A case for support perks

[aidancode]

I know there's a very common sentiment that characters like Wickerbottom and Warly have a major problem in the fact that their perks are more team-based, making them easy candidates for character swapping. I'd argue this is working as intended, since these characters also happen to be quite fun in a team setting as a support role, especially for intermediate players. Warly especially is a very unique challenge character whose team-wide benefits give him a different vibe to every other character. While I totally understand wanting to limit perks to just their character, I fully believe that the game is more fun in multiplayer when that consideration is not made.

I hope that Warly and Wickerbottom get skill trees that improve their team-buffing capabilities, rather than restrict them. Additionally, I think it'd be very cool if non-Wigfrid players could hold and use battle ronds and elding spears, with the obvious tradeoff being needing to use effectively the un-buffed version of the tools.

I play this game almost exclusively in multiplayer and the most fun part for me is how every team member relies on each other heavily. I feel like restricting perks to be just for one character hurts that feeling. I'm not really very worried that these support perks will be reduced, but I do feel like people complain about them just a little too much. It's okay if a character is a swap character, in my opinion. It doesn't hurt the fun of active gameplay, it just makes megabasing a little more character specific.

[Bumber64]

Winona was a swap character, and her skill tree greatly improved her. She still helps others, but she needs to be present to make the most of it.

Having a character that does setup and then disappears indefinitely is not a healthy support dynamic. That does not make a "team".

[Cruvimaster]

I consider Warly just another machine within the game for me to use and apply benefits to my main character. He could be removed and replaced with a crafting tab in the game and it would have the same effect as it does now. I'm simply treating him the same way the devs treated him, nothing more and nothing less.

Volt Goat Chaud-Froid was intended to be a great addition to Warly, but for that to work, the devs had to limit the buff to a maximum of 50% for the other characters. The devs clearly regretted having to limit the damage for Warbot and Scion from this recipe.

I know his skill tree is one of the most anticipated by the community. But are people waiting to use Warly or to get new powers for Wolfgang/Wigfrid/Wanda, etc.?

[aidancode]

On 11/29/2025 at 2:21 PM, Cruvimaster said:

but for that to work, the devs had to limit the buff to a maximum of 50% for the other characters. The devs clearly regretted having to limit the damage for Warbot and Scion from this recipe

So this is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. Imo, this would absolutely be a majorly net negative feature, for the reasons I listed.

[Cuernito.]

I think you are a little confused friend, wickerbottom and warly dont have a problem cause they are supportive characters, they have a problem cause their kit can be used better for other characters. Allow me to explain better.

In this game there is a good amount of characters with strong support skills, like wortox, wormwood and walter, these 3 characters are a good example of well implemented support characters, they have really good perks for a team but they are still very usefull by themselves, their kits are better when they are present. And on the other hand we have warly and wickerbottom, they are support characters too but their power can be used even better for other characters, making them pointless to have in a team after they are done making books and dishes. Being a swap character is not the same as being a good support.

In the past i used to believe that who cares about all this swap thing and i mained Winona even before her first rework but now i have changed my mind, i think klei right now is creative enough to make any character good for a team without making them pointless to have later.

And dont worry Klei knows really well all their characters, they know wicker and warly are heavy supportive characters(especially warly) and im pretty sure they are gonna make some good skills for teamplay and at the same time they are gonna fix the problem of Warly. To be honest i dont think the problem of warly being a swamp character is hard to fix, they can just give warly more buffs for himself when eating his specials and even making him use some unique tools to get more loot from mobs, i dont know im just remembering the suggestions i made in a post time ago.

I dont know if you think all characters should be using all the power of the others but i think that would lead to bad teamplay. You want the shield of wigfrid to be used by any character and i dont agree with that, she share a lot of her kit with the others, she can share her armor, spears and even some of her power using the songs but the shield in my opinion is something she should never share, she is supposed to be the tank of the team(she even have a song to get the aggro of normal mobs) and no one should never be a better tank than her, imagine if wolfgang or the robot with health buffed used the shield, that would lead to another this character special item is better when used by others, and to be honest the normal spears are actually better when used by wolfy so yeah it would be a mess. Making the shield only wigfrid item was a good move from Klei, you have to trust the devs they are really good at what they do.

On 11/29/2025 at 4:21 PM, Cruvimaster said:

I consider Warly just another machine within the game for me to use and apply benefits to my main character. He could be removed and replaced with a crafting tab in the game and it would have the same effect as it does now. I'm simply treating him the same way the devs treated him, nothing more and nothing less.

Volt Goat Chaud-Froid was intended to be a great addition to Warly, but for that to work, the devs had to limit the buff to a maximum of 50% for the other characters. The devs clearly regretted having to limit the damage for Warbot and Scion from this recipe.

I know his skill tree is one of the most anticipated by the community. But are people waiting to use Warly or to get new powers for Wolfgang/Wigfrid/Wanda, etc.?

Im pretty sure people are waiting warly skill tree cause he is a chef character, in the game called Don't starve i think a chef is a really interesting pick, and normal people dont really care much about the melee trio, they can be buffed to insane levels and people would still dont care much in my opinion.

Anyway i just hope klei dont nerf the effects of the special dishes of warly on others, they can just buff the effects on warly and that would be better, making the buffs last longer on warly or having better buffs on him, or having extra buffs for warly, i just don't want warly power the be worse for a team. Remember they nerfed winona catapults for all characters and even Winona got affected by that nerf, sure she got over buffed in compesation in her skill tree but normal Nona without skills is actually worse than before.

Edited December 1, 2025 by NekoSoulx

[Dr. Safety]

I love support characters in games. But I also like to play characters that have a reason to play them, rather than just being a crafting tab with extra steps. I really hope that they have perks that increase their supportiveness in a multiplayer setting. I just hope that they implement a way to negate the effect if the Warly/Wickerbottom are not being played.

Give Warly more dishes and spices that go great with Wolfgang Wigfrid Wanda etc, but remove the effects if bundled (give it a prefix "Freezer-burned" or something). Then give him a way of preserving his special chef recipes and spiced dishes that only he is able to use, and perfecto.

I really don't want support characters to lose their supportive identity just because character swapping exists as it does. It will seem like a nerf to prevent mass producing dishes and then just swapping off, but you can't summon Abigail and keep her if you swap off Wendy, Warly's kit should be no different, even if it is meant to buff himself and others.

For Wicker, at this point just remove Maxwell's ability to read her books. It was a charming interaction when Maxwell wasn't as powerful as he is now

[Popian]

10 hours ago, NekoSoulx said:

the shield in my opinion is something she should never share, she is supposed to be the tank of the team(she even have a song to get the aggro of normal mobs) and no one should never be a better tank than her

Wigfrid has skills that help her use the shield more effectively. And because it has has limited applications and low durability and is relatively difficult to mass produce (early on), it would be better to have her around to craft it rather than transport a few bundles per trip for a one time use.

This ease of access also applies to Warly. Chaud-Froid and Sweet spice are practically free, Cordon Bleu and Garlic spice are less free but it can be harder to justify using them when they are in limited supply.

Wickerbottom doesn't have that with her repairable books and spacious bookcases. The jeweled crown removes any benefit from having reduced sanity cost for reading books, leaving her with more hp, different favorite food, and insomnia compared to Maxwell.

[Bumber64]

6 hours ago, Popian said:

This ease of access also applies to Warly. Chaud-Froid and Sweet spice are practically free, Cordon Bleu and Garlic spice are less free but it can be harder to justify using them when they are in limited supply.

Since when is Chaud-Froid "practically free"? That's the 25% volt goat drop. He's not even as good at farming resources as some other characters.

6 hours ago, Popian said:

Wickerbottom doesn't have that with her repairable books and spacious bookcases. The jeweled crown removes any benefit from having reduced sanity cost for reading books, leaving her with more hp, different favorite food, and insomnia compared to Maxwell.

That and no shadow prison or magician's top hat, because she certainly doesn't get to touch Maxwell's stuff.

[Cruvimaster]

41 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Since when is Chaud-Froid "practically free"? That's the 25% volt goat drop. He's not even as good at farming resources as some other characters.

It's very easy to farm this mob, and you can even increase their numbers in the world settings. Although my world is several days old, this farm was created right at the beginning of my world.

[Bumber64]

9 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

It's very easy to farm this mob, and you can even increase their numbers in the world settings. Although my world is several days old, this farm was created right at the beginning of my world.

They respawn at an average of 1.5 days per herd. That's ~6 days per horn per herd. (Not sure you get enough anenemies for multiple herds, and going out of your way to build all this isn't that cheap.)

I have a hard time believing this is faster than garlic (2.7% chance is ~110 seeds for 95% confidence?) with Wickerbottom, or fish+frog legs with anyone. You'll be wanting chili flakes anyway, which is the same chance as garlic. All of these are more abundant.

Wortox souls are almost free. Wendy spider farm is almost free. Wolfgang mightiness is free.

Edited December 2, 2025 by Bumber64

[Cruvimaster]

I counted the goats when creating the world with the maximum possible (insane). The player can kill 30 goats every 1.5 days. Do you really believe Volt Goat Horns are that rare? Warly's other special foods are harder to create than this one, and this is precisely the one that has the biggest impact on the game, especially when consumed by a character with a damage multiplier.

But I'm not saying it's "free." I'm just pointing out that it's not something difficult to produce in the game.

Since I believe someone will question leaving the default goat option for world creation, I'll remind you that it's possible to have an "infinite" number of goats in a standard world. That's exactly what I did to increase their quantity.

 

[Popian]

2 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

They respawn at an average of 1.5 days per herd. That's ~6 days per horn per herd. (Not sure you get enough anenemies for multiple herds, and going out of your way to build all this isn't that cheap.)

Once built it is passive like those other perks. 1 herd is more than enough for 1 person, especially since you are not going to be using it all the time, which gives it the opportunity to reach surplus so you can use it all the time anyway.

More herds are for if you want it faster, but you will eventually have enough that you can use the horns as filler.

[Bumber64]

3 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

"when raining in Spring". Wickerbottom (i.e., not Warly) can make it rain, but nobody can change the season. IDK if you can control where the hunt ends. There's also a qualifier on it being a non-dangerous hunt, which makes "always" misleading.

Need I remind that the person I was responding to said that Chaud-Froid was easier to obtain than Fish Cordon Bleu and Garlic Powder? You really think you'd be doing less work hunting extra volt goats than obtaining frog legs? Ponds and seeds are everywhere, no need to go looking for an archipelago and an oasis. (And then the frog rain hits.)

Really, I think there'd be an improvement if charged goats guaranteed a horn drop, or Warly got a butcher perk that guaranteed it for goats he kills himself (though neither saves Warly from being a swap character). Compare Wigfrid's self-repairing Elding Spear.

Edited December 3, 2025 by Bumber64

[aidancode]

On 12/1/2025 at 10:54 AM, NekoSoulx said:

I think you are a little confused friend, wickerbottom and warly dont have a problem cause they are supportive characters, they have a problem cause their kit can be used better for other characters.

So, a big thing that I like in this game is character synergies. Which is pretty much "character benefits super highly from a certain perk another character has". So no, I'm not "a little confused", I'm just talking about something your rant misses. The passive aggressive tone is not very nice.

[Cruvimaster]

6 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

"when raining in Spring". Wickerbottom (i.e., not Warly) can make it rain, but nobody can change the season.

It has always been possible to control the rain in the game. Either you forgot or you are unaware of this technique since the game's implementation.

Regardless, I understand that being strategic with the peculiarities of the character you're playing is a matter of intelligence. Someone playing Wanda knows they'll need more Walrus Camps than another character. Someone playing Wortox knows they'll need more bees than others. Someone playing Warly knows they'll need more goats. If the devs provided the means for a person to have 36 goats and the person only wants 6, it's a personal choice and not a deficiency of a specific resource (Volt Goat Horn).

[Edible Coal]

the easiest bandage fix for warly would just be making him share buff to everyone near him if hes the one eating it

[Nikki Darks]

Best way to solve Warly and Wickerbottom's main issue is to just make their items/dishes be more beneficial/powerful when used by them.

Warly: Gets better buffs from his spices.
Wickerbottom: More powerful versions of the base effects.

That's it. This way there's an incentive to have the character use their items and if you don't care much about the more powerful versions you can just play Maxwell or whoever for the spices.

TL;DR: What they did with Winini.

[Bumber64]

10 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

It has always been possible to control the rain in the game. Either you forgot or you are unaware of this technique since the game's implementation.

Surely you aren't talking about wasting purple gems to hunt extra volt goats.

I think you can use the staff directly on a goat. (Edit: Unless you can't split herds that way. Looks like they're only kicked out if they lack the "lightninggoat" tag?)

Edited December 3, 2025 by Bumber64

[hoxi]

18 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

There's also a qualifier on it being a non-dangerous hunt, which makes "always" misleading.

The wiki is wrong as usual.

 

It goes as follows:

• If there are event shrines active (Clay Varg and Gilded Depths Worm), override any result of the hunt with those creatures. If both shrines are active, roll a 50/50 to decide which one.
• Otherwise if it's raining during spring, and the spawn point is inside the oasis desert, spawn a Volt Goat and a lightning strike at its location.
  • Any of the prior suspicious dirt piles don't matter, even the last one, what matters is where the spawn point for the creature is located.
• Otherwise check if a Varg should be force-spawned due to a lunar rift being active and not having defeated the Mutated Varg (resets once all mutated bosses are defeated).
  • This is also checked prior and causes the "dangerous" tracks to spawn from the very first one, before even starting the hunt.
• Otherwise finally, do the usual: if the track is dangerous, spawn one of the two dangerous enemies, otherwise spawn a Koalefant depending on season.

local ALTERNATE_BEASTS = {"warg", "spat"}
local function GetHuntedBeast(hunt, spawn_pt)
    local wargs_active = self:IsWargShrineActive()
    local worms_active = self:IsSnakeShrineActive()
    if wargs_active and worms_active then
        return (math.random() > 0.5 and "claywarg") or "yots_worm_lantern_spawner"
    elseif wargs_active then
        return "claywarg"
    elseif worms_active then
        return "yots_worm_lantern_spawner"
    end

    -- NOTES(JBK): Very high priority for goats with all of the random elements in play.
    if TheWorld.state.isspring and TheWorld.state.israining and TheWorld.Map:FindVisualNodeAtPoint(spawn_pt.x, spawn_pt.y, spawn_pt.z, "sandstorm") then
        return "lightninggoat"
    end

    if hunt.monster_track_num then
        return (ShouldDoHuntedWargTrack() and "warg")
            or GetRandomItem(ALTERNATE_BEASTS)
    else
        return (TheWorld.state.iswinter and "koalefant_winter")
            or "koalefant_summer"
    end
end

 

The character dialogue is determined prior to selecting the prefab to spawn, so it can be a bit misleading.

[AliceShiki]

3 hours ago, hoxi said:

The wiki is wrong as usual.

The Wiki is right 99% of the time, you know that, right?

You could just fix this tiny mistake on the wiki instead of being snarky about it though. From your post, the only thing wrong in the wiki about this is that it's not talking about shrines and that the part about the "non-dangerous hunt" is actually irrelevant because the Volt Goat overrides the dangerous factor... As in, super tiny mistakes that are very easy to miss if you don't actually look at the game code... And it's the kind of stuff that people who look at the game code should actually fix, since it's a trivial fix.

[hoxi]

23 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

The Wiki is right 99% of the time, you know that, right?

Okay well, I can see how that can come across like that but it's more that you should take any info from wikis with a grain of salt, sometimes the information is verified with the game's code, but can't be always sure unless cited.

 

23 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

As in, super tiny mistakes that are very easy to miss if you don't actually look at the game code... And it's the kind of stuff that people who look at the game code should actually fix, since it's a trivial fix.

I dedicate time for bug reporting and working on mods as is, I just don't mind pointing things out around here. Adding "updating wiki information" to that is gonna be a bit much for me, sorry.

[Kaioh]

On 12/2/2025 at 5:01 AM, Dr. Safety said:

For Wicker, at this point just remove Maxwell's ability to read her books. It was a charming interaction when Maxwell wasn't as powerful as he is now

I think it was charming until Wickerbottom got her bookcase which regenerates her books automatically even when she's not around. Before that addition, you could argue that at least Wickerbottom needs to be present to supply Maxwell with books as they would eventually run out. But now with the bookcase, once it is built, as long as Maxwell is careful, he can use Wickerbottom's books indefinitely without her presence to be needed ever again.

I used to main Wickerbottom a lot, but this interaction with Maxwell annoyed me, being told to give Maxwell my books because he can wield them better that is. If I play Wickerbottom, it is because I want to be that book mage who gets to use books to cast spells, not give up my powers to Maxwell, at that point I'd rather just play Maxwell instead

[Nikki Darks]

10 minutes ago, Kaioh said:

I think it was charming until Wickerbottom got her bookcase which regenerates her books automatically even when she's not around. Before that addition, you could argue that at least Wickerbottom needs to be present to supply Maxwell with books as they would eventually run out. But now with the bookcase, once it is built, as long as Maxwell is careful, he can use Wickerbottom's books indefinitely without her presence to be needed ever again.

I used to main Wickerbottom a lot, but this interaction with Maxwell annoyed me, being told to give Maxwell my books because he can wield them better that is. If I play Wickerbottom, it is because I want to be that book mage who gets to use books to cast spells, not give up my powers to Maxwell, at that point I'd rather just play Maxwell instead

"If I play Wickerbottom, it is because I want to be that book mage who gets to use books to cast spells, not give up my powers to Maxwell, at that point I'd rather just play Maxwell instead" Oh my God this.

No worse feeling in DST than picking Wickerbottom on a server and getting asked by Maxwell to let him use your books... At that point pick Wicker first and swap to Maxwell?

But the sad truth is that Klei will most likely never get rid of this interaction because Maxwell mains on the forums really dislike the idea of not being able to use another character's core perks.

[Dr. Safety]

1 hour ago, Kaioh said:

I think it was charming until Wickerbottom got her bookcase which regenerates her books automatically even when she's not around. Before that addition, you could argue that at least Wickerbottom needs to be present to supply Maxwell with books as they would eventually run out. But now with the bookcase, once it is built, as long as Maxwell is careful, he can use Wickerbottom's books indefinitely without her presence to be needed ever again.

I used to main Wickerbottom a lot, but this interaction with Maxwell annoyed me, being told to give Maxwell my books because he can wield them better that is. If I play Wickerbottom, it is because I want to be that book mage who gets to use books to cast spells, not give up my powers to Maxwell, at that point I'd rather just play Maxwell instead

I'm expecting her skill tree to make additional effects/targeting with her books, so she'd technically be better than Maxwell, but at this point I'd prefer if they nerf the effects of them when Maxwell reads them if not just removing the interaction completely.

And also, make Wickerbottom able to use codex spells if shadow aligned (with increased sanity cost). That would make the two of them interchangeable which is less egregious than just having Maxwell always better to play as than Wickerbottom

Edited December 7, 2025 by Dr. Safety

[Kaioh]

7 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

I'm expecting her skill tree to make additional effects/targeting with her books, so she'd technically be better than Maxwell, but at this point I'd prefer if they nerf the effects of them when Maxwell reads them if not just removing the interaction completely.

And also, make Wickerbottom able to use codex spells if shadow aligned (with increased sanity cost). That would make the two of them interchangeable which is less egregious than just having Maxwell always better to play as than Wickerbottom

I would be fine with this, but lore-wise Wickerbottom seems to hate the Codex Umbra, so not sure how Klei would justify the change. Also it makes me wonder if Wickerbottom would be locked to shadow affinity or if she'd have a lunar one as well