[Walter] Woby changes are great, but beefalo is still better for Walter

[Wumpair]

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well here on the forums! 
So, the last update to this beta has been incredible! Walter has got his tree overhauled, maintaining all the cool stuff from the previous version (losing only the Woby station) and getting new additions. Frankly, I must say that although this beta has been going since last year's Christmas holidays, the three resulting skill trees are some of the most interesting in the entire game now, and frankly I love the new Wendy, Walter, and Wortox.

But today I am here to make an argument about why the new Wobby is still not as good as the old beffalo for Walter.
Klei have said themselves that they wish to make Woby more competitive with regular beefalos. And they did achieve that in the speed department, the new Woby can be faster than the fastest beefalo (In my opinion maybe even a bit too overturned, but that's beside the point). This is great for early game exploration, and to navigate the world faster in general. 

However, there is a mechanic that makes a beefalo still more desirable for Walter than Woby: When you take too much damage, Woby knocks you off. This isn't a big deal when you are fighting with small creatures like spiders or hounds, if you wear armor, as you won't be knocked off immediately. But it does matter when you talk about bosses. Figure this scenario: I am wearing marble armor and a beekeeper hat to fight against Beequeen, and with the 1st attack that Beequeen does against me, I fall off of Woby! And then pandemonium ensues, once you are off Woby you get stun-locked to death, you lose all your sanity and there is no way to recover. Of course, people may say - Just keep your distance from the Beequeen; and honestly, that is a valid point, as Walter has many abilities to help with his range and slow down enemies, but it is still an issue if you make a single mistake it is over.

Even more, if you do make a mistake but don't die immediately, Woby will run off scared from battle and will stay scared till the foes are away from sight; unless you make her stationed. And if you make her stationed she will be at the center of where all of the enemies were attacking you. So either way it is a lose-lose.

On the other hand, beefalos, once domesticated won't buck you off. Even more, the beefalo takes damage instead of Walter. Not only does it mean that you don't have to worry about your own hp, but also it completely negates the sanity penalty mechanic for Walter. So the result is that in boss fights, a beefalo is still better than Woby because it makes it much safer. Furthermore, the new change that you can feed the beefalo while on it, just make it much safer to stay on the beefalo always.

At the same time, the new skills encourage you to switch off a beefalo to Woby; in the early game you will be slower, and speed is key in the early days. But the beefalo won't get domesticated if you don't ride it. So it becomes a double-edged sword, if you want speed you sacrifice safety.

I think that to really make Walter shine, he should have a countermeasure to this knocking-off mechanic. Perhaps it could be tied to the new Woby hunger, maybe each time he is hit Woby's hunger decreases, maybe it could be something more complex than that. 

Thank you for listening to this rant. I want to say again that even if there are no further substantial changes to the Walter skill tree, it is still in my opinion one of the most interesting trees in the entire game that made this character much more fun to play in my eyes!

 

[Walrusst]

How low hastle fast woby is, is simply incredible, I'll still have an ornery bull tamed for when I'm planning on a big battle.
Honestly given 2/3rds of woby's skills work better when watler isn't riding its sort of clear that woby is supposed to be a compliment to bulls, not a replacement. The fact that he has some advantages and I have something that can be mounted without pre-feeding like an ornery bull is icing on the cake in panic cases where I have to go fast without having time to wait through two animations.

[mima_]

 

20 minutes ago, Wumpair said:

if you make a single mistake it is over.

having woby buck off you after u getting damage is fair. even they buff it so much that u can reduce the damage base on armor u use. single marble suit  can hold AG hit once and im pretty sure it reset in couple second. so a little oopsie moment still being forgiven. 

but you do u. i think having woby now is sufficient enough to play walter comfortably. if u decided to tame beefalo instead its ur choice. woby is good enough as she is now.

[Chewabacca]

If you want the HP buffer, fair enough, but after the latest update I'm never going to view beefalo as anything but a crutch for Walter. Riding a beefalo instead of your Klei-given dog means giving up that sweet sweet speed, 9 inventory slots, and some very useful insulation from the cold in winter--you know, around the time you'd usually finish taming a beefalo if you were rushing. To use Woby to her fullest potential (drying racks, the perk that lets her chop and mine with you), you also have to keep her fed, and keeping both Woby and a beefalo fed sounds like a bunch of micromanagement to me. Also I think we need a PSA about how Woby's buck tolerance works, including the fact that it can be mitigated by armor. Maybe Klei could add something to the scrapbook clarifying that.

[Gashzer]

No way, big woby is the only mount Walter needs.

Since the start of this beta I've started several day 1 worlds with Walter and consistently killed bee queen about 5 times without getting hit once, by day 10 in each world. Big woby is incredibly fast even before this most recent update. This was with basic slingslot mods as well.

And with this most recent update, you can upgrade pinecone hat to reduce sanity loss by a huge amount and the butterfly bandages heals for alot making Walter have quite high survivability in melee now against all bosses that arnt bee queen.

If you only used slingshot to apply status effects on bosses and used Walter melee. I would rank him above average now in close range combat. He doesn't have dps boosts but he brings a huge amount of utility to melee fights with the boosted cheap healing, reduced sanity loss and mass crafting of utility rounds.

Days are long gone that you need an ornery beefalo for him.

[Mysterious box]

While one could use a beefalo to lessen his sanity downside at this point using a beefalo for Walter feels like using a beefalo on Wolfgang sure you could do it but your not playing to your strengths and it feels like Klei made it so intentionally which is a good thing. Woby offers a much wider range of utility than a beefalo to compensate the extreme level of safety a beefalo would offer him and I think the choice is fair for him. Do you want to be safe or focus on a wider range of functions or do you throw caution to the wind and try to do both despite the costs the choice is in the hands of the player. That being said when your up against enemies with knockback Woby's dash tends to be safer than a beefalo even if not by too much. 

[Soul7k]

best part about Woby is simply not having to tame beefalo or find chester. That's why Walter is my go to when I just wanna go fast

[aidancode]

A lot of players prefer Woby, some players prefer beefalo. Which means it's perfect. That's what Klei wants. Woby does not need further buffs because the system is already working as intended.

[HowlVoid]

Id say wobby now fills an exploration role that differs from a normal beefalos. 

They're separate and different enough both can co-exist and that's great.

[linabagel]

5 hours ago, Wumpair said:

当您造成太多伤害时，Woby会将您击倒。当您与蜘蛛或猎犬等小动物（如果穿盔甲）战斗时，这并不是什么大问题，因为您不会立即被撞倒。但是当您谈论老板时，这确实很重要。弄清楚这种情况：我穿着大理石装甲和养蜂人的帽子来对抗贝吉恩（Beequeen），而第一次攻击对我来说是对我的攻击，我掉下了沃比！然后随之而来的是，一旦您离开了Woby，您就会陷入死刑，您将失去所有的理智，无法恢复。当然，人们可能会说 - 只要保持与eequeen的距离；老实说，这是一个有效的观点，因为沃尔特（Walter）有许多能力来帮助他的范围并减慢敌人的速度，但是，如果您犯了一个错误，那仍然是一个问题。

更重要的是，如果您确实犯了一个错误，但不要立即死亡，Woby会害怕战斗，并一直害怕直到敌人远离视线。除非你把她驻扎。如果您驻扎她，她将处于所有敌人在攻击您的地方的中心。因此，无论哪种方式，这都是失败的。

woby's timidity is a "fair" design to balance out the advantages of long-range attacks. But after the skill tree update, this is more of a proficiency than a weakness. On the one hand, it can improve the player's sense of accomplishment after mastering the skill.On the other hand also reduces the complex learning costs. Overall I'm very happy with the changes made to woby.

5 hours ago, Wumpair said:

另一方面，Beefalos一旦被驯化，就不会震惊。更重要的是，Beefalo而不是Walter受到伤害。这不仅意味着您不必担心自己的HP，而且还完全否定了Walter的理智机制。因此，结果是，在老板战斗中，Befalo仍然比Woby更好，因为它使其更安全。此外，您可以在上面喂食的新变化，只需让始终留在牛肉店里更安全即可。

That was true before the rift opened. But after opening the rift, the beefalo problem has to consider the mechanism of the new boss. This is even true for bosses that may be updated later.

[ShadowDuelist]

Woby now complements beefalos perfectly and has unique skills that no beefalo can provide. You can ride either Woby or a beefalo depending on the situation, or you can forgo beefalos entirely and still enjoy significant gameplay advantages over most characters—even into the post-rift late game. Best of all, maintaining big Woby is now incredibly cheap with the right perks selected.

Before this update, Woby was just a weaker early-game version of a beefalo. Now, Woby is a powerful alternative and one of the best mounts in the game.

I'd say the devs nailed Walter—this is one of the best reworks/skill trees so far.

[Ugur01]

jakeyosaurus mentions in his video. You need to take 8 damage to fall from Woby, if you wear marble armor this amount will be 160. I don't think you will take that much damage in one go. Moreover, this amount resets after 5 seconds

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4dIfk-ijNVCysk1Z14fPayccU-rUmfGU?feature=shared

[Wumpair]

I usually don't respond in my own posts, mostly because I am not as active in the forums as I was before (proof of how long it took me to respond now); but even still, I read most of the coments people leave.

I wanted to writte a reply since I posted this, and although the beta is fully out, maybe there is still merit to add to the conversation.

So, let me clear up some things: When I was talking about Woby bucking you off and gave the example of a bequeen fight I had, I forgot to take into account Walter's inherit bee-alergy. This alergy means that although I was wearing marble suit armor and bee-hat, I still got bucked off Woby from first hit because the allergy adds flat 10 hp penalty that isn't negated with armor. 

After giving new Walter + Woby another shot, I must say I haven't had truble (mostly) with any boss outside beequeen. If wearing sufficient armor protection you can get a couple of times hit before falling; compared with my earlier runs with beef, in the Woby focused run I was more careful, used more slow-down rounds and kept more distance.

So honestly, yeah, this mechanic isn't as bad as I felt it was; if you know what you are doing you negate the negatives. Still, for beequeen Walter is a bit of a glass cannon on Woby, and maybe it is ok to have it like that considering his alergy. It is just one of his main upgrades to the slingshots is locked behind beequeen, and the fight becomes a discriminate between players who can do a no-hit fight and those who can't.

I said it before, and say it again, Walter's skill tree is great regardless ^_^

[Captain_Rage]

On 2/10/2025 at 2:31 AM, Ugur01 said:

jakeyosaurus mentions in his video. You need to take 8 damage to fall from Woby, if you wear marble armor this amount will be 160. I don't think you will take that much damage in one go. Moreover, this amount resets after 5 seconds

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4dIfk-ijNVCysk1Z14fPayccU-rUmfGU?feature=shared

What happens if the player is riding and gets hit while wearing a Bone Armor? Will the damage block prevent getting bucked off?

[Wumpair]

37 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

What happens if the player is riding and gets hit while wearing a Bone Armor? Will the damage block prevent getting bucked off?

Yes, it negates all damage so you don't get bucked off (Except attacks like Nightmare Wearpig that will buck you off no matter what). I think the damage prevention even apply to his bee allergy (so the -10 hp are also negated), but I am not 100% sure on this last one

[Dyzrespect]

I honestly think it's good that you have a meaningful choice between Beefalo and Woby. Big Woby takes up so many trait points that if you just commit to using a Beefalo, you can take almost all of Walter's other traits. Two main lines, one focused around Woby and never getting hit and the other with 5 points untethered by keeping Woby small. Overall I do feel there was room to make Woby more meaningfully distinct from a Beefalo, but I think they did a good job overall given the scope of just a skill tree.

 

[WilsonHiggs]

I dont see as a bad thing having the option of riding a beef if you want their benefits or woby if you want hers

The wider the variety of options, the richer the gameplay instead of adding stuff that overshadows other stuff to the player is forced to play in a single way

[_mylilsunshine_]

3 hours ago, Dyzrespect said:

I honestly think it's good that you have a meaningful choice between Beefalo and Woby. Big Woby takes up so many trait points that if you just commit to using a Beefalo, you can take almost all of Walter's other traits. Two main lines, one focused around Woby and never getting hit and the other with 5 points untethered by keeping Woby small. Overall I do feel there was room to make Woby more meaningfully distinct from a Beefalo, but I think they did a good job overall given the scope of just a skill tree.

i'm curious, what are you using honey/shockscrap round for? because i feel like they're pretty underpowered. how are you using the ammo pouch? can you describe your gameplay?

why do you not take either affinity rounds?

what do you think of the advanced band skill? and pinetree panache?

[Dyzrespect]

3 hours ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

i'm curious, what are you using honey/shockscrap round for? because i feel like they're pretty underpowered. how are you using the ammo pouch? can you describe your gameplay?

why do you not take either affinity rounds?

what do you think of the advanced band skill? and pinetree panache?

I'm not using honey/shockscrap almost ever, i used honey a bit as a meme for AG.

ammo pouch is kind of meme I just don't like portable campfire ive discovered, but lets me lug everything around when i have frost/slowdown/cursed/marble/moonglass for random things

I swap to an affinity round from honey/shockscrap once the rift is open, but i could take shadow rounds if i wanted, i just use cursed until post FW usually.

Advanced bands kind of inspired me to go this build, I feel slightly responsible for getting them slightly buffed so I wanna always take them now lol, but it is nice being able to get the spot/tail band early on. Pinetree panache i think is growing on me because I'm leaning towards just wearing it all spring and summer as opposed to an eyebrella, since I don't care too much about being wet, but it is admittedly still very weak, i just don't ever take advantage of portable campfire.

[Curly Bill]

A lot of fun discussion here; it shows the skill points was a neat decision. I think the take away is that skill points allows you to choose to put points in what you want. If you prefer beefalo taming, you can save all those points and focus on slingshot adventures. Seems some people also prefer woby over beefalo, so they can choose to go into the woby training.

I think its good to see that people have been choosing different paths on the skill tree

[Lucas Rego]

If you speedrun you probably Want Woby and not Beefalo.

Beef is indeed better in terms of defense and maybe attack, but Woby has 2 big things:

1. It's Faster (of course)
2. The shadow Woby teleports, and that's the game changing mechanic, Walter with Woby can fight Fuelweaver and needs 0 extra things, since he won't need the Lazy Explorer and won't need the weather pain.

 So, while I do agree that Beefalo is better for fighting, Shadow Woby makes me not care about Beefalo... I never thought Klei would do such thing! Kudos Devs!

[Dyzrespect]

I still think it is an issue for all skill trees that you can just do everything using the Celestial Portal. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to reallocate your points, but like why wouldn't you amass 500 woby snacks, then totally drop drying rack and woby snacks, or amass 500 morning glory then free up 3 skill points to put elsewhere. It's a chore late game but not the biggest deal. You should just get an extra skill point when you kill CC/FW on a given world imo, leaving the meaningful earlygame decisions intact and alleviating the swapfest lategame.

Anyways back on topic for this post, a big thing is that Woby cannot get hit and cannot die. She is basically an extension of you, so long as you're wearing armor and can take a hit or two without getting bucked, whereas if you're knocked off a beefalo it will commonly get into a fight itself and die, or need to be micromanaged/healed. Ironically/unfortunately however, I think Woby-Walter now falls into a similar deathtrap as Wanda post rift, as planar damage leaks through armor enough (even with post rift armor), where you can't take even a single hit without basically dying. You have 15 health max on Wanda if you're using old damage so taking basically a single planar hit instakills you, and similarly on Walter you WILL get knocked off if you take planar damage. I think at that point, you're a lot better off with a Beefalo.

[Walrusst]

While I love auxillary/bull helper woby, I've run into one, one area where I feel walter would immensely benefit woby lyfe.

If helping horns gave a mounted benefit like letting you use woby's gathering ram while mounted on rocks/trees, or your pick rate for grass being less penalized while mounted.
It would make me strongly reconsider my choice of preferring poop picker woby over riding woby.

Like, sure, I would be going from a 90% mount rate to 99% mount rate, but it would give it quality of life and hands that would make me consider dropping the ornery bull.

[DegenerateFurry]

On 2/9/2025 at 9:43 AM, Wumpair said:

However, there is a mechanic that makes a beefalo still more desirable for Walter than Woby: When you take too much damage, Woby knocks you off. This isn't a big deal when you are fighting with small creatures like spiders or hounds, if you wear armor, as you won't be knocked off immediately. But it does matter when you talk about bosses. Figure this scenario: I am wearing marble armor and a beekeeper hat to fight against Beequeen, and with the 1st attack that Beequeen does against me, I fall off of Woby! And then pandemonium ensues, once you are off Woby you get stun-locked to death, you lose all your sanity and there is no way to recover. Of course, people may say - Just keep your distance from the Beequeen; and honestly, that is a valid point, as Walter has many abilities to help with his range and slow down enemies, but it is still an issue if you make a single mistake it is over.

I view this as a fair trade for having a ranged weapon and free incredible speed, which is a powerful combo in a game where most enemies don't even have ranged attacks. In a lot of cases, though, you can actually buy yourself a bit more leeway by wearing a marble suit, dreadstone, or a thulecite crown. I've taken hits from bosses while riding Woby with those on without getting bucked off (although if I remember correctly, Bee Queen does still one-hit buck me off). A marble suit is the best option, and it has no downside while you're riding Woby. 

Woby's a cheap alternative to a beefalo with lots of extra functionality. If you want more forgiving combat, you have to tame a beefalo, which is an investment of a bunch of time and resources. I see her as an alternative to beefalo that Walter is encouraged to use, not necessarily a full replacement.

[_mylilsunshine_]

6 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

I view this as a fair trade for having a ranged weapon and free incredible speed, which is a powerful combo in a game where most enemies don't even have ranged attacks. In a lot of cases, though, you can actually buy yourself a bit more leeway by wearing a marble suit, dreadstone, or a thulecite crown. I've taken hits from bosses while riding Woby with those on without getting bucked off (although if I remember correctly, Bee Queen does still one-hit buck me off). A marble suit is the best option, and it has no downside while you're riding Woby.

Yep Woby as a mount turns Walter with a beefed-up slingshot into an incredible cavalry. Wearing marble suit (no downside, crazy with how early you can get it), bone armor, thulecite crown, or dreadstone armor essentially negates his buck-off risk. It's pretty imbalanced if you consider Woby's speed and alignment-dash feature which is available immediately upon world creation, her easy upkeep with snacks, and no training cost.

Bee Queen was and still is Walter's biggest hurdle when a single hit from any bee, even a random worker bee, will buck you off guaranteed no question asked because of his allergy that gives +10 flat damage (not negated by armor, the exact threshold to buck you off) to bees. With how much of an upgrade Jelly Grip is, I find this old downside of his incredibly fair.