Willow Flame Cast Skill Can Instantly Kill Players (PVE)

[_o7]

Willow’s Flame Cast ability can be abused in public PvE servers to instantly kill players by dropping large piles of flammable items (twigs, grass, logs, etc.) near them and igniting everything at once, with a single cast. Unlike normal fire, this ability bypasses standard fire spreading behavior and ignites everything at once, causing stacked fire damage in a single second — often enough to kill before you can react.

This is being used by griefers who drop item piles as bait — Usually flammable items mixed with tempting loot to lure players in, then trigger Ignite. Since the fire comes from burning items, not directly from Willow, the game doesn’t treat it as PvP, and the damage isn’t attributed to the griefer. They can even extinguish the fire afterward and repeat the trap.

I understand that griefing is always difficult to manage without solid evidence or active votes to kick, especially on public servers. But this specific use of Flame Cast is particularly hard to detect or prove — especially for newer players who are still learning basic mechanics and are more vulnerable to this kind of abuse. It also undermines the expected pacing of fire in DST, since it causes instant stacked damage, which isn’t how fire usually behaves in the game.

Suggestion:

• Limit how many items Ignite can affect at once.

• Make fire damage traceable to the casting player.

Just flagging this as it's becoming more common on public servers, and it's giving Willow an even worse reputation than she already has.

[_o7]

I meant "Flame Cast" instead of "Ignite" (can't edit since im a new member).

[Well-met]

If you think skill trees were designed for pvp in mind I have bad news for you

[reddocc]

This is just pure malice by other players just ban the player if you're playing on a private one, if you depend on publics try joining a community.

On another note you can kill players in PVE as wormwood using bramble armor, a boat and a training dummy, this has been in the game since the introduction of  the training dummy.

As wormwood you can repeatly use moonshrooms to change df home position until eventually you bring her to the base, for more destruction bring a dragonfly with reduced hp just before spawning lavae.

As Wanda you can also kill other players by setting up a teleport near a lava pond next to df with walls(same applies to Wortox).

As Webber you can have lots of spiters go next to a player and leave to kill them.

As Wurt you can have merm guards and dispose of them by killing a fish to kill any player next to you.

As any character you can bring multiple beefalo bells in spring to kill a playerm

As any player you can lag a server by gathering moles on a single spot and give them lots of items.

 

As Woodie.... the list goes on you have no idea the ways to grief a server or another player's experience that exist.

[_o7]

39 minutes ago, reddocc said:

This is just pure malice by other players just ban the player if you're playing on a private one, if you depend on publics try joining a community.

On another note you can kill players in PVE as wormwood using bramble armor, a boat and a training dummy, this has been in the game since the introduction of  the training dummy.

As wormwood you can repeatly use moonshrooms to change df home position until eventually you bring her to the base, for more destruction bring a dragonfly with reduced hp just before spawning lavae.

As Wanda you can also kill other players by setting up a teleport near a lava pond next to df with walls(same applies to Wortox).

As Webber you can have lots of spiters go next to a player and leave to kill them.

As Wurt you can have merm guards and dispose of them by killing a fish to kill any player next to you.

As any character you can bring multiple beefalo bells in spring to kill a playerm

As any player you can lag a server by gathering moles on a single spot and give them lots of items.

 

As Woodie.... the list goes on you have no idea the ways to grief a server or another player's experience that exist.

Yeah, true. I know I’m probably late to the discussion since Willow’s skill tree has been out for a while, but I wanted to bring this up because it really does feel like an exploit, mainly because of how the damage stacks. It’s super easy to abuse. All it takes is dropping a bunch of flammable items you can gather on day one, plus some bait like gold, berries, or a hambat (and one ember to use the skill). With a convincing story (or curiosity), it’s not hard to get someone to walk over and interact with the pile. The burst damage is so high that it can instantly kill a player before they even have time to react, unless they already know the trick.

Compared to other griefing methods that usually take time, planning, or are easier to spot (excluding the lag griefing you mentioned), this one is low-effort and harder to detect (compared to obvious griefing like base-burning, destroying stuff etc.). This is especially true for newer players, although anything would work on them.

Private servers and communities are definitely the safer way to play, but casual players or people new to the game are the ones most likely to run into this and end up having a bad experience, or in the worst case dropping the game.

I just think Flame Cast could use a few small balance tweaks (Limiting how many items it can ignite per cast for instance). Even if it’s just another griefing method, it’s still worth pointing out, especially since it’s so easy to abuse as i mentioned.

It doesn’t hurt to try and help a small part of the community by bringing these things up, even if it’s just a small step toward fixing a bigger issue that might never be fully solved.

 

4 hours ago, Well-met said:

If you think skill trees were designed for pvp in mind I have bad news for you

I don’t know exactly what you meant by that, but I guess it’s about this:

"Since the fire comes from burning items, not directly from Willow, the game doesn’t treat it as PvP, and the damage isn’t attributed to the griefer."

What I meant to say is that the damage still applies even if you’re playing on a PvE server, since it comes from burning items. Even though Willow used her skill to light everything on fire, the damage doesn’t come directly from the griefer, so they can’t be tracked, but the damage still happens.

[Edible Coal]

whats the goal of this post ? nerf flame case because of this?

 

[_o7]

On 8/1/2025 at 11:24 PM, Edible Coal said:

whats the goal of this post ? nerf flame case because of this?

 

Honestly, that skill isn’t really used for much beyond igniting enemies, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense that it can light an unlimited number of items in one cast and deal massive damage to everything nearby, including allies. It feels like an oversight. Either the effect should be limited, or items she ignites shouldn’t hurt teammates.

To be fair, I only triggered it to raise awareness — it’s a sneaky mechanic that most people don’t even know exists, and I genuinely felt bad for a couple of players getting blindsided by it in public matches.

Is it a high-priority fix? Maybe not. But it’s an easy one, and it definitely doesn’t do the character’s reputation any favors.

 

[Edible Coal]

1 hour ago, _o7 said:

Honestly, that skill isn’t really used for much beyond igniting enemies, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense that it can light an unlimited number of items in one cast and deal massive damage to everything nearby, including allies. It feels like an oversight. Either the effect should be limited, or items she ignites shouldn’t hurt teammates.

To be fair, I only triggered it to raise awareness — it’s a sneaky mechanic that most people don’t even know exists, and I genuinely felt bad for a couple of players getting blindsided by it in public matches.

Is it a high-priority fix? Maybe not. But it’s an easy one, and it definitely doesn’t do the character’s reputation any favors.

 

is a one ember cast that acts like a fire staff, it lights pits and enemy on range, pretty usefull for the cost.

no one is absentminded enough to walk into 40 pile of grass 

[_o7]

1 hour ago, Edible Coal said:

is a one ember cast that acts like a fire staff, it lights pits and enemy on range, pretty usefull for the cost.

no one is absentminded enough to walk into 40 pile of grass 

The core issue is that in a PvE mode, players don’t expect a teammate to be able to kill them so easily, especially through a quirky interaction where she can ignite a bunch of things instantly with a single click like a nuke. It’s not like normal fire behavior, where you at least have time to react and run.

As for the second point, it’s not as simple as saying “just don’t pick up 40 grass.” These players often mix traps into legitimate loot, maybe 5 grass, 10 twigs, 5 logs, hambat, lantern, whatever. In a PvE setting, no one expects this kind of bait. And that’s not even touching on how they could manipulate you: claiming the loot is a gift, pretending they’re quitting and leaving their stuff for you, or using any other excuse to draw you in. That might already catch an average player off guard, now imagine a complete beginner, still learning the game. There's no real counterplay here unless you already know what’s going on.

I’m not asking for a nerf, just for them to fix an interaction that normal players don’t even care about, but griefers may abuse.

[Beetrice]

Just kick/ban the player and rollback. There is no difference in the intent than setting someone's base on fire. Or would you also say we should make players unable to burn structures?

[_o7]

On 8/15/2025 at 4:13 PM, Beetrice said:

Just kick/ban the player and rollback. There is no difference in the intent than setting someone's base on fire. Or would you also say we should make players unable to burn structures?

Kicking, banning, or rolling back are usually effective solutions, but not in this case, usually. The problem is that the typical griefer targets a single, innocent player, and the damage isn’t easily traced back to them -- unlike base burning, which is obvious and collective. This method is subtle, targeted, quick, and often aimed at beginners who don’t yet understand what’s happening. Even if a player sees the griefer doing it, would a new player recognize the context and call it out in chat, specially when that interaction happened in a co-op server? That’s the real question.

The main issue isn’t public servers, griefers in general, or even “Willow is too strong, please nerf.” The real problem is the mechanic itself: being able to ignite an unlimited number of dropped items instantly with damage still applying to allies -> because the skill isn’t treated as friendly fire (specifically the items that got affected by the skill). A solution could be to limit (aka reduce) the skill’s interaction with dropped items, or the simpler and more effective fix: make items lit by it count as friendly fire, and only work in PvP servers (Which would be a cool strategy).

It’s fascinating how quickly discussions get misinterpreted whenever a specific character is mentioned, instead of focusing on the mechanic being abused. To be clear, I’m not suggesting removing Willow’s ability to ignite items or structures entirely — just addressing this one exploit. Like I said, I didn’t expect much attention since griefing is such a widespread issue, and this method is often seen as just another one, whether weaker or worse than the rest. Still, speaking up is better than being a bystander.

Genuinely, I don’t see why anyone would be against fixing this particular interaction in a way that wouldn’t affect average Willow players (myself included). In a co-op game, genuine concerns about unintended mechanics that can create distrust or give griefers more tools shouldn’t be dismissed i suppose. Otherwise, it’s the new players who end up paying the price in pubs, and we’ve all been there before.

[Beetrice]

This is a really niche scenario you're arguing over to begin with. I have hundreds of hours in this game, mostly from playing in public lobbies, and I've never even seen this done before. Yeah, you can get griefed once or twice by it. It's more effort for the developers to patch this extremely obscure thing than for people to just not fall for it more than once.
Griefing is really not a widespread issue, because it's just very boring to do. If you want to grief, it's easier and much more satisfying to go grief in other games, like blowing up someone's base in Minecraft. Even idiot griefers figure as much.