Willow mains I need help about "Burning Bernie"

[Memetan]

Most of the time I end with the same skill tree on Willow, just changing the affinity sometimes, but I never tried to use "Burning Bernie" for real, I heard that is good but not worth all the points you have to invest. Well, now I want to invest on it but still have many doubts.

I know that I should take all Bernie skills except "Accelerant II" but which affinity is better?

What affinity does to Bernie? Some claim that give you defense and damage to the same faction, others the opposite, like Shadow Affinity give Bernie more defense to shadow creatures and more damage against Lunar creatures, others say that is more defense to lunar creatures and more damage against lunar creatures. So which one is true?

Does the skill "Burn duration" make "Burning Bernie" last longer?

Is "Spontaneous Combustion" the best way to activate it?

What are the best uses for "Burning Bernie"?

Any Skill Tree suggestion? 

[WendyHater9000]

No one take Burning Bernie is because you need to sacrifice your fire route alignment skill.

And tbh why do u want that reflect dmg? For crowd control you can just use combustion 

[Baark0]

Bernie's affinities are drastically less impactful than Willows, though there are a handful of benefits for each one.

First off, both Bernie's gain an additional 5 planar damage to their attacks, alongside gaining planar entity protection (PEP). Notably, this is different from planar defense, that's a stat only players and a select few mobs can gain access to. In practice, this makes Bernie drastically more durable vs enemies that do large amounts of damage (such as bosses), and has almost no impact vs weaker enemies (such as bees and spiders). Lastly, both Bernie's also gain an additional 10% damage bonus to enemies of the opposing affinity.

Shadow Bernie takes 10% less damage from nightmare creatures and all other shadow aligned creatures. Generally speaking, nightmare creatures are the most frequent affinity mob you'll come across, making them, in my opinion, the most important thing to consider when the affinity skill otherwise does nothing. Choosing shadows will increase how durable Bernie will be (since most of the time Bernie will only be active when nightmare creatures are capable of spawning. Of course there is also the 10% bonus damage to lunar aligned mobs, but outside of bosses, these tend to be pretty rare, not to mention that Bernie's role is to be a tank, and not a main source of damage.

Lunar Bernie instead deals 60 damage to Shadow aligned creatures. In practice, this doesn't help very much vs Shadow Creatures, Crawling Horrors and Terrorbeaks both take 1 less hit for Bernie to kill them. While not useless or negligible, I don't think it's really worth considering as a deciding factor for which affinity you should go, and should instead be seen as a small bonus to compliment whichever fire affinity you choose.

As for Burning Bernie, as far as I'm aware, no, Burn duration doesn't impact the burn duration. It should always be about 20 seconds. Burning Bernie seems best for newer players who have yet to kill either of Ancient Fuelweaver or Celestial Champion and as such have extra points to spend. It'll help with clearing out hoards of low hp mobs, but will be of little help vs bosses. Also, spells are in fact capable of igniting Bernie. I've never used it before, but generally I'd say use Flame Cast for specifically igniting Bernie, since Combustion will cause enemies to panic and stop attacking Bernie, or if the enemies are immune to fire, Combustion wont have any effect anyways.

As for skill trees, this is my preferred selection.

Both affinities are good, and it'll mostly come down to preference. Shadow has way more damage potential, but the flames are prone to getting distracted and going after irrelevant enemies, such as any of Crab King's minions and Bee Queen's Grumble Bees. Lunar Fire on the other hand can be cancelled by certain attacks (notably AFW's cage), and you can't attack while the animation is going off. In exchange you have far greater AoE and control over your damage, alongside much greater total damage potential, since you can hit as many enemies as you can fit within the flames.

There's an argument to be mad for either Patch Up 2 or Tough Stuffing 2, the former being better for casual exploration where you're not always fighting something and Bernie has time to heal up, and the latter being better for bosses, especially if you bring multiple Bernies.

Burning Frenzy may be tempting, but you'll find that a large amount of bosses (the only enemies really worth using this spell on) are immune to being set on fire, and thus, immune to Burning Frenzy. Brighter Lighter is actually a solid amount of light, but Lanterns exist and generally 1-2 skill points are more valuable than 1 inventory slot. Plus, Lanterns have the ability to be dropped on the ground and continue producing light.

Accelerant is almost entirely useless, there's really no reason to ever consider taking this skill, unless you really can't stand Bernie trailing behind you.

TLDR: Bernie affinity doesn't matter too much, prioritize your fire affinity skill. Burning Bernie is okay, but not worth sacrificing your fire affinity skill.

[Memetan]

5 hours ago, Baark0 said:

Shadow Bernie takes 10% less damage from nightmare creatures and all other shadow aligned creatures.

Then I hate the Wiki and the ingame description.

5 hours ago, Baark0 said:

Burn duration doesn't impact the burn duration.

That's so sad.

5 hours ago, Baark0 said:

I'd say use Flame Cast for specifically igniting Bernie, since Combustion will cause enemies to panic and stop attacking Bernie

Excellent point.

 

Also, thanks for the build, but that's my point I started to get curious about Burning Bernie, all people use the same or similar build. Accelerant is straight filler ability with no impact, Burning frenzy makes almost no difference and is annoying to use on multiplayer, Brighter lighter like... we already have in game better options, and Burning Bernie demand too many points in to Bernie, now choose your affinity, and you have the build all people have. It doesn't feel like a skill tree that allow you to custom your power depending on your needs, more like a straight upgrade cuz the skills that makes a difference are always the same.

[Gashzer]

Circled skills are my picks:

Accelerant 2 is one of big bernies most important skills, if you plan to use burning bernie you want to treat bernie like an abigail by having him out 24/7. Accelerant 2 allows big bernie to outrun crawling horrors and other mobs at ease allowing him to regen health overtime conveniently without the need for a sewing kit.

I actually prefer burning bernie over fire mage willow because you don't need to farm embers, burning bernie does everything combustion does but better because bernie can AOE  kill nightmare creatures too, super useful during nightmare phase in the ruins.

Brighter lighter 2 is very important with ember tender skill as you will be using your lighter/flame cast to ignite bernie, you dont want to juggle a lantern with the lighter when you can save an inventory slot and weapon switch by just upgrading the lighter.

Hot headed is useless skill, don't get it. Raw/cooking mushrooms on the go makes sanity control easy.

Burn duration doesn't effect burning bernie.

The whole appeal of burning bernie is to minimise the need to farm embers so don't get any of the advanced fire mage skills. Only using embers to refuel lighter and the very occasional flame cast to relight bernie during combat.

Shadow bernie takes less damage from nightmare creatures which are the biggest consistant damage dealers to bernie, also shadow bernie looks far cooler than lunar.

This is my fav way to play willow, it's like an upgraded Wendy.

Edited August 13, 2025 by Gashzer

[Semind]

Two things I learned trying a Bernie-centric build for the Hostile Takeover update
I didn't know you can force attack to fight Shadow Creatures that aggro onto Bernie while you're above the insanity threshold. I didn't think Willow could get more laidback as a playing experience, but she had another trick up her sleeve.
Bernie can distract Lavae, allowing the Dragonfly fight to only need panflute (well, I haven't learned to kite angry dlfy yet but obv Willow is best suited for it and even panflute could get skipped) and about 2 Bernies as supplemental tools.
Also Bernie is good backup for those of us who don't track hound waves and get a surprise ambush during boss fights.

Edited August 13, 2025 by Semind