Tips for Willow?

[TheProtagonist]

Well, people have said that Willow is a useless character, but I have to ask, what are your perspectives on Willow? 

What I found useful:

- Can cook with the lighter

- Lighter last for a long time

- No damage from burning trees (If you don't stand near it for too long)

[Snowhusky5]

while it's true that her lighter is useful in the early-game, cooked food doesn't actually give more hunger, and once someone builds an alchemy engine and crafts lanterns, her lighters become pretty much obsolete. After that, she is just like Wilson with a lower max sanity, and a harder time in winter (due to insanity freezing), and no beard hair. The fire resistance isn't all that useful either.

[DwerBomb]

10 hours ago, Snowhusky5 said:

while it's true that her lighter is useful in the early-game, cooked food doesn't actually give more hunger

You are underestimating this. Cooked food is way more beneficial (raw meat drains sanity, cooked monster meat is less damaging, and don't forget the good cooked green mushroom sanity buff)

 

And as she has a hard time in winter she also has an easier time in Summer. Two faces of the same medal

[Sheauwn]

Willow's sanity boost in DST is much greater than the normal singleplayer. You can actually stack multiple campfires and gain more sanity than multiple ghosts can drain. She is very good at surviving chaotic multiplayer situations.

[WillowCrocker]

As someone who mains Willow I suppose I've got advice on how I deal with everything.

Singleplayer
Ah yes, good old nearly-OP (in my opinion, if you use her correctly) classic single-player Willow. 

• Do not fear fire. Revel in it - it is your salvation from shadow monsters. I personally find this guide to be a very good one if you've got yourself a solid base that you don't plan on leaving and want to farm constantly for nightmare fuel. It is very expensive, however if you're a nomad that wanders or you're going through adventure mode, have a separate stack of grass for the occasion. Set the stack down if your sanity is low, stand right over it, and light a fire. You'll be shocked at how much her sanity boosts within seconds.
• On that same note, just because you can burn down an entire birch nut forest doesn't mean you should. Don't just go setting fire to everything around you for no particular reason. The only time I'd EVER find an excuse for burning a ton of trees is if you need a ton of charcoal. Do NOT do it because Willow's sanity is low. Just go pick a bunch of grass or pinecones and light them all ablaze at once in a stack AWAY from any other structures...it won't damage anything important and you'll get that sanity shot you're looking for.
• Oh, and don't burn birch nut trees. I personally enjoy them because not only are they a food source, but the deciduous forest is an excellent place to camp due to being close to the pig village, usually. I personally burn the lumpy evergreen trees that can be found in the forest biomes (the dark brown terrain) because they are usually plentiful and cannot be relied on as an emergency food source. 
• If you DO have a special base, and you plan on doing something that will jeopardize your sanity? Unless you've got ice flingos up the wazoo, GET OUT OF THERE. It simply isn't worth having to rebuild everything if your sanity drops for too long and she begins to light fires. Come back when your sanity is above 60 so that you don't have to risk your precious base work.
• Try to keep a flower crown on your head if you aren't fighting. Even if it provides very little sanity, a little is still something if you aren't using anything else at the moment. I only recommend this for the first few days or so, though, as after that you should have more than enough resources to keep her sanity up without the need of a garland.

Multiplayer 
Willow has been changed in multiplayer. She is no longer completely immune to fire; you've still got a 3 second grace period before it harms you, however. There are things that have changed though, and so there's a lot more you need to be aware of. 

• Be sure you remember that lighter is no longer infinite. Doesn't take a genius to figure it out, but new players to DST who have already played Don't Starve and haven't been lighter-weaned will need to take caution. Don't use the lighter for a light source unless it's an emergency - the torch won't last as long but it'll certainly shine a bit brighter and takes barely any effort to craft, whereas the lighter uses gold. 
• Refer to the first bullet, however do keep in mind Willow can cook with her lighter in DST unlike singleplayer. This may sound useless, but if you aren't using it for a light source like I recommend, it can help you somewhat so that you won't need to make a campfire and use 4 of your precious logs just to get something in your belly. Nothing like fast food on the go, right?
• Use caution playing with fire this time. You are safe for only a few short seconds. Instead, if you are looking to nightmare fuel farm, take advantage of Bernie. Once your sanity is near nonexistent, you can use him as a short distraction while you pummel the monsters. Just make sure you've got plenty of armor. Oh, and unless you're Willow, it's no use trying to steal a Willow player's Bernie - he is ONLY loyal to Willow. True friendship is beautiful, isn't it? 
• Speaking of Bernie, don't let him use up that inventory slot if you don't feel like you're going to use him. Not planning on collecting nightmare fuel by fighting off monsters and decide you'll just take a touch-stone death instead because you only need one or two? Put Bernie in a chest or something. Unless you're using him for this purpose, I find him virtually useless. (It would be cool and extremely adorable if you could hug him or something as Willow to gain sanity though. 
• Instead of lighting a random fire, now you've got freezing to deal with. When I first played DST, and I had no idea what-was-what or how to do just about anything, I found it shocking that I was freezing in summer. This can be a curse or a Godsend depending on how you handle Willow's sanity. If you're at least decent at managing it and are confident you can repair it at any point, then you should absolutely use this to your advantage on scalding summer days when you're overheating and can't afford to make an ice block, melon hat, or endothermic fire.
• Collect those green mushrooms if you're not used to Willow's low sanity. She has the lowest sanity in the game only surpassed by Webber, so if that's something you don't know how to control yet, eat COOKED (never raw) green mushrooms if you've got a single health point to spare. -1 health for +15 sanity, you tell me. 

All in all, I very much disagree that Willow is a 'newbies only' character. I consider myself at least intermediate at Don't Starve and I still main her. She's not at all useless and still a great choice no matter how long you've been playing. And I'm not even going to mention how adorable and hilarious her quotes can get.

Take care of Willow and keep her sanity in check and she'll take care of you, too. She's such a good character and it really saddens me seeing how badly 'expert' players talk about her.

[Magicus]

heres my tip for playing willow: 

don't.

im kidding guys come on don't flame me

[werlpolf]

- you can also annoy other players by burning their bases and saying that you need sanity

[WillowCrocker]

4 minutes ago, werlpolf said:

- you can also annoy other players by burning their bases and saying that you need sanity

You mean like how you can do the exact same thing with a torch and any other character? Willow isn't immune to fire. Either way you're gonna get hurt.

[werlpolf]

1 minute ago, WillowCrocker said:

You mean like how you can do the exact same thing with a torch and any other character? Willow isn't immune to fire. Either way you're gonna get hurt.

Right, but you regenerate sanity while near fire. Just say you didn't got logs for using firepit - so you needed to burn the base else ghosts come killing you.

[WillowCrocker]

23 minutes ago, werlpolf said:

Right, but you regenerate sanity while near fire. Just say you didn't got logs for using firepit - so you needed to burn the base else ghosts come killing you.

It's still not fast enough. I can assure you that base will burn down before your sanity goes up enough for it to matter. So in the end, whoever did it is wasting both theirs and your time. 

Greifers, man. Greifers.

[PanAzej]

3 minutes ago, WillowCrocker said:

It's still not fast enough. I can assure you that base will burn down before your sanity goes up enough for it to matter. So in the end, whoever did it is wasting both theirs and your time. 

Greifers, man. Greifers.

The point was to waste base owner's time and maybe make him quit. So griefer Willow did her job here... She had a crappy excuse, that's all.

Willow needs a proper buff. All she has going for her is her looks and personality. But she's not a joke character. I mean, she needs to be at least kinda useful in comparison to other characters.

[werlpolf]

37 minutes ago, WillowCrocker said:

Greifers, man. Greifers.

Yeah, my point was, that it is getting tired, that Willow is always being blamed, kicked, banned. It is not as bad as it was, but still....

So I encourage all Willows to accept their fate and do, what others are thinking of them XD

[TheProtagonist]

On 3/7/2016 at 3:24 AM, WillowCrocker said:

As someone who mains Willow I suppose I've got advice on how I deal with everything.

Singleplayer
Ah yes, good old nearly-OP (in my opinion, if you use her correctly) classic single-player Willow. 

Multiplayer 
Willow has been changed in multiplayer. She is no longer completely immune to fire; you've still got a 3 second grace period before it harms you, however. There are things that have changed though, and so there's a lot more you need to be aware of. 

• All in all, I very much disagree that Willow is a 'newbies only' character. I consider myself at least intermediate at Don't Starve and I still main her. She's not at all useless and still a great choice no matter how long you've been playing. And I'm not even going to mention how adorable and hilarious her quotes can get.

Take care of Willow and keep her sanity in check and she'll take care of you, too. She's such a good character and it really saddens me seeing how badly 'expert' players talk about her.

Thanks for the tips, it was really cool, never thought of using Willow's freezing ability in Summer, I'll try that out.

I guess it just sucks for all the Willow mains, getting blamed for griefing, WE NEED A PHONEIX WRIGHT HERE.

[unitato]

Willow is very stereotyped as the 'griefer' character, as listed by the other people. Tbh, its better just to practise her by yourself in DS or in a solo server on DST until you get the hang of her. Otherwise, people will see you as a dead weight and potential griefer. Im not saying willow is always the griefer, but sadly, the majority of players pick willow for the free torch at the beginning. Also uhhhh dont waste her lighter until you can get to a solid fire pit, i think bernie is kind of useless but its really your choice and be careful of the freezing when her sanity is low.

[Foa]

1) Join a server.

2) Find a camp with people.

3) Approach them, say nothing.

4) Whip out your lighter, stand next to crops/machines for a full minute, quietly, or spam examine fire pit.

5) Watch people panic.

6) When you have your fill of fun, put away your lighter and contribute.

 

But seriously, it's always hilarious when I approach a camp as Willow. People really seem uncomfortable around me, like they aren't sure if I'm a grifer or not lol

 

As for Bernie, it allows Willow to fight Giants without worrying about shadow monsters that usually join in when your sanity gets wrecked by their aura, so it's not completely useless, for newbies and intermediates at least.