Don’t Starve Together – Character Introduction Guide

This guide is intended to help people pick which character they’d like to play, and better understand what their teammates are capable of, or why they might be picking that character. It includes a brief description of what they’re good and bad at, a rating of how useful they are to someone who doesn’t need help surviving (Power), a rating of how easy it is to survive as them (Difficulty), their biggest strength, and my personal thoughts about them.

Wilson

Wilson’s rework is currently in the beta branch and subject to change.

Willow

Power: Low
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Distracting shadows

Advantages
Willow comes with a poor yet longlasting light which she can cook on and a bear named Bernie. Bernie will distract shadows, or if Willow is insane he will grow into a low damage follower with decent health that can be revived with sewing kits.

She has minor perks of being fireproof, cooking twice as quickly, gaining sanity from being near fire, and having fuel she puts into fires last 50% longer (but cannot exceed the normal max duration).

Disadvantages
Winter clothing is less effective on her, but thermal stones work the same. She takes more damage from hypothermia, and gets frozen in less hits. She loses sanity slightly faster.

Personal thoughts
Not the most exciting character, being neither powerful or difficult. While she can gain a decent amount of sanity from standing near fires, there’s not much you can do while holding still next to a fire. Small Bernie’s shadow distraction perk can come in handy sometimes, or it can make fighting shadows harder since it makes them behave strangely. Large Bernie doesn’t do too much to help fight and requires a lot of repairs.

Wolfgang

Power: High
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Fighting & gathering

Advantages
Wolfgang can become mighty by working out with his gym, dumbbells, or most actions that use the upper body like fighting. Mighty Wolfgang has 100% more damage on all standard attacks (including ranged weapons like blowdarts), 50% more power on all standard work actions (chop, mine, hammer), and an immunity to weight-based slowdowns (marble suit, piggyback, statues, etc).

He has minor perks of being able to throw dumbbells (useful to kill birds or aggro cowardly creatures like koalefants), mighty form granting 33% more rowing power, and wimpy form granting 25% less hunger drain.

Disadvantages
Wolfgang enters an uninterruptible animation whenever changing between his three forms, and is always losing mightiness. If you’re on the border of two tiers you may repeatedly enter the uninterruptible transformation animation several times in a row, possibly getting hit every time if there’s enemies nearby or crashing the boat if you’re sailing. While in wimpy form you have 25% less damage and work efficacy. His sanity drains faster, but this is heavily negated by having friendly things near you such as other players, pigmen, bunnymen, rock lobsters, chester, and the immortal pets from the rock den.

Personal thoughts
Wolfgang is a powerful character who’s pretty good at everything, but his mightiness mechanic can get a bit annoying sometimes.

Wendy

Power: Very High
Difficulty: Very Easy
Best Strength: Fighting, especially crowds

Advantages
Wendy has her sister Abigail, which is both by far the most AoE damage in the game and a source of a damage buff for all players. In addition to Abigail doing about ⅓ the damage of a player, she causes Wendy to deal 1.15x damage on foot & 1.56x damage on a beefalo, and non-Wendy players get a 10% damage bonus.

She has minor perks of losing sanity slower, and being able to make a sisturn which lets AFK people slowly regenerate sanity.

Disadvantages
If Abigail is dead, Wendy deals 0.75x damage.

Personal thoughts
Abigail can singlehandedly kill most threats in the game without Wendy’s help. Swarms of bees, spiders, hounds, frogs, splumonkeys, shadow splumonkeys, bats, etc, all stand no chance against her. This makes her incredibly good at farming drops from all of those. Because Abigail is so good at killing things, Wendy doesn’t even need a weapon like the other survivors do and can just run around with Abigail. Abigail can even kill herds of beefalo, if it’s not too large.

As long as you’re properly dodging attacks Abigail can easily stay alive in almost every boss fight, basically making it so that Wendy’s downside is a 25% damage penalty against the easy to fight shadows and 2 or 3 bosses. She trivializes the Bee Queen and Ancient Fuelweaver fight, two of the hardest in the game, and her downside can entirely disappear if she just uses a beefalo since it isn’t affected by her negative damage modifier.

I don’t like to play her very much, I think she’s too good.

WX-78

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Very Easy
Best Strength: Movement speed

Advantages
WX-78 can eat the never-spoiling gears to restore a large amount of all 3 stats. He can craft a variety of circuits, but is limited to only equipping a few at a time. Circuits can increase his movement speed, make him immune to the cold of winter & the heat of summer, cause him to emit light, grant him night vision, grant him minor health & sanity regeneration, grant him an AoE of minor sanity regeneration which also makes crops happy, make him damage his attackers, or increase his max stats.

He has the minor perks of clockworks aggroing onto him from half as far and being able to farm ice by making himself wet while equipped with the refrigerant circuit.

Disadvantages
If he’s wet he takes a little damage. Changing circuits is a bit annoying since you have to either just wait for your power to come back, or get electricity from lightning, a struck lightning rod, or a Winona generator.

Personal thoughts
The max stat circuits are completely useless, you still lose stats at the same rate so you still need to restore the same amount. The damage reflection circuit does far too little damage to be worth it. He is effectively just someone who either moves really fast, or ignores temperature & darkness. This is incredibly boring.

Wickerbottom

Power: High
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Mass material acquisition

Advantages
Wickerbottom starts the game with T1 science learned, making a science machine act as an alchemy engine for her. She can craft a bookcase which acts as T2 science & T1 magic for everyone. She can craft a variety of books for a variety of purposes. She can immediately grow large groups of anything growable from farm crops and berry bushes, to grass and lichen. She can spawn large groups of fish or birds, command the rain to start or stop, create long-lasting stationary light sources (which count as sunlight), create grumble bee followers, create tentacles, put mobs to sleep, create a slowing web, extinguish fires creating a fire staff, cause lightning strikes, summon full moons, immediately dry herself and nearby players off, and give herself and nearby players a temporary knowledge boost which can be combined with the bookcase to skip the prestihatitator entirely.

Disadvantages
Reading books costs a lot of sanity, and will spawn shadows if you don’t have enough sanity. She also can’t sleep, cutting off one source of health & sanity.

Personal thoughts
Very fun & good character. In addition to a bunch of generally useful perks like long-lasting stationary light, she can farm resources with insane speed compared to anyone else, and there’s so many different types she can farm. Grass, morsels, nightmare fuel, beard hair, silk, vegetables… Your creativity is the biggest limitation in what she can do.

Woodie

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Jack of all trades

Advantages
Woodie has an infinite durability axe named Lucy, who chops very quickly and is 1.5x as likely to spawn treeguards when felling trees. He can transform into three different forms for nearly free: the werebeaver, weremoose, and weregoose. The werebeaver will never spawn treeguards, and is good at doing the actions chop, mine, and smash. The weremoose has 90% damage resistance, punches as hard as a hambat, and has a charge attack to deal good AoE damage or ram into things like statues. The weregoose runs 40% faster and can walk on water. All forms have night vision, temperature resistance, and rain resistance.

He has the minor perk of followers such as pigmen staying loyal longer.

Disadvantages
While transformed, Woodie loses sanity. Upon exiting the transformation he will be at 0 hunger.

Personal thoughts
Pretty fun character, great at ruins rushing. If you’re planning on utilizing your forms it’s best to stay at low hunger off of food like honey so as to not waste a bunch of hunger.

Wes

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Moderate
Best Strength: Sanity restoration, early exploration

Advantages
Wes starts the game with a pile of balloons, which allow him to make as many balloons as he wants. Confetti balloons can be used to give endless sanity to the entire server, speed balloons are a temporary walking cane which can be dropped to flare the map, the balloon vest prevents drowning damage, the balloon hat prevents lightning damage and gives enough water resistance where an umbrella makes you waterproof, and the standard balloon can be used as a distraction or trap. He can use the pile of balloons to go insane at will in only a few seconds.

Ice & fire staves used by him last 33% longer, in most situations dark swords & glass cutters used by him last 33% longer, and everything else used by him lasts anywhere between 0 and 33% longer.

He can also oneshot any boss in the game, but that’s not really something you do for any reason other than to say you did it.

Disadvantages
His stats are low enough where it actually matters that they’re low. He can go insane rather quickly, without armor depths worms and most bosses will oneshot him even at full health, and he can’t make full use of many foods. He has 25% less damage and work power.

Personal thoughts
As long as you’re using a good weapon his damage downside is more of an upside in most situations. He can go insane or sane at will, making farming nightmare fuel very easy, and he can be farming a non-perishing sanity item while doing that. Confetti balloons will actually generate more sanity than you used to make them if multiple players are in the radius.

Maxwell

Power: Very High
Difficulty: Moderate
Best Strength: Master of all trades

Advantages
He can summon shadow servants, making him by far the best at gathering anything. The only things he’s not the best at getting are things that Wickerbottom can automate, or groups of enemies that Wendy can kill faster. He’s even good at picking things up off the ground since the servants will grab things off the floor.

He can summon Duelists that allow him to deal as much damage as Wolfgang, but safer since Duelists can tank some hits for him and he has other spells to hinder enemy mobility. He can even stay out of the fight and just let Duelists do it for him.

He can root enemies in place, summon long-lasting traps that scare enemies when activated, and convert groups of bunnies & bunnymen into their shadow counterparts while increasing the nightmare fuel they drop.

He can imbue a top hat with shadows, giving him an extra 12 inventory slots which can be used to instantly teleport items across the map.

He has a permanent 6.7 sanity regeneration and immunity to the drain of dark swords & night armor, making sanity only very rarely an issue.

He can read every single book Wickerbottom has, giving him all of her powers.

Disadvantages
He has low health, so you have to pay attention to it.

Personal thoughts
He’s way too strong. The rework was looking really promising in the early branches, but they just kept adding more and more and more and more without ever giving him any real downsides. If you want the strongest character in the game this is it.

Wigfrid

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Very Easy
Best Strength: Fighting

Advantages
Wigfrid deals 25% more damage, and receives 25% less. This makes all healing on her 33% more effective. Wigfrid passively regenerates health & sanity while fighting. Wigfrid can craft battle helms (a more durable football helmet) and battle spears (a stronger spear).

Wigfrid can craft a variety of songs to help her in boss fights, but they’re only really usable in boss fights. She can have up to 3 songs active at a time and they grant all nearby players health on hit, sanity on hit, a 50% resistance to insanity auras, 33% longer lasting weapons, or a 33% resistance to fire damage. She also has songs to draw aggro to herself or cause enemies to panic, but neither works on bosses.

Disadvantages
She can only eat meat and goodies, making her lose out on things like bluecaps.

Personal thoughts
The fire resistance song, aggro drawing song, and panic inducing songs are pretty bad, but other than that she’s a great character. She doesn’t have as much damage as Wolfgang, but due to her damage resistance and lifesteal she can go in with less resources than Wolfgang, especially in a team setting where she can give everyone lifesteal. Her helmets and spears are great early game items, but they quickly get outclassed. Because she regenerates so much health by fighting things, she can safely eat monster meat, even raw, and just heal up the lost health & sanity by fighting more things that drop monster meat.

Webber

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Very Easy
Best Strength: Fighting

Advantages
Spiders are not hostile to Webber, and he can recruit them to fight for him. One of these minions can heal him. He moves faster on webs.

He has the minor perks of growing a slightly insulating beard made of silk, being able to sleep in spider dens as a weaker tent, and eating monster meat without penalty.

Disadvantages
Pigs & bunnymen are hostile to him. His minions want to eat all meat type items on the ground, such as pig skin, so you must be attentive.

Personal thoughts
I don’t like playing as him.

Winona

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Autonomous damage

Advantages
Winona can build stationary catapults to deal AoE damage, or spotlights to illuminate players. She crafts things faster.

Disadvantages
If she’s gone awhile without crafting something, crafting something takes a little hunger from her.

Personal thoughts
Perhaps the most boring character in the entire game. Her catapults are good in some farms, and can help deal bonus damage while fighting bosses, but it’s just so unengaging.

Warly

Power: High
Difficulty: High
Best Strength: Jack of all trades

Advantages
Warly can create a variety of spices & dishes for a variety of purposes. These can increase damage dealt by 20/50/80/150% for 4/5 minutes, decrease damage received by 25% (increasing healing’s effectiveness by 33%) for 4 minutes, increase work efficacy (chop/mine/smash) by 100% for 4 minutes, cause you to emit light for 16 minutes, make you immune to heat or cold for a long time, make you immune to wetness for 5 minutes, swap the values of your health & sanity, or simply restore a lot of your stats.

He has the minor perks of cooking twice as quickly (which lets him cook on Willow’s lighter), being able to make a small backpack that slightly slows the decay of food inside, and being able to move his portable crock pots.

Disadvantages
Warly loses 90 hunger per day instead of 75, can only eat crock pot dishes, and gains increasinly less stats from crock pot dishes he’s eaten within the past 16 minutes. Dishes restore 100/90/80/65/50/30% of their standard values, and every time you eat it the penalty will refresh back to 16 minutes.

Personal thoughts
Best character in the game along with Wormwood & Wes.

Wortox

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Easy
Best Strength: Fast travel, team healing

Advantages
Wortox harvests souls from anything that dies near him. He can use these souls to teleport around, heal himself and nearby teammates, or eat them to restore hunger.

Disadvantages
Wortox gains half stats from food, loses sanity when eating souls, and is attacked by pigmen & bunnymen.

Personal thoughts
Great for new players who struggle with healing, although it might hinder them learning how to heal without needing to be Wortox.

Wormwood

Power: High
Difficulty: High
Best Strength: Movement speed, farming

Advantages
Wormwood can rub fertilizers onto himself, causing him to start blooming. While blooming he moves 6/13/20% faster and in the third stage automatically makes nearby plants happy. He can turn his health into living logs (essentially letting him hold living logs without an inventory slot required), plant seeds in farmland without needing to hoe the ground, plant seeds outside of farmland, and has great sanity management since planting things like seeds or pinecones restores it while killing plants (axe or shovel) depletes it. He can make bramble husks, which are essentially log suits with a bit more durability, a little AoE damage attack whenever you take damage, and an immunity to the damage from picking spiky bushes & cactus.

He also has the minor perks of bees & plants not attacking him, being immune to fire nettles, not losing sanity from anything related to wetness, make AoE hound tooth traps (that injure people who aren’t wearing bramble husk), and being able to eat food that would injure him like red caps & monster meat without taking damage.

Disadvantages
Wormwood can’t heal from food.

Personal thoughts
He’s actually really good at fighting since he can make living logs at will and moves faster.

Wurt

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Moderate
Best Strength: Jack of all trades

Advantages
Wurt makes merm houses, which are basically more expensive but better pigs. She’s immune to all effects of wetness other than temperature, but combined with fish in her inventory both granting a small sanity bonus to her and taking 4x as long to spoil allows her to use the thermal fish to ignore all effects of wetness, as long as she always has it on her. She gets cobblestone’s 30% faster movement speed on marsh turf, and can give the merm king fish to get items like tentacle spots, reeds, or gold.

She has the minor perks of only gaining 50% wetness when drowning, losing no health or items, and being able to read Wickerbottom’s books to raise or lower her sanity.

Disadvantages
Wurt can’t eat meat, but gets 33% more hunger from everything else. Pigmen attack her, and she can’t trade with the pig king. She loses

Personal thoughts
She has some fun downsides, but her merms take a long time to get set up.

Walter

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Moderate
Best Strength: Exploration

Advantages
Walter starts the game with Woby, a companion that can hold 9 items. If fed monster meat she grows into a mount, offering a large movement speed bonus. He can craft many slingshot ammo, which aren’t good for general combat but are versatile tools useful for things like freezing enemies or killing certain things like birds and tentacles. He can craft a portable tent, loses half hunger while sleeping, and doesn’t lose sanity from any normal non-magical sources.

He has the minor perks of being able to tell campfire stories to restore sanity to himself and nearby teammates if it’s nighttime, cooking twice as quickly (which lets him cook on Willow’s lighter), and gaining sanity when in the woods.

Disadvantages
Walter loses sanity when he gets hit, and loses it over time while injured. He gains no sanity from clothing. He takes bonus damage from bees.

Personal thoughts
Underrated character.

Wanda

Power: Moderate
Difficulty: Moderate
Best Strength: Being on the same world for 10,000 days

Advantages
Depending on how low her health is she can gain a 0%, 20%, or 75% damage bonus with shadow weapons. Depending on how low her health is she gains more resistance to the sanity drain of staves (0%, 50%, 75% less) and worn equipment (0%, 67%, 100% less).

Wanda can craft an alarming clock, (essentially a refuelable dark sword that can cheese certain enemies), ageless watch (her only way to heal, which is free but on a 2 minute cooldown), backstep watch (teleports her back to where she was a few steps ago), and rift watch (teleports her to where she sets the anchor point, can go across the map).

Disadvantages
She can only heal with her watches, which have a rather lengthy cooldown, aren’t cheap to make, and don’t stack so they each require their own inventory slot. While at low health she crafts & works slower, with a damage penalty on non-shadow magic attacks and inability to carry heavy objects.

Personal thoughts
She’s basically just a harder and worse version of Wolfgang for the most part. Wolfgang does 100% more damage for basically free, while Wanda needs to be using shadow equipment on death’s door to only deal 75% more damage. Instead of a universally useful +50% work speed she can create rift watches to teleport around the map, which is incredibly useful, but with how expensive they are to make by the time they actually start saving you time you don’t need to save time since you’ve done everything already. If you’ve been on the same world for hundreds of hours she has great power, but at that point you don’t need that power. For the most part she’s pretty average if not underwhelming when compared to the other characters.

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