Why do people say Willow's Lunar affinity is better than Shadow affinity?

[Wauchi]

I want to specifically talk in regards to Shadow Fire-Raiser and Lunar Fire-Raiser.

Personally I am not a Willow main, but after watching lots of vids I don't quite get why people favor Lunar Affinity over Shadow Affinity. Like both of them deal 750 damage total damage as far as I am aware. Except you need to hold down Lunar version, as it does it's damage in multiple ticks of 50. But why do that when you can just 'cast n forget' with Shadow version? Like the range on Shadow version is crazy for the damage it deals. So much so that I feel you can cheese plenty of bosses with it. Sure it'll be costly but Ember is super easy to acquire with Spontaneous Combustion. Speaking of which, people say that Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets than Shadow single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have Spontaneous Combustion for. Like for the Bee Queen fight. Sure it doesn't quite kill the Grumble Bees, but it still sets them on fire, leading to them getting frightened and therefore not bothering you.

Last point is that Lunar does more damage than Shadow with enlightened crown. But at the stage of the game when you get enlightened crown, you've already beaten the game. If anything Lunar seems to deal less damage due to it having a long cooldown, whilst Shadow is pretty spammable with it's short cooldown. Bar if you have enough Ember to spare, which again I don't think is that hard to farm (find killer bee hives and you're set).

[Tranoze]

Why do you use Willow's affinity at all?

I want to specifically talk in regards to Willow's affinity.

Personally I am not a Willow main, but after watching your post I don't quite get why you favor Affinity over no Affinity at all. Like both of them deal damage as far as I am aware. Except you need to use skill Affinity version, as it does it's damage. But why do that when you can just press F? Like press F is crazy for the damage it deals. So much so that I feel you can cheese plenty of bosses with it. Sure it'll be costly but Weapon is super easy to acquire with anyway. Speaking of which, people say that Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets and Shadow vs single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have good old torch for. Like for the Bee Queen fight. Sure it doesn't quite kill the Grumble Bees, but it still sets them on fire, leading to them getting frightened and therefore not bothering you.

Last point is that Lunar and Shadow deal damage with enlightened crown. But at the stage of the game when you get enlightened crown, you've already beaten the game. If anything affinity seems to deal less damage due to it having a long cooldown, whilst holding F is pretty spammable with animation cancel. Bar if you have enough Banana shakes to spare, which again I don't think is that hard to farm (find splumonkey and you're set).

[Wauchi]

22 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

Why do you use Willow's affinity at all?

I want to specifically talk in regards to Willow's affinity.

Personally I am not a Willow main, but after watching your post I don't quite get why you favor Affinity over no Affinity at all. Like both of them deal damage as far as I am aware. Except you need to use skill Affinity version, as it does it's damage. But why do that when you can just press F? Like press F is crazy for the damage it deals. So much so that I feel you can cheese plenty of bosses with it. Sure it'll be costly but Weapon is super easy to acquire with anyway. Speaking of which, people say that Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets and Shadow vs single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have good old torch for. Like for the Bee Queen fight. Sure it doesn't quite kill the Grumble Bees, but it still sets them on fire, leading to them getting frightened and therefore not bothering you.

Last point is that Lunar and Shadow deal damage with enlightened crown. But at the stage of the game when you get enlightened crown, you've already beaten the game. If anything affinity seems to deal less damage due to it having a long cooldown, whilst holding F is pretty spammable with animation cancel. Bar if you have enough Banana shakes to spare, which again I don't think is that hard to farm (find splumonkey and you're set).

Holding F does deal a lot of damage, but it lacks range. Unless you use beached kelp or darts, which are both hard to get and deal little damage. Boomerang is a bit more manageable but still too little damage.

Range is busted as a lot of enemies were designed with implication of you going melee. Hence why affinity is useful. You get ranged options for just cost of ember, which is really easy to get. I suppose you can also do a good old Gunpowder cheese, but you need lots of nitrite. Which is harder to get later on.

As for the torch, it only frightens one by one in comparison to AOE from Spontaneous Combustion. And since you won't be using affinity, the fire won't last 30 seconds. Therefore by the time you set them all on fire, they'll quickly lose the status effect and continue getting in your way. Whilst with Spontaneous Combustion, you just wait until Bee Queen summoned all the Grumble bees, and cast the ability so they won't annoy you for those 30 seconds.

And as for the last point, yes you can hold F but once again you lack range. Which means you'll need to stock up on pirogis, armor, and weapons. Meanwhile with Willow you can just rack up embers pretty easily, and kill stuff from range where it is much harder for them to attack you. Also Splumonkeys are pretty hard to farm, due to them running away. So the only way to really efficiently farm them is to do so during their Shadow phase. Which most characters die to unless you are Wendy, as Abigail can deal with them. (Though I am curious to test whether Willow's Spontaneous Combustion can also clear them all out in a single burst)

[ChintzyGnat]

Dst players can't fathom anything other than holding f (they are scared of the 20 other keys on their keyboard)

[loopuleasa]

one is more fiery and people like the willow burn things aesthetics

[Theukon-dos]

Lunar Fire is an AOE. While shadow flames can hit multiple targets, the damage will be divided between them. Lunar though will deal full damage to anything and everything in it's area.

 

Shadow Flames have also historically been extremely unreliable. This has been fixed, but back during the beta for Wigfrid and Willow's beta, it was nearly impossible to hit a single target with all the flames. 

[-Variant]

25 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

This has been fixed, but back during the beta for Wigfrid and Willow's beta, it was nearly impossible to hit a single target with all the flames. 

Even after the like, vaguely 8 or so patches to it we still find ourselves with infinite looping Shadow flames and it missing entirely from time to time.
Better, certainly, but why risk it when you can just melt eevverryything with Lunar.

[Frosty_Mentos]

1 hour ago, ChintzyGnat said:

Dst players can't fathom anything other than holding f (they are scared of the 20 other keys on their keyboard)

Potato cup this comment

[NPCMaxwell]

20 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

Potato cup this comment

Until recently I wasn't aware of the force attack key [combat avoider here so this shouldn't be surprising I only found out under very oddly specific circumstances involving the tail-o-three-cats, a specific food mod and a pvp-in-non-pvp-servers-mod that there even was a way to force attack something [another survivor] in this game]. So definitely funny potatoe cup moment for me to read this DST players only use the F button on their keyboards comment. [I don't mean the potatoe cup as negative though]

1 hour ago, loopuleasa said:

one is more fiery and people like the willow burn things aesthetics

If I ever chose Willow as a main characters I would definitely make this choice and only this choice for exactly this reason and nothing else.

It simply doesn't always have to be gameplay reasons for people to play their favourite characters in a specific way [sometimes not even logical reasons.] But I mean with a game like DS/T where characters are all some kind of stereotype attached to them, it only makes sense people actually WANT to have this character trait be dominant [or even chose their charcacter only based on this one dominant trait, like my friend choose Wendy because of the morbid-child haunted by ghost sister trait]

[Valase]

3 hours ago, Tranoze said:

Why do you use Willow's affinity at all?

I want to specifically talk in regards to Willow's affinity.

Personally I am not a Willow main, but after watching your post I don't quite get why you favor Affinity over no Affinity at all. Like both of them deal damage as far as I am aware. Except you need to use skill Affinity version, as it does it's damage. But why do that when you can just press F? Like press F is crazy for the damage it deals. So much so that I feel you can cheese plenty of bosses with it. Sure it'll be costly but Weapon is super easy to acquire with anyway. Speaking of which, people say that Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets and Shadow vs single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have good old torch for. Like for the Bee Queen fight. Sure it doesn't quite kill the Grumble Bees, but it still sets them on fire, leading to them getting frightened and therefore not bothering you.

Last point is that Lunar and Shadow deal damage with enlightened crown. But at the stage of the game when you get enlightened crown, you've already beaten the game. If anything affinity seems to deal less damage due to it having a long cooldown, whilst holding F is pretty spammable with animation cancel. Bar if you have enough Banana shakes to spare, which again I don't think is that hard to farm (find splumonkey and you're set).

AI response?

[ChintzyGnat]

2 minutes ago, Valase said:

AI response?

Probally poor translate but it is boggling my mind

[Tranoze]

3 hours ago, Valase said:

AI response?

Dude, i just copy your post, use your own reasoning that if there are no reason for people to prefer lunar over shadow, there are also no reason for people to prefer affinity at all. It a joke post because you disregard all the different between them ("yeah this is better than that in one part but you can just do this instead"), even though they are cleary different.

9 hours ago, Wauchi said:

Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets than Shadow single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have Spontaneous Combustion for.

For people who fight boss 24/24 only, yeah, shadow flame would be better, but the game is not about fighting all bosses all the time, there are more aspect to it, how you farm, how you explore. They just pick what ever make they feel better. Example is that when you are in ruin and need quick restock of ember, quickly cook splumonkey is much better than going up, going to a bee hive, and cook them, going down again to realized you wasted most of ember to heat you during the trip.

9 hours ago, Wauchi said:

people favor Lunar Affinity over Shadow Affinity.

It's the point of favors, and they can pick what they like, that fit their playstyle.

[AliceShiki]

43 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

For people who fight boss 24/24 only, yeah, shadow flame would be better, but the game is not about fighting all bosses all the time, there are more aspect to it, how you farm, how you explore. They just pick what ever make they feel better. Example is that when you are in ruin and need quick restock of ember, quickly cook splumonkey is much better than going up, going to a bee hive, and cook them, going down again to realized you wasted most of ember to heat you during the trip.

You could have just said that from the start instead of making that joke reply.

Like, the OP is asking a genuine question and putting their own opinion on the matter... You could just say why you think Lunar is better instead of making a joke at the OP.

I dunno, I just don't get the point behind the joke reply. It's not like OP was being obnoxious or anything to make mockery be expected. They were just asking a question to raise discussion on a topic that they felt like they disagreed with the common opinion.

[Tranoze]

1 minute ago, AliceShiki said:

You could have just said that from the start instead of making that joke reply.

because 

48 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

It a joke post because you disregard all the different between them

OP already knows all the different between them, and still disregarding it. Giving him more points he will still disregard it.

Quote

Which is true, but... when is it relevant?

 

3 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

You could just say why you think Lunar is better instead

I dont think lunar is better, or shadow is better. Each of them have their own flavors and different way to play around, on one day i might pick one, on another day i might pick other.

[Evelo]

10 hours ago, Tranoze said:

Why do you use Willow's affinity at all?

because there is no "default" option. You have to choose one or the other. I fully feel there needs to be a baseline third ability that is not linked to affinity. (as well as her entire magic system being baseline in general. like why lock it behind skills? Willow is so bland without her skillsets which is depressing)

13 hours ago, Wauchi said:

peaking of which, people say that Lunar would deal more damage against multiple targets than Shadow single target. Which is true, but... when is it relevant? Since the times when you need AOE, you already have Spontaneous Combustion for.

True but, spontaneous combustion can only do so much. Lunar Affinity is great at clearing spider dens with east which spontaneous combustion can do with higher risk to ones life. My friend who does play willow swaps between Shadow and Lunar every world so there is no objective best, they both are quite useful in their own scenarios. Shadow I feel is much better against bosses, while Lunar is better for day to day activities.

[Dr.Webber]

You can’t use the lunar one on a Beefalo but can use the shadow one