Winonia's Skill Tree Barely solved any of her problems and she is still one of the worst Characters in this game.

[Nnumber3]

Winona skill tree aimed to make Winona better, which is technically does, but she is still really bad compared to others.

In not a Winona main, so take this with a grain of salt, I have played her though, post skill tree and before.

Section 1: Problems with Winona pre-skill tree:

1: her catapults were too expensive for normal use

2: Catapults are the definition of unreliable and is a garbage weapon.

3: Used a swap character as everyone could use her catapults.

4. Catapults were not portable.

5. her 1 free hit from the darkness is useless and just cosmetic.

6. Annoying slow crafting at low hunger that wasn't really a downside but just a annoyance 

7. Her spotlights sucked as they take so much fuel from generators and their range was garbage, no one ever used them, plus outclassed.

Now Post skill tree, let's see how they buffed her! 

Part 1: catapults suck at day-to-day use

The elephant in the room is that now she can move her catapults! but the catapults are worth picking up almost never.

When catapults were not movable, the catapults were only used in boss arena in such, in which they thrived due to the large boss hitbox, they almost never missed.

But when you try use your catapults day to day use, they suck hard. like its quicker to use a spear always.

The first issue is how it takes forever to set up when you want to engage something.

Step 1, put down your generator.

Step 2, put down your catapults 1 by 1

Step 3 Arm the catapults

Step 4 Attack enemy.

As most day-to-day interactions are with pigs, spiders/warriors, hounds, etc, by the time you set up your catapults, you could of already killed it with a normal weapon. 

Even if you decide the amount of enemy's warrants the use of catapults, Catapults still suck hard as anything moving remotely fast will make them miss. You could aim them manually, but then you're not attacking, and losing out on a lot of dps. The only way I can get them to reliably hit something is if I stand still and tank hits while the catapults fight, but at that is really not ideal for the small amount of dps they do. 

As catapults don't stack, you won't ever have all 6 catapults plus generator plus fuel on you. You only reasonably use like 2 plus generator in your inventory at a time without: A- clogging up inventory. B- increasing the setup time for your catapults every time you want to fight someone/impractical.

Catapults also can't be used as a instant response, if something aggro's on you when you don't have 20 secs of prep time

the middle shelf aims to buff the catapults stats, but the small amount of reload speed doesn't help much as they still miss 50% of the time.

The 100% extra splash on the catapults are nice against spiders, but they still miss hard against things like pigs and hounds. and against spiders, literally any other summon is better, even BERNIE!

The beauty of stationary catapults was that you could plan around them, make the enemy stand still so the catapults hit, and protect them with statues.( I'm not saying that catapults should never be portable)

But when the catapults are just out there in the open, with no protection, enemy's moving.... yeah, Wormwoods salamanders have more dps in actual fights.

Catapults still cost the same amount somehow too! On public servers with 6-12 people, you are hard-pressed for your randoms to be okay with you spending stacks of rocks for catapults.

So most of the game you are girl Wilson.
Well they are still great at what they did before the skill tree, that's a plus, I guess.

They still dominate some bosses, but with the new skill trees that are good, *cough willow, she seems less and less needed

Section 2, Spotlights need more love

They got buffed, defiantl-

Oh what's that over ther- 

Spotlights are campfires but cost nitre or GEMS.

and their new heat giving skill?

and guess what light source can heats up thermal stones, keeps you warm, can be cooked on, and only needs wood, even sticks!

Outclassed hard, moving on.

Section 3: Why did she get the Wolfgang treatment and not the willow treatment?

She got a lot of stat buffs, the whole middle shelf is just stat buffs, but the stats were never the problem, catapults themselves are a flawed idea to begin with. The extra battery and sleep mode is nice QOL, less resource intensive after setting up, but don't address the initial cost at all. the plantar damage there, boring.      Why not give her more utility, make her the utility character, repair tools, overcharge tools, have base building perks, SOMETHING UNIQUE PLS.

Section 4: Positives.

As much as all humans like being negative, there's nothing constructive in that, so lets say some positives!

I love the top shelf, i wished it got more fleshed out. Like it gave her unique things she could do! They are all creative, like the vine bridge, the 1-up rose, all neat. I love the way you get them too. It encourages you to explore, like a mini version of Webbers quest for switcher doodles. The lunar side is... interesting. the thing that gives you any recipe, if you have the item sounds like a wicker thing and situational but makes sense as Shes the builder. The telebrella is interesting, but with how much it costs, and how its luck based on how easy it is to get. also, it can't cross shards, so I guess I'm a discount wortox now. But hey, it makes her somewhat better! (pls make it cross shards)

The remote is a welcome addition, gives way more things to do while you sit behind that wall in the varg farm, I just wish the catapults were in a better state where the remote can be more useful.

The cache boxes are a fun mini game, haven't got tired of them yet.

Section 5: How to make things better, Constructive criticism.

 

I think portable catapults could work, like some examples i have thought of are:

A catapult helmet that's fueled by nitre/gems, It attacks what you attack.

A skill that gives the balls a homing effect

A hybrid of a catapult and a generator so it's not as cumbersome to get catapults set up, as well as being placed automatically armed.

Spotlights shouldn't be glorified campfires, what if they buffed teammates/yourself while on the light? or even hurt enemies!

Nitre- normal light

red gem- Gives your attacks a burning effect! fire last for only 6 secs but still panics. does not burn loot or spread.

blue gem- Enemies get slowed by 33%

purple gem. spawns mini shadow tentacles around that do 34.5 damage, a max of 2 tentecules can be on one light

Yellow gem- Gives teammates sanity, 12+ per minute

Orange gem- Teammates get a 20% speed boost

Green gem. Spotlights weaken enemies' attacks by 25%

iridescent gem- Under the light sanity is replaced with Lunacity.

 See!  some much potential. 

I can spitball all day, in fact i can have already have in the past, in 2023.

And guess what? I'm making another skill tree for her soon! I'm just that disappointed.

I would love feedback to see what I missed in this small essay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GamePlayer42]

I feel like the catapults are expensive but also balanced considering how much mileage you can get out of them nowadays.

It being unreliable for things like spiders and houndwaves is valid however if u really wanna get the best out of them you'd probably be making farm's with statues and the like. Another thing is that even despite it being weak in day to day usage it easily makes up for it with the strength it has for boss fights. She literally steamroller beequeen, ancient fuelweaver, dragonfly, toadstool and so much more.

It is an unwise statement to say that she is nerfed due to the existence of better characters like willow because Winona herself offers far more to the table than just her catapults, especially if your using top shelf skills.

Spotlights are actually really good contrary to popular belief. The way I see them is like an alternative to a mushlamp you can set all over your base. And when it's used like that you'll see just how awesome they are dude.

Admittedly, the middle shelf has alot of filler, but I'm not really complaining because it adds a degree of customizability in small aspects like that. Consider that we also got a ton of other skills if they aren't really to your liking. In addition to that quite a few skill trees have these number buffs, like wigfrid getting more out of her helmets, Bernie regen and stuff like that so I don't really see why Winona can't have these things herself

Your ideas in section 5 are creative and interesting however they are op, like catapult homing.

I myself do have a few issues with the Winona skill tree but I don't really think that it needs a massive overhaul and I'm glad for what we got.

 

[Frashaw27]

30 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

Catapults are the definition of unreliable and is a garbage weapon.

When the hell was this ever said? Catapults have been the backbone of farms involving killing things for a while now, ranging from a lot of hound murder to farming Bee Queen. The most you got on this is that they do kind of suck if your using them to fight one specific mob like a spider warrior or a rook that move around a lot thus screwing with their accuracy. Point stands is that for a majority of their use cases prior to the skill tree, the Catapults were not garbage if you used them in the way they were meant to be used, planned out with purpose around an area to maximize their usage as area support.

39 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

5. her 1 free hit from the darkness is useless and just cosmetic.

Rarely used, yeah. Useless, no. While I've never needed to heavily rely on it to survive through the night, it still comes up from time to time and is a nice barrier between a screw up and damage. Again, just because it doesn't come up often doesn't mean it's useless.

49 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

6. Annoying slow crafting at low hunger that wasn't really a downside but just a annoyance 

I would argue any downside could counted as an annoyance if you worded it wisely enough. While a bit lazy, I do think that it helps establish Winona's character a bit more as she needs lighter and more constant meals to not waste food and not suffer her consequence. It's subtle, but I think it adds just a touch of depth to her day to day life.

54 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

But when you try use your catapults day to day use, they suck hard. like its quicker to use a spear always.

One enemy? Yeah, but they start to truly shine when fighting multiple enemies, what the AoE structure was made to do. It isn't something you just whip out and expect to do clean up for you, you use it to help assist you by planning before hand where they'll be the most effective and executing a plan to make them work with that strategy. Your gonna struggle to find work for the things if you don't have a plan with them in mind, which is why I like the new Winona's gameplay, you have to plan ahead and execute, makes my brain meat feel challenged and proud when I pull it off right.

59 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

The only way I can get them to reliably hit something is if I stand still and tank hits while the catapults fight, but at that is really not ideal for the small amount of dps they do. 

Or you kite them well enough that you maintain a good relative area for catapults to be used while still allowing for a good barrage to hit. The area upgrades actually help with this a lot as it helps create wiggle room that otherwise wouldn't exist. Also the catapults dps rises exponentially with the number you have out. Sure it may be a pain to lug around 5 everywhere you go, but that's also not the point of the catapult portability, you still need to have cleaver planning and positioning and a purpose to use them to their full abilities. Also the remote is for when you actually have a full setup, or you need to specifically kill birds or draw kohalphants attention or something, It's not going to be that useful if you only have 1 rinky dink machine and try to make it as efficient as a full setup. You need to properly support it with fellow catapults, not use 1 and expect the results of 4.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Catapults still cost the same amount somehow too! On public servers with 6-12 people, you are hard-pressed for your randoms to be okay with you spending stacks of rocks for catapults.

Aw damn, if only there was a way to reuse and relocate the structures so you only have to build a handful. Even if you have the most tight ass ream regarding rocks, there is a cave full of them and an ocean strewn with them just waiting for you to collect. It may be absurd to go to such lengths to reach this type of thing, but if you want it and your group doesn't want to give it up, there is plenty of options for you to choose from.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Oh what's that over ther- 

And I can save fuel time and fuel collection time for all of these options while maintain the ability to carry around whatever I want in all 3 slots while the spotlight takes several days to drain away the battery of a normal generator. Not to mention I don't have to keep refuel it constantly like a lantern, doesn't require boss drops like the mushlights, and carries across a much wider distance (especially with the designated skill that does that) then a firepit could ever do. Again, it's not a portable light replacement, it's a base light replacement and it works damn well as one too. I could see myself lasting 100s of days with these at my base without swapping to another light source as it's just that good and simple. The spotlight is seriously overhated imo.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Spotlights are campfires but cost nitre or GEMS.

1 Nitre for several days of light is a pretty good deal to me. There is also the upgrade to allow Nightmare Fuel on the generators, you know one of the most plethoric materials in the game. There is also the enlightened crown shard for literally infinite light although that once is way farther into the game.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

and guess what light source can heats up thermal stones, keeps you warm, can be cooked on, and only needs wood, even sticks!

And what light source allows you to gain heat from such a lone distance away from the source? The spotlight.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

SOMETHING UNIQUE PLS.

She has a unique set up with both glasses allowing different forms of teleportation. The rose tinted glasses allow you to travel to any wormhole through a wormhole opening up a literal world of possibilities, the inspectogoggles allow you to create a teleport point that you can go to from any distance with barely anything else needed beyond the basic set up, that is also portable. She also gets mini versions of the Wobot that cleans and tidies spaces for you. The rose tinted glasses allows you to create 3 tile bridges across shore points for easy travel and allow you to carry a revive item with you if you examine the a flower (although this only works with the second tier of the shadow glasses), The lunar planer shot essentially acts as a psudo thumper from hamlet and the shadow version creates a field of thorns that deals constant dps and slows enemies. While relegated to mainly the top shelf, she gets  A LOT of unique stuff with her skill tree.

I think a lot of this is spurned from you not really getting Winona's playstyle. This seems like a lot of things that seem bad on paper but are actually easily to see how they're not actually that big of an issue or completely non existent if you actually played her. You have a right to be unsatisfied with her skill tree, but to say in your basic premise that it barely solves any of the problems with the character is just straight up a lie as it fixes several of the problems I had with her previously.

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Section 3: Why did she get the Wolfgang treatment and not the willow treatment?

Oh, I am sorry this here is a huge red flag for me.
Willow's skill set is way too powerful. It is on the level of a character refresh rather than a minor boon. You make some good points, but please do not use her as a standard for excellence.

I really like Winona's skillset personally. I think some things need adjustments BASELINE like her light, and catapult animation but her skills are really nice and I quite enjoy them a lot personally. (Except Charlie's 2 unique skills, I feel they are too powerful/not fitting with her character as a Handywoman).

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Section 2, Spotlights need more love

They got buffed, defiantl-

Oh what's that over ther- 

Spotlights are campfires but cost nitre or GEMS.

and their new heat giving skill?

and guess what light source can heats up thermal stones, keeps you warm, can be cooked on, and only needs wood, even sticks!

Outclassed hard, moving on.

This is wrong with weak comparisons. It seems you have not played with them in a proper setting.

 

Spotlights last ages, many many days. Fill them with nitre OR nightmare fuel. They have a massive range. They are probably the best thing in her skilltree because combat perks are so cliche and overdone nowdays. Use the fuel skills. They are also portable.

My only issue with them is multiplayer inconsistencies.

[Theukon-dos]

I question how many of the issues you brought up are actually issues. Yes catapults are expensive, but you can get a ton of milage out of them if you work around what they can do instead of wishing they did something else.

I do, however, agree with your ultimate statement that it's weird how Winona's skill tree is mostly stat buffs like Wolfgang's. However, I think the more questionable design decision is why it focuses so much on buffing Catapults when those where already the best part of her kit without question. Nearly half of the tree buffs it in one way or another. And the other half is either about buffing the generators or are her alignment perks. And also the two whole spotlight perks I guess.

There are a lot of ways that you could expand Winona's other perks into her skill tree. You could make her "works hard until lunch" perk apply to harvesting resources or using tools. You could give the Spotlight the ability to grow plants during winter, you could even make tape work as a low-grade healing item if you wanted to. Not like this would make any less sense then some of the stuff already in skill trees.

9 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Oh, I am sorry this here is a huge red flag for me.
Willow's skill set is way too powerful. It is on the level of a character refresh rather than a minor boon. You make some good points, but please do not use her as a standard for excellence.

I really like Winona's skillset personally. I think some things need adjustments BASELINE like her light, and catapult animation but her skills are really nice and I quite enjoy them a lot personally. (Except Charlie's 2 unique skills, I feel they are too powerful/not fitting with her character as a Handywoman).

While I definitly agree that Willow's skill tree is to powerful, I would also argue that Willow and Winona are characters who could actually use another refresh. They did very little even after their refreshes, and expanding their kits would be a good choice. Willow's definitely did that, even if her alignment perks are severely overtuned. So it's a shame that Winona's only doubled down on being a one-trick pony with her catapults.

Besides, while Willow absolutely got the biggest jump in power. It's not like simpler skill trees are any better. As you pointed out, Charlie perk 2 lets Winona do some stupid stuff, including picking free revives out of the ground for some reason. And Wolfgang's alignment perks give him 30% extra damage against some of the most common enemies in the game. And this stacks multiplicative with his usual 2x damage bonus, meaning can do 260% damage against aligned enemies.

[Mike23Ua]

14 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Oh, I am sorry this here is a huge red flag for me.
Willow's skill set is way too powerful. It is on the level of a character refresh rather than a minor boon. You make some good points, but please do not use her as a standard for excellence.

I really like Winona's skillset personally. I think some things need adjustments BASELINE like her light, and catapult animation but her skills are really nice and I quite enjoy them a lot personally. (Except Charlie's 2 unique skills, I feel they are too powerful/not fitting with her character as a Handywoman).

I think your just upset about those skills not being on Wormwood and your holding a personal vendetta against them if I’m being honest, but from my point of view Winona is the direct sister and Blood Related Relative of whatever in the actual heck was able to posses and combine with Charlie, she should by that theory have those same types of powers.

An interesting thing I should note is that both Wilson AND Maxwell have been portrayed as “Captive” to the throne during their time, while Charlie on the other hand is clearly shown resisting it, in several animations.. almost like something in her bloodline let’s her resist being fully taken over (evidence of the games main menu starting animation)

I think the perks fit her not as a “Handy Woman”, but as the Blood Related sister of the Queen of the Constant.

The perks also aren’t as OP as you’re making them out, Wormhole Teleportation is pretty neat, but the superior teleport option for her is the Wagstaff side, which can also teleport nearby things with her?

I guess the invulnerable to darkness is Okay, but you still need a light source to see anything and running around in complete darkness tanks your sanity and is just asking to be cheap shot by something you can’t see to fight (like a Tallbird or whatever) 

The only thing you may have an actual valid arguement about on this side is the resurrection rose, but then I see characters like Wanda with Second chance clock and Wigfrid with Encore and I think nahhhh she’s fine.

[Zima Blue]

Before reading this know that I am a Winona main so my opinions are 100% biased lol. A lot of things you said just feel entirely wrong;

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

The elephant in the room is that now she can move her catapults! but the catapults are worth picking up almost never.

They're worth picking up, especially because, as you said, they're quite expensive. So instead of having a **** ton of catapults you can just plan ahead and move them wherever you'll need them. If you're just starting your world, you can move them to several different bosses and you'll def see a difference in damage. 

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

Even if you decide the amount of enemy's warrants the use of catapults, Catapults still suck hard as anything moving remotely fast will make them miss. You could aim them manually, but then you're not attacking, and losing out on a lot of dps. The only way I can get them to reliably hit something is if I stand still and tank hits while the catapults fight, but at that is really not ideal for the small amount of dps they do

You don't need to tank enemies, you can just kite them while targeting enemies with her remote. If you wanna get better at playing as Winona you need to understand that you have to plan what you're doing with your catapults. She's not like Wolfgang that just work out real quick and get a damage boost. The main thing about her catapults is setting them up before you encounter danger. If you're having trouble with hound waves, you should just leave some catapults already charged near your base. Don't mean to be rude but if even with this you're still struggling that's kind of a skill issue. And about spiders,pigs, volt goats you can build farms so effective that it'll take you a long time until you need their resources again. So you just move the catapults whenever you need to farm them and then you set them up somewhere else. 

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

Catapults still cost the same amount somehow too! On public servers with 6-12 people, you are hard-pressed for your randoms to be okay with you spending stacks of rocks for catapults.

This is kind of a hot take but it's too hard to balance things around public servers. Anyone can join and can do whatever they want on these servers so you can't expect people to play a certain way; there will be griefers, there will be people feeding of your food and doing nothing, so why do you feel like you need permission to spend the rocks that you gathered? If the rock biome is already cleaned up you can also gather stones from stone fruits or the caves, where you'll even get gems to help you fuel your gemerator.

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

They still dominate some bosses, but with the new skill trees that are good, *cough willow, she seems less and less needed

With Winona you can just sweep Bee Queen and Ancient Fuelweaver in like 3minutes without any help. I don't play on public servers but I imagine that having someone regularly killing them and giving other players jelly beans, bone armors and bone helms to Maxwells is pretty much appreciated. 

 

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

Spotlights are campfires but cost nitre or GEMS.

and their new heat giving skill?

and guess what light source can heats up thermal stones, keeps you warm, can be cooked on, and only needs wood, even sticks!

Spotlights are a great addition to your base; they have a huge range and they don't waste that many fuel, you don't need to use thermal stones or winter clothing when you're near them, and they last for a long time. I get what you're saying; they do the same thing as a torch or campfire but they provide convenience. Their light follows you so you can roam around without other light resource while still getting warm. Campfires stay on the same place and you have to constantly fuel them so their light range is big enough and you might lose their fuel bc of those annoying shadow hands.

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

She got a lot of stat buffs, the whole middle shelf is just stat buffs, but the stats were never the problem, catapults themselves are a flawed idea to begin with. The extra battery and sleep mode is nice QOL, less resource intensive after setting up, but don't address the initial cost at all. the plantar damage there, boring.      Why not give her more utility, make her the utility character, repair tools, overcharge tools, have base building perks, SOMETHING UNIQUE PLS.

I agree with you that she should have more to her skill tree besides number tweaks but catapults are not a flawed idea. We don't have a lot of variety of weapons in this game, most of them are the same thing with different numbers, so catapults provide a new gameplay experience whenever you're just tired of pressing F at something and kiting with a dark sword. And she's kinda already is a utility character given that she can farm not only bosses but many other resourcers like meat, pig skin, volt goat horns, silk, gems, moonrock, nightmare fuel, crafted dark swords, crafted night armors and now even WOOD as her planar attack chops down trees and their stumps so so fast. She can also help her WX78 friend to recharge fast!

6 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

The lunar side is... interesting. the thing that gives you any recipe, if you have the item sounds like a wicker thing and situational but makes sense as Shes the builder.

You were talking about playing on public serves so I expected you'd like the Calibrated Perceiver more because with them you don't even have to "fight" for boss blueprints; if you just killed bee queen you can give her blueprint to someone else, ask them to craft one and drop on the ground and you can learn it as well with the calibrated perceiver. And this goes to every blueprint in the game; you can even skip having to go to Pearl and set up a chair to get the sawhorse recipe if one of your team mates already done this. They get obsolete in end game but they're a really fun bonus to her character. 

[FluffyBun]

I am a Winona Main.

Section 1

1 - You will only need 3 Catapults for daily use, 9 for bosses, ever. 3 Catapults is a measly 45 stone, or 15 rocks mined. If you are too lazy to mine stone, you can also get them by fighting AG with a Lazy Forager on. and getting AG to ram pillars.

2 - You can use your remote to turn on catapults instantly. For hound waves, keeping 3 Catapults in base permanently active will allow you to kill hounds basically whenever, since Winona has a free TP to base at the cost of 3 slots.

3 - Your talents should be max attack speed and AoE, pre-CC, and Planar Strike post-CC.  Either one destroys spiders.

4 - Your catapults should be stored on your teleporter, or very close by. Items on the ground get teleported with you.

5 - It takes 3 seconds to place down 1 generator and 3 catapults.

6 - Winona is one of the best rock-miners, outclassed only by Wickerbottom and Maxwell. With one teleport in the cave entrance and one carried by Winona, she can mine as many rocks as she want before packing up to go, and then doing the same thing all over again. She can even bring WINBots with her to speed up collection of rocks.

Quote

So most of the game you are girl Wilson.

No. You are bootleg Wanda who don't need tusks. Winona has infinite inventory slots, it's called a "base".

Quote

Spotlights are campfires but cost nitre or GEMS.

They cost Nightmare Fuel now.

Quote

SOMETHING UNIQUE PLS.

She is Wanda. Just that instead of Tusks, she eat Crowns.

 

[Zima Blue]

I also forgot to mention; given that Winona can kill bee queen in seconds it's a no brainer that you'll have a bundling wrap so carrying 4 catapults with you only takes one slot of your inventory. If I need to move the catapults around I usually carry two bundling wraps, one with four catapults and the other with the gemerator already charged and 3 other catapults. 

[FluffyBun]

1 hour ago, Frashaw27 said:

The most you got on this is that they do kind of suck if your using them to fight one specific mob like a spider warrior or a rook that move around a lot thus screwing with their accuracy.

It's fine against both, provided you tank. Catapults only get aggro if you don't have it on you.

1 minute ago, Zima Blue said:

I also forgot to mention; given that Winona can kill bee queen in seconds it's a no brainer that you'll have a bundling wrap so carrying 4 catapults with you only takes one slot of your inventory. If I need to move the catapults around I usually carry two bundling wraps, one with four catapults and the other with the gemerator already charged and 3 other catapults. 

Just dump them in a backpack next to a teleporter lol, you are winona. You move one base's worth of items by clicking one button.

[Zima Blue]

7 minutes ago, FluffyBun said:

Just dump them in a backpack next to a teleporter lol, you are winona. You move one base's worth of items by clicking one button

I know lol It's just a personal issue, I don't really like leaving stuff on the ground it feels like I'm making the base dirty lmao I know it's silly, just a me problem  

[Evelo]

28 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I think your just upset about those skills not being on Wormwood

No. Not at all. Please don't pull out stuff like this from your bum. It is very rude and entirely made up. I think Wormwood's skill set is too powerful if that explains anything. I disagree with the whole "bloodline" idea just because I think it is lame and hope that isn't the case. There is something that happened between when she and maxy got pulled in and her being so intertwined with the darkness unlike Maxwell. I am guessing it has something to do with the Codex Umbra and maybe possibly. This is just speculation. After all only after Maxwell seemed to have controlled his power and able to lure victims into the constant did others besides Charlie and Maxy enter the constant. You could be right in that it is blood related or just the familial bond that Charlie is gifting these things to her. (Supported by some unseen quotes like "You weren't suppose to be here" (or something like that).

34 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

The only thing you may have an actual valid arguement about on this side is the resurrection rose, but then I see characters like Wanda with Second chance clock and Wigfrid with Encore and I think nahhhh she’s fine.

This and the wormhole are the most problematic for me. The teleport and Wanda's waypoints are okay because they require effort to make use of. Meanwhile all you need is the glasses and boom you can travel anywhere. Wortox at least has to acquire souls and has a maximum limit on range.

The resurrection is insanely powerful. Yes the second chance clock is a thing and that is strong but it has many flaws like placing you next to where you died, not keeping all of your items in your inventory, a cooldown, it being destroyed when Wanda uses it. Wigfrid's Encore is also op and I hate it too.

51 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I would also argue that Willow and Winona are characters who could actually use another refresh.

I completely agree! They do deserve a proper refresh, but nope. Just make incredibly powerful skill sets instead. (Well not for winona aside from a few)

 

Though it seems I am fairly alone in preferring minor statbuffs or bonuses (like the Bee Kind skill for Wormwood ) over more in your face skills.

[Mike23Ua]

Play on a “Lights Out” world then come back and tell me how useless Winona’s Spotlights are.

These things now being portable are a god send change for Winona mains, she’s my second most played character in DST and the skill tree made that much more enjoyable.

Got hounds eating your catapults? just dismantle them pack up and run! No longer will you eat every rock on the server making and losing catapults.

There is however a few things about her skill tree I dislike- Over Abundance in Scrap & Electrical Doodads which have no use to her actual “Kit” itself, (unless the Wagstaff teleport stuff needs it..) but since you can have both rose glasses and founders glasses if you choose the shadow side you’ll have scrap and no use for it (beyond crafting a Winbot)

The remote clicker thing is horrid on Xbox, like I have zero skills invested into it because it’s just that bad, and Horrible in any fight scenario outside of stationary bosses & even using it to turn on catapults isn’t very optimal..

I legit hate the inclusion of this thing…

Id rather had Controller friendly skills like “Building” you know… how you can walk over to Crabby Hermits house or the Florid Postern and “Upgrade” it by tapping D-pad?

I think there ARE things Klei can do to make the remote less annoying for Xbox players though, like letting it activate all catapults on screen for Winona (even if it costs more remote durability to do so)

Having to switch them On makes combat scenarios a nightmare.

[Zima Blue]

5 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

There is however a few things about her skill tree I dislike- Over Abundance in Scrap & Electrical Doodads which have no use to her actual “Kit” itself, (unless the Wagstaff teleport stuff needs it..) but since you can have both rose glasses and founders glasses if you choose the shadow side you’ll have scrap and no use for it (beyond crafting a Winbot)

I actually LOVE having an abundance of scrap and doodads. Winona needs a lot of enlightened shards when you're setting up long term bases, and having an easy way to get scrap helps with spawning Celestial Champion a lot of times. We also need a lot of doodads to some of her crafts so getting them free it's really really good because she already eats up a lot of rocks when crafting catapults, so yeah I like not having to waste rocks with doodads lol

[FluffyBun]

12 minutes ago, Zima Blue said:

I know lol It's just a personal issue, I don't really like leaving stuff on the ground it feels like I'm making the base dirty lmao I know it's silly, just a me problem  

Leave it in a backpack on the ground

11 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Play on a “Lights Out” world then come back and tell me how useless Winona’s Spotlights are.

Light's Out meta is just a bunch of lightbugs permanently in your inventory and 3 circling you. It costs absolutely nothing and can be done with any character with just 1 bug net.

 

[loopuleasa]

This is false

She is a great char to play now

[Maxil20]

I can’t believe people are saying Winona is somehow “bad” to use when she’s like, one of the best earlygame/lategame characters thanks to her skilltree now. Take shadow alignment for most of earlygame and then swap to lunar lategame and she will very easily dominate. Shadow strike in particular is really good for portability as you pretty much only need 1 catapult + horror gen to get the full effect of the thorns.

The spotlight is also something that is a genuine shock to see people not like. Yeah, its a lantern/campfire, but also one thats ridiculously fuel efficient with gen perks. You can make one spotlight last on a single normal gen with maxed perks, constantly, for 60 days. Unless you somehow are able to make your campfire/firepit/lantern last almost a year I find it extremely hard how this isn’t an extremely powerful alternative, especially compared to what it once was. Heck, it even automatically turns off the heating perk in summer for your convenience! 

It sounds like you are unhappy that you didn’t get the skilltree you wanted, and that’s fine. It’s just assuming that Winona didn’t managed to get an extremely powerful tree on her own merits with plenty of strong perks is wrong. She’s gotten plenty of perks/buffs to make her kit way more powerful as someone who can engineer items for a variety of purposes then just someone you swap to for farms and nothing else. 

[kroban]

 

11 hours ago, Nnumber3 said:

Winona skill tree aimed to make Winona better, which is technically does, but she is still really bad compared to others

Nah bro Idk what character you were playing but it clearly wasnt Winona lmao.

I always used her as a switch character, by chance I was maining her for the past 2 months before the update got announced. After this skill tree update I have been playing with Winona 90% of the time. And man, she's such a good character right now, I would even go as far as to say that shes probably WAY too good. But she definitely became a top tier character now

 

- Charlie aligment gives you free revives and a TP without range on wormholes EVERY 4 MINUTES. This is crazy for early game lol.

- Wagstaff Calibrated Perceiver (the walkie tookie) is amazing, you can learn any **** in the game with it, be it boss drops, or even things like Pinchin Winchin.

- The ability to dismantle sets makes you save A LOT of resources, specially on the catapults which you think are "expensive".

- Spotlights are now a solid way to have a light source, be it for bases, in ocean, or when fighting bosses, and the hotlight perk is ******* amazing for winter and the early spring. I have been spamming those everywhere, it barely wastes any fuel, a nitre generator with 1 of those last for like an entire year.

- The "target" perk has some interesting uses, just 1 example that I think its op, you can go ocean with 1 catapult and kill FISH SCHOOLS by targetting them, which lets her get easy fish drops.

- WINBOTS ARE THE BEST ******* THING IN THE ENTIRE GAME THANKS KLEI. They are cheap as **** to get (literally free considering you get all from basic caches), and I have been using those for crops, stone fruit farming, marbles, forest chopping / mining, and even in farms like Vargs and spiders. And THEY ARE THE BEST. Like seriously, thanks Klei lmao.  

- Free doodads and scraps (and its an insane amount) from caches. This may sound lame but its technically free scrap walls, easiest farm for CC fights, and you could even get WOBOT and spam repair kits or save those for Warbis set.

- She gets crazy with the Wagstaff tree in late game, teleport stations are spammable as hell, literally Wanda 2.0 , barely wastes fuel and the Portasol recharges quickly. And catapults brightshade attack is amazing for farming forest, marble, etc.

 

 

 

[Frosty_Mentos]

I simply fuel them horror fuel and I've got decent enough damage to deal with much of any kind of dumb enemies that I have to.

The double crafting speed is useful af, her catapult strength is all about mechanical knowledge to be used in powerful bursts, her "alignment" perks improve her general utility greatly...

I don't know, I have no complaints about her, she definitely isn't the worst character that's an extreme exaggeration. She feels a lot more cost efficient when it comes to moving catapults. Everything on her is expensive but the return is that they are permanent setups if properly maintained. Good for farming creatures.

[Juanasdf]

My only problem with winona right now is that i feel like she could use a toolbox that only accepts machinery and fuels for better inventory management, even making it a 3 tier perk would be fine (6-9-12 slots).
The machinery wouldn't stack, but the fuels would (and should be limited to only one per inventory, like lucy)

Other than that, she seems to be in a good spot, specially considering she's a solid starting character for new players, with the ability to gather nightmare fuel without being insane and free revives every 4 minutes, or copying boss recipes from other characters. And also specially because she's the only character that doesn't need to unlock her affinity by killing endgame bosses.

[Mysterious box]

23 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

My only problem with winona right now is that i feel like she could use a toolbox that only accepts machinery and fuels for better inventory management, even making it a 3 tier perk would be fine (6-9-12 slots).
The machinery wouldn't stack, but the fuels would (and should be limited to only one per inventory, like lucy)

Other than that, she seems to be in a good spot, specially considering she's a solid starting character for new players, with the ability to gather nightmare fuel without being insane and free revives every 4 minutes, or copying boss recipes from other characters. And also specially because she's the only character that doesn't need to unlock her affinity by killing endgame bosses.

Personally I thought so at first too but she melts bee queen so she can simply use bundles for storage it's not like she needs all her tools at all times anyway.

[Nnumber3]

So I am back from my well-deserved nap and read all the responses.

Perhaps I made a little bit of a bad take, eh?

perhaps I didn't play Winona enough, as I only killed a few bosses on public servers with her.

TLDR- Winona is no longer the "worst character" she is good but not the best. Skill tree is good, I just didn't understand all of the character.

7 hours ago, Frashaw27 said:

I would argue any downside could counted as an annoyance if you worded it wisely enough. While a bit lazy, I do think that it helps establish Winona's character a bit more as she needs lighter and more constant meals to not waste food and not suffer her consequence. It's subtle, but I think it adds just a touch of depth to her day to day life.

Point taken

Btw here is the skill tree I used

used while writing the Og post 

Section 1: Spotlights are good?

The most heard critique is that spotlights were actually good. Honesty, I underestimated their battery life, although It still stands that i would prefer a lantern, I can see how others like the spotlight. I didn't use the warming bulb trait, so I guess I just saw it and went "that looks really garbage" and never got any experience in game with the warming bulb.

So, I'm taking your word here that the spotlights give of a good amount of heat and are worth getting.

Section 2: Catapults

I heard that the catapults are still good against bosses, which they still are, I said they are still good against bosses in the og post. I even stated they still excel in farms. when i said they suck as a weapon, I was more of meaning that in day-to-day use, which the new skill tree encouraged, they weren't very reliable

7 hours ago, Frashaw27 said:

When the hell was this ever said? Catapults have been the backbone of farms involving killing things for a while now, ranging from a lot of hound murder to farming Bee Queen. The most you got on this is that they do kind of suck if your using them to fight one specific mob like a spider warrior or a rook that move around a lot thus screwing with their accuracy. Point stands is that for a majority of their use cases prior to the skill tree, the Catapults were not garbage if you used them in the way they were meant to be used, planned out with purpose around an area to maximize their usage as area support.

One enemy? Yeah, but they start to truly shine when fighting multiple enemies, what the AoE structure was made to do. It isn't something you just whip out and expect to do clean up for you, you use it to help assist you by planning before hand where they'll be the most effective and executing a plan to make them work with that strategy. Your gonna struggle to find work for the things if you don't have a plan with them in mind, which is why I like the new Winona's gameplay, you have to plan ahead and execute, makes my brain meat feel challenged and proud when I pull it off right.

 

 

 

Perhaps I was using the catapults wrong the whole time?  like treating them like  a turret then well, a catapult.  Like I do plan ahead and place down my catapults when I want to take out spiders and such. maybe I'm just spoiled with the capabilities of willow, Wendy, and maxwell with aoe, and tried to carry over that same play style I use with, for example, Wendy, into Winona.

I just don't think Winona's play style appeals to me so I think that influences a lot of my garbage opinions on her.

Some people as said that catapults are not the expensive, point taken. I guess I was in a stricter server and I was anxious on how i wasn't contributing enough.

I suppose I should just play her more.

Thats were most of my hatred for the skill tree comes from in retrospect: her being outclassed still. Like I feel willow can basically do everything she can offensively better.

Maxwell as well and outcompetes her in resource collecting and damage.

My expectation was that the skill tree would make her rival the greats and not just make her *gasp BALENCED

So yeah, she is a good character but still is like high B- Low A and not as weak as i thought she was. 

Thanks for the reality check, guys.

 

[Intrepidpioneer]

I am a winona main since she dropped. Here are my thoughts.

Her new skills are immensely positive additions. Anything you figure is a downside just comes down to usage.

Spotlights are not good? In the past they were not good because they run 24/7 wasting energy. Now? Holy **** its great. They only turn on when you need them and in winter they are on 24/7 keeping you warm ONLY when you are in range. So only when you need it.

Are they better than campfires? They only downside is you cannot cook on it or warm thermals to keep moving. But the dragonfly forge does both of those very well and for free. Also no one says you cannot have both a campfire pit and spotlight in your camp. Imagine its dark and your torch runs out right as you get to your base so you cannot add fuel to the pit, voila! the spotlight turns on when you reach in range and basically saves you if you're not Winona.

Did you know you can turn off the spotlight? just dismantle it while the campfire is going at the same time.

Catapult price never changed, its only gotten better. The only inconvenience is that they do not stack when you dismantle them so you must bundle them to move them around by the load, but that's more convenient than pre-update. And arming the catapults every time there is danger can get you killed in an emergency as the remote keeps you in place for a second when you arm and target, but with proper foresight this can be overcome.

Charlie's second life flower is an absolute game changer, it works on wilderness worlds and if you are diligent at quickly replacing them, it effectively makes Winona immortal. Charlie immunity is the same perk on the Brightshade armor helm. I think it's more a QOL than a perk imo. Walking around in the darkness is dangerous, but if you get unlucky it could be the difference between a death or not. Rerouting wormholes also feels like a QOL than a perk, I've only used it once because it was convenient at the time, but I just don't use wormholes in general that much. The vine bridges are super situational and I've yet to feel the need since I'm quick to build dock bridges everywhere when I get the items.

The energy sources I always thought were troublesome, I didn't like farming for nitre because of how fast it got spent, so I always used gemerators when I use catapults, but with her Generator saver tree nitre is back on the menu, added with nightmare fuel? Have you tried using it yet? it lasts really long, especially if it's just a spotlight attached. Pure horror lasts even longer and adds planar damage to the attacks along with damage buff. With the rose coloured glasses, you can farm pure horror passively by examining weird things in caves, I saw a list somewhere as what could be examined, worth checking.

But the cream of the crop for energy is the lunar shard, infinite power. Nothing can beat that. Gems grow on trees now if you get the surprising seed, I still need to test using brilliance as fuel, but I'm sure its good too. The calibrated perceiver is a game changer too. Don't feel like fighting BQ for her bundle wrap blueprint? just scan it. I'm not sure if you can scan structures too, but because there's one blueprint for sawhorse in the game, you can always scan it to learn it. Teleportation would be just meh if it was only you, but you can transport items too making it better than beefalo carrying or Wanda's rift watch because if you use lunar shards, it's free.

The planar strikes I haven't tested but I'm sure they're worth it if you want to fight a boss with the catapults, otherwise just the planar boost as been enough for me the ONLY real problem I have with Winona is that they did NOTHING with the trusty tape. Not as a small health kit for WX, can't fix tools, can't fix armor, can repair burn stuff just missed opportunity there. 

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Section 1: Spotlights are good?

The most heard critique is that spotlights were actually good. Honesty, I underestimated their battery life, although It still stands that i would prefer a lantern, I can see how others like the spotlight. I didn't use the warming bulb trait, so I guess I just saw it and went "that looks really garbage" and never got any experience in game with the warming bulb.

So, I'm taking your word here that the spotlights give of a good amount of heat and are worth getting.

I mean in base it's a very early game or infinite light source late game that covers a very large area of your base even without the heat upgrade.

This also carries over to fights as it's a hands free light and heat source with large reach.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Section 2: Catapults

I heard that the catapults are still good against bosses, which they still are, I said they are still good against bosses in the og post. I even stated they still excel in farms. when i said they suck as a weapon, I was more of meaning that in day-to-day use, which the new skill tree encouraged, they weren't very reliable

I haven't really had issues on this front did you try setting it to barrage mode?

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

Perhaps I was using the catapults wrong the whole time?  like treating them like  a turret then well, a catapult.  Like I do plan ahead and place down my catapults when I want to take out spiders and such. maybe I'm just spoiled with the capabilities of willow, Wendy, and maxwell with aoe, and tried to carry over that same play style I use with, for example, Wendy, into Winona.

I just don't think Winona's play style appeals to me so I think that influences a lot of my garbage opinions on her.

Some people as said that catapults are not the expensive, point taken. I guess I was in a stricter server and I was anxious on how i wasn't contributing enough.

I suppose I should just play her more.

Thats were most of my hatred for the skill tree comes from in retrospect: her being outclassed still. Like I feel willow can basically do everything she can offensively better.

Maxwell as well and outcompetes her in resource collecting and damage.

My expectation was that the skill tree would make her rival the greats and not just make her *gasp BALENCED

So yeah, she is a good character but still is like high B- Low A and not as weak as i thought she was. 

Thanks for the reality check, guys.

I mean you can use them as a turret if you want just when you fight something you would just need to make walls using scrap for example.

Her playstyle does give off the same overpowering feel but you have to consider your setup more before you act to reach that point her playstyle is more so a tower defense style rather than a set things down and bash their faces in style.