Some Ideas for Walter skilltree

[WendyHater9000]

First of all, I think most people can agree that Walter is pretty bad at fighting bosses compare to other characters(even Wes), due to the perk that he will drain sanity while getting hit.

People might say that he can use slingshot, but they are really time and resources consuming if you need to use it on bosses like Bee queen, taking 661 gold rounds to take it down.

So there's three ways to mitigate this problem.

First, reduce the amount of sanity drop while getting hit, which is kinda boring imo.

Second, increase the efficiency, damage and variety of his round, so u won't need to use that much round for one boss.

Third, make Walter able to tame animals like golt, grassgator and koelephant, which is exclusive to him and stronger than beefalo, and you can choose to master one animal in your skill tree to give them stronger status buff.

These are just my thought I feel like I should share, cause I really want to tame some other animals than beefalo in this game

[WenericMember]

I think the bigger thing would be to make rounds reusable, so they drop on the ground where they land after being fired. It'd make Walter a drastically less resource intensive character without breaking existing balance.

[Gashzer]

6 hours ago, kevindaze said:

First of all, I think most people can agree that Walter is pretty bad at fighting bosses compare to other characters(even Wes), due to the perk that he will drain sanity while getting hit.

This is properly countered already by wearing his pinecone hat and body armour or with player skill Walter loses less sanity than other characters. So this statement isnt true at all. Walter is the best character to fight bosses like nightmare werepig who has a big sanity drain.

6 hours ago, kevindaze said:

People might say that he can use slingshot, but they are really time and resources consuming if you need to use it on bosses like Bee queen, taking 661 gold rounds to take it down.

Yes if you use the slingshot strictly by itself. But if you combine the slingshot with walters other perk which is big woby for faster exploration and more inventory slots means you can quickly find and relocate bunnymen to the surface around bee queen. Walter can use the one man band better than other characters and slow down rounds help the bunnymen to catch up to bee queen. 9 football helm bunnymen can cut the slingshot rounds needed to kill her from 400 thulecite rounds to 200 thulecite rounds and the time to kill her from 4 days to 2 days. 

Walter is a great character because if you actually use all of his upsides hes one of the best characters for skilled players.

The DST community fail to use the slingshot properly. Its to be used with followers or other players not as a solo weapon. Slow down rounds and the lack of drawing aggro all hint at this.

Dont make the rookie mistake of wasting time taming a beefalo as Walter. Just use big woby and use his pinecone hat with body armour if sanity is an issue for fights.

Heres my old skill tree ideas for him:

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149175-good-job-klei-on-the-skill-trees-walter-skill-tree/

[Mr Giggio]

14 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Walter is the best character to fight bosses like nightmare werepig who has a big sanity drain.

Extremely arguable not gonna lie 

16 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Dont make the rookie mistake of wasting time taming a beefalo as Walter

Also 

[arubaro]

walter needs a refresh before getting a skill tree...

[Gashzer]

Just now, Mr Giggio said:

Extremely arguable not gonna lie 

Slingshot is a cheap way to gain aggro when nightmare werepig lurks without needing to prototype a ranged weapon. And Walter has a built in insanity immunity. 

Wolfgang i guess can throw a dumbell to aggro but havin to go pick it up again is annoying. So walter is still more convenient 

8 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

24 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Dont make the rookie mistake of wasting time taming a beefalo as Walter.

Also 

You spawn with a cheap to access beefalo why tame another one? Its like a wolfgang player taming an ornery beefalo to fight with then arguing its for the speed boost to kite easier. You are invalidating Walters best perk which is big woby by taming a beefalo like you are invalidating wolfgangs best perk by fighting with a ornery.

Walter is 100% stronger fighting on foot than fighting with an ornery. Just get good at kiting or use pinecone hat with body armour. Brightshade sword does more damage and big woby has the same speed for general transport. If you are gonna tame a beefalo as walter, tame a rider beefalo atleast its an upgrade to big woby in the speed department.

13 minutes ago, arubaro said:

walter needs a refresh before getting a skill tree...

Says everyone who cant change their playstyles lol 

One character asks you to use body armour instead of headslot armour and everyone loses their minds 

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Slingshot is a cheap way to gain aggro when nightmare werepig lurks without needing to prototype a ranged weapon

just get closer to trigger an attack?

[Gashzer]

3 minutes ago, grm9 said:

just get closer to trigger an attack?

Smash attack is abit more annoying to repeatedly dodge and you still take that massive sanity drain from his aura as other characters. Terrorsbeaks plus nightmare werepig is a much harder fight if you are not prepared.

In fairness to you, i have that same thought for people who complain about Walter's sanity loss downside.....

"just git gud?" 

[grm9]

3 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Smash attack is abit more annoying to repeatedly dodge and you still take that massive sanity drain from his aura as other characters

it's around 10 cooked cactus if you start the fight at around 30 sanity with default damage multiplier abd a ham bat and smash is the easier one to safely bait, you get closer until you see him start attacking, then go away and hit the fist 

[Jakepeng99]

10 hours ago, WenericMember said:

I think the bigger thing would be to make rounds reusable, so they drop on the ground where they land after being fired. It'd make Walter a drastically less resource intensive character without breaking existing balance.

The floor would get really messy and weird, better to just make more ammo per craft.

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, grm9 said:

it's around 10 cooked cactus if you start the fight at around 30 sanity and smash is the easier one to safely bait, you get closer until you see him start the attack animation, then go away and hit the fist 

Lunge is alot easier for me to dodge. Walter can come out of a ruins rush nom on some lichen, kill nightmare fleas then jump into his camper tent to heal any damage received in the ruins, heal sanity and start the fight. No need to run about for sanity food.

No matter how you cut this cake. Walter wins 

Very very underrated character. Anyway back on topic.

I wouldnt want his skill tree to focus on other mountables at all. Its about Walter and woby vs the world. Skills to give woby more dog like abilities like tracking hunts faster and better, finding buried goodies, buffs to make big woby competitive in the late game vs the likes of the rider beefalo (shes already better than ornery ).

Give the slingshot planar rounds. Maybe a new orange gem ancient craftable slingshot (the lazy flinger; one orange gem, slingshot and 2 living logs) that has 600 durability but shoots at the same speed as darts and howilzer. I wouldnt want any upgraded slingshots to be infinite durability for obvious balance reasons but needing to run to the ruins every once in a while to recraft this op slingshot seems fair to me.

Or to make a ballista slingshot that requires walter and big woby to work together to operate but has powerful AoE rounds. Mentioned this in my old skill tree. This craftable ballista would reinforce that Walter and woby are a team and give big woby a unique use in the late game instead of all the false Walter mains neglecting big woby for a beefalo.

Edit: The ballista could be a "saddle" that you put on woby and uses big wobys horns as the "frame" for the sling to attach to. Big Woby could have an animation to help fire the big rounds.

[GimplyGoose]

I like the idea of Walter getting a skill tree that is thematically linked with Boy Scout merit badges. I can't say that I have put a lot of thought into what his skills should mechanically do, but I think merit badges would be a great thematic choice.

[_zwb]

21 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Walter is 100% stronger fighting on foot than fighting with an ornery.

Why is that? Isn't he the same as other characters with more penalties from getting hit?

21 hours ago, Gashzer said:

You spawn with a cheap to access beefalo why tame another one?

The same reason why you wouldn't tame a pudgy beefalo. Woby is a pudgy beefalo with significant less health and 9 more slots. It's certainly not as good as ornery beefalo, your weapon choice is also limited to the slingshot, which has lower dps and its ammo is rather costly. On the other hand, ornery beefalo acts as a 50 damage weapon with no durability, plus its attack animation is shorter than slingshot.

 

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, _zwb said:

Why is that? Isn't he the same as other characters with more penalties from getting hit?

Another way to look at Walter is he also has less penalities if you never get hit or rarely get hit. Deerclops can make u insane as other characters even if you kite him perfectly. Walter is immune to this. Hence Walter is better for skilled players over playing default 1x damage characters.

1 hour ago, _zwb said:

The same reason why you wouldn't tame a pudgy beefalo. Woby is a pudgy beefalo with significant less health and 9 more slots. It's certainly not as good as ornery beefalo, your weapon choice is also limited to the slingshot, which has lower dps and its ammo is rather costly. On the other hand, ornery beefalo acts as a 50 damage weapon with no durability, plus its attack animation is shorter than slingshot.

But walter can dismount woby before a fight without worrying about woby dying from aoe damage like a rook for example. Then a brightshade sword is stronger an has higher dps than ornery and bone armour has better defence than an ornery. Beefalos are terrible for combat compared to late game gear. This is why you should never tame an ornery unless you play wendy.

You are assuming the best trait of a beefalo is being able to fight with it. This is wrong, the best trait of a beefalo is the speed boost for general transport which big woby does without worrying about her dying or needing to do the entire taming process. However a rider beefalo is the natural late game upgrade to big woby therefore big woby needs a few buffs to make me want to keep big woby over taming a rider in the very late game.

Ornery beefalo is for the noobies.

 

 

[_zwb]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

if you kite *her perfectly

If you kite perfectly there's no difference between fighting deerclops and fighting her and 2 terrorbeaks. This ignore insanity perk is also useless once you've obtained bee queen crown/void armour.

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

But walter can dismount woby before a fight without worrying about woby dying from aoe damage like a rook for example.

You can do the same with beefalos, unless you're referring to dismounting right in front of an enemy with AOE damage, in this case it'd be a you problem really.

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Then a brightshade sword is stronger an has higher dps than ornery and bone armour has better defence than an ornery. Beefalos are terrible for combat compared to late game gear.

This isn't a reason why you would pick Woby over ornery beefalo, this is the reason why you wouldn't use beefalos and any other regular weapon in late game.

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

You are assuming the best trait of a beefalo is being able to fight with it.

Weren't we specifically discussing about combat situations?

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Ornery beefalo is for the noobies.

True, just rush alarming clock day 5 instead

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Beefalos are terrible for combat compared to late game gear

still, you want them nerfed

**logic**

[Gashzer]

Just now, _zwb said:

If you kite perfectly there's no difference between fighting deerclops and fighting her and 2 terrorbeaks. This ignore insanity perk is also useless once you've obtained bee queen crown/void armour.

You lose time dodging an extra 2 terrorbeaks. And even if deerclops hits you once or twice you still lose a net less than regular characters. So even with imperfect kiting. Walter loses less sanity. 

Great you mentioned bee queen crown because bone helm does the exact same for walter, fight until you nearly become insane then switch to bone helm for immunity to nightmare creatures. Bone helm has a pretty high durability and with the brightshade staff, ancient fuelweaver has never been easier to refight if it breaks.

7 minutes ago, _zwb said:

You can do the same with beefalos, unless you're referring to dismounting right in front of an enemy with AOE damage, in this case it'd be a you problem really.

It involves you dropping the bell pretty far away because a beefalo will follow u for abit then goin back to pick it up again. Woby wins in the QoL department here.

9 minutes ago, _zwb said:

This isn't a reason why you would pick Woby over ornery beefalo, this is the reason why you wouldn't use beefalos and any other regular weapon in late game.

No this is a reason to not use the ornery. Rider beefalo is 100% still worth it to travel around with and is still better for walter in the primary combat situation you want a beefalo for, over the ornery.

The one main boss fight walter cant fight with melee with is bee queen, so the speed boost of rider over the ornery actually means the best beefalo for combat for Walter is the rider. 

Which is pretty funny considering how the majority of dst players think taming an ornery is the best route for Walter  does no one else apply abit of critical thinking when they play dst??

Im shocked that im the only one defending Walter here.

17 minutes ago, _zwb said:

True, just rush alarming clock day 5 instead

For 5 days you are worse than Wilson as Wanda.... that is way too much time. 

1 minute ago, arubaro said:

still, you want them nerfed

**logic**

No i dont care, i just want Walters skill tree to not buff any other mountable other than big woby like kevin suggested. Beefalos are not worth it for Walter as is. Unless you are taming a rider beefalo in the very late game.

[grm9]

6 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

For 5 days you are worse than Wilson as Wanda

when wilson with free 50 hp per day is worse than wilson

[Gashzer]

3 minutes ago, grm9 said:

when wilson with free 50 hp per day is worse than wilson

Wilson can heal from food, has longer lasting torch which is useful if you want to rush straight into caves. Can craft twigs from logs, useful in a twiggy tree world, can craft flint from rocks.

I was joking but now that i have thought about it his day 1-5 usefulness is quite high tbh hahaha an alot better than wanda.

[_zwb]

10 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Walter loses less sanity. 

if you kite perfectly losing sanity is not an issue, other than wasting some time I guess, not big difference tbh

12 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

because bone helm does the exact same for walter,

And for any other character

16 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

speed boost of rider over the ornery

Is ornery too slow for you? Even with glossamer saddle?

Also rider deals so little damage, it would take forever to fight BQ. You mentioned using bunnymem, how much damage is dealt by them compared to yours?

 

[grm9]

2 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Wilson can heal from food, has longer lasting torch which is useful if you want to rush straight into caves. Can craft twigs from logs, useful in a twiggy tree world, can craft flint from rocks.

I was joking but now that i have thought about it his day 1-5 usefulness is quite high tbh hahaha an alot better than wanda.

if you're doing scienceless then you only really get to heal from bat bat and AG's horn unless you specifically located blue mushrooms at night which almost no one does, if you're doing normal rush then you'll make lantern and the other two things are only relevant on public servers tbf 

[arubaro]

25 minutes ago, grm9 said:

when wilson with free 50 hp per day is worse than wilson

6 butterflies...

[Gashzer]

9 minutes ago, _zwb said:

And for any other character

Yeah but we are talking about getting rid of Walters downside here lol

10 minutes ago, _zwb said:

Also rider deals so little damage, it would take forever to fight BQ. You mentioned using bunnymem, how much damage is dealt by them compared to yours?

Yeah but you are going to use the slingshot with the rider. Slowdown rounds with some bunnymen backup you gathered quickly by day 5 with big woby all them years ago and marble/thulecite rounds. Easy fight.

Plus if you are playing as walter bee queen is a fight not worth repeating apart from the fun of it, bee crown is useless for him and jellybeans dont heal sanity therefore late game potato puree farming is better. So i normally do it once using a cane/mag with 9 armoured bunnymen and 200 thulecite rounds for the bundling wrap blueprint. Bunnymen can be reused for crab king and dfly repeat fights.

Rider is faster than ornery for day to day use and doesnt have the downside of having to feed it. By far the better choice for Walter to tame after you enter the late game.

[ShadowDuelist]

3 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Ornery beefalo is for the noobies.

 I’ve never seen anyone going all the way up to late game with Walter without a beefalo TBH. 

 I get that you can try to squish the most utility out of big Woby, she is fun, but at some point it’s just inevitably better to have a fully tamed beefalo.

 

[Gashzer]

41 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

 I’ve never seen anyone going all the way up to late game with Walter without a beefalo TBH. 

 I get that you can try to squish the most utility out of big Woby, she is fun, but at some point it’s just inevitably better to have a fully tamed beefalo.

 

The entire reason you should play walter is so you dont have to tame a beefalo! Thats why big woby is a defacto beefalo. I love the benefits of a beefalo, i generally tame them as other characters but with walter i get all that speed and utility without the tedious taming.

I hope klei hones in on this for the skill tree. Slingshot is and always should be a side perk for walter. Woby and by extension big woby are his core perk and should get most of the attention for his skill tree. This is why i kick up a fuss when every single thread talks about his slingshot only or everyone assumes the normal way to play walter is to tame an ornery.

It gets easier an easier to survive as walter without a beefalo as you progress. Bone helm removes his downside completely until it breaks and bone armour prevents all damage helping him alot. 

Or simply using his pinecone hat with body armour makes him feel like a normal character. You will die before you go insane.

You have to treat walter like a different, early game focused, version of wanda. Hes a glass cannon but instead of doing more damage he has alot of other great QoL perks for skilled players.