[Wendy] Replacing Vengeful Ghost

[WeWoWa]

Vengeful Ghost is definitely one of the most pointless skills in the game. I can't find any logical argument for why this skill would be good. I've seen some people argue that it's useful when playing with newbie friends, but I disagree. Most beginner players usually die from hunger, darkness, or winter. And sure, if you're taking care of your friends, you'll give them food, a lantern, and a winter hat to survive—but you'll also make sure they don't fight tough enemies without proper gear, which could result in their death. So even if you're playing with friends, this skill is useless. And if you're a beginner yourself, you won't even use it because if you die and activate it, you likely won’t know how to revive yourself anyway, meaning you'll just have to reset the world.

This is the only skill in Wendy’s tree that isn’t connected to any other abilities, so I propose removing it and replacing it with a new branch focused on Wendy’s spiritual path.

This branch would revolve around Wendy’s journey toward death and how she can use it to her advantage. Here are a few ideas:

• Inspired by user @CremeLover, who brought up the idea of Wendy swapping places with Abigail (link below), The animation could show Wendy’s spirit swapping with Abigail’s.

• Wendy could transform into a ghost. She would be able to freely return to her human form without losing items from her inventory, backpack, armor, or helmet. This could open up many possibilities—Wendy could float over gaps, cross the ocean, or even fight like Abigail (or in a slightly different way). Maybe she could even collect Mourning Glory in this form through a unique method.

  But what would be the cost of this transformation? Wendy would use Abigail’s energy for it—Abigail would disappear (perhaps merging with Wendy?), and every second spent in ghost form would drain 1 HP from Abigail. If Wendy took damage in this form, her health bar would be replaced by Abigail’s HP. If Abigail's health reached zero, she would die, and Wendy would be forced back into human form.

  • If this happened over water, Wendy would drown.
  • In caves, if Wendy was floating over a chasm and Abigail's health dropped below 50, she would be automatically pushed back to land.
  • Different phases based on Abigail’s energy:
    • Above 300 HP: Wendy’s ghost form is at full strength, with all abilities.
    • Below 300 HP: Ghost Wendy weakens and loses some abilities.
    • Below 150 HP: Ghost Wendy is extremely weak (she could visually flicker between her human and ghost form, similar to how Abigail does with Lune Flowers in the Sisturn). She becomes slow and loses most of her powers.
  • This transformation could only be activated when Abigail is in her third phase, and if Abigail’s HP drops below 300 or 150, the form weakens accordingly.

• Some or all of Wendy’s items wouldn’t drop on death.

• If Abigail was in her third phase, she could sacrifice herself to revive Wendy after death (if this is too OP, she could also lose her flower, forcing Wendy to craft a new one).

• A variation of the second idea, but reversed—Abigail could merge with Wendy, boosting her stats and granting her special abilities like a ghostly dash. This could consume a steady amount of sanity or drain Abigail’s HP over time. If Abigail’s HP hit zero, she would be ejected. Wendy could also manually cancel it.

• Wendy could gain a spiritual vision ability or craft special "ghost goggles" (similar to Winona’s goggles). These would allow her to see and interact with ghosts, collect Mourning Glory in a unique way, or even form alliances with spirits.

That’s all for now. Let me know what you think. These ideas are very rough concepts, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

[erick was right]

I wish they removed it and added something else but based on their statements about it being good for "new players" I doubt they will do anything. : (

 

don't have opinion about what you want to add but they just should change vengeful ghost...

[YouKnowWho142]

I just think it’s a fun flavor skill that revolves around multiplayer. Most of the other skills trees have had at least one skill like this. I enjoy playing with a group of friends that are newer to the game and they die a lot to bosses, so I think this will be fun. I personally don’t think it needs to be outright removed, and it doesn’t hurt the skill tree by existing. It’s not really meant to be a sweaty skill.

[WeWoWa]

2 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I just think it’s a fun flavor skill that revolves around multiplayer. Most of the other skills trees have had at least one skill like this. I enjoy playing with a group of friends that are newer to the game and they die a lot to bosses, so I think this will be fun. I personally don’t think it needs to be outright removed, and it doesn’t hurt the skill tree by existing. It’s not really meant to be a sweaty skill.

Wendy already has two multiplayer-oriented skills: Lunar Sisterhood II and Mourning Glory II.

Additionally, I don’t think this skill adds any real fun to the game. In fact, I’d argue it changes absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay—it doesn’t make a difference and just wastes a skill point. As for your last point, I believe that filler skills that serve no real purpose actually hurt the skill tree. Just because something exists doesn’t mean it adds value—it just clutters the tree unnecessarily.

[aidankocherhans]

My sister who just started playing with me has died exclusively to mobs several times, this skill would have been very useful

[cyjs]

Even Wendy herself is the lowest beneficiary of this skill, and I don't like it

[Siren11]

I think it’s a fun flavor skill, and it’s something that I might try to grab while playing multiplayer with my friends who often die to hordes of mobs. There’s no reason to remove it anyways, since you’re never forced to get the skill.

[DVGMedia]

I kind of wanted to do this but as a potion effect for the wreath.
It would be a replacement for Ghastly experience where currently its just a booster shot.
I wanted to replace ghastly experience with the sisturns playertag buff And making it It become a superpotion
I thought since it gives abby the playertag what if applied to the wreath it turns the player into a ghost. Even keeping true to the name of the potion Ghastly experience.
It would do the same things OP suggested but it would also be a good combo with vengful ghost since you could use it outside of actually dying.

I was thinking it kept abby alive so both wendy and abby can fight as ghosts for the time alotted

[YouKnowWho142]

8 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

I kind of wanted to do this but as a potion effect for the wreath.
It would be a replacement for Ghastly experience where currently its just a booster shot.
I wanted to replace ghastly experience with the sisturns playertag buff And making it It become a superpotion
I thought since it gives abby the playertag what if applied to the wreath it turns the player into a ghost. Even keeping true to the name of the potion Ghastly experience.
It would do the same things OP suggested but it would also be a good combo with vengful ghost since you could use it outside of actually dying.

I was thinking it kept abby alive so both wendy and abby can fight as ghosts for the time alotted

If vengeful ghost ended up being changed, this is how I'd want it to happen

[CremeLover]

3 hours ago, WeWoWa said:

This is the only skill in Wendy’s tree that isn’t connected to any other abilities, so I propose removing it and replacing it with a new branch focused on Wendy’s spiritual path.

All skilltrees have 25 skills, and 15 skill points max, no exceptions. And what you describe overall doesn't seem like it would take 1 point, so something else would have to give.

A posession type of mechanic is nice, but I do struggle a bit seeing the practicality of it all; ghost are particularly slow, not great at fighting, and I do believe the swap is a simpler and more elegant way to achieve Wendy being able to cross over gaps.

This would basically create an entirely new gameplay akin to Woodie's transformation, and I believe is too much effort for too little reward, specially considering it would also need to interact with the affinities, and maybe also drink elixirs.

 

[Yifei_]

The skill is completely isolated from the entire skill tree system, and its practical applications are quite limited. The values assigned to it are also very conservative. Let's just get rid of this perplexing Vengeful Ghost.

[WenericMember]

Wendy's tree has no insight locks, it has no connecting skills, it is literally just there. WHAT IS WITH THE CRUSADE AGAINST IT. No it won't suddenly result in a new skill.

Yes it should be buffed to be planar damage or smthn, so Wendy isn't the worst user of it, but it's a bizarre request to remove it.

8 hours ago, CremeLover said:

All skilltrees have 25 skills, and 15 skill points max, no exceptions. And what you describe overall doesn't seem like it would take 1 point, so something else would have to give.

A posession type of mechanic is nice, but I do struggle a bit seeing the practicality of it all; ghost are particularly slow, not great at fighting, and I do believe the swap is a simpler and more elegant way to achieve Wendy being able to cross over gaps.

This would basically create an entirely new gameplay akin to Woodie's transformation, and I believe is too much effort for too little reward, specially considering it would also need to interact with the affinities, and maybe also drink elixirs.

 

That comparison falls apart when mutually exclusive alignment skills come into play.  Yes Wolfgang's and Wilson's tree both have 25 skills, but only 22 are available at any given time to Wolfgang, whereas Wilson has 24 available. Throughout this beta, Wendy also had more than 25 skills, before BS, Graves and team spirit were collapsed into fewer lines, so this isn't a hard rule.

Edit: On top of this, the statement isn't actually accurate.

Wortox has 27 skills in his tree, and up to 29 if you count inclinations.

Winona's has 26, as is Wormwoods and Walters.

Woodie's at 27.

Willow's has 24.

Wurt's has 28.

Wigfrid's at 23.

Literally only Wilson, Wolfgang and Wendy are at 25.

 

Edit 2: This came off harsh, I do generally agree with your sentiment that turning Vengeful ghost into a new skill line is a bit ridiculous of a suggestion. Vengeful ghost is not coming at the cost of anything.

 

[CremeLover]

14 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Edit: ON TOP OF THAT YOUR INITIAL STATEMENT IS JUST FACTUALLY WRONG.

Whoops! My bad. Should've probably double checked that with all the characters.

14 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

That comparison falls apart when mutually exclusive alignment skills come into play.  Yes Wolfgang's and Wilson's tree both have 25 skills, but only 22 are available at any given time to Wolfgang, whereas Wilson has 24 available. Throughout this beta, Wendy also had more than 25 skills, before BS, Graves and team spirit were collapsed into fewer lines, so this isn't a hard rule.

I mean, some characters have 1 affinity lock (wolfgang), some 2 (Willow flames and bernie), some 3 (Wendy), some others have locks outside the affinities, like Woodie, and many others require adquiring multiple skills of a skill group to access other skills (Walter requires 2 Woby skills to access advanced Woby skills, and Willow requires Bernie skills to access more advanced ones).

Trees are not consistent across the board, which does allow Klei to make more interesting things and not be tied down to arbritary constrictions.

20 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Edit 2: This came off harsh, I do generally agree with your sentiment that turning Vengeful ghost into a new skill line is a bit ridiculous of a suggestion. Vengeful ghost is not coming at the cost of anything.

Yeah, is just a funny flavor skill. I don't hate it, but won't be sad if it gets removed.

Thanks for pointing the skill number out! It just got in my head it was 25 for all for some reason. Silly me.

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, CremeLover said:

Whoops! My bad. Should've probably double checked that with all the characters.

I mean, some characters have 1 affinity lock (wolfgang), some 2 (Willow flames and bernie), some 3 (Wendy), some others have locks outside the affinities, like Woodie, and many others require adquiring multiple skills of a skill group to access other skills (Walter requires 2 Woby skills to access advanced Woby skills, and Willow requires Bernie skills to access more advanced ones).

Trees are not consistent across the board, which does allow Klei to make more interesting things and not be tied down to arbritary constrictions.

Yeah, is just a funny flavor skill. I don't hate it, but won't be sad if it gets removed.

Thanks for pointing the skill number out! It just got in my head it was 25 for all for some reason. Silly me.

Oh yeah I agree, I was just objecting to the notion that there was some forced consistency across skill trees.

Yeah. I also don't oppose adding a few new individual skills like Walter's camper skills, but the insistence that it has to come at the cost of vengeful ghost is bizarre to me.

 

[Yifei_]

Vengeful Ghost + Florid Postern (Endless Mode) is OP. You can kill deerclops without any cost and obtain tons of bon shards. We need to nerf it.

I find this strategy extremely fascinating. The process of reviving, sacrificing, and sticking to the deerclop is not boring at all—it is truly spectacular.

[aoka404]

I know how it works:

It's a ghost fart, so it only lasts a little while to make bosses disgusted.

[aidankocherhans]

6 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

Vengeful Ghost + Florid Postern (Endless Mode) is OP. You can kill deerclops without any cost and obtain tons of bon shards. We need to nerf it.

I find this strategy extremely fascinating. The process of reviving, sacrificing, and sticking to the deerclop is not boring at all—it is truly spectacular.

You could just take a few swings at deerclops and die repeatedly without the skill though. Endless mode can't really be balanced around

[reddocc]

In order to make this skill useful to solo Wendy I would like if it gave you movement speed(similarly to rigor mortis) but only as a ghost.

It would be useful in endless and when running back as a ghost to the portal or a touch stone.

That is if Klei wants to keep this skill.

[WenericMember]

3 hours ago, aidankocherhans said:

You could just take a few swings at deerclops and die repeatedly without the skill though. Endless mode can't really be balanced around

Ok but Perrenial Alter + PQ3 + Vengeful ghost to do the same thing in vanilla.

Might be a fun gimmick, if not good.

[Steorra]

3 hours ago, aidankocherhans said:

You could just take a few swings at deerclops and die repeatedly without the skill though. Endless mode can't really be balanced around

I was thought that was just a sarcasm ngl

[WilsonHiggs]

17 hours ago, WeWoWa said:

Vengeful Ghost is definitely one of the most pointless skills in the game

Still better than the dozens of filler points from other skill trees... atleast this one is funny and fitting.  Wendy got too much good perks 

[GimplyGoose]

I don't think vengeful ghost should be changed. I also think you might be asking for too much to have it replaced with another branch.

[Edible Coal]

i think the skill is silly, but consider it doesnt really drag down the skill tree or clogs up ur option, i think is fine for it to be sitting there

although i do hope players has more reason to use it rather than just another noob trap skill point