Spiral Knights - Best Plate Mail for LD?

Best Plate Mail for LD?

18 replies [Last post]

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 06:43

Krakob

Plate Mails are, if you don't know, the most defensive pieces of equipment in Spiral Knights. They have great amounts of Normal defence, as opposed to the other defensive sets that are Royal Jelly, Mercurial, Ice Queen, Grey Feather, and Dread Skelly which all give more specialised defence than Normal defence. Do note that the specialised defences aren't as high as the Normal defence of plate gear. See this page for an example on specialised defence gear: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Royal_Jelly_Mail
Let's look at the stats of the plate items.
Ironmight Plate:

+5 pips of health
1.5 times the Normal defence of Skolver
Same Piercing defence as Skolver
+4 Stun resistance
-4 Sleep resistance
Attack Speed Decrease: Low

Volcanic Plate:

+5 pips of health
1.5 times the Normal defence of Vog Cub
Same Elemental defence as Vog Cub
+4 Stun resistance
+4 Fire resistance
-4 Sleep resistance
Attack Speed Decrease: Low

Ancient Plate:

+8 pips of health
2 times the Normal defence of Skolver
No specialised defence
+4 Stun resistance
-4 Sleep resistance
Attack Speed Decrease: Low
Movement Speed Decrease: Low

With all that in mind, we can conclude a lot.

Ancient Plate only gives 123 health extra per piece. A full set gives 246. This should barely be one attack unless you're up against a normal weapon or a poisoned enemy.
Ironmight and Volcanic Plate give more defence than Ancient Plate in the end. Since defence diminishes, the defences of Ironmight and Volcanic Plate will most often prove more useful than the ones of Ancient Plate.
Ancient Plate will take huge amounts of damage from a great majority of guns, Warmaster Rocket Hammer, toothpicks as well as a few bombs. Split damage swords are partially resisted but the specialised damage will still be severe.
Volcanic Plate has the greatest defence available against Divine Avenger, the Elemental Brandishes, and Fang of Vog.
Volcanic Plate has objectively higher numbers than Ironmight as it has Fire resistance. Ironmight has no equivalent resistance.
All sets will allow you to walk through Stagger Storm. Volcanic Plate will allow you to walk through Ash of Agni.
It's rather notable that fire isn't very common in Lockdown, though.
All items give Attack Speed Decrease: Low. Therefore, it can be pretty dangerous to wear even one piece for someone without Attack Speed UVs (bombs aside, naturally) unless it is compensated for with Vog Cub, Justifier, or Nameless.
The Movement Speed Decrease of Ancient Plate can be extremely devastating. A popular counter is using Black Kat Cowl with Ancient Plate Mail, making one land at no Movement Speed Increase or Decrease. Being a Striker while using the Black Kat Cowl also means one reaches Damage Bonus: Ultra for swords, which is very desirable.

If I forgot any notable conclusions, make sure to post about it. On to opinions!
My personal preference is Ironmight due to the great defences it offers. Since you'll find yourself attacking and moving slower in Plate gear, I find Piercing defence to outweigh Elemental defence as toothpicks, the quickest of swords commonly found in LD, deal Piercing defence. Kindly post your opinion so we can have a proper debate about this and let's not derail the thread, please?

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 11:45

Voza-Il

I vote VP -Immune to stagger

I vote VP

-Immune to stagger storm
-better against gunners
-fire resist because why not
-looks way cooler than ironmight
-beastly

Toothpicks will destroy your soul, but its ok since they dont have as high base dmg as elemental weapons.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 12:17

Krakob

Ironmight and Ancient are immune to Stagger Storm, too. Looks are completely irrelevant and I've no idea what you mean with Volcanic Place being "beastly" but I assume you're referring to looks.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 13:14

Glacies

Ancient Plate Set hands down.

Despite Volcanic and Ironmight having superior Piercing and Elemental defense, nothing can make up for the lack of HP.

In Lockdown, HP will always outweigh Defense. Even if you had insanely high piercing or elemental defense, you'd really die in the same amount of hits. Ancient Plate on its own gives you a great boost on HP and Normal Defense (which the major hitting weapons all use), allowing you to survive much longer than with Ironmight or Volcanic. Plus, unlike Ironmight or Volcanic, it doesn't require recipe crafting and can easily be obtained from Firestorm Citadel.

The movement speed decrease isn't that bad once you get used to it, though going from one side of the field to another does take a lot of time.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 13:39

Krakob

The HP difference is 3 per piece. 123 HP. Barely anything. If you're worried about heavy hitting weapons i.e. DA and GF, you'd be best off with something like Volcanic Plate mixed with Dread Skelly. How do we know defence is so obsolete anyway?

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 14:24

Blue-Flood

This is making want to get a piece fo plate gear just for fun. I've been rockin no heart trinkets occasionally in LD, so health really isn't so much of an issue. You'd be surprised how many bombers just don't see the stun walk from Justifier coming :). Should be the same with plate. I'd go Ironmight all the way, cause the helmet is silly looking.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 14:51

Khamsin

"How do we know defence is so obsolete anyway?"

Testing. You get innate 100 defense against everything and your armor is scaled down substantially, providing something like 20 defense against the type it is designed to resist.

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 01:17

Krakob

@Khamsin

Yeah, I know about the 100 defence. I was there. I remember that defence isn't too good but I've never viewed it as obsolete. From where do you get the number 20?

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 09:28

Njthug

I use Ironmight --- Piercing + Normal in my view is a better mix. Volcanic Plate is a suitable piece of armor as well, but I think I like how Ironmight looks so I picked it!

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 10:13

Krakob

Seems like the defence of only one piece of Ironmight is literally obsolete. Keep an eye on this thread: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/90606

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 11:48

#10

Deleted-Knight

If I may...

I don't play T3 that often and I don't use trinkets. However this is what I noticed when I play:
At full health I die in a single GF/DA combo (used by skolver clone) with any armor set that does not offer complete resistance (vog plus chaos would allow me to survive against DA combo).
With Ancient Plate Helm and chaos cloak, I can always survive a GF/DA combo when on full health. I would have around 1 health bar left

I haven't used any of the other plates before, but judging from the stats you give, I don't think they would offer as much survivability to someone with no trinkets.

Tue, 10/08/2013 - 10:44

#11

Krakob

There's a lot more consideration required when choosing defensive gear now. Guess I'll roll Ancient until OOO releases a shadow resistant Plate set, hahaha!

Tue, 10/08/2013 - 10:52

#12

Khamsin

"Yeah, I know about the 100

"Yeah, I know about the 100 defence. I was there. I remember that defence isn't too good but I've never viewed it as obsolete. From where do you get the number 20?"

Krakob I believe that was the difference between no pierce defense and wearing skolver when smacked with a rapier. Somewhere in that neighborhood.

Tue, 10/08/2013 - 11:07

#13

Krakob

I know the numbers now, thanks. Well, roughly. Don't think Zeddy put them in a public document yet.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 10:56

#14

Jawny

ancient plate + bkc is amazing
I have played against feller and hit him 4 times with my combuster (+6 damage, first swing) and he was still alive.
keep in mind any normal set is not able to survive even 3, while his set survives 5.
-Redblades

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 11:02

#15

Krakob

I've switched to Ancient, too. It's nothing short of inhumanely OP when paired with a couple of Pentas and a BKC.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 11:29

#16

Imposible-God

Yo red

People loves ASI too much..

Besides.. I don't want clones of my hipster ancient..

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 11:37

#17

Zeddy

You should be able to die in 4 hits with Vog Cub against combuster, but I'm not too surprised ancient can take 5.

Mon, 10/14/2013 - 04:04

#18

Theirillusion

Imposible-God:
"Yo red
People loves ASI too much..

Besides.. I don't want clones of my hipster ancient.."

"People loves ASI too much.."

People love freeze resistance and max damage and msi... and asi. ASI is not all you miss when going in your "hipster set".

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Best Plate Mail for LD?