Spiral Knights - Damage or survival?

Damage or survival?

5 replies [Last post]

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 14:02

Holy-Nightmare

I have seen a lot of threads in which young players ask about which armors are best to play in; there are several answers but lets look at the most common ones.

Chaos Cloak and the BK set gives a very nice damage boost but lets face it, you can't tank status hits like other armors.
In this game it is statuses not type damage that can ruin you, with Chaos Cloak/BKset you get set on fire or shocked then it is pretty much over for you. Poisoned, frozen (for Chaos), or cursed and you are out of play for ages.

Not really safe choices for new players (though if you have a BK set you probably aren't new).

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Next we have standard class boost sets. Shadowsun, Skolver, and Volcanic Demo all provide good damage or CTR boosts and a single reliable status resist.
They also don't come with any status penalties which is nice, but they only offer one resist and a damage/ctr perk to only one weapon type. These armors function as a middle ground for new players, it helps them learn how to play with a bit of extra power but doesn't punish them terribly for making a misstep.

(Specialist armors are in this group as well but offer more status resists but are very specialized)

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Last we have the hyperdefensive sets; Dread Skelly, Grey Owlite, and Mercurial Mail. These offer a hefty bit of damage and status resist (in the case of Mercurial mail extra evasion potential). These sets don't offer any damage or CTR perks but are forgiving to those who receive status or hits from monsters.

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 15:49

Krakob

A major flaw in SK's PvE is that the statement "the best defence is a good offence" more or less holds true. While Chaos and BK gear aren't really fit for newbies who might get hit a lot, there's no major benefit in getting the most defensive sets as they don't have that much of an edge over class sets in terms of defence while they also leave you comparatively weak, which strips you of your ability to make good use of being able to take more hits.

Personally, I think I'd mostly recommend class gear to new players. Divine Veil is pretty decent as well. I also find Chaos very recommendable to people who have already assembled a good first 5* set, as they can get one piece and gradually walk into the realm of status weaknesses to make it more manageable and easier to control. If they are not comfortable with one piece of Chaos and one class piece, they can go back to a full class set. If they are doing well in a Chaos/class set, it's viable for them to make the full Chaos set.

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 15:01

Bopp

mostly agree

I agree that the big statuses (fire, shock, freeze) are more important than damage defenses. Depending on the situation or the player, they may also be more important than offensive bonuses. When advising players, I generally group armor and shields into four categories:

A. Glass cannon: Chaos, Black Kat, Swiftstrike Buckler. Choose from this category if you're good at games, a quick learner, or just a risk-taker.

B. Offensive: Vog Cub, Skolver, Shadowsun, Nameless, Volcanic Demo, Mercurial Demo, Barbarous Thorn Shield, etc. Choose from this category if category A seems too risky.

C. Defensive: Dread Skelly, Grey Feather, Grey Owlite, Crest of Almire, etc. Choose from this category if you've tried category B and you're still dying a lot. Don't be surprised if you return to category B soon.

D. Junk: Azure Guardian, etc. Don't choose from this category.

So you and I largely agree, except that you've left out some important examples such as Vog Cub, you don't to have a fourth category, and you seem to advise a more conservative approach (B and C instead of A and B).

Fri, 11/14/2014 - 06:42

Keepscaite

Which armors are useless?

Fri, 11/14/2014 - 15:33

Holy-Nightmare

@ Keepscaite

Armors that stop short of 5 stars.

Cobalt serves it's purpose of getting knights through Snarby and RJP (after that you ditch it unless you want Almirian later)

Some Specialist armors don't have defenses that match their "hunted" enemy damage type but they still offer some nice status defenses.

Plate sets have ASD (and one has an MSD too) so these are only truly useful for those with CTR/ASI weapons that bypass the ASD.

In the end all 5 star armors have their Niche they fit in but some are just more specialized than others.

@ Bopp Specialist armors bridge the gap between category C and B. They offer more status resist than class armors but their perks are so limited that most are used as category C armors.

There is also the Seerus masks which are bit of A and C depending on the situation.

There are also "fancy" sets like the Almirian Crusader and the Royal Jelly mail which provide less status defense than most armors. Still they look spiffy and knights wear them to stand out from the masses of skolver and Chaos users

Fri, 11/14/2014 - 16:37

Fehzor

Actually, most of the

Actually, most of the "defensive" sets like dread skelly and grey owlite offer the same amount of net resistance (normal + specialized) against things as their class armor counterparts, but with two status resists instead of one. This makes them only better in the case of missions like compound 42, where there are multiple statuses present. I would really hesitate to call them defensive armors.

Armor categories, in order from most useful to least useful

A) Valid Identity Armor* = Armor with high defense against major threats and high offenses that fit a particular build
B) "Glass" Cannon Armor = Has lots of easily overcame negative defense statistics with lots of buff; pay Punch to win
C) Valid Perk Armor = Anything with a non-ice resistance** + good weapon bonus (i.e. one you would find on a trinket/MSI)
D) Defense Armor = Anything with negative offense and high defense; useful for creating dump stats
E) Invalid Perk Armor = Anything with a sprite perk that no one uses, or ice resistance (i.e. damage vs X)
F) Valid Situation Oriented Armor = Useless unless you're fighting something oddly specific; dragon becomes OP on C42.
G) Invalid Situation Oriented Armor = Situation oriented armor that has no applicable situations. Like arcane salamander.
Zee) Vestigial Armor = Junk Armor that is no longer relevant due to development reasons; i.e. Royal Jelly + Mad Bomber.

*This is the perfect mask of seerus and nothing else
**Black Kat set (including the 4* versions) trivializes all armors with freeze resistance on them; there are no major threats in the game (i.e. bosses, difficult missions) that require freeze resistance prior to the endgame and the only endgame level with freeze as a threat does shadow damage. You can worry about ice-lumbers AFTER you've crafted black kat, seerus, and most other things.

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Damage or survival?