Wortox - Skilltree project

[Lordowsky]

Ideas based on this reddit post about Wortox's skill tree
and my personal vision

Goal of the Skillset:
Give Wortox new toys so his gameplay has more fun mechanics
and make his performance as spectacular as Maxwell's/Wanda's/Woodie's
Also satisfy needs of players from that posts but with a twist!

the toys do benefit Wortox but they cost so they aren't reliable 24/7
so you will need to get more souls eventually
also I would like to reduce direct buffs for Wortox since healing in game has insane value already
but I would like Wortox to be something more than "all-rounder with convenient stat control"

NOTE FOR OTHERS:
The skilltree is unofficial but if Klei devs are interested, they are free to take inspiration from it!
Numbers here are heavily theory crafted
Critique highly welcome

Skills:
Insight budget: 15

Soulmancy - 3 insight, only one branch can be choosen
Control - 3/4 per branch*, up to 7 insight for both
Traveler - 3/4 per branch*, up to 7 insight for both
Affinity - up to 2
*4th Point goes for mastery and only 1 branch from each skill can be mastered

 

WORTOX'S SKILLTREE

[Soulmancy]: 3 insight per branch
(Choosing one disables the rest)
Equip souls on weapon slot to use

A. Soul Projectile - Cast cheap single target damage projectile with F key
"Let's play dodgeball, hyuyu!"

1. Cost - 2 Souls, 30 DMG
2. Cost - 2 Souls, 40 DMG
3. Cost - 2 Souls, 50 DMG + 0,5% Giant's max HP

Max Total Damage for:
30 souls - 750
20 souls - 500

Pros:
Convenient bird/rabbit hunting tool
Reward player with executing tougher Giants if souls weren't wasted on healing/kiting

For visualization it would take 10 souls to kill a pigman from 250-0,
is a toy but expensive one if you want to kill a mob on easy mode

B. Soul Bomb - Toss AoE projectile like Brightshade Bomb
"Mortals told me about "Wet Monday" once, hyuyu!"

1. Cost - 5 Souls, Damage - 50
2. Cost - 4 Souls, Damage - 50
3. Cost - 4 Souls, Damage - 75, Tree & Rock destruction with refund 1 soul refund if no targets damaged

Max Total Damage for:
30 souls - 525
20 souls - 375

Pros:
Efficient Spider/Bee sweeper
Somewhat renewable if scenario allows it
Makes resource collecting a bit more fun if you can afford it

But has inefficient damage/cost ratio against bosses and tougher mobs

C. Soul Vortex - Creates field that slows enemies and regens HP overtime with
"Talk about bending time and space, hyuyu!"

Cost - 10 soul, Heal - 200 HP over 10 seconds on all tiers.
1. 10% Slow + Vortex Size Up
2. 20% Slow + Vortex Size Up
3. 30% Slow + Vortex Size Up, allows +1 cast on map to create wormwhole that lasts 8 minutes

Note: Is affected by Kindness and ignores Careful Paws nerf
Resulting in 300 HP over time

[Control]:
Only 1 branch can be mastered
A. Careful Paws - favors offense, nerf soul heal to 15 instead of 20
1. Wortox can hold up to 22 souls
2. Wortox can hold up to 24 souls
3. Wortox can hold up to 26 souls
[Mastery]
4.  30 Souls limit and excess souls won't cause Wortox to lose 50% of his souls

Total healing: 26 Souls into 390 HP vs Basic 20 Souls into 400 HP
30 souls into 450 HP

B. Kindness - healing boost
1. 22 HP per heal
2. 26 HP per heal
3. 30 HP per heal
[Mastery]
4. Excess healing turns into 25 HP shield and ignores heal penalty from Careful Paws

Total healing 600 HP vs 400 basic from 20 Souls

Can be mixed with Careful Paws and ignores heal nerf
resulting in 780 HP for 26 Souls

[Traveler]:
Only 1 branch can be mastered
A. Weightless shoudlers - Speed boost when holding no souls
1. 5%+ Speed
2. 10% + Speed Boost
3. 15% + Speed Boost
[Mastery]:
4. Bonus is available when holding up to 5 souls

B. Adventure discount - Discounts for traveling via map, minimal cost will always be 1 soul
1. -1 soul
2. -2 souls
3. -3 souls
[Mastery]:
4. Triple hop per soul

[Affinity]
Apply Shadow/Lunar logic respectively
1. 10% dmg reduction against X +10 planar damage against Y
2. 15% dmg reduction + 25 planar damage


Let me know what branches would you max out and feel free to share your own ideas!

[DeeterDeet]

I think that wortox should be able to create a permanent wormhole that all survivors can use. However, it should be expensive so it could only be accesed mid to late game. (basically i just want craftible wormholes PLEASE KLEI)  However, you did a nice job and you obviously put a lot of effort into this.

[Dr.Webber]

Wortox can craft something for soul storage with one the crafting materials is a Krampus sack

Wortox has a 1-25% chance of insta killing  enemies every time he hits them with his fist 

wortox  can have differentiating souls and can spawn soul followers

wortox has spells that consume souls

[The_Deadringer]

I love the concepts! It branches out in many ways for players to choose and decide, and offers many different choices! And the art work is just AMAZING! I love it! Do you think maybe you can do Wanda or Wickerbottom next? (I would max out the Healing. to me, helping the team is the MOST IMPORTANT thing!)

[marshyds]

On 12/17/2023 at 4:27 AM, Lordowsky said:

. Excess healing turns into 25 HP shield and ignores heal penalty from Careful Paws

How high can this shield go? I think just 25 damage is rather weak, especially if its only for 1 hit

Maybe an alternative could be that the excess healing turns into a damage boost, which lasts 3 minutes? (4 damage per soul, capped at 5 souls)

Although im unsure if this really fits healing. Nice skilltree tho!

[Lordowsky]

2 hours ago, marshyds said:

How high can this shield go? I think just 25 damage is rather weak, especially if its only for 1 hit

Honestly when I came up with shield I thought of it more as small bonus so souls wouldn't get wasted (especially on unmodded servers where you can't see HP of others)
when Wortox spams with heals and doesn't know when to stop.
+ it was supposed to synergize with Soul Vortex since it's AoE healing spell that heals overtime (and slows enemies)
which means the shield would quickly regenerate after getting destroyed over and over again

also since player is forced to use 10 souls for the spell, I expect that the excess healing would become an issue rather quickly
and the shield acts like extra value, to not waste the resources

but when I think of it now, I wonder what's the point of overheal shield?
is it just to extend max HP for a moment? that sounds rather extra and impractical.

Shield mechanic ideas and alt:
Now when you made me think of this I think the shield could have one of following functions:
1. Allows player to ignore pain-animation which allows for extra hits when tanking or escape potential stun-locks when shield is active
2. Shield could be treated as one-hit protective bubble that absorbs 25 damage instead of armor.

Example: Football Helmet vs. Deerclops with 75 damage
Helmet would normally absorb 60 damage, right? Since it absorbs 80% on itself and the 20% goes to the player.
but with shield the helmet would take only 35 damage due to shield absorbing 25 damage and that would make the shield functional!

which would result in extended durability of armor in Soul Vortex aaaand that would encourage players to tank and stay in the zone
(but then the slow effect would be kinda useless since it's supposed to encourage kiting, so if we follow that logic we will have to adjust things BUT that's a topic for another day)

3. Replace shield with a blood-bank mechanic which regenerates 25 HP over time after losing HP
(imagine 25 hp jellybeans that activate when you have less than 100% HP)
it would have a cooldown and limit but again it's supposed to be a bonus for small booboos
because we already have fuzzy and solid source of healing here

Also to justify picking Soul Vortex over simply dropping souls
I would make a cooldown for shields generated by dropped souls
 

2 hours ago, marshyds said:

Maybe an alternative could be that the excess healing turns into a damage boost, which lasts 3 minutes? (4 damage per soul, capped at 5 souls)

But mental gymnastics aside... I think I like your idea better since it's simpler, would work well with Soul Vortex and Wortox wouldn't lose on offense when choosing that spell instead of projectile and bomb.
(lack of unique offensive solutions is A PROBLEM for Wortox in comparison to other characters and my skilltree's point is to make his combat a little bit more fun than "spear gaming")

Though I would cut it to 2 damage per soul so spear doesn't turn into a walmart hambat if not less because healing on it's own has enormous value and we are speaking of DPS here

By the way if I applied your concept I would call the mastery as Vigor !

In summary:
I would either choose your damage boost or replace shield with that blood-bank so excess healing makes a comeback for post-combat booboos.
and probably increase/decrease effectivness of that mastery for Soul Vortex/Dropped Souls respectively

or... rework Soul Vortex so it wouldn't be synergy reliant

So much to think about! I would love to hear out Klei devs about their vision and opinions on Wortox's gameplay state, but I really appreciate your interactions with my idea since it boosts creativity and fixes logic errors ^^










 

On 12/17/2023 at 5:06 AM, DeeterDeet said:

I think that wortox should be able to create a permanent wormhole that all survivors can use.

I got'chu homie, we all have been victims to bad wormhole generation.

I mean 1 team's wormwhole per forest/caves would be cool Wortox's crafting gimmick and make unfortunate world generation less frustrating.
Not sure if custom wormhole wouldn't be OP somehow?* but DANG IT! DST is a sandbox! Let us have fun!

*especially that Klei made incoming "ocean wormholes" very strict since they require a boss fight and are temporary, so maybe there's gigantic value to teleportation that I fail to see?

[marshyds]

26 minutes ago, Lordowsky said:

Replace shield with a blood-bank mechanic which regenerates 25 HP over time after losing HP
(imagine 25 hp jellybeans that activate when you have less than 100% HP)

Interesting rework overall, but i think this specific thingymabob would make it worse lel

Instead of just tanking 25 hp, you are forced to slowly heal back 25 of the health you just lost

[Lordowsky]

28 minutes ago, marshyds said:

Interesting rework overall, but i think this specific thingymabob would make it worse lel

Instead of just tanking 25 hp, you are forced to slowly heal back 25 of the health you just lost

Noted, I will think about it and check overall values
so this concept can be updated with reasonable goods

but honestly I can smell nerfs anyway, but that's after solid mental-gym xD

[Lordowsky]

On 12/18/2023 at 6:25 PM, The_Deadringer said:

I love the concepts! It branches out in many ways for players to choose and decide, and offers many different choices! And the art work is just AMAZING! I love it! Do you think maybe you can do Wanda or Wickerbottom next? (I would max out the Healing. to me, helping the team is the MOST IMPORTANT thing!)

To be honest I think that Wickerbottom and Wanda are quite complex characters and designing a skilltree for them would be very difficult

especially that they both do not lack in crafting, their skillsets, efficiency and unique combat solutions in my opinion
and goal of my skilltree is to solve Wortox's lack of offense and make him more spectacular than "hi, drop souls, bye"
also to give him other means of contributing to his team than dropping souls

On the other note I really appreciate your enthusiasm and interest!

[The_Deadringer]

On 12/19/2023 at 10:18 PM, Lordowsky said:

To be honest I think that Wickerbottom and Wanda are quite complex characters and designing a skilltree for them would be very difficult

especially that they both do not lack in crafting, their skillsets, efficiency and unique combat solutions in my opinion
and goal of my skilltree is to solve Wortox's lack of offense and make him more spectacular than "hi, drop souls, bye"
also to give him other means of contributing to his team than dropping souls

On the other note I really appreciate your enthusiasm and interest!

No problem! You're right, Wanda and Wicker Are fairly complex, and now that I think about it, they're probably the last characters that need a skilltree. Might be a fun thing to do though.