Suggestions on Wendy's skill tree

[Catuna_]

I'm not really sure how much time we have left of this beta, nor do I really know what Klei's currently working on or if the Wendy tree is finished but I figured that I could still provide my two cents on ways to make the skill tree nicer as I don't really like the way it is right now. I'm gonna make it all in bullet points because they're unorganized ideas I had. Any numbers I may or may not provide in this post are to be taken with a grain of salt as they're only there to give a general idea of how something would work in my mind. Keep in mind these ideas are also mostly separate from each other as I am well aware that it would be busted op or whatever if all of these were done at once.

• Pipspook Quest 1-3 integrated into base kit (even if at a lesser effect): The biggest bore of playing Wendy is going around and gathering mourning glory, and while she's more efficient at making potions it feels like you have to pick this branch to cut down on grinding time, which feels like a slog especially with the new crafts that require so much mourning glory in the long term.
• Grave Beautification: Adorned graves will now contain content ghosts, who will reward Wendy's efforts with mourning glory giving her a passive way of earning mourning glory: Reasoning is as stated above. It's just nice convenience. This could also be a separate perk that replaces vengeful ghost.
• Gravestones By Wendy: I feel like this perk could use a better name, it's awfully generic.
• Mourning glory III: Wendy can now grab the unlasting candle from the Perennial Altar, once it is extinguished (whether it'd be manually or from passively draining or by dropping it) Wendy will die and keep her items, and teleport back to the altar maintaining her hunger and sanity. If Wendy dies naturally, this item will act like a normal meat effigy. This candle only drains after being equipped for the first time.
• Team spirit:
  • Team Spirit II: Integrated into base kit, giving Wendy more controls than the barren-feeling summon and de-summon when you do not invest into these perks.
  • Team Spirit III: Split back into haunt and scare accounting for the previous change.
  • Team Spirit skills: Unchained, the player should be allowed to pick commands they want without having to resort to picking filler they don't want.
  • Haunt action: % chance to trigger effects increased. Or cooldown could be reduced to mimic the same effect.
• Lunar/ Shadow Sisterhood II & III: Swapped positions, as to account for not having to pick a deadweight perk before having access to rifts content (mostly for Lunar).
• Ghastly Experience: Integrated into base kit.
• Vigor mortis: Will now also increase the frequency at which Abigail attacks: Enables more synergy with lunar abigail and provides an alternate offensive elixir. Cost can be increased to account for this buff.
• Lunar Abigail: 
  • Now deals 80 damage with dash again, not affected by any external damage modifier. dash has an increased cooldown.
  • Can no longer benefit from cursed vexation (lol).
  • New exclusive command: Possess: Abigail will now possess any non-boss mob, during this time she will not be accessible by the player. The possessed mob will stand still for 2s and then take a big burst of damage equivalent to 33% of its health. Has a hefty cooldown.
  • Wendy will now spawn with Lunar abigail, can no longer switch back to regular abigail. (ALT: Lunar abigail is now the default form, can switch back to default abigail on new moons but dying reverts her to lunar.)
  • Now applies a one-time enlightened vex: This is a strong vex, doubling the next strike a Wendy deals and increasing damage by the classic 1.1x for other players until a Wendy lands a hit. Once Wendy strikes, this vex disappears.
  • Now turns scare into tranquilize, Abigail will become invincible and apply grogginess and eventually sleep to hostile enemies for [X] seconds. Amplified under the effects of Luminous Wrath.
  • With Abigail coming closer and closer to humanity (although she can never seem to reach it), she will now be able to whisper to plants around her tending to farm crops in her light radius.
• Shadow Abigail:
  • Will now always have a slight shadow hue. Intensifies when murder/cursed vexation buffs are active.
  • Killing any mob that gives naughtiness will now activate the murder buff regardless of whether it's done in her inventory or not.
  • Murdering mobs in your inventory will now no longer grant naughtiness if the buff isn't already active.
  • Can no longer benefit from Luminous Wrath (lol).
  • Scare turned into Terrify: Amplified scaring, turn mobs into their shadow versions if possible causing them to drop nightmare fuel with a low chance to drop pure horror. Mobs will now take damage over-time while panicked. Enemies immune to this effect still take damage overtime. Amplified under the murder buff or cursed vexation.
  • New exclusive command: Under the murder buff, Abigail will now be able to channel the shadow energy within her allowing her to attack nightmare creatures for 3s. When this command ends, her murder buff will go away regardless of the duration left. Shadow creatures are not affected by Abigail's vex effect.
  • Cursed vexation: Reworked: Damage dealt (by Wendy) to enemies affected by Abigail's vex will now heal Wendy and Abigail for 0.5/25HP respectively. Blessed Sisturn 3 halves this effect.
• Wraith's Wreath:
  • Vigor mortis: Now provides a +15% movement speed boost for the duration of the effect.
  • Ghastly experience: Now provides sleep and mind control immunity for 90 seconds.
  • Drinking cursed vexation will now cause the player to enter a state of insanity for 60s
  • Drinking luminous wrath will now cause the player to enter a state of enlightenment for 60s
  • Players wearing this item will now see special quotes coming out of Abigail's flower, similar to Woodie and Lucy.
• Unyielding draught and Distilled vengeance: Now give Abigail a 10%/20% damage reduction boost respectively. Damage reflected will now be a % based damage (so if she takes 150, she returns 40 for example) with a minimum of 20 damage reflected to the attacker (distilled vengeance).

I feel like in general the skill tree kind of lacks when it comes to changing lacking abilities with Wendy's base kit, a Walter approach for her skill tree would do wonders. And I especially want the affinities tweaked as I really don't like them right now...

Woby skins plz

[cyjs]

I like your advice,You're a genius.

[Radicaljoe]

I like a lot of these suggestions, main one I have an issue with is the attacking shadow creatures. I kinda liked the one time the negative damage modifier comes into play is when you're managing your sanity poorly.

I don't care about a Willow comparison or anything, just specifically the shadows feel like Wendy's one time where you see her downside. 

 

 

[Catuna_]

3 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

I like a lot of these suggestions, main one I have an issue with is the attacking shadow creatures. I kinda liked the one time the negative damage modifier comes into play is when you're managing your sanity poorly.

I don't care about a Willow comparison or anything, just specifically the shadows feel like Wendy's one time where you see her downside.

I do think that Abigail attacking them with no vex application wouldn't necessarily take away from this, but that's a very fair point regardless

[Yaorin yon]

Wow, there's a lot here that I really like, especially the part about summarizing the basic functions. I've always felt that many characters need this kind of thing.

The skill tree should be an expansion of gameplay, not deliberately turning features that should compensate for the dullness of early character designs into something players have to spend insight points to get. All in all, I like your ideas.

[IAmAFurrz]

36 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

Ghastly Experience: Integrated into base kit.

this should be removed or heavily changed imo

[Yeah_No]

The perennial altar idea is interesting, as Wendy having a way to teleport herself to base isn't something I thought of when considering what I thought I lacked when playing her. I won't deny the convenience though, it'd be pretty nice to have a winona fragile rose situation going on with her. The basekit stuff is also very nice, as while I loved getting over 20 mourning glory per pipspook, having to use 3 of my insight on the pipspook quest skills was a little annoying. 

Additionally, having the decorated graves generate mourning glories would be perfect. Currently I don't see much reason to invest in grave skills other than bringing pipspooks closer, and especially little reason to decorate them as I don't see myself relying on the pipspooks too much for protection when I already have abigail (and I trust my fellow teammates to be able to defend themselves). Them generating dark flowers is nice, I guess, but since petal conversion got removed completely (along with the shroud but I don't care for it that much) the dark flowers don't really do much. So having it generate mourning glories through contented ghosts would be great.

I like the wraith's wreath elixir ideas a lot, mostly with ghastly experience and the affinity elixirs. Ghastly experience would be helpful for certain fights, and being able to willingly enter a state of enlightenment at any point is pretty nice if you get caught at low sanity in a dangerous situation. I like vigor mortis's current effect, but it being a regular speed boost would also be very nice as Wendy is often not in need of carrying heavy stuff or wearing things that slow you down. For example, wendy is unlikely to be tanking with a marble suit, especially with the unyielding draught and distilled vengeance elixirs also providing a decent way for Wendy to be able to take hits.

Commands being unchained sounds awesome. I don't care for escape at all but I always have to take it to get dash/haunt, and a wasted insight is just never nice to have to think about when planning what skills I want from a skilltree.

I like the ideas you had for the affinity changes, as right now there's not much reason to pick gestalt abigail, especially since she no longer has the dash damage so she is basically without AoE. Adding that back is great, aswell as having that be the default form as it bugs me that I can't use her for deerclops without feeling the need to speedrun a moon dial in the first 10 days. The changed vex idea is interesting, and could be very fun as it matches the less constant attacks that she does in lunar form. The commands changing with both forms is also much more intriguing, as it'll definitely make the forms feel significantly more different than they do now. 

My little lifesteal loving heart also adores the Cursed Vexation change. God bless lifesteal

I do agree that if all these changes were implemented, it'd be a bit too much. But I think if even a couple of these were added, it'd really help her skilltree a lot as right now it feels fairly messy with a few skills just not worth taking. I particularly like the grave beautification change and the affinity changes.

[Catuna_]

7 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

this should be removed or heavily changed imo

I honestly think so too as it's essentially just the sisturn
But I've seen a decent bit of people argue for keeping it so I do feel like just making into a basekit change for newer players would be a decent middle ground
 

[Yifei_]

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

• Drinking cursed vexation will now cause the player to enter a state of insanity for 60s
• Drinking luminous wrath will now cause the player to enter a state of enlightenment for 60s

These two ideas are really cool. They fit the game setting well and are quite interesting. Practicality may require more testing (Cursed Vexation is a potion that can be mass-produced after the rift. By this time, the Bone Helm is already available. Will its function conflict with that of the Bone Helm?). I also like most of your other opinions!

[Tarnishedmax]

Im a huge fan of the graveyard producing mourning glories passively idea, while i dont think the pipspook quest skills are a bad thing its kinda annoying how there is no way to automate it and will ALWAYS be a chore no matter what stage of the game you are in, having to tend a little graveyard is not only cute but would be extremely useful on the long run and would actually make keeping the skill worth it over just swapping it after you are done moving graveyards.

Abigail dash should 100% be base kit, its just too fun and important for her, being able to kite along with Abby feels so nice, specially with how complex the game is nowadays, no longer having to force Abigail to tank everything feels too vital that it being base kit should be a thing, also the radial menu just looks so barren without any of the skills is kinda jarring.

I really love these ideas and i hope its not too late to at least implement a couple more changes.

[WenericMember]

I LOVE the idea for perrenial Altar. Being able to use the altar as a recall is such a neat mechanic conceptually, while making it stand out more.

I've made the Gravestones-> MG suggestions myself, it's a good idea.

The rest are also mostly cool concepts (although you've probably gone a bit overboard integrating things into basekit), would be interesting to seem them integrated in some form.

[IAmAFurrz]

9 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

as it's essentially just the sisturn

but infinitely better lol, taking 5 seconds to bring abi back to 600 is so cheap

9 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

I've seen a decent bit of people argue for keeping it

never seen anyone actually have a good argument for this really, this just bypasses sisturn + any punishment for letting abi die in an uninteresting boring way (plus having her die isnt even bad nowadays as bosses tend to have stun periods and you can just summon her there anyway for a burst of damage while shes weak)

[Radicaljoe]

Gravestones by Wendy could have the name changed to Grave Hobbies.

it's not exciting either, but puns with the word grave are hard 

[WenericMember]

5 hours ago, IAmAFurrz said:

but infinitely better lol, taking 5 seconds to bring abi back to 600 is so cheap

never seen anyone actually have a good argument for this really, this just bypasses sisturn + any punishment for letting abi die in an uninteresting boring way (plus having her die isnt even bad nowadays as bosses tend to have stun periods and you can just summon her there anyway for a burst of damage while shes weak)

Resident Ghastly Experience Defender here o/.

Wendy's 0.75x damage modifier is crippling to the point where if often just feels like abandoning the boss should Abigail die. If you're familiar with Pokemon, Archeops and defeatist highlight how badly this cripples a play-style.  Primarily for the learning curve of Wendy, a method of preventing Abigail's death from being the end of a boss fight should exist, especially as some attacks such as CC2's spin attack can near immediately kill Abigail. 

Additionally, while it's not the most expensive of Wendy's potions, it's not as immediately available as say, Spectral Cure-All or nightshade nostrum. 

Now, I agree that the current Ghastly experience is incredibly overtuned, to the point death is immaterial, but making so it takes at least 30s to fully restore Abigail (by making GE restore hp #, not %) would be a fair compromise. 30 seconds is a long time in a boss fight, but prevents a more defeatist attitude.

Maybe GE isn't the best possible implementation of such an item, but I believe the concept of "method of returning Abigail to fighting form mid fight" is a necessary part of this tree.

 

[Steorra]

15 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

I like a lot of these suggestions, main one I have an issue with is the attacking shadow creatures. I kinda liked the one time the negative damage modifier comes into play is when you're managing your sanity poorly.

I don't care about a Willow comparison or anything, just specifically the shadows feel like Wendy's one time where you see her downside. 

 

 

Tbh there were many arguments that said "the shadow is never a downside to Wendy since she have sanity resistance, if you go engage shadows that's your own choice", and we already could easily fix her 0.75 to shadow by taming a beefalo.

So I really don't think that would be a matter if some skill would help Wendy to engage shadow. It's still useless tbh.

15 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Maybe GE isn't the best possible implementation of such an item, but I believe the concept of "method of returning Abigail to fighting form mid fight" is a necessary part of this tree.

 

16 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

If you're familiar with Pokemon, Archeops and defeatist highlight how badly this cripples a play-style. 

I really feeling appreciative of your explanation like these! Thank you!

[IAmAFurrz]

28 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

it takes at least 30s to fully restore Abigail (by making GE restore hp #, not %) would be a fair compromise

its better in design but thats 1 problem of GE, making abis death nonpunishing, but then theres the other: it invalidates sisturn's whole ability (except for BS3, whose predecessors are near pointless making them pure filler). id rather it enhance abi's 'recovery' with sisturn instead of being instant so that both of them are required to be presen, like speed up a lot faster (or just reworked into something different). besides, nowadays planar damage really reduces the benefits of vex damage, you can do nearly as decently with wilson (if you mess up so much that abi died, which is good for novice players but also still encourages them to improve without having such a big downside/easily bypassed downside)

35 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Maybe GE isn't the best possible implementation of such an item, but I believe the concept of "method of returning Abigail to fighting form mid fight" is a necessary part of this tree.

it truly isnt, BS3 already lightens a ton on micro managing abi's health, and a lot of the time escape -> unsummon is simple and everyone can do it, GE is both over and underpowered due to this problem. if you play with BS3 (that, or play well) you most likely wont need it, but if you play badly and abuse it its really neccessary. most of the time even if i let her die the boss is already nearly dead (on bosses that wendy struggles against of course) and im not amazing with wendy yet, so i just take like a bit more time fighting solo if needed. doesnt take more than a minute to kill even armored bearger at half health with either side's rift gear

as a whole, GE is good concept but is just over the top in terms of execution. just need to tone it down and make it so it requires sisturn to be filled to work.

[Catapult 2.0]

I love your ideas, especially the ones about providing custom commands for Abigail in her different forms.