Wurt and Webber

[Jakepeng99]

Wurt and Webber are often seen as similar, so they should be differed more in their skill trees:

▪In Wurt's skill tree, her merms would be focused on utility.

▪In Webber's skil tree, his spiders would be focused on combat.

This would make them more different; Webber would have combat focused followers, and Wurt utility focused followers. Not saying Webber can't have a few more utilities, or Wurt a few more combat stuff.

 

 

 

[ALCRD]

As similar as spider and a fish

[Jakepeng99]

3 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

As similar as spider and a fish

Lots of people compare merm followers to spider followers.

[ALCRD]

2 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Lots of people compare merm followers to spider followers.

Yes spiders can also mine rocks , chop trees and one of them can be turned into friendly queen by overfeeding near a special structure to globally boost all spider stats.

And Merms are known for never requiring refeeding after recruiting and can be picked up and fit in your pocket whenever needed.

[Jakepeng99]

Just now, ALCRD said:

Yes spiders can also mine rocks , chop trees and one of them can be turned into friendly queen by overfeeding near a special structure to globally boost all spider stats.

And Merms are known for never requiring refeeding after recruiting and can be picked up and fit in your pocket whenever needed.

They are still often compared, but not in this sarcastic way.

 

Merms are said to just be better spiders with more uses.

[ALCRD]

Spiders are more like Starcraft Zergs

While Merms are more like Starcraft Terrans.

They both excell in different areas.

[Jakepeng99]

1 minute ago, ALCRD said:

Spiders are more like Starcraft Zergs

While Merms are more like Starcraft Terrans.

They both excell in different areas.

Spiders excel at being turned to silk, whereas merms do the rest.

[ALCRD]

16 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Spiders excel at being turned to silk, whereas merms do the rest.

Spiders excell at being cheap to amass and maintain attack force that overwhelms enemies. And can be morphed into various variants on the go.

While merms are more expensive thus much harder to amass and maintain since they require constant feeding and can't be transported so easily but in return have greater utility and single unit strength.

So yes Zergs vs Terrans

[flamboyant wolf]

yeah. 

[CuteC]

1 minute ago, ALCRD said:

Spiders excell at being cheap to amass and maintain attack force that overwhelm enemies.

While merms are more expensive thus much harder to amass and maintain since they require constant feeding and can't be transported so easily but in return have greater utility and single unit strength.

You can give a single merm a seed and like 20 are going to follow you.

[ALCRD]

5 minutes ago, CuteC said:

You can give a single merm a seed and like 20 are going to follow you.

That works the same with Spiders but with meat and unlike Merms they don't require constant refeeding.

Take over a nest or place the one you start with = keep amassing army of spiders free of cost (cause you can feed them their own bretheren) as soon as you spawned.

[CuteC]

2 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

That works the same with Spiders but with meat and unlike Merms they don't require constant refeeding.

You don't have to constantly feed merms, just gather them around, stuff the face of a single merm and you're good to destroy anything in your path, be it bee queen or the local forest.

[ALCRD]

1 minute ago, CuteC said:

You don't have to constantly feed merms, just gather them around, stuff the face of a single merm and you're good to destroy anything in your path, be it bee queen or the local forest.

Merms have loyality expiry timer. After a while you have to feed merm again for them to continue following. Not sure why you think they don't. 

Plus army of spiders backed by Nurses can also make short work of bee queen. They can't chop forest down but are still suprisingly way cheaper to amass than Merms..

[CuteC]

4 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Merms have loyality expiry timer. After a while you have to feed merm again for them to continue following. Not sure why you think they don't.

Well yes I know, but how long do you need followers for? You just tell them to dispose of dragonfly or bee queen and that's pretty much all you got them for, well that, deforestating and dealing with hounds, and you don't need to hire them for that last one.

[ALCRD]

17 minutes ago, CuteC said:

You just tell them to dispose of dragonfly or bee queen and that's pretty much all you got them for

 

And in that regard Merms are different/limited compared to spiders. Amassed early spiders serve as a attack/defense force/distraction that is with you wherever you go at all times untill they die. And spiders are everywhere in the Constant (and you can spread them even more around) so your spiders dwindled in numbers? Get more from any local nest and continue on safely exploring surface or caves and whatnot.

 

With Merms you can only ever do that if you are quite late in the game and have a well estabilished base.

[CuteC]

Merms are costier to initially set up but once they're there they are going to beat anything you tell them to into a paste, spiders are just not as strong and are often... unreliable with how much havoc they can make and potentially annoy other people, not only that but such a spider filled world is just a crash waiting to happen, spiders are way less optimized than merms and 1 biome with them massively lags the host, let alone an entire world.

Spiders are often seen as pretty much useless because merms do anything they do but better and do not throw a hissy fit if anyone dares stumble near their nest.

Wurt and Webber have the same job but Wurt does it way better, Webber is just stuck there not being able to use spiders well because they are extremely obnoxious, do not behave well with other people and also just ddos servers,

[ALCRD]

8 minutes ago, CuteC said:

Spiders are often seen as pretty much useless because merms do anything they do but better

Merms can heal themselves, you and other Merms in area to the point of near immortality?

Can Merms use ranged attacks or shield themselves from damage?

Hmmmm..

I do give you that they are poorly optimized for public servers if some crazy Webber prances about with 50 spiders with him at all times.

As for causing havoc that's what decorating kit and webby whistle is for. If one does not know how to utilize these or other players cluelessly attack smiling tamed spiders or decorated nests - problems will arise.

 

[Jakepeng99]

43 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Merms have loyality expiry timer. After a while you have to feed merm again for them to continue following. Not sure why you think they don't. 

Plus army of spiders backed by Nurses can also make short work of bee queen. They can't chop forest down but are still suprisingly way cheaper to amass than Merms..

Spiders become scared when fighting bee queen, they are just an ok method. Merms are immune to the scream, and are so good at killing bee queen that it is considered farming her. They are her silver bullet.

Merms dying also means nothing since they respawn in half a day, and have good drops which can also be used to recruit more merms.

7 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Merms can heal themselves

They can actually. They regen hp like bunnymenl

7 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Can Merms use ranged attacks or shield themselves from damage?

They kite and dodge attacks. And when they do take damage, they are taking it instead of you. Merms are also effective for celestial champion and other minion shredding bosses due to kiting, they can speed up the fight and reward you with tons of fish and frog legs after they die. Merms are win win.

21 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

With Merms you can only ever do that if you are quite late in the game and have a well estabilished base.

I played a server recently as Wurt, and some other Wurt was carrying the server, being able to get 18 merm huts by day 20. (Merms spawn in winter, you just need fire and a flingo to get them out)

 

6 merms is great too, cheap to maintain and are great assistants in bosses and day-to-day combatl

[ALCRD]

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They can actually. They regen hp like bunnymenl

Out of combat not in combat from what i recall.

And are you really comparing a spammy AoE heal burst that heals all your units and you to a passive hp regen? Don't be silly.

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Spiders become scared when fighting bee queen, they are just an ok method. Merms are immune to the scream

Merm guards are only immune not regular Merms.

EDIT:

Ironically tho both your and CuteC posts prove more and more how Merms and Spiders are NOT similar to each other.

[Jakepeng99]

12 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Out of combat not in combat from what i recall.

They do regen in combat.

12 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

And are you really comparing a spammy AoE heal burst that heals all your units and you to a passive hp regen? Don't be silly.

They have large health pools and kite anyway.

12 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Merm guards are only immune not regular Merms.

I know, all my points were towards merm guards.

12 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Ironically tho both your and CuteC posts prove more and more how Merms and Spiders are NOT similar to each other.

They both fill very similar roles. Merms just do it better most the time and fill out bonus roles. It is not about mechanical differences. So, i hope klei aims to seperate their roles more.

[ALCRD]

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They do regen in combat.

Even so again how is it better or comparable to a constant barrage of heals in AoE radius from multipile Nurses that instantly heal themselves, every spider and Webber in their wide radius?

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They both fill very similar roles.

You keep saying that but both your and CuteC posts just highlight more and more differences between spiders and merms and their prefered roles..

So that's confusing.

[Masked Koopa]

9 hours ago, ALCRD said:

Even so again how is it better or comparable to a constant barrage of heals in AoE radius from multipile Nurses that instantly heal themselves, every spider and Webber in their wide radius?

Well, because at the end of the day, long as there's two minions left on the planet, someone is gonna be better at combat than someone else. The role being compared for is combat. I think you could definitely make a point in regard to healing Webber, that's some decent utility. But for healing spiders - it's mostly just a supplement for spiders having generallly quite lacking HP pools, it's not like the boss is employing a different strategy to counter it.

That having been said, I think what Webber needs isn't to be strictly better at combat than Merms, his focus should be on accessibility and practicality. IMO Webber falls short of Wurt on both of these fronts specifically because of his perma-follower design.

Merm guards are some of the most utility-friendly followers out there. They are cheap and easy to hire, can be placed almost anywhere due to their un-kinged form being weak as all hell (and them not respawning), while their kinged form is friendly to all mobs and players. They also respawn very quickly, and can be dismissed from literally anywhere in the world without worry, since they will just TP home.

Spiders, on the other hand, are beyond awkward. For one, they are only passive if you leave them near their designated nest - and god help you if ANYTHING happens to that nest or a spider within its vicinity. This also means no dismissing spiders in the middle of nowhere. Not that you'd want to, since all of Webber's best spiders are homeless bums, so they won't even have a home to return to. Making matters worse, if your spider dies, that's it. It's gone forever, and that can be a pretty annoying and/or time consuming thing to replace.

I think the idea was meant to be that Webber treats his spiders like little children, pampering and petting and hugging them, while Wurt's Merms are grown adults of her own species who don't need to be taken care of. So Webber has to "babysit" his spiders, not treat them as disposable, while Wurt is a general leading a country into battle - casualties will ensue. The problem with this design is that Webber has to keep his babies out at all times, or waste inventory space carrying 1 spider per slot, which can make life awkward and difficult for the Webber player, and anyone else who has to be around him. In my opinion, it would be best if Webber were given a way to craft a little house at which a single spider of any type can live and respawn. This den would keep the spider permanently pacified, and the spider would teleport home to it in much the same way Merms can. It could be pretty cheap, costing 1-2 boards, keeping it in line with spiders being cheap, without removing the narrative of Webber taking extra good care of his minions.

[Jakepeng99]

10 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

and god help you if ANYTHING

Moonstorm is the number 1 nest un-decorator.

10 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

, without removing the narrative of Webber taking extra good care of his minions.

He is a cannable though. He makes them fight each other to then eat them.

[Dr.Webber]

10 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

20 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

 

He is a cannable though. He makes them fight each other to then eat them

That’s only an in game farm lore wise it’s incredibly out of character