Is Wendy a strong character?

[hyoton123]

16 hours ago, Sapientis said:

Given how post rift weapons' damage and Planar Enitity Protection are calculated she's probably at 85-90% of a Wilson (minus additional 10% with Wilson Shadow/LunarAllegiance, but Wendy's probably getting that as well soon).

I get it's not that bad, but Abigail is quite useless post rifts and from the current beta iteration of Wendy's skilltree it doesn't seem to address any of the problems Wendy should face. Flat 15 Planar Defense is virtually nothing when it comes to 130 retaliation damage from even the Deadly Brightshade. Abigail will die after 6 attacks, dealing like 40-50 damage during the day, 150-170 during night? And she just dies, becomming useless for the next day or so. Willow has no damage penalty harself, has Planar Damage spells as well as her Bernie with 2k+hp, with Planar Entity Protection and it can be sewed up immediatelly after death to the full 2k+hp.

See my problem with it?

Correct. In practice it's around 12% on paper, in practice less because of fewer hits to kill and bombs/staff ignoring her flaw altogether. 

 

I just don't see it with willow. Wendy has *80* max sanity and a slight sanity perk on her to begin with, and abigail is a much better baseline AOE option. If wendy's single target damage is not that far below willow, then willow is probably worse. Being able to farm small mobs (hounds, spiders, whatever) or distract enemies while auto-regenning in the flower is a good deal. You might as well say, well bernie only regens from skillpoints, abigail gets regen for free. In the overall context of the characters, wendy is much stronger to begin with.

 

 

EDIT: And if you can reveal rictus with abigail then yeah. Stuff like that is tremendously useful.

[Sapientis]

1 hour ago, hyoton123 said:

I just don't see it with willow. Wendy has *80* max sanity and a slight sanity perk on her to begin with, and abigail is a much better baseline AOE option. If wendy's single target damage is not that far below willow, then willow is probably worse. Being able to farm small mobs (hounds, spiders, whatever) or distract enemies while auto-regenning in the flower is a good deal. You might as well say, well bernie only regens from skillpoints, abigail gets regen for free. In the overall context of the characters, wendy is much stronger to begin with.

Sanity wise Willow has an aggro dummy which makes Shadow Creatures a non-issue, Wendy on the other hand has lower damage towards them, so I don't see how would Wendy win this duel. You will eventually fight Shadow Creatures and Willow is better for that, hands down.

The main difference between Bernie and Abigail is that Bernie can be brought up to his 100% in 5 seconds after he dies (you can even carry two for that occasion), when Abigail dies, she is out of the equation for at least a couple minutes, even with Sisturn. Yes, you can summon her immediately, but she dies after a single hit, further reducing your Sanity, which I already said is worse for her because of how much harder dealing with Shadow Creatures is.

 

Also, with Bernie taking aggro killing hordes of smaller mobs is just as easy with Willow, add Combustion and Lunar Flame and she might be even better, accumulating Embers for future fights, while Wendy just got her sister damaged.

[AliceMagtron]

On 11/23/2024 at 4:30 AM, Sapientis said:

She had nothing going on for her basic survival but her catapults had all the power, which made her strong. Her skilltree made her absurdly powerful, taking nothing from the sheer power of catapults arenas she could already set up.

if u can let me summon abigails as many as catapults, i will agree, even u can make materials to make abis flower as expensive as catapults

[hyoton123]

1 hour ago, Sapientis said:

Sanity wise Willow has an aggro dummy which makes Shadow Creatures a non-issue, Wendy on the other hand has lower damage towards them, so I don't see how would Wendy win this duel. You will eventually fight Shadow Creatures and Willow is better for that, hands down.

The main difference between Bernie and Abigail is that Bernie can be brought up to his 100% in 5 seconds after he dies (you can even carry two for that occasion), when Abigail dies, she is out of the equation for at least a couple minutes, even with Sisturn. Yes, you can summon her immediately, but she dies after a single hit, further reducing your Sanity, which I already said is worse for her because of how much harder dealing with Shadow Creatures is.

 

Also, with Bernie taking aggro killing hordes of smaller mobs is just as easy with Willow, add Combustion and Lunar Flame and she might be even better, accumulating Embers for future fights, while Wendy just got her sister damaged.

But there's more consequences to max sanity than just shadow creatures. Enlightened Crown gives far fewer shots on a 120 sanity character than a 200 before needing to recharge, and willow's increased sanity loss from DOT effects compared to wendy cuts into the crown's gain even more than usual. Pre AFW 200 sanity+less sanity lost over time gives a lot more protection against hitting shadow creature tier, and post AFW bone helm makes it moot. That's just different ways of dealing with shadow creatures - hopefully spawning fewer in normal play, vs killing them.

 

As far as the actual nightmare fuel goes I think shadow splumonkeys are the better option, and both are good in different ways for that although I think wendy has the ease of use advantage. She actually kills stuff vs bernie who needs a skilltree option and/or willow participation.

 

Bernie has a sewing kit, abigail has potions. I really don't think you are going to win this here; bernie is a damage sponge, but bernie can't be a damage sponge AND an aoe option without costing willow her personal AOE options, and those consume resources that require significant farming. Abigail HP just regens back. Abigail is an offensive, aoe support.  She is extremely fragile by design, and if anything her early game HP is too big (600 + regen?). That's not a call to nerf her, but when I think about it I think it's actually more remarkable that klei gave her decent defensive options at all.

 

And while hounds teeth are basically infinite on the mainland, ocean/caves they dont' spawn normally so that's one more thing to track. (Not a big thing, but needing to bring a resource eats up a slot or attention).

 

Going into the skilltrees, willow's utility is lighter light radius (okay) and fire extinguishing (probably good? I've never heard anyone talk about using this but i assume it's good). Wendy skilltree offers gravestones and shared sanity protection  which is...well, I wouldn't call them GREAT, but I think it's a better than willow's tree, or at least on par. Using willow as a comparison, I guess my point is that base wendy is much better than base willow, and it's hard for me to know what AOEs/mobs are overrunning wendy without you mentioning specifics. Like brightshades, it's true that the aoe counter will shred abby, but it's not like bernie or any survivor is going to do great there either. It's just not how brightshades were meant to be fought.

 

Basically I'm not sure what exactly abigail is going to be dying to and what you're doing to prevent it. Like I assume Ancient Guardian is pretty much going to wreck abigail, but also it's AG, that's fine. I *assume* CC is going to wreck abigail, but also you can use a beef and retreat pretty easily there so it's not as hard as being bad at fuelweaver. And at sea abigail just seems incredibly good compared to bernie (where being at sanity trigger is much, much more annoying).

 

How much damage is the planar potion?

[Grove]

On 11/24/2024 at 9:31 AM, Sapientis said:

Yea, that's probably my problem with her...

I get that she is much stronger when using the Beefalo and her struggling with most bosses comes from not using it.

I just consider the design of forcing you to use the beefalo to be strong, kind of flawed.

Thanks for that reminder though, I guess it's just my prejudice to the struggle and hussle of Beefalo taming process. I don't like relying on mobs that can just die on me :P

I get what you mean, and it's definitely valid. But I don't think it's a design flaw.

It's like how as Webber, you have to get spiders, and keep your spiders alive. It's a hustle to get the better ones, and if they die, it's a problem. Or as Maxwell, you need to use duelists, keep your sanity up, and have enough nightmare fuel for fights. As, Willow, Bernie and Embers. As Wicker, books. And as every character, you have to have enough equipment. Every character has a defined path to be strong, and they have to maintain what gives them said strength. It's not really a problem with just Wendy. If that's a problem for you, then it's more of a problem with the whole game than Wendy being 'weak'. It's obviously a valid complaint, but I don't think it pertains to this specific discussion.

At one point, you will get the shadow bell, and suddenly, the beef dying isn't a problem. Like how you'll get the bone helm and sanity isn't a problem. Or how you will have so much resources that spiders dying isn't a problem. Or you can just mass farm embers and have a lot of bernies, have a lot of books, and have near inf copies of every weapon and armor. So the beef isn't really that different. Though, I do see why the taming process can be tedious.

Beefalo aren't the only way for Wendy to defeat bosses. You can keep Abigail alive without beef. Or just do the normal Wilson strategies. You will require a bit more resources, though, but that's a needed downside to being able to survive much easier than a lot of other characters.

 

On 11/24/2024 at 11:03 AM, Bumber64 said:

This was changed. The shroud was reworked to share your head armor with Abi instead. Abi's max health was also buffed, I think.

Did they already change it? When I read the beta post (after writing that comment by a lot), it said that it was one of their plans.

By the way, do you know where I could keep up with the beta changes? Cause I can only find them via links on youtube videos such as beard's

On 11/24/2024 at 11:17 AM, WenericMember said:

That is amusing just because they're the first two bosses you're realistically going to encounters, as they're the only ones that ever actively come to you.

Out of curiosity, which boss is it practicing on to best get familiar with kiting w/ abigail? I've got regular kiting mostly down, but it's another issue entirely.

I think that's pretty good. It teaches the player to approach bosses with a different way, that Abi can't survive them at all.

And there isn't a one size fits all for using Abi when it comes to bosses.

AFW, position her out of his range and tank.

Beequeen, just make sure that the grumble bees are in her range. And make sure that you're the one in Beequeen's range in phase 3 and 4, cause then she'll be able to start targeting Abi, which she won't do much phases 1 and 2.

Any boss that doesn't have an aoe, you can just attack and they will usually target you instead of Abi, with the exception of moosegoose for some reason. Be careful of dragonfly's stomp.

Stuff like Toad's shroom and stomp, and CC 1&2's attacks have to be dodged early. Vigor mortis helps a lot

There are guides that go deeper, recommend you watch them.

[Sapientis]

4 hours ago, Debruh said:

It's like how as Webber, you have to get spiders, and keep your spiders alive. It's a hustle to get the better ones, and if they die, it's a problem. Or as Maxwell, you need to use duelists, keep your sanity up, and have enough nightmare fuel for fights. As, Willow, Bernie and Embers. As Wicker, books.

Well, listed means of being strong are tied to the characters by design: Webber is a spider and only he can tame them, Maxwell gets Duelists via his Codex Umbra, Willow's Bernie and Embers are only for her, only Wicker has books, only Wolfgang can use dumbells and gym, only Woodie can turn into wereforms, and so on.

All of them can tame Beefalo, the only character "tied" or to be precise having a special interaction with beefalos is Wigfrid, but she doesn't really benefit from that too much, the Beefalo benefits more.

Wendy and Wes use beefalo to eliminate their 0.75 damage modifier.

And most of the Wendy's Beefalo meta comes from the fact that Beefalo operated by Wendy get's 40% increased damage form Abigail's vex debuff instead of usual 10%.

I believe fixing this (idk, maybe even a bug?) would solve this issue, because you need to abuse animation cancelling to bring Beefalo's damage to character damage level.

[Bumber64]

8 hours ago, Debruh said:

Did they already change it? When I read the beta post (after writing that comment by a lot), it said that it was one of their plans.

By the way, do you know where I could keep up with the beta changes? Cause I can only find them via links on youtube videos such as beard's

Hasn't been implemented yet, AFAIK, other than the sisturn health boost.

I've just been following the beta forum posts.

[Grove]

5 hours ago, Sapientis said:

Well, listed means of being strong are tied to the characters by design: Webber is a spider and only he can tame them, Maxwell gets Duelists via his Codex Umbra, Willow's Bernie and Embers are only for her, only Wicker has books, only Wolfgang can use dumbells and gym, only Woodie can turn into wereforms, and so on.

All of them can tame Beefalo, the only character "tied" or to be precise having a special interaction with beefalos is Wigfrid, but she doesn't really benefit from that too much, the Beefalo benefits more.

Wendy and Wes use beefalo to eliminate their 0.75 damage modifier.

And most of the Wendy's Beefalo meta comes from the fact that Beefalo operated by Wendy get's 40% increased damage form Abigail's vex debuff instead of usual 10%.

I believe fixing this (idk, maybe even a bug?) would solve this issue, because you need to abuse animation cancelling to bring Beefalo's damage to character damage level.

A beef is just a weapon/tool. Similar to planar damage, where it doesn't get changed by character modifiers, with the difference being that planar damage doesn't get by any modifiers at all while beef do.

Sure, anyone can use it. But only Wendy will actually benefit from a source of damage that is lower than a lot of other sources, but not affected by character multipliers, and affected by other multipliers such as Abi. Even Wes will use planar stuff, even against non planar enemies. Because the beef themselves aren't really Wendy's thing, it's Abigail, who is tied to Wendy, and the beef just bring Wendy and Abigail's dynamic to the limit.

Sometimes, a character's means to be strong isn't a weapon, armor, etc that is tied to them (and it really doesn't have to be.). But something available to all characters that interacts with the character's kit and distinguishes them from the other characters at the same stage of the game.

Like how a Wolfgang might prefer dark swords over brightshade swords when fighting non planar enemies, because of his damage multiplier. Or how a Wormwood might prefer brightshade swords over a shadow reaper, depending on the perks on his skill tree.

Maxwell's duelists aren't his means to be strong. They're just his kit. They're not the same as the beef to Wendy, but more of Abigail to Wendy. His version of the beef would be more like the bone helm, boosts his duelists' damage, allows easy nightmare fuel, allows him to stay insane and cast as many cages and sneaks as he would like. That's his way to be strong (at the post-AFW pre-rift stage). And the bone helm is available to all characters, even used by most during CC.

Same for Wolfgang's dumbells, they're part of his kit. Not really his way to be strong. Like, not even slightly.

The examples I listed were pointing to how all characters need to maintain what they rely on, so the needing to keep the beef alive thing isn't an inherent problem to Wendy.

The vex thing does make sense even if it's not a bug. Wendy&Abigail's bond is alluded to being the one thing keeping Abi still here (Abi still lingered in the real world too as seen in the short, and that's 100% before flower dark constant magic stuff), and transcending 'death itself'. So it would make more sense that Wendy, even on a beef gets more vex damage even if Abi isn't intentionally nerfing the other survivors.

There's also character and lore stuff on how beef make sense to be Wendy's means of getting power, but that's a bunch of nerd stuff not relevant to thr discussion so I'll hold my tounge.

[WenericMember]

Tbf about the brightshade, post rework flower shroud Abigal should take about 15 Planar damage & 60 regular damage from an attack when hit by a brightshade attack. With the increased overheal bringing her HP to 900 and healing potions, It should be reasonable keeping Abigail alive, even against planar bosses.

Especially if her escape command is made more useful.

[Mike23Ua]

As a Wendy main… if your using Abigail AT ALL against Brightshades, your playing Wendy the wrong way period.. lol learned that lesson the hard way.

But also (and I’m sure I’m going to get some hate my way from saying this…)

The entire purpose of the “Dismiss” command was so you can safely store Abigail Away to prevent her from dying during fights or situations that proved to be too Dangerous for her.

And I really like that Dynamic ALOT… I like there are some things Abigail can help Wendy with and other things where Wendy must fend for herself.

If Klei took that away by doing something stupid (such as letting ANY version of Abigail attack Shadow Creatures) you lose that unique dynamic of “some things you must do on your own”

And when it comes to Brightshades.. don’t just, don’t..

[Grove]

15 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

As a Wendy main… if your using Abigail AT ALL against Brightshades, your playing Wendy the wrong way period.. lol learned that lesson the hard way.

But also (and I’m sure I’m going to get some hate my way from saying this…)

The entire purpose of the “Dismiss” command was so you can safely store Abigail Away to prevent her from dying during fights or situations that proved to be too Dangerous for her.

And I really like that Dynamic ALOT… I like there are some things Abigail can help Wendy with and other things where Wendy must fend for herself.

If Klei took that away by doing something stupid (such as letting ANY version of Abigail attack Shadow Creatures) you lose that unique dynamic of “some things you must do on your own”

And when it comes to Brightshades.. don’t just, don’t..

You can actually do Brightshades with Abi. Destroy the vines of all 3 or more, then kill one of them. Repeat for the other two or more.

If you're using a range weapon, you can attack from afar with Abi. She'll usually attack any vine that gets close and make it retreat, still should he careful though 

[arubaro]

On 11/24/2024 at 8:36 PM, Sapientis said:

Sanity wise Willow has an aggro dummy which makes Shadow Creatures a non-issue, Wendy on the other hand has lower damage towards them, so I don't see how would Wendy win this duel. You will eventually fight Shadow Creatures and Willow is better for that, hands down.

The main difference between Bernie and Abigail is that Bernie can be brought up to his 100% in 5 seconds after he dies (you can even carry two for that occasion), when Abigail dies, she is out of the equation for at least a couple minutes, even with Sisturn. Yes, you can summon her immediately, but she dies after a single hit, further reducing your Sanity, which I already said is worse for her because of how much harder dealing with Shadow Creatures is.

 

Also, with Bernie taking aggro killing hordes of smaller mobs is just as easy with Willow, add Combustion and Lunar Flame and she might be even better, accumulating Embers for future fights, while Wendy just got her sister damaged.

You are ignoring many things to make willow look way stronger than wendy.

Sure, you can fix bernie or bring another one but you arent saying how easy and cheap is to heal abigail

You are comparing how wendy needs to fight shadows compared to willow having bernie but you are ignoring that wendy is way more useful than bernie in every fight. Bernie has low dps so a gang of mobs can defeat him easily compared to abi and bernie can only be activated in presence of alignment mobs or while willow is insane, meanwhile abi is always up. Wendy also has 200 sanity vs 120 from willow on top of reduced sanity drain... you only experience shadows in few scenarios

Abigail doesn't have a taunt perk like bernie but you can control her better via skill tree and, with her aoe, she can aggro everything arround. Bernie, since only has single target atacks, need that taunt to be useful which also reduce his dps because the taunt animation is long. 

Agree, willow's alignment spells are really strong and cheap but wendy has 140% damage if helps Abigail hitting the enemies so the dps isnt that far from willow's and only require 1 slot for her flower vs 2 from embers+bernie when inactive

And, even if willow were super unbalanced,  having dumb characters doesnt justifies ruining the game by making every character op for a game with 10 years old outdated enemies

[cyjs]

22 minutes ago, arubaro said:

You are ignoring many things to make willow look way stronger than wendy.

Sure, you can fix bernie or bring another one but you arent saying how easy and cheap is to heal abigail

You are comparing how wendy needs to fight shadows compared to willow having bernie but you are ignoring that wendy is way more useful than bernie in every fight. Bernie has low dps so a gang of mobs can defeat him easily compared to abi and bernie can only be activated in presence of alignment mobs or while willow is insane, meanwhile abi is always up. Wendy also has 200 sanity vs 120 from willow on top of reduced sanity drain... you only experience shadows in few scenarios

Abigail doesn't have a taunt perk like bernie but you can control her better via skill tree and, with her aoe, she can aggro everything arround. Bernie, since only has single target atacks, need that taunt to be useful which also reduce his dps because the taunt animation is long. 

Agree, willow's alignment spells are really strong and cheap but wendy has 140% damage if helps Abigail hitting the enemies so the dps isnt that far from willow's and only require 1 slot for her flower vs 2 from embers+bernie when inactive

And, even if willow were super unbalanced,  having dumb characters doesnt justifies ruining the game by making every character op for a game with 10 years old outdated enemies

Several points that need to be corrected
1. Bernie’s treatment is cheaper. He has 2600 health points, a sewing kit can be repaired five times, and a set of tape can be repaired 40 times, which can be replenished at once. I only need to bring two Bernies to achieve an infinite loop.
2. The total DPS of Willow is higher because her output in actual combat is safer and more stable.
3. Grid is not a problem, because there are many packing bags, and Wendy does not only occupy one grid, she needs to carry potions.
4. The balance of the game is not important, the fun is more important. Willow can choose three ways to play: Super Bernie, Moonfire, and Shadowfire, each of which has its own merits. However, the current Wendy and her skill tree have not done anything for her. The gameplay didn’t bring any good changes

[arubaro]

42 minutes ago, cyjs said:

Bernie’s treatment is cheaper. He has 2600 health points, a sewing kit can be repaired five times, and a set of tape can be repaired 40 times, which can be replenished at once. I only need to bring two Bernies to achieve an infinite loop.

- He loses more hp since doesnt kill as fast neither has a shield that pops up when hit and the tape is a Winona's craft

43 minutes ago, cyjs said:

2. The total DPS of Willow is higher because her output in actual combat is safer and more stable.

But not far from Wendy's and needs time to be farmed unlike Wendy's 

44 minutes ago, cyjs said:

3. Grid is not a problem, because there are many packing bags, and Wendy does not only occupy one grid, she needs to carry potions.

You only need to carry potions in specific situations. 99% times is just the big healing elixir and only for boss fights

45 minutes ago, cyjs said:

4. The balance of the game is not important, the fun is more important. Willow can choose three ways to play: Super Bernie, Moonfire, and Shadowfire, each of which has its own merits. However, the current Wendy and her skill tree have not done anything for her. The gameplay didn’t bring any good changes

Maybe not for you but for many players is important. Easy games arent fun for many people and this game wasnt dedigned as a cozy game

Im not saying the current skill tree is good but some people are overreacting about a BETA

[TabbyTheNeko]

On 11/23/2024 at 2:22 AM, Sapientis said:

It's debatable it feels like people are over valuing how powerful horde clearing is 

Besides, I don't think Abigail should be able to assist in every boss fight, but she should be able to take at least a couple of hits, so you can make the fight just this little bit less tedious or manage to unsummon her before she dies. Is the 200% damage from bosses needed with all bosses having so much health points? Not even mentioning Planar bosses...

I personally don't even like the new Flower Shroud fix in recent patch. Abigail shouldn't be a tank like Bernie is, she should just get a little more durable to provide more room for errors, and maybe provide some minor help in areas she's useless now.

So it's not making her very powerful at her only weak point, just making her less miserable at her weak point.

Also her damage downside is pretty problematic against Shadow Creatures.

100% people are overvaluing the strength of horde clearing. 

When wendy has to take on any post rift content, she struggles hard.
People will say "well that's her downside for being good against hordes" completely missing the fact that rift content is an entire section of the game. same with bosses. a whole chunk of the game wendy just simply sucks at, where the only character worse then her is wes. 

Do people really consider wendy "strong" or "overpowered" when a good half of the game's content she's effectively the worst at dealing with?

In terms of a character tierlist, wendy is at most mid.

The reason so many people are upset about her current skill tree is that this will probably be the last time wendy gets visited in terms of balancing for probably at least like 4 years. If her skill tree ends up failing to keep her relevant in post rift content, she will forever be doomed to be the noob trap character who falls off late game. And with the pattern of klei only seeming to add post rift content, if the next 4 years are rift content, Wendy will essentially be useless against all the new stuff that will come in those 4 years.

That is why people are upset. The game is entering a new era (i say new but its really been happening for the past 2+ years with the start of the first rift) and if wendy's skill tree isn't good, she'll be left behind. She'll forever be noob trap.


My only hope right now is based on the fact that the beta hasn't gotten an update since friday. Maybe klei is taking our feedback seriously and working on reworking the skill tree, and maybe that's why they haven't updated the beta in a few days. I don't have high hopes though.

 

1 hour ago, arubaro said:

Im not saying the current skill tree is good but some people are overreacting about a BETA

The reason people are "overreacting" over a beta is because now is the time to call for change. Usually when content leaves the beta, it stays permanently. We'd rather ask klei to fix wendy's skill tree now, while they're open to feedback and trying out new things. Right now klei's attention is on wendy, wortox, and walter. once the skill trees are out, they'll start working on something else, and they wont have the time to work on fixing wendy.

[arubaro]

9 minutes ago, TabbyTheNeko said:

The reason people are "overreacting" over a beta is because now is the time to call for change. Usually when content leaves the beta, it stays permanently. We'd rather ask klei to fix wendy's skill tree now, while they're open to feedback and trying out new things. Right now klei's attention is on wendy, wortox, and walter. once the skill trees are out, they'll start working on something else, and they wont have the time to work on fixing wendy.

Spamming the same non productive topics, some of them even attacking the devs, isnt a "call for a change" but kids freaking out because wendy didnt got the power of making abigail a nuke 

[Sapientis]

8 hours ago, arubaro said:

You are ignoring many things to make willow look way stronger than wendy.

Sure, you can fix bernie or bring another one but you arent saying how easy and cheap is to heal abigail

You are comparing how wendy needs to fight shadows compared to willow having bernie but you are ignoring that wendy is way more useful than bernie in every fight. Bernie has low dps so a gang of mobs can defeat him easily compared to abi and bernie can only be activated in presence of alignment mobs or while willow is insane, meanwhile abi is always up. Wendy also has 200 sanity vs 120 from willow on top of reduced sanity drain... you only experience shadows in few scenarios

Abigail doesn't have a taunt perk like bernie but you can control her better via skill tree and, with her aoe, she can aggro everything arround. Bernie, since only has single target atacks, need that taunt to be useful which also reduce his dps because the taunt animation is long. 

Agree, willow's alignment spells are really strong and cheap but wendy has 140% damage if helps Abigail hitting the enemies so the dps isnt that far from willow's and only require 1 slot for her flower vs 2 from embers+bernie when inactive

I compare Willow to Wendy to show Wendy's flaws, I don't say Willow doesn't have any.

I know it's cheap and easy but if you fail to heal her on time, or she get's outdamaged while being healed you lose her for good 2 days. There's no such problem with Bernie, other than leaving him behind, but that's up to the player.

I compare Bernie and Abi's usefulness while fighting shadows because they are a part of the game (also ruins). Yes, Abigail is more useful than Bernie in most fights, IF SHE IS ALIVE. Which sometimes becomes a big problem. And Willow without Bernie is much stronger than Wendy without Abi.

The sanity difference is not something that impactful on Bernie's usefulness. You're at full sanity only if you actively work towards it, via sanity foods or clothing pieces, so most of the time Bernie should be able to get activated, as Willow should hover around 30-60 sanity. Also many bosses have insanity aura and you usually carry a Dark Sword in midgame, so that really doesn't matter that much.
You also seem to value staying at high sanity, which isn't the most optimal, as Nightmare Fuel is needed to craft Thulecite Equipment, Night Armor and Dark Swords, refueling Mag and Bone Armor - basically all best items in the midgame.

Taunt or not they seem on the same level of taking aggro off their summoners.

140% damage is a number I'd like to see some math behind. Wiki says Abi's vex debuff causes 10% more damage received and Wendy attacks deal additional 40% damage, but due to her 0.75 damage modifier she's at 1.155 Wilson damage (0.75*1.1*1.4=1.155). Even adding 15-40 Abi damage idk if it leaves us at 140%.

And because Beefalo with Wendy on top counts as Wendy she gets 1.54 Beefalo damage (1*1.1*1.4=1.54). Adding 15-40 Abi damage we get some ridiculous numbers, but all of it is IF we manage to keep Abigail alive, and there are many scenarios in which it's hard, either due to Beefalo only having 1000 health points and no armor, so you cannot tank everything, or your enemy has a knockup attack, or the boss just targets Abi taking her down with 4 attacks (as well as many bosses having AoE attacks).
And if you would like to keep Abigail alive during fight that's at least 2 item slots: Abigail's Flower and Spectral Cure-Alls, compared to a single item slot taken by a Sewing Kit or an additiona Bernie (because active Bernie doesn't take up the item slot).

So um... "You are ignoring many things to make Wendy look way stronger than she is."

Wendy is really strong in the right scenario and if things go well (probably stronger than Willow to be honest), but she also becomes really weak (like 0.75 Wilson or 0.65 Willow, because she can still use spells and Burning Frenzy) in the fight not suited for her best setup and/or if she fails to keep Abigail alive. And keeping Abigail alive is pretty hard.
This gets some change for the better due to increased health from Blessed Sisturn III, but without Planar Entity Protection Abigail gets beaten just as easily, she can take 2-3 attacks more and it gives more room for error, but still Abigail is either "great" or "useless", there's no base value like Bernie has, no matter how low that is in some fights. Bernie is "fine, nothing spectacular" in most fights.

And all I try to get across is to give Abi some minor base value and cut some from her power at the best scenario. Understand that it would make Wendy better overall.

So, bring Wendy with Beefalo back to intended 1.1 + Abi, and give more room for error to keeping Abi alive. (automatic unsummon at low health, filled Sisturn preventing Abi death and lowering her level instead, or just give Abi some protection, so she doesn't receive 150-200 damage from single attacks).

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

automatic unsummon at low health, filled Sisturn preventing Abi death

TBH this is  a great skill idea and you should make its own thread. Tying more mechanics to the sisturn is something the tree needs to do, and I don't really get why the sharing Sanity perk is part of the sisturn line. Have that be its own isolated skill like vengeful ghost and make something like this blessed sisturn II.

 

[Mr Giggio]

Wendy is the definition of easy to play but hard to master. Many bosses need awareness about positioning and potion use. Not every situation is spectre cure all like some folks like to say. Vigor Mortis/Nostrum are super good to match some bosses. I lost a tournament [as Maxwell] to a huge player maining Wendy. [day 14 endline most bosses killed wins] 

So yeah some folks can get used to the utility for crowds and easy sanity maintain at the point they complain about boss killin when thats up to them to improve and succeed. Lardee is a good example of what a Wendy is capable of. I already shared this video twice today but it show what Im talking about, took me 3 attempts to do this fight. 

She is strong but u cant just watch and wait for the drops like the small ones. The big ones its up to you.
The skill tree even made morning glory farming extremely easier and richer and gave her a chance to move where u want her to go to avoid hits.

 

[Dingle]

10 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

Wendy is the definition of easy to play but hard to master. Many bosses need awareness about positioning and potion use. Not every situation is spectre cure all like some folks like to say. Vigor Mortis/Nostrum are super good to match some bosses. I lost a tournament [as Maxwell] to a huge player maining Wendy. [day 14 endline most bosses killed wins] 

So yeah some folks can get used to the utility for crowds and easy sanity maintain at the point they complain about boss killin when thats up to them to improve and succeed. Lardee is a good example of what a Wendy is capable of. I already shared this video twice today but it show what Im talking about, took me 3 attempts to do this fight. 

She is strong but u cant just watch and wait for the drops like the small ones. The big ones its up to you.
 

 

Lardee has a similar video where he uses the dash to reposition, it's pretty great.

[Sapientis]

9 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

It is impressive, but uploading a super hard thing done in practice (with probably many failed tries before) is a misleading argument when we try to value character's design.

Reliability is a huge factor to measuring strength.

[Dingle]

Just now, Sapientis said:

It is impressive, but uploading a super hard thing done in practice (with probably many failed tries before) is a misleading argument when we try to value character's design.

Reliability is a huge factor to measuring strength.

He said 3 tries. Also he doesn't really main Wendy, going by his videos.

[Sapientis]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

He said 3 tries. Also he doesn't really main Wendy, going by his videos.

Are we talking about the same Lardee guy with Wendy on his profile pic?

[Mr Giggio]

2 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

It is impressive, but uploading a super hard thing done in practice (with probably many failed tries before) is a misleading argument when we try to value character's design.

Reliability is a huge factor to measuring strength.

Im a Max main. Messed with her a few times to see how the bosses goes like with any other char who has exclusive interactions with fighting in the game. My point here tho is - the fact that MOST PEOPLE will say that she cant do bosses so she needs a buff in order to balance that is a falacy because she can melt end bosses in like 3 minutes. People do need to try better if they are reasoning about fightining otherwise will be a click n win boring situation. Its not about more buffs its about fixing whats wrong with the char and Klei did that. Abi was painfull to move as we wanted her to. Morning glory was boring and expensive. Ta da.

[Sapientis]

The thing is if Abigail dies in this fight, it's over. Compare that to Wanda, Wolf, Wortox, who can run circles around AFW and a small misstep is just a mild inconvinience that costs them 5 seconds at most.

6 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

MOST PEOPLE will say that she cant do bosses so she needs a buff in order to balance that is a falacy because she can melt end bosses in like 3 minutes. People do need to try better if they are reasoning about fightining otherwise will be a click n win boring situation. Its not about more buffs its about fixing whats wrong with the char and Klei did that.

She can do that, but she can also fail miserably while trying. I know, I know - skill issue.

I try to say she would be more accessible and forgiving if keeping Abigail alive wasn't that hard, or if losing her by accident wasn't as impactful.