Hot take: Wanda would be better designed, more fun and more interesting if the Alarming clock was removed (+Wanda mini rework)

[Jakepeng99]

This isnt much a suggestion, as i doubt they will actually remove it because community back lash (I still think it would be a good idea once people properly play around with it, rather than immediately judging. I believe it would be a good experiment). But i believe Wanda would be more interesting without the alarming clock, and be an actual glass cannon. It would make her much better and more interesting in my opinion. This isnt just about balance, because i believe the alarming clock limits Wanda's playstyle and allows for little variation as it overpowers other weapons.

 

Why this would make Wanda more Interesting?

This would make her much less limited in weapon choices, as other shadow weapons (currently only darksword and riff gear) will be viable. They can expand the shadow weapons to include the sheild of terror and the thulicite club. I dont really like a character having a "Main weapon). I have tried her with darkswords, they have much less dps, but feel more interesting and risky. (She still has stepback watches remember).

To compensate, her shadow magic modifier will be increased since it isnt actually that high, its just because the alarming clock base damage. She would be a better designed glass cannon, as she doesnt have an extremely safe and powerful weapon that passes damage thresholds no other character can pass as easily, and will actually have to get in close and risk damage.

An Expansion and Focus on other time aspects of Wanda

With the removal of the alarming clock making her feel combat focused, they could focus on the utility aspect of time in her skilltree, and balance will be less an issue so there is more free room. She could make things grow faster (not instant growth like Wickerbottom), slow things down, reverse/speed up spoilage, and speed up monster spawns.

She can also speed up movement speed, working speed, and other things. Not all of these ideas could be implemented, i just tried to put down everything that i imagine she could affect. She already has her teleports too, so she wont become bare without the alarming clock.

[Mr Giggio]

"Hot take" mhm

[Gashzer]

I believe the reverse of this. Wanda's skilltree should double down on more clock weapons.

The entire point of different characters is that you play differently with each. Wanda having this super duper weapon like no other character has, is a large part of what makes Wanda, Wanda.

Ill repost my lunar clock counterpart to the alarming clock; lunar clock is thrown like boomerang but you can "attack" the clock as it returns to you to launch the lunar clock back at the mob but faster doing more damage. If you can keep hitting the lunar clock in nice timing you do more and more damage, faster and faster.

Its like link reflecting ganondorfs energy balls. 

 

[WilsonHiggs]

Atlesst the AC shouldn't be her highest dps source. What is the point of buffing dark swords when they aren't as safe and doesn't have such damage. Melee over ranged or mid range combat should always be better

[DVGMedia]

I would agree just cause that weapon trivializes so much just because it is a whip. If it wasn't a whip.i think she would be fine. Heck even cutting the damage in half while  keeping the range would make her fine. 

They are going to add more damage to her though you know it. Pure horror adds 20 planer to the clock  I can see it already 

 

[hyoton123]

My hot take is i dont think it’s a hot take. She has limited group utility and oppressive combat no one can replicate, and is an earlygame resource hog who has has to pay special attention beyond normal to stat drains. All of that got wolfgang a rework.

[Guille6785]

the alarming clock existing isn't the problem, it's that it being her best-in-slot option at all times (at least pre-rift) removes all decision making from the player, dark swords being buffed feels like an insult when they deal less damage and have less range (but I've already ranted a million times about how wanda is a noob character disguised as a deep high-risk-high-reward character and Klei will probably just double down on that with her skill tree)

[Laguna]

3 hours ago, Gashzer said:

I believe the reverse of this. Wanda's skilltree should double down on more clock weapons.

The entire point of different characters is that you play differently with each. Wanda having this super duper weapon like no other character has, is a large part of what makes Wanda, Wanda.

Ill repost my lunar clock counterpart to the alarming clock; lunar clock is thrown like boomerang but you can "attack" the clock as it returns to you to launch the lunar clock back at the mob but faster doing more damage. If you can keep hitting the lunar clock in nice timing you do more and more damage, faster and faster.

Its like link reflecting ganondorfs energy balls. 

 

This. 

And I loved the idea of the lunar clock, it would be really fun.

[FillerText]

The amount of changes the game has received patching game breaking exploits it had just to reach the end result of a refuelable dark sword is just absurd tbh. It feels like they gave her a damage multi, and a special weapon just for marketting purposes rather than with the goal of making it an actual part of the game. She could have been fine without either, but big (invisible) dmg number causes dopamine. 

[Walrusst]

If she had a durability modifier on non alarming clock shadow weapons I doubt I'd feel bad.
 

We use hambats a lot. A lot a lot. If she was able to get better mileage out of non alarming clock weapons where as the alarming clock was her big resource dump people would still be complaining when they used the resource dump every battle.
But she would have a really valid use for a regular dark sword just to save on time farming shadows.

Yes its easy, but also farming shadows is extremely dull so keeping it down is valuable.

[00petar00]

There is no healing or sanity restoration needed, she can easily kill nightmare creatures and uses her own watches to heal. Mostly her best food source is meaty stew but some taffy is useful to have for when you may need some sanity regen which should be very rare. The most general use armor is dreadstone helm because of its ability and this encourages you to stay low on sanity.

Wanda needs to rush ruins/archives for thulecite so her gameplay is very influenced in one direction, so all alarming clock does is reinforce this but players that want it changed and use this as argument have either not played her enough or don't try to understand that it is her whole design to not have many choices. I completely disagree with anyone saying that alarming clock should be changed or removed instead it should be the opposite and it should receive post rift upgrades so that it is always the strongest choice.

Imagine telling Walter mains that they shouldn't use slingshot and how that would go? Why can he get all the cool upgrades and options but Wanda's weapon should be removed? If you want more choices maybe skill tree could have a bigger focus on her weapon like it happened with Walter, this would would go against her design but its better option instead of removing her unique weapon.

[GimplyGoose]

A bit off topic, but in so many of your posts you write out rift as "riff", for a long time I thought it was just a typo or something.

Do you like the term "riff" better or something? It means something completely different than "rift".

[BattleOzze]

Personally, i don't really care about what they will do with AC. Yeah, this thing trivializes combat. Just like perks of other 6 (or something) characters in game. Alarming Glock isn't even cheapest and strongest range option anymore, whatever.

What makes her being boring is her complete lack if any utility and interesting mechanics.  And as long as she remains nothing burger with tp clocks she will stay this way.

[HowlVoid]

I like having the best weapon for all situations.

Its one less thing that I have to focus on. I get thats not for everyone but I enjoy it.

[Hollow soul 3]

I think most of the dlc characters trivialize one part of the game or another. I think a more diverse mob pool with unique attacks would help solve this more.

[Edible Coal]

i think wanda will have clock mods like walter, would be funny

[CrimsonStrider]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the alarming clock. Minus toad, all other melee weapons function the same. How you fight with an axe is how you fight with a brightshade sword. All someone has to do is choose not to use the watch.

I feel Wanda is higher risk, more reward, depending on the situation. I don't know why people feel she needs to be a glass cannon.

The thing I like about her though is that I don't need to focus on things I don't like about the game. I don't even feel like she's that powerful. When I play with my friends, if he's max he's doing more. If he's woody he's doing more. If he's wormwood he's doing more. If he's walter with the new tree he's doing more.

Shes obviously above average when fighting single target things. She does really well against small amounts of spiders and frogs, and is very strong against nightmares. She's really good against NMWP. I can fight BQ without flutes and DF without walls more consistently. But I can do that with other characters too. 

The way to make her a glass cannon, which I don't agree with, is by boosting her damage, keeping the watch, but make all damage affect her the way planar does. So that even with night armor she legit dies in 2 or 3 hits. But that wouldn't be fun. I certainly don't have fun fighting one rift shark and have to abandon ruins when two aggro me.

@Guille6785

Would you say that's the perception the community imposes upon Wanda or Klei does? I never got the impression that she was some type of high risk high reward character from anything in game. That sentiment has been what I see the community parrots.

[hoxi]

14 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

I would agree just cause that weapon trivializes so much just because it is a whip. If it wasn't a whip.i think she would be fine. Heck even cutting the damage in half while  keeping the range would make her fine. 

There's a pretty simple way to tone it down with something that got introduced somewhat recently, projectile stun lock immunity.

It can easily not be restricted to projectiles. More specific conditions can be added, since currently it's done with some specific checks (although I'd love if they made it a separate function so mods can modify the conditions as they please without having to override a whole unrelated function).

The alarming clock would then only be able to cause hitstun once if it the target wasn't hitstunned recently, allowing enemies to close in and start an attack. You can still stay out of range, but it won't be as trivial as it is.

I do think the clock fits better as a safe (and refuellable) but less damaging option than something like a dark sword. Sadly, that's not how it works right now and like Guille said, it's the best option and there's no decision to be made.

[Guille6785]

37 minutes ago, CrimsonStrider said:

Would you say that's the perception the community imposes upon Wanda or Klei does? I never got the impression that she was some type of high risk high reward character from anything in game. That sentiment has been what I see the community parrots.

37 minutes ago, CrimsonStrider said:

I don't know why people feel she needs to be a glass cannon.

Klei have explicitly called her a glass cannon, and although I do understand that Klei had a mostly hands off approach with this, back when they gave beta codes to content creators to promote the character (a week before she was publicly available) a ton of them started their videos and streams highlighting her supposed high-risk-high-reward nature in a way that felt artificial before the community had any time to form a perception of her; I think Klei can be blamed for this at least indirectly because the creators promoting her was Wanda's marketing campaign

[Frosty_Mentos]

Hot Take: The alarming clock in her kit is the only thing that's interesting about her playstyle because she has nothing unique to her without it.

That being the reason why people loved playing as her as well as everything she has works well around Alarming Clock. She needs no rework, she needs a clock box and skill tree.

[Cheggf]

47 minutes ago, CrimsonStrider said:

I don't think there's anything wrong with the alarming clock. Minus toad, all other melee weapons function the same. How you fight with an axe is how you fight with a brightshade sword. All someone has to do is choose not to use the watch.

The only way the alarming clock fights different is if you're outranging enemies and cheesing them, in which case it fights by not really engaging with the core gameplay of combat at all and sort of just sidestepping everything as you either hold F on a stuck enemy or alternate between pressing attack and pressing walk backwards.

[Swiyss]

17 hours ago, Gashzer said:

I believe the reverse of this. Wanda's skilltree should double down on more clock weapons.

The entire point of different characters is that you play differently with each. Wanda having this super duper weapon like no other character has, is a large part of what makes Wanda, Wanda.

Ill repost my lunar clock counterpart to the alarming clock; lunar clock is thrown like boomerang but you can "attack" the clock as it returns to you to launch the lunar clock back at the mob but faster doing more damage. If you can keep hitting the lunar clock in nice timing you do more and more damage, faster and faster.

Its like link reflecting ganondorfs energy balls. 

 

but then, as more enemies and bosses are made, they would have to keep giving her new weapons. It's better if we can upgrade or "level up" her alarming clock imo.

[lowercase skye]

14 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

wanda is a noob character

Can you elaborate on this specific bit? I agree Wanda is crazy easy to play (and boring) as an experienced player, but I've always thought her specific set of perks and downsides sounded like they'd be really really punishing for a new player, in particular the fact that her kit relies a lot on going to the ruins/archives for thulecite, and frequently killing shadow creatures for nightmare fuel.

[Swiyss]

7 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

Can you elaborate on this specific bit? I agree Wanda is crazy easy to play (and boring) as an experienced player, but I've always thought her specific set of perks and downsides sounded like they'd be really really punishing for a new player, in particular the fact that her kit relies a lot on going to the ruins/archives, and frequently killing shadow creatures for nightmare fuel.

I can tell you for suuure that 100% of my friends were just rushing to unlock her right after knowing what she does. Idk why, but it seems that new people trying the game feel very attracted to her playstyle.

[DVGMedia]

1 hour ago, hoxi said:

There's a pretty simple way to tone it down with something that got introduced somewhat recently, projectile stun lock immunity.

It can easily not be restricted to projectiles. More specific conditions can be added, since currently it's done with some specific checks (although I'd love if they made it a separate function so mods can modify the conditions as they please without having to override a whole unrelated function).

The alarming clock would then only be able to cause hitstun once if it the target wasn't hitstunned recently, allowing enemies to close in and start an attack. You can still stay out of range, but it won't be as trivial as it is.

I do think the clock fits better as a safe (and refuellable) but less damaging option than something like a dark sword. Sadly, that's not how it works right now and like Guille said, it's the best option and there's no decision to be made.

they did do this though.  They completely adjusted how hitstun works in order to suit wandas watch.
Every creature has a timer on hitstun.. and some have caps. but that doesn't really change much.