Been doing some runs with you, and you are a pretty good player, so i know why you said what you said...

i never do pickup parties anymore, for many of the reasons you already stated, the ppl that never ever reply and dont communicate at all... ugh, at first i felt sorry but later i just kicked them from party and kept going, now i barely play with friends, as most of my guildies are gone, and most of my friends dont play anymore, its really hard nowadays to find good people to party with...

i have been in t2 parties where some newbs in full 5* gear have spent over 800CE in revives... its really sad.

so far the only option viable that i can see is joining a guild like Active or Team Dai Gurren where most of the people are actually good players and can succesfully and ENJOYABLY finish runs.

"I don't like treating people like a tool, but I always have huge dependencies on other knights, and the reason why I don't have good armor and have invested in a lot of weapons."

I actually think it's the other way around. If you lack sufficiently diverse weaponry, you'll rely on other knights to take down what you are weak to.

For example, those occasional gun puppies that spawn in the Clockwork Tunnels behind spikes that *never* go down until you kill them, are impossible to kill with a sword without taking damage. And Devilites and Wolvers dodge bullets.

On the other hand, skill is easier to substitute for a lack of armor. Your helm and armor pieces mostly just increase the amount of mistakes you can make without dying. I can solo Royal Jelly Palace with my Vitasuit Plus and Skelly Mask (both 2-star) just fine, aside from the boss level.

The shield is a little more important, but you should be fine with any 3-star shield in T2. My swiftstrike buckler is sufficient for me in all of T2.

Actually, I'm kind of wondering - do the things I said hold true in T3? Will any old 5-star shield be good enough to block at least one or two hits in T3, or do you have to make like 4 different shields to use based on the strata you are doing? Is taking damage unavoidable in T3, and therefore you need 5-star armor to survive? And wait, is your armor even 4-star, or is it just bad 5-star armor?

t3 is hard, and yes you will need more than 2 shields, i already have 3!

now heating a skelly shield to have good defense against shadow, same with armor, as i already have all dmg types covered.

"so far the only option viable that i can see is joining a guild like Active or Team Dai Gurren where most of the people are actually good players and can succesfully and ENJOYABLY finish runs."

I would like to include my guild, The Risen, in the list of guilds whom can successfully and enjoyable finish runs. We're sporting somewhere around 70 members in the guild right now with anywhere from 4-16 online, with about 10-11 on average.

I have completed FSC around 65 times now, most of those with my guild and most of those without any ce revives at all.

If you're feeling like a good player whom can't find good players to play with send me a message in game, my name is Velcro, and I'll be happy to invite you. We even have a website, the-risen.guildportal.com. Do note though that things are slightly disorganized at the moment but come July 16th I'm planning on re-vamping the website, removing inactive players, and attempting to hold the largest guild meeting we've had yet where will we discuss anything brought up.

@OP:

I completely agree to your words. Though I really wish there were a way to create macros in this game (though there might be if I looked at the actual code or what-not) but a way built into the options would be nice specifically because it becomes tiresome to tell people not to kill the last zombie or else the next wave will spawn, to not aggro the zombies stuck into the corners of Vanaduke's liar, etc etc.

The times that I have started plans beforehand things have went beautifully.

Also, the "Fall Back" shortcut has been life saving many times.

There's a flip side to this; the player who constantly tells everybody what to do, yet is clearly the worst player in the group. Nothing annoys me more than some tool who thinks he's great and orders everybody around, then blames every one of his 10 deaths on "lag". I'm sorry, but if you're really dying that much to lag you shouldn't be playing at all. It's gotten to the point where I'll just kick and/or ignore someone if they die more than 3 times and blame it on lag. While it's your time and energy, it's the other 3 people who have to put up with you wasting their time and energy.

Another problem is that in battles, there's often enough going on that you just don't have time to explain something if someone is doing something wrong. I can't count the number of times I've explained the Vanaduke fight to new players, had those players acknowledge the information, then seen their heads go into their [butts] when the fight actually starts. They then ask what they did wrong when they die and/or wipe the entire group, and I'm supposed to type a response while still trying to avoid everything.

The armor/shield you bring to T3 is not that important because T3 is all about avoiding damage, not mitigating/blocking it. Obviously it helps to wear the appropriate defenses, and if you're still learning T3 attack patterns I'd highly recommend it, but it really just allows you to make a few more dumb mistakes. As Ignominious stated, when you're good, the majority of the time you die in T3 is when you make a major mistake and you'll get stomped no matter what you're wearing.

People emphasize fire resist in T3 because the only end-game boss is in a fire dungeon and does fire attacks. It's not the most dangerous status effect, but it's what you're going to be fighting 90% of the time.