Comprehensive Feedback On Wendy's Skill Tree

[WenericMember]

Highlighted are every skill I believe needs some degree of changes on Wendys Skill tree. From most To Least Important:

• Haunting Presence (New Skill) - Ability to Allow Wendy/Abigail to apply the haunt effects on the world. Could be a lock skill, but a really important change to dramatically increase Wendy's utility.
• Strong Brew III (Replacement Skill) - Allows Abigail to Apply two potions at once/healing potions don't take up Abigail's potion slot. Currently the strong brew skills are fairly useless, as the only potions they apply to last more than long enough as is. Additionally, Abigail's alignment potions have their usability hurt by overriding the usually necessary healing potions.
• (Edit) Shadow Burst (Modified Skill) - while in terms of flavour & design this skill is cool, it is woefully undertuned as is. Apparently it only deals 80 damage? which is equivilant to 4 of Abi's attacks.
• Dark Petals II (Modified Skill) - Changes the effect of the flower shroud to provide Abigail with protection instead of Wendy. In almost all combats that Abigail doesn't dominate, Abigail will almost certainly die before Wendy, so having Abigail take additional damage isn't that helpful. While the new Abigail skills might help, It'd smooth out Wendy's learning curve more to do the reverse of its current effect.
  (Edit) This skills just plain weird and I don't know what to think about it. I think it'd ultimately be healthier if it  got reworked, but its tough to say.
• Dark Petals I (Modified Skill) - Allow Wendy to craft Mourning Glory using dark petals. Regular Petals are easy enough to come by, but mourning Glory's can be if you don't invest in the second and third tier of Gravestones.
• (Edit) Potion Belt (New Skill) - Same deal with every other survivor's storage skill. With the alignment Potions, Wendy has 7 different potions, enough that a storage method would be nice.
• Spirited Spectre (New Skill) - Increases Abigail's light radius. Abigail already gives off enough light to fend off Charlie, but it would be nice if the radius was increased to the point you didn't have to hug Abigail at all times.
• Pipspook Quest II (Replacement Skill) - The first two tiers of Pipspook quest already significantly improve the experience, but making the quest longer is means that once again more time must be committed to Pipspooking. Instead, I'd pull the tier 3 skill forward as the new tier 2 skill, and make the new tier 3 skill add a way to summon Pipspooks on demand using dark petals.
• Team Spirit I (QOL) - The current animation for Abigail's dodge is kinda hard to read. Please modify it so Abigail either becomes transulcent, or otherwise visually different from her base form.
• Gravestones By Wendy (QOL) - The requirement of adding the gravestones to skeletons is fine, but I'd prefer it if there was an infinite source that didn't involve dying. Maybe something like using a rare blueprint?
• Adding Skill Categories (QOL) - The skills are currently sorted kinda randomly, which is weird because half of them are related to Graves/Dark Petals, while half is related to Abigail.
• Lunar/Shadow Potions (QOL) - someone pointed out that the effects synergised better with the opposite alignment, and they're kinda right.

[Evelo]

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Strong Brew III (Replacement Skill) - Allows Abigail to Apply two potions at once/healing potions don't take up Abigail's potion slot. Currently the strong brew skills are fairly useless, as the only potions they apply to last more than long enough as is. Additionally, Abigail's alignment potions have their usability hurt by overriding the usually necessary healing potions.

I think this shouldn't be the case because it causes players to have to pick it if they want to feel useful, eliminating choice.

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Dark Petals II (Modified Skill) - Changes the effect of the flower shroud to provide Abigail with protection instead of Wendy. In almost all combats that Abigail doesn't dominate, Abigail will almost certainly die before Wendy, so having Abigail take additional damage isn't that helpful. While the new Abigail skills might help, It'd smooth out Wendy's learning curve more to do the reverse of its current effect.

I understand the desire for Abigail to be powerful and tanky, but I feel that would encroach on Bernie's roll. Abigail is damage and a damage boost for Wendy, while Bernie is a protector. Abigail is Wendy's protector but more in the offensive sense than the defensive sense. So it is up to the player to command Abigail to avoid damage rather than just give her damage reduction. But that's just my opinion.

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Spirited Spectre (New Skill) - Increases Abigail's light radius. Abigail already gives off enough light to fend off Charlie, but it would be nice if the radius was increased to the point you didn't have to hug Abigail at all times.

This is a cute and minor bonus skill. Something I consider a "good skill" in a skill tree, not in terms of performance, but in terms of balance. I like it a lot.

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

The requirement of adding the gravestones to skeletons is fine, but I'd prefer it if there was an infinite source that didn't involve dying. Maybe something like using a rare blueprint?

I agree with this. If you play say, hardcore for example where the server resets instantly upon death, obtaining additional skeletons is impossible. Even if we just get some way to make skeletons out of boneshards that would be sufficient. In Terraria for example, on Hardcore when NPCs die they drop tombstones so the player can build a graveyard since the player is unable to die on Hardcore. This was an intentional work around to not alienate certain content from the Hardcore players.

 

While I disagree with some points, I do appreciate this post. I fought hard for Wormwood's skillset to be better (I still dislike a lot of it but it is much better than v1) so I support anyone who does the same for their favorite characters.

[WenericMember]

7 minutes ago, Evelo said:

I think this shouldn't be the case because it causes players to have to pick it if they want to feel useful, eliminating choice.

I understand the desire for Abigail to be powerful and tanky, but I feel that would encroach on Bernie's roll. Abigail is damage and a damage boost for Wendy, while Bernie is a protector. Abigail is Wendy's protector but more in the offensive sense than the defensive sense. So it is up to the player to command Abigail to avoid damage rather than just give her damage reduction. But that's just my opinion.

While I disagree with some points, I do appreciate this post. I fought hard for Wormwood's skillset to be better (I still dislike a lot of it but it is much better than v1) so I support anyone who does the same for their favorite characters.

Thank you for the support :>

I have two minds about the potion skills, on one hand, I agree Wendy's in a fine balance state and don't want to overbuff her, her current potion selection is basically "Healing Potions + Occasional Nightshade Nostrum" Adding a second potion doesn't eliminate choice in this case, but moves the choice from Insight tree to potion selection.

In terms of the Flower Shroud, I get not wanting to make Abbi too tanky, but my main issue other than versatility with Wendy RN is how awkward her learning curve is. Ideally, I agree that's how you should play with Abigail, but it's too much of a jump in difficulty. Giving Abi tankiness at the cost of draining Wendy's defenses (between loss of body slot and potentially redirecting damage) is a compromise to smooth out that learning curve imo.

[Tranoze]

38 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

 

• Dark Petals II (Modified Skill) - Changes the effect of the flower shroud to provide Abigail with protection instead of Wendy. In almost all combats that Abigail doesn't dominate, Abigail will almost certainly die before Wendy, so having Abigail take additional damage isn't that helpful. While the new Abigail skills might help, It'd smooth out Wendy's learning curve more to do the reverse of its current effect.

Dark pentals II is a really good skill. This armor also block damage from eating damage food, so i think it transfer all type of damage to abigail. This is really good when combine of potions, which heal abi for a lots, and all damage convert to abi.

[Evelo]

7 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Thank you for the support :>

Thanks for the explanation. I can understand the desire then. Not something I want, but hey I only play Wendy occasionally, I just want what's best for everyone.

[Siren11]

I was honestly pretty disappointed by Wendy’s skill tree, but I think this proves that the bones are there. I especially like Haunting Presence and the changes to Strong Brew III and Dark Petals II. I’d love to be able to actually use more than just healing potions, but it’s generally not realistic when Abigail takes so much damage. I’m decent at positioning myself correctly, but the friend I play with doesn’t really take that into account no matter how much I mention it (which means Abigail sometimes gets caught up in hits meant for them). It would be really nice if we had more options for keeping Abigail around longer AND adding a bit more variety with potion combos.

Also, any utility perks are greatly appreciated, since that is an area where Wendy feels a bit lacking. 

[WenericMember]

4 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

Dark pentals II is a really good skill. This armor also block damage from eating damage food, so i think it transfer all type of damage to abigail. This is really good when combine of potions, which heal abi for a lots, and all damage convert to abi.

Wendy's skill tree has got to have had the worse set of descriptions of any tree. Firstly there's grave decoration not specifying that it produces evil flowers, which is like 80% of the value, but it also described Abbi's damage absorbtion as "wounds will be transferred until she's unsummoned" which to me reads as "Abbi will 'borrow' damage until unsummoned, at which point Wendy takes the damage. If that's not the case, and it factors in armour, it's proabbly got a fair amount of value, synergizing with the shadow potions extended hex duration to hit and run.

[Sustenance]

5 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

Dark pentals II is a really good skill. This armor also block damage from eating damage food, so i think it transfer all type of damage to abigail. This is really good when combine of potions, which heal abi for a lots, and all damage convert to abi.

The flower armor is kinda crazy, it redirects all dmg to abby (including indirect like over heating). All healing wendy would receive is also given to abby instead (such as healing foods and potentially tox souls but i havent checked that one)

Id argue that the armor actually helps abigails survivability in that sense since you can have a healing potion on her and be chugging pierogis or dragon pies making her very hard to kill.

Additionally all the dmg abby receives from the cloak is post mitigation player damage. For instance a rook does more damage to a npc than a player which is then further reduced by armor. so with her base 600 hp she eats even hits from bosses like dfly easily.

there might even be a strat where you intentionally target her away using the "go to attack" command against aoe bosses (i havent tried yet) which would eliminate her only weakness and make wendy insanely tanky

[WenericMember]

2 minutes ago, Siren11 said:

I was honestly pretty disappointed by Wendy’s skill tree, but I think this proves that the bones are there. I especially like Haunting Presence and the changes to Strong Brew III and Dark Petals II. I’d love to be able to actually use more than just healing potions, but it’s generally not realistic when Abigail takes so much damage. I’m decent at positioning myself correctly, but the friend I play with doesn’t really take that into account no matter how much I mention it (which means Abigail sometimes gets caught up in hits meant for them). It would be really nice if we had more options for keeping Abigail around longer AND adding a bit more variety with potion combos.

Also, any utility perks are greatly appreciated, since that is an area where Wendy feels a bit lacking. 

Yeah, I agree. It's ironically the opposite of Wolfgang's tree, which was fine balancewise but had a lot of lame perks.

Wendy's perks are generally pretty interesting (except for the potion extensions), but a significant portion of them are significantly undertuned.

[Evelo]

1 minute ago, Sustenance said:

All healing wendy would receive is also given to abby instead (such as healing foods and potentially tox souls but i havent checked that one)

I did not know that. Holy cow that is insanely powerful. Grab a bucket of Wobster Bisque and go to town!

[WenericMember]

6 minutes ago, Sustenance said:

The flower armor is kinda crazy, it redirects all dmg to abby (including indirect like over heating). All healing wendy would receive is also given to abby instead (such as healing foods and potentially tox souls but i havent checked that one)

Id argue that the armor actually helps abigails survivability in that sense since you can have a healing potion on her and be chugging pierogis or dragon pies making her very hard to kill.

Additionally all the dmg abby receives from the cloak is post mitigation player damage. For instance a rook does more damage to a npc than a player which is then further reduced by armor. so with her base 600 hp she eats even hits from bosses like dfly easily.

there might even be a strat where you intentionally target her away using the "go to attack" command against aoe bosses (i havent tried yet) which would eliminate her only weakness and make wendy insanely tanky

Ok, WOW, plus it uses freshness not durability, so you don't have to worry about it breaking mid combat. That's actually crazy and might be one of the single strongest skills from any skill tree.  Makes sense it requires so many evil flowers.

[Siren11]

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Yeah, I agree. It's ironically the opposite of Wolfgang's tree, which was fine balancewise but had a lot of lame perks.

Wendy's perks are generally pretty interesting (except for the potion extensions), but a significant portion of them are significantly undertuned.

Exactly! I really like the vibe of Wendy’s skill tree and while her base kit is decently strong, the other skill tree characters kinda blow her out of the water. I’m more active on other sites, and it seems like the general consensus is that Wendy’s skill tree has been the weakest one yet and there’s no reason to ever play her again when Willow exists. Which just makes me really sad bc she’s my favorite and I want people to enjoy playing her.

21 minutes ago, Sustenance said:

The flower armor is kinda crazy, it redirects all dmg to abby (including indirect like over heating). All healing wendy would receive is also given to abby instead (such as healing foods and potentially tox souls but i havent checked that one)

Id argue that the armor actually helps abigails survivability in that sense since you can have a healing potion on her and be chugging pierogis or dragon pies making her very hard to kill.

Additionally all the dmg abby receives from the cloak is post mitigation player damage. For instance a rook does more damage to a npc than a player which is then further reduced by armor. so with her base 600 hp she eats even hits from bosses like dfly easily.

there might even be a strat where you intentionally target her away using the "go to attack" command against aoe bosses (i havent tried yet) which would eliminate her only weakness and make wendy insanely tanky

Woah, really? I could see myself using this skill in certain scenarios. But if Abigail is still taking mob damage when she gets hit (as opposed to when she takes the hit for Wendy), then it might not be as useful since it’s pretty easy to avoid damage as Wendy anyways. It’s harder to prevent Abigail from taking damage, though being able to heal her with food will help a lot. And potential options for tanking as Wendy will definitely be fun for some players!

I definitely did dismiss this skill way too quickly though.

[Radicaljoe]

Flower Frock definitely has some hidden power that's gonna make some wacky gameplay strats.

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Siren11 said:

Exactly! I really like the vibe of Wendy’s skill tree and while her base kit is decently strong, the other skill tree characters kinda blow her out of the water. I’m more active on other sites, and it seems like the general consensus is that Wendy’s skill tree has been the weakest one yet and there’s no reason to ever play her again when Willow exists. Which just makes me really sad bc she’s my favorite and I want people to enjoy playing her.

Woah, really? I could see myself using this skill in certain scenarios. But if Abigail is still taking mob damage when she gets hit (as opposed to when she takes the hit for Wendy), then it might not be as useful since it’s pretty easy to avoid damage as Wendy anyways. It’s harder to prevent Abigail from taking damage, though being able to heal her with food will help a lot. And potential options for tanking as Wendy will definitely be fun for some players!

I definitely did dismiss this skill way too quickly though.

I think that's a slight overstatement. I think Willow in her current form is better, but if Wendy gets haunt effects they'll come out roughly even, as while Willow has raw stats, Wendy has convenience and a lot more control over Abigail.

Also, Wendy is still the #1 most used character in the game, even before the skill trees, so people will still enjoy her no matter the outcome.

Abigail does take normal damage, but now she has a dodge command making her temporarily invulnerable and a potion to extend hex.

[Siren11]

13 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I think that's a slight overstatement. I think Willow in her current form is better, but if Wendy gets haunt effects they'll come out roughly even, as while Willow has raw stats, Wendy has convenience and a lot more control over Abigail.

Also, Wendy is still the #1 most used character in the game, even before the skill trees, so people will still enjoy her no matter the outcome.

I strongly prefer Wendy over Willow, regardless of skill trees, so I would also say that’s an overstatement. But I’m still seeing a lot of disappointment and other… strong feelings regarding her skill tree. Because she is so popular, I think it’s important that Klei does her justice.

13 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Abigail does take normal damage, but now she has a dodge command making her temporarily invulnerable and a potion to extend hex.

Yeah, I was pretty sure she did. I just had to go back and make sure. Is the dodge her escape command? I didn’t have much time to check things out. And I don’t have affinities unlocked, which is likely true for a lot of other Wendy players as well, so I won’t get any help from those.

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Siren11 said:

I strongly prefer Wendy over Willow, regardless of skill trees, so I would also say that’s an overstatement. But I’m still seeing a lot of disappointment and other… strong feelings regarding her skill tree. Because she is so popular, I think it’s important that Klei does her justice.

Yeah, I was pretty sure she did. I just had to go back and make sure. Is the dodge her escape command? I didn’t have much time to check things out. And I don’t have affinities unlocked, which is likely true for a lot of other Wendy players as well, so I won’t get any help from those.

Yes about the dodge commands. The affinity isn't required, it just makes applying hex easier.

[Siren11]

8 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Yes about the dodge commands. The affinity isn't required, it just makes applying hex easier.

Hmm, interesting. Hopefully Klei keeps the shroud then. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, but I’m already making plans for my next duo world. Wendy deserves some interesting strategies!

I think placement will still be pretty important, even though there are more options to help out now, so I guess it’s time to really start stressing that to my friend. And to be fair, we might have beaten the final bosses by now if we didn’t keep getting in each other’s way…

[Mike23Ua]

I can’t play in Betas, but does Wendy’s skill tree have any skill to command Abigail to “Haunt” things in the game world? 

Klei seems to be for whatever reason dismissing the potential behind giving Wendy this skill, perhaps for… Trolling purposes in a Multiplayer game?

Being able to haunt Pigmen to force them to turn into Werepigs (a Werepig when killed guarantees you get both meat and Pigskin when it’s killed)

OR being able to flip the elemental status of an Ice or Fire hound to its opposite version would allow for easier farming of pigskins, meat & Blue or Red Gems.

Its not always about “deal insane damage and Idle all Bosses whilst standing still”

The only other character who being able to Force Mutations of Pigmen into Werepig (aside from Wicker & Max Moon Book) would’ve hilariously been Wilson with some mad scientist chemical beaker he could’ve given them to drink Jykel/Hyde style.

But even still… I’d expect the one character who has a permanent 24/7 ghostly follower to be able to perform all the actions that a dead player controlled “ghost” can, without having to Die or have others Die to do so.

 

[WenericMember]

10 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I can’t play in Betas, but does Wendy’s skill tree have any skill to command Abigail to “Haunt” things in the game world? 

Klei seems to be for whatever reason dismissing the potential behind giving Wendy this skill, perhaps for… Trolling purposes in a Multiplayer game?

Being able to haunt Pigmen to force them to turn into Werepigs (a Werepig when killed guarantees you get both meat and Pigskin when it’s killed)

OR being able to flip the elemental status of an Ice or Fire hound to its opposite version would allow for easier farming of pigskins, meat & Blue or Red Gems.

Its not always about “deal insane damage and Idle all Bosses whilst standing still”

The only other character who being able to Force Mutations of Pigmen into Werepig (aside from Wicker & Max Moon Book) would’ve hilariously been Wilson with some mad scientist chemical beaker he could’ve given them to drink Jykel/Hyde style.

But even still… I’d expect the one character who has a permanent 24/7 ghostly follower to be able to perform all the actions that a dead player controlled “ghost” can, without having to Die or have others Die to do so.

 

No, currently no haunt feature but a lot of people are asking for that, so I have hope it gets added though.

As funny as the flower shroud currently is, I wouldn't mind it getting nerfed for an actual Haunt skill.

[Tranoze]

4 hours ago, WenericMember said:

As funny as the flower shroud currently is

It is strong, but at a lot of cost, she need to build graves farm for constant amount of evil flower, which cost a lot of stones and skeletons.
She need constant supply of potions, if she wanna use abi as main source of tank. I rarely, probably one in every 100 games, i ever consider going getting potions as wendy as potions are not worth it. Flower armor will kinda be a get out of jail free card for wendy, for really really dire situation, like no light and abi can tank lots of charlie's hit, but as main way of combat, i dont think so. Potions are too expensive to farm constantly.
I feel like wendy will be a "character swap" character, where if you want to play her skill tree to the max, you have to level up mourning glory farm skill, farm sh|t tons of them, then swap char, clear skill tree, and enjoy all benefit of potions.

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

It is strong, but at a lot of cost, she need to build graves farm for constant amount of evil flower, which cost a lot of stones and skeletons.
She need constant supply of potions, if she wanna use abi as main source of tank. I rarely, probably one in every 100 games, i ever consider going getting potions as wendy as potions are not worth it. Flower armor will kinda be a get out of jail free card for wendy, for really really dire situation, like no light and abi can tank lots of charlie's hit, but as main way of combat, i dont think so. Potions are too expensive to farm constantly.
I feel like wendy will be a "character swap" character, where if you want to play her skill tree to the max, you have to level up mourning glory farm skill, farm sh|t tons of them, then swap char, clear skill tree, and enjoy all benefit of potions.

I don't think that's the usual definition of a swap character, though I guess it technically fits. Swap characters usually refer to a character whose perks are global. Wendy is the only character to use her perks really, so she doesn't fit the conventional definition.

She can also just move graves from wherever to get 10+ to start with.

I think potions will be fine if they buff purification for Dark Petals -> Mourning Glories, and make the Potion skills actually meaningful.

[Tranoze]

7 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

She can also just move graves from wherever to get 10+ to start with.

Yep, so she gonna move all graves to where she wanted. Then swap to the "COOLER WENDY" that cant move graves, as her skill point are more important else where.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Tranoze said:

Yep, so she gonna move all graves to where she wanted. Then swap to the "COOLER WENDY" that cant move graves, as her skill point are more important else where.

Barely rofl. she has a total of 21 skills usable at a time. As elixir skills have literally no use, Wendy will just get better pipspooks. There is no alternative.

[Tranoze]

9 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Wendy will just get better pipspooks. 

After she farm a chest of 4096 mourning glory, pipspooks are no longer needed.

[WenericMember]

4 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

After she farm a chest of 4096 mourning glory, pipspooks are no longer needed.

I mean yeah that's my point.

• 2 skills for Dark Petals
• 3 skills for sisturn
• 3 skills for abi abilities
• 3 skills for alignment
• 1 skill for vengeful spirit

That leaves 3 insight left. Your wonderful choices to spend it on?

• Increased potion duration (useless, a day is more than long enough)
• Grave moving
• Pipspook payout

To be clear, there are no other options in what you can spend it on.

That's one of the issues with a tree overall, there really isn't that much variety.