Wolfgang needs you! (Done)

[Keknutui]

update: Wolfgang's tree is ready and can be found in the post at the link

Hello everyone, I think most will agree that Wolfgang's skill tree is one of the weakest skill trees, which has only been confirmed over the years.

I ask everyone who cares about him to suggest ideas for a branch of "strongman", "Affinity" and "Сircus performer".
I want to visually paint the most interesting skill tree with a visual on ABSOLUTELY ALL the new chips and items that he can get. 
Waiting for your ideas :3

P.s

Here is one of the ideas that I want to implement

Edited August 2, 2025 by Keknutui

[Jakepeng99]

 

Some things i would change but this is some of my ideas.

[Dr. Safety]

At the risk of getting pelted with tomatoes for wanting more character updates, I do want them to revisit some of the weaker skill trees like Wolfgang's and Wilson's

[Cruvimaster]

There are still 7 characters left to complete the skill tree cycle. I hope Klei forgets about all the characters after that and focuses on other aspects of the game. Another 4 years of rework after rework would be a shame.

[Semind]

Hmm. pointing out circus performer makes me think about how his mighty dumbbell animation is him juggling it. What if a skill was that doing the workout action while mighty lets wolfgang build up a buff for his dumbbell toss that expires 1 second after he stops working out.
- The buff expiring is basically just to say the idea is for him to use the toss immediately, or almost immediately after building up the charge. This is to reinforce the idea that the buff is Wolfgang essentially storing up energy through continuous motion.
- The skill challenges the player to use forethought and find a timing that lets them build a sizable buff for the dumbbell throw. Since working out costs durability, it also discourages doing it carelessly

(This is more less taking the idea of DK's giant punch)
The reward for charging up the dumbbell toss is not something I'll say too definitively but it would have to be something worth chasing after the max buff. Something more than just extra damage, IMO. And it would probably be fun if the buff changed according to the dumbbell being used.

Some tentative ideas could be:

- instead of a lob, wolfgang could throw the dumbbell forcefully, hitting grounded enemies between him and the point of impact effectively granting it more AoE
- trigger a daze that's basically a few seconds of stun
- this is a swerve from the combat oriented nature of what I wrote so far, but maybe it could grant wolfgang something similar to the beaver tail slam, letting the dumbbell toss perform work actions on impact

I'm not going to pretend to know what a good balance is for partial/full charge benefits, minimum/maximum charge time, dumbbell durability cost, etc. so I'm not even going to bother trying to come up with something.

There's also a hole in my idea in that it doesn't work well with the fact that workouts get terminated the moment wolfgang hits max mightiness. The skill would either have to remove this one thing when you have it, or something else, because you're liable to be at max mightiness just from fighting anything that doesn't die in less than 10 hits.

[Cheggf]

Wolfgang's skill tree sucks just like Wolfgang sucks. They seem to hate him and intentionally mess him up to screw with his players who they don't like for some reason. 

[Mayson71]

Wolfgang's problems actually go much deeper than a bad skill tree.
Have you ever thought that it doesn't make sense for Wolfgang to have three forms at all? All three forms made at least some sense to old Wolfgang. Most of the time you were in an normal form, in which you had 200 hp, but also the disadvantage of a slightly increased starvation rate. The strong form had x2 damage and slightly increased movement speed, but you needed a lot of food to maintain this form. The wimpy form, although it was a kind of punishment, nevertheless had a starvation rate equal to Wilson, which gave you a little more time to find food. The old system wasn't perfect, after all, the strong form still had more advantages, but it was much better than what we have now.
Now tell me, why does the current Wolfgang need three forms? This is a rhetorical question, because the correct answer is not needed. The current Wolfgang can literally have only two forms, strong and conditionally wimpy, and literally nothing will change. Now, when playing for Wolfgang, you will almost never be in average shape, and even more so in wimpy form. 
The problem is that the game literally doesn't allow you not to be in strong form. After the March 2022 QoL, mightiness stat is increase literally from any of your actions, no matter what tool you use. Even sitting at the base and tills the beds, the mightiness will still be at its maximum. Plus, a strong shape has too many advantages, and literally one disadvantage is the constant freezing resistance, which is a bit of a hindrance in summer. That is all. Otherwise, there is constant double damage, immune to movement speed penalties, increased work efficiency of 0.75x with ALL tools, and a 1% chance to instantly finish the structure. This is so OP. As much as OP that the game doesn't even allow you to not be in this form. You're in it literally 24/7 without any punishment.
So just skill tree rework won't solve the problem. A bad foundation needs to be completely changed, rather than trying to fix it with something from above. Wolfgang needs another rework. 
Either leave only two forms by combining normal and wimpy forms together, or make the three forms really different from each other, and build a skill tree based on unique abilities for each of the three forms. Plus, change the mightiness system. For example, to make it so that working with tools does not increased the mightiness, but slows down, by analogy with the Woody wereforms

 

 

 

P.s. I apologize for possible mistakes, I wrote through a translator. 
 

[WendyHater9000]

His skill tree sucks but he’s still one of the strongest characters.

 

2.6x damage multiplier on alignment mobs 

No speed penalty wearing piggy back

Harvesting efficiency on resource.

Weak aoe, but still good enough to one shot monkey.

He’s totally designed as a battle machine. Can’t figure out where the weak spot this post is claiming about

Edited July 17, 2025 by kevindaze

[Golden Daemon]

5 hours ago, Semind said:

Hmm. pointing out circus performer makes me think about how his mighty dumbbell animation is him juggling it. What if a skill was that doing the workout action while mighty lets wolfgang build up a buff for his dumbbell toss that expires 1 second after he stops working out.

Love the charging up idea, its always fun to see big damage and big numbers even if they are less efficient in longterm DPS.

Also would personally love to see some ability for wolfgang to throw heavy objects like boulders at his targets that deal damage based on the throwing distance(to discourage players from doing shenanigans like picking and dropping the same rock on an enemy in melee range).

 

To be honest i prefer he has more suboptimal yet fun options over straight buffs to his existing capabilities.

3 hours ago, kevindaze said:

Can’t figure out where the weak spot this post is claiming about

The weakspot is in the design.

[Evelo]

I'm one of the few (if not the only) that likes Wolfgang's skill tree because it is (mostly) passives. I want passives in skill trees with items being given to everyone. (exceptions can be made with lunar and shadow alignments).

[reddocc]

the real problem with Wolfgang is that his skins suck, that's the reason why no one plays him

[cybers2001]

I would actually use Wolfgang's over-mighty perks if they didn't require using a gym for them. Having the gym as a requirement is so anti-synergistic.

For example, say my gym is at my base, and I want to go fight a boss. Okay, so I over-mighty myself at my base, then go run over to where the boss is. How much over-mighty have I already lost over that duration? If I'm traveling some distance, I have to stay over-mighty for it to have a use, which means I don't get to benefit from leg-day perk at all, so that's anti-synergistic. Of course, it seems more logical to be normal for the leg-day, then use a gym close to the arena, no? But then why do I need over-mighty? The act of being in combat keeps my mightiness topped off the whole time anyway. Over-mighty is at its most useful for long durations where you want to stay mighty, but might not be in constant combat. One example is traveling around in the caves, especially in the ruins. Again, though, over-mighty is only useful at the start when I just hit the gym before I start my trek, so 80% of the time that I'm there I won't even have it.

How about a gym at the ruins? Might be nice to have a gym in one spot in the ruins, perhaps near your pseudoscience, since you are likely to make a pitstop there multiple times over a season anyway. Though, at least in my case, the gym is just straight up bugged in the ruins. As in, my character hops on, then hops off right away. I've never personally had it work for me.

The sad thing is, I actually would use over-mighty if it wasn't tethered to the gym for no logical reason, but mostly just to overcome another frustrating mechanic about Wolfgang that I've stated in the past as something that feels borderline-buggy, which is his transformation-loop. When your mightiness stradles the edge of mighty and normal, you can get stuck in a transformation loop where you can't stay in a single form for long. For example say you're running from nightmares during nightmare phase, because now lurking nightmares exist and they ruin the fun of nightmare combat. If you're borderline normal, you can transform, resulting in you getting stunlocked and taking damage. Okay, now your normal and you're swarmed. So what do you do? You fight back. Except hitting something gives mightiness, which, if you're already at that threshold, means you now become mighty, which stunlocks you again. Then you get hit several times, which keeps you from attacking, and since you've never really had a chance to climb above the threshold, you once again fall back to normal, getting stunlocked again. This repeats until you quit the character and go play Winona instead.

[Dr.Webber]

These should be in suggestions and feedback

Edited August 1, 2025 by Dr.Webber

[ShadowDuelist]

On 7/16/2025 at 7:55 PM, Mayson71 said:

Wolfgang's problems actually go much deeper than a bad skill tree.
Have you ever thought that it doesn't make sense for Wolfgang to have three forms at all? All three forms made at least some sense to old Wolfgang. Most of the time you were in an normal form, in which you had 200 hp, but also the disadvantage of a slightly increased starvation rate. The strong form had x2 damage and slightly increased movement speed, but you needed a lot of food to maintain this form. The wimpy form, although it was a kind of punishment, nevertheless had a starvation rate equal to Wilson, which gave you a little more time to find food. The old system wasn't perfect, after all, the strong form still had more advantages, but it was much better than what we have now.
Now tell me, why does the current Wolfgang need three forms? This is a rhetorical question, because the correct answer is not needed. The current Wolfgang can literally have only two forms, strong and conditionally wimpy, and literally nothing will change. Now, when playing for Wolfgang, you will almost never be in average shape, and even more so in wimpy form. 
The problem is that the game literally doesn't allow you not to be in strong form. After the March 2022 QoL, mightiness stat is increase literally from any of your actions, no matter what tool you use. Even sitting at the base and tills the beds, the mightiness will still be at its maximum. Plus, a strong shape has too many advantages, and literally one disadvantage is the constant freezing resistance, which is a bit of a hindrance in summer. That is all. Otherwise, there is constant double damage, immune to movement speed penalties, increased work efficiency of 0.75x with ALL tools, and a 1% chance to instantly finish the structure. This is so OP. As much as OP that the game doesn't even allow you to not be in this form. You're in it literally 24/7 without any punishment.
So just skill tree rework won't solve the problem. A bad foundation needs to be completely changed, rather than trying to fix it with something from above. Wolfgang needs another rework. 
Either leave only two forms by combining normal and wimpy forms together, or make the three forms really different from each other, and build a skill tree based on unique abilities for each of the three forms. Plus, change the mightiness system. For example, to make it so that working with tools does not increased the mightiness, but slows down, by analogy with the Woody wereforms


 

This is pretty much how I feel about him — he's beyond boring now.

Also, a few things I think were implemented poorly:

• The Wimpy state should have been the fast form, with a speed boost to help run away from danger. In fight-or-flight theory, this would be Wolfgang's flight mode. It should still have a reduced hunger rate (0.75x) and a flat, lowered max HP (EG: 100)

• The Normal form is fine with the "coach" perks, but he should still have a slightly increased hunger rate (around 1.1x) and a flat max HP equal to Wilson's.

• The Mighty form should have the higher max HP (200) and at least a flat 1.5x hunger rate.

Even just these changes would make the different forms more dynamic and worth switching between.

[cybers2001]

On 7/16/2025 at 3:55 PM, Mayson71 said:

For example, to make it so that working with tools does not increased the mightiness, but slows down, by analogy with the Woody wereforms

My thought on this was something similar. Allow you to gain mighty from working tools, but don't allow you to transform into a new state without using a dumbell or gym.

This would solve the transformation loop problem.

[Hungry French]

On 16.07.2025 at 23:52, Jakepeng99 said:

 

Кое-что я бы изменил, но вот некоторые из моих идей.

One thing can fix this. Unlock all skills. Except for shadow and moon ones.

[cybers2001]

5 hours ago, Hungry French said:

One thing can fix this. Unlock all skills. Except for shadow and moon ones.

If I could unlock all the perks that I don't already unlock, it wouldn't change anything for me, as I still wouldn't use them.

[Hungry French]

13 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

Если бы я мог разблокировать все перки, которые ещё не разблокировал, это ничего бы для меня не изменило, потому что я всё равно ими не пользуюсь.

Many skills are bad only because their choice overrides the choice of other better ones.

[cybers2001]

1 hour ago, Hungry French said:

Many skills are bad only because their choice overrides the choice of other better ones.

Nah, many of the skills are bad because they are for the gym, which is simply inferior to dumbbells.  
  
I try to think about what would make the gym more appealing to me, and honestly, the best I could think of was *an even higher damage multiplier.* I would use the gym for a 2.25x multiplier. Though this did get me thinking of other similar ideas. What if the multiplier was determined by the statues you used for it? Or maybe using moon/shadow boss statues gives some bonus planar damage instead? Or the bonus damage only applies to the bosses for the exact statues used? This could also serve to gate the additional buff behind a requirement to beat these bosses first.

Edited July 25, 2025 by cybers2001

[Cheggf]

On 7/16/2025 at 5:55 PM, Mayson71 said:

one disadvantage is the constant freezing resistance, which is a bit of a hindrance in summer

cold resistance does not do anything in summer

[Mayson71]

18 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

cold resistance does not do anything in summer

Sorry, i meant that the mighty form heats up faster

[Hungry French]

19 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

Nah, many of the skills are bad because they are for the gym, which is simply inferior to dumbbells.
  
I try to think about what would make the gym more appealing to me, and honestly, the best I could think of was *an even higher damage multiplier.* I would use the gym for a 2.25x multiplier. Though this did get me thinking of other similar ideas. What if the multiplier was determined by the statues you used for it? Or maybe using moon/shadow boss statues gives some bonus planar damage instead? Or the bonus damage only applies to the bosses for the exact statues used? This could also serve to gate the additional buff behind a requirement to beat these bosses first.

I think the damage should be x1.5.
X2.0 the damage is stupidly too much.  Especially with the current buffs and the lack of real disadvantages

[JJ0264]

if you can redo character skill tree who would it be? and how would you fix it? My one is Wolfgang, I would get rid of push the limit skills and trade them for these ones 

Pow Pill: gives Aoe every 3rd attack for 3 mins (1 popcorn + 1 red gland = 2 pills) lose -10 sanity, +10 hunger and health

Fasting Pill: stops hunger for 3 mins (1 garlic + 1 red gland = 2 pills) lose -10 sanity, +10 hunger and health

Wimpy Pill: lose 30 mightiness (1 tomato + 1 red gland = 2 pills) lose -10 sanity, +10 hunger and health

Recovery: wimpy mode gets a flat +5 hp for every food item

Mighty throw: can throw heavy objects comparable to the strongest dumbbell damage (can break and throw trees and boulders like in the short while mighty)

Also  I like the idea of shadow and lunar dumbbells they should be the last of the affinity 

Edited July 28, 2025 by JJ0264

[HopelessBot]

On 7/26/2025 at 4:32 PM, Hungry French said:

I think the damage should be x1.5.
X2.0 the damage is stupidly too much.  Especially with the current buffs and the lack of real disadvantages

The 2x damage is the only thing Wolfgang has going for him and all of his upsides besides the damage are negligible.

[JJ0264]

I thought of something better then "Pills" how about gummy supplements (each on is based on a circus animals) and they never spoil like healing salves or honey salves. Others can eat them but less benefit then Wolfgang.

(Wimpy) Monkey Gummies Pack: lose 30 mightiness (1 powder cake + 1 banana = 3 yellow gummies) -15 hunger, +10 health, +5 sanity

(Pow) Elephant Gummies Pack: Aoe every 3rd attack for 3 mins (1 powder cake + 1 watermelon = 3 pink gummies) +10 hunger, -5 health, +15 sanity

(Fasting) Bear Gummies Pack: stops hunger and mightiness for 3 mins (1 powder cake + 5 berries = 3 purple gummies) +5 hunger, +15 health, -10 sanity

(Regen) Tiger Gummies Pack: (1 powder cake + 1 durian = 3 green gummies) +10 hunger, +10 health, +10 sanity (all stats have extra passive +2 for 5 secs total of +10)

edit: his downside is having half is skills dedicate to offset planer damage

 

Edited July 29, 2025 by JJ0264