Wickerbottom Skill Tree Mockup

[apiculturist]

Disclaimer: I’m not an artist. All images belong to Klei and were sourced from wiki.gg. I just rearranged/recolored them.

[apiculturist]

Design Philosophy Notes

1. Tried to stick to the design philosophy of vanilla DS Wicker, but upgraded for DST:
a) Wicker was the best farming and resource-gathering character in DS.
b) She was the only character with her own crafting filter, so adding a number of new crafts is warranted.
c) She was no better at combat than Wilson, except for the tentacle book which was quite difficult to use safely. Her perks focused on research, farming, resource gathering, and changing the game-world.

2. Wicker should be fun to play in her own right, not treated as a “swap character” who just crafts a few things and leaves. The skill tree above gives her exclusive books (useable only by a Wicker with the associated skill), as well as long-term perks for gardening, reading, and interacting with lunar and shadow content.
(Her status as a “swap character” could also be fixed if Klei made the following change: Maxwell can read all of Wicker’s non-skill-tree books at no sanity cost, but whenever Maxwell reads a book it consumes 100% of the book’s durability. Things just turn to ashes in the Shadow King's hands)

3. I based the overall layout on Wormwood and Willow’s skill trees (IMO Willow's is the best-designed so far), which each have two major skill lines (Wormwood’s right and left branch lunar affinities, and Willow’s pyromancy and Bernie abilities) and force the player to either go all in on one of them, or balance the two evenly.

4. I wanted to fill a few utility gaps I see in the game as-is. Currently:
a) Added an additional way to get rid of iridescent gems (the only craft for them right now is the Lunar Grimoire, of which you only need one).
b) I’ve read posts from a number of players who miss the old farming system, feeling that the new system is too labor-intensive and doesn’t allow the player to do anything else. The Garden skills above allow Wicker to do a little less babysitting, without reverting completely to the old system.
c) Added a way to un-petrify trees.
d) Added a way to make mandrakes renewable.
e) Added a non-cheese way to make brightshades less annoying.

5. Included skills that make Wicker useful to a team (over and above her normal farming/gathering niche):
a) Ability to manage others’ sanity with Vicarious Psychology. Also allows the cost of reading multiple books to be spread around.
b) Made blueprints shareable with Shared Knowledge.
c) Compost Compendium can fertilize Wormwood.
d) Lepidopterological Studies has synergies with Wendy (more flowers for graves and sisturn, more small animals to murder for Shadow Abigail) and Walter (flutter strips). Also makes it easier to make multiple glossamer saddles.
e) Apiculture, Expanded makes bundling wrap more readily available so everyone can have some.
f) Lunar Librarian I has synergy with Wilson’s ability to craft iridescent gems, making that ability useful for more than a one-time quest.
g) Shadow Librarian I makes Wicker indirectly useful during the Nightmare Werepig and Ancient Fuelweaver fights.
h) Shadow Librarian II has synergy with Woodie (easier curse control).

[Dr.Webber]

I liked the skill tree, but a few changes I think you’re making her utility for farming stuff a theme when farming was never her theme is always centered around the books/knowledgeand some her books just happened too be good for farming. Don’t get me wrong proposing skills that will further that game mechanic is good, but maybe less skills focused on the farming part and more books in general especially contributing a affinity skill to farming 

Also, she had a cat so I think some more interaction with catcoons would be nice

Also, since it’s a lunar item, I would suggest replacing the nightmare fuel with moon glass for the moon  caller staff also the iridescent gem it’s a bit too pricey to make the moon caller staff aircraft, maybe replace it with something else 

also, I know driftwood is found on the lunar island that’s more to do with. It’s a spontaneously formed island. Then anything lunar.

Also, maybe make forming salt formations part of geological notes from the beginning since salt is in the craft for the book

Also a skill related to wickerbottom finding secrets thus gaining more knowledge would also be a fun idea

Also, I like the current book of spawning grumble bees so maybe add a skill where they remain  loyal  after spawning the bee queen or perhaps being able to turn the ones that be queen spawns on her or some version of these two ideas that have to do with doing it with a Bee queen crown on

[Walrusst]

Maxwell using 100% durability has a bit of a griefer enabling feature to it, simply because, a maxwell can run in and drain a base of resources deliberately, maliciously, and fast with that change if he can reach a bookshelf.
Say what if the codex umbra griefed him when he cheated on it with other books? Like he had to fight his shadow clones that spawn because the codex umbra rebels, burning his nightmare fuel reserves if he has them, but blocking his sanity regen for several minutes if he doesn't have nightmare fuel. Now he can't really spam a wicker book as he would be fighting for his life and be down like 5 nightmare fuel having done that, but he can do a bit of casual magic rarely without his codex umbra hurting him.

A swap interaction should be nerfed to make the intended character intended, but sane swap interactions are fine. Keeping it usable in moderation is what we want because an interaction thats cool and fair is better than a nuclear nerf thats just going to make character mains fight each other.

I still want things to be 99% wicker-bottom getting changes that make her the undisputed best at using her books instead. Say she gets a big cast from fully reading it but the ability to use minor controlled targeted effects wielding it like a tool and reciting specialized passages. So each ones a tool or weapon and a area spell that makes her use of them more nuanced and varied.
The reason you like her with the books is that they are versatile in her hands and not just a big dumb brick you use once every 7 days for a huge spell effect.

Edited July 3 by Walrusst

[Baark0]

It sounds like Wildflower Gardener applies to the Compost Compendium, which seems really annoying if you want to have the option to grow lots of weeds for Pearl's teas, but also want to be able to fertilize your crops. I'd make WG a separate book.

The nurturer to herbalist branch seems really not worth taking. More time spent in mature form before rotting is fine but doesn't really feels like it fits Wicker's theme (outside of her having a garden, I guess?). Horticulture know-how seems like a skill thats solely there to makes your farming mistakes less punishing, but it doesn't do anything to enhance Wicker's gameplay or make her gameplay more convenient, so imo its just kinda useless. Lastly, herbalist seems decent, but the only veggie you can dry is kelp (and the tea ingredients but those barely give any stats so they're pretty useless). With herbalist, dried kelp gives you 1 extra health and 10 extra sanity, which isn't bad, but imo is not at all worth 2 skill points, especially with the first skill point being mostly useless.

Amateur psychiatrist is really niche. Outside of reading it to refresh Wicker's own sanity, I don't see this item actually having many use cases, and it'd definitely be used on public servers to mess with other players sanity levels.

Shared Knowledge is okay, the only rare blueprint you actually want to share with other players is the bundling wrap, maybe the astral detector blueprint to save other players a trip to the archives. Other than those 2 situations, I don't see this skill being too helpful.

Widely Read 1 and 2's books are fine, but imo are a bit boring for skill tree abilities. Making bee boxes easier to harvest is fine but is pretty much just a QoL thing, and its not exactly something I'm too interested in spending skill points on. The butterfly book would probably be good since butterfly wings aren't half bad for healing (and the chance of getting butter is pretty good too), but it's not really a unique ability. The boulder book... definitely exists. It seems like a really slow way of farming rocks, and is marginally better if you do it underground so you get some extra resources from earthquakes, but it'd also cause damage to reinforced pillars, which isn't exactly appreciated. The extra book effects from WR 2 don't seem too useful either, de-petrifying trees has never been something I've wished I had the ability to do, and the mandrake thing feels exclusively like something meant for builders who want to decorate with planted mandrakes (especially since Wicker has no reason to use panflutes thanks to sleepytime stories).

Widely Read 3 feels very similar to the 1% mandrake chance, in the sense that I see very little practical uses for this skill, but for megabasers it would be nice for decorating with bee hives and farming honeycombs to wax giant crops. The extra book effects also just don't seem very useful: very few non-Wormwood players  actually care about mushroom planters, and even fewer actually care enough to go catch mushroom spores, especially with coloured enlightened crowns not being very common thanks to the Scion Jewels. The salt formation restoration once again seems really niche, as salt isn't really a resource you need large amounts of.

Lunar affinity kinda sucks, especially since its competing with shadow affinity which actually has some nice perks. You get tons of brightshade husks the longer a world goes on for and crafting the moon caller staff is pretty much completely useless as a solo player (you need 2 iridescent gems to craft it, but the only way to get iri gems is to deconstruct a moon caller staff), and even if you have a Wilson, it costs 2 yellow gems (alongside all the other gems) to craft 2 iri gems, and at that point you might as well just craft a star caller staff and transform it, something you can easily do since Wicker can summon full moons.

The lunar terraforming book could be useful for farming moon glass if you like the axes and cutters (except its not since you need moonstorms to craft the book in the first place, and at that point you can farm infinite moon glass from the end is nigh), and it also nerfs birds of the world for seemingly no reason (I consider spawning the stupid moonstorm birds a nerf, as they're really annoying and will make farming birds much more annoying for no reason. I guess you could get the birds pre-moonstorms? But like who cares, they suck outside of farming rotten eggs for gunpowder, but nobody does this because its really expensive).

Lunar librarian 3 is the best of the lunar affinity skills, but imo it should be grogginess immunity instead of only giving you immunity vs lunar creatures.

Shadow affinity actually seems kinda good: shadow tentacles seem like they could be really good depending on if they target Wicker or not. If they target Wicker then its okay but probably not really worth the effort compared to just spamming tentacles. Being able to interact with insanity creatures while sane is actually really nice, specifically for not having to go insane for the stupid werepig shadelings, and for killing fuelweaver's hands. Summoning up to 3 shadow pieces to fight with you is really cool, especially with the AoE attacks of the rook and bishop, though a way to choose which piece you summon would be nice, as level 1 knights are pretty much entirely useless. The extra nm fuel from sleepytime stories seems a bit niche since it doesn't sound like it'd apply to birds, and the eclipse effect seems kinda weird but ultimately harmless, though it makes me want to see a full eclipse effect in the game, maybe something that occurs post shadow rifts final boss?

Shadow Librarian 3 seems okay, but tier 1 of pseudoscience doesn't really have many good crafts. It's kinda just star callers, green amulets, and green staves. If it extended to level 2 of pseudoscience it'd actually be kinda useful. Thulecite armor, clubs, and pick/axes would be really nice if you could craft them without making a trip to the ruins.

[RubLog6]

My caveats with your idea:

I'd probably skip the gardening section entirely... maybe I'd pick nurturer if it included jerky. However I'd say the idea of introducing dried crops as food is pretty neat (but overpowered. Pomegranates wouldn't be useless!

The butterfly book would be annoying to craft because it's quite difficult to obtain a live butterfly in lights out. Even a dead one is annoying to get.

About mandrake renewability... Wickerbottom already has sleeping book though. I guess one could use mandrakes left on ground for decor.

I don't like the old farming system. 

Crafting iridescent is such a waste. And while I could see myself using the mooncaller crafting in the late game, moon caller staves have more uses than star callers, one would probably end up with a surplus if they turned all their low durability yellow staves into opal staves.

The bookback is...well... I'm mixed. It's just a piggyback with slow regeneration. Do we really penalise Wicker with a speed penalty?

I like faster comb renewability. That's nice. Maybe even too good.

 

 

 

Edited July 3 by RubLog6

[Sorceress2024]

30 minutes ago, RubLog6 said:

The bookback is...well... I'm mixed. It's just a piggyback with slow regeneration. Do we really penalise Wicker with a speed penalty?

They could have a regular sized backpack varient with the same skill point if they go with something like this.

ways to have easier transport & mobile repair of books have been a pretty common suggestion, ive also seen an animated bookcase & a bookbag that is more akin to walters ammo pouch/wendy's basket be suggested before

but overall your feedpack is what i would have said

Theres another wickerbottom suggestion post i saw a while back(the one with the animated bookcase) that focused mostly on alternate spells for books, and although i think more books should outright be added, if alternate spells were a thing then compost compedeium would work quite lovely as an altenate horticulture spell

[YouKnowWho142]

This doesn’t really seem like an uncommon sentiment reading above, but I don’t really like the idea of a gardening/farming focused branch. It seems like it’s just something you’d assume from an old lady, but not something that makes sense for Wickerbottom as a character who wants to be seeking knowledge both forbidden and otherwise. The only other connection to farming she has is her books, but a third of her skill tree shouldn’t revolve around 2-3 of her books. It would also encroach on the identity of wormwood, who has a myriad of farming based perks and skills.

[Walrusst]

I'd need to fish around the quotes to see if the gardening part was actually fitting.
We are going to have wurt, wormwood, and probably warly having some kinda farm bonus with wx easily being able to craft farm bodies as well.

Wickerbottoms base kit books already farm well enough to make them dubious with wickerbottom being merciful enough to just not get played very often and thus, not take their roles from them that much. 

For her to have like a strong dedicated gardening side I'd be worried with her base kit as it is.

[Baark0]

9 hours ago, Walrusst said:

I'd need to fish around the quotes to see if the gardening part was actually fitting.
We are going to have wurt, wormwood, and probably warly having some kinda farm bonus with wx easily being able to craft farm bodies as well.

Wickerbottoms base kit books already farm well enough to make them dubious with wickerbottom being merciful enough to just not get played very often and thus, not take their roles from them that much. 

For her to have like a strong dedicated gardening side I'd be worried with her base kit as it is.

There's a handful of quotes that reference her garden, so its not entirely unwarranted. That being said, I still think most of these gardening skills would fit better on Wormwood's skill tree (specifically replacing some or all of the plant craft skills).

[Walrusst]

I will say, I want one of the gardening characters to have a planter pot for relocating weeds from a farm to an environment where they are more helpful instead of needing to kill them.
Whether its warl, a worm rework, or wicker I'm fine. I'd be happy if wicker got the pots and planters because it'd free up space on my pet tree for this function.

(If you argued this should be base kit, I'd also just be happy.)

Edited July 4 by Walrusst

[Nikki Darks]

My only real issue with this is that she gets a whole branch of the skill tree dedicated to turning a general utility character into a gardener.

Why? We have Wormwood, he is THE farmer/gardener character. We don't need even more skill trees that either outclass, copy or replace pre existing characters.

The blueprint skill should probably just not exist, not meaningful enough to be its own individual skill.

Her skill tree should just be dedicated to giving her books much more (and I mean MUCH more) powerful effects when she is the one reading them. She's not a character who needs any more gimmicks or new things. 

But that's just my opinion on the character. Everything else you proposed is fairly interesting.

[Wendigail]

On 7/3/2026 at 6:13 AM, apiculturist said:

Maxwell can read all of Wicker’s non-skill-tree books at no sanity cost, but whenever Maxwell reads a book it consumes 100% of the book’s durability

Cost 75 hp when use☝️🤓

[Walrusst]

I will say the wicker sanity cost I've stopped being bothered by just due to the abundance of strong sanity hats and learning how to use ocean trawlers really well.

when surf and turf is litterally always overflowing in my base the sanity is free.

[Dingle]

21 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

Her skill tree should just be dedicated to giving her books much more (and I mean MUCH more) powerful effects when she is the one reading them. She's not a character who needs any more gimmicks or new things. 

I agree. I always think that she would be a pretty easy character to design a skill tree for. She really just needs a bunch of perks to add special new effects to existing books, many of which are underwhelming and barely used.

Maybe a few new books that are perk only, on top of that, and a few QOL perks. I did like the bookbag idea.

[Nikki Darks]

1 hour ago, Dingle said:

I agree. I always think that she would be a pretty easy character to design a skill tree for. She really just needs a bunch of perks to add special new effects to existing books, many of which are underwhelming and barely used.

Maybe a few new books that are perk only, on top of that, and a few QOL perks. I did like the bookbag idea.

The bookbag idea is great, just not the slowdown IMO. And yeah, more books would be cool like alignment books!

[Sorceress2024]

On 7/4/2026 at 1:18 PM, Nikki Darks said:

The blueprint skill should probably just not exist, not meaningful enough to be its own individual skill.

Ya that would have to be rolled into with something else, like with winona she has something similar as she can scan items to learn to make them with founders keepers 1
but that same skill also gives her winbot, a way to get scrap&electrical doodads(albeit because they are needed for her crafts) and can just learn more then just blueprints

Although it is good that they they designed it in a way where having the skill only lets 1 additional person have it

If something similar were to be added I think it working as an everything encyclopdia upgrade would be nice, something that lets only wicker prototype one item someone nearby at time of reading could make, althoug there would have to be other aspects of the skill to make it worthwhile.

I think that combined with a "ancinet encyclopdia" type thing would work nicely.
What i mean with the ancinet enclylopida is jjust an upgrade that takes some thulcite fragments and the everytihn enclo at an ancinet psedosience, which when used lets you and nearby players craft something as if they were at an ancinet spedoscience station

4 hours ago, Dingle said:

I agree. I always think that she would be a pretty easy character to design a skill tree for. She really just needs a bunch of perks to add special new effects to existing books, many of which are underwhelming and barely used.

Maybe a few new books that are perk only, on top of that, and a few QOL perks. I did like the bookbag idea.

With how many books there are they really could add a perk for every book if they wanted to, although they should roll some into one perk. I think books that would be good rolled into one skill with eachother would be, both hortis with sivi.
both lux's, maybe also with lunar grimore
rain and tempering temperatures
pyroconnectes and end is nigh

[Walrusst]

Skills for learning targeted tool or weapon uses for certain books in groups of 2-3 would be interesting. Say you could just equip a book and use it on a cooldown for a targeted effect that is proportionally cost effective but not fully playstyle derailing.
Wickerbottom knowing these books inside and out gives her a bag of tricks that serve as valuable "Cantrip" scale effects borrowing other game systems language to describe my intent.

This is what I wanted earlier when I wrote huge bricks of text that people probably didn't read much.

[Sorceress2024]

41 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

Skills for learning targeted tool or weapon uses for certain books in groups of 2-3 would be interesting. Say you could just equip a book and use it on a cooldown for a targeted effect that is proportionally cost effective but not fully playstyle derailing.
Wickerbottom knowing these books inside and out gives her a bag of tricks that serve as valuable "Cantrip" scale effects borrowing other game systems language to describe my intent.

This is what I wanted earlier when I wrote huge bricks of text that people probably didn't read much.

I hadn't thought about equiping books to use them, the normal way to equip items would conflict with how they are currently used, but ya that would kinda work if , I just figured wickerbottom would have the messiest spellwheel. Tho im not really sure if her books would really have good cantripy(im assuming like 5% duerability up to 5 sanity) options to justify making that change but if you have any specific ideas id love to hear them

Also minor thing but if they go down the spell wheel route and clicking on the keybind or some kinda storage opens a spellwheel for multiple books they should make sure you cant break a book when casting that way, especially if you have multiple copies of the book on ya

[Walrusst]

58 minutes ago, Sorceress2024 said:

I hadn't thought about equiping books to use them, the normal way to equip items would conflict with how they are currently used, but ya that would kinda work if , I just figured wickerbottom would have the messiest spellwheel. Tho im not really sure if her books would really have good cantripy(im assuming like 5% duerability up to 5 sanity) options to justify making that change but if you have any specific ideas id love to hear them

Also minor thing but if they go down the spell wheel route and clicking on the keybind or some kinda storage opens a spellwheel for multiple books they should make sure you cant break a book when casting that way, especially if you have multiple copies of the book on ya

Say combat/hunting.
Birds of the world: Target bird to eliminate its fear/hostility response response briefly/prevent it from flying/attacking you. Target a non-bird to give it a hostile relation with birds (IE: Being a target for vultures for example in the badlands. Target spiders to make a nearby tallbird attack them. Turn a lunar storm bird to your side.)
Sericulture: Target a creature to get it stuck with some tree roots.
End is nigh: Either you or they get struck by lightning, your rain resistance and wetness relative to theirs shifts the probability of who gets targeted. Can be targeted at your lightning rod.

Say utility.
Pyrokinetics explained: Convert a fire that is uncontrolled to a controlled fire on a cooldown. (Controlled fires acting like the improved fire willow gets on all her fire attacks, but with a cooldown.)
Horticulture expanded: Target a crop to relieve it of one stress with a day long cooldown.
Practical rain rituals: Create a targeted raincloud that targets a small circular area, one day cooldown.

Best way to handle these is to popcorn ideas as we will probably only use a handful of these, make ideas by quantity and just keep the best ones. No need to be ashamed this is a brainstorming technique.

Edited July 5 by Walrusst

[Sorceress2024]

3 hours ago, Walrusst said:

Say combat/hunting.
Birds of the world: Target bird to eliminate its fear/hostility response response briefly/prevent it from flying/attacking you. Target a non-bird to give it a hostile relation with birds (IE: Being a target for vultures for example in the badlands. Target spiders to make a nearby tallbird attack them. Turn a lunar storm bird to your side.)
Sericulture: Target a creature to get it stuck with some tree roots.
End is nigh: Either you or they get struck by lightning, your rain resistance and wetness relative to theirs shifts the probability of who gets targeted. Can be targeted at your lightning rod.

Say utility.
Pyrokinetics explained: Convert a fire that is uncontrolled to a controlled fire on a cooldown. (Controlled fires acting like the improved fire willow gets on all her fire attacks, but with a cooldown.)
Horticulture expanded: Target a crop to relieve it of one stress with a day long cooldown.
Practical rain rituals: Create a targeted raincloud that targets a small circular area, one day cooldown.

Best way to handle these is to popcorn ideas as we will probably only use a handful of these, make ideas by quantity and just keep the best ones. No need to be ashamed this is a brainstorming technique.

Birds of the world: is really cool
siviculture: feels very shadow prisony/worwmood brightshade husk, and wicker already has an undersused slow down methode, maybe something more akin to winonas shadow planar strike would work well there
ya a more precise end is nigh would be nice, not sure if it would be worth it damage wise tho
pyro, ya this ones great, tho i could also see something similar just being added to the fiery pen it normally makes
Horti: this isinteresting tho I dont think it would be too useful, maybe something like you grow a single giant, far less total crop yeild then reading it normally but would help you early on with getting enough of certain seeds
Practicale rain rituals: Ive thought of that as an altenrte spell as well, but also another altneate being a smaller cloud that follows your selected target which would likely be a better option for electric damage in bossfights, but having both options would be lovely

Day long cooldowns arent quite cantrip so thats definitly not the right word for them, but in the end alternate spells are gonna be that no matter the name so, aand well heres some of my ideas

Apicultural Notes: 2 altermate abilities, one beeing to make them do the dash attack that they'd in the bee queen boss fight, although for less time, second beeing to just unsummon them and if this ability is used or its used normaly they all come back, maybe they heal over time while unsummoned
just really dont like them getting in the way while farming and whatnot

Sleepy time stories: better rest. when used nearby players breifly(2 or so mins)regain more health/sanity from sleeping, can ignore time based sleeping requirements

Lunar grimore: (probably affinity related) create an area that makes lunar creatures(exculding bosses) nuetral if any are attacked inside this area the effect dispears, area would last at least a day, possibly prevents gestalts from possesing things excluding wx's(maybe it even makes wx's auto possesd as a bit of a synergy)
I think ideally it would be better to have a non character specific way to keep gestalts/other lunar rift stuff away from base but its still something, and one being added wouldnt prevent the other from also existing

Anglers survival guide: summons something other then ocean fishes, so narwhal or shark, this one might deserve a day long cooldown as those normally take a while to see

Tempering temperatures: temporarily speeds up crockpot speed, 1 or 2 meals, effect also disspaears after a certain amount of time, not part of pyroconetics as some crock pot stuff is cold

As for non book related skills I think it would be cool if she had something that reduced how much durability is consumed when using magical items, tho this would also impact books so guess it is book related.

[Jakepeng99]

The gardening stuff should probably just be removed since it’s just replacing wormwood.

Also the skilltree doesnt give her good perks linked to her and not her books. And stuff like the book pouch just doubles down on her design flaws of infinite books.