Willow, Webber, and Wurt are the three most underwhelming characters in the game right now. Their stated upsides are tempered by unusually sucky downsides, awkward or time-consuming costs, and mechanics that get in the way of teamplay. However each of these characters is so close to being great with only a couple of changes needed.
Willow
Willow's bonuses seem great on paper, her lighter, partial fire immunity, bonus sanity near fires, and Bernie, but in practice they often end up being awkward to use if not downright bad for her team. Bonus sanity gain & fire immunity work great together, allowing Willow to keep her sanity high while roaming in the early game as she lights trees up with her lighter. In this early stage of the game (default being Autumn), Willow excels able to continuously scout without spending resources and usually without draining sanity. However as soon as a basing area is picked out these bonuses flip to being awkward to use, if not outright bad. Lighting trees up is not an option when those trees are needed for logging to support base building. God forbid an uncontrollable fire gets into base. Bernie is a fun idea, but in practice he usually just ends up being a worse Abigail. Willow needs to be low sanity to activate Bernie, but all of her other abilities are built around keeping her sanity high. Willow has to choose between activating Bernie or keeping her sanity up, the end result being that one or the other feels redundant depending on how you play. What other character has bonuses that so directly conflict? This is not to mention her downside, lower cold resistance, which makes gathering essential winter resources such as Walrus Tusks, the Deerclops Eyeball, and Blue Gems especially difficult in first Winter. This ends up hurting new players especially hard, and coupled with the difficulty of controlling fires makes Willow a terrible starting character.
- We need some way to activate Bernie at high sanity. Some kind of limited use item that can't be activated constantly, but allows for summing Bernie in a pinch. This would give Willow an interesting boss/hound wave option while also allowing her to actually use all of her mechanics at the same time. Perhaps this could be a food item (perhaps even an existing one, like Pumpkin Cookies), thus functioning like Warly's spices.
- Bernie should activate with Enlightenment of any level. Right now Bernie activates with low sanity or high enlightenment. Bernie activates opposite to the state that Willow really wants to be. This would be an easy solution that would make Bernie an always-on feature on the Lunar Island and thus an essential part of Willow's strategy in the Celestial Champion fight.
- A unique & cheap version of the Winter Vest. Ala Walter's unique bed roll, this would be a bonus most relevant for newer players that would make that first difficult season far more manageable. Additionally this would be a nice shareable bonus that's easy to understand & use.
Wurt
Like Willow, Wurt's biggest issue isn't any one particular bonus or downside so much as how awkward it is to maximize these various benefits. Specifically the Merm King, who not only requires a minibase set up but also requires continuous feeding. Not to mention you need a second King for the Caves. He movement bonus is awesome and she is definitely a great choice for any game as a Reed-gatherer & Tentacle Spot-farmer. However Marshy turf has a visual issue especially when insane or on lower brightness settings in that it just looks solid black. I've had players I introduced the game to comment that they thought the terrain was bugged upon first encountering marshy turf in the Mosaic biome because it just looked like a black hole. Wurt's veganism is a continuous challenge, one that unfortunately locks Wurt out of the best recipes in the game (most importantly the highly efficient Meat Stew, Pierogi, and Jelly Salad). Her fish sanity bonus is also quite awkward since it requires regular fishing and will actually reverse the bonus when the fish actually expires. It seems like Wurt is meant to have a second home at sea, but unfortunately she struggles to find food out there. Ironically she's one of the worst characters at oceangoing despite being so far one of only two characters (the other being Wes) with a specific ocean bonus.
- Surface Merm King bonus extends to the Caves. Quality of life upgrade that would make the costs associated with building a Merm King & keeping him alive much more manageable.
- Merm King doesn't die if he is not fed, with the feeding required for the Wurt stat buffs not his survival. Again this cuts the time needed to maintain a Merm King down significantly without really changing how the bonus functions.
- A fed Merm King makes nearby Merms neutral. This was suggested in another thread as a way to make basing with Wurt & other players actually doable.
- Increase the contrast between the two tones of Marshy turf so it doesn't just show up as black.
- Allow Wurt to eat Leafy Meat and Leafy Meat-specific recipes (such as Jelly Salad). This would open up Wurt's food options substantially, especially when at sea. This would also give Wigfrid & Wurt some overlap so they're actually playable with each other.
- Allow Wurt to eat Barnacles & Barnacle specific recipes. Like the Leafy Meat suggestion, this is to open up Wurt's game while at sea.
- Wurt no longer loses sanity when holding fish morsels/fish meat. Gives a grace period when live fish die before Wurt starts losing sanity.
- Basic Fishing rods no longer cost Silk and can be made without Science Machines, instead only costing Rope and being able to be crafted without tech. Allows Wurt to use her sanity bonus in the first few days of the game while roaming, before encounter Gold or Spiders. Also opens up Freshwater Fish as a cool early game resource, rather than a poor alternative to other meats that can't be easily farmed.
- Buff the Veggie Burger to 40 or even 50 healing. This would give Wurt a viable alternative to Pierogi provided her Leafy Meat restriction is lifted. It would also be relevant for many other characters who do a lot of farming, especially Warly.
Webber
Webber's a weird character. He's got some cool & interesting mechanics, but he's unfortunately held back by a few crucial details. Most importantly the balance of spiders is still a bit whack. Spiders are remarkably strong in some fights, strong to the point of cheesiness (notably Meese/Geese have no resistances to spider swarms), but practically a liability in others (Monster Meat dropped on the ground can deaggro Bearger and the additional melee targets can cause Klaus to cast more spells). However perhaps the biggest issue is how efficient they are at generating Monster Meat. In conjunction with any other character with an AOE attack (Winona or Woodie), Webber can set up ridiculous farms in the very first autumn that make meat a non-issue for the rest of the game (not to mention the Silk). The biggest issue with Webber however is that his bonuses cannot easily be incorporated into a base with other non-Webbers. His speed bonus is relative to spider dens, which lose their bedazzling to a stiff breeze. His spider army is also unbelievably loud which makes the already somewhat repetitive sound of the game even more tiresome.
- Friendly spiders produce a third as much noise, perhaps even quieter. This could be a gameplay setting "Suppress Companion Noise", as other companions have a similar decibel-raising effect (such as Glommer's "BUZZ BUSS BYZZ")
- Webber can place permanent webbing as a new turf. This allows him to create the same type of "monster roads" as Wurt. Webbed turf wouldn't slow mobs, so there'd still be a good reason to use den webbing.
- Beddazzled dens occasionally drop Silk & Spider Glands. This allows Webber to be neutral with Spiders rather than cannibalistic. Perhaps this could be limited to when he sleeps in a den, so you can only gain the benefit once a day.
- Bedazzled dens only go wild when hit by a large attack, such as from a boss or damage-buffed player, not from small attacks or incidental damage.
- Spiders no longer drop Monster Meat. Instead they drop Monster Morsels, which are Monster Meat but with a food value of 0.25.
- Moose/Goose can longer be stunlocked and gets +1500 HP. Yes this makes it harder to bring one down, but they currently don't even feel like a boss. Spider Queens are more dangerous now that Nurse Spiders exist.
- Spiders gets a debuff when healed by a Nurse Spider that prevents other Nurse Spiders from healing them for a couple seconds. Spider Queen wars can now last for days, this would go a long way to stopping that. Webber would be unaffected, so he'd still benefit from spamming Nurses in fights.
- Shaving a den gives two Silk instead of one. Right now Webber's best option for Silk is to use some Winona catapults or a Woodie in Moose form to run over a hoard of regular spiders. That's pretty out of character and doesn't fit with his voicelines. This gives another neutral source of Silk that makes keeping a number of dens around for shaving much more viable.
- We really need a second source of Silk than Spiders, since Silk is such a core resource. Tea Bushes that grow Silk Worms would be my suggestion. Tea Bushes are to Spiders as Grass is to Grass Geckos.