Spiral Knights - Design or redesign an interesting armor/shield using existing stats

Design or redesign an interesting armor/shield using existing stats

8 replies [Last post]

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 07:52

Fehzor

We recently discussed the armor situation in this thread- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/111775

And the main point that Fangel and I made was that armor needs to be interesting as well as balanced, which is what this thread is to be about- designing and critiquing ideas for neat armor. Since these are fairly fun to come up with and can be centralized here instead of spread out in 20 million threads, this thread could become quite instrumental.

A few pointers as to how these should be written-
1. Try to avoid too much lore or whatnot. Just raw ideas for balance.
2. Don't introduce crazy mechanics out of the blue- just use existing things that could be done by a dev in 5 minutes.
3. Try to be concise in your descriptions

These ideas below are to serve both as something of a template, and as a few introductory ideas that I've came up with recently.

New Glass Cannon Piece

+MSI: High
+Attack speed increase: High
-Damage decrease: High
-Charge time increase: Low
-Has less defense
-Gives less health
-Negative med to all status resists

Idea: A specialized set for speed running and being a sort of scout so to speak. You gain the ultimate ability to dodge in and out of crowds with a gun or sword, but can't really do much damage with just that alone. Instead, you would have to rely on your speed to manipulate enemies for your party.

Improved Chroma

+Damage: Med
+Damage vs Slimes: Low
+Charge time reduction: Med
-Movement speed decreased: Med
-Attack speed decreased: Med
=Slightly more normal defense than it has now, think current plate set.

Idea: Instead of a slight slime bonus, chroma could be made into a sort of tank class- tons of offensive potential, but kind of clumsy and very charge oriented.. just like a real chromalisk is. Giving it a slime bonus: low makes it even better suited for fighting slimes. Imagine using this set with something like triglav.. you sneak around, and when in range are capable of wrecking house.

New Swiftstrike Variant

+Gives charge time reduction: very high
-Is zero star, meaning it has no shield bump
=Is available as a rare drop from boxes (all boxes) in Dreams and Nightmares- think 2.5% per run.

Idea: This shield would appeal to veteran players while also nerfing them heavily should they choose to use it- not being able to shield bump or tank hits is a horrendous penalty to even out such an amazing buff. Of course, working it in would be quite worthwhile.

Improved Heater Shield/Oven Mitt

+Gives both fire and ice resistance
+Has slightly higher normal defense

Idea: Holy-Nightmare thought of this idea a while ago in a thread, and I do agree with him that Heater/Oven Mitt could use a buff. So why not combine them into one shield that functions better and fulfills a bigger role, just like other shields do?

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 08:35

Fehzor

A few pointers on replying to other people's suggestions-

@Fehzor

What not to do
Your swiftstrike's boost is way too OP and it would dominate the meta for everything.
The point of this thread is the idea- we don't know that it's too strong or too weak. Devs have their own idea about how these things are to be balanced, and just like us are probably fairly set on them... and regardless of what you or a dev thinks, things would need to be tested.

If you must do this, try to be considerate and fair in your arguments, possibly providing an example of how you think it should be and why.

What to do
If your swiftstrike had less of a penalty and less of a buff it would fall more in line with the existing swiftstrike, and could be given out to a wider audience-

More general swiftstrike variant
+CTR: med
=Same defenses as existing swiftstrike

Idea: 3* players learn a ton from using the existing swiftstrike, and could learn even more if they had access to this amazing new shield- especially bombers, who glean nothing from the existing swiftstrike. The decrease from high to med is due to the natural CTR: med boost that gear gets from heat.

The truth of the matter is that both swiftstrikes could exist and that devs may be intrigued or inspired by either swiftstrike.

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 08:35

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fehz

Your Glass cannon set: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/104607

If we're going to drop chaos down a notch by giving it a MSD and ASD then I'd be ok with your set. Just have it penalize CTR more than damage, a Med Damage drop would still be serviceable. If you have played with the Fallen set like I have you know just how bad a VH damage penalty really is, even with universal ASI.

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I like your Chroma idea but the different lines should offer different final buffs, just rotate the MSI ASI and CTR buff/debuffs. Arcane gets MSI, Volcanic gets CTR and Virulisk gets ASI.

___

The shield is an interesting idea too..... perhaps make it craftable in the Sanctuary alchemy machine as well, just with no special materials to craft. (untradeable of course, since it would be easy to ragecraft a low star item). The 3 star version is also good too, but if it has less of a buff it should have slightly more normal defense.

___

I would be all for the heater and mitt getting a buff. They are both insulated shields and insulation protects from heat and cold.

___________________________________________________________________________

My ideas:

The BTS (IMO) is part of the heater shield group (matching defenses and whatnot) so if the heater shield gets buffed then the BTS should get sword ASI low and sword CTR low at the 5* level. OR it can receive a small poison/freeze resist to match up with the armor set.

The Grand tortoise: gets the normal defense of the APS

The celestial shield: IMO is part of the COA and DSS group and should receive 2 status resists, namely Fire and Freeze. Since it protects from light and dark it should protect you from the "Burning" sun and the "Freezing" night.

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 09:08

Fehzor

@Holy-Nightmare

I was indeed inspired by that thread, but didn't remember where it was or who had written it and have been contemplating the idea for a while, so I just re-wrote it. Thanks for pointing it out, credit where credit is due.

I do feel like chaos has lesser stats than the MSI+ASI version and is designed for a different purpose- becoming a literal glass cannon. What I've proposed as a change in the past is as follows:

New Chaos
=Same offensive buffs
-Negative very high status penalties
-Gives one less health per level
-Has less elemental/normal resistance

This makes it into the ultimate glass cannon armor from a purely offensive/charge based perspective. An alternative version of chaos that still lets you overcome its weaknesses but lowers your other stats, as well as branching chaos earlier would also be appreciated, since glass cannon armor is a fairly swell trope.

New Chaos Idea
+Damage: Med
+Charge time reduction: Med
-Attack speed decreased: low
-Movement speed decreased: low
-Status resistance penalty: low to all
-No elemental defense

Idea: Overcoming status penalties to make yourself very strong defensively would be plausible, but you would also have to deal with negative ASI/MSI as well- with full trinkets and sprite perks you could end up very maxed out, but not without some sacrifices.

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Your ideas for celestial shield and grand tortoise are great, while I've considered Barb Thorn Shield for a while now-
See number 5 here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/61589

It really doesn't make sense to balance it with the oven mitt/heater at all....

Redesigned Barb Thorn Shield
=Sword Damage: Med
-No more piercing resistance
+A bit more normal defense, think one high
+A bit more shield HP, like the med-point between normal and omega shell.

Idea: Balance the shield with omega shell instead of heater/oven mitt. This way, it provides all around coverage and isn't specific to one type, since the truth of the matter is that it's a general use shield and not really a counter to any status OR even piercing, which it resists.

Alternative Barb Thorn Shield
+Sword ASI: Med
=Same stats as above except for the sword damage
+Craftable from sanctuary, rabid snarbolax variant.

Idea: I do like the idea of shields buffing things, but would like to see it expanded upon. Also I want to do more shadow lairs but need an excuse to buy the key because I'm broke and want costumes.

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 11:39

Fangel

Hmm.

If we want to make alternative sets to current sets, that'll be neat.

Harmonious Set
Themed after Chaos
- Damage penalty: low
- Sword damage penalty: low
- Gun ASD: low
- Charge time increase: low
+ Medium status resist to the big 4 (fire, shock, freeze, poison)
+ Raised normal and elemental defense (Less than arcane salamander, but close)
+ 1HP

This acts as a sort of defensive chaos. The idea is that it'll not completely cancel out chao's stat buffs but it'll come really close to doing so (with chaos it'll make your sword damage neutral, bombs won't charge much faster, and guns will fire slower). On the other hand, it is a great mis-match piece of armor when you're looking for a tad of extra defense, and most of the penalties are so low that when you're only wearing half of the set you won't even notice them.

Alpha Voltail Set
Themed after the wolver lines
+ Sword CTR: medium
+ Shock resistance
= Otherwise stats are identical to a skolver set.

This is to fill in a gap that swords have in their class armor and grant us a CTR sword set. Since we already have three of the big 4 covered in class armor (fire, freeze, poison - to a lesser extent), I figured we should also grant shock resistance... Plus shock will harm a CTR set the most anyways.

Weapon Specialist lines
A new armor line that follows a specific scheme to maximum a weapon type
+ Weapon damage bonus: High
+ Weapon ASI bonus: Medium
+ Weapon CTR bonus: Medium
- Other weapons damage penalty: Medium
- Other weapons attack speed penalty: Medium
- Other weapons charge time penalty: High
+ 4 Status resist to one of the "big four"
- 1 Status resist to other three of the "big four"
= Same defense values as other class armors

This is a template for three new armor sets. The idea behind all of them is to be a master of a certain weapon type, but also making it significantly harder to hybrid. The "big four" statuses consist of fire, shock, poison, and freeze.
For the bomber class, the ASI bonus would be replaced with a MSI bonus, but the ASD penalty would still be ASD.

Personally, I would recommend each class the following:
Swords - Freeze resistance, elemental defense
Guns - Fire resistance, shadow defense
Bombs - Poison resistance, piercing defense

This creates a completely new trade-off for sets. We have sets specialized for each weapon type, but if you bring a "backup sword" as a bomber, it'll be much less effective than if you brought mad bomber. Similarly, a swordsman might have a moment where they need to gun down an opponent and a skolver or snarbolax set would make that effort much easier.

These sets would also work on the idea of making "one weapon type really overpowered, but make all others really underpowered". It would actually make chaos or black kat stand out as a good hybrid alternative, but if you almost exclusively use one weapon type then these will enhance your playstyle greatly and without a need for unique variants, plus they don't hurt as hard when you do get hit.

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 16:06

Falminar

Swiftstrike

Why do you keep saying proto has no shield bump because it's 0-star?

If that was the reason, the Iron Buckler wouldn't be able to shield bump, but it can, even though it's 0-star as well.

Fri, 09/04/2015 - 20:27

Fehzor

@Vanaduke-Destroyer

Because I was very much mistaken if that is the case and I don't doubt that it is. Good to know that it's just proto shield. The one mentioned above would of course be just like the proto.

Sat, 09/05/2015 - 10:38

Fangel

However

Something to keep in mind is that 0-star items cannot be crafted or unbound, and any knight rank could use them. This would give an offensive shield for a knight who just landed on cradle.

But if you put a large price tag on it, then make it available via the shield merchant, you have a fair crown sink.

Sat, 09/05/2015 - 18:22

Fehzor

An idea for defensive armors-

Redone Skelly/Grey feather/Royal Jelly
+Extreme amount of defense for their type; same as ancient plate
+Fairly high amount of normal defense for their type; what their specialized used to be
+3 status resistances; what they have now + an extra one
+5 levels of status resist instead of the usual 4
+2 extra health over other armors
-Global damage reduction: low

Idea: If defensive armors were good enough, people would use them and actually consider using defensive builds for serious play.

@Fangel

The alpha-voltail set is beautiful and something that I've hoped for for quite some time- ctr on many swords is a huge get, brandishes, sudaruska, leviathan, fang of vog.. all benefit from it greatly, so why there isn't a straightforward way to get it from armor is beyond me. The same goes for the weapon-specialist idea- the amount of fun that you could have using them is crazy.

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Design or redesign an interesting armor/shield using existing stats