Complaints and Suggestions about Webber (idk what a good title is)

[Dekrepto]

Context: I really like Webber. He's my main pretty much ever since I got him by digging up his skull in DS and I still mainly play him in DST, but never really did much aside from basekeeping and hunting simple surface giants since I didn't play with caves. Recently though, I decided to finally engage with most of the content DST offers and have been liking it a lot, learning a bunch of new things and getting better at the game overall, but I also discovered one thing that's really bugging me out: Webber sucks! 

Here's the main problems I encountered with him: 
- He has close to 0 interaction with spider queen, which seems a bit odd for, you know, the spider character. The only thing he does is smack her a few times to get the nurse cookie recipe and that's it! 

- The spiders are kind of weak alone, and really need numbers to start doing something. The problem with that is that the game doesn't like running a lot of entities at once, causing lag for everyone. It's really sad that I make everyone's experience in the server worse, including mine, just by trying to do the thing my character is supposed to do.

- Spiders really suffer from AoE attacks and fear. I'm totally fine with things having weaknesess, but they either are unkillable if the enemy is single target or are useless if they have AoE. This makes spiders situational, which isn't good, since they're his MAIN GIMMICK.

- Webber offers very little to the team. He's probably the safest character to farm spiders drops, and is pretty auto-sufficient with his stats meaning he won't eat other's food, but that's about it. No buildings to help others, no items, nothing. Just lag.

- Cave spiders are useless. They're supposed to be the shield of the team, but because of how aggro works, they just stay hidden and don't attack nor tank anything. This is a shame because spiders really need an AoE shield and hiders could fit in this role perfectly, but they just don't.

- Sea striders are mostly useless, too. Since Klei reworked Crab King, they die pretty fast and do nothing against him, and what else would you use spiders for in the sea for? Besides that. their AI tends to get buggy in the boat and they often body block you from quickly clicking important things like the anchor.

- Most of his cookies are a bit too expensive to be viable, and I find myself crafting only the nurse one. Spending that much resource on 1 spider doodle that can die so quickly sucks, he really should be able to make spawners to every tipe of spider instead of a one time consumable.

- Moving spiders from place to place (like from lunar island to main island or caves to surface) is such a boring and time consuming task, that it's okay for webber to do once per playthrough, but he really shouldn't be doing this over and over again. And since his spiders die so easily and he has no way of storing them effectively, he probably will, or miss out the fun of having other spider types. I do like the idea of going on a trip to collect them all once, though, like a WX-78 would.

- This links to the previous problem, but it's a problem on it's own: He has no good way of storing his spiders. The best way is probably put them in bundles, but everyone can bundles and that's boring. He seems to lack a convenient character-specific way of keeping them in the same place when not befriended for later use.
- Spiders eat meat items from the ground. This is really bad for Webber in my opinion, because it punishes him for doing the only thing he's good at. As I said, I'm totally fine with having weaknesses and drawbacks on characters, but this is just kind of stupid. This shouldn't even require a point to be spent IMO.

 

That's a lot of stuff, isn't it? But I'm not here only to complain, I have some suggestions, too! 

Maybe his skilltree could have a "best friend" mechanic in which he can only have one of each spider type at a time, but they become elite versions of themselves. That means he can have a max of 8 spiders (1 of each type), but they work as a D&D team:

- Black Spider: The low HP, high damage melee, kind of like a rogue. Could have some sort of burst damage critical bite from time to time or explode when they die.
- Spider Warrior: Well rounded fighter that draws aggro and pounces on enemies at a distance. Maybe could have a i-frame dodge like the bone armor?
- Dweller: Could be the crowd control spider, spreading web on the field slowing enemies and buffing webber's movespeed. This is great to differentiate them from warriors, and Webber could have a special craft for other players that let them run faster in web as well, making it a great support for everyone.
- Cave Spider: Could have an AoE shield for other spiders that breaks overtime and you can repair with something, like stones. This would be great for AoE bosses without eliminating the risk of fighting them completly, as well as giving hiders something to do.
- Spitters: The backline single target shooter dps. Not much idea for an elite skill since they already work so well, but maybe increased range and running away from enemies to attack at a distance would be great, like a MacTusk.
- Shattered: The low single-target but good AoE damage dealers. Maybe some extra spikes or AoE attacks?
- Nurses: The healers, obviously. Again, they already work really well so I don't know how to give them an elite skill. Maybe a lingering area of healing after the initial burst to compensate the time they're on cooldown, since you'd have only one of them?
- Striders: Could have some sort of on-hit poison debuff that either decreases the damage enemies do or increases the damage they take. I guess poison fits them tematically and gives Webber a reason to chase them in waterlogged and to use outside of water. (plus, seems more interesting than the simple damage over time poison)

Of course, their stats should be buffed to compensate the lack of an army and given immunity or resistance to fear. Running 8 entities is a lot easier for the computer than 80, and you'd still feel like a minionmancer.

Webber could use some things to do aside from befriending spiders, too. Wurt has some perks with water, mosquitoes and the king buffs her stats, for exemple, so even without many merms she still feels like her own character with strenghts and weaknesses. Webber on the other hand, can eat raw meat (which is really nice, actually) and grows a somewhat useless beard. That's it. He could have something to do with farming (since he used to live in a farm), or some unique utility items to spend silk on, like a weaver maybe? I don't have many suggestions on this part but would be great to see this idea develop further.

 

For his storing spider problems though, I do have some ideas. Maybe something like the Rabbit King's portable underground chest could be great (With the flavour of hide and seek, maybe?) or bigger bundles made of web that can only fit spiders, and he can throw like a granade similar to Wurt's mosquito bomb. Or, instead of copying Wurt, his bundle could be dropped on the ground, create some legs from the spiders inside and attack enemies, releasing the spiders inside when it dies. Idk, just some brainstorming. There's the option to store spiders in his beard like Wilson, but I don't like this idea much, since you'd have to feed them constantly, it's not that original and kind of gross, too. 
 

As for his alignment options, planar damage and defense for his spiders is pretty basic. He could either have a alignment-themed buff to them like Wurt/Wendy, or a new spider type. Personally, I like the new spider type idea better. Not many suggestions on it though, but I guess Klei could take some inspiration from fused shadelings, since they're kinda the void spider already and I can see them working as followers. 

 

Closing thoughts: Webber is fun, and I like him a lot, but has a lot of work to be done until he's decent again. He was fine, but he can't really interact with newer content in his current state, making him outdated. There's a lot of fun ideas to make for his skill tree, so PLEASE don't take the boring route of "He befriends additional spiders per meat!" type of thing. He really doesn't need it and would be a great disappointment for Webber players. Thanks for everyone that read until here, agreeing or disagreeing. Feel free to share your ideas, points of view, or anything you want! Just be respectful, please <3

[Dr.Webber]

I’m making a skill tree and I’m looking to add/alter some things. Do you have any suggestions:

skill tree:
 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)
    •    Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3 + decorated dens ground webs no longer reduce


(Befriend all spider types)
    •    Beneficial bite : teach spiders how to “chop/mine” with each having the efficiency of a pig by demonstrating it done normally so they make the connection between that and them breaking down stuff + they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck 
   


    •    Silk harvester: razors can be used to remove webbing from tiles dropping two

    •    Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk
 
 


    •    Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

    •    Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night              60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.


    •    Deep den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 health and 3 health per second 

    •    No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat pig skin, bunny puffs, or any non human edible meats that pigs and spiders eat for 50-60 hunger

 


    •    Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

    •    Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage they each could only be outside the itsy bitsy nest for a total of 8 minutes after that they return to the itsy bitsy nest and nap and they’ll need to charge back up before using them again so they hunger durability that can be refilled using meat, honey, or electric milk/monster milk similar to the eye mask, but you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time so you can have them out over the course of multiple days without needing to recharge them. If you’re smart about it, also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 6 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage,have 7 hp, upon death one will respond every 90 seconds 
(You need this to craft other 3 crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)
8 silk, 3 paper, and 1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

Concept examples:

 








(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)











    •    Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required)
?:

?:

homemade den: You can make a homemade den if you place a cookie in the homemade den it will turn 2 spiders into that type, every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only, it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn it (and how it will respawn a spider after the 90 seconds is the lightning conductor purple gem combination will cause lightning to strike around up in the respawned to spider crawl out of the ground like rapid king as a reference to how you unlock Webber in solo Don’t Starve)
it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it, craft the homemade den  with some number of bone shards and silk to make a sort of kit when you add a purple gem, a lightning conductor and one use of the den decorating set, you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it
And it can be broken using a hammer


 

    •    Silkcrafts:
Silk shooter: 
?:

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

finial looks like this:



    •    Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat


(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)
    •    Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats that won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

    •    Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

    •    acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

Attack Damage    Physical DamageTaken    Move Speed
+5%    -2.5%    +1.5%

    •    Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), when fighting nearby, spider queen will send over befriended nurse spiders to your aid

    •    Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

    •     In the spirit of friendship: When dying with Webber will drop 2 spider glands, Webber can give players the shoebox and they could only use it for its calling off aggressive spider function

    •    Garden spiders:
Flame touched spiders:  has built in scale mail as well as can cook
Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 2 silk, 2 fire nettle fronds

Concept art by @chenxx



:
:

    •    

    •    

    •      

    •    

   
          
 Alignments:
 
     

shadow spider care:
 
The Queen will reward your loyalty with  the recipe to help your spider friends evade dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 dark pedals
The shadow spider is a spider that will teleport like shadow creatures after attacking. They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

 
You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 


Lunar spider care: 
 

The cryptic founder will reward your curiosity, with  the recipe to help your spider friends blitz dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 lune tree blossoms 
The lunar spider is a spider that will move like greater gestalts when attacking (Wigfrid’s elding spear ability, but with a larger range). They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 

[tublinario]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:46 PM, Dr.Webber said:

I’m making a skill tree and I’m looking to add/alter some things. Do you have any suggestions:

skill tree:
 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)
    •    Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3 + decorated dens ground webs no longer reduce


(Befriend all spider types)
    •    Beneficial bite : teach spiders how to “chop/mine” with each having the efficiency of a pig by demonstrating it done normally so they make the connection between that and them breaking down stuff + they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck 
   


    •    Silk harvester: razors can be used to remove webbing from tiles dropping two

    •    Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk
 
 


    •    Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

    •    Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night              60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.


    •    Deep den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 health and 3 health per second 

    •    No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat pig skin, bunny puffs, or any non human edible meats that pigs and spiders eat for 50-60 hunger

 


    •    Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

    •    Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage they each could only be outside the itsy bitsy nest for a total of 8 minutes after that they return to the itsy bitsy nest and nap and they’ll need to charge back up before using them again so they hunger durability that can be refilled using meat, honey, or electric milk/monster milk similar to the eye mask, but you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time so you can have them out over the course of multiple days without needing to recharge them. If you’re smart about it, also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 6 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage,have 7 hp, upon death one will respond every 90 seconds 
(You need this to craft other 3 crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)
8 silk, 3 paper, and 1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

Concept examples:

 








(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)











    •    Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required)
?:

?:

homemade den: You can make a homemade den if you place a cookie in the homemade den it will turn 2 spiders into that type, every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only, it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn it (and how it will respawn a spider after the 90 seconds is the lightning conductor purple gem combination will cause lightning to strike around up in the respawned to spider crawl out of the ground like rapid king as a reference to how you unlock Webber in solo Don’t Starve)
it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it, craft the homemade den  with some number of bone shards and silk to make a sort of kit when you add a purple gem, a lightning conductor and one use of the den decorating set, you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it
And it can be broken using a hammer


 

    •    Silkcrafts:
Silk shooter: 
?:

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

finial looks like this:



    •    Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat


(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)
    •    Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats that won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

    •    Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

    •    acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

Attack Damage    Physical DamageTaken    Move Speed
+5%    -2.5%    +1.5%

    •    Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), when fighting nearby, spider queen will send over befriended nurse spiders to your aid

    •    Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

    •     In the spirit of friendship: When dying with Webber will drop 2 spider glands, Webber can give players the shoebox and they could only use it for its calling off aggressive spider function

    •    Garden spiders:
Flame touched spiders:  has built in scale mail as well as can cook
Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 2 silk, 2 fire nettle fronds

Concept art by @chenxx



:
:

    •    

    •    

    •      

    •    

   
          
 Alignments:
 
     

shadow spider care:
 
The Queen will reward your loyalty with  the recipe to help your spider friends evade dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 dark pedals
The shadow spider is a spider that will teleport like shadow creatures after attacking. They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

 
You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 


Lunar spider care: 
 

The cryptic founder will reward your curiosity, with  the recipe to help your spider friends blitz dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 lune tree blossoms 
The lunar spider is a spider that will move like greater gestalts when attacking (Wigfrid’s elding spear ability, but with a larger range). They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 

maybe make webber be able to eat his own cookies to transform for a period time, can walk on water with striders, gains planar defense with cave, every 3rd attack heals with nurse.

another cool thing would be some beard skills, so its faster to grow and gives more insulation, and instead of storing food like wilson maybe he could store bees and butterflies in it slowing spoileage

[Bumber64]

47 minutes ago, tublinario said:

another cool thing would be some beard skills, so its faster to grow and gives more insulation, and instead of storing food like wilson maybe he could store bees and butterflies in it slowing spoileage

Let him craft a slingshot and launch spiders at foes.

[Dr.Webber]

3 hours ago, tublinario said:

maybe make webber be able to eat his own cookies to transform for a period time, can walk on water with striders, gains planar defense with cave, every 3rd attack heals with nurse.

It sounds cool, but in practice, it would cause some issues with skins

 

2 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

him craft a slingshot and launch spiders at foes.

Wouldn’t that encroached too much on Walter’s territory

[Jakepeng99]

The best friend idea is cool.

Maybe rework it where you can only have one or two best friends? But you can stil have an army at a reduced size.