Walter Should be a Hybrid Character

[YouKnowWho142]

I want to start by saying that I am not the most qualified person to voice an opinion on this skill tree. However, I do want to give my opinion on this skill tree in particular. I have been visiting the forums every now and then for the last few months, though I haven't participated in discussions since I found that a lot of people were unconstructive and most people did not share a clear vision on what a character actually should be which caused further debate. That is not what I want to discuss. Instead, I wanted to focus on Walter's skill tree because it is generally well meaning but has caused a certain opinion to pop up, being the fun factor in ranged combat.

In his current state, Walter is a ranged character. He is punished for getting hit, his ammo is cheaper than ever, and his slingshot speeds up the longer he shoots. Combined with his assortment of stalling rounds, he is able to consistently beat a lot of bosses without ever approaching them. Personally, I believe this works fine in a team setting. It allows Walter to maintain a constant DPS and provide support while heavy hitters are able to both kite and distract. However, the skill tree focuses on this DPS aspect, which I don't believe should have been the focus of Walter's ranged capabilities.

How I envision and hope for Walter, although most likely not unique, is to be more of a hybrid character. It is likely too late for any major changes, but what I would hope to see is his new rounds having more of a supportive role in combat encouraging Walter to fire rounds during downtime to support both himself and others as well. The moon glass rounds and the pure horror rounds were personal highlights for me, since the moon glass rounds provided Walter with an aoe and the pure horror rounds allow Walter to stack a damage over time effect. I also really liked how the thulecite upgrade interacted with certain magic rounds, namely the freeze round and slow down rounds. These are the types of effects that I believe Walter should have with his slingshot. Instead, most of his new rounds focus on pure damage, and because his slingshot speed ramps up the longer it's fired Walter is encouraged to sit in one spot firing as many rounds as possible.

What would I hope to see personally? I believe that Walter's slingshot should supplement his combat instead of replacing it. Instead of being a weaker version of the moon glass rounds, stinger rounds can add a weak damage over time of some sort to deal dot between kiting, The gunpowder ammo can, when manually aimed, destroy things such as trees and rocks. The brightshade rounds can have a chance to bind a mob for a brief duration instead of just hitting them with the vine. What I would love to see most is an ammo, perhaps the dreadstone or shock rounds, that does very weak damage but applies a stacking effect up to a maximum stack, and when Walter hits the mob in melee they take burst damage for every stack applied OR gain a stacking attack damage buff to Walter exclusively that removes a stack with each hit. The consistent vision for all of these is focusing on the supportive aspect of Walter as opposed to the pure damage aspect. Very few characters are capable of debuffing mobs, and so Walter can provide this purpose to his team. This allows Walter to disengage from melee, firing a few rounds of his desired effects, and enter the fight once more. Needless to say, I think either an upgrade is needed or a change is needed to allow Walter to fire that first shot a little quicker, with some sort of cooldown of course so you can't do animation cancelling and fire a million rounds.

I won't go into Woby. Woby does have a set of issues, but this seems to be addressed as the case already and I want to wait until what the developers come up with before forming a strong opinion. I know my ideas for Walter are not super unique, but I believe that this would make his character extremely engaging and provide a unique role that isn't really seen in the game. I wanted to think about Walter in the same way as characters like Maxwell, who I find to be somewhat similar. Maxwell's puppets are weak by themselves, although with enough of them can still solo a lot of threats. Maxwell himself is frail and discouraged from getting hit. However, when Maxwell works in tandem with the puppets, he is a very powerful character. This is the relationship that Walter should have with his slingshot, and it's for this same reason that I don't think the pure damage rounds should be entirely removed either. They should still exist for those who want to use them, but it shouldn't be the only way that Walter is encouraged to be played. The damage rounds should, essentially, be secondary to the support rounds, instead of the other way around.

This is just what I hope to see from Walter, anyway. Sorry if what I'm saying is redundant. I'd love to hear thoughts about this.

[YouKnowWho142]

Upon both reading and watching the opinions of others on this I realized that a lot of my thoughts align with Lardee137's views on Walter's skill tree. I absolutely agree with their viewpoint on this and it aligns with how I see Walter.

[_mylilsunshine_]

I think you had it right. Even though Walter is punished for taking damage, meaning melee is not optimal, I never really minded engaging in melee combat with him, and I never wished to use the Slingshot for DPS either. What I had wanted for Walter was something similar to Wurt's Amphibian branch, Industrious Merm, Hardheaded, Sated Sovereign, and The King's Quest; or it could have been similar to Wormwood's lower left branch (crafting resources and planting mushrooms).

I wanted Walter to have more utility from his skill tree. Being able to give Woby's armor or hat would be nice, having a dedicated food item for her, or having her hunger tweaked would be nice. I want things that aid Walter with his survival, not specifically his combat prowess. If they had buffed the old utility rounds and added new ones, I'd have loved it. But here we are, most non-Walter-players and even Walter players want to use his Slingshot as a reliable DPS weapon. Or at least that's where we're leaning since we can't really change the skill tree to what we envision.

[Lee Sy]

最可惜的是Walter不只是有一个弹弓和一只沃比，帐篷，童子军故事，特殊的受伤扣san机制，童子军帽……当然技能做得太多也不是好事

[Mysterious box]

I prefer the current setup of the slingshot shot as there's nothing preventing you from switching between melee or ranged currently but leaning really hard into support while nerfing it's combat ability means that it'd just fall off hard or become  overpowered support tool. If you give it damage overtime it would need stupidly high numbers to justify swapping to it if that's all the damage support it's offering and 200 or 300 wouldn't cut it as with it being a dot effect the impact on your fight would be nonexistent. Then there's the slowdown rounds while it slows down the movement speed it doesn't slow down attack animations meaning it's effectively useless in melee combat for most scenarios but especially against bosses with lunge attack like nightmare werepig. 

[YouKnowWho142]

4 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I prefer the current setup of the slingshot shot as there's nothing preventing you from switching between melee or ranged currently but leaning really hard into support while nerfing it's combat ability means that it'd just fall off hard or become  overpowered support tool. If you give it damage overtime it would need stupidly high numbers to justify swapping to it if that's all the damage support it's offering and 200 or 300 wouldn't cut it as with it being a dot effect the impact on your fight would be nonexistent. Then there's the slowdown rounds while it slows down the movement speed it doesn't slow down attack animations meaning it's effectively useless in melee combat for most scenarios but especially against bosses with lunge attack like nightmare werepig. 

I never implied to nerf or replace the combat ability, only that the support rounds should be buffed up to better complement a mixed style of play since frankly most of Walter’s ammo does the same thing (pure damage) anyway. If the point in the skill trees is about replayability then Walter should be able to have a well rounded mix of both combat and support ammo which you can use depending on the playstyle you hope for. As far as dot goes, the purpose would be to stack it during downtime so that it is free, noncommittal damage that pairs with melee combat.

[hyoton123]

9 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

In his current state, Walter is a ranged character.

Yeah, archer-melee walter is very fun as is. Lots of options. I don’t really think the skilltree going on in on the slingshot is going to make for a better overall experience, although it certainly seems strong.

[YouKnowWho142]

1 minute ago, hyoton123 said:

Yeah, archer-melee walter is very fun as is. Lots of options. I don’t really think the skilltree going on in on the slingshot is going to make for a better overall experience, although it certainly seems strong.

that's my point, at least somewhwat. i suppose what i was trying to propose was a little misleading, since what i was trying to propose was to at least give different playstyles to the slingshot instead of just being for ranged damage, which lets you play Walter how you want him which is what i believe the skill trees should be striving for in the first place.

[hyoton123]

7 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

that's my point, at least somewhwat. i suppose what i was trying to propose was a little misleading, since what i was trying to propose was to at least give different playstyles to the slingshot instead of just being for ranged damage, which lets you play Walter how you want him which is what i believe the skill trees should be striving for in the first place.

Oh sorry in case i wasnt clear- I meant that the current klei version of the skilltree is not really what i think will be a fun experience (although it is strong, and i like the aoe option and the general ideas). I agree with you about the pure damage rounds and pretty much everything you said. I enjoy it as an enabler or utility item rather than for outputting damage.

[Mysterious box]

39 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I never implied to nerf or replace the combat ability, only that the support rounds should be buffed up to better complement a mixed style of play since frankly most of Walter’s ammo does the same thing (pure damage) anyway. If the point in the skill trees is about replayability then Walter should be able to have a well rounded mix of both combat and support ammo which you can use depending on the playstyle you hope for. As far as dot goes, the purpose would be to stack it during downtime so that it is free, noncommittal damage that pairs with melee combat.

I may have misunderstood my bad but even then while I won't say no to more support rounds he does have a fair amount even if we ignore duplicates he has aoe slow, aoe freeze, deaggro, damage over time, and a round that makes enemies take more damage from planar damage. Though I feel like the latter 2 should be buffed some more and given pre rift variants in their place.

Personally I just want more incentive to use the lunar route over the shadow route.

[YouKnowWho142]

Just now, Mysterious box said:

I may have misunderstood my bad but even then while I won't say no to more support rounds he does have a fair amount even if we ignore duplicates he has aoe slow, aoe freeze, deaggro, damage over time, and a round that makes enemies take more damage from planar damage. Though I feel like the latter 2 should be buffed some more and given pre rift variants in their place.

I completely agree with this, my general thought process was that Walter already had mostly pure damage ammo before the skill tree and all the skill tree did was add 6 or 7 more. It does make me wonder how many of the rounds in his skill tree should have just been basekit, since my concern especially with things like the winona tree's portable catapults or wendy's elixir basket that a lot of features that should just be a part of the character are instead being added through the skill tree which doesn't always make the most sense.