PROJECT: Character synergy mapping

[HellHeater]

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I wonder why Wanda?
Wanda is not a better explorer than Wilson in the first 20 days, generally speaking. She may have a ruins fighting advantage due to her high damage, but so does Wolfgang (with more hp available and more healing options). WX is a better early game ruins explorer in a strict sense (permanent nightvision, cane speed before canes, gears healing.)

i chose wanda because rushing ruins benefits her more than any other character also not having to grind for healing foods

[loopuleasa]

2 hours ago, MA7xGE said:

I thought Walter riding on Woby is the best at carrying statues.

not talking about shadow pieces statues, talking about construction path blocking statues

[Guille6785]

9 hours ago, HellHeater said:

wanda + woodie + wortox

these 3 characters can explore all 3 main areas in the entire game in first 20 days

have you heard of any character + a beefalo

[Evelo]

I don't understand. Why isn't everything green?

[HellHeater]

8 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

have you heard of any character + a beefalo

have you heard of any beefalo + waste of time first 20 days

[Dextops]

7 hours ago, HellHeater said:

have you heard of any beefalo + waste of time first 20 days

Cause as we all know, you can ONLY take a beefalo and do nothing else at the same time, the beefalo can also never be ridden until it is fully domesticated 

[Gashzer]

13 minutes ago, Dextops said:

Cause as we all know, you can ONLY take a beefalo and do nothing else at the same time, the beefalo can also never be ridden until it is fully domesticated 

Yeah but are you going to ruin rush first autumn on a semi-tamed beefalo? Getting bucked off as a clockwork rook murders your wee beef? Walter can have the beefalo speed without the worry of woby dying. Everyone blue cap spams during a ruins rush anyway so the going insane on hit doesn't even effect Walter outside of boss fights usually.

Thats why i hate the whole "Walter benefits from training a beefalo".... its like no... the whole point of woby is have beefalo speed and utility without the tedious taming. If you are gonna tame a beefalo, don't play Walter lol. Pinecone hat + body armour + player skill does a good job of negating his downside for bosses.

[loopuleasa]

wanda + wicker

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i though the topic was about sinergies not to discuss what is the most mEtA strategy

[Gashzer]

Willow and Winona:

• Winonas trusty tape is awesome for repairing bernie.
• Willow can use bernie to herd mobs like spiders, pigs or whatever to catapults for easy mob farming.
• Willows can farm nightmare creatures with bernie easily, something catapults can't do.... both Winona and Willow together can farm all mobs with ease.
• Willow can cook raw meat on the go for Winona to eat. Saving abit of time if exploring together.

Willow and Walter:

• Both characters are great at a nomadic non-base playstyle, willows lighter allows them both to cook on the go!
• Walters camper tent is good for Willow to gain sanity back to revert bernie to small form while on the go.
• Both characters excel at cave exploration and basing. Perfect duo for a hidden cave base on a klei pub "wink wink".
• Walter doesn't lose sanity in dark and Willow can burn fuel cheaper for cave base light.
• Bernie can distract nightmare creatures for walter if he goes insane quickly in a boss fight.
• Walter can casually hunt beardlings with his slingshot for easy beard hair for willow.

[cybers2001]

How has Wolfgang not been matched with Warly yet? Wolfgang obviously benefits the same was as Wanda for the dps buffs, but also benefits from honey crystals, since he's a really strong miner/chopper now.  

Also WX + Wickerbottom. Least picky eater paired with pickiest eater. Wickerbottom can also remove rain entirely, which is WX's greatest weakness.

[Losparkeros]

17 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

wanda + wicker

That's why I always carry papyrus with me instead of stashing it in bookcase. Last thing I want is voracious Wanda eating all paper and saying "What's the matter? You already have 3 books, why do you need more?".

[Notecja]

WX depends on its build, can be extremely selfish or slightly support all characters (with equipped light circuit can be life saver, with electric circuits becomes hounds trap, with music box restore sanity of others and help with farming).

No waste: can eat what others cannot (veggies with wigfrid, meats with wurt and specially spoiled foods with wicker.)

But I woudn't really call it synergy, as is not a offer like "hey, your life is going to be easier with it!", there is always some use for food outside that walking metal trash can. As well they can farm gears in ruins, eat them... usually during death some part of these is returned to be eaten again (autokanibalism?), some more rushed again from ruins... and never again touch food in fridge.

And then can use Winona generators for charge, but not really offers to her anything in exchange. Same for Wicker book - that "synergy" was almost removed and best effects are rather achieved with lightning rods, than lightning directly WX. 

 

[ZombieDupe]

When you say "synergy" I think two or more specific characters working close by in tandem to achieve something extremely useful to help long-term that a different regular group of characters couldn't achieve as efficiently otherwise.

With Wickerbottom's rework, the Wickerbottom + Wormwood + Warly synergy of making tons of powerful pot dishes is back slightly differently, though it does require the use of having the rain turned on, using books continuously (so a bigger initial resource dump for the books in the bookshelf there) and the giant crops will be out of the question regardless.

Because of WX's rework, he is better for new players, but he was reworked so that WX + Wickerbottom synergy no longer really exists. There is no need to overcharge WX every season to perform tasks faster and the performance is capped more simply because you can't have high stats along side max speed and a long-term light source, not to mention heat immunity. Just because Wicker can boost WX still with the book, doesn't make it all that useful, it's solely an inexperienced player strat at this point, so it's hard to even call that a synergy now.

Other than that, Wortox and Wormwood are the only things that really come to mind. Wortox and Wendy isn't really a solid synergy as it is extremely situational. You'll use up those 20 souls in 3 days or less if you want to use the ability most efficiently and where it's most fun at, which means needing to get more right after. That's way too frequent to not get annoying for the Wendy player to have abigail kill bees for you.

[HellHeater]

i think it would be better to use blue or something else for 3 character connections otherwise its going to get confusing

[SuperDonuts]

OP, it would be nice to see the direction of yellow lines, so we see who is more taking than giving. Also, yellow is hard to see, can you make them blue.

For the lines:

Willow can give her lighter to Warly and Walter.

Warly takes big benefit from wormwood farming skills.

Warly spices makes specialized characters even better with their capabilities:

- honey spice to Woodie

- garlic spice to Wolfgang

- pepper spice to Wolfgang / Wanda

Edit: I was wondering if we could find a relation with Wes, and for sure: only Warly can makes his favorite food.

[JustExo]

Winona + WX is an easy one since WX can charge himself on generators

Winona + most any follower character (wurt and webber) is great since she can farm them efficiently

Willow + Wicker is great since Bernie functions as an early bone helm

Walter + Winona is great since Woby can help a lot with moving statues

Wolfgang + Winona is great for the same reason as Walter Winona, and Wolfgang helps cut back on time spent mining marble which both characters benefit from greatly

Warly + Wolfgang is great since wolfgang benefits the most from having chili flakes and volt goat jelly

Wortox + winona is p. Underrated since wortox can teleport to, and operate Winona's farms on cooldown

 

[Pig Princess]

On 10/14/2022 at 3:51 PM, Gashzer said:

Yeah but are you going to ruin rush first autumn on a semi-tamed beefalo?

Yes. Actually I'm not going to, I'm doing it on regular basis with great success rate. Obviously 30s ride time is not enough, but once beefalo is 4-5 days into domestication (around 20%) it's very doable. One just needs to remount before engaging in fight and be aware of clockworks location (one needs to either know turf patterns, or to use moggles, also it helps to listen sounds that approaching clockworks make). Rook accidents won't happen if one is aware of surrouding. I'd say breakpoint ride time is around 1 minute, which is enough to kill bishop via kiting, as well as to make enough distance between player and shadow splumonkeys/nightmare creatures in order to regroup.

I actually tested multiple times ruins rushing with and without beefalo, and doing beefalo + ruins rush (one can even add rushing glossammer saddle to the mix) is not much slower than just ruins rush; in fact, even before the end of autumn - let alone before complete domestication - player on beefalo is ahead of player on foot in terms of general progression (including exploration). Even in the caves and ruins beefalo saves massive amount of time via crossing muddy biome and wilds faster and safer and allows to negate bad rng if ruins branches generated far from each other. Moreover, rushing on beefalo allows to completely skip healing and still kill some bishops and rooks without receiving damage to player.

On 10/14/2022 at 3:51 PM, Gashzer said:

Everyone blue cap spams during a ruins rush anyway

Except not everyone does that. Just to avoid misunderstanding, rush≠clearing. I, for example, either completely skip healing in ruins rush (most common case), or rely on some occasional hp from lichen that I eat to restore hunger. In case ruins clearing (or rushing + clearing on foot if I decide to do so for practice) I like to build pre-crafted crock pot right in the ruins and cook 100% fresh surf'n'turf/spicy chili, or use bundled healing food (like honey ham and others) if I have bundle wrap recipe already. Jellybeans are also good option for full clearing, but I don't use them on principle. I don't get why so much people worship blue caps as well: blue caps lead to too much time and resources spent on fighting shadows, and this extra time drains resources even further; moreover this extra nightmare fuel is not going to help in any way if there is not enough thulecite/gems/living logs to craft all goodies or not enough inventory space to carry it all to the surface. In other words, blue cap spamming leads to obtaining more nightmare fuel than one can use at that point in playthrough, drains already obtained resources/prolongs preparation and can lead to exiting ruins dangerously close to winter if ruins generation is inconvenient (especially on public server where one doesn't necessarily start from day 1 of autumn). Plus by the time player gets to the ruins with blue caps they are going to spoil significantly, so window to use them all is like 2-3 days compared to food obtained right inside ruins.

On 10/14/2022 at 3:51 PM, Gashzer said:

Walter can have the beefalo speed without the worry of woby dying

He can't tank rooks on Woby, and in general can't tank on Woby, so there is benefit to tame a beefalo as Walter. I wouldn't do so, however, because I'm concerned about monkeys stealing from Wody, and in order to protect her inventory I would need to ride her, which means beefalo would be not used and very vulnerable, so I might as well not bother.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On topic. I think synergies depend on goals of each particular player more than on characters themselves. For example, if Wickerbottom plans to rush some books (for example, On Tentacles for Bee Queen farm or On Tentacles + Sleepytime Stories for Twins farm) and Wurt decides to rush craftsmerm/merm guard village at the same time, or Wanda decides to use reeds for night armor, it's actually negative synergy because characters compete for the same resource at the same time (reeds or tentacle spots in this case). In regular playthrough, however, Wickerbottom and Wurt have a lot to give each other, and Wanda would be happy to use all reeds that Wickerbottom farmed with Applied Silviculture + monkeytails. If Wendy and Wickerbottom team decide to rush Celestial Champion, then it's very good synergy for this particular task because Wendy covers Bee Queen, killing bishops in the ruins for purple gems and moonstorm events, while Wickerbottom covers moonstone event, Pearl's quests (Practical Rain Rituals, optionally Angler's Survival Guide), Crab King with Apicultural notes + Tempering Temperatures, can cast Practical Rain Rituals to fight Celestial Champion with or without rain and in general handles weather and rooks in the ruins if both decide to kill them. For comparison, Wendy is weak against rooks and Crab King, as well as against phase 3 of Celestial Champion (or she needs more resources such as weather pains and healing elixirs to keep Abigail alive during phase 3), and Wickerbottom has no particular advantages over Bee Queen aside from tentacle trap (which is much slower for 1st and maybe 2nd kill than Wendy's route, and is resource-intensive to set up), and in general both cover weaknesses or absence of advantages of each other with their own advantages. For comparison, for regular playthrough Wendy-Wickerbottom synergy is much less noticeble, it's on the level of generic interaction.

[MA7xGE]

Sorry for being absent, needed to host a wine&painting for the weekend.

I'm glad to see that the topic has gained a lot more discussion. I have now added the new synergies to my notes as well as the first post. Please note that I have left the 3-character synergies out for now, I think they will rise up when looking at them on 2-character level as well.

I also want to encore Pig Princess's post; they do have a solid point about strategies and goals. But I see this as a positive note; someone might look into the found synergies and get inspired to try out something new, outside of their own habits thanks to a correct pairing. I can also see people maining specific pair of characters, not knowing what they can achieve with their perks.



On the other hand, I think this whole project could had benefited of a different approach; maybe I should had started by collecting perks, abilities, and weaknesses, as well as character strategies and playstyles. However, I have been surprised by our collection of findings already, and I'm curious to see where we can get.  

[Dr. Safety]

I'd say that Warly has a 2 way synergy for Wormwood and a 1 way synergy for Wortox. Wormwood being a good farmer as you have stated, but the grim galette is great for both of these characters. Wortox has an easy time recovering health, but harder time recovering sanity while wormwood has an easy time recovering sanity with a hard time recovering health. Grim galette allows these two to recover both stats easily