I don't understand the complaints about Walter

[Theukon-dos]

Well if this ain't one of the more civil threads I've seen on these forums I don't know what is.

 

For the sake of keeping all our heads screwed on tight- well from keeping them from getting any looser atleast- I'll just ignore everything that's been said here and try to list some reasons off myself.

 

1. The Slingshot has bad DPS and is super expensive to use.

The Slingshot's best rounds cap off at the same damage as the tentacle spike, and a low attack rate means that the damage is more comparable to a spear. While I'd happily be the first person to complain about the game's continued spiral towards being Terraria-lite, that doesn't change the fact that most enemy's HP bars where massively inflated to account for Multiplayer. I hate to admit it, but there is a reason that characters with more damage became so prominent. So Walter having less damage is really damning.

However, it's not nearly damning as how bloody expensive it is to use the slingshot.

I mentioned that the higher-tier rounds have comparable DPS to the spear. But you only craft 10 rounds at time per resource. While a Spear has 150 durability. It costs 10 marble to deal the same total damage as a Spear or Tentacle spike. For reference, that's nearly 2 marble suits worth of materials, Over 2 Marbell's worth of material for Wolfgang players, and enough Marble for Wanda to craft an Alarming clock and 3 Ageless watches. And you're going to go through those marbles quick. Cursed rounds are better in this regard due to only taking Thulecite chunks and Nightmare fuel. But then the problem becomes inventory space, becuase you can only craft those down in the ruins. Even with Woby, you can only carry so many stacks of cursed rounds at a time. And using them means keeping them on you as rounds. You can't keep the raw materials on you and craft them into ammo as needed like with the other types. So not only is fighting with Walter's slingshot slow, it also costs a fortune.

 

 

2. His sanity mechanics are self-defeating.

Now let me make one thing clear. I absolutly love Walter's sanity on paper. Changing how you interact with such a core mechanic is something I definitly appreciate and wish Klei would do more of.

The problem is how those sanity mechanics interact with his kit. On paper, it makes sense. Walter only looses sanity from getting hurt, and his slingshot lets him fight at range, IE safely. The problem is that only loosing sanity from getting hurt means he's also immune to the sanity auras that usually pose a threat to other characters. So while the game tries to encourage you to use the Slingshot, it rewards you for just fighting like everyone else. As long as you're able to avoid most of a boss's attacks, you're going to loose less sanity on average by kiting an enemy than other characters anyways. Especially against bosses with massive insanity auras like Deerclops or Ancient Fuelweaver.

 

On top of that, the sanity you loose when getting hit directly corrolates to the damage you take from that hit. And Don't Starve as a whole heavily relies on damage reduction with high-end armors reducing the damage you take by 95%. This means that if Walter wears this equipment, he's only loosing 7-10 sanity per hit from most of the game's bosses. And that's without wearing the Pinetree Pioneer hat to cut that number in half. This is a very manageable amount and; again; is far less than you'll loose as other characters against high-sanity aura bosses. This means that, despite the fact that the entire point of of Walter's character being how you're not supposed to get hit, he is very much rewarded for tanking as many hits as possible.

 

3. Lots of minor nitpicks.

Nothing in this section is really big enough to warrent their own, so I'll just list them off add nausium.

 

Woby's not great as a mount. Her speed lowers very quickly based on her hunger. And becuase she's a coward, getting hit in a fight while riding her makes it very likely that you'll get hit one or twice more from getting bucked off. Beefalo are generally faster, won't buck you off when hit, and because they absorb all the damage you take when riding them, you may aswell super-glue Walter's ass to an Ornary beefalo's saddle sense it almost lets you completely ignore his downside.

Being better at sleeping makes sense on paper, and is very useful sense it restores both health and sanity at the same time. The problem is that a lot of players just don't like doing it. Because using a portable tent means doing nothing while you wait for your stats to regen. And many players would rather take a proactive approach to managing health and sanity instead of twiddling their thumbs for about a minute.

And finally, Walter has a lot of "flavor" perks. I actually don't mind these as a concept. I have a lot of vices with Wurt, but being able to read Wickerbottom's books in exchange for sanity isn't one of them. But they do make Walter feel more bloated than he needs to be. Like genuinly, what's the point of being allergic to bees other than making him suffer against the one and only bee-based boss in the game?

 

Ultimately, Walter's not a "Bad" character per se. But he is a bit messy in a lot of ways, and he doesn't really do anything unique while also doing it well.

[Bumber64]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

And here is the issue with that Webber comparison once again do you have a spider den and 15 silk on you at all times? Is that even worth it?

Webber needs dens to replace dead minions, so most likely yes. The spiders drop silk, so you don't need to bring that. Are you always carrying a tent roll? Is it worth the cut grass you could be using for something else (e.g., bundling wrap)?

Nurse spiders also restore 8 health to Webber (150 to spiders) when they use their AoE healing web. Each one does this every 8 seconds when in combat, so that's 1HP/nurse/sec for free. This is another reason I don't use den sleeping to begin with, because you want a bunch of these just to heal the other spiders before they can receive a second hit from an enemy. Only reason you wouldn't have these handy is that you don't want your spiders aggroing stuff. Did I mention this is happening in combat? I feel it needed repeating.

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Let's break it down a bit more let's say you are fighting dragonfly she deals 75 damage with a log suit that's 15 damage or 30 sanity damage without the hat. in order to go insane you'd need to get hit 6 times without healing or 12 times with the hat.

First off, DFly doesn't even have an insanity aura, so that's a straight up Walter "L". You get hit once, you're behind literally any other character.

Second, are you implying you get the lost sanity back when you heal? Because you most certainly don't.

It doesn't even matter if you immediately heal, or that the sanity drain caps at -12/min after losing 60 health (i.e., 4 DFly hits). 60-120 sanity is already gone. It's time to eat the sanity food literally nobody else brought to the fight.

Third, the worst sanity aura is -400/min (-6.66/sec). That's AFW, GDW, deerclops, bearger, daywalker, BQ, spider queen, toadstool, and enraged phase 2 Klaus (moot point). The rest are only -100/min (1.66/sec) or less. (It actually scales with distance, but that's a bit complicated.)

If you take 15 damage every 18 seconds (9 seconds with hat) from phase 2 Klaus (even if you immediately heal), you're behind everyone else. If you took any damage from phase 1, you were already behind because it doesn't have an aura. (You can take 60 damage every 18 seconds from enraged phase 2. Good luck!)

I didn't realize how bad this downside actually was until just now.

[flamboyant wolf]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

Ultimately, Walter's not a "Bad" character per se. But he is a bit messy in a lot of ways, and he doesn't really do anything unique while also doing it well.

And that's the thing, he used to do something well! Despite a bunch of people hating on Walter even then("perk soup"), before YotB, using Woby as a mount was a pretty great advantage! Beefalos were so inconvenient and tedious to manage, that using them was barely ever worth the investment, not to mention being unable to take them to caves. Meanwhile Woby offered the player pretty decent speed early on, that stayed relevant throughout the game and didn't have that much competition in convenience(though do keep in mind you had to dismount to pick up/gather items before YotB). So coupled with his unique sanity mechanics and a few tricks with the slingshot(+tent having 2.5 as much durability as a regular one while using less resources), he was a pretty decent pick(and trust me, I played him a lot before YotB update(Yeah, a past Walter main turned into a chronic beefalo tamer, go figure))

[Mysterious box]

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Webber needs dens to replace dead minions, so most likely yes. The spiders drop silk, so you don't need to bring that. Are you always carrying a tent roll? Is it worth the cut grass you could be using for something else (e.g., bundling wrap)?

Nurse spiders also restore 8 health to Webber (150 to spiders) when they use their AoE healing web. Each one does this every 8 seconds when in combat, so that's 1HP/nurse/sec for free. This is another reason I don't use den sleeping to begin with, because you want a bunch of these just to heal the other spiders before they can receive a second hit from an enemy. Only reason you wouldn't have these handy is that you don't want your spiders aggroing stuff. Did I mention this is happening in combat? I feel it needed repeating.

You're not going to have a den on you at all times I know this from experience nor should you. Nurse spiders are definitely really good but they don't do anything about your sanity and sure you could just keep fighting nightmares to stay sane but that time you waste doing that adds up.

As for replenishing spiders that's usually only a consideration for bosses unless you are up against something that can 1 shot them or close to it between nurse heals.

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

First off, DFly doesn't even have an insanity aura, so that's a straight up Walter "L". You get hit once, you're behind literally any other character.

Second, are you implying you get the lost sanity back when you heal? Because you most certainly don't.

It doesn't even matter if you immediately heal, or that the sanity drain caps at -12/min after losing 60 health (i.e., 4 DFly hits). 60-120 sanity is already gone. It's time to eat the sanity food literally nobody else brought to the fight.

Third, the worst sanity aura is -400/min (-6.66/sec). That's AFW, GDW, deerclops, bearger, daywalker, BQ, spider queen, toadstool, and enraged phase 2 Klaus (moot point). The rest are only -100/min (1.66/sec) or less. (It actually scales with distance, but that's a bit complicated.)

If you take 15 damage every 18 seconds (9 seconds with hat) from phase 2 Klaus (even if you immediately heal), you're behind everyone else. If you took any damage from phase 1, you were already behind because it doesn't have an aura. (You can take 60 damage every 18 seconds from enraged phase 2. Good luck!)

I didn't realize how bad this downside actually was until just now.

You get a small amount of sanity back from most healing foods last I checked more often than not and there also exists various foods that restore high amounts of both stats if that's really your problem. But once again this mostly a player skill problem because using this logic means that Wanda is even worse off because you can't rely on food spam to save you and taking hits like this unless isn't driving you insane it's flat out killing you unless you are stacking ageless watches. If you are taking hits every 18 seconds or less even including boss attack cooldowns I've honestly got to ask why you aren't just tanking at that point because that's basically you taking every other possible hit how is that a fault of his design?

The arguement seems to be well what if you are bad at kiting.

Then use the hat and healing foods.

Well that's bad why should I have to use the hat and healing foods?

Well you don't simply practice kiting and maybe back that up with higher damage reduction armors.

On loop.

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, Buhehehehe oink said:

I was losing hope with how hardheaded you are, man, but now you made me feel stupid for having any hope in you in the first place. Blud really be advertising a challenge character with tiny pointless perks and still try to gaslight people into thinking those pointless perks are anywhere near good. Why are there people like this?

Mysterious box has done a great job in explaining why we main Walter and that's not because he's a challenge character but because he provides alot of QOL to experienced players. 

What are the 2 most sought after/highest valued items in DST? Walking cane and krampus sack. People love speed and inventory space in this game, Walter has extra of both which simply makes him awesome regardless of his skill based downside.

Snurtle armour is great btw and is worth farming as Walter if you want to be able to tank because it saves you needing to farm for extra sanity restoration stuff, walter has the speed and inventory to do this faster than most.

1 hour ago, Buhehehehe oink said:

Good luck fighting 6 hounds with a Varglet on top of it. Wendy is the first one to have aoe damage and that is a game changer, because Klei for some reason really likes making players fight hordes of enemies while barely adding any easy aoe damage source. It is completely different from the tiny bits that Walter can provide. And she doesn't get her sanity drained to death after getting hit once like Walter either. 

Walter can rush celestial portal faster than any other character with 65% speed boost and ability to pick up altar statue without being slowed down. He can find archives fast for extra moon rocks and edge out world to find lunar. Switch to wormwood, spam out bramble husks, switch back to Walter. Hounds solved for ingame years, thank me later.

Wendy AoE has always been bad because wormwood exists and can give his AoE to everyone.

Edit: Buhehehehe oink why u delete your posts bro? 

[A4FE]

A million years late to the party, and LORD do I imagine everyone is tired at this point, but neat thread for both learning some valid arguments against Walter, like how he feels like an unfocused bag of quickly outclassed tricks, but also some positives available to him, like how those tricks come together to give him a unique approach towards inventory management and his stats. I think for many, the reasons why you shouldn't pick Walter (or at the very least common reasons people dislike him, the title of the thread) ended up being pretty helpful, informing them on his shortcomings compared to to other survivors, and letting them decide if they value a more "powerful" character most. For others however, where comparisons between characters and optimization is a little less valuable, the information on how Walter can take advantage of his perks, or alter the ways he plays around them was equally insightful. I myself am planning to try and get a long world going with Walter soon (first time), and hearing about what he can do has me pretty excited. I'm absolutely ready to ravage the world with some CARTOONISH inventory space

I'll probably start another Walter-related thread more focused on his strengths, specifically ideas or tips for an island base (pearl, lunar island, monkeys) because AIN'T NO PLAYTHROUGH WITHOUT A GIMMICK, but while I'm here @Catuna_ (sorry to bother you), people have mentioned Walter's slingshot being quite slow, does animation canceling speed it up at all? You seem like you would know. Thanks!

[Catuna_]

1 minute ago, A4FE said:

while I'm here @Catuna_ (sorry to bother you), people have mentioned Walter's slingshot being quite slow, does animation canceling speed it up at all? You seem like you would know. Thanks!

no, it's an unnoticeable difference at best
trying to cancel the animation of the slingshot in any way (INCLUDES SETTING AMMO VIA RIGHT CLICK) will reset your firing animation
if you're gonna restock on ammo do it via quick stack or manually dragging the ammo in for continuous firing

[A4FE]

1 minute ago, Catuna_ said:

no, it's an unnoticeable difference at best
trying to cancel the animation of the slingshot in any way (INCLUDES SETTING AMMO VIA RIGHT CLICK) will reset your firing animation
if you're gonna restock on ammo do it via quick stack or manually dragging the ammo in for continuous firing

Ah, thanks for the reply! Glad to have the Walter expert on quick response 

[aidankocherhans]

16 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

no, it's an unnoticeable difference at best
trying to cancel the animation of the slingshot in any way (INCLUDES SETTING AMMO VIA RIGHT CLICK) will reset your firing animation
if you're gonna restock on ammo do it via quick stack or manually dragging the ammo in for continuous firing

Probably the biggest qol feature he could use is not having to go through the long startup again after moving slightly (or swapping targets, that's pretty annoying)

[Bumber64]

On 10/14/2024 at 4:00 PM, Mysterious box said:

You're not going to have a den on you at all times I know this from experience nor should you. Nurse spiders are definitely really good but they don't do anything about your sanity and sure you could just keep fighting nightmares to stay sane but that time you waste doing that adds up.

If you were relying on den to sleep, you certainly would. You skipped over answering if you carry a tent roll with you at all times, or if it's worth the grass.

Webber can wear clothing to passively recover sanity, because he's not Walter. Standing in an insanity aura while your spiders are around is also optional.

On 10/14/2024 at 4:00 PM, Mysterious box said:

You get a small amount of sanity back from most healing foods last I checked more often than not and there also exists various foods that restore high amounts of both stats if that's really your problem. But once again this mostly a player skill problem because using this logic means that Wanda is even worse off because you can't rely on food spam to save you and taking hits like this unless isn't driving you insane it's flat out killing you unless you are stacking ageless watches. If you are taking hits every 18 seconds or less even including boss attack cooldowns I've honestly got to ask why you aren't just tanking at that point because that's basically you taking every other possible hit how is that a fault of his design?

The arguement seems to be well what if you are bad at kiting.

Then use the hat and healing foods.

Well that's bad why should I have to use the hat and healing foods?

Well you don't simply practice kiting and maybe back that up with higher damage reduction armors.

On loop.

The sanity recovery typically isn't on par with the health recovery. Walter needs it same or double. (If sanity is greater, you're attempting to heal with sanity food, which isn't good.) Dragonpie is useful for its fast eating animation, which is 40 health to 5 sanity. Pierogi and beefy greens are slower, same stats. Non-perishable honey poultice, no sanity. The balanced foods tend to be extra effort to acquire, and demand the hat anyway.

Wanda isn't worse off because she has very high DPS with her pseudo-ranged alarming clock. Why wouldn't you just be playing her if you're so great at avoiding damage? She gets free limited heals and can eat taffy for sanity at no health cost.

X damage every 18 seconds, not hits per 18 seconds. Bosses tend to attack every 4 seconds, I think? (Don't forget any minions.) You have to go longer between hits if you're hit harder.

You also skipped over the part where certain bosses don't even have insanity auras, so Walter is a pure negative on those. DFly, CK, lunar varg/deerclops/bearger, moose/goose, malbatross, antlion, and frostjaw. (Bosses you can just kill before going insane is probably character-dependent.) Also any non-boss damage source that doesn't involve a sanity aura. Edit: Toadstool doesn't have aura except when currently spawning mushroom trees, so that's another one.