What are your ways in dealing hounds in early, mid and late game?

[mykenception]

I've met a certain player who's generally having trouble with hounds later on so I'd like to see the community's way of dealing with hounds.

[_zwb]

World settings - Hounds - None

[Yuuko]

With the introduction of the beefalo bell and its associated mechanics, beef herd 100%.  You just grab a bell and bring a beef over, leave it wherever you want its new herd.  You're not taming them, just attach them to a bell, they will follow even if you don't feed them, drop the bell where you want your defenses.  Do it twice if you wanna feel really safe.  Easy to set up early game and they'll be adequate hound protection at all stages after - especially since they condensed the hound waves with the mini vargs.

[Mike23Ua]

I think the games currently broken honestly, my 2nd hound wave shouldn’t include 10-15 hounds..

There supposed to start small in number and then gradually increase (you shouldn’t get 15 till like day 70 or whatever) 

15 hounds are too many to fight alone, I use Beefalo, Swamp Tentacle, Angry Bees, and later into the game I just kite them into Brightshades 

Hound Waves & Depth Worm Waves are highly deadly for me, I usually just run them to other mobs (such as hiring a few Pigmen or Bunnymen) 

Unless your really good at the game or made some elaborate trap setup, I don’t actually suggest trying to dodge/kite large waves of hounds.

[Yuuko]

14 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Depth Worm Waves are highly deadly for me, I usually just run them to other mobs (such as hiring a few Pigmen or Bunnymen) 

There are some pretty cool setups for depth worms.  Here is one I like

Spoiler

 

 

[BezKa]

I make a bell and start a beef herd somewhere nearby. Or tame an ornery for myself.

In my Best World I have a Koalefant herd near the oasis, works wonders.

[CuteC]

In early you can just kill them one by one due to their low number, they may seem intimidating to new players but they are not that lethal if you deal with them quick, at any other point of the game I just have merms dispose of hounds lol, even if you aren't Wurt all you gotta do is run in circles so the hounds eventually start attacking merms.

If you don't have a Wurt then I may suggest thinking about what you want written on your grave.

[grm9]

59 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

my 2nd hound wave shouldn’t include 10-15 hounds

it doesn't, unless you were in the caves from day 10 to day 100, since the second hound wave can only have 4 hounds at most and the hound waves after reaching the maximum have 10 hounds at most 

[Ohan]

Ornery beef mostly. Even late game waves r no prob with glosammer saddle

Other times depending on proximity: brightshades, bramble trap patch as worm, tentacle trap as wicker.

[mykenception]

30 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it doesn't, unless you were in the caves from day 10 to day 100, since the second hound wave can only have 4 hounds at most and the hound waves after reaching the maximum have 10 hounds at most 

this happened to me after a ruins rush

I keep hearing doggos barking even when hounds are coming to me

so yeah, I think it's a double hound wave happening, might be because I have DST: Alone mod, haven't properly tested it out

[arubaro]

For me is funnier to fight them myself 

It also helps to be always trained to fight them. I have seen people not only dying but abandoning boss fights because they didn't know how to fight hounds 

[Frashaw27]

I fight them myself because I simply don't care enough to make a proper defense.

[The Starver]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

15 hounds are too many to fight alone, I use Beefalo, Swamp Tentacle, Angry Bees, and later into the game I just kite them into Brightshades 

That’s how I usually try to handle most hostile mobs. If I can’t deal with it, I find something that can. 

It doesn’t always work, though (I saw a clockwork rook and bishop get stunlocked by Deerclops).

[SapoLover]

Never thought into something elaborate, I just run around until some get distracted so I can face smaller groups before going after the others. Sometimes I don't feel like fighting them and jump into a wormhole.

[Lovens]

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

I think the games currently broken honestly, my 2nd hound wave shouldn’t include 10-15 hounds..

There supposed to start small in number and then gradually increase (you shouldn’t get 15 till like day 70 or whatever) 

15 hounds are too many to fight alone, I use Beefalo, Swamp Tentacle, Angry Bees, and later into the game I just kite them into Brightshades 

Hound Waves & Depth Worm Waves are highly deadly for me, I usually just run them to other mobs (such as hiring a few Pigmen or Bunnymen) 

Unless your really good at the game or made some elaborate trap setup, I don’t actually suggest trying to dodge/kite large waves of hounds.

I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating a bit. From DST wiki:



As you can see, they do start in small number and then gradually increase. With default settings your second hound attack would happen somewhere around day 13 and have 3 to 4 hounds per player, not 15. And even later hound waves will have only up to 10 hounds per player after day 100, and it's very common to get a Varglet which replaces 5 hounds. So either you are playing on the server with altered settings, or mistaking hounds spawning for other players for your own ones. I can see 15 hounds coming during your second hound wave if your game has like 5 players bunched up together though so the solution is simple: don't stay near others during a hound attack and run away so you only deal with your own hounds.

Also iirc DST has this mechanic where it tracks how long a player has survived on a server and adjusts how many hounds will spawn for them regardless of overall server age. I played on a day 100+ public server and we had new players join a day or two before our next hound wave, and because they only survived on our server, no hounds spawned for those people even though for all regulars a max number of hounds spawned.

[Mysterious box]

A large portion of the cast actually has abilities that directly counter hounds be it Wormwood and his bramble husk( or traps if you don't feel safe using the husk), Willow's new fire bending abilities, Wurt and Webber's hordes, Maxwell's shadow sneak, Wickerbottom's tentacles, Wolfgang's flaming dumbells, Winona's catapults, Abigail, and some others I'm probably missing. Then there's more generic methods like using random mobs, traps, fire, and such.

[chirsg]

Hound killer tier list in an open field. 

- Top tier: Wendy, Woodie, Wolfgang, Willow(Speculative), Wigfrid (Charged Elding Spear)

- High tier: Wanda (Potentially top tier, however, needs to be old, but it's too risky.) Wortox, Wigfrid with dark sword, WX with speed enchantments, Maxwell(Speculative),

- Mid tier: Any character with default damage and a brightshade helm and sword, Wormwood, Wurt, Webber, Warly, 

- Low tier: Almost any character with Wilson's default damage. (For argument's sake, let's say standard is low tier)

- Wes tier: Wes, Walter.

 

Hounds were one of the most deadliest risks in the game before the introduction of rifts. Wigfrid before the rifts was modest at fighting hounds back then because of the 2 hit damage breakpoint she has with a dark sword against every hound. That is now broken by every single default damage character with a brightshade helmet and sword because they all die in 2 hits, save the varglet...

But even before then, Wendy, Woodie and Wolfgang were head and shoulders above every single character when it came to killing hounds. Woodie wasn't bothered by getting bitten and back then could heal off the 20-50 damage post transformation, Wolfgang could kill seasonal hounds in 1 hit with a few weapons, and Wendy has some of the best crowd control day 1. You could have 8 hounds spawn on her in the first autumn and she could handle it. 

 

The best characters in a certain way have methods to manage crowds. Right now, of all the best characters who can deal with hounds, I may have to contend that Wolfgang may be the weakest in dealing with hounds, but weakest among the premier hound killers is still incredible. 

Wanda has options to either teleport to a more suitable location or fight them head to head with her old form, but it's more committal than the top tiers. The high tiers I consider to be exceptional at killing hounds, at the cost of productivity loss if they elect to do hounds as safely as they possibly can. Maxwell I put in, however, he can be just as easily top tier, however, there is a loss of productivity if sanity goes down, especially if he's mid task such as chopping or mining. 

With the introduction of brightshade gear, hounds are generally VERY manageable as almost any character if handled with sensibility. 

 

But considering that brightshade gear demands you must kill, to some, the most difficult boss in the game, it may be inaccessible. 

The mid tiers I find would be able to deal with hounds but VERY situationally. If for whatever reason, webber has spiders in his pockets, he'll do better than wilson can. Wurt if she has merm followers could very easily be high-top tier, but even when I do play wurt, I won't always have access to merms. As for wormwood, I think bramble husk could be a top tier way of handling hounds, but in the time I have played as wormwood, I haven't made a habit of carrying around a husk.

 

Pre rifts, handling hounds for the default damage character isn't always the safest thing to do. Even if your survival rate as a default damager is 100%, you could lose a lot of time in the day dealing with a hound attack. The nature of hounds and how fast they're able to run makes them dangerous if you don't kill the first few asap. Killing 8 hounds that are point blank hitting you is a very sticky situation to go through as a pre rift wilson level character.

And wes is wes. I don't know what to tell you. He probably performs as well as any other character in the best case scenario with a dark sword, however, he has 75HP for no reason. It's far less forgiving. Walter is another character at risk of struggling harder because of sanity. After a hound defense, he could easily get mobbed by nightmares.

 

Anyway, that's the list. When it comes to hounds, I personally deal with them very easily because I main both Wigfrid and Woodie and each of those characters are pretty unparalleled at killing hounds, but when I do play other characters, I have to exercise creativity for the most part. Even as Wolfgang who sits at the table of hound olympus, still doesn't deal with hound waves for free. 

With defaulters, I'll just use either structures, beefalo, bosses or run aimlessly until their aggros are disrupted.

There's no shame in struggling against hounds if your character selection wasn't a good matchup.

[Mysterious box]

24 minutes ago, chirsg said:

Top tier: Wendy, Woodie, Wolfgang, Willow(Speculative), Wigfrid (Charged Elding Spear)

- High tier: Wanda (Potentially top tier, however, needs to be old, but it's too risky.) Wortox, Wigfrid with dark sword, WX with speed enchantments, Maxwell(Speculative),

- Mid tier: Any character with default damage and a brightshade helm and sword, Wormwood, Wurt, Webber, Warly, 

- Low tier: Almost any character with Wilson's default damage. (For argument's sake, let's say standard is low tier)

I'd put Wormwood in top tier as his husk shreds hounds. Same with Webber since his horde will passively shred hounds. Wortox and Wx would be mid for me since while they're great for escaping they don't really offer much in terms of fighting them off that a default character doesn't already offer.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating a bit. From DST wiki:



As you can see, they do start in small number and then gradually increase. With default settings your second hound attack would happen somewhere around day 13 and have 3 to 4 hounds per player, not 15. And even later hound waves will have only up to 10 hounds per player after day 100, and it's very common to get a Varglet which replaces 5 hounds. So either you are playing on the server with altered settings, or mistaking hounds spawning for other players for your own ones. I can see 15 hounds coming during your second hound wave if your game has like 5 players bunched up together though so the solution is simple: don't stay near others during a hound attack and run away so you only deal with your own hounds.

Also iirc DST has this mechanic where it tracks how long a player has survived on a server and adjusts how many hounds will spawn for them regardless of overall server age. I played on a day 100+ public server and we had new players join a day or two before our next hound wave, and because they only survived on our server, no hounds spawned for those people even though for all regulars a max number of hounds spawned.

I’m playing Alone on Xbox, no mods can be used on Xbox, no players can join my password locked lobby and there was DEFIANTLY more than 4-6 hounds before day 30.

If it helps any I was playing as the newly released Willow skill tree update using Ashley as my Bernie skin (now just labeled as Bernie without the Ashley tag)

Willow seems to also “cuddle” Ashley significantly less than she used to and fires started by Willow (without any skill tree investment) are burning for very long durations when used on resources, but burning for only a few seconds when used on mobs.

The game is lagging significantly MORE than usual even in freshly created day 1 worlds (on Xbox Series S)

And some Xbox players have even reported constant world crashing in their late game worlds.

I’m pretty sure the new update introduced some new bugs for us Xbox players,it’s not uncommon for the console versions of the game to get bugs after the release of a new update- but until Klei gets back from holiday break (sometime in January) they won’t be around to patch any issues myself & others are having with the game.

[MondayNight]

Late game? Brightshades and picking the remaining ones myself. But as a rule-of-thumb, Shades absolutely trash them dogs.

[chirsg]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I'd put Wormwood in top tier as his husk shreds hounds. Same with Webber since his horde will passively shred hounds. Wortox and Wx would be mid for me since while they're great for escaping they don't really offer much in terms of fighting them off that a default character doesn't already offer.

Problem with webber is surely he can't be with his spiders constantly. 

[Dark Wun]

Early: myself, beef herd, goats

Mid and late: use a pig farm because the pigs will attack the hounds on site and it's self-sustaining, use a flingo, esp. for fire  hounds, you turn on the flingo and help the pigs. 2-3 houses per person is enough, even when hound wave is max'd. A bunny farm also works, but careful not to pick up any meat of course.

[Mysterious box]

16 minutes ago, chirsg said:

Problem with webber is surely he can't be with his spiders constantly. 

Hounds are only on the surface and outside of very specific boss fights there's absolutely nothing stopping you from having spiders constantly due to their infinite loyalty.

[Jakepeng99]

8 hours ago, mykenception said:

I've met a certain player who's generally having trouble with hounds later on so I'd like to see the community's way of dealing with hounds.

You say early, mid and late game but you just included one set of options.

Also Early: Normal combat.

Mid: Normal Combat.

Late: Followers/catapults or normal combat.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I'd put Wormwood in top tier as his husk shreds hounds

You are taking tons of damage.

4 hours ago, chirsg said:

Mid tier: Any character with default damage and a brightshade helm and sword, Wormwood, Wurt, Webber, Warly, 

Wurt and Webber are in high teir. They essentially one hit hounds once their followers aggro on them. 

[grm9]

15 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Wurt and Webber are in high teir. They essentially one hit hounds once their followers aggro on them

almost same thing as saying everyone oneshot hounds, they just need to run around for half a minute around beefalos