[DST] Webber Survival Guide (Spider Farming)

This guide will go through Webber as a character, and how he can easily solve your food problems!

Note: This guide has been out since 2017. (That's a whole seven years ago as of writing!) Because of this, a large amount of this guide is a product of it's time; while all of the information is still largely beneficial to new players wanting to pick up the character, it doesn't go as in-depth to specific character strategies as I would like, such as boss slaying and niche strategies. I would like to update this guide with all of the nuances of Webber I picked up over the years, but struggle to find the time or motivation. Maybe some day.

Character Overview

Webber is a decent character with little drawbacks that barely make a difference to the experienced player. Webber is able to befriend spiders, and start spider wars, which can give Webber and his base members an infinite amount of food, glands, and silk.

Health: 175
Hunger: 175
Sanity 100

Webber is classified as a monster, therefore neutral mobs such as pigs, bunnymen, and catcoons attack Webber on sight. This can be dangerous in early game, and to inexperienced players, but it can easily be worked around by wearing armor, kiting the mobs, or simply avoiding the mobs altogether.

Webber also has the lowest max Sanity in the game, capping at 100. While this may seem like a really major drawback to new players, all they have to to do is Create a tophat (6 Silk) and sanity problems will be gone for the most part.

[WIP] Webber's New Toys (Refresh)

< Webber's refresh just came out. Give me a minute :) >

[WIP] Types of Spiders

With the recent Webber refresh, Webber has gained the ability to mutate spiders into other types, thus allowing for their utilization wherever and whenever the player wants. That means that it's actually worth discussing them now.

Spider

Health: 100
Damage: 20
Quirk: None

These are the types of spiders you will see 80% of the time, as they are the type that primarily spawn from Spider Dens. Their uses are very limited as they can get one-shot by most bosses unless you put a helmet on them, which is usually a waste regardless.

Spider Warrior

Health: 400
Damage: 20
Quirk: Has a chance to leap when attacking.

The second type of spider that spawns from normal Spider Dens, which also makes it the second most common spider. It has quadruple the health of a normal spider, however it does not attack as quickly.

Cave Spider

Health: 225
Damage: 20
Quirk: Can hide in it's shell to gain a 75% damage resistance.

As you can guess by the name, these spiders can be found down in the caves, spawning from spilagmites along with Spider Spitters.

How to Spider Farm:

Spider Farming is exactly what it sounds like, farming spiders for their spider drops. Unlike other characters' ways of doing it (ie Tanking or kiting the spiders) Webber can safely get Stacks upon stacks of Monster meat, spider glands, and silk.

You can efficently spider farm with a minimum of 3 nests, but you can have dozens of spider nests! You dont see a crazy amount of spider nests in a Webber's base often is that the players' computers usually give up at this point and recieve unplayable lag.

Step-by-Step Guide on how to Spider Farm

1. Feed a single spider a piece of meat. (Preferrably, choose a spider thats away from other spiders, so you only tame 1 spider.)
   
2. Choose another spider that is relatively close to the spider den.
   
3. CTRL + CLICK The spider, and use the WASD Keys to cancel the attack BEFORE the attack connects. Do NOT use CTRL + F, you might hit a spider den.
   
4. If you have done the above correctly, your tamed spider should start attacking the the other spider. All the other spiders should start to group together in one area and attack each other.
   
5. Hold Spacebar to pick up the spider drops. (Use WASD to move while doing this, in case the fight manages to carry itself to another position.

If you want to practice cancelling your attack (so there isnt any accidental deaths from spiders), you can practice on Chester! He regen's hp, so he will be completely fine! (Unequip any tool/weapon for better results.)

Spider Den Management:

How to get Spider Eggs:

There are 2 ways to get spider eggs. You Either:
A: Craft them > 12 Silk, 6 glands, 6 papyrus (24 reeds)
B: find spider dens in the wild and take down a tier 3 den.

You also spawn with spider eggs yourself, but personally I either place it down where I want the spider farm to go before I gathered more eggs, so I recommend holding onto the spider eggs you spawn with until you find/make a base you KNOW you will stay in.

Farm Size

The size of your spider farm can vary, and it usually depends on how good your computer is. Do you run on a crappy laptop? The best you can do is probably 5 dens. Do you have a 1337 Gaming PC? You can have dozens.
Keep in mind that your spider farm is inefficent with 3 or less spider dens! Try and get more dens as fast as possible so you can start being productive!

Preventing Spider Queens

If you are basing with people that are not playing as Webber, this is important, because if a Spider Queen manages to wander too close to the base, she can wreck an inexperienced / unprepared team. Spider Queens only spawn from tier 3 dens.

"She only spawns if there are fewer than 4 other Dens/Queens in the vicinity."
-DST Wiki[dontstarve.wikia.com]
^ Therefore, if you have 5+ Dens, you do not have to worry about a Spider Queen.
This was tested and disproven by multiple people.

To prevent the queen from spawning, the night the spider den evolves to tier 3, you need to tame as many spiders as possible and then attack the den. (Use CTRL + Click) There will be Spider warriors waiting inside, so It's recommended you cancel the attack before the attack connects, as if you were spider farming. If done correctly, your army of spiders should start attacking the den, causing the spider warriors to emerge and attack the tamed spiders, thus giving you bonus spider drops. Make sure to plant the spider egg that drops from the tier 3 den as soon as possible, so you don't miss out on spider drops.

Choosing a Location for your Spider Farm:

There are some general rules for how close or far your spider dens should be to you and your friends' base. Have it too close, and your friends will have to deal with a spider infestation every night and risk death, every time they spend the night in the base. Have it too far, and you will have to waste precious time out of the day or dusk just to travel to the farms, when that time couldve been used for more productive reasons.

Do NOT Have your Spider Dens be closer than 2 screens away from your base.

2 screens away is not too far away, and it's rare that the spider wanders that far away from it's den, but at that distance, you WILL have to deal with the occasional spider every now and then in base.

Don't make it so it takes 30+ seconds to travel from your base to your spider dens.

Again, you don't want to waste precious time travelling from your base to your farm, and vise versa, because you will be going back and forth alot.


I'd recommend that the spider dens would be at least 2 screens away from the base, because its far enough to basically ensure that there will be no wandering spiders in base, but its also close enough to get there quicky.

It might not be wise to have your spiders near any of these:

• Dragonfly Nest. (Tumbleweeds might catch fire and roll into your dens).
  
• Mactusk Camps. (This might seem like a good idea on paper, but he can really catch you off guard when you're spider farming.
  
• Hound Nests (No.)
  
• Spawn Portal (That is a grief waiting to happen.)
  
• Pig Village / Pig King [PK] (Sure, they might be in a constant war, but that puts you in danger when spider farming.)
  
• Hentai Tentacles (Same as above, it might put you in danger. A tentacle will destroy you without any armor.)

How to deal with Spiders Yourself:

It's inevitable, you will have to get your hands dirty and kill some spiders by yourself from time to time. Here are Do's and Don'ts of attacking spiders.

DO kill your tamed spider if there is nothing for him to do, and no other spiders are nearby. If you aren't in combat, or farming, it is better to you dead than alive.

DON'T attack a spider on the webbing with the intent of killing it yourself when there are 3+ Dens, or a tier 2 den is present.

DO not be afraid to use your fists when killing lone spiders. They will be stunlocked by your fists.

Knowing when to GTFO

Just because you are playing as Webber does NOT mean that you are invulnerable to spiders.

You will fⓊck up and hit a spider every now and then. This usually happens when you're impatient and you are rushing to start a spider farm, your ping decides to backhand you at a bad time, etc etc. This usually ends with at least half a dozen spiders chasing you, if you have a considerably-sized spider farm. The best way to handle this situation is to run.

Its not worth your time to try and kite every single spider thats aggro'd on you. Just run away from them until they lose interest. If you let them be able to play their attack animation, the aggro timer resets.

Do not run back into base with a dozen of aggro'd spiders chasing you, because you will risk the death of your teammates.

Dealing w/ Griefers:

Sadly, just because PvP is turned off, doesn't mean Players can't harm you.

There WILL be that occasional Willow to run through the base, she lowkey follows you to your spider dens, and then she gets a Griefer-Boner. Spider dens are flammable objects which are valuable to your survival, which are not protected by your base. It's perfect for griefing.
Here are my ways to combat griefing...

Waterballoons!

Made using mosquito sacks and ice, the waterballoon can put out fires, which is a great thing by itself. You can even throw it at a distance. Sadly, if all of your spider dens are on fire (lets say you have 5), chances are, you cant save ALL of them. At least 1 will burn up, usually. But hey, at least MOST of them made it.

Ice Fling-o-Matic

The Ice flingomatic is perfect for the idiot Griefers. Sadly, with experienced Griefers, they will switch your flingo into Emergency Mode, and then torch the place. Emergency Mode forces the Flingo to turn on when theres an uncontrolled fire near it, BUT It doesn't activate until fire(s) have been burning around it for 15 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ seconds.

Guarding your Den

The method I use when I KNOW there's a suspicious person on the server, is to just stay near my dens for most of the day, and work around them (ie: chopping trees, etc). When the griefer rolls along, you can be ready w/ screenshots. When theyre griefing, take screenshots, then (vote)kick the griefer and rollback the server. You can use the screenshots to report griefers on the group page of certain servers, to make sure they don't come back.
As a matter of fact, after a grief, you should just kick the griefer and rollback. Dont whine about it for an hour. Servers auto-save at Daybreak, so try and be quick about convincing your teammates to roll back. If they refuse to roll back, then they probably don't care about Webber's contribution to the base via food and healing, and if so, they were probably an inadequite team to base with anyways.

Defending against Hounds:

If your longest life is longer than 7 days, then you probably know the fustration of a hound attack.
Thankfully, you have a bit of insurane when it comes to hounds, in the form of your spider farm!
Your farm can save you against hounds, even past day 100 if you have enough spider dens! (~8+ dens should do the trick.)

When you start to hear barking,

Go directly to your farm, and tame about half a dozen spiders. Use Glommer if the hound attack comes during day time. (SEE "TIPS AND TRICKS.")

Once hounds spawn,

Equip a log suit and/or a football helmet. Once the hounds come for you, Ctrl + Click it. If you try to attack it using ctrl+f you might hit a spider. Keep running away from the hounds while staying near the dens, preferrably on the webbing. Try and stay as near to the dens as possible, so the hound can switch it's aggro onto a den or a spider. Once the initial hound you clicked on dies, Ctrl + Click another one.
IF A HOUND ATTACKS AN EMPTY DEN, AND NO SPIDERS ARE ATTACKING HIM, FOCUS ALL OF YOUR ATTENTION ON HIM. DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO BREAK ONE OF YOUR DENS.

If It's Summer,

you will have to deal with Red Hounds, which combust into flames when killed. Since it's Summer, you should have an Ice-Flingomatic at your dens, so this shouldn't be much of an issue. If it's Summer and you DON'T have an Ice-flingomatic, why are you at your dens?
(In singleplayer DS, these things are scary. In DST, they indirectly got nerfed because fire doesnt spread as quickly.)

Using Spiders to battle Bosses:

Contrary to what you might expect, utilizing spiders to kill giants might not be such a good idea in most cases, here's why.

Deerclops

• Has an AoE attack.
  
• Attacks freezes enemies.
  
• Spiders will eat the Deerclops Eyeball.

Moose/Goose

• Is the only season giant where spiders can reliable kill it given enough time and numbers.
  
• Moslings might distract the spiders.

Dragonfly

• Good luck getting through 27500 HP with spiders.
  
• Has an AoE.

Bearger

• Has an AoE.

Treeguard

• Has no downsides from killing with spiders. (Only drops 1 MM)
  
• Has no AoE, so Treeguards are very easy to take out with enough spiders.
  
• Not destructive (You can lead a treeguard into your dens for an easy kill.)

Spider Queen

• Attempting to kill her with spiders will cause a spider war, if she has enough spiders of her own.
  
• You shouldn't be allowing Spider Queens to spawn from your dens anyway... (they might walk too far away from the protection of your farm.)

Bee Queen

• Has similar HP as the Dragonfly.
  
• Has minions of her own that will distract spiders, and overpower them in the long run.

Using Set Pieces:

Ther are a few set pieces in the world that puts down a considerable amount of spider dens. There are mainly 2 that have a noteworthy amount.

Queens Gathering

There are at least, 8 dens at this set piece, which is really good amount for a farm, but here's the catch. Even at day 1, every single den is at tier 3 and can turn into a queen any second, hence the name "Queen's Gathering." The set piece isn't encountered that often, so don't rely on finding one to set up a spider farm. If you want to grab a few spider dens before they turn into queens, you need to bring at least a dozen spiders and try and break down a den ASAP. Dens will probably start to grow legs and walk away at this point, so try and help break down the den with a melee weapon. (Not recommended at day, because you might anger a spider warrior that spawned/went back into the den.) Once the den breaks, attack another den. Rinse and repeat until all dens become spider queens.

"Rocky Spider Biome" / "Quarry Spider Biome" / What's the Official Name?

These set pieces are regular rocky biomes, the places with gold/normal boulders and the rocky turf, except there will be at the very least, a dozen spider dens. Wierdly enough, I find that this set piece is more common than the Queens Gathering (in my playthroughs.) If you find this set piece as Webber, you're set! Just grab every single spider den (or as many as your computer can handle) and be on your way to set up a spider farm. If you are not Webber, don't bother going into this biome unless you have the proper gear, 20+ spiders will annihilate you.

Underground:

Alright, I put my big boi pants on, and a few months later, I can now comfortably ruins rush, so Im pretty sure I can safely give tips on this now:

• There's a good amount of spiders in the caves, and alot in the ruins, that you can either ignore or befriend for help with fights. You might need another person, or hutch, to lure out the spiders though.
  
  
• You wont have to deal with the headache of sneaking past the webbing in the labyrinth. Spelling?
  
  
• Webber has a slightly bigger health pool and stomach than other characters. This does not mean that this is something to take into consideration when choosing a character with ruins rushing in mind, that role goes to WX and WX alone. It's just a neat little perk that Webber has that can help him in the long run.

There are also disbenefits, such as going insane quicker and dealing with random bunnyman aggro, but these situations shouldn't be anything new to you as a Webber player.

Getting Started:

Your first Few days should be devoted to getting basic materials, such as logs, twigs, grass, and food. This should be what you usually do, no matter who you play as.

Once you get a considerable amount of that stuff, you can start exploring. If you find spider dens, you need to make a mental note about it's location, and how many spider dens there are in a single spot. You will come back for them once you have a base set up. If you are basing on your own, it might be wise to base in a spider forest, or something similar, but this guide focuses on team play, and therefore, you are probably teaming up with people that are not playing as Webber.

Other than that, besides Spider Farming, and dealing with the random aggro of Pigs, Bunnymen, and Catcoons, surviving as Webber isn't much different as surviving as other characters.

Tips and Tricks for Webber:

Using Glommer:

Glommer is really useful to Webber, because Glommer triggers a spider den's webbing. What makes Glommer so special is that Spiders do not aggro on him, so you can use Glommer to bring out spiders when they are needed!

Efficently Moving Dens

If you want to move a lot of Tier 2 dens. but only have 5 silk, then you're in luck! All you have to do is upgrade one nest to tier 3, and then take it down. Tier 3 dens will drop 6 silk, so you can keep upgrading and destroying dens until there are no more. Perfect for wrangling up spider dens to move to your base!

Making Meatballs without needing to find Filler

People usually scoff at the stacks of monster meat in the ice box, because they dont know that eggs can be used as filler in a crock pot! That's right, 1 Monster Meat + 3 Eggs = Meatballs. All you need to do is feed cooked Monster Meat to a bird in a birdcage.

Hold onto 2 gears for an Ice-Flingomatic

Usually, your base members will forget that your spider farm is NOT fire-proof, and it will be destroyed if ONE den happens to catch fire.

Stockpile stacks of Monster Meat during Late Spring

If your base doesn't have enough gears to do the above tip, then you need to gather up as much Monster Meat as you can before Summer hits, because it will be EXTREMELY dangerous to be at your dens in Summer, because they might combust! This isn't really convienent though, so try and prioritize getting more gears if you dont have any left for another Flingo.



Fun fact: You can freeze spider dens...
This fact is useless, don't waste your ice staves.

Fun Facts about Webber:

This section will just contain random facts about Webber that may or may not affect gameplay at all.

• Webber is a boy who is trapped in a spider that tried to eat him long ago.
  
  
• Webber loves parties, and he takes them seriously.
  
  
• Webber is kind-hearted and cares about all of his friends! (His Curio Cabinet description from The Forge beta is "Webber is a polite young monster who cares deeply for all his friends, human or otherwise.". -The Wiki)
  
  
• Webber has a strong friendship with Wendy, and vise versa. (Guys, stop it, they're children.)
  
  
• Webber has 2 favorite colors. Blue and Red. This might be because of a double personality, or developer oversight. ("Blue! That's our favorite color!" and "Red's my favorite color!" are Webber's examines for the Blue Spore and Redbird, respectively.)
  
  
• Webber's max Sanity might be really low because he's a child, who lacks the "psychological development and corresponding coping skills." (Quote from the Wiki.[dontstarve.wikia.com]) It might also be because he lives inside a spider.
  
  
• All spiders in DS/T have 6 legs, except for Webber, who has 8 legs in total, like real spiders.
  
  
• Webber might've been brought into the DS world and perished before Wilson was brought into the world. This would explain why other characters can find Webber's skull (In Singleplayer DS.)

Yes, most of them are from the wiki.
Yes, you can simply learn the same thing by doing a quick google search.
No, I don't have any regrets.

Conclusion:

Insert obligitory "Thanks for reading my guide" blah blah blah.

Thank you for spending the time out of your day to learn about alot of people's favorite character, Webber! I hope this guide taught you something, now get out there and use your newfound knowledge to generate a near-infinite amount of food!

To-Do List:
Add more Pictures.
Done


*cough*

[Moon]

the guide is still up to date so thats why i picked it, along with that since its new urs may get overshadowed

[Papa Canis]

This "research" is about 6 years out of date. While I have a ton of knowledge on how post-rework Webber functions and his ability to handle bosses (both raid and seasonal) relying on spiders as the main damage dealer, unfortunately I just can't find that much interest in re-making this guide, as I would have to do a total rewrite - A lot of this information is grossly out of date.

Dont get me wrong, this guide is still invaluable for a new player that wants to pick up Webber for a long-term world, but it's just not relevant to anyone that already knows how to play Webber, has a fundamental grasp of the game as a whole, and/or wishes to use Webber's unique methods of boss slaying.

If enough people show interest, maybe I could?

[Moon]

Nvm I was able to get the link and your guide is in my guide I also credit your work and research

[Moon]

Btw these tactics do help out and if one asks ill put up a seasonal boss guide to help deal with seasonal bosses since deerclops is the first boss u gotta deal with

[Moon]

May i recive the link to this guide so I can post it in my webber guide as well since mine doesn't really talk about spider farming as much it only talks about the fighting concept of webber and silk management when getting dens I'm too a webber main and I wanted a guide for newer webbers to get to know this too

[Robert the cat󰀀]

when i clicked on this again i forgot about it and thought it was a joke guide 10/10 guide but i didnt read it

[Gubbins]

Yeh do that :)

[Papa Canis]

Ive recently gotten back into DST after a year-long hiatus, and finally picked up Webber as a main again. With a fresh pair of eyes, I have been enlightened to the fact that the Webber Rework is a *MASSIVE* game-changer when you look beyond surface level - the small, missable details make all the difference...

Rewrite soon maybe?

[Robert the cat󰀀]

not saying its bad though

[Robert the cat󰀀]

rating*