Lockdown weapon ratings really just fall into the spectrum of "how hard does it hit, and how fast can I swing it". Damage comes first, swing speed second. If it doesn't deal good damage but has fast swing speed inviniciframes cut you off (i.e., why cutter is almost useless in lockdown - doesn't stop me from trying to use it though). If it swings too slowly then you're open to be hit by a counter attack, which can cancel your attack. Also connection to the server can be a problem - I've seen others and myself get completely shut down by a flourish because the person hitting us with it has a better connection to the server, thus the server finishes inviniciframes and before we can tell the server to attack the other player has already landed the next hit. In this sense, a cutter could lock down a player with worse connection to the server, whereas it is effectively useless against someone with better connection unless they are shocked.

Lockdown has many more variables to it outside of just the weapon you use, which makes voting for that really... well, awkward, so to say. It wouldn't be a bad voting analysis, however less things are useful in lockdown than they are in the clockworks.

But I do want to point out that Enfeebler shows up twice in the swords section's data, separated by Bopp's name, and their own answers change. Wrong name there or accidental multiple entries?
Data is nicely set up, will give it that. Don't have much to say outside of what I've already said in those threads. Armors/Helmets would be kinda neat to compare, or potentially weapon synergies? I asked for some two-weapon synergies semi-recently in a thread, but required 5* sword/gun combos. Finding out different interesting weapon combos would be really cool (bomb/gun, bomb/sword, gun/sword). See what people come up with!

I wouldn't mind rating armor sets. It'd be somewhat interesting to see just how imbalanced armors are compared to swords, bombs and guns..

I'd expect armor (in general) to be as follows-

Black kat/chaos/seerus = 5
Class armor = 4
Everything else = 1

I expect there to be some variations for armor actually. Might find some lower rating due to the survivability of some of the glass cannon armors being useful only on those who avoid all damage to begin with - chaos will get lower ratings from anyone who has a fair amount of lag too.

It's the little things like that - mercurial would be at a 3 or 4 most likely due to shock being such a powerful status against us, and the MSI on top of that is pretty large. Kat hiss would likely be at a 4 simply because it's the only shadow bomber armor.

Gotta remember that a 5 is used as a "best for its intended use", rather than "better than everything else". Black Kat is great at what it does - high damage and extra movement speed - giving it a 5 in its area. Chaos is the best for multiple weapon types - giving it a 5 in its area. Now, grey feather? It's not the best in elemental defense, however it protects against some pretty powerful statuses, giving it at least a 3. Volcanic salamander is just not good, giving it a 1. Valkyrie isn't all that great and there are other options for fighting fiends, however it isn't something to overlook if you mix and match your armor types. Not uncommon for me to bring a valkyrie mail and divine veil for fighting fire fiends.

Armor isn't as interesting as weapons, but it is still interesting if you weigh them on a "useful to arsenal" level instead of a "useful to players with perfect connection, hundreds of hours of experience, and trinket'd/UV'd".

And also Skeptic, when I checked the data yesterday it wasn't fixed, so apparently mentioning it again was worthwhile.

I feel like breaking down some things in your comment from a personal level.

"Acheron is a great weapon for fighting jellies, but I'm surprised to see it end up with the top rank among swords."

This is because Acheron does the same damage as Gran Faust despite being a Brandish. To put that in to context, it does more damage to Undead than Cold Iron Vanquisher does. Personally, my Acheron does more to Undead than my Divine Avenger does, but that's just my level differences. Acheron is so insanely broken as a sword that it's stupid to not give it a high rating except for in the case of Fehzor. As I recall, the only reason Acheron is not a 5 is because Fehzor gave it a two, and his reasons for giving it such a low score are valid and he's compiled the information in his own personal thread as to why he thinks the Brandishes are not good; as for everyone else voting, I'd go so far as to put words in peoples' mouths and say we mostly think that Acheron is blatantly overpowered, or at least extremely strong, far beyond any sword in almost all instances.

"I regard Ash of Agni as the only truly indispensable weapon in the entire game"

That's a fair opinion on it, but there's also the fact that Dark Briar Barrage allows you to freely stunlock and murder any family besides Constructs and Slimes, Dark Retribution tears through literally every family in the game (yes, even Undead and Fiends), and Electron Vortex's support is nearly unmatched when paired with other weapons-- hell, you could chainbomb Electron Vortex and not only be safer than when using Ash of Agni, but also deal more DPS and have a more consistent rate of damage output. That's just my personal opinion on it though, the other bombs that were rated higher than AoA were mostly put there because of their invaluable support or defensive options among other uses. Some people rated them higher than Ash of Agni, so Ash of Agni ended up being put below them when the scores were averaged out. This particular instance is worth noting that position on the list does not matter, what matters is the overall score that the weapons got. Ash of Agni got a 3.92, which means that it basically has the description of "The item is very strong but comes with some flaws and is not the best for all of its purposes", which is honestly very true considering how effective the other bombs above it are.

"I see two guns as essential: Callahan and Sentenza"

Callahan I can see: it's insanely strong now and its usefulness is unmatched by nearly everything except Iron Slug.

However... Sentenza is garbage. I'm not going to sugarcoat this at all, because I want to be real here. First of all, let's just note that Obsidian Carbine exists, and also the fact that poison-themed Gremlins do no resist Poison damage, therefore Carbine is already better in all ways than Sentenza. There's no debating that. Carbine is better. Also note that Carbine does the same damage as Sentenza if it gets max damage increase, and these days that's very common throughout the board of armors and trinkets and perks to choose from. Also, because Antiguas already do absolutely horrible damage in order to make up for their very fast six-shot clip, Sentenza doesn't do that much more than Carbine even without damage boosts. To rate Sentenza as more important than Carbine disgusts me, personally, but that's just an opinion.

Additionally, there are so many better weapons than Sentenza. No, Sentenza is NOT effective against Gremlins. I don't even know how to explain this. I suppose from personal experience of now owning every shadow gun for a long time now, I just feel like Sentenza is only good in comparison to Biohazard and Gorgofist. Umbra Driver and Winter Grave demolish Gremlins, Carbine is just as bad as Sentenza but at least does something useful (poisoning groups), and Phantamos is just a better Sentenza.

As for Blitz Needle, perhaps you should pick it up again and practice some more, because real talk, I'd rather take Blitz Needle for Gremlins than Sentenza. That's not even a joke, I'd legitimately rather have the stun-in-place and one-shot-menders-all-day killing machine than some cruddy "do 150 damage and force a dodge" gun when I could do the exact same thing with Phantamos or Umbra Driver but have better results in the end.

@Quasirandom

You'll notice that laziness of switching weapons largely influenced the rankings. Additionally, it is likely that players that voted did not consider situations such as not wearing double health trinkets. Autoguns have a very clear drawback, but are also the highest single-target DPS items in the game. Players often find it necessary for bosses due to inexperience with playing defensively. I can't argue against well against that because "kill everything before they even get a chance to attack" is currently a valid and very successful strategy for this game.

@Dibsville

"No, Sentenza is NOT effective against Gremlins. I don't even know how to explain this."

I still don't understand how you ranked Valiance higher than Phantamos, Riftlocker, and Arcana. I don't even know how to explain this. It flat out does less damage than the specialized damage type. I'm not mentioning this to restart the other conversation, but rather to point out the similar logic you are using. The point is moot for me because I'd have ranked all antiguas and blasters at 1 - heavily outclassed by other weapons available.

Why would you use an Acheron against undead? Why would you even care how Acheron (or, for that matter, Gran Faust) does against undead? That's a shadow damage weapon, and an elemental weapon like Glacius or Combuster will do so much more damage to undead while having the same other characteristics as Acheron. Perhaps if you're only allowed to have one sword at all, Acheron would be a reasonable choice, though it would make greavers very hard. But only infrequently would it be the optimal choice for a given level.

The key point about Ash of Agni is that I don't have to actually hit mobs with it to kill them. Leave a bunch of flames, drag mobs through it, and they catch fire and take damage. If there's twenty mobs and one of me in a room, those mobs don't include fiends, oilers, rocket puppies, or excessive numbers of other turrets, if I've got an Ash of Agni, I just run around, drop it all over the place at random, and win. Even if there are multiple healers, it can out-pressure their healing, so I still win. Any other weapons in the game and I'm probably headed back to Haven. You could make a case that some other bombs are better in most other circumstances, but that's rarely in ways that are the difference between success and failure.

If weapon A means you succeed rather than failing 2% of the time but is otherwise worthless, and weapon B is unambiguously better than weapon A the other 98% of the time, but that margin is never the difference between success and failure, does weapon A or weapon B deserve a higher rating? That's a matter of opinion, perhaps. But I say it makes weapon A rather important.

The difference between Sentenza and Umbra Driver against gremlins is basically that the former typically hits them and the latter typically misses. It doesn't matter how much damage they'd each do if the gremlins would nicely stand there and let you pound away. If one weapon usually misses where another would usually hit, it's probably not good for that circumstance. That same reason is a major chunk of why Callahan is so good against devilites and most guns aren't.

If you're only fighting one gremlin, I don't care what weapon you're using. Everything is easy that way. Against a horde of them, Sentenza can get a lot more shots off than Umbra Driver, and that gets a lot more gremlin dodge-backs, giving you more room to operate. As for Obsidian Carbine, you're ignoring that Sentenza gives a high damage bonus against gremlins and Obsidian Carbine doesn't. Yes, that's only useful against gremlins, but the guns are only useful against gremlins to begin with. Unlike Ash of Agni, Sentenza isn't going to get you through places where you'd otherwise be stuck, so I can see valuing it less on that basis. But I say that being unambiguously the best weapon in the game for fighting several types of gremlins is worth something, even if that's the only use for the weapon.

I don't care how much damage I'd deal to one mob if one of his buddies hits me while I'm at it because I'm locked in place. Well, unless that one mob is a rocket puppy in a crowded enough room that I'm expecting to get hit anyway trying to take it out. Final Flourish can instant kill gremlin menders, too, at least if solo or 2-man, and I usually carry one because it's the sword whose attack timing characteristics I find most agreeable.

Is it possible to make heavy use of Blitz Needle in crowds of mobs while only rarely getting hit? If not, then it's one of the worst weapons in the game unless there's some special case where it shines and it's okay to take some hits. Maybe it is possible, but I find it hard to imagine that it would be as easy as most other weapons, as it's harder to avoid getting hit when you can't move. I don't care if it's unambiguously the best weapon possible in situations that would be a cakewalk no matter what weapons you used.

Additionally, it is likely that players that voted did not consider situations such as not wearing double health trinkets.

Skepticraven, I'm just one voter, but for what it's worth I did not consider wearing any health trinkets. I never wear them.

Quasirandom, maybe you do not use charge attacks much? The Acheron and Umbra Driver charge attacks completely slaughter gremlins. And the regular attacks are also effective. I don't understand your position on this. I too am fond of Ash of Agni, although it's not indispensible. And maybe someday you will try autoguns again.

"Why would you use an Acheron against undead? Why would you even care how Acheron (or, for that matter, Gran Faust) does against undead? That's a shadow damage weapon, and an elemental weapon like Glacius or Combuster will do so much more damage to undead while having the same other characteristics as Acheron. Perhaps if you're only allowed to have one sword at all, Acheron would be a reasonable choice, though it would make greavers very hard. But only infrequently would it be the optimal choice for a given level."

This was to give an example of the sheer power of Acheron, not to say you should use Acheron against Undead. Let me try this again:
What's the most effective weapon from this list against Beasts? Final Flourish, Barbarous Thorn Blade, or Acheron? If you didn't pick Acheron, then you're incorrect.

"If there's twenty mobs and one of me in a room, those mobs don't include fiends, oilers, rocket puppies, or excessive numbers of other turrets, if I've got an Ash of Agni, I just run around, drop it all over the place at random, and win."

I can paste this word for word for Dark Retribution, except take out the part where there's some monsters it doesn't work on. Dark Retribution kills all families period. Dark Retribution is better than Ash of Agni. I can't even legitimately argue in Ash of Agni's favor no matter how bad I WANT to right now.

"If weapon A means you succeed rather than failing 2% of the time but is otherwise worthless, and weapon B is unambiguously better than weapon A the other 98% of the time, but that margin is never the difference between success and failure, does weapon A or weapon B deserve a higher rating? That's a matter of opinion, perhaps. But I say it makes weapon A rather important."

I believe Skepticraven and Fehzor can both explain to you why this is wrong. Personally, I agree with this, though, which is why there's so many better options than Ash of Agni. But in case you want some proof of me agreeing to this statement, I made a whole post on how I think the statement is correct right here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/111721#comment-1010537

---

This Sentenza part will take a while...

"Against a horde of them, Sentenza can get a lot more shots off than Umbra Driver, and that gets a lot more gremlin dodge-backs, giving you more room to operate."

Okay. Be honest here. Have you even used Umbra Driver? Because what you just described is literally how Umbra Driver works, and Sentenza DOES NOT work. And no, Sentenza doesn't get off more shots than an Umbra Driver if you're not another braindead zombie who only spam clicks. If you switch shoot, any gun effectively has infinite ammo without having any significant loss of DPS. And switch-shooting IS NOT hard, so there's no argument to say you can't switch-shoot. Five minutes of practice and you could vendor your Sentenza.

"As for Obsidian Carbine, you're ignoring that Sentenza gives a high damage bonus against gremlins and Obsidian Carbine doesn't."

You're forgetting that Carbine does more damage to a Poisoned Gremlin than Sentenza does to an unpoisoned Gremlin. You're also forgetting the part where Antiguas have absolute crap for damage output. The extra damage Sentenza has over Carbine is tiny. You're also forgetting the part where I said "Carbine does the same damage as Sentenza if it gets max damage increase, and these days that's very common throughout the board of armors and trinkets and perks to choose from." Yes, I was taking the damage bonus into account, Sentenza is still a direct downgrade even with it.

"But I say that being unambiguously the best weapon in the game for fighting several types of gremlins is worth something"

Okay, perhaps you should meet my friend Dark Briar Barrage. My friend here is personally my favorite bomb for a few reasons, and here's a couple of them:
1. Gremlins are my most hated family.
2. Dark Briar Barrage completely stunlocks all gremlins to death.
You saying that Sentenza is the best weapon in the game for fighting gremlins is pretty damn bold when Dark Briar Barrage is completely and undebatably the best weapon in the entire game for fighting gremlins, period (yeah, I'm being bold here, but for this one I actually have experience to back up). And please, argue with me on this one, because I will go in to every single detail of how DBB makes Sentenza look like a child's toy against gremlins if you really want me to.
But, ignoring that for a second, a solid Umbra Driver charge sends gremlins flying if not outright one-shotting them, it decimates demos, it makes Thwackers dodge into your own ricocheted bullets, and it just overall beats gremlins to a pulp.

"even if that's the only use for the weapon."

Actually, Sentenza is pretty great for fighting Slimes, as is Carbine, which is a great niche to have depending on the player. But Gremlins? No.

"Is it possible to make heavy use of Blitz Needle in crowds of mobs while only rarely getting hit?"

Yes.

"Basically, a Sentenza makes it easy to clear crowds of gremlins while only rarely getting hit, and nothing else I've tried does that or even seems plausible to do it as well as Sentenza."

Before this continues, I'd like to point you in the direction of Dark Briar Barrage: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Dark_Briar_Barrage

"How does that work? Acheron does less damage per hit to beasts while attacking slower. What am I missing?"

Acheron does more to beasts than Barbarous Thorn Blade and Final Flourish.

"I'm extremely skeptical that it would work against fiends or rocket puppies. The problem with those is that I can't dodge forever very well against them. Hitting them has nothing to do with it. Dark Retribution didn't exist when I played before, so I haven't tried it."

Dark Retribution has enough flinch against fiends to stunlock them, making them slowly die off without being able to attack you. Dark Retribution is one of the fastest ways to take out gun puppies besides a Grim Repeater charge or Warmaster Rocket Hammer. And Warmaster Rocket Hammer is obtained from the same place as Dark Retribution. It's worth looking in to, as it's a fantastic bomb.

"The hit gremlins versus miss gremlins part is because of the bullet speed, not the clip size. Bullet speed is the critical part. If you're charging it, then you're not spamming it. And yes, I have an Umbra Driver."

You're assuming that you're fighting a group of gremlins, are you not? Then in most cases you can hit at least one gremlin, and that causes ricochets that hits other gremlins while they're recovering from their dash. Additionally, you can always use Umbra's charge.

"I have a Dark Briar Barrage, but doubt that I ever tried it against gremlins. It strikes me as implausible that it could be so great against gremlins, considering that, like all bombs, it needs to be charged and has shorter range than guns. But the real test is how it performs in practice, not in theory, so I'll give it a go and see what happens."

Tell me how it goes, because Dark Briar Barrage is currently what I use for the Elite Gremlin waves in Dreams and Nightmares, and it still causes them to be knocked down even in a party of four, as well as having no knockback on them, so I can just stand there spamming the bomb (safely) until they die. I'm legitimately curious to see how it works out for those who have never tried it.

The wiki only displays damage with 0 bonus. If you get any more than low damage bonus, Acheron will win out because 8% of Acheron's damage (511 at depth 24) is way more than 8% of Final Flourish' damage (314).

Which isn't even going into how insanely more destructive Acheron is on something affected by recon flare compared to basically anything else.

Of course, this is not to say one should use Acheron over other swords, just to point out that Acheron got buffed way too much and there's a reason it's on the top of the swords list rather than Combuster or Warmaster Rocket Hammer.

Ah, Acheron damage was increased two years ago. I just found that in the release notes and was not aware of it before you brought it up. That explains it. Acheron as the top rated sword now makes more sense. Good thing I already have one. :D

Also, in my testing above, all gear tested was five star with max heat (level 10), and none had salient UVs that would bias testing.

"I'm at a total loss as to how anyone could think Dark Briar Barrage is a viable anti-gremlin weapon."

We should run Dreams and Nightmares together some time, you'll be more thankful when there's not 20+ gremlins on you at once because 3/4 of them are getting stunlocked. Record yourself or take a picture of you finishing the final wave with just Sentenza without losing your ER, and I'll digress.

"I actually screwed up and got three menders in the area, in addition to thwackers, healing and reviving everything. Keep blasting away with a Sentenza, moving around as necessary, and it didn't matter. With an Umbra Driver, I'd probably have had to switch to a sword to assassinate the menders and risk getting hit, or perhaps wait for everything to get fully healed, then pull the thwackers away from the menders."

Obsidian Carbine would have poisoned the gremlins, meaning the menders would have been damaging them rather than healing them. Additionally, a single Umbra charge would have broken that group up immediately. You might have done the same thing Umbra/Carbine could have done, but it took you 4x longer than it could have.

"I also tried pulling out a Graviton Vortex to see how that would fare, in case some other bomb would be better."

Graviton Vortex isn't good....
Also, Gremlins resist fire. Regardless of whether you're stunlocking gremlins or not, you'll kill them 3x faster and be safer because of DBB's faster charge time and knockdown on the gremlins.

"From the wiki, it sure doesn't look like a gremlin-heavy level."

Depends on spawns, there's a ton of gremlins, a ton of lichens, a ton of wolvers, a ton of zombies, and quite a bit of lumbers.

Like I just said, we could totally run it, like, right now if you wanted to.

"Dropping the 10 energy per depth fee should reduce the incentives to find the maximum loot per depth to farm, so I was hoping people would have stopped doing that."

That was how it was for a time, but then Three Rings decided it would be a great idea to reduce the drop rate of Radiant Fire Crystals. Only recently, when Dreams and Nightmares was released, was there an effective way to get Radiants besides farming Shadow Lairs all day long (which wasn't very nice to someone's wallet). So now I'd assume most end-game people either farm Dreams and Nightmares, PvP, or sit in Haven merching because they gave up on the Clockworks.

---

Also, let me get some different context:
If Weapon A does the same thing as Weapon B, but Weapon B does it faster, then Weapon B is better, right? That's why you use Sentenza against Gremlins instead of Argent Peacemaker. That's why Carbine is a direct upgrade to Sentenza. That's why Umbra is more useful than Sentenza. That's why DR beats Ash of Agni, or why DBB still beats Sentenza.

Also, Grim Repeater is a thing that exists now. It's like Volcanic Pepperbox, except Shadow and has the same damage as Blitz (I say Volcanic Pepperbox because VP and GR have similar knockback, whereas Blitz has a tendency to hold its targets in place). Grim Repeater has the same bullet velocity as Sentenza, has better damage output than Sentenza, can be used much more safely than Sentenza (due to its knockback), can one-hit Menders, unlike Sentenza... it's just better than Sentenza. What about that?

There's also the fact that Sentenza is only really useful against Gremlins, and is pretty horrible against Constructs, a common enemy in gremlin levels, whereas the other Shadow guns are just as effective against Constructs as they are against Gremlins.

"There's one place I still use my Sentenza and that's Compound 42, although I use Acheron most of the time in there I still use the Sentenza on the side."

Actually, same here. I use it in conjunction with Umbra Driver-- if I'm not poisoned I just shoot Umbra, but if I'm poisoned I go to Sentenza, but that's assuming I take Sentenza to the missions (usually I just run Acheron/Umbra/Dark Retribution/Gran Faust).

But of course, that's one situation isn't it? Going through all the missions and stuff, that's the only thing that comes to mind where Sentenza beats Carbine, is it not? But, Sentenza is not worth looking in to because of C42, just as much as Big Angry Bomb is not worth looking in to because it works well in Unknown Passage, or Divine Avenger because it makes quick work of the Roarmulous Twins.

"As for this thread, I'd like you all to discuss where we should take this project next (if we actually should)."

Sprites, Sprite attacks, and ultimates.

_______________________________

"I'm just saying it's not as useless as you make it out to be."

I apologize if I was coming off this way actually. I find Sentenza to be quite useful, I just find it so outclassed that it's not worth the time to look at. I was also mostly surprised that someone could consider anything like Sentenza to actually be so good that it should just be a staple weapon in someone's arsenal, so maybe that just set me off.

But, when I brought up Dreams and Nightmares, I was mostly doing so to give an example of how effective DBB is compared to Sentenza-- this effectiveness carries over in to any level, not just Dreams and Nightmares, it was just a good example. On the contrary, the effectiveness of Sentenza in comparison to Carbine is only situational to one level, unlike DBB to Sentenza, where DBB wins 99% of the time.

It was also pointed out and implied that we were talking about groups of gremlins rather than single-targets, which is another reason I brought up DaN. The sixth wave is jam-packed with gremlins, so I thought it was a good basis to put an argument on.

Another idea is to let players vote on each sprite's ultimates, if they have that sprite completed. But let them vote on sprite vs. sprite only if they have at least two different sprites completed. We want informed votes, so we need some requirements like Krakob has proposed.

Personally, I do not have two complete sprites, so I won't be able to vote sprite vs. sprite. But I've also never used a Reset Star. So I've never tried ultimates other than the ones that I originally picked. In this way, my knowledge of ultimates on other sprites is about as good as my knowledge of ultimates on the sprite that I have completed.

Alright so I have 4 sprites maxed out, 2 seraphynxes with alternate ultimates, and one each of the other two.

I started with the seraphynx because I like how it worked, however I've personally found the drakon to be a sprite that meshes really well with me, and it was the sprite I was the most on the line about. Since I have a tendency to use the sprite primary attack the most, having the drakon's fast charging and instant gratification of damage is great, but I would have never considered the sprite had I not used it. On a similar note, I would have rated the maskeraith higher due to player opinion, however personally, I find it the most lackluster. You really do need to play with all the sprites for the 100+ levels you have them to get a feel for them.

Also, not to bring up the argumentative back and forth from earlier, but I see an older version of myself in Quasirandom's playstyle that is defensive, and I can actually kind of vouch for some of the things that they are saying. If you're playing defensive, you're doing the whole "stay mobile, don't get hit" thing, and often have little to no damage boosts.
What changed my whole thought process up was after I got a very open arsenal. After I got the full Black Kat set, I haven't really looked back. Getting max damage boosts + MSI: very high allows for defensive play simply in movement, not in your weapons. When you don't have those things, having 4 weapon slots is very helpful as it covers your offensive weaknesses. With max damage and much faster movements, you don't need as many weapons on you, so acheron + anything really works.
Personally I actually bring acheron + an elemental gun to construct stages. Yes, my primary weapon isn't elemental. That is because gremlins are a larger threat than constructs, and acheron still packs a huge punch against them. Before the sword buff I might bring WHR + some shadow gun, but with the buff acheron is king.

Regarding qualifications, I have one of each sprite, all maxed.

I feel 100% qualified to tell you that Haunted Haze is the worst of the two Haze options simply from it being utterly useless, but I'm not sure I'm up for telling you which is better between Scorching and Backfire barrier, as I've never had Backfire. Like you mention, each ultimate is usually different in a way that Acheron and Combuster aren't.