Is Wanda a good character to improve or learn in DST?

[SamTheWarHammer]

I know that other characters can be good for those just learning the game, like Wilson, but I'm more referring to players who are familiar with the game, but want to get better, to finally beat a particular boss, to kill a certain boss without cheese, to successfully rush the ruins in the first autumn, or to get to the endgame for the first time.

I don't hold these ideas too closely, this is more of a way to see other people's feedback and take on these things. This is mostly just from my own experience when playing as Wanda. I've found that, personally, playing as Wanda prompts me to take on bosses and challenges I generally wouldn't.

Is Wanda a good character for those trying to improve at DST?

I think she might be for a few reasons.

1. Her high-damage weapon helps reduce time in fights, leading to less grinding. Giving the player this bonus, they still have to learn the boss or mob they're fighting, but there's less time itself, and therefore less of the overall stress of combat.

2. The Alarming Clock has extra range, making killing nightmare creatures way easier. This potentially allows for more comfort when learning to get used to insanity, and to use its bonuses.

3. The high-risk, high-reward aspect of her aging mechanic and dark magic usage allows for players to start at one end of the safety spectrum, and work their way to the other at their own pace (like deciding to start a fight as middle-aged Wanda instead of as old Wanda).

4. The Alarming Clock has "infinite" durability, leading to less aspects to worry about in a fight. One less thing to pay attention to may be welcomed by those not quite used to having to multitask as much. Of course, you still have to refuel the clock, but that's less of a hassle than taking 4 dark swords into a fight, and much less expensive (the Ham Bat, I will admit, is even easier to manage than a weapon you need to refuel).

5. The increased risk to taking damage encourages kiting, as opposed to tanking. The more skill-oriented aspect of the first is honed fighting as Wanda, where mistakes are potentially more costly (depending on armor, age, etcetera).

6. The Alarming Clock isn't mandatory. If someone wants the challenge, they can easily switch to Dark Swords, Ham Bats, or alternative weapons. I wouldn't personally, but hey, it's an option.

7. The ability to teleport to key locations helps with some of the real-time grind, and mitigates the risk of dumb stuff when traveling between point A and point B. More time can then be spent on real challenges.

8. This one's kind of out there, but the fact that your effective health is always ticking down encourages the player to pay attention to their stats. This is an elementary principle, but still can lead to some embarrassing deaths if you don't. This point kind of contradicts the nature of point 4, but oh well.

 

Anyway, just my rant. Thought I'd post something to the forums at least once.

[Dextops]

I think a good learning character is Walter imo not because he’s easy for new players but you can either take the easy way out and spend a lot more time and resources to do something without any risk of damage or force yourself to learn how to kite and git gud 

As for Wanda I think a trouble she has for beginners is instead of making the players better she will make players reliant on her instead because once you get attached to something easy a character has you can have trouble moving to other characters 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i think warly is the best character to learn everything in dst.

Can benefit of most food sources unlike others like wurt, wanda, wormwood, etc, so all the content arround food will be worth in one way or another (for example wanda only teach you to farm beeboxes and eat meat stews/bacon and eggs

Gets punished hard if you dont prepare well your food in a travel, force you to know how to kite/know the best healing foods, hard time maning sanity

has mechanic arround veggies so you can learn how to farm. Again, there is characters that gets very few benefits from these

doest have any mechanic that totally change the game. Unlike wendy, woodie, wanda, weeber, etc his playstyle is very similar to a default character so everything you do as warly can be done with others with the exception of the time and resources saved with volt goat jelly and the spices, the tactics can be reproduce by wilson

edit: but if we talk about being new and get experience then i would recommend willow, wilson, wigfrid, wx or any almost default character to learn for the same reasons as warly but for a not so experience player warly can be a pain so better take the other easier alternatives

[Dextops]

3 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i think warly is the best character to learn everything in dst.

Can benefit of most food sources unlike others like wurt, wanda, wormwood, etc, so all the content arround food will be worth in one way or another (for example wanda only teach you to farm beeboxes and eat meat stews/bacon and eggs

Gets punished hard if you dont prepare well your food in a travel, force you to know how to kite/know the best healing foods, hard time maning sanity

has mechanic arround veggies so you can learn how to farm. Again, there is characters that gets very few benefits from these

doest have any mechanic that totally change the game. Unlike wendy, woodie, wanda, weeber, etc his playstyle is very similar to a default character so everything you do as warly can be done with others with the exception of the time and resources saved with volt goat jelly and the spices, the tactics can be reproduce by wilson

edit: but if we talk about being new and get experience then i would recommend willow, wilson, wigfrid, wx or any almost default character to learn for the same reasons as warly but for a not so experience player warly can be a pain so better take the other easier alternatives

I don’t feel like limiting players is a good character to teach them with in my thought process this is a person with less then 50 hours in the game giving them a character who has hard downsides and niche upsides doesn’t help them learn well

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, Dextops said:

I don’t feel like limiting players is a good character to teach them with in my thought process this is a person with less then 50 hours in the game giving them a character who has hard downsides and niche upsides doesn’t help them learn well

i edited it because for some reason my brain went to "mastering the game" instead of learning how to beat the whole game

you are totally right with that

[Yuuko]

idk - I definitely feel like using her advantages, which includes using her high damage to fight enemies "legit."  But its not like she's Wolfgang, and I'm not some ytuber trying to show off my l33t strats running down AG lol.  I still cheese AG, the fight just isn't worth actually playing.  Klaus is MORE cheesable with Wanda's weapon - and b/c fire and cold are very punishing for her, I feel its appropriate to ko him without allowing him to attack or cast.  Other bosses are good for standard fighting with backstep watch, or normal kiting.

I did this thing with Wanda too

Spoiler

"  

I don't know if I would call it "learning" though.  I already knew how to play the game, she just gave me incentive to play it differently.  idk if I'd recommend anyone else play Wanda to learn the game...  But if you're like me, and avoid Wolfgang b/c he's just too much, Wanda at least gives you some risk to go with your reward.

[ShadowDuelist]

Honestly I don’t know.

The way you play with her is quite different from all the other characters. I’m sure you can learn the game with her, but then any other character will be an alien to you: you won’t learn healing food recipes, the distance at which you will kite will be messed up, the amount of hits required to kill enemies you will incorporate will not match most characters, etc…

I’d try to learn the game as Maxwell instead, if I wanted a bit of challenge with a character that resembles Wanda in some aspects (can’t get hit much, is a heavy dark fuel user) but overall is not so different that most characters. Then after learning Maxwell maybe move to Wanda. 

 

[HowlVoid]

It greatly depends on what you want to improve and your outlook at how that character has helped you improve. 

Wendy can ultimately end up holding your hand and lead to some bad habits, but she can help someone wanting to explore the ruins by minimizing some dangers. It can be hard to improve your ruins clearing strats if you never live long enough to get used to it. Everyone is scared of the constant shifting nature of the ruins but after visiting so many times it becomes like any other biome.

Someone may have a different opinion on whether or not Abigail is holding your hand since you also need to manage her. That's what I mean by it also depends on your outlook.

Wormwood can help you rely less on food and not to trade blows with mobs so much. All of wormwood's available healing either involves drawbacks, its low in terms of the healing it provides, or its over time. 

What's most important, imo, is using a character you enjoy to play the game. Although this sounds cheesy it is very true. The more you enjoy a character, the more you're willing to improve at utilizing their kit, and the more the game opens up to you due to a higher proficiency in using that character to do what you want to do. This is why the concept of a "main" exists. 

Sounds to me like your greatly enjoying Wanda, so yeah, she'll help you improve at what you want to do with her.

[GetNerfedOn]

In my opinion, wanda opens players up to a great deal of risk in her playstyle, requires a great deal of unique gameplay to master, and removes an entire section of resources from her.

First, while one can say they can just coast by the entire game on young or middle age Wanda during fights, its honestly easier to die given you only have one source of healing and your health drains even when you're not in combat. A completely new player would.more than likely be overwhelmed managing Wanda's health, let alone understand its finer details quickly.

Second, her playstyle, apart from being potentially difficult to fully understand and master requires one to work outside the bounds of what other characters and playstyles can perform. Her Alarming clock requires different spacing from the majority of melee weapons, her unquie health-damage boost notwithstanding. Her Backstep and Backtrek watches require timing for the former, and memory for the latter to be used effectively. Having to learn the ins and outs of her kit along with survival essentials (e.g. basebuilding, cooking, food gathering, seasonal management, hound wave disposal, to name a few) can be taxing, and does not translate over to when you have to play other characters.

Third, Wanda's health mechanic prevents her from using very common heals. This may leave players further in the dark as to what healing options they can use whether if they switch to another character or whether they can use them tonhelp their team.

Overall, Wanda requires a good grasp of fundamental gameplay and a high skill level to play effectively. Therefore, new players are more than likely to have difficulty learning the game with her.

[SamTheWarHammer]

Edit: I probably should've clarified that I was mainly referring to more intermediate players, not those just learning. I was kind of basing my post on the assumption that the player had a fundamental understanding of the game and a good deal of experience, but hadn't yet become fully comfortable with the late to end game content.

 

I appreciate all of the feedback! It's been good to get other people's perspectives and take on the topic.

[Dextops]

1 hour ago, SamTheWarHammer said:

Edit: I probably should've clarified that I was mainly referring to more intermediate players, not those just learning. I was kind of basing my post on the assumption that the player had a fundamental understanding of the game and a good deal of experience, but hadn't yet become fully comfortable with the late to end game content.

 

I appreciate all of the feedback! It's been good to get other people's perspectives and take on the topic.

I still think Walter would be a better character because Walter teaches you to kite and then with that skill you can go low health on Wanda and get better at combat and Walter allows for players to explore the map faster allowing for them to be able to experience more faster 

[Scrimbles]

I dont think Wanda really encourages any type of learning thats important when playing other characters.

I could argue someone like Wormwood encourages players to find alternative methods of healing, since food are some of the easiest and most efficient ways to heal. When playing wormwood you can appreciate the value of alternative healing more.

Wandas health mechanic is entirely useful to herself, I would say nothing about her teaches you much about the games mechanics, no more than any other character.

I could argue she might be a negative crutch character like Wendy, where you dont have to learn a lot of kiting patterns , and dont have to play as smart, due to the Alarming Clock / Abigail. Thats fine as a perk, but can encourage negative pattern learning.

[Mike23Ua]

5 minutes ago, Scrimbles said:

I dont think Wanda really encourages any type of learning thats important when playing other characters.

I could argue someone like Wormwood encourages players to find alternative methods of healing, since food are some of the easiest and most efficient ways to heal. When playing wormwood you can appreciate the value of alternative healing more.

Wandas health mechanic is entirely useful to herself, I would say nothing about her teaches you much about the games mechanics, no more than any other character.

I could argue she might be a negative crutch character like Wendy, where you dont have to learn a lot of kiting patterns , and dont have to play as smart, due to the Alarming Clock / Abigail. Thats fine as a perk, but can encourage negative pattern learning.

Each character teaches you SOMETHING- either through actual gameplay or through their inspection quotes: if your not looking everything up on Wiki you learn through how the character plays or through their inspection quotes- Wendy actually teaches you (and very early in..) importance behind flowers, silk, and learning the behavior of enemy mobs without dying to them. Wanda will teach players to rely on Shadow Magic which I believe was the concept behind her entire design seeing as she deals Bonus damage with all shadow weapons..

(Aka it teaches someone who isn’t an expert and hasn’t played the game a lot how to become more comfortable with Darkswords for example..)

Each character has “niche” a roll they need to fulfill, and teach you *something* even everyone’s controversial fish girl teaches players how to NOT rely upon pig king and seek out other methods of gold.

But as far as Wanda being a character to help teach you the game? Absolutely not.. she’s a character you need at least SOME experience with first otherwise: Imagine having NEVER played DST and joining a server in Winter-

In addition to freezing because you have no idea how to create anything to survive with, your health is constantly draining away faster then normal freezing.

Shes fun to play as don’t get me wrong, but you need to have a moderate amount of basic knowledge with the game first otherwise she’s just gonna be hell to play.

[Guihhza]

39 minutes ago, Scrimbles said:

I dont think Wanda really encourages any type of learning thats important when playing other characters.

I disagree with that.
Changing to another character after a few weeks of only playing Wanda made me realize how unforgiving her age mechanic really is when fighting some enemies.
Everytime I started a serious fight I had to make sure I was prepared for anything that could go wrong, would it be the cold? or the heat? maybe the rain? thats because if I was freezing, overheating, had my clock slip or 2 terrorbeaks chasing me, I would not be able to heal whatsoever because they'd cancel it, leaving my watch on a cooldown and me at death's door and unlike most others, I couldn't carry a stack of healing food/jellybeans to tank through the adversities.
So in my opinion Wanda teaches the player to not rely on the regular brute force healing and be more careful with when you pick your fights.

[Scrimbles]

1 hour ago, Guihhza said:

I disagree with that.
Changing to another character after a few weeks of only playing Wanda made me realize how unforgiving her age mechanic really is when fighting some enemies.
Everytime I started a serious fight I had to make sure I was prepared for anything that could go wrong, would it be the cold? or the heat? maybe the rain? thats because if I was freezing, overheating, had my clock slip or 2 terrorbeaks chasing me, I would not be able to heal whatsoever because they'd cancel it, leaving my watch on a cooldown and me at death's door and unlike most others, I couldn't carry a stack of healing food/jellybeans to tank through the adversities.
So in my opinion Wanda teaches the player to not rely on the regular brute force healing and be more careful with when you pick your fights.

But healing is always important, and she teaches that her only source of healing exclusive to herself is the most important.

Its the same thing as if you wete playing Wes or Maxwell, health is more important when you have less of it. Its not really a unique lesson though 

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, Scrimbles said:

But healing is always important, and she teaches that her only source of healing exclusive to herself is the most important.

Its the same thing as if you wete playing Wes or Maxwell, health is more important when you have less of it. Its not really a unique lesson though 

But it does teach you to play without relying on stacks of healing foods.  You can tank through and heal through, and if that's your MO is to stack up perogies / trail mix, craft some marble suits and tank through dfly then Wanda forces you to learn how to dodge and kite - although she does also provide a crutch that makes the fight a little easier, she also forces you to play without taking that damage.

I think that's what the OP was going for - not that she is good for a new player to learn the game, but that she can help introduce you to elements of the game you might have been shy of because 1) instant teleporting, 2) unlimited minor healing, 3) strong damage, 4) good range help you out, but 1) fragile, 2) restricted healing, 3) more rare materials required push you.

[Scrimbles]

3 hours ago, Shosuko said:

But it does teach you to play without relying on stacks of healing foods.  You can tank through and heal through, and if that's your MO is to stack up perogies / trail mix, craft some marble suits and tank through dfly then Wanda forces you to learn how to dodge and kite - although she does also provide a crutch that makes the fight a little easier, she also forces you to play without taking that damage.

I think that's what the OP was going for - not that she is good for a new player to learn the game, but that she can help introduce you to elements of the game you might have been shy of because 1) instant teleporting, 2) unlimited minor healing, 3) strong damage, 4) good range help you out, but 1) fragile, 2) restricted healing, 3) more rare materials required push you.

It doesn't encourage you to find other universal alternatives, 'taking damage is bad' is a universal lesson, and unlike Wormwood, Wanda doesn't encourage you to find other ways to heal that are applicable to the rest of the cast.

Wanda doesn't force you to dodge and kite any more or less than any other character.

Wanda doesn't help teach any lessons through her mechanics and dynamics, the closest thing is treating health like its precious, but several characters do the same thing, and that isn't a very helpful learning experience in itself.

[Yuuko]

9 hours ago, Scrimbles said:

It doesn't encourage you to find other universal alternatives, 'taking damage is bad' is a universal lesson, and unlike Wormwood, Wanda doesn't encourage you to find other ways to heal that are applicable to the rest of the cast.

Wanda doesn't force you to dodge and kite any more or less than any other character.

Wanda doesn't help teach any lessons through her mechanics and dynamics, the closest thing is treating health like its precious, but several characters do the same thing, and that isn't a very helpful learning experience in itself.

The amount of people I see say the way to take out dfly is to craft marble armors, stacks of perogie, and tank through it would beg to differ...

No one is saying "Wanda is uniquely suited to teach you stupid things about DST" what the OP is sayin is that since Wanda can't spam heal, you must play in a way that doesn't rely on it, but that she does have a continuous trickle of heal so you can venture to areas that are risky for you, yet not sudden death.

Also - you can play Wanda young, utilizing her continuous trickle of heal, and use the exact same kiting anyone else would.  I find 2 watches is plenty for dfly and bee queen.  I do use the backstep on dfly to avoid the first hit, but after that its all kiting whether I'm using a ham bat or an alarming clock.