Wendy actually a bad glass cannon in boss combat and how to fix this

[Arcwell]

37 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

But you can't play as Abi, nor Maxwell's duelists, nor Webber's spiders.

The fight continues after their death, and only the spiders can't be restored mid-fight.

That is literally the issue. You cannot play as Abby, yet Abby is the entirety of Wendy's perk.

The post is not asking to make Abigail tankier. It is asking to give the player more control over Abby.

[Bumber64]

21 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

That is literally the issue. You cannot play as Abby, yet Abby is the entirety of Wendy's perk.

The post is not asking to make Abigail tankier. It is asking to give the player more control over Abby.

The existing skills do give a bit of control. Solutions for the wheel being clunky weren't discussed here, but there's possibly something planned for console controllers. (Controlling Abi directly was rejected, IIRC.)

The suggested Business Ghost skill can't be too automatic. If just dodging with Wendy causes Abi to fight effectively, then you're not really controlling her at all.

(I suggested something similar to this before the floral shroud was removed, which would've cost your body equipment slot to synch your movement. But Klei decided against glass Wendy.)

[Jakepeng99]

12 hours ago, Cassielu said:

A Bad Glass Cannon

• Wolfgang: have higher damage from might
• Wendy: have higher damage from abigail and vex
• Wanda: have higher damage from weapon by age

For Wolfgang now, he has is no worry about keep strength on combat. For Wanda, she has complete control over her position. But for Wendy, in order to avoid becom a girl Wes, the player must keep Abigail alive during the combat. It's kind of like a version of Wolfgang during his rework, when he would lose mightness by taking damage, but in here's Abigail's hp.

In theory, Wendy's combat gameplay logic is clearly should be "Players make sure Abigail stays alive and benefits from it." However, the game doesn't offer enough effective features and potential strategy to encourage players to do so, the only things that come close to it are (Vigor Mortis) Dodge Strategy and Spam Spectral Cure-All Tank Strategy.

Compared to Wolfgang keep his Might or Wanda keep her Age, player's attempts allowed to trying keep Abigail's HP can only be made to a fairly limited extent. And both of strategy gradually lose their effectiveness as more ACT combat content is added to the game.

Even the most skilled Wendy players will pick up Abigail and play as girl Wes when faced with about 50% of the boss, not to mention those non-top Wendy's players, using Abigail is really not an attractive option - the additional operational/skill or resource requirement to keep Abigail are simply too high compared to the additional benefit you get from it. And the time spent on dodge earlier or using potions makes it even less worthwhile.

Which starts to kind of enter the category of what we usually call "bad disadvantaged design" -- it doesn't encourage any particular strategy, it's just generic strategy and bad on it.

In all combat character, Wolfgang, Wanda, Wigfrid, Walter, Willow and Wurt are able to complete the any combat "as themselves" and are better than the generic strategy. Only Wendy that really made "not be herself, but a girl wes" truly a more valuable option in nearly half of the combats.

How does the current Skilltree deal with it

Long story short, basically zero.

Three skill: Lunar Sisterhood III (Gestalt Abby),  Team Spirit I ("Escape") and Team Spirit II ("Attack At")

TS is not enough too make "Players make sure Abigail stays alive and benefits from it." work. It does help a lot on it, I've seen players do a lot of things with it.  But... A "dodge" that need to open a roulette wheel selection command and stop moving stand still to use, seriously?

A other funny little fact about the Team Spirit is that "Attack At" is a better escape than "Escape" a lot of the combat because the former can make Abigail as far away as possible to avoid attack, while the latter just call back her to players position which the player has the enemy's aggro and stand still whisper to the flower almost unable to avoid the attack.

TS seem not designed for that fix her problem, but simply to serve the classic noob Wendy player that troubled by spiders and hounds as other whole skilltree. (otherwise, why would TS3 is more useless on this?)

Lunar Sisterhood III (Gestalt Abby) goes straight in the other direction, and instead of trying to make this kind of gameplay more feasible, it tries to kill it outright by creating an Abigail you don't have to care too much about.

This is surely a paradox: If it really worked, it would remove Wendy's uniqueness and turn her into a alter version of Wigfrid. if it doesn't really work this skill will be worthless. 

My Suggestions to fix this

There are quite people want Abigail to be more tank, player tag, planar entity, damage reduction, etc. Although I'm not a fan of this solution (too close to Bernie), I have to say that it is an improvement over the status quo. If better options (like the ones I've described below) don't work, it's best to consider options that make her tank.

I hope the skill tree can provide some better "methods" than her basekit that players can use to help Abigail dodge attacks. You'll still need to do specific dodging, but of course, it'll be easier than without skill, for making this kind of gameplay more feasible in battles where dodging is increasingly rigorous -- that's what skill is all about.

 

Let me introduce my "Business Ghost" skills.

These skills add new behavior modes that work in the same way as Abigail's two current behavior modes, “Rile Up mode” and “Soothe mode”, affect where Abigail tries to move herself, and you can't use them all together, they can only enable one at a time.  Similarly, as long as you choose one of these behavior patterns, Abigail will stay in that behavior pattern until you decide to change it, different from the TS "immediate release" command.

(This is one of the key Wendy mechanics that the current skilltree misses)

There are two levels, each providing a new behavior, Business Ghost I provides "follow closer mode" and Business Ghost II provides "Mirror mode".

• "follow closer mode" similar to "soothe mode", but Abigail will closer, as soon as she crosses 1 distance (1/4 tile), she will start moving towards Wendy.
• "mirror mode" would have Abigail trying to keep herself in a position where she was centered on the exact mirror image of Wendy. centered on the enemy

  Reveal hidden contents

mirror like this:

It will make Abigail Flower's UI look like this:

She was never a glass cannon.

[WilsonHiggs]

9 hours ago, SebastianGraveS said:

Just my 10 cents, almost never post here just checking out the forums lately because of the beta branch. I main Wendy and Wigfrid, mostly Wendy. I don't have trouble keeping Abigail alive. It's micro managey when I play solo, but the power the character gets from doing it successfully is very rewarding. I think Wendy is sitting in a great place currently.

Exactly but every post of this kind is aiming for removing that micromanaging, the fun of having and uniqueness of this character.

Basically they want to make wendy a bland character that deals her job without player's effort

[kikia]

1 hour ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Exactly but every post of this kind is aiming for removing that micromanaging, the fun of having and uniqueness of this character.

Basically they want to make wendy a bland character that deals her job without player's effort

What are you talking about? Isn't this post literally advocating to give Wendy more micromanagement tools?

[Edible Coal]

i want more way to micro manage abi

[GamePlayer42]

12 hours ago, Echsrick said:

ah yes....the dumbbel throw that cost a skill tree and is not even good at all

cherrypicking

10 hours ago, kroban said:

I really don't understand where this "Wendy glass cannon" idea comes from, Wanda IS a glass cannon by definition because she gains a lot of damage at the cost of basically having "1 hp". She has iframes with the tp and can also cancel out some damage with healing clock sure, but at the end of the day shes still at 1hp. And this is something we all saw in the game, the average Wanda player is constantly dying over and over again because they are gambling their HP bar for "STRONK DAMAGE" lol.

Wendy on the other hand.....has the average 150 hp, a follower that can tank damage for her and regens hp on top of also having a BIG heal, now can also revive Abigail and put her back to max hp in a matter of seconds. Even in the case she loses Abigail, shes just "Wilson with less damage".

And im not saying that Wendy is OP or anything, im asking this honestly, how is she exactly a glass cannon? Because in any other game or story a character like this would be considered like, a "summoner" that uses her summon to tank damage, not a glass cannon, specially since she has the average HP bar. Imo her being glass cannon would be idk, "if Abigail dies she dies too", or "she receives extra damage because shes fragile", or having a really low hp bar.

actually read the thread lol, people arent saying wendy is a glass cannon, rather that abigail is the glass cannon and wendy being the support and tank to compliment her which is a really unique take on a glass cannon character. although i dont really think its been exacerbated within the actual skill tree we have now

2 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Exactly but every post of this kind is aiming for removing that micromanaging, the fun of having and uniqueness of this character.

Basically they want to make wendy a bland character that deals her job without player's effort

??? did u read the thread

[WilsonHiggs]

38 minutes ago, GamePlayer42 said:

cherrypicking

actually read the thread lol, people arent saying wendy is a glass cannon, rather that abigail is the glass cannon and wendy being the support and tank to compliment her which is a really unique take on a glass cannon character. although i dont really think its been exacerbated within the actual skill tree we have now

??? did u read the thread

Tldr soz

Abi already has commands to help her survive fights: despawning her, making her be inmune to damage during a brief time, moving her and, if she ends up dying, you have a elixir to make her come back at full level

Increasing her survial feels like the exceptions added to wigfrid's diet,  there is no point of having a downside if it wont affect the moments where that downside should shine. Gladly Wendy's downside is attached to how good is the player at making her upside (abigail) last.

What is the point of havinf -25%physical damage if isnt experienced in any scenario? Wasnt enough to decrease it by only affecting the physical damage from planar weapons? Now isnt even a real -25% debuff...

[Cassielu]

6 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

What is the point of havinf -25%physical damage if isnt experienced in any scenario? Wasnt enough to decrease it by only affecting the physical damage from planar weapons? Now isnt even a real -25% debuff...

Constantly push players to try to keep themselves from falling into such scenario.

Same as Wanda and Wolfgang's -25% debuff.

[WilsonHiggs]

18 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

Constantly push players to try to keep themselves from falling into such scenario.

Same as Wanda and Wolfgang's -25% debuff.

But if there are many buffs, tools and active skill to prevent that the imput needed is reduced making the downside redundant and pointless 

[Blue Tangerine]

8 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

But you can't play as Abi, nor Maxwell's duelists, nor Webber's spiders.

The fight continues after their death, and only the spiders can't be restored mid-fight.

How could Webber's spiders be more fragile than Abigail? Nurse spiders can easily heal a large group of follower spiders, spitters and shard spiders can attack from a distance, not to mention that spiders can wear helmets.

[DVGMedia]

1 hour ago, WilsonHiggs said:

But if there are many buffs, tools and active skill to prevent that the imput needed is reduced making the downside redundant and pointless 

That's the point a characters downside is to incentivize their upsides if you use the character correctly their downside doesn't exist. 

 

This is why I'm thinking devs should have gone with more ways to control abby instead of just giving potions  tedium a buff.  That's why I wanted them to make an equip that Wendy wore to make it so Abby would try to stay on top of Wendy 

 

Wendy and Abby always has been about positioning and the management of 2 health's one weak and one strong  

 

And that I feel is the true nature of Wendy gameplay. When it comes to bosses so that's why there was so much disatisfaction in the tree most of the tree goes against it 

[Echsrick]

3 hours ago, GamePlayer42 said:

cherrypicking

its the litteral truth like what else do you want from me to answere to that?

[Steorra]

2 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

But if there are many buffs, tools and active skill to prevent that the imput needed is reduced making the downside redundant and pointless 

Quick question - how Wendy to prevent her main downside towards lurking shadows (which have knock-downs)?

[Guille6785]

21 hours ago, Lardee said:

 

To my knowledge, the only boss that Abigail is not viable against is Celestial Champion Phase III. And that's Wendy pre-skill tree.

 

 

Ditto, I can't think of any other boss where it isn't better to use Abigail, OP is just spewing nonsense here

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

OP is just spewing nonsense here

I was finished CC III with Abby very early when CC just patched out (at that time CC would randomly change her target into birds). Some of you are just spewing nonsense here lol.

Explanation about the sarcasm above - to use your own personal standards for judging is silly behaviour. When you using your own standard of "CC III is the only boss which is not viable for Abby" to judge others, let me tell you for me your standard is just a "skill issue".

[DVGMedia]

36 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

Ditto, I can't think of any other boss where it isn't better to use Abigail, OP is just spewing nonsense here

Well Klaus at night has some possibility of killing his deer but during the day Abby helps a lot stalling spells 

22 hours ago, Cassielu said:

A "dodge" that need to open a roulette wheel selection command and stop moving stand still to use, seriously?

I feel like the main problem is actually the cumbersome nature of the commands  they should be instant without the whisper animation 

That whisper animation breaks the while flow of combat that a Wendy learns which is learning to position non riled Abby 

I wanted a chest item that links Abby and Wendy's movement together so maybe Wendy and Abby could kite together and if Abby got too far away she would disappear and reappear on Wendy  this is for gestalt so gestalt doesn't get out of position  like it gave Abby a third option for Abby to stay much closer to Wendy than what soothe does now

[YouKnowWho142]

46 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

I feel like the main problem is actually the cumbersome nature of the commands  they should be instant without the whisper animation 

That whisper animation breaks the while flow of combat that a Wendy learns which is learning to position non riled Abby 

I've felt this a lot, especially against really fast paced bosses like Bee Queen

At the very least, the escape and attack commands would be more convenient without a whisper animation especially when you consider the clunkiness of the wheel, I'm fine with the other commands having their animations even the long summon one

[Dingle]

11 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I've felt this a lot, especially against really fast paced bosses like Bee Queen

At the very least, the escape and attack commands would be more convenient without a whisper animation especially when you consider the clunkiness of the wheel, I'm fine with the other commands having their animations even the long summon one

I always felt that there should have been a Team Spirit 4 perk that removed the whisper animation from Escape and Attack Here.

[YouKnowWho142]

3 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I always felt that there should have been a Team Spirit 4 perk that removed the whisper animation from Escape and Attack Here.

I don't think that should be a new perk for it, it should just be a part of those skills to begin with

[AliceShiki]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

I was finished CC III with Abby very early when CC just patched out (at that time CC would randomly change her target into birds). Some of you are just spewing nonsense here lol.

Explanation about the sarcasm above - to use your own personal standards for judging is silly behaviour. When you using your own standard of "CC III is the only boss which is not viable for Abby" to judge others, let me tell you for me your standard is just a "skill issue".

You forgot to read the OP when making this post.

Here, let me quote what they said.

"Even the most skilled Wendy players will pick up Abigail and play as girl Wes when faced with about 50% of the boss"

OP isn't saying that the average Wendy player won't be able to use Abigail against most bosses. OP is saying that even top players like Guille are going to be playing as solo Wendy against most bosses.

This is the nonsense that Guille is pointing out. If OP had said that the average Wendy player will struggle with fighting bosses while also protecting Abigail, then the discussion would be different, but that's not what OP said.

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, AliceShiki said:

average Wendy player won't be able to use Abigail against most bosses.

It need data tbh. But if we considering Wendy hold a huge playerbase of girl players, casual players and newcomers, I don't think the argument of OP would be "completely wrong".

You could easily see those players I mentioned above in public server. They play as Wendy. /Dance in the public base. And never join any boss fighting when the boss has AoE or when there's few people fight with them.

[WilsonHiggs]

Agree on the animation for commands. I think it should only be there for the summon and unsummon animation, for the other commands doesnt make much sense

Or atleast make it shorter. At the end, timing animations with fair length can be fun and make a simple combat more deep

[Catuna_]

On 2/24/2025 at 8:18 PM, Cassielu said:

But for Wendy, in order to avoid becom a girl Wes, the player must keep Abigail alive during the combat. It's kind of like a version of Wolfgang during his rework, when he would lose mightness by taking damage, but in here's Abigail's hp.

In theory, Wendy's combat gameplay logic is clearly should be "Players make sure Abigail stays alive and benefits from it." However, the game doesn't offer enough effective features and potential strategy to encourage players to do so, the only things that come close to it are (Vigor Mortis) Dodge Strategy and Spam Spectral Cure-All Tank Strategy.

Compared to Wolfgang keep his Might or Wanda keep her Age, player's attempts allowed to trying keep Abigail's HP can only be made to a fairly limited extent. And both of strategy gradually lose their effectiveness as more ACT combat content is added to the game.

Even the most skilled Wendy players will pick up Abigail and play as girl Wes when faced with about 50% of the boss, not to mention those non-top Wendy's players, using Abigail is really not an attractive option - the additional operational/skill or resource requirement to keep Abigail are simply too high compared to the additional benefit you get from it. And the time spent on dodge earlier or using potions makes it even less worthwhile.

Which starts to kind of enter the category of what we usually call "bad disadvantaged design" -- it doesn't encourage any particular strategy, it's just generic strategy and bad on it.

In all combat character, Wolfgang, Wanda, Wigfrid, Walter, Willow and Wurt are able to complete the any combat "as themselves" and are better than the generic strategy. Only Wendy that really made "not be herself, but a girl wes" truly a more valuable option in nearly half of the combats.

I just wanna start off by saying that this entire part is complete bogus. (Pre-skill tree) Wendy's completely capable of keeping Abigail alive during every boss fight, with the sole exception of Celestial champion. This is generally done by positioning Abigail opposite to you, meaning that enemies that attack/dash into you will avoid her completely since they'd typically prioritize you; Lardee has very good guides on how to fight bosses at Wendy and made me interested in playing the character. This is what made playing Wendy so appealing to me; you have this entry-level character with a skill ceiling that is surprisingly high compared to other characters and it teaches the player to interact with boss combat differently to make the best use of Abigail during combat.
Something that can be fair to argue is that Wendy, despite this level of input needed compared to other characters, doesn't really have much of a good reward comparatively and can be rather expensive when it comes to boss fights due to spectral-cure all's cost. The latter is remedied by the new skill tree, but the former doesn't really solve this issue that well due to the continuous nerfs that her affinities have been receiving.

On 2/24/2025 at 8:18 PM, Cassielu said:

TS is not enough too make "Players make sure Abigail stays alive and benefits from it." work. It does help a lot on it, I've seen players do a lot of things with it.  But... A "dodge" that need to open a roulette wheel selection command and stop moving stand still to use, seriously?

There's unfortunately not many prettier ways to implement this, unfortunately.

On 2/24/2025 at 8:18 PM, Cassielu said:

A other funny little fact about the Team Spirit is that "Attack At" is a better escape than "Escape" a lot of the combat because the former can make Abigail as far away as possible to avoid attack, while the latter just call back her to players position which the player has the enemy's aggro and stand still whisper to the flower almost unable to avoid the attack.

Escape gives her on-demand invincibility, making it more of a reaction-based or reactive tool. Dash is more of a proactive tool, which lets you position Abigail properly to dodge an attack. I think the co-existence is okay, but I think that the fact that you have to pick so many perks to get these controls is baaaaaad. Escape/Attack at should be in her base kit.

On 2/24/2025 at 8:18 PM, Cassielu said:

Lunar Sisterhood III (Gestalt Abby) goes straight in the other direction, and instead of trying to make this kind of gameplay more feasible, it tries to kill it outright by creating an Abigail you don't have to care too much about.

I feel like the idea of making Abigail take player damage was always bad and against the point of the character, honestly. I liked the overhealing mechanic, but I wish it was just sped up so that people who needed it would get 1200 hp Abigail fast. I suggested this in a past post, making it only take about ~30s (if I recall correctly) so that people would have a lot more leeway with messing up, without letting Abigail just straight up eat attacks. Is it broken for Abigail to endlessely tank boss attacks with Spectral-cure all? Not really... Is it dumb and bad for the character's identity and gameplay and skill expression? Yes.

On 2/24/2025 at 8:18 PM, Cassielu said:

There are two levels, each providing a new behavior, Business Ghost I provides "follow closer mode" and Business Ghost II provides "Mirror mode".

• "follow closer mode" similar to "soothe mode", but Abigail will closer, as soon as she crosses 1 distance (1/4 tile), she will start moving towards Wendy.
• "mirror mode" would have Abigail trying to keep herself in a position where she was centered on the exact mirror image of Wendy. centered on the enemy

Honestly these don't sound like they'd improve a ton, you can already replicate this without using these skills. I think the way to fix this would be to make a lot of base kit changes to Wendy, similar to Walter. By buffing her bad potions (player effects included), getting rid of skill tree filler/bloat (skills that you NEED like pipspook branch take up a fifth of your insight just like that, otherwise it's a huge slog to play Wendy.) and integrating it into her basekit, giving her a passive source of mourning glory generation as well as reworking and buffing her affinities in a way that makes Gestalt and Shadow Abigail more appealing outside of "Deal more damage", you'd achieve a Wendy that is much more rewarding for skilled players and still beginner-friendly to people who aren't ready to interact with bosses yet, while keeping that boss learning curve that makes this character fun.

TL;DR: Wendy can fight bosses just fine, but I think that she struggles to justify herself over other characters due to the input needed compared to said characters. Solution is that you make her more convenient to play by buffing her base-kit to make room for better skills that offer Wendy more upsides, while reworking her affinities to be good without solely focusing on doing more damage.

[Debruh]

9 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

<snip or smth>

Amazingly written tbh. Some thoughts:

12 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

This is what made playing Wendy so appealing to me; you have this entry-level character with a skill ceiling that is surprisingly high compared to other characters and it teaches the player to interact with boss combat differently to make the best use of Abigail during combat.
Something that can be fair to argue is that Wendy, despite this level of input needed compared to other characters, doesn't really have much of a good reward comparatively and can be rather expensive when it comes to boss fights due to spectral-cure all's cost. The latter is remedied by the new skill tree, but the former doesn't really solve this issue that well due to the continuous nerfs that her affinities have been receiving

I really agree on the skill thing. Picked up Wendy as a new player, and a character that obviously improved as I improved was such a fun thing.

On the affinities, personally I think that for gestalt Abby (who I honestly think was never a good idea in the first place) should have either gotten much much more accessibility if they still wanna go the route of losing her aoe. But she lost it, and still suffers problems when it comes to accessibility (such as in the moonstorms for example)As for the shadow line, I think the lines were more mechanically stupid. Idc much about how strong she is, but mechanically they were stupid imo.

26 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

feel like the idea of making Abigail take player damage was always bad and against the point of the character, honestly. I liked the overhealing mechanic

I agree with this a ton. As much as people like to say that 'It's themetic because Wendy is trying to revive Abby!' I personally disagree. If anything, I feel like keeping the tragedy of the character, hamering in that death can't be reversed would have been better.

Not relying on Abby while she overheals fit that. It did kinda fit Wendy expanding her social circle or whatever, and still remembering Abby, but moving on a bit. As well as making it so that Abby isn't worrying about Wendy 24/7. Good character direction for both of them, while still keeping the gameplay around Abby. Also why I like the beef thing.

There's also more solutions to the overheal thing. Instead of an overheal, it could have been more of a backup health. That kicked in when Abby's main health depleted, thus resolving the problem of Abby losing the additional health to random mobs, while still making you recharge the extra health at home.