So, I stopped playing this about 5 years ago and it seems like they have added a bunch of new sets. Are these all event sets or are there new missions I need to do? Also, any advice on which sets I should try to get first or advice on what has happened since I have been gone?
Thanks.
The weapons worth crafting from the Gunner and Sleep updates, off the top of my head, are...
Magnuses! More specifically, the Iron Slug, the new Winter Grave, and, to a lesser extent, the Callahan. These guns have been revamped and are now charge-spammers. Their charge passes through multiple targets, knocking them back (more specifically, it knocks them into the opposite direction the enemy hit is facing, which can be a bit weird). Line it up right, and you can hit a single enemy 5 to 6 times!
Blasters got some new specialized variants. They're simple and reliable sidearms, and are a common sight in today's Lockdown meta. The 5* versions are the Elemental Arcana, the Piercing Riftlocker, and the Shadow Phantamos.
The new shadow autogun, the Grim Repeater is a fantastically powerful shadow gun.
The new Torpor Tantrum is a sleep variant of the status bombs. Outside of FSC, it eclipses the Shivermist Buster in terms of AOE hard disable.
Tho I don't recommend the new sleep armors, they are some of the most stylish armor sets in the game IMO. I love the Starlit Hunting Coat and the Starlit Demo Helm for costumes.
The gunner armors are... customizable... I guess is the best way to put it. You can get pretty much every combination of defenses. For the sake of simplicity (There are 36 different 5* versions of the gunner armors!), I recommend one of these three:
Sacred Falcon Shade Armor for shadow/shock defense
Sacred Falcon Sentinel Armor for elemental/shock defense
Sacred Falcon Pathfinder Armor for pierce/shock defense
I have made a new wiki article that summarizes the major releases of Spiral Knights:
https://wiki.spiralknights.com/History
So go there and learn exactly what you want, without sifting through a bunch of promo box announcements.
This is a pretty common thread topic. For example, here is a thread on this same topic, from five days ago, on the front page of this same forum.
The biggest update in Spiral Knights history was 2013-07-30 --- slightly less than five years ago. Were you here for that? If not, then a LOT of things have changed.
Since then, there have been a few big updates:
* gun-oriented update 2014-12-03, with lots of armor, tweaks to guns, new versions of guns
* new rank missions, in two batches in early 2015, including a place to farm for Radiants
* transfer of ownership from Sega to Grey Havens in 2016 April
* sleep-oriented update 2017-05-11, with some armor and weapons
And there have been a few small updates, such as buffs to tortofist guns and shard bombs.
Specifically about sets: Armor is still unbalanced, heavily toward Black Kat and Chaos. The new armor sets are not "must-have". Weapons are delightfully diverse and fun, as always.