Thoughts on the state of Wendy (Post Walter Rework)

[WenericMember]

With Walters tree receiving a much needed update, the approach taken to his tree opens a stark contrast with Wendy's tree.

Now that all three trees are moving into their final(ish) states, I'd like to make a post outlining Wendy's tree under a critical lens to highlight the present recurring problems with the tree. For a lot of the Beta, I viewed a number of requests as relatively unreasonable in scale considering this was a beta. However, with Walter's tree highlighting such changes are possible, I feel being comprehensive is necessary.

For the record, I am 95% happy with Wendy's tree structurally. However, the present implementation of many of the skills significantly brings down my enjoyment of the tree, as it's accessibility is significantly hindered.

1) Not Addressing Issues with Wendy's Base Kit

While both Wortox (TP with heavy objects) and Walter (Woby mechanics, Story Mechanics) got major changes to round out their base kit during the beta, Distilled Vengeance and Unyielding Draught have gone without changes for the duration of the beta, and received no meaningful buff via the tree, remaining the weakest of Wendy's potions.

2) Needless obstruction to accessibility of Perks

Compared to many other  survivors biggest Perks, Wendy's all have a painful number of hoops to jump through to activate them. This was fine initially for most of them, but those perks have since been toned back regardless, resulting in under tuned and obtuse skills, such as:

• Haunt RNG. Why is still a this a thing three months into the beta
• Shadow Abigail: Shadow Abby's defensive and offensive potential have been significantly weakened, yet dozens of murders are necessary to sustain Abigail for a fight. Referencing Abigail's DS mechanics is great, but this isn't even accurate to the original mechanic.
• Lunar Abigail: while her accessibility has been increased, it's still a far cry for what it should be for a sidegrade to regular Abigail.
• Grave Production: Requires the death of players for infinite grave production, and relocation of graves requires shell fragments. Suggestion: defeating giants produces graves?
• MG Hat: Tying the perks to a headgear is odd thematically (as the potions are drunk), and at the same time greatly reduces the usefulness of said perks in combat (where headgear is incredibly competitive) and as QOL (due to the pains of taking the helmet off and on again).

3) Obsolete Perks not being given adequate attention

Some of Wendy's Perks that at one point in time made sense on the kit, now no longer do. These perks are languishing as they fundamentally hold little value in their current state, and hurt conceptually interesting skills. This is the fundamental issue with the approach taken to Wendy's tree - skills are reworked in a vacuum, without considering the effects in combination with others.

• Graves are a fundamentally interesting skill, but the production of evil flowers is antiquated. Wendy can already produce NF even faster than ghosts with the haunt skill (even with RNG), and the evil petals skills this production synergized with are now gone, leaving a skill that's only real appeal is the ability to move gravestones.
• Strong Brew never really had a place other than synergy with MG 2, and is the result of being a skill in the original version of Wendy's tree.
• The skill Potions IV was based on - durability for potions, was a unique skill, but the simplified implementation just made this an alternative skill an (arguably) worse version of Pipspook quest 3, especially as MG gets additional uses for the MG branch.

4) Underwhelming Capstones

For Most trees, the final tier of a skill is almost supposed to be a reward for the investment of insight to the branch - like Wigfrids Weapons, Willow's Pyro Spells, and yet most of Wendy's tier three skills are at present, incredibly undertuned.

• Haunt, SS, LS: Mentioned Elsewhere
• Blessed Sisturn 3: A 50% healing reduction is too much when player tag only reduces damage by 25-33% in many instances, such as celestial champion.
• Perrenial Altar: A tier 3 reskin for an item that sees no use. It's in dire need of a buff.
• Pipspook quest 3: While balanced to be strong, this skill is perhaps the most boring skill mechanically.
• Vengeful Ghost: Despite being Wendy's perk, Wendy is the worst user of the perk (affected by her 0.75x damage multiplier), meaning that the perk is incredibly underwhelming in a single player environment, where the increased risks associated with death are even more present.

Overall, Wendy's tree is in an okay state. It has a lot of attention to detail aesthetically, but has significantly overlooked many balancing issues and resulted in significant redundancy. 

(Also ghastly experience and terrorise need nerfs, but that doesn't really fit anywhere on the points i'm trying to make sooooo)

(Butterfly rezzing costing 2 MG when they introduced an upgraded bug net certainly is something too.

[DVGMedia]

This does help to signify Some of the structural problems and the way the skilltree was approached.

I heard some one saying walters is more free flowing where skills are standalone instead of them being part of a branch maybe that is whats needed?

[Grove]

While I'm fine with the skill tree, I do have a few gripes with it. (Aside from my major problems with the affinities)

BS||| shouldn't be an actual player tag. It would work better as 50% damage reduction against giants. There is no way for a player to tell the difference. It could still have the skill description and everything. But actually not be confusing when it comes to certain bosses.

MG branch: Wraith's Wreath: I honestly think that instead of drinking it, it's applied to the hat. And when dequipped, the timer should go on pause, instead of just the elixir going away.

Thr alter should be made so that Abby's level isn't reset upon death, or even better, make it chargeable instead of a one time use.

I do think player tag/50% armor would work better as an elixir. It would still have a tradeoff, but the trade off would be the og Wendy trade off of elixirs.

But yeah. Wortox also needs some stuff, my god.

[WenericMember]

1 hour ago, Debruh said:

While I'm fine with the skill tree, I do have a few gripes with it. (Aside from my major problems with the affinities)

BS||| shouldn't be an actual player tag. It would work better as 50% damage reduction against giants. There is no way for a player to tell the difference. It could still have the skill description and everything. But actually not be confusing when it comes to certain bosses.

MG branch: Wraith's Wreath: I honestly think that instead of drinking it, it's applied to the hat. And when dequipped, the timer should go on pause, instead of just the elixir going away.

Thr alter should be made so that Abby's level isn't reset upon death, or even better, make it chargeable instead of a one time use.

I do think player tag/50% armor would work better as an elixir. It would still have a tradeoff, but the trade off would be the og Wendy trade off of elixirs.

But yeah. Wortox also needs some stuff, my god.

I think giving the AltarNo Reset Abby Level + Spawns you with Abigail's Flower, would give it enough of a buff over the effigy to be useful, but I'd prefer something that would benefit other survivors too.

I personally don't mind the idea of Player tag as an elixir, but It'd need to be a buff to Unyielding/Vengeance and reworking BS3 as a non combat ability.

[Steorra]

I'm pretty like your feedback toward Wendy's tree these days. 

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Referencing Abigail's DS mechanics is great, but this isn't even accurate to the original mechanic.

Especially I guess this should be the first time who pointed out this issue and the OP was not a Chinese user. Yes the original mechanic is also triggered by mobs' death around the Abby's flower, but not by mobs' death in inventory.

 

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

ghastly experience

many players whether they want Abby's survivability or hate it, they just said they don't like this elixir before. But it keep same until current update.

So it's a bit impossible to expect a potential change/rework for this elixir at the current stage as I guess.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Steorra said:

I'm pretty like your feedback toward Wendy's tree these days. 

Especially I guess this should be the first time who pointed out this issue and the OP was not a Chinese user. Yes the original mechanic is also triggered by mobs' death around the Abby's flower, but not by mobs' death in inventory.

 

many players whether they want Abby's survivability or hate it, they just said they don't like this elixir before. But it keep same until current update.

So it's a bit impossible to expect a potential change/rework for this elixir at the current stage as I guess.

Re Murder: that's been discussed before, but I'm basically just saying: the tribute is fine, but it's not 1:1 so changes to it shouldn't be a problem.

Re Elixir: %-># is a fair nerf that I can see happening, but outright removing/replacing a skill is beyond what's likely to happen at this point.

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, WenericMember said:

Re Elixir: %-># is a fair nerf that I can see happening, but outright removing/replacing a skill is beyond what's likely to happen at this point.

I personally think nerf is not fair for those who dislike this potion by inconvenience reason. only rework could be fair. but we knew the possibility is quite few.

[Yaorin yon]

17 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Re Murder: that's been discussed before, but I'm basically just saying: the tribute is fine, but it's not 1:1 so changes to it shouldn't be a problem.

Re Elixir: %-># is a fair nerf that I can see happening, but outright removing/replacing a skill is beyond what's likely to happen at this point.

Would you mind if I shared my ideas for optimizing tributes from my post?

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Yaorin yon said:

Would you mind if I shared my ideas for optimizing tributes from my post?

Go ahead

[Yaorin yon]

6 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Go ahead

Thank you. The first one is my own thoughts on optimizing affinities. The other one is not about tributes, but it's about my feelings regarding Woby's interactions, which made me think this post should be reconsidered.

 

 

 

 

[DVGMedia]

7 minutes ago, Yaorin yon said:

Would you mind if I shared my ideas for optimizing tributes from my post?

I kind of had my own a bit but you saying this made me think of like where games require the player to kill things near an object to be able to charge them up.
Kind of feel like it would be better if shadow abby worked a bit like how the shadow maul does. upgrading in power as deaths occur around her flower.
however it would be limited to strong enemies. And if abby died you lose all that progress.  Which would be similar to how ds originally worked.

They really are not going to remake things.. But i really like these thoughts

 

[Yaorin yon]

6 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

I kind of had my own a bit but you saying this made me think of like where games require the player to kill things near an object to be able to charge them up.
Kind of feel like it would be better if shadow abby worked a bit like how the shadow maul does. upgrading in power as deaths occur around her flower.
however it would be limited to strong enemies. And if abby died you lose all that progress.  Which would be similar to how ds originally worked.

They really are not going to remake things.. But i really like these thoughts

 

I understand, and I really like some of your ideas too.

Honestly, after the first few updates in this test server, I realized they don't want to improve Wendy's skill tree. But I feel like if I don't speak up, there's absolutely no chance, so I want to keep speaking out, even if it's just to avoid regretting it later.

2 minutes ago, Yaorin yon said:

I understand, and I really like some of your ideas too.

Honestly, after the first few updates in this test server, I realized they don't want to improve Wendy's skill tree. But I feel like if I don't speak up, there's absolutely no chance, so I want to keep speaking out, even if it's just to avoid regretting it later.

The phrase 'I don't want Wendy's Skill Tree to become better' here refers to 

I realized that they don't think there's a problem with the skill tree they made for Wendy, and they certainly don't want to overhaul the content too much (like when Wendy was reset, a large part of the mechanism was changed and then given to Wanda).

[WenericMember]

26 minutes ago, Yaorin yon said:

Thank you. The first one is my own thoughts on optimizing affinities. The other one is not about tributes, but it's about my feelings regarding Woby's interactions, which made me think this post should be reconsidered.

 

 

 

 

I think the main issue with your suggested shadow Abigail rework is that it puts Wendy in the glass cannon playstyle they're trying to avoid by dropping her hp by 75.  They intentionally removed similar mechanics to avoid changing Wendy's Playstyle too much in the original rework and this beta, as that's Wanda's playstyle, that said, your suggestions for cursed Vex and Sacrificial pendant is pretty cool.

I think the Lunar branch could work as a rework, but I doubt they'll ever change the structure of the alignment skills at this point. Also putting player tag on a super potion just brings back the Cure-All + Player tag debate.  So I think you could incorporate a few of these suggestions into the existing skills, at the very least:

• Gesalt Abby getting invincibility during team spirit commands would be a good trade off if they don't want to re-add AOE for attack at
• Luminous Wrath having a lower damage buff but converting all damage from standard to planar is a good change too
• Shadow Abigail dealing damage extending the timer would also be a good QOL change.

[Grove]

1 minute ago, WenericMember said:

Luminous Wrath having a lower damage buff but converting all damage from standard to planar is a good change too

I don't think it should convert all damage to planar damage. Honestly, I think it only needs a bit of tweaking

 Lowering it like how all of gestalt Abby's damage was lowered... ooor, making it so that shadow Abby is 1) more accessible. 2) Gains more benefit out of cursed vex. Like how gestalt Abby gains more benefit out of luminous wrath

[Yaorin yon]

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I think the main issue with your suggested shadow Abigail rework is that it puts Wendy in the glass cannon playstyle they're trying to avoid by dropping her hp by 75.  They intentionally removed similar mechanics to avoid changing Wendy's Playstyle too much in the original rework and this beta, as that's Wanda's playstyle, that said, your suggestions for cursed Vex and Sacrificial pendant is pretty cool. the main issue with your suggested shadow Abigail rework is that it puts Wendy in the glass cannon playstyle they're trying to avoid by dropping her hp by 75.  They intentionally removed similar mechanics to avoid changing Wendy's Playstyle too much in the original rework and this beta, as that's Wanda's playstyle, that said, your suggestions for cursed Vex and Sacrificial pendant is pretty cool.

I think the Lunar branch could work as a rework, but I doubt they'll ever change the structure of the alignment skills at this point. Also putting player tag on a super potion just brings back the Cure-All + Player tag debate.  So I think you could incorporate a few of these suggestions into the existing skills, at the very least:

• Gesalt Abby getting invincibility during team spirit commands would be a good trade off if they don't want to re-add AOE for attack at
• Luminous Wrath having a lower damage buff but converting all damage from standard to planar is a good change too
• Shadow Abigail dealing damage extending the timer would also be a good QOL change.

Thank you for your recognition. Regarding the idea of sacrificing Wendy's own health limit, I would like to add that I am inclined to give players more choice rather than intentionally restricting them. As Abigail's twin sister, sacrificing oneself is the boldest decision. This mechanism would permanently activate Shadow Abigail, allowing players to choose whether to continuously sacrifice other creatures or to sacrifice themselves once and for all. I believe this is a very enriching choice update. In my mind, actively restoring the health limit would cause the permanent activation of Shadow Abigail to disappear after a certain period (about a day? It needs to be considered), and this kind of choice can create more playability.

31 minutes ago, Debruh said:

I don't think it should convert all damage to planar damage. Honestly, I think it only needs a bit of tweaking

 Lowering it like how all of gestalt Abby's damage was lowered... ooor, making it so that shadow Abby is 1) more accessible. 2) Gains more benefit out of cursed vex. Like how gestalt Abby gains more benefit out of luminous wrath

I'm curious about your thoughts. I'd like to ask for your opinion on the Planar Entity. Under the influence of the Planar Entity, Moonlit Abigail's single attack of 250 points is reduced to 98 points, while Shadow Abigail's 40 + 25 Planar Damage = 65 points is only reduced to 27 + 25 = 52 points. If only the Luminous Wrath is adjusted, then the Luminous Wrath needs to provide more than 170 points of Planar Damage bonus to prevent Moonlit Abigail from being overshadowed by Shadow Abigail. Could you help me understand your reasoning?

[Grove]

45 minutes ago, Yaorin yon said:

Thank you for your recognition. Regarding the idea of sacrificing Wendy's own health limit, I would like to add that I am inclined to give players more choice rather than intentionally restricting them. As Abigail's twin sister, sacrificing oneself is the boldest decision. This mechanism would permanently activate Shadow Abigail, allowing players to choose whether to continuously sacrifice other creatures or to sacrifice themselves once and for all. I believe this is a very enriching choice update. In my mind, actively restoring the health limit would cause the permanent activation of Shadow Abigail to disappear after a certain period (about a day? It needs to be considered), and this kind of choice can create more playability.

I'm curious about your thoughts. I'd like to ask for your opinion on the Planar Entity. Under the influence of the Planar Entity, Moonlit Abigail's single attack of 250 points is reduced to 98 points, while Shadow Abigail's 40 + 25 Planar Damage = 65 points is only reduced to 27 + 25 = 52 points. If only the Luminous Wrath is adjusted, then the Luminous Wrath needs to provide more than 170 points of Planar Damage bonus to prevent Moonlit Abigail from being overshadowed by Shadow Abigail. Could you help me understand your reasoning?

I think, that in terms of dps, shadow Abby should be the superior choice.

Gestalt Abby should, 1) get her aoe back through team spirit's attack at. 2) Get her ai maybe checked a bit to be better at surviving.

Then for the luminous wrath thing, I think it should provide enough danage, and convert some of gestalt Abby's damage to planar. But not all. As to stay a little bit below shadow Abby in terms of dps post and pre rifts

[WenericMember]

34 minutes ago, Debruh said:

I think, that in terms of dps, shadow Abby should be the superior choice.

Gestalt Abby should, 1) get her aoe back through team spirit's attack at. 2) Get her ai maybe checked a bit to be better at surviving.

Then for the luminous wrath thing, I think it should provide enough danage, and convert some of gestalt Abby's damage to planar. But not all. As to stay a little bit below shadow Abby in terms of dps post and pre rifts

That's basically what the devs said in an earlier blog post, I hope they stick to that.

[WenericMember]

23 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

This does help to signify Some of the structural problems and the way the skilltree was approached.

I heard some one saying walters is more free flowing where skills are standalone instead of them being part of a branch maybe that is whats needed?

I think Walters tree needs to be more freeform as he's a weaker character at base.

Also Re: adding Player tag to potion, I think it's a good compromise, but I think it should be a buff to unyielding/distilled vengeance. Do wonder what they'd do to BS3 though.

[DVGMedia]

7 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I think Walters tree needs to be more freeform as he's a weaker character at base.

Also Re: adding Player tag to potion, I think it's a good compromise, but I think it should be a buff to unyielding/distilled vengeance. Do wonder what they'd do to BS3 though.

Ive been thinking of just having it be similar to the wreath but for abby. Small little buffs here and there that aren't too game changing but can give a nice qol.
Putting in the different petal types around the world Gives the sisturn a unique effect while also providing abby a small buff that is universal so long the specific petal type is in the sisturn..
My favorite would be putting lightbulbs in to make the sisturn glow But also boosts abbys light radius.
Other ideas could be lunar blossoms are like supposed to be enlightenment. So it buffs the sanity aura of the sisturn. While maybe giving abby an aura?
Dark petals currently makes it give a negative aura. and for abby maybe can do  Like remove day time weakness? abbys damage during the day is the same as during dusk.

Of course these are just ideas the lightbulb one seems straight forward and is my favorite.  The others may need some thoughts but the effect shouldn't be too strong since its a bundle like the wreath
 

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

Ive been thinking of just having it be similar to the wreath but for abby. Small little buffs here and there that aren't too game changing but can give a nice qol.
Putting in the different petal types around the world Gives the sisturn a unique effect while also providing abby a small buff that is universal so long the specific petal type is in the sisturn..
My favorite would be putting lightbulbs in to make the sisturn glow But also boosts abbys light radius.
Other ideas could be lunar blossoms are like supposed to be enlightenment. So it buffs the sanity aura of the sisturn. While maybe giving abby an aura?
Dark petals currently makes it give a negative aura. and for abby maybe can do  Like remove day time weakness? abbys damage during the day is the same as during dusk.

Of course these are just ideas the lightbulb one seems straight forward and is my favorite.  The others may need some thoughts but the effect shouldn't be too strong since its a bundle like the wreath
 

I think that might be reasonable, especially as when evil flowers are put in, Wendy says "I don't like it, but it makes abigail stronger", despite the fact that the only thing different from regular petals is the sanity aura afaik.

[Siren11]

17 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Also Re: adding Player tag to potion, I think it's a good compromise, but I think it should be a buff to unyielding/distilled vengeance. Do wonder what they'd do to BS3 though.

I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever if it was a super elixir as you could still use other potions. But if it was a regular potion, it would ruin a lot of Wendy’s skill tree for me. I was hoping for an option that would allow Abigail to have more survivability while I test out commands, potions, and positioning. Blessed Sisturn III isn’t perfect, but it works.

A lot of the ideas offered here are really good though!

[WenericMember]

13 minutes ago, Siren11 said:

I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever if it was a super elixir as you could still use other potions. But if it was a regular potion, it would ruin a lot of Wendy’s skill tree for me. I was hoping for an option that would allow Abigail to have more survivability while I test out commands, potions, and positioning. Blessed Sisturn III isn’t perfect, but it works.

A lot of the ideas offered here are really good though!

It really depends on how much they're going to change at this point. Lowering the penalty to healing would make the skill usable, though the player tag isn't consistent across bosses.

[Soul7k]

1 hour ago, WenericMember said:

It really depends on how much they're going to change at this point. Lowering the penalty to healing would make the skill usable, though the player tag isn't consistent across bosses.

while it probably did need to get tweaked a 50% nerf is cutting something off at the knees. doubling survivability and reducing recovery by half doesn't really do anything. it just creates another baseline 0. or at least it feels like it

[Bumber64]

19 hours ago, Soul7k said:

while it probably did need to get tweaked a 50% nerf is cutting something off at the knees. doubling survivability and reducing recovery by half doesn't really do anything. it just creates another baseline 0. or at least it feels like it

Doubling armor doubles the effectiveness of healing. If you halve healing, what you end up is effectively a doubled health pool with same recovery. And then you need to account for the fact that it only nerfs elixir healing. She still has natural (and healing item?) recovery, with no nerf if you're using vigor mortis, etc.

(IDK if the actual break-even point ends up being 25% reduced attacks. The math makes my head hurt, so I suspect it's not that simple. I'd need a graph.)

[WenericMember]

16 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Doubling armor doubles the effectiveness of healing. If you halve healing, what you end up is effectively a doubled health pool with same recovery. And then you need to account for the fact that it only nerfs elixir healing. She still has natural (and healing item?) recovery, with no nerf if you're using vigor mortis, etc.

(IDK if the actual break-even point ends up being 25% reduced attacks. The math makes my head hurt, so I suspect it's not that simple. I'd need a graph.)

The pain point presently is player tag isn't a consistent 50% reduction at present. it's like a 25% reduction against Celestial Champion for example.
 

In that cases it's probably still a flat downgrade if you're trying to use healing potions- you lose more healing then you regain. IDK if healing is still halved when abigail is in her flower tho.