Modern day thoughts on Wortox (not a Wortox op thread)

[Baark0]

Honestly I think Wortox is kind of weak, at least when it comes to late game. His souls have a very small stack size when you factor in bundle wraps, and his souls are eventually just outclassed by jelly beans. Really the more I think about it, the more I realize that Wanda is just a better version of Wortox in almost every way. Her healing, while on a cooldown, regenerates freely and can circumvent the cooldown by simply crafting more watches, not to mention how cheap her teleporting is, coupled with the extra utility of transporting other players/heavy objects.

Of course that's all late game, Wortox I think might be the best early game character. Being able to store teleportation, healing, and food all in one inventory slot is very strong. 

Personally I wish Wortox's food penalty was only 75%, or at the very least the hunger penalty, just so that playing as him late game is a little more bearable. He's such an interesting character yet I find myself not playing him often since having to constantly maintain a steady supply of souls or eat 2x the amount of food gets tedious fairly quickly.

[Well-met]

At that point you have infinite jelly beans but not food? Doesn't seem to make sense

[Daniel86268]

Wortox isn't meant to be the most powerful being ever.

He's just a skittish and playful creature that has fun to soulhop around. He's simple to use (kill something -> right click to soul hop) and doesn't go overboard in Power.

Other characters have higher damage, more complex mechanics, more powerful teleportation, etc. But Wortox has the simplest teleportation and the easiest group heal.

The food penalty never really affected me tbh, and in a pinch I can just teat souls that I can get from almost every living creature on the map.

[Gashzer]

Wanda is just a weaker version of Wortox. Wortox starts the game being able to stack 400 healing by just killing any mob like butterflys. 400 healing is loads and is more than enough to solo any boss with. Wanda has to wait to winter to get her rift teleport. Wortox spawns with his teleport. 

Wortox can heal teammates allowing you and a friend to go straight into murdering bosses without having to grind healing. Wanda is so weak in teamplay compared to most of the other characters in the roster. Extra damage gets less and less important the more players you have. The revive watch straight up trolls people... the amount of people ive revived playing as wanda to watch them instant die again is hilarious. 

Being a great early game character is far better than bein a great late game character. Even a late game wes becomes stronger than an early game wanda once you obtain shadow reaper and bone armour. Early game when you have no good armour/equipment is the most important time to be strong.

Wortox being such a strong early game character is what makes him op.

 

[SecretPizzaMan]

3 hours ago, Well-met said:

At that point you have infinite jelly beans but not food? Doesn't seem to make sense

I think their point is that needing to cook and eat 2x more food than the other survivors is a bit tedious, not that they won't have food to cook or eat. I can see why they'd think that since cooking can end up taking a long time. And even if they don't cook, it can still be annoying to eat twice more food just to receive the same benefit.

[Gashzer]

25 minutes ago, SecretPizzaMan said:

I think their point is that needing to cook and eat 2x more food than the other survivors is a bit tedious, not that they won't have food to cook or eat. I can see why they'd think that since cooking can end up taking a long time. And even if they don't cook, it can still be annoying to eat twice more food just to receive the same benefit.

But souls feed you 25 hunger. Thats insane, why would you ever want to eat regular food as wortox? Just wear a top hat until you get a tam until you get the enlightened crown. Pudgy beefalo plus tam gives you insane sanity regen. You should never craft a crockpot as wortox

Sanity food like cooked cactus flesh functionally gives you the same sanity as regular characters atleast during boss fights because of wortox's half sanity drain from auras the cooked cactus flesh half sanity gain is cancelled.

[Starlogy]

4 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Pudgy beefalo plus tam gives you insane sanity regen.

You're really suggesting using a Pudgy Beefalo? As cute as they are they're just not that useful...

[Masked Koopa]

27 minutes ago, Starlogy said:

You're really suggesting using a Pudgy Beefalo? As cute as they are they're just not that useful...

Cuteness IS useful.

[Gashzer]

2 hours ago, Starlogy said:

You're really suggesting using a Pudgy Beefalo? As cute as they are they're just not that useful...

Only for wicker and wortox. People use ornery when rider beef is far superior so its down to personal preference.

I eat souls all day long and cause of my cute wee pudgy beefalo i named after my fiancee, im always at max sanity. It solves wortox's sanity problem from a souls only diet.

[Brago-sama]

Now if only you could teleport on a beef....

[ShadowDuelist]

I think it’s comparing apples with bananas. You can’t expect to play Wortox how you’d play Wanda and have better results, and vice versa. Wortox is very different and requires that you to make a different setup throughout the whole game, even in the late game for him to be effective.

Wortox can bypass food almost entirely creating an automated soul source, and paired with any sanity station or sanity food you can be covered for several days worth of food. And “refilling” doesn’t take much longer than cooking for anyone else, I’d dare to say it takes even less time.

Such setup is not that hard to do, just set an enclosed area near your base with 5-6 bunnymen and a spider nest (or scale it up as much as you wish, like 10 bunnymen and 2 nests) or bunnymen enclosed near frog ponds, or place flowers near lava pools, and keep doing those things at key places, you can move across the map effortlessly anyway. 

The time you save from moving around is huge and you can do that from day one. By the time Wanda starts making a teleportation system you could have done way way much more as Wortox. I’m not saying Wanda is worse as a character, she’s amazing in her own way and playstyle, and in the late game they fulfill different roles, you can like more one playstyle or the other.

The late game Wortox playstyle means that you have soul-making systems at 3 or 4 key landmarks you visit often, so you don’t have to properly cook for sustenance. For sanity you can either collect any sanity food (something as simple as collecting Cactii, or farming something, or just setting up bees, or whatever you like)  or if you want to avoid food altogether just make a sanity station, go around with a tam or the celestial crown, or if you have enough souls popping from one place, just fill your inventory with sticks, let them “heal” you and since souls released now give him a tiny sanity boost too, you’ll get sane instantly as well. Afterwards just open your inventory again and capture souls to do whatever.
 

The new map teleport of Wortox turned him from a “meh” character into a really good one across all stages of the game. Bonus points if you make a beefalo early on for even more speed when commuting short distances or fighting trash mobs without using weapons or armor. It’s just a shame we can’t heal or teleport our beefalo with souls if he did he’d be 10 times better in the late game. (The beefalo does follow you running when you map hop. But it would be more useful if we could soul-dodge attacks while riding)

[goatt]

Wanda's teleportation is superior in late game because the re-charge is automatic. But wortox's soul collecting is labor work.

Although Wanda's tp watch has lots of downsides, but the biggest benefit is freedom.

When I play wortox, thinking about having to walk to certain location, spend resources and time to collect souls, and catch bugs as backup souls, every time I need to travel or fight big battles, has exhausted me mentally before even starting soul hunting. Soul hunting is repetitive and tedious to me. But watch re-charge doesn't feel bad because I can do lots of stuff as I wait.

 

[lenship2]

wortox is really fun (especially early game), but collecting souls can get reallyyyyy tedious

[DarXide]

Wanda is currently my favorite character but I wouldn't say Wortox is bad nor "worse" late game. Like someone said it's apples and oranges

• Set up soul-farms. Bunnymen+spiders, bees+fire+flingomatic, or killerbees+bunnymen. Lots of options to get creative. I have a butterfly-souls method that is my favorite. Gives me an steady amount of souls/butterflies that I can set up within 5 days which I can't share because I love it too much and am afraid Klei will patch it lol
• If you barricade these farms with statues, Wortox is the only character who would not need to use a lazy forager, or waste time moving one statue just to get in because he can stand outside to get souls, and then just hop inside to pickup the loot when everyone's dead. Time and nightmare fuel saved
• Bundlewraps are still invaluable as Wortox. If you base 1-2 hops away from a killerbee hive, the silk you get from a spiderfarm can be made into a bugnet. Avoiding bee attacks is incredibly easy. You just run through all of them at once, they miss their attacks, and catch one. Rinse repeat. Within a minute you have 20 backup souls for caves/ruins/islands
• Jellybeans just means that your souls can be dedicating to teleporting, that's a win in my book. And let's be honest how many times are you really going to kill bee queen to amass that many jellybeans that Wortox's healing becomes redundant?
• Food wise, a juicy berry world is a huge win for Wortox as he can cook and eat them. And my favorite meals as Wortox are Tall Scotch Eggs and Meaty Stew, especially the latter because you can make it with 2 morsels, and 2 big meats. Normally anytime I cook these foods with other 150+ hunger characters I have to wait for them to starve. With Wortox I can just eat it knowing it'll be 75. For me that's a win. Food is always an annoying surplus in any of my solo and multiplayer games. Other farmers are happy someone's eating their foods instead of everything turning to rot
• Compared to Wanda's backstep watch, Wortox does not need to track his steps, you can hop in place or anywhere else

[Mike23Ua]

The newest Wortox skin looks too much like the devil, and It makes me feel uncomfortable.. Because I don’t believe in him please remove it Klei!

(This is Obviously a Joke.. while I actually DON’T Believe in the devil, the new skin is Awesome & I love it)

Wortoxs changes to teleport across the map from the mini-map also make travel way way more convenient for him so I’m really digging it.

I just wish there was more “Depth” to his character, Perhaps maybe Krampii would judge his actions with a “Naughtiness Meter” and if he isn’t doing enough naughty actions (such as killing butterflies or Catcoons or other mostly passive mobs that raise naughtiness..) then the High Council of Krampus will spawn to Attack Wortox.

It would've made Krampii spawn more often similar to how Woodie is More Likely to Spawn Treeguards.

[lenship2]

9 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It would've made Krampii spawn more often similar to how Woodie is More Likely to Spawn Treeguards.

wortox already has a 1.5x naughtiness multiplier

[bloopah]

15 minutes ago, lenship2 said:

wortox already has a 1.5x naughtiness multiplier

Since when?

[lenship2]

14 minutes ago, bloopah said:

Since when?

i just checked, and he doesn't? i swear i remembered reading that he had a naughtiness multiplier when researching him...

[xhyom]

He's fun and pretty balanced actually, but not being able to interact with the pig king or having rabbits or any other type of recruitable ally makes me stay away from playing with him...

[Primalflower]

2 hours ago, xhyom said:

but not being able to interact with the pig king

this is wurt specific. monster characters can still interact with the pig king and even wrestle with him if they have a belt

[Gashzer]

My biggest issue with wortox is how different he plays on console compared to pc. 

On pc you can accurately use soul hopping to kite attacks while standing right beside whatever mob or teleport exactly where you want.

On console you have a set distance you can teleport and thats it. No precise aiming the teleport, no using soul hop to dodge attacks.

Wortox is S-tier on pc and B-tier on consoles. I feel console players that have never played wortox on pc are missing out in his true fun and power.

Edit: i have DST on both nintendo switch and pc for reference.

[xhyom]

8 hours ago, Primalflower said:

this is wurt specific. monster characters can still interact with the pig king and even wrestle with him if they have a belt

I've been lying to myself all this time? Damn I always thought nah no way the king would speak to a monster, so his and Webber late game isn't as bad as I thought, there's no gold shortage then 

 

[Mysterious box]

15 minutes ago, xhyom said:

I've been lying to myself all this time? Damn I always thought nah no way the king would speak to a monster, so his and Webber late game isn't as bad as I thought, there's no gold shortage then 

 

Another interesting fun fact if you use celestial portal or play with friends is if your using Wurt's clever disguise Webber and Wortox can both recruit bunnymen and avoid hostilities from frogs and catcoons.

[veridianne]

"Wortox needs a buff" .t the uninitiated without butterfly and bee farms soul hopping across the map on a whim

[djturner]

I've found it's generally best practice to not compare characters to Wanda, or you'll be left disappointed. She is her own animal, whose main weaknesses, setup and animation speed of using her healing clock vs speed of eating food, are virtually eliminated by game mastery and completely eliminated in theoretical discussion areas like these. Look at Wortox without any considerations of Wanda existing (which is tough, but necessary for many characters) and I think you'll find he stacks up pretty well against the rest of the cast.

I think he's solidly average, personally, on a power level scale, which isn't bad on its own, but throw in that the things that he does are just so unique and I think he's in a good spot.