A Review of the Maxwell Rework

[Frashaw27]

Hello everybody,

I am a long term Maxwell main and the rework was quite... chaotic for me. When I first read the initial change notes, I remember thinking that the rework was top tier garbage. It essentially gutted everything I liked about Maxwell with barely adding to compensate. I vividly remember thinking "Is this how Wolfgang Mains felt?" as it honestly felt like I was reading the original version of the Reworked Wolfgang patch notes and felt as bad as they felt. But several patches later and some actual time playing him, I'd say that I'm fairly positive that this Rework is one of the best Klei has done. So Let's go about the parts one by one.

Part 1: Natural Perks

The 75 Hp and the 6.67 Sanity Regen remained and I still think that both are fairly good as a side perk and drawback respectively. Lower Hp, while not as crippling like only crockpot foods on a timer or 1/2 stats from all foods, is a downside that is simple in execution but is quite effective in execution. Lower Hp means less mistakes, that the risks involved with Hp draining items or actions is far greater, and it punishes the player more harshly for not maintaining Maxwell when compared to a character like Wurt or Wolfgang. And most importantly, their is nothing you can do to truly subvert it besides making better armor and getting good. Even then, the damage from being cold or hungry deals the same regardless, so that aspect could be seen as issues that can never be reduced without caring for him. The sanity regen is also quite nice as it allows me to not be bombarded by shadows when I don't want to. While I do understand that this may lead to issue gaining nightmare fuel in the early game, I feel like the passive sanity gain is useful in day to day occurrences where I don't want to constantly be wearing a tam to make sure I don't get my ass bit by a terrorbeak while making chests. The immunity to the Sanity Drains on the Dark Sword and Night Armor is also nice. Makes him feel like a master of shadow magic when he can use the stuff in it's raw form with near to no drawback. Barely anything changed about his base character changes, but they're nice and certain do help the longer you're playing in a world.

 Part 2: Enderchest at Home

The magician box and Magical Tophat are both wonderful additions to Maxwell's kit that definitely help him as having a pocket scaled chest with you is really powerful. Kind of a bummer that it doesn't maintain the storage between shards, as I use my hat space as a way to carry all the essentials like Grass, Twigs, Wax Paper for bundles, etc., but I understand that it's a technical limitation. What I do have issue with is the fact that Shadow Chester is now essentially worthless to servers with Maxwells in them as the previously mentioned inventory is shared, and thus any extra storage space I would've gotten from Chester was since rendered moot as it's now connected to an inventory I already have access to, and it probably already filled with stuff. While I can understand the possible griefing potential in both adding and removing this feature, I'm more disappointed that I now can't carry back even more stuff without reverting Chester to him natural or winterized state. Overall, it's good but could be better, but I won't hold my breath as such changes are fairly personalized to what I want.

Part 3: Is it technically slavery if it's clones of yourself?

The servants were my main gripe with how the update was handled when I only read the notes was how the puppets no longer followed you around and instead were now restricted to one space. I thought that would have killed Maxwell for as one of my favorite past times with him before was deforesting forests with loggers and diggers and so I thought this pastime of mine was forever lost. While it won't be the same as pre update, I feel that using Maxwell to do large amounts of labor is both still possible and encouraged. This was especially highlighted when they were upgraded to also pick plants within their radius, which put them a step above other minions and made them feel a bit unique. While I will always morn the days Maxwell deforestation of the course of a few days, I say these servants are a worthy replacement. I also like how they essentially spiky bushes worth  putting in a gathering circle as the servents won't die from picking them, thus they can harvest them on mass without you needing to put any blood on your hands.

Part 4: Spells

The spells are fine. The shadow sneak can surely have more application once I adhere to it's strengths, but for now I remain that it's fine, but just fine. Nothing absurd but nothing too bad. The shadow prison is also great, but I feel that the nerfs to it's timer were a bit to it's detriment as it now feels like I can't do as much as I could before hand, which was the point but it still feels  a bit less worth compared to before to sacrifice such a long time casting it for a pay off the wildly changes based on how the entrapped creature acts. In my opinion it feels like the animation for the cage could made a bit faster to be better compensate for the time loss from the pillars running out sooner. 

Part 5: The portable hitman squad

The Duelists are honestly are a really nice part of the update. It allows him to show off his connection to magic by showing off how almost every magic item boosts his duelists is some way. I also like how it makes Maxwell prioritize certain items to use in combat when compared to other characters in order to make his duelist more effective. The duelists themselves are also very cool in the way that they feel more useful then other companions are they aren't affected by much. While other companions can eventually reach high dpses due to the fact there can be more of them then there can be duelists, but that shouldn't be used to under sell them. The duelists are easy, effective, and finally feels like companions that be used for boss fights outside of meme strats.

Overall, update good. Thank you Klei for doing Maxwell justice with his rework.