Wurt Skill Tree (wondering what I should get and my opinions on each perk)

[jokoala102]

So, as someone who has played Wurt for a really long time and focuses more on her setup game (killing tentacles for spots, getting King ASAP, kelp, fish, etc.) I'm wondering what the best perks are for her skill tree.
My thoughts on the amphibian side are kind of mid. I don't like that you have to get the sanity part before the health-involved parts because she's almost always carrying a fish for a constant sanity buff. The health regen really seems to be the only good thing on the amphibian side but I haven't gotten to test that far down the tree yet. All things considered it feels like a waste of skill points to get 5 perks and only use 2 of them.
The Mermdom tree is also kind of a mixed bag. I looked at the Mosquito-involved part and immediately labeled it as bad because the mosquitoes aren't that big of a problem anyways with merm guards, and also the Mosquito Sacks would probably be better spent on Water Balloons if you plan to go down the Amphibian tree.
The "Merm King Quests" thing sounds interesting and I'm going to probably end up getting all of them. I already gave him a Marble Suit for the first quest (which I have no idea what that does btw) and I haven't gotten any quests beyond that.
The Merm King Hunger Boosts were kind of like the Mosquito-related things for me; as someone who gets reliable and year-round food sources really quickly, it's never felt like a struggle to feed the king. Not getting those.
Sensible Swamp Fighter and Swamp Pathfinder both seem to be mid-tier. Sensible Swamp Fighter especially sounds bad because it (more than likely) relies on the Wurt player also going down the Mosquito path to get a way to AoE heal Merms. Also, their retreating would also open up Wurt herself to whatever enemy's attacks. Meanwhile, Swamp Pathfinder also sounds lackluster; first of all, it is completely useless if you're playing alone (which doesn't happen to everybody, but I find myself alone half the time). Even if you're playing multiplayer, you're still going to have to have someone nearby for it to have any effect, and most characters don't need anything in the swamp anyways. IMO Swamp Pathfinder might be the worst perk in her entire tree.
The Community Feeder does sound moderately interesting. I haven't built one yet because I've put my points elsewhere, but somewhere for merms to automatically eat their own kelp does sound amazing. I have no clue what it means by "merm growth" (respawn rates?) or "calling merms into action" (maybe free recruitment, idk) but I'll probably end up getting it in the future.
The Tool Shed is probably right under the Community Feeder in my priorities list; improved efficiency on their harvesting does sound great, but it doesn't sound necessary. I haven't gotten any upgrades in this tree yet because I've always felt that the merms did just fine chopping and mining on their own. I'm wondering if the tools allow them to dig, since that would be absolutely huge for Wurt's harvesting game (bye bye, shovels), so I'll probably put a point in that at some point.
The Hardheaded perks caught my eye when I first glanced at the skill tree. Having more durable merm guards made me think that perhaps they could take on some formidable AoE bosses like Deerclops and Bearger. I've gotten both of those perks and have yet to build a 2nd-tier Armermry (I need more tentacle spots) but I can't wait to build one. IMO the best perk that I've gotten so far.
Now, when I went digging for info on Wurt's affinity perks, most of what I found was that the Shadow affinity was more focused on buffing Wurt herself, and that the Lunar Affinity was more focused on buffing the Merm Guards. I haven't gotten either affinity yet because I haven't killed either boss and I don't have 12 skills, but I'll probably end up going Lunar affinity because I've always seen Wurt as the "quality over quantity" counterpart to Webber.

TLDR I need help choosing my perks, please put a screenshot of optimal perks because I'm confused on most of these. Thanks!!!!

[laslax]

Amphibian tree up to All-Weather Scales for some passive bonuses. The sanity regen of Mental Fluidity 2 is strong because you can negate Dusk/Night by jumping off a boat at the start of dusk; removing the need for sanity clothing. Obviously this is amplified in Spring, and somewhat Winter due to the seasons reduced Wetness drain.

All the Kings Quest skills because they buff you and your Merm Guards, and the Thulcite Crown dodge is very strong (its literally free Bone Armor).

Hardheaded 2 to make your Merm Guards stronger. They will also restock their helmet if an Armermery is close enough to where they're fighting, so it's good to keep this skill on even if you've already built some.

Industrial Merm 2 for digging stumps mostly, but they're okay for farming too. Standard Merms with tools prioritize digging stumps first before mining/chopping. You should probably consider switching this off at some point like Community Feeder since it's a permanent structure.

Community Feeder is completely redundant if going for Lunar affinity. It's more of a QOL structure to quickly befriend Merms.

Shadow affinity is for straight up damage (Merms inside staff turf spawn shadow tentacles, and Merm followers have double hp.) Lunar affinity is for permanent followers (staff transforms Merms for free).

Here's some examples of what I came up with
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3277539101

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3278205361

[jokoala102]

This actually helps a lot, I was really confused about how to use the skill tree for her. I dumped a skill point on the community feeder since I got curious about what it did and realized that it's actually not good. I'm unsure if you can reset skills using the Celestial Portal (if you can, do you need to actually change your character (eg. switching to a different survivor and then back to Wurt, using 2 idols in the process) or do you just need to see the character select screen?) but I'll try it sometime. But anyways that's actually a massive help, thanks for answering!

[laslax]

Originally posted by jokoala102:

This actually helps a lot, I was really confused about how to use the skill tree for her. I dumped a skill point on the community feeder since I got curious about what it did and realized that it's actually not good. I'm unsure if you can reset skills using the Celestial Portal (if you can, do you need to actually change your character (eg. switching to a different survivor and then back to Wurt, using 2 idols in the process) or do you just need to see the character select screen?) but I'll try it sometime. But anyways that's actually a massive help, thanks for answering!

Use an idol on the Celestial Portal and click Reset Insight when you select Wurt.

[jokoala102]

Ok, thanks for all the help! Also, unrelated question: how do I go about beating Dragonfly? I know to box in all the spawning pools with stone walls but I'm lost beyond that

[laslax]

Originally posted by jokoala102:

Ok, thanks for all the help! Also, unrelated question: how do I go about beating Dragonfly? I know to box in all the spawning pools with stone walls but I'm lost beyond that

Anything will work on any boss once you get the Kings Quest's done + Hardheaded 2; its only a matter of how many Merm Guards you have at that point to beat the boss. Walling in all the Lava Ponds is ideal if you want to use Merms, but I believe Shadow Merms are immune to fire damage. I'd probably still recommend doing the fight normally once (as in the wall cheese method), and then boxing off the Lava Ponds to protect your Merms from being set on fire. And yes, they dodge her enraged stomp, but the stomp attack might break the walls boxing in the Lava Ponds.

By the way, you can get the Shadow staff early by killing Nightmare Werepig; the Lunar staff requires CC to be killed.

[jokoala102]

Ok, thanks!

[Droider]

I've never heard whether or not the merm king keeps his upgrades if he dies

[jokoala102]

I have no clue if he does or not. I might try resetting my insight (using celestial portal) today to remove the "quest" skills and see what happens.
I do know that there's code for the items that the merm king wears (the crown is called "merm_king_buff_crown" or something like that), so maybe he drops them on death and you can just give the items to him when he respawns?
I'll probably test all this stuff later and put the results here.

[jokoala102]

Originally posted by Droider:

I've never heard whether or not the merm king keeps his upgrades if he dies

So, after some testing:
-When the Merm King dies, he drops the items that you gave him for the quests, and not his "special" versions of the items (the ones that he holds/wears in his sprite). He'll drop the normal Thulecite Crown, Marble Suit, and Strident Trident if you've given them to him.
-After using the Celestial Portal and not choosing the "quest" perks, my Merm King was still wearing his quest items, so I assume the bonuses still applied.

I guess this means that if you really wanted to, you could get the quest perks, give him the items, and then use Celestial Portal to get different perks (like mosquito crafting or more Amphibian perks). However, that also means that if your King dies, then you'd have to use a Celestial Idol to go back and change your perks to give him the items again. I hope this helped!

[Droider]

ah okay nice that i wont have to go get the stuff again. are they at the same durability tho?

[jokoala102]

I didn't check that; all the items I got from him were at 100%, but I gave them to him at 100% so that doesn't really prove anything. I'll try giving him a damaged item and see what happens

[jokoala102]

Originally posted by Droider:

ah okay nice that i wont have to go get the stuff again. are they at the same durability tho?

So I tested this with a Strident Trident, and items are NOT restored to full durability when the King dies. I gave him a 99% trident, killed him, picked up the trident and it was still at 99%.

[OmarTheInsomniac]

Originally posted by jokoala102:

Ok, thanks for all the help! Also, unrelated question: how do I go about beating Dragonfly? I know to box in all the spawning pools with stone walls but I'm lost beyond that

https://youtu.be/R7XrDFJIygU?si=n5Im4KaGHbVZSzSO

[jokoala102]

Originally posted by OmarTheInsomniac:

Originally posted by jokoala102:

Ok, thanks for all the help! Also, unrelated question: how do I go about beating Dragonfly? I know to box in all the spawning pools with stone walls but I'm lost beyond that

https://youtu.be/R7XrDFJIygU?si=n5Im4KaGHbVZSzSO

Thanks for the video, I was still kind of wondering what the shadow affinity actually does. I assume those shadow tentacles are doing about the same damage as the ones from a thulecite club, and from what I noticed I think they can only spawn on the swamp turf. I'll probably try both affinities out in my world and just use Celestial Portal to swap them if I prefer the other one. TBH my merms don't have too much trouble downing Dragonfly with no affinity but it will be hilarious to see Dragonfly die even faster than she already is!
But seriously thanks for the video

[jokoala102]

Also can you please link the mod that shows the health bar for your beefalo? I'd definitely love to have that because I'm trying to tame one currently. Also if you could link the boss health bar one, I've been trying to find that for a while as well. Thanks!