Willow is far better than Wendy! Prove me wrong!

[Gashzer]

12 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

For the Record: Bernie does NOT need a Willow around to activate, it only needs an Insane Player nearby while it’s on the ground. It will not grow to full size BERNIE! But it WILL Animate to life and dance around distracting shadow monsters- for an experienced player this may mean next to nothing, but for a new player to DST NOT Dying to those Shadows is a freaking breath of fresh air.

And as a #Wendy Main I’m just gonna tell you straight up right now Abigail will NOT fight Shadow Creatures at all.. if your an Insane Wendy with 4 Terrorbeaks chasing you, she’s just gonna stand around & watch as you join her in the act of unliving.

Bernie can also be cuddled for Warmth, again.. super un-useful to you experts, but I had my noob friend PRAISING Willow just for the ability to use her lighter, light a tree on fire and stand in that burning fire holding Bernie to avoid freezing to death in Winter.

All in all: Rather Wendy or Willow is better is going to depend on your PLAYSTYLE, if you suck at fighting Terrorbeaks never under any circumstances play as Wendy. Like Wise.. If You rely on standing near Dragonfly’s Lava pools for free warmth (and an instant recharge on your thermal stone) never ever EVER stand by these pools as anyone other than Willow unless you just enjoy losing health and being on fire.

The harsh reality of things is people hate on Wendy cause they feel she does everything, she does not.. she’s designed solely to be good against swarm mobs, that’s her literal design intent.. and anything outside of that- she going to struggle with or require skill in doing.

Likewise: Bernie’s sole design intent is to distract and fight shadow monsters, it CAN fight hound waves, or whatever else you wanna try to get it to fight, but it’s entire design is intended to fight nightmare creatures.. anything beyond that: will require skill.

TL:DR- Wendy & Willow are designed to do different things, and they do their intended jobs better than the other.

This response is too civil... Team Willow rules! 

 

[Stonetribe]

While I feel a little bad that op is being dogpiled, (even though they literally asked for it) I'm always happy to see people acknowledging Willow's issues.

I've been wanting to summarize all of my thoughts on what my ideal Willow re-refresh would look like in one thread for a while now but I can't tell if it'd be better to post it when/if they announce Willow changes or sometime sooner so the devs could see it before it happens, even though I know the chances that they'll implement some rando's ideas are slim.

[GADom1984]

On 3/20/2023 at 9:28 AM, Theukon-dos said:

Caves are meh 90% of the time. And torches are insanely easy to get.

...Why are you eating Monster Meat at all? Hunger is not that hard to solve. And frankly cooking is overrated. If you need to do it, just cook one big batch at once and the time save from the lighter will be minimal.

 

Maybe he forgot he was playing Willow and not Webber or Wortox.

 

still, i find it odd that no one has brought out the fact that, y'know, fire tends to spread, especially in the forest biomes, so Willow's lighter actively does more harm than good in said scenarios

 

(Not to mention Bearded Wilson with a Beefalo Hat can get way warmer than Willow without having any debuff)

[Gashzer]

Behold the nightmare pig killing power of Willow hehe

Now i have ridiculously powerful regen armour that Willow with a bernie can massively benefit from in killing the rest of the bosses

Edit: Sadly Bernie sacrificed his life for the cause... Me and Ashley will remember him... 

 

[JosePapp]

On 3/20/2023 at 5:21 PM, abrocator said:

 any decent player has a bone helmet by day 27, after which you don’t have to fight any nightmare creatures that you don’t wanna.

Daaaaamn I'm REALLY under the average if this is true LOL

[Guille6785]

On 3/20/2023 at 4:21 PM, abrocator said:

Buut it doesn’t matter though because any decent player has a bone helmet by day 27

??????? I agree that a decent player can get a bone helm by then but doing so is still a significant detour in most playthroughs which arguably does more harm than good

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, JosePapp said:

Daaaaamn I'm REALLY under the average if this is true LOL

It’s not, these type of people who say it is only annoy the crap out of me, no offense.. that’s like that one girl I read about the other day who modded Elden Ring so every enemy in the game is replaced with the hardest boss of the game, look we get it.. your good- good for you, but maybe don’t put the idea in the heads of the developers that this is the “Average player experience?” Your in at best the top 10% meanwhile…

Im watching LOTS of people freeze to death in spring because they don’t understand the new mechanic of Rain water = Drowning in Misery.

Then there’s threads on these forums where people want a Tutorial that tells them a Pickaxe can be used to break boulders because..??? They’re to lazy to read the description of a Pickaxe in the craft UI? I don’t know..

Point is: only a select handful of people are going to have a Bonehelm on day 27. And we shouldn’t encourage that as the norm.

 

[abrocator]

1 hour ago, Guille6785 said:

??????? I agree that a decent player can get a bone helm by then but doing so is still a significant detour in most playthroughs which arguably does more harm than good

See your problem is that you are so good at the game that you thought there could be chance that I was being serious.

Get on my level and you will realize that it was sarcasm.

27 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It’s not, these type of people who say it is only annoy the crap out of me, no offense.. that’s like that one girl I read about the other day who modded Elden Ring so every enemy in the game is replaced with the hardest boss of the game, look we get it.. your good- good for you, but maybe don’t put the idea in the heads of the developers that this is the “Average player experience?” Your in at best the top 10% meanwhile…

Im watching LOTS of people freeze to death in spring because they don’t understand the new mechanic of Rain water = Drowning in Misery.

Then there’s threads on these forums where people want a Tutorial that tells them a Pickaxe can be used to break boulders because..??? They’re to lazy to read the description of a Pickaxe in the craft UI? I don’t know..

Point is: only a select handful of people are going to have a Bonehelm on day 27. And we shouldn’t encourage that as the norm.

:insert troll face:

I have acquired a bone helm only one time.

[Mysterious box]

On 3/20/2023 at 11:28 AM, Theukon-dos said:

Why are you eating Monster Meat at all? Hunger is not that hard to solve. And frankly cooking is overrated. If you need to do it, just cook one big batch at once and the time save from the lighter will be minimal

From my experience it's usually just used to keep sanity low since monster meat is easy to stockpile.

20 hours ago, GADom1984 said:

Maybe he forgot he was playing Willow and not Webber or Wortox.

Why are you eating monster meat as wortox?

20 hours ago, GADom1984 said:

still, i find it odd that no one has brought out the fact that, y'know, fire tends to spread, especially in the forest biomes, so Willow's lighter actively does more harm than good in said scenarios

How does it do more than any other source of fire?

[july401]

He is baiting of course. 

[Gashzer]

3 hours ago, july401 said:

He is baiting of course. 

Nah Willow is 100% better than Wendy for experienced players atleast. 

[Tranoze]

14 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Nah Willow is 100% better 

According to a willow main, she is OP that why:
For proper game balance, time to nerf willow 50% her power so she can be balanced.

 75  75  60
Damage modifier: 50%.
She take 100% more damage from all sources.
Sanity near fire: up to +5/min per nearby 
Now start up with 50% lighter.
Immune to fire damage -> take 50% fire damage.
Walking speed is halved.
0.5 seconds cook food -> 1 second cook food.

BERNIE  1000    25

[ShadowDuelist]

19 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Nah Willow is 100% better than Wendy for experienced players atleast. 

Well that’s like comparing pineapples to bananas, in public servers I’ve seen experienced Wes players come out of the ruins with full thulecite gear and starcallers on day 11, while the far less experienced Wolfgang, Wendy and Webber at the surface were barely surviving starvation.

Still, Wes is undeniably (And purposely) a much worse character than the other 3, it’s just the difference of players skill showing in that case, not the character’s strengths.

I like how you pointed out the strengths of Willow and you probably make use of her capabilities to the limit in clever ways, which is always something very fun to do with characters, but an equally skilled player with Wendy will accomplish about the same things (through different means probably, given the characters differences) and most likely easier than Willow.
It doesn’t mean “Willow sucks nobody should use her because Wendy is better”, like Mike pointed out, she has her strengths and a decent  Willow player can make a positive difference, and in a team it’s always better to have different characters than a boring “army of 5 Wolfgangs”

Willow probably got indirectly buffed with the new armor, which is great! since she needs more stuff, and it probably moved her somewhat up in the power scale. I just hope they give her a little more attention in future updates too.

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Well that’s like comparing pineapples to bananas

Bananas are 100% better than pineapples for experienced eaters atleast 

[Theukon-dos]

38 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Bananas are 100% better than pineapples for experienced eaters atleast 

Nah Bananas suck massive dookey. Willow; slightly less. 

[Waynel]

Bernie isn't even good at what he's supposed to be excelling at, because he draws aggro from shadows inconsistently which in turn forces willow to kite them just like you would with any other character.

She can be interesting though if you want to execute a df rush without walls and ice staves.

"Willow is far better than Wendy" LOL

Abigail deals aoe damage which allows her to easily exterminate small mobs such as... shadow splumonkeys, spiders, frogs, hounds, cookie cutters, birchnutters, etc. BY HERSELF.

iirc bernie can't even handle 3 tier 3 spider dens with willow whaling on them with a fresh hambat.

 

Abigail is an animated factory. She can farm infinity spider dens from the get-go whereas other characters would have to resort to extravagant and very expensive strategies such as catapults+statues.

Willow is cute but there is no world in which she gets ahead of the goddess of resource farming in an objective tier list.

[Gashzer]

54 minutes ago, Waynel said:

Bernie isn't even good at what he's supposed to be excelling at, because he draws aggro from shadows inconsistently which in turn forces willow to kite them just like you would with any other character.

Well during rushing ruins before wrecking nightmare werepig bernie allowed me to tank through about 4 active nightmare lights with about 8-10 nightmares attacking me. You will take hits, the point of bernie is not to receive no hits its about both you and him tanking all the nightmares (or any mobs) to kill them quickly. You dont take that much damage even if you gain aggro.

Every other character would be forced to run away from active nightmare lights. Losing out in both precious time and nightmare fuel. Bernie is more useful in the really dangerous situations.

54 minutes ago, Waynel said:

Abigail deals aoe damage which allows her to easily exterminate small mobs such as... shadow splumonkeys, spiders, frogs, hounds, cookie cutters, birchnutters, etc. BY HERSELF.

Yeah thats great that abigail can do that by herself... useful for noobs not so much pros. Bernie has a higher skill ceiling of usefulness compared with abigail. I can use him for the above situations and the more useful situation of keeping nightmares off me during boss fight allowing me to use dark swords/night armour/dreadstone armour more effectively without needing sanity restoring items and passively farming more fuel for more dark swords.

[maciu67]

Willow had a bad luck having one of first reworks (like Winona) and collecting dust after all previous updates but she still has a solid role being a character for beggining players which is a obvious choise since she's face of DST (with Wilson). Willow can easily rise her sanity, insanity is not very dangerous for her because she has Bernie, lighter at start protect from darkness etc. but when begginers turn into intermediate players then she has nothing to offer and for me this is her biggest flaw. Willow is a character without any role in team or end-game (even Wes can craft something useful). It is a little sad because who like who but Willow has a potential. Game has a three different types of fire: standard, cold and shadow. She could craft cold torch or set enemies on shadow fire (turning her lighter into serious weapon). She isn't better than Wendy I must say that however I would like to see Willow as somebody more than toturial character.

[flamboyant wolf]

2 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Nah Bananas suck massive dookey. Willow; slightly less. 

imo, bananas are just as great as any other fruit!

[maxwell_winters]

56 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

she still has a solid role being a character for beggining players which is a obvious choise since she's face of DST (with Wilson)

I wouldn't call her that. Sure, she is in the game icon but in the promo art and trailers, she doesn't appear more often than Wigfrid. It's more than some characters, but not even close to Wilson's presence. 

[Waynel]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Well during rushing ruins before wrecking nightmare werepig bernie allowed me to tank through about 4 active nightmare lights with about 8-10 nightmares attacking me.

I will treat this statement cautiously: a nightmare light will produce up to 2 shadows (at slightly different intervals), and Bernie can’t even handle 5 nightmarebeaks at a time because the dps is so high, but I assume rngesus sided with you and spawned mostly crawling nightmares.

Frankly I personally try to cut corners in my ruins rushes because there’s so much unnecessary fuel that you would otherwise gather if you didn’t shorten your farming in the ruins (even if the progress is "natural") : be it from maze chests, insanity shadows, nightmare light shadows, very small group(s) of shadow splumonkeys, mining ancient statues, occasional damaged clockwork that you have to kill.
And tbf, I don’t see any reason to arrive at the crafting station at the end of your run with more than 1 stack of fuel; and a pro can easily adjust his run based on the amount of fuel he already has.
Besides, the qualification of “pro” doesn’t help here because it all depends on your goals: some people will fully clear the ruins (and yes that implies hammering 99-100% of broken clockworks, imagine that !) while others come here for the sole purpose of getting caller staves/magiluminescence + the optional crowns/suits/green gem devices).

 

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Yeah thats great that abigail can do that by herself... useful for noobs not so much pros.

I don’t need Bernie, nor Abigail for that matter, to be able to easily execute a normal ruins rush. I can do it as Wilson or Wormwood, it doesn’t matter (Wes is a different story, it wouldn’t be difficult but annoying due to low dmg output outside wes beefalo gaming aka beefalo gaming).

I will play X character for the variety in gameplay; not because supposedly “X is stronger than Y”.

But in general, when it comes to farming a resource that comes from mobs such as the ones mentioned above, it will be more convenient for you, as a pro, to do it as Wendy (just as it is easier to gather wood with Maxwell than with Wilson).

 

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Bernie has a higher skill ceiling of usefulness compared with abigail.

Outside above mentioned df strat I don’t see any other situation where this statement comes close to being true.
And being able to face tank 8 shadows at a time (mostly crawling horrors), before having to craft a sewing kit doesn’t count in this matter.

Finally, don’t mistake it for a willow-bashing rant from me; I played with this “unpopular” character a lot (mainly because I find the df fight more fun this way) and Bernie definitely is a neat bonus for a ruins trip. But I won’t pretend that willow is better than wendy in general, since the opposite is true.

As for Wendy, she has great appeal for both noobs and pros alike: she guarantees easy survival for a noob (also is an immense asset in a multiplayer noob pub server type setting, the extreme opposite of which would be webber sadly) and for pros she provides convenience (resource farming wise) and optionally, niche boss strats (fw, bq mainly).

[abrocator]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Bernie is more useful in the really dangerous situations.

Puts on pro-gamer hat

Just don’t get yourself into dangerous situations in the first place.

[Lardee]

Willow is a really cool character and a lot of the points that the OP brought up are 100% true. However, in my opinion the upsides of Willow do not overcome the upsides of Wendy in most situations. 

The only clear advantage Willow has are against nightmare creatures and maybe against CC just because it's so hard to keep Abigail alive in that fight.  Cooking faster and on the go, using less resources for fire, being able to craft the lighter, and fire immunity are all neat things, but IMO they don't overcome the ability to do rapid AoE attacks and the ability to rival Wolfgang in DPS.

 

That said, if Klei would just change Bernie's attack to AoE somewhat like what FW does, I feel it would make her a lot more viable.