Hi, I wish to write about my under estimated girl Winona.
While some may say that she is a Wilson clone and others say that she is for new players, I think there is more that meets the eye.
I see her as a character that rewards players to plan ahead. Let´s look at her perks.
She gets a free hit from Charlie. This means that you can stay in the dark longer safely, saving torches, but most importantly you can lower your sanity faster, without having to switch to torches constantly, even faster while using dark gear near a mob. This is to farm nightmare fuels.
But that perk is arguably the weakest, the next is a little more useful.
She crafts things faster while not starving. That is a moderate saving of time in constructing things in rapid succession, like refining materials or building pens. The catch is that she gets hunger after a minute of crafting. The best way to use her is to extimate how many resouces you must create and do it all at once, it is better to over create thant to create less and have to finish later. And never craft while having low hunger, she takes ages to do it. Have a snack ready when crafting.
But her main perk is her engineering tab, where she has interesting things:
First her tape, which has the same application as the sewing kit, but has only one use. But it is so much cheaper to fabricate, using only silk and grass. And it is stackable. Also you can repair boat leaks with it, though it may not heal it like a boat repair kit may, but you can use the logs saved to restore it.
Tape is essential for the other creations.
The spotlight may seem useful at first, but then you can see that a single firepit, miners hat and/or torch can do it better, sure it can illuminate you whenever you go, but the light is fixated on you only, making it not as useful at choping trees, mining rocks or fighting foes.
Catapults is where the money is at, but they must be powered by generators, which we have two kinds,
The Normal one uses nitre as its fuel, and needs 2 of them to be filled. A full generator has 480 charges, each structure drains 1 charge per second. So a single catapult/spotlight will last about a day before turning off. Lets say that you can put around the generator 8 catapults, this means that you only got a minute of using the catapults with 2 nitre, which is not too long, but there are 8 things helping you in defeating a foe, Down there I will calculate DPS and total damage.
This catapult is better suited for the early days and for basic farms, for boss fights stick with the longer lasting generator:
The G.E.M.erator uses any kind of gem, but needs 3 of them to be filled. More expensive in its creation and fuelling but a full one can have a whooping 2880 charges. This means a single connected structure can last for about 6 days, and 8 of them will last for 6 minutes.
Each catapult does 42.5 damage and has a small AoE attack, which can hit multiple foes that are together. They have a fire rate of 2 shots per 5 seconds (2.5), in contrast, all characters can attack twice per second, and can have better damage per attack. But you can have 8 catapults firing at once. This means each volley has a damage of 340, in a period of 5 seconds it is translated to 680 damage, while a dark sword has a damage of 68, swinging it twice per second over 5 seconds it does the exact same damage as 8 catapults. This means each group of 8 catapults can be a replacement for a player with a dark sword and without other buffs. This is huge for solo players.
The catapults need to be fuelled each minute or 6, depending on the generator, so the total damage a group of catapults can do in a minute is about 8,160, which for a full G.E.M.erator is translated to 48,960 damage done to a single target, if all rocks hit.
Each catapult and generator has 400 health points, and they can regenerate a little more than 8 hp each 10 seconds, they can tank some damage, but try to keep them safe from too many mobs or structure destroying giants.
There are multiple aplications of the catapults, below will list some of the most relevant.
Spider farm, select a peninsula location, plant several egg nests at the peak, put 2 row of indestructible blockages (fossils, or end tables) then put one or two half groups of catapults at the other side, put them so they cannot hit the eggs, you can use nitre generators for this one. Now put a boat in the sea next to the blockage and you are set. To activate the farm you must step on the sider web and draw agro of the spiders, jump to the other side and watch how the spiders are massacrated by your machines, stand not too near of the blockage though as warrior spiders may jump the blockage. The 2 rows of blockage is to prevent the spider queen to spawn spiders to the other side. At the end you can harvest all your rewards and have more materials for your tape.
For hound protection, you can have 1 or two groups of catapults fuelled by nitre, the problem is that the hounds are too fast for the catapults, you can help by adding teeth traps, it is not much, but any help is welcome.
Pig/bunny farm. The peninsula strategy can work here as well, but you must make sure to attack one of them and prevent them from reaching you from juming from the boat, draw the agro by using a blow dart or an boomerang...or using meat or a disguise, you must reaquire agro periodically.
Deerclops. They are excellent at killing the winter giant, and you can use nitre generators on this one too. Have 2 groups of catapults and draw it towards a point where all 16 catapults can hit it, then kite it and it will be down in no time.
Bearger is another story, keep him away from the catapults at all times, and never lose its agro, or else it will go straight to the catapults and smash them to smithereens. You can keep the same strategy from deerclops, just be more careful.
Moose/Goose. A single group of catapults will destroy it, and its offsping. You need to protect the catapults with blockages, you can use a GEMerator with just two gems and everything will be alright.
Antlion. Poor thing, just 2 halves of catapult´s groups will make short work of it, just be careful to not ut them too close to it, or else the raised pilars will destroy them, otherwise, 4 nitre is all you need for a quick victory.
Dragonfly. Easily soloable with 3 groups of catapults, but you need preparation. For the very first battle, put a long line of stone walls and in the center put indestructible blockage (fossils work well here) and at the other side of the wall put 2 groups of catapults , with full GEMerators, at the center you will fight with the boss, you will need at least 1 pan flute, 5 marble armor and 3 dark swords, and many healing food like dragonies or pierogies. Draw the agro of the firefly using a walking cane and a log armor, run past the line of fossils and put the last one, then stay in the middle with the marble armor and hack away with the dark sword, if done correctly, you can make it in time before being hit and you will down the firefly and be rewarded with a scale, do not follow the firefly, stay put, and use the pan flute to prevent the rage phase, after less than 5 minutes, she will be killed. After it is done, you can surround with stone walls each lava pit, the one closest to the catapults you can use fossils to prevent them to be destroyed. After it is done, you can calculate the range and have up to 3 groups of catapults, a single flingómatic (for any lavae that escapes the enclosure) and use just 2 dark swords and 2 marble suits. For 3 groups of catapults you can use only 2 gems for each group, 6 in total. And the main benefit is that you can skip the rage phase completely, as she will fall to the ground each time she comes to fight you. Saving uses of the pan flute.
Beequeen. Surprisingly easy with 3 groups of catapults. First, clean the area, then surround the beehive with cataults fuelled by gems, have 2 dark swords, some healing snacks, and a single beekeeper hat. The startegy is to let the catapults do almost all the workk for you. In the first phase, get close and personal with the queen, try to stay at the center for maximum dps, when she gets to half hp, it is time to avoud her. Kite the bees around the center area, and the catapults will smash the bees, if needed you can refill the generators, but most likely it is not necessary. Keep an eye if the bees target a single catapult, you may lend a hand in avoiding it getting destroyed.
Shadow pieces. This is a hard fight but doable with a strange strategy. Have 2 or 3 groups of catapults surround the pieces, have 3 dark swords or better yet some glass cutters, 5 marble suits (we will not be kitting) and many healing items. When you hammer the first chess piece, you must not have activated any catapult, instead focus on the bishop. Kill it asap, then you can power on the catapults to destroy the rook. Yep, we will be fighting level 3 night, this is for 3 reasons. 1.- The shadow bishop will drain durabillity of the armor at an alarming rate and has a long period of invulnerability. 2.- The rook attacks slow, but has a wide range and strong attack, meaning it will destroy the catapults easily if being careless. 3.- The knight has a long range attack, and tries to kites you, you can abuse this by staying close to the center and just wait for it to get near you, and the catapults will still hit it continuously, and it´s attack is not too strong, so you can tank it and hit him when he gets close, it will fall shortly after.
Toadstool. Try the freeze cheese with 3 or 4 catapults groups, it is still a mechanic heavy battle so try to avoid spores and cut down those mushtrees, becareful using the weather pain, as it can destroy your flingos and your catapults. Also beware of the toads smash attack, you must keep him in the center at all times. If done correctly, you can defeat the Toad in under 8 minutes.
Ancient guardian. Not tested yet, but I imagine cheesing it behind some tombstones or pillars may accelerate this battle, just be careful with it smashing your weapons.
Ancient fuel weaver. Not tested yet, but I imagine that the only safe place to put the catapults is just before the entrance, the cataults may help in preventing the fuel weaver in regaining health, but i wouldnt count for them to destroy the hands.
Klaus. Nope, dont do it. The catapults will kill the gem deers and will enrage Klaus, making the fight much harder. You can try to block the gem deers with stone walls/fossils, but it is very hard to do and I wouldn´t recommend it. Just stick to hiting him with your hambat and kite his attacks.
Malbatross. Not tested yet, but I imagine that the catapults may help in getting some hits from far away. But the swooping attack may destroy them, making them useless. Still a somewhat easy battle, but tedious one.
Crabking. Not tested yet, but I imagine that you should place the catapults some what away from the crab in many boats, then the geisers attack may destroy the catapults. You can stop this attack by freezing him. But you should bring lots of tape if you wish to keep the catapults. Oh and bring beemines, they will help alot of things get awry.
As you can see Winona is a character that rewards preparation and foward thinking, allowing you to play alone and have automatic farms. Of course, once you have all the structures and tape that you need, you can switch to another character via the celestial postern and still benefit from her machinations.
Have a nice day everyone, I hope this post help in deciding which character to use and how to use her at her full potential.
), but also exclusive powers and constructions, I imagine Maxwell and Wilson will be getting them as well. I've seen a few people talk about this in other threads, but I'm curious to see what people want from it.
