Webber Needs a Spider Limit

[JaxckLl]

Check out this video: https://youtu.be/QpHfHzWgkrc

 

There's a few major problems with Webber as he currently is highlighted in that video:

1. Webber can befriend a practically enormous number of spiders, so many that they cannot properly path close to him when Webber is standing still. This pushes Webber and can get the player stuck against objects or the edge of the world. Spiders can glitch off land or on top of other entities from the same effect. This can be seen in the first half of the video.
2. Nurse Spiders scale far too well into typically challenging fights. As pointed out in the video, Bee Queen was taken down without a single Nurse casualty. Not in the video, but Spider Queen wars are an absolute nightmare since Nurses will continuously heal their side extending the fight. Trying to kill two-three Spider Queens as Woodie take 2-3min longer per queen following this update, which tends to make that fight longer than most Giants.
3. Webber can solo otherwise challenging boss fights spending disposable resources. Winona at least has to be spending difficult to renew gems or nitre (and doesn't have any healing built in to her cheesing). Walter has to spend expensive Marble and still has the lower DPS compared to melee kiting. Every other character has to get in there and risk their own life to beat bosses. Meanwhile Webber is spending Monster Meat, Silk, and Honey, three extremely cheap resources that can be renewable from day 1.
4. Not shown in the video, but it's also worth noting that none of these benefits are shareable to any other character other than another Webber. Hell it's likely other characters will get stunlocked and killed trying to approach Webber's base as any "neutral" spiders turn hostile. It's very difficult to track which spiders are friendly and which are not when in large swarms with a variety of different types. Winona's catapults can be activated by anyone. Warly's dishes can be eaten by anyone. Walter's tent can be used by anyone. Webber's spider gear? Exclusive, exclusive, exclusive.

Webber post-rework is now powerful, but in an extremely ridiculous way that comes at the expense of teammates and frankly seems more buggy than functional. There's absolutely no reason that a spider limit shouldn't exist, after all Spider Queens & Dens have limits, why not Webber?

• 12 would be where I would start, as that makes Webber comparable to a Spider Queen + tier 1 Den. Anywhere between 10-15 seems fair, while at the same time allowing Webber to be suitably strong. 18 should be the upper limit of any consideration since that's the max of two tier 3 dens.
• Nurse Spiders need to not be able to spam heal each other. This tends to make Spider Queens, especially in multiple, simply slower to fight. Additioonally it makes Bee Queen & Shadow Chessmen (among others) far too cheaply repeatable for Webber. I would suggest either radically changing the amount that Nurse Spiders heal each other (so they can keep the rest of the swarm alive, but picking them out of the crowd is manageable) or implementing a "heal cooldown" of a couple seconds that prevents a single spider from being healed twice back to back.
• The cost of Nurse Switcherdoodles needs adjusting. As it stands, this is now the fastest & most cost effective cheesing strategy in the game by a wide margin. The Honey cost should really be something difficult to renew, perhaps Nitre. Additionally Spider Glands should probably be incorporated into the cost since they are the spider drop that actually heals.
• Spiders should not drop Monster Meat. Instead, they drop Monster Bites a 0.25 value Monster Meat that can be refined into Monster Meat or otherwise used as food. Currently Monster Meat is the most available food resource in the game, easily farmed in stacks by any character with an AOE (such as Woodie). At the same time under default settings, players are bombarded with Monster Meat from Hound Waves. Has anyone else noticed how Spiders are tiny and Hounds are massive? Yet for some reason they drop the exact same size of meat :P
• We really need a source of Silk that doesn't involve killing spiders or being Webber. Every other basic resource in the game has multiple valid sources, usually one or two fixed sources and then a mob drop. As an essential basic resource, Silk is also exclusive in that it is possible to completely exhaust the supply on the map and therefore be incapable of swapping to Webber and making new dens. While this scenario is unlikely, it's certainly possible such as if an unfortunate fire destroys a chest containing the world's only remaining spider eggs. A pacifist source of Silk that is part of world regrowth should be a high priority for the next content cycle.

[Guille6785]

52 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

Webber can solo otherwise challenging boss fights spending disposable resources. Winona at least has to be spending difficult to renew gems or nitre (and doesn't have any healing built in to her cheesing). Walter has to spend expensive Marble and still has the lower DPS compared to melee kiting. Every other character has to get in there and risk their own life to beat bosses.

*every character can kill bee queen with a flingomatic, some mini signs and 2 moleworms

[HowlVoid]

Everyone can kill bosses with single target attacks easily using a large amount of bunnymen. 

You would end up gimping webber not balancing him.

Monster meat isn't the only abundant source of food either. I don't even thinks its one of the easier ones to obtain; honey is easier for example. Also, if you have a decent concentration of hound mounds they are a better source of monster meat than spiders, far far better.

[QuartzBeam]

1 hour ago, JaxckLl said:

Silk is also exclusive in that it is possible to completely exhaust the supply on the map and therefore be incapable of swapping to Webber and making new dens

Dangling Depth Dwellers are literally impossible to drive into extinction, so, no, you can't run out of Silk.

As for the rest of this post...

[hot focaccia]

No, I would like to have a massive spider army of as many as my computer can handle because that would be epic

[ArubaroBeefalo]

sure, lets nerf needing to waste a lot of resources to fight bosses in other way that isnt fire farms or kitting...

 

[NightfallsCurse]

Why would we need a spider limit? There's no limit for bunnymen and pigs and they're pretty good for certain boss fights

[Mysterious box]

Ngl it is pretty funny going to the ruins with just a stack of monster meat and kill the ancient guardian tho people really underestimate how little resources it takes to kill bosses with the current Webber but I've decided to embrace how funny it looks seeing huge bosses being overrun but little spiders. I feel getting pulled by your horde because you recruited too many spiders is it's own punishment.

18 hours ago, ShadowQueen said:

Why would we need a spider limit? There's no limit for bunnymen and pigs and they're pretty good for certain boss fights

To be fair the amount of food you'd need to maintain it wouldn't be worth it and does anyone actually recruit bunnymen as followers aside from the 1 needed to trick the entire horde?

 

Edit:you haven't truly lived till you've  seen the guardian carried away by spiders