About Wormwood's Skill Tree

[Pet Rock]

As a wormwood player (but Wendy main) I definitely have some concerns with his skill tree. Literally all of the branches apart from the mushroom one are basically useless. Before I start, keep in mind that I will probably borough some ideas from others because they are good ideas and I want to share them. Also note that this is a bit rushed since I want to get my opinion out before the update is out.

 

Problems:

Spoiler

(Skip this section if you just want to hear my suggestions)

 

Tending range is useless and should be replaced with more perks that could help outside of farming. Wormwood is already an excellent farmer and buffing his tending range adds nothing to his character.

 

The fruitfly perk is more of a hinderance than a help since there are two drawbacks (Lord of Fruitflies spawns more, More damage from fruitflies) for one mediocre benefit.

 

The blooming path isnt bad but doesn't offer anything special. Getting a few petals from wormwoods blooming form also isnt a great perk since they are relatively common and it wastes inventiry space.

 

Wormwood's crafting path focuses too much on one-time craftables and could've brought more items like his armor and trap to the game. The path is currently also a complete waste of insight with the way that the perks are spaced out.

 

The mushroom path is currently the best but ipecaca syrup seems somewhat useless.

 

Wormwoods right lunar affinity is exclusive to brightshade gear which may provide problems for the future (Wormwood mains will always use brightshade gear instead of new equipment)

 

In terms of skills trees in general, there is no clear indication that insight maxes at 15.

 

Solutions/Other ideas:

Spoiler

Making the butterfly perk more useful is a great way to start making the left set of skills better. Making butterflies be able to be picked up with your bare hands would be a great way to do this.

 

Wormwoods petal ability could changed into a shielding ability (bristle barrier maybe?). Wormwood gains defense when blooming but can lose his bloom if attacked often. He drops a few pettles if he loses his bloom by being attacked. This defense should atleast be as strong as Woodie's hardcap.

 

Combining the plant crafting skills into 2 perks would be good since it allows there to be a few more meaningful skills in that path. The skills leading up to these crafts or now:

-Wormwood can make farm plots without garden digamajigs

-Any plants (berry bushes, grass tufts, banana bushes etc.) fertilized by wormwoods compost wrap will last 2 growth phases longer before needing fertilization.

-Wormwood can fertilize various plants outside of farm plots with his compost wrap to make them grow faster.

 

The tending range path needs a complete rework since it is ridiculously useless and doesnt have a theme of any sort. Replacing the tending range perk with a tending speed one and replacing the second two with more creative perks would be better, considering tending range barely cuts down on time and is a waste of three skills. The second two skills could be replaced by:

-Passive critters can be caught without a bug net

-All critters can be caught without a bug net

The killer bee neutrality perk should expand to all insects, making them passive unless directly attacked.

As mentioned before the flytrap skill has more downsides than upsides and could be changed to make fruitflies fight for wormwood and be able to be picked up by him. Maybe wormwood could also talk to Friendly Fruitfly to boost its health/make it able to dodge as weregoose does.

Overall, the main goal here is to give this path a theme and use. If anyone has any better ideas for it I'd love to hear it (especially if it involved wormwood planting himself in farmplots, absorbing nutrients to regain health or some weapon/trap crafting perks.

 

The lunar affinity perks on the right side of the skill tree could be changed to allow the vines and brambles to spawn in a much weaker state when brightshade is not equipped.

 

Im not sure where this would fit but it would be cool if wormwood got an ability to plant mushrooms anywhere like crops somewhere in the mushroom path.

 

Unrelated:

Spoiler

Wormwoods ability to plant crops anywhere is only utilized for sanity and looks out of place. Perhaps it could be replaced with the ability to create farm plots without garden digamajigs? I'll go further into this in another thread.

 

Wormwood should also be able to shave his petals of regardless of perks.

 

Why don't mushroom planters have rotten states? Leaving rot on the ground increases lag...

 

TLDR: 

-Tending range path should be completely changed to have a theme (neutral/collectible insects).

-A petal shield armor of sorts while blooming should replace the pettles perk to make it more useful while still providing petals.

-Plant crafting tree can be bunched into 2 perks to allow more perks to lead up to it and make it less of a waste. These could be allowing wormwood to dig farm plots, allowing his compost wrap to prevent plants from needing fertilization for a bit, and allowing compost wrap to boost the growing speed of various plants.

-The right affinity should work in a weakened state without brightshade gear to make it viable in future updates.

-An upgrade that allows wormwood to plant mushrooms anywhere or one that allows him to plant himself in farmplots and absorb nutrients to gain health would be amazing but I don't know where they would fit.