Warly: The Best Beefalo Warrior.

[DegenerateFurry]

Warly is, objectively speaking, the single best character for beefalo-mounted combat. Before I explain why, let's look at what typically makes someone think a character is well-suited for the beefalo playstyle: 

Downside Negation.

Characters like Wendy and Wes (who have damage penalties), Maxwell, Wes, and Wickerbottom (who have less max HP), and Wormwood (who has a harder time healing) are traditionally seen as the best for beefalo combat. They're protected from their own weakness by the beefalo's strength, with its damage being independent of theirs and it taking damage for them. Maxwell and Wendy both have additional benefits: Maxwell can wield the Shadow Thurible while still doing damage himself and Wendy can increase the damage she deals to a target if Abigail is also attacking it. 

Then there's Wigfrid, who for some reason got a branch of beefalo perks despite having zero synergy (or really, anti-synergy, since the beefalo doesn't benefit from her damage modifiers) between beefalo combat and her actual perks and downsides as a character. Her main claim to fame in Beefalo Gaming is her ability to tame them faster and to make a saddle that provides 40% damage reduction, although she can only make it if she goes feather-farming during winter (or gets really lucky with tumbleweeds). 

Warly benefits from beefalo in the sense of downside negation as well, and this is perhaps an unknown fact to all you non-Warloids out there. Warly's food memory makes it harder for him to heal because of the diminishing returns; instead of spamming as many pierogis as you're able to make, you're better off using three pierogis, then three trail mix or some other healing food, and so on. The beefalo, much like with Wormwood, completely negates this character-specific downside (barring ranged enemies like Mactusk).

Warly has far more going for him than that, though. First off, his starting item.

Portable Crock Pot.

Warly's portable crock pot allows him to make steamed twigs wherever he is, and he can do it very quickly. This makes the process of taming a beefalo significantly easier; keeping a beefalo fed massively reduces its obedience decrease, meaning that you'll have to feed it far less overall, and the periodic feeding-while-mounted you do to reset its buck timer will keep its obedience up until its hunger eventually runs down. Anyone else would have to make a batch of steamed twigs at the base or just deal with a hungry beefalo whose domestication starts ticking down the moment they dismount it.

His other perks also massively benefit the beefalo playstyle and are the reason he is King of Beef.

Beefalo Benefit From Dishes and Spices.

Yeah, that's right: you can spice steamed twigs. That means you can give your beefalo 33% damage protection as soon as you're able to make garlic powder. You can also increase its damage per hit by 20% with chili flakes on steamed twigs. That's not all, though; if Warly eats Volt Goat Chaud-Froid, his beefalo will do electric damage. That means that you can increase a beefalo's damage up to 2.7x in ideal conditions (or 1.7x if the enemy is not wet). Ornery war saddle? That respectable 66 damage is now as high as 178. 

Got a Wigfrid, or some moonrock idols? With a Battle Saddle and garlicky steamed twigs, Warly can give his beefalo 73% protection. Don't like using Wigfrid as a swap character? Try a nightmare saddle instead and give your beefalo marble suit-level protection with 93% damage reduction. At that point, you can just face-tank from your beefalo, never caring about armor or weapon durability and maybe having a few blue caps or cooked potatoes on-hand for emergencies, not that you'll really need them, since it has 1000 HP that regenerates and will, on average, be taking less than 10 damage per hit from most sources. 

All of this to say, Klei, please let Warly milk beefalo and make butter with the milk when he gets his skill tree. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:34 AM by DegenerateFurry

[GamePlayer42]

yeah i agree, i used to use warly alot around when steam twigs were released and its genuinely a godsend, taming beefalo quicker is such a boon. resistance stuff is really interesting too and i didnt know 93% dmg reduction was possible on a beefalo, thats insane, cheers for the info

[Baark0]

I feel like Warly is a super underrated character, which in all fairness he is on the weaker side of things, but thats mostly due to his lack of a skill tree. He has similar if not higher damage than Wolfgang, more damage reduction than Wigfrid, a super cheap dish that provides 2 days of decaying light, unconditional full heals in the late game with the scion crown, high work efficiency, immunity to rain without needing clothing, and pretty solid warming/cooling options. The main issue is that you need to do a lot of farming to get a bunch of his perks, which isn't something everyone likes to do, especially if you don't have a Wormwood for the fast planting speed. Hopefully he gets some farming related perks when his skill tree does come out.

Also, slight note about Warly's garlic spice: it's different from typical sources of protection that you normally get from armor. The nightmare saddle gives 60% protection, which exclusively reduces physical damage taken, whereas damage reduction (what Warly's garlic spice gives and what Wigfrid has) reduces the damage you take from all sources. This includes overheating, freezing, starving, and even planar damage. In practice, what this means is that if you were to take 100 damage from something, it'd first be reduced by 60% thanks to the saddle, then the remaining 40 damage would then get reduced by the 33% damage reduction of the garlic spice down to about 13.2 damage. If it was 93% damage reduction, then you'd instead only be taking 7 damage.

[themightyone]

Maybe it's just me, but when I am taming a beefalo I tend to have a day or 2 food for the beefalo on me and just come back to the base at night and make some more and let the beefalo sleep. I suppose there is usually at least a few times during the 15-20 day taming process where I might be scrambling for some beefo food where a portable crockpot would help though🤔. For speed runners or people trying to get a beefalo really quick I could see it being invaluable though.

 

Your second point on the increased damage and protections with saddles and whatnot has me more intrigued. I tried most of what you mentioned but I still need the nightmare saddle, that sounds fun!

I've played a good amount of Warly and while his food whining can be annoying (I know you can just do meaty stew) it does somewhat force you to learn a lot of recipes at least. I usually just grab a lot of raw ingredients to make a decent amount of spicy jelly and a few other things and swap in Warly in then out.

[DegenerateFurry]

11 hours ago, Baark0 said:

I feel like Warly is a super underrated character, which in all fairness he is on the weaker side of things, but thats mostly due to his lack of a skill tree. He has similar if not higher damage than Wolfgang, more damage reduction than Wigfrid, a super cheap dish that provides 2 days of decaying light, unconditional full heals in the late game with the scion crown, high work efficiency, immunity to rain without needing clothing, and pretty solid warming/cooling options. The main issue is that you need to do a lot of farming to get a bunch of his perks, which isn't something everyone likes to do, especially if you don't have a Wormwood for the fast planting speed. Hopefully he gets some farming related perks when his skill tree does come out.

Also, slight note about Warly's garlic spice: it's different from typical sources of protection that you normally get from armor. The nightmare saddle gives 60% protection, which exclusively reduces physical damage taken, whereas damage reduction (what Warly's garlic spice gives and what Wigfrid has) reduces the damage you take from all sources. This includes overheating, freezing, starving, and even planar damage. In practice, what this means is that if you were to take 100 damage from something, it'd first be reduced by 60% thanks to the saddle, then the remaining 40 damage would then get reduced by the 33% damage reduction of the garlic spice down to about 13.2 damage. If it was 93% damage reduction, then you'd instead only be taking 7 damage.

Oh, I assumed it was just additive for whatever reason. Still pretty impressive, though.

[brednas7]

11 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

That means that you can increase a beefalo's damage up to 2.7x in ideal conditions (or 1.7x if the enemy is not wet). Ornery war saddle? That respectable 66 damage is now as high as 178. 

With a Battle Saddle and garlicky steamed twigs, Warly can give his beefalo 73% protection. Don't like using Wigfrid as a swap character? Try a nightmare saddle instead and give your beefalo marble suit-level protection with 93% damage reduction.

The numbers feels of. When i use beefalo with chili flakes and volt goat chaud-froid, i end up with 118 damage on dry mobs (1.8x) and 198 on wet mobs (3x).

Warly is definitely the best for beefalo-mounted combat in the long term, but in the short term Wendy is more consistent.

[ShadowDuelist]

55 minutes ago, brednas7 said:

Warly is definitely the best for beefalo-mounted combat in the long term, but in the short term Wendy is more consistent.

It also takes a long time to become established enough to do that much damage, have that level of resistance, and be able to afford using those buffs often. Meanwhile, Wendy or Maxwell will be getting far more utility out of the beefalo from day one. By the time Warly can surpass them in terms of damage and shielding, they will already have a head start of hundreds of days’ worth of progress.

So yeah, if we’re talking strictly about efficiency, maybe in a co-op run where everyone cooperates so Warly can get all his stuff set up quickly and in abundance, sure, he’s awesome. But in most scenarios, he’s a bit inconvenient and has a very slow start compared to the other beefalo-oriented characters.
 

Of course, I’m not taking into account how fun playing Warly can be to face his cons, and the general design of the character itself. That’s probably for another topic.
 

Warly probably needs to have better opportunities to “find” the ingredients that make him powerful, that can probably be done through a mix of his upcoming skill tree and the world itself providing a wider variety of vegetables growing around naturally (enough for him to have a much better early game but not enough to negate farming)

Edited Wednesday at 08:34 PM by ShadowDuelist

[GrapeVruit]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

It also takes a long time to become established enough to do that much damage, have that level of resistance, and be able to afford using those buffs often. Meanwhile, Wendy or Maxwell will be getting far more utility out of the beefalo from day one. By the time Warly can surpass them in terms of damage and shielding, they will already have a head start of hundreds of days’ worth of progress.

So yeah, if we’re talking strictly about efficiency, maybe in a co-op run where everyone cooperates so Warly can get all his stuff set up quickly and in abundance, sure, he’s awesome. But in most scenarios, he’s a bit inconvenient and has a very slow start compared to the other beefalo-oriented characters.
 

Of course, I’m not taking into account how fun playing Warly can be to face his cons, and the general design of the character itself. That’s probably for another topic.
 

Warly probably needs to have better opportunities to “find” the ingredients that make him powerful, that can probably be done through a mix of his upcoming skill tree and the world itself providing a wider variety of vegetables growing around naturally (enough for him to have a much better early game but not enough to negate farming)

 

14 hours ago, Baark0 said:

I feel like Warly is a super underrated character, which in all fairness he is on the weaker side of things, but thats mostly due to his lack of a skill tree. 

I decided to do a play through as Warly a few days ago, and while him lacking a skill tree is part of the issue, I feel it mainly boils down to the huge amount of effort Warly has to expend in order to reach his max potential compared to other characters. While he is able to become a great worker, fighter, and ignore certain parts of the game like wetness or freezing, it takes an AGONIZING amount of time to do so since most of his best dishes and spices require farming, with the crops needed having a low chance of appearing or can only be planted in specific seasons lest you endure a slow growth cycle and next to no seeds upon harvest. While Warly has to constantly focus on crop formations, nutrient requirements, and the moisture in the soil, other characters like Maxwell can work a lot faster thanks to his shadow servants, Wolfgang can press a button and get the ability to do 2x damage constantly, and Wickerbottom has a books that can make her ignore most parts of the game like wetness, overheating, or the 4 day wait time for farm crops. I feel like Warly's kit is a tad too grindy for the most part and Klei should focus on giving Warly a way to farm for his stuff that isn't exclusive to farming.

[Baark0]

2 hours ago, brednas7 said:

The numbers feels of. When i use beefalo with chili flakes and volt goat chaud-froid, i end up with 118 damage on dry mobs (1.8x) and 198 on wet mobs (3x).

Warly is definitely the best for beefalo-mounted combat in the long term, but in the short term Wendy is more consistent.

This is because damage buffs are multiplicative in DST, so instead of being a 2.7x buff, its actually a 2.5x buff multiplied by a 1.2x buff. This leads to you getting a 1.78x damage buff vs dry targets, and a 3x damage buff vs wet targets, so everything is working as intended.

[DegenerateFurry]

18 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

This is because damage buffs are multiplicative in DST, so instead of being a 2.7x buff, its actually a 2.5x buff multiplied by a 1.2x buff. This leads to you getting a 1.78x damage buff vs dry targets, and a 3x damage buff vs wet targets, so everything is working as intended.

That explains why it's so confusing.

[Cruvimaster]

I don't like using beefalo for boss fights, as I prefer to do that directly with my character. I've tamed many beefalo, but I confess I'm even enjoying using a character that doesn't need them (like Wortox or WX).

[YouKnowWho142]

3 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

I don't like using beefalo for boss fights, as I prefer to do that directly with my character. I've tamed many beefalo, but I confess I'm even enjoying using a character that doesn't need them (like Wortox or WX).

It’s honestly a pretty common misconception to think that beefalo are used solely for combat. I think most characters are so strong by this point that a beefalo hinders more than helps, and for those characters they generally want a rider beefalo. Wigfrid is a good example, since as op mentioned she doesn’t synergize with an ornery beefalo at all (except for her battle saddle which I admit is extremely questionable), but her beefalo skills synergize super well with a rider beefalo due to wigfrid’s lack of mobility or teleports while also letting her keep one battle song active at essentially all times.

[Baark0]

57 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

I don't like using beefalo for boss fights, as I prefer to do that directly with my character. I've tamed many beefalo, but I confess I'm even enjoying using a character that doesn't need them (like Wortox or WX).

I used to love ornery beefalo, then Klei started adding knockback attacks to the game and now I pretty much exclusively go for rider beefalo. The low obedience went from a mild inconvenience to a really dangerous thing that could easily get you and your beefalo killed. It's just not worth the hassle anymore, especially when characters are getting really powerful combat abilities that simply don't work while riding beefalo.

[YouKnowWho142]

3 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

I used to love ornery beefalo, then Klei started adding knockback attacks to the game and now I pretty much exclusively go for rider beefalo. The low obedience went from a mild inconvenience to a really dangerous thing that could easily get you and your beefalo killed. It's just not worth the hassle anymore, especially when characters are getting really powerful combat abilities that simply don't work while riding beefalo.

Honestly I almost feel like knockback attacks being as common as they are almost entirely because of ornery beefalo. Almost every new boss added in the last few years have at least one attack with knockback even non planar bosses, and there’s lots of newish mobs with knockback too like rictus and brightshades

ornery beefalo isn’t a (figuratively speaking) free solution to boss fights as a combat disadvantaged character anymore, but it’s honestly because of that that I use ornery beefalo a little more now. I used to hate the idea of using beefalo with a character like Wendy who just loses their downside with one but there’s enough disadvantages to beefalo that they weren’t my go to for everything and I liked that.

Edited yesterday at 02:00 AM by YouKnowWho142

[DegenerateFurry]

16 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Honestly I almost feel like knockback attacks being as common as they are almost entirely because of ornery beefalo. Almost every new boss added in the last few years have at least one attack with knockback even non planar bosses, and there’s lots of newish mobs with knockback too like rictus and brightshades

ornery beefalo isn’t a (figuratively speaking) free solution to boss fights as a combat disadvantaged character anymore, but it’s honestly because of that that I use ornery beefalo a little more now. I used to hate the idea of using beefalo with a character like Wendy who just loses their downside with one but there’s enough disadvantages to beefalo that they weren’t my go to for everything and I liked that.

Yeah, this is pretty much the way I feel about it too. It makes Nightmare Werepig a very risky fight, which makes it more fun than it normally is once you've gotten good at it. Get dismounted once and you're gonna have to flee the battlefield before NMWP rips your beefalo in half. 

[Mr Giggio]

Wendy just wins from day 1 at how viable and simple it is.  No set up, no restriction.

[Mr Giggio]

10 hours ago, Baark0 said:

I used to love ornery beefalo, then Klei started adding knockback attacks to the game and now I pretty much exclusively go for rider beefalo. The low obedience went from a mild inconvenience to a really dangerous thing that could easily get you and your beefalo killed. It's just not worth the hassle anymore, especially when characters are getting really powerful combat abilities that simply don't work while riding beefalo.

That's why nowadays I carry a telelocatoe staff as solution - as soon the enemy knocks me off and beef aggroes on it I cast teleport on the beefalo so it looses the target and give you enough room to feed a twig and mount again.

 

But that being said I do agree with you that the danger is real and if a character don't have plenty of inventory carrying a telestaff can be a burden

[hyoton123]

15 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Wigfrid is a good example, since as op mentioned she doesn’t synergize with an ornery beefalo at all (except for her battle saddle which I admit is extremely questionable), but her beefalo skills synergize super well with a rider beefalo due to wigfrid’s lack of mobility or teleports while also letting her keep one battle song active at essentially all times.

Yeah, it turns her into an excellent enlightened crown ranged platform because she can use sanity regain song with no charge up time. 

[DegenerateFurry]

6 hours ago, Mr Giggio said:

Wendy just wins from day 1 at how viable and simple it is.  No set up, no restriction.

Wendy's initially stronger, sure, but she'll have more difficulty with the taming process and hits her peak super early. Warly is the only character capable of maximizing a beefalo's true potential for bloodshed and war.