An analysis to answer all questions over whether Wendy is strong or not

[Peasant]

Recently I've seen dozens of post claiming Wendy is strong enough or complaining Wendy is not strong at all, so here I've decided to write this article to answer the questions over Wendy's strength and thus end the quarrel if possible.

As Karl Marx said, everything is dialectical, therefore we should use a dialectical method to analyze and discuss whether Wendy is strong or not. Personally I believe that this quarrel over the topic itself is probably the result of failing to adopt a dialectical perspective when analyzing and discussing.

Before we answer the question, we need to first analyze Wendy's advantages and disadvantages.

For the former, the main advantage Wendy has got is having her past sister Abigail beside her to provide protection, which deals aoe damage that count 15 during the day, 25 during the evening and 40 during the night. When dealing damage Abigail gives the enemies a debuff, making them receive 10% more damage, but if the damage source is Wendy, this would plus another 40%, which means Wendy eventually can deal 1.54 times as her original damage. Initially Abigail got a hp of 150, and she upgrades through time, when she reaches her max level she has 600 hp, which makes her can take more damage than two pigmen can, even more cause Abigail regains 1 hp each second and becomes invincible for 0.5 seconds when receiving damage. Beside this ,Wendy wont lose sanity from all kinds of ghosts, and loses 25% less sanity from evening and night, she can build the sisturn which can provide 25 per min sanity boost and increases the speed Abigaid upgrades. One last important thing is that she can craft various potions that boosts Abigail, varied from largely boosting her hp regain for a short time to allow she always deal 40 damage regardless of the time of the day.

The later on the other hand is quite simple: Wendy's damage rate is 0.75, making her dealing less damage than everyone except Wes and weak Wolfgang(well, no one would use weak Wolfgang in combat I guess?). This makes her actual damage rate after boosted by Abigail 1.155, which is a little lower than Wigfrid.

So now we've known the advantages and disadvantages, it is time to come to...the beefalos.

Wendy players had truely brought their subjective initiative into play. They had set their eyes on battle beefalos which deals 50 damage, and this is not affacted by the Character's damage rate, yet is considered dealt by the player who's riding it. You can get 16 more damage by using the war saddle. So the Wendys sat on the war saddle that is on the back of a battle beefalo and dealing 101.64 damage per hit. If you consider Abigail, whose attack rate is 1 sec, the you can roughly take that Wendys can deal 108 to 121 damage per hit. Really remarkable if you dont consider there's an old granny out there who got a watch that deals 142 damage per hit.

So now we've talked about the beefalos, can we go to an conclusion that Wendy is strong? Well...no.

One important thing is that as we can see from these analysis, Wendy's advantages lie solely on the field of fighting. In other aspects related rather little to battle such as map exploring, logistics, Wendy is of not much use, thus marking herself a fighting character. Then how does she perform as a fighter?

The theoretical figures may look awesome, the actual practice however may suggest otherwise. During above analyzing I think that by now you can see a hidden unstable factor that threatens Wendy's strength, if not two. The first one is —— Abigail.

Abigail, being no doubt the core of Wendy's strength, is rather vulnerable when faced with giants who deals double damage to non-player units. And when Abigail dies...dies again, Wendy immediately loses all her strength. However players cannot control Abigail directly, they can only control whether Abigail would rush to the front of the boss or would stay quietly by Wendy's side, thus making Wendy a skill requiring character if you want to let out all her potentials. But even so, there's another upcoming danger that I'll mention below.

Then another thing is the beefalo. Being the other pillar supporting Wendy's strength, beefalo is the key that allows Wendy to exceed before-skilltree-Wigfrid in terms of combat. The loyal cattles served their masters well until...the rifts update. 

Since the Nightmare Werepig, klei has been keep giving new bosses the ability to knockback, which will drive Wendys out of their cozy little saddles placed on the back of their warm cattles. What's worse, powerful planar giants got themselve a Hugh number of damage and crazy superpowers like keeps slapping till nothing is alive within it's attack range or freezing you with each aoe blow, making the poor beast helplessly die in desprate, possibly alongside their masters. And the damage threatens not only the life of beefalos, but also Abigail. With only 600 hp Abigail will be killed with just three blows by lunar bearger, which would be easily achieved for lunar bearger can keeps slapping till Abigail rest in peace once again. Without the two things making Wendy a powerful character, Wendy is now merely another Wes but with 150 hp.It's clear that the rift update has brought Wendy into a dilemma.

Of course it's also brought many other characters into a dilemma too, but here comes the skill tree. What should a skilltree provide? Players dont expect the skilltree can make their favourite character into another Potato Man, nor that they wish it does. People expect skilltrees to solve this kind of dilemma that characters faces in the planar version, and then maybe add a few new things that makes the gameplay more convenient. or interesting. And that's the reason why people now are condemning Wendy's skilltree, for it nether solve any problem nor did it bring any more interesting/usful items.

So let's make a conclusion after all these analyzing. Is Wendy a strong character? She is a rather strong battle-centered character who requires skillful play, and no longer is once the rifts are opened.

TLDR:Wendy is a rather strong battle-centered character but requires skillful play, and is no longer strong once the rifts are opened.

[YuRinshue]

Indeed, after the crack, Wendy lost all her advantages, leaving only a 0.75 attack multiplier and a sad 0.75 san multiplier. Even in the face of the natural advantage range of Moon Toad Rain, her performance feels powerless, let alone the fact that she is infinitely close to Wes in other aspects.
At the same time, I have to add to you that not only will you notice the appearance of repelling monsters after the crack is opened, but also intermittently expanding enemies with repelling properties in the world before the crack is opened, such as the Nightmare Pig Man, the Mechanical Pig Man, the Ice Jaw Shark, and the Rabbit King.
Klei is very enthusiastic about adding these "meaningless" enemies with accompanying counterattacks in new updates, and the biggest impact on players is actually to limit the use of "Beefalos". At the same time, players use Beefalos because their characters have a series of weak issues such as insufficient damage and health.
Overall, players have already chosen characters with too many issues, which is why they need Beefalos. As a result, KLei still needs to target these relatively fragile characters, which is one reason for the sharper balance conflicts between different characters than in the past. The strong are stronger, the weak are weaker.

[Peasant]

21 minutes ago, YuRinshue said:

Klei is very enthusiastic about adding these "meaningless" enemies with accompanying counterattacks in new updates, and the biggest impact on players is actually to limit the use of "Beefalos". At the same time, players use Beefalos because their characters have a series of weak issues such as insufficient damage and health.

实际上击飞不能说是完全没有意义，这涉及到科雷设计boss的思路的转变，基本上所有带击飞的boss都能用特定方法打出硬直，从而提供一段供玩家站撸的空窗期，但击飞对骑牛玩家确实不友好

[YuRinshue]

20 hours ago, YXukun said:

实际上击飞不能说是完全没有意义，这涉及到科雷设计boss的思路的转变，基本上所有带击飞的boss都能用特定方法打出硬直，从而提供一段供玩家站撸的空窗期，但击飞对骑牛玩家确实不友好

我明白你的意思，这里更多是指击飞对非骑牛玩家的影响过小了，被击飞不但有装备去抵消，甚至可能给予更多安全的距离，但对骑牛玩家来说，只会是要了他们与牛的命（主要是牛）。

[Peasant]

9 minutes ago, YuRinshue said:

我明白你的意思，这里更多是指击飞对非骑牛玩家的影响过小了，被击飞不但有装备去抵消，甚至可能给予更多安全的距离，但对骑牛玩家来说，只会是要了他们与牛的命（主要是牛）。

目前科雷缺的就是一个防击飞的牛鞍以减少击飞对骑牛玩家的负面影响，好歹让击飞不至于导致玩家下牛呢