a strange balance between the moon and the shadow

[Krom]

Many have already realized that the Shadows are much cooler and more powerful early in the game. Shadows have a lot of armor, weapons, staves, and tools, while the Moon has a Moonglass Cleaver, a Portal Upgrade, and some other small items. After the Rifts open, the Moon becomes much more powerful than the Shadows. The new staff alone completely negates the difficulty of the Ancient Fuelweaver fight.

This begs the question: if this was the developers' intention, why don't most Shadow skills work before the Rifts?

Based on the balance, it's much more beneficial for players to use the Moon's power after the Rifts open, and the Shadow's before that.

I think we need to add more Moon content before the Rifts open, and more Shadow content after.

And it’s very annoying that at the peak of their power, the shadows are not able to give something that would help, and not protect from the consequences of opening the rifts (that is, from Charlie).

[Frosty_Mentos]

I don't think the point of opening one side of the rifts is the point - the point is opening both of them to give different types of kit for mix matched playstyles. Shadow side I think is kinda harder, but fuelweaver can be blown up by gunpowder to do a quick job of him. Celestial champion's more of a nuisance and more to do to set up for his fight, making shadow side quicker to access and have lategame weapon leveled up. Lunar stuff is always good and reliable, shadow stuff needs beefalo taming and buildup of damage.

As Maxwell I'm kinda bound to go for void boomerang for specific later game bosses to not get one tapped, but lunar stuff generally provides good tools for utility.