Ultimate Wormwood Character Guide (New Skill Tree) in Don't Starve Together

Name: Ultimate Wormwood Character Guide (New Skill Tree) in Don't Starve Together
Uploaded: 2023-10-13T15:00:12.000Z
Duration: 2 h 2 min 26 s

Wormwood's Skill Tree Overview

Introduction to Wormwood

The video introduces a new skill tree for the character Wormwood, humorously described as resembling a "skill Bush" rather than a traditional tree.

The creator mentions their character's pronouns, clarifying that they identify as male despite previous misidentifications.

Base Stats and Quirks

Wormwood starts with 150 health and hunger, along with 200 sanity points. His plant-based nature grants him unique perks and high utility in crafting.

A significant downside is that food does not heal his health; instead, he gains hunger and insanity from consuming food items.

Healing Mechanisms

To heal, Wormwood relies on farming nutrients like manure or compost. For example, guano heals him for 3 health while manure heals for 2.

Composting can provide gradual healing over time; specific items like compost WP offer substantial initial healing followed by additional recovery.

Health Regeneration Effects

Various items such as bat bats, tents, healing salads, and jelly beans can regenerate health for Wormwood.

The Grim Glette dish swaps health and sanity values based on percentages; this can fully heal Wormwood at the cost of lowering his sanity significantly.

Sanity Management

Planting seeds increases sanity while actions like digging plants or cutting trees decrease it. Witnessing harm to plants also drains sanity within a radius around Wormwood.

Players are encouraged to replant plants repeatedly to manage sanity effectively since each replant yields positive sanity gain.

Planting Mechanics

Seed Planting Capabilities

Wormwood can plant seeds anywhere without needing gardening tools or farming turf; however, non-farming turf does not store nutrients effectively.

Crop Growth Dynamics

Crops planted by Wormwood remain fresh longer (1.5 times the usual duration), allowing them to last up to six days before rotting.

Dealing with Rotten Crops

If crops rot after four to five days, they restart their growth cycle but cannot grow into giants if grown post-rotting. They may still yield seeds if tended properly.

Unique Traits of Wormwood

Sanity Drain Resistance

Wormwood's Unique Abilities and Crafting Mechanics

Harvesting Mechanics

Wormwood can harvest seaweed without waking up hostile creatures, unlike other characters who trigger attacks during the day.

At night, seaweed remains dormant regardless of the character. However, bumping them with a boat will wake them up, leading to potential damage.

Crafting Capabilities

Wormwood has a powerful crafting tab that allows him to create living logs at the cost of 20 health by chopping off his arm.

This ability is crucial for early game resource gathering since living logs are typically rare and hard to obtain.

Synergy with WX

Pairing Wormwood with WX is highly effective; WX’s healing abilities support Wormwood in crafting infinite living logs.

This combination enables access to powerful weapons and items early in the game, enhancing overall gameplay strategy.

Bramble Husk Armor

The Bramble Husk can be crafted using two living logs and four bee stingers, providing 80% physical damage reduction.

When hit, it retaliates with area-of-effect damage (22.667), making it useful against groups of enemies like spiders or shadow spunks.

Combat Utility

The Bramble Husk excels against bosses like Bee Queen by dealing damage back while also managing minions effectively.

It allows players to interact safely with damaging plants like cacti when worn.

Traps and Healing Items

The Bramble Trap functions similarly to tooth traps but offers area-of-effect damage (40), making it suitable for crowd control against ground mobs.

Compost Wrap can heal Wormwood significantly (total of 40 health), aiding in sustainability during early gameplay.

Fire Damage Vulnerability

Wormwood takes 25% more fire damage than other characters and remains on fire longer, necessitating careful management around flames.

Bloom State Mechanics

Wormwood can enter a bloom state with three stages that enhance movement speed and hunger modifiers while leaving a trail of flowers that attract bees.

Understanding Bloom Mechanics in Wormwood

Introduction to Bloom Mechanics

The mechanics of bloom involve stages that affect movement and hunger modifiers, starting from stage zero with no benefits.

Upon applying growth formulas, Wormwood enters stage one of bloom, gaining a 6% modifier for movement and hunger.

Stages of Bloom

Wormwood must accumulate 480 bloomless points to progress from stage one to stage two; the default gain rate is 1 per second.

Seasonal multipliers influence the bloomless gain rate: Autumn/Summer (1x), Winter (0.75x), Spring (1.5x).

Growth Formula Impact

Applying growth formula increases fertilizer storage, which affects the bloomless gain rate; nutrients are not wasted when transitioning between stages.

A chart illustrates how different amounts of growth formula applied can significantly alter the time needed to reach higher bloom stages.

Achieving Maximum Bloom

Upon reaching stage three, maximum modifiers for hunger and speed are achieved; however, the bloomless pool is set at 1440 with a negative gain rate thereafter.

In spring, the loss rate is zero; during winter, it doubles to -2 per second.

Extending Bloom Duration

The maximum capacity for the bloomless pool can be increased by applying additional growth formulas after reaching stage three.

Each application of super growth formula adds a flat amount to the pool, allowing players to extend their blooming duration significantly.

Regressing and Restarting Bloom Process

Once the bloomless pool depletes, Wormwood regresses back through stages until reaching stage zero but can restart blooming at any point using growth formulas.

Understanding Wormwood's Mechanics and Skills

Seasonal Mechanics and Bloomless Drain Rate

The concept of seasonal mechanics is introduced, explaining how disconnecting from the game during spring prevents the bloomless drain rate from changing when summer begins.

Players can maintain a zero bloomless drain rate by not being present in the game world during seasonal transitions.

This mechanic allows players to exploit seasonal changes for strategic advantages, particularly with Wormwood's abilities.

Wormwood's Favorite Food

Wormwood’s favorite food is cooked banana, which provides 27.5 hunger but does not restore sanity or health.

For non-Wormwood characters, eating cooked bananas restores three health, highlighting Wormwood's unique characteristics regarding healing.

Introduction to Skill Bush

The discussion shifts to Wormwood’s skill tree, specifically focusing on the "Bush" skills that enhance gameplay.

A humorous anecdote about a character losing money introduces the topic of premium wallets as a metaphor for resource management in-game.

Overview of Seed Sluth Skill

The first skill discussed is "Seed Sluth," allowing players to identify wild seeds at their initial planting stage without waiting for growth.

This skill saves time in early farming stages by enabling players to determine if a plant is beneficial or should be removed (e.g., weeds).

Crafting Plants and Resource Management

Various crafting recipes are outlined for different plants like lunar saplings and berry bushes, emphasizing resource management strategies.

All crafted plants require fertilization after harvesting multiple times, contrasting with naturally spawning plants that do not need this maintenance unless dug up.

Renewable Resources and Gameplay Strategy

Crafting berry bushes addresses previous limitations where certain types could only be found in specific worlds or caves.

Acquiring Resources and Skills in the Game

Initial Resource Acquisition

The initial setup for crafting can be achieved by visiting a natural swamp to gather reeds and ruins for bananas, allowing players to establish their first 10 monkey tails.

Low plants are essential but only available after the first day of spring on PRL's island; they require two compost wraps and five leafy meat to craft, which can be sourced from Luna Island or grass Gators.

Combat Strategies for Resource Gathering

Grass Gators provide seven leafy meat per kill but are challenging due to their evasive nature; using weapons like boomerangs or ice staffs is recommended for effective combat.

Lower plants serve multiple purposes: they enhance farm productivity (twigs, grass, reeds) and can be used defensively or offensively against bosses.

Mushroom Mastery Skills

Growth Speed Enhancements

Mushroom Mastery I reduces growth time in mushroom planters from 2.8125 in-game days to approximately 2.56 days, allowing mushrooms to grow regardless of daylight.

Snow interrupts mushroom growth unless planted in caves where they can thrive year-round; this skill is crucial for maximizing mushroom yields.

Types of Mushrooms and Their Benefits

Blue mushrooms heal non-WM characters while providing hunger restoration; cooking them enhances sanity recovery at the cost of health.

Green mushrooms offer versatility by restoring hunger while increasing insanity levels, making them useful for specific character strategies.

Advanced Mushroom Growth Techniques

Mushroom Mastery II further accelerates growth time down to 2.25 days, enhancing efficiency compared to previous skills.

The final skill adds a fourth growth stage, enabling up to six mushrooms per planter with a total growth time of about 2.5 days when all skills are applied.

Yield Maximization Strategies

Upon reaching full growth stages, there's a chance that mushroom spores will spawn from the planter; these spores allow players to cultivate more mushrooms effectively.

Mushroom Planting and Efficiency in Gameplay

Mushroom Planters and Yield

Non-wood players planting mushrooms yield four mushrooms, while any character planting a Spore yields six. Mushroom Planters can produce six mushrooms with a chance to spawn a Spore upon full growth.

The growth time for mushrooms is 12 minutes (1.5 in-game days), resulting in one mushroom profit every four minutes, which matches the efficiency of picking early from the planter after waiting 20 minutes.

Harvesting and Skills

Each mushroom planter depletes after being harvested four times, regardless of the amount gathered. Investing three points allows growing six mushrooms in 20 minutes instead of four in 22.5 minutes.

Without skills, players profit one mushroom every 7.5 minutes; however, investing points can increase speed by approximately 87.5%.

Moonroom Cloud Skill

Wormwood's skill allows planting Moon shrooms into planters, which normally cannot be done. Luna spores exist but explode when approached, making them unusable.

Eating a raw moonroom causes Wormwood to release a Spore Cloud that induces grogginess on anything inside it; this effect lasts for about five seconds before normal speed resumes.

Combat Strategy Using Moon Shrooms

A successful strategy involves using Moon shrooms during combat against Bequeen to create Spore Clouds that incapacitate enemies temporarily.

Timing is crucial: eat another Moon shroom just before Bequeen screams to maximize effectiveness against her Grumble bees.

Advanced Combat Techniques

In later phases of combat, Bequeen will scream continuously, requiring players to use speed bonuses like walking canes to evade attacks while managing Grumble bees effectively.

Effective Strategies for Defeating Grumble Bees and Twins of Terror

Grumble Bees Strategy

Players can achieve one to three hits on Grumble Bees before they retaliate. However, if players linger too long, the bees will turn aggressive.

The strategy is effective but time-consuming, taking nearly three in-game days (24 minutes) to complete the kill using a hand bat that deals only 50 damage by the end.

Twins of Terror Tactics

The Spore Cloud ability is useful against the Twins of Terror; it allows players to put one twin to sleep immediately upon spawning.

By keeping the awake twin away from the sleeping one, players can focus on defeating one twin while avoiding aggro from the other.

Unique Mushroom Skills

Unlike Toadstool Spore Clouds, player-created SP clouds do not spoil food or items. This makes them a viable option for those seeking mushroom skills.

Unlocking certain skills leads to crafting "IP Kaka syrup," which humorously causes creatures to poop multiple times while taking damage.

Utilizing IP Kaka Syrup

When fed to Pigmen or Beowolves, this syrup induces a pooping effect that can be exploited for easy kills without retaliation during their panic phase.

Timing is crucial; attacking after a creature's 13th poop ensures they remain stunned and unable to fight back for an extended period.

Mass Producing Manure with Syrup

While feeding pigs non-meat items yields manure faster, using IP Kaka syrup provides a humorous and efficient alternative for generating compost.

Unlocking Luna Cultivator Skills

Crafting Carrots with Luna Cultivator 1

After spending five points on left branch skills and defeating CEST your Champion, players unlock Luna Cultivator 1 which allows crafting carrots that follow Wormwood.

These carrots gather food items within a five-tile radius but cannot harvest crops directly. They are beneficial for collecting dropped seeds.

Managing Carrot Behavior

Carrots collect items one at a time and will drop collected items if Wormwood's inventory is full. If Wormwood dies, all following carrots disappear as well.

Crafting Light Bugs with Luna Cultivator 2

Summoning and Mechanics of Light Bugs and Salamanders

Light Bugs Overview

Light bugs have low health (25) and can be easily killed. If they are hit, they drop light bulbs used for crafting.

Relying on light bugs for illumination is risky; if they start dying, collect the dropped light bulbs to craft new ones.

Light bugs follow players in and out of caves, unlike other summons which may not do so.

Salamander Mechanics

The Salad Mander is a combat summon that deals 40 damage per attack with 600 health, regenerating health when out of combat.

Players can only summon two Salad Manders at a time; these deal more damage than wild versions but lack certain abilities like self-ripening.

Wild salamanders deal higher damage (50 normal + 25 fire), with fire attacks piercing armor but not innate damage reduction.

Combat Strategies

The speaker recounts a personal experience where fire damage from salamanders led to their defeat during a speedrun.

Summoned salamanders return fresh versions of themselves upon death, maintaining their utility in combat situations.

Wormwood's Abilities

Wormwood cannot align with Shadows due to its lunar origins; it gains benefits against lunar mobs while dealing increased damage to Shadow mobs.

Bloom Mechanics

Growth Spurt skills reduce the time needed for Wormwood to reach full bloom by decreasing required bloomless points from 480 to lower values across stages.

Flower Power skill increases the duration Wormwood remains in full bloom, enhancing initial bloomless capacity significantly.

Bloom Mechanics and Skills Overview

Bloomless Capacity and Skill Evaluation

The bloomless capacity has increased by 50%, allowing for a total of 3,600 bloomless, equating to approximately 7.5 days of bloom.

Despite the increase in bloomless capacity, the skill does not significantly enhance gameplay as it requires the same amount of super growth formula to maintain full bloom.

A comparison is made between staying in level three bloom year-round versus unblooming and re-blooming to maximize free blooms.

Growth Formula Application Process

To initiate blooming, players can find a spoiled fish mussel and apply it to begin the process; this takes nearly 700 seconds.

Players are advised to craft a growth formula starter at an Alchemy engine but should wait before applying it for better results through rotting.

The total resources needed include one spoiled fish morel and 94 uses of super growth formula, which translates into about 24 bottles.

Strategies for Maximizing Bloom Time

An efficient method involves using any growth formula once to start blooming, then reapplying when free blooms run out after approximately 4.5 days.

This strategy yields an average uptime of around 88% during autumn and summer while only costing about 11 uses of super growth formula annually.

Cost Comparison Between Methods

The expensive method ensures full bloom uptime but costs significantly more (94 uses or nearly 24 bottles per year).

Utilizing free blooms from stage three provides substantial savings with only minimal resource expenditure compared to constant application.

Skills Related to Overheating Protection

Shade Plant Skill Insights

The shade plant skill offers increased protection from overheating while in full bloom, providing insulation equivalent to wearing an umbrella and straw hat.

With this skill active, players take significantly longer (11 minutes and 15 seconds) to reach critical temperatures compared to having no insulation.

Insulation Mechanics Clarification

It’s noted that the skill overwrites default overheat protection values rather than adding them together; thus, players should be aware of its actual effectiveness.

Photosynthesis Skill Functionality

Health Regeneration Mechanism

Photosynthesis allows for slow health regeneration (one health every 20 seconds), but only during daylight hours while in full bloom.

Wormwood's Skills and Mechanics Overview

Health Regeneration Mechanics

Wormwood can regenerate health during daylight, with a maximum of 12 health points restored in an average autumn day. It takes approximately 12.4 autumn days to fully heal from 1 health to 150 health.

Skill Recommendations

The skill is recommended primarily for those interested in the Bloom skills, which are considered less useful. This skill costs four Insight points but enhances farming capabilities by increasing planting range and speeding up crop harvesting animations.

Animation Speed and Lag Considerations

The animation speed for applying compost is reduced from three seconds to 1.5 seconds, making it slightly more effective during combat situations. However, compared to other characters' healing abilities, it remains slower.

Bee and Butterfly Interaction

When Wormwood has the pacification skill active, bees and butterflies will not attack unless provoked. This includes scenarios where Wormwood attacks a beehive or if aggressive bees are already present.

Pacification Effects on Other Players

The pacification effect extends beyond Wormwood; when within a three-tile radius of a killer beehive, all players benefit from the hive being temporarily pacified. Once outside this radius, the hive reverts to aggression towards players.

Butterfly Behavior Modification

Butterflies will not flee from Wormwood due to this skill; however, they still react normally to other players. This allows for potential butterfly farming strategies using proximity mechanics with NPCs like bunnymen near magma pools.

Flower Placement Strategy for Butterfly Farming

Effective butterfly spawning requires careful flower placement at specific distances (between 1.5 and 6.25 tiles away). If too close or too far (beyond 6.25 tiles), butterflies will not spawn effectively.

Bramble Trap Mechanics

The Bramble trap specialist skill allows traps to reset automatically while Wormwood is bloomed within a certain radius (1.2 tile radius). Traps reset quickly after activation but have an initial cooldown period that varies slightly with each trigger.

Trap Reset Timing Insights

After placing a trap, it resets almost instantly before entering a cooldown phase of about three seconds on average for subsequent resets, allowing strategic use during combat scenarios involving waves of enemies.

Damage Calculation and Skill Utilization

Damage Per Second (DPS) Analysis

The total damage dealt is 400 error effect damage until the trap breaks. The average DPS was calculated by timing how long it took to kill a Spider Warrior, which was 25 seconds and 48 frames.

The resulting DPS calculation yields approximately 15.5 error of effect DPS per trap, prompting interest in community strategies for maximizing this skill's potential against bosses.

Bramble Husk Mechanics

The Bramble Husk skill allows players to unleash thorns on every third attack without being hit, creating an area of effect damage that can be strategically used during combat.

Stacks of thorns reset upon being attacked or switching equipment but can be stored for use against new enemies, enhancing tactical flexibility in battles.

Combat Strategy Against Specific Enemies

This skill provides unique advantages against Fel Weaver's Woven Shadows, preventing them from healing while maintaining consistent area damage output.

Overall, the ability offers significant combat benefits with a free 15111 AED DPS when utilized effectively in ongoing fights.

Affinity Skills and Defensive Utility

Luna Guardian Skill Overview

The Luna Guardian skill traps enemies in vines while dealing physical damage back if they hit Wormwood while wearing Bright Shade armor.

Vines last for about 6 seconds and do not refresh if the enemy hits again during this time; however, they work effectively even on bosses and flying enemies.

Application Against Bosses

This skill proves particularly useful against fast-moving bosses like the Twins of Terror by ensnaring them after taking a hit instead of suffering immediate damage.

Notably, if Bright Shade armor breaks due to an enemy hit, the vine trapping does not trigger—highlighting a critical timing aspect for players.

Acquisition of Bright Shade Armor

Steps to Obtain Armor

To acquire Bright Shade armor, players must defeat Champion and wait several days for lunar rifts to spawn before mining pure brilliance necessary for crafting.

Players should be aware of dangers such as grazers that can inflict significant damage; using teleportation skills is recommended as killing them is ineffective due to their rapid respawn rate.

Farming Strategies

Bright Shade Armor and Mechanics Overview

Crafting Bright Shade Armor

The first wave of Bright Shades will spawn approximately 9.5 days after the port is established. Players can manually kill Bright Shades, but it requires removing their vines repeatedly.

To craft the Bright Smithy, players need five Moon Rocks, five Moon, and one Pure Brilliance. This allows for crafting Bright Shade armor using four Bright Shade husks and four Pure Brilliance.

Armor Benefits and Durability

The Bright Shade armor provides 80% physical damage reduction and an additional 10% if attacked by lunar-aligned enemies. It also offers a flat 10 planner damage reduction.

When the armor's durability reaches zero, it does not break but becomes unequipped until repaired with a Bright Shade repair kit (costing one husk and one peridance).

Damage Reflection Mechanics

The armor reflects damage back to attackers: dealing 20 total damage (10 physical + 10 planner) or up to 30 against Shadow-aligned enemies.

Comparison with Bramble Husk shows that while both have unique mechanics, the Bright Shade armor is more effective against Shadow creatures but less so against others.

Skill Interactions

If an enemy hits while already ensnared, they only receive planner damage from the default ability until the vine expires; then they can be re-damaged by skills.

Unequipping the armor does not remove vines, allowing players to trap enemies before switching gear for different attacks.

Luna Guardian Skill Mechanics

Activation of Luna Guardian Skill

Unlocking Luna Guardian 2 enables a powerful skill when fighting with bright shade melee weapons like the Bright Shade Sword.

The sword costs four Pure Brilliance and three husks; it deals significant physical (38 damage) and planner (30 damage) per attack.

Vine Whip Mechanic

Each hit has a 20% chance to spawn a vine that deals additional damage (15 planner), which can be particularly useful against future planner entity enemies.

Damage Output Comparisons

With optimal conditions (two attacks per second), Wilson's DPS with a bright shade sword is significantly lower than when utilizing full kits including Luna Guardian skills.

Unlocking Skills in the Bramble Husk Specialist Tree

Overview of Skill Unlocking Process

The focus is on unlocking the Bramble Husk Specialist branch, which provides significant area-of-effect (AOE) damage early in the game.

Players are encouraged to unlock various skills in the middle left branch, including Por Stap and Moonroom, to access Salamander summons.

Skill Recommendations

A choice must be made between unlocking either the Salamander or Light Bug; alternatively, players can opt for Bee Kind instead of Growth Spurt for combat advantages.

If players are engaged in long-term worlds or prefer crafting over combat, they should consider unlocking bottom right branch skills for enhanced bloom time benefits.

Future Content and Community Engagement

Upcoming content will feature a speedrun utilizing the new skill tree; viewers are encouraged to subscribe for early access and Twitch play sessions.