Walter's entire Skill Tree ideas, from a Walter main

[kroban]

  Im almost 1500 hours in DST. Walter is kind of my main, but I have a love/hate relationship with his traits. On the good side, he has some nice things like the tent, 9+ inventory slots, and can be a fun challenging character.

  On the bad side, his drawbacks are insane (probably the heaviest out of any other negative traits in the game), and there's no "reward" on his kit for how much drawbacks he has. He has no decent way of gaining sanity up until you get CC's crown, and he feels like a character that has a huge potential to be awesome, but was left at that.

Since we are getting skill trees for every character, Walter I would say is now the one that could benefit the most from this. So, here's some ideas I have for that, based on his current state in the game, and more utilities he could have based in what he is, a Boy Scout with a weird pet.

 

Slingshot

I get it, ranged weapons can't be too OP, else it would kind of ruin the fighting aspect of the game. However, Walter has a lot of drawbacks that are kind of forcing him into either being a dull ranged char with less DPS than a Wes, or always fighting with an ornery and throwing away what is one of his main traits, his trusty slingshot. And come on, Wanda is technically ranged, and Wolfgang with his improved dumbells does way more dmg from distance and with 0 risks. Walter should have better damage...

Some of the ideas I have are:

- Increasing the amount of ammo per craft (5-10 more): This would save A LOT of mats, while also making other ammo more useful, like the ones requiring gems.

- Faster shooting animation and proyectile speed: The main reason he has such a low damage is this. The slingshot right now is SLOW, so This alone would already put him in a way better spot.

- Escalating damage: He gains X amount of dmg per consecutive shot. This could also be planar damage, so he gets a better damage against planar creatures.

-OR fixed damage: Haven't thought about an exact amount, but probably something like 10-15+ per shot would make pellets more viable, even as slow as it is right now.

- "Ricochet", or bouncing shots: Like the bright staff, but only 1 or 2 bounces. This would be useful against many mobs, while saving some ammo.

- OR Multishot: More OP than bouncing shots, but it would also be really good.

- New ammo crafts: Pure brilliance and Dreadstone rounds. Yes, expensive, but if these ammo do big damage it would be useful against bosses. These could also have added damage against the opposite aligment.

 

Woby

She may be a really cute pet, and the +9 slots are awesome. But other than that, she has 0 utility. The mount aspect has no purpose when as Walter you are almost required to get a beefalo ASAP, that has way cheaper requirements for mounting and can also be used to fight. This is why I would say Woby has to either become a more useful companion, or a better mount, and I think a 2-path perks set making both forms "unique" and useful could be fun.

Some of the ideas for "big Woby" are:

- Longer duration of the form and no dismounting when getting hit.

- Still requires monster food to grow, but becomes a fighting mount: It would essentially give Walter a "semi-permanent" free mount, but that still has the drawback of changing forms.

- If she becomes a fighting mount, a health pool, and a "respawn" mechanic:  Kled, from LoL, has a mechanic where his mount doesn't dies, but rather dismounts Kled and runs away. Woby could act the same way if she "dies" and it could have let's say a respawn time of days, and she comes back small, forcing the player to take care of her if they want to keep the benefits of a big fighter Woby.

- Allowing Woby to use glossamer and war saddles.

- Unique saddle/s craft : A cheap saddle that gives X special thing while riding Woby with it. Could make her more versatile as a mount, while adding utility for Walter as "the guy that gives cheap saddles early game". A good "X thing" could be a saddle that gives a small sanity boost or idk, armor.

 

For "small Woby":

- Pet and playing fetch: Kind of like the campfire animation, but a bigger and individual sanity boost for Walter.

- Gatherer Woby: a Polly. She collects any item BUT only from what she currently has on her inventory. Considering Wormwood has carrats and Woodie picks faster, I don't think it would be that crazy of an idea.

- More inventory slots: Would be kind of useless and redundant (she already has 9 slots), but could be a decent buff.

- Giving "Pioneer hat" to small Woby and Walter gets the buff:  The hat is kind of hard to wear the moment you start to get more armor requirements when fighting. In end game there's the Enlightened Crown, and now also the rifts armor bonuses, that only apply with the head slot. This would still give the hat an use in end game, while being a really nice perk for having a small Woby.

 

Alignments:

Moon Alignment - I think this is pretty obvious, a perk that helps him with his sanity issues. Now, Woodie has one that removes the main drawbacks he had, which is honestly pretty cool considering how annoying that was. Walter could have the same treatment for this, having a perk that either improves the "Pioneer buff" so it completely negates sanity loss, or just straight up removing the mechanic. The latter could be balanced by having him lose sanity like other characters normally do against bosses etc.

    - A different idea for this could be that he no longer loses sanity from hits, but still does from missing health.

Shadow Alignment - Considering the moon aligment, it would be better if this is something that makes something good out of him keeping his drawback. My best idea for this could be that Woby becomes, and stays, big as long as Walter is low on sanity (which would make a good synergy if Woby becomes a fighting mount/pet). This would make sense "Lore wise", lots of mobs change form when low on sanity.

       - A different idea for this could be that Walter gains let's say a boost in movement speed when low on sanity ("hes scared"), which would be a huge help for not getting " low-sanity locked" when things get complicated, for running away, or for using an improved slingshot.
 

Craft related / "Scout"

This could be a bit unnecessary because Walter needs mostly buffs for the things he already has. But he could have some new crafts related to both him being a Scout, and having Woby by his side.

Ideas for this:

- An unique "Beefalo treats": cheaper recipe for beefalo's healing (and Woby), or even some X buff. Right after Wes, Walter is the character that benefits the most from having a beefalo. This would make Walter extremely good for either people that care about beefalos, in the case Woby becomes a fighting mount, or if he still has to rely on beefalos. 

- A kit for better campfires: Something like increasing the light area it gives, the duration, requiring less fuel, faster cooking to anyone that uses it, etc. It would suit Walter considering he is a boy scout, apart from Wickerbottom that prob read about it, or Woodie, hes probably one of the few that has the knowledge on how to make a "good" campfire.

- Boy Scout uniform: An uniform where he can add patches he crafts/gets from doing something. The more patches it has, the more sanity it gives to him when hes wearing it. This again, could be a nice idea for helping with his sanity issues. Could also give the "pioneer buff", and that way Walter could also use Brightshade or Void helmets for the bonuses.

- Improved tent and first aid: His tent doesn't lose durability when he uses it, and heals him sanity and health waaay faster. Could also affect other characters too.

 

Skill tree distribution

  The idea I have here is something kind of like Woodie's tree: improving everything he currently has on his kit, but not allowing everything at the same time.

  Meaning, 4 branches: Slingshot, Small Woby, Big Woby and Crafts. A Walter player, in theory, could pick something like " small - big Woby - Crafts", but would miss on the slingshot perks. Or Slingshot-Big Woby-Crafts, but can't pick small Woby perks. This way would add a lot of customization for Walter, while giving him an improvement in basically all his traits.

 

In conclusion

 I think these skill trees can be utilized for lifting up characters that feel a bit "left behind" or that "can be better". Woodie being best example, he went from being almost unplayable with perma-moon phases to a f*cking chad, which is awesome. I think Walter could really benefit from the same treatment.

 My idea here is basically a Walter that would still be a bit of a "be careful" type of character, but would also have lots of good things, like a decent fighting mount from the get go that could change into a cute helpful companionship, different sanity recovering methods, and being efficient at range.

This was just my humble ideas on how the skill tree for Walter could be designed, as a guy that plays a lot with a character thats considered "F tier" by most people. Some of these ideas may sound dumb or "OP", ( like honestly I haven't put much thought on the aligments for example ), but I think overall I gave some good ideas while trying to keep it balanced. And well, I really hope Klei makes something like this for Walter, If some of these ideas are good I would really love seeing those added in the game!

[Saladmanders]

You put so much effort and thought into this post and it clearly shows, I have nothing to add and I just wanted to say this all sounds amazing and would love to have some of these features added. (It would definitely encourage me to play Walter.) Keep up the great work!

[mr_slaad]

I had my own idea for Walter skill tree. Look and tell me if you would change something.

DST Walter Skill Tree Ideas Final Version .pdf

[Jakepeng99]

On 8/4/2023 at 8:14 AM, kroban said:

- Gatherer Woby: a Polly. She collects any item BUT only from what she currently has on her inventory. Considering Wormwood has carrats and Woodie picks faster, I don't think it would be that crazy of an idea.

This is a really good idea Klei please add i am serious. The Woby being a fighting mount is odd though

On 8/4/2023 at 8:14 AM, kroban said:

having a perk that either improves the "Pioneer buff" so it completely negates sanity loss, or just straight up removing the mechanic. The latter could be balanced by having him lose sanity like other characters normally do against bosses etc.

This is a masive mistake though and would ruin Walter. they only removed Woodies downside with a skill because it was just annoying

The rest of the ideas are pretty neat. Maybe limiting bouncing shots to gold ammo, and giving the other ammos a special perk. Maybe moving the ramping damage to the marble pellets only? I like the sound of that. Multishot could be a special right click ability with a pretty big cooldown that uses 3 ammo shots.

[Saladmanders]

17 hours ago, mr_slaad said:

I had my own idea for Walter skill tree. Look and tell me if you would change something.

DST Walter Skill Tree Ideas Final Version .pdf 2.87 MB · 2 downloads

Waaaaaah. And I thought I made long Skilltrees

[Jakepeng99]

On 8/4/2023 at 8:14 AM, kroban said:

- Gatherer Woby: a Polly. She collects any item BUT only from what she currently has on her inventory. Considering Wormwood has carrats and Woodie picks faster, I don't think it would be that crazy of an idea.

I played Walter recently, and i want this even more now, it would be perfect. Normally when i kill birds i put the feathers in Woby, and noe Woby can do that for me.