A Willow Fanatic's Comprehensive Guide

A comprehensive and up to date as of time of writing (2022) guide on how to play Willow, as well as all sorts of seasoned tips, tricks and know-how on her! Written by someone with several thousand hours of almost exclusively Willow game time. (Shoutout to Superjusto#3799 for prompting me to make this guide also!)

Who is Willow?

Willow is the 2nd character introduced to Don't Starve, and the 2nd character you will see in the character list in Don't Starve Together. Note that this guide is written for Don't Starve Together, where her power is significantly different than in Don't Starve, and also covers some popular game modes (including Island Adventures, a port of Shipwrecked from Don't Starve). She spawns in DST with her signature item, Willow's Lighter, and with her companion, Bernie, who can be used when she and others are insane (more on that later) Her signature abilities are her affinity for Fire and the items she comes with, of which will be explained in depth later in this guide.

Willow's default Hunger, Health and Sanity are 150, 150 and 120, respectively; Willow's fire related abilities, Bernie, and her low maximum Sanity distinguish her from the rest of the survivors, giving her a unique playstyle not found on any other character. As you will see, Willow has significantly more to offer to players who pick her than meets the eye, despite her reputation as a character used to troll/grief in public servers!

How do her powers work?

Willow's powers revolve around Fire, Heat and Sanity. Willow is immune to all fire damage, which includes contact fire damage (damage taken from being near uncontained fires), on-fire damage (damage taken from being lit on fire), and damage from extinguishing smoldering fires by hand. (Note this was formerly not the case in DST; before her rework, she could still take fire damage, but rather the time it took for her to start taking contact fire damage was 2x longer than the time for other survivors) On its surface, this doesn't seem like a very useful perk until you start to learn more about what you can do with fire, especially when you are fighting (more explained later!). Willow also does fire related actions twice as fast than the other survivors, like extinguishing smoldering fires and cook food over fires (excluding Warly and Walter, who also cook twice as fast). Willow also gets a 50% bonus fueling rate for all kinds of fueled light sources like Campfires, Firepits and Night Lights (but not Ice Flingomatics).

Willow also has different heat/coldness resistances and Sanity aura multipliers than the other Survivors; Willow takes two thirds the normal damage from overheating, but twice the damage from Freezing in contrast (0.833 and 2.5 damage/second, respectively; the default damage from Overheating/Freezing is 1.25 damage/second) Willow also loses 100 Sanity/minute when freezing (as in being below 0 degrees body temperature, not while being physically frozen, like from Blue Hound explosions/Ice Staff attacks)

In addition, Willow has a passive 10% higher Sanity gain/loss from all physical Sanity auras in the game (objects, entities and mob auras, not things like holding Dark Swords or being in darkness). In addition to this, Willow gains Sanity when nearby fires (or fire containing structures, like Firepits) of up to 11 Sanity per min per fire (10 + the 10% additional Sanity aura modifier), with her being closer and the fire being larger increasing her Sanity gain.

How do her items work?

Willow's character exclusive items (that she starts with and is the only character that can craft) are Willow's Lighter and Bernie, both shown below.
The Willow's Lighter is an upgraded torch that lasts significantly longer by default (10 minutes, or 1.25 in game days), and can be used by Willow, Walter and Warly to cook basic foods as how they would on a Campfire (by either placing the Lighter on the ground and cooking food on it, or cooking food entirely inside their inventories!) Willow will also exclusively gain 0.6 Sanity/minute while holding the lighter, and can craft/give extra lighters to other survivors to use. Attacking with the lighter can light mobs on fire, with a default ignition chance of 50% (vs 100% for torches and fire staves, which does kind of suck, but makes torches not useless to you!)

Willow's second item is Bernie, who serves as a companion when Willow or other nearby players are insane. Bernie has 1000 HP in his small form, and 2000 HP in his large form (named BERNIE! and to be hereby mentioned as such in this guide), only triggerable by Willow being insane. Bernie's small form will activate if dropped or already on the floor near someone insane, where he will start dancing to taunt shadow creatures within 4 tiles of him to target him instead of the insane player (who they would normally target) In Bernie's large form BERNIE!, he will taunt and draw the aggro of all nearby hostile non-boss mobs (including mobs that are not normally hostile but are instead targetting other players, like Pigmen or Catcoons), and also deal 50 damage every 2 seconds to any mob aggroed to him or that you are attacking. When either Bernie or BERNIE! reach 0 HP, they will "die", and go into an inactivatable broken form that can be repaired with a Sewing Kit or Trusty Tape. In small form, Bernie can be held by Willow for 60 Insulation (the same as what a pair of Rabbit Earmuffs would give) and 2 Sanity/minute, which helps her stay warm in Winter. Bernie lasts 15 days when held in the hand slot, so he loses 1% of his durability every 50 seconds being held. (Bernie on the left, BERNIE! on the right)

General/common uses of her powers:

Utility/team synergy:

Willow's inherent powers (not tied to her items) are typically used in niche situations to assist in various random things like lighting fueled light sources more efficiently, cooking food rapidly + on the go with her lighter and being immune to fire damage. She is nonetheless generally useful to have on the team because both of her character exclusive items are useful and usable on other survivors; her lighters are a reliable, relatively long-lasting light source that can also be used to light fires for warmth (and to save its durability when light is needed). Bernie can be used by others when insane as well; he will still draw the aggro of shadow creatures to keep the pressure off themselves, also making them easier to fight and kill as well (more on him in the next section)

BERNIE!:

One of her more notable perks is BERNIE!, the special large mode of her character exclusive item, Bernie. As mentioned, Bernie activates in general when placed on the floor near any insane player, but BERNIE! only activates specifically when a Willow is insane (it can be another Willow player, BERNIE! isn't picky!) Something commonly glossed over and forgotten is that BERNIE! draws the aggro of all hostile non-boss mobs nearby, not just shadow creatures or mobs targeting Willow herself; AKA he also draws aggro of mobs targeting other players. As a tradeoff, BERNIE! deals paltry damage to a single target only though (as mentioned, 50 damage every 2 seconds, which is 4x less than a player with a standard damage multiplier deals with a Tentacle Spike); because of this, it is generally recommended that you and your teammates help fight the things attacking BERNIE!, as his large HP can dwindle fast with many mobs attacking him.

Despite Bernie/BERNIE! not drawing boss mob aggros, he can still be very useful against them since most bosses have large insanity auras. If you happen to go insane during the fight (even more so if you are using Night Armor/Dark Swords, which are excellent on Willow), he can keep Shadow Creatures occupied while you (hopefully) kill the boss you are fighting, instead of having to fight Shadow Creatures on top of the boss (which happens more than you'd think). It's also worth noting that BERNIE! himself will still target and attack whatever you are fighting/whatever is aggroed onto you nonetheless, even if it's a boss mob; the boss will still keep targeting you though.

Farming nightmare fuel (and other things) using Bernie/BERNIE!

One of Bernie's most popular uses is to farm nightmare fuel (and other mob dropped items), which is made possible by Willow going insane/sane relatively easily from her low max Sanity as well as Bernie's aggro gathering. Bernie’s distracting of all nearby nightmare creatures lets you easily attack large groups of them with relatively low (but not no) risk to your person. For shadow creatures specifically, you can tell if they are targeting you or Bernie/BERNIE! by their opacity; if they look dark and are opaque, they are targeting you. If they are targeting Bernie, they will have a much lighter and significantly faded color, no matter your Sanity. You can also tell if a shadow creature or any other mob is targeting Bernie over you if their direction of movement is towards Bernie and not your character as well (duh).

Additionally, the threshold for insanity in DST is (by default) 15% your character's max Sanity, and the threshold for Sanity (making nightmares no longer aggressive to you) is 17.5% (18 and 21 Sanity as Willow, respectively); this makes controlling your sanity quite easy, as killing even one Crawling Horror as Willow when you are above 6 Sanity means you are no longer insane (since killing them gives 15 Sanity. Note that below 10% max Sanity or 12/120 as Willow, Terrorbeaks will start spawning, so it’s generally best to not stray below this amount when you can) On top of that, BERNIE! stays active for a bit after you are sane again; if he goes 16 seconds without attacking/being attacked by any entity, he will deactivate. This means that if the source of danger hasn't gone away, he will continue to do his thing until you kill or escape the mobs aggroed onto him, even if you are sane; this makes BERNIE! useful for farming sizable groups of low HP mobs like Spiders, Frogs, Bees, Splumonkeys, Mosquitos or even moderate HP mobs like Bunnymen or Hounds.

Island Adventures/Shipwrecked Synergy!

Willow in general is a fantastic choice for Island Adventures and Shipwrecked, as her downsides are mitigated by the seasonal changes and she has an amazing synergy with the highest item tier in IA/Shipwrecked: Obsidian items! The IA seasons never have global temperature drops lower than 0, so there is little to no risk of you freezing, even at the peak of Hurricane season (unless you're full wetness). As Willow, wetness drains the same amount of Sanity it normally would when holding wet items/clothing, but you still have a 10% bonus to Sanity as well. For Obsidian items, noting that her power contains both resistance to overheating and immunity to fire damage, the downsides of overcharged/charged obsidian spears are much, much less severe. The ignition of mobs with Obsidian Spear is absurdly useful as well (if desired), which will be discussed later in “Using Fire for Combat”. As Willow with a fully charged Obsidian Spear, you will deal 102 damage per hit on top of lighting the enemy mob on fire if the enemy is flammable, so make sure to be cautious when a mob is low health if you do want its drops! Note that nonflammable mobs (like Frogs, Nightmare Creatures, Tigershark, all fish) are inherently fireproof, and can be safely attacked with a fully charged Obsidian Spear.

Using fire in combat! (in general and as Willow)

Willow's immunity to fire is useful for fighting as well, which more experienced Willow players will utilize to their advantage. Setting mobs on fire is absurdly good for combat (in the right circumstance and situations), as it is an upgraded "stun" that isn't cancelled on normal attack, unlike freezing or sleep.

For background, freezing, sleep and burning are all ways you can stun and otherwise incapacitate mobs from attacking you in DST, which is situationally incredibly useful! For example, if you have too many mobs targeting you, you can stun some (or all) of them to either buy you time to escape, pick some mobs off, or focus on fewer mobs at a time if the other ones are incapacitated, like in the video below.

There are three methods of stunning mobs (stunlocking not included): freezing, sleep, and burning, where each has their own advantages and disadvantages. Freezing is most useful for single targets (with an Ice Staff) who are not being attacked with gunpowder, since the fire from gunpowder will thaw mobs its targeting, potentially making them move away from the gunpowder (since mobs will try to avoid fire damage). Sleep is useful for multiple targets (if using a Pan Flute or Sleepytime Stories) or if the mob is to be blown up by gunpowder as well. Burning (setting the mob on fire) is unique from these in that it both incapacitates and damages the mob at the same time! One of the most useful things about burning versus the other stuns is that you can hit most mobs over and over again while they are on fire without risk of it attacking back, as being on fire makes most mobs panic!

Note that bosses will generally still fight back even if on fire, the only exception to this being Bearger, who does a violent rushing panic that tends to be very destructive (hence fire is not recommended against Bearger). A frozen/asleep mob will wake up after being hit, preventing you from landing a significant amount of hits at any given time and requiring another stun in most cases. Fire damage is also significantly easier to apply, with a fire staff or torch applying a guaranteed fire, while sleep darts and ice staves require multiple hits to freeze stronger mobs. Note that Willow's Lighter only has a 50% ignition chance, so it is not a guaranteed fire if used as a weapon on strike, but will still reliably light the target on fire with little durability used if swung enough times (hence Fire Staves and Torches still make sense to use on Willow! The lighters are still okay to use for lighting mobs on fire if you're willing to take the risk though, as it has tons of durability for fighting and is fairly cheap to craft). Note that not all mobs can be lit on fire though; shadow creatures, frogs, and tentacles (among other mobs) cannot be set on fire.

These various upsides do come with downsides though; using fire in combat risks burning the loot the mob would drop if it dies on fire, can cause and spread fires to nearby flammable objects, and (importantly) the mob's fire can damage you if you are trying to attack. In general, knowing the mob's max HP, the damage of your weapons (torches and lighters deal 17 default damage per hit from raw attack damage) and the fire damage itself (between 3.6, 7.5 or 10 damage per second and fires generally lasting around 8-9 seconds, depending on whether the mob’s fire is small, medium or large) can help you innately know roughly how much HP a mob has left, and by extension how close it is to dying so you can withhold setting it on fire again to prevent its drops from burning. For example, in the video above fighting the Clockwork Bishop, I start with using a Torch (which deals 17 damage on hit; the fire itself, being a medium fire deals approximately 65 damage, and the Dark Sword deals 68 damage per hit; striking it 11 times with my Dark Sword brings its HP to 900 - 17 - (~60) - 68 x 11) = 75. This leaves it with 2 hits left on the Dark Sword, which easily finishes it off by the time it stops panicking from fire.

Willow’s greatest strength here (as seen above and despite any character able to set mobs on fire) is that her immunity to fire damage means she can attack undisturbed and without risk of taking damage as mentioned above, while other characters have to be careful and keep occasional distance to not take contact fire damage. (Note that when the fire starts to diminish on the mob, the mob will no longer panic; this happens before the fire goes out on it completely, so do not think seeing fire always means it is safe to attack. Knowing the time mobs stay on fire (8-9 seconds) helps tremendously!

Fireboxing:

Another excellent strategy you can use with Willow's fire immunity is "fire boxing", where you create large amounts of concentrated fires in one area to then use for either offensive or defensive strategies. Planting trees in a tight box or dropping a number of flammable items to light on fire works excellently for this, as once they are all on fire, you can then use the "box" as a shield. Flammable mobs will also panic if they are taking contact fire damage versus being on fire themselves, and that allows you to "hide" from their attacks inside the fire! The fire can also deal enough damage (depending on how densely packed the fires are) to kill the mob as well, provided they are low enough HP and the fires last long enough.

This strategy can also be used offensively, by chasing/leading mobs into the fire to fight them there. The fire will make them panic, which you can use to land the initial hit (like on Koalefants for example), or to just generally give you a massive DoT (damage over time) bonus while you fight the mob near the fire. Important note: mobs will generally immediately panic and not fight back if they were set on fire directly, but mobs generally will have more of a window to at first attack back if they are only taking contact fire damage. This depends on whether or not the mob was about to execute an attack before or after it is already taking fire damage; with a large enough firebox, the mob will still panic! (as seen below). Keep this in mind when you engage mobs and use these strategies!

Special sweaty strategies I recommend:

Lava Ponds!

There are some neat things you can do with lava ponds in DST as Willow! Running into them to directly contact them will light you on fire (despite Willow being fireproof), but you yourself do not take fire damage due to said immunity. You can use this in many useful ways, such as for small durations of light, for the small Sanity gain the fire gives you, and when fighting mobs (they will take contact fire damage from the proximity you have with them, and if you are near the lava pond still, you can also use them to light the mobs on fire by leading them to run into it!) The ponds being able to light mobs becomes like an upgraded firebox, since instead of mobs just panicking from fire contact damage, they are physically lit and stay on fire even after they run away!

Your ability to withstand the lava heat also means that during winter, you can reliably charge yourself/your thermal stones to their maximum temperature as well. You can also use the lava ponds as a free campfire cooking source, infinitely cooking food as you'd like (until you start to overheat anyway)

Fire hounds = free damage and Sanity

Fire hounds are your (sort of) friends in DS/T, as upon killing them, they generate free fire for you that panics mobs! Just like how it is strategic to kill blue hounds near other hounds to freeze them, killing fire hounds near other hounds panics them and makes them easier to hit and kill. As Willow in particular, you have a huge advantage being immune to fire, as you can attack the other hounds with impunity! The Sanity from these fires is also quite nice.

Fire Sanity Farming/Microwave!

Willow's Sanity gain from fire has an interesting caveat: it stacks an unlimited amount for how many fires are near you!

This means we can exploit use this to our advantage in a lot of ways by making farms to help restore Sanity (and have other uses as well!) Below are a few designs for Sanity farms, with the “microwave” being my signature and in my view most effective Sanity farm of them. Willow fire farms can be as simple as a bunch of individually placed ropes on top of each other (by stack splitting) near an Ice Flingomatic, which are then lit on fire and stood near. For the video below, I used 60 ropes all placed on top of each other, which was able to get my Sanity from 18% to 100% within 30 seconds! A popular variant of this farm involves using a Dwarf Star as an auto ignition source, which can be also used for constantly freezing mobs and bosses (a multifunctional farm of its own)

On the other hand, "Microwave" fire farms are my favorites (since the Curse of the Moon Quay update) since they are fully automatic, relatively easy to set up, and best of all: entertaining to watch! These farms require slightly more than the split item fire farms, requiring another Ice Flingomatic, a Boat and a Rudder Kit.

The farm consists of a boat with a single rudder on it, constantly rotating the boat; onto the boat, we distribute a collection of burnable items placed one by one for burning later on (preferably items with a long burn time; rope is ideal for this, it has a burn time of 30 seconds, the longest of any item) In the video below, I placed 80 ropes all around the boat in individual stacks (I found this to be roughly the ideal number for both fire spread/maintenance, and overall Sanity gain without overheating. Placing too many items causes overheating!) Two Ice Flingomatics are then placed nearby; one with its protection just overlapping onto the edge of the boat, and one encompassing the entire boat (as shown in the picture).

The first described Ice Flingomatic needs to remain on and fueled for the farm to work; to start, just light something on fire slightly past the range (in terms of rotational direction) of the first Ice Flingomatic. As the boat rotates and the fire starts to spread, burning/smoldering items will eventually come into the protection range of the Ice Flingomatic and trigger it; because the 1st Ice Flingomatic is only protecting the edge of the boat (and the fact that each snowball thrown extinguishes everything within a 1 tile radius of it, which is the same as the radius of a boat) the items on the other half of the boat will always be smoldering/still on fire. This smoldering -> burning -> extinguished by Ice Flingomatic cycle will perpetuate itself until the 1st Ice Flingomatic runs out of fuel (so keep it fueled!), or if you turn on the 2nd Ice Flingomatic to turn the farm off. The 2nd Ice Flingomatic is meant to be used either to turn the farm off or in emergencies, like if you improperly set something up! Do not turn the 1st Ice Flingomatic off during operation, as that will remove the boat's source of fire control. After the inital setup, enjoy the instant Sanity! If you place enough items onto the boat, you will gain massive amounts of Sanity within seconds! Note that the Microwave gives Sanity a bit slower than the first fire farm (despite having 20 more rope, a total of 80; this is because of your character having the fire more spread out and away from yourself. You can counteract this by staying as close to the center as possible, and placing the rope slightly closer to the center as well (versus evenly)

These microwaves are not just useful for regaining Sanity; you as Willow can also use it as an area to fight hounds/mobs that can board boats with relative ease, as any enemies boarding the boat to attack you will panic from the fire! The microwave also provides a massive amount of consistent light (if built correctly) for significantly longer than a firepit would, for much less fuel as well (you only have to fuel the flingomatic)

Note: the Bee Queen Crown does not invert Sanity gains from fires as Willow; they will always give Sanity versus drain it, so you cannot use this farm to drop Sanity. This is easily remedied though, since there are many other ways to deplete your Sanity, which will be covered in the next section!

Best practices for lowering Sanity!

Going insane is a large part of playing Willow, since Bernie (and BERNIE! by extension) is activated by insanity. Below is a list of basic foods (non Crock Pot dishes) that all reduce Sanity; farmable/very common foods are in bold + italicized text, of which most Sanity lowering foods are:
• Raw Meat/Morsels of all kinds* (-10)
• Raw Green Caps (-50)
• Raw Blue Caps (-15)
• Cooked Red Caps (-10)
• Cooked Monster Meat (-10)
• Kelp Fronds/Seaweed (-10)
• Glommer Goop (-50)
• Phlegm (-15)
• Farm Crops (Raw Onions, Garlics, Durians, Cooked Peppers) (-10)
• Glow Berries (-10, and makes you glow!)
• Lichen (-10)
• Any spoiled foods (-10)

* Note that some raw meats do not give much benefit in terms of health/hunger when cooked (Like Morsels, which only give 1 additional HP when eaten cooked, and Large Meats, which give 2 additional HP cooked); these meats are more than fine to eat raw! Some meats (like Batilisk Wings) give significantly more hunger/health when cooked though, so those are a waste to eat raw.

** Spoiled foods are very good for lowering Sanity, but note that they give 1/2 the base hunger they would normally give, (so they won't feed you very much; this doesn't matter if your goal is insanity though) inherently don’t last long as they normally would, and can be hard to reliably procure. Food becomes spoiled when it is between 20% and 0% freshness, after which it just turns into Spoiled Food/Rotten Eggs/Spoiled Fish, which do not lower Sanity when eaten. If on a longer played world, long spoilage time foods like Seeds and Honey make very great sense to stockpile as Willow, since they stay in that 20-0% freshness window for a very long time, lasting 40 days (80 in an Ice Box, so you will get 16 days to eat it spoiled), and can be acquired in very, very large quantities!

Note that some of these foods are much, much more efficiently used in Crock Pots or other uses (like Large Meat or Glommer Goop for example; use at your discretion, and always use the cheapest/least valuable foods if possible!) There are other foods I chose to omit from that list (like Raw Cactus Flesh, since they only reduce your Sanity by 5. Not a lot compared to the effort / opportunity cost of using them elsewhere)

If you enjoy farming nightmare fuel as Willow (or enjoy regularly using him), you should heavily consider gathering these in bulk to eat over time. The benefits of having a Sanity lowering food is that you can become insane at a moment's notice; for example, if Depth Worms/Hound Waves or if a seasonal boss starts spawning, you can readily eat these foods to instantly lower your Sanity enough for BERNIE! to activate as well, which can very well save you in said situations.
Other popular strategies for losing Sanity include:
• Holding Dark Swords/wearing Night Armor (which combined give a passive -30 Sanity/min),
• Going into darkness at night (but going to/using light at the last second before Charlie attacks)
• Using Telelocator Staves (you can use this on any mob or yourself if wanted), which deplete 50 Sanity for each use. Not a bad way to use a Purple Gem + Living Logs if you have the resources for it!
• Using Wormholes repeatedly (note to go back to your original location, you have to go back into it which consumes 30 Sanity per round trip)
• Touching The Lazy Deserter repeatedly (which is a solid -15 Sanity per touch, very convenient if you already have it though it is an ordeal to obtain from Antlion)
• Wearing wet equipment (you can make yourself/your items artificially wet with Water Balloons, or just wait for natural heavy rain)
• Standing near monster mobs (ideally passive/mobs that are aggroed to something else, like Werepigs, Treeguards, Beardlords, etc)
• Standing near Evil Flowers (you can stack these if you have a ghost haunt normal flower farms)
‎ ‎ ‎ - The Maxwell Evil Flower “M” set pieces are a great place to make bases as Willow! Your Sanity drains fast enough to lose 3 Sanity per seconds roughly, at the center of the M (or -180 Sanity/min approximately) • Having Splumonkeys throw Manure at you (only works in ruins, and during non peak ruins phases)
• Crafting potions at the Mad Science Lab during the Hallowed Nights event
• (SW/IA only) Using slot machines! Gamble away, as each coin inserted into the machine is -5 Sanity, and the slot machine itself progressively gains a larger and larger insanity aura with the more coins it gathers!

There are many, many effective ways to keep your Sanity low or lower it at will, most of which can be done simultaneously as well! It is generally recommended to use the non-food methods instead of the food methods to drop Sanity whenever possible, since food is limited, but the above steps are generally not. Knowing as many of these as possible will help you use Bernie as much as you want, which is a great way to play Willow! (more on that below)

Using Bernie more efficiently and effectively!

Despite Bernie's large health pool, it is still very important to use him wisely and efficiently. This holds true especially when it's early game, you're in a dangerous biome or you are unable to readily sew him back to full health. Unlike other companions, Bernie does not regenerate health over time, so managing his health/durability is crucial! As mentioned previously, Bernie has a slow, single target attack that deals 50 damage every 2 seconds (this is 4 times less damage than the player if you use a Tentacle Spike), so he is quite bad at defending himself against multiple enemies; he requires you to defend him as much as possible from mobs. This works out because he gathers all aggros from nearby, so you are not subject to any danger from groups of mobs while he's standing, so it is ideal to pick them off! When you are actively attacking Bernie's aggressors however, you face a risk of being attacked by the mob, but BERNIE! generally taunts and holds aggros well enough to mitigate you from taking too much damage. Be sure to kite/avoid damage as much as possible nonetheless even if BERNIE! is distracting for you; it also helps to use as strong of a weapon as possible, so the mob/s die as fast as possible! (This works more or less effectively depending on the mob, in particular how fast the mob’s attack rate is, so it is still usually necessary to wear armor)

Pick your fights!

Another good thing to keep in mind is when other players who are not Willow use Bernie; in his small form, he effectively has 1/2 the HP as his big form (1000 vs 2000), so letting other players use him/placing him on the floor for other insane players means he effectively takes 2x the damage. Be aware of this when you let others use Bernie (as well as him not being able to fight back) and defend him if you do decide to help a teammate. If a teammate does not need the help to begin with or there are only one or two shadow creatures, do not use Bernie; the taunt/aggro draw will disturb the mob's attacking patterns (especially if your teammates are kiting), and potentially make it harder for your teammate to kill their targets!

The “Swap and Repair” strategy:

A popular strategy with BERNIE! is to (if you have the materials for it) make a second Bernie to keep on you at all times, as well as a Sewing Kit or Trusty Tape, if applicable. This lets you deploy a new BERNIE! if your current one dies fighting, where the second BERNIE! holds off the mobs targeting you long enough to let you repair the first Bernie up and help fight, in case you need to them swap the second BERNIE! out for the first one. This can be repeated as much as wanted, until you run out of the means to sew Bernie!

Keeping Bernie safe!

In certain situations/biomes, it's smart to keep Bernie in your backpack when inactive and out of use (versus in your inventory), as he does sink in water if you're ocean sailing and can be stolen out of your inventory/from your dead body's dropped items remotely near any kinds of monkeys. Powder monkeys and Frogs specifically steal items in order of inventory, where the leftmost items will be taken first, while backpacks will never be stolen from. If Bernie happens to be at 0% durability because you were unable to sew him, he will perish after 3 days on the floor into a Silk, Beard Hair and Beefalo Wool (which means you lose materials remaking him, since it costs 2 of each to recraft him)

Whenever BERNIE! is in use, it helps to pay attention to where he is! Bernie can become quite easy to lose, as sometimes he can randomly / unexpectedly deactivate, and if you do not notice he will be left behind. Fortunately, he does show up on your map as a specially marked entity, though in crowded areas/in base he might not show up in the map (or even visibly to your eyes, if he is inactive behind something). For this I recommend paying attention to BERNIE! whenever you have him out; when you are traversing the map, it helps to pay attention to his sounds to know whether or not he's following you (especially if it's nighttime, and you can't readily see him). He makes unique squeaking sounds when he is running to catch up to you, on top of his immensely loud footsteps. If you ever do not notice these sounds anymore (especially if you're riding a beefalo) he likely deactivated somewhere along your trail. Checking your map frequently also helps (you may spot where you were last with him, of which if you check frequently he wouldn't be far behind), or also use mods like Minimap HUD (which shows your map on your screen at all times in a miniature window!), which will help you keep sight of him at a distance!

Force deactivating BERNIE!:

A major annoyance you will face when playing Willow is BERNIE! being unable to follow you when you teleport (like going to caves from surface, surface from caves, logging out of the server or through wormholes). To bring him with, you must deactivate him first (Klei please fix this!) There are some strategies nonetheless to circumvent this issue though: for example, if your Sanity is already almost 0, you can take a wormhole and then rapidly go back. If BERNIE! was close to the wormhole when you went through originally and you are fast enough, you can pick up Bernie upon returning (you can pick him up if he is walking/active in small mode). You can repeat this as many times as needed (if you are already 0 Sanity anyway, taking the wormhole more doesn’t make a difference) until you are able to pick him up! Another way to forcefully deactivate BERNIE! is to physically move away from him fast enough (using a cane or Beefalo helps a lot) until he is out of range, and then forcefully goes into small mode. Be wary of doing this unintentionally, as it can become quite easy to accidentally lose Bernie like this! A less convenient way to deactivate BERNIE! is by raising your Sanity sufficiently (past 17.5% max) and not being in any danger for approximately 16 seconds, where he will then deactivate. (This sometimes takes more or less time, especially if you are on the go and BERNIE! is running to follow you; generally, when you stay still for a bit and let him idle, he will deactivate if the above conditions are met)

Instadropping Bernie to deploy him:

You can instantly drop Bernie (and other items, like lanterns for that matter) with a very old (but tried and true) strategy: filling up all your inventory slots by splitting stacks, and then holding the item you wish to drop in your cursor. Upon right clicking anywhere on the screen, the item in your cursor will be instantly dropped to the floor without an animation, which will oftentimes prevent you from taking hits by slowing down to drop something with an animation. Very sweaty, but very effective!

Closing Comments:

In summary, Willow is a character that offers much more than meets the eye! The list of her powers is quite short, but as you can see, she is capable of much more than most players are aware of. As is the case, it’s honestly sad most people only see her as “the one you pick when you want to grief”, and only capable of destroying things because that could not be further from the truth. Willow is a fantastic and (in this author’s mind) much more balanced alternative to Wendy (especially for newer players), as Bernie is generally a lot fairer/more balanced than Abigail is and has his own unique upsides in comparison to her (instant revivals by sewing, defense versus Abigail’s offense, etc). Many people bring up reworking Willow (citing how strong Wendy is in comparison, that her powers really aren’t “that useful”, etc.) but I could not disagree more; Willow’s powers for the most part are perfect as they are, give or take a few small quality of life things (like Bernie sinking over water, not being deactivateable easily at will) She’s tons of fun to play as (especially if you are the kind of player who takes the time to read her character quotes; they’re fun, playful and stinky in every way!) and offers unique strengths to everyone else on the team! It also helps that she has the best cosmetic/clothing designs as well, this is an actual fact

I hope this guide has been helpful (especially if you’ve made it this far; I wanted to make this guide as comprehensive as possible to include all my Willow specific DST knowledge, skills and tactics) and that you consider picking Willow in your next playthrough of Don’t Starve Together! This guide may be updated in the future, pending new strategies (like the Microwave, which was only possible quite recently) or reworks, if things change about Willow.

[thegreatmanagement]

Still working on it @Pastah there's new stuff to test, the numbers in particular I need to update :(

[Pastah]

Where's the new guide? :)

[thegreatmanagement]

I kind of dislike that strategy personally, because it's only a 20% drop rate from normal bunnies; statistically you'd be going through ~10 bunnies just for enough beard hair for 1 Bernie :( The amount of traps you'd be making adds up quite a lot, unless you're willing to wait a few days to move the traps elsewhere.

Also: you are correct, this guide will need adjusting around her skill tree, which throws a wrench in things lmfao; I'll update the guide when the update makes it to live, sometimes Klei changes things of course :)

[Pastah]

Also new Willow skill tree is in beta, they removed item loot burning in a skill but it also removes fire spreading.

[Pastah]

Honestly it's just easier to do bunny traps in the plains, put the bunnies in a box then go insane and murder them. Not sure if they turn dark as soon as you go insane.

[thegreatmanagement]

I could do that, good idea :eyes: I'll think on good strategies for it though; the best you could do would be shaving Beefalo, and killing a bunnyman though but there's definitely alternate strategies as well

[Pastah]

Would be cool if you had a small guide for rushing for a 2nd Bernie. I.e. getting beard hair without a Wilson.

[thegreatmanagement]

>:(

[Almost done]

+rep: bad guide i have ever read

[thegreatmanagement]

Exactly right? So many people (due to the lack of people who actually play her on public servers due to the griefing/troll stereotype) are actually unaware of just how much you can do playing Willow. She has a full kit and a function/power that's useful at every place and stage of the game!

I hope you enjoy testing and playing Willow later on, I guarantee you won't regret it and am glad you found the guide useful :)