Wolfgang

Wolfgang
Curio Cabinet Bio	Wolfgang is an affable, musclebound giant with a heart plagued by a myriad of phobias.

“Mind says no. Muscles say yes!”

–Wolfgang

Wolfgang is the second playable Character in Don't Starve that can be unlocked via Experience, with 320 XP, and one of the playable Characters in Don't Starve Together (DST). He is a simple-minded Strongman who is very boastful about his might.

When he has a high amount of Hunger, he moves faster, does more damage, and has more Health than most other Characters. On the other hand, he becomes weaker when his Hunger is low. Wolfgang also has a larger maximum Hunger at a value of 300, but it will decrease faster or slower depending on how full it is. Wolfgang will become scared when in the Dark or near Monsters or any other negative sanity aura, however, resulting in increased Sanity loss. His perks give him great advantages during both melee and ranged combat, easily dispatching even the toughest foes at full Hunger, but leaves him exposed when his stomach is empty. Overall, Wolfgang is a very powerful Character, able to withstand the toughest foes, though his drawbacks can be tough to manage for inexperienced players.

Special Power

Wolfgang's special power is his Mightiness level, which increases or decreases depending on the amount of Hunger he has. 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 1.5x 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 or above. 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 1.25x and 2x and he will also receive up to a 25% speed boost.

Because of this physical upgrade, Wolfgang's Hunger decreases between 1.5x and 3x 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 2x more damage, at 299 Hunger he'll do 1.99x 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 0.75x and 0.5x depending on Hunger.

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

Disadvantage

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. If the player has no Sanity recovering Items it is recommended that they sleep through the Night to avoid Sanity drain, since it's harder to refill than Hunger.

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.
• 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 DST Wolfgang's favorite food is Roasted Potato, meaning that he gains 15 bonus Hunger points when consuming the food.

Trivia

In-Game

• Wolfgang was added on October 2nd, 2012 when the game was still in Beta. Like Willow and Wendy before him, he had no special power when implemented and the only thing that differentiated him from Wilson was the lack of a Beard. It was only on November 13, 2012 that an update added perks for the current playable Characters.
• In his early concept, Wolfgang had a bald head.

  

  Wolfgang in-game look before Strange New Powers Update

• Wolfgang's previous perk, before the Strange New Powers update, was 75 more Health and Hunger (maximum of 225 each), and a 1.5x damage multiplier, similar to his current Mighty Form. He also looked like his Mighty form all the time, though with an intact costume and less arm muscles.
• Wolfgang's voice is played by a tuba, which changes in pitch depending on his current form.
• After the "Strange New Powers" update, because of Wolfgang's Hunger drain multiplier mechanic, timewise it takes him 198 normal Hunger points (exactly 21m7s or around 2.5 in-game days) to get from 300 to 0 Hunger making him slightly less Hunger resistant than a fully upgraded WX-78. Mighty form lasts only 3 minutes and 56 seconds if not sustained.
• Thanks to his perk, Wolfgang is the character with both the highest and lowest damage output in the game. When full Mighty he can do 136 damage in melee combat with a Dark Sword and 200 damage at range with a Blow Dart. In the same way when fully starving he can do as low as 2.125 damage when wielding a Bug Net or Fishing Rod and 13.6 damage with a Boomerang.
  • In RoG, thanks to the Morning Star, Wolfgang can do as high as 144 damage to wet targets. His DPS even surpasses that of the Dragonfly.
  • In DST, thanks to the Electric Dart, Wolfgang can do as high as 300 damage at range to wet targets.
    • In SW, with the highest Hunger, Wolfgang can use the Cutlass Supreme to also deal 136 damage in melee combat, in a similar vein to the Dark Sword, but with different perks; if attacking the Sealnado, the damage output can be as high as 170. Past that, the damage dealt is even higher in SW. Thanks to the Trident, Wolfgang can do as high as 204 damage in melee while on Boats; and thanks to the Harpoon, he can do as high as 400 damage at range.
• Despite his mustache, he cannot grow a Beard, stating his skin is too strong for hair.
• Wolfgang has a skull in the game files.
• Wolfgang was previously unlocked after Wendy.
• Mighty Wolfgang's scale is 1.25. That makes him the tallest of the playable Characters while in this form. His Wimpy form, on the other hand, has a smaller scale of 0.9, thus making him the shortest of them.
  • The size of items he's equipping also changes with his forms. They're smaller when he's Wimpy and bigger when he's Mighty.
• If the player saves the game while Wolfgang's Hunger is between 220-225 or 100-105 points and in the Mighty or Normal form respectively, when they reload Wolfgang will be one form weaker. That happens because the game considers Normal form to be between 105 and 225 points and Wimpy form between 0-105 points, even though to get from Mighty to Normal, he needs to be below 220 points, and from Normal to Wimpy below 100.
• Wolfgang is the only character that when struck by Lightning in DLCs is shown to have a normal human skeleton.
• Wolfgang was added to Don't Starve Together with the ...In with the New update, making him the first character to be added after the initial closed Beta release of DST.
• When examining the Hibearnation Vest he says "Is like hair on Wolfgang chest.", despite having no visible chest hair neither in-game nor in promotional art. His Triumphant and Magmatic skins are the only exceptions.

Lore

• It is implied that Wolfgang was a strongman working in a circus.
  • In the circus poster from the 4th William Carter Puzzle, the acrobat on the elephant is wearing a unitard similar to Wolfgang's. The poster also advertises a strongman act.
  • According to flavor text associated with the Wolfgang vignette from The Forge event, Wolfgang had been a member of a "troupe", possibly referring to a circus troupe.
  • The name of his Roseate body skin is "Circus Rose Attire".
  • He mentions that "Argh! Taking down big circus tent was easier than this!" when failing to lower a sail in Don't Starve Together.
• It is also implied that Wolfgang was in a military.
  • The flavor text from the Wolfgang vignette from The Forge mentions him being a member of a "troop".
  • His Guest of Honor body skin is called a Mess Dress, which is an outfit worn by military officers for formal occasions.
  • When examining a domesticated docile Beefalo, he says it reminds him of the "cavalry".
• Some of Wolfgang's mannerisms imply a vague ethnic background made up of different European stereotypes. For example, when examining Frog Legs, he states "Is delicacy in my country!", suggesting that his nationality could be French. However, the name Wolfgang itself has German origins.
  • When examining a Hammer, he states "Needs sickle!", which could suggest a Soviet or Communist origin.
  • When examining the Hermit Home, he states "This no place for someone's babushka.", implying that he is of Russian origin.
    • Babushka is Russian for "grandmother".
• When examining a Pitchfork, he states "Reminds me of childhood" suggesting that he may have grown up on a farm.
• From his examination quotes of the Catcoon and ruined Hollow Stump it seems like Wolfgang does not like cats. When examining the Sharkitten he says that he prefers dogs.
• In DST, Maxwell's quote for the Air Unfreshener describes Wolfgang's smell as if his wardrobe was filled with Unfresheners. Willow's quote for the Unfreshener reveals that she put one in Wolfgang's unitard when he wasn't looking.
• In DST, his quote for Wendy, Wendy's quote for Wolfgang, and Wendy's quote for the Red Moonlens heavily imply that Wolfgang is scared of Wendy.
• Wolfgang's loading screen vignette is accompanied by text that reveals a bit about himself: Whether in troupes or troops, Wolfgang has always thrived on the spirit of camaraderie. He considers the day he joined the survivors to be the moment his luck finally took a turn for the better.
• Wolfgang is about in his 40's.
• Kevin Forbes has hinted that something about Wolfgang's weak form fits into his "secret backstory."
• Wolfgang's birthday is listed as October 2 in the Compendium.
  • October 2, 2012 is the day Wolfgang was added to Don't Starve's Beta.

Cultural References

• Wolfgang's rather unusual quotes may be a reference to the phrase "brains over brawn," in that he has only the latter.
• Wolfgang's eating mechanics may be a reference to strongman training diets which entail eating 10,000 calories a day.
• Wolfgang's Contender skin is a possible reference to Hulk Hogan, due to the bandanna and sunglasses.

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.

Gallery

Wolfgang Silhouette. Wolfgang's portrait. Wolfgang's different character models as they appear in-game. Wolfgang's icon on the Map. The size of Wolfgang's forms compared to Wilson. Note the Football Helmet's and Walking Cane's different sizes. Wolfgang going from Normal form to Wimpy form. Wolfgang going from Mighty form to Normal form. Wolfgang going from Wimpy form to Normal form. Wolfgang going from Normal form to Mighty form. Wolfgang's forms frozen by Deerclops in the Reign of Giants DLC. Wolfgang put to sleep by a Cooked Mandrake. Wolfgang's forms struck by Lightning in the Reign of Giants DLC. Due to a bug, Wolfgang's mustache disappears while moving with the Tam o'Shanter equipped. Wolfgang's ghost in DST. Wolfgang Guest of Honor Skin Portrait.png Portrait of Wolfgang's "Guest of Honor" skin in DST. Wolfgang Survivor Skin Portrait.png Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Survivor" skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Triumphant" skin in DST. Wolfgang's Hallowed Nights MacTusk costume skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Gladiator" skin in DST. Wolfgang Rose.png Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Roseate" skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Snowfallen" skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Victorian" skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Magmatic" skin in DST. Portrait of Wolfgang's "The Giant" skin in DST. Wolfgang in a loading screen for Don't Starve Together. Wolfgang in a loading screen for Don't Starve Together. Wolfgang's skull as found in the game's files. Wolfgang as he appears in the trailer for the Strange New Powers update. Wolfgang running from a Shadow Bishop as seen in the A New Reign trailer. Wolfgang as seen in The Forge cinematic. Wolfgang in his Warrior skin as seen in The Forge cinematic. Wolfgang as seen in The Forge cinematic. Wolfgang in a loading screen vignette only obtainable during The Forge event. Wolfgang in the animated poster for the "...In with the new" update for Don't Starve Together. Wolfgang alongside other characters in a promo image for Don't Starve Together. Wolfgang alongside other characters as seen in a promo image for DST leaving Early Access. Wolfgang trying to attack two No-Eyed Deer as seen in a drawing from an episode of Rhymes with Play. Wolfgang as seen in a drawing from Rhymes with Play #220. Concept art of Wolfgang and other characters. Wolfgang in a Valentine's Day comic for DST. Wolfgang's 2016 Valentine Card. Wolfgang as seen on the 2017 Valentine Cards. Wolfgang as seen on the 2018 Valentine Cards. Wolfgang's early design during the game's Alpha phase. Wolfgang's Steam Trading Card for Don't Starve. Wolfgang's foil Steam Trading Card for Don't Starve. Wolfgang in the expanded Steam Card. Wolfgang and Wickerbottom in a Steam Trading Card for DST. Wolfgang and Wickerbottom in the Foil version of the Steam Trading Card for DST. Wolfgang in the expanded DST Steam Card. A Wolfgang figurine holding a Hammer. Circus poster advertising a Strongman believed to be Wolfgang, from the William Carter Puzzles. Wolfgang in a loading screen for the Year of the Gobbler event. Wolfgang in a Vignette from Winter's Feast 2018. Wolfgang, Wilson, and Wendy in a promotional image for the 2020 roadmap. Wolfgang with his fellow cohorts in an image for DST. Portraits by Cheol Joo Lee that were handed out as prizes for a mod contest for Tencent players.

Sounds

Wolfgang's voice.
Wolfgang getting hurt.
Wolfgang dying.
Wolfgang growing from Wimpy to Regular, then Regular to Mighty.
Wolfgang shrinking from Mighty to Regular, then Regular to Wimpy.
Wolfgang drowning ().
Wolfgang sinking ().
Wolfgang's ghost voice ().
Wolfgang's voice as he performs the /pose emote ().
Wolfgang sighing, as part of the /sleepy emote ().
Wolfgang yawning, as part of the /yawn emote ().
Wolfgang singing the Starver's Carol, as part of the /carol emote ().