The Ancient Fuelweaver has already been nerfed by the devs.

[Bumber64]

I've previously listed multiple issues that aren't even a matter of skill. IDK who'd be against stuff like requiring force attack on shielded AFW. I listed a buff to fossil spikes. You won't address those points, because it doesn't help you troll.

Reminder: You are objectively wrong on the thread title.

Edited February 4 by Bumber64

[Cruvimaster]

There are countless games with difficult bosses that can be made easier by creating a specific build (Soulslike) or progressing the character (RPG). But in DST, even though there are ways to do this, it shouldn't be the case. A beginner player with 20 hours of gameplay should be able to defeat the "final boss" of the game easily and without needing any gameplay progress.

But as another member here on the forum said, if 88 voters don't represent the community's interests, much less do 6 or 7 here who want the AFW rework/nerf.

13 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Reminder: You are objectively wrong on the thread title.

 It didn't convince me. And I won't convince you either.

"Ancient Fuelweaver has several problems" and "several players defeating it before day 30 or in the first year of the game" are two things that make absolutely no sense to me.

[DegenerateFurry]

3 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

You can use them if you want, but it still doesn't fix his issues. You're just wallpapering over them by facerolling the boss. The bone cage mechanic not mattering because you could choose to automate 99% of the fight, or disable it on the second fight, isn't high praise of it.

I only brought up catapults because you brought up houndius in response to why thurible matters at all. Houndius has long been outdated because of the item requirements and the existence of alternatives (star caller + flingo, anenemies, bramble traps, treeguard idols, and brightshades). They do fit compactly on boats, for the situations where that's useful. It's just not particularly relevant that the 2nd fight is easier. Using shadow abilities unlocked from a previous world is somewhat more relevant.

It's not just the controllers. It's telepoofing with the mouse, the unreliable hotbar (again: twigs), targeting the correct mob, etc.

Thank you for pointing out the twigs/hotbar unreliability issue. Why in the name of Wilson's magnificent beard is it that it's so hard to get the game to consistently let me swap between items with the number keys? In Minecraft or Terraria, I can have my sword in my first slot, my axe in my second slot, a pickaxe in my third, food/healing items in my fifth, and a ranged option in my sixth and keep the rest blank, and just pressing the number keys will consistently and seamlessly swap between them. 

In DST, the equipment instead basically jumps around seemingly at free random to any available slot in my inventory when I press the number keys unless I'm switching between two items that go in the same equipment (hand/body/head/etc) slot, so that makes the Fuelweaver inventory juggling routine far jankier than it needs to be (not that it needs to be as in exist at all, but alas, that's how the fight's designed). Filling up blank spots is a band-aid fix players have found to something the developers should make a better solution for.

Edited February 4 by DegenerateFurry

[Bumber64]

3 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

A beginner player with 20 hours of gameplay should be able to defeat the "final boss" of the game easily and without needing any gameplay progress.

Strawman.

3 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

"Ancient Fuelweaver has several problems" and "several players defeating it before day 30 or in the first year of the game" are two things that make absolutely no sense to me.

"Speedrunners and experts are the average players"

Edited February 4 by Bumber64

[Cruvimaster]

7 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Strawman.

"Speedrunners and experts are the average players"

I don't just write here. I post videos demonstrating "objectively" what I'm talking about.

AFW will be celebrating its 10th anniversary soon, with modifications already implemented by the devs.

Good luck with your order for the next ten years.

[Bumber64]

32 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

I don't just write here. I post videos demonstrating "objectively" what I'm talking about.

You subjectively think your videos prove your point. You certainly aren't a 20 hour beginner. A beginner isn't even activating AFW without help. They're dying on shadow pieces if they even know about that requirement. You're just proving the fight can be done by an expert, demonstrating specific methods.

You've probably done AFW so much that you've lost track of all the time you spent practicing this one boss, and how you learned to deal with each of the mechanics piecemeal. You've gotten so used to inventory management that it seems like a sane idea to fill the hotbar with twigs.

You may subjectively find the struggle (learning cliff) worthwhile, but AFW objectively isn't of equal strength compared to his counterpart CC. He's more like WARBOT/Scion in that multiple unfamiliar mechanics (e.g., heat seeking, damage floors, supernova, no escape) are thrown at the player. If you want an "objective" test, throw somebody who has never fought CC or AFW against each. See how many attempts of each it takes. Comparing one boss to other bosses is the only objective thing possible.

Edited February 4 by Bumber64

[Cruvimaster]

Summary of the main points I posted:

1. AFW is the hardest boss in the game (I never said otherwise).
2. The experience of fighting this boss is currently distinct due to the fact that there are several facilitators, CATERING TO THE DIVERSE PLAYER PROFILES THAT EXIST.
3. The most notable facilitator is Brightshade Staff, which indirectly nerfs the boss by easily neutralizing the shield (Unsee Hands) and Woven Shadows.
4. DST is a strategy game (all players do some degree of preparation for a boss and do a lot of research on the internet) and the strategy to obtain Brightshade Staff is simple: progress normally in the game until you defeat the Celestial Champion or simply activate the rifts in the menu on day 1 of the game.
5. Considering the strategies, the player can perfectly facilitate the fight by using a character that has an advantage against this boss (Wolfgang, Wanda, Winona, Wickerbottom etc.) or by using an item that further increases attack power (Spicy Volt Goat Chaud-Froid).
6. In the video I posted, I used the default character exactly for demonstration purposes.

Furthermore, a minority here shows interest in a rework of the boss. If the feedback here isn't relevant, we can end the beta program.

My point of view is this: It's a difficult boss, but with extremely powerful loot, and therefore it cannot be trivialized. And remember that we have recurring cycles of nerf requests here on the forum. AFW, Toadstool, Dragonfly, Bee Queen, and even Warbot and Scion. It's impossible to please everyone.

 

26 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

You subjectively think your videos prove your point. You certainly aren't a 20 hour beginner. A beginner isn't even activating AFW without help. They're dying on shadow pieces if they even know about that requirement. You're just proving the fight can be done by an expert, demonstrating specific methods.

You've probably done AFW so much that you've lost track of all the time you spent practicing this one boss, and how you learned to deal with each of the mechanics piecemeal. You've gotten so used to inventory management that it seems like a sane idea to fill the hotbar with twigs.

You may subjectively find the struggle (learning cliff) worthwhile, but AFW objectively isn't of equal strength compared to his counterpart CC. He's more like WARBOT/Scion in that multiple unfamiliar mechanics (e.g., heat seeking, damage floors, supernova, no escape) are thrown at the player. If you want an "objective" test, throw somebody who has never fought CC or AFW against each. See how many attempts of each it takes. Comparing one boss to other bosses is the only objective thing possible.

I'll repeat it for you: good luck for the next 10 years.

We have different views on this subject, and we will have different views on others, but we will certainly agree on some topic of common interest.

[DegenerateFurry]

4 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

Somehow being more stubborn than even I am

Fuelweaver is one of the non-optional bosses needed to get to the endgame and thus should be made more accessible, end of story. Its loot being good does not change this, nothing does and nothing ever will. Crab King had the same problem and got fixed, Fuelweaver should too.

The "nerf request cycles" you're referring to are more like rework request cycles. Few players actually find Toadstool to be hard, it's more that we find him to be exceptionally tedious for a lackluster reward.

Bee Queen used to get more requests for redesigns because AoE options were less viable and rarer and the fence strategy wasn't as well-known, but she's more manageable now (and unlike AFW, you don't have to do a massively lengthy questline to get any of the stuff that makes her more manageable, you literally just need to build an X out of fences or play Wendy or Walter). 

Warbot and Scion are new, it's entirely illogical to expect that people would not discuss their balance. You dismiss that discussion as just another request for a nerf, grouped in with other ones you consider baseless. Do you ever consider that something could use a nerf?

Dragonfly is objectively poorly designed, walls wouldn't be everyone's go-to strat if it was a well-designed boss. Walls are to Dragonfly as corner pillars were to Ancient Guardian: a symbolic refusal to engage with the boss's mechanics due to them being implemented poorly. The only reason few players complain about Dragonfly is that it's by far the easiest of these questionably-designed bosses to deal with and the walls strat is both still in the game and near-universal, and the loot justifies the effort.

And, lastly in regards to that post: this forum not being a good representation of the playerbase does not somehow mean that the beta available to literally all Steam players should be ended. If anything, it just means that Klei needs to implement better in-game feedback systems. 

As for this whole thread, a solid argument exists that Fuelweaver has, in fact, been buffed significantly since his first implementation. It used to be the case that anyone, with just a spider den or lure plant, could entirely subvert the Ancient Fuelweaver fight. That got changed, which is a buff to Fuelweaver. It also used to be possible to plant trees directly inside the Atrium biome, but that got changed, and now it's way harder to make Treeguards kill Fuelweaver as Woodie. Another Fuelweaver buff, in other words. You, therefore, are incorrect even by your own failed logic.

Edited February 5 by DegenerateFurry

[layangan putus]

3 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

You've probably done AFW so much that you've lost track of all the time you spent practicing this one boss, and how you learned to deal with each of the mechanics piecemeal. You've gotten so used to inventory management that it seems like a sane idea to fill the hotbar with twigs.

You may subjectively find the struggle (learning cliff) worthwhile, but AFW objectively isn't of equal strength compared to his counterpart CC. He's more like WARBOT/Scion in that multiple unfamiliar mechanics (e.g., heat seeking, damage floors, supernova, no escape) are thrown at the player. If you want an "objective" test, throw somebody who has never fought CC or AFW against each. See how many attempts of each it takes. Comparing one boss to other bosses is the only objective thing possible.

What's the point of throwing somebody to fight AFW for the first time? To measure how organic the fight would be? DST is nothing like many modern titles I've played, in which players would try everything organically; doing so in DST would be a painful journey, as the game is truly uncompromising. The devs provide console commands and a rollback feature, allowing players to practice anything, including boss fights. Nevertheless, the organic development in the AFW hunt would be as follows:

1. Somehow, players manage to solve the fossils, atrium key, and shadow heart.
2. Hunt begins! Phase 1 is too easy. Now, phase 2 starts! AFW shields himself and becomes immune to damage, followed by summoning wovens.
3. Some players would keep hitting AFW or try to hit all wovens, while getting caged or mind-controlled somewhere in between. No matter what, AFW would definitely eat the wovens and return to phase 1.
4. Finally, players would run out of supplies and die. At this point in the game, after everything the Constant had thrown, the players should be experienced, so they are expected to bring the life amulet or be tuned to the effigy, to keep the world from resetting because of death.
5. From this awful defeat, players could learn several things, such as the existence of invisible hands, the overwhelming presence of wovens, the abilities like cage and mind-control, the tremendous insanity aura throughout the hunt, and surely the janky control and inventory management to execute ideas (at least, PC users have better accuracy to execute things).
6. Now it's up to players how to deal with those obstacles, but if they really play the game organically, they are expected to utilize many tools throughout the gameplay. That's why some people strictly say, "Beginners don't fight AFW". Whatever solution they come up with, they would need dozens, if not hundreds, of life amulets for the sake of trial and error, plus restocking supplies.

 

If I play organically, I'd try something desperate like this,

which then would definitely lead to my demise.

 

54 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Fuelweaver is one of the non-optional bosses needed to get to the endgame and thus should be made more accessible, end of story.

Credit to @CameoAppearance

 

 

Now, where does this put you? Are you an organic gamer? Or do you prefer things easy, like a maximum of 10 tries until you win against something? Surely, DST gameplay is always unintuitive compared to many modern titles. Imagine having no health information whatsoever. Like, "Am I even making progress, or what is going on?" In terms of execution, AFW is not even close to the difficulty of hunting Safi'jiiva in MH World as solo within one session. It's like fighting a different breed of AFW mixed with the Twins of Terror and old M-Toad mechanics, so players have little room for error and a time limit on top of that. It's between 15 minutes and 5+ hours per successful hunt, depending on the player's skill. Anyway, that's the point of the AFW hunt: improving mastery over small details. He's the embodiment of "Show me what you've got after all that of the thousands of days surviving the Constant". Therefore, AFW is already in the sweet spot for difficulty and should stay the same to appreciate the creativity and all the hard work from our community.

 

EXTRA: Safi'jiiva was eventually nerfed in health scaling to alleviate the tediousness for solo players, as the siege mechanics are designed to ensure victory eventually. Maybe AFW should get nerfed after all, since DST is a survival-crafting game, not an action-fighting one. V in eVeryone HAHAHAHA!

[DegenerateFurry]

17 minutes ago, layangan putus said:

What's the point of throwing somebody to fight AFW for the first time? To measure how organic the fight would be? DST is nothing like many modern titles I've played, in which players would try everything organically; doing so in DST would be a painful journey, as the game is truly uncompromising. The devs provide console commands and a rollback feature, allowing players to practice anything, including boss fights. Nevertheless, the organic development in the AFW hunt would be as follows:

1. Somehow, players manage to solve the fossils, atrium key, and shadow heart.
2. Hunt begins! Phase 1 is too easy. Now, phase 2 starts! AFW shields himself and becomes immune to damage, followed by summoning wovens.
3. Some players would keep hitting AFW or try to hit all wovens, while getting caged or mind-controlled somewhere in between. No matter what, AFW would definitely eat the wovens and return to phase 1.
4. Finally, players would run out of supplies and die. At this point in the game, after everything the Constant had thrown, the players should be experienced, so they are expected to bring the life amulet or be tuned to the effigy, to keep the world from resetting because of death.
5. From this awful defeat, players could learn several things, such as the existence of invisible hands, the overwhelming presence of wovens, the abilities like cage and mind-control, the tremendous insanity aura throughout the hunt, and surely the janky control and inventory management to execute ideas (at least, PC users have better accuracy to execute things).
6. Now it's up to players how to deal with those obstacles, but if they really play the game organically, they are expected to utilize many tools throughout the gameplay. That's why some people strictly say, "Beginners don't fight AFW". Whatever solution they come up with, they would need dozens, if not hundreds, of life amulets for the sake of trial and error, plus restocking supplies.

 

If I play organically, I'd try something desperate like this,

which then would definitely lead to my demise.

 

Credit to @CameoAppearance

 

 

Now, where does this put you? Are you an organic gamer? Or do you prefer things easy, like a maximum of 10 tries until you win against something? Surely, DST gameplay is always unintuitive compared to many modern titles. Imagine having no health information whatsoever. Like, "Am I even making progress, or what is going on?" In terms of execution, AFW is not even close to the difficulty of hunting Safi'jiiva in MH World as solo within one session. It's like fighting a different breed of AFW mixed with the Twins of Terror and old M-Toad mechanics, so players have little room for error and a time limit on top of that. It's between 15 minutes and 5+ hours per successful hunt, depending on the player's skill. Anyway, that's the point of the AFW hunt: improving mastery over small details. He's the embodiment of "Show me what you've got after all that of the thousands of days surviving the Constant". Therefore, AFW is already in the sweet spot for difficulty and should stay the same to appreciate the creativity and all the hard work from our community.

 

EXTRA: Safi'jiiva was eventually nerfed in health scaling to alleviate the tediousness for solo players, as the siege mechanics are designed to ensure victory eventually. Maybe AFW should get nerfed after all, since DST is a survival-crafting game, not an action-fighting one. V in eVeryone HAHAHAHA!

Your entire post is an acknowledgement of the failures of this game's design philosophy. It's something Klei's been slowly correcting bit by bit over the years with things like the Scrapbook, so they acknowledge the problem exists.

The real DST experience on PC is playing normally, getting frustrated because it doesn't tell you goddamn anything, installing the mod called Insight (or at least some healthbar mod), and then actually having fun now that you can learn properly, eventually getting to the point where you know by heart how much health stuff has, what enemy attack ranges tend to be like, hunger values of most foods, and can guesstimate temperatures and all the stuff the game should just tell you so it's more playable. 

Well-designed games are ones where you don't need to watch countless YouTube tutorial videos and read wiki pages every five minutes because the game just teaches you how to play it as you play. The fact that DST doesn't is an artifact of its origins in the early era of survival games, back when none of them made any effort to do that. Minecraft was the same way initially and still is to an extent, but it at least tries to guide the player now. Klei just needs to commit to what they started doing with the Scrapbook and add in optional healthbars and attack range indicators and stuff. Depriving the player of necessary information and never providing it in-game is just frustrating, not fun.

Edited February 5 by DegenerateFurry

[layangan putus]

8 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Your entire post is an acknowledgement of the failures of this game's design philosophy. It's something Klei's been slowly correcting bit by bit over the years with things like the Scrapbook, so they acknowledge the problem exists.

I wouldn't call it a failure, but the clarity would ease the process. The mechanics should remain unchanged because the community managed to hunt AFW despite the lack of better tools and clarity in the past. Their feats should be recognized; if they can, then everyone can too. Just need to experiment and practice more, or copy and improve their methods. Lastly, some mods should become official, but enough about that. I'll just enjoy whatever they design. Anyway, time to hit the road. Ciao.

[DegenerateFurry]

21 minutes ago, layangan putus said:

Their feats should be recognized; if they can, then everyone can too. 

Literally untrue. Some people playing this game have various disabilities that prevent them from keeping up with the speedy inventory juggling AFW requires. Other people are prevented from achieving the same thing by having other things to do with their time than practice for several hours and would like to be able to play that part of the game just as casually as literally every other single part of it can be played. 

Fuelweaver is a difficulty spike the height of Mount Everest in a game where everything else isn't high enough to be snow-capped in the summer. Most of us aren't here to climb Everest, we just want a fun hike. 

Edited February 5 by DegenerateFurry

[Edible Coal]

1 hour ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Literally untrue. Some people playing this game have various disabilities that prevent them from keeping up with the speedy inventory juggling AFW requires. Other people are prevented from achieving the same thing by having other things to do with their time than practice for several hours and would like to be able to play that part of the game just as casually as literally every other single part of it can be played. 

Fuelweaver is a difficulty spike the height of Mount Everest in a game where everything else isn't high enough to be snow-capped in the summer. Most of us aren't here to climb Everest, we just want a fun hike. 

The game already have a pause button if you play solo, and if  you arnt soloing then you can just call your buddies to gang up on afw.

that being said i do think afw need some balance adjustment ( increase overall afw health but limit how much he can heal each round so mistake are less punishing in general)

[Ev1l]

Idk if this will add to the convo, but me and my brother are finally playing dst after years of only playing RoG on mobile (we're fairly decent at the game, but had to adapt to years of new content) . We defeated AFW for the first time this week, and even if we had all the info about how to fight it, we had a really rough time against it. It took us 3 tries before finally defeating him on the 4th (we are using rollbacks since its our first dst world together).

[Mysterious box]

5 hours ago, Ev1l said:

Idk if this will add to the convo, but me and my brother are finally playing dst after years of only playing RoG on mobile (we're fairly decent at the game, but had to adapt to years of new content) . We defeated AFW for the first time this week, and even if we had all the info about how to fight it, we had a really rough time against it. It took us 3 tries before finally defeating him on the 4th (we are using rollbacks since its our first dst world together).

Topic aside congratulations it's a big accomplishment.

[Bumber64]

16 hours ago, layangan putus said:

Or do you prefer things easy, like a maximum of 10 tries until you win against something?

Since when has 10 tries been considered easy? I don't think I've ever taken that many on any Zelda boss except in Zelda II, which is called Nintendo "hard" for a reason. (Maybe the Vulture Vizier "Don't fall at all!" challenge in Triforce Heroes? Slip off the tilting platform once -> restart the entire level. The boss itself isn't hard.) "Megaman easy".

16 hours ago, layangan putus said:

In terms of execution, AFW is not even close to the difficulty of hunting Safi'jiiva in MH World as solo within one session. It's like fighting a different breed of AFW mixed with the Twins of Terror and old M-Toad mechanics, so players have little room for error and a time limit on top of that. It's between 15 minutes and 5+ hours per successful hunt, depending on the player's skill.

I don't think comparing DST to a game like MH or Dark Souls does any favors. Different genre, infamous difficulty. (My only experience is MH3U solo. Nothing fundamentally changes about your approach to boss fights except for Jhen Mohran, because he can end the mission by smashing your ship if you don't time the dragonator properly.) Everything else is just pressing dodge to avoid attacks. (And chasing after monsters as they flee to waste your 50 min.)

10 attempts isn't really normal for a game boss you're otherwise equipped for, let alone easy.

Edited February 5 by Bumber64

[Tytush]

Hi! I'm here to share my experience, that's all.

Truth be told: I'm not an experienced or gifted player. I usually struggle trying to learn the bosses, but mostly I find it quite fun. (Except angry toadstool, that's not difficult, just long xD)

For most, when I started playing the game, I got lost immediatly on how to progress and FIND the bosses, so I set myself a rule. I would play with a wiki open to learn the sources and leads that bring to bosses, read about them, and tips, but I would ALLWAYS find the way  to beat them on my own.

And I have to say, that was the best experience I had on a game regarding bosses. At the start I bassically tanked everything. I just made wood/marble armors, pig hats, ham bats and tryed beating them with my lacking skills to learn how many hits I could land before evading, or just face tank them.

High health bosses were challenging. I got owned by Kauss the first time becouse my intuition told me to kill the reindeers first (ads must allways go first right? xD). But were those kind of bosses, with their tricks and details that made me realize I had to think outside the box.

Gettig back to the topic. I progressed both to Celestial Champion and to Fuelweaver, but decided that Celestial would be longer and went for AFW...

I get it. It's a hard boss. It requiered me for the first time to learn how to organize my inventory, to bring usefull consumables and tools, and, it was the first time that I gave the Lazy explorer a real use!!! (really, more bosses need restricting mechanics like this). Against my expectations, tanking him was a viable option (and realizing that killing it resets the ruins, it was even worth it!!!).

To my surprise, Fuelweaver was not a HARD fight. It was a choreographic one! Finally a real RAID boss in a game ♥.  When I tought about fighting it with my friends, I (for the first time) regreted he had so little health... 

I had FUN fighting it, and wouldn't change a thing about him. His loot was SO OP that Celestial felt somewhat lacking... So long a quest to kill a laser blender rock which could just be baited and let me time to heal, craft gear and even take a nap mid fight... Ugh...

Anyways I'm Shadow Side Team forever. And Ancient Fuelweaver is my favourite boss in the game. Never nerf him ♥. Buff celestial champion please...

Edited February 5 by Tytush

[Popian]

On 2/4/2026 at 12:50 AM, Mike23Ua said:

It should not be too hard to scale the game based on how many players are engaged in the given activity.

I don't think it's as simple as you make it out to be. All it takes is to ask yourself "how am I interacting with this obstacle" to see that adding or subtracting something doesn't make it the same as 1:1 but with x people, especially when it was already made with more than one person in mind. (It goes a little deeper with the restrictions of the combat system where you can't deal damage while you are hit or moving.)

What is the purpose of Klaus' craters? To reduce your damage output. If you are frozen you can't deal damage and if you are burning you may need to stop to heal, which along with the chip damage can lead to no damage being dealt because you're dead. With this in mind there are two ways to approach Bernie/someone else spawning an extra one: either it is in the way and you are not dealing damage to wait for the craters to disappear (or Klaus to come to you) or it is not in the way and you keep doing your thing because you directed your own circle to spawn away from Klaus. Drawing out the battle can be detrimental if you are low on resources, but you can see that the extra craters can only do so much for scaling with holistic things to consider (Is it approachable to the average player? If the rate of spawning increases and is more punishing with more people to the point you are losing on rate of damage why not solo it?).

What does changing targets for Antlion do? For one, you do not have to move as much if you are not the current target, but when it is your time to be the target you may have to spend more time navigating around the spikes (if you do not want to get trapped) that have spawned in the direction you are going. If you do happen to get trapped, it can give you the opportunity to free yourself without taking too much punishment.

With WARBOT's dynamic attack pattern you can see that there is the attempt to blend solo challenge and group activity, except when you first hit those thresholds you might notice that:

• You are getting hit because it is shorter than expected.
• You are not getting as many hits in to avoid the above.
• You somewhat ignore it by using a ranged option.

What is asked for is a custom experience for different numbers of players, which not only asks for more time in creating each experience, but more information to learn for them.

There are already generic solutions to work with what is given by inviting a friend, "burning resources", using weaker weapons, or taking turns. I find the health % scaling most promising, but even then it has complications that may not please everyone. Maybe these conversations have been had before, and what we have is what is believed to deliver the best overall experience. There's always modding to show your proof of concept.

[DegenerateFurry]

29 minutes ago, Popian said:

 what we have is what is believed to deliver the best overall experience. 

No, what we have is a mistake made back in 2016 by developers who didn't know what they were doing, and which actively drags the game down. It gives the single worst overall experience in the entire game for a large number of players and gets the rest so caught up in sunk-cost fallacy that they say they like it because they don't want all their hours practicing the fight to be for nothing. 

[Mike23Ua]

Honestly I was okay with 10% of the “End-Game” being locked behind a hard boss fight or task, but as we all know: That isn’t the darned case anymore, the more and more Klei adds to the “End Game” the more content is locked behind a certain progression point.

Now it’s probably more realistically 40% of the game that’s locked behind “End Game” and I simply just don’t like it, I don’t like needing to beat 3-4 raid bosses and grind hours worth of quests to get new stuff to start happening in my game world.

Since AFW is no longer at the 10% of the end of the game and is now more 40%, then AFW needs to be made easier and do-able solo while a true new actual “End-Game” boss takes his place.

Klei even locked this years limited time seasonal event behind this late game progress.. and that’s just something I can NEVER agree with. 😡

Edited February 6 by Mike23Ua

[Midow]

On 2/5/2026 at 8:13 AM, Cruvimaster said:

indirectly nerfs the boss

I’m still in the camp that AFW doesn’t need a direct nerf, but I do think the thread title is a bit misleading. AFW wasn’t nerfed - we just got more tools.

Brightshade Staff is really a circle-in-a-square-hole solution. It's a post-rift answer to a pre-rift problem. I can see how you can call it an “indirect nerf” to an extent, but that’s expected when you bring late-game gear into an earlier gate.

Is BQ nerfed because you can use terramites instead of panflutes? Not really - it’s just players leveraging stronger options and newer tech. I don't disagree with most of your points about AFW, but I hope this reframes the logic a bit better. 

 

[Draggofroot]

What is this discussion. You're saying that fuelweaver got nerfed because an endgame weapon can deal with it??? im tryna read all these but i dont understand your point @Cruvimaster

[linabagel]

40 minutes ago, Draggofroot said:

What is this discussion. You're saying that fuelweaver got nerfed because an endgame weapon can deal with it??? im tryna read all these but i dont understand your point @Cruvimaster

The developers noticed the difficulty of Ancient Fuelweaver, provided Brightshade Staff and optimized Weather Pain. 

The developers will not directly nerf Ancient Fuelweaver, but there are different ways for players to choose according to their preferences. It also includes "skip class", although the cost is relatively high. 

5 hours ago, Tytush said:

Hi! I'm here to share my experience, that's all.

Truth be told: I'm not an experienced or gifted player. I usually struggle trying to learn the bosses, but mostly I find it quite fun. (Except angry toadstool, that's not difficult, just long xD)

For most, when I started playing the game, I got lost immediatly on how to progress and FIND the bosses, so I set myself a rule. I would play with a wiki open to learn the sources and leads that bring to bosses, read about them, and tips, but I would ALLWAYS find the way  to beat them on my own.

And I have to say, that was the best experience I had on a game regarding bosses. At the start I bassically tanked everything. I just made wood/marble armors, pig hats, ham bats and tryed beating them with my lacking skills to learn how many hits I could land before evading, or just face tank them.

High health bosses were challenging. I got owned by Kauss the first time becouse my intuition told me to kill the reindeers first (ads must allways go first right? xD). But were those kind of bosses, with their tricks and details that made me realize I had to think outside the box.

Gettig back to the topic. I progressed both to Celestial Champion and to Fuelweaver, but decided that Celestial would be longer and went for AFW...

I get it. It's a hard boss. It requiered me for the first time to learn how to organize my inventory, to bring usefull consumables and tools, and, it was the first time that I gave the Lazy explorer a real use!!! (really, more bosses need restricting mechanics like this). Against my expectations, tanking him was a viable option (and realizing that killing it resets the ruins, it was even worth it!!!).

To my surprise, Fuelweaver was not a HARD fight. It was a choreographic one! Finally a real RAID boss in a game ♥.  When I tought about fighting it with my friends, I (for the first time) regreted he had so little health... 

I had FUN fighting it, and wouldn't change a thing about him. His loot was SO OP that Celestial felt somewhat lacking... So long a quest to kill a laser blender rock which could just be baited and let me time to heal, craft gear and even take a nap mid fight... Ugh...

Anyways I'm Shadow Side Team forever. And Ancient Fuelweaver is my favourite boss in the game. Never nerf him ♥. Buff celestial champion please...

Never compromise, learn from death. This is DST's playstyle. 

[Bumber64]

3 hours ago, Draggofroot said:

What is this discussion. You're saying that fuelweaver got nerfed because an endgame weapon can deal with it??? im tryna read all these but i dont understand your point @Cruvimaster

While ignoring the buffs via removal of cheese strats, of course.

[Edible Coal]

7 hours ago, Midow said:

Is BQ nerfed because you can use terramites instead of panflutes? Not really - it’s just players leveraging stronger options and newer tech. I don't disagree with most of your points about AFW, but I hope this reframes the logic a bit better. 

 

how does terramites help in a bq fight anyways? 

7 hours ago, Midow said:

I’m still in the camp that AFW doesn’t need a direct nerf, but I do think the thread title is a bit misleading. AFW wasn’t nerfed - we just got more tools.

Brightshade Staff is really a circle-in-a-square-hole solution. It's a post-rift answer to a pre-rift problem. I can see how you can call it an “indirect nerf” to an extent, but that’s expected when you bring late-game gear into an earlier gate.

back then there is no easy way to deal with afw bugs and shadow hands no matter how much u prep, so the dev introducing new aoe tools meaning player can just use them instead of practicing dealing with the boss