Some Ideas and Suggestions About Wickerbottom

[Yifei_]

I generally choose Wickerbottom as my character when playing multiplayer, taking on the responsibilities of base building and resource management. During gameplay, I have experienced Wickerbottom's excellent team support capabilities and her overly powerful resource production abilities. I’m not sure when Klei will update Wickerbottom’s skill tree, but I hope my upcoming shares will be somewhat helpful.

First Autumn Base-Building Tips for Wickerbottom on Multiplayer Servers

Spoiler

1. Craft a Shovel First Instead of a Pickaxe: Start preparing for transplantation from the beginning to save time.
2. Collect Enough Charcoal at Night: Make sure to gather sufficient charcoal to prepare pots.
3. Living logs: If there are no Wormwood teammates, inform others on the server not to take living logs from the totally normal tree to the ruins. It will be needed for building the base.
4. Craft Boomerangs to Collect Black Feathers: Use boomerangs to hunt crows and gather black feathers.
5. Paper Usage Order:
   • Prioritize crafting Applied Silviculture.
   • Depending on the situation, create a second Applied Silviculture, Bird Cage, Book Case, Horticulture Abridged (avoid wasting paper on Horticulture Expanded), and The Everything Encyclopedia. These three books are highly practical for the first autumn.
6. Manuring:
   • Craft a beefalo bell and take a beefalo home
   • Use Applied Silviculture to gather lots of twigs.
   • Cook 4 Steamed Twigs.
   • Feed the Beefalo until it is full, then feed it a bunch of twigs to make it produce rots, which can be used to fertilize grass.
   • Poor beefalo.
7. Craft Purple Gem and Shadow Manipulator Using The Everything Encyclopedia: Skip the process of making a Prestihatitator.
8. Delegate Book Reading to Maxwell if You Have Skilled Maxwell Teammates: Let Maxwell read all the books so Wickerbottom can maintain healthy sanity, and Maxwell can have sufficient Nightmare Fuels.
9. If You Have a Wortox Teammate: Craft Sleepytime Stories and Birds of the World to help them gather souls.
10. If You Have a Wanda Teammate: Craft The Everything Encyclopedia to help them create an Alarming Clock faster.
11. For Good Relationships and Speedrunning with Teammates: After completing the speedrun, consider pulling a prank by crafting a rain hat in advance. While your teammates haven’t left yet, use The End is Nigh to light up the night after defeating the Celestial Champion (use cautiously!).

This image shows the base my friend and I built on a public server in about 20-30 days.

Some Details About the Two Horticulture Books: Expanded Should Replace Abridged

Horticulture Expanded and Horticulture Abridged:

• Horticulture Expanded can accelerate the maturation of 3 × 15 = 45 crops.
• Horticulture Abridged can accelerate the maturation of 5 × 10 = 50 crops.
• I understand that Horticulture Expanded has other uses (such as supplementing fertilizer and automatically tending to crops), but it should fundamentally be an upgraded version of Horticulture Abridged. I hope that the durability of Horticulture Abridged can be adjusted to 3 uses and Horticulture Expanded to 5 uses. Alternatively, both books could have their durability adjusted to 3 uses each.

Wickerbottom and Maxwell: Maxwell Nearly Replaces Wickerbottom in Late Game

In the early game (for example, the first autumn), both characters have their own strengths. However, in the late game, when books and bookcases are abundant and sanity-restoring food is no longer scarce, Wickerbottom is almost entirely replaced by Maxwell. I can’t find a reason to choose Wickerbottom over Maxwell (oh, wait, there is one—Maxwell only has 75 health, hmm…).

Book Durability Recovery: I Hope Books Can Restore Durability in Wickerbottom’s Inventory

I hope the skill tree can allow books to restore durability in Wickerbottom’s inventory as well. This would give me more reasons to choose Wickerbottom over Maxwell. For example, in the summer, I could carry Pyrokinetics Explained and Practical Rain Rituals, and when going out to sea, bring Sleepytime Stories and The Angler’s Survival Guide. I wouldn’t need to worry excessively about book durability. This idea comes from the changes to Wickerbottom in Uncompromising Mode (UM), where books cannot restore durability in bookcases and can only do so in Wickerbottom’s inventory.

Wickerbottom’s Combat Experience: I Hope to Further Improve Some of Wickerbottom’s Unique Combat Methods

Books like On Tentacles, Sleepytime Stories, Apicultural Notes, and Overcoming Arachnophobia are good attempts to enhance Wickerbottom’s combat abilities, but most of them feel dispensable and don’t significantly improve my combat experience. Sleepytime Stories has a vast hypnosis range but a long wind-up time, making it difficult to prevent sudden situations and uncertainties. On Tentacles’ tentacles don’t distinguish between friend and foe. The bees summoned by Apicultural Notes cannot be controlled, and during combat, it’s almost impossible to take care of the bees’ survival. Overcoming Arachnophobia performs in specific boss fights, but its usefulness is still too limited.

Some simple modification ideas include reducing the wind-up time for reading, adjusting the sanity loss from reading, and introducing combat books comparable to those after the Rift.

Wickerbottom’s Resource Production: Her Resource Production Ability Is a Bit Too Powerful

I would prefer to transfer some of Wickerbottom’s resource production capabilities to her combat abilities, as the gap between the two is too large. I hope the costs of Applied Silviculture, Horticulture, and Practical Rain Rituals can be made similar to the cost of the Lunar Grimoire. Especially Applied Silviculture—its ability is quite strong, providing nearly infinite basic materials. Regarding the skill tree, I also hope not to further enhance Wickerbottom’s pre-Rift resource production abilities. These capabilities are already ridiculously strong.

 

[linabagel]

Excellent game ideas and insights！Thank you for sharing！

I haven't finished the whole process with Wickbarton yet, do you have any suggestions for solo play？

[Yifei_]

49 minutes ago, linabagel said:

Excellent game ideas and insights！Thank you for sharing！

I haven't finished the whole process with Wickbarton yet, do you have any suggestions for solo play？

I'm glad that my suggestions could help you! Actually, I rarely choose Wickerbottom when playing solo because her strong team support abilities don't come into play, and there's not as high a demand for resources when playing alone. Using Wickerbottom to experience the full DST progression on a multiplayer server is a much better experience.

For solo play, you might consider building in Moon Land (as long as the location isn’t too remote), so you can read books freely. Also, you don't necessarily need to rush into crafting a shovel for transplanting grass and twigs, or even rush into base building. Just go at your own pace.

[Yifei_]

Here’s an additional analysis on the synergy between Wickerbottom and Wormwood:

Horticulture Abridged is most useful during the breeding phase, when seeds are still random. A good breeding method is to remove weeds, water the crops thoroughly, have a blooming Wormwood or a player with music, and read Horticulture Abridged. Even the abridged version ensures that crops are cared for at every stage.

After completing breeding, skilled Wormwood players will opt for proportional planting of giant crops. At this point, reading Horticulture is unnecessary, as it would prevent the crops from growing into giant versions. A good approach is to communicate with the Wormwood player, reading the books only when needed.

Additionally, Horticulture Abridged is excellent for speeding up mushroom growth. Practical Rain Rituals quickly replenishes the farmland's water supply. Lux Aeterna Redux allows crops to grow at night (though I don't recommend crafting Lux Aeterna Redux or Lux Aeterna early in the game when paper is scarce).

[Cats_On_Fire]

On 1/5/2025 at 6:49 PM, Yifei_ said:

I generally choose Wickerbottom as my character when playing multiplayer, taking on the responsibilities of base building and resource management. During gameplay, I have experienced Wickerbottom's excellent team support capabilities and her overly powerful resource production abilities. I’m not sure when Klei will update Wickerbottom’s skill tree, but I hope my upcoming shares will be somewhat helpful.

First Autumn Base-Building Tips for Wickerbottom on Multiplayer Servers

1. Craft a Shovel First Instead of a Pickaxe: Start preparing for transplantation from the beginning to save time.
2. Collect Enough Charcoal at Night: Make sure to gather sufficient charcoal to prepare pots.
3. Living logs: If there are no Wormwood teammates, inform others on the server not to take living logs from the totally normal tree to the ruins. It will be needed for building the base.
4. Craft Boomerangs to Collect Black Feathers: Use boomerangs to hunt crows and gather black feathers.
5. Paper Usage Order:
   • Prioritize crafting Applied Silviculture.
   • Depending on the situation, create a second Applied Silviculture, Bird Cage, Book Case, Horticulture Abridged (avoid wasting paper on Horticulture Expanded), and The Everything Encyclopedia. These three books are highly practical for the first autumn.
6. Manuring:
   • Craft a beefalo bell and take a beefalo home
   • Use Applied Silviculture to gather lots of twigs.
   • Cook 4 Steamed Twigs.
   • Feed the Beefalo until it is full, then feed it a bunch of twigs to make it produce rots, which can be used to fertilize grass.
   • Poor beefalo.
7. Craft Purple Gem and Shadow Manipulator Using The Everything Encyclopedia: Skip the process of making a Prestihatitator.
8. Delegate Book Reading to Maxwell if You Have Skilled Maxwell Teammates: Let Maxwell read all the books so Wickerbottom can maintain healthy sanity, and Maxwell can have sufficient Nightmare Fuels.
9. If You Have a Wortox Teammate: Craft Sleepytime Stories and Birds of the World to help them gather souls.
10. If You Have a Wanda Teammate: Craft The Everything Encyclopedia to help them create an Alarming Clock faster.
11. For Good Relationships and Speedrunning with Teammates: After completing the speedrun, consider pulling a prank by crafting a rain hat in advance. While your teammates haven’t left yet, use The End is Nigh to light up the night after defeating the Celestial Champion (use cautiously!).

This image shows the base my friend and I built on a public server in about 20-30 days.

Some Details About the Two Horticulture Books: Expanded Should Replace Abridged

Horticulture Expanded and Horticulture Abridged:

• Horticulture Expanded can accelerate the maturation of 3 × 15 = 45 crops.
• Horticulture Abridged can accelerate the maturation of 5 × 10 = 50 crops.
• I understand that Horticulture Expanded has other uses (such as supplementing fertilizer and automatically tending to crops), but it should fundamentally be an upgraded version of Horticulture Abridged. I hope that the durability of Horticulture Abridged can be adjusted to 3 uses and Horticulture Expanded to 5 uses. Alternatively, both books could have their durability adjusted to 3 uses each.

Wickerbottom and Maxwell: Maxwell Nearly Replaces Wickerbottom in Late Game

In the early game (for example, the first autumn), both characters have their own strengths. However, in the late game, when books and bookcases are abundant and sanity-restoring food is no longer scarce, Wickerbottom is almost entirely replaced by Maxwell. I can’t find a reason to choose Wickerbottom over Maxwell (oh, wait, there is one—Maxwell only has 75 health, hmm…).

Book Durability Recovery: I Hope Books Can Restore Durability in Wickerbottom’s Inventory

I hope the skill tree can allow books to restore durability in Wickerbottom’s inventory as well. This would give me more reasons to choose Wickerbottom over Maxwell. For example, in the summer, I could carry Pyrokinetics Explained and Practical Rain Rituals, and when going out to sea, bring Sleepytime Stories and The Angler’s Survival Guide. I wouldn’t need to worry excessively about book durability. This idea comes from the changes to Wickerbottom in Uncompromising Mode (UM), where books cannot restore durability in bookcases and can only do so in Wickerbottom’s inventory.

Wickerbottom’s Combat Experience: I Hope to Further Improve Some of Wickerbottom’s Unique Combat Methods

Books like On Tentacles, Sleepytime Stories, Apicultural Notes, and Overcoming Arachnophobia are good attempts to enhance Wickerbottom’s combat abilities, but most of them feel dispensable and don’t significantly improve my combat experience. Sleepytime Stories has a vast hypnosis range but a long wind-up time, making it difficult to prevent sudden situations and uncertainties. On Tentacles’ tentacles don’t distinguish between friend and foe. The bees summoned by Apicultural Notes cannot be controlled, and during combat, it’s almost impossible to take care of the bees’ survival. Overcoming Arachnophobia performs in specific boss fights, but its usefulness is still too limited.

Some simple modification ideas include reducing the wind-up time for reading, adjusting the sanity loss from reading, and introducing combat books comparable to those after the Rift.

Wickerbottom’s Resource Production: Her Resource Production Ability Is a Bit Too Powerful

I would prefer to transfer some of Wickerbottom’s resource production capabilities to her combat abilities, as the gap between the two is too large. I hope the costs of Applied Silviculture, Horticulture, and Practical Rain Rituals can be made similar to the cost of the Lunar Grimoire. Especially Applied Silviculture—its ability is quite strong, providing nearly infinite basic materials. Regarding the skill tree, I also hope not to further enhance Wickerbottom’s pre-Rift resource production abilities. These capabilities are already ridiculously strong.

 

I disagree with adding combat mostly because from the beginning wickers purpose is to be all utility and like no combat skills

[Yifei_]

6 hours ago, Cats_On_Fire said:

I disagree with adding combat mostly because from the beginning wickers purpose is to be all utility and like no combat skills

Wickerbottom's greatest strengths lie in team support and resource production (which is likely what you meant by "utility"), but I don't think it’s reasonable to completely disregard her combat abilities based on that. Currently, her abilities in these two areas are disproportionate—her resource production and team support are extremely powerful, while her combat experience is quite poor. I don’t necessarily want Wickerbottom to be strong in combat, but I do hope to see a unique combat style for her, along with a better combat experience. The four books I previously mentioned, related to combat, are a good direction, but I believe they need further optimization and expansion. If the future skill tree continues to focus on strengthening the already overpowered resource production and team support abilities, it could make the character even more unbalanced.

I don't like this. When I play as Wickerbottom on public servers, I’m almost mainly responsible for base building, team coordination, and resource production (which is the result of my communication with other players), yet when it comes to boss fights, almost no one cares (including myself) whether I participate or not. These two aspects feel a bit... imbalanced, though it could also be due to my personal playstyle.

[Juanasdf]

On 1/5/2025 at 11:49 PM, Yifei_ said:

• Horticulture Expanded can accelerate the maturation of 3 × 15 = 45 crops.
• Horticulture Abridged can accelerate the maturation of 5 × 10 = 50 crops.

I think this is okay considering that you'll most likely keep these in a bookcase and that extra use you get after they repair just 1% of their durability nets you 60 plants with both books.

[Yifei_]

4 hours ago, Juanasdf said:

I think this is okay considering that you'll most likely keep these in a bookcase and that extra use you get after they repair just 1% of their durability nets you 60 plants with both books.

There may be a problem with reading books in this way: the books get "destroyed" after reading. Horticulture Abridged loses 20% durability each time it's read, and Horticulture Expanded loses 33% durability per reading. I usually rely on the bookcase’s durability regeneration to read Horticulture Abridged five times or Horticulture Expanded three times. By then, both books generally have low durability left. After that, I stop reading and wait for the bookcase to restore their durability.

[Juanasdf]

On 1/10/2025 at 6:14 AM, Yifei_ said:

There may be a problem with reading books in this way: the books get "destroyed" after reading. Horticulture Abridged loses 20% durability each time it's read, and Horticulture Expanded loses 33% durability per reading. I usually rely on the bookcase’s durability regeneration to read Horticulture Abridged five times or Horticulture Expanded three times. By then, both books generally have low durability left. After that, I stop reading and wait for the bookcase to restore their durability.

Yes but as long as they reach 21% and 34% you can get one extra use, which takes less than a minute to regen that 1%. Thus essentially giving you an extra use on both.

[Yifei_]

8 hours ago, Juanasdf said:

Yes but as long as they reach 21% and 34% you can get one extra use, which takes less than a minute to regen that 1%. Thus essentially giving you an extra use on both.

Expanded: one reading, 67% -> two reading, 33% -> restore 1%, 34% -> three reading, 1%. Total reading: 3 times.
Abridged: one reading, 80% -> two reading, 60% -> three reading, 40% -> four reading, 20% -> restore 1%, 21% -> five reading, 1%. Total reading: 5times

[Juanasdf]

4 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

 

My bad I'm just dumb lol... Thank god I didn't study anything related to maths lmao

[Yifei_]

4 hours ago, Juanasdf said:

My bad I'm just dumb lol... Thank god I didn't study anything related to maths lmao

hh it's a minor issue