Willow, Webber, Wurt, the Awkward Underwhelmings

[JaxckLl]

Willow, Webber, and Wurt are the three most underwhelming characters in the game right now. Their stated upsides are tempered by unusually sucky downsides, awkward or time-consuming costs, and mechanics that get in the way of teamplay. However each of these characters is so close to being great with only a couple of changes needed.

Willow

Willow's bonuses seem great on paper, her lighter, partial fire immunity, bonus sanity near fires, and Bernie, but in practice they often end up being awkward to use if not downright bad for her team. Bonus sanity gain & fire immunity work great together, allowing Willow to keep her sanity high while roaming in the early game as she lights trees up with her lighter. In this early stage of the game (default being Autumn), Willow excels able to continuously scout without spending resources and usually without draining sanity. However as soon as a basing area is picked out these bonuses flip to being awkward to use, if not outright bad. Lighting trees up is not an option when those trees are needed for logging to support base building. God forbid an uncontrollable fire gets into base. Bernie is a fun idea, but in practice he usually just ends up being a worse Abigail. Willow needs to be low sanity to activate Bernie, but all of her other abilities are built around keeping her sanity high. Willow has to choose between activating Bernie or keeping her sanity up, the end result being that one or the other feels redundant depending on how you play. What other character has bonuses that so directly conflict? This is not to mention her downside, lower cold resistance, which makes gathering essential winter resources such as Walrus Tusks, the Deerclops Eyeball, and Blue Gems especially difficult in first Winter. This ends up hurting new players especially hard, and coupled with the difficulty of controlling fires makes Willow a terrible starting character.

• We need some way to activate Bernie at high sanity. Some kind of limited use item that can't be activated constantly, but allows for summoning Bernie in a pinch. This would give Willow an interesting boss/hound wave option while also allowing her to actually use all of her mechanics at the same time. Perhaps this could be a food item (perhaps even an existing one, like Pumpkin Cookies), thus functioning like Warly's spices.
• Bernie should activate with Enlightenment of any level. Right now Bernie activates with low sanity or high enlightenment. Bernie activates opposite to the state that Willow really wants to be. This would be an easy solution that would make Bernie an always-on feature on the Lunar Island and thus an essential part of Willow's strategy in the Celestial Champion fight.
• A unique & cheap version of the Winter Vest. Ala Walter's unique bed roll, this would be a bonus most relevant for newer players that would make that first difficult season far more manageable. Additionally this would be a nice shareable bonus that's easy to understand & use.

Wurt

Like Willow, Wurt's biggest issue isn't any one particular bonus or downside so much as how awkward it is to maximize these various benefits. Specifically the Merm King, who not only requires a minibase set up but also requires continuous feeding. Not to mention you need a second King for the Caves. He movement bonus is awesome and she is definitely a great choice for any game as a Reed-gatherer & Tentacle Spot-farmer. However Marshy turf has a visual issue especially when insane or on lower brightness settings in that it just looks solid black. I've had players I introduced the game to comment that they thought the terrain was bugged upon first encountering marshy turf in the Mosaic biome because it just looked like a black hole. Wurt's veganism is a continuous challenge, one that unfortunately locks Wurt out of the best recipes in the game (most importantly the highly efficient Meat Stew, Pierogi, and Jelly Salad). Her fish sanity bonus is also quite awkward since it requires regular fishing and will actually reverse the bonus when the fish actually expires. It seems like Wurt is meant to have a second home at sea, but unfortunately she struggles to find food out there. Ironically she's one of the worst characters at oceangoing despite being so far one of only two characters (the other being Wes) with a specific ocean bonus.

• Surface Merm King bonus extends to the Caves. Quality of life upgrade that would make the costs associated with building a Merm King & keeping him alive much more manageable.
• Merm King doesn't die if he is not fed, with the feeding required for the Wurt stat buffs not his survival. Again this cuts the time needed to maintain a Merm King down significantly without really changing how the bonus functions.
• A fed Merm King makes nearby Merms neutral. This was suggested in another thread as a way to make basing with Wurt & other players actually doable.
• Increase the contrast between the two tones of Marshy turf so it doesn't just show up as black.
• Allow Wurt to eat Leafy Meat and Leafy Meat-specific recipes (such as Jelly Salad). This would open up Wurt's food options substantially, especially when at sea. This would also give Wigfrid & Wurt some overlap so they're actually playable with each other.
• Allow Wurt to eat Barnacles & Barnacle specific recipes. Like the Leafy Meat suggestion, this is to open up Wurt's game while at sea.
• Wurt no longer loses sanity when holding fish morsels/fish meat. Gives a grace period when live fish die before Wurt starts losing sanity.
• Basic Fishing rods no longer cost Silk and can be made without Science Machines, instead only costing Rope and being able to be crafted without tech. Allows Wurt to use her sanity bonus in the first few days of the game while roaming, before encounter Gold or Spiders. Also opens up Freshwater Fish as a cool early game resource, rather than a poor alternative to other meats that can't be easily farmed.
• Buff the Veggie Burger to 40 or even 50 healing. This would give Wurt a viable alternative to Pierogi provided her Leafy Meat restriction is lifted. It would also be relevant for many other characters who do a lot of farming, especially Warly.

Webber

Webber's a weird character. He's got some cool & interesting mechanics, but he's unfortunately held back by a few crucial details. Most importantly the balance of spiders is still a bit whack. Spiders are remarkably strong in some fights, strong to the point of cheesiness (notably Meese/Geese have no resistances to spider swarms), but practically a liability in others (Monster Meat dropped on the ground can deaggro Bearger and the additional melee targets can cause Klaus to cast more spells). However perhaps the biggest issue is how efficient they are at generating Monster Meat. In conjunction with any other character with an AOE attack (Winona or Woodie), Webber can set up ridiculous farms in the very first autumn that make meat a non-issue for the rest of the game (not to mention the Silk). The biggest issue with Webber however is that his bonuses cannot easily be incorporated into a base with other non-Webbers. His speed bonus is relative to spider dens, which lose their bedazzling to a stiff breeze. His spider army is also unbelievably loud which makes the already somewhat repetitive sound of the game even more tiresome.

• Friendly spiders produce a third as much noise, perhaps even quieter. This could be a gameplay setting "Suppress Companion Noise", as other companions have a similar decibel-raising effect (such as Glommer's "BUZZ BUSS BYZZ")
• Webber can place permanent webbing as a new turf. This allows him to create the same type of "monster roads" as Wurt. Webbed turf wouldn't slow mobs, so there'd still be a good reason to use den webbing.
• Beddazzled dens occasionally drop Silk & Spider Glands. This allows Webber to be neutral with Spiders rather than cannibalistic. Perhaps this could be limited to when he sleeps in a den, so you can only gain the benefit once a day.
• Bedazzled dens only go wild when hit by a large attack, such as from a boss or damage-buffed player, not from small attacks or incidental damage.
• Spiders no longer drop Monster Meat. Instead they drop Monster Morsels, which are Monster Meat but with a food value of 0.25.
• Moose/Goose can longer be stunlocked and gets +1500 HP. Yes this makes it harder to bring one down, but they currently don't even feel like a boss. Spider Queens are more dangerous now that Nurse Spiders exist. They might also need some kind of close-quarters splash attack to make cheesing with basic spiders less viable. Perhaps their stomp does short range splash damage?
• Spiders gets a debuff when healed by a Nurse Spider that prevents other Nurse Spiders from healing them for a couple seconds. Spider Queen wars can now last for days, this would go a long way to stopping that. Webber would be unaffected, so he'd still benefit from spamming Nurses in fights.
• Shaving a den gives two Silk instead of one. Right now Webber's best option for Silk is to use some Winona catapults or a Woodie in Moose form to run over a hoard of regular spiders. That's pretty out of character and doesn't fit with his voicelines. This gives another neutral source of Silk that makes keeping a number of dens around for shaving much more viable.
• We really need a second source of Silk than Spiders, since Silk is such a core resource. Tea Bushes that grow Silk Worms would be my suggestion. Tea Bushes are to Spiders as Grass is to Grass Geckos. If Tea Bushes could be regrowthed and had a way to transform into Spider Dens, this would also prevent the admittedly unlikely scenario of total spider extinction.

[Ohan]

I think willow is actually very underrated. i think shes a lot of fun to play and the toughest survivalist of all the characters. i dont agree that bernie is a worse abigail they both have very different purposes. Abigail is a small mob shredder and Bernie is an incredibly tough and reliable tank that can aid u in a lot of dangerous situations in which abigail would be totally outmatched. 

17 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

Willow needs to be low sanity to activate Bernie, but all of her other abilities are built around keeping her sanity high. Willow has to choose between activating Bernie or keeping her sanity up, the end result being that one or the other feels redundant depending on how you play.

I think this is what makes Willow an interesting character. Shes at her strongest when shes backed into a corner as shown (literally lol) in her refresh cinematic. Her biggest fault id say is that klei failed to figure out a way to fully deliver on this fantasy by not incorporating her 'pyrokinetic' abilities (very common, ancient complaint). In her cinematic she basically blew up the room she was locked up in. in the game the extent of her pyro powers is immunity to fire damage and sanity gain near fires. 

The lighter she starts with should also totally be infinite and unique to her like Woodie's Lucy. the ones she crafts for others should have durability. For 'lore' reasons i also dislike that she can craft multiple Bernies, it makes the real Bernie feel less special. but i do acknowledge that without a way for willow to heal Bernie in combat, having multiple bernies is the key to actually making meaningful use out of him in boss battles. 

What i would find most interesting is if they would expand on the "strongest at low sanity" idea and make her into a real threat when she's insane. this would really tie everything shes got going on together in my eyes.

 

[JaxckLl]

Maybe change her "sanity gain near fire" to "prevents shadow monsters from turning hostile near open flames". Would allow her to just sit at low sanity and would give her a unique niche as a ruins rusher.

I do agree that she's not a weak character, her lighter in particular makes her one of the best early game roaming characters and she excels in Summer, usually the toughest season. The point of this post is that all three of these characters are awkward to use. Willow in particular has benefits at opposite ends of her sanity, meaning that to use one benefit means you are unable to use the other. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i would call them the most balanced ones...

their mechanics are so fun and worth, is what matters

[Ketrai]

Wurt is very versatile and provides unique benefits for farming rare seeds. They also pretty much can't die once they have a merm king and it isn't winter. Also, lots of free gold (not that it's easier than just cave eel fishing for infinite). They only really need the housing bugs fixed if those haven't been already. 

Willow needs something going for her fire wise that isn't just a lighter. I agree there.

Webber is completely fine after the rework. A lot of the things you mention are a non issue. Beargr will still get mauled by spiders and even looses health for eating bad meat. Klaus can literally be tanked with 10 nurse spiders. You have to treat him as a bit of a hermit. Who lives away from the base and gets stuff done alone only to bring the other survivors meat and silk on a regular basis. This is a completely acceptable downside. From the spider sanity debuffs to the the fact untamed spiders will maul others. 

I'd argue winona, wx-78, and warly are in a much worse spot because they each have some key issues.

Winona : craft n swap who takes major material costs to blossom compared to far cheaper solutions like webber incidentally.

wx-78 : brings nothing to the team other than eating spoiled food. He's just a solo powerhouse and can actually screw the team over by deleting gears. A finite resource until you're ready to maul the fuelweaver. He can benefit from others, namely warly for rain protection,  wicker for lightning, and wortox for healing up that stupid big hp bar quick. So he's a bit of a leech in that regard too. Taking but not giving.

warly : extremely good teamplayer but his inherent buffs are both limited and he pretty much has none otherwise. You can just cook a lot of food and swap away. You can cook dishes 20% faster but only in your own pots which is dumb, extend this to all pots. Preservation pack was perhaps rightfully nerfed but now it's also just pointless. It got a double nerf and the benefits are very meager now. 

maxwell is decently up there in terms of weaker characters. He is an early game resource rusher who can flatten the map quickly. But outclassed later by wurt merms, anyone with pigs, or simply using beargr as a lumberjack. His abilities overlap with too many others, and his dapperness was nerfed quite a bit from 20/m to 6.67/m. Makes him great at living in the caves but it doesn't help him much otherwise. He should also have an alternative way of making nightmare fuel as a character who inherently has difficulty summoning nightmare creatures. 

[JaxckLl]

The problem with Wurt is workflow. If you want to spend more than 3 days in a row away from base or you want to do any kind of spelunking, congrats, you're gonna need a new King. If you want King to be conveniently located near other parts of the base, congrats Merms will wander and attack a teammate. If you want to spend any time at sea, you better hope you roll Corn Cod because that is your only food source. Early game you want a fish, but that means Science Machine & Silk first. And at that point you might as well start farming with Riggamajigs and solve the problem more permanently. Right now she's a WX whose benefits aren't permanent, or a Wolfgang that can't be played with a team of non-Wurts effectively.

The name of the game is literally "Don't Starve Together". Having a character who can only effectively play by themselves or with other copies of the same character is fundamentally at odds with the stated goal of the game. Nurse Spiders have also been shown to be waaay cheesier than I realized when initially posting, so they need some more substantial adjustment to make the character actually fun. Also your point about Bearger is flat out wrong. CatPerson on youtube showed that a team of Nurses with Thulecite Crowns still gets beat by the Bear.

------

Winona. Don't disagree in principal, although I disagree specifically with regards to Webber (Wolfgang or Warly would be a better comparison). However I put her in the category of "Useful but not Best" because of how her catapults allow for some unique boss strategies. Her building bonus is awesome, but it would be nice to have something else that allows for her to base in a unique way. There was a suggestion in another thread to give her a Giant Crop Generator (a Potato Powerer) and a Sprinkler, which I feel would pretty perfectly expand her gameplay & teaming options while also opening up some interesting strategies involving small farms being developed in lots of different places.

WX. Completely agree. Your point about stealing gears is spot on, and this has been my experience with most WX's I've encountered. Now if WX had some unique craftables or could make his own Gears (which he could also share with teammates. I like the idea of a mechanical Wormwood, chopping off bits of himself to build Ice Boxes) that would be interesting. His max stats should also probably be nerfed quite a bit or be made somehow temporary. His food benefit seems at odds with the core design of Don't Starve, since by nature it's pretty impossible for WX to starve. I would consider giving him a more extreme version of Wortox's penalty so he can't ever get great benefit from food and has to rely on some kind of power source. Could allow for some interesting cross-character design with Winona or Wagstaff (if he ever makes it into DST). WX wouldn't heal from food at all, but would from being recharged. He could make Gears using some rare resources plus a bunch of HP. He can use Gears to make Tesla Coils (which also serve as a unique base defence) for recharging, which in turn require power from a Furnace Generator. These use the same power system as Winona, who also gains access to the Furnace Generator. WX would suffer a massive sanity & hunger penalty when his charge is low, measured in a bar that wraps around his health. This would force WX to set up micro bases throughout the world in order to stay charged, and he would become a reliable source of Gears for other players.

Warly. Do not agree. Warly is one of the strongest characters in the game and really the only reason he isn't top is because his benefits are fully shareable. With a team of two, Warly basically becomes default after Winona's catapults are set up for Bee Queen & Dragonfly (indeed, Warly + Winona is a really strong pairing). He has enough unique dishes that swapping on & off is fine, but not optimal. Really his disadvantage is that rare seeds are rare, so you can't control when you'll be able to make all of his best dishes (specifically, you can't control when you'll get access to Peppers). However if Warly were to start with a Pepper, he would quickly become one of the strongest early game characters as well as the late game default he already is.

Maxwell. Totally agree. Woodie is a better gatherer post rework, plus the advantage of Goose & Moose form. He feels like a challenge character at this point. I feel like Maxwell needs to have more tech & magic stuff to do, and that his character should be shifted away from just being a source of Logs to being the mastermind that he is in the lore. Maybe Maxwell can make an item that allows him to be neutral with clockworks, since he is their original creator? It would also be cool if he had some interactivity with his set pieces or the resources they produced, something to do with Marble, Gears, or Evil Flowers. We already have two characters that can reliably generate Living Logs (Woodie & Wormwood), maybe Maxwell & WX can become reliable sources of Gears?

[Grim the]

6 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

Maxwell. Totally agree. Woodie is a better gatherer post rework, plus the advantage of Goose & Moose form.

How?

Maxwell chops faster, can pick up at the same time, and can also swap to wicker to grow trees faster. On rocks, woodie is inferior by a lagre margin. 

Woodie isn't the best at harvesting, he isn't the best at fighting, and he's not the best at speed. He never will be. 

[Dextops]

7 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

Woodie is a better gatherer post rework

not even better than wurt

[JaxckLl]

Do you have something to contribute? Or are you just here to get nit picky about a single line irrelevant to the bulk of the post? Like I get that hating on Woodie is a thing on these forums, but that's not what this thread is about.

[Grim the]

20 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

Do you have something to contribute? Or are you just here to get nit picky about a single line irrelevant to the bulk of the post? Like I get that hating on Woodie is a thing on these forums, but that's not what this thread is about.

You could say I was adding that Maxwell’s fine as-is, even if Klei decided to not give him a rework for whatever reason.

23 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

Like I get that hating on Woodie is a thing on these forums

It’s not hating on Woodie because I don’t like him (I do like him), but Woodie is a Jack of all trades, master of none- that’s his character, not being the best at what he does.

[JaxckLl]

Maxell has "early design" syndrome, same as Wilson, Wolfgang, and WX (Wicker has become the model for all subsequent characters, and Abigail, Willow, & Wes have already been reworked). He's fine mechanically, but boring since his abilities are so one step. Just make your shadow puppets and then do the thing. Wolfgang has at least gotten more interesting as combat has got more interesting, especially his relationship with Warly. However the workflow for these other characters is the worst combination of bland, powerful, or efficient by design (instead of by play). Woodie & Warly have gathering bonuses that are comparable to Maxwell, but fundamentally temporary, have significant alternative downsides, or have costs that warp the efficiency in a unique way. They're just stronger designs. It would be fine to have one, maybe two, bland characters that focus on core mechanics without warping the "default" workflow too much (Wilson & Wolfgang). Unfortunately Maxwell kind of slots into that group which sucks considering his place in the lore. WX also stands out as especially odd since his upgrades are permanent. We don't even have a ******* backpack slot in vanilla, yet WX has fifteen invisible gear slots. I don't just view WX & Maxwell as good targets for reworks, I view their reworks as essential for the long term health of the game.

[Ketrai]

Maxwell is definitely better than woodie at gathering wood, but eh, I still don't think he's that great to play as. Between being fragile, and having useless duelists, it's just being a character that's sharing his ability with way too many others. At least woodie has his goose form for exploration and his were moose isn't that bad for combat. 

I still think wurt bring some benefits to the team with seed generation, food generation, and gold generation. The king dying is dumb, but I tend to get a mod for that anyways. There could be a vanilla way to keep him alive longer for sure.

As for warly, I will reiterate. His underwhelming side is that he doesn't inherently benefit himself. Anyone can eat his dishes, meanwhile he gets to suffer increases hunger, messy healing, and inventory managing issues. (carrying multiple dishes or carrying a crock around). It sucks to go caveing with warly when you can make only a handful of dishes in the cave, you need to prepare a ton to go have fun without worry. Imo, that isn't good character design, it's TEDIOUS. I love playing as warly, but I definitely feel an underwhelming side when dealing with his quirks. They even for some inexplicable reason felt he wasn't punished enough so they increased the severity of his debuffs and made him so much more inflexible compared to shipwrecked. He doesn't even have any inherent traits to make gathering ingredients easier. His design just feels messy and all over the place. Summarised below.

- crockpot cooking buff only applying to his own pot, and being 20% is very minor.

- Dishes only means he wastes a lot of food if proper fillers aren't available. You're tethered to your food sources and must spend tons of time preparing for trips/fights.

- Chef pouch being nigh useless. Unlike DS, you don't even spawn with it. Less size and a tiny effect means it's undesirable. Requiring nitre to craft hardly makes it easier than a backpack either.

- Higher hunger. Trivial to deal with but compounds his issues in terms of food.

- Inventory management. Having to mess with tons of different foods means you spend a lot of time switching stuff in and out of chests & fridges.

- Too complex. A lot of players have a hard time playing as him, and your team needs to cooperate to avoid outright killing warly. (Using up fillers for example making only meatballs. Or other useful materials like goats, nightmare fuel, butter, bone shards) 

- Reliance on farming. Mainly an issue on particularly large servers. It can be very time consuming to harvest giant crops, hammer, and replant them. I've tried to get to mass producing moqueca before, but end up having too little time to fish between farming & cooking.

 

Otherwise he's an amazing character. Ridiculous buffs that can mesh with a ton of different characters. Chaud-frois is downright overpowered but limited by goat spawning, and it's hard to go wrong with grim galette with some puree and a soothing tea to back it up. Spicing up a team of 5 players can make most fights far, far easier.

[me real life]

I feel like Wurt is being underrated a lot here. For years of my recent Wurt gameplay I've needed no seasonal gear whatsoever, because of how long sunfish and ice bream last in her inventory, and because of how she doesn't get upset about wetness at all. That's a HUGE perk and it absolutely prevents her from feeling underwhelming to me.

Also, Wurt may be unable to eat some pretty good crock pot recipes, but we live in a post-RWYS world: with just a farm plot and the necessary seeds, she's got Pumpkins/Eggplants/Potatoes for hunger, Toma Roots/Pomegranates for health, and Watermelons for sanity... and that's just eating the raw ingredients, if you put in the effort to cook crops you'll get even better options for health and sanity.

On 7/3/2021 at 11:01 PM, JaxckLl said:

A fed Merm King makes nearby Merms neutral. This was suggested in another thread as a way to make basing with Wurt & other players actually doable.

A fed Merm King makes ALL Merms in the world are neutral, that's a feature in the game already.

[Ketrai]

14 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

I feel like Wurt is being underrated a lot here. For years of my recent Wurt gameplay I've needed no seasonal gear whatsoever, because of how long sunfish and ice bream last in her inventory, and because of how she doesn't get upset about wetness at all. That's a HUGE perk and it absolutely prevents her from feeling underwhelming to me.

A fed Merm King makes ALL Merms in the world are neutral, that's a feature in the game already.

I rarely touch fish because I don't like the fishing mechanics but holy, that is indeed amazing. Especially with fish tins and just feeding the fish to extend the time.

Merm king is great but the issue is the insane hunger rate. Especially when it's technically better to let him starve, then feed some seeds/seaweed to a new one. Seems like a gameplay loop thanks to a tedious feature.

[JaxckLl]

@Ketrai Good summary of the issues with Warly. However I think you are undervaluing the mobility of the Portable Crock Pot. Taking it into caves allows for a very early Lichen biome push, provided you secure a fishing rod first. With favourable Ruins generation, this can mean an early Star Caller, Mag, or perhaps even Thulecite gear. The issue really comes down to the massive cost of fishing rods compared to other comparable sources of food. Spiders can be farmed with an Axe or a Spear fairly efficiently (if time consuming), costing just basic resources and providing Monster Meat. The fishing rod requires that you already go through this since it costs Silk. It's not an alternative source of food early game, it's an addition to farming spiders. You know what else you could do with that silk? Make a bird trap and start producing Pierogi and Bacon & Eggs :P

Warly would really benefit from freshwater fishing being a Day 1 activity plus,

• I like your point about the Crockpot bonus only working with his portable pot. There's no reason this couldn't extend to regular Crockpots.
• Agree on the Chef Pouch too. I feel like it should be a pseudo-bundling wrap, lowering spoilage and carryable in the inventory, but only for spices & raw ingredients. This would solve two problems with one stone, namely the relatively lack of utility of the pouch and Warly's over-reliance on basing in the early roaming stages of the game.
• Inventory management & complexity could be solved by making dishes predictable. It's honestly ridiculous that we have to remember every dish we've ever cooked in order to be successful when cooking. The Cooking Book is nice, but it still forces us to use memory and constant cross-referencing and it still doesn't guide the player towards new dishes. I'd like to have crockpots give an indication if a dish will be successful (aka not produce Wet Goop, Monster Lasagna, or another trap recipe). This could be a Warly-specific perk, though it would be nice to be general.
• I disagree on agriculture, mostly because the new agricultural system is both fun & powerful so I don't view being dependent on it as a downside. Wurt is another character bound to crops, and arguably all non-Wigfrid characters benefit so much from Agriculture is practically a necessity. The biggest issue with agriculture is that it's too easy to overproduce crops and there's no real sink in low to moderate pop servers. Warly's spices are one of the only mechanics which serves as an actual sink for overproducing crops.
• It kind of super sucks that Warly cannot apply spices on the fly. This would be a great upgrade that would make it much more manageable to use spices during the roaming phase. Perhaps warly can quaff spices without using food, giving him a shorter version of the bonus at the cost of some damage.

@Sunset Skye That's a really good point about the Icebream & Sunfish, hadn't considered that strategy. Combined with bundling wraps, that does seem like a really strong late game strategy. Again though I don't find Wurt's early game oceangoing to be as functional as other characters. Which is kind of odd since she's the character who both benefits the most from early game oceangoing (as you pointed out) and has an actual bonus.

[QuartzBeam]

On 7/13/2021 at 5:45 PM, Ketrai said:

I rarely touch fish because I don't like the fishing mechanics but holy, that is indeed amazing. Especially with fish tins and just feeding the fish to extend the time.

Yeeeaah... that's not a thing.

Fish cannot be fed at all. Fish spoilage appears to represent asphyxiation (they're not exactly build from breathing air), not starvation, as is the case for most critters you can put in your inventory.

That said, Scorching Sunfish and Ice Breams are still amazing, especially for Wurt. For Wurt, the fish last 5 days in winter, 3 in summer and 4 in autumn/spring, all of which are pretty long. And she only needs 2 of each thermal fish to swap comfortably between them. (For reference, other characters need 6 of each fish, or 4 if they are using an insulated pack.)

[DarkPulse91]

I find willow to be perfectly balanced and genuinely fun to play. The fact that she needs to be insane to activate Bernie can actually let you choose when Bernie is active, for example, if you need Bernie right now, you can eat a glommer goop or put on a nightmare amulet and bam, instantly insane and protected by Bernie. And if you are done, you can take off the amulet or just eat a sanity food you kept on hand. I play like this so I can have a sort of protector play style, bringing out Bernie to protect someone when needed, without having to stay insane. And if playing with the right people, they will see this play style and (hopefully) give you the bone helmet after killing fuel weaver to make this even easier. 

As far as the other perks go, her lighter and sanity near fire are really just Early game perks in my opinion. Being able to cook food on the go is great, but I usually don't put in the minimal effort it takes to make a new lighter once it's gone. And her sanity near fire helps you stay sane before you have better control of your sanity

[JaxckLl]

18 hours ago, DarkPulse91 said:

I find willow to be perfectly balanced and genuinely fun to play. The fact that she needs to be insane to activate Bernie can actually let you choose when Bernie is active, for example, if you need Bernie right now, you can eat a glommer goop or put on a nightmare amulet and bam, instantly insane and protected by Bernie. And if you are done, you can take off the amulet or just eat a sanity food you kept on hand. I play like this so I can have a sort of protector play style, bringing out Bernie to protect someone when needed, without having to stay insane. And if playing with the right people, they will see this play style and (hopefully) give you the bone helmet after killing fuel weaver to make this even easier. 

As far as the other perks go, her lighter and sanity near fire are really just Early game perks in my opinion. Being able to cook food on the go is great, but I usually don't put in the minimal effort it takes to make a new lighter once it's gone. And her sanity near fire helps you stay sane before you have better control of your sanity

I'm not saying Willow isn't fun. Being a little baby Pyro in the making can be a total joy. However some of her mechanics are awkward to use or pull in opposite directions. The point about Nightmare Amulets or Glommer's Goop is certainly accurate, however only the Goop is available early and then only if you happen to find Glommer's statue in a reasonable time frame. If we're talking about late game items, all characters are strong with a Bone Helm. The point stands that her first winter is unusually challenging for a character that is otherwise designed to streamline the early game. Being unable to activate Bernie at all while on the Lunar Island is a huge drawback that puts her mechanically in the same space as Wilson.

Willow's one of those characters that I see new players playing a lot, and then dying a lot too. You have to know to find those relatively rare resources that make managing sanity easier. You have to know where's safe to light a fire. You have to prepare for winter properly, usually by successfully hunting a Koala & shearing some Beefs. And then you'll probably just get frozen by some Ice Hound due to the lower freezing resistance and mobbed before even Deerclops shows up. It feels like the intention was to make a forgiving explorer that doesn't have to worry as much about sanity or darkness, perfect for players new to the concepts. However in practice her downsides and the restrictions on her mechanics come up too often and a single error in a White Hound wave or Deerclops fight usually ends up being fatal.

As you said yourself, most of her benefits are early game. There's really no reason to stay on Willow once the Portal Paraphernalia is set up since she doesn't really have any major benefits that can't be solved with gear or better by another character. Every time I've played Willow she just felt weak & unfocused mechanically, with there never really being a great opportunity to use Bernie and her freezing downside coming up too much too quickly. Playing Willow feels like playing Wes or Maxwell, not Wigfrid or Abigail.

[Grim the]

4 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

You have to prepare for winter properly, usually by successfully hunting a Koala & shearing some Beefs.

Willow’s insulation de-buff only applies to clothing she’s wearing. If she’s not wearing insulation clothing, which is very useless as any character, she’ll freeze at the same rate. Yes, hounds will be harder, but that’s when your get Bernie to tank them for you, or make a campfire. Even… stand next to a burning tree. Willow’s winter really isn’t a major issue, and if it is, you always have Bernie.

5 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

As you said yourself, most of her benefits are early game.

Bernie’s her main perk late game, and his taunt abilities are useful in several combat situations. Sure, he’s not Abigail, but in same cases, he’s better.

5 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

with there never really being a great opportunity to use Bernie

- Dragonfly (legit)

- Spider Queen

- Poison Birchnut

- Bee Queen

- Hounds

There’s more, but I feel I’ve already made a point here

[Guille6785]

On 7/13/2021 at 3:15 PM, JaxckLl said:

I think you are undervaluing the mobility of the Portable Crock Pot. Taking it into caves allows for a very early Lichen biome push, provided you secure a fishing rod first. With favourable Ruins generation, this can mean an early Star Caller, Mag, or perhaps even Thulecite gear. The issue really comes down to the massive cost of fishing rods compared to other comparable sources of food. Spiders can be farmed with an Axe or a Spear fairly efficiently (if time consuming), costing just basic resources and providing Monster Meat. The fishing rod requires that you already go through this since it costs Silk.

warly is arguably the worst ruins rusher, even slower than wes lol

if you don't care about gears you don't need healing and if you do you can just dig blue caps, warly on the other hand can't eat carrots/lichen/raw meat/blue caps and only has very limited and time consuming healing options

mousse sounds neat but crafting a lantern is faster and it can be refueled, warly has no upsides for a ruins rush and his crock pot restriction wastes a lot of time because you're tied to your crock pot while it cooks and you don't have any good hunger dishes available right away

[NightfallsCurse]

How are any of these underwhelming?

Imo all of these characters are very balanced, easy to work with (maybe not Wurt's vegetarian diet in the first winter, although you could go to the Lunar Island early to get stone fruit bushes and kelp stalks), and the chances of survival for any of these characters is Grim, although the game might not say that for Willow and Wurt

On 7/19/2021 at 1:28 AM, Guille6785 said:

warly is arguably the worst ruins rusher, even slower than wes lol

I agree, it's pretty much a fact (for me at least)

[Mysterious box]

Wurt's big issue is her complete lack of communication with followers. Merms don't tell you when their loyalty is about to expire making her a walking hazard to the team. This is also really bad due to Merms getting lost and unloaded when they leave meaning you either need to kill your followers or guide them back home making it risky to take merms away from base. Then there's the king who anchors Wurt to base if she wants to make use of his abilities this is made worse by the fact your teammates can't interact with him without a equally perishable item.

[Thiago Castro]

On 7/22/2021 at 4:44 PM, Mysterious box said:

Wurt's big issue is her complete lack of communication with followers. Merms don't tell you when their loyalty is about to expire making her a walking hazard to the team. This is also really bad due to Merms getting lost and unloaded when they leave meaning you either need to kill your followers or guide them back home making it risky to take merms away from base. Then there's the king who anchors Wurt to base if she wants to make use of his abilities this is made worse by the fact your teammates can't interact with him without a equally perishable item.

Totally agree. Merm King is costly, time-consuming and tedious. Baby-sitting the big amphibious guy in order to get advantage of his buffs and never leaving him for extended periods of time, turns the game a lot more... boring.

When Wurt was announced I praised her because I tought we could finally feel what it was like playing as a merm. Well... turns out we can't. I think that she is, by now, just like any other human child that likes to read books and bestow crowns. She could be more focused on being wet than creating a monarchy, in order for her to feel more like a merm. So, I think the following changes would be great:

- Merm King could be a map spawn (just like Pig King, but only when Wurt enters the world) - so he is not a project and Wurt can gift him food only in order to get his "blessings";

- Wurt could be speedy when wet in all biomes, not only swamps (other players already said this in other posts) AND she should not lose wetness when she is in swamp tiles/biomes.

- Being wet and using wet things should not reduce her sanity (I am not sure if this was already implemented);

- Merms should talk to her and the ones using Clever Disguise, so players know when their loyalty is about to drop (again, already suggested before);

- Making a better Clever Disguise that doesn't perish when is not being worn would be great too...

 

So, nothing too extreme, just things that would make her feel more merm to everyone. I personally love her character, but I DO believe she could be more fluid (no pun intended) in playstyle.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Thiago Castro said:

 

They did remove the sanity loss tho she does still freeze from it.

I agree with alot of this honestly I feel like kiel did webber alot more justice in term of usefulness and flavor when it came to his refresh. What Wurt currently offers is good but her high end mechanics are too tedious to be worthwhile aside from bosses but they can't even be brought to all boss fights.

[Captain_Rage]

Willow is fine. Take it from a player who spent hundreds of hours playing Willow (on default settings without any mods).