I got bored and wrote down everything I've learned so far.

[Arcwell]

4 hours ago, Atkvin said:

Personally, I don't see how Winona is a bad tank at all. In fact she's an even better tank than Wolfgang since she has the same amount of health, same starting loadout, ability to switch between weapons so she doesn't die to acid, and her perk is way better. Never has that 10 seconds of Mighty Wolfgang before dying served a meaningful purpose for me. And for the argument that she could be better used healing or whatnot, you can just have more than one to do that job.

Bad tank? No. Just no benefits vs. any other tank. Her cooldown reduction makes very little difference when the melee's job is to save their special for shield-breaking, and switching to darts just means you're not a tank. Wolfgang's mighty form by comparison is great at 2 things: killing off pigs quickly, and tanking more Boarrior hits at the end when he needs to be stationary to be put to sleep.

1 hour ago, Toros said:

I’m not sure why people are talking about dying to scorpions as melee like that’s a given.

Not at all true. If your team is focusing small groups of 1-2 scorpions, which they should, the tank's health generally doesn't go below the point where mighty form would activate. You could argue that dying to scorpions is more of a pub problem, but the other 5 scorpions that spawn that need to be kited can be controlled with just 1 character. A Wickerbottom can alternate fire staff and book to get enough damage to permanently petrify them, I believe a full CDR Maxwell/Wicker can petrify-lock (more or less), and a Wes can lead the whole group in circles for hours.

That, and you can dodge the acid when in melee range by circling around it.

[Arcwell]

7 hours ago, RancorSnp said:

It does. All woodie has to is not have anyone behind him. That's incredibly easy even in a 100% random first time playing people. 

If someone is trying to get hit by running behind you even though they get hit just move boarior to the edge of the map. Woodie never loses aggro because aggro from lucy toss lasts longer than cooldown on it.

That got me hoping.

I just played a game as Woodie where I was chucking Lucy in the Boarrior's face whenever it went off cooldown, Maxwell still got hit and killed by the line AoE at least 3 times.

If I'm doing something wrong please let me know.

[Tumalu]

Boarrior still hits other people sometimes, it happens. But he shouldn't hit them too many times between heal fields very often. Still, you're gonna have bad luck streaks, but Woodie helps a lot. The part about dragging him into a corner is really good, too. And if you get the Life Blossom hat and 90% armor, you're almost immortal as long as sleep doesn't fail much.

Maxwell won't die in one aoe if he's got at least log armor on and almost full on hp, iirc. (And if he's wearing 50~60% armor that late in the match, he needs to be taught otherwise) And Max will be out of range of everything except the line AoE if they're firing at max range like they should be. If Max is going in for heals, he should always be waiting until Boarrior is ACTUALLY asleep so he doesn't get murdered by a last-second attack, because that happens semiregularly.

Also, life blossom? I see parties that insist it goes on the healer. Noooo. That's a huge waste. Healer should be usually out of range and not hit much. If it's on the woodie tank, he'll almost never die, and keep pulling that aggro with your boarrior stuck in a corner. If it's not woodie, well, it's still great on your other tanks. Now, yeah, bad stuff happens when trying to plant heal fields, but if your woodie tank is alive he should be able to pull the boarrior away so you can res the healer.

[RancorSnp]

1 hour ago, Arcwell said:

That got me hoping.

I just played a game as Woodie where I was chucking Lucy in the Boarrior's face whenever it went off cooldown, Maxwell still got hit and killed by the line AoE at least 3 times.

If I'm doing something wrong please let me know.

Maxwell should not be behind you to be able to be hit by it.

Boarrior switching targets shouldn't happen but I guess if everyone unloads their special attacks at it he might get lose aggro and target first thing that hit him from time to time.

But! Worry not, even if you find yourself unable to keep aggro on you when everyone is beating on him ( I really do not belive it's possible to lose aggro when you are walking him aroud ) you just have to practice your Throw timing to interrup his attacks, If hit by Lucy when during attack animation his attack will be cancelled, be warry of the spin attack though as it seems to deliver first damage beford animation starts. That said it will still prevent remaining attacks from being delivered.

[Arcwell]

1 hour ago, Tumalu said:

Also, life blossom? I see parties that insist it goes on the healer. Noooo. That's a huge waste.

Who ever suggested a tank hat should be on a healer? x3

8 minutes ago, RancorSnp said:

you just have to practice your Throw timing to interrup his attacks, If hit by Lucy when during attack animation his attack will be cancelled

This bit here is everything I have been missing so far. The Lucy throw does NOT prevent Boarrior from targeting a random team member with his line AoE, but it, as well as his melee strike, CAN be interrupted with Lucy before it has a chance to hit, say, your healer. Very tricky to time, much harder than dodging scorpion acid. Still, doable. I hadn't realized how effective this was until I was blocking numerous 3-hit combos that likely would've killed a tank. Negating hits like that could easily prevent game-losing scenarios. Moving Woodie up a tier because of that. Only not moving him to S because the chances of cancelling all of Boarrior's important attacks are sketchy at best (for the average player anyway).

[Sinister_Fang]

6 hours ago, Toros said:

I’m not sure why people are talking about dying to scorpions as melee like that’s a given.

Have you considered just... not going in melee range?  Scorpions are the easiest enemy to fight if you just kite and attack from range.  It’s a little slower but poison/acid seems to ignore armor.

WX and Wolfgang have no other options other then melee.

[Toroic]

2 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

WX and Wolfgang have no other options other then melee.

True, but if they’re in tank gear and using the healing circle they shouldn’t be dying.

Unless their strategy is Wilson revives in which case dying is trivial.

[Michi01]

On 29.10.2017 at 10:11 PM, Arcwell said:

Viability:

S: Wilson, Wolfgang, Wickerbottom, Wes

[Recommended characters that are strong in any team composition]

A: Willow, WX-78, Woodie^

[Characters that are almost always strong in their team]

I think WX is a better tank than Wolfgang. Damaging and stunning enemies that attack, stopping spinning turtles and getting a damage bonus for the hammer is just better than some extra health and a 10 second damage bonus that often ends up getting wasted, for example because others need to heal while fighting a boarilla or the boarrior.

[Arcwell]

6 hours ago, Michi01 said:

I think WX is a better tank than Wolfgang. Damaging and stunning enemies that attack, stopping spinning turtles and getting a damage bonus for the hammer is just better than some extra health and a 10 second damage bonus that often ends up getting wasted, for example because others need to heal while fighting a boarilla or the boarrior.

I've been hearing that a lot lately. I don't believe that stopping spinning turtles is that great of an upside since sleep zone, anvil strike, and Lucy throw all stop it, but I can agree that the extra stun time and damage outweigh mighty form and +50 health after more consideration. Swapping their tiers.

Unrelated to WX/Wolfgang, but after a few more games as Woodie, I firmly believe that he has the potential to be the strongest character at a high skill level due to being able to cancel any attack (that I know of) from a single enemy besides scorpions, crocodiles, and the Boarrior's spin attack. I also believe that skill level is extremely hard to achieve on a consistent basis, especially when considering that allied specials will modify the timing you need.

[Tumalu]

When I was looking through matchup data since those files were revealed, I found a match where Wigfrid pulled off a stellar 40k damage (normally only willow/max will hit anything much over 30k, much less 40!! and melee characters nearly always score less match damage than ranged!) and I don't know how she did this. Did she aggressively juggle the barrage darts?? Their special does a lot of damage if you're willing to juggle the darts on the floor, and each individual hit helps to proc Wigfrid's battle cry, which also means more party damage boost.

I'm not particularly a fan of Wigfrid, but she does seem like a decent ranged/melee hybrid. A ranged who can wail on enemies the other party members are attacking without stealing aggro, so it's easier to sit there holding F? Not bad, passive minor party damage up on the side. She's not a great tank on boarrior since your ranged characters can easily take the aggro from wigfrid, though, she's really more suited for ranged fighting after scourpeons happen. Spear flips are only nice on the tortanks phase.

She's still definitely only niche uses though. I wouldn't argue she should move up a tier or anything. And yeah, Woodie's lucy toss can cancel like crazy, although you're more likely to just toss it and -hope- for cancels here and there. Ideally Woodie should be spamming toss on boarrior to hold his attention and keep him locked in place in the corner anyway, which will earn you some delicious move cancels on the side.

[RancorSnp]

4 hours ago, Tumalu said:

When I was looking through matchup data since those files were revealed, I found a match where Wigfrid pulled off a stellar 40k damage (normally only willow/max will hit anything much over 30k, much less 40!! 

Does that allow us to check stats on our past matches? I will be back home in about 6 - 7 hours I'd love to share my top Webber dmg 

[Tumalu]

And I'd love to hear it, because I'm curious about Webber's potential damage. Just make sure to look for the totaldamage_dealt category (not total taken, or player damage dealt) because it combines player and pet damage. Webber, Wendy, and Max all have pet damage. Although Abigail usually clocks at a pathetic ~1k damage, and spends far too much time dead to be a decent distraction like Bernie... isn't it sad, Wendy? :T

Keep in mind there's only so much damage to be dealt in a match, so if there's, say, a Willow AND a fire staff Maxwell, it muscles in on the damage ratio.

Speaking of Max, not only do the duelists give him by far the best dps (the fact that he spends half the match with a cruddy book and generally will deal the most damage in your party really says something), but his BIGGEST party benefit is the huge amount of stun he lands on boarrior. Petrification on the side ain't half bad on some waves either, especially since Wicker healer isn't favored often for some reason. I love having a Maxwell now- best dps in the game to speed up boarrior isn't bad, but really it's all about that sweet stun from duelists cutting out boarrior attacks.

Although you do need a somewhat competent party (read:A good woodie drawing half of boarrior's aggro in the corner) so Max's fragility becomes merely a minor inconvenience, even with just wooden armor on.

[RancorSnp]

3 hours ago, Tumalu said:

Bwa bwa

Sorry, I have arrived a bit later than I expected. Then I had problems finding the run. 

The whole file for you to look at if you want: 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q2mr8pvsRqIjmwdxJHqw03MhqRDL_DyqmoMKXqAKNmE

The interesting stats : 

Total damage : 49758
Player damage : 44545
Pet damage : 5213

Honestly, I expected better from my spiders for sure, BUT there are a few things to note about the situation : 
1) If I were Willow in that game I would have dealt 49090 damage - only slightly less - assuming I started the game with Molten darts (which you don't)
2) This was one of my first games, I was stupid and was using Molten darts instead of barrage darts - This has no effect on damage my spiders do BUT using better barrage darts is a luxury Willow does not have. This is also a plus to Webbers DPS, a huge one. (Well unless you juggle Molten darts for standard attacks, and equip barrage darts for every special cast without missing any cooldown time - the Willow absolutely would destroy the damage meter)
3) This was a long game, so my spiders had more time to deal damage than any speedrun party. However comparing them to just bonus damage of Willow they deal a lot more damage, however the fact they walk most of the time makes their damage almost equal, with slight edge to spiders. 
4) There is enough items for Willow and Webber to play in the same game no matter if she goes for PDPS or MDPS

 

[Tumalu]

Hmm. If you can generally expect the baby spiders to do 4~5k damage in a match, then Webber is sliiightly stronger than Willow. Willow, in exchange, gets Bernie.

Barrage darts vs. molten darts is where things get confusing. The special on barrage is really good, but molten darts get stun on theirs and balance some with their higher damage on normal hits. If you're willing to juggle multiple barrage darts they're pretttty powerful though (e.g. that wigfrid that somehow did 40k damage). But when you're juggling darts I don't think baby spiders are attacking, which would suggest picking Wigfrid or Wilson (wig's battle cry is every 8 hits, so barrage dart special triggers it a whole bunch, and she's suited for ranged dps as she doesn't draw aggro).

[Arcwell]

10 hours ago, Tumalu said:

Speaking of Max, not only do the duelists give him by far the best dps (the fact that he spends half the match with a cruddy book and generally will deal the most damage in your party really says something), but his BIGGEST party benefit is the huge amount of stun he lands on boarrior.

Agreed. Maxwell easily outdamages any other class outside of exploits (you can hit twice as often if you juggle clicks between 2 different enemies), which more often than not lets you kill the 2nd Boarilla before Boarrior spawns. The stun as well is amazing for reducing hits and keeping the Boarrior stationary, which matters so much when phase 3 hits.

There are 3 things I don't like about Maxwell:

1. Duelists can trigger at the very start of a cease-fire, wasting valuable heal time
2. Duelists can trigger on Boarilla/Snortoise shields, wasting the damage and stun
3. 75 HP often means you're dead instead of dealing damage

There's also the issue that he's useless without the fire staff. This should never be an issue, but every now and then you run into a pub lobby where one Willow is insistent that they're (not) the better fire staff user.

Other than that, he's amazing. The ideal team I would use has Maxwell+Wickerbottom for super-heals and book-juggling.

6 hours ago, Tumalu said:

Hmm. If you can generally expect the baby spiders to do 4~5k damage in a match, then Webber is sliiightly stronger than Willow. Willow, in exchange, gets Bernie.

If we're talking about sheer DPS, yes, Webber > Willow. The reason I believe Willow is more effective than Webber is because Bernie can fill in when others cannot, for example keeping the Boarrior's attention when the team (including the runner) is wiped, drawing aggro of spinning Snortoises, and separating large groups of enemies, such as the pigs that spawn at Boarrior (assuming the team couldn't kite them to a heal zone). Another reason is that it gives you an excuse to permanently use molten darts, so you don't waste time switching weapons and waiting the 1-second cooldown whenever you need to break a shield.

Side note: Someone in a lobby I was in recently said Webber was particularly good at being a runner because the spiders help with aggro. Has anyone tried this and can say if it works well or doesn't?

[Tumalu]

Willow is certainly more convenient in just grabbing molten darts and having them on-hand for stun at all times, and Bernie's not half bad.

No one can compare to Woodie as runner, but considering even Wes can be a problem if anything goes wrong and he loses the aggro that he'll struggle to get back, and it's nice for Woodie to be able to grab tanking gear for the boarrior so he doesn't need to worry about snagging a 90% for the final boss, other runners aren't bad at all... (random parties, you can't rely on picking up good armor later if you don't grab it quick.) Maybe I'll try Webber sometime once Forge is back up?

[The Curator]

On 10/29/2017 at 5:11 PM, Arcwell said:

Viability:

S: Wilson, WX-78, Wickerbottom, Wes

[Recommended characters that are strong in any team composition]

A: Willow, Woodie, Wolfgang

[Characters that are almost always strong in their team]

B: Maxwell, Webber

[Characters that are relatively strong]

C: Winona

[Characters that work in their respective niches]

D: Wendy, Wigfrid

[Outperformed by other characters in their respective roles]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Any team composition. Any team composition? Do you know how many ways you can compose a team. Any team composition?

Almost always strong. Why would they not be always strong. Why do you mention an inconsistency then not address what causes the inconsistency. And why do you do this right after you just presumed a bunch of characters that you claim are always strong. Why are some of those characters always strong and some are sometimes strong to you.

Why are the character groupings ranked based on the situations when they are strong when you don't say why or how or when they are or are not strong you just vaguely state "sometimes this is applicable sometimes this is not" how is this information useful at all.

 

And why is the character with literally the best single target damage ranked as B. Or do you mean B for Best, A for Almost and S for Subjective?

[Arcwell]

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

Any team composition. Any team composition? Do you know how many ways you can compose a team. Any team composition?

For the purpose of "meta" I'm assuming team comps at least have the standard roles:

1. Healer
2. Tank
3. Tank (or Tank/Runner, in the case of Woodie)
4. Runner (or Dart DPS, if you have a Woodie)
5. Caster
6. Dart DPS

The reason for 2 tanks is that there are 2 steadfast stone armors, and keeping the Boarrior stationary with a tank is absolutely necessary to getting heals correct in phase 3 of the fight.

There's no melee DPS because they almost always underperform vs. Tank and Dart DPS. Even Wigfrid, the star candidate for melee DPS, seems to be favored as a dart DPS.

If you want to get into semantics, any character can work in any team, so long as they or they're partners are skilled enough. The ranking is assuming players of average skill level who aren't running around with 6-Wes, 6-Wilson, or 6-Wendy, and aren't cheesing the game with 6 anvil strikes.

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

Almost always strong. Why would they not be always strong. Why do you mention an inconsistency then not address what causes the inconsistency. And why do you do this right after you just presumed a bunch of characters that you claim are always strong. Why are some of those characters always strong and some are sometimes strong to you.

Why are the character groupings ranked based on the situations when they are strong when you don't say why or how or when they are or are not strong you just vaguely state "sometimes this is applicable sometimes this is not" how is this information useful at all.

Willow's Bernie CAN aggro targets you don't want it to, Woodie only (effectively) works as a runner if you only have 1 other tank on your team, and Wolfgang's mighty form can be wasted, or worse yet lock you in place at the worst possible moment. Each of these are factors that will most of the time benefit the character to the point of surpassing B tier, but on occasion can be a downside. Webber and Maxwell by comparison do not have inconsistencies, they simply don't perform as well the majority of the time. Webber generally underperforms vs. Willow due to willow being able to run extra damage molten darts, while Maxwell generally underperforms vs. Wickerbottom due to having less power vs. groups of enemies and only having 75 HP.

On that note, moving Wes down a tier due to his inconsistency with gaining aggro, more importantly getting it back when lost.

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

And why is the character with literally the best single target damage ranked as B. Or do you mean B for Best, A for Almost and S for Subjective?

Single target damage doesn't help when you're dead from pigs. While Maxwell does do more single target damage than any other character and has stuns, a Wickerbottom is generally more useful as a caster due to being able to permanently petrify groups of enemies and 1-shot pigs spawned from the Boarrior (the phase that usually makes or breaks the game) with the fire staff. Plus, damage does not nearly matter as much as simply staying alive when fighting the Boarrior.

That being said, he's especially strong if you already have a Wickerbottom going healer, and can alternate roles/gear for waves where one is stronger than the other with a specific set. Wickerbottom healer meta hasn't really kicked off yet though, so that's an uncommon instance.

[Tumalu]

Maxwell is REALLY useful for the large amount of stun he lands on the boarrior when duelists are summoned, paired with speeding things up due to highest DPS. (The stun, not the dps, is the shining factor.) He doesn't one-shot the pigs like Wicker, it's true, but any meteor with the +25% magic damage hat is strong enough the team will very quickly mop up the pigs.

He's not really S rank because there needs to be a level of competence with the player and the team he's with due to his low HP, but his presence is very appreciated when the team is competent enough he won't die much. 75 HP actually turns out to not be -that- big of a problem (even wearing log armor) if the Maxwell is competent and the team is handling boarrior decently, but I probably wouldn't try to be Maxwell if there wasn't a woodie tank. If there IS, though, Maxwell contributes more stun than any other character, which makes boarrior that little bit less likely to murder someone between sleep fields.

I do hope in the full release that wickerbottom healer meta picks up a little! It's blegh especially if you're with someone who goes "NO. WICKER IS BAD HEALER. Get that idea out of your head!" and I'm like... dude, even if you don't favor it, isn't that a little extreme of a reaction considering there's several things healer Wicker brings to the table other healers don't? (stronger heals, petrification when not healing- if Winona didn't have vastly more HP for safety purposes then I'd actively argue against her slightly lower cd)

Also, it's fine to drop the healing staff between heals, because my friend tested and cooldown reduction is applied when you cast the skill, as far as we could tell. So there's no issue when it comes to Wicker petrifying here and there, Winona dps'ing on early waves between heals, etc. Not that it really matters, since you're basically done petrifying when the boarrior shows up. (She can petrify the pigs?)

[Arcwell]

2 hours ago, Tumalu said:

He's not really S rank because there needs to be a level of competence with the player and the team he's with due to his low HP, but his presence is very appreciated when the team is competent enough he won't die much. 75 HP actually turns out to not be -that- big of a problem (even wearing log armor) if the Maxwell is competent and the team is handling boarrior decently, but I probably wouldn't try to be Maxwell if there wasn't a woodie tank. If there IS, though, Maxwell contributes more stun than any other character, which makes boarrior that little bit less likely to murder someone between sleep fields.

I do hope in the full release that wickerbottom healer meta picks up a little! It's blegh especially if you're with someone who goes "NO. WICKER IS BAD HEALER. Get that idea out of your head!" and I'm like... dude, even if you don't favor it, isn't that a little extreme of a reaction considering there's several things healer Wicker brings to the table other healers don't? (stronger heals, petrification when not healing- if Winona didn't have vastly more HP for safety purposes then I'd actively argue against her slightly lower cd)

Worth noting that Maxwell's stun usually doesn't interrupt attacks like a well-timed special would. Still definitely has a high stun uptime (I'm not sure if Maxwell or WX-78 has a higher uptime, I'd have to test). With the 75 HP, I found that in games where a 2nd silk armor didn't drop, I would swap to log/stone armor just to survive. Doesn't make a big difference due to only losing 5% cooldown, granted.

Wicker is easily my favorite healer. The 10% cooldown from Winona has only been a real asset when we went with a stun team-comp (double WX-78 + Maxwell, 3 anvil strikes total), while Wicker's buffed heal can sustain tanks much better against the Boarrior. There's one catch to this though: If you get interrupted as wicker healer (through line AoE) while building up your damage on the Boarrior, you won't do enough damage to receive the buff before heal comes off cooldown. This causes the Wicker to either use a normal heal or delay the heal for a stronger one. Definitely wouldn't be as big of a problem with dedicated stunners on the team, but it's still there.

Should be obvious, but in case it wasn't clear, this tier list doesn't strictly state which characters are better than others, since every situation is going to vary. Personally, my ideal team would be:

1. Wickerbottom (Healer)
2. WX-78 (Tank)
3. Woodie (Tank/Runner)
4. Maxwell (Caster)
5. Wilson (Dart DPS)
6. Wilson (Dart DPS)

Double books more or less makes Wes obsolete, double Wilson and Woody aggro helps when you need a backup, Wicker keeps the tanks alive (arguably) more effectively than Winona or Wilson.

[Arcwell]

Added a Reasons for Viability Rankings section.

I'm sure I missed some things.

[Coldman]

On 10/30/2017 at 2:25 AM, Arcwell said:

I called Woodie niche because of his role as both a tank and a runner, which are entirely different roles that I would argue Wolfgang and Wes perform better. I haven't noticed the axe throw being a guaranteed aggro, is that actually the case? If so, he's certainly much better than I rated him. Still loses out on damage when his axe isn't in hand and can't anvil strike shielded enemies, though.

You're wrong. Runner does the half of the game, he is important. Woodie is the best runner and for the boss he isn't useless. You can get armor with defense like Steadfast Stone Armor or Stone Splint Mail and Flower Headband or Helm (for physical damage). Woodie has 200 hp and with these items he is perfect for tanker role  This is from my experience as a Woodie player.

 

[Spaartan]

Wendy needs a buff. Idk maybe +physical damage or run speed? Maybe her own darts? She just needs a buff somehow.

[Arcwell]

9 hours ago, Coldman said:

You're wrong. Runner does the half of the game, he is important. Woodie is the best runner and for the boss he isn't useless. You can get armor with defense like Steadfast Stone Armor or Stone Splint Mail and Flower Headband or Helm (for physical damage). Woodie has 200 hp and with these items he is perfect for tanker role  This is from my experience as a Woodie player.

 

I have since corrected my statement on Woodie, he is easily one of the 2 best runners in the game. He and Wes compete for that title since they both kite Boarilla, Woodie kites Boarrior, and Wes kites groups of enemies. Wes cannot do Woodie's Boarrior job just as Woodie cannot do Wes's groups of enemies job. As for the tank role, it requires more skill to play effectively but is VERY effective when you get attack cancelling down. After playing Woodie more he's my 2nd favorite character behind Wickerbottom.

32 minutes ago, Spaartan said:

Wendy needs a buff. Idk maybe +physical damage or run speed? Maybe her own darts? She just needs a buff somehow.

Definitely. First things that come to mind for buffs are fixing Abigail's aggro so she's more like Webber's spiders, you could also give Abigail a health/armor or damage buff, that could even scale like it does in DST depending on the day cycle (though there's no day cycle in Forge, maybe it would scale based on current health or fallen allies). Would also make sense if you just gave Wendy a revive buff like Wilson (albeit not as strong), since she's comfortable around death.

[Arcwell]

Changed descriptions of all tiers.

Characters are ranked in order of usefulness in their tiers (so if S is Wilson, WX-78, Wickerbottom, generally Wilson > WX-78 > Wickerbottom).

Made a few tier changes so that characters better fit those tiers:

Wigfrid: D -> C
Maxwell: B -> A
Willow: A -> B

I'm a little iffy as to whether Willow and Wolfgang should be A or B, let me know your thoughts.