The (Holy Trinity) tables have turned!

[VexTheHex]

 I voted for Wilson, Wickerbottom, and Webber.

 Wilson is and is the only one who can quick revive, and that's pretty big in the event of deaths. While one may argue a pro group doesn't need one cause they won't die, it doesn't mean every run they do will be perfect and there can't be a wipe out. He can also serve as a makeshift tank, caster, ranged, or healer. He's just all around good to have around.

 Wickerbottom's starter tome is wonderful. She can be a strong burst healer or a strong burst damage dealer. The only person who can use the tomes is Maxwell, but she wins the vote cause she can also serve as a healer. Obviously one can argue a Healbottom shouldn't be casting and vise versa, but it means she can fill either role depending on what her allies pick and be strong in both.

 Webber got my last vote cause he seems underrated. I feel he gets passed up by many players as useless despite him having strong DPS, being able to serve as a runner, and he has been in the fastest run of the day. 

 

 Meanwhile I'd say Woodie is overrated. Yes, he is beyond easy to kite with. But a good... anybody... can be the runner as it's not a long term job in the end. I was a Wendy runner in one game and did just fine with her despite the general agreement that she is easily the weakest cast member in the forge. Is Woodie good? Yes. But his role in the team can be also filled by anyone as long as they pick up the speed boosting and you keep smacking for that aggro away from the team.

[Ridley]

The hard thing for me is choosing the best 3 characters, because no one character is the king of something. Wilson is great at saving people, but is really only insurance in the hands of a great team. Wx78 is great but takes less hits than Wolfgang, whose ability is hard to get repeated use out of. Willow is like a safer DPS option than Maxwell, but has less overral dps with the fire staff if I am not mistaken. Wickerbottom is great at several things like fully healing the tanks, but I can see why Winona makes a good healer. Wigfrid is kind of in her own world but I think she is good. I feel like Woodie is just better at gaining aggro than Wes and the extra health lets him tank, but a good Wes doesn't have aggro problems anyway and has more weapon variety. I don't know what to think about Webber or Wendy, but I don't think they are half bad. I am enjoying playing lots of different characters to fill different roles.

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, VexTheHex said:

Meanwhile I'd say Woodie is overrated. Yes, he is beyond easy to kite with. But a good... anybody... can be the runner as it's not a long term job in the end. I was a Wendy runner in one game and did just fine with her despite the general agreement that she is easily the weakest cast member in the forge. Is Woodie good? Yes. But his role in the team can be also filled by anyone as long as they pick up the speed boosting and you keep smacking for that aggro away from the team.

WX and Wolfgang can't run very well. They're limited to melee so keeping agro without being hit can be tricky.

But yeah, pretty much anybody else can run with the movement speed hat and a ranged weapon. Even Maxwell can be a runner. I uhhh... know from personal experience. It still baffles me how the team voted for the Maxwell to take the runner's place after they left in the middle of the match. But hey, it ended up working anyhow. I would not recommend doing that though. But with that being said, Wes and Woodie still make better runners due to them having perks that specifically effect agro.

[orian34]

1 hour ago, Ridley said:

The hard thing for me is choosing the best 3 characters, because no one character is the king of something. Wilson is great at saving people, but is really only insurance in the hands of a great team. Wx78 is great but takes less hits than Wolfgang, whose ability is hard to get repeated use out of. Willow is like a safer DPS option than Maxwell, but has less overral dps with the fire staff if I am not mistaken. Wickerbottom is great at several things like fully healing the tanks, but I can see why Winona makes a good healer. Wigfrid is kind of in her own world but I think she is good. I feel like Woodie is just better at gaining aggro than Wes and the extra health lets him tank, but a good Wes doesn't have aggro problems anyway and has more weapon variety. I don't know what to think about Webber or Wendy, but I don't think they are half bad. I am enjoying playing lots of different characters to fill different roles.

Webber is pretty much the best darter DPS. He is straightforward and pretty efficient. Wendy works, but there is better options for all the roles she can play. She's kinda subpar with wilson.

[Tumalu]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned that Wickerbottom has the best sheer dps. I do like Wicker healer (bigger heals+petrification on the side), but she runs great as a fire staff user due to the new Beckoning Tome.

Fire Staff procs her passive fast enough she can -easily- get off charged casts of both items without having to wait on casts, and the charged summon deals a BOATLOAD of damage. I haven't played in a few days due to 10 hour workshifts+being sick, but iirc it does 41 damage a hit when charged, attacks very fast, and the patch that fixed it's range gives it high range so that you don't need to worry about it getting immediately taken out. This makes Wicker do DRASTICALLY more damage than everyone else, plus her meteors do a major number on the weaker enemies, making the mid-boarrior pit pig frenzy so very very simple if they can be corralled into a sleep field and one-shotted.

I've had runs where I get the merciless card at over 60k damage as Wickerbottom, and not because the rest of the team was pathetic.

Now, Maxwell provides delicious stun on Boarrior, and that's no joke. But if you want to, say, try to get the 20 minute speedrun cheevo, Wickerbottom is easily the go-to choice. Same for Wigfrid, who is basically the only melee-range character who can claim being "dps"- her spear deals 25% more damage than hammers/lucy (but no def debuff- someone's gotta be applying that) and the spear that drops towards the end is crazy powerful, doing even more damage than Maxwell's duelists each time it's multistrike procs and up towards 35~38 on normal hits (depending on equips/debuff/etc)

As far as just trying to win at all goes, it's probably more like Winona/Wilson/Woodie as top choices. But once you're past "just attempting to scrape out a win", it changes a bit.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

On 13/11/2017 at 6:05 PM, Dekay said:

When talking about juggling synergies you should realize that not all are created equal. Healing and petrifying with Wicker is very efficient compared to a healing Wilson who needs to run all over the map to revive other players. This results in inconsistent and poorly placed heals.

Also, giving the firestaff to a runner? Just no. Doing so demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of its strengths.

Won't juggling between the healing staff and something else means that the healing staff will regenerate slower? As in, if you have a bonus of it reloading faster, won't it not apply when you drop the stave? I know tackling between weapons can be fun and some-what advantageous, but it's at the expense of faster reload, and being able to heal more faster can be critical late or even mid-game, depending on the skill of your allies.

On 13/11/2017 at 9:48 PM, Dekay said:

It seems the wording of Wilson’s perks misleads a lot of players to believe they apply to healing in addition to reviving when they actually don’t.

...what? They do... reviving x2 faster and applying more healing faster are perks is a perk of his, so, I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by this.

On 13/11/2017 at 6:36 PM, TheKingDedede said:

The x3 healing factor is from his revival perk, not from what he can do with the staff. Revive someone and they get three times the amount of health from being revived than any other character who doesn't have the perk. I suggest editing your post so as to not mislead other users.

Oh ok. Well, that might not make him the best healer then, but it certainly makes him the best and most efficient reviver.

[orian34]

It seems like the bonus and cd reduction are applied on cast(makes sense on a game design pov since you just have to make only one operation using the actual values and bonus of cd and give the item the time in which he is on cd. Instead of shenanigans???). Which makes switching books and staves actually really good with cd reduction, while switching crowns becomes actually useless(and time consuming).

 

And yes, wilson is by far the best reviver. It's just that being a reviver is not always a strong bonus(since it's only usefull if you're in a bad shape).

You could say it's the dilemna of "Is it better to have stronger abilities that allow you to not fall that low, or abilities that can help you if you get that low, but at the expense of being less good overall, which could make you fall lower than if you had the stronger abilities. But those abilities can help you getting back, while you'll have more trouble if you have the stronger abilities."

I like the former, that's why I dislike wilson.

[Ridley]

25 minutes ago, orian34 said:

I like the former, that's why I dislike wilson.

I have been saying that Wilson is basically life insurance. There has been some games we would not of won without Wilson, but I don't mind not having a Wilson on a good team either.

[CaptainChaotica]

Well...the first time I actually won the bloody thing, we had (looks at screenshot) a Webber, a Wolfgang tank,  Wilson reviver, Winona healer (yes, the two roles were seperate--the healer casts the healing circle over where the dead person is, and then the sleeping monsters can't stop the reviver.  Perfect!  In theory anyway), Maxwell for spells, and a Woodie runner. 

We didn't do awesome (our Woodie died a LOT) but we won, and got the Bronze Speedrun trophy too, so hey.  Not too bad for the first time taking down the stupid Boarrior at all.  So...obviously that team did work, in the end.  And I can't really smacktalk the idea of a Winona healer too much, considering that was me.  : P

...Notorious

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

On 16/11/2017 at 5:19 PM, orian34 said:

It seems like the bonus and cd reduction are applied on cast(makes sense on a game design pov since you just have to make only one operation using the actual values and bonus of cd and give the item the time in which he is on cd. Instead of shenanigans???). Which makes switching books and staves actually really good with cd reduction, while switching crowns becomes actually useless(and time consuming).

 

And yes, wilson is by far the best reviver. It's just that being a reviver is not always a strong bonus(since it's only usefull if you're in a bad shape).

You could say it's the dilemna of "Is it better to have stronger abilities that allow you to not fall that low, or abilities that can help you if you get that low, but at the expense of being less good overall, which could make you fall lower than if you had the stronger abilities. But those abilities can help you getting back, while you'll have more trouble if you have the stronger abilities."

I like the former, that's why I dislike wilson.

I guess it depends on whether you're aiming for a no-death run, cause there's a reason to have that from the looks of it.

[TalZahn]

I went with woodie, wigfrid, and wilson as holy trinity.

Woodie has the easiest time keeping aggro AND can stunlock the final boss with well timed axe throws. Plus he can take a hit. A runner at the start and a tank at the end of a match makes him the ideal partymate.

Wigfrid actually synergizes with woodie well; she starts as the secondary tank (with wx, wolfgang, or winona taking main tank) and when final boss comes out, she switches off her defensive gear with woodie and goes onto darts to keep giving buffs to everyone. she can use the better spear if there looks like trouble for tanks, making her a tertiary tank. She's excellent for speed runs as well which is why I chose her. 

Even though better teams won't need him, Wilson still is always a smart choice. He can fill any role well enough while still being your res guy. He can heal in a pinch (though not ideal if bad luck falls on him), fire staff decently, tank okay, and of course, secondary dart dps. I'd say he's number one needed pick when doing public matches. Private with trusted friends I could see not needing him, but it doesn't really ever HURT to have him. 

 

Honorable mention to winona because she can fit any role as well, especially good if someone leaves mid match.

Also, I'd say in terms of healers, ideal would be Wicker or Winona (depending your set up), and if neither fulfill those roles, use Wendy. Because your other choices (Wilson, Willow, Wes, and Max) have better things to be doing or are too fragile in Max's case. Though max would be a decent dps healer i suppose

Fire staff users is another depending on your set up. Wicker has the best cataclysm aoe damage, Maxwell has the best single target damage, and Willow has good damage in both, just doesn't beat the book users in their one specialty. 

Dart users, willow has better straight damage than Webber once she gets fire darts. Before fire darts, webber is better though. I do have a theory that multiple webbers might be able to stunlock enemies with their spiders, but unsure about that. Wigfrid also makes a decent dart user, though more on the support side of things and keeping herself safe from poison. 

Best tank... there really isn't one. Wolfgang is the slightly more defensive tank (more hp, could use his power up as a means to temporary kite or lure away) while WX is the more offensive tank. Woodie can be a tank and lurer, but not till the end. I do like him more as tank due to being able to take aggro faster though. Winona is an okay filler tank; the 10% cdr can help her hammer time faster... or maybe do spear leaps faster too.