Opinion on the beaver tree

[ShadowDuelist]

Has anyone tested to pick the ultimate beaver over the other 2 in a long run? is it worth to stay as tier 4 Beaver, in your opinion? and if so, why?

According to my tests, despite the slam being great in pen and paper, I haven't yet been able to put it to a good use to justify picking it over the saved time of any of the other 2.
I can understand the amount of hunger consumed on the goose's flight since it can instantly take you to the ruins or moon island, but the butt slam seems to have a high cost for things that a tier 3 beaver doesn't seem to have much trouble destroying fast anyway. If it was up to me I'd lower the tail slam hunger cost by half.

But I'm interested to learn if there are other perspectives and strategies I'm not seeing here. Perhaps killing hordes of enemies quickly before turning to moose? Mass farming marble?

[Mysterious box]

10 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Has anyone tested to pick the ultimate beaver over the other 2 in a long run? is it worth to stay as tier 4 Beaver, in your opinion? and if so, why?

According to my tests, despite the slam being great in pen and paper, I haven't yet been able to put it to a good use to justify picking it over the saved time of any of the other 2.
I can understand the amount of hunger consumed on the goose's flight since it can instantly take you to the ruins or moon island, but the butt slam seems to have a high cost for things that a tier 3 beaver doesn't seem to have much trouble destroying fast anyway. If it was up to me I'd lower the tail slam hunger cost by half.

But I'm interested to learn if there are other perspectives and strategies I'm not seeing here. Perhaps killing hordes of enemies quickly before turning to moose? Mass farming marble?

That's kinda my issue too really the idea of making a choice between masteries is nice on paper but in practice non of the other options really come close to the moose tree's value. He's not prepared to use the moose in the end game without his mastery and it's a big damage output drop not mastering it. The beaver's tree is very useful and actually allows him to compete with Maxwell and Wurt but only in specialized scenarios. It kind of feels like Woodie should just be allowed to pick all masteries or that there should be more incentives to choose the other two.

[MadMatt]

I'm surprised the tier 3 is underperforming according to your tests. I haven't actually done any comparisons so i'll take your word, but the tail slam so far seems to be phenomenal for mining weirdly enough. Packed tightly marble trees and the archives rocks are destroyed stupidly fast using the tail slap, and that's what seems to be the purpose of it for trees as well but perhaps not as effective.

39 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Perhaps killing hordes of enemies quickly before turning to moose?

No the beaver slap has a tiny AoE equal to the new third hit moose combo rather than the slam visual. It's useless for any combat situation practically.

[Gashzer]

From my testing.

Goose mastery is just not worth it cause of the random nature of it and the entire rest of goose tree is a waste of skill points apart from the first skill (movement speed boost).

The most useful beaver skill is being able to mine the harder material like dreadstone, useful for rushing the nightmare werepig and has late game use for lunar rifts. The beaver tail slam would be useful for late game megabasers for farming trees and marble scrubs, its ok if you prefer going straight into base building in the early game rather than boss/ruins rushing.

Moose tree is the best as all of its skills are useful. The moose mastery is the best mastery for universal usefulness at all stages of the game. The extra defence and attack with health regen makes for very easy ruin rushing and makes moose very viable for alot of boss fights.

Altho for the beaver slam i kinda like its current hunger drain. It makes the wereform end more naturally without overstaying its welcome or standing around like an idiot for 20secs plus you can still clear a good chunk of a forest really rapidly. The only mastery that needs a buff is the goose one.

[ShadowDuelist]

20 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

the tail slam so far seems to be phenomenal for mining weirdly enough. Packed tightly marble trees and the archives rocks are destroyed stupidly fast using the tail slap, and that's what seems to be the purpose of it for trees as well but perhaps not as effective.

Perhaps I don't spend as much time mass collecting marble or trees as I used to and that's it main point, mostly to megabase, rush docks, or to collect wood once a year and be done with it, without needing bearger or Maxwell.
So far the most cost efficient use I've found is to craft 5-6 beaver idols, spam the tail slam, turn to Woodie due to hunger drain of slam, eat another idol, keep spamming slam, finish the transformations quickly then pick everything up with a lazy forager.

 

[chirsg]

I'd go moose still. 

I still wish that wereforms could wear amulets. I do prefer the way they went, but I would have been completely content if the wereforms could wear amulets.

[Picklesaurus]

I find both Beaver and  especialy Goose masteries underhelming, Beaver has enough good skills that dont need a mastery skill point tho. Goose on the other  has maybe one usefull skill - running faster but I dont know how much faster it is. I also find Beaver without the tail slam to be enough for my wood gathering needs, although I usually end up using woodie human form so I can have a chance to spawn tree guards depending if I need living log or not.

[Fill-Lips]

I think the beaver slam is quite fine, the AoE is equal in size to bearger's and just as destructive. Since you can go beaver day 1 rather then wait a full year for bearger, you can easily cut a whole forest of trees you've planted, or you could also slam a bunch of marble trees as mentioned above.

 

But yeah, Moose tree still has a leg up over Beaver tree, and Goose tree is bad.

[ShadowDuelist]

51 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Goose mastery is just not worth it cause of the random nature of it and the entire rest of goose tree is a waste of skill points apart from the first skill (movement speed boost).

I find it to be good to spam using flight, it instantly reveals where the most important things are on any shard. Its also a good system to escape things, as it comes with the t3 skill which is sort of like the bone armor to dodge one attack every X time. it has saved me from ruins situations that went bad.
it also works if you live on an island, to instantly land on the mainland. 
It's probably a bit more niche but I see myself using it in the early game where the planar armor and damage is not as important.

 

13 minutes ago, Picklesaurus said:

Goose on the other  has maybe one usefull skill - running faster but I dont know how much faster it is

From the information I could gather the un-upgraded goose has x1.4 speed, and upgraded it goes to x1.66, mostly the same as a default beefalo with normal saddle, or full speed Woby.
 

20 minutes ago, chirsg said:

I still wish that wereforms could wear amulets. I do prefer the way they went, but I would have been completely content if the wereforms could wear amulets.

Agreed.
 

15 minutes ago, Picklesaurus said:

I also find Beaver without the tail slam to be enough for my wood gathering needs, although I usually end up using woodie human form so I can have a chance to spawn tree guards depending if I need living log or not.

That's my point, how much time do people spend gathering wood? How much wood is enough? Tier 3 beaver is already quite fast and comes with the mining hard materials perk too, leaving you open to pick any of the other 2 ultimates that can be used more often in a run (unless you megabase, probably)

 

[Geladeira]

All of the mastery skills are looking nice imo. Although it would be better if the 3 merged into 1 skill only and name it "Full Curse Mastery" or something.
I mean it doesn't matter if you can slam your tail as beaver to chop down trees faster or fly as goose if you are going to lose all that great combat potential as moose. Weremoose mastery is so good it's a waste not unlocking it.

[W0l0l0]

Unless they made the Beaver absolutely ridiculous combat abilities are almost always the priority.

And as was the issue 4 years ago, Beaver still can't collect while demolishing so it takes forever if you're alone anyways.

I always welcome Beaver buffs, however I don't think this will help enough. It's always a good early game option.

[Mysterious box]

18 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

From the information I could gather the un-upgraded goose has x1.4 speed, and upgraded it goes to x1.66, mostly the same as a default beefalo with normal saddle, or full speed Woby.

I could of sworn Woby was faster than a rider beef not similar to a default beef.

[gamehun20]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I could of sworn Woby was faster than a rider beef not similar to a default beef.

Woby's max speed is 10 so it definitely the rider one

[Arcwell]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I could of sworn Woby was faster than a rider beef not similar to a default beef.

Left number is speed value, right number is that speed's comparison to base speed (6).

I am assuming the misconception comes from the wiki saying rider beef has 8 speed. This is true, but doesn't account for the 1.4x bonus from default saddle.

[ShadowDuelist]

After more testing, my current opinion is that the tail slam hunger cost should probably be removed and work mostly like the Moose's charge. Then it would probably be worth taking.
The goose is fine IMO, although a bit more speed added to another tier of the tree wouldn't come so badly, and it won't be imbalanced considering while in goose form you can't fight or pick anything. The true speedsters of the game are, and will still be WX and Wormwood.
The moose ultimate is great across any stage of the game.

[flamboyant wolf]

28 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

The goose is fine IMO, although a bit more speed added to another tier of the tree wouldn't come so badly, and it won't be imbalanced considering while in goose form you can't fight or pick anything. The true speedsters of the game are, and will still be WX and Wormwood.
The moose ultimate is great across any stage of the game.

They could add a little speed buff to Weregoose 3, maybe? I, personally, just don't see this perk being useful on its own, since goose can't really fight or pick stuff up(so no reason to be near enemies) and since goose can just outrun most mobs chasing him anyway. Like, the dodge may save you a hit or two in the long run, but if you don't go for goose mastery, then I don't think it's worth it (especially coupled with Weregoose 2, which is needed to get Weregoose 3, being just fine as well (I still think Weregoose 2 perk should add some more winter and summer insulation too)). 

[ShadowDuelist]

26 minutes ago, skile said:

They could add a little speed buff to Weregoose 3, maybe? I, personally, just don't see this perk being useful on its own, since goose can't really fight or pick stuff up(so no reason to be near enemies) and since goose can just outrun most mobs chasing him anyway. Like, the dodge may save you a hit or two in the long run, but if you don't go for goose mastery, then I don't think it's worth it (especially coupled with Weregoose 2, which is needed to get Weregoose 3, being just fine as well (I still think Weregoose 2 perk should add some more winter and summer insulation too)). 

The dodge skill has saved me mostly from sneaky terrorbeaks popping right in front of me, and bishop shots. But it is true that it is not as necessary if you don't go all the way to ultimate and staying at t2 if you plan to use goose once and then is probably enough.
I'd include with the dodge skill a bit more speed, so it goes up to 11 and it becomes more appealing.

I like your idea of having more insulation with waterproofing too, it gives you more time to explore freely during bad seasons before you need to stop to heat/cool.