This post is most certainly going to be a bit everywhere. I know it's very out-of-character of me, but I've been waiting for this day for years now. I usually try to keep a sorta professional flare and I promise I'll try to keep that up today. I'll start with my quick little tragic backstory and then go into the meat of how I feel about the beta.
Side note. Man were people really excited to see me post about this, aha. Over 800+ plus missed messages in a single day! My legacy must really be known.
I'll spoiler the backstory portion and personal view portions to try to keep this easily readable.
Spoiler
I've mained Willow since early DS, and say what you will, I still enjoy her there. Most certainly not the best, but she's fun to me.
She got the short end of the stick when being ported to DST, I'm very glad the low sanity burning thing was gone for the sake of multiplayer but things like losing out on fire immunity was really bad.
You get the story, let me fast forward to her rework. I... feel it was dire. There was a vocal outcry that needed to happen to give her, her OWN immunity back during it. That didn't boost my confidence at all.
I say this jokingly a lot but I still feel it was a Bernie rework. She had her fire based kit put to the side in exchange for a major rework of Bernie, the bear.
That entire rework felt off, it was one of the earliest ones and all the ones after it seemed to just get better and better. I've been clawing at Willow in an attempt to get her a minor update like Wurt and Wortox received to bring her up a notch but that never happened.
Fast forward to yesterday... Yesterday was a bit of a bad day for work related reasons, I ended up missing the beta drop, too.
I feel like the sour day yesterday might've influenced me tonally, but I confess, I feel really off about the direction they went with Willow in this skill tree.
I had set myself up with two specific wishes, those being that Bernie wouldn't get the spotlight again, and that they'd shy away from making her an overly typical Mage type character.
Spoiler
Yes, I get it, it was unrealistic to hope they'd avoid relying on the mage trope but still. It's a personal gripe but it's there. You may disagree with my view entirely!
I've always loved Willow as a character because of how vague she sort of was. I like that her immunity was never actually expanded on and/or explained. To me she was just a woman who happened to be immune to fire, ahah. I liked that, it was funny.
I feel like, as funny as it currently is, going to actual magic casting takes a bit of that charm away.
I understand you need to use magic to make any of these make and remote sense but I feel like she can get away with it not making sense. She can manipulate fires just because she's the woman who happens to be immune to fire!
It's... more of a title, gripe, really. I didn't want her becoming "Willow, the Witch/Mage."
I think all the promotional imagery of her dressing as a Witch is really funny when you consider that she isn't actually one. She just likes to joke about it.
Okay, personal rant over.
Going over the actual skill tree itself now, I have some concerns.
Foremost, I think Bernie takes the cake once again. I actually don't think I have anything to say about his skills, yet, though! I think they did a wonderful job with him. Even if its not something I expected, I think it came out wonderful. Props, I mean it!
Now, for my concerns... the lighter branch.
I've been feeling like the team isn't confident when it comes to sticking it out with fire based abilities. I feel like some of the changes in this tree kind of reflect that, as well.
I'll make a post about these skills and go more in depth in them after this, but to quickly go over them...
Controlled burning.
Loot smoldering. PERFECT, I've been begging for this for years!
100% igniting rate for torches/Lighter? Unexpected, very delightful though.
Fires not spreading... Both actively harmful, and a bit redundant.
Fire spreading is such an important part of fires in of themselves, removing this is both harmful to a lot of gameplay tricks and is counteracted by another skill Willow receives.
I, and a lot of other Willow main peers look forward to spreading fires for uses such as mob entrapment and charcoal gaining.
Losing out on the spreading fire makes me not want to pick this skill, and since its at the start of the branch, I forfeit the ENTIRE branch due to this.
As noted earlier, the need for spreading fires to be removed is counteracted by the Hungry Lighter perk. This gives her the most control over fires and how they spread she's ever had!
My suggestion for Controlled Burning?
Leave it mostly as is, and either remove the lack of fire spreading, OR give her the ability to stomp out/extinguish fires even if they're not smoldering.
Additionally, maybe just keep the lack of spread to MOBs on fire. Manually set fires should spread, but panicking mobs might benefit from it not spreading from them.
Burn Duration.
This one is weird. I personally hoped for the opposite, actually.
Shorter burn times is nice for charcoal gaining, but that's it! The other uses for fire such as light and warmth are taken away, ESPECIALLY during Winter, where you'd want it the most!
Having played with it a bit in Winter, I feel it just turns me off of wanting to start fires for warmth/light.
I like the longer burn times for mob damage, it's nice.
My suggestions for Burn Duration is to just make burning objects last longer. It provides more warmth, light, AND gives you more time to put out important burning structures.
Firefighter.
This one is fine! Simple, but nice.
Ember Tender.
No gripes with this skill, but I feel it's odd that its in its own slot but needs others selected to function.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. I just feel like the suction range for Embers need to be increased.
Spontaneous Combustion.
Really funny. I don't have enough opinions on it yet so say too much, but it's fun!
Fireball.
Feels like it's intended to be a cheaper Dwarf Star. It's alright, the light is neat.
Mmmaayyybbbbbeeeee introduce a way to make it portable? I'd love to carry a fire wisp with me.
Burning Frenzy.
This one I feel needs the most work.
It sticks out a bit compared to the other fire perks.
I find the needing to switch from casting to weapons to be cumbersome to use, it's also a VERY specific skill that needs set up. Very gimmick-y.
The time limit for it is another odd factor.
Personally, I'd want to see this one exchanged for another fire based perk.
I've got two very loosely thought out ones in mind.
Burning Woman, and Elated Ecstasy.
Burning Woman/Self immolation.*
Basically, Willow's own version of the Burning Bernie skill.
Ignite yourself and become a walking woman of pyre.
I feel a skill like this would be very useful, as it provides the benefits of Burning Frenzy since you'd be doing damage to mobs whilst being on fire, and also does a whole lot more.
Becoming a walking source of warmth and light has its benefits for team play, alongside yourself, of course.
It could cost a hefty amount of Embers and be for a limited time to balance it out.
Some neat gimmicks could be cooking foods you walk over. Or even letting players use you as a campfire for cooking. Clearing Miasma would be niche, but nice as well. More flavor, really.
Elated Ecstasy.*
My less thought out of the two suggestions, but I like the idea of it.
Gain heightened damage and MINOR health regen whilst burning.
This plays into the gameplay loop of always wanting to set fire to things and also, again, provides the bonus of Burning Frenzy whilst also adding more to the perk itself.
This would encourage you to plunge yourself into fires during combat, and would also help boost your fights with burning mobs, as standing close enough to mobs on fire also procs fire damage against yourself, thus triggering the perk.
I imagine this would play better without a cost, but a high cost would also work for balances sake.
Final thoughts and TLDR:
Whilst I am really bummed out about some aspects, I think over all they did a really fine job with her skill tree. Some perks need cleaning up and I'm sad Bernie got a huge focus but I think the fact that they did so well with his makes it up to me almost entirely.
I think it's about time she got her spotlight and I think they did a great job bringing her up to par. I almost feel like she's deserving of such a strong boost in her gameplay with how she's been falling behind for years now.
I'll make specific posts about her skills in a bit after this.
