Constructive Criticism for Wildling

[EATZYOWAFFLEZ]

Recently just completed D5 as Wildling, and I have some thoughts I'd like to share. For context, it took me ~8 runs.

Wildling is very obviously designed around primitive weapons and life steal. Besides starting with a stick (which is negligible most of the time) his only perk is:

• +25% life steal with primitive weapons

This perk is balanced by a couple of downsides, the first of which thematically fits the character, or someone who is "primitive".

• You can't equip weapons above tier II
  
• -3 melee damage
  
• -3 ranged damage

While the reduction in damage is annoying, and seems to be there for little reason, my main problem is with the weapon tier limit. Let me explain.

Four out of the original six weapons (not counting hatchet because it is unlocked via Wildling) heavily rely/ moderately rely on their upgrades in order to scale well into the endgame. Stick vastly increases its damage per stick, slingshot increases the amount it bounces, cacti club increases its projectile count, and torch increases the amount of times its burn procs. Limiting these weapons to be hard capped at tier II severely decreases their effectiveness, as they are meant to heavily scale as they are upgraded.
Besides these four weapons, the tier cap also makes the shop much worse for Wildling. After getting all rare weapons (which normally happens between rounds 7 and 10 in my experience), Wilding is stuck with a shop that constantly offers weapons that can't be bought. This is especially obvious because of the way the shop prioritizes weapons you already have, which normally helps other survivors get less useless shops. Not Wilding. Often I would have to spend most of my money re-rolling just to find an item I actually want.
Finally, the tier cap makes Wildling's end game terrible. Your weapons cap out early, and your main stat/tag, life steal, hits a hard cap in the late game. This really seems to just leave Wildling stranded as you struggle to find damage and other forms of survivability in the shop.

Ultimately, I think Wildling's main downside not only makes him a under-performing character, but more importantly makes him not fun to play. So, now that I've complained enough for this post, I'll offer some suggestions on how to improve Wildling.

• Rework the tier-cap - this could be done multiple ways, while still staying thematic to a "primitive" character.
  
  • Weapons could simply be more expensive for Wilding. This keeps that "harder to scale" feel of the original downside, without completely degrading over half of the primitive weapons
    
  • Wildling can't combine weapons. This one is a bit harsher, so it might need to be balanced with another perk. Combining weapons is usually crucial to scaling. However, with combining taken away, Wildling is forced to get luck and save for more expensive, higher tier weapons. Once again this stays inline with the original downside by making it harder to scale.
    
  • Wilding can only purchase common weapons. This is basically the opposite of the last idea. Still makes it harder to scale, but instead discourages luck. The only problem is this could make Wildling's shop potentially worse.
• Keep the tier cap, but buff other aspects of Wilding - while I don't like this idea as much, it's still something to consider.
  
  • Raise the life steal cap for Wildling. This gives more scaling potential, but could possibly be OP. Would probably have to be implemented carefully.
    
  • Increase damage scaling. This one is a simple but effective idea. Turns Wildling into more of a barbarian.
    
  • Tag wildling differently to fix his shop. Not sure how feasible this is to implement, but Wildling could be tagged to have less of chance to find weapons in the shop. This could also possibly only take effect after a certain round in order to not make the early game harder for Wildling (though part of me wants his early game to be harder; after all, he starts with 25% life steal). Could also be tagged to find the normal amount of life steal items after a certain round.

I really hope this character gets improved in someway, and I'd love to hear other people's opinions on Wildling. Also, this is obviously my opinion, so feel free to disagree in the comments.

[Bumc]

My only non-stick win with Wilding involved completely switching from primitive weapons to medical saws.
They are just straight up better than his signature weapon (hatchets), which adds insult to the injury.

[Silverrogue]

I have completed danger 5 with almost every character, and I am currently stuck on this one. I've probably had about 40 attempts now, with every variation of weapon builds abd Stat builds I can think of. This might be the one that makes me want to stop playing, to be honest. I just don't feel anything but dread when I open the game anymore. Sorry Brotato, but you may have lost me on this one.

[Bumc]

They buffed wilding since the time of this post, I don't think its that much of a challenge anymore if you are familiar with danger 5.

[sad sack]

Originally posted by Silverrogue:

I have completed danger 5 with almost every character, and I am currently stuck on this one. I've probably had about 40 attempts now, with every variation of weapon builds abd Stat builds I can think of. This might be the one that makes me want to stop playing, to be honest. I just don't feel anything but dread when I open the game anymore. Sorry Brotato, but you may have lost me on this one.

Just use slingshot 👍🏻

[JohnnyBazooka89]

Also DLC makes this character much, much easier, what is the problem if you weapons are tier 2, but they are also cursed? Cursed Tier 2 weapon is stronger than regular tier 4 weapon, so you aren't really that limited in terms of power anymore.

[Kappa]

it's pretty easy imo ( just competed a run [ibb.co] ).
Javelins ( no matter the character ) are op af ( I also managed to kill 3 bosses + the 2 last bosses ).

didn't see it was quite the gravedigging lol.

[elite outsider]

wildling is one of the many characters that is simply weak and badly designed

it's actually best not to win with it because it unlocks hatchet, which is also bad and effectively just harms your shops in every future game. if you never unlock stuff like hatchet or fighting stick, your chances of finding useful stuff are just a bit higher :}

Originally posted by JohnnyBazooka89:

Also DLC makes this character much, much easier, what is the problem if you weapons are tier 2, but they are also cursed? Cursed Tier 2 weapon is stronger than regular tier 4 weapon, so you aren't really that limited in terms of power anymore.

other characters can also use cursed weapons without being generally weak like wildling is

curse makes enemies harder to kill, weapons being capped at level 2 makes curse extra impactful against wildling despite what you said

[FluffyMittens]

I just finished my first D5 run with Wildling (andmy first clear with the character too). Sticks made the most sense for scaling due to their inherent +damage for every other stick. And since we can't scale via making our weapons much better, I figured the correct response was Attack Speed, lots of it. Somehow I also ended up with nearly 300 range, which is probably sub-optimal when you want to be hitting a lot. Was also holding off on upgrading my sticks for like 7 rounds hoping for a fish hook for cursing, which never materialised in the run.

Defensively, lots of HP and Armor to increase the amount of time I had to lifesteal back, though I lucked out and found not only three monkeys, but Sifd's relic for autocollecting materials.

Wave 12 horde wasn't much issue, both elites and bosses were slain too. Overall I probably made it through getting lucky, but "Just get lucky" is terrible advice lmao.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3381029274

[Bumc]

Yeah I first timed D5 abyss with sticks as well (after trying and failing with hatchets couple times).

[Kappa]

Originally posted by elite outsider:

it's actually best not to win with it because it unlocks hatchet, which is also bad and effectively just harms your shops in every future game. if you never unlock stuff like hatchet or fighting stick, your chances of finding useful stuff are just a bit higher :}

Lol, there's no need to exploit the game that way ahah.

[elite outsider]

Originally posted by Kappa:

Originally posted by elite outsider:

it's actually best not to win with it because it unlocks hatchet, which is also bad and effectively just harms your shops in every future game. if you never unlock stuff like hatchet or fighting stick, your chances of finding useful stuff are just a bit higher :}

Lol, there's no need to exploit the game that way ahah.

there's no need to do anything, but my shop has a bit less junk in it!