Fending for yourself

[soggynachos]

Combat

Combat is one of THE most important mechanics in Don't Starve.

95% of all deaths usually result from combat.

Many players, new and old, Try to never engage in combat alone, they usually rely on the environment or allies to do all the work for them.

If they rely on that so heavily, what happens if something goes wrong, and they're left to fend for themselves?

If a player doesn't know anything about mob health/damage, aggro mechanics, kiting, insanity auras and ai behaviour, then the player is probably not going to engage in many fights if they always get they're ass kicked.

New and old players, if you don't know how to fight, then teach yourself.

-If you suck at solo combat, pick a combat-orientated character.

Like Wolfgang and Wigfrid or even Maxwell.

-NEVER TANK, EVER

I can't express this enough, it's almost always a bad choice to just give in to laziness and just stand still and hold down that F key.

-Learn Enemy Behaviour, HP, Damage, AI, Attack Patterns, etc

Start with hitting them once and seeing what their attack is like,(how quick, how often, does it have more then one, etc.) then try hitting them twice, thrice, frice(?) until you learn how many hits you can land before you have to move out of their attack range. (For example, a Koalaphant can be hit 6 times in between attacks if the player has good timing.) Keep track of how many hits it takes until it's dead and which weapon you were using at that moment.

If you hate combat, fine, but it won't hurt you to know how to kite a group of 8 hounds in the dark with no armour or help.

[PhelsarusBeel]

Another thing you might wanna add is preparing for the worst. What i mean is don't just ignore the fighting tab for most of the game look into it and specialy research the Beemine and Toothtrap if you don't want to deal with Combat yourself. Otherwise Armor is always Important at least the Log Suit should be a top priority no matter what you do so you can make new ones if needed (or just stash a few replacement ones if you have the Logs for doing so)

A healthy field of Beemines or Toothtraps soften up even the beefiest of Houndwaves or help in distracting a Giant. Also later on those will safe you from most Houndattacks as the Waves get to big to handle even for Combat Chars as you easily get stunlocked by the Hounds so having extra ways to help getting rid of them is benefitial.

Another important thing is have a plan B. Good items for this are the Sleepdart (and to an extension the Pan Flute if you can make one) and the Froststaff as those help you in a pinch if you know you can't deal with the enemy and need to get away. Just make sure to have more then 1 Sleepdart on you as things like Giants won't snooze with just 1 hit.

[Meneervis]

I'm decent at combat, I got that tiny 25 health extra as Webber and spiders, so that usually helps me alot.

[MoloMan]

I agree with this. I had played the game for a long time not knowing how to fight and I finally cracked one time while being chased by Goose/Moose. I didn't have anything to lead her to and I wasn't able to blow her up so I tried fighting her and relaized it was fairly easy. But after that I tried fighting everything.

But they should make some more interesting fighting mechanics for bosses. Like some kind of Zelda boss. A weak spot or maybe it's invincible until you make it run into a tree or structure, then it gets dizzy and that's your only oppurtunity to damage it.