Can someone explain why Wormwood is OP for pro players?

[shaurun]

Well, from video to video I hear sometimes that Wormwood is kinds difficult character for new players, but is very good for choice for those who know what they're doing, specifically for boss fighters.

Survival wise, I would say he's better for new players since they don't know crockpot recipes anyways, thus just eating more food like red caps and monster meat with no "webber penalty" (I mean pigs aren't aggressive to Wormwood) is pretty fine if combat is avoided.

For a standard player like me, survival as solo Wormwood looks like this:

1. Find any bees and grind 4 stingers.

2. Suffer HP loss to craft 2 living logs.

3. Craft bramble husk.

4. Aggro all bees you can find to collect lots of honey + stingers with bramble husk.

5.Collect reeds from swamp (potentially on beefalo but beefalo is optional).

6. Go into caves and aggro shadow monkeys to collect bananas.

7. Go to spiders to collect lots silk and glands.

8. Setup tent, craft monkeytails, healing salves + honey poultices, sleep.

---------

So this is basic setup which brable husk helps you with and which makes it easy to craft bramble husks for future. And when you doing this you feel pretty powerful since it's a great massproduction of resources.

However then you spend these resources on bosses and start feeling power-fool.

Let me compare it to Wendy: she has aoe and doesn't need to loose HP neither for summoning it; nor for using it. She doesn't need to spend few nights sleeping. She doesn't need to craft healing items - just some food. And thinking about it, I come to conclusion that for a pro player, Wendy should be rated more than Wormwood.

But what's the real sitiuation? Does he have any benefits which could allow him to be rated OP for fighting? Maybe I'm missing something in his playstyle (I'm not playing him too often, tbh)?

[Cheggf]

Whoever you saw call Wormwood overpowered was probably doing it as clickbait to farm views or something. He's a really good character with an easily accessible movement speed bonus, easily accessible equipment-free light, easily accessible living logs that don't require an inventory slot, a bit of extra AoE damage, more damage post-rifts, and a few other minor perks, but that's far from overpowered. 

[reddocc]

I wouldn't call him op I would call him low maintenance. You sacrifice health management to simplify hunger and sanity management.

I like him because I can be lazy just like Wanda, sometimes even lazier.

[Radicaljoe]

OP is a nothing word, everyone is strong if you know how to play them right. Honestly, I see the word OP thrown around so much it's like the word "the" or "a."

If it held meaning once, it surely doesn't anymore. It's just 2 letters now.

But Wormwood is cool, he has a very different gameplay experience than most because you have to rely on other methods to heal than food. Wormwood also has the best sanity manipulation, either digging plants to lower sanity and planting literally anything you want to gain it back. You can just gather a stack of seeds and be holding 400 sanity at all times. 

The bramblehusk is a good cheap armor that helps in crowds, and the brambletraps are cool for hound defense. His moonshroom perk is also really cool because you can use sleep, which is a very powerful effect in DST, just disable nearly anything.
 

If I had to guess the reason you've heard him called OP is because 1-overused word as stated, and 2- he gets speed from bloom(dst players are FERAL for speed) and the moonshroom sleep perk. 

[Guille6785]

man I wish

[Szczuku]

Wormwood is just a well-designed character, with pretty useful perks and a downside that makes for a unique and interesting gameplay, at least without taking his skill tree to account

Definitely not op though

[Mike23Ua]

For me Wormwood became OP when I realized with as little as one random seed… I can manipulate Late Game Brightshades to spawn exactly where I wanted them to.

Now for those of you not in the know: Brightshade plants have an AoE proc attack, and you can force this “proc” onto anything standing near the Brightshade by hitting the Brightshade with a boomerang.

Ive effectively and shamelessly killed several bosses by just letting Brightshades Proc Attacks.

But it’s not THAT Op.. anyone can build a farm plot till it, plant a seed etc.. it’s just extra convenient and lower effort for WW.

[Castiliano]

He isn't

[Gashzer]

Wormwood is definitely one of the more OP characters if you consider his balance between useful abilities for megabasing verses combat convenience. Both solo and in coop. With a downside that is barely noticeable. (Compost wrap more than makes up for lack of food healing, if anything its better because it doesn't spoil.)

Wormwood is by far, the best coop character in the game tho:

• Easy quick start crop farming for warly.
• Easy living logs for quick magic setup for Wicker, wanda, maxwell. Useful for everyone tbh.
• Bramble husk armour is OP as a more durable log suit for Walter who benefits from using body armour. Wortox can farm souls without any effort.
• Bramble husk armour is essentially a wearable Abigail that every character can utilise for spider farming.
• Easy crop farming for food/monkey reed farm for wurt.
• Moonshroom sleep cloud is extremely useful in coop to disable bee queen grumbles, toadstool.
• Mushroom planters synergize with willow for easy blue cap healing
• Bramble traps help a lot in AFW fight.
• Resetting Bramble traps with specialist can be used to farm merm guards/werepigs/bunnymen.
• Pretty much in any duo coop session, wormwood is a fantastic match in all combos.

[Cassielu]

He isn't.

[Hungry French]

18 hours ago, shaurun said:

Well, from video to video I hear sometimes that Wormwood is kinds difficult character for new players, but is very good for choice for those who know what they're doing, specifically for boss fighters.

Survival wise, I would say he's better for new players since they don't know crockpot recipes anyways, thus just eating more food like red caps and monster meat with no "webber penalty" (I mean pigs aren't aggressive to Wormwood) is pretty fine if combat is avoided.

For a standard player like me, survival as solo Wormwood looks like this:

1. Find any bees and grind 4 stingers.

2. Suffer HP loss to craft 2 living logs.

3. Craft bramble husk.

4. Aggro all bees you can find to collect lots of honey + stingers with bramble husk.

5.Collect reeds from swamp (potentially on beefalo but beefalo is optional).

6. Go into caves and aggro shadow monkeys to collect bananas.

7. Go to spiders to collect lots silk and glands.

8. Setup tent, craft monkeytails, healing salves + honey poultices, sleep.

---------

So this is basic setup which brable husk helps you with and which makes it easy to craft bramble husks for future. And when you doing this you feel pretty powerful since it's a great massproduction of resources.

However then you spend these resources on bosses and start feeling power-fool.

Let me compare it to Wendy: she has aoe and doesn't need to loose HP neither for summoning it; nor for using it. She doesn't need to spend few nights sleeping. She doesn't need to craft healing items - just some food. And thinking about it, I come to conclusion that for a pro player, Wendy should be rated more than Wormwood.

But what's the real sitiuation? Does he have any benefits which could allow him to be rated OP for fighting? Maybe I'm missing something in his playstyle (I'm not playing him too often, tbh)?

No. All the characters of OP. 
And Pro players break the whole game and its balance with their tactics and approach to the game.

[Uedo]

I think WW is just really solid, I don't really have much more to add - They do what they do in a really structured, understandable way, consistently. 

[Evelo]

He wasn't "OP" till the Bramble Husk got an auto-trigger AoE on the 3rd attack imo and the Moon Shroom eating creating a sleep cloud on command. He is interesting and unique but not OP, least before his skill tree. Post skill tree though compared to like Willow, Wendy, or Walter. Wormwood isnt Overpowered. That's power creep for you! Just make the game way too easy... Getting to the point I play less and less. Depending on how Klei will finish off these rift updates, I may stay or leave DS for good which I don't want to happen.

Edited May 15, 2025 by Evelo

[shaurun]

Well being more specific, they rank it A+/A/B+, not S tier, but it's still pretty high. 

I agree that he's not OP, but pretty interinsting gameplay wise and capable to do many things. I wonder how would I rate him compared to other characters with AoE damage, such as Wendy and WX,

These features I found which I think weren't mentioned but give Wormwood a strong benefit:

1. While it's true that everyone can setup shadow pieces farm for tons of shadow swords and nighmare armor, you won't likely be able to do it fast since for most characters it requires a lot of gunpowder. Wormwood however can massproduce shadow swords pretty early.

2. Wormwood is also great to produce a lot of bat-bats. One visit to the ruins for gems and few nights in guano biome gave me 10+ bat-bats, which is insane tbh.

3. Thulecite club is a decent upgrade to shadow sword, and since it requires 3 living logs most characters will skip creating it. But for Wormood all that matters is availability of thulecite.

4. Pirate raids are probably the easiest with Wormwood with his access to powerful weaponary and bramble husk.  At first I thought that Abi would be best with it, but then I reconsidered, since when Wendy ransforms to a Wonkey, Abi can't help her. But if Wormwood transforms, he doesn't loose his bramble husk aoe.

 

Blooming and sleep clouds are probably decent for Wormwood too, but I haven't expierenced it a lot to make some playstyle of it. To me the most interesting thing to find was that Wormwood is actually a weaponary massproducer, not just gardenerer with armor.

[FourthLess]

On 5/19/2025 at 2:40 AM, shaurun said:

I wonder how would I rate him compared to other characters with AoE damage, such as Wendy and WX

Slightly irrelevant to the topic but WX's shock circuit is not aoe. Sadly no way for them to beat mid character allegations