Thulecite Club changes for this QoL ?

[ADM]

So this topic isn't really about October's QoL beta directly but it's still regarding it in a way because it improved the Pick/Axe durability and damages.
While I won't comment on that but say I'm super glad about it as someone who almost stopped using it for various reasons not worth mentioning, it also reminded me now might be a good time to review that other Thulecite item the community has mixed opinions about from good to terrible.

I have my own feelings about it, but if Klei has an especially more open hear during betas I think it would be sweet to slide some extra "qualities" into the update. Then let's talk about the Thulecite Club and feel free to mention your own issues here or mention how perfect it already is.

I see 4 shadow zones with this weapon, and those definitively aren't tentacles which I don't see so often, starting with...

 

Durability and Damages :

Thulecite Clubs have 200 durability in DST for the cost of 4 Thulecites, 4 Nightmare Fuel, and 3 Living Logs... in addition of visiting the ruins, you'd expect this weapon gives you the change of what you paid for, you'll see in the following section that it does it badly but was it even expensive to begin with ?

You can both answer yes and no :

Depending of your experience or priorities, making Thulecite Clubs can be either super affordable or just not even consider it...

• For the second case, no because all of the resources can be grind in different places in a variety of time and processes, but if you already have your stocks of Living Logs, that you anyway don't spend too much on Dark Swords, same goes for the fuel... all that's left is Thulecite and now based on your plans you can keep the entire stock of Thulecite the ruins has for you into clubs and that will give you an absurd amount of them.
  And of course, there's eventually that free one left in the Ancient Guardian's chest we won't complain about and better use anyway.

 

• But for the first case, yes it can be expensive to beginners or more casual players AND at any rate it is strictly less affordable than the rest of powerful weapons the game has. These other weapons might have even less durability but that isn't a problem in the slightest as they can be re-crafted behind right away or requires minor investments to be made.

 

So to sum up, 59.5 dmg by default, 34 dmg from tentacles with about 1 chance on 5 to happen, 200 hits, if you don't include any other modifiers, a club gives you around 13000 dmgs, which is not too bad right? Well this is just a full Ham Bat damages with a random bonus applied over it and a set amount of hits, one might not be enough to get through some big HP sacks without allies or buffs.

While I'm fine with the damages (except for the upcoming point), I think the durability itself is problematic, I could go through all of the different issues players could experiment with it, mainly travels, but if this weapon has getting a treatment not necessarily as good as the Pick/Axe in terms of durability, that would help overall save hours of life-time to one club in scenarios they're used as a standard weapon (which you don't quite see often for current reasons) and at least minutes of crafting / restocking and general managements almost only this weapon has where it only takes finger-count seconds to care about for the others.

I mean, we don't have some shadow orb that makes ancient crafts at the surface yet, even if you have what it takes to make, you need to walk to somewhere and Wanda shouldn't be the answer to all travel problems before this gets mentioned, not like she didn't had a crazy weapon already or like if damage numbers wouldn't climb absurdly high in DST anyway with our without Thulecite Clubs.

 

Shadow Tentacles :

Thulecite Club's special ability is BUGGED or at least doesn't seems to work as intended judging by the scripts, I've seen that being reported some times by friends but if this isn't even a bug as it isn't fixed yet, it is at least terrible that Shadow Tentacles can only hit once, then they'll just stick around, suck players' sanity for the rest of the time being then despawn. Given they only have 20% chance to spawn, I find it ridicule they have so many inconsistencies :

• They can only attack the mob you're attacking, meaning if you kill it even before it manage to hit, it will be useless and not even try to look out for another nearby hostile mob attacking you.
• Shadow Tentacles have health, 500HP, yet, nearly nothing can damage them and especially not mobs so that make this feature super confusing, are they supposed to be attacked ? Drag attention after they attack ? Or is it just a copy paste of tentacles without any use?
• When a mob is getting killed, tentacles can still spawn (you can hear the sound) but they won't appear or do anything but drain your sanity, thanks.

Obviously, the following thing is part of the design, but, there's only a handful selection of mob you can and SHOULD use the Thulecite Club against because movements and health really matter before you judge using the weapon for this ability, but even when you do, you're poorly rewarded and it could clearly become an interesting weapon in more general cases (especially crowds of mobs) if the 4 issues they have get fixed / tweaked.

Right now, it just feels like the weapon has a critical hit chance more than anything.

 

Bonus Movement Speed :

I'm not gonna trash on that because that actually helped me once. Yeah, that one first year where Mac Tusk decided to drop 0 tusk the whole season so we just decided to go ruins with my friend and make ourselves some bootleg canes. Meaning we didn't even use them as weapons...

But outside of that, I just want to clarify as someone who now has quite the background on fight, or at least, know how to swap between a weapon and cane (which is like the basics when you're really getting into the game) that this gimmicky perk of the item has no real advantages however you try to pull it into play compared to the other methods, so this should not justify the weaknesses of the other previous points just because you get speedboost.

I'd rather see this side ability scrapped or even make it slows you down (because that weapon IS in fact heavy as some character mention it) and make it the tank weapon the game never had.

 

It's been 8 years :

I want to finish on a neutral note mentioning that it is perfectly understandable the weapon is as it is judging it was once one of the most "complex", powerful, and rare item of the game, ruins was just getting added and Klei was probably looking at interesting things to add from Thulecite.
Today and a full new game after, about 10 times more content was released, in any domains, including combat who also got its lot of new items and mechanisms... the Thulecite Club is only overwhelmed by better alternative and increasing its durability by 50 wasn't enough.

So yeah, buffs, tunings, I don't ask for a complete rework but I'd love this item to be more frequently in our hands than it currently is.

[Hornete]

13 minutes ago, ADM said:

Thulecite Club's special ability is BUGGED or at least doesn't seems to work as intended judging by the scripts, I've seen that being reported some times by friends but if this isn't even a bug as it isn't fixed yet, it is at least terrible that Shadow Tentacles can only hit once

Do you have a video? This is interesting to me, I could of sworn I always observed shadow tentacles attacking twice.

(Just tested, looks fine to me, you can see the shadow tentacle hit twice)

Also, shadow tentacles can't spawn on water/boats which really stinks, I wanna use the Thulecite Club for Crab King to cancel his heals but I can't...

Edit: Also wanda buff with the Thulecite Club please? It's a shadow weapon is it not?

[Maxil20]

12 minutes ago, ADM said:

you'd expect this weapon gives you the change of what you paid for, you'll see in the following section that it does it badly but was it even expensive to begin with ?

The answer is quite simple: not at all, unless nightmare fuel shortages are common. Even if you consider a construction amulet, a thulecite club, at best, will do roughly ~15000 damage. Now while this sounds fine, you still need 2 living logs, 2 thulecite, and 2 nightmare fuel to make it. For comparison you can make 2 dark swords with those 2 logs (and also 10 nightmare fuel) and get exactly 13600 damage with them, while also making them portably. Considering that’s only ~10% worse then making a club, a significantly more expensive item, that is not a good trade.

The damage itself is alright, but my main issue is it just doesn’t have good durability. SW’s obsidian spear in particular was also a station exclusive craft, and had 375 uses. That’s a very respectable amount of durability to have, even for DST standards, much less DS ones. Raising the durability to 375 (and potentially even higher, but 375 seems like a good point) would help greatly with making the club seem like an intriguing lategame weapon you should go after. Alternatively they could make the weapon repairable like how Wanda’s alarming clock is, but I never saw the club as something that required refueling, just more durability.

[Thalkas]

Not gonna lie, I wasn't big fan of Thulecite Club. In Don't Starve this weapon was too exclusive to make, I mean you could make better stuff from thulecite than wasting limited material. In Don't Starve Together problem with thulecite was fixed by option to renewable but still this weapon was not enough good to be "#1". Why "the most strong" weapon isn't enough strong and good to be the best of best.

Hambat was and is the most cheap weapon with high damage output (~59.5 when fresh) at start and Dark Sword is "late game" cheap weapon with one of the biggest dmg output - only Cutlass from Shipwrecked and Wanda's Alarming Clock are better. For both are need stations to prebuild and next you can make them whenever you want as long as you have material for them.

Club has bigger durability but dmg is literally 1:1 to fresh Hambat, in theory shadow tentacles should make additional dmg BUT... they have small range to hit and could hit just twice with 34 dmg per hit. Also they have -40 sanity aura and 20% chance to spawn after hitting enemy. You need build it ALWAYS next to ancient station with not so really cheap recipe. I think they best in Club is this small speed boost but I'm pretty sure it isn't enough interesing advanteg to making rush ruins. When probably more than 50% of players never rushed ruins before first winter for having small speed boost from weapon for a while. Definitely I'm more want to wait to winter for kill McTusk and get better speed boost hand-slot-item.

To sum up all above pros and cons Club is just straight outdated. It needs or halfy or fully rework to make it more worthy to get in late game and make it more useful in "new" DS. By new I mean after ANR or RoT.

I think doing something with Shadow Tentacles and recipe could make Club more attractive. How about 3 hits than 2 hits, a bit bigger range with only -20 sanity drain (while wear Thulecit Crown or/and Armor 0%) and bigger chance to spawn? Why not giving bigger speed boost eg. 15% or 20% but including Walking Cane as part of recipe? Maybe special ability to have bigger dmg to moon-type enemies or synergy between Club and Thulecite Armor - anyways this armor also isn't enough good for now. Thulecite stuff need to take a look on them and gets rebalans to actualy gameplay because mostly they are just outdated!

[Ohan]

4 thulecite for only 200 hits really seems like too much.. 

when i play WW i like making use of recipes that require living logs for obvious reasons but the 4 whole thul has always held me back from switching over from dark swords to  clubs. 

Id love some rebalance of some kind on it. More durability, 2 thul instead of 4, more consistent shadow tentacles r interesting possibilties.

[DajeKotlyar]

To be honest, I want to see lunar club, from lunar rock. Lunar wall are so durable, so it's perfect for club. Moongleam can be used in recipe, to make it expensive.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

For it cost you would think that would be a 500 durability weapon with the higher damage but is mediocre. I only use it for toad or celestias when im not using morning star but just if i have an obscene amount of resources

Now that wanda came (why the hell it doesnt stack with wanda perk?) The weapon feels like a joke when compared with the alarming clock

 

Idk why klei did such underwhelming loot for the ruins. Remember that in DS we have the starcaller staff summoning stars that only last 30s... 

[ADM]

9 hours ago, Hornete said:

Oh well! Given it's mostly used on bosses, we only see the hit animation once so that's where the assumption come from, but smart you used the dummy for that, so that does increase the damage a bit nicely. However, there's still all that time the tentacle does nothing after, right? I wouldn't find that so busted if the tentacles could keep attacking, switch targets and had more of the previous recommendations replacing their taunting time.

[Well-met]

perhaps simply decrease the laughably expensive recipe?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

5 minutes ago, Well-met said:

perhaps simply decrease the laughably expensive recipe?

exactly. The recipe using a green amulet isnt bad but you are wasting green gems so it could be a similar recipe than the halfed version so it will be fair and, if you want it being even cheaper, you can use green amulet

but being forced to use a green amulet in early to dont waste 4 living logs is absurd, with that you can make 4 dark swords which has more dps guaranted

[Baark0]

The person who mentioned obsidian spear didnt mention that the spear gains damage the more you use it, allowing it to get like 102 which really helped make the weapon good, plus it only costs obsidian, a dragoon heart, and a spear. The clubs main competitor is the dark sword since they both cost nm fuel and living logs, meaning in order for the club to compete, it's recipe needs a touch up. I believe making the club cost 1 living log would be a good place to start, along with maybe a thulecite reduction to 3 or even 2. Should the recipe remain the same, a durability increase to 300 or even 350 would be required so that it's more living log efficient than dark swords in exchange for costing other resources.

Really one of the best changes the club could get would be the ability to craft it outside of the ruins. If glass cutters didnt cost a board to craft, they would've been much more used weapons after CC dies, but even with the board cost, thanks to bearger's existence, cutters are honestly a pretty good late game weapon if you dont like dark swords living log cost/beefalo, especially if you carry chester around with you anyways since you can use the orb as a marker for him as well.

[Phizzle]

11 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Now that wanda came (why the hell it doesnt stack with wanda perk?) The weapon feels like a joke when compared with the alarming clock

They could change it but...would you really use the club over the alarming clock? 

20 hours ago, ADM said:

It's been 8 years

I think op has the best point right here. The thing is, Klei has repeatedly outdone themselves over 8 years with awesome new content to the game, but now some of the older stuff needs tuning, like the thulecite club.

I'm hoping that's what we see in the next update.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Phizzle said:

They could change it but...would you really use the club over the alarming clock? 

 

good point

[Owlrust]

I would use it more if it were an AoE weapon. Don't have many of those, and it would certainly set this weapon apart from other comparable ones.

[ADM]

1 hour ago, Phizzle said:

They could change it but...would you really use the club over the alarming clock? 

You know what... maybe, let's say this could be at least interesting if the buff from Wanda was done the smart way, like, giving the tentacles extra damages as well as few other things from before, for example what @Owlrus mentions which I think is just brilliant, that weapon definitively looks like it would bash the hell out of a swarm of spider in a swing.

Edit : I only meant extra damages from tentacles when it comes to Wanda, rest would be for anyone

[Nettalie]

I actually used a few thulecite clubs since the tiny durability buff they received and using them was definitely fine for me.

It's the crafting recipe that mainly killed me.

Though I do wanna say that the tentacles in my opinion should at the very least deal aoe damage so as to give it some utility for crowd control as well as just generally giving that perk a leg up, as much as I liked using the weapon I pretty much never used it for the tentacles' damage due to it both being based on rng whether or not there will even be a tentacle and a lot of mobs just moving out of the way most of the time anyways.

And since now Wanda released and she is probably the best dst style character made so far, meaning I play her all the time, I stopped using them again.

Like said plenty of times already, the club being considered a shadow weapon would give incentive to actually use it over the alarming clock as Wanda, especially if the tentacles receive the damage benefit as well.
It'd still be fairly expensive to use on a regular basis compared to the alarming clock (The initial cost of the clock may require more nightmarefuel than the clubs, but clubs still eat through your living log supply really quickly and have to be crafted anew for each club made, while the alarming clock is a one time craft)

In my opinion a bunch of ruins items do suffer a fair bit from "old" design, I'm not as big of a fan of most of them unlike many others despite them providing unique benefits. However the thulecite club is definitely still the one in most need of an upgrade in my eyes.
Especially since the reason I had been using it more in the first place was, besides the durability buff, using anenemies to have the ruins cleared without basically any effort. Would it not be for anenemies I would probably use the ancient items a whole lot less as a whole.

[Cheggf]

Club is a sidegrade to the dark sword, but a sidegrade that requires going all the way down into the ruins as opposed to making them anywhere you want is a bit annoying. I think it just needs more durability or the ability to be repaired. If it could be repaired with thulecite it'd be a really convenient weapon to carry around, and now Wanda has set the precedent. 

[ShadowDuelist]

I'm more up to an "expensive but worth it" weapon.

I'd keep it's high cost, but reward crafting them with a mix of some of the ideas I've read:
 

• Durability: 375 durability sounds like a good starting point. But not "only" that change, since keeping living logs and fuel on you gives you an infinite amount of dark sword usage. A higher durability will just make it more convenient in the long run, but only if paired with other boosts.
• AOE: It's true we don't have many AOE weapons, perhaps instead of a swing with AOE this effect could be achieved by improving the mini tentacles
• Shadow tentacles: These could act as tiny sentries that last longer, seek out new enemies after the one they got spawned for is no longer within range or died, and maybe attracted attention. It would be more area denial than AOE. A spawn chance increase would be appreciated too.

[Rafi.]

I like it as a bootleg cane, if they made changes to the weapon, I just want the speed boost to be kept, it's very nice to have that speedboost very early on, paired with a magiluminescence it's basically top tier gear for the first autumn, the utility of this weapon is very nice, but for fighting, It's not that good, the tentacles are not working well, and it's basically a buffed spear, which is just not a weapon with that kind of cost should be, atleast that's what I think.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i think that if the dark sword costs 1 log and 5 fuel the club should cost 2 or 1 log 2 thulecite and 5 fuel or something like that. But if they wanna keep their expensive recipe then it should get a lot more durability, like 400 to make it a wished choice

[thua4]

yeah agree totally. Just fixing the shadow tentacle to act like those spawned from walter's cursed round range attack then it's pretty much what everyone always wanted without debating more on how to tweak this very potential items.

[W0l0l0]

Why bother with all the fuss when the club does almost nothing that the Dark Sword can't do? That's why I think:

On 10/3/2021 at 11:14 PM, ShadowDuelist said:

AOE: It's true we don't have many AOE weapons, perhaps instead of a swing with AOE this effect could be achieved by improving the mini tentacles

something like this would pull it further from direct competition with the Dark Sword, and give it its own niche, similar to the Weather Pain.

Otherwise I don't see the point in another magic weapon that does a lot of damage in only a slightly different way, whilst struggling to keep both relevant.