GM Cleaver mentioned they were open to suggestions. These are my suggestions.
===Introduction===
I should start by introducing myself. I'm Spark, and I've been invested in this game for the better part of 14 years by now. (almost all of SK's lifetime. Granted, I hardly started to grasp the mechanics of this game until a couple years after starting but still, I've been around for a while) Spiral Knights is without a doubt my favorite video game of all time. And likewise my most played game by a hilarious and sometimes concerning margin.
I enjoy playing nearly every single part of this game, particularly Prestige Missions, Events and Arcade. I like to switch up my loadouts, refine strategies and mess with different combinations of gear. To put it simply, I play a lot of Spiral Knights. In and outside of the “meta”, in virtually every part of the game. So when it comes to anything off-meta (which is basically everything except for brandishes, autoguns, blasters and vortex bombs) I'm one of the most experienced players out there.
Several months ago I had started working on a very large video project centered around "rebalancing" Spiral Knights. Essentially dissecting every system in game, from exploration, combat, crafting and heating, weapon and armor balancing. Just about every aspect of the game aside from like, the economy and PvP. Two avenues I have the least amount of interest in.
This was going to be such a massive and in-depth video, I wasn't planning for it to be done for at least another year. All the recent activity on Grey Haven's part actually messed with my plans to such an extent where I can't really make that video the way I originally intended it to be. (In the best way possible, the current direction of SK is like a dream come true)
After some internal debate I settled on repurposing part of it into a forum post. (which is a little counterintuitive since one of the main reasons I wanted to present this information in a video format is because reading walls of text is unbearable sometimes. So I apologize in advance. There's seriously a ton of information I plan to unpack) Also its probably better to get these suggestions out there before changes start being made to the gameplay.
Also I hate mentioning this in a forum post because it feels like I'm shilling my channel, but I'm just bringing it up because it's relevant and also because they bring up additional talking points that I won't be getting into today. I have three videos on my YouTube channel where I rank all the weapons between the three main categories from worst performing to best performing:
Where I discuss the strengths, weaknesses, game mechanics and overall performance for every weapon in the game. Which also conveys a good idea of how "good" or "bad" certain weapons are. (Which I can't wait to have to redo later down the road) I mention this because these videos point out other related issues that are not directly tied to specific weapons. Such as Gran Faust's problems being tied to how the Curse status is handled, rather than the weapon itself. (the charge attack is still bad, I'll get to that later)
I know it was mentioned that the GMs would be focusing on buffing weapons instead of nerfing the over-performing ones, which is understandable given the current state of the game. But I would be doing a disservice not to bring up just how overtuned and outright unbalanced brandishes and autoguns are. For being two of the most accessible weapon types in the game, (you're outright handed a brandish early on) they become the most dominant weapon types in practically every scenario in the game, and are rarely bested by anything else.
In my Sword Ranking, I stress the performance gap Brandishes have when it comes to inflicting status effects. They're genuinely on a whole different level from every other weapon type in the game. (with the exception of Haze bombs) which is honestly fine for the most part. I personally view brandishes as status weapons more than damage weapons. And instead of diminishing that aspect, I think It would be better to bring other status weapons up to par with brandishes. So you're gonna see a lot of "increased status potency" and "increased status effect chance" for basically every weapon in the game that inflicts a status effect.
Lastly, normal damage is in a spot of inferiority. This topic is broad enough to warrant a whole separate forum post. But the long story short is, using a weapon with elemental effects is almost always better than using a normal damage one regardless of the scenario. The versatility granted by using normal damage is undermined by how monster defenses work and how Arsenal Stations allow you to adjust your loadout right before most levels in the game. The easiest and most straightforward way to fix this would be to give all normal damage weapons an increase in damage, similar to how a non-status weapon outdamages one with a status effect. (ex: Valiance would outdamage the other blasters when dealing normal damage)
===Handguns===
Catalyzers:
Honestly the damage is fine for the most part now that Neutralizer has finally been fixed. If anything, I'd say they need a slight adjustment to blend better with the usual "hack and slash" playstyle of SK.
-slightly increased detonation zone
The charge bullet will detonate tags from further away
-larger tag explosions
-Chain tag explosions together
This one's a bit more experimental, but basically tags can detonate other tags, causing a chain reaction when you have multiple tags placed on several different monsters.
Antiguas:
I'm actually very happy with the recent fix to the charge attack. The charge bullet isn't destroyed whenever it grazes a stray leaf in the wind.
-Less bullets on charge
One of the main problems with Antigua charge is the length of time the player is rooted in place. A simple solution to this is to decrease the number of bullets fired before the "bird" projectile. I'd say 3-4 is preferred. A couple other ideas I've heard would be to:
A) allow player movement while firing the charge attack.
B) allow the player to aim/change direction while firing the charge attack.
I could see any of these changes working.
-Charge attack bullets can flinch
Similar idea, the length of the charge attack leaves you vulnerable to being hit, even if you land the entire charge attack on your target. Numerous times I've attacked something and it just continues to walk towards me complete unfazed. Giving the first few bullets the ability to stagger would mitigate this.
Antiguas could also use a slight damage increase, but I'd rather advocate for a different change that focuses more on altering how damage bonuses work. Which is outside the scope of this post so I'll save it for another time.
Tortoguns:
The following section is copy pasted directly from that video script mentioned earlier:
“Alright, I wholeheartedly agree that this weapon type is in need of a drastic buff or rework. I just disagree with most ideas people have when it comes to changing these guns. It's just, to me it seems like a lot of these players are making suggestions without fully understanding how the weapon even works. What its strengths and weaknesses are, where it falls short, and the changes that would actually benefit the weapon type. I promise to you I'm not trying to brag by saying that I've probably used these guns more than any other player. So please at least consider that I know what I'm talking about.
Tortoguns are melee weapons first and foremost. Which might sound odd considering they're part of the handgun class and they're crafted from handguns and they just are handguns. But they function as melee weapons more so than they do as ranged weapons. (But they don't compete with swords)”
(I had a section here introducing the charge attack that I'm cutting out for space and relevancy)
“One of the most common opinions you'll hear is that the hit limit should be removed. And although I do agree that this hinders the weapon. Removing it wouldn't fix any of the core issues. I'd even go as far to say that the hit limit is probably the least of the Tortoguns’ problems.
Alright, I'm going to be going down a list of changes that I feel would be best for the weapon type from most impactful to least impactful.
-3 hit attack chain
Like a blaster for example. You'd be able to attack three times before reloading instead of two.
-Better hit detection/larger hitbox on lunge & bullet
The “lunge” and projectile tend to completely miss in close quarters combat.
-improved crystal placement on charge attack
Long story short, the crystals from the charge attack are typically placed around your target instead of on top of them. Attacking a stationary target, like a gun puppy for example, will cause the entire attack to miss the vast majority of the time.
-larger hitbox/bigger crystals on charge
-increased lifetime of crystals
-remove hit limit
And last but not least, if you’re gonna design a gun to function as a melee weapon, give it the damage of a melee weapon. And I'm not talking about a simple damage increase, give tortoguns split normal damage like how we see with brandishes. This would also give us our first split normal/piercing weapon, which would be cool.”
Blasters:
-Increased size of charge bullet
-Increased damage of charge bullet
Pulsars:
-Increased status effect chance (regular and charged attacks)
-Increased status potency on charge attack
-Increased damage on charge attack
-Increased base charge speed
Autoguns
-Increased status chance (regular and charge attacks)
Magnuses:
-More damage on regular attack
-Slightly increased range on regular attack
Overall, magnus light attack is very underrated and underutilized by the general playerbase. A fast moving projectile that can flinch is super handy, it just needs a little push to be worth using over other guns.
Wands:
There's not too much I'd want to buff about wands to avoid making them superior to craftable Alchemers. But I do feel like there were some missed opportunities when designing this weapon type.
-Different "types" of wands
Currently, all the wands that we have (Owlite and Wanderer's Wands) are what I'm going to call "Alchemer Wands", as in they fire Alchemer bullets. It would be neat if there were variants that used different projectiles, like pulsars for example. (Wildfire is the main one that comes to mind. It would be akin to casting an actual "fireball" spell)
-Add status effects to wands
Volcanic would have Fire, Cool would have Freeze, ect… Obviously not all the color schemes would thematically match their status effects. Like what would Fancy have? I feel like it would be fitting to keep Divine and Prismatic as non-status weapons. And shadow wands could be changed to deal shadow damage instead of elemental. This could also introduce some status variants that we don't have in craftable form. Regal or Heavy could have Stun, Dusky could be Poison. This wouldn't be anything meta changing, wands are already super underwhelming weapons. This would just give some of them a reason to be used.