Favorite Food Tierlist!

[clickrush]

 

So I've been researching all the favorite foods available in DST, which is a feature that wasn't available when I last played.

Favorite foods add a bit of flavor to each character but in some cases actually change what you should prioritize as your diet. I made a TiErLiSt because that is how we assess all things DST related, ehh I mean we get a nice, quick view on what I think is the utility of each dish.

Starting from the bottom:

In the Unusable category we have characters that either don't have a favorite dish or require butter. Butter is such a rare ingredient and so incredibly hard to amass, that you can completely neglect it and just see it as some funny Easter-egg.

Wasteful are dishes that I think are just not worth making in 99% of the cases, which is an exact and scientific number by the way. Pomegranates whether cooked or not, are just not up there in terms of value and Spicy Chilli is a dish that is almost always better split up into different dishes. Even on Willow you can just as easily make a Honey Ham or Pierogi, which provide more stats overall.

I put Wurt, Webber and Wormwood into situational. Now I don't think making these dishes would be strictly wasteful but I also don't think you should go out of your way of getting these. Just make them when you happen to have the ingredients and enjoy the small bonus, but aim for different, more powerful dishes.

In the Opportunity category we have favorite dishes that have merit on their own and are pushed into efficient options by the favorite food bonus. On other characters you will likely never make these dishes, but if your character is in this category you can get some value out of them now and then. Mass production however is certainly not warranted over some of the more efficient options.

The Powerful category contains two dishes that are already powerful enough so people regularly aim for them specifically. It makes a ton of sense to make a batch of these dishes already and on these characters you likely want to do that quite regularly.

In the highest category I put in characters that have favorite dishes they basically want to eat every day because their bonus puts them clearly over any other dish in terms of raw value. I can easily see a Wolfgang wanting to mass produce roasted potatoes with jerky (large) as a complement and never touch a crock pot again after that setup, also this combination of foods is already very powerful and competes with some of the best food options. Bacon and Eggs is a dish that is slightly overshadowed by similar options, but the whooping twenty day spoiling time and the considerable bonus on Wilson makes this a very strong cookie cutter dish on him. Honey is so easy to set up and mass produce, while requiring very little maintenance. Being able to put in any meat and then just fill the crockpot with honey, while getting such a significant hunger bonus and some decent health on top seems very powerful

[Pop Guy]

Having Willow more vulnerable to cold, it's interesting for her to have hot chili as a favorite dish, which also raises the temperature. I would raise its level to "situational" or even to "opportunity". I play Willow often and cook hot chili more often than you can estimate.

[SinancoTheBest]

Hmm, I'd get rid of the Powerful and Wasteful categories and move around some characters as such: 

Winona: People are sleeping on Vegetable stingers imo. It's the most accessible sanity dish if you ask me. You'll always have Tomatoes/Asparagii, together they cover every season and combo very well in their respective seasons. Ice and 1.5 veggies is also very easy to have. Has a pretty long rotting time of 15 days and for Winona they'll cover hunger too; ideal spelunking munchies that you can effectively eat for your daily hunger as Winona.

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Walter: Trail mix is a great early game dish but besides Autumn you won't get excess birchnuts. At the late game, even for Walter it's mostly outshined by strong Hunger&Health dishes.

Willow: Spicy Chili is very easy to make, provides instant heat and in the end, not any worse than Butter Muffins or Trail mixes as a fav dish.

Woodie: I might be underrating honey nuggets but I'll almost always go with Honey hams instead for better hunger even for Woodie. The good early game dish of nuggets isn't much greater than muffin or trail mix to me.

Wickerbottom: Surf and Turf is a great dish but not something I'd mass produce or cook very commonly unless I'm preparing for a boss. 1.5 fish requirement is a little limiting and since it's a Health & Sanity dish, you won't really need that strong of a healing in your daily survival. If sanity is what you're seeking, there are always more dedicated easy to mass produce dishes like Vegetable Stingers, Salsa Fresca and Jelly Salad- or even cooked cactii. Overall, as much as a great dish Surf and Turf is, I don't think Wickerbottom benefits greatly from it granting 15 more hunger to her.

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Wendy: Bananas and ice don't really see each other often but if you made Abigail massacre Spelumonkeys and ended up with many bananas, it's not a bad dish to have as your favorite.

Maxwell: Inversely, when you end up with a butter, Lobster Dinner is possibly the most accessible thing you can do with it, just add a lobster. Not a common dish to have but so is the case for anyone in this category. While the sanity focus of the dish won't usually help Maxwell much, Wobster Dinner is also a phenomenal Health dish and it'll also fill his hunger sufficiently, filling all his stats and benefiting him greatly, something I can't say for any of the characters in the last category.

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Wortox: While mass producing pomegranates is very easy in spring and summer and I wouldn't call it wasteful to do so, it really doesn't benefit Wortox specifically at all with it's puny 12 hunger restoration. To give this poor crop some niche use, I think they should make the 15 Hunger bonus ignore Wortox' mortal food penalty, making pomegranates give him 25 hunger. Then again, if you haven't done so, I implore you to pay attention to this great item suggestion about crafting grenades out of pomegranates, which would give pomegranates a unique use beyond their identity as just foods. 

[Just-guy]

I understand that Wortox's favorite food being Pomegranades is a reference to the myth, but he seems more interested in eggplants and I like his quotes of complete amazement for a plant he's never seen yet a food he actually likes:

• Eggplant- "I've never seen such a thing before!"
• Braised Eggplant- "My favourite treat... it can't be beat!"

[KeshS]

1 hour ago, Just-guy said:

Wortox's favorite food being Pomegranades is a reference to the myth

Wait, what? How does Wortox symbolize death? Death and a creature from hell are different things.

[hot focaccia]

as a webber main i would like to argue that once you have 6 volt goat pens,10 fully flowered bee boxed and 3 stacks of ice, ice cream stops being situational

[BezKa]

50 minutes ago, KeshS said:

Wait, what? How does Wortox symbolize death? Death and a creature from hell are different things.

Feeding on life force of creatures he killed?

[clickrush]

4 hours ago, hot focaccia said:

as a webber main i would like to argue that once you have 6 volt goat pens,10 fully flowered bee boxed and 3 stacks of ice, ice cream stops being situational

It’s less about the production availability but rather about it primarily being a sanity food that also spoils very fast. It’s not going to be something you eat all the time, the cost is too high in comparison. It also lowers temperature which is situational.

Regular dishes have to provide excellent hunger and good health values for the cost. Sanity is rarely something you need to deal with via food.

[Just-guy]

6 hours ago, KeshS said:

Wait, what? How does Wortox symbolize death? Death and a creature from hell are different things.

By myth I refered to greek mythology:

Quote

In the Greek myth of Persephone's abduction by Hades, lord of the underworld, the pomegranate represents life, regeneration, and marriage. One day while out gathering flowers, Persephone noticed a narcissus of exquisite beauty. As she bent down to pick it, the earth opened and Hades seized her and dragged her down to his kingdom. By eating a few pomegranate seeds, Persephone tied herself to Hades—the pomegranate being a symbol of the indissolubility of marriage. Inconsolable at the loss of her daughter, the corn goddess Demeter prevented the earth from bearing fruit unless she saw her daughter again. Zeus intervened and worked out a compromise: Persephone should live with Hades for one third of the year and the other two thirds with Demeter. Persephone's return from the underworld each year is marked by the arrival of Spring.

 

[Guille6785]

I have never once made banana pops as wendy, the spoilage timer makes them almost unusable (you get at most 12 minutes before they become pretty much worthless aside from a tiny bit of hunger and healing)

[Friendly Grass]

I unclear of the purpose of this tier list. Is it to rank the character’s benefits from the favorite food? Or is it ranking the favorite foods themself.

Wickerbottom, for example, gains no applicable benefit from her favorite food: surf n turf. You make surf n turf for health and sanity so a small hunger boost is irrelevant.

Similar for webber: his ice cream hunger boost means nothing.

[clickrush]

33 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

I unclear of the purpose of this tier list. Is it to rank the character’s benefits from the favorite food? Or is it ranking the favorite foods themself.

Wickerbottom, for example, gains no applicable benefit from her favorite food: surf n turf. You make surf n turf for health and sanity so a small hunger boost is irrelevant.

Similar for webber: his ice cream hunger boost means nothing.

To discuss the utility of favorite foods. And yes I might be overrating Wickerbottom’s.

[hot focaccia]

15 hours ago, clickrush said:

It’s less about the production availability but rather about it primarily being a sanity food that also spoils very fast. It’s not going to be something you eat all the time, the cost is too high in comparison. It also lowers temperature which is situational.

yes i get that but since as you can imagine my main meat source are the volt goats its a nice little extra that can be saved up in bundles for fw.

also you completely ignored the immense amount of power/glory a webber main feels when they eat ice-cream since the ingredients are kinda rare

[Cheggf]

I think the relative impact of the hunger bonus should be considered. It's always +15 flat regardless of what the food is, making it relatively a lot more useful on less filling foods. For example, bacon and eggs is one of the best dishes in the game so it's great that Wilson gets a bonus for it, but really that bonus is just lowering the amount you need to eat per year from ~70 to ~58, 12 less. Meanwhile Wolfgang's bonus lowers the amount of potatoes he needs annually (assuming 2.5x drain) from ~525 to ~328, about 200 less! Even if we assume Wolfgang somehow had a 1x drain it'd still be 131 instead of 210.

I also think Wormwood has one of the better favorite foods, especially compared to characters placed well above him. I find the banana bonus particularly helpful for clearing out the ruins, especially when they're particularly large & you're rushing them. When you run out of food or it's spoiled or something you can cook some bananas on a pre-crafted campfire, firepit, or scs that you make down there. Bananas are rather plentiful from both the trees & the splumonkeys, and you only need 2.7 per day. Due to the bonus being a flat 15 he's actually benefitting more from the bonus than the food itself, since it's only 12.5 hunger for anyone else.