wortox Wortox feedback after playing 12-6 build

[Dingle]

25 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

Very pertinent thoughts. I think what bothers me the most about this new version of Wortox is having to use two jars in the inventory for Knabsack to become strong. That second jar becomes completely useless and maybe it was the devs' idea to kill one more Wortox slot, but it still irritates me in a different way.

I don't believe this update will also end without some effective interaction with the Krampuses. All that happened was a quote in an item description.

You really need 3 jars for it to be viable as a weapon. By that, I mean worth it over a hambat.

This is because it gets weaker as you spend souls. You want a buffer of extra souls, so your damage doesn't go under breakpoints.

This is another reason I just started using a hambat again.

[Hollow soul 3]

37 minutes ago, Dingle said:

You really need 3 jars for it to be viable as a weapon. By that, I mean worth it over a hambat.

This is because it gets weaker as you spend souls. You want a buffer of extra souls, so your damage doesn't go under breakpoints.

This is another reason I just started using a hambat again.

I know the filled inventory is kind of trivialized by splitting stacks, but the inventory management that comes with it is also something to consider. 

[Dingle]

12 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

I know the filled inventory is kind of trivialized by splitting stacks, but the inventory management that comes with it is also something to consider. 

At some point, maybe always(?), they made it so it doesn't need to be full. You can have 4 open slots in your main inventory before you get penalized at 5 open slots.

Backpack also doesn't count! It can be empty.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

It's really annoying that it's not even particularly good for endgame farming. It breaks so quickly when looting items, and the range on it is pretty poor. I agree that it's not worth it, especially when it's supposed to be designed for the early game but also requires you have two full jars, which is a giant waste of time. So it just... doesn't work as an item in any intended ways. It's a shame you can't just skip it or its power up assuming you're taking Soul Pierce (which I'm pretty sure used to have independent damage in the early iterations of the skill tree, if my memory isn't failing me.)

[Dingle]

2 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

It's really annoying that it's not even particularly good for endgame farming. It breaks so quickly when looting items, and the range on it is pretty poor. I agree that it's not worth it, especially when it's supposed to be designed for the early game but also requires you have two full jars, which is a giant waste of time. So it just... doesn't work as an item in any intended ways. It's a shame you can't just skip it or its power up assuming you're taking Soul Pierce (which I'm pretty sure used to have independent damage in the early iterations of the skill tree, if my memory isn't failing me.)

Soul Pierce never had independent damage if I remember right. It used to be even worse, where the damage was tiny unless you had covetous, filled jars, AND the knabsack equipped.

They got rid of that last bit, then upped the base damage of pierce a lot without covetous. Big improvement.

[ApoIIo]

On 12/7/2024 at 6:10 PM, Echsrick said:

honestly i feel like its not very good, i mean i belive eating souls is the worst thing you can do with souls, so why make that your bigger deal? there just needs something better to even want to go naughty, having extra time to remove souls from overloading is....fine? i mean you can avoid it by simply dropping souls as it happens, leaving you with absolutly no upsides, not goin eat souls, not gettin sanity from droped souls, and you heal less but somehow others dont get less heal from you wich makes not alot of sense realy

I don't get why people don't like eating souls. They're finally good enough that they are comparable to honey. Just three souls a day: Empty a beehive for the equivalent of a meaty stew. I completely quit picking up food items unless something I'm doing is resulting in an excess of meat, in which case I may be inclined to cook a stew or two. It's honestly especially comfortable with soul jars having become a thing. I'm basically never eating mortal food now.

That said, the tendency reward for delaying overloads has spared me so many overloads while filling up my jars that I can't count. Farming en masse to fill 4 jars with pierce does result in souls flying towards me incredibly quickly, sometimes even faster than I can cram them into jars. In day-to-day life I haven't had to pay nearly as much attention or got annoyed by an unexpected overload because I was carried away with something else. So I do genuinely love its effect.

On 12/7/2024 at 1:38 AM, Dingle said:

3. Naughty incination nerf is just enough where I probably wont bother ever getting it in multiplayer, as then I'd want the twintailed heart for teleports. This makes the only really good builds in multiplayer Neutral ones. Oh well.

Someone already pointed out, only Wortox himself receives less health now. That said I don't think there is a point in keeping the twintailed heart line after the first summer when lazy deserters become available, and can teleport others to locations without the need to expend 10 souls per person each time. No need to consume a desert stone either because you can just have them channel a second deserter on the other side.

That said I have been starting my multiplayer sessions as lunar-aligned nice Wortox, just because the +5 sanity on soul is really nice to skip sanity food vs the fuelweaver I will rush, same with the 10% damage boost vs shadows and FW/NMpig/Shadow pieces. I use the heart to teleport people to the various bosses on the way, then atrium, then back. Then I swap to Shadow/naughty because I won't need to do much more teleporting until summer.

[Echsrick]

1 minute ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

I don't get why people don't like eating souls. They're finally good enough that they are comparable to honey. Just three souls a day: Empty a beehive for the equivalent of a meaty stew. I completely quit picking up food items unless something I'm doing is resulting in an excess of meat, in which case I may be inclined to cook a stew or two. It's honestly especially comfortable with soul jars having become a thing. I'm basically never eating mortal food now.

That said, the tendency reward for delaying overloads has spared me so many overloads while filling up my jars that I can't count. Farming en masse to fill 4 jars with pierce does result in souls flying towards me incredibly quickly, sometimes even faster than I can cram them into jars. In day-to-day life I haven't had to pay nearly as much attention or got annoyed by an unexpected overload because I was carried away with something else. So I do genuinely love its effect.

i mean i may change my view, i never realy used souls as food before because you were limited in how many you can carry, and i rather teleport to moon isle and back wich may take alot of the 20 total souls now eating souls may make it a bit difficult to teleport

[ApoIIo]

Just now, Echsrick said:

i mean i may change my view, i never realy used souls as food before because you were limited in how many you can carry, and i rather teleport to moon isle and back wich may take alot of the 20 total souls now eating souls may make it a bit difficult to teleport

Back when they were less hunger they absolutely sucked. But with the hunger buff you can really feel the difference between 4 souls a day and 3 souls a day. Only issue pre-skill tree was your limited capacity that you could not even afford a hop back from after teleporting somewhere far without refilling, was further pressured by it. But now that that's not nearly as bad an issue, I do recommend you try it out.

[Echsrick]

Just now, Bearger Enjoyer said:

Back when they were less hunger they absolutely sucked

how much was it? 18 i think i remember?

[ApoIIo]

Just now, Echsrick said:

how much was it? 18 i think i remember?

18.75 so precisely 1/4 of a day's hunger drain. Also meant -20 sanity a day.

[Echsrick]

1 minute ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

18.75 so precisely 1/4 of a day's hunger drain. Also meant -20 sanity a day.

and there was alsol no map teleport, or soul echo....unthinkable that anymore

[ApoIIo]

2 hours ago, Dingle said:

You really need 3 jars for it to be viable as a weapon. By that, I mean worth it over a hambat.

This is because it gets weaker as you spend souls. You want a buffer of extra souls, so your damage doesn't go under breakpoints.

This is another reason I just started using a hambat again.

Also, oh boy! Getting 2(3) more jars and not being allowed to draw from them and expending an additional point on the perk just so it does actual damage!

I hate the knapsack. Worst thing in the skill tree. The radius is so small it's not even good for picking up items in practice.

Just now, Echsrick said:

and there was alsol no map teleport, or soul echo....unthinkable that anymore

Wortox's past identity as nothing but a healbot is like a mental scar.

[Dingle]

10 minutes ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

I don't get why people don't like eating souls. They're finally good enough that they are comparable to honey. Just three souls a day: Empty a beehive for the equivalent of a meaty stew. I completely quit picking up food items unless something I'm doing is resulting in an excess of meat, in which case I may be inclined to cook a stew or two. It's honestly especially comfortable with soul jars having become a thing. I'm basically never eating mortal food now.

That said, the tendency reward for delaying overloads has spared me so many overloads while filling up my jars that I can't count. Farming en masse to fill 4 jars with pierce does result in souls flying towards me incredibly quickly, sometimes even faster than I can cram them into jars. In day-to-day life I haven't had to pay nearly as much attention or got annoyed by an unexpected overload because I was carried away with something else. So I do genuinely love its effect.

Someone already pointed out, only Wortox himself receives less health now. That said I don't think there is a point in keeping the twintailed heart line after the first summer when lazy deserters become available, and can teleport others to locations without the need to expend 10 souls per person each time. No need to consume a desert stone either because you can just have them channel a second deserter on the other side.

That said I have been starting my multiplayer sessions as lunar-aligned nice Wortox, just because the +5 sanity on soul is really nice to skip sanity food vs the fuelweaver I will rush, same with the 10% damage boost vs shadows and FW/NMpig/Shadow pieces. I use the heart to teleport people to the various bosses on the way, then atrium, then back. Then I swap to Shadow/naughty because I won't need to do much more teleporting until summer.

I meant at the time that the naughty self healing nerf was just enough to make me like it less than nice's +5 sanity a soul. The overload protection isnt something I need at all, but it is very "cozy".

I forgot lunar still gave Wortox a damage bonus! Will check that out.

I could see ditching twintails late game, once I have the lazy deserter AND a bunch of spare moonstones to make tons of them. Very doable if you have Celestial Champion on farm, or you keep farming moonstone during moonstorms.

Wortox's teleport really opens up a lot of weird new farming strats, as he can be anywhere, fast. My favorite is a tallbird fort in a multiplayer Wortox world. The egg delivery man.

Edit: oh, and I ate meaty stews and scotch eggs pre-beta as a way to preserve sanity.

[ApoIIo]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

I meant at the time that the naughty self healing nerf was just enough to make me like it less than nice's +5 sanity a soul. The overload protection isnt something I need at all, but it is very "cozy".

+5 sanity a soul is definitely great early on, I got a lot of use out of my first autumn shadow rifts rush until I got the bone helm but later on I don't really have much use of it because the enlightened crown being on at almost all times means I start every battle with 150 sanity, and outside of combat I'm always sane, so naughty not turning off the crown's light if I eat souls from 0 hunger to 175 is a bit nicer down the line for me. That said I don't really mind the healing nerf because even 15 per soul is more than enough imo. (You could not make me pick soul bastion at gunpoint)

4 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I forgot lunar still gave Wortox a damage bonus! Will check that out.

Because shadow mobs are more prevalent than lunar ones (including sanity creatures) I think lunar is just better pre-rifts. Post-rifts I prefer shadow for the scythe though.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

1 hour ago, Dingle said:

Soul Pierce never had independent damage if I remember right. It used to be even worse, where the damage was tiny unless you had covetous, filled jars, AND the knabsack equipped.

They got rid of that last bit, then upped the base damage of pierce a lot without covetous. Big improvement.

Might be having a Berenstain Bears moment tbh. They adjusted a bunch of numbers for Soul Pierce and the Nabsack pretty quickly, and I've been focusing most of my playtime on Walter at this point. I just know it does less damage now due to the explosion resistance on bosses.

Next time I play a Neutral build with a friend I'm gonna try skipping Soul Pierce entirely, though. It feels very overrated to me because of how easy it makes Soul farming when it kinda doesn't do very much otherwise, and I can just Soul Decoy for AoE if I need it.

[Echsrick]

48 minutes ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

Because shadow mobs are more prevalent than lunar ones (including sanity creatures) I think lunar is just better pre-rifts. Post-rifts I prefer shadow for the scythe though.

dont you get like 10% defense from shadow creatures if your shadow alligmend?

[Dingle]

1 hour ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

+5 sanity a soul is definitely great early on, I got a lot of use out of my first autumn shadow rifts rush until I got the bone helm but later on I don't really have much use of it because the enlightened crown being on at almost all times means I start every battle with 150 sanity, and outside of combat I'm always sane, so naughty not turning off the crown's light if I eat souls from 0 hunger to 175 is a bit nicer down the line for me. That said I don't really mind the healing nerf because even 15 per soul is more than enough imo. (You could not make me pick soul bastion at gunpoint)

Because shadow mobs are more prevalent than lunar ones (including sanity creatures) I think lunar is just better pre-rifts. Post-rifts I prefer shadow for the scythe though.

Do you not like the 2 hit protection from lunar? That's what I was eyeing.

57 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Might be having a Berenstain Bears moment tbh. They adjusted a bunch of numbers for Soul Pierce and the Nabsack pretty quickly, and I've been focusing most of my playtime on Walter at this point. I just know it does less damage now due to the explosion resistance on bosses.

Next time I play a Neutral build with a friend I'm gonna try skipping Soul Pierce entirely, though. It feels very overrated to me because of how easy it makes Soul farming when it kinda doesn't do very much otherwise, and I can just Soul Decoy for AoE if I need it.

Is the friend Wormwood? I was debating what soul damage would even be worth it if I was wearing bramble armor. Which I usually am in multi, I've been mostly playing solo.

I was also considering trying just decoy 3, no piercing, next solo run after the hotfix. You can snap a jar open to cancel you echo, then hop, and repeat to spam explosive decoys.

Wortox Experts call this "Popping the Sip and Grip".

It's kind of wasteful, but "wasteful" doesn't really matter anymore if you're spamming it on a giant horde of spiders/bees/splumonkeys.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

12 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Do you not like the 2 hit protection from lunar? That's what I was eyeing.

Is the friend Wormwood? I was debating what soul damage would even be worth it if I was wearing bramble armor. Which I usually am in multi, I've been mostly playing solo.

I was also considering trying just decoy 3, no piercing, next solo run after the hotfix. You can snap a jar open to cancel you echo, then hop, and repeat to spam explosive decoys.

Wortox Experts call this "Popping the Sip and Grip".

It's kind of wasteful, but "wasteful" doesn't really matter anymore if you're spamming it on a giant horde of spiders/bees/splumonkeys.

Nope, but I would rely on Soul Decoy for farming Bees until I can character swap for Bramble Armors. The jar opening thing is part of the reason why I wanted to do this, 'cause it would free up two points for a few more support skills or early affinity for the base bonuses.

I agree on the wastefulness thing. It really is just a bit slower rather than more wasteful, but since I've been no longer using the Nabsack as you have, I have been able to get by most of the time with just 2 jars and filling them more often. Gameplay itself provides a good amount of Souls, after all, and I've never really needed more than 40 for even a full Ruins clear.

[Dingle]

21 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Nope, but I would rely on Soul Decoy for farming Bees until I can character swap for Bramble Armors. The jar opening thing is part of the reason why I wanted to do this, 'cause it would free up two points for a few more support skills or early affinity for the base bonuses.

I agree on the wastefulness thing. It really is just a bit slower rather than more wasteful, but since I've been no longer using the Nabsack as you have, I have been able to get by most of the time with just 2 jars and filling them more often. Gameplay itself provides a good amount of Souls, after all, and I've never really needed more than 40 for even a full Ruins clear.

Let me know how this goes!

Yeah I'm also finding myself going for less jars, after ditching the sack. 2-3 instead of 4.

The only reason I go for 3 sometimes now is because I love Overwhelming Greed. It feels very comfortable to have to crack open jars less, to me. I can live without it, but I don't want to.

[ApoIIo]

52 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Do you not like the 2 hit protection from lunar? That's what I was eyeing.

"Wouldn't it be insane if there was another way to use those soul echos to avoid two hits, without post-rift gear?"

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

dont you get like 10% defense from shadow creatures if your shadow alligmend?

I'm more interested in killing shadows in one less hit and fuelweaver in one less minute than taking 1 less damage from a crawling horror.

[Dingle]

15 minutes ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

"Wouldn't it be insane if there was another way to use those soul echos to avoid two hits, without post-rift gear?"

Have you compared both? I thought the upsell would be being able to attack while "dodging".

[ApoIIo]

4 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Have you compared both? I thought the upsell would be being able to attack while "dodging".

1) Shadow ends up doing more single-target damage at the cost of burning through souls faster, ignoring the aoe function.
2) I dislike the design of lunar affinity on a fundamental level. Removing the kiting part of soulkiting so it's just soul... something. I'd like to remain encouraged to soul-kite more, not less. Basically the lazy affinity.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

5 hours ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

"Wouldn't it be insane if there was another way to use those soul echos to avoid two hits, without post-rift gear?"

I actually thought this at first before I started forcing myself to play with Lunar affinity. It doesn't offer the AoE utility that Shadow Harvester does, but the DPS is actually notably higher when fully utilizing it.

It has two main upsides. The first one is that saving the Soul Echo generally gets you another few attacks due to the animation. Shadow also effectively does this on single targets with the double damage. Lunar is affected by Reverberation while Shadow is as well but only for single targets, but is more affected by Soul Decoy in exchange.

The second one is that you really don't need anything more than one piece of armor for safety like this, so you're pretty free to make use of the Enlightened Crown + Brightshade Sword for much more damage than what the Brightshade Helm offers. Meanwhile, if you use the Bone Armor for a similar effect, you're probably gonna want your headgear to be armored for assurance, and Bone Armor already has asynergy with Wortox's skills at this point and is really just for safety on a Void setup.

 

I actually did some DPS tests on a Treeguard, no animation cancelling. The time listed is time to kill.

Brightshade + Helm + Lunar Affinity - 21 seconds

Void + Shadow Affinity - 21 seconds

Brightshade + Enlightened Crown + Lunar Affinity- 17 seconds

Brightshade + Enlightened Crown + Lunar Affinity - 15 seconds

Void + Shadow Affinity + Soul Decoy III - 18 seconds

Brightshade + Enlightened Crown + Soul Decoy III + Reverberation - 14 seconds

Void + Shadow Affinity + Soul Decoy III + Reverberation - 17 seconds

So in practice the difference is relatively minor, but a Shadow/Void enjoyer is going to want to also take Soul Decoy III to have access to similar DPS while a Lunar/Brightshade user is going to need to use the Enlightened Crown to capitalize on its effects. It just depends on if you're willing to deal with the Enlightened Crown or not (Soothing Tea, stars, Clear Minded Cadenza + Bel Canto of Courage, just stopping to chug Banana Shakes, etc.) and what skills you want to have for your team. The utility of each affinity with vary depending on the encounter as well, of course.

This means you're probably gonna have to give up either Capricious Movement or Overwhelming Greed if you want to keep Reverberation + affinity, or drop Soul Pierce entirely for other options. I wish Wortox could somehow squeeze out a single more point.... Lunar is also less affected by dropping Souls Decoy entirely and has a lot more flexibility for skills if you drop it for minimal DPS loss.

Pick your poison, really, but you can maximize your DPS on Lunar. They're both pretty good. It just depends on what you want for both yourself and your team, but if I'm carrying Lifebringer III over Soul Decoy, I think I might end up taking Lunar instead. If I ever try a Nice build, it's 100% Lunar for me, considering the self-heal on sanity is stronger and I'm probably utilizing allies or Bramble Armor for Souls anyways, and you can make space for Pleasant Pastorale pre-rifts too if you really want to spend less time farming.

[Castiliano]

10 hours ago, Dingle said:

You really need 3 jars for it to be viable as a weapon. By that, I mean worth it over a hambat.

This is because it gets weaker as you spend souls. You want a buffer of extra souls, so your damage doesn't go under breakpoints.

This is another reason I just started using a hambat again.

Yeah, i can see. If you go the Naughty route, it's a bit like what happens with Wheeler's inventory in Hamlet, lol. But it sounds annoying in Wortox. The way the slots are definitely there, but poorly utilized — I would prefer it to be 60 souls required instead of 100.

Anyway, I find it okay to use just two jars and the knabsack, instead of three jars. You can go with 10 extra souls in addition to the 100 required. However, it is completely understandable to still prefer other weapons.

[ApoIIo]

2 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

It has two main upsides. The first one is that saving the Soul Echo generally gets you another few attacks due to the animation. Shadow also effectively does this on single targets with the double damage. Lunar is affected by Echolocation while Shadow is as well but only for single targets, but is more affected by Soul Decoy in exchange.

You mean reverberation? Because you also get two AoEs with reaper from it.

2 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

So in practice the difference is relatively minor, but a Shadow/Void enjoyer is going to want to also take Soul Decoy III to have access to similar DPS while a Lunar/Brightshade user is going to need to use the Enlightened Crown to capitalize on its effects. It just depends on if you're willing to deal with the Enlightened Crown or not (Soothing Tea, stars, Clear Minded Cadenza + Bel Canto of Courage, just stopping to chug Banana Shakes, etc.) and what skills you want to have for your team. The utility of each affinity with vary depending on the encounter as well, of course.

Enlightened crown sanity maintenance needed to outdo shadow? You didn't have to sell me more on shadow.