You know I was thinking about Rift's PvP, and how there are separate PvP and PvE stats associated with PvP armors (the Vengeance stat gives a damage boost vs players and the Valor stat adds extra armor against player attacks, but neither has any PvE function). PvP armors have lower stats all around than PvE armors, but with the Veng/Valor they become the better choice to use in PvP.

And I was thinking, what if SK did something similar by adding PvP-related abilities and UVs? Treat "Players" as a 7th family type, and have armor earned through PvP (eg: bought and upgraded with Krogmos) with an inherent Damage vs Players bonus. It would have split Normal and "Player" defenses, where Player defense is a flat reduction against any types of player-dealt attacks but with no purpose in PvE.

If you wanted to get really crazy you could throw into the mix UVs for Damage Bonus vs Player (on weapons) and Player Defense (on armors) for all equipment, but perhaps limit them to Low and Medium only.

I like the idea of set bonuses for wearing both pieces of a set, but a couple of your examples seemed counter-intuitive (eg: bonus while frozen on Skolver, a set that naturally has immunity to minor freeze and is just a med UV away from moderate immunity)

I kind of like this idea but it seems very unbalanced (ex: arcane salamander still sucks, I mean "the book" chances = nonexistant chances for just a random status? tch... weeeeak) and it also kills the usefulness of mixing gear parts at least for pvp, people are able to do this now and it is very cool, lets not take away something from the game that is already there.

In terms of balance it would be incomplete, because armors would still be as unbalanced as they are now for PvE, I remember seeing suggestions about making Monster damage UV's add damage to certain classes in LD. (Ex: Fiend/Beast [highly offensive monsters]=damage to Strikers, Undead/Construct[Slow but strong and tough to kill monsters]= damage to guardians Jelly/Gremlin[well this one is kind of idk, they were the ones that were left out] =damage to Recons) and then there is also the need for fixing defensive bonuses and armors to be on par with offensive ones, since we all know how broken those are... *coughcoughPLATEARMORSERIEScoughcough*

Following Rare's train of thought it'd be cool if there were PvP exclusive / pvp oriented armors with different bonuses and UV's that would be specifically beneficial for pvp, that way we leave aside the need to make PvE armors useful in PvP and adress PvP balance separately, but those "PvP UV's" would only be able to be rolled on the "PvP armors" and there would not be MAX uvs for those, only low and med so the P2W factor is reduced a tad... for fairness purposes? idk, lots of people want UV's and trinkets removed from lockdown and I kind of understand why they think that way. But this would not solve all the problems with armors and it would mean much more work work work for the devs devs devs (and I would not want to wait another eternity for half a fix yknow).

So I'd still preffer just balancing the current armors and give PvE bonused armors a use in PvP. That way we kill 2 birds with one stone.

That's cool and all but I'd really like to see you doing something for mixed sets, as it stands now OP combinations of different sets don't have any sort of buff or debuff, and that kind of kills the purpose of this suggestion at least for the part of balancing armor in pvp :/ OP combinations and UP combinations of sets would still be there unpunished and untouched from any sort of change. Adding to the point, it would force players to wear full sets (and avoid using a full OP set in case of debuff effect) instead of letting players be able to play around with gear and that is a really bad change for this game, it would suck... really it would suck if that happens, I cannot agree with this unless that is changed.

Obviously this has tier 3 in mind, so would the stats for the "default" completion (i.e., bombtastic demo, skolver, valkyrie...) be the same for the lower starred versions, or would they have a weaker chance/status to encourage making your gear 5*?

A fun thing to play with would be giving various armors a usable or two. Like, give vitasuit lines two pills of the correct tier, give cobalt lines two remedy capsules, give valkyrie 3 curse vials, snarbolax 1 freeze barrier, chaos four different tier 1 vials, etc. You get your items refreshed after respawning in the locker room, and only after respawning. If you switch loadouts your usables leave your inventory until you respawn.

And as for the things suggested, I would recommend upping the chance for the kat sets to deal curse, or perhaps up the chance and have them only apply to charge attacks? Maybe even summon a spectral grimalkin that bites down similar to the barbarous thorn blade's charge attack... But on any charge. Kat hiss users rejoice!
The "book rare" chance is a lot more common when it's not already tied to a 1% rare kat spawn. If it happened in total once per every three games or so, that would be a good "balance".
Also, valkyrie armor is the worst 5* PvP armor. It has the lowest defense, no offensive capabilities, and the only real redeeming factor is that it has curse resistance. Perhaps something that could be put onto the angelic line as a whole would be a chance that every hit (maybe make it melee only) there would be a low chance to curse the attacker. With the fallen set perhaps make it a 100% chance that, whoever curses you get cursed too, and maybe even make it vise versa(If you curse someone else you get cursed too). If we do that vial thing then a valkyrie could curse a fallen and have minimal penalties whereas the fallen must retreat back to base.

Adding stun to weapons could actually be a pretty incredible benefit. Consider weapons like Polaris, Obsidian Carbine, and Rigadoon, which would really make the most out of the extra stun effect by stacking it with other status effects or even stun intself and attempting to hit more often. This could prove to be a viable tactic.

Adding stun isn't bad, it just is fit more for a gunslinger set or plate armor than it is for valkyrie.

(I wrote this before Holy-Nightmare's latest comment, but things happened so I'm submitting it later)

I might be biased as I play primarily as a valkyrie recon in lockdown. I know all the kinks and not-so-great bits of the set. I've used stun-based weapons. Without any sort of damage to back up your stun it just doesn't work that well.

What I'm saying is I know how to make the valkyrie set competitive in lockdown and only inflicting stun is not the way to go about it. If one of my other suggestions for family bonuses to apply against other shields was introduced I'd see no problem with the stun, as valkyrie would be at least partially competitive against strikers. However, with the low defense, no offense, and a mediocre status situation (Yay curse resistance! Oh, fire vulnerability that takes away over half my health when I get lit on fire. Oh, poison is a rare status in lockdown...), I do not see how this boost would make valkyrie competitive. Specialist gear in general needs a buff in lockdown - chroma's line doesn't have much going for it, and the drake scale line sort of falls flat - and that's because of the family bonuses they have. Those family bonuses are set up to help against a specialty enemy. Seeing as us knights are not ever those specialties, they never benefit us to their full extent. Hence, the more powerful abilities or more or less reliable abilities should be tagged onto the specialist gear.

Hence, I would propose:

• Fallen has a 25% chance to mimics statuses(when they deal a status, they are also hit by it. When inflicted by one, the inflicter is also hit by it. Fits in with a strange curse!).
• Angelic line would have a 10% chance to inflict poison when hit, and if the opponent is poisoned by the hit an additional 25% chance to inflict curse. That's a 2.5% chance to inflict curse on every hit, and a valkyrie wouldn't be taking more than 4-5 hits before going down unless they were decked out on health and being hit by someone without damage bonuses.
• Salamander line would have a 10% chance for every hit to inflict fire. Has a 25% chance to drop a fiery haze bomb (3* radius) on death.
• Virulisk line would have a 10% chance for every hit to inflict poison. Has a 25% chance to drop a venomous haze bomb (3* radius) on death.
• Drake line (dragon path) would have a 5% chance for either poison or fire being inflicted on every hit (2.5% chance for each if you want to get technical). Has a 10% chance to drop toxoil puddles on being hit and has an additional 10% chance to ignite themselves on fire on the same hit (to light the oil). Watch out for friendly fire!

I think that covers all the specialist gear. I suppose the divine set is technically a "specialist" item, and that could have a 5% each (15% total) chance to inflict the attacker with one of the three statuses it resists.

As I see it offensive gear keeps always being offensive, defensive gear gains additional defense powers, glass cannon gears get more glass, and specialist gears throw statuses around like it's their dayjob. Hence, they "specialize" in statuses here, instead of "specializing" in taking out certain enemy types.

That's my take on the "specialist" bits. Sorry if I'm throwing a stink around.

I was thinking for awhile that LD teams could get assigned random monster weaknesses to make more of the armors and weapons viable.

For example say you end up on a pink team, which would then be equated to Jellys. In this case if your opponent had a salt bomb (damage buff to Jelly) you would eat the damage buff. Say green teams equates to construct, purple fiend, etc, etc... I haven't fully thought this out out to be honest. At face value it seems like it could change the viability or many armors and even UVs! All of a sudden a Gremlin VH on a sword could be a good thing?

What do you guys think?

Making the gear specialize in a status makes them more usable for everyone, but having them specialized for each class still fits into their specialist terminology.

Adding any sort of combat item after that would work as well, but having them classes work better would make people move away from traditional loadouts for "specialist" gear.

I like it. Perhaps the fallen end immediately puffs out the teammate shield? Heavenly could give the shield overall more defense. Valkyrie would have faster healing, but all of them would overheal.

Salamander could have a longer cloak and virulisk could have an instant deathmark? Virulisk already being a debuff with poison... Both could possibly extend the deathmark time.

Dragon scale path could boost the speed whereas divine extends the length of the striker boost? Would make you specialize into half dragon scale half black kat cowl for extra speed and damage. Both could boost damage and attack speed of swords by low.

The edits look good for the specialist gear!

Not trying to nit-pick, but you forgot an ending parenthesis in the dragon scale area.

But what would you think about mixing specialist gears with each other? Such as, fallen with heavenly? The full set makes players more likely to play into the specialist role effectively, but perhaps there could be some overarching bonus if you're using the appropriate specialist gears. Like, guardian shields overheal for 1HP and prevents flinch on self. Heavenly would give that flinch resistance to teammates for 3 seconds after leaving a guardian shield, but as long as you wear an angelic line you'll have flinch resistance as a guardian. With recons perhaps footsteps would disappear while cloaked in this gear? I know that's taking the mask of seerus' ability away as you have it right now, but chromalisks are more the master of cloaking than a gremlin. Seeing as the mask is easily combined with other loadouts anyways, maybe having it add a damage bonus upon deathmarking a target? That would make that mask a deadly force. Striker could, again, have bonus low sword damage and attack speed, maybe a MSI low, when in various forms of their specialist bits.

I don't think this bit is too important, as right now the minor buffs don't change the game in the short run, but can change the game drastically in a prolonged firefight. But I'd imagine people might want to get part of the bonus the set gives while mixing it up (fallen gives ASI, heavenly gives damage. Both are low, but that with flinch resistance would be nice), but still maintaining good things. Besides, that gives more reason to wear those end bits as well. Vitasuit + fallen? I'm game. Radiant silvermail and dragon scale helm? I'll get that piercing resistance while still having high of all sword stats by default, plus some movement increase!

Just some more food for thought. ;)

Yeah I didn't know your stance on it. Mixing and matching with the same defense type (such as angelic sets with each other, and salamander/arcane) can work out just fine, but people have a tendency to drop defense in favor of offense anyways, so I wanted to throw the idea around a bit.

But what I was adding onto it were basic passives per class as long as you wore a specialist loadout. Like, hiding recon footsteps if you have any recon specialist set (full salamander, full virulisk, full arcane, or the mask of seerus) alongside the additional bonus for each set. You wouldn't get the full health regen ability in valkyrie + vitasuit, but you'd get a "class specialty" bonus for only using items that are class specialties.

And I think the main reason people aren't having anything they want extra for other sets is that they do what they're supposed to do already. Bombtastic has an effect in lockdown in extra damage. Plate armors have great normal defense. Specialist gears do... Something? Granted, I think cobalt and almirian could have an extra bit added onto them (such as cobalt takes less damage from successive hits from similar special damage, up until the damage is doing half its base damage. Normal damage is unchanged), but what is currently proposed still makes them workable. It's just those sets have an actual ability to have some sort of defense.
And perhaps instead of just "haze walking", those sets could include "inflicted with status it naturally resists". Quicksilver can get a MSI:Med when shocked, for example.

With all those thingies combined (Class specialties, armor abilities, vials, etc.) we could see a much more interesting lockdown minigame while not changing the gameplay up for veterans who have invested so many crowns into their loadouts.

I'd reckon you might want to change the status infliction to be a minor status. Stacking with other minor sets will bring it to be moderate. This would make a mist bomber's bombs more effective while using the correct set.

For the family-damage sets, perhaps have them just universally do a damage boost of medium against other gunner update sets? This means someone who goes for gunner update sets might actually want to go for a family bonus sets, as the damage vs other gunners (in gunner update gear) will double from if they used other standard gear. However, if you're up against the usual sword strikers, the overall damage boosting lines will prove a better fit.

And the overall lines don't really need extra shield abilities. They should prove just fine with the other abilities.