My own Winona Skilltree

[Saladmanders]

Hi All!

Here to create a concept of what Winona's Skilltree could be like in my own version. I have seen many different versions of Winona's Skilltree & have been inspired to make my own. I wouldn't have made this if not for the many creative & dedicated people on these forums showing their own ideas, opinions & concepts for me as a viewer to find. Thank you all! 

Before I actually start the Skilltree, I'd like to place some self implied goals for my Skilltree to have for helping all sorts of DST players in their playthroughs.

* Have skills that help with early game

* Improve base Winona

* Create Endgame Lunar & Shadow Aligned Skills

* Avoid adding skills that encourage character switching off Winona

* Try to make The Skilltree not too OP

* Make cool names

I plan to make 27 new skills for Winona, of which 2 are Lunar and Shadow Aligned, which can only be chosen once 10 Skilltree points have been used. 15 skills can be chosen & for convenience sakes, I'd like to format it like Woodie's Skilltree, this will make it easier to imagine and plan. From Left to Right Down.

 

First Skill Branch, Hammer Skills 

The hammer skills focuses on improving Winona by making her hammers more versatile and effective for herself.

Engineer's Efficiency I. The first skill increases Winona's hammer's efficiency by 25%. This affect is removed when Winona is below 50 hunger.

Engineer's Efficiency II. Winona now needs 33% less swings to break structures (E.G. Walls take 2 swings to break, Ancient Staues take 5 swings to break, etc.) All hammers now have no end or start lag for Winona specifically. These affects are removed when Winona is below 50 hunger.

Engineer's Efficiency III. All hammers used by Winona lose 33% less durability. Now, every 3rd hit of a hammer counts as 2 swings which takes the durability of 2 swings, just for clarification. Winona will not use a Big Swing if only one swing is required to finish breaking a structure.

Edit: Thanks to Loyal Plant, they've recommended a much better skill in mind to implement, this being a reworked version of Master Mallater.

Master Malleter. A fun skill idea. Hammers now can launch different types of minerals across an 8 tile distance to apply different affects. 

Rocks stun non bosses for 5 seconds and do 42.5 damage (same as catapult ball) but don't stun shadow creatures or gestalts. Small AOE.

Ice freezes non boss mobs for 6 seconds and do only 20 damage, but freeze bosses, shadow creatures and gestalts to freeze for 3 seconds. Small AOE.

Gold stuns all creatures except shadow creatures and gestalts for 7 seconds, 4 seconds for bosses and do 80 damage, can be used 2 times before they break. Medium AOE.

Pure Horror hits every type of mobs & bosses. When they hit an enemy they summon shadow claws which pin down mobs for 10 seconds & 8 seconds for bosses and does 120 damage, 20 planar damage and applies a 25% defense debuff to mobs caught in hands. Does 10% more normal damage & planar damage to Lunar Aligned mobs. Breaks after 4 uses. Large AOE.

Pure Enlightment hits every type of mob and bosses. When they hit an enemy they summon Greater Gestalts, the Pure Enlightment themselves don't do damage but the shots stun the mob or boss for 10 seconds & 8 seconds respectively. The Greater Gestalts stay for up to 10 seconds and in that time attack 1 time for 180 damage, draw aggro from surrounding mobs & raises Winona's sanity by 15 when the Pure Enlightment hits. Does 10% more normal damage & planar damage to Shadow Aligned mobs. Breaks after 4 uses. Large AOE which spawn individual Greater Gestalts for each mob hit by AOE but only raises Winona's sanity once.

Brightshade Smashers deal 10 more planar damage per throw, summons 2 Greater Gestalts per enemy instead of only one for Pure Enlightment. Does 10% more normal damage & planar damage to Shadow Aligned mobs. They also have cool Brightshade explosions on hit.

 

These next 3 Skill Branches each have a final locked skill. Only one of these final locked skills can be chosen, when one of those skills are chosen, the 2 other final skills of their respective branches stay locked. Like with Woodie's Skilltree.

Second Skill Branch, Tape Skills

Ever get annoying sinkholes, burnt structures or break armour way to often? These skills are more lenient to beginner players who have made mistakes & need them to be fixed & encourages Winona to be more of a Handyperson.

Pro-taper. Make 2 tape instead of only 1 tape per craft. Tape can also be used to fix tier 2 normal tools & tier 2 magic tools & below. (E.G. Opulent Pickaxe, Hammers, Fire staffs, Dark swords, etc.). That means no fixing Special crafting station tools.

Fixer-Upper. Repair Sinkholes for 10 stone, Burnt Structures for a Third of the original ingredients (Stacks with Deconstruction Amulet), Fill Ponds for 10 stone & block Nightmare Fissures for a price of 2 tape, 5 stone & 2 silk. Nightmare Fissures will only be blocked for 3 Nightmare Cycles. Afterwards, they open again. Each time Winona Fills or repairs a structure, 10 hunger is used.

Plastape. Heal Players, Allies & yourself with Trusty Tape! Heals 20 health immediately per use. No other character can use Trusty Tape to heal others.

Edit: Thanks to Loyal Plant, they've recommended a better skill in mind to implement, this being a reworked version of Ew' Reliable into Slurtle Tape

Slurtle Tape. Learn to make Slurtle Tape. Made with 2 Slurtle Slime, 2 Broken Shells and 2 Trusty Tape to create 2 Slurtle Tape. Use on repairable items, armour or structures which fully repairs them, burnt structures don't count (Can't tape charcoal and ash back together) & gives them 33% more durability for the next uses of the item durability or structure health. This can be used for Walls, Pig Houses, Weapons, Armour, Spider Dens (By Webber) & more. Heals 50 health per use. Only Winona may use Slurtle Tape to repair & give more durability to items and armors (an exception being Webber with Spider dens specifically). Slurtle Tape used by others will take away 15 sanity each use. Slurtle Tape used by Winona applies no negative affects (except the fact that you're holding old Snail Mucus and their Broken Shells, who does that?)

 

Third Skill Branch, GEMerator Skills

Extend your generators fuel, utility & range for anytime of your playthrough and expand Winona's skills!

Edit: Thanks to Loyal Plant, they've recommended a better skill in mind to implement, this being a reworked version of Powered Inspiration into Power Off Switches.

Power Off Switches! Turn on & off Generators. You all seriously wanted this? (I'm joking) Only Winona may On or Off Generators & while Generators are off, they regenerate 8 charge a second.

Bigger Batteries. Winona's Generator & GEMerator gain 3 extra nitre & gem storage providing more charge & can power more Machines. Each Nitre & Gem added gives 11% more range to Generators & GEMerators. Extra nitre or gems adds a total of 33% more range. 

GEMgines. Both of Winona's Generators get more efficient while Winona is near them while carrying multiple gems or nitre. Adds 10% less energy drain & 5% more Machine efficiency for every 2 gems in Winona's inventory or every 8 nitre. Hold 10 gems (Of any variety) or 40 nitre to boost Generators to get up to 50% less energy drain and 25% more Machine efficiency.

Highest-Grade. Winona can fit 1 Iridescent Gem into GEMerators. Iridescent GEMerators gives infinite charge & double range. What's there more to say?

 

Fourth Skill Branch, Survival Skills

Winona's extra experience from living, learning & not starving in the constant has given her more skills related to her survival.

Extra Foresight. When Winona dodges Charlie, Winona is granted temporary Night/Moggle vision from dodging Charlie's blows. Charlie's second hit will however hit Winona like normal. This gives Winona extra time to find light and lets her see the environment around her. Night/Moggle vision lasts for 5 seconds.

Predictable Machinery. Dodge the first hit of each individual Clockwork every 5 seconds, get double loot from Clockworks & do double damage to Clockworks.

Charlie's Habits. Have exclusive indicators for where Shadow Aligned set pieces & entities are located. (E.G. Marble Sculptures, Atrium, Ruins, Damaged Clockworks, Ancient Guardian, etc.).

Desperate Urgency. Winona crafts even faster, works faster & runs faster in Darkness. Affects apply when in Total Darkness, when Night/Moggle vision is on or when around Night Lights. Desperate Urgency gives Winona a total of 3x crafting speed, 25% attacking/work speed & 20% more movement speed (Only when Winona is above 50 hunger).

 

Fifth Skill Branch, Spotlight Skills

We all know Winona's Spotlight lacks basically in every area. I'm going to try to change that. Have better lights, larger utility and light shows.

Larger Scope. Spotlights give off the same amount of light area as a max lantern instead of the limiting light beam it gave before. Spotlights also gain a larger range to track players. Also, use Mushroom Spores to change the color of your Spotlights. Lots of Lovely Luminous Lighting Lights Lace Long Lonely Late nights with Lavish Looking Lucky Luxurious Lingering spotLights which Last Long Large Lively Lives for Local Lumbering Lots! (lol)

Double Scope. Spotlights now have 2 lights! Provides bigger, better light to individual players. The Double Spotlight can track 2 players at once.

Untouchable Light. Players in the light of Winona's Spotlight won't be attacked by certain mobs, mobs in the light will be scared off in the same way Maxwell's Shadow Sneak Scares Mobs for short periods of time. Does not affect bosses, minibosses, Lunar Aligned & Shadow Aligned Mobs.*

* As a side note, These Spotlight skills may encourage players to switch to Winona to get better lights. However, they are not as game changing as catapults are & therefore, designing them to be more beneficial to Winona is not as important as with Winona's other crafts. Though it is understandable that this contradicts my statement of 'Avoid adding skills that encourage character switching off Winona'.

 

Sixth Skill Branch, Catapult Skills

Arguably the best part about Winona's Skilltree & the main aspect of Winona which makes her a switch character. I shall do my best to think of ideas for making Winona's catapults better, yet not encourage switching off Winona.

Professionals Priority. Catapults target whatever Winona attacks & shoot 10% faster. Catapults get a 33% bigger attack range for Winona's targets.

Intentional Impulse. When Winona's Catapults are hit by enemies, NPC's or Winona herself, they will automatically launch a Catapult Ball. This can happen every 1.2 seconds.

Heavy Hitters. Winona can load multiple rocks into Catapults which when done, replaces the next catapult balls. This can be done with right click & up to 10 rocks can be offered at a time. More rocks can only be loaded once the previous rocks have been used. For every rock, a Giant Stone is thrown instead of a normal Catapult ball & does double the damage of a Catapult ball, 85 damage, & does double the AOE as well. They will become too heavy to fire unless Winona is there to fix them to launch. If the Catapult carrying the Giant Stone is hit, it immediately launch the Giant Stone. However, it will use up all the stones even if it's the first one & go back to using normal Catapult Balls.

 

Seventh Skill Branch, Special Crafts

Create special tools & machines for Winona to use for herself & her team. This Branch Branches into 2 more different crafts, like Woodie's Skilltree.

Refined Hammer. The first skill of this branch. What we should've gotten for Winona (In my opinion). Deals 45 damage, has 300 durability & can be created with 1 Hammer, 2 Gold & 2 tape. Makes Winona very happy & raises her sanity by 6 per minute when held. Hammer upgrades also apply to Refined Hammer. A Refined Hammers throw does 25% more damage & has larger AOEs. Refined Hammers can break harder materials, break boulders & create a special *~ding~* sound when selected & whatever they've hit makes this sound too. Totally makes them better than any other tool.

Edit: Thanks to Jakepeng99, they've recommended a better skill in mind to implement, this being a reworked version of Compact Catapults

Compact Catapult. Left skill of this branch. Winona can now craft smaller catapults. Compact Catapults are portable cost, half the crafting materials to make & half the charge to power. They can be carried in your inventory, take up less space when placed down compared to a regular catapult & fire 25% faster. Lasts for 3 days by itself & refills by 100% with any gem except iridescent gems which cannot be put inside a Compact Catapult and 10% with nitre. However, they have half the usual health, regen half the usual & offers half the AOE damage. They cannot use the skill 'Heavy Hitters', other than that skill they will get the benefits of Winona's other Catapult skills.

Smallish Spotlight. Right skill of this branch. Smallish Spotlights are portable & cost half the materials of a regular catapult. Can be carried in hand slot and placed down like a lantern. On default they have 2 lights, follows up to 4 different entities with all Lantern upgrades (E.G. Players, Enemies, Followers, Bosses.) Use Winona's Generator as a power source or use gems to manually power it. Lasts for 3 days by itself & refills by 100% with any gem except iridescent gems which cannot be put inside a Smallish Spotlight and 10% with nitre. Can use Generators to power Smallish Spotlights. Lights do not scare away mobs or protect the player, they have half the usual health & regen half the usual.

 

Eighth Skill Branch, Lunar & Shadow Skills

Side with Charlie or 'Them' to get new knowledge to create powerful crafts. Spotlight Skills apply to these new Spotlight's as well.

Shining Signal. Can be made with 2 Pure Brilliance, 4 Moon rocks & 2 Thulucite. Create a powerful Spotlight which creates a giant light around you from the sky. Removes the effects of Enlightment, Lunar Aligned mobs become neutral to Players in the Shining Signal (except for bosses & minibosses). The nearer mobs are to you (The middle of the Shining Signals Light) the slower their walk & attack speed become, up to 50% slower. Damages Shadow Aligned Mobs in the Shining Signal's light according to how close they are to you, up to 8 damage per second. Has Double Health & Health Regen. Only activates when Winona is in its radius. Has to be offered 1 moon rock once a day.

Shadow Beacon. Can be made with 2 Pure Horror, 4 Dreadstone & 2 Thulucite. Create an overwhelming Umbra which creates a dark-tinted light around you from below. Removes the effects of Insanity, Shadow Aligned mobs become neutral to Players in the Shadow Beacon (except for bosses & minibosses). The nearer mobs are to you (The middle of the Shadow Beacon's umbra) the lower their defense & attack become, up to 25% weaker. If Winona has the skill 'Desperate Urgency' the effects will be applied to Winona when in the umbra of the Shadow Beacon. Damages Lunar Alligned Mobs in the Shadow Beacon's umbra according to how close they are to you, up to 8 damage per second. Has Double Health & Health Regen. Only activates when Winona is in its radius. Has to be offered 1 nightmare fuel once a day.

 

And with that, my personal version of Winona's skilltree is complete! (unless I find something I want to change or if someone gives a cool suggestion.) Thank you for reading this far and comment anything you would like to suggest for this or tell me what is underpowered or too OP (Probably the latter). 

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Saladmanders said:

Compact Catapult. Left skill of this branch. Winona can now craft smaller catapults. Compact Catapults cost half the crafting materials to make, half the charge to power, take up less space & fire 25% faster. However, they have half the usual health, regen half the usual & offers half the AOE. They cannot use the skill 'Heavy Hitters', other than that skill they will get the benefits of Winona's other Catapult skills.

This skill has very good potential if it was a tiny catapult you can pick up and move anywhere. It could be fueled by nitre.

[Loyal Plant]

Yo that's actually great stuff! Overall it’s really good and has depth in it. A bit of suggestions: I would add somewhere option to pause the generators (many people asked for it and if only Winona could do it there would be less character switching), change Ewecus tape skill and throwing hammers.

Ewecus is pretty rare mob and it’s spawn is completely random. It’s like you get unlucky and can’t use a skillpoint, unfortunately I can’t come up with a replacement rn

Throwing hammers is okay but a bit similar to throwing dumbbells and I would like more unique option: Skill allows you to throw/launch stones with hammer similar to baseball. Basic hammer’s throw damages and significantly slows a single target, Refined Hammer’s throw deals more damage and completely stuns the enemy and Lunar affinity allows Winona to do it with Brightshade Hammer that does some crazy stuff like several AoE explosions of damage combined with something like Fear + gigaslow or stun or sleep cloud similar to Grazers.

That’s all changes I would make but even without them this skillset is great and I give at least solid 8/10. With my changes (completed with Ewecus replacement) 10/10 of course

[Saladmanders]

19 minutes ago, Loyal Plant said:

Yo that's actually great stuff! Overall it’s really good and has depth in it.

Thank you for the compliment! I feel very flattered.

19 minutes ago, Loyal Plant said:

I would add somewhere option to pause the generators (many people asked for it and if only Winona could do it there would be less character switching)

That’s a really good idea and I’ve see that idea in some places by some people.

I wanted to avoid trying to take other people’s skills directly and did my best to make my own (Another idea I saw being directly controlling catapults to do more damage as Winona. I instead thought of loading up Giant stones.)

There is no shame in taking inspiration and using references (like I completely copied the format of Woodie’s skill tree) But just for this I wanted to be slightly more original. If I were to replace one of the skills though with Pause generators, I’d replace Powered Inspiration.

19 minutes ago, Loyal Plant said:

Ewecus is pretty rare mob and it’s spawn is completely random. It’s like you get unlucky and can’t use a skillpoint

I get what you mean and that is fair. However, That is the point as providing a farmable accessible resource 24/7 for a recipe that can give 33% more durability, insta fixes armours, tools and structures and heals for 50 a pop is way too good to be resourced from an easier monster to get and fight. And there are other options for final skills.

If I were to replace the ewecus ingredients. I’d replace them with slurtle slime and broken slurtle shells. Easier to find, yet still rare and dangerous to get. And change the name to Slurtape or something.

29 minutes ago, Loyal Plant said:

Throwing hammers is okay but a bit similar to throwing dumbbells and I would like more unique option: Skill allows you to throw/launch stones with hammer similar to baseball. Basic hammer’s throw damages and significantly slows a single target, Refined Hammer’s throw deals more damage and completely stuns the enemy and Lunar affinity allows Winona to do it with Brightshade Hammer that does some crazy stuff like several AoE explosions of damage combined with something like Fear + gigaslow or stun or sleep cloud similar to Grazers.

That is another great idea and would allow for more creativity, should I edit my post to fit these in?

[Loyal Plant]

11 minutes ago, Saladmanders said:

If I were to replace one of the skills though with Pause generators, I’d replace Powered Inspiration.

 

12 minutes ago, Saladmanders said:

If I were to replace the ewecus ingredients. I’d replace them with slurtle slime and broken slurtle shells. Easier to find, yet still rare and dangerous to get. And change the name to Slurtape or something.

Agree with both!

12 minutes ago, Saladmanders said:

should I edit my post to fit these in?

Yeah I don't mind if you think it's better