New and Adjusted Equipment Ideas (Part 1)

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Nrsh

Continuing from my last post where I discussed weapons with mixed damage types ("Mixing It Up With New Weapons," if you are interested), I have a bunch of ideas for new equipment and changes to existing gear.

To prevent this from turning into an incredibly long wall of text, I will come back to this topic occasionally with more additions.

Note: Some of these suggestions include entirely new mechanics. The mechanical difficulty of implementing them is not my main concern here—I am mostly focusing on fun concepts!

New/Adjusted Mechanics

Shield Bash:

  • Damage is now boosted by damage buffs (like the Black Kat Cowl's omni damage boost) and is higher overall.
  • You remain protected by your shield during the Shield Bash. However, this means taking too much damage during a bash can break your shield.
  • It might be worth adding a visible Shield Bash damage stat to every shield so that different shields can vary in their bash damage type and base damage.

New Shield UVs (Unique Variants):

  • Shield Bash Damage: Scales from Low to High.
  • Movement Speed While Shielding: Lowers the shielding movement speed penalty, with "Maximum!" removing it completely. Scales from Very Low to Medium.
  • Regeneration Speed: Scales from Very Low to Medium.

New Items

Ice Queen Shield

  • Stats: Normal + Piercing Defense; Ice + Stun Resistance.
  • Abilities: Shield bump bonus. Enemies are launched backward upon shield break.
  • Notes: We currently have no Piercing + Ice shield in the game at all. This perfectly doubles as a completion for the Ice Queen set and could be another motivation for clearing Shadow Lairs (that lack of incentive will likely be discussed in a future post). The shield bump bonus and launch on break on Jelly shields feels self-explanatory.

Trojan Blade

  • Stats: Massive Normal (maybe + Shadow) damage with a chance to stun.
  • Normal Attack: A one-hit combo consisting of a big overhead swing (slow, but a bit faster than a Trojan's swing).
  • Charge Attack: Mimics the Trojan attack boost, hitting enemies all around you (with a shock chance?) and granting a short attack boost.

Trojan Shield

  • Stats: Normal Defense.
  • Mechanics: The 5-star variant features an unbreakable shield (lower-star variations are simply very tough compared to other shields). It only defends from the front. You cannot turn while the shield is held (it won't be spammable like other shields), and movement speed is greatly reduced while held.
  • Abilities: No shield bump. The Shield Bash does high damage (and massive stun?), carrying enemies with you instead of sending them flying. (Perhaps the Shield Bash breaks the shield completely?)
  • Notes: These two items are meant to allow players to experience the "Trojan big bonk" fantasy with the entire Trojan kit. The shield will require careful balancing (I might have over-nerfed it here), but the idea is to allow the classic dash-into-big-hit combo without the Shield Bash throwing enemies out of range.

Broken Seal Sword (4-Star) & Unsealed Sword (5-Star)

  • Concept: 4-star and 5-star variants of the Sealed Sword. They deal big Normal damage.
  • 4-Star: Has the same trait as the Sealed Sword, with a chance to inflict a different status effect on every charge attack (charge attack shoots one sword like the Faust and Avenger).
  • 5-Star: Normal attacks have a very low chance to apply Fire, Poison, Shock, Freeze, or Stun. This low chance rolls for each status individually, meaning it can apply multiple statuses on the same hit! The charge attack shoots four swords (same size as Divine Avenger's ones), one in each direction. It looks like the Avenger and Faust lines, but rainbow-colored.
  • Notes: I would love for the charge attack animation of all the Sealed Sword lines to involve stabbing the sword into the ground (for example, like Garen from League of Legends does in his ultimate). This would create a shockwave around you (like the current version's initial hit, but maybe buffed to hit all around) and summon the sword projectiles.

Devilite Armor Set(s)

  • Concept: We could have multiple sets for different status effects/defensive stats, or just one Shadow defense set.
  • Bonus: Dash cooldown reduction (Low on each part of the set).
  • Notes: Meant to simulate those slippery little devils jumping all over the place. Of course, this must be balanced carefully so it doesn't break the game. I think the "Low" bonus should translate to 1 second off the cooldown per piece, for a total of a 2-second reduction. The set should probably not be too strong defensively if this proves to be too good of a buff. I would love for at least one set variant to have a tie like the Pit Boss.

Sprite Tamer Set(s)

  • Concept: Could be one generic set or a variety (possibly tailored to each Sprite). Bonuses could be simple things like attack or cooldown bonuses to Sprites, or even unique modifiers that alter what certain Sprite actions do (e.g., Seraphynx's Action 1 now has a chance to Stun).

(Continued in the first reply below...)

Sat, 08/08/2026 - 17:33 #1
Nrsh
Adjusted Items

Adjusted Items

Royal Jelly Shield

  • Adjustments: Added a shield bump bonus. Enemies are launched backward upon shield break.
  • Notes: I feel like the shield bump bonus and launch on break on Jelly shields is self-explanatory.

Royal Jelly / Ice Queen Sets

  • Adjustments: Taking damage now has a chance to drop hearts nearby.
  • Notes: A fun reference to the Royal Slime bosses shooting out Royal Minis that heal them.

Tortodrone Shields

  • Adjustments: Shield Bash is now invulnerable and features a bigger impact area on the final slam (stronger stun?). Damage remains doubled, as it is currently.

Aegis/Cobalt Line

  • Adjustments: Now provides only Normal defense (buffed, of course). Added a bonus to Shield Regeneration speed (Medium) and Shielding Movement Speed (Low on each armor piece, Medium on the shield).
  • Notes: This is the "John Spiral Knights" set, so it needs to be an all-purpose, useful, beginner-friendly staple. Each armor part should probably have a Medium buff to ensure the entire set grants "Maximum!" Shield Regeneration.

Heater Shield

  • Adjustments: Shield Bash now inflicts Fire/Burn.

Omega Shell

  • Adjustments: Added Thorns damage (enemies take a small amount of damage when hitting the shield).

Turbillion

  • Adjustments: Fix the charge attack to deal damage properly. Even better, make it work like a moving Vortex Bomb (without the final explosion) that sucks enemies in, deals damage, and carries them away.

Wild Hunting Blade

  • Adjustments: Change (some of?) the damage to Piercing. Fix the attack combo so it chains into itself properly. Make the charge attack more consistent (one option is to change the Cutter charge attack to an "instantaneous thousand cuts" style, where you do one dramatic motion, regain movement, and a ton of hits trigger very quickly).
  • Notes: I'm in the camp of keeping the Beast damage bonus even after changing it to Piercing.

Antigua (All Paths)

  • Adjustments: The charge attack is now only the last big hit (the bird).
  • Notes: The main problem with the current charge attack is that it takes way too long.

Black Kat Set

  • Adjustments: Remove status weaknesses/resistances (except maybe some of the Curse weakness).
  • New Negative Effect: Taking damage has a very low chance of inflicting a weak Curse on the player.
  • Notes: This might be controversial, but I think the Black Kat set is too prominent, and its weaknesses can be removed too reliably given the huge bonuses it grants. This change does three things: 1) Promotes more interaction with Curse, which is missing in the game. 2) Makes the set truer to what it is based on, which is thematically pleasing. 3) Gives the set a clear weakness that cannot be entirely removed with UVs, while maintaining its high risk/reward identity. (It's worth noting that Curse should probably receive some tweaks so it isn't just a "wait until you can play again" mechanic, but making the self-inflicted Curse brief could be enough here).

Snarbolax Set

  • Adjustments: Changed Shadow defense to Piercing. Removed Freeze defense and added a weakness to Stun. The damage bonus is now generic and becomes inactive when below 25% max HP (or maybe 50% of base HP, to prevent picking up Vitapods from hurting your damage).
  • Visual Adjustment: The armor changes to the colors of a vulnerable Snarbolax when under the HP threshold.
  • Bonus Idea: Dashing could leave a trail of spikes like the Snarbolax's attack (dash idea credit: Phycermorph's video "Future Ideas for Spiral Knights").
  • Notes: I am a firm believer that the sets you get from the Sanctuary Alchemy Machine should be good against their respective Shadow Lairs. To begin with, a Snarbolax-themed armor with Shadow and Ice defense makes no sense to me. It also doesn’t feel like the premium set it should be, so this helps distinguish it from the rest of the Wolver sets.
Tue, 08/11/2026 - 09:13 #2
Holy-Nightmare
A few comments

Perks to shield bashing would be appreciated, especially having it actually shield you for the charge... I don't think it should take further damage after while you're using the bash though... if you're giving up 50% of your shield HP it should cover you for that much first and only then should it eat into the remaining shield HP

I don't think UVs would be good since they end up as more ways to get bad UVs and if not implemented right could just be too broken

Ice Queen shield is needed, honestly a split off the Rock Jelly shield you can acquire from Basil like the Thorn Shield line

Cobalt line is fine, it's effectively the free set just after the tutorial that provides a fair build against the first two main bosses, removing pierce would hurt this a lot

Heater shield is fine, it's just supposed to be warm, not hot... but I think that the Vitasuit Plus Armor should be merged with the Heater shield and gain a helmet for a new set... would also need to make a 5 star Vitasuit/Vitahelm but having a Normal/Elemental set with Freeze resist would be nice, and would provide some value for people who stopped upgrading their Cobalt set because the Azure Set intentionally sucks

Turbillion might do even better if it just pulls enemies in to a single spot rather than carrying them off

Antigua is fine as is, the main thing is using the charge as a gun and using the typical old gunner set idea which is maxing out your attack speed... use it at range with the highest speed you can get and the charge makes for good supporting damage.... if you have the enemy's aggro then using the charge is a risky move, so just think before you start charging