Spiral Knights - Advice on Gauntlet loadouts?

Advice on Gauntlet loadouts?

7 replies [Last post]

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 06:59

Captaintimey

Been using the Gauntlet as my farming level of choice (decent crown payout, decent amount of shinings), so I decided I should look into improving my loadouts for it. I personally prefer gunning, but I do have some bombs/swords to pick from if I feel like a gun won't cut it. The few swords mentioned are my only sword options, though I also have master blast bomb and electron bomb to pick from, but I doubt they'll work as well as DR/spike shower. My gun selection is basically all the pregunner update guns and mega tundrus.

Pierce:
Perfect Mask of Seerus
Justifier Jacket
Barbarous Thorn Shield
Dark Retribution
Mega Tundrus
Bomb CTR sprite perk

Other potential weapons: Furious Fork, Strike Needle, Spike Shower
Other potential armor: Justifier Hat, Mercurial Demo Suit

I feel that a) I'm not using my DR/it's not doing enough and b) there's more beasts than slimes here. Since Mega Tundrus easily trashes the quicksilvers/polyps and does decent damage to the beasts, I feel like I could swap my DR for my Spike Shower.

Shadow:
Kat Eye Cowl
Shadowsun Slicker
Crest of Almire
Spike Shower
Volt Driver
Bomb CTR sprite perk

Other potential weapons: Combuster, Furious Fork, Callahan, Strike Needle, Feral Cannon

Obviously the worst area for me. The area itself is a bit tight since the freeze grates are on the sides, creating corners which are not good at all. Trying to craft sacred grizzly shade armor to get some more freeze def, but my weapon choices definitely feel weak. Spike shower tends to leave me open and I have a poor time actually hitting gorgos/greavers with my volt driver. I'm not so sure about my other weapon choices either.

Elemental:
Perfect Mask of Seerus
Chaos Cloak (Fire med)
Wise Owlite Shield
Combuster
Gorgomega
MSI sprite per

Other potential weapons: Acheron, Gran Faust

I think this is probably my strongest area, since I have armor that actually works. Main strategy is run around and spam gorgomega charges until the gremlins are dead, then finish off with combuster charges against the mecha knights. The big problems are accidentally catching on fire with gorgomega's step for the regular attack or the spin for its charge attack or the stupid menders in the last wave. If I had a third slot, I would run GF just to get rid of them.

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 07:43

Hexzyle

I tend to find that a third weapon slot is one of the best investments you'll ever make. It really opens up your fighting style to change mid-combat if something isn't working right.

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 10:47

Poopsie

...

First for all, you shouldn't be hunting shining, instead try to farm rads since you have mostly go from depth 24+ before going to where rads at. (until you find the last updated ranked mission piece of cake).
I think nitro works well on solo-ing more than you expected.

Pierce:
for DR, you have to spam in little radius (moving in small circles) instead of running around and drop it whenever. Stacking / overlapping DR bombs is the moment when this bomb has huge dps. As said on shadow part, you may want one fast weapon instead of both "slow" weapon to execute.

Shadow:
You are lacking of quick-witted weapons like furious fork listed on your alts, this is due to you could cancel the attack of most annoying monsters devilite's toss, and greaver with quick pokes. To dodge bullets, use your dash wisely. It'll nullify them.

Elemental:
Actually, Acheron >>> Combuster. Since half of them are gremlins, and anything except gremlins are fire monsters. And the silly acheron update makes almost no diff damage on constructs between combuster and acheron.

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 17:29

Bopp

response

For the first room, yes, you could go with Winter Grave and Dark Briar Barrage (or their lower-star versions). The problem with DBB is that it does so little damage to the slimes, that you have to deal with them separately. DR, on the other hand, lets you slaughter everything together. I'd recommend that you get more bomb CTR and more bomb damage, and concentrate on DR. You could bring Blitz Needle for the silkwings.

For the second room, Combuster with Dark Briar Barrage is a very powerful combination. DBB handles the gorgos and greavers. Combuster handles a couple of cases where you want to inflict high damage on a single howlitzer or something like that. You are right that the room layout hampers your maneuvering. That's why guns are not advantageous here.

For the third room, the layout makes everything easy. Just spam Acheron, as Poopsie says. Or spam Combuster on the constructs. Do you have Warmaster Rocket Hammer? Then bring it instead of Combuster, just for taking out turrets quickly.

I'm sorry that I'm not giving much gun advice. The third room is the easiest for gunning, due to the layout. Just spam Winter Grave on everything. But still consider bringing WRH for the rocket turret that spawns in the middle bottom at the start of the second wave.

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 20:08

Finale-Flare

@Poopsie Why shouldn't he

@Poopsie

Why shouldn't he farm shinings? When you are at that point, 309 shinings is quite a bit.

@OP

I recommend 8-2 rotting metropolis for shining farming. Its about 10 min run, with 15 avg. Drop per run (usually higher).

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 21:21

Captaintimey

Looked at all the advice,

Looked at all the advice, bought a wep slot (was due for one anyway), and went on a run to see how it worked out.

Pierce: Went Justifier/Merc Demo this time, added Vali to pick off silkwings, and changed my perk to bomb damage.
I think the bomb damage really changed DR's usefulness. Everything in mixed waves went down quickly and I barely had any trouble.

Shadow: Went BKC/Shadowsun, Spike Shower/Combuster/Electron bomb, bomb damage perk again
Combuster and spike shower were fantastic here. Though if it weren't for the pills I had, I probably would had to rev, since I'm still horrid at dodging greavers/gorgos. Electron bomb didn't really do anything cause everything was spawning so far apart. Dunno what to bring though

Elemental: Went Gorgomega/Acheron/WRH, sword ASI perk
Basically the same as previous runs. I still keep setting myself on fire, which is not fun. WRH was super nice for getting rid of that rocket puppy, but I'm considering running virulent catalyzer because that last wave is still rather annoying for me. I have a load of trouble getting rid of both menders at once, so poison could help out.

Sun, 05/24/2015 - 22:27

Qwez

Shadow: I might instead bring some of non-magnus/autogun to force devilites to dodge(thus not attacking) and to knock Trojans if necessary. Maybe that'd help more than EV (but I don't know because I don't solo Gauntlet, I usually go double swords for focused damage in a party).

Elemental: This fight shouldn't really be a problem. I'd go DR/Acheron.
Rockets will hit friendlies, so you can use them to bodyblock for you. You can walk to one side of the map, and dash away, then charge Acheron while circling around to deal with the Rocket Puppy.

For menders, kite around in a huge arc(hug around the walls) to draw out the combat enemies, then use an Acheron charge and attempt to combo them to death. Use 1st sprite abilities to help stall mecha knights and thwackers (or help deal damage /shrug). Something else that you can do, is drop one DR while retreating to immobilize the menders(by forcing them to heal the injured mobs) then swooping in for the kill.

Mon, 05/25/2015 - 06:34

Bopp

two gremlin menders

I'm glad that our advice has been useful. To handle two gremlin menders, such as in the third room, try any of these tactics:

A. Charge Acheron (or Winter Grave or Umbra Driver) to kill one. Then circle around and kill the other with another charge. Half of the time the first one will be resurrected already, but half of the time not. So you can often finish them off in two or three passes. Once you get really daring, try to arrange to kill both in one charge attack.

B. Kill one, and then use a gun to keep the other interrupted until it dies. Winter Grave certainly works.

C. Spam Dark Retribution everywhere. Even if it takes a little while to crack through the menders' shields and kill them, you're killing lots of constructs and gremlins along the way. As always, lots of CTR and damage bonus help.

D. Spread poison, as you've figured out. Venom Veiler is the real king of this, but Biohazard is more interesting as a weapon.

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Advice on Gauntlet loadouts?