Some suggestions about Webber's Skill Tree

[WeAreHungry]

Abstract: Webber, one of the earliest characters in Don't Starve, has a unique style and operational characteristics in the sandbox game. However, even after rework, the character's appearance rate in Don't Starve Together remains low. Based on thousands of hours of gameplay understanding and mod-making experience, this article offers some suggestions on the shadow and celestial skill branches for Webber.
Keywords: Webber; spider; celestial; shadow

1. Background of Skill Tree Design
Although Webber develops quickly in the early game and has a low survival difficulty, his unique appearance and detailed gameplay are not favored by most new players. Additionally, due to his low strength ceiling and difficulty in cooperating with other players, he is often abandoned by veteran players. Webber's swarm tactics can even cause server lag or crashes. These factors lead to the character being frequently kicked out of multiplayer games, and even in single-player games, his appearance rate is lower than that of Wurt, who can be considered his superior substitute. Since the character's image is hard for most new players to accept and his operational characteristics do not help new players understand the game flow, while his spiders are difficult to compete with professional characters in crafting and gathering, this article suggests positioning him as an advanced combat character. By creating powerful spider companions or completely abandoning them, Webber's ceiling can be raised, and the number of spiders reduced to solve his main dilemmas.
In the lore of Don't Starve, Webber is the youngest survivor in terms of mental age, and celestial and shadow influences may have a greater impact on him. Therefore, this article focuses on the celestial and shadow skill branches, with the basic skills aimed at improving his cooperative ability in the early game.

2. Skill Tree Design Ideas

2.1 Basic Skills
Thanks to the joint efforts of mod authors and players, suggestions for Webber's quality of life skill tree have become increasingly complete. Therefore, this article provides only three suggestions, with others available on Steam Workshop and forums, and will not elaborate further on this part.
Teammates can use Webber's repellent box to temporarily make wild spiders lose their target and escape.
After Webber's death, spider companions will fall into a long panic state, giving teammates enough time to complete battles or retreat. Spiders will also remain in a panic state for a while after being dismissed.
3. Webber will generate a package at his offline location that does not affect other players' movement and clicking, and all spider companions will hide in this package until Webber re-enters the game.

2.2 Shadow Skill Branch: The Dark Assassin Sacrificing Spiders to Strengthen Oneself
Combine one Pure Horror and three nightmare fuels to create a Despair Graffiti. Using it on any spider will turn it into a spider_dread (appearance like a shadeling spider, cannot be dismissed, healed, picked up, or trapped) and permanently hire it, existing for up to 60s, health=100, speed=8, teleport distance=6, attacking Webber's target by teleporting to it and self-destructing if within 6, causing fear in the explosion range, damage=200. Using the graffiti on oneself increases an upgrade slot (up to 10). When Webber has at least one upgrade slot, the spider companion limit is 12, but they gain 20% base speed and two skills:
(1) Cooldown=10s, Webber pounces to a target location within range=8, quickly swinging four shadow claws on his head to deal 120 planar damage to targets within range≤1 in 0.5s, doubling Webber's base damage but immobilizing him. During the skill, every 100 damage dealt refunds 1s cooldown, and each kill refunds 5s cooldown.
(2) Cooldown=30s, Webber summons a spider_dread lasting 10s nearby.
Webber gains 25 health, 20 sanity, 25 hunger, and occupies an upgrade slot for each spider eaten. Eating a spider grants additional effects: spider increases skill 2's spider_dread summon, spider_warrior increases skill 1's jump distance by 1 and planar damage by 10, spider_dropper increases sanity cap by 10, spider_hider increases work efficiency by 10%, spider_spitter increases base damage by 10%, spider_healer increases health cap by 25, spider_water increases base speed by 10%, spider_moon clears upgrade slots.
Webber drops carried items when using any skill.
All spider_dreads belonging to the player disappear immediately after Webber leaves the server.

2.3 Celestial Skill Branch: The Glorious Commander Sacrificing Oneself to Strengthen Spiders
Webber can use an extremely expensive Enlightenment Graffiti to transform a spiderqueen or moonspiderden into a BrillianceSpider and permanently hire it. Additionally, the graffiti can convert a level 3 spiderden into a moonspiderden. Hiring a BrillianceSpider reduces Webber's health and hunger cap by 40, sanity cap by 15, base damage by 25%, and can only hire celestial faction spiders.
BrillianceSpider (can only be repaired with moon rocks and glass, cannot be picked up or trapped) has health=1800, 25% damage reduction, speed=5, damage=120, and generates 4 spikes near the attack position, attack period=3. BrillianceSpider's passive skill:
After combat starts, summons a spider_gestalt (appearance like a Gestalt spider_spitter, cannot be dismissed, healed, picked up, or trapped) every 10s, existing for up to 60s, with a maximum of 3 spider_gestalts per BrillianceSpider. Spider_gestalt has health=100, speed=6, damage_ranged=10, and teleports like a terrorbeak when damaged. BrillianceSpider's active skills:
(1) Cooldown=10s, attack_range=10, deals 200 area damage and generates 12 spikes around the impact point.
(2) Cooldown=10s, fires a special moongleam at the target, slowing all targets in the explosion range.
Webber can attach in a brightshade form to his BrillianceSpider and gain control. In this state, Webber is immune to all damage and negative effects, gains a small range of night vision, and sanity is replaced by enlightenment reaching the current cap (opposite to wearing a Nightmare Amulet), but can only control the BrillianceSpider. The attached BrillianceSpider gains 0/s-5/s health regeneration varying with the moon phase and three new skills:
(1) Command all BrillianceSpiders in range to enter defense mode, increasing damage reduction to 80%. Nearby spider_gestalt and spider_moon heal BrillianceSpider like Woven Shadow until fully restored (spider_gestalt restores 100% of its health, spider_moon restores 50%). Releasing the skill again commands all BrillianceSpiders to exit defense mode.
(2) Command all celestial faction spiders in range to move to a location.
(3) Cooldown=30s, a battle cry resets all BrillianceSpider skills, and all celestial faction spiders respond, gaining planar defense for 30s and forcing enemy targets in range to switch targets.
Additionally, teammates can right-click an unattached BrillianceSpider to enter defense mode and go inside, using the inventory while immune to all damage and negative effects, rapidly increasing enlightenment. Right-clicking again or moving exits and ends the BrillianceSpider's defense mode.
Teammates can right-click to place statue items on BrillianceSpider, right-click again to remove them. Webber's attachment or skill use drops the item.
Webber does not die immediately when health reaches zero but drops all items and attaches to the nearest BrillianceSpider, recovering 1 health.
BrillianceSpider explodes violently upon death, dealing 300 area damage and reducing players' (including Webber) health to zero. BrillianceSpider can only be dismissed with nightmare fuel, teleporting to an open area and becoming a moonspiderden.
Spider_gestalt disappears immediately after Webber leaves the server, and BrillianceSpider enters defense mode.

3. Appearance of BrillianceSpider
Unfortunately, the author could not learn to draw with a mouse after a week of attempts, so a textual description is provided as a reference:
BrillianceSpider can combine artistic elements from the spider queen, moonspiderden, spider_moon, and celestial_champion. Since it doesn't produce spiders, it is not as bloated as the spider queen. The abdomen is based on moonspiderden, with claws turned into glass spikes, and white light emanating from the holes, with the rest covered in moon rock armor for a heavy feel. Six moon rock legs are of equal length and quite sturdy, with glass claws resembling a pickaxe. The head is covered in moon rock, with many glowing slits for eyes, and three exaggerated glass pincers on a triangular mouth. In defense mode, BrillianceSpider resembles a fortress, with a towering abdomen like an inner castle, and legs and glass spikes forming towers and walls.

Conclusion
The intention of this article is to increase Webber's gameplay and bring his strength to the average level of future versions. The shadow branch leans towards short-term saves, while the celestial branch is more suited for long-term saves. Both branches raise the strength ceiling while addressing issues of lag caused by spiders and accidental damage from leaving the game. Hopefully, one day all unpopular characters can shed their former labels, allowing players to comfortably experience the interesting content of each character. This is as far as I can help you, Webber. May you always remember the words from ten years ago: "We can overcome anything!"

Limitations: The design in terms of cooperative ability may not be perfect, and harmonious discussion and supplementation are welcome in the comments.

[Dr.Webber]

OK how’s this? I made some alterations as well as some of their suggestions already being in the skill tree but I didn’t really like your ideas for alignments so do you got any other ideas in that vain also keep in mind. The skill tree isn’t finished yet so if you see certain things missing that’s why:

skill tree:
 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)
    •    Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3 + decorated dens ground webs no longer reduce


(Befriend all spider types)
    •    Beneficial bite : teach spiders how to “chop/mine” with each having the efficiency of a pig by demonstrating it done normally so they make the connection between that and them breaking down stuff + they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck 
   


    •    Silk harvester: razors can be used to remove webbing from tiles dropping two

    •    Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk
 
 


    •    Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

    •    Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night              60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.


    •    Deep den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 health and 3 health per second 

    •    No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat pig skin, bunny puffs, or any non human edible meats that pigs and spiders eat for 50-60 hunger

 


    •    Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

    •    Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage they each could only be outside the itsy bitsy nest for a total of 8 minutes after that they return to the itsy bitsy nest and nap and they’ll need to charge back up before using them again so they hunger durability that can be refilled using meat, honey, or electric milk/monster milk similar to the eye mask, but you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time so you can have them out over the course of multiple days without needing to recharge them. If you’re smart about it, also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 4 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage,have 7 hp, upon death one will respond every 90 seconds 
(You need this to craft other 3 crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)
8 silk, 3 paper, and 1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

Concept examples:

 








(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)











    •    Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required)
?:

?:

homemade den: You can make a homemade den if you place a cookie in the homemade den it will turn 2 spiders into that type, every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn Each time a spider respawns it will cost 10% power, 1 nightmare fuel Provides 50% power
it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it
4 beard hair,12 silk, 12 bone shards to craft it(bones making 4 pillars, a layer of silk, making up the walls and the rest being used as cushioning and decorations because it’s Webbers dens so it’s got Flex that decorated den drip) you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it
And it can be broken using a hammer


 

    •    Silkcrafts:
?:
?:

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

finial looks like this:


    •    Sharing is caring: Webber can give players the shoebox and they could only use it for its calling off aggressive spider function

  


    •    Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat


(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)
    •    Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats that won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

    •    Salivary sacrifice: get three spider glands for 30 HP then you have to wait five days until you can do it again over which you will heal back the 30 health

    •    Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

    •    acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

Attack Damage    Physical DamageTaken    Move Speed
+5%    -2.5%    +1.5%

    •    Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), you can feed spider queen me to get befriended nurse spiders without having to fight spider queen

    •    Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

    •     In the spirit of friendship: spiders will attack whatever killed Webber along with Weber being able to command them to attack things by haunting them, also all befriended spiders will attack players when Webber isn’t online

    •    

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 Alignments:
 
 
shadow powered spiders:
 
The Queen will reward your loyalty with  the ability to convert shadow energy, in order to benefit your spider friends

 
You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 

Lunar powered spiders: 
 
The Cryptic founder will reward your curiosity with the ability to  convert lunar energy, in order to benefit your spider friends
 

 

You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

Concept art :
shadow/lunar power concept:


Web color referenced from beards:
 




This in the beard colors above:



[WeAreHungry]

15 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

OK how’s this? I made some alterations as well as some of their suggestions already being in the skill tree but I didn’t really like your ideas for alignments so do you got any other ideas in that vain also keep in mind.

I'm sorry to hear that. I think the celestial and shadow skill branches in your idea are very perfunctory, but I understand why you did it. I also think that adding a skill tree for characters is not a very wise idea. However, we cannot change other characters, nor can we make Klei remove the skill tree, so we should consider from a realistic perspective how to enable Webber to cope with the high-intensity battles in the next major update. Otherwise, apart from players who love spiders, players who love combat will choose Wolfgang, Wurt, Willow, Wigfrid; players who love exploration will choose Wortox, Woodie, Walter, Wanda, WX-78; players who love gathering will choose Woodie, Maxwell, Wurt; players who love farming will choose Wormwood, Wurt, Warly; players who love building will choose Winona, Wickerbottom, Wurt; players who love appearance will choose Wendy, Wilson, Willow; and even players who love challenging themselves will choose Wes instead of Webber. But how many players truly like spiders? If players who like spiders feel disappointed, they might go play ARK with mods, because the spiders there are obviously better looking and more useful, and Webber will just become a joke. If you really like Webber, would you glad to see this?

[WeAreHungry]

18 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

OK how’s this?

I'm very sorry, due to some incorrect expressions and errors in this post, I have to create a new post after making improvements.

[Dr.Webber]

11 hours ago, WeAreHungry said:

I'm sorry to hear that. I think the celestial and shadow skill branches in your idea are very perfunctory, but I understand why you did it. I also think that adding a skill tree for characters is not a very wise idea. However, we cannot change other characters, nor can we make Klei remove the skill tree, so we should consider from a realistic perspective how to enable Webber to cope with the high-intensity battles in the next major update. Otherwise, apart from players who love spiders, players who love combat will choose Wolfgang, Wurt, Willow, Wigfrid; players who love exploration will choose Wortox, Woodie, Walter, Wanda, WX-78; players who love gathering will choose Woodie, Maxwell, Wurt; players who love farming will choose Wormwood, Wurt, Warly; players who love building will choose Winona, Wickerbottom, Wurt; players who love appearance will choose Wendy, Wilson, Willow; and even players who love challenging themselves will choose Wes instead of Webber. But how many players truly like spiders? If players who like spiders feel disappointed, they might go play ARK with mods, because the spiders there are obviously better looking and more useful, and Webber will just become a joke. If you really like Webber, would you glad to see this?

I don’t like the alignments I have either at the moment I was hoping maybe you could help me come up with new ones, but I don’t think doing something related to sacrifice which I feel is more Wendy’s territory instead specially for the shadow alignment because I feel that it would be out of character for Webber to sacrifice his friends at no point said that my alignments were better. I just asked if you had any other ideas for alignments.

[WeAreHungry]

7 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

don’t like the alignments I have either at the moment I was hoping maybe you could help me come up with new ones, but I don’t think doing something related to sacrifice which I feel is more Wendy’s territory instead specially for the shadow alignment because I feel that it would be out of character for Webber to sacrifice his friends at no point said that my alignments were better. I just asked if you had any other ideas for alignments.

Sounds good, I think the shadow branch might replace eating spiders with eating graffiti, using item consumption as a cost for using skills. Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions! My initial design ideas were mainly from: 1. Reducing the number of spider companions to lessen Webber's impact on the server, 2. Enhancing Webber's combat abilities to face future threats, 3. Improving Webber's ability to fight alongside teammates to overcome loneliness, 4. Increasing the operational difficulty of Webber in high-intensity combat to differentiate from a certain "watching fish fight" character. These changes might make Webber more popular, as it's hard for him to win players over with a cute appearance like Wendy. However, my biggest concern is that after Webber's skill tree is released, some players might label it as "too strong," leading to unreasonable nerfs. Therefore, I designed some "related to sacrifice" elements to make the character appear more balanced, rather than allowing both herself and the fish to gain significant boosts. I believe gaining power should come at a cost, but I will open to your suggestions. Currently, I have no ideas for changes to the Celestial branch. I'll think of a solution.

[Dr.Webber]

On 12/17/2024 at 7:58 AM, WeAreHungry said:

Sounds good, I think the shadow branch might replace eating spiders with eating graffiti, using item consumption as a cost for using skills. Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions! My initial design ideas were mainly from: 1. Reducing the number of spider companions to lessen Webber's impact on the server, 2. Enhancing Webber's combat abilities to face future threats, 3. Improving Webber's ability to fight alongside teammates to overcome loneliness, 4. Increasing the operational difficulty of Webber in high-intensity combat to differentiate from a certain "watching fish fight" character. These changes might make Webber more popular, as it's hard for him to win players over with a cute appearance like Wendy. However, my biggest concern is that after Webber's skill tree is released, some players might label it as "too strong," leading to unreasonable nerfs. Therefore, I designed some "related to sacrifice" elements to make the character appear more balanced, rather than allowing both herself and the fish to gain significant boosts. I believe gaining power should come at a cost, but I will open to your suggestions. Currently, I have no ideas for changes to the Celestial branch. I'll think of a solution.

How can someone eat graffiti?