How can a Webber tree keep him distinct from Wurt?

[aidancode]

I'm worried with Webber's tree that klei will make spiders generally able to do things that merms do and both will lose some of their identities. The problem as it stands is Wurt is so much more powerful than Webber, and her minions kinda do it all. Anyone have any ideas for how to give buffs to Webber without making him Wurt?

My immediate thoughts are giving him a skill that lets him craft switcherdoodles cheaper and giving him some way to target spiders. My first thought is a bomb-type item that would work like the antlion bait in half life 2, and could be "scented" for each spider type.

[Mike23Ua]

That’s easy.. make his spiders capable of doing things that Wurts Merms do not do. And because I’ve always loved this game and it’s cast of characters, I’ll give a few suggestions for spider “types” that should by all means, be capable of doing “things” that are different from Wurts Merms.

#1- Sea Strider Spider- These Guys literally LIVE in tall trees with Jelly Jam? In them, that’s literally where you go to find them if you’re not using switcher cookies, but what should a water gliding spider do? Well for starters.. make them like tamed Gnarwails (they follow in the water and use their heads to spear useful ocean stuffs up onto your boat) it makes perfectly logical sense that water gliding spiders should be able to fetch stuff floating on the ocean and bring it back to Webber (yes this means instead of the spiders being piled on the same tiny boat platform with Webber, they’ll instead glide about on the water like they do when you first fight them as anyone NOT named Webber.) they will ALSO be able to repair boat leaks with Jelly Jam, because: That just makes sense that they live near it, they can smell and find it, and well you get the idea (aka increased odds of randomly finding jam at sea and AI Smart enough to search chests stored on the boat for jam and to use it to auto repair leaks.

see? With just ONE of Webbers spiders I’ve already made him different from Wurt.

Armored Cave Spider: Okay these guys always annoyed me when trying to fight them because well, they’re Armored Duh! But you know what would be really cool? If they circled around Webber and protected him from damage (4-6 cap for obvious reasons) I just picture it like those old movies where several soldiers with shields group up in a circle and hold their shields out to protect someone in the center (aka a wounded Wonder Woman & her Amazon Warriors)

Finally we come to the Ceiling Spider, (the White Ones that come down from cave cieling) I would absolutely love it if these guys could slink down from the skies and snare prey (think of them as rabbit/bird traps) it just means Klei would have to add some extra animations where like slinking down out of caves, they could maybe come down from visible spider webs at the top of your screen that disappear when they touch ground.. idk I just felt like these guys should be stealth takedown types, because the first few times I ever encountered them as anyone NOT named Webber: That’s exactly what they tried to do to me.

And there you have it: Three ways to make Webber nothing at all like Wurt.  

[Bumber64]

Webber has always had greater control over minions. There needs to be abilities where spiders are tossed like Pikmin, commanded into shield formation, etc.

[Dr.Webber]

I’m planning on changing the affinity skills and also replace certain  skills (they actually make him a little bit more like Wurt but it’s only to make whether the leader of the spider fraction the same way the Lord of the fruit flies, wrathful/benevolent rabbit, king, merm king, pig King, crab king,and bee queen are leaders of their respective fractions)

But here’s my Webber skill tree let me know any notes

Spoiler

skill tree:

 

 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)

• Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3+ decorating the den will no longer retract the ground webbing, when not befriended bedazzled spiders will stay within the range of the decorated den

 

 

 

• Oral obliging : cause spiders to “hammer” by hitting the structure you want to be hammered once in case of a miss click use webby whistle to cancel demolition, they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck, can rummage through hound mounds(blue and red gems)/burrows (stolen items as well as rock, Flint, nighter, and gold)/hollow stump (stolen items)/splumonkey pod (stolen items)/marotter den(stolen items)/tidy hidy holes(for collected dust) items gained by rummaging will temporarily be wet due to saliva you can trigger the spiders too start rummaging by blowing the whistle near the thing you want them to rummage through rummaging will be a timed interaction similar to picking a berry bush or going through a scrap pile 
     

 

 

• Silk fashioner: razors can be used to mark sticky webbing for retraction,if you  place sticky webbing connected to the den and the den still has sticky webbing to use the den will “place” that instead of using your own sticky webbing, you can craft sticky webbing with 2 silk(sticky webbing outside of that I “placed” by the den would trigger spiders to come out)(only crafted sticky webbing drops when using the razor)

 

• Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk

 

 

 

 

• Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

 

• Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night 60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.

 

 

 

• Deeper den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 sanity and 3 health for 1.5 hunger

 

• No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat horrible meats that pigs and spiders eat as well as unique stats for monster the various forms of monster meat

 

Bunny puff and slurper pelt: hunger:12.5

 

Pig skin: hunger: 62.5

 

Cooked monster meat: hunger: 25 health:3

 

monster lasagna: hunger: 37.5 health: 10 sanity:10(this also extends to monster tartare hunger: 62.5 health: 10 sanity:10)

 

 monster jerky: hunger: 37.5 health: 15 sanity:20

 

 

• Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

 

• Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 6 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage(18 if you feed them electric milk),have 7 hp, upon death one will respawn every 90 seconds 

(You need this to craft the 3 care crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)

1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

 

Concept examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(the spiders go down to the size of a baby spider and his smiling like a befriended one)

 

 

 

 

(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required, use the itsy-bitsy den as a portable crafting station)

 

Friendship bracelets: 2 bone shard, six beard hair, and one butterfly used in conjunction with the homemade to revive spiders you bind a spider to a friendship bracelet similar to a beefalo to a Beefalo Bell except you don’t give it a name the next time it dies it drops the friendship bracelet pain on how you wanna go with us at a lower durability, maybe have to be repairable with bone  and if you wanna automate a bit what if it works like  cursed trinkets except instead of being drawn to players it’s drawn to the nearest homemade den and if there’s an open slot, it takes it it can also be used by non-Webber players to make spiders neutral to them by keeping it in one of their inventory slots

 

 

(yellow highlighting isn’t part of the actual concept. It’s just meant to emphasize each leg sense it kind of felt like they blended in.)

 

Totem of friendship: (@Creatingabe1125’s idea) It would work if you have 2 or more spider, and what it would do is reduce damage against a hit based on how many spiders were hit and how many spiders there are. With more spiders meaning more pontential damage reduction against a hit and the more spiders hit the more that damage reduction is granted. However it only works when 2 or more spiders are hit 5-65% damage reduction, there would also be a damage buff The dmg buff would be simple with 0.5 extra dmg per spider upto a maximum of 10 extra dmg. The friendship totem would cost 1 living log, 8 silk, and 1 red gem, and would lose 2% durability per dead spider

 

homemade den: every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only, it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn it (and how it will respawn a spider after the 90 seconds is the lightning conductor purple gem combination will cause lightning to strike around it the respawned to spider crawl out of the ground like rabbit king as a reference to how you unlock Webber in solo Don’t Starve)

it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it, you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it

And it can be broken using a hammer

(craft the homemade den with a purple gem, a lightning conductor, and 2 sticks )

 

 

 

Travel den: it’s a large backpack like item with 4 or 6 general slots, and a hidden 20 slot storage for spiders that can be opened like a polar bin. It also has the down side of slowing you down 10% Along side the general backpack slots there are 2 specialized slots with one containing healing glop for incredibly faster healing regeneration and the other slot is for storing spider food so they Don’t Starve. You can also use your webby whistle to call them out for battle or to call them back in in emergencies or to quickly heal or to just travel with them. It would cost 12 silk, 4 papyrus, 

 

(Original idea and Art by @blacknight7890, I edited in the flag)

 

 

 

 

 

• Silkcrafts:

Web net: eight silk, a certain number of scrap ,and one electric milk it’s like a less powerful shadow prison that does damage over the time depending on how big the creature is caught in it they will stay trapped for 5 to 10 minutes with a 30 second cooldown electric unnatural energy damages them overtime

 

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

 

finial looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat(same as Premier Gardeneer Hat)

 

 

(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)

• Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats with empty bottles, volt goats won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

 

 

 

 

• Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

 

• acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

 

Attack Damage	Physical DamageTaken	Move Speed
+5%	-2.5%	+1.5%

 

• Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), when fighting nearby, spider queen will send over befriended nurse spiders to your aid

 

• Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

 

• In the spirit of friendship: When dying with Webber will drop 2 spider glands, Webber can now decorate seven dens with a den decorating set rather than five

 

• Garden spiders:

(create three new types of switcherdoodles with corresponding new spiders)(you need to successfully harvest and collect two of the corresponding crops to unlock each recipe)(when paired with silk fashioner, you can make farm plots permanently, wet by putting sticky webbing over farm plots if you use a water can on the plot either before or after placing the sticky webbing)

Squirter:  Green Huntsman Spiders have a green grassy pattern almost akin to a watermelon, and use this as camouflage to hide in the foliage and ambush prey that wanders by. In DST, maybe they could be commanded to stay in one spot with lots of plants. When you check in on them later, they may give you some morsels or meat, letting you have a share of whatever animals they were catching offscreen. Their switcherdoodle could be made from watermelons, like the pattern on their abdomen. Attacks by shooting water out its mouth that can also water crops

Switcherdoodle: 3 monster meat, 2 silk, 2 watermelon (20dmg, 200hp)

 

Hydrolysis spider: Black Widows are an infamously venomous spider, able to paralyze and even LIQUEFY their prey, which ranges from small insects all the way to larger animals like lizards and snakes. Coincidentally, the appearance of their eggs is often compared to garlic cloves! In DST, this paralyzation could be implemented in many ways, the easiest being putting mobs to sleep for a few seconds, allowing the other spiders a chance to heal and get in a bunch of damage before they wake back up, with a heavy cooldown following that so they can't just put a mob to sleep over and over. Their switcherdoodle could be made from garlic, like how their eggs look. It can fertilize crops with the liquid remains

Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 3 silk, 2 garlic (20dmg, 400hp)

 

: Orb Weavers are commonly found on garden plants, and build large circular webs to catch pests. In DST, maybe they could make webs in your gardens to trap the Lord of the Fruit Flies, or even Brightshades? Their switcherdoodle could be made from basically any farm plant, but I'd go with tomatoes to give those a good use as Webber, since they can't be eaten by spiders for healing like veggie-eating followers do. catch all types of bugs in orbs of web and can till (like merms can with a shoddy tool)

Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 3 silk, 2 tomatoes(20dmg, 200hp)

 

 

• social hunting:  befriended/bedazzled spiders will no longer check items to see if they can eat them so now they won’t eat anything unless you feed them

 

•   Glop mastery: healing glop animation takes half as long as well as healing over time for twice the healing in total for both Webber and spiders (Webber:8hp+1hp per sec for 8 sec=16hp in total spiders: 80hp+10hp per sec for 8 sec= 160hp in total) 

 

•   Switcherdoodle stretching: efficiently use ingredients to make 3 times that amount of switcherdoodles when crafted (@Creatingabe1125’s idea)

 

• Good reputation: when befriending spiders in groups amount of spiders befriended in one feeding increases to 4-6

 

 

   

          

 Alignments:

 

Lunar spider care I: 

The cryptic founder has rewarded your curiosity by giving you the power to reveal a shattered spider’s greater potential. You can also gift your friends some temporary lunar power.

You can now give a shattered spider 2 moon glass to change them into the enlightened spider. They can bite for 20 dmg but can do a psychic attack for 30 dmg if undisturbed for 3 seconds once started and takes another 4 seconds to begin attacking again. Other enlightened spiders can join this attack to deal a stronger hit. When in a group attack, the spiders stay in the psychic state and physically attack every 3 seconds. And if 3 or more spiders join the attack, it will be an aoe attack, with more enlightened spiders increasing the range and damage of it.

You can also craft shattered web-balls with 4 moon glass and 4 silk, which will provide a 10% defense against lunary foes and 5% dmg against shadowy foes to all befriended spiders. The effect lasts for 2 minutes and has a cooldown of 4, but they’re stackable and are 1 use.

You can infuse pure brilliance into the web ball, replacing 5 dmg with 5 planar dmg for all befriended enlightened spiders.

Some other ideas are that you can craft the shattered switcherdoodle with 2 moonrock like how you can use “pig skin?” from hamlet in pig skin recipes and you’d have the recipe unlocked from the start. And befriending an enlightened spider will unlock an enlightened switcher doodle for 1 monster meat, 3 silk, and 3 moon glass.

 

Lunar spider care II: 

 

With a better feel of the moon’s power, wielding any lunar equipment will provide some sense of comfort by reducing the insanity of the world. The cryptic founder has also brightened your creative spirit and you now have the idea for a great battle caller.

When wielding 1 lunar equipment, all negative sanity auras around you and the night are reduced by 10%, 2 lunar equipment makes that 22.5%, and 3 lunar equipment makes that 33%.

You can now craft a new item at the brightsmithy called Webber’s brightle caller for 6 brightshade husks, 4 pure brilliance, 8 silk, and maybe or maybe not a beefalo horn.

The following effects last 1 minute: All spiders, including Webber and spider queens, move 20% faster, while all foes are slowed down by 33%. All non befriended nearby spider and spider queens will target what you target.

It has no durability with a 1 day cooldown, similar to the mudslingers. When used, Webber will play an animation with it, along with 3 quotes/lines that make up a compelling speech, but it sounds more soothing to non spiders, similar to a pan flute.

He can also recruit up to 2 spider queens with the spider queen instantly turning into a nest upon recruitment.

The following effects last 2 minutes: If you’ve recruited spider queens before use, 1 or 2 spider queens depending on how many you recruited, will rise from the ground as shattered queens, and has the same stats as normal spider queens, except they obey your most recent command, can summon shattered spiders, and deals 40 dmg along with 20 planar dmg. Enlightened spiders will gain 5 additional planar dmg.

 

 

shadow spider care I:

 

The shadow queen has rewarded your loyalty by granting you the darkest and most cunning of spiders. You can also gift your friends some temporary power of the shadows.

Learn to craft the shadow switcherdoodle which costs 2 monster meat, 3 silk, & 2 nightmare fuel. The shadow spider can double leap or leap mid air after leaping if the target moves. It can also teleport like normal shadows or a 20% chance after landing a hit with a leap. It’s bite is 20 but it’s damage increases by 5 per leap in a leap attack.

You can also craft shadow web-balls that cost 4 nightmare fuel and 4 silk. They provide 10% defense against shadowy foes and 5% dmg against lunary foes to all befriended spiders. The effect lasts for 2 minutes and has a cooldown of 4, but they are stackable and are 1 use.

you can infuse it with pure horror, which replaces 5 dmg with 5 planar dmg for all befriended shadow spiders.

An idea was to unlock the recipe, you’d need to find a spider with a shadow aura while insane, and that spider has a 5% chance to spawn if you haven’t unlocked the switcherdoodle. And if you befriend it, it’ll drop 1 nightmare fuel and give the switcherdoodle recipe.

 

shadow spider care II:

 

As you have gotten to understand the shadows, all shadowy equipment will be less demanding on the mind, and all shadowy creatures will seem a bit less threatening. The shadow queen has also nourished your passionate soul, and now have the idea for a soul strengthening cheer.

All shadow equipment will drain or consume 50% less sanity, & shadow creatures or shadow alligned creatures will drain 33% less sanity.

Learn to craft Flags of Rallies at the shadow plinth kit for 5 dark tatters, 4 pure horror, and 6 silk.

It works similarly to the mudslinger, and has a cooldown of 8 minutes.

It’s effects are that for 2 minutes all befriended spiders will gain buffs similar to acid rain, every befriended spider will receive 2-4 waves of +50 health with each wave every 5 seconds (they will all get the same amount of waves and the amount is random), and 5 shadow spiders charged with pure horror will be summoned and stay until they die, when Webber leaves the server, or when Webber uses the Flags of Rallies again to summon 5 new spiders.

The shadow spiders will slowly lose health when not in combat and always have 10 planar dmg on top of their usual dmg. They are not affected by buffs and totems nor do they go to travel dens, though can still be healed by nurses and by Webber.

 

Organization of skill tree:

A starter is that most of the skill tree would be in a heart shaped background with the friendship side being top left, web action being on the top right, and inner arachnid being at the bottom of the heart.

Inner arachnid:

It’s first skill would be the sleeping den buff, and then it would have 4 skills connected to it.

Below it would be the 2 healing skills. To the top left of the first skill would be no picky eater which then leads to the acid rain perk below it. To the bottom right of the first skill would be the night vision one, which then leads to the monkey like speed bonus skill.

Friendship:

It would start with the shoe box skill, then lead to the more spiders per meat skill which leads to the more switcher doodles on the top right and on the main branch to queen decorator, unbreakable friendship with a spider queen requirement next, and then to the unnatural brood and then to the carecrafts.

Web Action:

It would start with the less silk per upgrade skill, then have a side branch for social hunting which then leads to the work skill. Continuing on the main branch would be the silk fashionire, den relocater skill after, silk stitch after that, and finally the silk crafts.

Garden skills:

The garden spiders would be below the friendship branch, either connecting to the branch or require a set amount of skill and another requirement to access.

The other 2 farming skills would be below the Web action section and would work similar to the garden spiders skill.

The affinities would be at the sides or top corners outside the heart. Feel free to change it however you want, this is just a starter idea for the skill tree

 

Edited January 21 by Dr.Webber

[Edible Coal]

50 minutes ago, Dr.Webber said:

--sinp--

please place this in a spoiler box so is collapsible 

[Dr.Webber]

6 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

please place this in a spoiler box so is collapsible 

Sorry, forgot about that

[Jakepeng99]

13 hours ago, aidancode said:

I'm worried with Webber's tree that klei will make spiders generally able to do things that merms do and both will lose some of their identities. The problem as it stands is Wurt is so much more powerful than Webber, and her minions kinda do it all. Anyone have any ideas for how to give buffs to Webber without making him Wurt?

My immediate thoughts are giving him a skill that lets him craft switcherdoodles cheaper and giving him some way to target spiders. My first thought is a bomb-type item that would work like the antlion bait in half life 2, and could be "scented" for each spider type.

Id say ignore Wurt since she is the problem here. She is so detromential she should not be compared to other characters

As for webber himself, he has to gather his own minions and if they die he has to replace them. They dont auto respawn in a cheap and accessible way like Wurt, unless he hunts down their nest locations which is cool.

[Cuernito.]

Dont worry webber is really different from wurt so klei cant ruin it, Webber is about having big quiantity of cheap minions cause spider can respawn really fast, they are weak but easily replaceable and he can use big numbers of minions to overwhelm the enemy. Wurt on the other hand uses highly specialized minions that she can buff, she can use merm guards with all the buff of the king, with armor and they can be buffed even more, so she dont need to use as many and they are high cost too. As you can check there is no way klei can make webber the same as wurt.

20 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

That’s easy.. make his spiders capable of doing things that Wurts Merms do not do. And because I’ve always loved this game and it’s cast of characters, I’ll give a few suggestions for spider “types” that should by all means, be capable of doing “things” that are different from Wurts Merms.

#1- Sea Strider Spider- These Guys literally LIVE in tall trees with Jelly Jam? In them, that’s literally where you go to find them if you’re not using switcher cookies, but what should a water gliding spider do? Well for starters.. make them like tamed Gnarwails (they follow in the water and use their heads to spear useful ocean stuffs up onto your boat) it makes perfectly logical sense that water gliding spiders should be able to fetch stuff floating on the ocean and bring it back to Webber (yes this means instead of the spiders being piled on the same tiny boat platform with Webber, they’ll instead glide about on the water like they do when you first fight them as anyone NOT named Webber.) they will ALSO be able to repair boat leaks with Jelly Jam, because: That just makes sense that they live near it, they can smell and find it, and well you get the idea (aka increased odds of randomly finding jam at sea and AI Smart enough to search chests stored on the boat for jam and to use it to auto repair leaks.

see? With just ONE of Webbers spiders I’ve already made him different from Wurt.

Armored Cave Spider: Okay these guys always annoyed me when trying to fight them because well, they’re Armored Duh! But you know what would be really cool? If they circled around Webber and protected him from damage (4-6 cap for obvious reasons) I just picture it like those old movies where several soldiers with shields group up in a circle and hold their shields out to protect someone in the center (aka a wounded Wonder Woman & her Amazon Warriors)

Finally we come to the Ceiling Spider, (the White Ones that come down from cave cieling) I would absolutely love it if these guys could slink down from the skies and snare prey (think of them as rabbit/bird traps) it just means Klei would have to add some extra animations where like slinking down out of caves, they could maybe come down from visible spider webs at the top of your screen that disappear when they touch ground.. idk I just felt like these guys should be stealth takedown types, because the first few times I ever encountered them as anyone NOT named Webber: That’s exactly what they tried to do to me.

And there you have it: Three ways to make Webber nothing at all like Wurt.  

I really like this, webber really need to use the different spiders to make complex strategies. The nurses under webber command should try to avoid damage running in circles away from the enemy instead of trying to fulltank. 

The cave spider should also get more aggro and they should be able to hide before the first hit cause you know even with his armor they can still be one shooted by some bosses.

[goblinball]

Wurt and webber already aren’t comparable, it’ll be fine. Getting a good spider army only costs a couple monster meat and switcherdoodles, meanwhile getting a good merm army costs much, much more than that. 

[benfroyobro9381]

I think more control over his minions + Webber transformations. Klei could lean more into Webber's spider traits like eating monster meat and sleeping in spider-dens. Some people said he should be able to eat the switcher-doodles and I love the idea. Maybe some swinging ability or snares with his webs. I don't think Webber's going to be competing with Maxwell/Wurt with his disposable spider minions so I think Klei should push him into other niches too. 

[Mysterious box]

4 hours ago, goblinball said:

Wurt and webber already aren’t comparable, it’ll be fine. Getting a good spider army only costs a couple monster meat and switcherdoodles, meanwhile getting a good merm army costs much, much more than that. 

Currently they aren't comparable but the sky is the limit. They haven't been unwilling to remove character restrictions in the past afterall so there is a possibility they pull another Wortox soul jar like fix but for spider spawners or make his spiders super tanky.

[Jakepeng99]

On 1/21/2026 at 4:57 PM, benfroyobro9381 said:

Maybe some swinging ability or snares with his webs.

I dont think turning him into spider man is right.

I feel like his skilltree should be focused on spiders and their utilities, some cool child like structures like the decorated den, and the switcherdoodle transformations.

[Baark0]

I think giving Webber the ability to eat switcherdoodles and temporarily (or permanently?) gain perks related to the spider it's based off of would be really cool. Things like a shattering glass AoE effect when attacking enemies for the mutated spider, some sort of ranged attack for spitters, temporary water walking for striders, things like that sound like they'd be really cool.

Something to do with spider queens could also be fun, I know personally I'd love to ride a spider queen like a beefalo.

[DegenerateFurry]

I think the fun way to differentiate them would be to play into how disposable spiders are in comparison to Merms and how they're animals and not people. 

Maybe he can make a lunar spider mine, similar to a bee mine but, y'know, lunar spiders instead of bees? It condenses them in your inventory and serves as permanent storage for them, making them easier to transport at the cost of, say, some moon glass and boards in addition to the spiders. 

A perk that either entirely prevents his spiders from eating meat drops or gives them a much longer delay before they do would serve Webber quite nicely, making spider civil wars more efficient and making it less likely that he'll lose important drops like Deerclops's eye. Maybe the flavor text references him training them?

Perhaps he can get a special backpack made from spider eggs that he can use to craft spiderlings, which are baby spiders with 25 health, but stack up to 40 and can be easily carried and deployed en-masse. They die easy, attack fast, and drop nothing, but it's okay, you have a lot of them. Maybe another perk lets him stack normal spiders in the egg sack backpack up to 10 per slot, or makes the backpack freeze the hunger of spiders stored within.

I feel like a switcherdoodle efficiency perk is kinda necessary, honestly? It'd be a lot like Walter's ammo efficiency perk, where he just crafts more if you take the perk than if you don't. It'd make using switcherdoodles more viable.

Maybe Webber could get a perk that unlocks a unique crock pot recipe that's basically a big ball of monster meat (as in, the recipe is just 4 monster meat in the pot) for the spiders to fight over? You place it down and it tames all the untamed spiders who're within meat detection range, and they eat it like hounds eat a corpse. If there's too many spiders and not enough monster meat feasts, maybe some of the spiders rip each other apart in their hunger. But, again, that's okay! You have a lot, cannibalism is only natural for spiders, and hey, free silk and glands! And you could always just whistle to stop the in-fighting if you want. 

Would a silk bridge perk be worth considering? I feel like it might tread a bit on the toes of Winona's bridge perk, but the visual of Webber chucking a spider across a gap and then scuttling along a strand of silk it left is a fun one. It'd be a temporary bridge, of course, and maybe only crossable by Webber. 

[Mr Giggio]

I would love Webber to have a trapper mechanic with silk to crowd control, something like the Mucus from ewecus but silky or just silky terrain based on where spiders already stepped. Being able to trap fits the spider part of the character. 

If spider queen hats/heads give him night vision - fire

More commands on the whistle to have more of a bard on comando type of situation also would be lovely. Comands like formation or lunge. The silky thingy I just mentioned.

All of those are char related and not in the mobs and it already kinda give him unicqueness

Edited January 23 by Mr Giggio

[Radicaljoe]

Someone else already said it, but yes make Webber like Pikmin.

I've played Wurt and Webber, and aside from the lag difference, I noticed Webber was far more in control of his army than Wurt. Wurt makes up for a lack of control by simply obliterating the enemy in record time. Webber makes up for the lower damage with incredible control. I lost so many merms to dfly, but as Webber I only lost like 5 spiders since I could whistle them back into safety.

I don't see spiders chopping or mining, but i do see the possibility for them to bring loot back to base like ants. They could use the same system as Postal Pup from Walter's tree.

The whistle could have different settings, maybe to either signal running away from the enemy, or some sort of formation, or a whole group dodge like in Pikmin 3.

I would like a better system for storing spiders as well. Currently, I have to put them in a large pen with a sticker den in the center. I would much rather the decorated dens work like a fish'n bin where you open it to a large container that keeps them alive. 

Also, let Webber make every spider den, maybe like "den upgrade kit" that allows you to turn level 3 dens into whatever variant you want. I know cookies exist, but it's usually cheaper to just go around and adopt the spiders directly. I think the den upgrade would be cool alternative.
Also just scrap the warrior and depth dweller cookie costs like what?? WHO is paying a pigskin or a bunny puft in THIS economy? Make it just something different.

Last suggestion doesn't really make Webber different from Wurt, but make warrior spiders immune to fear like warrior merms. I played Webber after Wurt and I thought the warrior prefix just made things immune to fear. bq shredded all my warrior spiders lol.

idk what klei could do for the affinities. It would be boring to do the exact same thing as Wurt with reviving spiders. 

[Jakepeng99]

Also give him a little more utility.

Spiders could spin silk onto nearby trees and stuff, and Webber would be the best at harvesting them.

Spiders striders could fish or somethibg

[flamboyant wolf]

Pikmin Pikmin Pikmin

(more control and pikmin-like shenanigans would be great)