In hopes Klei reads this, a game dev's perspective on Wendy, short version

[RussoDaFederal]

I made another post with too much text and forgot that people usually ignore long texts, so here's the short version. I'm a Wendy main and also a game dev. Her skill tree is conceptually good, mostly, but some adjustment is needed according to the whole forum and their mother. I'm gonna give some ideas knowing that Klei believes Wendy is currently pretty strong, so they don't want to make her too powerful. Let's be honest, that's true. Wendy is pretty strong. But she's strong because Abigail can handle a lot of weak mobs at once, not because of Abigail's damage nor her health bar. Her damage is pretty low actually, just enough to kill spiders and other weak mobs well.

First, let's talk about Wendy's current issues and how this update fixes or could fix them:

1. Spectral Cure All overshadows every other elixir. All elixirs are combat focused, and Spectral Cure All is the best one at keeping Abigail alive during fights, so there's not much reason to craft any other elixir besides that. Maybe Nightshade Nostrum if you're confident she's not gonna die. If Klei added a skill tree branch that allowed for two elixirs to be active at once, as stated before by many people in the forums, people would explore more options with Abigail. Replace the Strong Brew branch, increasing the duration of elixirs that already last a whole day is pointless. Instead, why not make it like so:
   • Strong Brew I: increase all elixir's duration by 50%;
   • Strong Brew II: enhance elixir's effects (may not apply to all elixirs);
   • Strong Brew III: enable Abigail to have 2 elixirs active at once.
2. Abigail can't tank larger mobs. I think Klei did an amazing job with gestalt Abigail, this addresses that issue and they should keep this skill. However, transforming only during full moon and new moon is a deal breaker for me. I don't want Abigail to be in gestalt form all the time. Make it only changeable at night, but under any moon;
3. Wendy's interactions with ghosts is severely limited since ghosts are so rare, but Grave Beautification fixes this issue perfectly, don't change this one. Except make the ghosts last at least 8 days since they currently "live" (lol) for 6 days and dark flowers take a little longer than 3 days to spawn, which means you only get 1 dark flower per ghost spawned;
4. It can be annoying to help pipspooks find their toys, but the Pipspook Quest branch, together with Final Resting Place, makes this a lot easier. Don't change anything on this branch.

Now let's address some issues with this update:

1. Murdering creatures for a planar damage burst is a good idea, but mathematically it doesn't add up. The time it takes for Wendy to perform an action is long enough that the damage output would be higher if you just keep hitting the mob (unless you're using a very low damaging weapon, which seems unlikely since this is a late game skill). This skill is only useful when handling large numbers of mobs, which Abigail already excels at. Instead, make planar damage bursts each second for a number of seconds equal to the number of creatures murdered;
2. The vex elixir is virtually useless because Abigail already resets the vexing timer by attacking each second, and it just wouldn't make any sense to get her in and out of the fight just for her vexing effect. Instead, make this elixir turn the vex extra damage into planar damage;
3. The main issue everyone is talking about is Dark Petals I. Keep Dark Petals II, it's conceptually good to have Abigail receive damage in your stead, even if it's not what Wendy players will be doing most of the time. But turning dark petals into regular petals is absolutely a waste no matter how you look at it;
4. Please increase Abigail's planar defense to 10, her planar damage elixir to 10 and her health cap when anchored to the sisturn to 800. These numbers are not random, increasing her minimum damage to 25 would make her able to kill birds and max damage to 50 would make her one shot bats at night and in caves. Most planar mobs do around 20 planar damage, so 5 is still a very low defense. She should have at least one late game armor piece's worth of defense. And 100 extra health is very underwhelming. 200 isn't gonna help much either, but at least it's not such a disappointing number and it does justify this skill.

It wasn't as short as I expected, I can't write short texts to save my life...

[OMEGASCRUFF]

13 minutes ago, RussoDaFederal said:

I made another post with too much text and forgot that people usually ignore long texts, so here's the short version. I'm a Wendy main and also a game dev. Her skill tree is conceptually good, mostly, but some adjustment is needed according to the whole forum and their mother. I'm gonna give some ideas knowing that Klei believes Wendy is currently pretty strong, so they don't want to make her too powerful. Let's be honest, that's true. Wendy is pretty strong. But she's strong because Abigail can handle a lot of weak mobs at once, not because of Abigail's damage nor her health bar. Her damage is pretty low actually, just enough to kill spiders and other weak mobs well.

First, let's talk about Wendy's current issues and how this update fixes or could fix them:

1. Spectral Cure All overshadows every other elixir. All elixirs are combat focused, and Spectral Cure All is the best one at keeping Abigail alive during fights, so there's not much reason to craft any other elixir besides that. Maybe Nightshade Nostrum if you're confident she's not gonna die. If Klei added a skill tree branch that allowed for two elixirs to be active at once, as stated before by many people in the forums, people would explore more options with Abigail. Replace the Strong Brew branch, increasing the duration of elixirs that already last a whole day is pointless. Instead, why not make it like so:
   • Strong Brew I: increase all elixir's duration by 50%;
   • Strong Brew II: enhance elixir's effects (may not apply to all elixirs);
   • Strong Brew III: enable Abigail to have 2 elixirs active at once.
2. Abigail can't tank larger mobs. I think Klei did an amazing job with gestalt Abigail, this addresses that issue and they should keep this skill. However, transforming only during full moon and new moon is a deal breaker for me. I don't want Abigail to be in gestalt form all the time. Make it only changeable at night, but under any moon;
3. Wendy's interactions with ghosts is severely limited since ghosts are so rare, but Grave Beautification fixes this issue perfectly, don't change this one. Except make the ghosts last at least 8 days since they currently "live" (lol) for 6 days and dark flowers take a little longer than 3 days to spawn, which means you only get 1 dark flower per ghost spawned;
4. It can be annoying to help pipspooks find their toys, but the Pipspook Quest branch, together with Final Resting Place, makes this a lot easier. Don't change anything on this branch.

Now let's address some issues with this update:

1. Murdering creatures for a planar damage burst is a good idea, but mathematically it doesn't add up. The time it takes for Wendy to perform an action is long enough that the damage output would be higher if you just keep hitting the mob (unless you're using a very low damaging weapon, which seems unlikely since this is a late game skill). This skill is only useful when handling large numbers of mobs, which Abigail already excels at. Instead, make planar damage bursts each second for a number of seconds equal to the number of creatures murdered;
2. The vex elixir is virtually useless because Abigail already resets the vexing timer by attacking each second, and it just wouldn't make any sense to get her in and out of the fight just for her vexing effect. Instead, make this elixir turn the vex extra damage into planar damage;
3. The main issue everyone is talking about is Dark Petals I. Keep Dark Petals II, it's conceptually good to have Abigail receive damage in your stead, even if it's not what Wendy players will be doing most of the time. But turning dark petals into regular petals is absolutely a waste no matter how you look at it;
4. Please increase Abigail's planar defense to 10, her planar damage elixir to 10 and her health cap when anchored to the sisturn to 800. These numbers are not random, increasing her minimum damage to 25 would make her able to kill birds and max damage to 50 would make her one shot bats at night and in caves. Most planar mobs do around 20 planar damage, so 5 is still a very low defense. She should have at least one late game armor piece's worth of defense. And 100 extra health is very underwhelming. 200 isn't gonna help much either, but at least it's not such a disappointing number and it does justify this skill.

It wasn't as short as I expected, I can't write short texts to save my life...

A bit of game dev experience here too, and I agree with unironically all of this (not something I do too often, either). I played all night yesterday with a Wendy co-main, and these fixes would address pretty much all of her qualms with the current design. Two elixirs at once is such an important buff that she needs and it's been suggested in the past as well. I was disappointed to not see it added from the start. The grave skills were unexpected though, but I love how much farm build potential they have.

(Also, jeez, I really hope they are redesigning the aesthetics of the skill tree itself. I think this might be the most disorganized and plain looking one so far, and better presentation may have helped to quell some of the unfounded complaints for an already-strong character.)

[Copyafriend]

Bit of game dev experience here thrice (because i like talking about it, it makes me no more credible than anyone else with an opinion)

(Especially with double elixers, it would be helpful)

I agree with a lot of your opinions, there are some i disagree with

For instance:

The vex elixer is not useless, it's a much more niche choice, but i think it works well against harder bosses in multiplsyer (abigail needs to be monitored and pulled away to keep her alive more)

However, i think it would mesh better as a non aligment elixer, that way it could help with gestalt abigail who attacks much slower. It also is such a niche choice that i dont think it belongs in the alignment path, which typically include gameplay changing perks

As for her shadow alignment, i think it would be interesting if we got a defense oriented abigail who took half damage or otherwise got a survivability boost (maybe life leeching 20% of damage done?) (Or a free hit every 10 seconds)

Which you could mutate abigail into the "shadow form" on a new moon as a opposite to the gestalt form.

 

I also dont think its a bad idea to force the players to commit to one form of abigail or another. The gestalt form is easily obtained, but you have to commit to a gestalt abigail, which lowers her effectiveness against day to day targets, but makes her better against boss targets. Its a tradeoff that you must commit to. If you can freely swap between them there is less meaning to switching her (though maybe its worth losing the meaning to gain usability)

I do think abigail could stand to get more of a boost from anchoring at her urn, but i dont think she should recieve any passive defense or damage boosts from doing so, as that would just make it to where the health bonus (which is the current primary reason to get the perk) would instead become a minor secondary bonus.

Finally i think abigail could really use something new that serve a more day to day purpose. (And i think could function as an alternative to two elixers)

Basically the idea is you can make a charm and give it to abigail, and she gets a permanent passive buff of some kind. The effect is minor but does not require any re-upping.

Damage (dusk damage is now the minimum damage she will do)

Light (she provides a larger radius of light)

Defense (she takes 20% less damage from all sources)

Area (her aoe is slightly larger)

Etc etc, theres tons you could do with this and isnt as cookiecutter of a solution as simply buffing how many elixers abigail can have active

 

[WenericMember]

Agree with pretty much all you said, some buffs to some other skills would be nice too.

But also give Abigail haunt. Its such an obvious thematic skill, not broken as every character can use it and would dramatically increase her utility.

[NINA1917]

6 hours ago, RussoDaFederal said:

The main issue everyone is talking about is Dark Petals I. Keep Dark Petals II, it's conceptually good to have Abigail receive damage in your stead, even if it's not what Wendy players will be doing most of the time. But turning dark petals into regular petals is absolutely a waste no matter how you look at it;

I think Dark Petal II is only suitable for use when it is a monster with relatively low attack mechanism and numerical value. In its normal state, it is just an equipment that occupies the backpack slot and has a debuff for slowing down. When facing the powerful boss after the moon event, Ah Bigail itself only has 600hp, and eating will not help her survive at all, unless the health recovery value is changed, but that would be a bit too strong. Another problem with this device is that Wendy has to sacrifice her own operating time, which makes Wendy's experience using it boring, like an Abigail launcher that can only eat.