What's your least favoured character?

[grm9]

2 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

work through that cluster farming more nm fuel, bananas

rook

3 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

He is not nearly as core to Willow's kit as Abi is to Wendy

problem is that willow hardly has something other than bernie and lighter which you only use for lighting things and cooking 

[Gashzer]

5 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Snip

Dam you and your very logical take on the debate haha

Well said tbh

3 minutes ago, Mx-Pain said:

Walter.

My nemesis has returned 

[Yuuko]

22 minutes ago, grm9 said:

rook

problem is that willow hardly has something other than bernie and lighter which you only use for lighting things and cooking 

Rook is not always in a position to help you out.  If you're at the edge of the monkey area and the nm cycle first started you don't always have knowledge of the area to get a rook lined up to take out monkeys.  Also if you're leaving the rook might already be dead lol.  And as much as you can say "I use a rook" I can just reply with "I use a Bernie."  It doesn't really mean much lol.  Might as well respond with "Wolfgang" to someone talking about how they like to use Warly's Chaud-Froid.  One of the strong suits of DST is the variety we can use approaching the game's obstacles.

I think its no secret that Willow, being one of the first refreshes AND initially being designed as a low-powered character like Wilson suffers from a lack of tools.  imo Wendy's refresh was where the trajectory of power scaling for characters really took a sharp turn.  The refreshes that came before her were all lower power, which really felt significant when we hit the crescendo of refreshes with Wicker and Maxwell (and Wanda release) who basically got everything like they were max level boss characters.

I'm assuming with the skill trees we'll see the power levels evened out some.  Wolfgang, who was already decently powerful got some minor perks in harvesting resources and almost half his perks are just dumped into restoring his planar nerfs.  I suspect Wendy might get something similar - perhaps a skill or two to help Abi survive aoe / bosses, but mostly smaller QOL perks and planar nerf reverts b/c her power ceiling is already pretty healthy.  Meanwhile Willow is likely to get more significant additions similar to Woodie and Wormwood.

[grm9]

16 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

And as much as you can say "I use a rook" I can just reply with "I use a Bernie." It doesn't really mean much lol.  Might as well respond with "Wolfgang" to someone talking about how they like to use Warly's Chaud-Froid

the point was that rook isn't character-specific, i usually keep exploring if idk where a rook is and i don't kill rooks and even if i would've i could just keep going to the stairs anyway because they won't go to surface with you if you're leaving 

[Yuuko]

15 minutes ago, grm9 said:

the point was that rook isn't character-specific, i usually keep exploring if idk where a rook is and i don't kill rooks and even if i would've i could just keep going to the stairs anyway because they won't go to surface with you if you're leaving 

Why is that a point to make?  There are a lot of character agnostic solutions to situations in the game, that doesn't invalidate any character specific solutions.  Any character can make an oven to cook bee queen, do you think that invalidates Wendy's advantage with Abi?  Or Wolfgang's damage boost?

Options.  DST is a multiple choice game.

[WenericMember]

40 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I think its not very good to compare these two because they play very differently.  I've seen it from the "Wendy is amazing why does Willow even exist" angle before, but never "Willow is actually the better summoner" lol so this kinda caught me off guard.

Wendy is definitely the more summon focused character between them.  Her damage is nerfed to accommodate for the free damage Abi deals, and Abi scales in damage based on time surviving.  Wendy also has potions that augment Abi to suit different needs.  When you play Wendy you are basically playing Wendy + Abi.  Because of this Wendy lends herself well to newer players but without skillful play will fall off when it comes to bosses and more late game content.

Willow is different, thematically and mechanically.  Bernie is not a partner to Willow, he is a protector.  He is not there to fight and deal damage he is there to tank and distract.  His design suits this well as he has an enormous health pool, can be easily stitched up to be put back in action, and can even be stacked with multiple bernies around ready to pop up the moment the current big bernie falls.  His behavior is incredibly simple - he taunts drawing aggro, and then punches a few times before repeating the taunt.

I can see why experienced players might not prefer Willow - because Bernie is a tool, and in a way a very simple tool.  If you've learned how to avoid the messes of shadow moneys and can avoid being caught between 4+ nightmare lights during the nm cycle then you might think "I just don't need Bernie" and you might be right.

BUT Bernie can be very useful in enabling that risky behavior and getting the rewards for it.  Rather than sitting around for a few minutes for the nm cycle to pass, I could instead drop bernie and work through that cluster farming more nm fuel, bananas, greater glow berries, etc faster than if I slowly worked the groups apart and whittled them down.

Also while Wendy can get very good damage with Abi, Abi is not always able to be used.  She can easily be killed by bosses especially if they do AOE damage.  Wendy is considerably weaker without Abi.  Willow has no such weakness.  If it is not a situation where Bernie helps, then you just don't use him.  He is not nearly as core to Willow's kit as Abi is to Wendy.

I think these both fit in the game well without overlapping.  If you feel Wendy is not interesting that is cool, and you can definitely have a preference for Willow but I don't think the comparison really does us any favors when saying one of them is good or bad.

Okay I want to discuss this bc its a reasonable take instead of "Abigail is trash and anyone who plays Wendy is objectively lazy when they could be PLAYING THE GAME and playing willow."

Agree about Abbi being the more committal of the two. I'll admit I didn't consider applications in the ruins when dismissing Bernies applications. It is certainly something unique though not personally applicable to me, because I don't generally like taking these risks.

My main issue is there are two examples where BERNIE functions better than Abigail: nightmares and bosses. Bernie's taunt is also non-functional against bosses and nightmares aren't a challenge outside the ruins. I just feel like for what is Willow's main perk, having her use case to be restricted to the ruins and generally much more difficult to make use of isn't enjoyable.

It's hard, because its an ability that is much more commital to use, and simultaneously has less meaningful use cases. I don't even know what to do about it, as Abigail almost fully covers the niched. I guess the main thing I'd want is for BERNIE'S! taunt to work on bosses for a few seconds. 

[Yuuko]

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Okay I want to discuss this bc its a reasonable take instead of "Abigail is trash and anyone who plays Wendy is objectively lazy when they could be PLAYING THE GAME and playing willow."

 

It's hard, because its an ability that is much more commital to use, and simultaneously has less meaningful use cases. I don't even know what to do about it, as Abigail almost fully covers the niched. I guess the main thing I'd want is for BERNIE'S! taunt to work on bosses for a few seconds. 

Well like I was saying - the character refreshes started much more mild then they ended and Willow was originally "girl Wilson" in a way being given only a free torch as an advantage.  Willow's association with griefing lead her to be thrown under the bus even more in DST.  She was one of the first to get her refresh, and it wasn't her first one...  At Wendy the refreshes started becoming much more powerful.  There was a lot of drama about that because of just how powerful Wendy was post-refresh.  So there are reasons you could say "Wendy is stronger than Willow" and be clearly correct - but not everyone is looking for the most optimal way to play the game.  I think if you pick to play Willow you are accepting that she is generally weaker and more vanilla, but also looking for those niche opportunities to make her powers shine.

When I play Willow I often base at Dfly so I can use the lava ponds to cook.  Its a silly use for her perk, but its different enough that I feel different playing Willow even though most boss fights are the same as Wilson.  I look for opportunities to make Bernie useful, and often burn parts of base for improved Willow aesthetics.  Playing Willow is a whole vibe.

I hope skill trees are acting as a second pass to fix those mistakes, set a more clear power ceiling, and provide more options for how players choose to represent their character.  Its possible that Willow gets an entire branch focused on buffing Bernie to make her a more viable summoner or puppet character.  I'd prefer some more fire based stuff though.  Zomvarg has weaponized cold fire, cold fire already existed with endothermics, and we have shadow fire with night lights.  I think its a pretty obvious segue for Willow to gain fire based powers with augments from lunar / shadow choices to tap into cold / shadow fire in addition to traditional fire.

[Gashzer]

17 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Abigail is trash and anyone who plays Wendy is objectively lazy when they could be PLAYING THE GAME and playing willow.

Sounds about right, im glad you agree 

[SapoLover]

I dislike to play as Wolfgang and Webber:

-Wolfgang because the concept of him is just boring for me; "This character has double damage". I know he has some other things with his skill tree, but still, the simple idea is uncreative and unfun for me.
-Webber because irrational hate, I don't know.

I disliked to play with Wanda and Wendy:

-Wanda because she complained about someone that killed the Mactusks before her and called a kick. Maybe it's wrong to base my opinion on a single experience, but I know all Wanda mains think that way, they just don't say it aloud.
-Wendy because her players think they're such a big shot for standing still nearby spider nests and bee hives.

[WenericMember]

3 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Well like I was saying - the character refreshes started much more mild then they ended and Willow was originally "girl Wilson" in a way being given only a free torch as an advantage.  Willow's association with griefing lead her to be thrown under the bus even more in DST.  She was one of the first to get her refresh, and it wasn't her first one...  At Wendy the refreshes started becoming much more powerful.  There was a lot of drama about that because of just how powerful Wendy was post-refresh.  So there are reasons you could say "Wendy is stronger than Willow" and be clearly correct - but not everyone is looking for the most optimal way to play the game.  I think if you pick to play Willow you are accepting that she is generally weaker and more vanilla, but also looking for those niche opportunities to make her powers shine.

When I play Willow I often base at Dfly so I can use the lava ponds to cook.  Its a silly use for her perk, but its different enough that I feel different playing Willow even though most boss fights are the same as Wilson.  I look for opportunities to make Bernie useful, and often burn parts of base for improved Willow aesthetics.  Playing Willow is a whole vibe.

I hope skill trees are acting as a second pass to fix those mistakes, set a more clear power ceiling, and provide more options for how players choose to represent their character.  Its possible that Willow gets an entire branch focused on buffing Bernie to make her a more viable summoner or puppet character.  I'd prefer some more fire based stuff though.  Zomvarg has weaponized cold fire, cold fire already existed with endothermics, and we have shadow fire with night lights.  I think its a pretty obvious segue for Willow to gain fire based powers with augments from lunar / shadow choices to tap into cold / shadow fire in addition to traditional fire.

Absolutely agree with all of this. Both Bernie and fire have a lot of potential in mechanics and I really hope the skill trees (hopefully tomorrow) can help unlock their full potential.

[Yuuko]

5 hours ago, SapoLover said:

-Wanda because she complained about someone that killed the Mactusks before her and called a kick. Maybe it's wrong to base my opinion on a single experience, but I know all Wanda mains think that way, they just don't say it aloud.
 

Ack, did we play together?  Everyone knows you need to give Wanda the first 2-3 waves of mactusk spawns.  In fact, just give her all tusks.  She NEEEEEDS them