Mildly curious about peoples opinions on Wurt's skill tree after so long

[Mysterious box]

Personally looking back on it I think it aged better than I thought it would back then even if I do have some gripes with it but I'm kinda curious what everyone else's thoughts on it these days. Especially the more controversial parts like the alignment skills, mosquito branch, and the amphibian branch.

[AveHortor]

I think so for the most part. I personally hate the mosquito part, and it would've been nice if she had perks related to swimming or fish(ing).

[Baark0]

I wish all-weather scales completely removed wetness' effect on body temperature. It's really annoying having to play the first few days of spring either carrying rain protection or a thermal stone/sunfish to avoid freezing.

Sensible swamp fighter is also an incredibly bad skill, like I genuinely don't know why anyone would pick this other than not realizing how it pretty much only hurts your dps. Merm guard respawn times are so low that you'd rather your merms just keep fighting until they die instead of sitting around not doing anything.

The mosquito skills are pretty useless too; the blood shot is basically just combining 2 mosquito sacks into 1 slot for the purposes of healing yourself (healing your merms is frankly a waste of time so I wouldn't even bother considering it), the fertilizer is fine but it's kind of out of place on Wurt instead of someone like Wormwood, and the mosquito bomb is genuinely terrible. Each mosquito can only attack 4 times before the explode, leading to a grand total of 46 damage per mosquito (assuming the explosion actually hits its target). Alternatively, you could hit a mob once with a tentacle spike, or twice with an axe and you'd get more damage. Even with itchcraft 2, thats still only 276 damage at most, and that's assuming whatever youre fighting doesn't just kill the mosquitos, since they only have 100 hp and are easily stunlocked.

The structure skills are fine, however the skills lose most of their value once you've crafted the structure, since you can then character swap to remove those skills and put the points elsewhere.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, AveHortor said:

I think so for the most part. I personally hate the mosquito part, and it would've been nice if she had perks related to swimming or fish(ing).

 

48 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

I wish all-weather scales completely removed wetness' effect on body temperature. It's really annoying having to play the first few days of spring either carrying rain protection or a thermal stone/sunfish to avoid freezing.

Sensible swamp fighter is also an incredibly bad skill, like I genuinely don't know why anyone would pick this other than not realizing how it pretty much only hurts your dps. Merm guard respawn times are so low that you'd rather your merms just keep fighting until they die instead of sitting around not doing anything.

The mosquito skills are pretty useless too; the blood shot is basically just combining 2 mosquito sacks into 1 slot for the purposes of healing yourself (healing your merms is frankly a waste of time so I wouldn't even bother considering it), the fertilizer is fine but it's kind of out of place on Wurt instead of someone like Wormwood, and the mosquito bomb is genuinely terrible. Each mosquito can only attack 4 times before the explode, leading to a grand total of 46 damage per mosquito (assuming the explosion actually hits its target). Alternatively, you could hit a mob once with a tentacle spike, or twice with an axe and you'd get more damage. Even with itchcraft 2, thats still only 276 damage at most, and that's assuming whatever youre fighting doesn't just kill the mosquitos, since they only have 100 hp and are easily stunlocked.

The structure skills are fine, however the skills lose most of their value once you've crafted the structure, since you can then character swap to remove those skills and put the points elsewhere.

Honestly I can understand the hate for the mosquito branch but I kinda like it aside from my main issue with it being you have no way to relocate mosquitoes or increase the production speed of them making them really only usable if you base in the swamp or plan to visit it alot.

I don't really farm so I don't use the fertilizer but the blood shots I always appreciate as a decent healing item as for skeeter bombs I like them as a nice secondary weapon when I don't feel like bringing merms with me. Their 59 damage aoe is decent enough but the mosquitoes make for decent distractions for hordes by splitting their attention and are great for messing with single target enemies in general.

As for swamp fighter I agree it's a poorly designed skill as even if you do wish to heal merms they don't go far from a fight so in fights where it would come up they'll just stand there and die.

Personally I hate the amphibian branch because it's a lot of points for such little value.

[shaurun]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

Personally looking back on it I think it aged better than I thought it would back then even if I do have some gripes with it but I'm kinda curious what everyone else's thoughts on it these days. Especially the more controversial parts like the alignment skills, mosquito branch, and the amphibian branch.

I like mosquito part but I wish she hadn't craft anything to pacify them. 

Affinity is also good.

What I don't like is overload for merma buildings and king upgrades, this whole mechanic is boring for me, but she with merms is the most OP character because they mostly build themselves (fish drops, tentacle spots farming, chop trees for the cost of seeds) and then they are capable to farm anything from trees and rocks to crops and bosses. 

And let it be, it's okay to have such character, but just remove annoying part with king upgrades and several tiers of merms upgrades, add something for fishing/swimming/riding grass gators, let merms row with paddles, bring food from specific container to upkeep the King by them selves while not at base etc. just add more utility for fun instead of these heavy skills.

[Esplanado]

I'm a fan of the mosquito bombs, they're great for dealing with both kind of monkeys. I wish we could craft some sort of "mosquito box" to farm them

[Mysterious box]

15 minutes ago, shaurun said:

What I don't like is overload for merma buildings and king upgrades, this whole mechanic is boring for me, but she with merms is the most OP character because they mostly build themselves (fish drops, tentacle spots farming, chop trees for the cost of seeds) and then they are capable to farm anything from trees and rocks to crops and bosses. 

Ironically this is my favorite part of the tree as I enjoy building the structures and doing the upgrades as it feels like you are advancing them as a society and I especially appreciate things like the kelp dish call button and them becoming able to dig.

19 minutes ago, shaurun said:

add something for fishing/swimming/riding grass gators, let merms row with paddles, bring food from specific container to upkeep the King by them selves while not at base etc. just add more utility for fun instead of these heavy skills.

Swimming would be interesting and probably should have been part of the amphibian tree but I can't really imagine what grass gator taming would add. As for merms rowing with paddles I think that would do more harm than good and lead to a lot of sunken boats personally I think an alternative idea could have been making a merm ferryman you could hire to take you to specific places you mark on the map with the catch being you'd need to pay him in fish and that it has to be a place you've already explored on the map. Finally for king upkeep while it isn't indefinite the king lasts very long with the king skills that exist.   

[YouKnowWho142]

Wurt's skill tree is still one of my least favorites personally since all it really did was make her stronger, not more interesting. I liked the wetness skills and the itchcraft skills, but almost everything else in her skilltree gave her statstick followers even bigger numbers. I am not impressed that her merms which killed any boss in 20 seconds before can now kill them in 15 after the tree. I'm really hoping that Webber isn't treated the same way and he gets something aside from just giving spiders big numbers.

 

On a side note, I've mentioned before that when I play Wurt I exclusively use a mod that limits the max number of merms she can recruit at a time. This completely warps her playstyle and skill tree. It turned Wurt from a character who basically just nukes whatever she looks at to still having to interact with the game while also supporting her followers in combat. Suddenly, merm healing was viable and especially encouraged, sensible swamp fighter was genuinely useful for keeping your merms alive in a fight, and giving them armor felt like a real consideration. Lunar affinity is now finally a genuinely competitive option against shadow since you were trying to prevent your merms from dying and put a major emphasis on merm quality over quantity. It really highlights to me how much missed potential Wurt has as a character.

Edited yesterday at 03:42 AM by YouKnowWho142

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Wurt's skill tree is still one of my least favorites personally since all it really did was make her stronger, not more interesting. I liked the wetness skills and the itchcraft skills, but almost everything else in her skilltree gave her statstick followers even bigger numbers. I am not impressed that her merms which killed any boss in 20 seconds before can now kill them in 15 after the tree. I'm really hoping that Webber isn't treated the same way and he gets something aside from just giving spiders big numbers.

 

On a side note, I've mentioned before that when I play Wurt I exclusively use a mod that limits the max number of merms she can recruit at a time. This completely warps her playstyle and skill tree. It turned Wurt from a character who basically just nukes whatever she looks at to still having to interact with the game while also supporting her followers in combat. Suddenly, merm healing was viable and especially encouraged, sensible swamp fighter was genuinely useful for keeping your merms alive in a fight, and giving them armor felt like a real consideration. Lunar affinity is now finally a genuinely competitive option against shadow since you were trying to prevent your merms from dying and put a major emphasis on merm quality over quantity. It really highlights to me how much missed potential Wurt has as a character.

I mean realistically only 5 non alignment skils and 4 alignment skills of which you can only take 2 actually effect the merms combat power for a total of 7 skills. Everything else effects different aspects of merms or offers quality of life like the kelp dish lowering respawn times and giving you a merm call button, the tools allowing merms to dig and till, or even just the skill to make the merm king live for longer. I argue those aspsects are interesting in themselves. Also while some people don't see lunar merms as competitive it should be said that while shadows win in dps lunar wins in qol in the end due to easier conversions and more useful drops merms are already really strong so qol just feels better than giving more raw dps to a already powerful minion.

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Suddenly, merm healing was viable and especially encouraged, sensible swamp fighter was genuinely useful for keeping your merms alive in a fight

Also perhaps they changed this from last I used this skill but when I last used this what ended up happening was the merm would move back a bit then stand still until the regened or you healed them which lead to them getting mauled to death because they became completely immobile when that happened which is the real reason everyone considers it a worthless skill. It was said during the beta back then and still holds true now Wurt needs to know when to heal her followers and her followers can't be acting stupid in the middle of a fight if Klei seriously expects someone to use that skill also the healing of blood shots on merms needs to be better.

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

It really highlights to me how much missed potential Wurt has as a character

I do think Wurt has a good deal of missed potential but limiting her merm count is probably not the way to go as it's kind of the core of the character she isn't designed as a commander like Webber so imposing these kinds of restrictions is going to make the experience much worse for her while making investing into building up merms and merm guards feel pointless unless a redesign on the character is done. Personally if it were up to me I'd get rid of or rework the amphibian branch into more of a swamp focus as I much more prefer the route the mosquito branch took.

[IAmAFurrz]

bloated with filler, and theyre trying to pretend like it isnt compared to wolfgang after the 'hEs a SiMplE cHarActEr sO hE gEts a SImpLE TreE'.

outside of the merm ****, it adds nothing. it doesnt give an alternative way to play bc they kinda zero'd in on wurt being brainless after the brainless task of setting up merms, instead of allowing her to play less focused on building the army. why bother with 'wetness armor' or 'wetness health regen' when merms do everything? itchy pouch does nothing bc the mosquitoes themselves do nothing. the only that kinda helps is sanity regen to make wurt have 0 issues with nightmares. the worst offender is the one that gives other players near wurt 30% speed on MARSH TURF. like who the **** else is spending time in the swamp or near wurt/the army anyway?

even in the merm skills theres a problematic bunch. 'sensible merm' is really stupid cuz shadow affinity just removes the point of this skill (and it also just reduces dps). other than that, armor is completely unneccessary, considering her whole playstyle is 'get enough til you can just bouldoze everything', armor never matters, it just increases tedium for followers that are disposable, and with shadow she can literally just ignore protecting them since they have double the health

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

It really highlights to me how much missed potential Wurt has as a character.

we all know klei balancing is a myth, and that they really dont know their game much at all, MANY decisions point towards them just doing **** just bc

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

On a side note, I've mentioned before that when I play Wurt I exclusively use a mod that limits the max number of merms she can recruit at a time.

what is the mod's name? im interested, cuz the one time i played her was before her tree and i struggled to keep my eyes open half the time, and the other half is simply just me getting annoyed at merms

24 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

she isn't designed as a commander like Webber

the whole point of the person's post is that the lack of a limit removes so much of the tree's many skills' purpose. no point in giving them dogshit armor or healing, no point in having them step back to heal, no point in giving lunar affinity, they just go in and die. so much for 'building an empire', its more like building a dictatorship.

Edited yesterday at 05:28 AM by IAmAFurrz
its "lack of a limit' not "limit"

[flamboyant wolf]

I do love the toolshed, gives regular merms a reason to be used over guards for once, lets them do a few new tasks.

Amphibian perks are alright, though you have to spend 2 points on largely inconsequential(imho) skills to get to anything.

Mosquito branch is a fun side thing to have.

The bowl/armory are fine.

I like the idea behind merm king quests, and I think it's fun to have these little extra goals, but all the buffs improving merm's combat potential is where my main issue with the tree lies. armory, crown quest and armor quest all lead to increased merm survivability in fights, but merms, especially guards, already got quite a bit of health, decent damage, quick respawn times&cheap recruitment costs. trident quest makes their dps higher, again, an upgrade to their fighting capabilities. And then the biggest offender - shadow affinity. free 2nd life on all your merm allies for free, and a way to further increase their dps if you defeat NM Werepig. It's just too much.

Edited yesterday at 06:38 AM by flamboyant wolf
clearer wording

[YouKnowWho142]

1 hour ago, IAmAFurrz said:

what is the mod's name? im interested, cuz the one time i played her was before her tree and i struggled to keep my eyes open half the time, and the other half is simply just me getting annoyed at merms

mod doesn't really exist anywhere unfortunately :(( i asked a dst modder to make a merm limiting mod for me specifically and so it won't show up on the steam workshop or anything. if you are particularly interested message me and i can show you where to find it

[Jakepeng99]

It’s my least favourite skilltree in the game because it breaks her balance and makes her merms so op it’s pretty boring.

It also adds barely any utility or anything outside of that, so it’s just a bunch of skills that make merms op.

She is a big problem in the game. Especially when people start comparing other characters to her.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, IAmAFurrz said:

the whole point of the person's post is that the lack of a limit removes so much of the tree's many skills' purpose. no point in giving them dogshit armor or healing, no point in having them step back to heal, no point in giving lunar affinity, they just go in and die. so much for 'building an empire', its more like building a dictatorship.

The issue is the only thing putting a limit on them accomplishes is making it so merms can't participate in fights against stronger bosses which is why I brought up the webber comparison their a.i. is dumb and sensible swamp fighter isn't programed well enough to make them actually avoid getting hit during a fight they move out of the way once and then they stand there which leads to them just getting helplessly killed especially if priority didn't drop.

[Mysterious box]

I guess something I said may have been flagged so I'll try to simplify my reply basically what I'm saying is the sensible perk doesn't help because merms end up standing still and taken out before you can help them and limits would make it so stronger bosses just wouldn't be possible with merms. 

If they planned to improve merm combat enough that you could actually approach all fights with smaller groups I wouldn't mind but that doesn't seem like it'd work in it's current state.

[Evelo]

I like how there is an identity for Wurt to be a character outside her merm followers, however because it isn't a "choose this or that" situation, she is incredibly over powered. Having the strongest damage reduction, self-healing, damage, health, hunger, sanity, just... she's crazy bonkers powerful ontop of having merms which were already powerful, but post skill tree just trivialize the game more so than before. I'd really like for her to be tuned down and have her solo perks cost her something with regard to merms. 
Just spitballing, having a limited number of merm followers at a time (let's say 10) then each skill in that buffs her and not her merms decreases that cap by 1. That way, maybe if she is fully kitted out, she can have like 3 merm followers max. Still powerful, but less stompy.

And I know the argument will be "but she has to take so much time to set up her merm army!" yeah, but time not fighting, doesn't make the fight any easier or harder. The fight is the same whether or not you do it on Day 1, or Day 1000.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Just spitballing, having a limited number of merm followers at a time (let's say 10) then each skill in that buffs her and not her merms decreases that cap by 1. That way, maybe if she is fully kitted out, she can have like 3 merm followers max. Still powerful, but less stompy.

And I know the argument will be "but she has to take so much time to set up her merm army!" yeah, but time not fighting, doesn't make the fight any easier or harder. The fight is the same whether or not you do it on Day 1, or Day 1000.

The issue isn't how long it takes to setup the problem is would they even be able to fight any bosses like that?

[YouKnowWho142]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I guess something I said may have been flagged so I'll try to simplify my reply basically what I'm saying is the sensible perk doesn't help because merms end up standing still and taken out before you can help them and limits would make it so stronger bosses just wouldn't be possible with merms. 

If they planned to improve merm combat enough that you could actually approach all fights with smaller groups I wouldn't mind but that doesn't seem like it'd work in it's current state.

ive killed most bosses with an 8 merm limit, merms are definitely usable against really any boss due to all of the buffs you can give them. Even just having 8 is still strong enough to solo a good portion of the bosses without any player involvement, the merm quest skills are really just that strong.

I'm also not saying that a merm limit is a solution that needs to happen, nor is that what I was trying to imply. I personally found Wurt and just as importantly her skill tree significantly more interesting by having a limit, but most people who play Wurt want to enjoy their unkillable power fantasy. I'm only trying to say that the way she's encouraged to be played without a merm limit disincentivizes you from interacting with most of her skill tree and especially limits her interaction with her own merms and the game in general.

[Mysterious box]

11 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

ive killed most bosses with an 8 merm limit, merms are definitely usable against really any boss due to all of the buffs you can give them. Even just having 8 is still strong enough to solo a good portion of the bosses without any player involvement, the merm quest skills are really just that strong.

I'm also not saying that a merm limit is a solution that needs to happen, nor is that what I was trying to imply. I personally found Wurt and just as importantly her skill tree significantly more interesting by having a limit, but most people who play Wurt want to enjoy their unkillable power fantasy. I'm only trying to say that the way she's encouraged to be played without a merm limit disincentivizes you from interacting with most of her skill tree and especially limits her interaction with her own merms and the game in general.

Personally I'd like if merm combat had more meaningful player involvement but at the same time I don't want to run into a situation where merms become useless in the end game. When you say they take on a good portion does this include mid and end game bosses who do a lot of damage?

Honestly I think the best outcome would be if they eventually took what was learned in the Wx skill tree and try to rework Wurt with it in the future like instead of merms just being stat sticks they could have her give commands using a similar design to how Wx has active abilities like Sonic invoker or blocks but in Wurt's case right clicking could potentially be used to position merms or something.

[YouKnowWho142]

12 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Personally I'd like if merm combat had more meaningful player involvement but at the same time I don't want to run into a situation where merms become useless in the end game. When you say they take on a good portion does this include mid and end game bosses who do a lot of damage?

between helmets, 700 hp health pool, and the merm quest items (especially the dodge and triple hit), they are especially strong against the mid to end game bosses. they defeat all three of the possessed bosses with ease, are great for fuelweaver since the mutated merms have aoe, and of course are good for bee queen, dragonfly, etc. I haven't done scion with them since it wasnt out when i did the run.

The only bosses they kind of struggle against are the typical crowd control bosses like twins (especially them, since a lot of bosses with devastating aoe attacks are usually outdodged by the merms). Celestial champion is tricky but doable while keeping at least a few of the merms alive to the very end, as long as you're supporting the merms and preventing them from getting blended. Crab king is like their worst boss because the ice tile really messes with their ai.

All having less merms mean is being more creative with how you approach boss fights. It forces the player to be a lot more involved and i like that.

Edited yesterday at 08:13 AM by YouKnowWho142

[Mysterious box]

8 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

between helmets, 700 hp health pool, and the merm quest items (especially the dodge and triple hit), they are especially strong against the mid to end game bosses. they defeat all three of the possessed bosses with ease, are great for fuelweaver since the mutated merms have aoe, and of course are good for bee queen, dragonfly, etc. I haven't done scion with them since it wasnt out when i did the run.

The only bosses they kind of struggle against are the typical crowd control bosses like twins (especially them, since a lot of bosses with devastating aoe attacks are usually outdodged by the merms). Celestial champion is tricky but doable while keeping at least a few of the merms alive to the very end, as long as you're supporting the merms and preventing them from getting blended. Crab king is like their worst boss because the ice tile really messes with their ai.

All having less merms mean is being more creative with how you approach boss fights. It forces the player to be a lot more involved and i like that.

Honestly now I'm curious when I have time I'll give it a try since I'm part of the camp who prefers lunar merms over shadow anyway.

[flamboyant wolf]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

The issue is the only thing putting a limit on them accomplishes is making it so merms can't participate in fights against stronger bosses 

I mean, they could still participate and do a nice amout of damage likely, they just wouldn't solo the boss by themselves. 

That said, I think regardless of wether the merm limit is implemented or not, shadow alignment is too much value for its cost, so I think that should be adjusted. Like, if shadow merms stay a free revive for the merms, then they shouldn't be as tanky as living merms, and should have a short lifespan, so that shadow form is less of a "free double hp" and more of a "last breath" for the merms.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, flamboyant wolf said:

I mean, they could still participate and do a nice amout of damage likely, they just wouldn't solo the boss by themselves. 

I don't want them to solo I want them to work together with the player to defeat the boss. Killing the boss by themselves isn't ideal but I'd also very much be against them becoming unable to keep up with you throughout the boss fights. To be more exact them dying because you messed up is fine but them dying when you are actively trying to keep them alive is the only situation I'd like to avoid.

 

2 hours ago, flamboyant wolf said:

That said, I think regardless of wether the merm limit is implemented or not, shadow alignment is too much value for its cost, so I think that should be adjusted. Like, if shadow merms stay a free revive for the merms, then they shouldn't be as tanky as living merms, and should have a short lifespan, so that shadow form is less of a "free double hp" and more of a "last breath" for the merms.

I'll be honest I just don't use shadow merms it could be removed tomorrow and I'd be fine design wise and convenience wise lunar merms are just more to my style. Personally I don't get why Klei stacked so much survivability and power into one alignment anyway.

[Jakepeng99]

5 hours ago, Evelo said:

I like how there is an identity for Wurt to be a character outside her merm followers, however because it isn't a "choose this or that" situation, she is incredibly over powered. Having the strongest damage reduction, self-healing, damage, health, hunger, sanity, just... she's crazy bonkers powerful ontop of having merms which were already powerful, but post skill tree just trivialize the game more so than before. I'd really like for her to be tuned down and have her solo perks cost her something with regard to merms. 
Just spitballing, having a limited number of merm followers at a time (let's say 10) then each skill in that buffs her and not her merms decreases that cap by 1. That way, maybe if she is fully kitted out, she can have like 3 merm followers max. Still powerful, but less stompy.

And I know the argument will be "but she has to take so much time to set up her merm army!" yeah, but time not fighting, doesn't make the fight any easier or harder. The fight is the same whether or not you do it on Day 1, or Day 1000.

I’d argue she would still be the most op character with her skilltree with just 6-12 merms. Thats actually how I mainly played her with her skilltree, already made stuff pretty easy.

 

It helps a lot but her merms have dodges, tons of damage and health, the potential for armour, and a second chance/even more stats depending on affinity. To me it’s like deducting a million from a billion. They are immune to fear so bypass a lot of bosses counters to follower spam which every other follower which is significantly weaker has to face. She also has ways to heal merms but it’s never nessisary.

You could also spam merm houses or find other ways to bypass the limit but that’s not the main problem since it’s the merms themselves. They could do a WX and rework merms base kit.

Edited yesterday at 12:43 PM by Jakepeng99

[Ridley]

This is what I take. I circled the mosquito perks blue because they are fun, but aren't really impactful. Most of the merm buildings felt like a waste too.

What I hope happens for Wurt is that we get a follower update. A while back, Klei was interviewed with Massive Monster about enjoying each other's games. There is this quote I really liked:

"Devolver Digital: What’s an element from Cult you think could work well in Don't Starve?

Klei: We loved all the different NPC interactions in Cult of the Lamb when you’re in town.  We have definitely thought about what it could look like if we add more things like that and NPCs in general into Don’t Starve Together. We have dabbled in it a bit with characters like Wagstaff popping up from time to time. 

We could also see a possible update that maybe adds more interaction with the Pigmen, Merm and Bunnymen where they became kind of cult followers to the survivors. There’s some fun room there where they have early benefits to the players, but then start to become problematic."