I was thinking about how the tank armors in Spiral Knights are generally useless due their lack of protection against specialized damage, so I was thinking that maybe a new set, defending only against specialized damage could be used for interesting combinations. I decided to call it the "Balance Set" since it defends against all types of damage and status while lowering offensive ability, making it the exact opposite of the Chaos Set. I could have also gone with "Order" but I feel that the Divine Set already has the traditional Order = Blue + White = Shiny design, so this will be something different.
Aesthetics: The main colours of the set will be green and turquoise, with green being the main colour. Colour-wise, it'll look like an inversion of the Chaos Set with the colours of the Elemental Set. The cloth fabric should also be fragmented like the Sudaruska/Troika, but with cloth instead of rocks, and held together by Prismatic energy. The Balance Robes will be like the Chaos Cloak, except the scarf things in the front and back will be floating in front of the knight and have a different symbol from both the Chaos and Divine sets. The metal chains and shackles/metal plates will be replaced with floating feathers to symbolize freedom instead of oppression. These can be Prismatic as well. The Balance Hood will look look like the Chaos Cowl, with different colours and the fragmented fabric, but it will also have tendrils of energy coming out of it like a plasma lamp. The set can also have an aura of the same feathers, but a set energy colour. These are just general suggestions however, the devs can change it however they want. The main theme though, is that of being the "Anti-Chaos Set"
Acquisition: This set is supposed to be an endgame sort of item, so I think that the best place to put it would be in the Sanctuary Alchemy Machine, requiring a fully heated Miracle Cloak and Set as well as other materials.
Description:
Balance Robes: Traditionally reserved for only the most powerful of Owlite Mages, these robes grant the user complete protection when tampering with the realms of the arcane. However, the hefty magical enchantments on it make it rather impractical in everyday use.
Balance Hood: Made from materials gathered from the Chaos realm, this hood alters the very space around the user, drastically altering the characteristics of anything that comes in contact with it.
(Any help in making these sound more vague and enigmatic would be appreciated, however the general idea is that these are the opposite of the Chaos Robes in some way.)
Stats:
So, basically it is a sort of polar opposite of the Chaos Set, and the stats reflect that. Each piece of the set will have (in bars):
6 Elemental Defence
6 Piercing Defence
6 Shadow Defence
+6 Health
+2 Fire Resistance
+2 Freeze Resistance
+2 Shock Resistance
+2 Poison Resistance
+2 Curse Resistance
-2 CTR (Penalty)
-2 Damage (Penalty)
Usage and Balance (lel):
First of all, this armor set's position in end game is solidified by the fact that it has no Normal Defence at all, meaning that a full set will be about as good as Proto in T1.
It can be seen that this set has the exact opposite resistances and abilities as the Chaos Set. This means that a player can't make any sort of cheesy combination with the Chaos Set, as the stats will cancel each other out, leaving the user with a set of armor that is only slightly resistant to every damage type (which can be done better by many other combinations out there)
If this set of armor is used by itself, it will be a semi-durable build with resistances to every status, making it possibly useful for experienced players who simply want to be lazy and play through everything wearing the same set of armour and not worry about statuses, at a cost to offensive capability.
Which may be desired, if the player wishes to challenge themselves. It also gives a fairly hefty HP bonus, acting as a sort of tank without movement penalties in T2 and T3.
Where this armour really shines however, is when it is used with heavy sets of armour such as the Plate and Ancient Plate Sets. The Balance Set has no Normal Defence at all, while the Plate armours mainly have Normal defense. The Plate user won't lose much by equipping the Balance Set, as they give the same HP bonus, but will gain some pretty good benefits. The Plate adds defence and health, while the Balance adds much needed status resist, since the Plate Set makes it hard to dodge attacks. The offensive penalties on the other hand, won't matter as much since the heavy armour sets force the user to play in a slow and methodical manner anyway.
But then again, this probably won't be added anyway, so balance doesn't really matter. The idea seemed interesting to me though, and I was wondering what everyone else would think about this. Is it too weak? Too strong?
Even if it did get added no one would use it since the current Meta is DPS not survival