Shadow-aligned skills need a buff

[GhostyToasty]

Currently, every single Survivor is better off using their Lunar alignment rather than their shadow alignment, which sucks. As a shadow enjoyer myself, I wish to be able to side with the shadows without having a worse version of the Skiltrees

[Jakepeng99]

Woodie's is better than the lunar one by a landslide, but yeah you are right for the rest.

[Mysterious box]

27 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Woodie's is better than the lunar one by a landslide, but yeah you are right for the rest.

I was just about to say this I can't ever fine a good reason to use his lunar skill as Woodie when the curse Mastery tree already exists and I felt the same back when it was in beta.

[grm9]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I can't ever fine a good reason to use his lunar skill as Woodie

it's probably for playing with moonstorms or a wickerbottom 

[Mysterious box]

7 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it's probably for playing with moonstorms or a wickerbottom 

The curse mastery already fixes that which I already said.

[Jakepeng99]

31 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I was just about to say this I can't ever fine a good reason to use his lunar skill as Woodie when the curse Mastery tree already exists and I felt the same back when it was in beta.

The lunar alignment feels like a noob trap. I actually feel like the full moons are an advantage most the time if i plan it. Yes, even during moonstorms.

[MadMatt]

6 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The lunar alignment feels like a noob trap. I actually feel like the full moons are an advantage most the time if i plan it. Yes, even during moonstorms.

Definitely not a noob trap during moonstorms. It's nice to not have to waste a minute per day when doing tasks for marginal gain considering nightmare creatures aren't a threat during night, in moonstorms, or on lunar island when you fight CC. Maybe you have a point if you aren't going for CC and want to just keep moonstorms, but shadow affinity doesn't have enough staying power to warrant not taking lunar if you're doing that given how much more convenient not randomly transforming is.

That said yeah lunar affinity sucks. I NEVER take it when starting and ONLY swap to it when I activate moonstorms using celestial portal. There's genuinely zero reason not to. Why would I waste a perk point on something that has an effect once every two HOURS??? Wickerbottom is the only early factor but this assumes you're playing with a friend who does this which you can easily play around with communication, or a wickerbottom pub player (fat chance). Shadow affinity is not only really useful for early fights and ruins but just infinitely more fun to play with. Lunar affinity is the one thing about Woodie's skill tree that I'm really disappointed didn't get looked over, it's such a bland perk that only serves to make chores a bit easier late into the game.

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

The curse mastery already fixes that which I already said.

it doesn't, you still need to wait during like a minute every time night starts if you aren't doing something in a wereform and your hunger just gets set to 26 instead of 0 and sanity drain is the same         

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, grm9 said:

it doesn't, you still need to wait during like a minute every time night starts if you aren't doing something in a wereform and your hunger just gets set to 26 instead of 0 and sanity drain is the same 

To each their own I guess even with moonstorms I just don't find the lunar affinity worthwhile though maybe it's a playstyle difference.

4 hours ago, MadMatt said:

shadow affinity doesn't have enough staying power to warrant not taking lunar if you're doing that given how much more convenient not randomly transforming is.

Idk I feel like turning moose into a bone helm during boss fights is fairly useful.

[MadMatt]

13 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Idk I feel like turning moose into a bone helm during boss fights is fairly useful.

Yeah until you get the actual bone helm, which is pretty simple if you use treeguards. By the point of activating moonstorms AFW should be dead, so yeah it's good early but not within the timeframe we're talking about.

[Mysterious box]

41 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

Yeah until you get the actual bone helm, which is pretty simple if you use treeguards. By the point of activating moonstorms AFW should be dead, so yeah it's good early but not within the timeframe we're talking about.

I mean sure but the moose can't wear a bone helm you know...

[MadMatt]

9 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I mean sure but the moose can't wear a bone helm you know...

Okay and what bosses does this shadow affinity prove so useful for? Toadstool, NMWP, AG, Shadow Pieces, and Twins are the only ones where this perk actually shines, and almost half of those are non-raid bosses. Other bosses it's either useless (CK/CC) or they don't drain sanity enough to get that much value out of it. Almost all of these bosses you would have killed by the time AFW is dead, and especially when you're getting to fight CC.

It's good but drops off, you're overvaluing its effects even though it doesn't actually have much of an effect if at all in about half the boss fights.

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, MadMatt said:

Okay and what bosses does this shadow affinity prove so useful for? Toadstool, NMWP, AG, Shadow Pieces, and Twins are the only ones where this perk actually shines, and almost half of those are non-raid bosses. Other bosses it's either useless (CK/CC) or they don't drain sanity enough to get that much value out of it. Almost all of these bosses you would have killed by the time AFW is dead, and especially when you're getting to fight CC.

It's good but drops off, you're overvaluing its effects even though it doesn't actually have much of an effect if at all in about half the boss fights.

Personally I use the moose in and outside of boss fights a fair bit so maybe that's why I find it more useful as I don't tend to top my stats off often when I play as Woodie so I never really feel that drop off. It's not a required skill or anything but I find it more helpful than some alternatives skills.

[MadMatt]

7 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Personally I use the moose in and outside of boss fights a fair bit

I get this and do too, particularly for ruins, but insanity is not a real danger otherwise while doing some random fighting of spiders or bees or whatever. Ruins are pretty early since it's a per-requisite to summon moonstorms so it adds to my point about how it falls off in usefulness around moonstorm time.

11 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

more useful as I don't tend to top my stats off often when I play as Woodie so I never really feel that drop off.

I play exactly like this too actually... it's just idk it doesn't actually register as a huge benefit, not enough to justify wasting 10% of my playtime during moonstorms when I could just get 24 moon nuggets and 2 purple gems. If I didn't have shadow affinity and needed to not have nightmare creatures spawn while in wereform then I'd just cook some cactus flesh or green caps which are easy to come by, so for day to day gaming it's a minor convenience but not worth the major inconvenience of moonstorms.

[Popian]

Wolfgang can one cycle (Deerclops ice circle)/skip (Bearger running butt slam, Varg coldfire) corpse boss phases with shadow alignment, and helps with farming Celestial Champion.

Would agree that lunar is better before that point or if you want to focus more on caves drops, but shadow-aligned mobs have low enough hp that it probably doesn't make too much of a difference.

[Bird Up]

I think because the game was based upon the shadow magic, and lunar content is relatively new, that it is only a matter of time that lunar skill tree will become better. There's still a lot more content to come, and much of it is lunar related.

[somethin]

Lunar is simply superior due to the fact that insanity spawns shadow creatures which you need to fight, but for the lunar side we just have... *check notes* gestalts. That's it. They have to add an equivalent of shadow creatures that are hostile to the lunar side to really make shadow way more worth it. Doesn't help that most shadow skill are arguably worse than lunar ones (except maybe Wilson, since farming post-rift materials for shadows needs you to be in caves and are kind of annoying to farm)

[Primalflower]

This is a fact that will naturally change as there comes more lunar enemies. It doesnt need to be directly addressed. It will become better as time goes on.

[Antynomity]

We need the moon side more fleshed out in the early game. If you compare the volume of lunar content to shadow content pre-rift that in it of itself makes it not worth taking the shadow skill until the rifts are open because there's quite literally nothing 'lunar' that you can fight on a daily basis compared to the ever abundant shadow creatures that you can spawn in just by being insane and get valuable nightmare fuel from.

1 hour ago, Primalflower said:

This is a fact that will naturally change as there comes more lunar enemies. It doesnt need to be directly addressed. It will become better as time goes on.

Only post rift.

[Primalflower]

1 minute ago, Antynomity said:

Only post rift.

the skills only unlock once you defeat the relevant final boss

[Antynomity]

Just now, Primalflower said:

the skills only unlock once you defeat the relevant final boss

This would make a great argument if you didn't unlock those skills forever for every single world you play, expecting people to only play in one world for the rest of their lives is unrealistic.

[Primalflower]

7 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

This would make a great argument if you didn't unlock those skills forever for every single world you play, expecting people to only play in one world for the rest of their lives is unrealistic.

please don't be rude. you're not directly insulting me, but you're using pretty hostile language. I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way about the way you sometimes carry yourself on the forums. we're all adults here. have a conversation, my dude. My argument is just that in order to get to a point where you're even using the alignment skills in the first place, you're naturally going to be in a spot where they're going to be more and more relevant. It's important to treat skills in the context of what they are, something you can opt in and out of when its contextually relevant, and the alignment ones are only even going to become an option at first right when rifts happen. Later playthroughs of the game where you start fresh, you should absolutely be allowed and perhaps even encouraged to skip out on alignment for a time in order to invest points elsewhere, and then get them back when it becomes relevant again.

[Antynomity]

1 hour ago, Primalflower said:

please don't be rude. you're not directly insulting me, but you're using pretty hostile language. I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way about the way you sometimes carry yourself on the forums. we're all adults here. have a conversation, my dude. My argument is just that in order to get to a point where you're even using the alignment skills in the first place, you're naturally going to be in a spot where they're going to be more and more relevant. It's important to treat skills in the context of what they are, something you can opt in and out of when its contextually relevant, and the alignment ones are only even going to become an option at first right when rifts happen. Later playthroughs of the game where you start fresh, you should absolutely be allowed and perhaps even encouraged to skip out on alignment for a time in order to invest points elsewhere, and then get them back when it becomes relevant again.

I agree, I did write that message in a way that it makes me look very hostile. Fair points.

[Jakepeng99]

On 12/15/2023 at 6:56 PM, MadMatt said:

Definitely not a noob trap during moonstorms. It's nice to not have to waste a minute per day when doing tasks for marginal gain considering nightmare creatures aren't a threat during night, in moonstorms, or on lunar island when you fight CC. Maybe you have a point if you aren't going for CC and want to just keep moonstorms, but shadow affinity doesn't have enough staying power to warrant not taking lunar if you're doing that given how much more convenient not randomly transforming is.

That said yeah lunar affinity sucks. I NEVER take it when starting and ONLY swap to it when I activate moonstorms using celestial portal. There's genuinely zero reason not to. Why would I waste a perk point on something that has an effect once every two HOURS??? Wickerbottom is the only early factor but this assumes you're playing with a friend who does this which you can easily play around with communication, or a wickerbottom pub player (fat chance). Shadow affinity is not only really useful for early fights and ruins but just infinitely more fun to play with. Lunar affinity is the one thing about Woodie's skill tree that I'm really disappointed didn't get looked over, it's such a bland perk that only serves to make chores a bit easier late into the game.

The shadow perk grants extra damage against celestial champion too. And i agree, the lunar perk is really badly designed.