Final Thoughts on Wendy's Skill Tree and Potential Changes

[Giovirtual79]

Hello everyone, it's me again. With the year coming to an end, I felt like there would no better way to end it off than to look at Wendy's Skill Tree one final time and really analyze it. While I am satisfied with my play sessions with this skill tree, I feel like I'm done with the beta. I prefer playing on Public Servers rather than by myself, so I think I'll wait until the beta comes to live. With that said, I do have a few things to say about these skill trees and want to go over them. Above, I have the skill tree I am currently running and the one I think I will keep when I play her in live. I have a lot to say on this skill tree, most notably on one certain skill branch, so let's jump into it.

To start things off, I wanted to cover a skill that I never used, one I'm sure you all never used in actual runs, and one that has been talked about recently. Vengeful Ghost is, as the devs out it, a stylistic branch that's meant for fun and not really meant to be taken all that seriously. They mentioned it will help new players out a bit because they die more often than not and is a badge of honor when you eventually are able to survive without it. This is only half true, as while some new players will die to a lot of the smaller mobs in this game like hounds and spiders, in which this will be useful for, most deaths from new players come from 3 factors: Darkness, the first harsh season (Winter), and Giants. This skill doesn't really help against these 3 factors, especially giants, and this usually results in people scattering to revive or the world regening. With that said, I don't have much to say on this skill and don't really want this to be changed. Although worthless outside of new players, the idea of ghosts attacking enemies is funny and I honestly believe they should double down on this. Maybe, instead of player ghosts attacking for 30 seconds, the game just turns player ghosts into mob ghosts. This means giving players 200 hp, 15 damage, and they will keep attacking until they run out of health. Once they run out of health, they will just return to a normal player ghost. I dunno, the mental image of a ghost needing to kite bosses makes me giggle a little. Otherwise, this skill is very harmless and I would prefer to keep it in the game. With all the hurdles the devs had to jump through with this tree, I'm glad they were able to incorporate a silly branch.


Pipspook Quest is next and there's really not much for me to say on this branch. One of the most annoying things about Wendy's kit was gathering the Mourning Glory itself via the Pipspook Quest. Finding Pipspooks themselves is a bit tedious, but it's honestly not bad. You will run into one eventually on your playthrough. It's the quest itself that is the most annoying part. There will be sometimes where all the toys will be in the biome you found the Pipspook and then times where the toy you are searching for is on the other side of a body of water. This means you need to backtrack and go all the way around just to get the toy. This can be made a lot worse if the next toy spawns in the location you just left, meaning you need to go all the way back again just to find that toy. You could use a boat to mitigate this, but then the question is why are you wasting resources on a boat to get potentially 1 toy. Additionally, these toy quests have a random chance at either 3 toys per hunt or 5 toys. You get 1 per toy you get save for the final Hunter, where you get 4. This means, in total, you can either get 7-9 Mourning Glory per hunt, which is absurd. This is ultimately the reason why I never Pipspook hunted and only really did it if I know I needed to prep for a boss. The time it takes can go from manageable to unbearable depending on how unlucky you got and the output of Mourning Glory just didn't make it worth actively seeking out for. This branch completely fixes the issues I had with the quests and makes the quests worth seeking out for. While there is still a chance toys will spawn over a body of water, the first skill makes it so that situation will almost never happen in your normal playthroughs. In fact, I have had runs where two toys basically spawned on top of each other, making toy collecting a lot easier. The extended quests also help as well, as it allows you to collect more toys and receive a bit more mourning glory. On top of that, the final skill basically secures that one hunt will net you between 18 to 20 mourning glory, practically doubled the original quest's output. This is extremely good quality of life for gathering glory, especially since a lot of the new crafts require a lot of it. I think this skill line is probably my favorite skill line in the game and one I have no complaints on. Even if you don't want to put put all your points into this branch, the first two are still extremely useful by themselves to bring., which is great. Overall, really good set of skills and I'm extremely happy these skills haven't been touched.


I guess to compliment the Pipspook Quest tree, we should talk about the Mourning Glory branch now. This branch was placed in to replace the Dark Petal branch when the devs just couldn't find a way to balance the Floral Shroud. How did they do with this branch? Well, it's hard to say. I do understand the point of reviving butterflies, especially the shadow side. This gives you a way of being able to murder things easier and a way to play flowers with the need of a bug net. Additionally, it can allow you to infinitely restore the freshness of your butterfly wings, allowing you to have much more time to get the Glossamar Saddle without worrying about your wings spoiling. With that said, butterfly nets are cheap, easy to make, don't require Mourning Glory to use, and are just the superior way to collect Butterflies. Not to mention, they can also be used to capture bees, so it isn't limited in that sense. In my opinion, you should have the ability to bring other small mobs to life, such as rabbits and spiders, via this skill and it should not be limited to butterflies. Even then, I don't think this skill is even that good because every single alternative is just better than simply using this. If they reduce the cost to 1 Mourning Glory rather than 2, maybe I can see an argument for bringing this. However, as of not, it's meh. If there's one way to describe the crown, it would be "novelty.:" It can be extremely fun to use and it can even be useful on certain characters, such as Wormwood. However, I don't think it is entirely worth losing your head slot over, especially since most of the potion effects are not really worth it. There are some that are useful, such as Spectral-Cure-All, Vigor Mortis, and Nightshade Nostrum. However, many of the other potions are either gimmicky or weak, making it not really worth using. Honestly, I think the one useful thing to using this item is as a poor man's top hat, as the sanity gain is similar to one. However, if you remember my point on bug nets vs. butterflies, you should know why this isn't good. Not much to say about the revive structure, it's a revive. All this really does is make Wilson's already irrelevant status even more irrelevant, as this is just the meat effigy, except you don't suffer a health penalty for using. Honestly, I think the main problem about this branch is just the balancing on it. I feel like if they tweak a few things about this, it would honestly be decent. As it stand, it really isn't that powerful of a branch, but it is extremely fun, especially the crown. That's sorta why I don't have any notes on this branch, it has a lot of potential despite the problems it has and it's also extremely fun to experiment with.


The Grave line is a bit strange to talk about. Originally, it used to be 3 skills for one branch before it got simplified to two. Now, I really have one problem with this branch and that problem is this branch is balanced. To put simply, this branch has one bloated first skill and then another skill after this is just completely worthless. Grave 1 basically does everything you could ever want. It allows you to relocate gravestones, which is amazing for making farms or bringing graves to your base for easy Pipspook Quests. It allows you to put petals on those graves, which then spawn a Bigspook. These Bigspooks will target mobs and giants alike and can be extremely valuable dps. Additionally, you can use the spawning mechanics to summon multiple ghosts to shred a bosses health and protect you and Abby from potential hits. Example can be seen below:

Finally, these flowery graves generate Dark Petals for Wendy to pick, which she is also immune to the insanity gain when picking because of this skill. All of this compared to Grave 2, which just allows her to craft graves on skeletons. You see what I mean? You have this uber skill that basically does everything you would want it to do and then some. Then you have another skill that is essentially worthless because there are already so many graves in the world to begin with. The only use I see this skill having is allowing you to dig up more grave loot and that's it. Honestly, the devs should either rebalance these two skills to make them equal in strength, buff the final skill to make it worth running, or just make it a 1 skill branch like Vengeful Ghost. One cool idea I saw that could make Grave 2 worth bringing is the idea of giving Bigspooks Elixirs. I think this would be a great buff to add to Grave 2, as adding Nightshade to Bigspooks could really matter when fighting bosses. It would also make it so you are still free to bring only Grave 1 if you want, but will be missing out on some deeper benefits for not running Grave 2. Right now, you only bring Grave 1 when you bring the Grave skills and I think that's kinda sad for this branch. Other than that, I really have not much else to say on this branch.


Another relatively short section because I think this branch is really good. Everything in this section is really good and the only reason why I don't have any of them is because I prefer the quality of life and fun aspects of the other skills. There's also one branch that's really infamous, but I'll go over that line later. With that said, let's start with the Picnic Casket, which is an extremely useful craft. It essentially allows you to store 8 different stacks of elixirs in one box for you to access. This helps drastically save up on inventory space and allows you to quickly swap out buffs depending on the situation. My only real complaint is Wendy needs to be stationary in order to open the casket and access her potions, thus can screw her over in a boss fight. Other than that, this is just an extremely different tool to have. Though, let's be honest, this box is just gonna be half Nightshade and half Spectral. Speaking on Potions, Elixir 2 adds a new potion to Wendy's Arsenal: Ghastly Experience. This Elixir is cracked, as it basically allows Abigail to automatically level up to level 3 upon use. Note that her health will not automatically recover if you use this after she dies, so be sure to heal her up before using. It requires Forget-Me-Lots to use, so it finally gives a good use for this otherwise useless weed. This Elixir basically allows Abigail to come back into the fight quickly even if she dies, so this elixir is extremely good. Elixir 3 extends the duration of day elixirs by another day. This means Spectral-Cure-All won't receive extended time from this. Like I said, this is fine, not much to write home about. Not compared to the final skill in this branch. Elixir 4 basically gives Wendy a chance to craft multiple elixirs from one craft. Originally, it used to guarantee 2 elixirs from one craft before it was changed. There is a post I will link right here that details how it works. I highly recommend reading it, as it gives a lot of very useful Wendy tips:

However, to explain how the Extra Yield works, they have two independent rolls for if you are able to gain an additional Elixir. This means you have a 60% chance of getting 2 elixirs from 1 craft and 30% chance at 3 yields. Considering how expensive some of these can get, especially on the Mourning Glory front, this skill is exceptional on saving resources. Not much else I want to say, this is an extremely good and versatile branch to use and one I highly recommend if you don't really care about the QoL stuff.


I'm not gonna lie, I really don't want to talk about the Team Spirit side. It's not because it's bad, far from it. It's mainly because these skills provide so much depth to Wendy and Abigail's combat that it would be hard to explain. Escape is a good kiting tool for Abigail and can help her get out of some sticky situations. It also makes it so the enemies and even giants lose aggro on Abigail, meaning this can be good for new players to escape fights they don't want to do. Attack At is really good at dealing quick AOE in a targeted area as well as desyncing Abigail. This can allow her to stay out of the way when fighting fast bosses like Nightmare Werepig or Ancient Guardian. Finally, Scare is a really good ability for scaring off mobs you don't want to deal with. This is especially good in the ruins when you have to deal with bishops and rooks. Haunt also has some fun mechanics you can do, such as spawning spider queens for Webber or instantly converting petals to dark petals. This skill line is just a lot of fun to use and really allows for more in-depth combat for Wendy, so I highly recommend bringing this. 


I bet you all know where this is going. By far the most controversial skill branch in this game, we have the Blessed Sisturn line. It's kinda strange for me when looking at this branch because I noticed this branch is the complete opposite of the Grave branch. What I mean by this is that the first two skills border from worthless to not really that useful while the final skill is so broken, you need to have it. The player tag from Blessed Sisturn 3 has been talked to death on how strong it is and it's fair to see why. We have been shown countless videos showing how tanky Abigail can get with 50% damage reduction and Spectral-Cure-All. I won't talk about any of that here because I'm sure you already know every single bit and piece of this debate. Instead, I want to highlight the other 2 skills in this branch and show off the big problem with this branch. That being, without Sisturn 3, nobody would ever run the Blessed Sisturn skils because of how worthless they are. Blessed Sisturn 1 is a fitting for skill for the branch, allowing petals inside the Sisturn to last a lot longer. This is a good stepping stone for this branch and can be useful if the branch had any other skills to strengthen it. The problem comes from Sisturn 2 which, for some reason, has no relation to the Sisturn whatsoever and makes it so insanity auras are not as effective. This is a baffling skill, as it makes Sisturn 1 worthless by itself and worthless if you bring this skill. Not to mention, thanks to the changes to the Elixir branch adding Ghastly Experience, it makes the Sisturn structure itself useless as you now have a way to automatically get Abby to tier 3 now. This feels like an incredible blunder from the devs and makes it so you ONLY bring the Sisturn branch for Sisturn 3, a complete opposite of the Grave branch. Without Sisturn 3, I guarantee you that the skill tree for experienced Wendy players will look more like this


In my opinion, I think BOTH Sisturn 2 and 3 need a overhaul to make them stand out on themselves while still being useful. Here is what I have in mind for a potential rework for this branch:

Sisturn 1 - Same as it does right now. Like I said, this is the perfect starting skill for this branch, so I don't think it needs to be changed

Sisturn 2 - "Wendy's refinement of the Sisturn causes Abigail's spirit to grow stronger" Adds 300 hp to Abigail when you have a Sisturn full with any petals.

Sisturn 3 - "Wendy learns a way to harness the power of the petals into the Sisturn, strengthening Abigail's presence in this world depending on which petals Wendy places in."

Petals - Adds an additional 300 hp to Abigail.
"You've been there for me through thick and thin Abby, now let me do the same with you"

Dark Petals - Abby's damage tier goes up by one. This means Abigail will go from 15 damage to 25 at day and from 25 damage to 40 at dusk. When at Night, in the caves, or with Nightshade Nostrum, Abigail's damage will go up an additional tier, going from 40 damage to 55 damage.
"This gives me an uneasy feeling, but I suppose that is a small price to pay"

Lune Blossoms - When Abigail's hp hits 0, Abigail will disappear for a few seconds before coming back into the fight with half of her hp, but without losing her levels. When she returns, she will automatically use the scare command. The Lune Blossoms in the Sisturn will disappear upon Abigail's return.
"Abigail! I knew you wouldn't leave me again!"

I think this rework to Sisturn 3 would not only make the skills worth running, but also allow for a lot more variety with how you use the Sisturn. You essentially can customize how you want to build your Abigail and decide which buffs to give to Abigail for a given fight. It also fixes the issue for Sisturn 2, making it so all 3 of the skills are of equal usability. It's not perfect, I know, but I feel this is the best way about reworking this branch without making it worthless or necessary.



I'm gonna lump her ultimate skills together because, quite frankly, I really don't want to talk about them both separately. Both these skills are really good and offer two unique playstyles that both have their strengths and weaknesses. The Lunar branch offers a more survivable approach to Abigail in the form of gestalt Abigail. While she won't attack as often, she will do big damage and will stay out of the fight until she is ready to attack again. This damage can be improved via the elixir in this branch, allowing Abigail to do a total of 350 damage per hit. On the other side, Shadow Abigail is far easier to access, as Pure Horror can be gathered via the Nightmare Werepig and you gain Shadow Abby via murdering. While this branch has way less survivability, it compensates with Abigail doubling her damage when turned into shadow Abigail. This means Abigail does 80 damage per second at max damage, effectively doubling her dps. Combined with her shadow elixir increasing the vex damage, Wendy and Abigail are able to deal roughly 170 damage per hit, which is insane. Overall, it really depends on your preference and what you think is best to use. I personally use the Shadow branch because I love how accessible Shadow Abby and her potions are, but Lunar Abby isn't bad herself, even without her potion.

That pretty much wraps up all my thoughts on the Wendy skill tree. Overall, I'm very satisfied with how it turned out, though I do think there is still room for improvement. Wendy is a character I have main for so long, so I really wanted to stew my thoughts for a while before letting them out. I think this is the perfect way to end the year and I can't wait for all the skill trees to release finally. Hopefully they do balance some things when the devs come back from break. Other than than, I hope you enjoy this read and let me know how you feel about this tree. Take care

[ColdHeaven]

can you give us the TLDR?

[Lee lol]

2 hours ago, Giovirtual79 said:

I bet you all know where this is going. By far the most controversial skill branch in this game, we have the Blessed Sisturn line. It's kinda strange for me when looking at this branch because I noticed this branch is the complete opposite of the Grave branch. What I mean by this is that the first two skills border from worthless to not really that useful while the final skill is so broken, you need to have it. The player tag from Blessed Sisturn 3 has been talked to death on how strong it is and it's fair to see why. We have been shown countless videos showing how tanky Abigail can get with 50% damage reduction and Spectral-Cure-All. I won't talk about any of that here because I'm sure you already know every single bit and piece of this debate. Instead, I want to highlight the other 2 skills in this branch and show off the big problem with this branch. That being, without Sisturn 3, nobody would ever run the Blessed Sisturn skils because of how worthless they are. Blessed Sisturn 1 is a fitting for skill for the branch, allowing petals inside the Sisturn to last a lot longer. This is a good stepping stone for this branch and can be useful if the branch had any other skills to strengthen it. The problem comes from Sisturn 2 which, for some reason, has no relation to the Sisturn whatsoever and makes it so insanity auras are not as effective. This is a baffling skill, as it makes Sisturn 1 worthless by itself and worthless if you bring this skill. Not to mention, thanks to the changes to the Elixir branch adding Ghastly Experience, it makes the Sisturn structure itself useless as you now have a way to automatically get Abby to tier 3 now. This feels like an incredible blunder from the devs and makes it so you ONLY bring the Sisturn branch for Sisturn 3, a complete opposite of the Grave branch. Without Sisturn 3, I guarantee you that the skill tree for experienced Wendy players will look more like this

Strongly agree. There are a lot of ways to regain sanity in this game, and Wendy in particular is not lacking in sanity, as she can easily obtain the Queen Bee Hat. The same is true when it comes to team buffs, where beequeenhat and sanity food are better options for most players when fighting FW or Deerclops. If it weren't for Blessed Sister 3, I don't think anyone would have chosen this Blessed Sister 2. It also nerfs the role of the Queen Bee Hat.

2 hours ago, Giovirtual79 said:

Finally, these flowery graves generate Dark Petals for Wendy to pick, which she is also immune to the insanity gain when picking because of this skill. All of this compared to Grave 2, which just allows her to craft graves on skeletons. You see what I mean? You have this uber skill that basically does everything you would want it to do and then some. Then you have another skill that is essentially worthless because there are already so many graves in the world to begin with. The only use I see this skill having is allowing you to dig up more grave loot and that's it. Honestly, the devs should either rebalance these two skills to make them equal in strength, buff the final skill to make it worth running, or just make it a 1 skill branch like Vengeful Ghost. One cool idea I saw that could make Grave 2 worth bringing is the idea of giving Bigspooks Elixirs. I think this would be a great buff to add to Grave 2, as adding Nightshade to Bigspooks could really matter when fighting bosses. It would also make it so you are still free to bring only Grave 1 if you want, but will be missing out on some deeper benefits for not running Grave 2. Right now, you only bring Grave 1 when you bring the Grave skills and I think that's kinda sad for this branch. Other than that, I really have not much else to say on this branch.

Regarding the approach to improving Grave 2, I agree that giving ghost potions is a good option, but what I prefer is for Wendy to repair the tomb with mourning glory, which is cool in terms of aesthetics and practicality.

2 hours ago, Giovirtual79 said:

isturn 2 - "Wendy's refinement of the Sisturn causes Abigail's spirit to grow stronger" Adds 300 hp to Abigail when you have a Sisturn full with any petals.

Sisturn 3 - "Wendy learns a way to harness the power of the petals into the Sisturn, strengthening Abigail's presence in this world depending on which petals Wendy places in."

Petals - Adds an additional 300 hp to Abigail.
"You've been there for me through thick and thin Abby, now let me do the same with you"

Dark Petals - Abby's damage tier goes up by one. This means Abigail will go from 15 damage to 25 at day and from 25 damage to 40 at dusk. When at Night, in the caves, or with Nightshade Nostrum, Abigail's damage will go up an additional tier, going from 40 damage to 55 damage.
"This gives me an uneasy feeling, but I suppose that is a small price to pay"

Lune Blossoms - When Abigail's hp hits 0, Abigail will disappear for a few seconds before coming back into the fight with half of her hp, but without losing her levels. When she returns, she will automatically use the scare command. The Lune Blossoms in the Sisturn will disappear upon Abigail's return.

I agree that both sisturn2 and 3 need to be reworked, and if extra hp is added, it must be true hp; The improvements you proposed for Sisturn 3 seem to duplicate the 1hp HP lock of Gestalt itself, and I feel that the damage increase is unnecessary because Abi's damage is already a lot.
My thoughts on Sisturn 3 are to make dark petals increase the time of the murder animal buff, and make Moonflower's player tag only for Gestalt (I know this can be debatable)
I don't have a good idea for sisturn2 improvements, but there are some suggestions on this forum.

Altar Resurrection: I believe this skill needs to be reworked as well, and as a level 3 skill, it's pretty much just a repetition of the Meat Block statue. I would like it to allow items to be brought back after death, or as a resurrection place that can be reused through repairs.

2 hours ago, Giovirtual79 said:

In my opinion, you should have the ability to bring other small mobs to life, such as rabbits and spiders, via this skill and it should not be limited to butterflies.

Agree. Buffs by murdering animals are still very impractical. Either extend the buff duration, or reduce the cost of using it.

[Giovirtual79]

20 minutes ago, Lee lol said:

My thoughts on Sisturn 3 are to make dark petals increase the time of the murder animal buff, and make Moonflower's player tag only for Gestalt (I know this can be debatable)
I don't have a good idea for sisturn2 improvements, but there are some suggestions on this forum.

I noticed you didn't mention Altar Resurrection: I believe this skill needs to be reworked as well, and as a level 3 skill, it's pretty much just a repetition of the Meat Block statue. I would like it to allow items to be brought back after death, or as a resurrection table that can be reused through repairs

That is a good way of adjusting the Dark and Lune Blossoms, however I feel like it's best not to limit the petal skills different sides. Otherwise, it would restrict freedom on what petals you can use. The reason I went with the revive idea for the Lune Blossoms is because, currently, it is suggested that the Lune Blossoms are the closest Wendy has gotten to resurrecting Abigail. As for Shadow adding a tier to damage, it was made to fit Shadow Side's idea of buffing Abby's damage without limiting it to needing Lunar or Shadow. I did mention the Altar, but only briefly because I don't really care about it. I saw a suggestion asking to make this revive followers instead of players, so if I were to suggest changes, I'd probably just suggest that. Thanks for the feedback, It was nice reading your ideas for potential changes to Sisturn 3.

[Dingle]

I think a lot of the consolidation of the skill tree was from people complaining about things without actually playing the beta. Leading to stuff like the graves line being only 2 points, with the most valuable things only being a single point.

This, in combination with very little locks, helped lead the tree into being incredibly open, cheap, and freeform compared to most of the cast.

It's sad but I predict that, sisturn 3 nerfs or not, almost everyone will end up having nearly the same skill tree build as Wendy. Much like every Wolfgang has nearly the same skill tree, the only decision is where you spend the last 2 or 3 points.

[Giovirtual79]

12 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I think a lot of the consolidation of the skill tree was from people complaining about things without actually playing the beta. Leading to stuff like the graves line being only 2 points, with the most valuable things only being a single point.

This, in combination with very little locks, helped lead the tree into being incredibly open, cheap, and freeform compared to most of the cast.

It's sad but I predict that, sisturn 3 nerfs or not, almost everyone will end up having nearly the same skill tree build as Wendy. Much like every Wolfgang has nearly the same skill tree, the only decision is where you spend the last 2 or 3 points.

Yeah, sad reality. I'm sure you know this, but for people reading this who don't, the Grave branch used to hold 3 skills and the second skill allowed you to move graves. Additionally, the Dark Petal picking aspect used to be another branch before it was placed into Grave 1. It basically makes Grave 1 the only thing you need.

Honestly, I think Klei needs to do something about the entire Sisturn branch. I just noticed how worthless the Sisturn branch is without Sisturn 3. They basically need Sisturn 3 to be powerful or else no one would ever consider bringing anything from that branch, which is incredibly flawed. 

Looking at the tree, it's not hard to pick apart which skills are good or bad and which ones are fun or not. I feel the only difference between builds is with how much fun you want to have or how much you want to min max Wendy

[RainyVibes]

One thing I like about the sisturn branch is if you use insight you can see that the sanity aura of the sisturn is upped to 45 sanity per minute instead of 23. It makes no BQ crown worlds manageable til you can plant and haunt the flowers. Abigail or not. 

[Giovirtual79]

12 minutes ago, RainyVibes said:

One thing I like about the sisturn branch is if you use insight you can see that the sanity aura of the sisturn is upped to 45 sanity per minute instead of 23. It makes no BQ crown worlds manageable til you can plant and haunt the flowers. Abigail or not. 

I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost on this one. Is there a skill that increases the Sisturn's sanity gain? Sisturn 1 only extends the duration of the Sisturn and Sisturn 2 decreases the sanity drain Wendy and her friends receives

The only thing I can think of is if you combine the crown with the Sisturn

[Dingle]

1 hour ago, Giovirtual79 said:

Honestly, I think Klei needs to do something about the entire Sisturn branch. I just noticed how worthless the Sisturn branch is without Sisturn 3. They basically need Sisturn 3 to be powerful or else no one would ever consider bringing anything from that branch, which is incredibly flawed. 

This is how most characters work though. Not just in this game, even!

There's generally filler, under strong "capstones" at the top of a branch. Wendy having really strong perks for 1 or 2 points, with no locks except the affinities, is very strange in itself.

Example: Willow for example has some extremely strong abilities, but they have point prereqs of (off top of head) 7 or 8 skills in a branch. So you can't get the lunar flamethrower and Burning Bernie at the same time.

Wendy can get all the strong stuff at the same time, with the only really big choice being the affinity (which isn't even a choice right now, just go shadow).

1 hour ago, Giovirtual79 said:

Looking at the tree, it's not hard to pick apart which skills are good or bad and which ones are fun or not. I feel the only difference between builds is with how much fun you want to have or how much you want to min max Wendy

Yeah pretty much. Though I think even the minmax and fun builds will be extremely close to each other. As long as the fun build wants to participate in combat, at all.

Oh and quick aside, I think Sisturn 2 actually might make a difference. Wendy always had really great sanity, but now it seems even better. I didn't even use sanity food in my runs, except for a small amount when doing nightmare werepig and fuelweaver.

[Giovirtual79]

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

This is how most characters work though. Not just in this game, even!

There's generally filler, under strong "capstones" at the top of a branch. Wendy having really strong perks for 1 or 2 points, with no locks except the affinities, is very strange in itself.

Example: Willow for example has some extremely strong abilities, but they have point prereqs of (off top of head) 7 or 8 skills in a branch. So you can't get the lunar flamethrower and Burning Bernie at the same time.

Wendy can get all the strong stuff at the same time, with the only really big choice being the affinity (which isn't even a choice right now, just go shadow).

Yeah, I do agree on prerequisites such as Willow's flames or Woodie's final were form skills. However, I think the biggest problem is the fact that, unlike Sisturn 3, you can choose not to bring the final skills if you don't want them and still get so much out of it. For example, people don't bring the final Were Beaver ability because having a Thumper may not be worth it. However, the beaver skills beforehand are really good, so you don't need to feel pressured in devoting to that skill line if you don't to, as you can still get a lot of value from the. Another example is the tree guard branch for Woodie. You don't need to commit to getting the tree guard idol if you don't think it'll be useful, but you can still get a lot of value from the extra damage towards tree guards if you choose to bring even 1 of this tree. Winona is another one where you don't need to commit to her final affinity skill if you don't to, but you gain a ton of value for bringing the prerequisite skill (Rose-Tinted Goggles for Shadow and Calibrator for Lunar). That's what makes the skill trees really good, as even some of the gimmicky filler skills can be fun to run. There is so many options to choose from and you do not need to lock into an entire branch to get value out of the branch. It's why the Grave skills and Sisturn skills feel extremely strange and terribly designed. You need to dedicate to the entire Sisturn branch in order to get any value out of it, as Sisturn 1 and 2 are borderline useless and are not worth bringing by themselves (Sisturn 1 because of Ghastly Experience and Sisturn 2 in general). That's why I dislike this branch so much. I think it's fine to have fun, gimmicky skills that are not the strongest. In fact, the Mourning Glory and Vengeful Ghost branch fills that role extremely well and Team Spirit is also a gimmicky and fun skill branch to use while also being incredibly useful. However, for branches that have more than 2 slots, you should get at least something for going down that route, which is just not the case for Sisturn. You are forced to go Sisturn 3 or just ignore the branch entirely, which I think is kinda sad.

[Koomin]

11 minutes ago, Dingle said:

This is how most characters work though. Not just in this game, even!

There's generally filler, under strong "capstones" at the top of a branch. Wendy having really strong perks for 1 or 2 points, with no locks except the affinities, is very strange in itself.

Example: Willow for example has some extremely strong abilities, but they have point prereqs of (off top of head) 7 or 8 skills in a branch. So you can't get the lunar flamethrower and Burning Bernie at the same time.

Wendy can get all the strong stuff at the same time, with the only really big choice being the affinity (which isn't even a choice right now, just go shadow).

Yeah pretty much. Though I think even the minmax and fun builds will be extremely close to each other. As long as the fun build wants to participate in combat, at all.

Oh and quick aside, I think Sisturn 2 actually might make a difference. Wendy always had really great sanity, but now it seems even better. I didn't even use sanity food in my runs, except for a small amount when doing nightmare werepig and fuelweaver.

Yea having weaker skills and then a strong capstone is basically how every skill tree works.  Wortox's skill tree is also a great place to look at for an example of this.  If makes you have to make real decisions when investing in the chains.

4 hours ago, Lee lol said:

Strongly agree. There are a lot of ways to regain sanity in this game, and Wendy in particular is not lacking in sanity, as she can easily obtain the Queen Bee Hat. The same is true when it comes to team buffs, where beequeenhat and sanity food are better options for most players when fighting FW or Deerclops. If it weren't for Blessed Sister 3, I don't think anyone would have chosen this Blessed Sister 2. It also nerfs the role of the Queen Bee Hat.

 

These opinions about sisturn 2 also seem very slanted towards a certain type of playstyle.  Saying that it's worthless because you can just easily get the bee queen hat is quite a bold statement.  For example, the person I play with the most loves the day to day part of the game and does not really like fighting bosses like bee queen.  They also literally pick characters based on their sanity because they don't like being insane, even though I try to peddle sanity foods.  They are really excited about sisturn 2 and think skills like that are the best ones. 

Also as posts above me mentioned, sisturn 2 is actually pretty useful for players that like playing bosses anyway.

[Giovirtual79]

2 minutes ago, Koomin said:

These opinions about sisturn 2 also seem very slanted towards a certain type of playstyle.  Saying that it's worthless because you can just easily get the bee queen hat is quite a bold statement.  For example, the person I play with the most loves the day to day part of the game and does not really like fighting bosses like bee queen.  They also literally pick characters based on their sanity because they don't like being insane, even though I try to peddle sanity foods.  They are really excited about sisturn 2 and think skills like that are the best ones. 

Also as posts above me mentioned, sisturn 2 is actually pretty useful for players that like playing bosses anyway.

The reason I say Sisturn 2 is worthless has nothing to do with the Bee Queen Crown. Wendy already has an passive that makes sanity drain less effective against her. Because of that, it can be really hard to go insane as Wendy, even if you are face tanking Deerclops with a Spectral Abigail. Plus, even if it is good, it's not worth losing 2 points over, when you could invest those 2 points into potentially getting 3 elixirs from 1 craft or easier pipspook hunts. You only really go for Sisturn 2 when you're going for Sisturn 3, which is where the flaws of it come in. It doesn't really help in a group setting as well, as bosses tend to die quickly when in even a group of 3-4. This skill is decent when I do play with it and face against bosses. However, that's mainly because I have the Sisturn 3 skill. Without it, I would not take these two skills, especially since you can just combine Wendy's craftable crown with the Sisturn and Glommer for decent sanity gain.

[Koomin]

35 minutes ago, Giovirtual79 said:

The reason I say Sisturn 2 is worthless has nothing to do with the Bee Queen Crown. Wendy already has an passive that makes sanity drain less effective against her. Because of that, it can be really hard to go insane as Wendy, even if you are face tanking Deerclops with a Spectral Abigail. Plus, even if it is good, it's not worth losing 2 points over, when you could invest those 2 points into potentially getting 3 elixirs from 1 craft or easier pipspook hunts. You only really go for Sisturn 2 when you're going for Sisturn 3, which is where the flaws of it come in. It doesn't really help in a group setting as well, as bosses tend to die quickly when in even a group of 3-4. This skill is decent when I do play with it and face against bosses. However, that's mainly because I have the Sisturn 3 skill. Without it, I would not take these two skills, especially since you can just combine Wendy's craftable crown with the Sisturn and Glommer for decent sanity gain.

It is definitely harder to go insane as Wendy, but there are hoards of people wanting Abigail to be able to hit nightmare creatures.  This is not just nightmare beaks or something.  Despite it being harder, people can and do go insane as Wendy all the time, and Sisturn 2 helps with that.

The part about "it's not worth losing 2 points over even if it is good":

Yea this is covered by the first part of my previous post.  This is an intentional part of how Klei designs skill trees.  Sisturn 3 is extremely powerful and worth more than 1 skill point.  They could either make it cost 3 skill points to click on it and give nothing else which would probably not be fun for anyone, or add some skills in front of it to add some fun and helpful but not super powerful stuff to pick up along the way.  If the skills are legitimately useless that would be a problem, but Sisturn 2 is far from useless.

[Lee lol]

6 minutes ago, Koomin said:

It is definitely harder to go insane as Wendy, but there are hoards of people wanting Abigail to be able to hit nightmare creatures. 

I believe that people hope that Abigail can fight shadow monsters is for the situation in the ruins. Shadow monsters will be born in fixed places, not because they often fall into an insane situation. And from the perspective of legend, it is reasonable that Gestalt can attack shadow monsters. I think these are the two main reasons.

Anyway, the issue of shadow monsters is another topic and does not need further discussion.

[Koomin]

8 minutes ago, Lee lol said:

I believe that people hope that Abigail can fight shadow monsters is for the situation in the ruins. Shadow monsters will be born in fixed places, not because they often fall into an insane situation. And from the perspective of legend, it is reasonable that Gestalt can attack shadow monsters. I think these are the two main reasons.

Anyway, the issue of shadow monsters is another topic and does not need further discussion.

Bolded my previous post for you where I missed writing nightmare beak instead of terror beaks.

[Giovirtual79]

5 minutes ago, Koomin said:

It is definitely harder to go insane as Wendy, but there are hoards of people wanting Abigail to be able to hit nightmare creatures.  This is not just terror beaks or something.  Despite it being harder, people can and do go insane as Wendy all the time, and Sisturn 2 helps with that.

The part about "it's not worth losing 2 points over even if it is good":

Yea this is covered by the first part of my previous post.  This is an intentional part of how Klei designs skill trees.  Sisturn 3 is extremely powerful and worth more than 1 skill point.  They could either make it cost 3 skill points to click on it and give nothing else which would probably not be fun for anyone, or add some skills in front of it to add some fun and helpful but not super powerful stuff to pick up along the way.  If the skills are legitimately useless that would be a problem, but Sisturn 2 is far from useless.

I do understand what you are saying how it is Klei's way of making it so you don't spend too many points in too many branches

The problem is that this basically streamlines skill trees. The sad reality is that despite the Sisturn line not being great, Sisturn 3 basically trumps anything Wendy's skill tree ever has. Abigail basically never dies if you have the Spectral-Cure-All to manage her, meaning it is absolutely worth bringing this skill or else you are missing out on so much. The only people who will not bring these skills are people who don't want to rely on this skill, in which case they aren't gonna waste their time with Sisturn 1 and 2 because:
1. There is already a skill in another branch that allows you to automatically set Abigail to level 3 even if she dies. This basically removes one of the 2 functionalities of the Sisturn and makes it even more obsolete than it already is
2. Wendy's Craftable crown gives her the sanity gain of a top hat, meaning she doesn't need to worry about Insanity during day to day activities. She can even combine this with the Sisturn and Glommer for a decent sanity station at base.
3. The other skills in her tree provide way more fun interactions for her to play around with compared to the Sisturn lasting longer and slower sanity drain.
This is what I mean when I say this streamlines Wendy's potential builds she can run. You either have to commit to Sisturn or you just can't, which I think is very boring. Similarly, it's why I dislike the Grave branch so much. You basically get everything you could ever want in the first branch and can just ignore the second branch because it's just worthless. Compare that with stuff like Wortox or Woodie's skill trees where you still get good value for commiting to a branch, but you still get a lot even if you only bring 1 or 2 of the skills in a branch. You don't want to bring Beaver 4 but want to rush Werepig? You're free to bring Beaver 3 and still have the ability to bring Weremoose 4 for his efficient damage. You don't want to bring the Commander Helm as Wigfrid? You can still benefit from the increase durability of normal helms. This is the type of customizability that makes skill trees special and I feel like these two skills are really the antithesis of this design. You don't even need to remove Sisturn 2 if people really enjoy it. You could always rework it to either it's own node, merge it with another branch, or merge it with another skill. However, I just wish there was more to the Sisturn branch that isn't solely for the player tag, especially after they added Ghastly Experience.

At the end of the day, when I see Blessed Sisturn on Wendy's skill tree, I want these skills to make the Sisturn have more of an impact to Wendy, as most Wendy players will flat out ignore it even when they craft one. It's why Sisturn 2 having nothing to do with the Sisturn itself is so baffling to me. It makes me wonder about the point of the Sisturn and, without Sisturn 3, makes me wonder about the point of this branch if the two skills in it don't help the Sisturn utility in the slightest

18 minutes ago, Lee lol said:

I believe that people hope that Abigail can fight shadow monsters is for the situation in the ruins. Shadow monsters will be born in fixed places, not because they often fall into an insane situation. And from the perspective of legend, it is reasonable that Gestalt can attack shadow monsters. I think these are the two main reasons.

Anyway, the issue of shadow monsters is another topic and does not need further discussion.

I am extremely glad Klei still made it so Abigail can't fight shadow or nightmare creatures. As mention in their dev streams, Abigail should not be the answer to all of Wendy's problems and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Wendy needs a distinct weakness from the rest of the cast and having a hard time dealing with Nightmares is a good trade off

[Koomin]

10 minutes ago, Giovirtual79 said:

I do understand what you are saying how it is Klei's way of making it so you don't spend too many points in too many branches

The problem is that this basically streamlines skill trees. The sad reality is that despite the Sisturn line not being great, Sisturn 3 basically trumps anything Wendy's skill tree ever has. Abigail basically never dies if you have the Spectral-Cure-All to manage her, meaning it is absolutely worth bringing this skill or else you are missing out on so much. The only people who will not bring these skills are people who don't want to rely on this skill, in which case they aren't gonna waste their time with Sisturn 1 and 2 because:
1. There is already a skill in another branch that allows you to automatically set Abigail to level 3 even if she dies. This basically removes one of the 2 functionalities of the Sisturn and makes it even more obsolete than it already is
2. Wendy's Craftable crown gives her the sanity gain of a top hat, meaning she doesn't need to worry about Insanity during day to day activities. She can even combine this with the Sisturn and Glommer for a decent sanity station at base.
3. The other skills in her tree provide way more fun interactions for her to play around with compared to the Sisturn lasting longer and slower sanity drain.
This is what I mean when I say this streamlines Wendy's potential builds she can run. You either have to commit to Sisturn or you just can't, which I think is very boring. Similarly, it's why I dislike the Grave branch so much. You basically get everything you could ever want in the first branch and can just ignore the second branch because it's just worthless. Compare that with stuff like Wortox or Woodie's skill trees where you still get good value for commiting to a branch, but you still get a lot even if you only bring 1 or 2 of the skills in a branch. You don't want to bring Beaver 4 but want to rush Werepig? You're free to bring Beaver 3 and still have the ability to bring Weremoose 4 for his efficient damage. You don't want to bring the Commander Helm as Wigfrid? You can still benefit from the increase durability of normal helms. This is the type of customizability that makes skill trees special and I feel like these two skills are really the antithesis of this design. You don't even need to remove Sisturn 2 if people really enjoy it. You could always rework it to either it's own node, merge it with another branch, or merge it with another skill. However, I just wish there was more to the Sisturn branch that isn't solely for the player tag, especially after they added Ghastly Experience.

At the end of the day, when I see Blessed Sisturn on Wendy's skill tree, I want these skills to make the Sisturn have more of an impact to Wendy, as most Wendy players will flat out ignore it even when they craft one. It's why Sisturn 2 having nothing to do with the Sisturn itself is so baffling to me. It makes me wonder about the point of the Sisturn and, without Sisturn 3, makes me wonder about the point of this branch if the two skills in it don't help the Sisturn utility in the slightest

I am extremely glad Klei still made it so Abigail can't fight shadow or nightmare creatures. As mention in their dev streams, Abigail should not be the answer to all of Wendy's problems and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Wendy needs a distinct weakness from the rest of the cast and having a hard time dealing with Nightmares is a good trade off

Definitely agree that making the capstone so strong while making the steps to get it weak is pretty constraining to builds and not particularly great.  I'd absolutely support substantially weakening Sisturn 3 and strengthening 1 and 2 if that is what you are proposing.

11 minutes ago, Giovirtual79 said:

Compare that with stuff like Wortox or Woodie's skill trees where you still get good value for commiting to a branch, but you still get a lot even if you only bring 1 or 2 of the skills in a branch.

Unfortunately this is not really the case and they seem to really like this design choice.  Wortox has skills that are literally useless like Soul Decoy 2 as stepping stones, or skills like Soul Thief 2 that do nothing unless you proceed farther.  Covered it in post linked below, but agree it's not good design.

 

[Giovirtual79]

11 minutes ago, Koomin said:

Definitely agree that making the capstone so strong while making the steps to get it weak is pretty constraining to builds and not particularly great.  I'd absolutely support substantially weakening Sisturn 3 and strengthening 1 and 2 if that is what you are proposing.

Unfortunately this is not really the case and they seem to really like this design choice.  Wortox has skills that are literally useless like Soul Decoy 2 as stepping stones, or skills like Soul Thief 2 that do nothing unless you proceed farther.  Covered it in post linked below, but agree it's not good design.

 

My main point is that I want there to be a point to making a Sisturn. As of now, without Sisturn 3, there is no point to making a Sisturn. I don't want to interact with a branch if the effects don't motivate me to making a Sisturn and use it in my runs. That's what my suggested reworks of the branch was meant to do: give a purpose to making and using a Sisturn in runs.
Ultimately, doing this is worth it because of how goofy it is:


Without Sisturn 3, this is not worth it:


As for the Wortox example, I only brought it up because it's the most recent skill tree that people agree is an example of a good skill tree. A better example of good skill trees would probably be Willow and Wigfrid's, though.

And honestly, I think that's just a major flaw about the Sisturn, it's worthless by design. It's on par with the weremoose where you need to put band-aid fixes to with via the skill tree in order to make it usable. Only, the skills in Blessed Sisturns don't provide those band-aid fixes until it's very last skill.

[Debruh]

I.... love this post so much. Nice to see that someone shares my opinions. Anyways

1) Old mourning glory was 6-7

Spoiler

I remember this by beequeen. If you were lucky and got 7 in one pipspook, you would have all you need for nightshade nostrum, cure-all and revenant restorative. The ones needed for a beequeen kill with no animation cancelling.

2) I find Wraith's Wreath very handy for stuff like ruins rushing. Healing is much more convenient. No sanity loss unlike when using blue mushrooms, and you can get spider glands practically everywhere in the game. Definitely a skill that's pretty worth it for two points 

3) Butterfly revival is also handy for situations like this. Somewhere with no flowers such as caves or oceans. Personally, I like it.

Personally, I think that if revenant restorative healed better, and cure-all was made to be equal to restorative in speed and eventual health amount. Then Wraith's Wreath would get better. Cure-all wouldn't be good in solo play. But be decent enough in team play where you might sacrifice 40 hp for a teammate to heal a lot. Cure-all is pretty dominant already on Abby alone.

Love the sisturn ||| rework. Personally, I'm fine with | and || not veing strong,  if this sisturn ||| is the one that gets implemented. But || has to be a little coherent at least.

Also, I think Gestalt Abby should get changed a bit so that she attacks from Wendy's side. As to not just attack into boss attacks likr bearger's 

[Giovirtual79]

24 minutes ago, Debruh said:

I.... love this post so much. Nice to see that someone shares my opinions. Anyways

1) Old mourning glory was 6-7

  Reveal hidden contents

I remember this by beequeen. If you were lucky and got 7 in one pipspook, you would have all you need for nightshade nostrum, cure-all and revenant restorative. The ones needed for a beequeen kill with no animation cancelling.

2) I find Wraith's Wreath very handy for stuff like ruins rushing. Healing is much more convenient. No sanity loss unlike when using blue mushrooms, and you can get spider glands practically everywhere in the game. Definitely a skill that's pretty worth it for two points 

3) Butterfly revival is also handy for situations like this. Somewhere with no flowers such as caves or oceans. Personally, I like it.

Personally, I think that if revenant restorative healed better, and cure-all was made to be equal to restorative in speed and eventual health amount. Then Wraith's Wreath would get better. Cure-all wouldn't be good in solo play. But be decent enough in team play where you might sacrifice 40 hp for a teammate to heal a lot. Cure-all is pretty dominant already on Abby alone.

Love the sisturn ||| rework. Personally, I'm fine with | and || not veing strong,  if this sisturn ||| is the one that gets implemented. But || has to be a little coherent at least.

Also, I think Gestalt Abby should get changed a bit so that she attacks from Wendy's side. As to not just attack into boss attacks likr bearger's 

Yeah, that's why, even though I think the Mourning Glory branch gets outclassed by the other branches, I still do think it's a good branch. There's a lot of gimmicky stuff in that branch that's fun to use and useful depending on how you use it. It's why I still have it equipped when I go Sisturn 3 despite the Elixir branch being better.

Ignoring all my grievances with Sisturn branch, my feelings on Sisturn 3 neutral. If it means making the Sisturn useful, it definitely accomplishes that. Still, I kinda wish the branch itself isn't reliant on it to make the Sisturn useful or even usable.

[Echsrick]

50 minutes ago, Giovirtual79 said:

As for the Wortox example, I only brought it up because it's the most recent skill tree that people agree is an example of a good skill tree

and still, plenty of threads happen about wortox and how there realy are some bad things in his skill tree, knapsack being one big example for that, and of course not realy having alot of freedom, or the fact that for what ever reasons a skill from a completly differend branch expands on differend skills in differend branches wich is just weird and not makin alot of sense

[Giovirtual79]

23 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

and still, plenty of threads happen about wortox and how there realy are some bad things in his skill tree, knapsack being one big example for that, and of course not realy having alot of freedom, or the fact that for what ever reasons a skill from a completly differend branch expands on differend skills in differend branches wich is just weird and not makin alot of sense

I am aware now, that's why I mentioned better examples I should've mentioned were Willow and Wigfrid.

Unrelated note, but I thought it'd be funny to do this. I spent too many spools for this joke image.

[Echsrick]

10 minutes ago, Giovirtual79 said:

Unrelated note, but I thought it'd be funny to do this. I spent too many spools for this joke image.

i dont get it

[Giovirtual79]

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

i dont get it

I think I've just been awake for too long.

Anyways, other than my grievance, is there any other point you would like to discuss?

[Giovirtual79]

I think I forgot to mention this in my original post so I'll say it here. Overall, I'm satisfied with the Wendy skill tree as a whole despite the flaws I've listed. There are definitely some lows with the tree. Other than that, If this is what we get in the base game, I wouldn't be too mad. A lot of fun skills and mechanics, so it evens out my negatives.