Willow re-reWork

[Theukon-dos]

6 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Fire magic is a really nice suggestion. Her hair could unfurl from it's ponytails and rise into flame hair. 

Random Google pic for concept

It's less willow setting herself on fire and more becoming a living flame herself. 

If it made her a walking campfire (the stone one so as to not set everything on fire), as a lavae is, that would be neat. "Hey willow let me cook this meat on your head." Lol

Willow walking through the night as fire incarnate without the need of torch nor lantern just sounds badass. 

Edit: Cooking on her head was a silly joke, but I think she should be able to cook things in her inventory as she already does minus using her item. Idk how she would transform though, maybe with enlightenment? Enlightenment is her achilles heel ATM. Maybe give her firestorm form few extra things.

Not personally a fan of the Self-immolation. Though it's the right idea.

 

I mentioned this on the other Willow Rework thread. But I'd love it if Willow was retooled into a dedicated spellcaster. With how often she's depicted as a fire witch, I think there could be some fun mechanics there. Give her Maxwell's casting system, tie it to her lighter, and go nuts I'd say.

[goatt]

10 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

It's less willow setting herself on fire and more becoming a living flame herself. 

I would like to expand on the implication of her becoming fire or setting herself on fire in fighting scenes. I think it would be nice perk because.

1. fire panics non-boss mobs or bosses' minions.

2. fire has constant areal damage.

3. freeze resistance

Those are the actual reasons motivates my passion about her fire traits. I'm a battle guy. The implications are:

1. bee queen solo will be her perk when grumble bees are in constantly panic.

2. fighting hound waves will be her perk.

3. in animal farms, she can stand in the middle of confined animal crowd and burn them all to death instead of killing them one by one. For example, farming werepigs.

4. she can kill spider crowds a little like Abigail, but with difference.

5. freezing resistance against winter bosses and crab king.

That one single change will bring a lot of unique difference.

Panic is an under-unitized mechanics and can be put on willow. But how it's actually implemented can be very different. From constant panicking to panic per touch like wx's electric circuit, to panic resistance like freeze resistance, they can tune the power of the perk.

I would imagine her power will constantly drain her sanity and hp because she use them to fuel the fire. I also imagine the areal fire damage to greater than regular fire damage.

 

The reason I want magic fire instead of regular fire is because I'm too tired to deal with the fire spread. I would imagine magic (dark) fire wouldn't cause the burndown of nearby structures or boss loot.

[Atkvin]

Welp, some more ideas - this time focused more on changing Bernie to fit more into Willow's kit, encouraging Willow to burn things, and even somewhat facilitating fire combat within the current systems.

 

Lighter no longer loses durability when used by Willow, and can be set on fire itself to cause a one-time explosion like gunpowder

Bernie no longer comes alive while Willow is insane, but while equipped, now entirely repels nm creatures at the cost of durability

Bernie is no longer repaired by sewing kits, and instead is crafted using & repaired by being filled with ash

At night, Bernie comes alive and taunts nm creatures regardless of Willow's proximity and sanity. BERNIE! appears on new moon nights

New craft:

Voodoo Bernie - Willow can prototype a voodoo doll at a Shadow Manipulator using a full durability Bernie and a Telltale Heart. Voodoo Bernie can be paired with any living mob by offering it any drop - or in bosses' case, specific drops - from the mob's loot table. Pairing does not consume the item.

Once paired, VB's durability now directly reflects the mob's current health, itself becoming destroyed when the enemy dies. Willow can remotely hurt the enemy by ripping up VB, taking a decent sanity hit per rip - naturally, the number of rips needed to kill the enemy scales with the target's health.

Willow may also set Voodoo Bernie on fire to set the paired mob on fire, surveying its durability carefully to track the mob's health, and extinguish VB to instantly put out the fire on the enemy as well.

[JJ0264]

Willow update ideas

Willow's lighter can now put out fires (cost 1 durability and -5 sanity) + durability last an extra day

fire staffs + fire darts have 2x damage (or any "fire" related item)

Willow can craft "needle & tread" for 33% (1 stinger, 1 silk, 1 ash) needle & tread is one time use, only for easier time repairing Bernie

Bernie has Aoe damage for shadow monsters

Bernie will transform in-n-out quicker on Willow sanity/insanity

Bernie will transform during near full lunacy + Bernie will stop Willow from being hit by gestalts

[sudoku]

I hope with the introduction of damage types, we eventually get a fire dmg type. Willow could have an innate bonus increase to these weapon types like previously mentioned the fire staff and darts.

I would also remove burned loot from burning enemies, its not a fun or interesting mechanic anyway and limits the use of fire related weapons for no good reason. 

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, sudoku said:

I hope with the introduction of damage types, we eventually get a fire dmg type. Willow could have an innate bonus increase to these weapon types like previously mentioned the fire staff and darts.

I would also remove burned loot from burning enemies, its not a fun or interesting mechanic anyway and limits the use of fire related weapons for no good reason. 

That's a thought that crossed my mind too - if they took the planar damage concept and extended it.  Fire, lightning and ice are already well known concepts in the world, its just that they were focused on effects, not as a general damage type.  If they build out all of the existing world with like fire > thunder > water > fire element circle, and gave armor / weapon bonuses based on what you were wearing for defense or attack, then Willow could be stronger in fire element giving her certain enemies she can be stronger against and letting her use fire magic as a damage type without spreading flames.  Other weapons and perks can be made around the other types.  Then after CC its more natural to introduce planer >< shadow elements.

[Atkvin]

1 hour ago, sudoku said:

I would also remove burned loot from burning enemies, its not a fun or interesting mechanic anyway and limits the use of fire related weapons for no good reason

Er, while I agree it is a shame they haven't yet come up with a way to incorporate fire combat within the game's systems (does Wicker's fire book help?), I must politely, vehemently disagree.

The clear reason is balance. Surely you must grasp that on some level. Without that limitation, there would be no reason to ever engage in combat other than burn enemies down;

Burning spiders and their dens down with a torch, burning treeguards with a fire staff, burning bosses with ovens. And that would largely make weapons and armor - and by extension, sources and farms for said equipment - entirely redundant.. not forgetting character unique modifiers for direct combat also rendered trivial compared to the much safer and dirt-cheap cost of a torch or fire staff.

"Hey, have you heard they added a boss to Don't Starve Together?" "Yeah, I have 2000 gunpowder farmed up and ready in preparation. Can't wait to see what it drops, hopefully it isn't armor since that's useless!"

 

[sudoku]

32 minutes ago, Atkvin said:

The clear reason is balance. Surely you must grasp that on some level. Without that limitation, there would be no reason to ever engage in combat other than burn enemies down;

Surely you must grasp that balance can be achieved in several ways that don't take away from the experience and punish players for simply using a specific weapon.

Fire darts for example currently deal 5 direct damage and up to 120 burning damage.

With a new fire damage type instead, burning damage could be removed, the direct number could be buffed, say 100 like the regular darts(or whatever the actual developers find balanced) and then certain mobs could potentially also be weak or have more defense to and against fire damage. They could keep the panic the mobs do while burning or remove it, and burning enemies would still spread fire, possibly even to loot they drop but you have a  chance to extinguish it before it burns completely.  

 

[JJ0264]

one thing that bugs me is that I can't pick up big BERNIE, I have to wait for him to revert back to small Bernie

ps. spider + bunnylords farm can help with Bernie replacement (instead of using sewing kits), 1 stack of beefalo hair + beard hair + silk = 20 Bernie's or 40,000 hp which I wonder how well that would do against bosses (assuming Willow is getting rid of the shadows)

[Mr_Vol]

These are some ideas i have seen and I added in my own, i hope you like them. 

-New ability "Willow's Flame". (When Willow is at low sanity she has a chance to put her enemie on fire. Fire does not spread and can stack with normal fire effects. Loot does not automatically get burn up but will drop on the ground on fire.)

-Willow can put out fires for the cost of -5 sanity.

-Bernie occasionally does an AOE attack, 1 AOE out of 5 attacks (You could even have it up to 2-3 AOE attacks out of 5, scaling off of how low Willows sanity is).

-Willows lighter is as bright as a normal torch and can be refueled.

-Willow gains 2-3 sanity when refueling fires of any kind (examples are campfires, fire pits, Willows lighter, Nightmare lights).

 

To maximize The Fire Starter's (Willow's) damage in the world you'll want to be insane most of the time. Light something on fire with her lighter or fire staff and if you're insane you can add "Willows Flame" ontop of the fire effect (dealing double fire damage). This in it's self comes with its own down sides like managing Bernies health so it can deal with Nightmare Creatures, Overheating in summer and putting out the fires you may have started when you first lite them on fire using the normal fire effect. 

These ideas will make Willow a new player friendly character when gaining sanity from fueling fires and expert players will like the chaos she brings when she has a fire staff making her a semi caster, when at low sanity doing extra damage with "Willow's Flame " and having a stronger attack with her body guard.