I'm looking at the stats on the Almirian Crusader Armor and Helm, and it just looks mediocre for a Shadow Lair armor. Is the fire vulnerability worth it? Curse resistance is neat, but just seems really situational. Can somebody explain what the main purpose of this set is?
Almirian Crusader
If I recall correctly, Almirian Crusader has higher normal defense.
By wiki defense terminology, crusader has either plate or special normal defense.
Shadowsun has class normal defense.
Both have base shadow defense.
Almirian Crusader Armor was always more of a trophy than a usable set. It's proof that you have conquered the hardest depths of the game. Maybe even twice, assuming you didn't buy any Maiden's Tears.
If you really want some curse resist, just use valkyrie raiment, Almirian crusader armor is decent in any normal shadow theme levels (and you can use it in Legion of Almire danger mission), but you are far better off getting snarby coat in SL, that armor is still better than the crusader armor even if you are a gunner/bomber.
Only get the crusader armor for the look, nothing else.
I know that Almirian Crusader has lots of damage protection. My point is that (for general Clockworks use) I'd rather have Shadowsun's poison resistance and lack of fire penalty --- even if I wasn't using any guns.
Azure Guardian and Almirian Crusader have the defence of defensive items such as Royal Jelly and Grey Feather but flipped, meaning approx. 75 normal and 62.5 specialised (or double that, if you wanna do the maths properly).
@Bopp
"Its damage protections are fine, but nothing special."
I was responding to that. Not many armors combine normal+shadow with a slight added defensive ability towards normal.
Are there many spots where you would want high normal+shadow defense? Not really.
The only two areas where it might be useful would be Vanaduke fights (for Royal Guards) and possibly tortodrones (where all damage types are present, but shadow + normal are most dominant).
Personally, in both these areas I have other better suited armor and would not use crusader. Other armors do rank significantly better than crusader due to offensive bonuses/status resists for non-specific usage.
Until the way defenses are calculated into damage reduction this set will be one of the less useful ones in the game. If the game does get reworked so that correct defenses actually cut off a large portion of damage then you can expect it to become the LD Anti GF suit and the best Graveyard survival set.
Well that's actually quite interesting. I never knew. While we're on the topic of weird armors with lots of defense and crummy offensive stats, would anyone happen to have some sort of a chart with all of the armor's defenses on it?
I'm familiar with the wiki page for 'defense', but have little idea how it applies to weird armor sets like crusader, valkyrie/fallen, heavenly iron etcetera. that aren't defined clearly on that page.
I made a sheet a while back. Values are D25 only and these values are before we discovered that whole past the threshold stuff and realised the defence values are twice as big as we thought before.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1faZuZeBJQS5GOoS5MmhdCTG6kt0PENGF...
I was planning on making this set with double max fire, but it seems pointless since I'm also making the Heavenly Iron set. Wish they would give it some kind of offensive bonus.
Sadly that is how SK works these days.
Trade in a few resists and a pinch of defense and you have a BK set.
Have large negative status resists and you get Mad bomber.
Take Mad Bomber and add one more penalty (against a rare status) and suddenly you have VH CTR and DMG on all weapons.
Take an ASD? Have a pinch of normal defense.....
This wouldn't be so bad if defensive sets actually cut off a large portion of damage, large enough for people to really debate about whether using that BK is safer than using Volcanic Plate.
well I think that "crusader" is a title that one should only earn if you are actually on a crusade/ have been part of a crusade or AT LEAST plan on being on one!!!
Oh... so you were talking about the set's stats, yep they suck, like Bopp said it, shadowsun outclasses almirian for not having any fire weakness even while not using guns, except for that tiny bit of extra normal defense that is completely neglectable, not only because damage resistance is a bit unimportant by itself, but it's also NORMAL damage resistance.... NORMAL [Insert mockery and laughter here]
@Aviri
well I think that "crusader" is a title that one should only earn if you are actually on a crusade/ have been part of a crusade or AT LEAST plan on being on one!!!
Well you can debate that delving into Shadow Lairs is sort of crusade all its own.
Is there any indication that this set will be buffed? I'm now afraid of wasting two nice fire UVs on a lackluster set.
The only reason crusader would receive a buff is because it's legitimately bad, a number of people want (and have always wanted) defensive armor to become useful and there are larger changes going on that we don't know about yet; i.e. we haven't been told anything directly, but we've observed changes like the new UI, new influx of gunner armor, the arcade redux, and the Herex plotline that indicate such greater changes.
There is no concrete evidence beyond that, at least to my knowledge.
No, there is no indication that the set will be buffed. As Fehzor explains, it needs a buff. But so do half (or more) of the armors in the game.
An odd feature of this game is that boss reward items are not necessarily better than non-boss items. For example, Combuster/Voltedge is at least as good as Divine Avenger and Fang of Vog. The same goes for Shadow Lair reward items. For example, Arcane Salamander is some of the worst armor in the game (because the defense doesn't match the offense).
The most important features of armor are shock+fire+freeze protection and offensive bonuses (in some order, depending on your preference). Almirian Crusader has neither; in fact, it has a fire penalty. Its damage protections are fine, but nothing special. Its only advantage is curse protection, which has very little practical value.
Let me put it this way: Almirian Crusader is outclassed by Shadowsun, even if you don't use any guns.