Personally after play several levels with souls in them, I'm becoming annoyed.
I'm annoyed that souls are in Spiral Knights as a feature that will never get removed.
They are in 2 danger missions and the one place for Vanguards to get rads in Missions.
Sometimes they lag spawn/stick onto your knight and explode without a means to defend yourself.
Sometime they appear and just explode.
If you try to dispatch them with swords, they explode when they are small.
They also explode in your face when they are big.
Gunning them is a waste of time because the spawn infinitely.
They do normal damage and blast through 5* armor.
Even though Ancient Plate Armor can tank hits, they usually come with status effects so your still screwed.
They don't stop spawning, so you can never take a break to talk or whatever.
OOO decided Heart of Ice and Ghost in the Machine was too easy with 4 party enemy buffs and popped those in.
Too me these enemies are just one of those "add instant difficulty, just add souls". But that is brainless and strategy less difficulty.
Some of the layouts in the core can be brutal as is.
What are your opinions?
This is a good topic of discussion. My main problem with lost souls is the occasional bug that causes them to stick to you like glue, so that you cannot escape them. Then they wreck you.
Otherwise, I regard them as kind of like a board hazard --- something that forces you to keep moving, rather than staying in one place. And that is fine with me. Specifically:
* In Dreams and Nightmares they never affect me. I guess it's because there's lot of room to maneuver.
* In Ghosts in the Machine they hinder me at the start, but after that there is enough room to maneuver away from them.
* In Heart of Ice there's usually room to maneuver, but they interfere with my fiend-dodging routine, so I find them fairly difficult.