Wendy feedback - skill tree is overtuned

[Steorra]

8 hours ago, Dingle said:

I kept wondering why she took so little damage on cave rift content.

Because the current Shadow rift things were more like "normal" mobs but not bosses. They are even far weaker than brightshades trio. They are more like horde mobs like beefalo hordes, but not bosses. And anti-horde was what Abi good at as the original design.

8 hours ago, Dingle said:

Total lie, she's extremely powerful against rift content.

I was still waiting your feedback of brightshades trio.

8 hours ago, Dingle said:

The 30 planar defense really does do a ton.

I'm not sure about this, could you confirm it was 30 planar defence but not 15?

 

 

In total, I'm always agreed that "Shadow Abi should got some nerf to her survivability or non-planar DPS". (Though some one like Lardee you mentioned would be angry if you recommend such nerf to Shadow Abi)

But Shadow Abi SHOULD be easily to erase ink blight hordes whatever future adjustments comes to her. For ink blights were always similar to mob hordes but not bosses. If it's ok to see how brainless weremoose to erase ink blight hordes, then it's ok to see Shadow Abi does same thing.

[Yifei_]

14 minutes ago, Steorra said:

I'm not sure about this, could you confirm it was 30 planar defence but not 15?

Murdering will increase 15 more planar defence, the total is 15 + 15 = 30

[Dingle]

17 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Because the current Shadow rift things were more like "normal" mobs but not bosses. They are even far weaker than brightshades trio. They are more like horde mobs like beefalo hordes, but not bosses. And anti-horde was what Abi good at as the original design.

I was still waiting your feedback of brightshades trio.

I did a bunch of fights against Deadly Brightshades, and always got 3. Mostly tightly packed. Summary is she really nukes them. I used a ham bat for most of the fights, to test without planar weapon, and the trick seems to be:

Murder buff + NOT riled up + nightshade nostrum.

If she's soothed, she'll stay close to you to defend against vines. Her damage at that point will pop vines FAST. Once a brightshade opens, it will die to her planar + hambat damage before it can recover and AOE abby. Any vines trying to attack you during this will likely get hit by the aoe, and retreat.

Even without nightshade nostrum, a trio clear took 2 minutes (with a ham bat, still). Nostrum makes this much shorter, but I'd say you can skip it easily.

Escape is there if you mess up, and the 30 planar defense helps. You can also use attack here to soften the vines up, or really dial in her positioning if the brightshades are super packed. If they're super packed together, this also makes it easy to pop multiple brightshades open at once.

The main thing is don't use Riled, and use the Murder buff. I thought it might make her better at attacking the vines, but it doesnt seem to.

I also tried using bigspooks to help but it was a big mistake.

I also hear Gestalt Abby with the lumar elixir is really good at popping the vines with attack here.

17 minutes ago, Steorra said:

I'm not sure about this, could you confirm it was 30 planar defence but not 15?

Pretty sure, but not absolutely. It seems to check out on the inkblight trio. 15 planar defense if not murder buffed, 30 if she is.

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

Murdering will increase 15 more planar defence, the total is 15 + 15 = 30

Wow...

This is unreasonable for me.

 

Why offensive focusing designed Shadow Abi would have an ability like this to help her survival? Strange.

[Yifei_]

Just now, Steorra said:

Wow...

This is unreasonable for me.

 

Why offensive focusing designed Shadow Abi would have an ability like this to help her survival? Strange.

I agree. The values of Shadow Abigail are quite... hard to understand. By murdering butterflies that can be caught early on, you get planar defense and planar damage, which are useful in the late game. However, the potions prepared in the late game are quite weak against late-game bosses, while they are indeed a very powerful blow against early-game bosses.

[Steorra]

7 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Pretty sure, but not absolutely. It seems to check out on the inkblight trio. 15 planar defense if not murder buffed, 30 if she is.

I'm sorry I was ignored that Shadow Abi even has an effect like this. 

Now I have more reason to ask to nerf (adjustment but mainly nerf which focusing on pre-rift or survivability part) Shadow Abi.

[Dingle]

3 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

I agree. The values of Shadow Abigail are quite... hard to understand. By murdering butterflies that can be caught early on, you get planar defense and planar damage, which are useful in the late game. However, the potions prepared in the late game are quite weak against late-game bosses, while they are indeed a very powerful blow against early-game bosses.

Your numbers still had Vex as a 10% or more damage increase on rift bosses, wasn't it? But crazy high on pre-rift.

 

4 minutes ago, Steorra said:

I'm sorry I was ignored that Shadow Abi even has an effect like this. 

Now I have more reason to ask to nerf (adjustment but mainly nerf which focusing on pre-rift or survivability part) Shadow Abi.

I couldn't figure it out until someone told me. Not a lot of people know.

[Steorra]

9 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Your numbers still had Vex as a 10% or more damage increase on rift bosses

And his numbers showed that why Shadow Saddle Wendy have similar DPS against rift bosses as scythe Wes, it's another problem need to readjust as I think.

(The issue lies behind Cursed Vex or Shadow Saddle or both of them. They need fix.)

[Picklesaurus]

14 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Pretty sure, but not absolutely. It seems to check out on the inkblight trio. 15 planar defense if not murder buffed, 30 if she is.

[Dingle]

24 minutes ago, Picklesaurus said:

This also confirms that Nostrum is really worth it for the Murder buff at daytime. Thanks!

[Picklesaurus]

6 minutes ago, Dingle said:

This also confirms that Nostrum is really worth it for the Murder buff at daytime. Thanks!

[WenericMember]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

Wow...

This is unreasonable for me.

 

Why offensive focusing designed Shadow Abi would have an ability like this to help her survival? Strange.

I think it's a result of how far Wendy's tree has evolved.

Shadow 3 was originally the AOE burst of ~80 damage. That was largely useless and was reworked as the current shadow sisterhood (though dealing regular instead of planar). Vex potion also didn't increase damage at this time either.

Therefore, I think the tree was originally designed where lunar Abby was the bosskilling style, whereas rather than be "offense" orientated, Shadow was  simply about improving Abigails existing stats - hence the doubled planar defense..

Then, the alignment became more geared towards offense (as Cursed Vex + Planar damage was added) while Lunar became more defensive (reduced damage & hide mode), and Abby's Planar defense change was never updated to reflect that new reality.

Same issue with gravestones, but results in an undertuned skill rather than an overtuned skill. MG became the focus instead of dark petals, and haunt was added, rendering dark petal production largely obsolete.

[Dingle]

On 1/15/2025 at 1:05 PM, Dingle said:

About to finish my rifts open playthrough as Wendy. Will link it here when I'm done as someone asked for it, before.

Just wanted to say I'm upgrading my opinion from "pretty overtuned" to "brutally overpowered."

Almost forgot to post the link. Here it is:

Covers all rift content except the mimic chests. I don't fight armored bearger, but there's a video of a 45 second fight in there. Also there is a video of a 40 second Crystal Deerclops fight from Debruh.