ill actively play this again when i can directly go to 2nd stratums without wasting my time in maps i dont wana play in and without being dependent of joining other people

Enjoy never playing again.

Better get 3 star items before venturing into the boss again

Question: you were fighting them with two star items? Or better yet, why were you?

Most of the time the lag killed me, it's understandable since it just released today though. I'm just glad (and suprised) that the boss had no lag whatsoever when I fought it. I enjoyed it and it's shield-breaking puzzles. (Wow I type slow)

I thought the boss and the areas leading up to it were pretty fun! Lots of maneuvering and teamwork involved, and fortunately we didn't get that much lag.

Is that where one of the turret gets stuck on the far upper area? If so, that just happened to me too.

I have an i5 2500k and an ati 6950 and I STILL lag on those areas.

Kilowatt Pulsar is Elemental for whoever asked

Hi, I'm Helstar. I first tried killing the boss in a party. That didn't go well, we died. Then I tried solo. Much, much easier. Very laggy/slowdown boss room though, why not remove the fog?

Devs, fellow players..

Just killed this boss, essentially solo (full party but I was the only one left).

This fight has issues, it's buggy.

Mainly, the two puppies go into sync and it's next to impossible to get the (being vague so as to stop from spoiling it too much) mechanic to work. If the two dogs are sliding at the same time in the same direction, the mechanic stops working (think perfectly mirrored). It also became an issue when both dogs were in perfect sync and they both OMGLAZRED me. There was nowhere to hide. It was a miracle I survived it.

It's also much, MUCH, easier to do this solo. The amount of sword swings hitting gates, etc, makes this impossible unless you can control each party member. It is also made much more complicated by the fact that there is an explosion radius on the rockets. Essentially easy to block, but it's VERY anti-team oriented. You basically have to stay spread out, but asking pugs to even just focus on the jelly king is next to impossible sometimes.

The term herding cats comes to mind.

Again, I love the mechanics, it just needs tweaking.

I'd suggest no explosion radius on the little rockets so you aren't disadvantaged by being in a team.
I'd also suggest tweaking the two big dogs pathing so it's always possible to, erm, use the mechanic of the fight properly.

Good job though, it's nice, new, fresh content!

I never do the bottom path, always the top. Much easier to outrun rockets than to try to dodge rockets while moving back and forth along the same axis that the rockets move. Of course being able to hit the switch makes it easier since nothing is threatening you. Kudos for figuring that out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9q70NBW_mY&feature=channel_video_title

This was a pretty goddamn poor video Rebirth, how you manage to die a million times (and be at 80 to revive in the first place) on this is impressive.
Also I don't understand why the general opinion seems to be that the new area is hard, as it's incredibly easy and not very rewarding. -_^ it's pretty well made though

I thought it was great fun, the focus on fast-paced puzzles and dodging is a nice change from all the fighting.

It's too bad this can never be "the new RJ", 'cause the fewer enemies mean much less crown and heat.

I now request this boss be expanded to 8 turrets in a octagonal room in tier 3.

i liked the Depth levels leading to the Roar Twins more than the boss fight itself, them missiles were fun to dodge and a good twist
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/5209/spiral20110706201852.png
o_o

I know this is probably off topic, but can someone explain to me what PUG stands for...

I enjoyed the puzzles. I also liked maniplating switches to keep myself safe from energized quicksilvers while they wipe out most of the wave for me.

The issues i have are

1: Not anywhere near as profitable as JK. This means this can never become an alternative. Being able to mix things up would have been nice.

2: Not enough gremlins. I wanted gremlins! Not constructs ;_;

3. Too much shock, reinforcing that 'owlite is the only shield'

EDIT: PUG = Pick-up Group

That sucks. I had a stupid glitch where the elevator forced me to go to haven... Second time that happened to me actually. I got an invite back though so thats good. 9 tokens for me now I'm looking at the Pulsar (which contradicts an earlier post of mine) since I found the recipe for the next level already. I don't know if it can replace the Firotech though. After having done this twice now non-solo the boss is definitely easier with more people when you're on the same page. When everyone attacks you can damage the turret enough to bring it to the next stage after it just falling once.

@Metaphysic-
To respond to your number 4, I actually like the traps like that and its not as if party buttons are far and few they're typically right after the danger zones. Sometimes I think its cooler to have one person go at a time or just send one guy to complete the puzzle and control the switches for the others.

For number 5, while this can be true its not really problematic since you hopefully won't be taking damage and if you're in a good group then you can take out the puppy and force its shield up with one attack session. You have to figure out the pattern, like you said and lead some missiles into the open for the incoming puppy to get hit by.

I think its obvious that they tried to make this as focused on teamwork as they could but its really hard unless you have a designated switch hitter and even then its still hard because I know I hit cornered enemies into switches or my Winmillion's projectile might fly askew. Thats why its arguable easier alone than in a group since you can control everything. Even during my group fight agains the turrets there was a point where I was the only one who realized the puppy had dropped so I was the only one attacking it, if voice chat were available it definitely would have helped but in the time it would have taken me to type anything out the turret would be right back up. Speaking of the battle I think its a bit cheap that they can fire rockets after already being hit and already starting to go down. I always run in and shield it but it really shouldn't be able to shoot when its wounded like that.

The fight with the three infinity respawning mobs where you have to manipulate the switches to get rockets to break some blocks. Do they drop loot when killed? I did not think to check.

Time to drop my opinion into the pile I guess. Obviously this will contain some spoilers, I will be vague on some things but I'm not going to try that hard.

Prior notes: I did not observe crown drops along the way, I figure my goal was boss tokens at this time and I'd just spare myself the pain of concerning myself with money today.
I was playing at school, and I'm from USA, so that helps eliminate most problems about "lag".
I only got to play the stages twice completely.
I wasn't playing with anyone using voice chat.

The stages themselves:
I think they're pretty cool. I think this is good training for FSC. I mean on the first stage you have a barrage of rockets that's just like the bridge of FSC. Obviously easier to deal with as its tier 2 but still challenging.

Elemental shields/defense is a must here. No doubt about it.

As someone mentioned above, the heart boxes are placed almost perfectly. The first time I played through the stage, I did horribly with my teammates, got shocked all the time. But when all hope seemed lost, there was a heart box right there. The rockets hammered us in those long narrow corridors, but they also taught us some things about teamwork. You had to learn when to dodge and when to shield, and try to predict what your friends are going to do, that's key. See shielding all the time, that's just going to get you hurt and your teammates hurt, but there's times when you should all shield together. It's situational and only something that can be taught through experience. Or I simply don't have the words to describe it >.>;

The stages are rather punishing though if you don't use your head. Some arena like situations that occur WITH rockets are better dealt with certain switch combinations to keep some enemies out of the way or block some rockets, but if you carelessly hit the switches, you will die. You've gotta figure it out.

The bosses:

Another one of those experience things. I had two experiences with this, one incredibly bad and one very good.
My first time was obviously bad. I had no idea what to expect. I was figuring it'd be something I could slash to death like Jelly or Snarby. I saw the bosses and went like...crap what the heck is this D: Then a blinding flash of light.

Then the rockets come. I slashed my way through. But I didn't know why I was doing this. So I kept slashing until I reached some of the skuttlebots. I figured, hey, they'll probably spawn again but at least I can get the jump on them. Meanwhile, my teammates were doing similar things. When we cleared that. Then we tried to figure out what to do. One teammate suggested a gun. Well nuts to that for me, I didn't bring a gun >.>; So I had to figure out something. My friends started to hit some of the switches and I slooooowly started to realize something about the rockets. Maybe they should hit the bosses somehow. So we started focusing on that...which was the worst thing possible. Trying to hit those switches together ended up getting all of us hit. And none of the rockets. Slowly our health wittled down. Well one mate was out of CE so that wasn't good, then seeing how bad things were going, my other friend went to go make some food (he was dead so it was ok).

But then I was basically alone running back and forwards trying to figure out how to make these things die. I was in a total panic. One had started moving (I finished one part of phase one apparently). Anyway let's just say I kept up this random panic for quite awhile, it turned into a long drawn out solo battle really. But I eventually died with an 80 CE revive next (I was on mist prior to that). The eating friend came back just in time to revive and save me, finally I started to get a hang on the battle and we won pretty easily after that (the lasers were bad but not as bad as they looked once I realized elemental defense saved me there). Once we got a handle on switch control (one guy do it, the other guys handle anything else). It was a piece of cake.

Hungry for tokens and hoping we'd do much better. Me and the friend (the original person who helped had to go) decided to go on one more run as a duo.

We BLAZED through the stages, with very little mistakes and very little damage (I replaced my bomb with a silversix). We even took a moment to stop at the final spot with the lazers and run through them on purpose (yay elemental defense). And when we got to the boss again, I took on the role of the switch guy even though I wasn't the best, I figured that'd be a better role for me. And we realized we didn't need to release the skuttlebots in phase 1. Let the bosses do it. And well, we just won quickly and smoothly. He was the perfect teammate. And I the semi competent switch guy.

While I'd say the boss is probably sorta soloable once you got a handle on things (since my first time was almost solo effort for awhile). A duo works well. I'd say even 4 people would be ok but you have seriously gotta have only one person dealing with the switch. But this is a lesson people should've learned in Snarbolax (assuming you played through that) so I think its a good job at showing what the next step up is like.

I do wish there'd be a greater chance to pull some forge sparks out of these levels. I mean I only played twice so perhaps I just missed it/wasn't lucky enough. But with JK you're almost guaranteed to get a primal spark. If the chances are low, I'd like it to be increased a little bit, it would help offset the whole, these stages aren't profitable thing. Just a little bit.

Overall, I like the stages as they are. I don't think they are anti teamwork, I think they teach teamwork. I'd like more crowns/tokens but that's not necessary, its just a greed thing for me. (still, without either of those, its obvious I and other players, will go back to Jelly King or FSC if that's your thing once you get your weapons).

Have you notice how the goggles on that huge Hitleriffic Gremlin in Ian's new wallpaper looks suspiciously like a CE tab? I wonder if that's sleep deprivation or some Freudian jab at the game economy...

My general stasis on the new update (I don't mean the debug patch. I placed a story about that called, "A little "Roarmulus Twins" story based on the patch) is that it is awesome. However, the entire "Ironclaw Factory" area is brutally challenging. It would have fit better in tier 3 honestly. The only issue with the area is that it is WAAAY too laggy. The first time through I lagged so hard that one of the group members disconnected. The other time, it was me and my brother, in the same room, and it still lagged quite bad. I hope the GM's can help with that.
The boss fight on it's own can take as long as Lord Vanaduke if it isn't done correctly. Maybe even longer. It's also about twice as hard as Jelly King. It requires a way to fight, strategy, and much more. Plus, the 3-stage set-up is brutal. Even the first stage was tough! Let alone when they start firing gigantic lazers that cause you to hide makes it one of the hardest things in all of Spiral Knights.
Despite the challenge factor, it is extremely fun. The boss is incredibly well-done and fun, plus it adds for a brutally-challenging area. Honestly this should be more glorified than the Jelly Palace. It's also twice as hard as the Jelly Palace =P (In my opinion. I use a second sword that's shadow based, making it REALLY easy)

I liked the new levels, they were interesting and it was fun to dodge around the rockets. Sometimes seemed a bit easy, but I can easily imagine someone who is newer to the game, or just not quite so twitchy having some trouble with them. I appreciate that the levels are a completely different approach than the jelly palace.

My gut response to the boss is that it was more tedious than fun though, it relied a bit more on chance than I would like, I suppose there is still a need for skill involved to survive through any bad luck, but really meh, I think the idea is good, but the execution could use some tweaking so that one isn't stuck just waiting around forever for things to work out right. Perhaps with time I will grow to appreciate it a bit more.

I don't generally care about payout much, but I feel like it needs to be adjusted to atleast be on the same level as a generic T2 run. People are going to just keep spamming Jelly King, which yeah that's their choice but if you guys want them to go with the spirit of the game you should give them more incentive to do levels other than the jelly palace repeatedly.

You can curse them O.o? Though even if that's true, I probably wouldn't bother with it much. Levi was fine. Friend had DA anyway lol...

Downed them yesterday evening with two Guildmates, first try. It was a hell lot of fun, the levels leading to the bosses are great. The boss itself is awesome. Great fight, nice ideas - OOO that's good work!

This boss required patience. I found this out the hard way on my first run, I just keep hitting the switch hoping it would do something then die miserably.

Suggestion for dis run:

More box ( Doesn't need more mobs just more green or red box so that players at least get some crowns and heats)

Scuttlebots drops ( make Scuttlebots in boss level drops some heats or crowns but not lots just some)

FIX THE LAG