The letter salutation is usually addressed to it's audience, not announcing who you are. Unless you're writing this to yourself.

You don't need to sign your letter letting us know you're Bossbane if you already told us once. I much prefer the signature to the megaphone.

If you play with goals in mind, there is no such thing as forever, only small steps toward your small goal, which is part of a larger goal such as collecting all equipment and armor and heating it to lvl 10.

If you take into consideration that you'll have to do the same amount of grinding to level up each piece of equipment, and earning the straight crowns to buy the recipes is easily the LEAST time consuming part of the process, and equipment with ASI or Damage Bonus lets you kill things (read: grind for mats/crowns/rarities) faster, it's well worth the minimum investment to buy other recipes besides cobalt and to get other armors. And weapons.

Three Rings should renovate the cobalt gear, give it offensive bonuses or status resist bonuses. Perhaps asi low/damage low on each piece. Asi only at low levels, with added damage at 5*. Perhaps a med or low resistance to every status on each piece.

The armor is considered one of the worst, it looks great but doesn't really match it's mighty appearance.

The leviathan blade has one of the most reliable/safe charges for dealing heavy damage to immobile enemies (turrets, cornered, and frozen/shocked enemies), against the rest if makes for a defensive charge attacks and a fair regular combo.

Valiance is currently the easiest to use gun, reliable knockback, simple combo, fair damage, and a charge that works fair. (the Impending gunner update aims to give the blaster line damage types so expect the valiance to fade into obscurity to keep the leviathan blade company in the deep neverused part of your backpack).

The Nitronome is the solo bomber's staple bomb, good ctr, nice knockback, good damage. The biggest downside is the massive blue flash that covers your screen every time it goes off, this makes seeing incoming bullets hard and makes playing with said bomber hard.

A.K.A. noob trap.

Is that a troll? Arcane Salamander is one of the worst armors in the game (its offensive bonuses don't match its defense). And, to add insult to injury, it's pretty hard to get (Shadow Lair).

Arcane salamander has the highest normal+elemental defense outside of volcanic plate, and comes with fire resistance to boot. It just gets a bad rap because people don't consider it as a defensive item, and instead just think of it as a defective volcanic salamander suit that has beast and slime low... the low buffs aren't even the big highlight of the armor, and are really just there as a little added bonus to give it an edge against random mobs that pop up and limit its defensive capability.

If you made it your endgame set for elemental+fire defense, it could really shine with some decent UVs stacked up to reach even higher than you would be able with something like vog or even volcanic demo.

Two new things to say regarding Cobalt and the Arcane Salamander.

First about the Arcane. I have not done too much with it besides costume work, but I have used it a bit. Well, I actually don't have the Helmet yet, but the armor I do have. I'd say it works quite well with some hybrid sets. I have found that combining it with Skolver or Shadowsun (or Bombastic if you are a UVed bomber) Helms gives you decent offense against slimes and beasts depending on your weapon. It will also protect you from the elemental enemies that can sometimes be found along with them. Especially in Clockwork Passages. So it works much better than Cobalt which barely helps with anything.

Oh, and for the higher defense, I'm going to say what applies to everything defense in this game. It's there, but the only way to know is by risking your death.

Now for what I have to say about Cobalt. I have decided that I love it and it is a great set that everyone should use. I say this because everyone else using Cobalt will make me feel better at this game when I don't.

While I agree that Levi is a balanced blade, it's imbalanced in comparison to most other swords.
Brandishes have faster combos and more damage.
Flourishes have the same damage values but specialised in addition to also being way faster with a better hitbox.
Warmaster Rockethammer and Divine Avenger/Graun Faust are quite different but they outshine Levi with ease in terms of dps and combo safety unless used against something they're not effective against.
WRH in particular is able to achieve what's probably the highest combo DPS available in the game if you know how to use it.

Levi's only strong point is the charge. The charge is insane, really. It's safe (for you, but not necessarily your teammates) and will one-shot most turrets without even dealing effective damage. It can also deal heavy damage to Trojans and other heavy enemies and it's just great for creating breathing room.

But the combo is just awful. It's worse than almost everything else available.

Aegis

My friend IRL recommended me to make this shield for my first run through the campain and I relented due to the fact I was piss poor and the fact that the recipe is for free make this shield desirable... BIG MISTAKE THIS SHIELD IS GARBBAGE, its high normal defence worth squatt when there is no status resist (which is more important, but I didn't knew back then.) Now days, I much prefer using owlite, CoA, skelly and dragon scale shield, only on a few favoured occasions (wolver den or slime level).

Colbalt set

Thank the flying rainbow unicorn that I never crafted this piece of crap over 3* and sticked with my quicksilver set, the MSI is not really beneficial but still it is a superior chocie over azure guardian (shock resist is something to consider), I never liked its look.

Levi

Well, I crafted its undead hating cousin but hey, they are close enough. CIV as a sword was competent when I first had it, it is actaully my first 5* sword (with acheron been my second) and I have to admit even the silent night blade had better killing power than the CIV, in the past I was forced to use this sword in missions like FSC, HoI and LoA, it was then the sword became comepletely obsolete in a 4 men party. Grand Flourish and glacius have now filled its place in my arsenal.

Valiance

I remeber a time when I kite the jellies endlessly in RJP while all my newb team mates are down, what a painful grind it was. I upgraded it to 4* and never made it to valiance until the forge update. Polaris, sentenza and blitz needle soon took valiance's place. It was a fun three shot blaster while it lasted. A good weapon for newbs in RJP and IMF, but definately not worth the orbs past 3*

It is a bad armor set but not the worst. That goes to the Drake Scale line. Because it lacks normal defense you will always take lots of damage and the offensive bonuses it gives are pitiful in comparison to other "bad" armor sets.

Mad bomber is another one of the sets that is a noob trap as all the offensive bonuses you get and more from Chaos set only sacrificing curse defense (which shows up only in shadow layers and graveyards)

The worst set for how hard it is to get isn't Arcane Salamander but Almirian Crusader helm. it has the same levels of defense as the base line, but trades piercing for shadow defense (good) and picks up cure resistance at the cost of fire (bad)

Drake Scale is most certainly useful. It has two good resistances and its split defence makes it useful in many levels since there's so much specialised damage in elite. The damage bonus isn't one you might call good but it's way better than no damage bonus and the set has some niches. It's great for any beast level with poison or fire and it's the best set for Compound 42, rivaled only by Set of the Fallen. It's a niche set, but it most certainly has more uses than Azure Guardian, which is objectively worse than many sets.

Mad Bomber is a remnant of the Chaos buff which OOO never fixed. It was never intended to be bad, nor is it bad. It's just outshadowed by Chaos. Using it isn't really bad, it's just that there's a better option.

I guess I was wrong about the dragon scale line but I will hold to asure not being the worst for new players. I can't say how many times i've seen people die to spikes.

I've always assumed they dealt piercing. You know, because they stab you.