Wickerbottom On Tentacles ruined

[bumpa]

I play Wickerbottom and use On Tentacles to kill BeeQueen early in the game. So like, 5 books, spam, gain sanity, done. Now nightmare creatures spawn every time she reads when insane. I get it, her books are powerful and Bee Queen is a strong enemy. I would even understand if there was an argument that this method was too easy. But now this method is unplayable. Wicker's books help in the late game and the sanity penalty at that point can be negated by the Bone Helm. It makes sense (nobody spamming birds early in the game for krampus sacks, or using lure plant farms). Somehow I feel like On Tentacles was missed. Why would I use On Tentacles in the late game like, ever? There are better alternatives for it late game that don't kill you. Why would I set up a tentacle trap for Bee Queen after I get the Bone Helm? I would've already fought the bee queen solo. The book is such a waste now. 

In my opinion it needs a buff to justify its usage. Maybe more tentacles. Or tentacles that don't attack you. Or less sanity drain. Personally, I think it is a book meant for early game (considering its inefficiency), so as of right now this rework makes it pretty annoying to use practically. 

[Frosty_Mentos]

Killing nightmares never was too difficult if there's only like a couple, bone helmet will remove this issue later in game as you mention.
If you're Maxwell, well... It's not as swell for Maxwell.
I never had the issue though to restock tenticles at bq tho. it's been simple enough and we always got it filled.
The book can't even wasted cause of the bookcase regenerating them, so can redo as many times as you want.
Wicker rework only made the book way stronger due to not needing to farm for mats anymore and stored in a huge storage for it basically resulting in infinite uses.
Maybe it's just on my side that I've had no issues with it, cause it can be literally made any time of year and prep BQ for blending. 
If really needed ya should get some Bernies to help you deal with nightmares :3

[Rylanor]

Just stockpile cooked green mushrooms/cactus flesh, it was understandable that On Tentacles would be nerfed with rework, though it was indirect nerf

[HeatAndRun]

I farm mass amount of tentacle spikes and monster meat using on tentacles. You can build a huge amount of bunnyman hutch and read the book in the middle of the bunnymen, or even kill the tentacles yourself with the grumble bees from apiculture note. Or you can delete a beefalo herd easily by reading the book next of them. The book is still useful I guess.

[Captain_Rage]

Wickerbottom players have been too reliant on killing bosses like the Bee Queen using one book that does everything for them so they have never taken the time to try to eat cooked cactus flesh (?).

[Parusoid]

There is so many wrong assumptions you made in this post its crazy. Book has never been better and now its even a viable method of killing hound waves thanks to arachnophobia book that slow down enemies just enough for them to get aggroed by tentacles

[Ohan]

11 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Wickerbottom players have been too reliant on killing bosses like the Bee Queen using one book that does everything for them so they have never taken the time to try to eat cooked cactus flesh (?).

Do you know how many cooked cactus flesh it takes to setup a BQ trap without having to fight nightmares after each read? 

[Captain_Rage]

9 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Do you know how many cooked cactus flesh it takes to setup a BQ trap without having to fight nightmares after each read? 

Nope. Do you know how ridiculously easy cooked cactus flesh is to obtain? You can get over 40 cactus flesh in a day and they regrow every 3.75 days and stay fresh for maaany days.

[Ohan]

Just now, Captain_Rage said:

Nope

Okay. Thanks for your input though 

[Ohan]

anyway, its still possible but the setup has just become more costly especially if u want to ‘rush’ it. Starting from the fact that u need a bookcase now instead of alchemy engine to unlock it, pays off in the long run but makes rushing more complicated. 

How many cata’s does nona need to rush it? Like 6 and a marble suit and hambat? Idk. If so tentacle trap is more costly i think. Or perhaps theyre comparable in terms of resources required i dont play nona. But sourcing tentacle spots and setting up the trap obviously remains much more dangerous than collecting rocks and nitre. 

Its probably comparable in cost/time required to wolf with panflutes (if u factor in the decon staff needed to reset the flutes) but almost definitely costlier than wendy on or off a boat i think. 

4 tentacles per read instead of 3 would make a huge difference. In theory it would reduce the number of required reads from 25 to 18 if i did the math correctly.
So 4 books instead of 5. 

594 total sanity required instead of 825, on paper cuz thats not factoring in the massive sanity drain u’ll suffer as ur reading in the middle of ur trap. Ive done it a few times now and i needed 990 sanity if i didnt want to fight any nightmares. And even that much sanity food still left me insane after the the trap was completed. 

— 

I dont think the book is ruined exactly, the initial setup for BQ is just more expensive which is an obvious result of the new nightmare spawning downside so its not really a shocker. /shrug 

[Bumber64]

Don't you just need 2 3 cooked cacti to turn shadows non-hostile?

Banana shakes/pops are also an option, since you can mass produce those with Horticulture. Don't even need to go insane, and less than 2 per tentacle read.

[NawiQ]

Ever heard of sanity healing food?

[Terra_Zina]

Oh no, now Wickerbottom players will have to learn how to fight the bee queen like the rest of us!

I'd say good heavens, no more Wickerbottoms running around with queen helms day 15 while there are 5 ghosts on the server because people keep reaching for the honey and get caught by the trap.

[Ohan]

31 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Don't you just need 2 3 cooked cacti to turn shadows non-hostile between each read?

More like 3.5-4. Wicker has higher max sanity so she remains insane for longer than wilson, u dont want naturally spawned nightmares running up at u either while ur reading, u dont want to move once uve found the safe spot. So its best to overshoot the threshold than risk natural nightmare spawning, they still frequently come to bite u even if ur raise ur sanity after theyve spawned. 

Cuz depending on how flawlessly u can execute the reading, u will need even more. By this i mean if u spend too much time finding the precise safe center of ur trap or if u have to move cuz of unlucky tent spawn (it can happen even with 8x8 walls) or nightmares, your sanity will be drained to hell by the dozens of tentacles surrounding you.

like i mentioned above ive done it a few times now without having to move at all and i needed 30 Salsa Frescas which would be 66 cooked cactus flesh but probably more accounting for the fact that u have to spend twice as long eating them and thus having more sanity drained. And i was still left insane after the trap was completed. 

16 minutes ago, Terra_Zina said:

Oh no, now Wickerbottom players will have to learn how to fight the bee queen like the rest of us!

I'd say good heavens, no more Wickerbottoms running around with queen helms day 15 while there are 5 ghosts on the server because people keep reaching for the honey and get caught by the trap.

Why the bitterness? and who exactly is “us”? Wicker is not the only survivor who has perks for fighting BQ. Have u not seen wendy or wolf or nona in action perhaps? 

Any survivor other than probably wes or walter can kill bq in 15 days including new wicker 

[Gi-Go]

Not really, no. Just use spider book 

[ShadowDuelist]

I still do the tentacle system. It is a bit more expensive and slower, it used to take 5 books only, now it takes 7 and a bookcase, and once you reach 0 sanity you need to outrun your extra shadows (so having an early game beefalo makes a lot more sense). 

On the bright side those same 7 books can be re-used for as many traps as you want, and the extra spots you get over time can be used for anything else.

I still made one on day 20 so it’s not impossible, just a bit harder, but it pays off In the long run.

And yes, rushing catapults as winona is probably a faster and cheaper BQ cheese now, but I don’t mind really, since I use Wickerbottom for many other things besides that. Let’s not forget that Wendy exists and she can kill BQ with nearly no effort on day 5, so it doesn’t matter really.

[Antynomity]

5 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Wickerbottom players have been too reliant on killing bosses like the Bee Queen using one book that does everything for them so they have never taken the time to try to eat cooked cactus flesh (?).

it's too hard  

[Well-met]

ridiculous complaint

[Gashzer]

I feel like these are alt accounts, bumpa made an account just to write this one complaint, Escripid as well is just an account made to post 2 complaints then slither off into silence... both these people are giving me alt account vibes lol

Come on lads, use your main steam-linked account like the rest of us! Haha

[Prinha]

I don't understand this topic. I am using tentacle traps to kill both Bee Queen aswell as Dragonfly, whenever I want to. Bee Queen was the very first thing I setup after settling on a base spot. 

It is true, getting enough sanity foods to never fight shadowcreatures is very costly and I can't recommend it for the early game. Instead I just fought the shadows and farmed nightmare fuel at the same time. When on 0 sanity, I did 2 readings, killed the shadows, then did another 2 readings. I have no way to compare "speed" here, but can't imagine that it took me more than 1-2 days longer to setup the trap. I don't see how this is an issue outside of speedruns.

Now that I'm in the latergame, I have bookcases at the traps themselves and even though I'm drowning in Jelly Salad, I still prefer to kill the shadows. It doesn't take long and is pretty much the best source of nightmare fuel outside of the ruins. While it is possible to spawn more than 2 shadowcreatures, they also despawn quickly. Imo they behave more like the nightmares from fissures than the usual insanity spawn.

And about the usefulness of the tentacle trap? Well, Bee Queen dies on average in about 4 minutes and I sometimes lose 1-2 tentacles, Dfly can be a bit trickier. I had stupid stuff happen like her enrage jump destroying my walls and larvae messing up the entire fight, etc. But I'm not usually losing any tentacles here at all. Over time I have spammed the area until I couldn't find a spot to spawn more tentacles. All of this with the very first 7 books that I crafted. 

Compared to my experiences killing Bee Queen or Dragonfly in more conventional ways, this one is just beyond efficient and unusually fast, too. I only have to stock up on lazy foragers occasionally.

If playing solo then the cost for the shelf is not a big deal. If playing with others LL are more contested of course. At the same time, anyone can use a tentacle setup, so that an entire server can farm these bosses on cooldown. Surely that's worth 2 living logs.

I only setup catapults for Bee Queen once. I'm not convinced that this is better at all. The fight is definately slower, I think you can't just hide in a bush hat either, since BQ is going to destroy the catapults, then. But it is a safer setup and route, which requires a lot less fighting, especially when aquiring the ressources. Overall, I think Winona pretty much only has her catapults and speedcrafting, while Wickerbottom has tentacle farms, feather/krampus farms, control over rain and by extension over spring and summer aswell as massfarming of basic ressources. Her other books are not useless either.

[Gashzer]

28 minutes ago, Prinha said:

I only setup catapults for Bee Queen once. I'm not convinced that this is better at all. The fight is definately slower, I think you can't just hide in a bush hat either, since BQ is going to destroy the catapults, then. But it is a safer setup and route, which requires a lot less fighting, especially when aquiring the ressources. Overall, I think Winona pretty much only has her catapults and speedcrafting, while Wickerbottom has tentacle farms, feather/krampus farms, control over rain and by extension over spring and summer aswell as massfarming of basic ressources. Her other books are not useless either.

Wickerbottom does have much more high end utility than Winona but winona is much better for combat than Wickerbottom tho, catapults are far stronger an more reliable for all sorts of combat situations than either grumble bees or tentacles. Catapults are great for ancient fuelweaver, toadstool, bee queen, dfly,  crab king and general mob farms. Don't have to worry about tentacles accidentally stun locking you and murdering you and can actually fight alongside the catapults (Which is abit more fun and engaging than watching tentacles do all the work).

 

[Guille6785]

5 hours ago, Terra_Zina said:

I'd say good heavens, no more Wickerbottoms running around with queen helms day 15 while there are 5 ghosts on the server because people keep reaching for the honey and get caught by the trap.

this has literally never happened

[Prinha]

59 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Wickerbottom does have much more high end utility than Winona but winona is much better for combat than Wickerbottom tho, catapults are far stronger an more reliable for all sorts of combat situations than either grumble bees or tentacles. Catapults are great for ancient fuelweaver, toadstool, bee queen, dfly,  crab king and general mob farms. Don't have to worry about tentacles accidentally stun locking you and murdering you and can actually fight alongside the catapults (Which is abit more fun and engaging than watching tentacles do all the work).

 

Yes, you are absolutely right about this. Winona's catapults are much more versatile and easier to use in many different situations, than tentacles. I compared the Bee Queen fight specifically, but then mentioned all these other things that Wicker can do. Sorry for getting carried away a little bit. (It's because I did not enjoy my solo Winona world very much, but I love my current Wicker one).

[Mysterious box]

Might I recommend dried kelp as your sanity snack of choice relocatable to your base grows every 3 days and only takes 2 minutes to dry.

27 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

this has literally never happened

yes...never...gotta clean up those Wilson bones...

[abrocator]

Isn’t On Tentacles + pan flute the best way to farm the Twins? You earn back the panflute (deconstruction) with the green gem.