You probably already heard the cobalt set is the most useless in all game. That is not true. Now I’m gonna show you why you can, and should, make it your first set in game.
First Steps
Once you start you will probably be playing tier 1. Let’s remember all monsters in tier 1, either normal or advanced, deal normal damage, despite the color under his feet when he prepares do attack. And of course the cobalt armor is really good for it.
Let’s say you want to farm some crowns. The very first place to farm is the Snarby Lair. Some people like to go straight to Jelly King, but that is not necessary. Doing Snarb runs you can get 3k+ crowns on a 4 people party. Also, by defeating him you get his tokens, and then you can get your snarby set. They will help you very much, because most enemies will be vulnerable to piercing. So you get the snarby sword to deal piercing damage and kill moar snarbies!!
Another advantage is that the snarbolax lair will give you a basic experience of what you are gonna face all the way down to the core. Puzzles, boxes, etc.
Once you start playing elite, the damage gets specialized. And what damage does the wolvers cause? Piercing. Now, you might want to change your set. But let’s remember that the cobalt armor, shield and helmet provide defense against both Normal AND piercing damage.
So you can just keep them even in elite.
JK Runs
Now let’s say you are over it. You want to start farming JK. You need a jelly set? Not at all!
People tend to think you get all piercing damage from the JK castle but that’s not true. You will get almost the same amount of both, piercing and normal. So you might as well keep your cobalt set.
I dare to say you will need more normal defense, because when the slimes start to stack, they deal more and more normal damage. And also, JK himself deal normal, not piercing. So you might dodge all those gelatins for a while, but you need armor, and mainly a shield, with high normal defense to hold the big guys.
At Last.
Now, as you go down and complete missions, you will need equips more and more specialized. There is no set that will take you in all levels. However, if you want to get to vanguard, you will need two things:
One is a 5* set. Buying recipes for a 5* set and complete the last Hall of Heroes mission will cost you 100k crowns. That’s a lot! However, you get all the recipes for the cobalt set for free!
Second, you will need to farm a lot JK to get items to defeat Vana. You usually farm JK or others to farm Vana later. You don’t farm Vana to farm Vana! So you don’t need to rush into that “Vana Happy-Farming Set”. You might as well keep your Azure armor and look epic as f**k until you get your other sets.
The Cobalt equips won't be your only. Soon you will start crafting several brandishes, you will need shadow defense [just look at our current event!], elemental defense for RT, and so on. But i highly recommend that you use it as far as you can, and even make it your very first 5* set.
Thanks for reading!
=]
I agree that new players should do a lot of Snarbolax runs, to hone their skills. You're also right that Cobalt armor defends well against the threats in the Snarbolax and Royal Jelly boss levels.
Your estimated payouts of 3,000+ crowns, not including the boss tokens, is too high. The typical payout on Elite is about 2,200 crowns (see here). I have never recorded a payout as high as 3,000 crowns. By the way, party size does not affect mission payouts (except perhaps in special cases --- and Shadow of the Beast does not appear to be one).
You advise knights to make Cobalt their first 5-star armor, simply because the recipes are free. That's true, but recipes are a tiny part of the overall cost of making a complete 5-star item. Orbs and Radiant Fire Crystals account for almost all of the cost. So you are saving very little money by going with Cobalt/Azure Guardian. And the worst part is that you end up with an armor set that you don't really want. This armor will sit unused in your Arsenal, as soon as you get your second, better armor set. Instead of going with Cobalt, spend a little more money to get the armor that you really want, the first time. For example, the Wolver-line armors also protect against normal and piercing, while offering an offensive bonus that eventually makes them some of the most desirable armors in the game.