So, Walter is pretty fun and really powerful!

[Tarnishedmax]

Ive seen a bunch of discussion/videos that talk about Walter's "max potential" and how supposedly boring it is, and i just wanted to say that most of those discussions tend to be disingenuous because the true Walter potential is not locked behind mounting Woby and using slowdown + cursed rounds, and while it is a perfectly valid  play style to have i just want to prove that its not the only play style he has and he can reach some insane levels of damage if you know what you are doing.

To prove this i decided today to fight 2 lunar bosses with minimal equipment, and by that i mean, no armor, no magiluminescence, just an upgraded slingshot, a walking cane and a thulecite club, for some reason a lot of users act like Walter is allergic to melee weapons, which is weird to me because the slingshot not having any sort of cooldown or penalty makes hotswapping between it and a melee weapons so effective and fun, the slingshot upgrades give Walter the opportunity to play extremely aggressive for a really high reward and i personally find this play style extremely fun (and effective) to do

Yes, before you say anything, pure horror rounds are in fact pre rifts, and not that hard to get! you only need pure horror supplied by your local nightmare Werepig and to craft the Shadowcraft Plinth at a pseudo science station, 4 pure horror equals 120 pure horror rounds which are MORE than enough for any fight you want to do.

I made this post mostly for fun but also with the hopes of finally making people realize that Walter is so much more than meets the eye, i hope this inspires more Walter players to finally become as fearless as Walter himself is!! *˗ˋˏ ˚◝(>ヮ<)◜ ˚ˎˊ˗* 

[viblym]

This is tempting me to post vids of my boss fights with characters, I love doing different setups depending on progression and comparing how Walter fares with each of his upgrades would be sooo cool.

[Tarnishedmax]

14 minutes ago, viblym said:

This is tempting me to post vids of my boss fights with characters, I love doing different setups depending on progression and comparing how Walter fares with each of his upgrades would be sooo cool.

Im having so much fun with Walter that ive been testing pretty much everything alongside just playing as him in many worlds, getting more video demonstrations would be awesome! i feel like this community does a bit too much theory crafting and they forget that you can just  actually play test things.

[gaymime]

i have been spending almost two weeks watching people play as walter and it has me so excited for him to come out of beta<3 for sure though most people seem to swap between rounds and hambat so assuredly from what i have seen he does not falter with melee ~

[Tarnishedmax]

1 hour ago, gaymime said:

i have been spending almost two weeks watching people play as walter and it has me so excited for him to come out of beta<3 for sure though most people seem to swap between rounds and hambat so assuredly from what i have seen he does not falter with melee ~

Walter quite literally has 0 penalties when it comes to melee combat, there is a big difference between a penalty and a punishment, Walter gets punished for playing sloppy because he loses sanity when he gets hit, so the solution is to just dont get hit, he has normal damage multipliers, normal speed and only 20 less hp than regular characters, there is no reason to be afraid to fight as Walter unless you get hit a lot, and even if you do get hit a lot and go insane, killing shadow creatures with the slingshot is so easy that at worst you are just gonna struggle a tiny bit, so yeah dont be afraid to grab your hambat and wack some stuff!

[IAmAFurrz]

2 hours ago, Tarnishedmax said:

I made this post mostly for fun but also with the hopes of finally making people realize that Walter is so much more than meets the eye, i hope this inspires more Walter players to finally become as fearless as Walter himself is!! *˗ˋˏ ˚◝(>ヮ<)◜ ˚ˎˊ˗* 

yea but quite literally the skill tree made it so bullets is all he is, instead of adding something so melee is better or less punishing to incentivize it. and as with the examples, you can just slow the bosses down and shoot without any risk

its not that walter cant be played fun, its that his perk/downside soup makes it so melee is so risky while ranged is bad, skill tree made it so the only option is ranged improvement. they said they'll add boyscout stuff, so i am hoping to god they will add something to make melee fun with him rather than being a completely painful version of wilson

[viblym]

7 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

yea but quite literally the skill tree made it so bullets is all he is, instead of adding something so melee is better or less punishing to incentivize it. and as with the examples, you can just slow the bosses down and shoot without any risk

its not that walter cant be played fun, its that his perk/downside soup makes it so melee is so risky while ranged is bad, skill tree made it so the only option is ranged improvement. they said they'll add boyscout stuff, so i am hoping to god they will add something to make melee fun with him rather than being a completely painful version of wilson

The only downside he has with melee is his sanity loss upon getting hit, but that's why things like kiting and armor exist. The slingshot existing is an additional method of getting around this downside, but he isn't at any more spectacular of a disadvantage in melee combat compared to any other character. I hate to say it but it's a matter of not biting off more than you can chew. If you're not good at kiting and you don't have the tools to effectively tank as Walter, then use the slingshot. The only thing restricting yourself here is your skill.

[_mylilsunshine_]

2 hours ago, Tarnishedmax said:

Ive seen a bunch of discussion/videos that talk about Walter's "max potential" and how supposedly boring it is, and i just wanted to say that most of those discussions tend to be disingenuous because the true Walter potential is not locked behind mounting Woby and using slowdown + cursed rounds

yep yep i totally agree. jumping into a test world, giving yourself the best gear, being in the best condition, etc. are just going to shoehorn yourself into one "best" or "meta" playstyle, and it is doing such a disservice to the character. in short-term world where you cant realistically amass materials for ammo, engaging in melee combat rewards you with a lot of resource economy, swinging a hambat AND shooting rounds. character's gameplay is best evaluated when they are played.

i believe waltuh has the potential to be one of the top speedrun characters, at least in a medium-length category

[MisterBilly]

I'd like to mention how much fun I was having playing Walter in caves doing post rift stuff. With his aoe  pure horror rounds on a thulecite slingshot, and dreadstone rounds with a possessed band, It was like playing Enter the Gungeon in don't starve, while I was trying grab rift mats. Truly a unique play style, even if not everyone likes it.

[Tarnishedmax]

25 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

yep yep i totally agree. jumping into a test world, giving yourself the best gear, being in the best condition, etc. are just going to shoehorn yourself into one "best" or "meta" playstyle, and it is doing such a disservice to the character. in short-term world where you cant realistically amass materials for ammo, engaging in melee combat rewards you with a lot of resource economy, swinging a hambat AND shooting rounds. character's gameplay is best evaluated when they are played.

i believe waltuh has the potential to be one of the top speedrun characters, at least in a medium-length category

oh yeah absolutely, in the many worlds i have been playing i sometimes find myself doing the slowdown + cursed rounds, sometimes melee only, sometimes a mix, but what i just love about Walter and what has made me want to non stop play him is just the INSANE amount of versatility he has, no matter what was happening or the situation/world gen i felt like i was always ready for anything the game wanted to throw at me

5 minutes ago, MisterBilly said:

I'd like to mention how much fun I was having playing Walter in caves doing post rift stuff. With his aoe  pure horror rounds on a thulecite slingshot, and dreadstone rounds with a possessed band, It was like playing Enter the Gungeon in don't starve, while I was trying grab rift mats. Truly a unique play style, even if not everyone likes it.

Spelunking as Walter is genuinely so cool i always end up with my inventory just full from literally everything  ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ 

[_mylilsunshine_]

32 minutes ago, MisterBilly said:

I'd like to mention how much fun I was having playing Walter in caves doing post rift stuff. With his aoe  pure horror rounds on a thulecite slingshot, and dreadstone rounds with a possessed band, It was like playing Enter the Gungeon in don't starve, while I was trying grab rift mats. Truly a unique play style, even if not everyone likes it.

even pre-rift cave as waltuh is also fun. theres only the ruins but y'know.

the scrappy frame, which is relatively reasonable to get, trivializes bishops and rooks. those two, if not dealt with correctly, are guaranteed to hit you at least twice. with a football helm, that's a lot of sanity to give up just to melee them. once you prototyped cursed round, which is easy enough if you hammer the walls outside of the ruins, you can rest assured knowing you'll never run out of ammo and have to waddle back to a station to craft more.

the staggering effect when shooting pacifies ancient guardian. if you maneuver him correctly, he shouldnt hit any pillars and cause earthquake, which can be annoying to dodge. 

and i dont have to tell you how nightmare creatures are a joke and how woby is amazing at exploring and carrying cargo.

healing is scarce in the ruins, unless you get lucky with the timing of the blue mush forest. but walter's portable tent solve that issue with just some food that you can find down there, and even from the ancient guardian. 

[IAmAFurrz]

1 hour ago, viblym said:

The only downside he has with melee is his sanity loss upon getting hit, but that's why things like kiting and armor exist. The slingshot existing is an additional method of getting around this downside, but he isn't at any more spectacular of a disadvantage in melee combat compared to any other character. I hate to say it but it's a matter of not biting off more than you can chew. If you're not good at kiting and you don't have the tools to effectively tank as Walter, then use the slingshot. The only thing restricting yourself here is your skill.

playing melee, he is a disadvantaged wilson. ofc he has the perk soup of woby existing as marble mover and chester, sanity from trees, and sanity drains not affecting him except gettin hit just makes him lose sanity. im not saying hes wilson, but he is a boring wilson if you melee, while skill tree gives you the ability to just ignore melee completely without much risk.

they didnt do anything to encourage melee, in fact theyre trying to make slingshot his primary with the slows, decent dps for range, and woby speed skill

'you can set a challenge for yourself' is not a good argument as you can play wilson and that'd be a challenge in of itself. id say wendy against bosses that abi struggles against rn, is actually interesting unlike walter who you'd need to find ways to limit yourself from ranged to actually find something interesting. i wont judge those who find walter fun, but i certainly felt bored playing him

[Tarnishedmax]

5 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

playing melee, he is a disadvantaged wilson. ofc he has the perk soup of woby existing as marble mover and chester, sanity from trees, and sanity drains not affecting him except gettin hit just makes him lose sanity. im not saying hes wilson, but he is a boring wilson if you melee, while skill tree gives you the ability to just ignore melee completely without much risk.

they didnt do anything to encourage melee, in fact theyre trying to make slingshot his primary with the slows, decent dps for range, and woby speed skill

'you can set a challenge for yourself' is not a good argument as you can play wilson and that'd be a challenge in of itself. id say wendy against bosses that abi struggles against rn, is actually interesting unlike walter who you'd need to find ways to limit yourself from ranged to actually find something interesting. i wont judge those who find walter fun, but i certainly felt bored playing him

you are not really limiting yourself at all? on my video i take down lunar bearger in a minute and 30 seconds, Wilson with void gear and perfect play takes around 1 minute 50 seconds or 2 minutes, Walter being handicapped is able to kill it miles faster than Wilson by playing like this, its literally not limiting yourself but rather playing the character to its full potential and having a risk vs reward factor, btw without limiting myself to pre rifts equipment Walter can take out lunar bearger in 50 seconds when you mix match melee and slingshot, that is Willow level like i have no clue what your point even is when there is literally factual numbers involved that show meleeing as Walter is extremely effective, its not really limiting yourself but rather pushing yourself and that is a good thing because the character has natural progression and a genuine risk factor which is losing sanity while getting hit, now tell me, how is his slingshot doing damage any different than Maxwell spamming cages? how is it any different than Willow spamming shadow flames from a safe distance? how is it any different from Wolfgang using a marble suit and face tanking half the game while doing a billion damage? you can ALWAYS play safe on this game, everyone can use gloomerangs, howlitzers or gunpowder, i genuinely dont understand why you target Walter specifically for this when other characters can do the exact same thing while also having a 1x damage multiplier for melee, just look at Willow and Wanda, Willow can use a gloomerang while spamming shadow flames from a safe distance and do insane damage, Wanda's old age multiplier affects the gloomerang, making it hit like a truck, so what makes Walter so supposedly different from those scenarios? is pushing yourself to get more damage a bad thing now?

also you keep saying perk soup like that means anything, Walter has never been a perk soup, just because that one youtuber said that one time 4 years ago doesnt make it true.

[viblym]

8 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

playing melee, he is a disadvantaged wilson. ofc he has the perk soup of woby existing as marble mover and chester, sanity from trees, and sanity drains not affecting him except gettin hit just makes him lose sanity. im not saying hes wilson, but he is a boring wilson if you melee, while skill tree gives you the ability to just ignore melee completely without much risk.

they didnt do anything to encourage melee, in fact theyre trying to make slingshot his primary with the slows, decent dps for range, and woby speed skill

'you can set a challenge for yourself' is not a good argument as you can play wilson and that'd be a challenge in of itself. id say wendy against bosses that abi struggles against rn, is actually interesting unlike walter who you'd need to find ways to limit yourself from ranged to actually find something interesting. i wont judge those who find walter fun, but i certainly felt bored playing him

Wormwood is a perk soup with his speed boost, hunger drain, sanity from helping/harming plants, hunger buffer, blooming, bee attraction mechanic, plant tending mechanic, summer insulation, living log crafting, plant summoning, bramble husk, bramble trap, compost wrap, mushroom farming, bee farming perks. What a mess! The truth is all characters in DST are mechanically diverse because the game itself is mechanically diverse. I get Walter isn't popular but he's hardly a perk soup, all of these things exist because he is a boy scout, Walter has one of the most transformative gameplay styles for any non-DLC character. That is a good thing. The only reason why he's so divisive is because he has his unique sanity downside with HP, and his slingshot underperformed compared to close combat. The "Perk soup" argument is honestly tiring and non-conductive for discussing Walter feedback. I feel like people treat it as a placeholder for genuine feedback when they need to find something less offensive than just outright stating "Walter is bad". If every discussion of Walter's balance is going to fall back on saying he has Features in the "Characters with Features" game, we will get nowhere.

You can engage in close combat with Walter perfectly fine, you can see TarnishedMax doing it in the videos posted above. If you don't like Walter because you can't handle his downside or you're just not interested in him that's fine, but I really don't think a damage modifier is going to make him more appealing to you.

[thesooz9000]

20 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

Wilson with void gear and perfect play takes around 1 minute 50 seconds or 2 minutes,

Yo, not disagreeing but wes with perfect play and void gear takes around 1 minute and 30 seconds

[Tarnishedmax]

3 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

Yo, not disagreeing but IIRC wes with perfect play and void gear takes around 1 minute and 30 seconds

Naw thats too low to be physically possible, it deffo is under 2 minutes but a minute and 40 seconds is the average, so Wes probably takes a few more seconds? that 0.75 damage multiplier doesnt matter that much with rift stuff so its only like 10 or less extra seconds of fighting

[gaymime]

Just now, Tarnishedmax said:

Naw thats too low to be physically possible, it deffo is under 2 minutes but a minute and 40 seconds is the average, so Wes probably takes a few more seconds? that 0.75 damage multiplier doesnt matter that much with rift stuff so its only like 10 or less extra seconds of fighting

just a couple days ago someone posted a perfect-play with wes to try and argue that wendy is too weak to be worth playing if you use beefalo instead of void gear

[thesooz9000]

8 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

Naw thats too low to be physically possible, it deffo is under 2 minutes but a minute and 40 seconds is the average, so Wes probably takes a few more seconds? that 0.75 damage multiplier doesnt matter that much with rift stuff so its only like 10 or less extra seconds of fighting

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV115z4YdE83/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click

 

Unless this was somehow faked.

Fyi that with max damage ramp up wes is dealing 76 damage per hit with the reaper and cowl.

 

 

[Tarnishedmax]

1 minute ago, thesooz9000 said:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV115z4YdE83/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click

 

Unless this was somehow faked.

 

 

Oh this video is awesome but that is genuinely pixel perfect play, the normal person average tends to be the numbers i stated, since i take my measurements from myself and just the people i play with/see so i never really see someone be this perfect, my point still stands though! Walter using a melee weapon in combination with his slingshot makes his damage skyrocket!

[SilverSpoon]

(Considering there is already a slingshot cooldown grip, I think the cooldown removal on swap will be fixed...)

[Lardee]

47 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

you are not really limiting yourself at all? on my video i take down lunar bearger in a minute and 30 seconds, Wilson with void gear and perfect play takes around 1 minute 50 seconds or 2 minutes,

This is simply not true. Wes with Void Gear beats Armored Bearger in 1:30. Wilson beats it faster. And both use less resources than what was spent in this fight.

 

The problem with Walter's skill tree isn't that players can choose to play him as a hybrid melee/range character. It's that the skills Klei has given Walter favor a slingshot-only playstyle. I haven't tested it out, but I'm almost 100% certain that had you used slowdown rounds + icker, you could have ended this fight way quicker by simply holding F at range.

You also could have probably beaten it just as fast or faster if you used the Shadow Reaper and Void Cowl.

We say this not because we want to dunk on Walter, but because now is the time to point these things out so that Klei can make him better.

[viblym]

1 minute ago, Lardee said:

This is simply not true. Wes with Void Gear beats it in 1:30. Wilson beats it faster. And both use less resources than what was spent in this fight.

 

The problem with Walter's skill tree isn't that players can choose to play him as a hybrid melee/range character. It's that the skills Klei has given Walter favor a slingshot-only playstyle. I haven't tested it out, but I'm almost 100% certain that had you used slowdown rounds + icker, you could have ended this fight way quicker by simply holding F at range.

You also could have probably beaten it just as fast or faster if you used the Shadow Reaper and Void Cowl.

We say this not because we want to dunk on Walter, but because now is the time to point these things out so that Klei can make him better.

You didn't watch the videos???????? Dude...

[Lardee]

1 minute ago, viblym said:

You didn't watch the videos???????? Dude...

I watched the videos. He beats armored Bearger in 1:30.

[Tarnishedmax]

3 minutes ago, Lardee said:

This is simply not true. Wes with Void Gear beats it in 1:30. Wilson beats it faster. And both use less resources than what was spent in this fight.

 

The problem with Walter's skill tree isn't that players can choose to play him as a hybrid melee/range character. It's that the skills Klei has given Walter favor a slingshot-only playstyle. I haven't tested it out, but I'm almost 100% certain that had you used slowdown rounds + icker, you could have ended this fight way quicker by simply holding F at range.

You also could have probably beaten it just as fast or faster if you used the Shadow Reaper and Void Cowl.

We say this not because we want to dunk on Walter, but because now is the time to point these things out so that Klei can make him better.

Did you even read the post... im purposefully using pre rift stuff, that is the point of this post, Walter takes less than 50 seconds total with this exact same thing happening but post rift stuff, i have actually tested this, its a lot faster than icker + pure horror, the current videos are also less expensive, the amount of rounds used equals to 3 ish pure horror and 3 rocks, im not using slowdowns either because this is pre rifts Walter, how am i supposed to get icker rounds, post rifts Walter does the same thing plus the icker round, you lower the health until the butt slam treshold, do the stun and hit melee and repeat 

[Lardee]

40 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

Did you even read the post... im purposefully using pre rift stuff, that is the point of this post, Walter takes less than 50 seconds total with this exact same thing happening but post rift stuff, i have actually tested this, its a lot faster than icker + pure horror, the current videos are also less expensive, the amount of rounds used equals to 3 ish pure horror and 3 rocks, im not using slowdowns either because this is pre rifts Walter, how am i supposed to get icker rounds, post rifts Walter does the same thing plus the icker round, you lower the health until the butt slam treshold, do the stun and hit melee and repeat 

I know you're purposefully using pre rift stuff.  

I'm responding to the claim in the reply post that directly compared pre-rift Walter's stuff to Void Cowl/Shadow Reaper Wilson. Also, no. 3 pure horror is more expensive than half a Void Repair Kit which is about what it would cost Wes or Wilson to beat Armored Bearger.

I'm also responding to the implicit claim that people who are criticizing Walter's skill tree don't know about using him as a hybrid melee/range fighter.  We do know about this playstyle.  We are saying that the design of the slingshot doesn't cater to this playstyle and that it would be better if it did.

Would love to see both the videos of Walter using Void gear against Armored Bearger and using only Icker/Slowdown rounds.