Spiral Knights - Zeddy's ramblings about balance

Zeddy's ramblings about balance

29 replies [Last post]

Fri, 05/15/2026 - 04:38

Zeddy

Sean Murray of Hello Games is oft quoted for saying that players are good at identifying problems, but less good at naming the solutions. For this reason, this post will be a two-parter that first outlines the problems, and then I'll take a shot at naming some possible solutions.

Since Cleaver, now wearing the face of Nick like some kind of moustached jellycube zombie, has stated that rebalancing will indeed come, it feels worthwhile to mention where the pain points. Most of this is speaking from old memories.

Shard Bombs
This one is my particular bugbear, so I'm starting with them. I want to love them, but they are bad. The easiest way to highlight how bad is to compare the two direct competitors Dark Briar Barrage and Deadly Splinter Bomb:

Charge time is equal
DSB covers a significantly smaller area than DBB
One hit from DSB is significantly weaker than DBB. In fact, two hits from DSB is still weaker assuming you hit Core + Shard. It's only double shard that you slightly pull ahead (and this must be against a weak target or with recon mark) and with core + 2 shard, the hit limit, that you can really win. This is against a single target whereas DBB has no trouble consistently doing its damage against all the 16 enemies that could mob you at once in an arena.
Shard bombs explode at rand fuse times, so skill is not able to compensate for this on a per-bomb basis, the best you can hope for is to increase your average. This wouldn't be a problem if that was ever worth it.
By design, shards disappear when you put it against a wall. Since the placement of shards are ever so slightly randomized, whether or not a shard will disappear cannot be predicted, only estimated.
Enemies such as Vanaduke are able to act as walls that makes shards disappear.

In short, shards are small, weak, and unreliable compared to other bombs.

Catalyzer
Catalyzer and Neutralizer used to have great potential, now they don't even have that. As you might know, these guns used to be flipped. You would spam the highest-damage single-elemental attack on your enemy, then detonate it with the basic attack. This could be used to stack a basic mob with high damage while a boss was invincible, then push the enemy over and detonate them as the boss reveals, allowing you to effectively attack the boss where you'd otherwise be forced to twiddle your thumb.

The catalyzer change completely ruined it.

The main point of the guns are now the basic attack. This is weaker than a blaster and has none of the knockback until you detonate it.
The blast radius is so small that the charges will not only struggle to hit surrounding enemies, it will often miss the enemy to which it is attached.
I need to say that a second time. Most of your attacks that hit, will miss. Stacking is a waste of time. In fact, using the basic attack at all is a waste of time. The basic attack is for breaking blocks and nothing else.
You're probably not even going to get to detonate your tags because your teammate will kill the enemy with their brandish while the tags are still on it.

Swords
Due to the way the defence formula works, mixed-damage swords have about 60% more raw base damage than single-type swords. This allows them to inflict the same damage at +0 damage bonus. With easy and regular access to +4 and even +6, mixed-damage swords pull far, far ahead of its competitors. Divine Avenger, which is faster than Triglav, inflicts more damage against neutral targets on its combo. This is unintuitive and poorly balanced. This isn't even bringing in Acheron which does the same damage.

Acheron does the same damage as the biggest, hardest-hitting swords in the game while being fast and having an easy-to-use, nearly-unpenalized charge attacks that put out big damage in a long, consistent area. All of the other swords could be removed save for maybe Combuster and very little would change for most players most of the time.

Strikers don't have any benefits except for cool factor.

Armors
The state of armors is abysmal. This is well known so I'll go over it only briefly.

There's like three good armors. Kat, Chaos, Skolver if you wanna safe it.
Mad Bomber armor gives the same bonuses as Chaos and has all of the same penalties. The only difference is Chaos also has curse penalty, which almost never matters. In addition to curse being rare, the difference between being cursed while wearing either set is almost not worth thinking about. Both will prevent you from using your weapons for an upractically long time.
There are far more armor sets than there is interesting playspace for armors. I'm pretty sure Monster Hunter Worlds has less armors than this game, yet it has, like, fifty different types of bonuses armors are capable of giving you from many types of resistances and bonuses you can build up with conditions.
The "defensive" armors have barely more effective defense compared to class-based weapon armors.
Plate armors are a joke. I'm not sure they will let you survive even one more hit compared to class armors.
Defensive Trinkets aren't even a little worth it compared to health pendants even when used against matching elements.

And some of the problems I've identified. Here's solutions which you, as a game designer, can and possibly should ignore:

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 04:18

Zeddy

Solutions

Shard Bombs
With three simple steps, shard bombs can be brought back to something resembling their former glory, in order of importance:

Increase base damage by 50%-100%. This way just the core will still be below DBB, but core + shard will bring it meaningfully ahead, and anything more than that will be a worthwhile payoff compared to all the extra work needed to make this work. If you only do this step and nothing else, I will probably be satisfied.
The mechanism of making shards disappear should be removed. It brings a lot of frustration to the user.
The hit limit should be removed entirely. I'm glad you made it work consistently and in the intended matter, but it would not be unbalanced for the bomb to give a real payoff for big targets.

With this change implemented, let's try bombing something very big. For convenience, I'll use D24 numbers at max damage.

Before: 174 + 221 + 221 = 616

This implies a base damage of 239 + 286 before defense is deducted. We'll increase this 50%

After: 294 + 364 + 364 = 1022

This compared to:

DBB Damage: 366
DR Damage: 111 * 12 = 1332 (I've forgotten exact hit count and it's quite flexible)
Acheron Charge: 489 * 5 = 2445 (Ignorign the strong hit at point blank range which would add another 725 damage)
Blitz Needle: 310 * 15 = 4650

In this perspective, does 1022 damage from a damage-focused, difficult-to-use bomb seem overpowered? I propose that the potential needs to be at least this high before it's worth considering.

If you remove the hit limit we get 294 + 364 * 8 = 3206. This seems a lot, but I ask you this: Which is easier? Hitting with a full charge of Blitz Needle, or stacking core + 8 shards on a single enemy? We all know the answer. Give the most difficult weapon the highest DPS potential.

Catalyzer

Blast radius of the tags should be doubled.
Knockback should be reduced severely.
Any attack from any teammate should detonate them. The gun should effectively be maskeraith quills.

Alternatively revert the gun to its previous state where charge attacks attached. Blast radius must still be increased so that every tag can reliably hit the enemy it's attached to. I would also like the tags to attach to invincible targets such as Roarmulus and hitting the shield on trojans.

Swords
Every sword should be split damage, this would make it easier to equalize damage between them. If possible, Troika line could be split normal/normal. It seems strange, but it could then scale in the same was vs neutral targets as sealed swords can. Flourish and friends could be normal/piercing or piercing/piercing.

I believe this is mostly all swords need.

Armors
Honestly I'm at a loss here. Gunner armors are horrible and I think the game would be better off without most of them, but people have these things. The best thing would be a complete overhaul of the game's possible space of bonuses so that plate armors have a lot of poise and can tank through attacks that flinch people with other armors, while bombers armors reduce or eliminate the movement penalty for charging a bomb, maybe remove the trinket/weapon slot systems and attach it to armors so that gunner armors givbe + 1 weapon slot that specifically has to contain a gun, that kind of thing. I will not suggest any specifics. Please just do anything at all. Make Shadow Lair armors more than cosmetic trophies. Make Azure Guardian a good general-purpose armor that's not directly outclassed by Skolver. Make plate armors not a handicap you put on to do a challenge run. Make tanking an actual role people can play without stacking a million different bonuses and sprite skills teamwide.

A few things armors could do:

Instead of + damage vs beasts, an armor could give + piercing damage
Increase the cap of damage bonuses beyond +6. When this is done, the inflated shadow lair enemy stats make more sense.
Poise. Armors should allow the wearer to pull off a slow charge attack without flinching.
Effects on getting hit: Explosions, instantly charging your weapon, thorns that attack back the enemy, chances to ignore hits, refilling your dodge.
Effects on doing hits: Double strikes, crit-chances, adding status to your weapon (maybe against certain families?)
Extended invinciframes. (Reduced invinciframes for glass cannon armors)
Increased clip capacities for guns.
Increased/Decreased range for guns, swords, bombs.
Modified movespeed during charging.
Sword that increased your attack power while you are on fire.
A damage boost that increases as you move or dodge attacks.
Increased "stock" of dashes.
Dash cooldown reduction.
Lowered shield bash consumption.
Bonuses for sprite skills. Reduced cooldown, increased radius, damage, effect, whatever.
Bonuses for a specific sprite.

There's a lot that can be done. For inspiration you can look at the armors in Remnant: From The Ashes or any number of such games.

For a less extensive armor rebalancing proposal, see further below: https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/125264#comment-1077117

Thanks for reading this, if you have been.

Fri, 05/15/2026 - 17:46

Jcyrano

I still don't understand how it works

Shard Bombs
I agree the state of them is dire, but instead of Just adding number which still needs what if?
instead of 2 instances of damage we do 3 Initial blast + shard flight + shard explosion. And Yes the charge time of the (outer)shards explosion is faster.

You say that on a good explosion You hit a total amount of 3 times center plus 2 shards.

174 + 221 + 221 = 616.
Initial + (2 shard explosion)
but what happen if we add the shard flight hit? on a good case let's assume it hits a total of 5 times.

174 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 = 1058.
294 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 = 1750. (conservative 50% damage increase)
348 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 = 2116. (not very conservative 100% damage increase)
Initial + (2 shard flight) + (2 shard explosion)

At any time an enemy cant be hitted between 1 to 5 times which is a huge variance in damage 174-221 to 1058
but clearly outpase the 366 of DBB, Yes DBB consistency still reigns Supreme.

This cause the Bomb to have a good Area damage since if an enemy gets hit 5 times (not always the case) but overall the Single target damage might be high since we can do that damage to several enemies at the same time (we do need to divide the damage in the area it affects otherwise We are going to start an unnecessary arms race between Brandishes, Blitzneedles and Shards).

Although we can get into the Old Shards bomb problem with the 8 hits if the target is big enough. We might not want that! (I do want that, not sorry!)

174 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 = 2384.
294 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 = 3934. (conservative 50% damage increase)
348 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 = 4768. (not very conservative 100% damage increase)
Initial + (8 shard flight) + (2 shard explosion, yes I consider the target moves You can add one instance more if the target is huge like Royal Jelly or Vanaduke).

Would it be bad if we change the knockback from the (outer)shards into knockdown? and increase the chance of (outer)shards status of the bombs with status? to increase control without going 'mist' levels of control?

174 + 221 + 221 = 616.
Initial + (2 shard explosion)

But better consistency since there is no knockback on the (outer)Shards... but a knockdown would also let us set up better the explosions. Still not reaching DBB consistency but overall a good damage without trying to get 4 digits damage!

Even if we get 8 shards in the Royal Jellies we would be doing.
174 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 + 221 = 1942.
294 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 + 364 = 3206. (conservative 50% damage increase).
348 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 + 442 = 3884. (not very conservative 100% damage increase)

Agree with the BANE of shards disappearing, its severely detrimental for the gameplay.

Catalyzer (You have the knowledge)

Swords
Instead of split every damage, What if the split damage is not symetrical?
Instead of Acheron (just an example) being 100 normal + 100 shadow (again Just an example) being 50 normal + 100 shadow (again just an example)
the double bonus math would still apply, but the out-scaling would not be that huge (again You are the one that can do the right numbers)

Armors (If you are at lost, what do You expect from Us).

"...plate armors have a lot of poise and can tank through attacks that flinch people with other armors, while bombers armors reduce or eliminate the movement penalty for charging a bomb, maybe remove the trinket/weapon slot systems and attach it to armors so that gunner armors givbe + 1 weapon slot that specifically has to contain a gun, that kind of thing..."
I'm kind in agreement with this... the You can carry up to 4 weapons (no need to rent slots?, perhaps maybe 3? so team mates are important) and the trinkets well not to be purchaseable so they are not mandatory but also not just a coin sink? (we will need some other way of coin sinking)

But I have to bring that even that some sets are usable as Jigsaw pieces to add and buff things.
The consistency of what is buffed (charge time, attack speed, damage) makes it somehow/somewhat interchangeable.
Your Suggestions are NOT bad but some of them so Niche that Would remove some of the items even more from the pool by virtue of being more conditional to a piece that has to happen while other 3 things happen. Again not bad, but we need to scale to that level of granularity slowly if We are going to go Warframe levels of Jigsaw(which I don't know if it fits this game).

Again Nice to see You here More often, hope to see You In-Game aswell!

Sat, 05/16/2026 - 01:34

Sir-Pandabear

Well, if we're going to give the shards in flight damage and have the hit limits removed, then this is just old shards with less range and a fuse. It is my belief that the ability to easily and consistently 1-shot most enemies if you managed to, say, bait a zombie to jump onto it, is what got the bomb so nerfed in the first place. With such a change I would rather just see the old shards returned, mostly for nostalgic reasons since the power would be about equivalent.

I wouldn't mind it, the immediate effect just seem like it goes against developer intent, and the damage is no longer compensating for a weapon that is difficult to use, it would just be a brandish you use with bomber armor.

In one way I think it's unlikely we'll see uneven splits again since low damage is affected more by defense than high damage, so it's tricky to balance it. On the other hand we already have the split normal/normal hunting blade with its strong swings and weak ghost swings. The bonus for using the correct element is a fixed value per depth anyway, ie on d24 whether your sword is 150/150 or 200/100 the damage will be identical VS both weak and neutral targets. The only thing that changes is less damage VS resistant. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. Current acheron is so strong you might as well attack zombies with it.

You're right pointing out that I didn't consider armor sets having two pieces, but I still defer to Remnant: From the Ashes or Monster Hunter on how armor bonuses should be handled. In Remant armors give two bonuses. One that stacks higher from equipping multiple pieces, and a second that you get for just equipping the one piece in a set. IE the Drifter armor gives a bonus to stamina regen from just having one piece equipped while also increasing damage for every second you run, or every dodge you do, and this bonus scales with more Drifter pieces.

A simple way to translate this concept to SK could be Skolver granting a +2 to swords whether you have 1 or 2 pieces equipped, but a 5%/12% temporary sword damage bonus to sword damage per sword 3rd hit that connrcts for X seconds stacking 5 times. The effect is the same, your sword is stronger, but by putting it behind a conditional your output and thus hits to kill changes back and forth over time and you're guided into an aggressive playstyle where you specifically want to finish your Combo for once in your life. Some gun armors might grant a bonus for going through the reload animation or hitting consecutive shots without missing, for instance.

Sun, 05/17/2026 - 10:38

Jcyrano

You are right about it

You are right about it, it was an example... probably an overdoing, but also points out how much overdone are the "Blitzneedle": 310 * 15 = 4650 levels of overdone. I still think that Knockdown on the (outer)Shards "ring" could be a nice buff, not flight damage Just that change, a bit more of status chance, and maybe the 50% damage increase.

what if instead of splitting we change the multiplier to the total, You said that one of the problems is the bonus applies to the "normal" and the "shadow", what if is no longer the case what if instead of:

(Normal 100)x(+6 bonus damage to swords)+(Shadow 100)x(+6 bonus damage to swords)
which would result in a: (Sword)*(+12 bonus damage to swords)

we get:

(Normal: 100 + Shadow: 100)x(+6 bonus damage to swords).
granted this would have to be done at code levels instead of tweaking amounts, but could work.

Now I get what You mean by "set bonus"
lets imagine:

Mad Bomber set (0/2): CTR low, Bonus Damage low.
Mad Bomber Helm: CTR MED, Bonus Damage MED.
Mad Bomber Coat: CTR MED, Bonus Damage MED.

now if You "equip the set"
Mad Bomber (2/2): CTR Ultra, Bonus Damage Ultra.

Mercurial Bomber set (0/2): Movement Speed MED.
Mercurial Bomber Helm: Bonus Damage MED. (I wish but Would Un-blance it)
Mercurial Bomber Coat: Bonus Damage MED. (I wish but Would Un-blance it)

now if You "equip the set"
Mercurial Bomber set (2/2): Movement speed MED, Bonus Damage High.

Still not sure about the conditional buffs, but is not bad, if the game can handle without undo itself!
Another thing is that are pieces like the Divine Veil that gives the entire bonus of the "set" by itself and Radiant Silvermail that is not part of any set:
With those 2 You get:

lot of Shadow Armour, some Elemental Armour and some Piercing Armour.
lot of Curse Resistance, some Fire Resistance, some Poison Resistance, some Shock Resistance.

See what is mean by inter-changeability, I don't Remember the Black Kat Hood being deployed at same time the Raiments and the other Hoods? I remember the Black kat being a Piece to Round up bonuses, not to go to a set, reason why the High Damage instead of MED.

Sun, 05/17/2026 - 14:48

Zeddy

I really have to point out the math thing. 100 * 124% + 100 * 124% is the same result as 200 * 124%, you haven't changed anything. It doesn't "Become +12". Acheron benefits more from damage bonuses than Levi because it has more damage than Levi.

Let's take two people, Arthur and Lars. Arthur makes $2000 a month but his bills are $1500 a month. Lars makes $1000 a month but his bills cost him $500. After deducting this, both of these people have $500 in monthly spending money, and effectively they have the same affordances.

Now give both a 24% pay raise. What happens then?

The reason for making all the swords split damage is so they can all operate on similar base damage values. Alternatively, make them all single type damage.

Regarding set bonuses, what Remnant does (tries to) is to reward you equally both for mixing sets and for going all in on a particular set's bonuses. That's why there's a nice perk that doesn't change with multiple items from the set, but also a second perk that scales nonlinearly with items from the set. It's to compensate for opportunity cost of not mixing items.

End of the day I don't care too much how in particular armors are expanded upon, only that they are and there's effort in it. (i.e. not how the gunner armors were handled).

Mon, 05/18/2026 - 14:05

Jcyrano

I didn't change the +6, but

I didn't change the +6, but how does differ when we include Weakness and Strength!
And how we avoid the visual clutter when we have a Normal Normal damage sword, Yes veteran players will understand what "effectively" does but a newer player won't and also there are split damage weapons at 3 stars not very late-game.

also sounds like we need to buff the base damage of "not-split" weapons... or reduce the damage of split weapons, since You said it "100 * 124% + 100 * 124% is the same result as 200 * 124%"... Yes the bars will be shorter but You have 2 bars... instead of 1 bar... that will be something to explain to new players aswell...

I understand what Do You mean with set bonus, but we also have 2 pieces... except Snarbolax's 3 pieces... I do agree with a change to Weapons and Trinkets and also agree with Something needs to be done and also also with NOT soup-ify the sets... AKA Gunners sets (what a vichyssoise!)...

Tue, 05/19/2026 - 04:32

Zeddy

I'm not too worried about the bars since they're meaningless and tells the player nothing useful except the damage type itself. The bar could be replaced with just text that said "Normal" or "Normal/Shadow", and what would really change for anyone?

The intention of making weapons split Normal/Normal is indeed to get the base damage buffed. I suggest this particular implementation because SK's depth scaling is a complete and total mystery to me. The ratio of damage between two weapons skews completely depending on depth, star rank, heat level and etc.

Take for instance Hot Edge, the Combuster of the 1* world. Compared to Bolted Blade, Hot Edge deals less damage even against targets to which it has an elemental advantage! So as you rise in the ranks, elemental blades start off significantly weaker, and you can take Combuster vs Levi (both with no damage bonus) and go back to depth 1 and see that Levi is a little stronger vs neutral targets (which is how it should be), but at depth 28 Combuster with no damage bonus is stronger than Levi against neutral targets. What's the design goal behind this? I propose it isn't intentional, it's just that whatever means are used to scale stats by depth are so complicated that they are beyond the designer's control.

Making Levi split normal/normal and putting it on the same damage curve as Acheron is just the most straightforward way I can think of to make the weapons perform consistently against each other in all scenarios.

Tue, 05/19/2026 - 07:52

Jcyrano

You are right about it

And You have pointed the solution, the scaling is where to look someone whiffed the math horribly... and Of course the Obscure communication from day one won't help anyone. I'm willing to bet on the there is no scaling is an excel grid for each weapon and has a lot of numbers that why the haven't rebalanced anything in years because is boOoring and daunting.

Bars are more fun that just numbers, and I'm against withhold information... You know I "call them out everytime I can on poor communication, obscurity and withhold information", so removing them would be ever worst, granted The Bars should be consistent and meaningful, and We SHOULD have a reference on the Wiki with information from the Devs on what a square means and how much is value. So bars Should stay, but better... WAY better!

I see Your point but perhaps they can fix it with splitting and "not showing" or not splitting and Fixing the Math... for consistency and scaleability I vow on the second one...

Tue, 05/19/2026 - 18:57

Fallen-Feces

Me when I fang my vog

Obligatory "Feces posting about FoV" post incoming.

I love this thing. I think it's nearly a good weapon. Fire debuff chance on normals isn't enough to make up for its lower swing speed and lower base damage relative to its elemental brandish cousins. I actually really like how the slow swings feel though, so I'd prefer the normal swings just get base damage equal to or a bit higher than the elem brandishes. I wish the charge attack weren't such a gamble in terms of killing myself because I actually think it's otherwise mostly fine on that front.

Also for Turbillion I'd really like to see the charge entirely reworked. It's just so boring. It's a tornado sword but it's only tornado in looks but not behavior. I still stand by my idea of the thing being a mini vortex bomb you can fling a short distance ahead. I've touted my idea for this weapon in other threads before.

On the topic of armors, I posted a thread today on UVs (which you read, thanks!) but I think the topic of armors and UVs are pretty much one in the same in most ways beyond acquisition. My issue isn't just that the armors we have are mostly boring and a couple dominate the game, but even if we tried to rebalance them with the tools at hand we simply just don't have enough avenues of balance to play with. Player defense is mostly irrelevant so as it stands we really just have status resistance and innate UVs. Even if we reworked defense to actually matter much we'd still struggle to really make it so that each armor at least has something meaningfully unique about it even if not all are actually good. We need a lot more UVs to distribute as innate UVs to armors, some of which could be exclusive to certain sets and not obtainable via Punch. Some will need to actually change how the game is played by encouraging certain interactions like dodging more or in specific circumstances etc.

As for set bonuses, I'm not entirely sold on the idea. I don't want to discourage people from making mixed sets. Ideally, making people make different pieces from different sets encourages them to encounter diverse parts of the game rather than seeing that they need just a ton of undead mats and only fighting undead till they have a full set. If we want to reward people for equipping a full set with a thematic bonus, I'd suggest allowing whatever unique bonus one would get is offered as a "Lite" version if you use a mixed set.

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 10:21

#10

Jcyrano

You are right about it

I saw Your post about UV and I Said long ago the thru UV we could customize more, but the power of the armours Should be lowered (and of course people cry)
I like what You propose for UV, the problem is if the game can handle without Undoing itself.
Another problem is delegating Cooldown reduction to gear for the sprites... I'm not sure about that, I do think the I need Real info on what numbers the abilities have because I still don't know if last 5 seconds how long flies or how much damage does or boots gives...
And the other problem is Conditional bonuses... which one of You uses the Valkyrian Aegis for the CTR boost? none because is conditional bonus with a cooldown... people prefer buying CTR for weapons the charge 3 times every 45 seconds than to press one button every 40 seconds to have max CTR for 5 charges... Yes you will tell me that when "You dodge and then parry and the do a piruette then reload while clapping adds You 15% damage". I'll tell You: "Ccute give the the 15% damage and fork off"
Again not against the ideas, but not sure are implementable as is right now, we need a foundation built before those effects can be added effectively.

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 10:52

#11

Fallen-Feces

Sprites would be a weird

Sprites would be a weird thing to tackle but I didn’t really put much thought into the Sprite Cooldown Reduction idea since it was mainly just meant to be an example of a fairly simple UV before I got into the more complicated stuff. Most of the ideas I wrote would probably need work.

I’m well aware none of what I wrote is really implementable yet but that was kind of the point. UVs and armors as a whole are just so flawed as they are now that the work necessary to actually fix them would be monumental. Anything short of an overhaul would just be a band-aid fix that would probably make some other part of it worse in the process.

As for conditional bonuses, I do agree that they run the risk of being too obtuse for anyone to want to put up with. If given the option between a persistent damage boost and a damage boost for a few seconds after blocking an attack I’d probably opt for the persistent one. Even still I designed things like Adrenaline and Parry to lean into specific things that compliment the specific condition. Getting a short MSI boost after a charge is meant to help you get to safety after locking yourself in a potentially risky animation. Parry is meant to reward good skillful defensive play by strengthening your defenses. When designing conditional boosts, I want the perks to basically say “If you want to play this way, here’s something to make that more interesting” as opposed to “Please play this way I’ll pay you with damage”.

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 15:48

#12

Jcyrano

You are right about it

I agree with Your ideas as much as with Zeddys, they are great, reward set mix-matching and proactive and reactive play is great, Not sure the game as is can handle, and the if player base can also, I've seen people with 5* sets that whether returning or never needed to, can't dodge or don't know what key help them dodge, or what dodge does...

Sprites need to fundamentally stop being a resource chugging bug and become a feature, and have the reskins as Costumes so You don't need to re-level everything... and be able to swap ultimates on demand(on arsenal, obviously not during fight) and have real Numbers on the skills!

Yes Armour UV is meh, since other than a couple of status, you are not at risk unless lags or catch a stray attack that flatten You because no defence ever really counts... and Buffing tanking to be face-stopping punches tanking shouldn't be Done for the game because is also passive and not healthy. So some defences and status resistances buffs are meh... Does anyone knows if I should Put fire resist max on my volcanic Bomber set? best example I can get... You are right on the Overhaul or nothing.

How do we explain Adrenaline You get "adrenaline max"... there is nowhere else to be found what that does in-game, so requiring a wiki entry with calculation from hopefully not very lagged people and measuring pixels, are quite Obscure to Just drop (and the patch notes aren't going to be clear... search for the sprites patch notes and tell me what real Info we get from them).

I like it, but we need better tooltips In-game... comprehensible math and numbers on a patchnote and buildup systems to anchor it to the gameplay... In Your mind looks cool because You design it, but I can't Understand it Yet.

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 19:24

#13

Fallen-Feces

Demonstrations

I can see how you'd be confused given a lack of visuals. I've taken the time to make some for you. Any fellow hunters reading this might start to notice that these images really feel like the Monster Hunter skill system and UI. I am pretty much pulling directly from that game, yes.

First, here's the main equipment page. At the top, you'll have a list of all the skills you have under your status and defensive bars. Each point you have is represented by a little orb on the UV's respective tab. These orbs are meant to quickly convey how much of a skill you have. This is a page for general, high-level information for quick reference. More detailed information about one's loadout would be found elsewhere.

Not shown here would be that each weapon, armor, shield, etc will list its own UVs that it's contributing. It's organized mostly the same as how the game currently handles UVs.

https://imgur.com/a/1Jq6XF4

Next, here's where the player would find information on where their skills are sourced. We could provide the player with a spreadsheet listing all the skills they have equipped. Each column represents a specific piece of gear they have equipped. A number will be shown on the skill's row at the armor column from which any of that skill's points are being provided. Is your helmet giving 2 points in Parry? The box at Parry|Helm will display 2 in yellow. Adrenaline coming from your armor for 1 pt and weapon slot #1 for 1pt? Adrenaline|Armor displays 1 in yellow and Adrenaline|Weapon#1 displays 1 in red.

Why the color coding you might ask? Well, since weapons' UV effects are likely volatile and only active so long as the weapon is actively in-hand, the red numbers indicate that some of your points may not always be active. This could be represented in the main page too with some of the orbs being red (I forgot to add those and am too tired to go back and do it).

https://imgur.com/a/HkXKBb3

Finally, I would have it so that clicking any skill in either the main equipment page or that spreadsheet could open a pop-up to the side (preferably one that doesn't interfere with how you click around in the main windows you were using e.g: the popup that appears when you hover over weapons). Here, you'll see a detailed description of what a UV does and how its effects change between each point level.

https://imgur.com/a/1Gr4V97

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 20:07

#14

Jcyrano

I have no idea

I don't care from where the contribution comes and if is represented by pips or chikens... I care that Adrenaline is not explained in-game, not a mere tooltip, and doesn't show up again anywhere else. UV are clear because You figure "I get more Shock resistance" is expressed by Resistance Bonus: Shock: Medium. As simple as that...

Adrenaline is meaningless... Undead Bonus Damage: Medium is not called Seriouslly Ghostbusting. Shock resistances is not called Electric Boogaloo 2.0 now more Electric and more Bogaloo. That's my point, the UV are not wrong, can't be implemented from Your mind... Because that's exactly what it feels the game that was half done and then abandoned by 3 Rings years ago. A mere "trust me bro, this is cool..." and left to figure how much shield is a shield shielding measuring Pixels... We must NOT make the same mistakes, we need to be clear and consistent rework it, until You can show me a picture and I will understand without You telling me anything about it

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 21:58

#15

Fallen-Feces

Well I tried

Honestly at this point I'm not sure what you're even asking for. First you say that you want better tooltips, for the math and numbers to be explained, and now you seem to be saying you don't want tooltips to even be necessary; that you should be able to understand what a UV does just by looking at the name.

I think your goal is shortsighted. Sure, right now we have Attack Speed Increase and Charge Time Reduction - names that effectively convey their effect through name alone - but that's solely because the effects are as basic as they can get. Things will get exponentially harder to keep to that naming scheme as we get more creative. Placing the duty of explaining a UV's effects on a text box you open by hovering/clicking the UV is a perfectly reasonable solution. Most games with a perk/skill system do this. This isn't to say naming isn't remotely important, but I'm definitely not going to name a skill something like "Movement Speed Bonus after a Charge Attack" nor do I think such a skill shouldn't be added just because we can't name it that.

Wed, 05/20/2026 - 23:10

#16

Sir-Pandabear

I'm not sure the goals of

I'm not sure the goals of "Having armor be interesting" and "Only use basic, unconditional stats that are explained in three words or less" are compatible in a game with over 60 different. Personally, I think interesting armor is of higher value and that effect bonuses could be baked into the description of equipment that provides it.

Thu, 05/21/2026 - 11:26

#17

Jcyrano

You are right about it

is not easy to convey without Context, the game gives context thru gameplay, we know Slimes do Piercing damage because yellow attack indicator, we use piercing armour against them...

"Movement Speed Bonus after a Charge Attack" sounds good... my point is We do not have tooltips, so we can't rely on tooltips, If You need a tooltip to explain You are Doom by design. since the game doesn't have. Should we fix that first? Good lets do that first. See small steps and foundations...

and a good rule on design, If You can't name it (clear and consistently), Never implement it.

Thu, 05/21/2026 - 16:17

#18

Zeddy

Anyway, I had a look at some sword damage numbers. https://wiki.spiralknights.com/Lancer_Knightz_(Guild)/Sword_Damage_(Depth_24)

I don't think sword damage has ever changed since these measurements were taken. I'd like to draw everyone's attention to Gran Faust (that means Acheron). the shadow damage weapon that is supposed to be bad vs undead, and Cold Iron Vanquisher, the anti-undead sword that is supposed to be good vs undead.

CIV's combo at max damage is 250/307

Acheron's combo at max damage is 227/290

That is barely any less at all. I think if damage bonus went up to +8 or so, (it can go much further, see Maskeraith's Cloak bonus and damage up orbs), then Acheron will quickly become a stronger anti-undead sword than CIV.

Swords should probably just all be single damage type, then we would have removed (player-dealt) split damage entirely. Lockdown will be different but I don't particularly care and people were doing just fine when Final Flourish was the dominant Lockdown weapon.

Wed, 05/27/2026 - 18:34

#19

Jcyrano

Perhaps this is the Fix We

Perhaps this is the Fix We need but not want Zeddy... perhaps You fixed...

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 04:14

#20

Zeddy

Armor rebalancing, pt1

Let's have a look at armors. In this post I'll try to rebalance armors using tools currently available by the designers in-game, which is unfortunately the most likely type of rebalancing we'll be seeing. First, I want to list out the sets in broad strokes, the design intent behind them, how well they uphold that design intent, and if that intent is a worthwhile pursuit.

Wolver

Skolver's purpose is to boost sword damage
Vog Cubs's purpose is to boost sword speed
Snarby's purpose is to boost sword damage

Each has a resistance against a status which we mostly do not care about. In the early days Vog Cub was easily the winner among these, but because Skolver and Snarby save you a hit for killing a Lockdown opponent and knights have invinciframes, Skolver has become dominant. Lockdown is, after all, more difficult than FSC is and acquiring two armor sets is an exhorbitant luxury cost in Spiral Knights. The player is therefore more likely to get Skolver first, and then already be used to dealing with fire and low attack speed in FSC before they can acquire Vog Cub. At that point, they have no need of Vog Cub. I believe Skolver and Vog Cub to already be balanced, and their disproportionate use is simply economics. Were you able to acquire armors as easily as in other videogames, you'd see more of both, and probably you'd see Vog Cub more in FSC runs as people discover how convenient it is to not die from fire.

Snarby is fine.

Skelly/Jelly/Magic

Skellys's purpose is to defend against shadow
Jelly's purpose is to defend against piercing
Magic's purpose is to defend against elemental

These are stupid and nobody cares. Plus, if you brought Gray Feather against gremlins you will take more damage than if you brought Vog Cub. There's a couple of big exceptions in these lines which I will not address yet.

Divine
This one is a special one. It gives no normal defence, so its intention is to let you survive bullets and your actionable plan is to not get hit by melee attacks.

Plate Armor
These defend against normal damage whilst making you slow. Since so many attacks are mixed damage and the slowness makes you more likely to get hit, you're in a bad spot using these.

Virulisk and whatever
These are worthless. Their purpose is to be costumes.

Azure Guardian
This is supposed to be a generalist armor, but it instead defends against the least relevant damage type and offers no status resistances. It has ever so slightly more normal defense than Skolver but it's not enough to be called anything except a strict downgrade. The recipes being free is not enough to justify sinking orbs and crystals into them.

Alright that's every armor in the game (after extrapolating).

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 06:21

#21

Zeddy

Armor rebalancing, pt2: Defensives

First some terminology:

+1 resistance: Chaos has -2 resistance to its statuses. Skolver has +4 vs freeze
Low/Medium/High defence: Skolver has low piercing, medium normal. Azure guardian has High normal and Plate has Very High. I will be using these same values with perhaps some caveats.

Let's first list out Chaos. I have not changed anything.
Chaos

Low normal
Low elemental
-2 fire/shock/freeze/poison/curse
+2 Universal DMG
+2 Universal CTR

Azure Guardian: Jack of all Trades
I'd like to start by making this truly versatile. The core idea is that this is like the opposite of Chaos. You take Chaos, remove the +2/+2 universal bonuses, what are you left with?

High normal
Low shadow/piercing/elemental (universal +2 defense, essentially)
+2 fire/shock/freeze/poison

This makes it great for survivability, and truly an armor you can bring anywhere. A total of +4 resistance to a status severely softens their blow because of statuses having a specific treshold where their effect starts growing at twice the rate, and this avoids that treshold.

Almirian Crusader

Low normal/shadow/piercing/elemental
+2 curse
-2 fire
+1 universal DMG/ASI/CTR

Universal offensive armor, now competes vaguely with Chaos.

Skelly
We'll start with Skelly, which has no sibling sets. We'll stick to its intention of defending you against shadow type enemies so that no dialogue has to be rewritten in Hall of Heroes.

Very High shadow (previously high)
Medium normal defence (previously low)
Low piercing defence (previously not there)
+5 freeze/poison/curse (previously +4 freeze/poison)

This emulates a skeleton's resistances who naturally feel elemental damage more than piercing.

There is a slight drawback to increasing total freeze/poison resistance to 10: If you wear a full set, UVs do nothing since 10 is effectively the maximum. It would be good if the UI could communicate this. Existing sets with such UVs can still be mixed with other sets, so they aren't made useless by any means.

Jelly/Ice Queen

VH piercing
Medium normal
Low elemental
Jelly: +5 stun/fire/sleep
Ice Queen: +5 stun/freeze/sleep

Mercurial

VH piercing
Low normal
+4 shock
+2 MSI

+2 MSI has been long requested on Mercurial. With this set and the sprite bonus, +6 MSI is finally available to the layman, with somnabulist totem enabling it for other armor sets.

Gray Feather

VH elemental
Medium normal
Low piercing
+5 fire/shock/freeze

Divine

Medium elemental
Medium shadow
+5 fire/shock
+1 Universal CTR

This is sort of a tiny Chaos, useful for rounding out uneven amounts of CTR. Technically it has no drawbacks, but lacking normal defense is actually a big deal in PvE, I urge you to try running divine/silvermail/dragon scale and seeing for yourself.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 04:16

#22

Zeddy

Armor rebalancing, pt3: Class armors

Let's move on to the class armors. I think these are mostly fine. The main ideas is they should never be more defensive than their equivalent defensive armors, but they need a little more of an offensive edge so they can be considered over Chaos.
Skolver

Medium normal
Low piercing
+4 freeze
+3 Sword DMG

Previously if you used only swords, Kat was still the better choice because it gave you more sword damage. Now that's not the case anymore.

Vog Cub

Medium normal
Low elemental
+4 fire
+1 Sword DMG
+2 Sword ASI

Damage is important, Vog Cub should have some too. Since there is no such thing as a universal dmg UV, every class armor should have at least a +1 available.

Snarby Cap/Coat

Medium normal
Low elemental
+3 poison/freeze
+2 Sword DMG
+1 Sword CTR/+1 Sword ASI

Something interesting happens if you misalign the bonuses like this: A lot of mixing and matching is unlocked with the other wolver items. For instance, you could wear Snarby Coat and Vog Cub Cap for +3 ASI, then max it out with swiftstrike.

Starlit Hunting

Medium normal
Low piercing
+4 sleep
+1 Sword Dmg
+2 Sword CTR

There's already plenty of +2 sword dmg armors, but there are no +2 sword CTRs. Since this is supposed to help you focus, it seems fitting. Negative stun is also dumb. No, I don't particularly care how this affects Lockdown, thanks for not asking.

Kat Claw

Low normal
High shadow
+4 freeze
-1 shock
-2 curse
+1 Sword Dmg
+1 Sword ASI
+1 MSI

With MSI buffed for Mercurial, it feels "safe" to give a +1 to the other kat items. Black kat still gives its astonishing +3 universal damage, which is primarily why people get it.

On to the gunner sets.

Justifier

Low normal
Medium piercing
+4 stun
+1 Gun DMG
+2 Gun ASI

Normal and special defense swapped because gun users have no business being in melee range.

Nameless

Low normal
Medium elemental
+4 freeze
+1 Gun DMG
+2 Gun CTR (Previously ASI)

Shadowsun

Low normal
Medium shadow
+4 poison
+3 Gun DMG

Deadshot

Low normal
Medium shadow
+4 curse
+1 Gun Dmg
+1 Gun ASI
+2 vs Undead/Fiend

I don't think family bonuses are completely wasted, but they should bring you to max no questions asked. This probably tramples on the gunner armors. Let's tackle those:
Gunner Armors

Defenses unchanged
Resistances unchanged
+1 Gun Dmg in addition to whatever they're already doing.
Gunner Armors that already have +1 Gun Dmg: +1 Universal damage instead.

This brings the damage to max vs families.

Kat Eye

Low normal
High shadow
+4 freeze
-1 shock
-2 curse
+1 Gun Dmg
+1 Gun ASI
+1 MSI

Mask of Seerus

Medium normal
Medium elemental
+4 fire/shock
-2 poison/freeze
+1 Universal ASI (Previously guns only)
+2 Gun CTR

Just a small pass to make sure it's in line with all the buffed class armors.

Volcanic Demo

Medium normal
Low elemental
+4 fire/stun/shock/freeze
+2 Bomb CTR

Volcanic's demo purpose is to keep you safe while you haze bomb so it does not need damage. With some extra status resistances against statuses that slow you down, it becomes more optimized for this purpose.

Bombastic Demo

Medium normal
Low elemental
+4 freeze
+3 Bomb DMG

Starlit Demo

Medium normal
Low piercing
+4 sleep
+2 Bomb DMG
+1 Bomb CTR

Low bonus vs slime is stupid. By simply being a normal armor with 2/1, this can round out sets with low/high CTR UVs. The stun penalty has been removed.

Mad Bomber

Medium normal
Low elemental
-2 fire/shock/freeze/poison
+3 Bomb DMG
+2 Bomb CTR

Mad bomber should be the best at bombing for someone skilled at a low investment rate. Max damage for bombs out of the box makes it better than Chaos for the purposes of pure bombing.

Mercurial Demo

Medium normal
Low elemental
+4 Shock
+1 Bomb DMG
+2 MSI

Since bomb CTR is available as a UV, one bomber armor should be the ideal end-goal a user can grind towards. This is that armor.

Kat Hiss

Low normal
High shadow
+4 freeze
-1 shock
-2 curse
+1 Bomb Dmg
+1 Bomb CTR
+1 MSI

The last kat armor. ASI doesn't do a whole lot for bombs, so I gave MSI to the whole bunch to make it fair.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 05:11

#23

Zeddy

Armor rebalancing, pt4: Specialist Armors

On to the specialist armors.
Dragon Scale

Medium elemental
Medium piercing
+5 fire/poison
+1 universal ASI

Look, ma! C42 immunity with no UVs!

Not a single person in the world cares about damage vs beast, so we give it something mildly useful.

Radiant Silvermail

Medium piercing
Medium shadow
+5 poison/curse
-4 sleep
+2 universal ASI

This may seem a bit much, but it's basically balanced out by not being in a set. With this mail, dragon scale, and swiftstrike, you're all set for a Max ASI playstyle on a budget.

Volcanic Salamander

Medium Normal
Low Elemental
+4 fire
+1 universal DMG
+1 sword CTR

Salamander will be repurposed into a universal DMG set that bears less risk than Chaos but isn't as defensive as a defensive set. A vs slime set is totally irrelevant.

Deadly Virulisk

Medium Normal
Low Piercing
+4 poison
+1 universal DMG
+1 gun CTR

Arcane Salamander

Medium Normal
Low Shadow
+4 fire
+1 universal DMG
+1 bomb CTR

Bombers could use a shadow/fire set. Here it kind of is.

Heavenly Iron

Medium Normal
Medium Shadow
+3 shock/curse
+1 universal DMG
+1 sword DMG

An alternative sword set that trades a little sword bonus for safety. This is close to being a wolver with shock defense. The weakness was not worth it, so it has been removed

Valkyrie

Medium Normal
Medium Shadow
+3 poison/curse
+1 universal CTR
+1 sword DMG

To be consistent with the valkyrian upgrade for seraphinx shield, this boosts CTR a bit.

Fallen

Low Normal
Low Shadow
+4 poison/fire
-2 freeze/shock/curse
+1 universal DMG
+3 universal ASI

Joins the ranks of Kat/Chaos. It gives less of the ever-unachievable universal DMB bonus, so it gets to have a little extra resistances. Only one piece is really needed for a player who uses swiftstrike.

Last up is plate armor.

Ironmight

Very High Normal
Low Piercing/Elemental/Shadow
+5 stun/shock (previously +4)
+3 universal DMG (new)
-1 universal ASI
-1 universal MSI (new)
+2 HP

Instead of negative resistances, Ironmight trades speed for power. This is crippling, so you're also granted more health.

Volcanic Plate

Very High Normal
Low Piercing/Elemental/Shadow
+5 stun/fire
+1 universal DMG
+2 universal CTR
-1 universal ASI
-1 universal MSI
+2 HP

Trades out some damage for CTR.

Ancient Plate

Very High Normal
Low Piercing/Elemental/Shadow
+5 stun/curse
+2 universal DMG
+1 universal CTR
-1 universal ASI
-2 universal MSI (previously +1)
+5 HP

HP bonus is increased further, also enables hitting hard like the other sets. Normal defense has been reduced to be in line with other plate armors but it gets some of the other special defenses.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 04:17

#24

Zeddy

That's it for armors. This is how I could think of making most armors worthwhile without introducing new concepts. It's a bit boring, but I think these would help without rocking the boat too hard.

Thanks for reading, if you have.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 04:56

#25

Blunder-Bus

I feel like another of the main issues with armour balancing is that so many of the good weapons are very charge-focused, but using charge-focused weapons without any CTR feels abysmally terrible. Like, the difference between no CTR and max CTR is charging in half the time, and the difference between +2 (which is no bonuses but a level 10 weapon) and max CTR is still pretty substantial. Just from some kinda vague stopwatch testing with Proto Bombs, it looks to me like +0 charges in 2 seconds, compared to 1 second with +6, and ~1.7 seconds with +2.

I think if you closed this gap, like if +0 was now 1.5 seconds while keeping +6 at 1 second, it would make CTR way less of a must have bonus, so you could actually play around with other things, while still letting it be impactful. If you didn't do this I feel like Chaos would probably still end up as the default "use this all the time" gear because it lets you equip Iron Slug, Combuster, and Dark Briar Barrage at the same time without worrying about it.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 05:08

#26

Zeddy

You're not wrong, CTR is twice as impactful as other stats, capping out at a 48% reduction instead of 24% like ASI and Damage does. The first thought is to reduce baseline chargetimes and then reduce the effect of CTR equally, but there's the secondary issue to consider that wouldn't all combat just be charge-spamming for any weapon that has a decent charge attack?

I don't know the right answer here.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 05:15

#27

Blunder-Bus

I mean... it sort of is already, no? Like if you look at your average FSC run 90% of all attacks thrown out are Combuster charge attacks or Blitz charge attacks, with a few Combuster normal swings or Arcana shots thrown out just to clean up stragglers. Changing CTR so you need less would just mean you aren't forced to either run Chaos or have CTR variants on all your good weapons to be effective.

Fri, 05/29/2026 - 14:58

#28

Jcyrano

I like a lot of what You

I like a lot of what You wrote for balancing, feels quite good. testing pending obviously, and even You see it boring, Can be used as Foundation.

The change to Azure Guardian, and Almire feels good, Not sure how what to think to Volcanic being resistant to everything. Starlit Demo should remain anti-Jelly Demo. Mercurial Demo could use a +2 to Damage instead a +1 to Damage and still be balanced within the armour class, Yes I know MSI is important, IF we zoom around, but SpeedRun is not main gameplay, is a niche, that usually exploits mechanics (congratulation to those who do that, Still not main gameplay)

I like the emphasis on ASI as an equal Stat as Damage, mostly because Yes they both add damage, but not have diminish the other... I like more CTR on gear for Gunners and Fencers... so those changes feels great!

On the CTR topic, I've been playing more with the Mercurial demo, and despite having less CTR (No UV on any Bomb) it doesn't feel bad compared to Starlit Demo... it is a mater of use though, because Bombers plays different that Fencers and Gunners... But we Do need a standarized Charge rate for weapons, We can't have a Faust/Gran Faust having twice the Charge Time of Avenger/Divine Avenger. Catalyzers however Should be the Odd case... But I can't see other candidate for Different Base Charge time, Not even Bombs.

Wed, 06/03/2026 - 06:00

#29

Dahall

Love your first two posts...

I'd like to add on the issue of attack projectiles disappearing strangely when they get near walls. As it is, guns (and the shard bomb) shoot farts when standing too close to walls/obstacles (with bigger projectiles easier to turn to farts), this makes guns less viable in tight spaces unless their projectiles do pierce walls and don't die to them.

The solution to making shots have less odds of turning into farts is by reducing their collision for obstacles by a significant amount while keeping its collision for enemy units (as small collision radius makes it very hard to hit things, especially for slow projectiles) the same.

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Zeddy's ramblings about balance