Shadow Duelists' Questionable Uses

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, The Curator said:

Still a cost of two nightmare fuel, so while the two cutter one digger combination works in the early days when you start off with six fuel; the same cannot be said for later on when you have to manually farm it yourself. By comparison, the time and cost of the fuel isn't very much worth such a minor helper.

The digger is certainly a nice boon, but it's the fuel cost which really drives the value into the ground.

I'm not sure about that Maxwell in DST is really a farming type and to get things done quickly to make the full use of his abilties your going to be constantly getting nightmare fuel to use your abilties so I think the Value is almost no existance . Kind of like getting wood when your Woodie.

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

Still a cost of two nightmare fuel, so while the two cutter one digger combination works in the early days when you start off with six fuel; the same cannot be said for later on when you have to manually farm it yourself. By comparison, the time and cost of the fuel isn't very much worth such a minor helper.

The digger is certainly a nice boon, but it's the fuel cost which really drives the value into the ground.

It costs 2 fuel and a shovel for a puppet that could potentially be used forever. Like I said, it's the least destructive of them all so if I make one I tend to keep it around as long as possible. The trick is to actually dismiss the puppet yourself instead of letting it die, or dying yourself. If you do that then the cost pretty much becomes 1 fuel and a shovel. I don't really consider 1 fuel, some twigs and flint to be very costly.

[The Curator]

33 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

It costs 2 fuel and a shovel for a puppet that could potentially be used forever.

 

 don't really consider 1 fuel, some twigs and flint to be very costly.

The puppet can be used forever but they only serve one purpose and take up a sanity penalty for as long as they are around. Meaning if you hold onto them you will not be able to summon as many other puppets as normal, and will receive a greater sanity penalty when you do summon more puppets. Even one nightmare fuel still requires you to go insane and fight shadows to acquire it, which you will have to do everytime you run out. The system as a whole is just unrefined. Maybe this,

 

[Sinister_Fang]

3 minutes ago, The Curator said:

The puppet can be used forever but they only serve one purpose and take up a sanity penalty for as long as they are around. Meaning if you hold onto them you will not be able to summon as many other puppets as normal, and will receive a greater sanity penalty when you do summon more puppets.

Yeah? And? If you no longer need it, then just attack it to get the fuel and max sanity back. Not that hard.

5 minutes ago, The Curator said:

Even one nightmare fuel still requires you to go insane and fight shadows to acquire it, which you will have to do everytime you run out.

You act like insanity is something difficult to accomplish. Sure, it might be a bit more tricky as Maxwell, but raw green caps and wormholes are some good early game methods of going insane quickly. And once you've gathered 6 fuel, just use Maxwell's insanity trick with the 2 duelists and a worker. You can even get additional fuel by finding some rabbits and using boomerangs or traps.

[Tosh]

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

They're effective for dealing with incredibly low-end mobs like spiders, because of their high damage and ability to avoid attacks.

This is actually completely wrong. Yeah the duelists can easily kill a couple of spiders, but given the way spiders swarm they won't last long. Just like Abigail, using the duelists is about knowing the right situations. Abigail is fantastic at dealing with swarms of spiders, bees and monkeys, while the duelists are better used for single targets. 

From what I've read, the duelists regen 15 health every 2 seconds (their entire health every 10 seconds). How frequently a mob attacks is just as important as how much damage it does. Their health regen and kiting can be quite forgiving in the right circumstances. As a Maxwell player, it is your job to make these circumstances more favourable by reducing the amount of times your duelists get hit. Firstly, having two duelists at once reduces the chances of one of them getting hit twice in a row; secondly, you can further help them by drawing agro onto yourself; and finally, make sure to stun and interrupt a mob's attack just to buy your duelists a few more seconds of regeneration.

[Sinister_Fang]

9 hours ago, Tosh said:

This is actually completely wrong. Yeah the duelists can easily kill a couple of spiders, but given the way spiders swarm they won't last long.

What's even worse is the fact that they agro on anything that even attempts to attack Maxwell, even if it missed. So if you're just running past an area with a lot of spiders, and a spider to want to ignore tries to attack you... good bye puppet. Walking in a swamp will also result in their death. Very quickly too. Same thing with bees... and beefalo in heat... and merms... and bunnymen... and frogs... and just about everything else.

One thing they need changed is their agro behavior. The should only agro anything Maxwell himself targets instead of anything that attempts to attack Waxwell himself.