Analysis on each skill tree and how they can be improved.

[EatenCheetos]

Qualities of a good skill tree:

• Non-combat characters should not have combat-heavy skill trees.

• Affinity skills should be impactful.

• Characters should be useful for both beginner and experienced players.

• Skills should balance personal and team benefits.

Great ones:

Walter

Walter’s tree encourages his playstyle as an explorer who thrives in staying mobile. He avoids close quarters combat when he can and is perhaps the most adept survivor to explore the caves. There is a good balance of both personal and team skills, and both new and veteran players can appreciate his character.

Wendy

Wendy's skill tree enhances her playstyle as a grouped damage dealer who directly enhances other survivors through supernatural means. She can boost Abigail, boost other survivors, add utility to dead survivors, create revive stations, create gravestones, and even turn Abigail into lunar/shadow variants. Her skill tree combines both personal and team skills and supports beginner and expert players alike.

Woodie

Woodie’s tree centers around his ability to briefly gain large sums of power when needed through his transformations. This allows him to gain large boosts at the drop of a hat without needing any equipment but forces him to commit to whatever action he chooses 100%. His tree has a lot of variation in playstyle depending on which form players choose to focus on, he has both personal and team skills, and he's good for both beginners and experts.

Wormwood

Wormwood's skill tree emphasizes his role as a cultivator/farmer, allowing him to set up and manage massive farms of various types with ease. He also has a decent amount of non-farming utility, being able to set up traps, craft armor, cause himself to bloom, and even create plant/animal hybrids that follow him around.

It does feel a bit ironic that he can mass-produce the best healing/sanity foods but can’t heal from them and doesn't need the sanity. I wish he benefitted more from his own strengths, and the character is rather difficult to pick up because of this. Regardless, he has a lot of possibilities for skillful play, and he has both personal and team skills, making this a great skill tree.

Wurt

Wurt is the quintessential army-builder character. She can create and command armies of merms and turn the marsh into her kingdom. Her skill tree supports Wurt’s core purpose, and the skills are varied and interesting. She has good personal skills, and for her team, she can use the resources she gathers from her merm workers / trades with the king.

She is admittedly more difficult to pick up for a new player by the nature of her ramping effectiveness, but since she is a DLC character, this doesn’t really matter. There are a lot of opportunities for high-level play here to keep veterans deeply satisfied.

Good ones:

Winona

Winona’s skill tree strengthens her identity as a crafting/base-building character. She can craft items faster, build catapults, spotlights, robots that collect/store items automatically, and long-range teleportation stations.

However, her skill tree is unfortunately focused almost entirely on the catapults (which I believe are far less impactful than the spotlights), and the shadow alignment skills are strange for a base-building character. She additionally still has the problem of being a “swap” character since she lacks the personal skills required of a good skill tree.

The simple fix for the latter is to restrict it so only she can refuel her generators, and instead of the focus on catapults, we could have had much more interesting things.

Off the top of my head, we could have had:

• Spotlights that target more than 1 character at a time.

• Gemmed alternatives to the “hotlight” upgrade:

  • Red gem lights warm players.

  • Blue gem lights cool players.

  • Yellow gem lights give sunlight to plants/wormwood.

  • Green gem light extending the effects of nearby crafting stations.

  • Etc.

• Special upgrades for boats.

• Lunar affinity: A hovering version of Win-Bot that can traverse over walls / the ocean.

• Shadow affinity: A shadowy craft similar to the Umbralla that keeps a base dry.

• Shadow affinity: A shadowy generator that automatically fuels itself from the sanity of nearby players.

There are some great possibilities here, and it's a real shame that most of the skill tree is just the catapults.

Wigfrid

For a combat character, I really like the direction of Wigfrid's skill tree. Not only does she get better at direct combat, but she can build crafts to help her allies, tame/ride beefalo more efficiently, and choose from a variety of battle songs depending on what the fight needs.

Her tree feels incomplete, however, as her affinity skills are mere 10% damage reductions / 5% bonus damage. Considering the incredible affinity skills of the previously mentioned characters, this is pitiful.

Some initial ideas for remade affinity skills:

• Shadow affinity: Wigfrid can use her sanity for interludes instead of inspiration.

• Shadow affinity: Wigfrid can keep fighting when her health runs out as long as she has inspiration; new damage detracts from the inspiration meter.

• Lunar affinity: Wigfrid emits an aura of light when at high inspiration that gives allies and followers her passive health/sanity regen on hit. On a full moon, she instantly gets full inspiration for the duration.

• Lunar affinity: Wigfrid gains a battle song that inspires all nearby friendly/passive mobs to fight for her.

I’m sure somebody can think of much better ones, but the point is that the affinities need to be something potent, and then this skill tree would really be set.

Willow

Willow's purpose on the team is a little bit harder to decipher than other characters, seemingly being a supportive-tank character who can take control of chaotic situations and assist allies that are low on sanity.

Compared to other skill trees, though, this one feels lacking on the Bernie side of things, as most of his skills consist of invisible stat increases. Her skill tree also mostly focuses on combat, when I don't believe in spirit that she is a combat character.

Here are some interesting skill ideas I saw from u/TheRealExtrand:

• Bernie automatically runs around and stomps out fires.

• Willow can jump on Bernie’s shoulders and ride him like a mount. This can be upgraded to allow him to carry other survivors.

• Lunar affinity: Willow can summon a ball of polar light.

All she needs is some more interesting Bernie skills and some more interesting utility skills to be considered a great skill tree.

Wortox

Wortox’s skill tree embodies his chaotic playstyle of teleporting around and stealing the souls of others. The scales are a creative feature, and there are a lot of ways to customize his gameplay style, but there is a bit much in terms of combat, though, especially with his affinity skills. Not only are his affinity skills both combat-related, but they are completely useless outside of post-endgame content. Adjustments to at least one of them would go a long way in perfecting this skill tree.

Bad ones:

Wilson

Wilson remains the ideal pick for new players learning the ropes. His skills help with light, warmth, and resource management, and he can even use his beard hair to create meat effigies for his team.

The problem is, his light source skills only affect torches, and his gem conversions are one-sided and way too costly. The simple solution is to allow his light skills to affect all handheld light sources and allow him to “tweak” other people’s light sources to give them the same boosts temporarily (not permanently so we don’t have to deal with character swapping issues).

For the gems, it would be better to make orange, yellow, and green gems equivalent in value/exchange rates. They don’t naturally have a precedence between them, so it doesn’t make sense to have one here.

Finally, his affinity skills are also quite boring, giving the usual 10% damage reduction/damage bonus (in addition to some post-endgame transmutations).

Keeping up with the humor of modern affinity skills, I propose:

• Shadow affinity: Wilson gains a shadowy beard that allows him storage into a pocket dimension and can be shaved for both beard hair and nightmare fuel.

• Lunar affinity: Wilson gains a lunar-essenced beard that can cool him down in the summer and provide lower spoilage to food placed inside it.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang’s skill tree found him redefined as more than just the combat guy, being able to carry heavy objects and wear heavy armor without penalty, as well as complete chores faster. The tree itself, however, is notoriously bad, designed to consume skill points with tiny stat boosts, not to mention the weird “throwing dumbbells” mechanic and even worse, the "elemental dumbbells" mechanic.

For some reason, he can also make it so his normal form is faster than his mighty form. The only semi-interesting skill, the coaching whistle, is also exclusive to his normal form and doesn't seem in line with his playstyle at all.

Wolfgang also contests with Wigfrid for the role as the combat character. Aspects like the inspiration meter and the mighty meter are a bit too similar to avoid drawing comparisons. (In fact, the presence of a separate “meter” mechanic is a bit overdone in all of the reworked characters.)

The only hope of salvation for this skill tree is a complete redesign from the ground up. No dumbbells, no throwing, no elemental attacks, and no normal-form exclusive perks.

Forum user Mortalban describes a far more enticing idea here, where Wolfgang has to carry around a giant barbell shaft that he can use to increase his damage/max health. His skills would revolve around giving him more options in combat, increasing his unarmed damage, training other survivors, and interacting with followers by flexing.

His shadow affinity could allow him to summon a shadowy barbell from anywhere, removing the need for carrying around a real one, and his lunar affinity could grant him superpowered special attacks that do interesting things at the cost of hunger.

Wolfgang's sailing perks also suggest a boat-themed skill path could be suitable, where perhaps he can scare away pirates, cheer up Pearl by flexing, and captain ships more effectively. Whatever the case may be, this skill tree needs the most work.

[Yifei_]

5 minutes ago, EatenCheetos said:

Wendy's skill tree enhances her playstyle as a grouped damage dealer who directly enhances other survivors through supernatural means. She can boost Abigail, boost other survivors, add utility to dead survivors, create revive stations, create gravestones, and even turn Abigail into lunar/shadow variants. Her skill tree combines both personal and team skills and supports beginner and expert players alike.

The entire skill tree brings changes to Wendy's previous gameplay only through the three skills of Team Spirits. Pipspook and Elixir merely fix some issues that were present with the original Ghostly Elixir. Wendy has only received one new type of potion, which doesn't introduce any new gameplay mechanics and is very dull.

Shadow Affinity is just a numerical enhancement to the original gameplay and has cumbersome trigger conditions. Lunar Affinity attempts to introduce new gameplay but the practicality is very poor. For MG I, no one thought that exchanging 40 Mourning Glories for 1 bug net was a design that someone who actually plays the game would come up with. That garland offers effects for each potion that are of very low utility: several useless skills are cobbled together to form a lump of uselessness. The resurrection method provided by MG III is just reskin of meat effigy with very low practicality. Blessed Sisturn III can even be a nerf to Abigail's survivability. The "Vengeful Ghost" ability, under the guise of "helping new players," offers effects that are extremely absurd and outlandish, completely disconnected from the entire skill tree.

The entire skill tree is severely lacking in originality. I have no idea why Wendy's skill tree can be considerd as "great".

[Guille6785]

I thought this was going to be another “turn wilson into an ACTUAL character hurr durr” thread but yeah these are basically the exact changes I'd like for the wilson skill tree

[Steorra]

personally, Wigfrid Wendy and Wurt is same worst as Wolfgang.

Winona is one of the greatest one for me. 

[Masked Koopa]

As far as I am concerned tiered skills are boring filler and should be compressed into a single skill and/or be given unique side benefits to make the progression less linear. Wilson's non transmute skills are mostly fluff because you have to pay 7 insight to get your super torch or to make your beard a bit better. Same goes for a massive chunk of Wolfgang stuff and Wurt's wetness related skills. If a tree is going to have tiered skills it should either take it in a direction like Woodie's, or restrain itself to two tiers at most.

[Ratituee]

im sorry but why would wolfgang have a sailing path

14 hours ago, EatenCheetos said:

The tree itself, however, is notoriously bad, designed to consume skill points with tiny stat boosts, not to mention the weird “throwing dumbbells” mechanic and even worse, the "elemental dumbbells" mechanic.

 

what do you mean by "consume skill points"? its not like there is anything else to spend them on...

[HowlVoid]

Wormwood isn't a farmer he's a jack of all trades same as woodie.

[somethin]

6 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Wormwood isn't a farmer he's a jack of all trades same as woodie.

The fact that I've been farming so much food I can never use is irrelevant here! /s

[Creatorofswamps]

23 hours ago, EatenCheetos said:

Keeping up with the humor of modern affinity skills, I propose:

• Shadow affinity: Wilson gains a shadowy beard that allows him storage into a pocket dimension and can be shaved for both beard hair and nightmare fuel.

• Lunar affinity: Wilson gains a lunar-essenced beard that can cool him down in the summer and provide lower spoilage to food placed inside it.

My God, it's so simple and brilliant! + I could suggest that the shadow beard does not disappear at death (so that the personal beard storage works as it should)

[Cheggf]

On 2/10/2025 at 11:02 PM, EatenCheetos said:

Qualities of a good skill tree:

• Non-combat characters should not have combat-heavy skill trees.

• Affinity skills should be impactful.

• Characters should be useful for both beginner and experienced players.

• Skills should balance personal and team benefits.

I don't think these are the qualities of a good skill tree at all. I think the only quality of a good skill tree is that it provides interesting choices to accommodate different players' choices with new engaging mechanics, and there are very few instances of anything like this in any tree. 

[Ohan]

The entirety of both of wormwood’s bottom branches (10 skills) are near useless and not at all fun. Especially compared to the new ultra condensed and loaded skill trees. 
 

1 entire skill point for lunar sapling crafting,

1 entire skill for normal and 1 entire skill for juicy berrybushes,

seed sleuth and farm hand being two separate skills, 

the existence of mushroom mastery 1 (10% faster) and mushroom mastery 2 (20%) 

compost care compared to walter’s loaded field medic+butterfly bandaid skill

The absence of trap skills beyond the reset skill, no new kinds to play with, no planar traps. 

Lunar cultivator pets being extremely undertuned across the board.

Not to mention the “unique” layout of wormwood’s tree forces you to pick skills you do not want to get to the ones u want, compare that to the newer trees where thats much less the case. 

etcetcetc.
 

———

wormwood’s current tree is the result of a last minute overhaul because of extreme community dissatisfaction with the initial product and it shows.

Look at the top right branch for example,

Have to pick seed sleuth and farm hand to get to the ‘combat’ skills: compost care, husk spec and trap spec. 

and for some reason this branch also has bee kind which has huge antisynergy with the husk and trap skills since it makes it less practical to farm stingers. 
 

His tree is a total mess with only a handful of useful and fun skills. 

[Masked Koopa]

On 2/12/2025 at 8:33 PM, Cheggf said:

I don't think these are the qualities of a good skill tree at all. I think the only quality of a good skill tree is that it provides interesting choices to accommodate different players' choices with new engaging mechanics, and there are very few instances of anything like this in any tree. 

I honestly disagree. I think that the attempt at divvying up powers via skilltree is pointless since we already make opportunity cost selections via picking a character in the first place. As far as I'm concerned outside of choosing shadow vs light (and maaaaaybe some other edge cases like the wereforms or naughty vs. nice), a limit on skills active at the same time doesn't really provide much gameplay benefit. It just feels like a repeat of the whole "only this character can use x" thing where we have to go to the celestial portal and switch to a character, hold the respective button, go back to the portal and then switch back to our actual character choice.

At that point I think it'd be better to just add a material cost or invonvenience penalty to using something you are not specialised in. Kind of like how the clever disguise exists for non Wurts, or how Maxwell has bigger sanity costs on books than Wicker. Obviously applying such a system to the existing skill trees would be a lot of work, but I'm speaking more in terms of what i'd consider to be ideal. We already basically have this system anyway due to the Celestial Portal, and I think it'd be better to codify concrete costs that match the value of the skill, instead of making the cost always being a trip back the the portal and two moonrock idols. Imagine it as similar to the difference between crafting boards with or without Woodie's skill - you can still craft boards either way, the question is just whether or not you want to be better at it.

I'm really not a big fan of characters leaving behind items or structures that are physically impossible to use as anyone else, and even less of a fan of skill trees adding an extra dimension of there now also being items/structures that the character themselves can't use if they don't have the right skill.

[Peasant]

Surprised to see Wendy is classified to great and Wigfrid classified to good, while Winona and Willow are merely good. I'd put Wendy and Wigfrid to bad, and move Winona and Willow to great

[picacud]

I've always thought: Shouldn't Woodie gain sanity after chopping down trees with Lucy?

[Edible Coal]

50 minutes ago, picacud said:

I've always thought: Shouldn't Woodie gain sanity after chopping down trees with Lucy?

2 sanity per tree

[Captain_Rage]

On 2/11/2025 at 6:02 AM, EatenCheetos said:

 

• Lunar affinity: Wilson gains a lunar-essenced beard that can cool him down in the summer and provide lower spoilage to food placed inside it.

"Give Wilson exactly the same main perk as Willow under the guise of another name making neither character unique or simply a variant of the other to appease to the players who haven't figured out play around the summer mechanic that has been in the game for over a decade".

Spoiler

Let Wolfgang summon an immortal ghost of his twin brother that destroys all enemies on the screen and let Wolfgang read books to summon cool spells. Not only will this "fix any problems" with his skill tree but will also make the game very cool and awesome.

 

[Anis5240]

5 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Let Wolfgang summon an immortal ghost of his twin brother

no no no this should be Maxwell's since Jack been dead for ages already /satire

[Edible Coal]

4 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

no no no this should be Maxwell's since Jack been dead for ages already /satire

i wounder how would wendy reacts to her dad

[ShadowDuelist]

Woodie is not that great.
I mean he is great pre-rifts but then he falls flat after, since his perks don’t synergize much with post rifts content.

Also there are very little variations to his skill tree, you’ll most likely start the game full moose and the “options” are if you go up in beaver to skip crafting a pick/axe or go cane/treeguards/fast picker.
 

And in the late game the moose does not matter much and both beaver and goose are a lot less useful than the moose. And since you’ll get to the point you don’t use the moose anymore pretty early into the rifts era (because most weapons/armors are better) you’ll probably switch to beaver just for the easier brilliance mining.

His boards crafting perk is easily replaced by using the saw, since even though it’s not chesper, it’s a lot faster and in the long run that saves more time.

His tree is not “terrible” like Wilson’s but he could use a few touch ups in it, specially to the goose side, and his affinities could maybe synergize more with post rifts content.
Bonus points if items you have/wear could influence his wereforms too, so they can evolve beyond his skill tree.