To me, Darkfang Menders aren't fair either. You need to have enough damage to defeat them. You can try taking some low-DPS weapon and kill a single Darkfang Mender. You may notice they will use their "Stay close!" attack when their HP drops below certain value. Your only hope is that you can inflict enough damage before their cooldown runs out or that they forgot to use it (I'm not sure about this one but anything can happen in Spiral Knights). This isn't a big flaw since you're not supposed to take low-star gear to Tier 3, but is worth mentioning.

My biggest issue is that area attack. It heals any monster in big area for slightly lower amount of HP than single-target heal about 12 times (in what seems like 1 second interval). What's even worse, Menders can cast heals elsewhere while this attack is active. Also, there's nothing stopping them from casting it second or even third time. The fact it looks like regular single-target heal until it is executed is only icing on the cake. I can't think of different tactics than moving monsters from healing area, trying to outdamage this powerful healing or attacking healers.

If you want to focus on a single monster, you can simply bump it out of that area. However, it still gets healed once or twice before you can do that. For outdamaging, you need high DPS weapon and this tactic is anyway rather slow. Attacking the healer seems to be the best thing you can do. It usually isn't hard (unless he decides to step into his healing circle, basically reseting your progress). When he uses his shield, he is usually at low HP and doesn't heal much. But in many cases he uses his close range heal or that area heal and again starts healing anything he sees.

When two fellow Menders meet, they cover their greatest weakness well. While one is hurt, the other one can heal him freely. When one uses his bubble, the other can heal him to full HP. When one dies, the other can revive him and reset his bubble spell as well. This luckily doesn't happen very often, but requires you to keep the living healer away from the dead one. What isn't easy at all, because when you meet them, you're usually against some difficult end-game content or Deconstruction Zone where it isn't that bad. You could try damaging other monsters along damaging healers, but many damaged enemies mean higher chance for their area heal. Again, it usually isn't very bad if you've got good weapon and are not playing Shadowplay. Sadly, many monsters with dual healers and their apparently broken behaviour is simple recipe for hard fight, and the game happily exploits it.

But almost nothing requires you to have good weapon. It is possible to clear Firestorm Citadel with Proto set, but it isn't possible to clear Clockwork Tunnels with arena with a Darkfang Mender. Again, this isn't that good of an argument for the reason I've mentioned above, but comparation with Silkwinges should. While I'd say Silkwinges need some sort of buff, Darkfang Menders' area heal is what wins a nerf. It's as if Dark Briar Barrage exploded 12 times instead of 1. I could now question Dark Retribution too, but I can't, since I don't use it.

I would nerf them to at least don't use other attacks, while their rune is active. Just like when Zombies use their breath, Menders would be keeping their rune active as long as their pointing to it with their wand. I believe this would solve the biggest issues they have.

I'd also like to mention one thing. When Mecha Knights come close, they can do regular or charge attack. The best is the fact you can interupt the regular attack with a rather precise timing. When charging, you bump them away. Then, there are Almirian Crusaders. It feels incredibly well to sneak in your attacks while they are executing their own. It feels pretty much like Dark Souls, awesome feeling. Ironclaw Thwackers are similiar. It feels very well when you try to fight them with your sword. This is somewhat destroyed in Tier 3, where they can use their spin attack and your only 100% safe tactic is to approach them with disrupting attack. That's either final hit of your sword combo or a charge attack. I know, you can't do this much when there are many of them, but when they are alone (or in low numbers), all of this can feel fair (except that spin attack), but I can't feel guilty for all my fight progress being reverted due to me being unable to counter overpowered RNG attack(s).

TL;DR: The next-to-last paragraph. That short one. Please, teach me how to write short posts.

The main part I find OP about darkfang menders is not their heal AoE or their Gremlin revive. It's their godlike dodging capabilities! One of them dodged an entire chaingun charge attack! All 15 shots missed! Darkfang menders are Neo!

In all seriousness, I see where you are coming from. Tier 3 menders are a large leap forward compared to the tier 2 menders. But don't think there is a specific method or a specific loadout that will make them easy to deal with. Maskeraith will only keep them poisoned for a few seconds and shadow weapons won't prevent their abilities from occurring in the first place.

Every knight has an enemy they despise. I had a problem with the minis in the compound levels for quite some time, but when I found out how to beat them without the recommended equipment but with the equipment I was familiar with, I felt good!

My point is: you might not need new equipment.

Also, cuz I wanna be at least a bit helpful. Arenas are not the only place to farm orbs and a crowns. For Elite orbs and Glowing Fire Crystals (and around 3,000 crowns per run) try farming the rank mission "Sewer Stash" rank 6-2. For Eternal Orbs and Shining Fire crystals (and around 1,500 crowns per run) try farming the rank mission "The Rotting Metropolis" rank 8-2. Try both in Elite difficulty. The best part about these missions: they both don't have darkfang menders!

You may consider running in parties that cover your weaknesses, both with monsters you find difficult and damage types you don't have.

You can kill a darkfang mender with an elemental brandish, and taking one down with a calibur line is fairly straight forward even without damage bonuses. Failing that, you'll almost always have some consumable at your disposal. Barriers, vials, sprite abilities, etc are all proper tools for taking on that challenge that you face - you don't have to simply go shooty mcshootyface on everything.

Personally, my "oh lordy" enemy is the ice cube. They're so simple yet if they hit me, even with freeze resistance, it's often an ER being used unless I get lucky and freed from their freeze lock. However, I understand that this enemy is fine, and it's simply my own personal issue against them. It's why I almost always have my drakon on me - not only does it suit my playstyle, but being able to ignite ice cubes turns them into a non-threat!

In a game that's about crafting gear and playing with other people, when an enemy is tough, if you ask the question "is this enemy tough, or do I not have enough party members or the right weapons", you'll often find the latter is the answer.

The one time I can say darkfang menders are complete BS is in grinchlin assault, since they respawn and can heal the boss battlepod, thus ruin your progress. I do enjoy the challenge however, and a proper team taking a proper approach with proper weapons can take down that challenge with no casualties.

I use menders as a source for damage and they do a very good job, I don't want them nerfed because some noob doesn't know how to deal with them. Either aim for the mender, use a poison weapon or let someone else do it but please don't create a thread asking for a nerf and writing walls of text that most people won't actually bother to read... It's annoying AF.

I have to admit, I'm a solo player, who very often avoids certain options games offer to him, and thus usually has problems when games expect him to use everything he can. I personaly don't have a bad time against Darkfang Menders when I'm on regular runs, since I can dispose them very quickly with my Obsidian Edge. But you still have to admit, that area skill is too powerful. Even the fact you can use it as effective damage source despite the fact that poisoned enemies are damaged by fraction of healing power says something.

But one thing is certain for sure. If Darkfang Menders don't need a nerf, then T3 Silkwinges need a buff. Then we can all agree that the game expects us to tackle the problem differently. What do you propose for buffing Silkwinges? Leaving temporary auras of healing akin to auras of Sloombargos or Giant Toxigels?

@Fangel
Brandishes are too powerful thanks to their split damage. Try something like Warmaster's Rocket Hammer. With low enough DPS, you'll notice the behaviour I was talking about.

If you're using a rocket hammer (pure elemental damage) on a darkfang mender (resistant to elemental damage), that's not a fault of the enemy. The fact that a rocket hammer can kill a darkfang mender in a reasonable amount of time when solo even goes to show that it's pretty dang powerful.
Should you be trying to take a mender down with, say, an arcana however, your point stands pretty proper.

This is a reason you should almost always bring two different damage types with you unless the level has no chance of changing its pace. Royal Jelly Palace you can bring all shadow weapons and fair pretty fair, but a standard clockwork tunnel and arena level has a random element to its spawns. I've taken down darkfang menders in fiend arenas via a riftlocker many times because they decided to show up instead of silkwings.

Many of the strengths of darkfang menders are also their weaknesses.
- Their healing bubble immobilizes them, meaning you don't have to bother with them following a group of enemies that you need to prioritize.
- Their healing rune turns into a massive damage element, to the point that in a gremlin, beast, slime, or construct arena, it's actually a very valid tactic to bring a poison mist bomb for damage. Poison construct arenas are often dreaded by veterans for this simple fact.
- You can bait any elite tier non-scorcher to dodge, so if a mender is running away from you if you shoot at it it'll dodge towards you and likely into sword range.
- If you can kill an enemy gremlin in a corner, you may be able to bait the mender to approach the body for a revival, in which case you can take them out or at least knock them away.

Basically, darkfang menders can be approached in a multitude of ways. They are difficult because tier 3 is difficult (notice how earlier tier healers are complete pushovers), and do an effective job at making common enemies a larger threat, but proper gear (pretty much the point of the game to collect a large arsenal of gear) makes tackling that challenge much easier.

Now, if tier 1 and tier 2 menders had runes, bubbles, and revivals, then I would agree they were a bit of a problem. But tier 3 enemies being difficult is pretty in-line with how it ought to be.

We already have a poison danger mission with gremlins via Compound 42. However, a poison construct (negates both heal bypassing and sleep status right there) danger mission would prove hard hitting.

Why do you think so many people have trouble with the end of Shadowplay anyways. ;P

I think there was slight misunderstanding. I am aware that bringing low damage weapons against them is not valid tactic. I said that as a proof that they are "DPS walls" - impossible to cross without enough DPS (but probably easy with enough DPS?). Luckily, minimum requirement for DPS is low enough for this to be very subtle problem (unless second mender showes up). It's just that there are none DPS walls except Darkfang Menders and Royal Jelly.

You've proposed lots of tactics I'll surely need to experiment with one day instead of using general rush tactic. But still, I think that spell is overpowered. You (almost) can't see it coming and it heals enormous amounts of HP. It depends solely on the mender itself whether he fills entire arena with runes or doesn't use them at all. Why it shouldn't be overpowered when your only reliable tactic is poison, which might not always be at your disposal (and vials/barriers may not be sufficient)? My biggest problem is that this spell has basically no limits (seemingly no cap for number of active runes, no cooldown, impossible to interupt).

But I'm mostly repeating myself now. The more we talk about it the more I think I'm defending only a few people with this problem. Many of your points seem valid and I haven't played proper T3 run in quite a while. Maybe it only looks overpowered but in reality isn't really, what would be really confusing.

@Cinoa
My idea for a T3 Silkwing buff was that they could constantly leave healing auras anywhere they fly,

You could always use poison as an option, Venom Veiler and Obsidian Edge wipe the floor with gremlin menders and gremlins in general. In addition you can use Winter Grave and single switch its standard attack at practically almost any gremlin type (including menders) and they'll be flinchlocked and so they can't do anything, and probably frozen in the process. Also the charge of Winter Grave is damn devastating against gremlins. You could also use the other Magnus lines to the same effect, though it won't be as damaging nor be able to flinch reliably as Winter Grave in deeper depths.

Well, if we talk about arenas... I do remember how I ran endlessly in circles trying to weaken and eventually kill other enemies (usually mecha knights) but more importantly hit those healers in the middle that always have 5+ monsters around them. It was quite entertaining I think, especially if you managed to get out of there alive.

If they were nerfed and you would kill them quickly, you probably wouldn't notice a thing. However, it's true that some difficult fights would get easier. My biggest problem with them is the aura, which feels straight up unfair and on top of that game exploits it to create afforementioned difficult fights. Though if I'm being honest, I personaly don't have very bad time fighting them (unless Shadowplay etc.). It's just there's something wrong with them. Something more annoying than hard.

I feel at times Arsenal would be better place for discussing this.

Also @Fangel,
sorry ran away after trying to turn the discussion to buffing Silkwinges. Regarding your idea, I think it wouldn't help them that much if they gave defense buffs. On the other hand, it can be made significant enough to be relevant. From existing situations in game it didn't seem to have much influence on the fight.

Darkfang Menders do plenty as enemies, they simply follow a code like the rest of the menders.

"* Gremlin menders have taken an oath to do no harm. (Fixed issue that was allowing menders to attack with their wand.)"

Of course, that does not stop them from remaining as competent as they are spiteful.

In my experience, menders (and possibly helpless enemies in general) seem to actively target the way to the starting point of the level as the direction of where they attempt to scatter to. Considering an enemy will possibly drop loot past the one-way barrier next to the elevator from the previous depth when slain, I stand by the notion of their prickly temper even in the face of hopeless match-ups.