Wendy's Skill Tree Beta Is a Mess — Do NOT Release This Broken Update!

[Giews]

Klei, what in the Constant’s name are you doing with Wendy’s skill tree? After two months of beta (closer to three, actually ), this update is still a jumbled, unbalanced disaster. The community’s patience is wearing thinner than Abigail’s health bar against a Deerclops. Let’s break down why this skill tree needs a complete overhaul before it ever touches the live game.

 

1. Grave Relocation: From Thematic Flavor to Tedious Chore

The change from using a shovel to requiring a broken shell for the spirit vessel is a slap in the face to Wendy’s identity. Previously, relocating graves felt like a natural extension of her connection to spirits. Now, we’re forced to scavenge for broken shells—a resource locked behind ocean exploration or cave-dwelling slurtles—just to perform a basic character fantasy action. This not only delays early-game strategies but also forces players into tedious grinds for shells just to preserve graves from meteors or cluster pipspooks efficiently .

 

Thematic whiplash: Wendy, a character who respects the dead, now needs to loot seashells for grave rituals? This makes zero sense lore-wise.

Utility nerf: Relocation was most valuable early-game for managing pipspooks and preserving graves. Now, players either rush shells or let graves get destroyed, which is antithetical to Wendy’s role .

2. Abigail: From Overpowered to Over-Nerfed

The beta started with Abigail being a god-tier companion, but now she’s a shadow of her former self. The pendulum swung too far:

 

Planar defense is a joke: 5 planar defense? Even with gear, Abigail melts against post-rift enemies. Meanwhile, players are expected to juggle elixirs that add a measly +5 planar damage—laughable for late-game content .

Team Spirit skills are clunky: The "scare" command is borderline useless. Mobs either ignore it or run aimlessly, and the cooldown makes it impractical. Why force us to invest in filler skills like "escape" just to access basic commands? .

3. Gestalt Abigail: A Moon-Locked Gimmick

The lunar alignment’s Gestalt Abigail is a perfect example of wasted potential.

 

No AoE damage: Her ghost form could clear crowds, but the gestalt’s single-target focus leaves her useless against swarms.

Moon dependency: Locking her transformation behind the full moon and reverting her on the new moon is absurd. Why add complexity for no payoff? .

Zero synergy: She can’t benefit from cursed vexation, and her damage output pales compared to pre-beta Abigail. This isn’t a skill—it’s a downgrade .

4. Beta Fatigue: Two Months of Ignored Feedback

The community has been vocal about issues since day one:

 

Cursed Vex trivializes non-planar content, yet Klei keeps buffing it .

Mourning Glory grind remains tedious. Pipspook skills should be baseline, not locked behind insight points .

Skill bloat: Half the tree is filler (looking at you, "Grave Beautification") while core mechanics like Abigail’s survivability are ignored .

Yet here we are, with Klei prioritizing Woby reworks over fixing Wendy’s identity crisis .

 

5. Conclusion: Scrap This and Start Over

This skill tree isn’t just unbalanced—it’s unfun. Wendy mains don’t want to micromanage shells, wait for moons, or watch Abigail die to a lone Depth Worm. We want:

 

Revert the spirit vessel recipe to use shovels or low-cost materials.

Rebalance Abigail’s survivability and planar scaling.

Remove moon restrictions on Gestalt form and give her AoE utility.

Integrate Pipspook skills into her base kit.

If this update goes live as-is, Wendy will join the ranks of forgotten characters like pre-rework Woodie. Klei, do better.

[Crimson Hollow]

12 minutes ago, Giews said:

Wendy will join the ranks of forgotten characters like pre-rework Woodie

I dont think this will ever happen, since from what ive read here, gameplay is probably not the biggest reason why ppl choose her.

[Bumber64]

The funny part is that you have to spend shells to move graves because people complained about the thematics. Wendy can't dig up graves, it's disrespectful!

[aidancode]

14 minutes ago, Giews said:

If this update goes live as-is, Wendy will join the ranks of forgotten characters like pre-rework Woodie. Klei, do better.

This is probably the most overdramatic response I've seen. There is zero chance you actually think Wendy will be forgotten due to her BEING BUFFED. I can't believe somebody is complaining about Wendy because this person who lived next to the ocean has an interaction with it. Do you really want this character to unlock their entire kit immediately?

 

Is Wendy's tree amazing? No. But considering it is designed as a BUFF to the most popular character, it has zero obligation to help make the character more popular.

[AliceShiki]

1 hour ago, Giews said:

The community’s patience is wearing thinner

No, not really. Most people are pretty happy with the current state of Wendy's tree.

Lunar Abigail could use some more love and that's basically it that I can think of that actually feels a bit underwhelming on her tree.

[Echsrick]

at least wendy keeps gettin updates....unlike wortox who realy has the rights to complain that nothing happens for him

[IAmAFurrz]

1 hour ago, Giews said:

 

Moon dependency: Locking her transformation behind the full moon and reverting her on the new moon is absurd. Why add complexity for no payoff? .

they gave wendy much more flexibility to transform her back, basically making abi able to be swapped for a boss that gestalt does well against then swap back

1 hour ago, aidancode said:

Is Wendy's tree amazing? No.

imo its awesome just because of team spirits (BS3 and GE really test that opinion tho, but team spirits made me love playin wendy so much now)

3 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

at least wendy keeps gettin updates....unlike wortox who realy has the rights to complain that nothing happens for him

yea a bit sad. so many suggestions i make just seemingly dont get seen at all bc of the wendy complaints that shouldnt be there, wasting a good 2 months of the beta

[CremeLover]

1 hour ago, Giews said:

1. Grave Relocation: From Thematic Flavor to Tedious Chore

The change from using a shovel to requiring a broken shell for the spirit vessel is a slap in the face to Wendy’s identity. Previously, relocating graves felt like a natural extension of her connection to spirits. Now, we’re forced to scavenge for broken shells—a resource locked behind ocean exploration or cave-dwelling slurtles—just to perform a basic character fantasy action. This not only delays early-game strategies but also forces players into tedious grinds for shells just to preserve graves from meteors or cluster pipspooks efficiently .

 

Thematic whiplash: Wendy, a character who respects the dead, now needs to loot seashells for grave rituals? This makes zero sense lore-wise.

Utility nerf: Relocation was most valuable early-game for managing pipspooks and preserving graves. Now, players either rush shells or let graves get destroyed, which is antithetical to Wendy’s role .

I agree with this 100%. Many people complained on the forums that digging graves and carrying it make Wendy seem like a necromancer, and evil, and Wendy was not evil, therefore Klei should change it.

And change it they did, instead of a shovel, now is just another part of her kit gated behind annoying to get resources.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

2. Abigail: From Overpowered to Over-Nerfed

The beta started with Abigail being a god-tier companion, but now she’s a shadow of her former self. The pendulum swung too far:

 

Planar defense is a joke: 5 planar defense? Even with gear, Abigail melts against post-rift enemies. Meanwhile, players are expected to juggle elixirs that add a measly +5 planar damage—laughable for late-game content .

Team Spirit skills are clunky: The "scare" command is borderline useless. Mobs either ignore it or run aimlessly, and the cooldown makes it impractical. Why force us to invest in filler skills like "escape" just to access basic commands? .

Pretty sure Abigail gets 15 planar defense at this time, and that still enough to kill the Ink Blights by herself without any elixir, so she's at least still good at handling hordes postrift, the only real post-rift horde there is... as long as you kill some bugs in your inventory before the fight that is. You gotta jump through some extra hoops everytime, but Abigail can still be the one trick pony of horde control she always was, even post rift.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

3. Gestalt Abigail: A Moon-Locked Gimmick

The lunar alignment’s Gestalt Abigail is a perfect example of wasted potential.

 

No AoE damage: Her ghost form could clear crowds, but the gestalt’s single-target focus leaves her useless against swarms.

Moon dependency: Locking her transformation behind the full moon and reverting her on the new moon is absurd. Why add complexity for no payoff? .

Zero synergy: She can’t benefit from cursed vexation, and her damage output pales compared to pre-beta Abigail. This isn’t a skill—it’s a downgrade .

Look at it this way, GAbigail is regular Wendy gameplay, but for non-Wendy players. gives you slightly more damage against single target, but you don't have to manage Abigail as much.

The idea behind the moon form switch is that you have a trade off, so you gotta comit, is my guess. The benefits are not really that groundbreaking, but you don't have to jump through hoops everytime you wanna use it like shadow, so there's that. Also, the form was changed, so you don't need full moon anymore.

And... yes, most characters cannot use shadow powers when they have lunar affinity equipped. She's not an outliar in this case.

But hey, good news, recently Shadow was nerfed pre-rift and buffed post-rift, now Lunar does more single target dps, so is not a full downgrade.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

4. Beta Fatigue: Two Months of Ignored Feedback

The community has been vocal about issues since day one:

 

Cursed Vex trivializes non-planar content, yet Klei keeps buffing it .

Mourning Glory grind remains tedious. Pipspook skills should be baseline, not locked behind insight points .

Skill bloat: Half the tree is filler (looking at you, "Grave Beautification") while core mechanics like Abigail’s survivability are ignored .

Yet here we are, with Klei prioritizing Woby reworks over fixing Wendy’s identity crisis .

I've seen a lot of visual and thematic feedback being adressed. You no longer "carry graves on your back like a necromancer", Sisturn 3 is associated with a beautiful animation for Abigail where she briefly regens her human form, the sisturn has now animations for both evil and lunar petals... They have done a great job making Wendy one of the best skilltree in terms of visuals in the game, poor Wortox players keep salivating over it.

Cursed Vex was nerfed pre-rift and buffed post-rift.

Mourning Glory is tedious, but I doubt Klei has any plans on changing it at this point, they seem happy at where is at,

I don't think I would describe Wendy's skilltree as having a "skill bloat" problem. Half the skilltree helps you grind and spend her mourning glory resources better -> the potion/pipspook/grave line. Is true you don't really have many gamechanging skills, and those you have require you to jump through many hoops to access, but you can just jump into one of the "Wendy Stronk/not Stronk" and argue how good a skilltree she deserve to have based of how good she is by herself, like everyone else.

And regarding Woby, Klei has said they have different people working on each tree, so working on Walter should not be an issue.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

5. Conclusion: Scrap This and Start Over

This skill tree isn’t just unbalanced—it’s unfun. Wendy mains don’t want to micromanage shells, wait for moons, or watch Abigail die to a lone Depth Worm. We want:

Is not going to start over. I think is pretty set in stone at this point.

The skilltree is uninteresting, has hoops you have to jump to access stuff you have already unlocked, but that's it. It could've been worse, could've been Wilson tier.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

Revert the spirit vessel recipe to use shovels or low-cost materials.

Maybe, but I doubt it

1 hour ago, Giews said:

Rebalance Abigail’s survivability and planar scaling.

She survives pretty well against Ink Blights

1 hour ago, Giews said:

Remove moon restrictions on Gestalt form and give her AoE utility.

Integrate Pipspook skills into her base kit.

If this update goes live as-is, Wendy will join the ranks of forgotten characters like pre-rework Woodie. Klei, do better.

It was rebalanced to make it easier to access.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

Integrate Pipspook skills into her base kit.

Higher change we get a second way to access mourning glory than this.

1 hour ago, Giews said:

If this update goes live as-is, Wendy will join the ranks of forgotten characters like pre-rework Woodie. Klei, do better.

She's just gonna be fine, just having a boring and uninteresting skilltree doesn't detract from her current non-skill-tree gameplay. Though with all the cool things new characters can do, and without jumping through hoops, playing Wendy is starting to feel a bit less desirable as more updates keep releasing.

 

Just be happy you got fanstastic skills like the team spirit line. And no, Escape is not useless at all, is one of her better skills.

[woxd]

1 hour ago, Giews said:

Yet here we are, with Klei prioritizing Woby reworks over fixing Wendy’s identity crisis .

You say it like Wendy is the only priority of this update

SURE Wendy's skill tree has problems to fix, but to reproach that klei prioritizes the rework of Woby's skills before Wendy's seems stupid to me, I mean, for God's sake, Walter's first skill tree was 10 times worse than Wendy's, obviously it needed an immediate overhaul before Wendy

Stop thinking that Wendy is the only focus of this update, thanks

[Adachi69]

2 hours ago, Giews said:

1. Grave Relocation: From Thematic Flavor to Tedious Chore

The change from using a shovel to requiring a broken shell for the spirit vessel is a slap in the face to Wendy’s identity. Previously, relocating graves felt like a natural extension of her connection to spirits. Now, we’re forced to scavenge for broken shells—a resource locked behind ocean exploration or cave-dwelling slurtles—just to perform a basic character fantasy action. This not only delays early-game strategies but also forces players into tedious grinds for shells just to preserve graves from meteors or cluster pipspooks efficiently .

 

Thematic whiplash: Wendy, a character who respects the dead, now needs to loot seashells for grave rituals? This makes zero sense lore-wise.

Utility nerf: Relocation was most valuable early-game for managing pipspooks and preserving graves. Now, players either rush shells or let graves get destroyed, which is antithetical to Wendy’s role .

I myself don't really have a problem with that, you can get a billion of shells from Pearl, so it's not that bad and I don't move them around all the time.

Also, I am pretty sure meteors do nothing to graves.

[kikia]

47 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

but team spirits made me love playin wendy so much now

Absolutely! This is her best skill set, and I really love it too.

49 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

yea a bit sad. so many suggestions i make just seemingly dont get seen at all

I believe they likely saw most of them but just haven’t responded yet — the reason I think so is because my joke was removed pretty quickly. Maybe they misunderstood the context.

55 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

bc of the wendy complaints that shouldnt be there, wasting a good 2 months of the beta

All three characters are being developed in parallel — the devs have explicitly mentioned this. Since Wendy is such a beloved character, a little extra patience and understanding would be wonderful here. Ultimately, though, direction is entirely in the devs' hands. 

[Walrusst]

The only thing I'm going to miss is being able to cheaply kill 20 birds every night with the attack command but I also understand why that's gone because to be real with a few pumpkins I was really pushing the whole stack electric darts to the ceiling thing way too far after I found this.
10 darts a night is crazy lmao.

[Steorra]

6 hours ago, CremeLover said:

the only real post-rift horde there is.

The true threats are from brightshades horde ngl.

6 hours ago, CremeLover said:

, but you don't have to manage Abigail as much.

Not true. According to Yifei's test and feedback, Lubby still need similar management as normal Abby. And she has almost no advantage than normal Abby is most scenarios. She only have some advantage in a few scenarios.

 

6 hours ago, CremeLover said:

And change it they did, instead of a shovel, now is just another part of her kit gated behind annoying to get resources

The new aesthetic work of it is cute. Though I guess this is just another power creeping which just of aesthetic. (Joking)

I don't know why the design could make people always dislike it from the shovel to current stage. It's more like... "No, we already hear your feedback before, we won't change the shell again even the latest feedback say the shell is inconvenient. Just go blame those who dislike the shovel."

[CremeLover]

16 minutes ago, Steorra said:

The true threats are from brightshades horde ngl.

Brightshades are not a real threat, you can literally just walk 3 tiles away from it, and there's nothing it can do about it

16 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Not true. According to Yifei's test and feedback, Lubby still need similar management as normal Abby. And she has almost no advantage than normal Abby is most scenarios. She only have some advantage in a few scenarios.

That's the general idea behind it, I was not defending how well the implementation fared.

16 minutes ago, Steorra said:

The new aesthetic work of it is cute. Though I guess this is just another power creeping which just of aesthetic. (Joking)

I don't know why the design could make people always dislike it from the shovel to current stage. It's more like... "No, we already hear your feedback before, we won't change the shell again even the latest feedback say the shell is inconvenient. Just go blame those who dislike the shovel."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this, but the issue is clearly that the previous grave transportation required a shovel, something very easy to get as soon as you get a science station, with 25 uses, whereas Broken Shell, a material for the new grave transport, is much harder to adquire by comparison, requiring either finding pearl island or go spelunking for slurtles, and is 1 shell per grave moving. And is 1 grave moving per Broken Shell.

While I don't think is a huge deal, it is a significant nerf to the early game grave play.

[Well-met]

I think klei is finally moving on because they, like most regulars here, see that the complaints are always misguided or in bad faith

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, CremeLover said:

Brightshades are not a real threat, you can literally just walk 3 tiles away from it, and there's nothing it can do about it

The trios is not a true threat because their combat mechanic is easy and not annoying for those who could reach post-rift by their self. Even when players is lack of AoE ability to engage them.

The brightshades thing is annoying. Yes you may walk 3 tiles away to ignore them. But you can't keeping ignoring them if they near your home or they filled the whole world. They just force you to prepare the specific farm before the Lunar Rift, or you have to go to clean most of them.

6 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this

I mean, according to messages of these days we got, I guess devs already being lack of patience when we asked more after we asked a change from shovel to current stage, or they lost patience from very early.

I guess the shell recipe won't get potential improvement. Since it's a good intential design to shift players dissatisfaction to other players - just like many things we already seen.

[Dingle]

57 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

Brightshades are not a real threat, you can literally just walk 3 tiles away from it, and there's nothing it can do about it

When I did a rifts open run, Shadow Abby with Murder (and Wendy with a hambat) did really well vs the Brightshades. The trick was mostly just keeping Abigail soothed.

With a Reaper, it was even easier.

[Steorra]

3 hours ago, Dingle said:

When I did a rifts open run, Shadow Abby with Murder (and Wendy with a hambat) did really well vs the Brightshades. The trick was mostly just keeping Abigail soothed.

With a Reaper, it was even easier.

Your run test were before the planar defence nerfing if I recall correctly.

[mima_]

wendy player i know back then before all refresh and what so ever flexing their snurttle and shelmet early games, now day wendy player cry for a mere broken shell lmao .. 

[Peasant]

13 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

The funny part is that you have to spend shells to move graves because people complained about the thematics. Wendy can't dig up graves, it's disrespectful!

Yeah, I felt the same thing, It's really odd. And also that Wigfrid helmat Star of David skin, I just couldn't understand why these changes would happen

[kroban]

On 2/14/2025 at 12:35 PM, Giews said:

Previously, relocating graves felt like a natural extension of her connection to spirits

Klei changed this purely because WENDY PLAYERS were asking for it to be changed, in THIS forum, specially the "Chinese Wendy Wave" with the whole "messing with graves is culturally bad in China" argument. This was a recurrent topic again and again all throughout these 3 months, an "issue" that was brought up by Wendy players themselves. Also I may be wrong with this, but didn't Klei changed it so the Spirit Vessel doesn't even break now? Because in that case you only need a couple of broken shells, not "a crazy farm" like you make it seem

On 2/14/2025 at 12:35 PM, Giews said:

Thematic whiplash: Wendy, a character who respects the dead, now needs to loot seashells for grave rituals? This makes zero sense lore-wise

Crying over broken shells is hilarious honestly, you can get hundreds of those out of just visiting and trading Pearl, also out of sunken chests, you dont even have to kill anything. Hell, If you are playing multiplayer and theres someone doing Pearl Quests or farming sunken chest they will have hundreds of shells with no use... Also come on, are you seriously using this as an argument? Wendy "respects the dead" so she can't kill some snails in caves for some reason? The character that everyone uses as a meat grinder to crowd farm mobs on the daily?

 

 

 

[DVGMedia]

7 hours ago, Well-met said:

I think klei is finally moving on because they, like most regulars here, see that the complaints are always misguided or in bad faith

There has been others though that are warrented that really do need to be fixed because they cause a gameplay issue.

[Archswifter]

I thought they were done with it after all the back & fourth coupled with the heated mess the forums became with it.

[Dingle]

10 hours ago, Steorra said:

Your run test were before the planar defence nerfing if I recall correctly.

I did, though not sure if the nerfs would change much vs brightshades. The trick was keeping her on soothed, so abby didn't take much damage, anyway.

That and the cursed vex change likely made the fight even shorter, even vs the reduction of planar damage from murder abby.

This is all theory though, haven't tested recently.

[Thieta]

On 2/14/2025 at 8:35 AM, Giews said:

Cursed Vex trivializes non-planar content, yet Klei keeps buffing it .

you're insane.

On 2/14/2025 at 8:35 AM, Giews said:

Woby reworks over fixing Wendy’s identity crisis .

different teams - People keep forgetting there are different teams for each skill tree - Woby is getting his updates cause woby team is ready to release. Wendy's ain't. However this is kleis fault for not being transparent.

 

On 2/14/2025 at 8:35 AM, Giews said:

Remove moon restrictions on Gestalt form and give her AoE utility.

Yeah you're insane.

 

Asking to remake the entire skill tree a second time is crazy.

How to fix abigail, revert cursed vexation nerf but lower it from 1.4 dmg increase on all sources to 1.3/1.2 - Give abigail higher innate planar defense.

The grave relocation item is fine, Change the recipe to use something other than shells - ashes or whatever. It needs to be as cheap and easy as a shovel to make tbh.

Gestalt Abigail should NOT get any form of AOE whatsoever - However her damage should be buffed so she does a consistent 10-20% more dmg than shadow abigail against a single target (With shadow abigails vex potion and murder buff active.) 

Shadow abigail shadow form needs to get the kill mechanic removed entirely - Make it so wendy drops her flower and kills a mob nearby - This will buff wendy with the "murder" buff for 2-3 days. This keeps it thematic while also removing all the tedious and stupid grindon every single fight.

Lot of the changes they should make for abigail are small to me and just need to tweak stuff so her qol is better - Murdering 20 butterflies for a boss - THEN USING YOUR MOURNING GLORY TO BRING EM BACK - is honestly freaking insanity and shows they don't play their own game. They didn't make glories easier to get, Fine that's cool, But don't lock an entire seperate form behind killing them and add in a recipe to bring em alive... this means that's what you expect the players to do, murder the butterflies and bring em back with mourning glory.