This update proves that planar mechanics are pointless.

[Theukon-dos]

I'll admit before we start, I've obviously been insanely biased against Planar Mechanics from the first of these rift updates. And as such, I've encountered and butted heads with a lot of people who have defended it for one reason or another. Either they actually thought the mechanic was a good idea, or they had faith in Klei that they'd make the mechanic into something interesting later down the line,

 

While I could take cheap pot shots at both of these claims just for a misguided sense of gratification, I'm not here to do that. I'm here because every possible reason or defense I've seen levied in favor of Planar Mechanics has completely crumbled with this update. Well, the ones that weren't already pretty shoddy at least. I still don't understand the idea that these mechanics will automatically make the new bosses into better fights, but I digress. So, let's briefly go through what different defenses of Planar Damage I've seen, and how they don't work anymore.

 

1. It gives a reason to use the post-rift gear over pre-rift gear. 

Klei absolutely did not need to hard-lock post rift content by adding planar mechanics. Even if it wasn't a flat damage or defense boost, they still could have encouraged the migration to this new kit by giving it other perks and bonuses. And wouldn't you know it? That's exactly what this update did. Both hats give their weapons a damage boost, Shadow reaper obviously doubles as the only way to boost picking rates that isn't character exclusive and can get damage ramping, the Void Cloak gives complete immunity to insanity auras, and the Brightshade Armor got recoil damage. 

The repair kits alone give all the rift items so much value. Think for a moment how much inventory space you dedicate to materials to recraft your equipment if something breaks. Grass and twigs as a baseline. Gold or Flint for tools, pigskin for helmets, either some meat for hambats or living logs and nightmare fuel for dark swords. Replacing all those items with their post-rift equivelants means that you can save a good 4-5 inventory slots in materials alone. 

 

2. It nerfs OP characters like Wolfgang and Wanda. 

Ignoring the fact that "Character whos purpose to fight good no longer fights good" isn't the defense people seem to think it is, this just isn't the case any longer. Wolfgang; a character who's often cited in these arguments do to the effects being the most obvious on him; now has skill tree perks that give up upto +25 planar damage when using said planar weapons. This means that, by default he only deals about 5 less damage with a Brightshade sword than with a Darksword. This is basically nothing unless you're so obsessed with numbers that you make Count von Count look like a numbers hobbiest. And means even less when you realize that the bonus from the brightshade helmet pushes that damage far and above the dark sword. And it's not like you can call this damage an investment either. Wolfgang's second rework making the gym only useful as a source of potatoes means that the six perks Wolfgang has revolving around the structure are completely useless. And this means that you're only 1 perk point short to get anything you'd actually want. 

 

Also, while the planar damage boosts being a flat bonus might seem like it's still keeping Wolfgang in check, it's really not. Keep in mind that a flat bonus as opposed to a percentage-based bonus means that it's going to be much, much stronger for planar weapons with an innately low damage. So Wolfgang may not be throwing around 400 damage brightshade bombs; thank goodness. But it is unleashing volleys of 35 damage Brightshade staff projectiles, meaning that 200% damage is now a 350% damage for this specific weapon. It goes upto 58 damage to shadow-aligned creatures if you have the alignment boost, just in case you didn't think that putting on a nightmare amulet was easy enough. 

 

And sure, you could argue that it's still keeping him in check because he can't chug a volt goat jelly to do 600 damage per blow dart under very specific conditions. But let's be honest, Warly's skill tree will probably give him some wacky-ass dish that boosts the planar damage even further. And if you really think that an entire mechanic like this is justifiable to nerf a strategy that's impressive on paper but otherwise was only used by min-maxers and players who fight most bosses with their eyes glued shut then- honestly, I don't even know what to say. That's just kind of sad. 

 

3. It's good because it makes new equipment a necessity but doesn't make old content easi-

Skill trees. I'm not even going to let you finish that sentence, becuase skill trees. 

You don't want the game to become easier just because the player killed either Moon Jesus or Bug ****? Well to bad, because instead, Klei's just going to give every character some massive power jumps that you can get just by playing the game. 

Woodie's the obvious example here, able to get bearger-tier resource harvesting within the first 5 minutes of loading a world. Not to mention enough firepower to make most giants look like paper mache, the ability to summon Tree Guards on a whim which he also deals extra damage to, discount walking cane, and the ability to completely ignore both his downsides among other things. At this point the only thing holding Woodie back is a crippling allergy to hitstun effects. Woodie's problem is that he didn't scale past the early game. He still doesn't, but now he doesn't need to because his early game is strong enough for the end game. 

 

And sure, Woodie was one of the worst characters in the game, so giving him those boosts more so brings him up to snuff than anything. But Wolfgang's faring just as well. 15% chance to insta-break harvestables, a free speed boost, dumbell tossing become a powerful weapon. And ofcourse being able to do +30% damage based on your alignment, on top of your already obscene 2x damage. You can either go shadow alignment to deal massive damage to the worst and most annoying boss in the game. IE Crab King. Or you can go lunar alignment too deal bonus damage to some of the most common and valuable mobs in the game, along side Ancient Guardian and Ancient Fuelweaver, two of the best and most profitable bosses in the game. 

 

Wormwood's really the only one who doesn't see massive buffs from the skill tree. But given that he's often cited as having the worst skill tree, I wouldn't be surprised if coming updates give him a couple new ones that can pull their weight, as it may be. 

 

Overall, I think I've made my point. The equipment's been buffed enough that it can stand on its own, characters are moving to be just as strong, if not stronger with planar damage than without it, and if characters can get buffed again after three straight years of power creep from the refreshes, I see no reason that Brightshade Swords can't hit that 75 damage mark by default. I'm sure more than a few people will crawl out of the woodwork to bring up more point that I forgot. But at this point, I feel vindicated enough to take it. 

[Antynomity]

The one thing that shows it the most is that like 20% of wolfgang's skills in his new skill tree in the beta is taken up by giving him more a fair stance while using planar weapons against planar enemies.

I'm just sad that it seems they have no will in making the whole game more challenging enemy and threat wise (that isn't just targetting your base) after years of making all characters completely better (wes is the only exception with one of the best reworks still)

[Zeklo]

4 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

3. It's good because it makes new equipment a necessity but doesn't make old content easi-

Skill trees

This.

It's no secret that I've been vocally optimistic about Planar & whatnaught, and this was one my the main reasons I liked the system. Unfortunately, Skill Trees work exactly counter to this function, so now I'm just kinda like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It definitely leans more towards my dislike for the current Skill Tree implementation, but it has the consequence of also invalidating what I liked with Planar.

[goatt]

Reading the post, I’m reminded that planar system is introduce so that

1. old bosses are not weakened against new gears

2. but old gears are weak against future new bosses.

 

But this update undo (1), and make characters flat out stronger against old bosses and seem to contradict the goal of planar damage.

——————

 

But some other posts reminded me that the buffed power is technically accessible from the beginning, because this skill tree is a character rework, but not post-cc endgame perk.

——————

 

I do feel disappointed, because I got an impression that this year would focus on late game content, rather than character-focused refresh.

 

those extra planar damage from mighty shouldn’t exist before planar damage itself is brought to the Constant by Deadly Brightshade or Shadow Creatures from Below. 

[xhyom]

I got really confused seeing Wolfgang getting those massive buffs to a mechanic that was supposed to hold him a bit. That magic staff is probably not supposed to be this powerful and will probably be corrected tho, not sure how Klei would've forgot about it (I hope they did this can't be intended...) as it was like the first thing that came to my mind reading the flat damage boost.
Still Klei can give him a 50% boost to everything possible in the game and I wouldn't bother playing as him so...

[Dragonboooorn]

Klei when community asks them if planar system were a mistake for 1000000 time

(plot twist Tencent forces them to add armor for mobs so DST will look more RPG like (skill tree also btw))

 

[SpringyInYoFace]

3 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

But Wolfgang's faring just as well. 15% chance to insta-break harvestables, a free speed boost, dumbell tossing become a powerful weapon. And ofcourse being able to do +30% damage based on your alignment, on top of your already obscene 2x damage. You can either go shadow alignment to deal massive damage to the worst and most annoying boss in the game. IE Crab King. Or you can go lunar alignment too deal bonus damage to some of the most common and valuable mobs in the game, along side Ancient Guardian and Ancient Fuelweaver, two of the best and most profitable bosses in the game. 

I don't really think this is accurate, don't get me wrong I think Wolfgang's perks are fun and do what they should do! Make the beefy damage guy be beefier and do more damage, but their not as good as Woodie's (nor should they be), Coach Wolfgang is nice but nothing shockingly good, the 10% speed boost is only in Normal form, the chance to shatter objects in one hit is only in Mighty form iirc and actually scales down as you get better tools, the Mighty perks are nice but  your Might isn't too difficult to maintain in the first place.

 

The Planar damage increase is the best tree and it compensates for his lack of damage multiplication on Planar weapons, and the affinities are very nice too but require you beating the CC and AF which means you can already beat those bosses without them, they just let you do so faster.

The bells are all very fun but realistically speaking not something that redefines the character in terms of ranking, Wolfgang's tree is much more of a Quality Of Life/Nice additions tree than the (deserved) massive spike Woodie's tree is and overall I do believe Klei will try its best to give stronger/weaker characters more quality of life/impactful perks respectively. That being said Wormwood def needs a buff in his perk tree.

 

Otherwise I do agree with everything else in your post, although Klei did listen to feedback on Planar equipment only  being really good on content that is annoying to introduce to the world in the first place and buffed them/gave them new abilities to compensate, I can only hope this might eventually lead them to reconsider planar defense ^^.

[Mysterious box]

4 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

At this point the only thing holding Woodie back is a crippling allergy to hitstun effects.

This is actually something I've been curious about actually so I've already noticed in the beta there was a stealth change to Woodie in how his werebeaver and weremoose works with it's meter drain but there's something else I've noticed but I'm not sure if it's just me. But it seems like the Weremoose shrugs off hitstun slightly better now at least I've been able to slip out of hordes hitstun easier seemly.

Now just as a disclaimer I haven't extensively tested this so it could be I've been slipping out of hordes by just being lucky or it could be the higher defense making it slightly easier to wiggle out or finally I could just be overthinking things.

[Picklesaurus]

29 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

.Now just as a disclaimer I haven't extensively tested this so it could be I've been slipping out of hordes by just being lucky or it could be the higher defense making it slightly easier to wiggle out or finally I could just be overthinking things.

Maybe I dont remember how it is in live branch moose, but I didnt notice any difference in the histun  to it in beta, only difference was  me surviving for longer so I could get out, but I still died to stunlock in a spider rock biome setpiece yesterday after being stubborn and charging back to it while I was already at half hp.

[Capybara007]

4 hours ago, Dragonboooorn said:

(plot twist Tencent forces them to add armor for mobs so DST will look more RPG like (skill tree also btw))

Klei dont strave pay to win rpg wolrd of warcraft mmo darksolds ñññ tencent !!!

[00petar00]

It baffles me that so many players are still biased against Wolfgang, he isn't leagues above every other character as with character refreshes, quite a few of them have been bumped up and bridged the gap.

Wolfgang's biggest benefit is high damage so that he can kill things faster and with less effort, why should he be weaker after rifts are opened? 

There are many different areas in the game that a character can excel at, just because Wolfgang looks flashy with his high damage it doesn't mean that he shouldn't have that.

I've noticed that the reason a lot of them don't play Wolfgang is because he is boring but he should be nerfed, at least that's what I got from talking to people that want him to have less damage.

When it comes to planar damage, I had similar thoughts and didn't believe that it would be that good for the game. 

[Mike23Ua]

19 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

It baffles me that so many players are still biased against Wolfgang, he isn't leagues above every other character as with character refreshes, quite a few of them have been bumped up and bridged the gap.

Wolfgang's biggest benefit is high damage so that he can kill things faster and with less effort, why should he be weaker after rifts are opened? 

There are many different areas in the game that a character can excel at, just because Wolfgang looks flashy with his high damage it doesn't mean that he shouldn't have that.

I've noticed that the reason a lot of them don't play Wolfgang is because he is boring but he should be nerfed, at least that's what I got from talking to people that want him to have less damage.

When it comes to planar damage, I had similar thoughts and didn't believe that it would be that good for the game. 

My problem with Wolfgang is that not only does he have extra strength, but he also seems to do just about every other task faster.. 

Comparing him side by side to Wendy, Wendy still has her “Hits Weaker” Downside, and while Abigail may make this appear to be Non-Existent, it is still a downside.. and you still feel it in areas of the game Abigail WONT Help Wendy fight things in- Such as Painfully slow wood chopping speeds, throwing Boomerangs at Birds that land, or any enemy mob Abigail just stands around avoiding such as Shadow Creatures.

Wolfgang doesn’t really have any of that.. and sure Klei could get “Creative” with Wendy’s Skill Tree by giving Abigail an ability to “Haunt” into the Ground and pop back up to sneak attack Birds or Whatever.. but until she gets that: Wolfgang OP please Nerf..

And that’s coming from a Wendy Main..

Homeboy gets skill trees to ignore his gym mini game, dumbells that are also thermal stones so he doesn’t need to even use a thermal stone slot anymore- I mean if you look at this “Wolfgang skill tree” it’s very clear that they wanted to remove most the nerfs his Rework gave him in the first place.

They gave him back his speed buff… but.. Why??? Wasn’t the entire point of allowing him to mine/chop faster to accommodate for removing that speed?

I feel like there’s been some staff changes at Klei and the original Developers ideas are literally being swept under the rug.

And me sitting here seeing this game get skill trees and rpg elements makes me feel like they’re trying to make it as close to a mobile game as possible so when DS:NewHome comes out, people are more likely to embrace it.

[n.apollyon]

The reason why Wolfgang and Wanda would have their own damage buffs is because they have no use of the new planar gears since they don't get their bonuses applied. And Wolfgang's main deal is to do damage so I don't think he should be deprived of that or made to be on equal footing with the others by not being able to scale on planar. I think Wigfrid might get a small damage related buff since she also has a small damage multiplier built in but it's definitely her crafts and the songs and their effects that would get the focus on her skill tree.

Woody and Wormwood's skill trees revolve on their respective mechanics and roles:

Woody on his wereforms and some new wooden crafts.

Wormwood on his plant-ness and lunar side by being able to mutate the living OR having some assistance from his kin by equipping the armor and weapon, which come from lunar plants and energy, with the skills unlocked.

 

You could treat Wolfgang's damage buff branch as the skill tree for his role in the game. His critical hit mining and chopping just happens to fall on the same category as being too buffed for the task, he still isn't effective as a gatherer as Woodie or Maxwell. 

[Jakepeng99]

There are many people hooked on the idea that character balance doesn't matter, but it does matter in an uncomprimising survival game and people are defending power creep too much. We have a book usable by wickerbottom and Maxwell that can turn of spring straight up with little downside and no resources spent, and both of those characters have no downsides that effect them, despite both of them having the strongest upsides in the game. Klei just feels too scared of adding difficulty to compensate for buffs- i think the lunar repair kits are too cheap, and i think Wolfgang's planar and alignment skills should only effect melee weapons, and yes the moose is insanely busted in the way you described it, though the beaver is fine.

 

Also, crab king is lunar aligned? I never knew that.

20 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

My problem with Wolfgang is that not only does he have extra strength, but he also seems to do just about every other task faster.. 

Comparing him side by side to Wendy, Wendy still has her “Hits Weaker” Downside, and while Abigail may make this appear to be Non-Existent, it is still a downside.. and you still feel it in areas of the game Abigail WONT Help Wendy fight things in- Such as Painfully slow wood chopping speeds, throwing Boomerangs at Birds that land, or any enemy mob Abigail just stands around avoiding such as Shadow Creatures.

Wolfgang doesn’t really have any of that.. and sure Klei could get “Creative” with Wendy’s Skill Tree by giving Abigail an ability to “Haunt” into the Ground and pop back up to sneak attack Birds or Whatever.. but until she gets that: Wolfgang OP please Nerf..

And that’s coming from a Wendy Main..

Homeboy gets skill trees to ignore his gym mini game, dumbells that are also thermal stones so he doesn’t need to even use a thermal stone slot anymore- I mean if you look at this “Wolfgang skill tree” it’s very clear that they wanted to remove most the nerfs his Rework gave him in the first place.

They gave him back his speed buff… but.. Why??? Wasn’t the entire point of allowing him to mine/chop faster to accommodate for removing that speed?

I feel like there’s been some staff changes at Klei and the original Developers ideas are literally being swept under the rug.

And me sitting here seeing this game get skill trees and rpg elements makes me feel like they’re trying to make it as close to a mobile game as possible so when DS:NewHome comes out, people are more likely to embrace it.

Wolfgang is pretty balanced, except maybe his two alignment skills that make him destroy some of the key areas in the game. 

[n.apollyon]

48 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

moose is insanely busted

The moose change was necessary since it was made for Woodie's fighting capabilities. It was slow and has no means of healing, the only thing it had was a huge damage reduction. The moose change made it more useable now, although I know there are some pro Woodie players who used the moose a lot even before the skill tree buff. 

 

48 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

his two alignment skills

I think those are in line with his role as a damage dealer though I agree that the values are too much. Well damage is Wolfgang's domain so I guess its fine. I had similar reaction to Wicker's new books making her overpowered but I just started to live with it over time and it feels normal now. 

[00petar00]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

My problem with Wolfgang is that not only does he have extra strength, but he also seems to do just about every other task faster.. 

Comparing him side by side to Wendy, Wendy still has her “Hits Weaker” Downside, and while Abigail may make this appear to be Non-Existent, it is still a downside.. and you still feel it in areas of the game Abigail WONT Help Wendy fight things in- Such as Painfully slow wood chopping speeds, throwing Boomerangs at Birds that land, or any enemy mob Abigail just stands around avoiding such as Shadow Creatures.

Wolfgang doesn’t really have any of that.. and sure Klei could get “Creative” with Wendy’s Skill Tree by giving Abigail an ability to “Haunt” into the Ground and pop back up to sneak attack Birds or Whatever.. but until she gets that: Wolfgang OP please Nerf..

And that’s coming from a Wendy Main..

Homeboy gets skill trees to ignore his gym mini game, dumbells that are also thermal stones so he doesn’t need to even use a thermal stone slot anymore- I mean if you look at this “Wolfgang skill tree” it’s very clear that they wanted to remove most the nerfs his Rework gave him in the first place.

They gave him back his speed buff… but.. Why??? Wasn’t the entire point of allowing him to mine/chop faster to accommodate for removing that speed?

Maxwell and Woodie are better at gathering basic resources, his main thing is high damage.

Wendy's downside is completely negated by taming ornery beefalo and when using beefalo and Abigal she matches Wolfgang's damage output.

Every character is going to get more powerful and obtain new abilities, you just need to wait for Wendy's skill tree.

Why should Wolfgang be nerfed before Wendy gets her powerup? This isn't a competitive game. If you don't think that Wendy is as powerful or don't like her abilities, you don't need to play her.

Most of the Wolfgang players don't use gym and that is probably the worst thing you can pick from the skill tree. Dumbell that replaces thermalstone just saves 1 slot that he doesn't lack anyway, he can use piggyback without penalty if he stays mighty.

Speed perk is only in effect when he is normal, so it is pretty much almost useless as it is better to always be mighty to be ready to fight at any time and use piggyback.

 

[Antynomity]

1 hour ago, 00petar00 said:

It baffles me that so many players are still biased against Wolfgang, he isn't leagues above every other character as with character refreshes, quite a few of them have been bumped up and bridged the gap.

Wolfgang's biggest benefit is high damage so that he can kill things faster and with less effort, why should he be weaker after rifts are opened? 

There are many different areas in the game that a character can excel at, just because Wolfgang looks flashy with his high damage it doesn't mean that he shouldn't have that.

I've noticed that the reason a lot of them don't play Wolfgang is because he is boring but he should be nerfed, at least that's what I got from talking to people that want him to have less damage.

When it comes to planar damage, I had similar thoughts and didn't believe that it would be that good for the game. 

honestly my main issue is how he got crippled alongside other damage dealing characters for no reason than to add a new arbitrary damage type just for them to give you a solution through having like 20% of his skill tree taken up by just boosting planar damage on planar weapons.

It just feels bad, not fun or rewarding at all, might as well have given him 5 less insight taken those skills out and not having the limitations on dmg multipliers in the first place, I assume that's how they will handle warly's volt goat chaud froid and wanda's alarming clock.

[n.apollyon]

14 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

Speed perk is only in effect when he is normal

It would cancel out the piggyback slowdown when he is normal. Staying mighty all the time drains hunger faster, you dont fight all the time anyway. 

 

16 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

Wendy's skill tree

Her's would definitely be about Abigail and ghosts. Wendy's role is to fight alongside, since she gets bonus damage, or utilize Abigail which is the best source of AoE damage. Even Wendy's rework was for Abigail and her potions. You don't use Wendy as a resource gatherer(aside from getting silk) and if you do use her for that then expect that she wouldn't be very good at it. 

2 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

warly's volt goat chaud froid and wanda's alarming clock

Warly will probably have new recipes and spices. Imagine him using those husks since they are technically leafy greens haha. As I suggested on another post, I hope to see more mushroom specific recipes so the planter gets its use again. So far, only mushy cake and Wormwood diarrhea mushroom are ones that require specific/combination of the mushrooms. Ofc those turfs from terra firma require mushrooms but they're not the point of my mushroom specific recipes idea. 

I think Wanda is just getting new clocks. As I also mentioned in another post I expect her to be exclusively shadow aligned like how Wormwood is only lunar. 

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, n.apollyon said:

The moose change was necessary since it was made for Woodie's fighting capabilities. It was slow and has no means of healing, the only thing it had was a huge damage reduction. The moose change made it more useable now, although I know there are some pro Woodie players who used the moose a lot even before the skill tree buff. 

 

I think those are in line with his role as a damage dealer though I agree that the values are too much. Well damage is Wolfgang's domain so I guess its fine. I had similar reaction to Wicker's new books making her overpowered but I just started to live with it over time and it feels normal now. 

The moose is something you can get day 1, and it can solo celestial champion with a few jelly beans and life giving amulets, as it's charge is able to dodge many of cc's attacks very well, and is easily able to counter the 3rd phase attacks well using charges to pass through lasers, or to break the crystals.

 

It __Should__ be able to do that, but it has that same power on day 1, there should be some kind of scaling that goes with your world, but not how much you spend playing dst. I like Wolfgang's one as you still need to work hard to use his perks and utilise them, with only a few outliners that still work well like his late game perk. (Except maybe the alignments which as mentioned are kinda op) 

1 hour ago, 00petar00 said:

Maxwell and Woodie are better at gathering basic resources, his main thing is high damage.

Wendy's downside is completely negated by taming ornery beefalo and when using beefalo and Abigal she matches Wolfgang's damage output.

Every character is going to get more powerful and obtain new abilities, you just need to wait for Wendy's skill tree.

Why should Wolfgang be nerfed before Wendy gets her powerup? This isn't a competitive game. If you don't think that Wendy is as powerful or don't like her abilities, you don't need to play her.

Most of the Wolfgang players don't use gym and that is probably the worst thing you can pick from the skill tree. Dumbell that replaces thermalstone just saves 1 slot that he doesn't lack anyway, he can use piggyback without penalty if he stays mighty.

Speed perk is only in effect when he is normal, so it is pretty much almost useless as it is better to always be mighty to be ready to fight at any time and use piggyback.

 

It is nice that wolfgang got some neat new perks like the coaching one even though it doesn't work yet, i like it synergising with his leg day.

[n.apollyon]

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The moose is something you can get day 1, and it can solo celestial champion with a few jelly beans and life giving amulets, as it's charge is able to dodge many of cc's attacks very well, and is easily able to counter the 3rd phase attacks well using charges to pass through lasers, or to break the crystals.

 

It __Should__ be able to do that, but it has that same power on day 1, there should be some kind of scaling that goes with your world, but not how much you spend playing dst.

Even if you say its available from day one, having jellybeans means you have fought the bee queen and crab king for the altar. Which require more preparation than just having the moose. 

The celestial champion isn't the only endgame enemy. Fighting on the lunar island also removes the issue of nightmares spawning since staying in a were form drains a lot of sanity hence Woodie's shadow aligned perk helping him a lot when maximizing the transformations.

I disagree with you on Wolfgang working hard to use perk. He already starts with a dumbbell which gives him access to his entire 2x dmg bonus as you spawn in. You've got it reversed there, it is Woodie who needs to work hard to use his perks. If you transform to a moose everytime you fight, it isn't sustainable. Transformations last long which are only useful for bosses or hordes and after reverting back, his hunger will always nearly be empty and sanity tanked due to were transformation. Transformations cost you if you want to stay alive afterwards. 

[Theukon-dos]

9 hours ago, Zeklo said:

This.

It's no secret that I've been vocally optimistic about Planar & whatnaught, and this was one my the main reasons I liked the system. Unfortunately, Skill Trees work exactly counter to this function, so now I'm just kinda like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It definitely leans more towards my dislike for the current Skill Tree implementation, but it has the consequence of also invalidating what I liked with Planar.

Atleast with Post-rift gear being stronger, you'd still need to, y'know, open the rifts every time you wanted to get that stronger gear. But skill trees? Nope! have fun tearing Ancient Fuelweaver to shreds by day 50 with your 260% damage as Wolfgang against shadows. 

3 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

It baffles me that so many players are still biased against Wolfgang, he isn't leagues above every other character as with character refreshes, quite a few of them have been bumped up and bridged the gap.

Wolfgang's biggest benefit is high damage so that he can kill things faster and with less effort, why should he be weaker after rifts are opened? 

There are many different areas in the game that a character can excel at, just because Wolfgang looks flashy with his high damage it doesn't mean that he shouldn't have that.

I've noticed that the reason a lot of them don't play Wolfgang is because he is boring but he should be nerfed, at least that's what I got from talking to people that want him to have less damage.

When it comes to planar damage, I had similar thoughts and didn't believe that it would be that good for the game. 

Having thought about it, I think part of it is just layover from when Wolfgang was one of, if not the strongest character in the game. But I also think it's because combat perks are perceived as inherently more valuable for some people, sense that's the most reliable thing that can kill you once you have the basics down. 

[Cassielu]

16 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Wolfgang's biggest benefit is high damage so that he can kill things faster and with less effort, why should he be weaker after rifts are opened? 

There are many different areas in the game that a character can excel at, just because Wolfgang looks flashy with his high damage it doesn't mean that he shouldn't have that.

This is a logical fallacy, Wolfgang is good at doing more damage, and he can still do more damage. He didn't lost anything, only that more damage (which his power bring) were less useful in this situation. Say it's a nerf to Wolfgang is ridiculous like saying AF didn't spawn mushroom tree is a nerf to woodie.

Similarly, by this logic, every high-HP boss update is buff to Wolfgang, it's still makes sense that he should get a nerf after buffing for so long.

[Theukon-dos]

32 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

This is a logical fallacy, Wolfgang is good at doing more damage, and he can still do more damage. He didn't lost anything, only that more damage (which his power bring) were less useful in this situation. Say it's a nerf to Wolfgang is ridiculous like saying AF didn't spawn mushroom tree is a nerf to woodie.

Similarly, by this logic, every high-HP boss update is buff to Wolfgang, it's still makes sense that he should get a nerf after buffing for so long.

1. I did not say that. 

2. Planar Damage is still a mechanic that very specifically ignores Wolfgang's major upside. Yes, he still does more damage sense half of the only half of the weapons deal planar damage, but it still means he has much less return using the weapon over just about anything else compared to other characters. 

3. Wolfgang isn't even that special anymore as far as "OP" characters go. Yes he's still incredibly strong, but nobody worth their salt has thought him Nerf-Worthy sense his refresh. 

4. All of this is entirely irrelevant because he barely does less damage anymore. Wolfgang's Might branch on his skill tree means he hits for 5 less damage with a Brightshade sword than he does a Dark Sword, out DPSes the dark sword while wearing a brightshade helmet, and gets massive boost with low-base damage planar sources like the Brightshade staff. Wolfgang Isn't nerfed by planar mechanics anymore. Which was the point of a good third of my original post.