A Wendier Wendy

[Pet Rock]

While I enjoy Wendy's new skill tree, I have my fair share of criticisms and ideas that would make her skill tree feel more Wendy-y, impactful, and inspired. The goal is also to make each branch feel worth investing into for different playstyles. I know that the devs already have a vision with compressing the potion branch and adding a haunt command to Abigail, but I wanted to provide my own take on the skill tree. 

 

Also, regarding the comment that Wendy is more powerful at base than other characters, I believe that this inequality should be changed in the base kits instead of in the skill trees. 

 

TLDR:

 

-Main branches have 4 perks each

-Dark Petals conversions are merged with a sisturn perk, sanity nullification is removed

-Dark Petals to is changed into a protect command for Abigail at the end of the Team Spirit branch; allows Abigail to block attacks, deflecting damage to herself. This makes Abigail sacrificing her health a more willing action that doesn't go against Wendy's character

-Strong Brew now affects the potency of potions and affects all potions

-Lunar elixir gives Abigail the power to slow and make mobs sleep

-Enough sacrifice turns Abigail into a shadow ghost that attacks with a far larger radius

-Shadow elixir makes Abigail vex all enemies in a fairly large radius (without dealing damage)

-Gravestone and Pipspook perks are combined into 4 perks. Gravestones now summon pipspooks instead of bigspooks when beautified, which can be recruited after completing their hunt with the final perk in the branch.

-Souls severance is a new perk at the end of the strong brew branch that allows players to temporarily abandon their body with a potion and control their ghost, being able to haunt things and using the Vengeful Spirit perk.

-Sisturmoil is a new perk at the end of the sisturn branch that makes active sisturns vex nearby enemies in a large radius, also increases vex damage multiplier.

-Elixir storage (already planned by developers) would be added as a one-off perk like Vengeful Spirit

 

(long) Changes:

 

Spoiler

Dark Petals 1

 

The entire dark petals branch is fundamentally flawed since petals lack the utility for an entire perk based around creating them. The nullified sanity gain is also negligible, and prevents the method of gaining sanity with evil flowers and a bee queen crown. With removed sanity changes, this perk could be merged with one of the ones affecting the sisturn. Obviously, the second perk in this branch would also have to be changed to account for this change (below).

 

Dark Petals 2

 

This perk could be useful but I think it goes against Wendy's spirit, as she wouldn't try to hurt her sister. A more consensual method would be to add a new option to Abigail's Flower called protect. This option would allow Abigail to dash in front of attempted hits on Wendy from enemies to block them (willingly) at the cost of health. This perk would also be moved to Team Spirit branch since it houses the other actions.

 

Strong Brew

 

Strong brew shouldn't just increase the duration, but also the potency of the effects. It would also affect all potions. Obviously this would have to be balanced properly. This would make the perk more impactful on gameplay, since a longer duration itself doesn't actually come in useful that often.

 

Lunar Alignment

 

While gestalt Abigail is an amazing idea (as long as the damage/vex period is adjusted to be better than normal wendy), the elixir feels a little bland. There are already multiple elixirs covering damage, and these could be upgraded by the strong brew branch rather than requiring a full-on replacement. Instead, the lunar elixir could give Abigail the power to slow creatures she hits, as they become groggy. She can even put creatures that are capable of sleeping to sleep. To balance this capability, the potion would have a relatively small duration.

 

Shadow Alignment

 

The shadow alignment feels very underwhelming compared to the lunar one. Sacrificing creatures to boost damage is a cool idea and callback to Wendy's original design, but the short damage boost just isn't worth it. Instead, Abigail should absorb energy from enemies that die around her (including murder actions by Wendy) and eventually turn into a shadowy ghost. Abigail would turn dark gray and gain a rose similar to that of Charlie, with vines emerging from ot and covering her body. As a shadow counterpart to gestalt Abigail, she would attack in a far larger radius with lower damage attacks rather than attacking a single target. Visually, she would quickly dash around enemies in the radius of damage and leave a cloud of smoke in her path, almost resembling a dark storm cloud.

 

While the last perk here is the most underwhelming, the elixir that comes with shadow alignment is as underwhelming as the lunar one. The potion could instead make Abigail spread showers of petals on the ground, vexing all creatures in a radius without necessarily damaging them. This vex would last far longer than a usual vex, but the potion would not last for long to balance it, like the lunar one.

 

Gravestone/Pipspook perks

 

These perks are fun since you can create a ghost army but perhaps they would be even funner combined, especially since most of their use comes from each other. The pipspook perks would combine into one perk at the start of the branch, followed by the ability to decorate graves, which now summons pipspooks instead of the bigspooks. Pipspooks summoned this way also have even easier hunts and drop more mourning glories. The next perk would contain the ability to craft and move graves.

 

Finally, the last perk would allow players to recruit pipspooks to fight after completing their hunts. This change would make having a ghost army a higher investment, but with higher rewards, as pipspooks would be far more active in combat than the bigspooks. The ghost cap would be removed, but pipspooks would attack in coordination, which means that damage would be limited at some point. The ability for ghosts to generate evil flowers is also redundant (haunt flowers with the new soul severance perk, explained below) and would not be in this branch.

 

Other

 

-The escape command should make Abigail disappear into the ground and reemerge next to Wendy instead of just floating away to make the perk look more unique.

-The negation of sanity loss from blessed sisturn 2 should only occur while a sisturn is active so that this perk makes more sense in the blessed sisturn branch.

 

New perks!

 

Since the way I have grouped the perks leaves space for 3 new ones, I have some ideas for them.

 

Soul Severance

 

Soul severance is a new perk at the end of the strong brew branch that grants players the ability to craft a potion that untethers the soul from the body. Basically, drinking it will allow players to control a ghost version of themselves in a radius around their body. This could be useful for haunting things or even dealing damage with the vengeance perk. Players merely have to haunt their body to enter it again (2 characters could switch bodies even? But I fear that may be broken). Note that your body is no longer under your control and is still vulnerable while you control your ghost. Make sure you are safe before attempting this!

 

Sisturmoil

 

Sisturmoil is a new perk at the end of the sisturn branch that allows any active sisturn to spread petals in a large radius that vex enemies (or just look nice). Vex also grants players a higher damage modifier.

 

Elixir Storage

 

The developers have already intended to add this to the game, and I think it would be a nice perk to join the Vengeful Spirit perk as a one off thing.

 

[Pet Rock]

bump

[Sapientis]

These are some fine suggestions!

Shadow Abigail is something a lot of people mention, but I'm afraid devs intentionally didn't want to do that.

I also suggested turning to a ghost for some time in my suggestions post (where I also present rearranged skilltree)

doing this via an Elixir seems a grat idea that also refers to Alice in Wonderland to some extend