Wortox skill tree suggestion thread: How can we fix it?

[ApoIIo]

Here on this thread I encourage all Wortox mains to give their piece about the largely-agreed-to-be-disappointing skill tree. Not to exclusively doompost but also to give suggestions. Here are some of mines:

The skill for increasing soul capacity per two for each full jar is super redundant
its solving a problem that soul jars already solved 20 times better
instead it should just make it so if you are capped and there is a partially/empty jar, the souls go in the jar

Some players complain about being able to hoard soul jars making him feel lame, personally I wouldn't mind being limited to one or two if the rest of the skill tree is fixed but it really hinges on that, rn its one of the two? three? perks that don't make me want to pull my hair out

Naughty and niceness could do more than what they do now, maybe interact with the monster downside in some way. Nice could remove it but cause another downside, naughty could make more mobs even more aggressive but have some sort of inflicting fear? related buff?

I think the lunar affinity is totally lame, instead maybe it could have something to do with krampus sack and elastispacer, maybe a krampus sack upgrade only he can use
That sounds more fitting + Fits the whole hoarder gimmick the knapsack seems to suggest, also has more to do with Wortox

Reaper would feel so much nicer if it was a toggle on-off, it can keep the same soul cost but it would feel much nicer to use, I would also like it to get a wide swing animation of sorts.

Maybe subsequent scythe hits refresh the "echo cooldown" and consume a soul until you soul hop again? Since this'd essentially double or triple its soul cost it's also an excuse to buff the damage.

Soul pierce still feels sort of ass, and decoy could really last a bit longer.

 

[Pokrotecki]

Most of my hours are on Wortox and I've played him since day one and honestly I have mixed feelings about the skill tree, the good side is REALLY GOOD imo (especially in multiplayer) but the naughty side is mostly really bad.

The knabsack is both weak and looks bad, I honestly don't know why they decided to make it a sack on a stick that has such stiff animations for a weapon like that, if they made it a sack that he swung around and it actually had sack-like physics/animations then it would look 10 times better, also the fact that IT'S A KRAMPUS-INSPIRED SACK and has no sack qualities like STORAGE is just stupid to me, it would make a lot more sense if it actually had storage and the damage scaled off of that, if it gave you extra storage instead of making you fill up your inventory then maybe the dark sword levels of damage wouldn't be that terrible.

The soul jars are pretty cool honestly AND it would make sense if the sack worked like what I described earlier and it would have higher damage if you put the jars inside it, but they are fine and a really good naughty counterpart to the hearts.

Imo both the affinities are pretty good, they're nothing special but remember that some characters like Wolfgang literally have just increased damage against certain enemies so I honestly think that Wortox's affinities are pretty cool. People say that the DPS from the reaper is not good enough to justify using that BUT you use soul hops anyway during combat so the fact that you deal double damage for one or two hits after a soul hop is really neat imo, the damage block is also pretty good but i honestly feel that it is better to pick the shadow affinity because soul hopping can save you from taking damage anyway.

The soul decoys are really cool and I think that's the best part of the naughty side currently.

The soul pierce is pretty bad and clunky, they should replace it with some sort of soul projectile that Wortox can throw at enemies, would feel much better than what it does now because there are a ton of better perks to spend your skill points on instead of that.

The pan flute branch is pretty cool, not INSANELY META but it's cool and fun and doesn't suck unlike most of the naughty branch. It would be really cool if they added a way for Wortox to actually play the pan flute but what we have now is also cool.

One last thing is I think that the naughty branch has to be turned into something a bit better than the good branch to be worth the downside it brings, if you're good then you get increased healing and sanity from released souls which is HUGE and the only downside is losing more sanity from eating souls which is not that bad, the naughty branch has the exact same effects but reversed which makes it suck even more.

I hope they really listen to the feedback and rework the naughty side of the tree so it's actually as fun as it could be.

[Echsrick]

i am just goin to copy paste what i said before for more people to be able to see it


from what i read and have seen, there some things that i think need to be made better, but first of all, new idle animation idea depending if NICE or NAUGHTY side, for nice it would be something like wortox makin a small soul butterfly that he holds on his fingertips before it vanish, for naughty it would be wortox lookin at a soul and grinning evilish

now for the skills, the nice side seems relative ok for the most part, its just that the revvive thing seems a bit not needed, like, i dont know seems wasted to me given telltale hearts or red amulets still exist and the telltale is not that hard to even make in the first place, and theres no reason why its a spoilable item

but the naughty side? oh boy....remove the napsack or rework it or anything, its....not good, like at all, theres no practical need, it sounds like a backpack at first that makes you do more damage the more it holds but...its actualy not that its...just not doin much of any damage if its supposed to work as a weapon and pickin up items? i can just, hold spacebar

soul jar sould not be something to carry souls on you, it will bloat your inventory, instead make the soul jar a placeable structure that can store 20 souls, no leaking or anything, you can store some and take what you need and leafe some for when you need it later, i think as a placeable it would have been better, and instead of the 5 soul jar item bloat skill instead make it a a simple +5 soul cap skill with maybe an upgrate for another +5, would still make it more balanced then being able to carry 200 souls at once at the cost of bloating your inventory with the jars, alsol its recipe may be differend, marble is sure fine, but then instead of a bottle and red gem it sould be some nitre and 1 nightmare fuel

the decoy...eh, they seem to appear randomly on soul hop, what i think they sould do is allways even at the first rank of its skills do 10 CONTACT damage, with that i mean if the creature attacks the decoy they will take 10 damage instandly if they touch it and with decoy 2 you are able to create 2 decoys at the same time, and the damage now is 15 contact damage, and decoy 3 does the 20 contact damage + 15 extra explode damage to all sorounding creatures, aswell the explosion happens instandly

soul pierce 1 is "fine" its soul pierce 2 that might need slight change, first of all the damage hit box for the soul needs a slight increase, first soul pierce as is but rank 2 will first make the soul go backwards and then once it touches wortox it does a quick "spin attack" dealing douple damage

the neutral panflute skills are not worth it, solutuion would be for wortox be able to make a mandrakeless panflute and a skill that makes it last twice as long, the inspiration able to expire is...like makes the skill a waste of point to invest in

now for the goin full nice/naughty
full nice sould make pigs and bunnys not hostile towards wortox while full naughty can make get you more hunger from eating souls as it seems to implies wortox wants to eat them even more now

affinity, ahm...the moon side soul echo while echo is active and wearing any moon armor sould make you immune to damage while on echo cooldown instead of echo being instand removed, and the shadow reaper weapon, while soul echo, you do 30 more shadow damage while it is on the soul echo cooldown and will not instand get removed when you attack

so overall the biggest problem is the napsack, i think to fix it sould first of all NOT BE USED AS A WEAPON but more so a tool, like a special bug net that can make you able to catch more things then bees and butterflys, maybe a 2 stage, first where it can only take small creatures and objects like bees, spiders, PLANTED FLOWERS that dont become petals and are able to be placed anywhere if you so desire, tree stumbs, planted carrots and other farm plants, and stage 2 napsack can take more medium size things like pigs, baby beefalos, grass, twiggs and berry plants, gravestones, oversized crops and suspicous marble, and the napsack has its own inventory that can only be filled with those special items i mention and some more if you think it would fit of kind things, i think that would be way more funny and would be so much more fitting for "wortox was with krampus alot so he starts doin his own stealing things bag" then it being a weapon PLEASE klei, of all the things the napsack the most importand part of it

but what do others think? please do tell

[salty_cookie]

59 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

now for the goin full nice/naughty
full nice sould make pigs and bunnys not hostile

Catcoons too.

[asdsaax]

As of now the skilltree is in much better shape and neutral branch is in position to get reworked but...
I wish to redeem the nice side as something more interesting than multiplayer slaving, so you have more options for yourself
but that means it would have to offer stuff that could alter solo gameplay and unfortunately I didn't come that far with my ideas x)

Also very personal opinion, but this skilltree's visuals aren't really appealing or dignifying I think...
it doesn't feel cool to bash stuff with a bag and leave copies of yourself that are stiff, pop an emote and explode
and those things kinda kill the mood for me... especially considering that Wortox is a premium character so giving him cheap looking items feels bad.

Ever saw alarming clock in action? NOW that's premium experience.

 

[Echsrick]

37 minutes ago, salty_cookie said:

Catcoons too.

ugh yes, how could i forget that there normaly not aggressive to you? too much wortox played that i started to think catcoons are just hostile to you no matter what

[ApoIIo]

My current personal wishlist after the hotfixes:

- Replace lunar affinity and panflute tree (panflute base idea is good, but the effects suck. The fact that the free use wears off just means you can save 10% durability, and the stars align and it happens at a very specific moment you need it. That's really sad. The other effects are also very mundane.) Lunar affinity is a bit confusing because consuming the soul echo to dodge is almost equivalent to it.
- Some sort of usage QoL for reaper, not urgently needed but would be welcome if they did
- Is there a way to fix decoy aggro to be more reliable? I tried using it vs bee queen but even without me attacking I was always prioritized, and I was teleporting a screen away too.
- Twintail hearts should allow teleporting with heavy objects somehow. It's the one thing pretty much every Wortox player wants, the other teleporters can do it already.
- Personally I love the decoys visually, but they should really copy your current equipment to be more convincing and feel more natural. Could also make them do other emotes, maybe slow clap, which is very mocking.
- Soul pierce should work like enlightened crown gestalts and shouldn't aggro things you are not in combat with, or at least have a grace window of one soul. Punching a butterfly next to someone's intended-to-tame beefalo could lead to shitefests. Not super urgent but probably a good idea to proof.

[loonreaper]

I'm not a Wortox main but I've been playing him almost exclusively in the past couple months as a heal slave. He's a little harder to play on the Switch but still fun. I actually got the Steam version literally just to test out the new Wortox and I gotta say... I think he's gonna be my main for a while. All the suggestions here make a lot of sense. The one that I would get behind the most would just be automatic soul jar management. I know not breaking the soul-limit is part of his constraining mechanic and it may become too easy if your overflow of souls just fill up the jars but at least they're a little difficult to amass (Even as wormwood it took me a while to get a nice number of empty bottles). 

Has anyone tried shadow reaper + void cowl + double hop skill? Bee-queen just melts.... And rushing AFW is kinda a natural thing to do with Wortox anyway. I'm really feeling his power up progression. 

The decoy does seem very buggy though and the AI is a little off. If that was improved it would make the experience so much better. 

And the hobo-stick weapon, I'm really not feeling. I mean it is super cheap and it is a nice intermediary until you get the shadow reaper but still not worth fully powering up at all and the time you spend doing that is probably better spent getting the shadow reaper faster. 

I started a new world after the hotfixes and I gotta say, the hobo-stick is actually a really nice mid-game weapon. I'm really unlucky with empty bottles(Atm it's day 27 and I only have two souljars) but I try to get 3-4 by Deerclops. Just because the +35-40 makes a diff and if you only have 2 souljars you need to keep the souls not in your jar always at atleast 20 or your weapon doesn't do max damage. 100 souls = really really easy to farm spiders. You just have to soul hop a couple times and your decoy alone will be enough to kill them. 

[SaIem]

I haven't looked deeply at the skill tree yet so I don't have suggestions for specific skill changes, but if Klei's intentional is to show Wortox some love, I would like to see, at the very least, being able to soul hop while carrying a sculpture. Does not need to be a skill, but that small change would be a major QOL improvement.

Also, I hope they make the decoy just a shadow silhouette instead of a literal copy. Just seems really strange having a Wortox stand there deadpan.

[ApoIIo]

2 hours ago, loonreaper said:

Has anyone tried shadow reaper + void cowl + double hop skill? Bee-queen just melts.... And rushing AFW is kinda a natural thing to do with Wortox anyway. I'm really feeling his power up progression. 

Even though it's a lot of work I'm very thankful that Wortox finally has progression that isn't "swap to Wanda and make backtreks

 

1 hour ago, SaIem said:

I haven't looked deeply at the skill tree yet so I don't have suggestions for specific skill changes, but if Klei's intentional is to show Wortox some love, I would like to see, at the very least, being able to soul hop while carrying a sculpture. Does not need to be a skill, but that small change would be a major QOL improvement.

Also, I hope they make the decoy just a shadow silhouette instead of a literal copy. Just seems really strange having a Wortox stand there deadpan.

ABSOLUTELY, everyone wants to carry sculptures with hops, it'd also make the telltale line useful in solo if they tied it to the third skill somehow. He is the only teleporter out of the three who can't, and he's the one supposedly earlygame-oriented.
The decoy needs to be fleshed out, I suggest it needs to copy your equipment at the time of hopping as well so it's actually a convincing copy. You would not be convinced it's the same guy with and without the void cowl for example, but there's more to it. Also could use more mocking emotes, e.g. slow clap.

On 11/23/2024 at 3:52 AM, Echsrick said:

but the naughty side? oh boy....remove the napsack or rework it or anything, its....not good, like at all, theres no practical need, it sounds like a backpack at first that makes you do more damage the more it holds but...its actualy not that its...just not doin much of any damage if its supposed to work as a weapon and pickin up items? i can just, hold spacebar

but what do others think? please do tell

For me when I gather resources, simply holding space would take a good fifteen minutes with how much wood, stone etc. my builds tend to need so the knapsack's tool usage would spare me the need to swap to maxwell to do it like 9 times faster. It is a very useful item to pair with reaper as well, makes harvesting way faster and it is more useful the more of a megabaser you are.

[ApoIIo]

On 11/23/2024 at 3:52 AM, Echsrick said:

soul jar sould not be something to carry souls on you, it will bloat your inventory, instead make the soul jar a placeable structure that can store 20 souls, no leaking or anything, you can store some and take what you need and leafe some for when you need it later, i think as a placeable it would have been better, and instead of the 5 soul jar item bloat skill instead make it a a simple +5 soul cap skill with maybe an upgrate for another +5, would still make it more balanced then being able to carry 200 souls at once at the cost of bloating your inventory with the jars, alsol its recipe may be differend, marble is sure fine, but then instead of a bottle and red gem it sould be some nitre and 1 nightmare fuel

I just noticed this part, sorry I hate this.

[Echsrick]

53 minutes ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

I just noticed this part, sorry I hate this.

thanks for the elaborate feedback

[Lollipop1998]

I hope they make Wortox look more powerful on the evil side. I want him to have simpler yet more challenging kill abilities than he currently has. As for the good side, I'd like it to be about sharing and helping others. It would be really interesting. But right now (I might be imagining things), I feel like the skill tree is quite messy and goes in different directions

[ApoIIo]

15 hours ago, Echsrick said:

thanks for the elaborate feedback

I don't know what you want me to say. I dislike the idea. Completely. There is not anything about this idea that I like. We can already make bee soul stations if we want placable soul "storages", except they are not only storages but soul farms.