Is Wickerbottom really balanced ?

[Magicus]

Seriously , maybe I haven't looked into it hard enough.

- What makes her balanced ?

                 OR

- What makes her unbalanced ?

 

I'd love to hear what you guys think!

 

[Soto8969]

She hating spoilage and being enable to sleep, also not having to prototype all tier 1 crafting i think she is a little hard to maintain sane because she losted many principal ways to restore sanity and health.Also it will make using her books a little more expensive.

[BeastNips]

She's balanced for everything up to an intermediate player, just like all the other characters with the exception of Wes and Wolfgang, that arguably require a very experienced player to play well. 

Wickers is actually quite a challenging character in terms of food production management (spoilage penalty) and sanity management (no sleeping and fewer things to prototype). 

However, once you're experienced, sanity and food management become trivial. This is no different to any other character though. 

[Serph]

For Singleplayer?

She is perfectly fine. Amazing in both early and late game, but takes experience to use and character balance isn't really that important.

For multiplayer?

Not at all. Starting knowledge and not requiring tier 2 gives her a much better start than the others and all books in hand she is argueably the most useful/versatile character of the game in both coop and PVP enviroments. Her weaknesses are still there but with friends they're much easier to manage (as long as someone always get cactus and papyrus you have nothing to fear)
 

[Mobbstar]

Imagine a Power-To-Playtime graph. I'll try to keep it applicable in single- and multiplayer. Wilson serves as comparison and grows linearly.

Wigfrid starts off very high, but increases slightly slower. Webber is also slightly above the standard start because he has more health and useful starter items.

Quickly, Wickerbottom and Woodie can use their perks to skyrocket and become an equal match to Wigfrid. Woodie can safely become a werebeaver after a little preparation, while Wickerbottom is far ahead on tech and can spend her time acquiring more materials and crafting better equipment. That said, Willow also has a slight boost thanks to her portable campfire embers (alias lighter).

Wolfgang and WX used to be below the average, but after about 15 days, they caught up and are now above Wigfrid, Webber, Wickerbottom and Woodie. But while WX is simply more powerful, Wolfgang's power depends on food, so aggression against other players would undermine his position. Wickerbottom in particular can use the farming book to bless herself and her friends with food and base resources.

Later in the game, most resource differences have dissipated. Wigfrid and Webber are slightly above everybody else again, thanks to warrior spirit and spider army. Wickerbottom follows tightly, since she has the power of Sleepy Times (actually, does that still knock players out?) and Tentacles, blowdarts from Birds of the World and can cooperate with WX using The End is Nigh. Wolfgang is also above Wilson, since he can now afford to be all-time mighty. WX's position highly depends on how many gears it could acquire, it could be at the very top or below Wilson.

The only character never above Wilson in the graph is Wes. Wilson is never particularly powerful, but neither particularly weak.

 

As you can see, I consider Wickerbottom to generally have the upper hand, eventhough her choices are usually limited due to her insomnia and weak stomach.

After having written all this, I want to actually make that a real graph. Does anybody have suggestions or questions? (I will try to also draw a Delta based on luck and character knowledge. e.g. one can screw up with Willow quite bad, but properly used, she is always slightly above Wilson.)

[kazoooo]

PVP Wicker is not balanced at all. Her STS cannot directly be countered, and at best all you can do is stock up on helmets and have enough healing items to get you through the following drowsy phase. Of course, that's only if the play decides not to spam you with the book.

[Snowhusky5]

For new players, who have trouble maintaining sanity, Wickerbottom is pretty balanced. Once you gain more experience with how to stay sane (or kill shadows when insane), she becomes extremely good, especially on public servers because of the free tech level, since you will be starting anew pretty often on pubs.

[PanAzej]

She's only overpowered in pvp because of how her sleeping book affects players.

Otherwise she's really good, but still balanced. She has her role which she fills pretty well, but she's not good at everything. I don't see a reason to nerf her in regular play.

[SuperPsiPower]

5 hours ago, kazoooo said:

PVP Wicker is not balanced at all. Her STS cannot directly be countered, and at best all you can do is stock up on helmets and have enough healing items to get you through the following drowsy phase. Of course, that's only if the play decides not to spam you with the book.

It CAN be directly countered. If you apply pressure constantly as Wolfgang with mighty's speed and close the gap, she cant read. And having ice staffs help even more, another way is too make sure you're the one who is sane, an insane wickerbottom will be easier to kill.

 

You're right on stocking up on helmets, however.

[kazoooo]

2 hours ago, SuperPsiPower said:

It CAN be directly countered. If you apply pressure constantly as Wolfgang with mighty's speed and close the gap, she cant read. And having ice staffs help even more, another way is too make sure you're the one who is sane, an insane wickerbottom will be easier to kill.

 

You're right on stocking up on helmets, however.

You're correct about those, they completely slipped my mind while writing the post d: thanks for mentioning that!

[GiddyGuy]

...Wait people still play pvp I always thought it was boring unless you're playing with friends cause people just run away when I slap them with a hambat as Wolfgang. >:)

[GangStarrWoWp]

I think in the hands of a good player she is OP. Sanity is not a problem once you get some bee boxes - unlimited Taffy and honey takes forever to spoil

 

Also since Tentacles are non-renewable you can clear out an entire swamp biome by day 200 and then you have no easy access to tentacle spikes and protection from hound attacks - wickerbottom can populate the swamp with tentacles again which is extremely handy.

[PanAzej]

3 minutes ago, GangStarrWoWp said:

I think in the hands of a good player she is OP. Sanity is not a problem once you get some bee boxes - unlimited Taffy and honey takes forever to spoil

The same can be said about any other character, to be honest.

Wolfgang has that 2x hunger rate in Mighty form, but it's not that hard to counter, because Koalefant tracks are so common to come by. I literally have spoiling stacks of meat without setting up before spring and not going below 230 hunger. Carrots respawn as well, berry bushes regrow berries in few days. Green caps are everywhere - in forest, swamp or deciduous forest, his higher sanity drain is not a problem, even without setting up the base.

Wigfrid's 'can only eat meat' can be easily countered, given that meatballs are really easy to make, and other stats are recovered while fighting, so you don't ever need to heal unless you screw up at kiting really badly multiple times.

Willow freezes when low on sanity. If you know how to counter sanity loss, it's not a problem. And this can be used to counter overheating in summer.

Woodie has a built-in mechanic that allows him to quickly regain any amount of sanity loss, Werebeaver form's weakness is negated.

And so on.

[LadyD]

She is my favourite. She has a great early game bonus and I fine that by the time I reach mid game and late game I am so well set up that her short comings don't affect me too badly. I don't do PVP so I have no idea about that aspect but over all I find her a well rounded character. 

I prefer to have a swift start when playing so she is my go to. 

[Magicus]

Alright guys so I decided to play her and , wow I've come to the conclusion that yep , she seems pretty balanced , well to an extent she isn't overpowered. I found that managing my sanity was pretty damn challenging. I always thought she was a Wilson dupe with slightly lowered stats. 

 

 

*edit

I'd prefer to be without the "dood u r jus bad sanity manigmint isnt evn frkn hrd u nub"  this was just my small , personal playthrough

[BeastNips]

34 minutes ago, Chirpy said:

Alright guys so I decided to play her and , wow I've come to the conclusion that yep , she seems pretty balanced , well to an extent she isn't overpowered. I found that managing my sanity was pretty damn challenging. I always thought she was a Wilson dupe with slightly lowered stats. 

 

 

*edit

I'd prefer to be without the "dood u r jus bad sanity manigmint isnt evn frkn hrd u nub"  this was just my small , personal playthrough

You're totally right. When you aren't used to Wickers her sanity is a nightmare. No sleeping is one thing, but you don't realise with other characters how much T1 prototyping actually keeps your sanity up. With Wickers you need to keep a stockpile of green mushroom/cactus from pretty much day 1 until you can mass produce sanity food or get better clothing. 

[RiverRocks]

On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2016 at 4:45 AM, BeastNips said:

 

Wickers is actually quite a challenging character in terms of food production management (spoilage penalty) and sanity management.

Am I the only one who likes the nickname of "Wickers" for wickerbottum?!? I think its so funny .

[GiddyGuy]

2 hours ago, RiverRocks said:

Am I the only one who likes the nickname of "Wickers" for wickerbottum?!? I think its so funny .

Everything was perfect until the Wicker nation attacked with their "ZEE END IZ NIGH!"