Spiral Knights - PSA: Heating your Shield is completely and utterly pointless. (Same applies for UVs)

PSA: Heating your Shield is completely and utterly pointless. (Same applies for UVs)

30 replies [Last post]

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 06:56

Glacies

After constantly testing, I can pretty much confirm that heating Shields AND adding non-status UVs are completely pointless and is actually pretty redundant.

It seems that unlike Armor and Weapons, Shields do not make much a difference from a single bar:

Each Tick on a Shield's bar is equal to about 2% resistance to that damage-type. Meaning that a Dragon Scale Shield will only make a 14% difference against Piercing and Elemental attacks. If an enemy is inflicting double (IE: Piercing and Elemental in this case) the damage absorbed would be 28%.

As for UVs, each UV rank is adds about 1% to the absorbed damage:

Low UV: +1% (+0.5 Bars)
Med UV: +2% (+1.0 Bar)
High UV: +3% (+1.5 Bars)
Max UV: +4% (+2 Bars)
Each Tick on the Shield: 2% (IE: Med-High UV)

When heating a Shield from Lv1-Lv10 (this is 5*), you will actually only gain a 1.5%-2% increase in resistance for each bar present. Every two levels gives you .33% resistance to each bar that it has. Meaning an Aegis will gain +1.5% Resistance to Normal and Piercing Damage, a Dread Skelly Shield will gain +1.5% to Normal and Shadow damage, and the list goes on.

Each enemy seems to have a base damage of inflicting damage and that sets the amount the Shield can resist. A Wolver on Elite deals 50% Piercing damage to a shield without Piercing Defense. With Piercing Medium, that amount is increase by about +2% and so on.

In fact, just for the kicks of it, I decided to try numbers with a Wolver and took a prediction on them for how much damage they would do: I was nearly spot on, I was about 1% off of the target. I guessed that Dragon Scale Shield would survive with 63%, it was 62%. Royal Jelly Shield was 65%, it was 66%.

Something rather interesting though is that unlike Knights, Shields can gain immunity to all forms of Status, be it Weak, Moderate, or Strong. Zeddy confirmed that a Slag Walker's Breath inflicts Strong Fire. Dragon Scale Shield despite not having any Normal OR Shadow resistance, was immune to it. Something rather interesting about this is that Status plays a huge role in how much damage a Shield takes. It's pre-set by OOO and can inflict anywhere from 20% to 40%, this is equal to about +10 Bars of a single defense - +20 Bars of a single defense. Enemies have two types of attacks: The base attack and the Status attack. If a shield has immunity (IE: Crest of Almire has immunity to Shock and Fire) against that status, it will not see the second variable of attack.

The major problem here is that this applies to all difficulties, you will still see 2% resistance for each bar on the Shield. However, damage is increased overall by +3% per damage-type on Elite, and decreased by -3% per damage-type on Normal. The base being about 6%.

This means that:
-The reason that Volcanic Plate Shield can survive Vanaduke's attack so well is because Status isn't being inflicted on the Shield and Elemental resistance would only make a trivial difference.
-Omega Shell can only survive the attack because of the HP boost, from data I believe the increase is about 20%, allowing it to barely survive an attack from the mace.
-Status really DOES outweigh defense, to compare, a double Max UV would only provide an 8% protection. Where-as a maximum status will protect you from the second variable which is over 20% damage and so far can be up to 38%.
-Heating a Shield is completely redundant, the only reason to actually heat it is the chance of Forge Prize Boxes or to access higher-tiered rank: HP outweighs both Status and Defense.

So aside from this, I'm thinking that Shields need some sort of buff. The fact that heating only provide a 2% difference is absolutely horrible.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:11

Bopp

other thread

We've been discussion your study in detail in the Wiki Editors forum, so I don't have much to say here, except: Thanks. This is very interesting and good to know.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:14

Vesperaldus

I didn't feel like reading

I didn't feel like reading most of what you said, but I've always thought that shield UVs were a bit off and pointless. I used to try to buy good UVs for my shields, but after I sold most of my stuff and decided to nearly restart, I felt that the shield UVs were a waste of my time. That's why I decided to get a troll UV on my Grey Owlite Shield. Fire Max, fun fun.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:22

Narfle

This is extremely interesting and useful information, but I think ultimately you have to take into account the larger question of how players actually use their shields when considering a buff. Mechanically, yes, this seems horribly unbalanced (and we stack another balancing issue on the pile), but OOO reworking shields' damage/status resistance wouldn't have much impact on how the average player plays. Perhaps we might see people crafting up a wider variety of shields to try to tank in certain situations, but my money would be on endgame players sticking with the shield lines they use now--after all, no one runs into vana with a swifty for its stellar defense, it's all about the ASI boost. At any rate, great work putting this data together, important info for players to be aware of.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:44

Heavy-Dragon

And this, knights;

Is why I love my omega shell.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:45

Traevelliath

But you forgot to factor in the +swag bonus you get for having a pointless UV (especially when it's a MAX UV), on a lvl 10 shield.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 07:48

Heavy-Dragon

force buckler

SHADOW MAX PIERCING MAX ELE MAX

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 09:13

Skillextor

Interesting

So does this information also works the same way on weapons? Will a weapon only increase it's damage by 2% when heating to level 10.

I know weapons usually provide some type of bonus when it reach level five and another once it reach level ten. Do you believe shields should have some type of bonus added once they reach those two levels?

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 09:27

Zeddy

@Skillextor

On depth 24, a 5* weapon gains 25% damage from level 0 to level 10.

On depth 1, there is no change whatsoever.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 09:28

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Hey hey you forgot one thing:

When I fully heat everything, shields included, I can finally use Arsenal Stations regularly and not have the forge open up in my face! xD

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 09:54

#10

Heavy-Dragon

a shame we have to

perform actions we do not want to just so the UI will be less annoying.

I get a little twinge of disappointment when I open my character inspect pane to look at a set, and its blocked partially by "you have unused upgrades!"

I know I have unused upgrades. I don't want to use them.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 10:00

#11

Khamsin

@OP

I can't tell when you say percents you're talking about actual percentages or static amounts of the total percentage of the shield health. Let's say a shield can sustain 100 damage before breaking. Are you saying that each bar adds a flat -2 to damage coming to the shield? Let's say a wolver bite does 50 damage to the shield, so a shield with 8 bars of pierce protection only takes 34 damage? Or are you saying it actually reduces the damage by 2%, so with 8 ticks it takes 42 damage?

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 10:14

#12

Reto-Da-Liz

@Acies: thanks for spending time finishing this research. My theory (about status) was confirmed and I'm super happy about it.
Great job!

/clap

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 13:18

#13

Flowchart

maybe that's why they don't let us get status uvs on shields through Punch anymore

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 13:29

#14

Khamsin

@Flow

"maybe that's why they don't let us get status uvs on shields through Punch anymore"

Really? That's... stupid. Not many people were rolling UVs on shields in the first place. Now that's almost no reason to.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 13:32

#15

Bitsbee

Aw, poop...

I was planning on getting Fire & Shock Resist on my Ironmight Plate Shield...

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 15:59

#16

Not-Someone

/Yawn

I don't know why you'd want to go with un-heated stuff. You're going to die faster, plus I need stun resist on my new Grey Owlite Shield.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 15:42

#17

Thimol

-----

idk why you'd want to go with un heated stuff. You're gonna get dead faster.

i don't know what part of "heating your shield is completely and utterly pointless" you didn't get but you probably came in with that disgustingly jaded attitude thinking you were smart by some stretch of the imagination and oh well

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 15:58

#18

Not-Someone

@Thimol:

I read the whole thing (why wouldn't I read the OP of any thread?). No need to stereotype. I should clarify that having +2% resistance on ANYTHING on a shield from heating is better than 0%. No?

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 16:01

#19

Thimol

-----

No need to stereotype. I should clarify I was too lazy to use Grammar

that was... not the point

-Heating a Shield is completely redundant, the only reason to actually heat it is the chance of Forge Prize Boxes or to access higher-tiered rank: HP outweighs both Status and Defense.

I don't care that you disagree but if you're going to then actually make it clear that you do. That being said: it seems you still ignored the point of this (the quoted), which was that the 2% does NOTHING.

Zeddy confirmed that a Slag Walker's Breath inflicts Strong Fire. Dragon Scale Shield despite not having any Normal OR Shadow resistance, was immune to it.

uh-huh

isn't that breath purely a status attack that does no damage to begin with so normal or shadow or whatever isn't really relevant to that

but you were correct in saying that status does play a large role in how much damage a shield takes, but that's with direct "shave-your-extremities-off" attacks

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 16:33

#20

Glacies

So since I'm awake to answer some questions brought up:

@Khamsin:

The former in this case. If you had 100 Base HP for your Shield, each unit on the defense is generally -2 damage.

@Tweeter:

The main problem is that a 2% difference is really trivial on the Shield's Health. Most attacks deal major differences in damage:

An example is with a Crest of Almire, the base damage for a Slag Walker's Leap attack is 49%-50%

*Crest of Almire has 7 Normal and Shadow resistance unheated, but that's +14% per bar, adding up to 28% difference in damage which is 77%.
*Leveling up a Crest of Almire to Lv10 would only make a +1.5% difference in both Normal and Shadow Defense.
*The Threshold comes into effect here, you will eventually see a deterioration in how much the shield is absorbing, meaning the difference from a fully heated Crest of Almire and a non-heated one is literally about a 1%-2% difference in damage, which doesn't even stack up since you'd recover that difference within a matter of seconds.

If you take multiple hits from the leap attack, that's only a 2% - 6% (depending where the threshold is) from Level up a Crest of Almire to Level 10, in cases it does eventually add-up but it's such a small amount that multiple succession attacks will literally not make a difference on how much damage you endure, if a Slag Walker's Leap attack does 33 Damage on the Shield (out of 100), that will let you endure 4 hits total, compare to a Lv10 Shield will change the Slag Walker's Leap attack to 31-27 Damage, that still only lets you endure 4 hits.

Generally, not worth it.

@Thimol:

I understand it isn't completely relevant, I just thought it was the best way to describe immunity to it. However, I'll probably edit it later tonight to add a note that the breath only inflicts Status.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 17:43

#21

Xtweeterx

@Glacies

Are you sure this hypothesis is applied to ALL difficulty levels? Because (my memory's vague on this one) I rememeber my CoA breaking in 2 hits, if not a sliver of health renaming from 3 hits on a spike trap in FSC, then at lvl 10, i breaks to a solid 3 his, with I think a square or short rectangle of shield health. My memory of this is extremely fuzzy, so don't take it seriously. Ok?

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 18:03

#22

Khamsin

@Glacies

"The former in this case. If you had 100 Base HP for your Shield, each unit on the defense is generally -2 damage."

Then that's not that bad. The only issue is the cost/benefit ratio for non-status UVs is terrible.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 18:09

#23

Glacies

Yes, I can confirm it.

An example that I have setup is that:

Against Kats on Normal, a Dragon Scale shield survives with 57% (going by pure numbers to make it easier) with only a Normal Low, this would be equal to 56 without it. (IE: the Base damage)

Now lets compare this to a Royal Jelly Shield which has 7-7.5 Units of Normal Defense, by the same logic, that is 14-15 units of Defense, this would mean Royal Jelly would survive by 70. My data shows Royal Jelly shield surviving with exactly 70% on Normal mode.

Even on Advanced:

Base Damage is 48.
Royal Jelly/Grey Owlite has 7-7.5 Units of Normal Defense.
2x7=14(-15 if you're doing 7.5 instead)
Defense would equal 62-63.
Shown to be 63% from my data collected.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 18:52

#24

Writhes

@glacies

"After constantly testing, I can pretty much confirm that heating Shields AND adding non-status UVs are completely pointless and is actually pretty redundant."

What testing? How did you perform your tests?

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 19:02

#25

Thinslayer

Monkey wrench

Data is all well and good, but the fact remains that leveling your shield actually makes a big difference - a full hit of difference. Dragon Scale Shield breaks in 4 shadow fire hits unleveled. It breaks in 5 hits fully leveled. Whatever the math happens to be, that +1.5% addition in resistance makes the difference between a broken shield and a whole one.

I took the data. I know. It's in the Arsenal somewhere.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 20:44

#26

Glacies

@Writhes

A topic came along long ago about Lumbers on Elite always breaking shields. After looking into it, I took screenshots of every single possible attack and compared the pixels and used math to determine the output percentage. The Shield's Health at 5* is 359 Pixels long, comparing that to the amount of pixels the remaining health had, it was just a matter of putting two and two together.

@Thinslayer

This is the part where "DPS" comes into effect. Shadowfire does pure Elemental and Fire damage, due to the immunity to Fire, we can only see the first variable of attack.

The small increase in defense only adds up if you're taking multiple hits within a 1-2 second time-frame (the amount of time it takes to recover a non-broken shield), if you're getting hit 4 times by Shadow Fire, the total adds up to an 8% difference in damage which of course will make a huge difference, if you're surrounded by a horde of Jellies and what-not, it'll add up slowly. The main problem is that when you're not surrounded by a horde, that's a 2% difference in damage compared to not heating it.

If you have an unheated Ironimght Plate Shield against a Lumber attack that does about 80 damage, 2 extra numbers isn't going to make a slightly difference at all. The same applies against a Wolver, an unheated Dragon Scale Shield will still break in three hits on elite, unheated or not.

It really all depends on the situation, but most of the time when I endure a hit, it's very rare that I have multiple mobs harassing me constantly within that 1-2 second timeframe.

Fri, 10/04/2013 - 21:20

#27

Thinslayer

@Glacies

Rarely? Have you never been swarmed or surrounded by enemies? Have you never tried to cross spike traps or elemental grates with a shield? Have you never been hit by a boss with a multi hitting attack? I don't think such situations are rare.

My tests were performed with shields that have the same status resistance. Being constant, it was therefore not a variable in the tests. The differences were due solely to the damage types and leveling involved.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 06:50

#28

Usevnsevnsixfivfor

Does heating your shields increase Bash power?

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 08:43

#29

Thinslayer

@U77654

No.

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 00:05

#30

Poopsie

@Glacies

probably want to read this?
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Antistone
I assume defense on the shield is only one certain length of bar while armor + helmet (two) adds up.

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PSA: Heating your Shield is completely and utterly pointless. (Same applies for UVs)