Wortox affinity skills, are they being looked at? Limited to a single item is not fun

[Kwaik]

Not the biggest fan of the Wortox skill tree 

But it seems like compared to most other characters, his affinity skills are among the worst and NOT fun. 

Most other characters affinity skills are gaming changing and highlight a character in a fantastically fun way. 

Wortox affinity skills seem to just be really boring and uninteresting, and worst of all require specific pieces of gear that aren't even character specific. 

Imo the direction of the skill tree seems to be improving but his affinity skills are a MASSIVE letdown, especially compared to many of the other characters that have gotten fun powerful exciting ones

[Koomin]

It’s a good point that Wendy and a bunch of other characters get the bonus at any point after beating the boss on any server, and don’t even need post-rift gear, let alone a specific piece of that gear.  Seems like a weird restriction.  They have already done this specific gear thing for characters like Wormwood though, not really clear why some get their boons pre-rift and others post-rift.

I do think that Wortox’s skills are pretty cool though once you get them.

[Radicaljoe]

I think the ideal balance for affinity skills would be like Lunar Wurt. You can feed glass to merms(prerift) for stronger followers. But, upon reaching rifts, they get way stronger with merms being able to be upgraded with brilliance, and Wurt getting the lunar marsh cast thingy.

Good utility prerift, with something to look forward to after rift.

[BoysenSyrup]

I think the actual effects are reasonably neat... just sort of weird for Wortox? Scythe sort of fits him, but the Brightshade Helmet feels really random. Not sure what they'd be changed to, but the rest of the skill tree is really cool theming-wise. Shrug

[Dingle]

I kind of wish the shadow alignment wasn't tied to gear, but I'm not complaining much. The scythe aoe is pretty cool for a Nice build, as it lowers the need for Naughty talents to farm souls.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

I don't mind the item requirement, personally. Just some mild concerns about it.

You can still keep Void Cowl + Scythe and wear the Brightshade Armor for Lunar, so it felt okay to me. It just seems really redundant with Soul Hop kiting in general, and increases your DPS by encouraging you not to kite at all, which is inherently kind of lame. If they want to keep the current design and make it more appealing, it needs to do something else, I think. Right now the only way to get great mileage is by using Brightshade Armor + Brightshade Sword + Celestial Crown, and the Crown is a bit awkward to use on Wortox with how bleh Soothing Tea is, though at least Banana Shakes are mostly good enough when combined with it. They COULD fix that with a Wigfrid-style Sanity heal effect on hit during an Echo, though, and this DOES lean into Lunar-themed gear, while also improving the bad synergy with Reverberation a little... Just saying...

On the shadow side, I wish it just applied chip AoE for the duration of your Soul Echo instead of only 2 hits, including to your target. I don't want it to do a lot of damage in exchange, and it's mostly for the crowd control hitstun. It's only majorly useful during a couple bosses at the moment and the DPS increase of one extra hit and a Soul Decoy refresh isn't really an incredible trade for your Soul Echo, but I'm pretty happy with any reliable DPS increase on this character. It would be nice if it did something more, though, since it's already a little redundant with Soul Pierce when it matters.

They could also both use a small visual effect when active. Not even just for information, but for a little more flavor too.

Overall, his alignment is definitely a tad underwhelming and skippable, especially when we're comparing them to skills like Terra Corruption and Shadow Fire-Raiser, but I suppose he already has a ton of gameplay changes from his base skills. I think they would have been a great opportunity to redefine his gameplay a bit further, but I think they're still pretty useful if you deliberately milk them for all their value.

I think my greatest concern is that this will limit his equipment options in the future and get trampled on by updates. It just seems a bit short-sighted, really, unless they really don't give us any new best in slot post-rift gear for the remainder of this games' updates. Lunar will stay fine as long as new Lunar gear is added to his skill, but the Shadow alignment is much more limited.

(I also kinda miss actually having an excuse to wear the W.A.R.B.I.S. Armor, 'cause it's super underutilized and was pretty solid on pre-Insight Wortox when Void Robe wasn't necessary, but it's fine. I can still do that with shadow affinity, but I've gotten a bit spoiled by Bone Armor during the beta.)

[BeastNleashed]

Which Char got FUN Skilltree? Woody just got his transformations better, Wurt has just stronger Merms and still need tons and tons of ressources and is still weaker than most Chars, Wilson can only Transmute stuff, Winona mostly only got new Stuff for Catapults and so on.

And about the Power part: So you really think that killing a Boss in like 3 Seconds which new Wortox Skilltree isn't Powerfull? Okay. 

 

1 hour ago, Radicaljoe said:

I think the ideal balance for affinity skills would be like Lunar Wurt. You can feed glass to merms(prerift) for stronger followers. But, upon reaching rifts, they get way stronger with merms being able to be upgraded with brilliance, and Wurt getting the lunar marsh cast thingy.

Good utility prerift, with something to look forward to after rift.

Yeah while most other Chars get all they strong Stuff Day 1, Wurt need to kill all bosses first and need tons of Ressources, super balanced. 

[Kwaik]

1 hour ago, Koomin said:

It’s a good point that Wendy and a bunch of other characters get the bonus at any point after beating the boss on any server, and don’t even need post-rift gear, let alone a specific piece of that gear.  Seems like a weird restriction.  They have already done this specific gear thing for characters like Wormwood though, not really clear why some get their boons pre-rift and others post-rift.

I do think that Wortox’s skills are pretty cool though once you get them.

Sure but with wormwood it applied to a unique armor only craftable by him, as well as 3 different weapons. 

I'll agree with you that it wasn't the best choice either  (iric his skill tree got pretty heftly buffed after release too) 

8 minutes ago, BeastNleashed said:

Which Char got FUN Skilltree? Woody just got his transformations better, Wurt has just stronger Merms and still need tons and tons of ressources and is still weaker than most Chars, Wilson can only Transmute stuff, Winona mostly only got new Stuff for Catapults and so on.

And about the Power part: So you really think that killing a Boss in like 3 Seconds which new Wortox Skilltree isn't Powerfull? Okay. 

 

Yeah while most other Chars get all they strong Stuff Day 1, Wurt need to kill all bosses first and need tons of Ressources, super balanced. 

Woody was one of the first skill trees so nothing was crazy, but It 100% made the character a lot more fun and accessible, especially his transmutation. 

 

Wolfgang was a boring skilltree but a hefty power buff. People love the Wurt skilltree which makes her a bit of a beast. I'm not sure if anyone counts Wilson's skill tree or if he gets an eventual revisit. Wormwood, Winona, Wigfrid, Willow all got hefty changes making them a lot more fun. And Walter and Wendy are both pretty promising albeit in beta 

 

The Wortox thing bring tied to a hop, within 3 seconds, and a specific weapon all suck. Especially in console where combat/soul hopping isn't quite as smooth as on pc 

[ColdHeaven]

2 hours ago, Kwaik said:

Sure but with wormwood it applied to a unique armor only craftable by him, as well as 3 different weapons. 

I'll agree with you that it wasn't the best choice either  (iric his skill tree got pretty heftly buffed after release too) 

Woody was one of the first skill trees so nothing was crazy, but It 100% made the character a lot more fun and accessible, especially his transmutation. 

 

Wolfgang was a boring skilltree but a hefty power buff. People love the Wurt skilltree which makes her a bit of a beast. I'm not sure if anyone counts Wilson's skill tree or if he gets an eventual revisit. Wormwood, Winona, Wigfrid, Willow all got hefty changes making them a lot more fun. And Walter and Wendy are both pretty promising albeit in beta 

 

The Wortox thing bring tied to a hop, within 3 seconds, and a specific weapon all suck. Especially in console where combat/soul hopping isn't quite as smooth as on pc 

i consider wolfgang's rework a failure, it made him too boring to play. i used to play wolfgang a lot along with other characters but now i just completely drop him.

Wortox's is very interesting, clearly they put a lot of work into it and only need some slight polish here and there

[Hollow soul 3]

Console worries me a bit with his shadow skill. To use them, you're going to have to teleport away, walk back and swing. Is the extra damage worth the time to teleport away? I feel like you could just get in the extra hits instead. Guess it's easier to plan around if you have some free skips though.

[Cassielu]

4 hours ago, Kwaik said:

and worst of all require specific pieces of gear that aren't even character specific.

I think it actually fills in some of what Wortox is missing and good for him.

All of Wortox's original perks and other skilltree perks are available in the early game and are almost equally powerful from day 1 to post-rift endgame. This makes him slightly less to have the "gain rewards feeling" that comes with getting stronger as the game progresses like other characters.

Giving him the perk that need rift items can make the player feel more involved when doing these progresses.

 

And also he's really strong enough, especially  in early game.

[arubaro]

6 hours ago, Koomin said:

It’s a good point that Wendy and a bunch of other characters get the bonus at any point after beating the boss on any server, and don’t even need post-rift gear, let alone a specific piece of that gear.  Seems like a weird restriction.  They have already done this specific gear thing for characters like Wormwood though, not really clear why some get their boons pre-rift and others post-rift.

I do think that Wortox’s skills are pretty cool though once you get them.

That is one of the most balance break stuff in the skill trees. Starting day 1 with a power that would be already too strong if were only for late

[Kwaik]

1 hour ago, SSneaky said:

Looks at wormwood's brightside lunar roots skills:

Which again isn't the best functionality, but at least he's got two seperate skills covering 5 different items, AND one of them of them is a unique wormwood craftable. 

 

If you want wormwood to be the inspiration make it like wormwoods. Have it cover the knabsack as well as multiple shadow weapons. 

Having it require a specific weapon AND be tied to within 3 seconds of a teleport makes it junk 

[Steorra]

I personally pretty love the scythe one,

but the lunar one is weird and boring.

[Kwaik]

2 hours ago, Ugur01 said:

My new affinity suggestions:

Lunar affinity: Brightshade sword deals double damage after soul hop (current shadow affinity)

Shadow affinity: After casting soul hop, he makes his attacks with shadow reaper by turning around his scythe (like kayn q). He makes area attacks to the enemies around him. 

Each hit in both affinity consumes soul echo

 

except the dash part

 

You get stuck with the two specific weapons, and they both suck for console players 

[IAmAFurrz]

15 hours ago, Kwaik said:

But it seems like compared to most other characters, his affinity skills are among the worst and NOT fun. 

Most other characters affinity skills are gaming changing and highlight a character in a fantastically fun way. 

um... no. his as fun and gamechanging, basically just granting you either bone armor, or aoe with soul echos.

because of how decoys work now, its really useful to just have either of them since you will be using souls to dodge attacks now

 

15 hours ago, Kwaik said:

Wortox affinity skills seem to just be really boring and uninteresting, and worst of all require specific pieces of gear that aren't even character specific.

'seem' makes you sound unsure, have you played him, cuz i certainly have (now 300 days in beta, and ive played him for god knows how long before this beta) and its the most fun ive had since WIGFRIDs skill tree. and theyre tied to wortox's soul echos, theyre very character specific

 

15 hours ago, Kwaik said:

Imo the direction of the skill tree seems to be improving but his affinity skills are a MASSIVE letdown, especially compared to many of the other characters that have gotten fun powerful exciting ones

the skill trees already great imo, some things can be worked on but, affinity skills are a letdown? really?

[Hollow soul 3]

1 minute ago, IAmAFurrz said:

The skill trees already great imo, some things can be worked on but, affinity skills are a letdown? really?

I'm on that boat too. For controller, teleporting away before the attack and running back is meh. More worth while to just hit the enemies three times.

[arubaro]

Is sad that for controler this doesnt work quite well but that is a problem with how klei developed them.

Limiting the game by changing cool and fun perks or reworking bosses isnt a good idea, is better to pressure for changes and improvements for consoles 

[Dingle]

Yeah sounds like the gamepad controls arent great in general. I think I heard someone say that there's no way to get mouse controls on consoles either? I thought you could get a mouse that worked at some point, at least for xbox.

[Hollow soul 3]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

Yeah sounds like the gamepad controls arent great in general. I think I heard someone say that there's no way to get mouse controls on consoles either? I thought you could get a mouse that worked at some point, at least for xbox.

That would be the best option, but in the latest Dev stream they mentioned changing Abigail's controls might be difficult. Not really holding my breath for them to fix it for wortox. His entire teleporting system is nerfed on most devices. Feels bad to have it balanced only for PC.

[loonreaper]

The shadow affinity is amazing but it needs to be adapted to consoles. The way I've been playing is *tp*, 2-3 hits, *tp* 2-3 hits (timed for the enemy strike). I think they should make it like Winona's remote controller, being able to move the distance but kinda locking it in place. So if you need to have a short hop for kiting vs bosses like dfly then simply shorten the distance. They can even have an option in the controller settings to have auto tp vs manual adjust.