No, we don't need to nerf Wendy's beefalo.

[JazzyGames]

I have seen more and more calls to remove the ABIGAIL_VEX_GHOSTLYFRIEND_DAMAGE multiplier from Wendy's beefalo, the primary argument being that it creates a net damage multiplier that can be stacked with the Vex potion for Wolfgang levels of damage (or at least, pre-skilltree Wolfgang levels).

The extra vex damage is a unique beefalo synergy, something that no other character besides Warly can boast. In order to get this bonus the player has to manage three seperate entities during a fight: Wendy, the beefalo, and Abigail. Not only is Abigail not compatible in every single fight but so too is the beefalo. You are generally losing DPS during fights while taking care to manage these different elements so this multiplier also becomes a way to compensate for that lost time. Abigail is specifically designed to not be easily survivable in every boss fight.

Not to mention that by the time you get the Vex potion you have likely opened the shadow rifts and are now dealing with planar damage enemies, many which will either knock you off your beefalo or melt Abby in a few attacks. It pales in comparison to the minimal work needed to unlock Wolfgang's damage and is much more dangerous.

Ask yourself this: is the issue of imbalance coming from the beefalo synergy or the vex potion?

I have never before seen this proposal to nerf one of Wendy's core synergies so I'm guessing that it is arising now out of the addition of new powers unlocked in the skilltree. If so then it seems more prudent to me that we balance the new content rather than mechanics that have been a part of Wendy's character for years. The beefalo is likely not the issue here.

[Steorra]

We still have no clues about why the topic of Vex-Beefalo is not off topic toward this beta. It's obviously a feature happened once the Wendy's refresh came.

[Picklesaurus]

2 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

Not to mention that by the time you get the Vex potion you have likely opened the shadow rifts 

I get it as soon as I kill Nightmare Werepig, I do it on first autumn.

 

14 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

Ask yourself this: is the issue of imbalance coming from the beefalo synergy or the vex potion?

My problem with Vex potion is different, I would like it to be a bit less strong than it currently is to pre rift enemies and stronger than it currently is to rift enemies, I would prefer its damage to be good all around than super strong early against non planar enemies and notably weaker againt planar content:

 

[JazzyGames]

9 minutes ago, Picklesaurus said:

My problem with Vex potion is different, I would like it to be a bit less strong than it currently is to pre rift enemies and stronger than it currently is to rift enemies, I would prefer its damage to be good all around than super strong early against non planar enemies and notably weaker againt planar content:

Yeah I generally agree with that sentiment. This whole conversation might have been simplified if pure horror wasn't obtainable pre-rift. Compare it to luminous wrath which is tougher to get pre-rift and adds pure planar damage so is mostly useful post-rift.

[YouKnowWho142]

32 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

Yeah I generally agree with that sentiment. This whole conversation might have been simplified if pure horror wasn't obtainable pre-rift. Compare it to luminous wrath which is tougher to get pre-rift and adds pure planar damage so is mostly useful post-rift.

This is something that’s always really bugged me, feels like so many of the lunar skills even in other trees are almost unusable since most of the shadow skills (and especially the crafts) can be utilized pre-rift, and not everyone likes playing up to post rift. It doesn’t really help that a lot of the shadow skills are better even if they were both post rift (wurt, wendy, arguably Walter)

Really feels like if they want the super elixirs to be reasonably on par then they should probably either both be pre rift or both be post rift (naturally same goes for wurt especially). It really only disincentivizes gestalt abi even more as well since you get no advantages for the skill point you used for the prerequisite elixir until after the rift when you would’ve been able to use both shadow abi and the vex pre rift

 

[Catuna_]

The whole "NERF BEEFALO WENDY" outcry comes from the shadow affinity vex potion being overtuned. 1.3x/1.6x is just way too much.
For context, in the context of the current live branch Wendy's ornery beefalo needs a pretty elusive item (War saddle) to reach the damage she's known to reach otherwise she's basically doing the same damage she would with a dark sword.
Shadow vex giving a 30% damage boost to other players is a little insane in concept especially when Klei is usually a lot more tight-fisted with other sorts of damage boosts (me when Wigfrid gives me +5% damage against the opposite affinity or when Walter gives me +5 planar damage only proced by planar weapons). I think that for the best, her shadow affinity could be toned down a notch as she is still matching Wolfgang's damage on foot and I don't feel like this is something that suits the character. Best case scenario, Klei opts for a more interesting design for Abigail's shadow affinity... Although I'm so tired of seeing so many Wendy skill tree changes.
Also I think it not applying to planar damage might just be an oversight? Affinity damage boosts tend to boost planar damage as well.

[Picklesaurus]

14 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

Shadow vex giving a 30% damage boost to other players is a little insane in concept especially when Klei is usually a lot more tight-fisted with other sorts of damage boosts (me when Wigfrid gives me +5% damage against the opposite affinity or when Walter gives me +5 planar damage only proced by planar weapons).

I didn't stop to think about that until now, but when you put it that way I can see it. I still don't understand why Klei was so reluctant on giving Wig a bigger damage increase on her afinitty songs, it is a 5% damage increase in damage that only works against the opossite faction... it feels so bad. Sometimes the numbers Klei chooses for things feel all over the place. 

[CremeLover]

29 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

Shadow vex giving a 30% damage boost to other players is a little insane in concept especially when Klei is usually a lot more tight-fisted with other sorts of damage boosts (me when Wigfrid gives me +5% damage against the opposite affinity or when Walter gives me +5 planar damage only proced by planar weapons).

It is quite a signficant damage boost indeed, but keep it mind it only applies to phyisical damage, not planar damage. Klei has explicitely avoided adding any multipliers to planar other than alliance boosts. Even characters whose main perk is a damage multiplier (wolfgang, wifgfrid, wendy) does not affect planar damage as a whole, but just affinity planar damage.

29 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

I think that for the best, her shadow affinity could be toned down a notch as she is still matching Wolfgang's damage on foot and I don't feel like this is something that suits the character. Best case scenario, Klei opts for a more interesting design for Abigail's shadow affinity... Although I'm so tired of seeing so many Wendy skill tree changes.
Also I think it not applying to planar damage might just be an oversight? Affinity damage boosts tend to boost planar damage as well.

She's not matching wolfgang damage on foot, her damage with the shadow elixir is 1.3*1.6*0.75=1.56x + Abigail, compared to wolfgang raw 2x + 25 planar buffs. All damage calculations you've seen floating around were done using Beefalo, that removes her 0.75x multiplier.

Klei has actively avoided adding raw multipliers to planar damage as a whole. You could argue Abigail's Vex should also multiply planar damage when used against opposite faction mobs (but this would also complicate things, since shadow vex is way better than lunar vex, just making GAbigail even worse by comparison)

[Guille6785]

wig got the short end of the stick with her damage boosting songs ngl

[Dingle]

1 hour ago, Picklesaurus said:

I get it as soon as I kill Nightmare Werepig, I do it on first autumn.

 

My problem with Vex potion is different, I would like it to be a bit less strong than it currently is to pre rift enemies and stronger than it currently is to rift enemies, I would prefer its damage to be good all around than super strong early against non planar enemies and notably weaker againt planar content:

 

Yeah, I was going to kill nightmare werepig as my first or second boss in future runs if Vex is unchanged. He drops enough nightmare fuel to let you stomp 4 to 6 bosses, and you can even dupe it with green gems if you want.

No fuelweaver kill required.

[Catuna_]

20 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

She's not matching wolfgang damage on foot, her damage with the shadow elixir is 1.3*1.6*0.75=1.56x + Abigail, compared to wolfgang raw 2x + 25 planar buffs. All damage calculations you've seen floating around were done using Beefalo, that removes her 0.75x multiplier.

say wendy and wolfgang are both wielding dark swords, with 68 base damage
and let's assume that both are animation cancelling perfectly at the same speed of 0.4s (the minimum attack speed you can achieve)
I will also include Abigail DPS because... it's kind of obvious to?
Wolfgang with a dark sword would be doing 136/0.4 = 340DPS
Wendy with a dark sword would be doing 106.08/0.4 = 265.2DPS + 65 (Abigail murder buff DPS) = 330.2
A whopping 10 dps difference isn't much... And that's ignoring her AoE
Now you could argue about murder Abigail's uptime is too low (8s) and I'd respectfully disagree as that amounts to 2641 damage roughly, somewhere in the 2000's if we're being realistic with kiting and such
You argue Wolfgang does better under planar which is true, but I think that it's reasonable to assume that the vex potion not applying to planar is a bug/oversight since it is an outlier from other affinity damage boosts
You could argue that Wolfgang deals more damage to aligned targets with his affinities, and that's also true but that doesn't take away from the fact that she's still doing wolfgang DPS
 

[CremeLover]

9 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

say wendy and wolfgang are both wielding dark swords, with 68 base damage
and let's assume that both are animation cancelling perfectly at the same speed of 0.4s (the minimum attack speed you can achieve)
I will also include Abigail DPS because... it's kind of obvious to?
Wolfgang with a dark sword would be doing 136/0.4 = 340DPS
Wendy with a dark sword would be doing 106.08/0.4 = 265.2DPS + 65 (Abigail murder buff DPS) = 330.2
A whopping 10 dps difference isn't much... And that's ignoring her AoE
Now you could argue about murder Abigail's uptime is too low (8s) and I'd respectfully disagree as that amounts to 2641 damage roughly, somewhere in the 2000's if we're being realistic with kiting and such
You argue Wolfgang does better under planar which is true, but I think that it's reasonable to assume that the vex potion not applying to planar is a bug/oversight since it is an outlier from other affinity damage boosts
You could argue that Wolfgang deals more damage to aligned targets with his affinities, and that's also true but that doesn't take away from the fact that she's still doing wolfgang DPS
 

That's not a completley fair comparison. Wendy's shadow affinity, like most shadow, allows her to use her post-rift buffs pre-rift in limited quantities (though you can adquire more with a Winona on your team and her Rose-Colored Glasses). This is the case with Wurt, Winona, half of Walter's, etc.

Wolfwang just happens to be one of the few who can't, since he needs a planar damage weapon for his +25 extra planar damage to take effect.

This is more a complain that certain characters can access their post rift powers pre-rift, and others don't, more than a pure DPS race.

If you do believe is fair comparing post-rift powerup from one character to a pre-rift one, and the post-rift character should have their max DPS potential nerfed because they have access to their whole kit before the other, I'm just going to disagree with you.

And while not the main point, I will also note that wolfgang with a dark sword put sifnificantly less time and effort in adquiring all their buffs.

 

[Dingle]

6 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

That's not a completley fair comparison. Wendy's shadow affinity, like most shadow, allows her to use her post-rift buffs pre-rift in limited quantities (though you can adquire more with a Winona on your team and her Rose-Colored Glasses). This is the case with Wurt, Winona, half of Walter's, etc.

Wolfwang just happens to be one of the few who can't, since he needs a planar damage weapon for his +25 extra planar damage to take effect.

This is more a complain that certain characters can access their post rift powers pre-rift, and others don't, more than a pure DPS race.

If you do believe is fair comparing post-rift powerup from one character to a pre-rift one, and the post-rift character should have their max DPS potential nerfed because they have access to their whole kit before the other, I'm just going to disagree with you.

And while not the main point, I will also note that wolfgang with a dark sword put sifnificantly less time and effort in adquiring all their buffs.

 

Wolfgang still gets his 30% bonus on day 1

4 to 6 vex potions is still 4 to 6 dead bosses.

One of those should be fuelweaver. Then you have vex potions forever, they're absurdly cheap.

[CremeLover]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

Wolfgang still gets his 30% bonus on day 1

Not his +25 planar damage per hit tho.

[Guille6785]

39 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

say wendy and wolfgang are both wielding dark swords, with 68 base damage
and let's assume that both are animation cancelling perfectly at the same speed of 0.4s (the minimum attack speed you can achieve)
I will also include Abigail DPS because... it's kind of obvious to?
Wolfgang with a dark sword would be doing 136/0.4 = 340DPS
Wendy with a dark sword would be doing 106.08/0.4 = 265.2DPS + 65 (Abigail murder buff DPS) = 330.2
A whopping 10 dps difference isn't much... And that's ignoring her AoE
Now you could argue about murder Abigail's uptime is too low (8s) and I'd respectfully disagree as that amounts to 2641 damage roughly, somewhere in the 2000's if we're being realistic with kiting and such
You argue Wolfgang does better under planar which is true, but I think that it's reasonable to assume that the vex potion not applying to planar is a bug/oversight since it is an outlier from other affinity damage boosts
You could argue that Wolfgang deals more damage to aligned targets with his affinities, and that's also true but that doesn't take away from the fact that she's still doing wolfgang DPS
 

Interestingly enough, with a ham bat and no animation cancelling Wolfgang would do 255 dps against non affinity targets and Wendy with buffed abigail would be dealing 264

honestly I'm fine with this since you'd have to be very proficient at dipping into the ruins exactly for what you need and kill nightmare werepig very early on to have a headstart against the big bosses, it feels like an adequate reward for more experienced players

[Koomin]

Ignoring the vex elixir here since it's clearly poorly executed but has been covered and pretty unanimously agreed upon.

My main annoyance with this is just that this would have been the perfect opportunity for Klei to get rid of a weird borderline bug interaction with minimal disturbance to people. I don't mind Wendy benefitting from the boost and think it should stay, it just really not expected that you can ride a beefalo and ignore Wendy's .75x damage multiplier, but not ignore her 1.4x character specific vex multiplier. It's the type of thing that the vast majority of people would only figure out by going on a forum or reading the wiki or watching a video, and that's already getting to common in the game now. Even though it's an interesting niche, it's not one that normal people playing the game blind can find through intuition. It's the same for Warly beefalo stuff: would anyone know without looking at the wiki to feed half the damage boosting stuff to him and half to the beefalo?

They could have gotten rid of this now and fixed it, and given Wendy a skill tree point with some added benefits to make up for it, as well as to point players towards this niche existing. Something along the lines of "Wendy's beefalo benefits from Abigail's vex damage as if it were Wendy. Wendy can now heal beefalo with ghostly potions".  

It's just really weird to keep an interaction that is so unintuitive and weird to interact with for multiple characters when there are really easy paths to fix it.

[Steorra]

7 minutes ago, Koomin said:

It's just really weird to keep an interaction that is so unintuitive and weird to interact with for multiple characters when there are really easy paths to fix it.

I might agree with this, but it's same for player tag. Maybe rework Sisturn III first? It introduced a new complex interaction mechanic to players, which would be far more worse than what we already had.

[Catuna_]

2 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

Interestingly enough, with a ham bat and no animation cancelling Wolfgang would do 255 dps against non affinity targets and Wendy with buffed abigail would be dealing 264

I assume that's because the slower the player attacks, the more of a difference Abigail makes since her attack period is a completely static 1s
Animation cancelling is more-so a worst case scenario for Wendy because of that, since Wolfgang would be dealing 291.8 DPS and Wendy would be dealing 292.6 but for the sake of providing arguments based on how I'd actually play I figured I'd use 0.4s as the attack interval

5 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

honestly I'm fine with this since you'd have to be very proficient at dipping into the ruins exactly for what you need and kill nightmare werepig very early on to have a headstart against the big bosses, it feels like an adequate reward for more experienced players

I think this really comes down to opinion, and I do agree that being rewarded for killing werepig early is a pretty neat thing... But I think I'd just rather have a more interesting elixir with an effect more engaging than rewarding you for what Wendy's already rewarding for but stronger. Ultimately, if Klei ends up doing something regarding the Shadow Wendy Beefalo interaction dealing a ton of damage I think that they should absolutely look into the shadow affinity elixir and not the beef interaction. Let me spam /bigpet on my beefalo.

47 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

That's not a completley fair comparison. Wendy's shadow affinity, like most shadow, allows her to use her post-rift buffs pre-rift in limited quantities (though you can adquire more with a Winona on your team and her Rose-Colored Glasses). This is the case with Wurt, Winona, half of Walter's, etc.

Wolfwang just happens to be one of the few who can't, since he needs a planar damage weapon for his +25 extra planar damage to take effect.

This is more a complain that certain characters can access their post rift powers pre-rift, and others don't, more than a pure DPS race.

If you do believe is fair comparing post-rift powerup from one character to a pre-rift one, and the post-rift character should have their max DPS potential nerfed because they have access to their whole kit before the other, I'm just going to disagree with you.

I don't really see how this is unfair when pure horror is a renewable resource pre-rifts and can be even duplicated with the use of a deconstruction staff and construction amulet...? Combined with Wendy's Extra Yield duration (which now rolls a 40% chance to get an extra elixir then a 10% chance to get another one ontop of that) means that Wendy has a 46% chance to get at least two elixirs which is still extremely likely.

5 minutes ago, Koomin said:

They could have gotten rid of this now and fixed it, and given Wendy a skill tree point with some added benefits to make up for it, as well as to point players towards this niche existing. Something along the lines of "Wendy's beefalo benefits from Abigail's vex damage as if it were Wendy. Wendy can now heal beefalo with ghostly potions".  

The bug was just never considered an issue by most until the new shadow vex potion was introduced. I don't really consider it an issue either, all you're doing is neutering affinity-less/lunar Wendy because shadow Wendy is too good with it pretty much.

[Koomin]

Just now, Steorra said:

I might agree with this, but it's same for player tag. Maybe rework Sisturn III first? It introduced a new complex interaction mechanic to players, which would be far more worse than what we already had.

To be honest just always pointing out something else that is also suboptimal whenever any concern is brought up is not great.  Beyond that, though, player tag can be optimized at any point in the future without upsetting people. 

This was legitimately their one chance to fix this weird mechanic without making people upset, because Wendy players would be the main ones upset with the changes, and the skill tree gave the opportunity to give a suitable fix and trade.  Missing this window just means we are stuck with this borderline bug mechanic forever, because if it is touched in the future there will be a meltdown.

[DVGMedia]

2 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

The bug was just never considered an issue by most until the new shadow vex potion was introduced. I don't really consider it an issue either, all you're doing is neutering affinity-less/lunar Wendy because shadow Wendy is too good with it pretty much.

Its not a bug though Thats just how the thing works.

Beefalo negate any modifiers the players have. Thats why eating spice or being wolf wig wes or wendy don't affect the damage the beefalo does.

The reason why wendys thing works is because its a weakness on the creatures side.  And wether or not wendy is attacking with a beeflo or a weapon its still a wendy attacking that creature.  Thats why she gets the bonus damage.

The same applies to willows damage bonus. Willows fire frenzy makes  creatures 25 percent weaker to willows attacks while on fire. Whether they come from a spear or a beef its still the same thing.

[Catuna_]

1 minute ago, DVGMedia said:

Its not a bug though Thats just how the thing works.

Beefalo negate any modifiers the players have. Thats why eating spice or being wolf wig wes or wendy don't affect the damage the beefalo does.

The reason why wendys thing works is because its a weakness on the creatures side.  And wether or not wendy is attacking with a beeflo or a weapon its still a wendy attacking that creature.  Thats why she gets the bonus damage.

The same applies to willows damage bonus. Willows fire frenzy makes  creatures 25 percent weaker to willows attacks while on fire. Whether they come from a spear or a beef its still the same thing.

I suppose possible oversight would be a better word, I definitely used the wrong term
Still, though, I think it'd be a shame to lose it

[Cassielu]

23 minutes ago, Koomin said:

My main annoyance with this is just that this would have been the perfect opportunity for Klei to get rid of a weird borderline bug interaction with minimal disturbance to people.

I did't support nerf Wendy beefalo (basically for the same reasons as DVG), but I'm going to give you a thumbs up for it anyway.

Klei should definitely come back at some point and fix their weird damage calculations, Buff or Nerf anything for this purpose is acceptable to me

[Koomin]

2 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

I did't support nerf Wendy beefalo (for the same reasons as DVG), but I'm going to give you a thumbs up for it anyway.

Klei should definitely come back at some point and fix their weird damage calculations.

Yea I'm not proposing nerfing it, and proposed a way to keep it for Wendy specifically but also fix the super unintuitive and requiring a wiki to understand "mechanics".  Whether it's a bug or not, it's not something a normal player would find.

Regardless - thanks!

[CremeLover]

11 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

I don't really see how this is unfair when pure horror is a renewable resource pre-rifts and can be even duplicated with the use of a deconstruction staff and construction amulet...? Combined with Wendy's Extra Yield duration (which now rolls a 40% chance to get an extra elixir then a 10% chance to get another one ontop of that) means that Wendy has a 46% chance to get at least two elixirs which is still extremely likely.

I do consider it unfair, since it is comparing a character's entire kit to a character who's missing a part of its kit. Wolfgang just happens to be a character that cannot access his full potential until planar weapons are introduced, unlike many others, including Shadow Wendy. I don't believe pre-rift Wolfgang should be the standart we use to decide if post-rift perks are balanced.

If early pure horror is that massive of an issue, what should be advicated for is removing pure horror from nightmare werepig, and from winona's glasses, or lock all post-rift perks behind a Shadowcraft Plinth or Brightsmithy for all characters, since not all characters can access their perks until rifts are activated.

[Dingle]

1 minute ago, CremeLover said:

I do consider it unfair, since it is comparing a character's entire kit to a character who's missing a part of its kit. Wolfgang just happens to be a character that cannot access his full potential until planar weapons are introduced, unlike many others, including Shadow Wendy. I don't believe pre-rift Wolfgang should be the standart we use to decide if post-rift perks are balanced.

If early pure horror is that massive of an issue, what should be advicated for is removing pure horror from nightmare werepig, and from winona's glasses, or lock all post-rift perks behind a Shadowcraft Plinth or Brightsmithy for all characters, since not all characters can access their perks until rifts are activated.

It is pretty weird that Wendy gets her stuff pre-rift.

Also, even if Cursed Vex + Beefalo is considered as an "ok, whatever" by the devs, it makes me wonder:

"Why should a Wendy player ever, ever pick Lunar Affinity, if Shadow Affinity gets them Cursed Vex, the strongest thing in her skill tree?"

Though maybe this covers a bigger and wider topic than just beefalo damage. I'll probably make a separate topic for this later so that beefalo can remain the focus here.