortless infinite food" so what do you need the Merm King's seeds or rot for? And aren't you going to have a farm up and running before Merm King is up? The only real worthwhile drop in my opinion is the Tentacle Spot.

The merm king produces an absurdly big amount of seeds, its just a more convenient way to have them without having to collect from birds. It's also useful in the caves where the sources of seeds are more restricted.
I don't really set up farms before the king, honestly I live off berries, but for the long term, veggies or stone fruits are better.
Even if you don't plant the seeds, you can just live eating them, they last for a long time in your backpack.

Although I agree with what @Toros said earlier, trading fish with the king is lackluster, and he could give better loot for rare or heavier fish.

 

9 minutes ago, FairyInABottle said:

Wendy just has to stand by the frog ponds, set Abigail to aggro to pull in a stupid amount of frog legs. The same for spiders and monster meat. The number of times I've seen a Wendy signal by mod that "this fridge has 50 monster meat" is silly. Wendy is without a doubt the best at farming mob drops. One measly fish and frog leg from a Merm doesn't compare. And Wurt can't even eat said fish or frog leg!

Wendy is the superior character, at this point I think comparing Wendy to anyone else is what 2 years ago was comparing Wickerbottom to anyone else  It's a Wendy thing, not a Wurt's problem

[HeilerderWelten]

Merm Kings mechanics arn't very good. The trade rewards are lackluster and it is annoying to feed him on longer journeys (when you are on the ocean) he just starves to death and you loose your buffs. The merm mask also does spoil to fast. There are several not very enjoyable things with her. I personally would like her more like that:

Perks

Wetness

- she has a strong grip, tools don't become slippery and won't fall to the ground [implemented]

- she should be immune to sanity loss because of wet items in her inventory, she is a merm afterall [implemented]

Fish

- the King of the Merms trades 3 gold for 1 eel, this makes gold renewable for Wurt, but working with other survivors that can trade with the King of the Pigs will yield you 5 gold, so its better to trade your eels with your none merm friends [not implemented yet]

Merms

- the Craftmerms are good boys [implemented]

- the Loyal Merm Guard should attack Hounds, Giants, MacTusk, Vargs, etc on sight [not implemented yet]

- the Fishermerm should be added [not implemented yet]

Structures

- Craftsmerm House [implemented]

- Merm Flort-ification [implemented]

- Royal Tapestry [implemented]

- Fischermerm's Hut should be added, it is build with: 4 Boards, 4 Kelp Fronds, 4 Barnacles [not implemented yet]

- it spawns a Fishermerm that is absolutly passive...I mean he is a big coward, he fears frogs, mosquitos, etc. and only fishes if nothing that bothers him is around.

- he can fish the whole day, even at night, but can't catch more than 3 fish a day at best, the fish around him will spoil fast so be quick picking it up or collect the rot for marsh turf and farms

- he can catch eel aswell when his house is placed in range of cave ponds and if you have a King of the Merms in the caves you can get a lot of gold this way

- you can also place the Fishermerm's Hut near a shoal or place it on your boat and than ride the boat from shoal to shoal and let the Fishermerm catch coastal fish like Spittlefish, Mudfish, Dandy Lionfish, etc. for big fish meat

- Fishermerms try also to "catch" Rockjaws (sharks) and fail miserably *laugh*

The King of the Merms

- Wurt players let the King starve constantly and just create a new one after 4 days, so the big guy needs some tweeks

- Raise his stomach from 200 up to 500 hunger

- he will starve in 10 days (so he consumes 50 points of hunger value a day) but his perks get weaker over time, so that you want to feed him

- if he has between 250-500 hunger he gives you all his benefits (after 5 days without feeding him)

- if he has between 200-250 hunger, your boosted stats (health/hunger/sanity) get lowered from 250/250/200 to 200/220/170 (after 6 days)

- if he has between 150-200 hunger, your stat boosts vanish completly and you only have your base stats again 150/200/150 (after 7 days)

- if he has between 100-150 hunger, the Merm stats get lowered from 560 health/40 damage to 500 health/30 damage (after 8 days)

- if he has between 50-100 hunger, the Loyal Merm Guards stats get lowered from 660 health/60 damage to 200 health /20 damage (after 9 days)

- if he has under 50 hunger, he starts to loose health (and dies at 0 hunger) and he wont trade fish with you anymore (he has other problems right now) (after 10 days)

- if you attack the King of the Merms and kill him you have to wait 2 days until a new King can be crowned

- so you might want to feed that big boy

- his trade rewards become more interesting: low chance of berry bushes (to make them finally renewable), etc. the trade could also be dependent on the kind of fish you give him, a rarer fish grats you rarer items (kinda like the shipwrecked Yaarctopus)

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, Toros said:

Design-wise I think it was a huge mistake to not have Wurt be able to swim.

it'd be awful nice to be able to gather the kelp without having to get the stuff for a boat, but otherwise, i kind of feel this is a bit needless...isn't her being able to just jump off of boats with no penalty enough...?

[Muzarello]

1 hour ago, minespatch said:

Merm king is her adoptive daddy. Wurt needs to send him to a counselor . 

I had to speed draw this 

[Harrowick]

merm for life

I really enjoy Wurt, even when I'm not using her full potential! If I'm playing on public servers where the Merm King's resources aren't available, I get by just fine being a farmer that benefits more from vegetables, plus being able to hire a legion of Merms to gather resources for everyone is just... fun? There's something welcoming about playing as a character with a sense of belonging. (sorta like Webber, except spiders are only good at dying. More monster meat for him, I guess?)

I also grew more attached to the character when they implemented the wetness tolerance a few of us were really hoping for. (thanks Klei, big love.) 

 

 

The only thing I find funny is that Merms won't give a hoot if Wurt is attacked, but go full murder party when another Merm is attacked. Balance reasons, I guess. 

My only other complaint is there is no way to make Merms friendly to non-merms faster (I know the Clever Disguise exists, but I can't seem to find anyone fast enough to save them from getting punched.), so far the fastest I've summoned a Merm King has been Day 14 on a solo world, maybe I'm bad, but if anybody has any tips I'd be happy to listen!

[HowlVoid]

I personally dislike Wurt. Everything she can do can be replaced by an item or boss with greater or similar efficiency.

Gathering: Bosses or the forest stalker

Food: Anything really. Once you have 6-8 bee boxes hunger becomes irrelevant.

Damage: Bunnymen have better damage dps wise and everyone has access to them. Feed all the carrots from the houses to a bird and you'll have more carrots then you'll know what to do with for the houses.

Merm king: Ill take the pig king over the useless merm king any day. 

Her other perks are so very bland, sorry Wurt mains.

Biggest Cons for me is:

1. The lack of football helmets early game which I burn through very quickly. Feeding pigs monster meats gets me my quick helmets.

2. All Progress in the overworld does not carry over to the caves.

Wurt is more for roleplaying building a sort of empire, but you dont get to be queen! If you want the best late, late game character with no switching that is both interesting and rewarding that would be Warly or Winona (Coming from a Wormwood main btw).

I disagree with Toro on what klei did wrong. IMO wurt should of been the queen of merm kingdom. The king adds absolutely nothing to the game and is a glorified (rng fest) crafting structure. Merms should auto aggro anything that hurts wurt and have more unique interactions. Im sure klei wanted to avoid making Wilba to similar to Wurt which was a HUGE mistake (again imo)

[ArubaroBeefalo]

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Gathering: Bosses or the forest stalker

Merms can chop and mine 24/7 for little cost not just a little portion of the day with sanity at cost and the hand slot busy with the a end game loot to control it

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Damage: Bunnymen have better damage dps wise and everyone has access to them. Feed all the carrots from the houses to a bird and you'll have more carrots then you'll know what to do with for the houses

Bunnymen are more expensive unless you hammer every hourse (i hope in a private server and not in pubs) and doesnt like monster characters. Wurt can make the merm cosplay so everybody can befriend them and will not aggro other player if they are hired. They only accept carrots and only helps in fights

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

1. The lack of football helmets early game which I burn through very quickly. Feeding pigs monster meats gets me my quick helmets.

As any other character, even monster ones, you can feed monster meat to pigs, you only need to kite to do it. Another way is to make houses arround a bait or an iceflingomatic and farm them in full moon (pigs go out of their houses if it get on fire). Also, with an army that can be hired with that easy honey you mentioned, you dont need that much armor even if the player doesnt know how to kite

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

2. All Progress in the overworld does not carry over to the caves

The 1st king takes time, the 2nd is easier since you already have planted the kelp needed for it and only takes arround 6 berries/kelp to fed a king and last a minimum of 4 days

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

late game character with no switching that is both interesting and rewarding that would be Warly or Winona (Coming from a Wormwood main btw)

Im with you that warly is way more powerful but winona is just a wilson that crafts quickly and have expensive aoe hounius like structure

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Merm king: Ill take the pig king over the useless merm king any day

Using pig king, when the portal is already upgraded, only takes 1 purple gem and 1 moon rock and you can trade all the wires you want. As i said in previous comments, gold is only a problem for scaled chest, wurt doesnt use that much gold since the merms do most of the work

[Mysterious box]

Basically wurt is the best resource gathering survivor even in the early since merms work the fastest out of all followers,  and work for cheap while also benefiting from wurts hunger bonus on their loyalty timer. Hands down the only faster way to chop trees is to use a boss and hands down the fastest miners. When it comes to them being cheap you can legitimately just pay them in seeds if your strapped for food. Overall wurt has alot of very useful tools that generally go underutilized