Wortox identity crisis

[siullajirafa]

On 2/9/2025 at 10:52 AM, Hollow soul 3 said:

Maybe if we're giving everyone Wortox's kit, let him use others character specific items at a cost

So here is the dilemma, if you add a lot of things from another character to wortox then wortox is not going to be wortox again, it's not the intention of the devs to change him completely 

 

20 hours ago, PunkShark said:

I don't entirely understand how Wortox isn't unique by this point.
Sure, a couple other survivors can teleport but to make Wortox stand out he has the cheapest form of teleportation avaiable. The issue was that it became nullified because the others while had to use more time for theirs was also more efficient, but now Wortox has upped his game to be on par with the others.
 

There also the fact that he is the best teleporter in the game, he can teleport everywhere else whenever he wants, all of the characters that can teleport are limited in one way or another. 

Here is a lists about other characters limitations

• Winona (lunar) is pricey, locked to late game, and need a lot of preparation on where to put the teleportation, and is also very limited on the places she can teleport (mainly because if you want a teleportation network you can only teleport to those network). 
• Winona (shadow) is definitely cheaper than lunar winona, but it's even more limited to the places you can teleport because of the wormholes. 
• Wanda pricey,  need a lot of preparation and, locked to mid-late game, you can teleport to caves directly tho, but it's still limited on the places you can teleport
• Lazy explorer, wigfrid, and woby dash all limited

In conclusion he is cheap, easy, and not limited. 

[aidankocherhans]

10 hours ago, ApoIIo said:

Healing, being one of the most banal perks possible in the game, is only useful if you are struggling or if you are playing with people who are struggling, and effectively dud otherwise.

I think 90% of players would disagree, and you can just use the souls for other things if you don't need healing

[Hollow soul 3]

19 hours ago, PunkShark said:

I don't entirely understand how Wortox isn't unique by this point.
Sure, a couple other survivors can teleport but to make Wortox stand out he has the cheapest form of teleportation avaiable. The issue was that it became nullified because the others while had to use more time for theirs was also more efficient, but now Wortox has upped his game to be on par with the others.

Because one or 2 characters has ways of teleportation, it does not make them the same as Wortox. What makes them all different is the fact they all work very differently from one another to make each other stand out. In fact, everyone can teleport but nowhere near as good as these 3. And wortox is no exception. He can willy-nilly go to anywhere he wants, from short trips to island hops and no one has this amount of freedom with little cost other than to kill for souls. including being able to soul-echo for freely dodging your enemies, the only thing close to that is the Backtrek Watch but even that works differently and is not as freely used.

Wortox was already a good character in concept before his skill tree, but his main hinderance was the fact his skills didn't' come up to par later in the game or even mid-game due to the lack of soul capacity and him being far more simple than the rest of the cast. You lost of things to do quickly and his powers were really only useful and more impactful for a multiplayer setting.
The skill tree addresses all of these previous concerns and fixes him to actually be useful throughout the whole game including solo playthroughs. He stands out because of the amount of freedom his playstyle gives you. And is also built within the most unique working skill tree by far due to his inclination implementation. If that isn't unique then idk what is.
There is a couple of filler skills, sure, but i don't think it is all of them. And Wortox's main gimmick is souls which the tree expands in more ways than one. Some of those are gonna bit a bit flat. But even then, soul decoy, knabsack, soul jars, all of the lifted spirit branch, the 2 inclinations, life bringer, all the flute perks and alignments are very much making all of that, at least in my opinion, worth it.

On a side-note, we're also really stretching out this beta and we can't keep tweaking and adding things forever. Wortox is in a very good spot despite the flaws in his skill tree but i think what he got is more than enough to keep him interesting.
on another note. We're still getting some tweaks to the knabsack like it working as a bugnet and it soon getting some new visuals.
 

So first thing I want to establish is the standard for teleporting to avoid confusion. I'm going off the minimum standard of hopping a gap, or a short hop. This is what Klei considers teleporting, we can come to this conclusion based on the release of wortox on console. On PC his teleport is not as limited, but Klei still labeled his short hop as teleporting.

We have Wendy, who has the short gap at the cost of embers. A copy of souls, with expanded combative capabilities and no healing.

We have Walter, the cost of wobby hunger is cheaper than souls.

We have wigfred, although she doesn't start with the teleport, once she has the spear it's only cost is a cool down.

We have Wanda, with the holiday event on, the tusks are very attainable early. She teleports backwards and to saved spots free including underground.

And we have Winona with her expanded wormholes.

Although these characters individually do not have the same flexibility with teleport as wortox, the ability has been passed out to almost 1/4th of the survivors while we still have 7 skill trees to go.

Beyond this, each and every one of those survivors have mechanics purely unique to them. Tell me one thing wortox can do that no other survivor can do.

As far as your side note, I don't really care how long the beta has been in beta. It's not the players fault that Klei wasted so much time on Wendy. Non of us can help it that they didn't divide enough time and resources to give all three skill trees the attention they deserved. Jessie's team made some really positive changes to wortox's skill tree, but when they go months with minimum changes it's hard not to assume that they didn't get pulled into Wendy's team. Serious BS for all the people who took the time or money to unlock wortox.

5 hours ago, siullajirafa said:

So here is the dilemma, if you add a lot of things from another character to wortox then wortox is not going to be wortox again, it's not the intention of the devs to change him completely 

 

There also the fact that he is the best teleporter in the game, he can teleport everywhere else whenever he wants, all of the characters that can teleport are limited in one way or another. 

Here is a lists about other characters limitations

• Winona (lunar) is pricey, locked to late game, and need a lot of preparation on where to put the teleportation, and is also very limited on the places she can teleport (mainly because if you want a teleportation network you can only teleport to those network). 
• Winona (shadow) is definitely cheaper than lunar winona, but it's even more limited to the places you can teleport because of the wormholes. 
• Wanda pricey,  need a lot of preparation and, locked to mid-late game, you can teleport to caves directly tho, but it's still limited on the places you can teleport
• Lazy explorer, wigfrid, and woby dash all limited

In conclusion he is cheap, easy, and not limited. 

Yeah man, I was mostly suggesting that to express how just giving survivors other survivors kit is bad. Really annoying when they just give his kit to other survivors on top of what they already have. They literally just added wortox's original kit to walter.

He is the best teleport, but not mechanically unique. His map teleport can be replicated with a boat and a boot. Bonus to that, you can move a boat full of chests to move your entire base and stash of items.

[YouKnowWho142]

10 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

We have Wanda, with the holiday event on, the tusks are very attainable early. She teleports backwards and to saved spots free including underground.

Firstly, the events should never be considered for general game balance

10 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

Serious BS for all the people who took the time or money to unlock wortox.

Didn't most people enjoy Wortox just fine before his skill tree? People here are so reductive about the usage of souls in his basekit. "It's just healing" or "it's just teleportation" doesn't really make sense to say since no one else can do it the way he does. 

Why do people only feel like their characters suck once their skill trees are presented? serious question

[Hollow soul 3]

Just now, YouKnowWho142 said:

Firstly, the events should never be considered for general game balance

Didn't most people enjoy Wortox just fine before his skill tree? Everyone here is so reductive about the usage of souls in his basekit. "It's just healing" or "it's just teleportation" doesn't really make sense to say since no one else can do it the way he does. 

Why do people only feel like their characters suck once their skill trees are presented? serious question

I'm with you there, that's why I don't love the panflute skill. If you're playing with noobs (where wortox has the most use) there's a very real chance that you won't get a panflute. The argument everyone made against it was that the event makes it easy to get a new one. If you don't feel comfortable turning it on, that's on you. It doesn't change how trivial it can be to acquire if you choose to play like that. 

No, he's regularly featured as F tier in lists. He has good synergy, but he's not a good survivor, and is generally regarded as the worst dlc character.

[Grove]

16 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

far as your side note, I don't really care how long the beta has been in beta. It's not the players fault that Klei wasted so much time on Wendy. Non of us can help it that they didn't divide enough time and resources to give all three skill trees the attention they deserved. Jessie's team made some really positive changes to wortox's skill tree, but when they go months with minimum changes it's hard not to assume that they didn't get pulled into Wendy's team. Serious BS for all the people who took the time or money to unlock wortox.

Considering what was happening with Walter, it was probably him not Wendy. Her changes are often little, many but little. The biggest ones were art stuff. The whole crap flinging between characters is honestly annoying.

[Hollow soul 3]

2 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Considering what was happening with Walter, it was probably him not Wendy. Her changes are often little, many but little. The biggest ones were art stuff. The whole crap flinging between characters is honestly annoying.

It's not Walter, Wendy, the players, or the Chinese community. It's a mismanagement of resources. That is solely on Klei.

[YouKnowWho142]

6 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

No, he's regularly featured as F tier in lists. He has good synergy, but he's not a good survivor, and is generally regarded as the worst dlc character.

What list would give a character with fast travel, a free lazy explorer, higher base hp, and nearly infinite healing an F tier? That’s a major exaggeration 

and I was gauging character enjoyment. I’ve played with many wortox players who genuinely really enjoy his basekit. If you’re only basing characters off their performance on tier lists in comparison with other characters then your gameplay experience sounds miserable

[Hollow soul 3]

9 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

 

How many years are needed in terms of tusks to reach wortox's flexibility?

Dont get me wrong, i think wortox skill tree is almost as bad as woodie's or Wolfgang’s and needs new fun perks

One or two depending on your luck. It's really not that bad with hostile flairs and three walrus camps.

1 minute ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

What list would give a character with fast travel, a free lazy explorer, higher base hp, and nearly infinite healing an F tier? That’s a major exaggeration 

and I was gauging character enjoyment. I’ve played with many wortox players who genuinely really enjoy his basekit. If you’re only basing characters off their performance on tier lists in comparison with other characters then your gameplay experience sounds miserable

Read the context, it's highlighted right above what you quoted.

It's pretty obvious I'm a wortox main, that doesn't mean he doesn't have any issues. Feel free to check out some of the opinions of the people posting about why he's in that spot. 

[YouKnowWho142]

6 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

One or two depending on your luck. It's really not that bad with hostile flairs and three walrus camps.

Read the context, it's highlighted right above what you quoted.

It's pretty obvious I'm a wortox main, that doesn't mean he doesn't have any issues. Feel free to check out some of the opinions of the people posting about why he's in that spot. 

I understand he has issues, and I agree with a lot of the posts, but I do have a problem with saying that wortox is not at all unique
otherwise I agree with most of the other thoughts shared

[Echsrick]

wortox is just wilson with souls, with no souls you have litteraly nothing goin on for, litteraly wilson with some more health at best, and his skill tree realy gives not alot

[Hollow soul 3]

7 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I understand he has issues, and I agree with a lot of the posts, but I do have a problem with saying that wortox is not at all unique
otherwise I agree with most of the other thoughts shared

So tell me what's actually mechanically unique? Not just what he's best at, what is something that he can do, that no other survivor can do?

1 minute ago, Echsrick said:

wortox is just wilson with souls, with no souls you have litteraly nothing goin on for, litteraly wilson with some more health at best, and his skill tree realy gives not alot

Wilson has alchemy

[Echsrick]

2 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

So tell me what's actually mechanically unique? Not just what he's best at, what is something that he can do, that no other survivor can do?

Wilson has alchemy

oh yea...hes worse then wilson without souls

[Hollow soul 3]

Just give them another round of refreshs, his teleport is coming next time 

[ApoIIo]

8 hours ago, aidankocherhans said:

I think 90% of players would disagree, and you can just use the souls for other things if you don't need healing

There's literally 1 other thing to consume souls en masse for pre-skill tree Wortox, and it's teleporting. When you have a character with two main gimmicks and you have to ignore one, you are left with a one-trick pony. Looking at the rest of the cast I don't see anyone who has two main gimmicks in the first place.
To be fair, the single trick isn't bad at all now thanks to the skill tree, but soul healing's still very boring. Punching and eating butterflies is broken and sufficient for all healing needs regardless of character (wigfrid doesn't even need that and warly isn't a real character), I wouldn't pick Wortox just to get more out of punching butterflies. 

5 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

What list would give a character with fast travel, a free lazy explorer, higher base hp, and nearly infinite healing an F tier? That’s a major exaggeration 

Why is lazy explorer regarded as valuable only when it's time to talk about Wortox? Let's be real, nobody cared about this ruins craft until AFW enforced it on anyone unable to figure out that the cage can be dodged, and nobody cares about crafting it for day-to-day usage outside of that.
"Higher base hp"? Max HP in this game is an almost entirely dud stat. An easily craftable piece of armor can multiply your effective hp by 20 to let you effortlessly tank everything, even as a Wanda who remains strictly old. The most widely used armors multiply it by five and ten respectively, which still gives so much wiggle room in a game where most healing is instant. The only time max hp does something is against planar damage (but ONLY when you are not equipped with 2 pieces of planar gear, they really overcorrected planar damage) and if you are fighting armorless (natural selection).
"Nearly infinite healing" needs a sink. This sink is either babysitting an entire server of newbies, being a newbie or someone just struggling yourself, refusing to acknowledge armor as a mechanic or tanking everything with bad armor. That sort of healing really saves so little time on a player who has a slight idea on how to kite or punch butterflies(on anyone else) that it's very unremarkable. Healing is anything but rare, I put a flower next to a lava pond and now I have hundreds of health and hunger on the ground and I didn't do anything else. Now, if you're talking the functional nature of soul healing, it does work well with Wormwood and Woodie. Though now that Woodie has a very strong self-heal, it's not that big of a deal as a synergy anymore, so there's that. I never found myself wishing I had a Wortox to heal me in what limited time I spared moose (and I tanked for most of it).
"Fast-travel" is made less special by the two alternatives who, while needing time to set up their own teleporting gimmicks, do a lot cooler things than Wortox with the rest of their kits. Winona has a portable nuclear arsenal, and her equilateral telipads have the potential to teleport an infinite number of items on them; something that'd take the other two multiple trips. Wanda has cross-shard teleports which is nice(she also has a really stupid whip). Neither Wanda nor Winona consume any resource with a low carry cap to be able to teleport so they can teleport seamlessly without the need to refill souls. This was a massive headache (and wrist pain) for pre-skill tree Wortox.

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

and I was gauging character enjoyment. I’ve played with many wortox players who genuinely really enjoy his basekit. If you’re only basing characters off their performance on tier lists in comparison with other characters then your gameplay experience sounds miserable

If you're left with "but are you having FUN!?" to say to the people who main the character, I feel like it's a pretty clear sign that you ran out of things to say.

It is very understandable to feel inferior and derive less joy from the same thing because of it. There is such a thing as missing out. It's why I largely quit Wortox after playing him for so long in favor of other characters for a long time until the skill tree. The first time I quit him, it was because I was no longer a newbie who needed soul healing so I quit him until the Wicker rework. The second time, it was after most of the character refreshes so Wortox felt outdated and bland despite map hops. Other characters after their refreshes and skill trees had become simply so much more useful AND fun(insane! those can go hand in hand sometimes). I was more or less grieving for Wortox for a long time because he was essentially a character set to expire over the course of a world, and not slowly at that. I even found myself not missing the wrist-hurting constantly refreshment-needing teleports when a beefalo wasn't much slower at all before the tree. I cannot overstate how much better he feels now when he can teleport without pausing to gather more souls every two teleports (or sometimes one, if you are teleport too far). There's already signs that he'll be my main for good again if the end result is satisfying.

You have friends who enjoyed barebones Wortox? Good for them. This is OUR oppurtunity to air all our complaints about Wortox and let them be heard, so why even be surprised that people are talking about Wortox issues now? There is no better time. I naturally want this skill tree to release in its best form, so I WILL be nitpicky. I don't even want to be on this website otherwise. I'm just here for my son.

[Guille6785]

9 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

What list would give a character with fast travel, a free lazy explorer, higher base hp, and nearly infinite healing an F tier? That’s a major exaggeration 

while I don't like tiering characters, this isn't really an exaggeration in the sense that wortox was absurdly bad for experienced players in his initial state; his one upside was essentially to heal teams of inexperienced players but if you were already an experienced solo player who rarely took damage he effectively had no upsides because using souls to teleport was actually slower than not doing so once you factored in the time it took to kill enemies (many people tested this); higher max HP is irrelevant if you wear armor and souls were a mediocre source of food so effectively wortox was purely downsides with almost nothing to make up for it other than the very rare soul hop to the atrium or ancient guardian arena to save a little bit of time

the mini-rework that gave him soul echo did a bit to remedy this, and I did think he was in a decent state design-wise after that, but I think the skill tree addressed most of my issues with the character

[Hollow soul 3]

@ApoIIothanks for typing all that out. You pretty much nailed it.

[Dingle]

16 hours ago, ApoIIo said:

There's literally 1 other thing to consume souls en masse for pre-skill tree Wortox, and it's teleporting. When you have a character with two main gimmicks and you have to ignore one, you are left with a one-trick pony. Looking at the rest of the cast I don't see anyone who has two main gimmicks in the first place.
To be fair, the single trick isn't bad at all now thanks to the skill tree, but soul healing's still very boring. Punching and eating butterflies is broken and sufficient for all healing needs regardless of character (wigfrid doesn't even need that and warly isn't a real character), I wouldn't pick Wortox just to get more out of punching butterflies. 

Why is lazy explorer regarded as valuable only when it's time to talk about Wortox? Let's be real, nobody cared about this ruins craft until AFW enforced it on anyone unable to figure out that the cage can be dodged, and nobody cares about crafting it for day-to-day usage outside of that.
"Higher base hp"? Max HP in this game is an almost entirely dud stat. An easily craftable piece of armor can multiply your effective hp by 20 to let you effortlessly tank everything, even as a Wanda who remains strictly old. The most widely used armors multiply it by five and ten respectively, which still gives so much wiggle room in a game where most healing is instant. The only time max hp does something is against planar damage (but ONLY when you are not equipped with 2 pieces of planar gear, they really overcorrected planar damage) and if you are fighting armorless (natural selection).
"Nearly infinite healing" needs a sink. This sink is either babysitting an entire server of newbies, being a newbie or someone just struggling yourself, refusing to acknowledge armor as a mechanic or tanking everything with bad armor. That sort of healing really saves so little time on a player who has a slight idea on how to kite or punch butterflies(on anyone else) that it's very unremarkable. Healing is anything but rare, I put a flower next to a lava pond and now I have hundreds of health and hunger on the ground and I didn't do anything else. Now, if you're talking the functional nature of soul healing, it does work well with Wormwood and Woodie. Though now that Woodie has a very strong self-heal, it's not that big of a deal as a synergy anymore, so there's that. I never found myself wishing I had a Wortox to heal me in what limited time I spared moose (and I tanked for most of it).
"Fast-travel" is made less special by the two alternatives who, while needing time to set up their own teleporting gimmicks, do a lot cooler things than Wortox with the rest of their kits. Winona has a portable nuclear arsenal, and her equilateral telipads have the potential to teleport an infinite number of items on them; something that'd take the other two multiple trips. Wanda has cross-shard teleports which is nice(she also has a really stupid whip). Neither Wanda nor Winona consume any resource with a low carry cap to be able to teleport so they can teleport seamlessly without the need to refill souls. This was a massive headache (and wrist pain) for pre-skill tree Wortox.

If you're left with "but are you having FUN!?" to say to the people who main the character, I feel like it's a pretty clear sign that you ran out of things to say.

It is very understandable to feel inferior and derive less joy from the same thing because of it. There is such a thing as missing out. It's why I largely quit Wortox after playing him for so long in favor of other characters for a long time until the skill tree. The first time I quit him, it was because I was no longer a newbie who needed soul healing so I quit him until the Wicker rework. The second time, it was after most of the character refreshes so Wortox felt outdated and bland despite map hops. Other characters after their refreshes and skill trees had become simply so much more useful AND fun(insane! those can go hand in hand sometimes). I was more or less grieving for Wortox for a long time because he was essentially a character set to expire over the course of a world, and not slowly at that. I even found myself not missing the wrist-hurting constantly refreshment-needing teleports when a beefalo wasn't much slower at all before the tree. I cannot overstate how much better he feels now when he can teleport without pausing to gather more souls every two teleports (or sometimes one, if you are teleport too far). There's already signs that he'll be my main for good again if the end result is satisfying.

You have friends who enjoyed barebones Wortox? Good for them. This is OUR oppurtunity to air all our complaints about Wortox and let them be heard, so why even be surprised that people are talking about Wortox issues now? There is no better time. I naturally want this skill tree to release in its best form, so I WILL be nitpicky. I don't even want to be on this website otherwise. I'm just here for my son.

Great post!

I mained Wortox for quite awhile. I love his theme, and teleport characters as an archetype.

I stopped playing him after Wanda came out. She was a better teleporter, plus so much more.

Then Woodie with goose mastery was ALSO a better teleporter, lol.

And then Winona getting a teleport network, without having to constantly kill bees one at a time, put even more nails in that coffin.

Imagine a coffin just COATED in nails, a big pin cushion.

[ApoIIo]

On 2/11/2025 at 10:14 PM, Dingle said:

I mained Wortox for quite awhile. I love his theme, and teleport characters as an archetype.

I stopped playing him after Wanda came out. She was a better teleporter, plus so much more.

I also quit him for Wanda for a while until I denounced Wanda and I have been her biggest hater since. Mained Maxwell for a long time, he was essentially the opposite of the one-trick pony Wortox was. (He does everything, also a power rush that I can't get from Wortox) 
Now that Wortox is already a ton more playable I've comfortably wiggled back to him. Just here to see what can be further improved before we go.


Happy to see my post resonated with my fellow imps. We are by far the best authority to make any claims about him.

On 2/11/2025 at 10:14 PM, Dingle said:

Then Woodie with goose mastery was ALSO a better teleporter, lol.

This one's a bit of a stretch I'll admit

[ColdHeaven]

On 2/11/2025 at 3:33 AM, Echsrick said:

wortox is just wilson with souls, with no souls you have litteraly nothing goin on for, litteraly wilson with some more health at best, and his skill tree realy gives not alot

hahahahahahahahahahhaahahah i love it

[Dingle]

10 hours ago, ApoIIo said:

This one's a bit of a stretch I'll admit

I'm a pretty big fan of goose mastery. No bee punching required, and it does the major things you'd use early game wortox teleports for (before you set up soul farms), but much faster.

As an example, I still think woodie with goose mastery is the fastest consistent ruins rusher, in my experience. You can get to muddy or lichen extremely consistently in one goose idol worth of teleports. If you're really lucky, a teleport can land you in the ruins itself, or next to Ancient Guardian.

And then once you're done, you use another moose idol and teleport a few times, and you'll probably land fairly near an exit to the surface.

[Mr. Furman]

We are running out of things to discuss already.... it's just... sad.

[Y0sH]

1 hour ago, Mr. Furman said:

We are running out of things to discuss already.... it's just... sad.

I think the issue is that we've been discussing the same points since November and barely anything has been addressed by the Devs. I personally don't think his Skilltree issues will be addressed at all outside of the prescious Bugnet Knabsack that's only being mentioned.

[Hollow soul 3]

4 hours ago, Mr. Furman said:

We are running out of things to discuss already.... it's just... sad.

Kind of hard to provide feedback on all the changes they're not making brother. We can still point out that wortox's still pretty weak compared to the other dlc characters. Wormwood might be weaker, but at least he provides some pretty diverse utilities. Wortox went from a one trick pony to two, but he's still lacking.

[Mr Giggio]

I think that the potential he got to kill Celestial Champion consistently before even winter starts does make Wortox different and unique from the others but you guys do you :V