Ideas about Wortox skill tree & some of my personal problems about him.

[ApoIIo]

I'd like to start off with some of my woes as an experienced player(2.4k hours) who really, really loves a very cute and mentally crumbling goatboy.

To explain this well enough, I'd like to start elaborating from the very start of my return to DST after a couple years. (I was drawn by Wortox, of course. Very well-written and well-designed character. Love him to bits.)
Naturally, I wasn't that great at kiting. I adhered to the stereotype of gulping down 40 pierogis per boss and making many silly mistakes, such as tanking without marble suits and only with football helms. (4x the healing cost baby) Or ignoring butterflies, or refusing to use blue caps. Or never taming beefalo.

Naturally, for someone who had essentially become a newbie again moving from the significantly easier game DS, it was a rough process and I REALLY appricerated soul healing as I needed either it or the pierogi chomping. 

But as my experience grew, so became Wortox less relevant. "But he has access to a ruins-tier item!", that being the ruins item that people don't upgrade their canes to even if they have the materials in excess. About as notable as Warly's sweet potato souffle outside of fuelweaver, which is instead an overloading shitfest.
I was very upset and swiftly entered a phase of "Wortox was a mistake, who designed him as a healbot with nothing much else". (Also, the claims of pre-buff soul hops being slower than walking on average WERE true)

Then they gave him an actual perk! He can actually teleport in a way that matters beyond the Wickerbottom rework! I was so happy that he felt actually playable again after me having "outgrown" him.

But of course, miseries don't end there. There are some *very nice* people out there who had this bias about Wortox players, some even going as far as to call me crutch-dependent or "Just wants to be OP" without even knowing who I am or hearing me out. (While I'm at the point of tanking entire seasons with jellybeans out of excess of healing LOL)
And this is all because of...

Soul healing! Really, haha, I've been both treated as a savior and an idiot with two left hands by complete strangers on the internet for it.

So the first thing that makes me miserable about Wortox is the very existence of soul healing. I barely ever make use of it, and when I do it's not because I couldn't have healed easily otherwise with a few shovel uses or insect wings but just because he has it. It's not just the social pressure of some stigma attached to it, but I honestly feel like it's just a very uninspired perk to just be able to... Heal. Anyone can heal. Health literally manifests out of thin air(well flowers) in this game. It's really not something that needs an alternative or should take a huge chunk in what could've been a far more interesting character kit.
I don't find it innately problematic, I just think it's boring, uninteresting and unworthy of the controversy surrounding it. It's really not that useful but I keep getting annoyed by people for it and really it can go for all I care. I guess it can also stay since people like it, but eh.
There's the multiplayer part of it, but I play both Maxwell and Wortox and it's never been much harder to keep my friends topped off as the former.

My next issue is... Kind of jealousy, LOL. I don't need to explain what backtreks do, yeah?
It's pretty easy to say that Wortox is the "earlygame teleporter" and Wanda is the "ultimate lategame teleporter" whose all drawbacks are overcome by simply making more watches. But I'm still a bit upset about how a Wanda with a good teleporting web with hubs is basically the supreme megabasing character, yet she has so many other cool things in addition. It's not even like she's perkless until a few winters pass. I see very often day 2k+ endless servers that are 7/8 Wanda.
Wortox doesn't need to be as good as Wanda at teleporting with her "swap watches to not wait ever" shtick, but I look forward to any spice a skill tree will add so she doesn't feel like a direct pokemon evolution to him at his one job by day 200 anymore.


So! What are my ideas that will help alleviate my upsetti with Wortox?
- Soul hop branch.
- Wortox can either get a discount to soul hopping near lazy deserters, filled telelocator focii or other sources of spatial magicks(Such as rifts), or he can get a linear discount to soul hopping the further he intends to hop. The former is a branch meant for lategame enthusiasts, whereas the latter will emphasize his typical advantage in tasks such as helping Pearl very early on.

- A special kind of mutually exclusive skills. Roughly 4 of them, you pick one and can choose to upgrade them. They replace what soul releasing does (in place of healing). I guess there will also be a branch for healing enthusiasts, that way you can make everyone happy.

- 1. Concealing souls. Makes Wortox and nearby players invisible to mobs, duration increases with each level. (10->15->20 seconds per soul)
Staying invisible and not getting hit for 5 seconds deaggros all mobs. Also makes you move a bit (15%) faster. Fits a trickster, no?
- 2. "Healing souls" but cooler: Instead of players, these will heal mobs such as ridden beefalo (at 4x value) and heal/grow nearby plants. At lv1 they also heal hostile mobs nearby. At lv2 they only heal non-hostiles and at lv3 there's a 20% damage resistance attached for 15 seconds and players will be healed for 8 hp (no DR for them tho).
- 3. Cold/hot souls. Of course there'd be gem-magic-themed ideas, I'm a sucker for that. Releasing a soul is now an aoe freeze worth 1/2/4 ice staff shoots and cools nearby players. Swaps between fire and ice per each release. Fire warms nearby players and makes a fire zone that Wortox can freely step on that lasts 5 seconds. (And so can other players if pvp is off)
- 4. Ok fine there's a healing branch. lv1 is 20 hp + damage reduction of 10% for 10 seconds, damage reduction increases to 20% and 30% as you level this.

Besides that, original abilities:
- Shadow affinity skill: The Shadow queen draws out your monster side. Being fitted with sufficiently shadowy attire will cause certain nearby mobs to panic. Pigs/bunnymen will flee. (skull helm, bone armor, specifically the void robes. Could use a special sprite for the cowl.) (I want to be edgy)
- Lunar affinity skill: The cryptic founder shares with you his knowledge of the rifts. You can now "leave the constant" for a bit through lunar rifts, bringing an assortment of random items once per rift. Works like the sleep action, has an original reward pool + specific items as "gifts for the specific characters present on the server. (random book materials for Wicker, some peppers for Warly :3)

- Surprise hop: When landing, a cloud of red smoke emits, pushing nearby mobs away and distracting them from Wortox for a couple seconds.
- Comedy routine: Can right-click on a nearby wes to start a show with him. Walter's campfire story but better because it needs 2 people. why? because it's canon and funny.
- Magic touch: Wortox can make magic items slightly more effective for a short period of time using his innate magic. Give a soul to it to make any magic item cost 20% less durability per use for 5 uses. (Will also work on construction amulet for 2 more uses, otherwise probably bad lol)

[loopuleasa]

Wortox currently is mostly a character good for multi player challenge runs on Jakey's stream.

He is powerful because he scales well with number of players, in low resource condtions.

But that power is very situational, and he lacks versatility as a result.

 

[ApoIIo]

5 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

He is powerful because he scales well with number of players, in low resource condtions.

But that power is very situational, and he lacks versatility as a result.

 

I've experienced the opposite: The more players there are, the faster everything dies and the more neglible the overall damage taken. Beyond 3 players "friendship cheese" results in insignificant costs for holding F.

[loopuleasa]

Just now, Bearger Enjoyer said:

I've experienced the opposite: The more players there are, the faster everything dies and the more neglible the overall damage taken. Beyond 3 players "friendship cheese" results in insignificant costs for holding F.

True.
I'm just skewed by streamer challenge runs.

[Just Mactusk]

[Baark0]

People who say Wortox probably haven't even played the character. On paper he sounds insane, his souls provide him faster travel healing and food all in one inventory slot, but then you realize that his only other perk is losing 50% less sanity from monsters, a perk (which isn't fully a perk due to how I assume it works with bq crown) so irrelevant it's not even mentioned in game, and on the wiki it's literally a single sentence of dialog in a paragraph of 18 sentences. 

Spoiler

Early game, sure, he's not bad, but he offers little to nothing outside of the early game other than a more time consuming Wanda teleport (since you have to gather enough souls to teleport anywhere, can't go through shards, and even have to walk in order to have enough souls to get there and back). In fact his late game is probably the worse out of any character other than maybe Wes, as the penalty for eating food either means you have to eat 2x the amount of food, or spend time collecting souls. His healing from souls becomes considerably less useful when you gain access to jellybeans. Hell, even his teleportation can be more or less replaced with telelocators, purple gems aren't used for much and can be easily farmed with help from Winona's catapults or even a handful of houndius shootius. 

It's a shame, I really like Wortox's character but never feel like picking him since most of my world end up being megabases, and I prefer to spend my time building than waiting around flowers for butterflies to spawn. All I'm hoping for from his skill tree is the hunger penalty from foods be removed, but he definitely needs more than that.

[gamehun20]

12 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

it's literally a single sentence of dialog in a paragraph of 18 sentences. 

I mean it's pretty straightforward does it need any elaboration?

[ApoIIo]

On 8/11/2023 at 8:34 AM, gamehun20 said:

I mean it's pretty straightforward does it need any elaboration?

They're emphasizing how the only thing besides these two is that. 
A lot of characters have a lot of smaller quirks to make them unique in the little things, but not Wortox. It's a bit of a shame, cuz that makes characters feel more distinct.

[JJ0264]

Soul bottle 1: Wortox can store 1 stack of souls (1 bottle, 1 red gem, 6 gold) (Wortox can only can 1 bottle)

Soul bottle 2: Wortox can store 2 stacks of souls

Soul bottle 3: Wortox can store 3 stacks of souls

Soul bottle Mastery: Wortox passively gains +1.5 health/sanity per inventory filled (total being +4.5 health/sanity) + Wortox can carry multiple bottles

[Dextops]

+1