New-ish player asking for character recommendations for public server play

[Mike23Ua]

Guys.. the op asked other than Wendy which character would still play closest to her playstyle, they did not ask which character does what better.. they want a character that’s almost Wendy (but not.) and for me those choices as I mentioned above would be Willow, Wolfgang & Wanda.

Because they offer the Same A.I. Companions, Boosted Damage, & Easy Teammate healing as just playing Wendy would.

[Gashzer]

6 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Guys.. the op asked other than Wendy which character would still play closest to her playstyle, they did not ask which character does what better.. they want a character that’s almost Wendy (but not.) and for me those choices as I mentioned above would be Willow, Wolfgang & Wanda.

Because they offer the Same A.I. Companions, Boosted Damage, & Easy Teammate healing as just playing Wendy would.

This topic has evolved beyond the Op  

Hey Justafangrell just play wormwood, he has all of wendys AoE mob farming ability plus a ton other useful abilities beyond AoE damage.

[Dextops]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

his other utility wood chopping power.

which is outclassed by him simply using pigs and picking up/digging up the wood

 

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

He has AoE of moose

which is worse, hurts you, and brings you to 0 hunger

[Gashzer]

Just now, Dextops said:

which is outclassed by him simply using pigs and picking up/digging up the wood

 

which is worse, hurts you, and brings you to 0 hunger

Yeahh i guess your right, Woodies forms are hella fun tho so ill always be biased towards my old main 

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Winonas catapult arnt mobile, wx voltage is terrible, followers are not aoe.

Wormwood can make bramble husks very quickly (bee hives are everywhere), giving AoE abilities to everyone on the team... meaning everyone can farm spiders just as easy as wendy.  You can heal any damage using spider glands.

The only thing wendy is good for is rushing bee queen, bramble husks dont do enough damage to grumble bees. But if you want to rush bee queen, winona is better for that as well as she sets up all future bee queen farming.

Winona and Wormwood both are much better than Wendy. The easy access of abigail is great for noobs i wont lie... but for the average player and above abigail is pretty useless.

Willow can farm any mob pretty easy with bernie (Willow can manipulate her sanity using mushrooms and her lighter), plus she can farm nightmare creatures which is so unique as all important high tier stuff needs fuel. Again Willow is better than wendy.

Even woodie is a better character. He has AoE of moose plus all his other utility wood chopping power.

Wendy is one of the most overrated garbage characters in the game, shes a favourite for noobs and people who like her skins (she is an aesthetically pretty good character tbh)

sry bramble husks got nothing on abigail lol.  Abi right out the gate can clear waves of spiders or bees at literally zero risk / upkeep to you.  More importantly she gives a pretty massive dps spike to Wendy, especially if she tames a beef.

The set up for Winona to kill bee queen with catapults is pretty high, not something I would consider a "rush."  Abi makes bee queen a much easier setup compared.  If Winona and Wendy started the world together Wendy would 100% get the bee queen first.

The utility Bernie provides is also completely different then Abi.  Bernie lets you farm shadow monsters, and grabs aggro from many monsters around but doesn't have the dps to really fight back against anything.  He tanks, but you need to kill.  Abi is a dps type mob, she tanks and kills many things without you adding damage at all.  Very different.

I feel these are some pretty odd takes on Wendy designed to make her seem much worse off then she is lol

[ShadowDuelist]

23 hours ago, Justafangrell said:

What do you all have to say? Who would a wendy mains skills transfer most well to, and who helps the most on public server/ tips on being useful as a wendy main maybe. 

My advice: try different characters at your own pace and discover what YOU can do with them and if you enjoy doing that. Don't over-focus on character perks, and focus more on problem solving with what you have.

Basically any character can be helpful, even a Wes, it's more of a matter of seeing what the team lacks and trying to figure how to solve it from where you stand:
-"Okay we are here, we have these things, we could use this other thing nobody is doing. How can I do that, as this character, in the best way possible?" Kinda mindset. If you can use some of your character perks on it, better! If not, it doesn't matter, you are being helpful anyway. Things can always be done in more than one way.

After several playthroughs with different characters and with many funny deaths in your obituary, you will know for certain what things you had fun with, while feeling helpful. Then you can probably focus on becoming great on those things with the characters you liked.

[SapoLover]

If you are having trouble to survive playing characters other than Wendy, I think you should try Wilson. You don't need an specific character to cooperate or help the other players. You want to help? Help yourself first. Once you know how to take care of yourself, you can take care of the others.

That said, I think the non-DLC characters that help the most in public server are Maxwell, Wendy and Wigfrid. Those characters can unlock a high potential very early, before winter when everyone leaves. And I don't think Wendy's playstyle translates well to any other character. She's just too dependent on Abigail, who is very different from any other minion.

[Justafangrell]

11 hours ago, Gashzer said:

This topic has evolved beyond the Op  

Hey Justafangrell just play wormwood, he has all of wendys AoE mob farming ability plus a ton other useful abilities beyond AoE damage.

id play wormwood if i had him lmao, i only have like 62 spools and i dont have the money to spend on each dlc character (the game itself was a gift)

also why comment if you think "the topic has evolved beyond op", the thread was started for a specific reason lmao

[KeshS]

It's better if I list characters not to pick on pubs:

Willow - She is not bad, but you might get framed by a griefer that you burned the base, because players are gulible to bias.

Webber - Especially on Klei official servers, your horde of spiders will tank the host, causing everyone playing massive lags. Sometimes it even ends up crashing.

Walter - For many reasons I don't recommend; new players also like to take this char. If you are interested in having a ridable pet, then beefalo is a much better alternative - it can tank, and hit back.

Winona - People play her for catapults, and they consume a lot of resources. Pick her unless you like working with statues, and building finicky designs. Usually, players that like Winona don't play other characters as well.

[Gashzer]

10 hours ago, Shosuko said:

sry bramble husks got nothing on abigail lol.  Abi right out the gate can clear waves of spiders or bees at literally zero risk / upkeep to you.  More importantly she gives a pretty massive dps spike to Wendy, especially if she tames a beef.

Takes a Wormwood 2mins to find a bee hive and kill some bees. Once he has his bramble husk he can wreck all the bees and spiders, so can his team. The slight hp cost and having to hold down F is nothing. All wendy can do is AoE damage, wormwood has much more abilities to boot and is just a overall better version of Wendy for solo or in a team.

Wendy with a beefalo is pretty good but that requires taming a beefalo, a long and involved process. If im taming a beefalo, i cant trust the beefalo to not die to rooks if i rush the ruins during first autumn, rushing starcaller staffs, thulecite clubs and a mag is more useful to me going into winter and beyond than a fully tamed beefalo is. If you dont tame a beefalo as Wendy however her 0.75x damage is awful against any AoE boss, rooks or shadow creatures. 

10 hours ago, Shosuko said:

The set up for Winona to kill bee queen with catapults is pretty high, not something I would consider a "rush."  Abi makes bee queen a much easier setup compared.  If Winona and Wendy started the world together Wendy would 100% get the bee queen first.

I can kill bee queen day 5-6 with wendy and day 10-11 as winona, not a terribly huge difference in prep time. However in winonas case ive prepped bee queen for repeated farming that any character can benefit from. I can leave the server straight after and ill still be helping the whole server for ingame years to come. Or i can switch off winona and benefit still. Wendy has no carry over perks worth talking about. Winona can place catapults near spider quarries for anyone to farm spiders. Not as convenient for you to play as but winona helps the team out far more than wendy.

10 hours ago, Shosuko said:

The utility Bernie provides is also completely different then Abi.  Bernie lets you farm shadow monsters, and grabs aggro from many monsters around but doesn't have the dps to really fight back against anything.  He tanks, but you need to kill.  Abi is a dps type mob, she tanks and kills many things without you adding damage at all.  Very different.

Bernie doesnt need dps to fight anything, you just need to hold f beside him and everything dies the same as if you were to use abigail. Not much more effort required... the effort for bernie is juggling your sanity levels, but having a stack of green/blue mushrooms allows you to do this easily tho.

Bernie is much more reliable for boss fights as you can craft many bernies to replace each other especially bosses with a high insanity drain.

Willow maintains the 1x damage so you dont need to tame an ornery beefalo, you can get the superior rider beefalo instead. As fighting on foot is better than an ornery beefalo for all characters apart from wendy and wes.

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, KeshS said:

Walter - For many reasons I don't recommend; new players also like to take this char. If you are interested in having a ridable pet, then beefalo is a much better alternative - it can tank, and hit back.

Beefalo is 100% not a better alternative, if playing on pubs you have to hammer 2 pig houses to get the 4 pig skins needed for the saddle, what if someone else has already hammered them all? Then you have to find the beefalo and shave them for the wool, start feeding one, feed them every time you get bucked, deal with getting bucked repeatedly for ages... if you tame an ornery you have to feed it every single time you jump on an off. 

The best thing about beefalos is the 65% speed boost and being able to ignore piggy backpack slow down penality not the combat ability... its far weaker than fighting on foot. Walter doesnt need a bell, doesnt need a saddle, doesnt need to worry about random bucking and if you wear thulecite gear or a marble suit a boss hit cant even buck you from woby. You only need to feed woby one/two monster meat every day... the one meat source that is overly abundant.

Walter has loads of good perks for noobs. Camper tent allows for easy sanity and health healing anywhere on the map. If noobs wear a logsuit with pinecone hat then even the sanity loss on hit isnt an issue. Backpack are unneccesary for him. Slingshot is great if you dont know how to kite with melee. Just kite easy with it and use gold rounds.

[ALCRD]

4 hours ago, KeshS said:

Walter - For many reasons I don't recommend; new players also like to take this char. If you are interested in having a ridable pet, then beefalo is a much better alternative - it can tank, and hit back.

Why not? He actually has a lot of helpful stuff in his kit to help newcomers.

Also Woby is way less annoying to get on a public server than a Beefalo. (Have you tried taming a Beefalo on a populated server? It's usually next to impossible for a newcomer. Pig skins are non existent common resources are mostly plucked clean regularly.)

You get her from the very start and she doubles as a immortal Chester and she only costs some Monster meat to ride and nothing else. Sure she is not very good for combat unless you have a lot of Gold/Marble at hand but still free fast starter mount that doesn't require saddle and Chester in one it's a win win.

His sanity penalty might be annoying but in addition to that penalty you get no passive sanity drain from dark , caves , monster and several abilities and items in his kit restore sanity so that penalty is more than bearable / fairly easy to counter.

[KeshS]

On 5/24/2023 at 2:04 PM, Gashzer said:

Walter has loads of good perks for noobs. Camper tent allows for easy sanity and health healing anywhere on the map. If noobs wear a logsuit with pinecone hat then even the sanity loss on hit isnt an issue. Backpack are unneccesary for him. Slingshot is great if you dont know how to kite with melee. Just kite easy with it and use gold rounds.

On 5/24/2023 at 4:36 PM, ALCRD said:

His sanity penalty might be annoying but in addition to that penalty you get no passive sanity drain from dark , caves , monster and several abilities and items in his kit restore sanity so that penalty is more than bearable / fairly easy to counter.

I want to limit the bias with this character, and explain why he isn't good simply with stats. I hope you understand

Every character has 3 important stats: hunger, sanity, hp being the latter the most important one. In a sense, every character has to “use-up” one of these stats to move forward in the game. For example, if you are fighting monsters like spiders to get their loot, you are bound to lose some hp; essentially you are trading hp for loot. That’s why we have characters with high hp like Wolfgang, WX or even Wormwood to sacrifice their hp to get more or even better quality loot. You also can also use up sanity, but the drawback is that you have to deal with shadow creatures which can use up your hp. Characters like Maxwell or Wickerbottom, or simply the casters, invest in magic to fight monsters, so they in turn don’t have to use up as much hp as other characters need, like casting shadow puppets on enemies or Wicker using her bees/tentacles. This formula is fine, because by sacrificing one stat, you get something in return to help you out. But this poses a problem to Walter, because his hp is tied to sanity. 

 

So for every damage (hp) Walter takes, he takes half as much hit to the sanity. Now why this is not good. As I stated that stats are a resource, Walter already takes 1.5x more damage than other characters if we combine hp and sanity together, that’s one problem. On top of getting drained by sanity, you also suffer a sanity drain equal to how much hp you have left, so let’s say the average character has 150 hp, the character took half of it (75 hp). It’s duable to still continue sacrificing hp while not in serious danger of defeat. Now what if Walter took that much, ok so he loses 37.5 sanity instantly, on top of it he also gets a constant insanity drain of 0.2 for every 1 hp lost. Essentially it’s -15/min, but it is capped at -12/min, so it’s that. So in an ideal environment where he had full sanity of 200, he suddenly has 162.5 sanity on top of -12/min sanity drain with 55 hp remaining, because his max hp is 130. Now with a serious downside, Walter has to find a solution to his health problem in 11,04 minutes before he gets hit by insanity that will pose an even greater problem for his survival, that is if he doesn’t have any other negative or positive modifiers that can influence this number.

 

What kind of conclusion can we draw from that? First and foremost, Walter gets nothing from utilising his sanity. He doesn’t have any caster abilities that would help him survive longer or prevent a serious crisis. Second, while other characters can focus on one stat to trade, Walter has to focus on essentially two stats: hp and sanity. Even if he recovers hp to full, he still has to look for sanity sources, because while taking hp damage correlates to taking sanity damage, sanity unfortunately doesn’t recover when restoring hp. Third problem is the minimal use of his “bravery”. Before the patch you used to benefit in a certain way by wearing high insanity weapons or armor provided you don’t get hit much, especially handling something like a dark sword, that is the highest dps weapon with no downsides! Maybe the perk itself is great, ok. If you sit in base with all the food, and do nothing then yes it’s a good perk, and you don’t need to worry about the sanity. Unfortunately, this game requires you to use up stats, so we will use up some hp. Let’s say something small like a spider hit with a standard 0.8 armor reduction. A spider deals 20 damage, but you only get hit by 4 hp which translates to -2 sanity drain and 0.8/min drain, if compared to Wendy that has default 0.75/min, she is already in a better shape. Which brings down to that Walter suffers 1.5x more than any other character, and the wise choice would be to use a unique ranged weapon (slingshot) to combat the penalty. Unfortunately, this is not an optimal solution, and has its drawbacks. I also want to talk about how sacrificing a head slot for a pioneer hat is an even worse choice than having something like a football hat. I would do that in the next post if you want me.

[ALCRD]

1 hour ago, KeshS said:

So for every damage (hp) Walter takes, he takes half as much hit to the sanity. Now why this is not good. As I stated that stats are a resource, Walter already takes 1.5x more damage than other characters if we combine hp and sanity together

With that logic Walter actually comes on top over other characters instead being worse as you claim. Since monsters drain your sanity the closer you are to them. Even common crap like Spiders do have quite hefty sanity drain. Walter has none of that he can kite and fight these without any passive hit to sanity.

Unlike other characters his sanity also never drains in the dark , when using wormholes or when near nightmare fissures etc.

And also Walter can restore his sanity from basically nothing too (talking to himself at campfire , being around trees)

1 hour ago, KeshS said:

He doesn’t have any caster abilities that would help him survive longer or prevent a serious crisis

Also not true.

First of all his Slingshot:

Poop pellets for example de-aggro troublesome enemies so you can escape unharmed thus you prevent a serious crisis.

Killing small critters for easy morsels and easily aggroing skittish mobs like Koalefants which helps you greatly getting meat/morsels if you struggle for food - that can help you survive longer.

Aforementioned portable tent which restores both health and sanity on the go without needing to go back to base if you are injured or insane in middle of nowhere. (And he also takes only half the hunger penalty when sleeping compared to other chars)

Saying he doesn't have any abilities that would help him survive longer or prevent serious crisis is just factually incorrect.

[KeshS]

6 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

With that logic Walter actually comes on top over other characters instead being worse as you claim. Cause you forgot about major thing. Monsters drain your sanity the closer you are to them. Even common crap like Spiders do have quite hefty sanity drain. Walter has none of that he can kite and fight these without any penalty to sanity.

You are again ignoring hp as if it doesn't exist. It puts additional stress for playing perfectly without damage. Only argument I can see as you mentioned slingshot which still uses resources or bone armor (late game armor).

1 hour ago, KeshS said:

He doesn’t have any caster abilities that would help him survive longer or prevent a serious crisis

11 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Also not true.

First of all his Slingshot

This is an out of context quote. I said he doesn't utilize sanity to get him out of bad encounters, like wicker or maxwell. His slinghot is a physical resource that puts him out "danger".

I didn't express anything about his slingshot, but I think I should later.

17 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Killing small critters for easy morsels and easily aggroing skittish mobs like Koalefants which helps you greatly getting meat/morsels if you struggle for food - that can help you survive longer.

It is, but you also pay an expensive price to utilize such resources, they are not cheap in early game.

19 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Saying he doesn't have any abilities that would help him survive longer or prevent serious crisis is just factually incorrect.

I mentioned earlier opinion focused claims are not gonna work. Provide prove where I made mistakes in my calculations, or provide your on stats to counter my claims.

[ALCRD]

18 minutes ago, KeshS said:

You are again ignoring hp as if it doesn't exist.

You are again ignoring the fact that armor and pioneer hat exists.

18 minutes ago, KeshS said:

This is an out of context quote. I said he doesn't utilize sanity to get him out of bad encounters, like wicker or maxwell.

And this is complete out of context nonsense that supposed to prove what? That Walter isn't Maxwell or Wicker?

Well duh. He has is own kit and abilities that helps him survive in The Constant including his own way of countering insanity.

18 minutes ago, KeshS said:

I mentioned earlier opinion focused claims are not gonna work. Provide prove where I made mistakes in my calculations, or provide your on stats to counter my claims.

Right "calculations" pulled out of your...

I already said why you are wrong in regards of Walter not having anything in his kit that helps him avoid crisis or helps him survive longer and provided examples.

At this point you are just doing "Nuh uh my opinion is more factual than yours!" - I am getting You only like winter for McTusk drops thread deja vu

[KeshS]

9 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Right "calculations" pulled out of your...

Not an argument. 

10 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

I already said why you are wrong in regards of Walter not having anything in his kit that helps him avoid crisis or helps him survive longer and provided examples

I am here providing with stats while you are saying "nuh uh he has poop pellets, and gold pellets farming". Seems quite unfair. With such logic Winona should be a powerhouse compared to Walter with her catapults.

[ALCRD]

17 minutes ago, KeshS said:

I am here providing with stats while you are saying "nuh uh he has poop pellets, and gold pellets farming". Seems quite unfair. With such logic Winona should be a powerhouse compared to Walter with her catapults.

Well your "stats" are nonsense sadly and don't really work in practice.

And on top of that you twist my words. As if that's the only thing i mentioned that he has in his kit that helps him survive longer in the Constant or avoid crisis - after you said he has none - which is 100% false.

But sure keep moving those goal posts around to suit your fallacious argument.

[KeshS]

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

And on top of that you twist my words. As if that's the only thing i mentioned that he has in his kit that helps him survive longer in the Constant or avoid crisis - after you said he has none.

I did say slinghot is expensive early on and thus you need to do melee regardless. Tent is nice, but anyone charachter can make their portable tent with fur roll. It's also not feasible to restore little hp with a tent, but having -10 hp will influence your gameplay. I am still waiting for a well written explanation why my post sucks.

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

Well your "stats" are nonsense sadly.

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

But sure keep moving those goal posts around to suit your fallacious argument.

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

I am getting You only like winter for McTusk drops thread deja vu

[ALCRD]

59 minutes ago, KeshS said:

Tent is nice, but anyone charachter can make their portable tent with fur roll. It's also not feasible to restore little hp with a tent, but having -10 hp will influence your gameplay.

Fur roll requires bunny puffs has only 3 uses.

Tent roll restores more hp , dries you , has 10 uses and is cheap to craft (requires only twigs and grass)

59 minutes ago, KeshS said:

I am still waiting for a well written explanation why my post sucks.

I am still waiting for a well written explanation why Walter sucks for new players despite his numerous perks that are helpful early game other than: "uhm he's not a caster like Wicker and Maxwell"

[gamehun20]

22 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Ten troll restores more hp , dries you , has 10 uses and is cheap to craft (requires only twigs and grass)

Walter uses less durability or like uses less hunger with it iirc

[Gashzer]

@KeshS if walter wears his pinetree pioneer hat and gets hurt, he loses health and sanity at the same rate, the passive sanity loss from being hurt also gets divided by 4. So that max drain of  -12 sanity per min when badly hurt becomes at max a -3 drain. This is still less than the -4.4 drain of dusk and night for other players. 

But what other characters dont have is a very cheap and easy to craft, portable tent that heals both health and sanity for half the hunger cost. Bunny puffs are annoying to farm and fur rolls have less uses 3 compared to 10 and heal for less, 1hp/sec compared to 2hp/sec. Portable tent as ALCRD says also drys you off and heats you up during winter, perfect if you use a puffy vest, so you can kill 4 birds with one stone. 

This makes walter the best character to explore the caves during winter. He can handle the cave rain, cold, constant sanity loss of caves better than anyone.

Walter is the easiest character to stay sane!

You

Only

Need

To 

Use

Walter's

Actual

Equipment!

[lenship2]

3 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Walter is the easiest character to stay sane!

meanwhile maxwell's passive sanity gain:

[Gashzer]

4 minutes ago, lenship2 said:

meanwhile maxwell's passive sanity gain:

Nah but he gets effected by insanity auras tho. Walter can chill beside nightmare lights during the nightmare phase without a care in the world. Also wet gear still effects maxwell.

So no maxwell still isnt as good as walter.

[KeshS]

9 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Nah but he gets effected by insanity auras tho.

He also doesn't restore sanity from items like tam o shanter.

 

19 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

 if walter wears his pinetree pioneer hat and gets hurt, he loses health and sanity at the same rate

I can't tell if you are trolling. Sacrificing a head slot to only reduce sanity hit from half to a quarter is just terrible...

Edit: The hat only reduces 0.25 penalty to sanity for wearing it.