My experiences (rambles) with the Maxwell Refresh after doing a full year playthrough.

[Qairon]

 

Since I haven't seen many people talk about the Maxwell rework from the perspective of actually playing him in a playthrough, I figured I'd give my thoughts (rambles) from that angle. The vast majority of the posts seem to be covering the duelists in all their functions, DPS potential, optimal damage setups with the equipment combinations, and how fast they kill X boss that was spawned in a day 1 world, etc. And while I'm glad the community is so involved in it and hopefully it gets whatever fine-tuning it needs, I didn't care for any of that myself, I just wanted to know... how he actually feels to play. And he's still pretty fun! I'm also not going to be covering the entire year, just some key moments in my playthrough that really stood out to me involving his mechanics, and how it directly compares to non-beta Maxwell in my opinion. This is completely anecdotal and not much testing or a goal was put into it.

So, getting right into it, and almost completely blind to how he works, I started the world like I do as just about every character, getting an alchemy engine out of the way, exploring the world and gathering to set up a base, and it usually always starts with me harvesting everything in the mosaic biome. While I was pretty confused how the shadow servants worked at first, the first major change became apparent right away: the new Maxwell does not need tools or flint of any kind to gather anymore. It's such a unique and interesting advantage that helps him stand out from day 1, but it does act as a tradeoff to his previously unparalleled snowball-effect gathering in my opinion and took a lot of getting used to. The best feeling in the world as current Maxwell to me, at least in the earlygame, was securing that first pickaxe shadow: once you had him, you had boulder resources forever lol.

Anyways, That's not to say I didn't find beta Maxwell's gathering method intuitive, as the servants being able to effortlessly switch betewen axe, pickaxe and shovel is honestly a godsend. It always felt pretty inefficient when it came time to actually clear trees and sacrificing 6-8 nightmare fuel, 3-4 tools was how it had to be done every single time. While it's kind of awkward getting the most use out of these new very disposable shadows, I felt it really makes Max a more versatile character, much like his singleplayer counterpart. Shadows make sense being formless and adaptable, so I like how they are right now. The fact they even help with clean up and gathering is just the icing on the cake.

Speaking of gathering, after some exploring and finding a pig torch grass setpiece, i think this is when I really fell in love with the new servant shadows. I had no idea if the pigmen were going to just punch my shadows for intruding on their grass, or if the shadows would even gather it, but they were fairly cheap to summon so why not. After nearly getting myself killed when I learned the hard way how long it takes to read the book, I managed to get a few of them into it and yeah, they gathered just over half of it and even walked over to me to hand deliver it. The pigs were completely oblivious to what was happening apparently. Or they pretended not to notice.

After getting my base set up, my next priorities were clearing gear mobs nearby for fridges and then hunting spiders to try the tophat. While it's pretty foolhardy, I've played Max enough to know my limits of what I can or can't do without needing armor, and killing a clockwork knight is something I'm usually comfortable doing without it. I also saw it as a key opportunity to try these new duelists. After summoning two or three, I got to work and immediately made my first grave mistake: assuming these things took aggro like the older duelists. I got hit once, was confused because I was sure I let the duelists lead with an attack, made sure of it the next time-- nope, my face just got smashed in.

I want to say beforehand that I'm one of the few people that didn't despise the old, spear-consumed duelists: they weren't amazing, but they were reliable and had your back. A werepig or two? They'll split the aggro for you to focus one at a time, and run the other one around in a circle. A bishop? They'll take the heat off you and let you go wild on it, as long as you let them get that hit in before its shot, they'll literally take a bullet for you. They excelled at reacting to ANYTHING that aggroed unto you and immediately intercepting, like a real bodyguard. (It also made them horrible in the swamp though, lmao) Hunting was always especially fun with Max since shadows can get a "sneak attack" on koalaphants and voltgoats when feint attacking with either a boomerang or ice staff equipped to send them over, making them an actual reliable source of meat when another character might need actual ranged tactics to start combat, or chase it into a corner like an episode of Benny Hill. They're kinda meh with spiders, especially a large number, and just kinda die to most other things that aren't similar small skirmishes. But I was okay with that. I liked getting my hands dirty with Maxwell but understood everyone's complaints with duelists for years now; as a summoner Max never felt super powerful in the combat department as someone like Wendy.

I also had a pretty hard time adjusting to the fact he can no longer cap his sanity to insanity at will now with double duelist + worker. At first, I thought the intent was to just summon max 6 shadows and kill as many shadows as you could within that short window, but it was horribly inefficient. I mostly resorted to eating as many greencaps as possible and using wormholes for insanity farming lol. It wasn't until like, summer that I realized Shadow Sneak seems to be the way you get abundant fuel now

Well, after getting a clutch touchstone revival and trying again, I definitely felt the power once I realized the new duelists seem to be purely focused on DPS, not so much protecting you like the old ones. I'm glad they did it in a way that actually forces Maxwell to act, too, since aggro and targeting seem to prioritize Maxwell and he can't "hide" behind the duelists. Of course, I imagine that's where Shadow Prison comes in and also with that the controversy, but I personally rarely used it, so have nothing to say for gameplay with high usage of it.  And man, do duelists look flashy with that teleporting move. Even when they're idling, they seem to brace themselves, and at some points that seemed to actually draw aggro sometimes with a taunt. While I didn't like that part too much, they actually feel like extensions of Maxwell. After cleaning up the knights and rook, I farmed spiders for a top hat, enchanted it, and found it pretty nice for storing even more loot before I needed to really commit to a base. The shiftclick + M2 animations is also pretty neat, since he actually pulls things out of his hat and drops them. It felt nice dumping an entire inventory on the floor once I got to my base spot that way. 

I'm not really a fan of giving characters greater nearly-private storage options, like Walter with his Woby, but honestly with the way his shadow inventory is now, I'd probably prefer it to this weird communal hive network that it is right now. I played this run solo, and once again with a friend up to around end of winter, and while I can really see the potential for early base building and just relaying equipment and resources in a coordinated group of friends that don't even need to be Maxwell via the Magician Box and Shadow Chester, I just know this is mostly going to make drama that will unfold in public servers when some Maxwell gets angry his meatballls he stored in the aether are now missing, or Maxwelll #5 has lost his 5 stacks of nightmare fuel he was safekeeping in it, etc. It was rare to see anyone discuss the hazards or suggest changes for it, and I thought this post had interesting solutions.

Sometime in Winter is when I first started messing around with the shadow prison, and that was primarily with hunting Mactusk. It was nice bullying the one mob that loves nothing more than shooting a gun at you while running away. I'm well aware the prison is also extraordinarily useful against Dragonfly, but opted not to use it. It was mostly just because I was panicking enough trying to get used to resummoning so much, it's quite the balancing act in and of itself. It definitely adds to combat in a way no other character has, and I think the refresh succeeded in making him stand out that way.

I also did a lot of sailing in mid-winter to early Spring, and man are servants good in the ocean. I've never felt getting salt was as fun as how Max can do it now- deploying a few shadow servants over it cleans the entire salt biome in just a minute or two, and they Jesus-walk it over to you in a neat stack. In my fight with Malbatross, I had a pretty MLG moment where I prisoned her mid-dash, saving my sails at the last second and finishing her off. The duelists also put in some work and helped aggro her onto me as an alternative to a ranged attack at points.

My summer was largely uneventful and was mostly spent in the caves and ruins, but this is where I got to learn how useful Shadow Sneak was and had that eureka moment that this is kind of just how he gets fuel now lol. Killing a few infected bunnymen and splumonkeys yielded more fuel than i knew what to do with, and I imagine bunnies on the surface became beardlings to similar effect. The ruins also went pretty well, and after putting on thulecite armor, I did get a taste of that damage increase people seemed to obsess over. It was fairly noticeable.

 

Overall, this is probably the most interesting character-centric update I've ever seen in this game, and I was around since the very first one with Willow.  Thanks as always to the devs for literally giving free content, I've gotten more from this game than I ever could have hoped for over the past few years and it's gotten me through some rough times at that. Rambling over.

 

[Cheggf]

I'm almost on year 3 in my world and my thoughts are that Maxwell is fun and would be even more fun if he had some more downside(s). As I played longer the main thing I realized was how many different uses shadow sneak has. Love its versatility and that it makes some formerly useless things very useful.

[Qairon]

6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I'm almost on year 3 in my world and my thoughts are that Maxwell is fun and would be even more fun if he had some more downside(s). As I played longer the main thing I realized was how many different uses shadow sneak has. Love its versatility and that it makes some formerly useless things very useful.

Yes, shadow sneak is definitely something I underused. If you feel like sharing, what are some applications you found its' most useful for? My only understanding was the nightmare fuel increase it seems to give on the shadow bunnymen and splumonkeys.

As far as the downsides, I definitely agree. I always felt Max was one of the most solid characters if you learned to play with 75 hp, it's always been his only downside. With how lategame equipment serves to boost his damage potential now, and since it's obvious to use high defense on a low HP character, I kind of wish he actually needed to maintain his fragility to get stronger. Such as the more dapper items that literally nobody uses, like the hound tooth vest, could be empowered to give shadows greater damage or other effects. I'm unsure.

[Cheggf]

21 minutes ago, Qairon said:

Yes, shadow sneak is definitely something I underused. If you feel like sharing, what are some applications you found its' most useful for? My only understanding was the nightmare fuel increase it seems to give on the shadow bunnymen and splumonkeys.

As an example reading the patch notes when they first came out I was wondering why you'd want to make shadow splumonkeys. But then once I actually was in the ruins I was followed by monkeys and wanted them gone, but they're pretty difficult to kill with their cowardly ranged attack. I then immediately realized the power of turning them into the shadow form. A large group of shadow splumonkeys may be too dangerous to take on, but a small group is as easy to combat as depths worms. I corrupted them, killed them, and got some bonus fuel as loot in addition to making them no longer bother me and try to take my items.

You can also set up a bunch of traps over bunny dens (max is great at getting grass and twigs so I find this cost to be worthwhile) then for like 1 minute of effort collect them all, drop them on a boat, cast a single Sneak, and get like 20nmf + monster meat + beard hair. It's a little somewhat passive nmf farm. Not as effective as a dedicated splumonkey farm, of course, but incomparably easier to set up.

And the third main use I have for it is setting it up in advance as a backup. If I place them in places enemies won't wander I can run to them in an emergency. So far I've only used this for shadow splumonkeys, making little traps I can kite the monkeys over if there are too many following me for me to deal with. Then I can use their feared state to try to come up with a plan to either kill them or run away.

I haven't tried to fight bq yet (more of a relaxed playthrough and my ruins were enormous, almost 200 thulecite) but I assume I will be able to make good use of a few snares set up. Lead bq and the grumbles into them, burn bq down, repeat a few times. My plan is to try to burst her into phase 3 quickly, since the fight really speeds up then.

Edit: I bet you could also cast it on yourself when you hear hounds coming to make it a bit easier to summon the duelists properly.

[ShadowDuelist]

Since the beta has been out I also did “normal” playthroughs at my pace, so far did 3 different playthroughs:

The first one was probably the most standard for me, I just exported my Wickerbottom way to play the game (make a beefalo ASAP, locate, explore and harvest moon island in The first 15 days) then go shadow manipulator tier, then when the beefalo is ready by the end of winter start doing bosses/clearing ruins.

I got to survive for about an ingame year and kill most bosses except celestial , crab king, toad and fw. It felt like I was missing some of Wicker books at several points in time (which could sadly be remedied by the celestial portal) but it was fun nonetheless.

I did a second run from the beginning aiming for full ruins clearing and it went pretty smoothly as well during most of it, but AG killed me with a tentacle due to a distraction.

My third run was more of an experiment, I went beefalo taming but didn’t establish anywhere: just craft stations then hammer them, and used the hat and Chester as storages on the go. This was actually a lot of fun, I stopped playing in spring but it was entirely doable to have a full nomad gameplay since his perks are mostly self powered, and eating from hunts is easier with his combat powers + you can even eat foods that affect your sanity and not care much about it (blue mush biome was a general stop in my travels) or raw meat. Maxwell+Tam, which seems like an overkill, can actually prove very useful to control his new powers.

In my experience the new Maxwell is a lot of fun, feels different from most of the other characters and very “action” oriented. I sort of been waiting for these changes to max since I started playing back in 2016.

[Cheggf]

I've now killed the (alleged) queen of all bees and it's hard to tell whether shadow sneak helped or not because the duelists mess the fight up. I think sneak could have been useful had I not summoned duelists to 'help' but the duelists mafe manipulating enemy position too difficult to utilize the snares properly. They also kept stalling bq when I was trying to kite her. I quickly gave up trying to use them, the only good they did in the fight was after the queen died they cleaned up the grumbles.

[Qairon]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

then go shadow manipulator tier, then when the beefalo is ready by the end of winter start doing bosses/clearing ruins.

So this is where I am a bit confused with the rework. Currently shadow armor and dark sword increases the duelist potency, but ruins loot is better right? From my own experience, ruins rushing before even manipulator is quite common, especially if you really wanted something down there first. The more experienced players that seek it tend to go directly down. It will be interesting to see if Max players are more inclined to make the night armor and dark swords now, or skip it entirely for the "better option" I realize this was probably already an important discussion in the forums, but my hope would be that the night armor/dark sword combo has its own merits or incentive, like giving better regeneration to the shadows while max is near them wearing it or something. I am not personally a fan of the "more damage = progression" route but, so be it if it is. 

Edit: I hope this did not come off as snarky to your playstyle, I enjoyed you sharing and the runs sounded fun, especially the beefalo rush. I am genuinely asking if all the tiers of equipment do is give more damage as well. I am also speaking more about the meta of public servers that have many people; odds are few will ruins rush and generally succeed before the base builder completes manipulator. I was also hoping coordination for faster manipulators would be more present, but it likely it won't be in favor of the Maxwells getting stronger as fast as possible, which hey, is a valid way to play.

[Cheggf]

8 minutes ago, Qairon said:

Currently shadow armor and dark sword increases the duelist potency, but ruins loot is better right?

Ruins gear and shadow gear provide the same bonus of +8 damage. Amulets provide +4, bone gear provides +12, and the thurible provides +16.

[Qairon]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

I've now killed the (alleged) queen of all bees and it's hard to tell whether shadow sneak helped or not because the duelists mess the fight up. I think sneak could have been useful had I not summoned duelists to 'help' but the duelists mafe manipulating enemy position too difficult to utilize the snares properly. They also kept stalling bq when I was trying to kite her. I quickly gave up trying to use them, the only good they did in the fight was after the queen died they cleaned up the grumbles.

Oh no. Does their AI get bugged during the fight? I had not noticed any derpy AI too much during my testing, but I hope the shadows in a worst case scenario do not just get feared/panicked by her screeches. That would be hilarious seeing as they're supposed to be interdimensional warriors but get scared of an overgrown bee lol

Also, do the snares work on just the grumbles, or also on raid bosses with their panic effect? 

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Ruins gear and shadow gear provide the same bonus of +8 damage. Amulets provide +4, bone gear provides +12, and the thurible provides +16.

Ahh I see, thanks for the clarification. 

[Cheggf]

9 minutes ago, Qairon said:

Oh no. Does their AI get bugged during the fight? I had not noticed any derpy AI too much during my testing, but I hope the shadows in a worst case scenario do not just get feared/panicked by her screeches. That would be hilarious seeing as they're supposed to be interdimensional warriors but get scared of an overgrown bee lol

They just keep attacking her constantly. If you're tanking her they would be useful I guess, but if you do any strategy involving kiting they'll hurt more than help since they keep stuttering her movement with the pain animation and periodically taking her aggro so she attacks a duelist instead of flying towards you. The duelists get themselves killed doing this so in addition to you losing damage from her not making distance from the adds you lose damage needing to constantly resummon duelists.

9 minutes ago, Qairon said:

Also, do the snares work on just the grumbles, or also on raid bosses with their panic effect? 

The snares do work, but the duelists were aggroing things making it difficult to have everything inside the snare's radius.

9 minutes ago, Qairon said:

Ahh I see, thanks for the clarification. 

Also the magician's top hat counts as shadow gear (+8) so it's the most accessible damage bonus aside from (depending on luck) the +4 of a grave's life giving amulet. I think wearing an lga just for +4 duelist damage is questionable, though.

[ShadowDuelist]

1 hour ago, Qairon said:

So this is where I am a bit confused with the rework. Currently shadow armor and dark sword increases the duelist potency, but ruins loot is better right? From my own experience, ruins rushing before even manipulator is quite common, especially if you really wanted something down there first. The more experienced players that seek it tend to go directly down. It will be interesting to see if Max players are more inclined to make the night armor and dark swords now, or skip it entirely for the "better option" I realize this was probably already an important discussion in the forums, but my hope would be that the night armor/dark sword combo has its own merits or incentive, like giving better regeneration to the shadows while max is near them wearing it or something. I am not personally a fan of the "more damage = progression" route but, so be it if it is. 

Edit: I hope this did not come off as snarky to your playstyle, I enjoyed you sharing and the runs sounded fun, especially the beefalo rush. I am genuinely asking if all the tiers of equipment do is give more damage as well. I am also speaking more about the meta of public servers that have many people; odds are few will ruins rush and generally succeed before the base builder completes manipulator. I was also hoping coordination for faster manipulators would be more present, but it likely it won't be in favor of the Maxwells getting stronger as fast as possible, which hey, is a valid way to play.

I’d go either way depending how the run is going, I personally like manipulator weapons and armor more, because with my playstyle they are easier to spam from the start and keep up regardless if I go to the ruins straight up or I have different plans (I don’t like having to mandatory go there in the first days) and despite the fact that I played the beta alone I normally play in endless servers with other players and sometimes the WXs or Wolfgang’s rush the ruins in like the first 6-7 days and by the time you get there, there isn’t much left to get.

My early game usually consists on getting the eye helmet and night armor, but whenever I get the chance I get thul crowns and starcallers (and since the forager is refuelable I get at least one too).

[Gi-Go]

6 hours ago, Qairon said:

Overall, this is probably the most interesting character-centric update I've ever seen in this game, and I was around since the very first one with Willow.  

Winona was the first. 

[Wonz]

You guys call 75 hp a downside. It's so insignificant in game where armor and healing items matter significantly more. You can just make a few really high stat armor 80% is really high if you think about it and it goes to 95%. With shadow armor every pierogi will be worth 800 effective health and 200 with log suit. Like having 10 pierogi and 75hp or 150hp would make much difference. With 75 that would make you have 475 health and with 150 it would make you have 550 health now look at those numbers there's little difference when you look at it like that. You just need to make 2 more pierogi or 4 more salves. 

Healing is too strong, armor is too strong, boss enemies hit too hard to make it balanced with smaller enemies. "bUT iT's BiG mOnsTer It sHoUlD hIt biG nuMbEr". Why? Why should it? Before talking about combat difficulty it should have any more depth in it than hit X times and walk away paired up with ridiculous impact of healing items and armor on it.

 

And about the downsides for fun it shouldn't be just lame stat shift, an unfun yet barely meaningful hindrance like wolfgang's sanity drain. If it has to be fun it should have some depth, a way around it, wormwood is perfect example. Can't heal from food but has some alternative method others don't. When you play him you might feel the danger from taking damage from combat unless you can supply yourself with stuff like poultices and salves.

[SullyD]

1 hour ago, Wonz said:

You guys call 75 hp a downside. It's so insignificant in game

yeah, that's why 99% of the players play WES.
Look buddy, I will not say much but when analyzing things you should consider many things.
Unfortunately I could notice that in this forum everyone defends their own interest, nothing more.
I already gave my feedback, I know that the devs read it, they know MUCH more than us, and maybe in the future they will improve things.
So please, what is easy for you may not be for other people.

[MadMatt]

23 minutes ago, SullyD said:

yeah, that's why 99% of the players play WES.

C'mon, Wes has way more downsides than 75 HP. He has 75 in stats across the board, does less damage, suffers from temperature more, and has slower mining and chopping. The only things he has as upsides is a very short 30% speed bonus, minor sanity gain, protection from drowning, and a hat that protects from just lightning. Unlike Maxwell who only has to put forth extra supplies and effort to account for health, Wes has to put forth extra supplies and effort to account for EVERYTHING.

[Wonz]

And those wes downsides are mostly artificial difficulty.

HP is as I said earlier.

Arguably hunger is both clever and cheap since it's just simply lowers stat but makes some food choices not worth it anymore like meaty stew and works for the joke with warly's dish.

You can say faster sanity drain is a downside but you can't say lower max sanity is a downside while sanity monsters appear based on sanity's percentage what means that Wes needs less sanity restored for nightmares to stop attacking him. 

Slower working is just ebodiment of boring downside, it's just there to look, you can make up time lost thanks to speedy baloon but it's a thing only untill you get a walking cane.

And the funny downsides are him being targeted by lightnings and hounds more than other players. It can be beneficial for just wes to wear his crown to protect others from lightnings or to be chased by hounds while others have to fight smaller fights with them and slowly chip away the chase after Wes.

And those funny ones are sparking and idea of character that is unlucky but this bad luck could be double sided axe and work to an advantage in some way, that would be a fun way to handle disadvantages a true something for something.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, SullyD said:

yeah, that's why 99% of the players play WES.
Look buddy, I will not say much but when analyzing things you should consider many things.
Unfortunately I could notice that in this forum everyone defends their own interest, nothing more.
I already gave my feedback, I know that the devs read it, they know MUCH more than us, and maybe in the future they will improve things.
So please, what is easy for you may not be for other people.

I mean from my experience wes is still a fairly popular pick at least he's far from the least played character and his perks are enjoyable enough. Fact is players who know how to use armor and healing items/food aren't struggling with 75 hp.