Wendy changes and skill tree concept

[Mortalbane]

My opinion on Wendy

Wendy is the number one newbie character with the personal bodyguard Abigail, aka the Spider Blender. Wendy is basically immune to darkness, with Abigail providing light, and has little issues with sanity because of the Sisturn.
This is what Wendy is played and loved for, and i used to play her for the same reasons too back in my days.

I am totally not enjoying pipspooks. I mean, why add dead children? Wendy could be seeing regular ghosts now and then, which other players don’t see, and fulfill their different tasks. There could be angry ghosts that try to attack players or haunt things around, and they would need to be calmed down by Wendy.
I doubt Klei will remove pipspooks, but chasing them around all the time? No, thank you.
I also don’t like the whole elixir mechanic. Some of them are useless, since you can have only one at a time active. I can barely see the icon of the active elixir on my laptop screen.
I don't think Wendy should suddenly become an alchemist, especially if Klei themselves set the rule that Abigail is summoned via a flower. Not to mention that ghosts can’t drink.

I’d love to give Wendy some petal-related synergy, and implement the things that elixirs do via crafting different Abigail flowers.

 

Base kit changes

Wendy and her sister get some nerfs in the base kit, but they will compensate with skills.
Note: Abigail stats i use are only examples, just to give a general idea.

- Wendy doesn’t lose sanity in the evening and has much less penalty at night and in caves. But she loses sanity during the day.

- Wendy’s attacks have no bonus against Abigail’s targets.

- elixirs removed.

- Abigail should have some visual indication that during the day she is weak, and is stronger at dusk/night/caves.

- when summoned with the basic flower, Abigail’s stats are set to 200 hp, 10/20/30 dmg for day/dusk/night respectively, she has no shield and doesn’t mark mobs with ghost petals for damage increase. She emits faint light enough to be Charlie-slap-free around her. Abigail levels up over time only once, getting to 400 hp and 15/25/35 dmg, and her light becomes a bit brighter.
This “level up” will be referred to as Bond down the line.

- if the currently used Abigail flower leaves Wendy’s main inventory, Abigail is despawned. So, you can quickly despawn her by dropping the flower on the ground or moving it to backpack.

- Abigail flowers have durability, which decreases over time while she is summoned. Flowers don’t break at 0 durability, but Abigail is despawned. Flowers recharge durability slowly in Wendy’s main inventory. This will add some depth to Wendy's gameplay, and encourage players to try out different flowers for different tasks. But nothing stops you from crafting multiple of the same flower.
Using a different flower while Abigail is summoned does nothing.

- after being despawned or killed, Abigail needs some time before she can be summoned again, but not too long. Wendy will indicate when Abigail is ready to play again.

- instead of simply switching between aggro and guard modes, right-clicking the currently used Abigail flower brings up a command menu, much like Maxwell or Willow have.
Basic commands can be Guard, Hunt and Go Here.
By the way, same thing should be made for Webber and his whistle, but this is another story.

- instead of accepting petals, the Sisturn can store Abigail’s flowers, and recharges their durability faster. Sisturn gives a sanity aura of +5 per each flower, up to +20 total. Abigail’s Bond happens quicker for each stored flower.

 

Skill tree

Ectoherbology branch

This branch is about crafting different flowers to summon Abigail with. Each flower is made with petals, mourning glory, and something else depending on the flower. So, if pipspooks won’t be removed or changed, at least you won’t have to chase them around as much, since flowers are not consumables like elixirs 

Skill examples:

- Abigail's flowers lose less durability over time, and regenerate more durability in Wendy’s pocket.

- learn to craft an improved basic flower
Abigail has 400 hp and 15/25/35 dmg.
Bond - 600 hp and 15/30/40 dmg, and her regeneration increases from 1 to 2 hp per sec.

- learn to craft a guiding light flower
Abigail has 300 hp and 10/20/30 dmg and a weak sanity regen aura. Her light is brighter.
Bond - 500 hp and 15/25/35 dmg, light and sanity aura have increased radius

- learn to craft a protective flower
Abigail has 400 hp and 10/20/30 dmg and that 0,5 sec shield. Wendy learns a Taunt command, which makes Abigail taunt nearby mobs and hunker down, increasing the shield to 1 sec for the duration.
Bond - 800 hp and same 10/20/30 dmg. When taunted mobs hit Abigail’s shield, they receive damage.

- learn to craft a hunting flower
Abigail has 400 hp and 30/40/50 dmg, has increased movement speed, but her attacks are no longer AoE.
Bond - 600 hp and 40/50/60 dmg, moves even faster, and her attacks curse the target with ghost petals, increasing all damage received.

- learn to craft a chilling presence flower
Abigail has 400 hp and 10/20/30 dmg and a chilling aura which gives summer insulation, her attacks slow the targets.
Bond - 600 hp and 15/25/35 dmg, the aura is wider and stronger, and her attacks can freeze enemies.

 

Florist branch

Skill examples:

- Garland, Floral Shirt and Pretty Parasol made by Wendy have longer spoil time and give bonus sanity regen when worn. They have Wendy’s before their names to indicate that.

- Whirly Fan made by Wendy cools better and increases movespeed. Floral shirt made by Wendy has more summer insulation.

- gain sanity when catching butterflies. Since Wendy will still need petals, she will still be running around with a bug net. And since she loses sanity during the day with this rework, she might as well have some childish fun to make up for it.

- learn to craft a Dark Garland which damages sanity while worn.

- learn to craft 

- learn to craft a Mourning Garland, a head armor piece only equippable by Wendy, which offers some protection and buffs Abigail.

 

Ectomanipulation branch

Perk examples:

- if pipspooks aren’t removed or changed, this branch can at least ease their chores and give more mourning glory.
Also there could be a skill that makes the pipspook you’ve helped before visit you some time later. It shows up near you (not necessarily at the graveyard) and leads you to a rare loot, like gears or gems.

- learn to craft a stronger version of Telltale Hearts, which can restore more stats upon revival, or not inflict the max hp penalty, or they can be haunted by a dead player to revive.
Giving it to Abigail will heal her to replace the removed elixir. But it won’t bring her back, because she didn’t die in the Constant (or however Klei explains that Abigail can’t be revived).

- learn a Spirit Refuge command, which makes Abigail retreat to the spirit world for a few seconds. She disengages from the fight, loses aggro, becomes untargetable and can’t attack, while healing a good chunk of hp.

- if regular ghosts are introduced with various quests (including calming them down), they can become your “friends”, which you can have a set amount of. Learn the ability to summon your ghost friends to temporarily aid you in combat. They could all attack one target by circling around it, as if dancing the round dance, which would look cool.

- various buffs to Abigail, independent of the summoning flowers, can be put here.
Same goes for any combat and non-combat interactions between the sisters

 

Affinity

Shadow

Craft a dark Abigail’s flower with dark petals and nightmare fuel. Abigail summoned with it has some shadowy visuals, and all the necessary anti-lunar planar stuff. She might also attack gestalts, and have active commands like Pulse of Fear, making mobs around her panic.

 

Lunar

Making an anti-shadow Abigail would be too much i think, so instead Wendy's lunar branch can focus on making various lunar flower gear, and assisting other players, dead or alive. Especially dead. Like when players die near Wendy, they can choose to enter a Ghost Vengeance mode for a short time, and be able to attack like Abigail does.

[WenericMember]

Always like to see thorough ideas for new skill trees, especially Wendy.

That said, the changes to base Wendy kit are horrific. it basically brings her down to the level of characters like Willow prior to her skill tree in terms of "nothing going for her."

I don't actually mind introducing a cooldown on Abbi, especially the implementation of the Sisturn, which has huge amounts of potential.

But, rather than give alternative ways to solve her issues, you just removed the issues in more ways than one.

Wendy has two issues right now: Being a crutch for newer players and Having exceptionally poor interactions with bosses.

By removing Abigail's ability to benefit from hex at base, you remove all incentive for Wendy to take part in combat.

As someone who relied on Abigail for a fair bit, my response to Abigail dying wasn't "oh I should take more offensive myself" it was "I should retreat until Abigail's in fighting condition again." By removing her benefit from hex, and not giving her damage back in any way, the best you can hope for is "I'll go play another character who doesn't have weak AOE OR a 0.75x Damage penalty." Removing the shield would cause her to be melted by any horde Abbi encounters, much like Bernie, but without an easy repair option or massive HP pool.

At the same time, you remove any and all skillful play around keeping Abby alive while fighting bosses, as she can now basically only ever live a single hit from a giant. Not only that, removing the potions ensures that Abbi will never last against bosses in the first place, and can only do so at night if somehow she can due to a lack of ways to boost damage.

As for the base kit buffs, they are very negligible. A top hat & Wendy already completely eliminates sanity drain at dusk and night, and Wendy is already very good at getting silk. Similar case for the new command menu. Controlling A single follower is easy enough that she doesn't need a command menu really.

The elemental flowers in the skill tree are cool, but with how much of her kit has been gutted results every flower being weaker than current Wendy. Additionally, having to carry multiple flowers instead of 1 and a couple of potions is really annoying. Florist branch is basically worthless because, see Wendy already having one of the best sanity preservation movesets in the game. That said the Ectomanipulation branch is really cool,  I like spirit refuge and a full agree with stronger telltale hearts. 

Overall, I think this skill tree would gut both Wendy's viability and individuality, and there's really nothing interesting in return, without even solving her core issues when Scaling to late game (which is the main purpose of these skill trees).

P.S. Sorry if this is overly negative, but I have really strong opinions on this topic

[Cheggf]

26 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Wendy has two issues right now: Being a crutch for newer players and Having exceptionally poor interactions with bosses.

Wendy does not have poor interactions with bosses.

[WenericMember]

5 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Wendy does not have poor interactions with bosses.

I feel Forcing players to invest in beefalo (which not everyone wants to do) or use Abigail (Who dies in like 3 hits to any bosses,, many of whom have AOE attacks) to not have Wendy from take 25% longer to kill bosses counts as bad interactions. Sure not all bosses, but in General its a pain.

[Cheggf]

3 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I Forcing players to invest in beefalo (which not everyone wants to do) or use Abigail (Who dies in like 3 hits to any bosses,, many of whom have AOE attacks) to not have Wendy from take 25% longer to kill bosses counts as bad interactions. Sure not all bosses, but in General its a pain.

Many? Only a few bosses have AoE attacks, most don't. Even if Wendy did take 33% longer to fight bosses, that's her only downside, so that would be a good thing. By far the best at AoE damage (making her obnoxiously good against AFW & BQ, two of the hardest bosses in the game) & some other benefits in exchange for being a little worse at fighting a couple of bosses. Unless you use a beefalo, in which case she has no downsides at all.

[Mortalbane]

34 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

By removing her benefit from hex, and not giving her damage back in any way, the best you can hope for is "I'll go play another character who doesn't have weak AOE OR a 0.75x Damage penalty." Removing the shield would cause her to be melted by any horde Abbi encounters

I can argue that at the start of the game she doesn't need any of those.
And they are not removed, they are moved. Into the flowers skill tree branch.
Also, having a bodyguard is strong, that's why Wendy had lower damage, and i believe she should have it. But to aid with boss fights there is a hunting flower in the skill tree.

34 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

At the same time, you remove any and all skillful play around keeping Abby alive while fighting bosses

Was there a skillful play? As far as i know, you can only run away, making Abigail retreat as well.

34 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

 having to carry multiple flowers instead of 1 and a couple of potions is really annoying

How is this different from carrying 1 flower and several different potions for different situaltions?
With the approach i used, it's literally the same, but "potions" are not consumed on use.

34 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Florist branch is basically worthless because, see Wendy already having one of the best sanity preservation movesets in the game.

It might not be the best, but the idea was to explore Wendy's petal/flower theme, and also make useful things for the teammates too, like Wigfrid or Woodie do.

34 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

P.S. Sorry if this is overly negative, but I have really strong opinions on this topic

I appreciate your opinion, though i might disagree with you here and there =)
I hope you haven't taken any of my responses as negative either.

[WenericMember]

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Many? Only a few bosses have AoE attacks, most don't. Even if Wendy did take 33% longer to fight bosses, that's her only downside, so that would be a good thing. By far the best at AoE damage (making her obnoxiously good against AFW & BQ, two of the hardest bosses in the game) & some other benefits in exchange for being a little worse at fighting a couple of bosses. Unless you use a beefalo, in which case she has no downsides at all.

Bosses with AOE (off the top of my head):

• Celestial Champion
• Bearger
• Armoured Bearger
• Possesed Varge
• Deerclops
• Crystal Deerclops
• Eye of Terror
• Twins of Terror
• Ancient Guardian
• Dragonfly
• Werepigs

Not to mention the inherent difficulty in preventing the boss prioritizing Abby due to her rapid attack speed.

And again, I don't think being forced to use beefalo eliminates the downside, as it forces you to learn a new skill set to utilizes.

[Mortalbane]

4 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I feel Forcing players to invest in beefalo (which not everyone wants to do) or use Abigail (Who dies in like 3 hits to any bosses,, many of whom have AOE attacks) to not have Wendy from take 25% longer to kill bosses counts as bad interactions

Well, that might be true, but how many characters can go into the spider quarry and clear it?
Wendy has to have some weaknesses too, like troubles with bosses.
But in my skill tree i actually made some buffs to her boss-fighting, like having a single-target Abigail with high damage and speed, and introducing ways to move, quickly disengage Abigail, and heal her.

You say that with that you don't have to personally participate in fight. Well, the same can go to Wolfgang and his Coach thing.
But with you participating it would still be faster. And also the single-target Abigail applies damage amplification.

[WenericMember]

6 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

 

I can argue that at the start of the game she doesn't need any of those.
And they are not removed, they are moved. Into the flowers skill tree branch.
Also, having a bodyguard is strong, that's why Wendy had lower damage, and i believe she should have it. But to aid with boss fights there is a hunting flower in the skill tree.

Was there a skillful play? As far as i know, you can only run away, making Abigail retreat as well.

How is this different from carrying 1 flower and several different potions for different situaltions?
With the approach i used, it's literally the same, but "potions" are not consumed on use.

It might not be the best, but the idea was to explore Wendy's petal/flower theme, and also make useful things for the teammates too, like Wigfrid or Woodie do.

I appreciate your opinion, though i might disagree with you here and there =)
I hope you haven't taken any if my responses as negative either.

You're right she doesn't NEED the extra damage but as someone who players her a lot and learnt to not depend on her, it gets old fast. Simple bosses like treeguards and deerclops take forever when learning kiting especially.

The florist branch doesn't mention anything about hex right now? Maybe i'm just blind.

Basically there's a lot of trying to ensure the boss keeps its aggro on you and not Abigail by attacking it a lot. That way Abigail lasts longer and can regen quickly with her potions, allowing her to damage buff Wendy, rewarding her aggression. In theory its a really nice loop that expands well into a combat environment where more players can distract bosses.

The difference between potions and flowers is that the potions are disposable and flowers are not. You'll end up carrying a bunch of dead flowers back to base to regenerate them as opposed to having an empty inventory, which is just inconvenient with fairly limited inventory.

I think the petal theme is explored well enough  with her ectoherbology branch. It's a really cool idea in concept, I just think you've compromised too much of her basic kit to get to it.

[grm9]

10 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Dragonfly

you don't need to fight enraged dfly, only stomp has AoE

10 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

 

• Celestial Champion
• Bearger
• Armoured Bearger
• Possesed Varge
• Deerclops
• Crystal Deerclops
• Eye of Terror
• Twins of Terror
• Ancient Guardian
• Werepigs

mostly irrelevant since most of them are about being able to dodge their attacks for an infinite amount and kill them by using only a ham bat, planar damage is also unaffected by wendy's damage multiplier, so doesn't apply to mutated bosses, you forgot that pieces and FW have AoE though, although you can keep it behind FW

[WenericMember]

2 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

Well, that might be true, but how many characters can go into the spider quarry and clear it?
Wendy has to have some weaknesses too, like troubles with bosses.
But in my skill tree i actually made some buffs to her boss-fighting, like having a single-target Abigail with high damage and speed, and introducing ways to move, quickly disengage Abigail, and heal her.

You say that with that you don't have to personally participate in fight. Well, the same can go to Wolfgang and his Coach thing.
But with you participating it would still be faster. And also the single-target Abigail applies damage amplification.

Woody's Weremoose, who also gets a whole bunch of other perks.

Point taken though, it's most of why balancing Wendy is a bit of a nightmare. I think they should remove the damage penalty downside and replace it with some other combat limiting downside, but its difficult to pin down something that would satisfy anyone.

[Cheggf]

6 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Bosses with AOE (off the top of my head):

• Celestial Champion
• Bearger
• Armoured Bearger
• Possesed Varge
• Deerclops
• Crystal Deerclops
• Eye of Terror
• Twins of Terror
• Ancient Guardian
• Dragonfly
• Werepigs

Not very many, and most of those are either baby easy or super duper lategame where almost no one is seeing them. Also DFly doesn't have AoE & werepigs aren't a boss.

7 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Not to mention the inherent difficulty in preventing the boss prioritizing Abby due to her rapid attack speed.

Not true, she attacks very slowly. Just don't huddle away from the boss all scared-like and time your dodges properly.

8 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

And again, I don't think being forced to use beefalo eliminates the downside, as it forces you to learn a new skill set to utilizes.

What?

14 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

Was there a skillful play? As far as i know, you can only run away, making Abigail retreat as well.

If the boss doesn't have AoE damage Wendy can dodge its attack, and if her timing isn't bad the boss will whiff against her. If she dodges too early Abigail will attack and take aggro from the boss, so the boss will attack Abigail.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, grm9 said:

mostly irrelevant since most of them are about being able to dodge their attacks for an infinite amount and kill them by using only a ham bat, planar damage is also unaffected by wendy's damage multiplier, so doesn't apply to mutated bosses

That's completely irrelevant to my point?

My point isn't "Oh Wendy can't take them on without Abbi" its "Wend takes significantly longer for already extended fights that becomes frustrating especially when you don't get hit bc it just wastes time"

[grm9]

6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

werepigs aren't a boss

pretty sure that they meant nightmare and junk yard werepig

5 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Wend takes significantly longer for already extended fights that becomes frustrating especially when you don't get hit bc it just wastes time

that's mostly a problem with those bosses being boring on their own

[WenericMember]

2 minutes ago, grm9 said:

pretty sure that they meant nightmare and junk yard werepig

that's mostly a problem with those bosses being boring on their own

Yeah did mean those two, probably should have clarified. Still though throwing away like 1/2 the bosses in the game bc they're "too earlygame" or "too lategame" is a weird take.

Re: the bosses yeah that's probably the case, but the issue is that regardless of if they do find a happy medium of boss duration, Wendy will still innately throw that off.

 

10 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Not very many, and most of those are either baby easy or super duper lategame where almost no one is seeing them. Also DFly doesn't have AoE & werepigs aren't a boss.

Not true, she attacks very slowly. Just don't huddle away from the boss all scared-like and time your dodges properly.

What?

I don't think saying "half the bosses in the game don't count" is a winning argument, and Dragonfly does have AOE in enraged.

So you accept that she has to play within much tighter Windows, with less margin for error to keep abby alive, thereby making bosses harder?

In my opinion a well designed character in DST should have two elements: A downside that inherently changes the way you approach the game, and an Upside that can be used in a variety of contexts, but also has a method of resolving that downside. IMO the welll designed characters are:

• Wortox: Decreased effectiveness of food -> Gathers souls that he can consume for health, sanity and hunger
• Warly: Can only eat crock pot dishes -> Has a portable crock pot to incentivize portable cooking and trialing new recipes which he has
• Wendy: Has reduced damage against bosses -> Gets bonus damage while fighting with Abigail
• Wormwood: Struggles regaining HP -> Has a variety of defensive tools to prevent taking damage

Wendy having a way to circumvent her downside isn't the issue, the fact that it's restricted to one specific method (which is pretty convoluted as far as DST combat goes; tame, craft items, do whatever to get ornery, etc) is.

[Mortalbane]

3 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

as someone who players her a lot and learnt to not depend on her, it gets old fast

I believe that most of the Wendy player base will and want to depend on Abigail, not do boss rushes =)

7 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

The florist branch doesn't mention anything about hex right now?

It doesn't, the Florist is just about making items for teammates and breathing some life into dead items.

12 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

The difference between potions and flowers is that the potions are disposable and flowers are not. You'll end up carrying a bunch of dead flowers back to base to regenerate them as opposed to having an empty inventory, which is just inconvenient with fairly limited inventory.

It depends on the durability timers for flowers. How i see it, you will carry one or two flowers max at a time, which is only +1 slot occupied at worst
__________



Well, guys, i don't see how any of my changes disrupt the current Wendy boss fighting patterns.

Also i don't think people who enjoy boss or ruin rushing will look at Wendy before other characters, and i don't think they should.

I think when making changes to Wendy, you should mostly consider her from the not experienced player view, but adding more deep and advanced mechanics couldn't hurt.

But as with all my concepts, this all is just about giving some ideas, and sharing my own personal view on things.
I don't have any statistics on how people play and what do they prefer.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Mortalbane said:

I believe that most of the Wendy player base will and want to depend on Abigail, not do boss rushes =)

It doesn't, the Florist is just about making items for teammates and breathing some life into dead items.

It depends on the durability timers for flowers. How i see it, you will carry one or two flowers max at a time, which is only +1 slot occupied at worst
__________



Well, guys, i don't see how any of my changes disrupt the current Wendy boss fighting patterns.

Also i don't think people who enjoy boss or ruin rushing will look at Wendy before other characters, and i don't think they should.

I think when making changes to Wendy, you should mostly consider her from the not experienced player view, but adding more deep and advanced mechanics couldn't hurt.

But as with all my concepts, this all is just about giving some ideas, and sharing my own personal view on things.
I don't have any statistics on how people play and what do they prefer.

IMHO Wendy's character design is as a "combat support"

• Damage Buff to teammates
• Easily gather supplies for telltale hearts
• AOE for clearing minions

So i don't think its fair to say she's not supposed to get involved in combat. She's just not "raw dps" like wolfgang and his compatriots.

Then where's the hex effect? bc i cannot see it present in any part of the skill tree.

Maybe, but with how far you've split abigail's kit you need to be carrying at least like 4.

• Shield for hordes to prevent her from dying
• Regen for bosses
• Sanity for exploration
• Hunting for things like cave worms and strong-ish individual mobs.

________________________________

The issue is the removal of the shield means she has basically 0 hp without the specific flower, which in exchange means she can't access any of the combat abilities.

This isn't just "ruins rushing" or "boss rushing" this is anyone who wants to actually play the game. I just don't want to spend extra time on already long bosses.

This tree just feels like it's trying to punish people for playing Wendy well to a certain extent, while making her less attractive to newcomers.

Like... What is there to get excited about in this tree? It feels more like an attempt to re-balance Wendy then expand her.

[Mortalbane]

Just now, WenericMember said:

Then where's the hex effect? bc i cannot see it present in any part of the skill tree.

In the Abigail-flower, or Ectoherbology branch, the hunting flower.

Just now, WenericMember said:

Maybe, but with how far you've split abigail's kit you need to be carrying at least like 4.

Well, do you do all that at the same time? =)

Just now, WenericMember said:

The issue is the removal of the shield means she has basically 0 hp without the specific flower

As you noted, she needs it only vs hordes. Isn't DS about planning ahead and preparing?

 

Just now, WenericMember said:

Like... What is there to get excited about in this tree? It feels more like an attempt to re-balance Wendy then expand her.

Well, i find Wendy alright as she is, and my changes expand her enough for me, while also rebalancing.
Like with Maxwell, i can't imagine his skill tree, because he is expanded and OP enough atm, like, what more to add?

You are welcome to share your thoughts on expanding Wendy, or giving her skills that you find exciting =)

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Mortalbane said:

In the Abigail-flower, or Ectoherbology branch, the hunting flower.

Well, do you do all that at the same time? =)

As you noted, she needs it only vs hordes. Isn't DS about planning ahead and preparing?

 

Well, i find Wendy alright as she is, and my changes expand her enough for me, while also rebalancing.
Like with Maxwell, i can't imagine his skill tree, because he is expanded and OP enough atm, like, what more to add?

You are welcome to share your thoughts on expanding Wendy, or giving her skills that you find exciting =)

Oh so it means the shield and Petals are mutually exclusive. If hex only really benefits v bosses and shield is only relevant v Hordes, why make it it more inconvenient? So much of this would just make playing Wendy less convenient, even disregarding the objective Nerfs to her damage boost.

Yes... Especially so if you're going to force each one to be a separate inventory slot. My enjoyment of DST comes from exploring the constant, wandering in with little preparation just to find the cool stuff around the world, then return to take it down. In doing that i have to hunt hordes for supplies fight off strong individual mobs and sometimes more.

That's the thing... As someone who enjoys playing as Wendy, she isn't fine for someone who's learning the later stages of the game. Maybe she'll feel fine once I have 1000 hours in the game or something like that but this doesn't solve that issue, and instead just makes her worse for casuals.

_________

My ideas for Wendy:

• You can place Abigail's flower in the sisturn as a turret, making her stationary, but with improved range and immortality for hex inflcition, in exchange for not dealing damage. Giving her a way to level the playing field against bosses with prep.
• Already had the telltale hearts, but repairing touchstones would be something useful and unique.
• Pipspooks have a chance of leading to places of interest, such as the scrapyard, stage pig king or the like
• The expansion of her insanity drain reduction effects to be applicable to sanity boosting effects in lunar environments
• Give Abigail the ability to do the "Haunt' effect players can do as a ghost, such as summon spider queen and change mushroom types.

[Cheggf]

54 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Still though throwing away like 1/2 the bosses in the game bc they're "too earlygame" or "too lategame" is a weird take.

"Once every 9 hours I need to hold F for an extra 9 seconds, this is a huge downside and my character is unplayable!" is the take that's weird, lol. Deerclops is literally so weak that you can kill him before Abigail even dies, so Wendy kills him faster than average without even losing her. Even if you're worried about her dying so you dismiss her before starting the fight it's only about 9 extra seconds that you spend fighting him, because his health is so low.

54 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I don't think saying "half the bosses in the game don't count" is a winning argument, and Dragonfly does have AOE in enraged.

I've never seen a single person ever fight enraged Dragonfly.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

"Once every 9 hours I need to hold F for an extra 9 seconds, this is a huge downside and my character is unplayable!" is the take that's weird, lol.

Good to know every boss in the game lasts a grand total of around 30 seconds.

[Cheggf]

Just now, WenericMember said:

Good to know every boss in the game lasts a grand total of around 30 seconds.

What?

[WenericMember]

8 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

What?

Wendy has a 25% damage decrease. That means all bosses would take roughly 25% longer at minimum, disregarding all the additional resources required for the extended fight if you aren't playing perfectly. You saying "9 seconds" is not only really rude and dismissive but also mathematically

30/0.75 = 40 (roughly 10 additional seconds of fighting). Ergo, most fights should last about 30 seconds.

I also never made the claim that Wendy was "Unplayable" or even "Bad." Just that she was was worse at taking on bosses than other characters. I'm not sure how you got "unplayable" out of it.

[AliceShiki]

This feels like a big nerf to Wendy, overall.

Like, there are some cool ideas in the skill tree, but they're essentially just compensating for the nerf on base Wendy, which is just... Weird, to me.

I don't think Wendy is a particularly OP character... Like, sure, she is a newbie crutch, but not OP. So... I don't see the point of nerfing her while adding the Skill Tree.

I'd rather just have a Skill Tree filled with very minor buffs instead if you're worried about buffing her too much when she is already such a great newbie crutch.

[Siren11]

I really don’t like this either. Maybe it’s just bc I’m a newer player, but Wendy doesn’t feel particularly OP. She doesn’t need a bunch of nerfs to her base kit.

I also really enjoy her elixirs, and I would be sad to see those go.

Wendy might be seen as mostly a newbie character, but she also has incredibly fun boss fights. There are people who play her because of that, and they shouldn’t be left out of the conversation. Juggling multiple flowers for ultimately less power than Wendy and Abigail had before (especially when every other character has gotten straight buffs) wouldn’t be fun for me.

I also agree that it seems weird to nerf Wendy and then try to compensate for it through her skill tree. It doesn’t really add any depth to her gameplay. It just makes her more difficult than she needs to be for newbies and punishes more experienced players who understand the depth of current Wendy.

I think Wendy’s in a really good place right now. Whatever her skill tree will be, I like that I have the option to go back to the current version of my favorite character. To be honest, that’s my biggest issue with these suggestions.