4. Shouldn't this be in New Recruits?
Besides, Vile Striker ain't that great, enemies usually die before you can land poison on them. And it attack is bad to begin with.

Hexzyle, I wouldn't necessarily say that DVS' reasonable low amount of usage is the cause of trouble with Menders. They nearly eliminate standard kiting + AoE strategies unless you're massively powerful.

The only reliable sources of non-vial poison are the Biohazard, Plague Needle, and Venom Veiler, and the most commonly used item of those three is the Veiler, which is rare enough as is. Additionally, the Veiler is the most useful for the purpose of poisoning things, and does so in a wide area; they're a direct counter to Menders.

I don't exactly like the idea of outright requiring Poison to deal with Menders in high-end situations, but that's how it is. Menders kinda are OP, that healing relic needs to be toned down a bit.

That's why you take out the menders first, unless you are going to poison the foes and let the mender does his stuff. But you must understand that you can't just rely on the damage poison deals, as it would take a while. You have to attack them with your attacks in addition to the poison.

That isn't a problem with menders, it's a problem with arenas. Menders are fine. Gremlins in general could something akin to what was done to devilites, a reduction of dodge frequency. That would solve a lot of the problems.

@OP: search Gameplayflicks on YouTube. Someone's beaten you to this idea.

Just for the record, in case OOO ever reads this thread, PLEASE DON'T NERF ARENA DIFFICULTY, MENDERS, or anything else for that matter! Increase difficulty if you're going to do anything.

K thanks bai

@Rating There are many changes that need to be made to the game; many buffs, many nerfs, et cetera. In order to make this game have any semblance of monster 'balance', many of the enemies themselves need to change, not their quantity. I don't mean to say that only nerfs are needed, no sir. Artificial difficulty has to go, and bottlenecking players into certain item sets regardless of their ability to play the game is artificial difficulty.

@Autofire It's by no means a BAD weapon, but so many other things outshine it and do its job better.

No, DVS is in fact a BAD weapon.

This is because it lacks crowd control entirely, while every other normal sword has excellent crowd control. This makes it tedious and unreliable, and, because it must rely on a bomb or a handgun to deal with crowds, makes it a relatively poor place to start when building an arsenal.

I like how this went from "Watch mah yootoobez!!!1!" to "Menders are OP. Please change" and "DVS is bad/reasonable/shoddy/whatever you want to call it".

Anyway, on the subject of Menders, one problem is that, upon reaching to Tier 3, players aren't prepared to fight them (The same goes for Thwackers, and perhaps a few others, but Menders are the worst offenders in this regard). Aside from the Bubble that they use, their rune heal and necromancy are both annoying and difficult to deal with without the right equipment, such as the Faust or Biohazard, and that's when there's only one.

No, that's not what I meant: the Menders in Tier 2 are far weaker than the ones in Tier 3, which can leave players unprepared when they see the ghasterds healing like crazy with the Rune and bubble. The Tier 2 variant should probably have the bubble.

... Though... more healers in the other families might help in this regard.

Menders are pathetic. Apparently in beta/preview, they were actually OP as hell.

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/130

I use the DVS all the time, and despite it being my personal favorite, it really does kind of suck.

Seriously, a GF can 2hko any enemy while soloing whereas a cutter, even with DMG and ASI max, still takes one or two whole combos to finish off. As much as I enjoy using it, I have to admit that every other 5 star weapon is both much more practical and effective.

TBH though, I think it's more of an issue of OOO not properly balancing the game rather than the function of the weapon itself. A fast, "death-by-a-thousand-cuts" sword should be useful, but OOO doesn't seem interested in balancing or exploring any of the great potential the line has.

For one thing, they need to buff wolvers by increasing their attack speed and the rate they teleport at. Also combuster is best pony.

DVS would be used if invincibility frames were removed in LD.

Actually, DVS is evil in Lockdown if you're skilled with it and know how to combo it with a Voltaic Tempest. As is all the autogun lines.

@Hex

Heh, I agree - I usually use a Storm Driver because I hate using strategies that depend on the stupidity/incompetence of the enemy player, but the effect is the same and it is hilarious. Especially when it happens to the more volatile players who scream "AA" or "HAX!" because they don't know about the 'frames trick with shock. OFC, I don't do this all the time because it's not my play style pref - I like to run in and turn people to mulch.

But that still doesn't make the weapon good, or even it's current state acceptable. For what you could do with a VT & Cutter you could probably do better with a GF, DA, BTB, any fast gun (Or hell, just another VT to keep them in a chain of shocky, infuriating death) or essentially any other weapon. I mean, in this case the entirety of the weapon's effectiveness relies on another, more useful weapon. Even other weapons considered "sidearms" like valiance can be used on their own to some effect. On it's own, from my experience using it as both a recon and a striker (it's actually easier to use as a recon than a guardian, believe it or not) all that happens is that you combo & lock them twice or three times, and they just turn around and swat you down in 2 hits w/ a heavy sword, or use their flourishes' better reach and damage to hit-stun you to death. Unless you have AA on, the more skilled gunners will always slip out of your reach & combos; and despite all the hits in the combos, it takes forever to break guardian shields, and makes directly assaulting one near-suicide (ambushes and sneak-attacks too, actually).

With enough skill, ANYTHING can be deadly, but because it takes so much skill to make a viable weapon, why would anyone give up Hammerspamming, pola spamming, faust spamming, alch spamming, brandish spamming, haze spamming, toothpick spamming, and nitro spamming to take up cutter spamming to perform worse than any of the above?

ALSO:

Yes, I miss the old wolvers, which were actually threatening in packs. BRING 'EM BACK!