My thoughts about willow cooldown

[Sir Christopher]

First I have to say that English is not my first language and I am using a translator to help me with this post.

I've been playing in a survival world in the beta for over 300 days with a friend, without cheating to test the real power of the willow. First I must say that regardless of the skill spam I did, I couldn't get past my friend's (wolfgang) damage. And what I think is the following.

1- I think the shadow flame cooldown should be 4 seconds, to avoid skill spam. It's not such a strong skill to have such a high cooldown as it is now (14 seconds). on a single target, if you spam half of the fire it does not hit the target, being more efficient against multiple targets. I think having a very low cooldown just to avoid spam is the right thing to do for this skill.

2- The cooldown of the lunar flame is also very high (20 seconds). If you count the time you use the skill without being interrupted, it will be a 14 second cooldown, because 6 seconds is the skill's usage time. This skill really is what was giving Willow her power. Even though I really liked it, I knew it needed a balance, but 20 seconds is a lot, what I think it should be is 8 seconds counting from the time the skill ends due to interruption or the end of the skill's casting.

3-the burning frenzy could last longer, having to keep reactivating it during the battle is not very intuitive, it could last 2 minutes or more, it already requires the target to be constantly on fire (the warly seasoning lasts 5 minutes and only requires the character to eat).

4- for me, Bernie is still not worth spending the skill points, because he doesn't gain anything really new for combat, I expect a stronger type of attack (a special attack for those who choose shadows or lunar), new ways to heal him during a battle instead of swapping him for a new one and sewing up the dead Bernie. and you have to keep setting it on fire during a battle in an 8 point skill, it's not very fun. I would prefer it to stay on fire for the entire battle until there are no hostile creatures left.

My conclusion is that people on this forum tested Willow in very situational scenarios and thought it was broken, many of what I saw on the forum other characters do better and faster. the cooldowns should be part of her 2 skills, as much as it pains me to say that. because I really liked using her abilities without the cooldown, I felt like a real wizard. and Bernie could receive more love in these balance patches.

And by the way, I'm willow main, more than 2.5k hours with her alone (yes, I know, it's crazy)

 

[Yuuko]

I think cooldown on the skill is wholly a bad idea.  The shadow spell is only good if you spam it.  If you cannot spam it, it is very bad.  100% not worth using.  The lunar spell is already a channel that has lower dps then just attacking.  It is useful when hitting multiple targets, or if you have range advantage but not useful as a raw damaging skill - the videos about this were clickbait to make people think they were OP, but did not compare it to other damage sources.  Its damage is alright against single target.

CD is a bad way to balance them.

Burning Frenzie should be a toggle.  Cast to turn it on, and cast again to turn it off.  While its on it can drain embers over time - so we don't have to always recast.  Its questionable enough as it is.  1 attack with a torch to light up the enemy and +25% damage against burning enemies means you need 4 attacks just to break even.  After this you get damage BUT add in the time to back off, cast, kite etc.  The damage increase is very poor.  If it were toggle so I could just turn it on it would be more useful

- However it is questionable how useful it is when monsters cannot be lit on fire.  The suggestion to ignite Willow instead, dealing fire damage to things near you is probably a better idea b/c it is useful in more fights even if its damage is lower.

Bernie skill tree is bad bad BAD.  There is only 1 real skill in the whole tree, and it costs soo much to take that you give up almost all fire powers for it.  Bernie tree needs more active effects.  I made a thread about this.  Nothing in the patch changed Bernie and this is sad b/c it NEEEEEEDS it.  Right now there is no point to buy any bernie skill.

[Sir Christopher]

47 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I think cooldown on the skill is wholly a bad idea.  The shadow spell is only good if you spam it.  If you cannot spam it, it is very bad.  100% not worth using.  The lunar spell is already a channel that has lower dps then just attacking.  It is useful when hitting multiple targets, or if you have range advantage but not useful as a raw damaging skill - the videos about this were clickbait to make people think they were OP, but did not compare it to other damage sources.  Its damage is alright against single target.

CD is a bad way to balance them.

Burning Frenzie should be a toggle.  Cast to turn it on, and cast again to turn it off.  While its on it can drain embers over time - so we don't have to always recast.  Its questionable enough as it is.  1 attack with a torch to light up the enemy and +25% damage against burning enemies means you need 4 attacks just to break even.  After this you get damage BUT add in the time to back off, cast, kite etc.  The damage increase is very poor.  If it were toggle so I could just turn it on it would be more useful

- However it is questionable how useful it is when monsters cannot be lit on fire.  The suggestion to ignite Willow instead, dealing fire damage to things near you is probably a better idea b/c it is useful in more fights even if its damage is lower.

Bernie skill tree is bad bad BAD.  There is only 1 real skill in the whole tree, and it costs soo much to take that you give up almost all fire powers for it.  Bernie tree needs more active effects.  I made a thread about this.  Nothing in the patch changed Bernie and this is sad b/c it NEEEEEEDS it.  Right now there is no point to buy any bernie skill.

I would prefer it not to have a cooldown either, but as I said there are a lot of people testing in very situational environments and not really playing in survival. I saw people saying that without a CD the Willow would only stay in place using Lunar Flame. lie, I tried with Bernie, and a creature or boss always comes and hits me and cancels it if I try. which I think is a valid playstyle. Because you have to farm embers, even though it's easy, it takes time to prepare for the fight. But since most people don't test it properly, I know that Klei will be balanced by the amount of voice and not by real experience playing with her in the beta in a real scenario (survivor). I remember how difficult it was for them to give her fire immunity, it had to be in the 2nd rework with a lot of struggle. and I don't think it will be any different here and poor Bernie.

What I liked most about this skill tree was that it had a variation of combat, which always in don't starve was melee and finally there's something different. I wish they would also give her more damage with fire items like fire staff, fire dart and scalemail.