I don't know how I feel about the next update, honestly.
Part of me understands what they're doing, but the other part is extremely annoyed.

It depends entirely on what they do with what they're planning.

I swear to god if it's like a monthly thing I'll quit right now.
There's a better way they could do this without punishing people.

Because there's no doubt in my mind that stuff is going to be bound.

Okay, now I'm curious. Can you give some kind of hint shoebox? Or maybe send me something offsite?

I guess its the thing that resolves around 995 and the keyword is timed.

Well, since this whole thread is about speculation...

We know that Flourishes all do pierce damage.
We all know that it's probably going to be a boss (because why build up hype over just a new type of normal trash mob).
We know that this boss is going to be weak to pierce damage.
There are only 2 types of enemies weak to piercing: Fiends and Beasts.

Current bosses:
Jelly King: Slime type.
Vanaduke: Fiend type.

So, purely speculation...

We are going to get a new boss.
It's going to be weak to piercing.
Only Beasts and Fiends are weak to piercing.
We already have a Fiend boss.

New boss will be a Beast type.

Sorry but Vanaduke is not a fiend, he is not in any of the enemy categories and takes neutral damage from all damage types.

@Paska: I know it's a bit off topic, but there are Gremlins, not Goblins, in Cradle :-D

Menders aren't resistant to piercing; It simply displays that because of a bug. The actual damage they take from piercing is neutral.

As for Vanaduke: I have explained this myself on some other thread, forgot which... Maybe FossaFerox's thread about guns. But anyway, Vanaduke's body is only SLIGHTLY weak to piercing - He takes 20 damage more than normal from Final Flourish, and just 4 damage more from Blitz Needle. He's not a fiend, he has no actual "race". His mask/head appears to be slightly resistant to everything. Although that might also be a display bug - I never got to test exactly on his mask, or elemental/shadow damage. But I'm pretty sure about piercing.

I find it silly how everyone likes to say he's fiend, weak to piercing, blahblahblah without actually testing the damage to confirm that. Considering the damage bonus is so minimal, and his mask is actually resistant, it's better to just say he's neutral to everything.

Note the title: http://threepanelsoul.com/2011/04/11/on-ironclaw-menders/

So speculation includes:

• New Piercing-vulnerable boss (Beast?)
• New Flourish-related gear set (Fencing or "Rose"?)
• PVP or duel-oriented mechanics

Good to know.

In addition, if you look at the story behind Vanaduke, he was once an aspiring duke ruling over his dukedom, when he was invaded by foreign powers. Driven mad by the loss of his people, he went into the mountains and eventually found a cave and gave himself to an old God of Fire in order to get revenge on those who invaded him.

Therefore, like devilites and trojans, he is more or less hellspawn, and is a fiend.
As Stardrinker pointed out, much like JK, he will have lowered resistances/weaknesses, but that does not mean he's not of the race that he is.

And he is slightly weaker to piercing "blahblahblah".

One thing I have noticed about Vanaduke which I find strange is that he seems to change his resistance on his last stage. I use a sentenza and a storm driver (yeah I know, too cheap to get an argent, not having any trouble with vanaduke now so why bother). On the first two body stages, he takes 76 damage from my sentenza, but on the 3rd body stage he takes 41 per hit. That's when I have to switch to my storm driver full time. The storm driver does the same damage each stage.

Guys. Are we sure they're not just referring to the new Rose Regalia costumes, which appear to look nice with the flourishes in their pics?

For checking if they actually have a race, one would have to take a weapon or armor set with VS Slime for JK, or VS Fiend for Vanaduke. Although what I'm talking about is the resistances and weaknesses on attack types - Considering JK is only strong to piercing, and neutral to everything else, and Vanaduke is only slightly weak to piercing and neutral to the rest, it doens't seem their "race" behaves like races of normal mobs.

You realise that was my point? You originally stated that Vanaduke isn't a fiend because he doesn't have a high enough weakness to piercing damage. I countered by saying bosses have weaknesses and strengths reduced so that damage is normalised somewhat.

There aren't enough bosses currently to consider this a basic boss aspect. It's probably correct, although this does not relate to Vanaduke being a fiend; I think it's pretty obvious Royal Jelly is a slime. But Vanaduke has no actual indication of his race; His story is kind of inclined to fiend, although this would be just another random guess. Considering his stratum can be undead, his summons are always undead, and mobs in his levels are also undead, it'd make more sense if he was undead - Though I tested this myself and he is not undead.

Yes, I agree that Royal Jelly is obviously a slime, but following your logic, he isn't a slime. Also what makes you think one boss can be a certain type (slime) but another boss surprisingly has no type at all, which is a much larger assumption considering nearly everything in the game has a certain type.
You also realise saying he's Undead is also a random guess, with even less proof backing it up. Even if you later say he isn't, there is much more proof to say he is a Fiend to begin with. He does summon undead, yes, but he also summons fiends (Trojans). His citadel also has Trojans. His attacks are very similar to Trojans. He acts very much like a Trojan sans shield.

Edit: Just ran Vanaduke. I'm fairly sure that his body, at the least, is not fiend; I was dealing 102 damage or so to his body with a lv6 Ascended Calibur with High Fiend Bonus, while Zombies would take 122 from the very same weapon. It seems he's a bit resistant to normal aswell. Maybe his weakness to piercing is a normal one, but he simply takes less damage, like if he was considered a T4 mob or something. (If you notice - The bigger jellies on RJP take less damage than normal ones. Those are T3 jellies. Additionally, the Jelly King ends up taking the same damage as those big ones.)

Yes this would be a good way to test it (UV vs Fiend), but not by comparing damage on a zombie with damage on Vanaduke. You would have to compare damage on identical swords except one having the UV and one not. If you have a friend with you to run with that has a non-UV sword, you can compare damage with them. I wouldn't be surprised if they reduced the effectiveness of the Fiend bonus as well but there should at least be some damage difference.

Hawaii. He sounds hybrid like me and most of the population of Hawaii. There are even active volcanoes and where he and his minions can vacation in.

(Hides high attack speed UV Final Flourish...) No really Mr. Vanaduke, that's just a toothpick, nothing to worry about sweetie. Just staying on topic. (Muahahaha...)

And my point here is that if they were really just reduced but keeping their race, it'd be a bit different than this. :l

How so? The devs can increase or reduce the bonuses and penalties on bosses as much as they like, even remove them altogether. The fact that he actually does take extra damage from pierce (even though it's small) is not something you just ignore.

The thing is, on appearance, backstory (Monstrous Profile) and etc, you can easily guess Jelly King's race. (Besides, his name is Royal Jelly!) For Vanaduke, most of the backstory information on him doens't tell much about his actual race, even though it might seem like it's inclined to fiend. (I usually don't trust backstory or stats much on Spiral Knights for those things - There's quite a few 'false' descriptions, attack/defense/resist meters are sometimes pretty wrong, etc; Usually, only actual testing can tell about those things.) His appearance doens't tell much either - If anything, he looks like some bizarre giant Spiral Knight. (I also don't understand how undead being pretty much everywhere around him and his Citadel would have less backing up than fiend?)

When I first fought Jelly King I thought "Oh, it's a giant Jelly". When I first fought Vanaduke I thought "Oh, it's a giant Trojan".

His Slag Guards (The Trojans) aren't fiends, they count as undead. I guess he does act like a trojan, but that's not much.

He acts like a Trojan but that's not much? He acts like a Trojan (Fiend), he takes extra damage from pierce (Fiend) he probably takes less damage from shadow although this has to be tested (because who goes into FC with a pure shadow weapon) although you take this as meaning 'not much'? It's the only proof we have so far and it points to Fiend.

On either case, this argument is pretty silly and off-topic; Should probably be kept for some other thread, that is actually about Vanaduke or whatever. But in general, there's no proof he is a fiend, and there's no proof he isn't either.

Agreed. We now know what he meant by 'complement them nicely' so this thread has lost it's purpose. In general, we have solid proof he is probably a Fiend but no proof he isn't a Fiend, only your opinions so far. If you find that a plain level 10 Leviathan blade does exactly the same damage as a level 10 Leviathan blade with Fiend UV I will, however, concede that he isn't a Fiend.

Yeah, this is way off topic by now. I guess those silly costumes where what's being referred to, which is a bit of a letdown in my opinion, as I was hoping for some actual content.

...the simplest answer is because it's against the Terms of Service?
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Terms_of_Service#6._Restrictions

6.1, 6.13, and finally 20.

If you sign a contract with me not to read a book, and then you read a book, you're still in violation of the contract, even if I personally leave my books laying around your house.