JPM's How-to-Wormwood Guide v.2.0

I've noticed that a lot of players consider Wormwood to be one of the hardest characters to play in Don't Starve Together. However, I believe this is due to the fact that most players can't seem to figure out his flow and how he works, and many of his mechanics differ greatly than the average character. So, I've written this guide to give a hopefully helpful push in the right direction for people to understand and properly play Wormwood.

Who is Wormwood?

Though the circumstances of his creation were unusual at best, Wormwood came into this world full of optimism and curiosity, ready to make new friends and see all that life had to offer. But as time wore on and he experienced the cold sting of rejection, he came to learn what the moon above had always known: Wormwood the Lonesome does not belong here. - Lunar Roots official description

Wormwood is sentient grouping of vines born from lunar magic. He originally came from the jungles of Hamlet, a DLC for Don't Starve, where he found his only friends were really the plants he was made from. However, he found himself new friends in Don't Starve Together, and now has to survive under the Constant's new ruler.

Nickname	The Lonesome
Birthday	June 6th
Motto	"Hello, friend?"
Odds of Survival	Grim
	150
	150
	200
Favorite Food

In terms of base stats, he's not too crazy, sharing the same Health and Hunger as Wilson. He has a slightly higher sanity, sitting at 200. His favorite food, Cooked Cave Bananas, are out of the way, but that realistically only gives a total of 27.5 Hunger for our plant friend.
His major perks, however, come from his affinity with plants, and his unique crafting tab, the Green Thumb.

He's the Plant Man

The first, and most obvious, thing about Wormwood is that, if you didn't notice, he is a plant. Because of this, he gets many unique abilities that tie him in with nature.
While Wormwood can't heal himself with food, he can heal himself with what's used to grow food, a.k.a. Fertilizers. Wormwood's healing from fertilizers is based on two things, it's manure level, for base health returned, and it's compost level, for health regenerated over time. I can list out the stats, but ultimately, most only give Wormwood back about 4-8 HP, really not worth it. It is good to note this, if you ever need a quick emergency heal.
Wormwood also does not gain a sanity drain from rain.

Being a plant, Wormwood can also bloom. Blooming gives Wormwood an increased movement speed, eventually giving him up to a 20% speed increase. This allows for our plant friend to explore a lot faster, as well as kite more efficiently in combat. Blooming also offers Wormwood 60% reduction from Overheating, making usual threats, such as Summer's wildfires and Dragonfly, much more manageable.
Blooming is triggered in two different ways. When it becomes Spring, Wormwood will start blooming, slowly going through his phases until finally fully blooming mid-Spring. After a few days, his blooming reverts, returning to his usual self shortly before the start of Summer. The other method is via Growth Formula. Growth Formula will temporarily give Wormwood a bloom, with the more fermented Formulas giving him longer duration, up to 4 minutes.

This chart shows off the stage of growth and the speed and hunger drain.

Stage	Movement Speed + Hunger Drain Rate
Base	0%
Sprout	6%
Bulb	13%
Bloom	20%

As stated, while Blooming, Wormwood will become hungrier and hungrier the further bloomed he is, so avoid blooming if food is low.
Also keep in mind, that Blooming also attracts bees. While this normally isn't that bad, he can quickly become bait for Killer Bees, enraged bees in Spring, as well as Grumble Bees, and the powerful Bee Queen.
Please use Growth Formula responsibly!

He Speaks for the Trees

While being a plant, Wormwood is also bilingual, being able to interact with many other plants in unique ways.
Wormwood's affinity plants is a rather broad term, so I'll break it down. The first and most popular part, is Wormwood's ability to mass plant seeds without needing farms, aka, Wild Crops. These do not need ground tilled from a Garden Rigamajig, nor do they need a hoe to be tilled, while also plant faster than any other character.
If you are using a farm plot, Wormwood can tell what plants need to be happy, without the need for a Premium Gardeneer Helmet, which normally would need an Ancient Psuedo Science Station down in the Ruins to craft. So, when it comes to farming, Wormwood is the cream of the crop.

Wormwood's plant affinity also gives him +10 Sanity restored for every plant he plants. This includes:

• Seeds of any type (whether planted in the ground or a farm)
  
• Berry bushes of any type
  
• Saplings
  
• Grass Tufts
  
• Spiky Bushes
  
• Stonefruit Bushes
  
• Tree Seeds of any type

Finally, a few plants are friendly towards Wormwood. Or rather, they don't try to absolutely destroy him when they see him.

The first, and more well known is the lureplant. Spawning only during Spring, lureplants are giant fleshy bulbs that create hordes of hostile eyeplants that attack anything and everything. However, they don't attack Wormwood, allowing you to go in, take the Leafy Meat, destroy the bulb, making the area safer for your teammates, and allow you start a Leafy Meat farm.


The second being Sea Weeds. Out in the Rough Ocean biome, you may find giant flowers growing on Sea Stacks, covered in barnacles. If other survivors came and tried to harvest the Barnacles, they would be attacked by the Sea Weeds, more than likely killing them, sinking their raft, or a combination of the two. Getting barnacles requires the Sea Weeds to be asleep and using a Razor, similar to a Beefalo. But Wormwood can just sail in, take the Barnacles, and leave. His plant friendship is great for getting higher quality recipes.



The next two plants aren't as huge a threat at the others mentioned, but can be rather detrimental to non-Wormwoods when it comes to farming. Fire Nettles can cause nearby players to overheat, which cause quite a few issues, especially in warmer seasons, like the end of Spring, Summer, and the start of Autumn. Bindweeds can ensnare nearby players in weed cages and dealing damage. This is on top of these plants being Nutrient sponges, making farming a bit of pain. Luckily, Wormwood is immune to effects, and can quickly take care of any and all issues with weeds.

The Green Thumb

Now, we can move onto Wormwood's biggest perk, his Green Thumb. The Green Thumb tab is a crafting tab exclusive to Wormwood, which allows him to craft some very useful items. These items not only benefit Wormwood, but also greatly help his team.

The first item, and arguably most useful item Wormwood can craft, is Living Logs. Living Logs are a widely used resource, used for many magic recipes. Normally, Living Logs are only obtainable from killing a select few enemies, Tree Guards and Poison Birchnuts, or from chopping down Totally Normal Trees, found in forests, with both methods being quite a pain to grind for. But for Wormwood, it only costs 20 HP to craft a Living Log. Up to 7 can be crafted at a time (from full HP), and having access to methods of healing can turn you into a Living Log farm. Who needs the Arboretum Experiment?

Here's a list of items that need Living Logs:

• Shadow Manipulator (crafting station for Tier 2 Magic)
  
• Shadow Sword (one of the strongest melee weapons in Don't Starve Together)
  
• Thelucite Club (one of the strongest melee weapons in Don't Starve Together)
  
• Bat Bat (heals you as it deals damage)
  
• Deconstruction Staff (deconstructs items, hence the name)
  
• Star Caller's Staff (summons a mini star that provides heat and light for 3.5 days. Can provide a total of 70 days' worth of heat and light).
  
• Mushroom Planter (allows you to farm mushrooms. Needs to be refertilized with one living log every once in a while).

And that's just the list of more commonly used items. Bottom line, this is a massively beneficial recipe, and is great for even solo players of Wormwood.

Next on the list is the Bramble Husk. Originally made to counter Brambles in Don't Starve's Hamlet DLC, Bramble Husks can help deal with any plant that likes to fight back. The Bramble Husk requires 2 Living Logs and 4 Bone Shards to craft.
Bramble Husks protect the wearer from any sort of damage the player would normally take from harvesting spiky plants, such as cactus, spiky bushes, and roses. This allows for any character, not just Wormwood, to go and harvest more valuable plants without worrying about losing a bit of health with each harvest.
The armor also does well for combat. While only providing 65% damage absorption, and only having 262.5 durability, the Bramble Husk deals a 22.5 hit in a radius around the wearer. This allows for extra damage towards hordes of enemies, such as bees, spiders and hounds, as well as just help deal a bit of damage for tanking some enemies.

Now, let's move onto the Bramble Trap. Bramble Traps are more of a later-game item, simply because there aren't too many instances where they are an absolute Godsend. Bramble Traps cost 1 Living Log, and 1 Stinger. Bramble Traps function similarily to their more famous cousin, Tooth Traps, once placed, an enemy can walk over them to take 40 damage. While this is weaker than the Tooth Trap's 60 damage, but just like the Bramble Husk, it deals damage in a radius allowing for multiple enemies to get hit by one trap. This allows players to kill mobs much faster, or at least weaken them down much more efficiently.
While the Bramble Trap seems like a healthy alternative to the standard Tooth Trap, it does come with a rather large downside: it can hurt players as well. While only non-players can activate the traps, any players within the radius of the activation will also take damage. This, luckily, can be avoided by wearing some Bramble Armor. Just strap some on, and be one with the Brambles.

Finally, we reach the end of the Green Thumb Tab, with the Compost Wrap. Needing 5 Manure, 2 Rot, and 1 Nitre, the Compost Wrap allows Wormwood to heal himself for 40 HP, starting with a base of 8 HP, and then another 32 HP over the next 32 seconds. This makes for a great healing item if the materials are abundant.
It can also double as a fertilizer for farms, providing a value of 24 for Growth Formula, 32 for Compost, and 24 for Manure, making it one of the best fertilizers in the game.

Cons and Countering Them

While Wormwood has a lot of strong perks, he has to have downsides, right? Well, as Bret Michaels from the American glam metal band, Poison, wrote in 1988, "Every Rose has it's Thorn". So this section will talk about the downsides to Wormwood, and how to circumvent them, so you don't have to have a bad break up with learning Wormwood, like our poor friend Bret Michaels did.

We'll start by addressing the Koalaphant in the room, and the big reason why many players are driven away from Wormwood. He can't heal from food. As his traits state, "Food fills his stomach, but not his heart". This means that while Wormwood can mass grow food and gather Leafy Meat and Barnacles en mass with no issue, their powerful healing properties do nothing for him. No Dragon Pie, no Beefy Greens, no Barnacle Nigiri, nothing. Combo this with Living Logs costing 20 HP to craft, what do you do to heal?

Well, there's a few options that require a bit of prep. Healing Salve is always a good choice, as the ingredients to make it are cheap, needing only 1 Rock, 1 Spider Gland, and 2 Ash. Glands will be collected en mass due to silk being a precious commodity from spiders, and Ash can be obtained easily from burning abundant resources like logs. Salve will heal 20 HP, so it'll be one per Living Log, not a bad trade off.

Honey Poultice is another good choice, being the bigger brother of Healing Salve. Needing more prep, Honey and non-replantable reeds for papyrus, Honey Poultice will heal for 30, giving you a bit more bang for your buck. Reeds are found in marshes, and while they can't be moved back home, are easy to get. Honey can be a bit more complex to get, needing to kill bees and build Bee Boxes to farm easily, but with the help of Bramble Armor, Wormwood can shred through even the biggest of bee swarms, making it easier to kill bees, and take down Killer Bee Hives. Bee Boxes are great to have because of this, just remember that in Spring, your little buzzy friends will turn killer in Spring.

The next, and in my opinion, the best option, is Sleeping! Tents are great, healing you for 2 HP and 1 Sanity at the cost of 1 Hunger. Costing only 6 Silk, 4 Twigs, and 3 Rope, this is a great way to heal during the night.
If you're constantly on the move, then the Fur Roll is another good choice for you! While it requires Bunny Tufts and and a Straw Roll to make, and has only 3 uses, this can be great for when you're out and about or in the Caves, and need to heal yourself. Alternatively, if there is a Walter on the server, he can craft you a Camper's Tent for a Straw Roll, 4 Twigs, and 2 Ropes. It has the same stats as as a Fur Roll, but has 10 uses.
However, with sleep, the best of the best is the Siesta-Lean-To. Costing only 2 Silk, 4 Boards, and 3 Ropes, you get 2 HP and 1 Sanity for only 0.33 Hunger, or 6 HP and 3 Sanity per Hunger. However, you'll only be able to use it during the Day, so plan your Evenings and Nights accordingly.

Beyond healing, Wormwood's other downsides aren't as detrimental. Due to him being friends with plants, the killing of plants give him sanity loss, varying from plant to plant. He does NOT have to be the one killing plants, so be aware of what other players are doing, especially Woodie and Maxwell.

Sanity Loss	Plant
-2 Sanity	Burnt Trees, Flowers, Crops, Saplings, and Grass Tufts
-2 Sanity	Trees, Saplings, and Grass Tufts being Uprooted by Natural Causes
-5 Sanity	Trees, Saplings, Crops, and Grass Tufts being Uprooted by Players
-15 Sanity	Chopping or Burning Down any Tree at any Growth Level

While this can be seen as a harsh punishment, planting anything will quickly restore your sanity. Trees at their tallest growth period (except for Evergreens) will always drop two or more tree seeds, allowing you to not only recover that sanity, but also replant nature in the process.
This Sanity loss can also allow for easy access to Nightmare Fuel from the various nightmares that appear when insane, and also allow for peaceful exploration of the Lunar Island by being able to easily reach zero sanity by simply chopping some trees.

Wormwood is also, like all plants in Don't Starve, very flammable. While he won't burst into flames from simple Camp Fires like in Hamlet, he'll burn for a second longer than other players, making his burn time 4.4 seconds. He also takes 25% more damage from being on fire. This makes Summers and Dragonfly fights much harder for Wormwood. However, proper preparation, like Endothermic Fires, Fashion Melons, Umbrellas, Growth Formula, etc, can easily take care of this issue. While I personally don't care for the Oasis during Summer due to Sandstorms, Oasis Deserts can also negate this.

How to Work in a Group

Now, while Wormwood is rather self sustaining, Don't Starve Together isn't about that. So what characters really play well with Wormwood?

Warly
The Don't Starve official master chef, Warly is the king of the Crock Pot, even bringing his own portable crockpot with it's own unique recipes. Due to the diversity of Don't Starve's crock pot recipes, over 50 being universal, and Warly adding another 11 recipes, which means a lot of food is necessary to really get cooking. Wormwood can help greatly in providg that, and get some nice food in return.
Warly and Wormwood is strong combo, just because Wormwood can easily provide tons of ingredients. The most important are Peppers and Garlic for Warly's seasonings, and Onions and Potatoes from the Warly-exclusive dish, Grim Galette. Grim Galette is the only food in the game that can heal Wormwood besides Jellybeans, and those require killing the Bee Queen. Grim Galette switches your health and sanity values, meaning you can have full sanity and 10 HP after making some Living Logs, eat the Galette, and be back up to full HP, and plant some trees to get full sanity again.

Wortox
Another very apparent combo character for Wormwood. Wortox can effortlessly heal Wormwood back to full health using his soul healing, as long as there is an easy way to get souls (i.e. a butterfly farm). This can allow mass farming of Living Logs for zero effort. Wormwood can also grow pomegranates for Wortox, one of the few foods that that feeds Wortox without a hunger value reduction.

Wickerbottom
She's an okay choice, due to her unique ability to make the book, Horticulture, Abridged. This book allows for 10 food bearing crops (Farm Plants, Berry Bushes, Stonefruit Bushes), in a radius around the user. This book can be used by either Wickerbottom or Maxwell.

Wurt
This one is a weird combo, but can work quite well with a skilled Wurt player. Once a Wurt has summoned the King of the Merms, a Wormwood with a Clever Disguise, a Wurt-exclusive item, can easily gain lots of seeds from feeding the King. On top of seeds, you can also get a good amount of rot, great for crafting a few items, like Compost Wraps and Mushroom Planters. Plus, Wormwood can more easily provide Wurt with Durians, her favorite food.

Tips

This section is dedicated to just little tips and tricks that have been discovered to really help Wormwood players do better in game.

• Wormwood is NOT a farming-only character. While Wormwood does struggle more than others to heal himself, that does not make him a pacifist. You can still fight, explore, what have you, but you are not locked to base.
  
• The Seed Pack-It is amazing for Wormwood. While it is a bit expensive, you can store up to 14 stacks of seeds, allowing you to free up fridges and chests. Leaving it near your farms also will allow other players to store seeds.
  
• If the Seed Pack-It isn't available, and if resources allow it, build a personal fridge for seed storage.
  
• Red Mushrooms and Monster Meat are great. Due to Wormwood taking no damage penalties from food, food that most players avoid to eat can be fed to Wormwood. Sanity loss is no issue for Wormwood, so monster meat is extra palatable. Ask your Warlys to make some Monster Tartare for you, as it's an excellent source of food.
  
• Wormwood is a cave pro. Due to being able to restore is sanity by simply planting things, the sanity loss from caves isn't an issue. As long as you have a healthy source of plantables, you can survive down there with ease, with access to a lot of food, like carrots, red mushrooms, and even bananas.
  
• Spiky bushes are the go-to for Wormwood when it comes to twigs. With bramble armor, he doesn't get pricked by them when harvesting, and they grow throughout winter.
  
• When travelling through caves, use bramble armor when fighting big tentacles. You can easily shred through the babies that spawn, saving yourself time and resources.
  
• Due to taking no sanity loss from being wet, Wormwood is great for sailing, and especially for Spring. Team up with a Wurt and laugh at all the peasants effected by water.
  
• Beefalos are a good choice for combat with Wormwood. Taming one early on can not only give Wormwood a speed boost alternative, while also being able to negate taking damage from combat. Ozzey_Lee wrote a good guide for Beefalo taming: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068521469

For those wanting to learn how to farm effectively, here's a few guides from the Klei forums that can help you out!

Zeklo's Farming101:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/123862-farming-101-grow-like-never-before/
QuartzBeam's Self-Sufficient Farm Guide:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/123986-the-starvers-guide-to-self-feeding-farms/
lakhnish's Auto-Nutrient Guide:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/124049-a-list-of-all-giant-crop-auto-nutrient-pairings/
Jazzy's Games Giant Crops Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcvBoghafOk

Skin Gallery

Conclusion and Credits

Thank you for taking your time to read this guide! I hope this opens the eyes for many players to the strength Wormwood has, as well as encourage more people to try him out! As time progresses, I plan on updating this guide, though I don't personally see Wormwood getting any major changes or anything, any time soon. If you want to suggest anything, please let me know in the comments!

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Credits:
- DST Survivors for helping with info collecting: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/DST_Survivors
- Don't Starve Wikia for housing a lot of info for me to pick apart: https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Don%27t_Starve_Wiki

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Guide Update Notes:
v 2.0 - 22 December, 2020 - Reap What You Sow
- Added and revised all info with farming changes with the Reap What You Sow update. This basically was a Wormwood refresh as well.
- Added more Tips, as well as Guides for Farming.

v 1.1.5 - 2 December, 2020 - Update and Prep
- Added Hallowed Nights skin to the gallery
- Fixed broken pics
- Prep for "Reap What You Sow" Update. This is behind the scenes, but I plan to update this the changes coming.

v 1.1.0 - 1 August, 2020 - Gallery Update
- Added a few more tips
- Added a gallery for Wormwood skins

v 1.0.0 - 11 July, 2020 - Release Day!
- Guide is now up!

[JPM岩]

I've been debating if I should. I've been playing DST again here and there, and Worm's tree is okay, I may add a section in the future.

[duck]

please revise this guide for his skilltree

[JPM岩]

I'm glad it can help. I know they keep adding more content, and it has been a few years since I've played, so I hope it still stands to time.

[Blocker476]

Thanks for making this guide!
As someone who wants to fully main Wormwood, it's absolutely superb.

[10i.]

i feel the same about path of exile in my case tbh, but as long as theres people who likes the character to the point of making a guide with so much quality and love like this one, wormwood wil be okay

[JPM岩]

Thank you, but seeing as I've stopped playing DST as a whole, it saddens me it will slowly be outdated by hopefully a generation of players who are willing to use niche characters like I.

[10i.]

nice guide, i love the work u put on it

[Mr potat]

Thank you for making the guide. I can be a OFFICIAL WORMWOOD MAIN NOW.

[Niche_Quiche]

Oh, just saw Slynx Jewel's response. Anyways, the rest of my question still stands. If it IS possible to fulfill nutrients and water on wild crops, that'd mean we could make giant crops without even using Garden Digamajigs.

[Niche_Quiche]

Could someone answer Fox's question about Garden Digamajigs still being required for giving nutrients and water?
Also, even though you can't deposit nutrients or use watering cans on wild crops, could you use crop combos (like potatoes + tomatoes) to still have nutrients, and use ice/water balloons/rain to still water crops?