PSA: Spiders don't eat meat off the ground at ALL in defensive mode.

[me real life]

If you blow the webby whistle around befriended Spiders, it puts them into defensive mode. Defensive mode means they will lose aggro on anything they're currently fighting, and they will NOT EAT ANY MEAT OFF THE GROUND. This means you can blow the whistle right after killing something, and they won't eat any of the meat, in fact they won't eat any meat off the ground at all until the next time they leave defensive mode (i.e. they attack something else.)

Thanks to @SinancoTheBest for helping me figure this out!!

[Tim S.]

Also, you can use chili-flaked food on your damage dealing spiders and garlic-infused food on your tanks! Spitters deal 24 instead of 20 ranged damage, but the 33% incoming damage decrease is incredible for your frontline!

[QuartzBeam]

Having to constantly use the whistle and pick up the spoils in a fight with multiple enemies seems very impractical, sadly. Especially cause the long animation of the whistle means you sorta have to use it right before the enemy dies.

[Roodmas]

42 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

Having to constantly use the whistle and pick up the spoils in a fight with multiple enemies seems very impractical, sadly. Especially cause the long animation of the whistle means you sorta have to use it right before the enemy dies.

If it's a single enemy though, it is very useful. Or if you are just walking around with spider followers, and want to hammer down a pig house, you can just put them in defensive mode to save the pig skins.

[MondayNight]

7 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

...means you sorta have to use it right before the enemy dies.

With even slight lag you most likely can kiss goodbye to this strat. It seems a bit hard to achieve it even on personal servers, probably for pubs using spiders to kill and also save the meat of solo targets would be next to impossible when ping is over 70-100. My question is: if you have a mob of spider followers, and want to hammer some Pig House, will blowing first the whistle prevent them from compulsively *nom-nom* the Pig Skin or not after hammering? Aka go beside Pig House, whistle to the fabled moon, hammer and actually be able to take skin? Obviously I haven't tried it yet.

[Hornete]

I thought i'd mention that Spiders won't eat meat until the meat entity has existed for longer than 1.5 seconds (Neat hidden mechanic a lot of mobs have, Bunnyman will only eat food items that have existed for longer than 8 seconds, pigmen are the same, and etc)

However, the whistle will take 1.166 or so seconds in the animation to call the spiders into defensive mode, so you essentially have a period of 0.334 seconds before the spiders start gobbling up your meat after the mob dies, which is a biiiit small.

I'm personally fine with spiders eating any meat they find on the ground, though I think it'd be nice if the 1.5 second delay was increased a tad further, Maybe somewhere around 3-4 seconds would be nice.

[DaZoul]

3 hours ago, Hornete said:

However, the whistle will take 1.166 or so seconds in the animation to call the spiders into defensive mode, so you essentially have a period of 0.334 seconds before the spiders start gobbling up your meat after the mob dies, which is a biiiit small.

However the spider requires time to walk to the meat, and the spiders' eating animation does not immediately delete the meat, so you have a slightly longer window to blow the whistle, and save the meat!

I'm just joking though, and increasing the time would really be good

[me real life]

9 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

Having to constantly use the whistle and pick up the spoils in a fight with multiple enemies seems very impractical, sadly.

But you don't have to do that. In a fight with multiple enemies, the spiders are so distracted by fighting that you can hold spacebar in the middle of the fight and you'll pick up all of the meat instantly. Unless you're fighting like, a full beefalo herd, that will not be an issue at all.

3 hours ago, Hornete said:

However, the whistle will take 1.166 or so seconds in the animation to call the spiders into defensive mode, so you essentially have a period of 0.334 seconds before the spiders start gobbling up your meat after the mob dies, which is a biiiit small.

I have to wonder if the numbers come into play a bit differently in-game, as I haven't had any issue blowing the whistle in time. Maybe my reaction times are just fast, but all of my gameplay in the binding of isaac says otherwise

[Hornete]

1 minute ago, Sunset Skye said:

I have to wonder if the numbers come into play a bit differently in-game, as I haven't had any issue blowing the whistle in time. Maybe my reaction times are just fast, but all of my gameplay in the binding of isaac says otherwise

I've personally found myself able to ward them off effectively half of the time, while the other half they've quickly gobbled up a lot of my meat, I am probably just a bit slow though lol.

[Mysterious box]

I do agree the delay should be bumped up to 3-4 seconds but at the same time when you have a massive horde of spiders you generally are going to have much problems getting more meat since webber now ends alot of fights even faster than wolfgang now.

[Cowboy Maxwell]

I haven't used the whistle for that. I mostly just hold spacebar like I used to before the refresh. It is good to know though.