wendy Wendy Long Playtesting + Feedback (12-12 Build)

[Dingle]

Hello! I'm going to post my long Wendy playtests in here. I did the same for Wortox, along with a lot of feedback. I don't have tons of time to play, so I generally play for an hour here and there. I want to do real playthroughs, so I'm going to limit myself to 20 days or so (probably) and see what I can do.

Background on me: I ruins rush a lot as a lot of characters. I don't play Wendy much, as I never liked her pipspook stuff. I have done ruins rushes as her, but haven't really played her for at least a year.

Here's my first playthrough! I'm pretty rusty on boss killing in general (except AG), so I figured I would let myself do rollbacks. This one is a test run.

PLAYTHROUGH 1

Build and Strategy

This was my build.

I did this because I figure right now, there's really no reason to not just go for Sisturn 3. It is a brainless choice, it's the obvious winning strategy. My strategy was to rush lune blossoms, then kill bosses.

It strikes me how open and free form Wendy's tree is. Probably because of a combination of it originally being designed to be much weaker, and a lot of skills getting consolidated due to general complaints. She has no locks (except for the affinities), and very, very little filler. It's pretty crazy how loose her tree is, and how cheap everything is.

I got the grave talent to mess with bigspooks, and to make pipspooks even easier. I really ended up liking it. I'll keep it.

I got Team Spirit I just because I grabbed everything else important.

The extra potion talent is fun, though I may not get that in future playthroughs. It's pretty overkill. If I just got the Picnic Casket, I could spend 3 points in.... ???? No idea. Maybe Attack Here. Like I said, her skill tree is so freeform that I feel like I have EXTRA points, and I'm not making any hard decisions.

I usually train a Beefalo, but decided not to this time. I didn't want to mess with that and a "new" character at the same time.

The Run

I find Mosaic right away. It's connected to Bee Queen. Which is a screen away from Dragonfly. Which is right next to the marble setpiece. Amazing.

I put my base and loot down day 5 next to Bee Queen. I haven't found a spider biome at this point. I move all the graves from Mosaic to next to Bee Queen.

The very next day, I see a super easy message in a bottle in the river next to Swamp. I put a grass raft in it, and grab the bottle. My hope was that I'd find a bottle so I could get lune blossoms very easily from Crabby Hermit. That way, I wouldn't need to find Moon Island at all.
 

 

Crabby Hermit ends up being off the shore next to my base!

On the way to Crabby Hermit, I run into TWO salt biomes full of cookie cutter shells. And a Fallounder school of fish. I would have killed for this luck when I was trying to rush Pearl as Wortox.

Day 9, I have my Lune Blossoms. I put them in the Sisturn, as I believe that preserves them. However, I still have no spider silk or glands. So I start heading to Swamp.

At this point, I dawdle a lot. I get a lot of supplies, because I'm waiting for Day 11. My thoughts were I could then get the full moon ghosts to also help me kill Bee Queen. This turned out to be a big waste of time: The normal ghosts just disappear when they see a boss. Only the Bigspooks can help you. I end up rolling back a couple times, because it's hard to tell what was going on with the ghosts. I thought they were just despawning for no reason. In the end, I end up running from Bee Queen so she despawns, and preparing to fight her in the daytime of day 12, instead.

Day 12, I fight her and it goes amazingly well. I have 5 Bigspooks with me, which add another 62.5 AOE DPS. Abby starts the fight with Nightshade Nostrum, so 102.5 AOE DPS. I have 2 marble suits, and a nearly stale ham bat because I did not want to look for meat. So my damage isn't as great as it could be.

The lune blossoms for this fight were probably overkill. I'm not even sure if Abby got hit. With help from the Bigspooks, the Grumble Bees melt. I also see the Bigspooks occasionally take a hit from a grumble or Bee Queen herself, defending Abby from damage. If a Bigspook dies or BQ gets too far away, it merely respawns.

I'll use these again, at least for Bee Queen. They drastically reduce the resource cost of the fight. It's 3 flowers per grave to spawn a Bigspook, and it seems like they last for more than a day before the grave turns back into normal.

I completely forgot to catch bees to Murder to turn her into Shadow Abby. I also forget to do this in the next boss fight.

I did not use a single potion except a Nightshade Nostrum. I've heard from another person playing that this is typical now. If you use Bigspooks or just use Shadow Abby, you really don't need any other potion now. So the fight got even cheaper.

I take a Jellybean break, using the kelp and planted kelp I got from Pearl Island. I also have a salt bin now, and no fridge.

I then wrap up my lune blossoms into a bundling wrap, so they last even longer.

I build a single pig house and feed the pig monster meat, so I can get a new ham bat fast. Then it's time for Dragonfly!

I moved 3 Bigspooks there. They may be worth it if you can do 5, just for the extra DPS. I didn't want to pick more flowers.

If you dig up a decorated grave, I think you only randomly get 0-2 flowers back.

I was incredibly out of practice with Dragonfly. However, I killed her first try. Her AI kept glitching out though, running to make more larvae. Maybe the bigspooks messed it up?

My strategy was going to be just tanking Dragonfly with Abby, but Dragonfly will just hit Wendy if you're close. So I very clumsily would count 6 hits and then dodge, instead. Abigail made this way easier than normal: If you would have failed to dodge otherwise, he just hits Abby.

I had a Revenant Restorative on Abby, and that's all I ever needed, one single potion. I kept messing up the pan flute versus the Enrage, because I forgot you're supposed to unsummon Abby first. The "Attack here" command actually would have helped a lot for this.

At one point I even messed up and Enraged Dragonfly stomped on Abby multiple times. No problem. Whatever. She's really tanky now.

After doing this once, I think I could do it way, way better next time haha.

Then I went back to the Sisturn and wrapped up my Blossoms. They got to Stale. Next time, I would definitely go for Bee Queen first, THEN get blossoms. Oh, and I'd also get a net first, so I could catch and replant the lune moths in my base for new trees.

 

First run over! Next time I play, I'll probably flip a coin to decide if I go for a Beefalo or not. Also, my world was accidentally set to Large, and I usually play Medium. So I will fix those settings.

My next playthrough strategy will be the same, except I'll get Team Spirit 2. Not sure what else. Oh, and I'll remember to actually use Shadow Abigail.

General Feedback

1. Wendy feels very cozy and comfortable. Abigail floats around you and murders everything. A lot of my early hunger and healing needs was just taken care of by a pile of butterflies. I even used Butter Muffins as healing for Bee Queen.

2. Skill Tree feels like the most loose and free form out of the entire roster of characters. This doesn't seem to be intentional, going by developer notes.

3. I really like the new flower controls now. I know a lot of Wendy mains don't like the change, though. I always had problems with unsummoning her.

4. The elixir change that lets you just right click them to use them is great!

Ran out of time, that's all I have for now.

[Debruh]

Lunar blossoms won't do anything substantial for beequeen. What can kill Abby here is the grumble bees which aren't affected by it, as far as I'm aware 

For the fire stomp thing, I really recommend using escape

[Dingle]

7 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Lunar blossoms won't do anything substantial for beequeen. What can kill Abby here is the grumble bees which aren't affected by it, as far as I'm aware 

Yeah, I realize that now. Future runs will have me kill bq and get bundling wraps first, then get lune blossoms and living lune moths after.

7 minutes ago, Debruh said:

For the fire stomp thing, I really recommend using escape

I was using it during the fight. During the stomp I was mostly making sure I didn't get hit by the stomp, too. I haven't fought most of these bosses solo in a long time, so forgot the range.

[Lardee]

@Dingle Are you planning on uploading the run to YT? Would be great to see these things in action.

[Dingle]

Just now, Lardee said:

@Dingle Are you planning on uploading the run to YT? Would be great to see these things in action.

No plans. I could maybe do a fight if I can upload directly to the forum. Not sure if that is possible.

Mostly I don't have a lot of free time! I'm posting on my phone usually. If I get actual computer time, it's spent playing the beta.

Screenshots are just way faster.

[YuRinshue]

This post is more meaningful in form than simply denying, of course, what I am looking forward to more is your test results during the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift period. After all, Wendy's performance had always been excellent before that.

[AliceShiki]

3 hours ago, Dingle said:

Her AI kept glitching out though, running to make more larvae. Maybe the bigspooks messed it up?

Dragonfly has a 50/50 chance of either getting enraged or summoning more larvae if the last larvae dies to the timer.

If you kill the last larvae, she is guaranteed to go enraged mode instead. An Ice Staff is usually the easiest way to handle that, but you can also just beat the larvae up until it dies. You only need to kill the very last larvae to guarantee enraged mode.

[Dingle]

2 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

Dragonfly has a 50/50 chance of either getting enraged or summoning more larvae if the last larvae dies to the timer.

If you kill the last larvae, she is guaranteed to go enraged mode instead. An Ice Staff is usually the easiest way to handle that, but you can also just beat the larvae up until it dies. You only need to kill the very last larvae to guarantee enraged mode.

Oh haha, I had no idea after all this time.

[Dingle]

12 hours ago, YuRinshue said:

This post is more meaningful in form than simply denying, of course, what I am looking forward to more is your test results during the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift period. After all, Wendy's performance had always been excellent before that.

I don't think I will have time to do those, as I'm playing normal runs (instead of spawning things in console) and have limited time.

Unless I end up doing a playthrough where rifts are just on at start of game.

[YuRinshue]

8 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I don't think I will have time to do those, as I'm playing normal runs (instead of spawning things in console) and have limited time.

Unless I end up doing a playthrough where rifts are just on at start of game.

The time cost is indeed very helpless, mainly because without the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift era, the effective content of this post will be insufficient. After all, all discussions are actually based on the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift era. After all, without this stage, no player would actually need a character skill tree.

[Dingle]

2 hours ago, YuRinshue said:

The time cost is indeed very helpless, mainly because without the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift era, the effective content of this post will be insufficient. After all, all discussions are actually based on the Lunar Rift+Shadow Rift era. After all, without this stage, no player would actually need a character skill tree.

That is disingenuous, given that a lot of the "make Wendy stronger" arguments use "casual or beginner players need this the most" as their central premise.

Pointing this out. Casual players most likely won't open the rifts.

Even though I know what you're saying is disingenuous, I may do a "rifts open day 1" playthrough at some point anyway. I am personally curious. Do you want me to do that with or without Sisturn III?

[YuRinshue]

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

That is disingenuous, given that a lot of the "make Wendy stronger" arguments use "casual or beginner players need this the most" as their central premise.

Pointing this out. Casual players most likely won't open the rifts.

Even though I know what you're saying is disingenuous, I may do a "rifts open day 1" playthrough at some point anyway. I am personally curious. Do you want me to do that with or without Sisturn III?

I don't understand your point of view, but through the posts I have posted, you will know that my point of view has never been 'because basic players need survival abilities', but' Abigail needs to match survival abilities with new environments'. Secondly, I recommend that you refrain from using it for now, in order to experience the actual performance of Abigail's fault tolerance. In addition, it is recommended to use other characters with summoners for benefit comparison in the crevice environment.

[Dingle]

49 minutes ago, YuRinshue said:

I don't understand your point of view, but through the posts I have posted, you will know that my point of view has never been 'because basic players need survival abilities', but' Abigail needs to match survival abilities with new environments'. Secondly, I recommend that you refrain from using it for now, in order to experience the actual performance of Abigail's fault tolerance. In addition, it is recommended to use other characters with summoners for benefit comparison in the crevice environment.

Have you seen any other posts on these forums? Not quite sure how you're not seeing the "casual/newer players need Abby to be more tanky" arguments...

Anyway, let me know if you want me to have Sisturn III on for the rifts or not.

[YuRinshue]

11 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Have you seen any other posts on these forums? Not quite sure how you're not seeing the "casual/newer players need Abby to be more tanky" arguments...

Anyway, let me know if you want me to have Sisturn III on for the rifts or not.

In the second half of my last reply, I mentioned the third level selection of sisters's urn that I recommended to you. As for the other posts mentioned, I believe that almost all of my ideas have already been reflected in the corresponding posts I have written on the forum. They have consumed a lot of my time and energy, so I have been paying less attention to the forum recently. Nowadays, most of them are responding to some of the respondents in my posts, or creators who share the same improvement ideas as me.

[Dingle]

8 minutes ago, YuRinshue said:

In the second half of my last reply, I mentioned the third level selection of sisters's urn that I recommended to you. As for the other posts mentioned, I believe that almost all of my ideas have already been reflected in the corresponding posts I have written on the forum. They have consumed a lot of my time and energy, so I have been paying less attention to the forum recently. Nowadays, most of them are responding to some of the respondents in my posts, or creators who share the same improvement ideas as me.

Oh ok, I misunderstood the urn recommendation. Will do so.

[DVGMedia]

19 hours ago, Debruh said:

Lunar blossoms won't do anything substantial for beequeen. What can kill Abby here is the grumble bees which aren't affected by it, as far as I'm aware 

For the fire stomp thing, I really recommend using escape

Grumbles do have player modification. Thier base is 30 and players take 15 also when queen is comanding them they do 40 but 20 to players

[thesooz9000]

12 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

Grumbles do have player modification. Thier base is 30 and players take 15 also when queen is comanding them they do 40 but 20 to players

Yea, But we aren't sure if a grumble counts as "boss", since rooks also have the player modification and deal 200 dmg to abigail with player tag.

[DVGMedia]

1 minute ago, thesooz9000 said:

Yea, But we aren't sure if a grumble counts as "boss", since rooks also have the player modification and deal 200 dmg to abigail with player tag.

thats not actually the case its just that rook has 2 attacks 45 charge and a 200 dmg rush that only hits mobs

[Dingle]

Just now, thesooz9000 said:

Yea, But we aren't sure if a grumble counts as "boss", since rooks also have the player modification and deal 200 dmg to abigail with player tag.

I couldn't tell you either haha. Wasn't checking that specifically, and nightshade abby + 5 bigspooks melted the grumble bees anyway.

Looking back, I think Abby actually took the most damage from Bee Queen for me. I wasn't used to the fight at all.

1 minute ago, DVGMedia said:

thats not actually the case its just that rook has 2 attacks 45 charge and a 200 dmg rush that only hits mobs

Never knew!

[thesooz9000]

3 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

thats not actually the case its just that rook has 2 attacks 45 charge and a 200 dmg rush that only hits mobs

Fr? That's nice to know.

[DVGMedia]

12 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Never knew!

There are some fun theatricals you can get aswell you can get a 400 damage ram as wolfgang if you befriend a rook from rebuilding them in the ruins.
You can also achieve this hitbox by pushing the rook aswell meaning you can push the rook with like a beefalo  and have that 200 damage mob hitbox active.

[Tranoze]

20 hours ago, Dingle said:

4. The elixir change that lets you just right click them to use them is great!

You already can use elixir when right click them. Riding beefalo somehow stop this and you have to hover elixir on top of abi to use them while riding beefalo.

[Dingle]

6 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

You already can use elixir when right click them. Riding beefalo somehow stop this and you have to hover elixir on top of abi to use them while riding beefalo.

I thought that was new in the beta. Did not know about the beefalo.

[Tranoze]

30 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I thought that was new in the beta. Did not know about the beefalo.

Now i really thought about it, maybe half of wendies dont use potions because beefalo prevent them to.

[Dingle]

Did not get to play much this week. I did start a second playthrough, and get to about Day 13.

Things are going a little slow with it, but I think I'm going to shoot for Ancient Fuelweaver. Maybe I'll even play a little bit longer than that.

PLAYTHROUGH 2 - PART 1

First off, the build:

I don't know about Picnic Casket, and I get bundling wraps after killing Bee Queen as the first boss. But, I figured I'd try to keep it, for convenience.

Sisturn 3 again, because it's the most powerful thing she has. However, this time I'm not going to rush it. I just want to get Lune Blossoms before Nightmare Werepig.

I'm also trying out the Attack Here command, unlike last playthrough.

The Run

Spider Quarry on Day 1. Good sign. I also find two Knight heads right next to each other. The spider quarry lets me get a bunch of glands right away. Last game, I had trouble finding spiders.

First Sinkhole I open leads right to the blue mushroom forest. This later ends up being close to my base.

Base set up on day 5. I don't find a very good spot, so I just put it near the Postern, which ended up being very central. Wormholes and general layout in this world are not great.

I also ended up getting a Beefalo. It was Juicy Berry world, so I took that as a sign. I kind of regretted it later. I personally feel like Juicy Berries aren't as good as grass gekko or twiggy tree worlds, for beefing it.

I get beefalo on most of my characters. I really like them for the speed, and letting me use a piggyback. I'm a little out of practice on them, though, because I was playing Wortox beforehand. I figure the developers do NOT want you to train a beefalo as Wortox, as they avoid adding in a teleport while on a beefalo. I'm not sure why, but I assume it's really intentional at this point.

Chester on Day 6. I am saved.

Easy message in a bottle on day 7, just off the coast. I don't even need an oar, just a grass raft. Crabby Hermit Island is not in a great spot this time, but it doesn't really matter, as I have a beefalo.

I carry a firefly around with me and a straw hat, so I can make a Miner's Hat ASAP. It's great for carrying the marble pieces around. But then I just find one lying on the ground, guarded by a bunch of treeguards. This also lets me get 6 living logs very easily.

I also find this:

IF ONLY...
IF ONLY I HAD HAUNT

I end up spending a bit too much time clumsily collecting resources. I fight Bee Queen Day 11. My strategy:

Make 7 graves. Space them a little bit apart. I guessed that because the bigspooks are limited by distance to each other, placing the decorated graves in clumps of 4 would make lots more of them spawn, consistently. I was right.

Start the fight on the Beefalo. Switch to on-foot with marble armor, when the beefalo gets too hurt.

Use Scotch Eggs for healing. Mosaic is near by Postern Base, so I can grab a few tallbird eggs easy.

It goes pretty well, but actually a bit worse than my first playthrough.

I was thinking too much about the beefalo for no reason, so I wasn't aggressive enough. Abigail ended up taking more damage than she should have, because I wasn't being aggressive enough. I ended up having to use a Cure All that I didn't need to. I also forget, yet again, to collect some bees for the Murder buff.

I used lune blossoms to kill Bee Queen last playthrough, too. It actually helped a lot, as I still haven't practiced the fight much.

However, I just use 93% of a marble suit, and about half a beekeeper hat, otherwise. I didn't even need to heal during the fight.

Right after this, I use the graves to do another Pipspook quest. I time it this time.

I'm not very good at the pipspook chore, but it only takes me 2 minutes. This doesn't seem bad to me. I used to really, really hate it. Now it's much shorter, you can start it whenever you want, and it gives 20 mourning glory.

After that, I return to base. I make twig meals for the beefalo, make the jellybeans, and get all my supplies together for going underground. I also precraft a Sisturn.

I have 3 bundling wraps. In one, I put my Nightmare Werepig boss fight supplies. In another, I have a bundle of 34 butterflies and other supplies. The moment I get a construction amulet, I am going to make a Glossamer Saddle.

Note to self: Precraft an Alchemy Engine next time I play. I think I forgot to.

When I play again, my rough plans:

- Probably go to Crabby Hermit Island to get Lune Blossoms and catch Lune Moths with a net for replanting the trees in my base. Due to being able to bundling wrap the blossoms, I think it will be very easy to just keep the Sisturn 3 buff up whenever I need it.

- Ruins rush as fast as I can. I'm going to try out the Mourning Glory garland and drinking Nightshade Nostrum for night vision. Kill Ancient Guardian, who I hear the player tag doesn't help with, anyway.

- If it looks like I have time, kill Nightmare Werepig after building a Sisturn near him and putting Lune Blossoms in it. It would be great to get his pure horror, as it only takes ONE pure horror to make each Vex elixir as Shadow attuned Wendy. Otherwise, I'll kill him right before AFW, so I have vex potions and the dreadstone to open rifts.

- Get out so I can find the missing Shadow Piece. I found the setpiece already, the rook piece, and knight head. I need to find the Bishop head.

- Kill the Shadow Pieces for the Heart.

- Start gathering supplies for Ancient Fuelweaver. Fight him after my Beefalo tames (just so I don't have to care about the beef shaking the saddle off) .

- Maybe kill Dragonfly before heading down. It barely matters when you kill her when playing solo, though. Usually I just make dwarf stars with a starcaller as much as I need, instead of making a furnace.

No rollbacks or anything so far! Hopefully I can play again next week, but it may be a couple of weeks before I get to, again.

Quick Notes for now:

1. Attack Here ended up being AMAZING. I will get it every time, from now on. Will write details on it next time. It plus the Pipspook Quest perks really change the character for the better, for me.

2. The mourning glory hat seems really expensive, at 6 mourning glory. I haven't been able to test it out yet, but I assume I probably won't get it again. However, I'd be tempted to get it in multiplayer. Being able to give other people very early night vision (especially Wortox) sounds great.