Maybe you're going to the wrong gates as well. Your armor is only protecting against piercing so that's just Jelly attacks or Beast attacks. If you go anywhere else where other kind of enemies reside, you will get destroyed fairly quickly. Of course you should never try to get hit, but it happens when you're just an average player (I am D:). So you need to be able to take a few hits, and if everything that's hitting you, you have no defense against. It's REAAAALLY going to hurt.

I also see you have a striker...that kind of weapon kind of forces you into one of those get hit kind of situations. You'll rarely interrupt enemies attacks with the final blow because the combo is so long.

Its probably because your used to being in total control over a situation, and not good at dealing with the chaos created by other players. One thing you'll notice about team fights is that 1 or 2 people will charge in an scatter mobs all over the place.... sometimes you'll even get a monster thrown at you by knockback. For a cautious, calculated player, everything is happening too fast to plan and keep up with. You also lose control of monster behavior as they engage other players.

Players with good situational awareness aren't bothered by this since they can keep tabs on anything that might be dangerous to them. But more focused players, who like to fight 1 or 2 targets at a time can get overwhelmed by unexpected monsters flying everywhere.

As for your equipment, the striker is a wild weapon that can pull you into a bad situation as you chase after a monster. A Calibur or Brandish would be a good choice since the knock back is more predictable, and the charge attacks lets you give a monster 1 strong whack and pull out.

Tactics wise, you can probably do better by not trying to be the first in, and targeting stranglers. That should help a lot in survivability. Everything else is about reading other player's movements to figure out how they play, when they're about to do something stupid, and knowing when and how to engage a target. 2 Players chasing the same target, knocking it all over the place, is inefficient and often dangerous since it screws up both of their timing.

its a somewhat common problem to do well in solo then die in the same situation in group play.
here is why:

you solo, and you get used to to killing things in a standard number of attacks. (Ex. i can kill a slime by attacking 3 times. block. attack 3 times, dead). Then you get into group play and expect the same. you attackx3 block attackx3 and smile, BUT WAIT, the enemy isn't dead b/c it now has increased hP. then it attacks you and you take damage.

It can be very easy to subconsciously get into the flow of the 1 player game, and without even thinking about it, you play the same in group play, exercising the same cautions, but die much more. Be aware, and consciously make the adjustment to realize that everything can take more damage, and thus deal more damage.

p.s. and don't use your own ce to rez. even if you die a bunch, 90% of people will be annoyed if you CE rez.
#1, you are erasing the heat they'd gain from reviving you (this would annoy me :/)
#2, if the going gets tough later on, and your rez is up to 40 or 80 when it should be @10, people willl be annoyed that you wasted ce rezzing when it was unnecessary. this is particularly true later when you do vana runs. nothing as annoying as someone who idiotically rezzes themselves 2-3 times before vana, then the party is wiped during vana fight and he says "can't rez, @ 80"

>:/

I would recommend a Brandish or any of its 5 upgrades as well, it gives out more damage than a Calibur but doesnt have an all-around you charge attack. Also, don't get the cautery brandish, it's absolute garbage and is effective against 1 type of enemy.

When I drop I go oops and explain exactly what happened. Usually my shield broke or my block didnt count. Also, screwing up a dodge is another common reason, dont forget your latency as well, it can kill you!

If you want someone to group with who might be able to give some advice as we go along, feel free to add me. My IGN is Xaak. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lhP9q2B3A How to shield cancel.

As many others have said, party play is less about damage and more about crowd control and defense. The #1 sin to commit in a party is lobbing a dangerous enemy (like a lumber) into someone. I'm not sure what exactly your play style is, but I'm pretty sure that I know something that can help: the freezing vaporizer line. It doesn't require that much investment into bomber gear, and will serve you well as you continue on. It almost limits the movement of enemies, so you can keep track of them, and even allows you time to charge up your weapon (usually).

1. Striker's charge attack is trash: I hope you're not using it. I get nailed every time I try to use it.

2. Don't feel the need to complete a sword combo every time. Swinging once or twice then shielding is often the smart thing to do.

3. Learn to shield-bump if you don't already. That's hugging the enemy and raising your shield, it'll bump them away.
Work's even if you're shield is broken.

4. If you're low on health, pew-pew with a gun until an enemy turn's it's back to you: Then wail on it with your sword when it's safe.

Lose the striker and get a calibur. I PROMISE you will never look back. Leviathan is the best sword in the game and striker series is trash

"You gotta watch for when your freind decides to bump a steeming thorned oiler your way. It'll never happen when you solo."
Lumbers are even worse for me. They ALWAYS get slammed to me by some random calibur user using his charge attack - then he already "charges" for his slam. BWAHM STUNNED. >_>

Solo-ing FTW!

I' a T2 player, and are fairly new to the game.

My loadout at present:
-Dusker cap
-Max level Wolver coat
-Max level Tempered calibur (I was good with my regular calibur, but the +damage is better ^^)
-Max level Magnus/Shadowtech
-Max level Bristling buckler

Yeah, I can die easily, especially to greavers. But here's what I do.

When I had just my wolver set, I could pwn the Clockwork stages before JK. Never the guy himself, but the stages, hell yes.

Be careful about comboing enemies. Only the 3rd strike will stop an attack with most of them, and if you get swarmed...you get the picture.

My style is to charge my Tempered calibur, then allow them to swarm me. Before ANY of them even manages to hit me, I release the charge to send them all flying. Works with EVERYONE. Also, the do triple the damage to a stationary target. I can charge slash an armoured gunpuppy and kill it in 1.5 seconds. Corner a lumber, and he's toast if you can hit him with it, then combo him fast enough so he can't attack.

General strategies:
Lumbers are slow. Run around them in circles until they attack, then hit them hard with whatever you got from behind until they either turn to face you or die. If they don't die, just repeat.

Same would go for gunpuppies, but if they haven't already seen you, prepare your most powerful move and hit them hard from behind so they won't get you.

If you're getting swarmed, range attacks and prevent them from cornering you. Shoot, and if they're closing in on you, run past them while shieldbashing. If you DO get cornered, take the opportunity to hack and slash your way out of there before the blinking invincibility wears off.

If you get a calibur, against huge mobs of almost anything, run away while charging, run back into them, release, then repeat till they're all dead.

Anyway, what's your IGN? I'll see if I can help you in any other way ^^

Previous posters have this mostly covered but I'll add some detail...

I'm almost positive its your Striker. Its likely that you're sloppy and in single player there are fewer, weaker enemies and you can get away with some slop. Multiplayer is much less forgiving.

I've been using the Cutter series from the beginning (upgrading to wild hunting blade when I get home) and while I'm a huge fan of it, I get where others are coming from in deriding it. To use it properly, you have to be GOOD. Like, move like a butterfly sting like a bee good. Button mashing won't cut it, you must direct your motion. Sometimes its best to intentionally miss and use those swings to dodge or advantageously reposition yourself.

The cutter, striker, etc are best used to single out enemies from a mob or to move them around deliberately. Corner the gremlin healer or that high-damage bigguy. Knock the healing fairies into the open away from their targets, that sort of thing. Play it like support and stay out of the way for the most part.

If you die a lot doing this, go less specialized with a different blade.

Ok, so you don't like guns and given the pathetic lump of trash that the proto gun is, i can see where you're coming from. However, there are some situations where having something with ranged combat can be quite useful. The most common one is gun puppies that aren't easy to reach e.g. the access is blocked with spikes or gates. It's still possible to kamikaze them but you'll lose a lot of health that you didn't have to.

The other main use of guns is kiting big groups of monsters especialy in arenas and danger rooms (though bombs can be even better for this). The idea is that you want to keep away from the big group of monsters but still do some damage. Wading into the group with your striker will get you killed. Guns may do less damage per hit, but at the big advantage of not having to be close to the enemy.

You could rely on your team mates to take care of this, but that's not going to help your feeling of being a spare part.

If you really want to go down the no gun route, your main option is the Avenger and Divine Avenger. Unfortunately, this means a minimum of 7 successful jelly runs during which you will encounter some rooms where ranged combat is very helpful. Then there is the cost of recipes and upgrading plus the fact you have to heat up a sealed sword to lvl5 before you get an Avenger.

My recommendations for a gun are :

1. the Blaster. Not a gunslingers gun, but a good general purpose backup to deal with anything. Recipes for upgrades are easy to get from Kozma. If you are only going to have 1 gun, the blaster is the path to take.

2. a status effect Alchemer. The choice is really firotech, voltech or cryotech. Gun puppies are constructs, so are weak to elemental, which theses 3 Alchemers deal in spades and you also get the benifit of the status effects. The fun really starts when you get them up to 4* drivers. When you kite with these, it's not just the direct hit that damages, but also the status effect. You can read plenty of threads to see which one you'd prefer but be aware that they aren't good in strata themed with the same status effect and using a firo on oilers or voltech on quicksilvers will not make you popular ;)

p.s. it's nice to see another striker fan on the forums

I'll see you In-game another time and see what I can do for you from there. Yo need all the advice you can get, so you can pwnage the clockworks all on your own. Cradle will one day herald the name Caika! MWAHAHAHA! *cough*imacrazyidiot*cough*

The striker might be your problem. It does great DPS, but it does not knock back enemies (well, it does and not very far; you leap into them as you keep swinging). This puts you in danger as you cut into an uninterruptable or an uninterrupted attack. With more enemies, the harder it is to get more combos in your attacks.

I am doing tier 3 runs (well, only Vanaduke now), and I am still using and loving my cutter.

The melee weapons that you listed do not normal-based damage. Therefore, it may not be applicable to some monsters.

Caika, you asked about combining damage types in weapons (I think). The short answer is that you want pure damage --- only Piercing, only Elemental, or only Shadow --- on each weapon, rather than a weapon that does Piercing+Elemental, for example. This is because when you are facing a monster there is one and only one best type of damage to do to it. Unfortunately, swords don't offer pure damage, other than Piercing, but you should still get three specialized swords:

* Either Final Flourish or Barbarous Thorn Blade. They're identical except in charge attack. Use them against Beasts and Fiends. You will be astounded by how they succumb to pure Piercing damage. (There are two other Piercing swords, that seem less good to me.)

* Either Acheron or Gran Faust. Use them against Slimes and Gremlins. Arguably, Acheron is better against Gremlins (faster) and Gran Faust is better against Slimes (more knockback). There is no pure Shadow sword.

* Either Combuster, Glacius, Voltedge, Divine Avenger, or Fang of Vog. Use them against Constructs and Undead. There is no pure Elemental sword.

Before you enter a stratum, examine the Gate Map, and pick the two damage types that seem most likely to be useful. What do you do, if you're carrying a Piercing sword and a Normal+Elemental sword, and you run into a Slime? You use the Normal+Elemental sword, because they don't resist it. And if you run into a Gremlin? The Piercing sword, because they don't resist it.

Of course, there are considerations other than damage, such as speed, reach, knockback, status effects, and peculiarities (e.g. Leviathan's charge attack is nice). But fundamentally Spiral Knights is about damaging monsters more than they damage you, so you should seriously consider damage type in choosing weapons, and this is especially true of swords. (Aside: Guns offer more pure damage options --- one reason why guns are better than you think.)

By the way, my Spiral Knights wiki page overflows with dubious advice like this. ;)