Wolfgang/Don't Starve (2024)

Wolfgang's special power is his Mightiness level. There are three stages of Mightiness which give Wolfgang different physical appearances and stats.

When riding a Beefalo, Wolfgang has a external speed multiplier equal to the reciprocal of his scale. In other words, he gets faster when he gets more mighty.

Regular Form:
This is Wolfgang's starting form. His appearance is that of a slim fit man, visibly having thicker arms than other characters. He starts with 200 Health, and has no bonuses to damage or speed. Wolfgang will stay in this form if his Hunger is between 100 and 225.

In this form, Wolfgang's Hunger decreases 1.5× faster than normal. Unlike his two other forms the magnitude of these modifiers are not related to his Hunger level.

Mighty Form:
This is Wolfgang's buffed form. It's a temporary physical upgrade that is activated when Wolfgang's Hunger goes to 225-300. When this form is achieved the top of Wolfgang's costume will be ripped off, he'll gain numerous arm muscles, and his head and mustache will become bigger. When in this state he'll also become taller.

His maximum Health will go from the regular 200 up to 300 depending on Hunger. He will receive a damage bonus between 1.25× and 2× and he will also receive up to a 25% speed boost. The speed boost is in DS only .

Because of this physical upgrade, Wolfgang's Hunger decreases between 1.5× and 3× faster than normal.

The magnitude of all these modifiers will also linearly decrease as Wolfgang's Hunger is drained. E.g. at 300 Hunger he will do 2× more damage, at 299 Hunger he'll do 1.99× and so on.

Wimpy Form:
Wolfgang's debuff is a physical downgrade when at 100 Hunger or less. His appearance will become a sad and more pathetic-looking version of himself. In this state he'll also become shorter.

His maximum Health goes from 200 down to 150 and his damage will be between 0.75× and 0.5× depending on Hunger.

Wolfgang's movement speed will gradually go down to 90% in this state and his Hunger will decrease between 1.5× and 1× the normal rate.

The magnitude of these modifiers will linearly decrease in value as Wolfgang becomes more hungry. E.g. at 100 Hunger he will have 200 Health, at 98 Hunger he'll have 199 Health and so on.

Disadvantages

Wolfgang will stop and show an animation when changing forms, leaving him vulnerable for a couple of seconds. This can be extremely dangerous when running from enemies. Because he's Nyctophobic (someone greatly afraid of the dark), Wolfgang suffers from 10% greater Sanity drain from Monsters and the dark, so a little more care should be taken with sanity management. The effect only extends to those two cases though, meaning that other things that drain sanity (e.g. Evil Flowers, Dark Sword, Night Light etc.) will drain it at the same rate as they normally do.

His perks give him great advantages during both melee and ranged combat, easily dispatching even the toughest foes at full hunger/mightiness, but leaves him exposed when his hunger/mightiness is low. Overall, Wolfgang is a very powerful Character, able to withstand the toughest foes, though his drawbacks can be tough to manage for inexperienced players.

Tips

Main article: Guides/Character guide - Wolfgang, The Strongman

• A Belt of Hunger will nullify Wolfgang's Hunger problems. This along with the fact that it provides some Sanity regeneration and extends his Mighty form to last about 5 minutes and a half, makes it an excellent item for this Character.
  • In the Reign of Giants (RoG) DLC players are able to craft a Hibearnation Vest which also provides a Hunger drain reduction albeit not as big as the Belt of Hunger. That said, the Hibearnation Vest provides the highest insulation against cold and more than twice the Sanity regeneration of the Belt, making it more desirable in Winter even after the player has secured a Belt of Hunger.
  • The above items are not obtainable in the Shipwrecked (SW) DLC until players find the Seaworthy and travel to a vanilla/RoG world. Until then, players can easily kill and feed on Crabbits and Jellyfishes along with the easily collected Limpets and Seaweed. The abundance of those sources of food makes it possible to keep Wolfgang in his Mighty form while exploring.
• In , when the player is lacking Hunger drain reduction items, it is advised they stay with as low a Hunger level as possible during general gameplay and only eat to avoid starvation or just before a fight. That way they'll avoid the big Hunger drain of the Normal and Mighty forms and be out of danger since the penalties when staying Wimpy are only relevant during a fight.
• Since Wolfgang's Sanity drain penalty only applies to the dark and Monsters and is so small, it's fairly easy to overcome. Even in a "Light's Out" world, picking a Flower a day will even out the Sanity drain with other Characters. When fighting Monsters in Mighty form, Wolfgang will actually lose less Sanity than other Characters, due to the fights being shorter, resulting in less exposure to the insanity aura.
  • A Tam o' Shanter provides 6.7 /min, being a great Item to manage Wolfgang's Sanity. It not only stops Sanity drain at Night even for him, but it lasts very long and even provides insulation against the cold. Sleeping in a Tent or eating Taffy, Cooked Green Caps, Jerky or Pumpkin Cookies is also desirable when trying to get big amounts of Sanity back quickly.
    • A Hibearnation Vest in RoG is also a good Sanity item with its 4.5 /min. What little sanity is lost at night will be regained back during the day in no time. This will be useful when the player wants to equip something else other than the Tam in the head slot.
      • In SW there are also different Crock Pot recipes that provide big amounts of Sanity like Banana Pop and Surf 'n' Turf.

• Time-lapse of Health to Hunger ratio for Wolfgang. From full health, right down to death.

  Due to the way Wolfgang's Health scales between forms it's better to heal when Wimpy and take damage when Mighty, since the healing and damage will be potentially doubled or halved when changing form respectively. This makes healing Items up to twice as effective with Wolfgang and attacks up to half as damaging.
  • This value is increased the more Meat Effigies the player has, ranking up to only 1/6 of the damage taken with 4 of them active. This happens because the health penalty from the effigy is a fixed value instead of a percentage of the max health. meaning Mighty Wolfgang has more than twice the health than Wimpy Wolfgang when using Meat Effigies.
• Despite looking like a logical food choice for Wolfgang, Meaty Stews are actually too unpredictable to be useful. Since none of his forms lasts more than 120 points, the Stew will never give back 150 points worth of Hunger and it spoils too fast to be stored as an emergency "Go-Mighty" food unless stored in a bundling wrap. This role befalls better on Bacon and Eggs for its high spoilage time, Dragonpie for being relatively cheap and quick to consume, or Meatballs for one of the best Hunger returned per ingredient and the versatility of the recipe.
• Several food items can be stored in a Bundling Wrap to be carried around and used whenever one needs to "Go Mighty"
• Apart from various traps and Gunpowder, the Weather Pain in RoG, Boat Cannon, Coconade, and Obsidian Coconade in SW and the Fire Staff are the only weapons not affected by Wolfgang's damage multipliers, making them effective even when Wolfgang is Wimpy.
• Due to the way the bonus damage is calculated on the Obsidian Spear, Axe and Machete in SW, they don't do as much damage as they normally would with Mighty Wolfgang, but on the other hand they won't do as low as they would with Wimpy Wolfgang making them still very good when used with him.
  • This loosely also applies to the Cutlass Supreme's bonus damage towards the Sealnado, as Wolfgang will not dish out 204 damage at the highest Hunger, but instead 170.
• In Wolfgang's favorite food is Roasted Potato, meaning that he gains 15 bonus when consuming the food.

Bugs

• While wearing some of the hats while in Normal form, Wolfgang's mustache will disappear when the player moves towards the top of the screen.

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