Honestly, both affinities are inconsistent with wx-78's playstyle

[Eclipsed Nox]

Keep in mind that what I'm about to say is based on testing in some test worlds and combat situations using the affinities I created myself, to, you know, test the beta.

1- The Lunar clones aren't nearly as overpowered or good as they're made out to be.

- I tested their combat mechanics with every beta update, including the use of Lunar Staffs and Zapelectrocuters, and they're inherently bad at fighting. At range, they always seem to be "processing" before moving, and in melee, they always get hit. It doesn't matter if I gave them three Super Acceleration Circuits; they always die. In fights like those with Armor Bearger and, more importantly, Warbot/Scion, they can accidentally turn the boss's aggro against them at the worst possible moment, triggering abilities you don't want near you or in the opposite direction (as with Warbot/Scion). Overall, they're terrible at fighting, and you might say, "They fight just like Maxwell's Shadows," and I'd say, "Yes!" But at least Maxwell can spam his clones cheaply, which brings me to my next point:
- They're hungry workers, they eat a lot... and that kills them for me as a worker mob. The spinning circuit alone is better than the three clones combined. To make matters worse, they eat like stressed-out college students, and basically the 120 gears I gave them, spread across one stack each, were almost completely burned through in a fight against an Armored Bearger boss. I had to take hits to keep them from dying, and they still died because they glitched using the Zap Electrocutter without power and were stuck doing nothing but looping the tool equip animation.
- And I know what you're thinking! "But you have 250% DPS instead of 100%!" And I'll say, "Yes! And I don't control it, and if they die, it suddenly drops to 200% or 150%. Besides, they won't always attack with the same consistency as the player, making that absolute percentage fluctuate a lot unless you're fighting a basic boss... or wait, Bearger completely disables them by taking their weapon in one hit, Moose does the same, and the Mooslings can kill them very quickly because they don't react very well to an area attack instead of a regular attack. Celestial Champion completely destroys them because of the gigantic amount of area damage." In the end, they really change the gameplay radically, and I really hate it. I really wanted to believe that Lunar Affinity would be something more than just pirated versions of Maxwell's clones, but nope, and all I can say is, "WHERE'S MY SUPER SUIT?!" No, that's a lie. I can only say that the opportunity to give it a lunar ray, either the orbital one or like the Werepig's, was wasted.

The opportunity to transform your existing drones into possessed versions was also wasted. I saw the brilliant concept someone had that you could possess Zap Electrocuter and Roto Mapper with gestalts so they would function on their own and follow you or fill the map for you, allowing you to have your own version of Warbot's drones. Ultimately, I just wish the lunar affinity wasn't just clones.

2- The shadow affinity simply seems to be a series of bad decisions.

- I thought the first version was okay, it just needs tweaks and a few extras and it'll be decent. It was a simpler affinity option, something like a super circuit with a damage effect and, for some reason, Lazy Forager.

- But they changed it to drones that, to be honest, would be more useful in clones than in shadow affinity. They increase damage and grab... Things... wouldn't it be more useful in combination with the lunar clones? In general, Shadow Drones would be a thousand times better and there wouldn't be any complaints if they were neutral upgrades. They could be as weak and simple as they are, but if they were neutral upgrades, people would easily overlook them or even love them because they would give more synergy and importance to the skill points allocated to the drones you want. But overall, I agree with many that it would be better if Shadow Drones were simply neutral drones because of how basic they are, and the quantity should be based on whether you spend 1 or 2 skill points on them. Let's move on to the next thing, which was actually easy to explain.

-the Shadow Battery...wow, so much potential...and it's just an emergency measure. Honestly, I thought it would actually buff you, but it just trivializes fights against ice enemies. I have no complaints, it works, and it works well, but I think this could be the real star of the Shadow Upgrade system. Just think about it: instead of directly connecting Nightmare/Horror Fuel or the Atrium, you create a secondary battery that runs on fuel instead of a "circuit bar delta" that you upgrade as the game progresses to make more use of "Shadow Overload" mode. And instead of just being an emergency battery mode, it could also be a kind of general buff to your alpha/beta/gamma stats, especially having the ability to improve the functionality of gamma by giving new effects to those circuits, like Block giving you invulnerability like the Thulecite Crown Shield, or the Spin Circuit giving you a drill attack with an area of effect, or Sonic Evoker causing a sonic explosion like a Shadow Sound Beam (like the warden in Minecraft), or that Redigestion gives positive effects to the general healing of your items, and Chess Circuit! Um... I don't know, maybe they could give your Clockwork Mob some regeneration or resistance, but using the enhanced Gamma abilities would drain Nightmare Fuel faster, forcing you to consume more and more. To counter that, you'd upgrade the batteries with Nightmare, Horror, the Atrium, and the Possessed Atrium. But if you abuse the fuel too much consecutively, these batteries will burn out and you'll have to replace or repair them.

Also, they could bring back the VEX effect as exclusive to the Nightmare upgrade in combination with fuel use—something like a shadow or tentacle effect on WX-78's basic attacks.

- It's a shame it's just an idea.

- Continuing with all this, given how both affinities are, I wouldn't really use either. I made a 376-day world, beat all the bosses before abandoning it, and didn't use any affinities. I only upgraded the drones, circuits, and teleportation. Plus, the effect of keeping the beta circuits active in the chassis was actually more fun than having to change my gameplay for the lunar or shadow affinity, because I didn't have to. I tried them in other worlds, and I even laughed for a while at the bugs they had, like the clones having epileptic seizures or just freezing up, or the dark drones going through mitosis every time I reloaded the game.

- To be honest, the skill tree is fine except for the affinities, which seriously need reworking, especially the shadow one, because it's completely inefficient as a final upgrade. Whether I like it or not, the game wants you to use the affinities, which is why they drastically change your gameplay, especially Willow, Winona Wurt, and even Wilson. But both options encourage you to replay to try the other one in another playthrough, since it will change the order in which you do things, the quests, and your equipment. However, it maintains the core of the characters: alchemy, spells, and building. and mass mobs

But WX-78 doesn't really encourage that much. You just need to go to the Moon Island or kill the Shadow Knights, who are actually easy bosses. Finding their parts is harder than the fight itself, and it dramatically changes the gameplay. I'd rather have a free Dragonfly Furnace because the upgrades are so minimal that I'm not really tempted to use them. It doesn't change much in the order I play WX-78, and I don't really find them fun because they're recycled or mediocre compared to what they should be.

This is an honest opinion and analysis from an average player. I'm not one to rush ruins in autumn or build mega-super bases that stretch from one end of the map to the other, or kill raid bosses armed only with wooden armor, a dark sword, and a ton of guts. I take my time playing and even decorate my base nicely just for fun. I don't cheat against bosses (except for the Crab King); I enjoy them. I'd like to see more bosses. As Celestial Champion and Warbot, they're more focused on dodging and learning patterns than just repeatedly running forward and backward.

Even so, I'd really like to hear your opinions, or even what your personal wishes were for WX-78's affinities, or even those of other characters.

Between you and me, if you've made it this far, I wish Wilson could make alchemical potions, as well as temporary self-buffs and/or weapons.

That's all for now!

[Baark0]

I kinda agree with the "don't really need an affinity thing". Lunar is waaaaayy too expensive and needs a ton of micro management to be good, and even then it usually comes at the cost of being able to teleport. You need such an absurd amount of bio data to properly kit out all your clones, on top of all the resources their actual weapon, armor, and food costs.

Shadow on the other hand is fine-ish? The damage buff still needs time to ramp up, and the possessed atrium not granting any planar bonuses makes it a really underwhelming upgrade now that the normal heart has a max of 3 drones. The range is actually usable now, though the drones still aren't great vs hoards/bosses with minions. That being said, the drones lasting permanently and following you everywhere (even into the caves, something I hope carries over to Webber's eventual skill tree for his spiders) makes them a solid universal damage buff, assuming you're fighting something that isn't a planar entity and has enough health for the damage to not only ramp up, but also be useful.

Considering how many good one-off skills WX has it's completely understandable for someone to skip out on affinities all together. In fact, it might even be optimal depending on how much you value the other skills available.

[doritosdamafia]

i like to play wx in a scout style, it was logical to me, wx can easily adapt to situation, the fact that the skill tree don't explored that more and the closer we get to something like that is the chassis and maybe the shadow battery, make me in sad position, the nerfs that happened because of the affinitis don't seen fair as both are nor that good, the original version was not perfect but could be better, but this one still needs to walk to come closer to the 1.0 version

[Ruperstiltskin]

I kinda agree overall i guess i wont play wx or i would use them affinityless 

[Argwarn]

Shadow affinity is still very worthwhile,low cost ,decent payoff.
It's neat that you can just not use it though,the rest of the skill tree is pretty value dense, I think it's more of a praise for the tree than anything else