Spiral Knights - The new arena monster combinations are sometimes too powerful

The new arena monster combinations are sometimes too powerful

7 replies [Last post]

Sat, 08/27/2011 - 19:56

Evilnut

The recent change to arena mixed up the monsters a bit... like in the 3rd part, in the last wave of mecha knights you often find several devilites hiding in there. It introduces new challenges, but by bad luck it could also turn very ugly.

Yesterday I solo'ed 2 arenas with hearts and pills left unused all over the place, but today it was very painful... the last few waves of the 3rd part were:
Alpha wolvers (shock)
Jelly turrets (shock)
Mecha Knights + Mender + Devilites (shock)

With the removal of the blind spots on turrets, fighting those alpha wolvers was a nightmare. You can't block - alpha wolves will break it immediately and shock you. You can't run properly - jelly turrets will all be shooting once you circle the arena once, and their spikes were so slow, they leave very little safe place for you to move. And the fact they were all shock-themed. Once you got hit once, you will suffer more hits due to the shock. So much pain.

The devilites hiding among mecha knights are also a huge problem. If they were the normal version you could just trade some hits to deal with them, like what people do with menders... but with shock? You can't risk it, or you will be shocked and then surrounded by mecha knights, followed by a swift death.

I think some combinations are too deadly... I think they should limit the list of possible choices, say the devilites mixed in can only be the normal version, or increase heart drops for such combinations.

I think I'll avoid shock-themed arenas for now...

Sat, 08/27/2011 - 21:50

Starlinvf

What was the arena theme?

Sat, 08/27/2011 - 22:54

Evilnut

It was Thunderfist - Wrench

It was Thunderfist - Wrench Warfare.

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 02:08

Rage-Knight

First kill of the turrets,

First kill of the turrets, then hit-and-run wolvers. If fiends are present, kill fiends before wolvers but after turrets. Fiends are relatively easy to avoid, turrets sit in corners.

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 02:43

stupysays

Legacy Username

@evilfist

The problem isn't that all arenas are being randomly produced unfairly. Wrench Warfare has always been an interesting arena in the fact that it's a mixed type. It's unfortunate that the arena in question was shock. Many other types are generally easier to handle but shock is always a tricky status effect.

I wouldn't necessarily avoid all shock themed arenas. This particular combination was annoying that's for sure. Jelly Turrets are slow and fire in that wide arc. It's hard to judge dodging when the projectile are so slow (Odd right?) and you have that wolvers right on your tail. You want to kill the turret but your hand is forced and you need to run. By the time you make a full circuit the entire room is angry at you and one wrong hit and shock is applied and well. That's a slippery slope.

Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't but that doesn't mean all the arenas form that way. Sometimes due to the makeup of the arena later depths prove inconsequential in comparison to earlier depths with an evil random spawn order. But that's just life, we pick and choose our battles and maximize our earnings! Capitalism ahoy!

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 04:04

Rage-Knight

Use gun to kill turrets.

Use gun to kill turrets. Two-bullet guns one shot at a time so you're not stuck reloading. If wolvers are a problem, shield bumb them (shield on-shield off) but don't waste time attacking.

My problem in this scenario would be fiends. They're simply overpowered:
- their health is not reduced compared to other monsters, generally
- they can move, unlike gun puppies
- they can dodge, unlike mecha knights
- they have ranged attacks, unlike most other monsters
- they have the highest projectile speed of ranged attacks, which, combined with lags, makes it hard to dodge their attacks (if you see them starting attack and you're not circling around them at a distance, you won't be able to dodge or shield in time)
- they can have both ranged and melee attacks, unlike most monsters, with their attacks dealing same damage as any other monster
- they're small, making it hard to spot their attacks
They have most of the strong sides of monsters (ranged, melee, dodging, fast projectile) with basically no drawbacks (not slow, not fixed to a spot, not having a slow projectile).

My most feared monster combination is 16 gun puppies in arena room 3 when *ALL* of them start shooting me immediately. They basically cover the entire map with bullets so I can't avoid getting hit, my Grey Owlite shield breaks in 3-4 hits (uh huh, the "most powerful" elemental shield gets down with 3-4 elemental hits) and I have little to no hope of survival (almost no chance to dodge - they got it all covered, from all sides, shield takes a while to recover). Sometimes I get few gun puppies down before they all start shooting me.

Third fearsome combo is tons of scary gun puppies who chase you after death. The thing is: they "die" with no animation, immediately, so if you kill them in melee, they hit you immediately, and their hit seems to deal 2x damage, if not more (over 10 full points of health... should be same as 1 gun puppy shot, IMO).

Wolvers + Fiends + Gun puppies + Menders, while being a fearsome combination, do not make it impossible to complete the arena.

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 04:30

OverDingle

Legacy Username

In the meantime, here's a

In the meantime, here's a small trick to help you out with arenas:

In the third room, each additional spawn of monsters is triggered by killing all of one monster type in the room. You'll start out fighting two groups of monsters, and killing all of one triggers the next spawn. Therefore, focus on only one monster type at a time.

The wave with 2 healers and 2 alpha wolvers/lumbers is the one that makes the 8 turret spawn appear. When you see this wave, try to leave one healer alive - once it's all done, you can kill it to spawn the turrets on your own terms. This'll mean you can start the wave in a corner where, if the turrets are gun puppies or howlitzers, none of them will see you. If they're polyps, only 4 of them will see you... which is the minimum, unfortunately.

Sun, 08/28/2011 - 11:53

Orangeo

Wrench warfare is supposed to

Wrench warfare is supposed to be gremlin, but since gremlins cant have status themes they throw in a bunch of random crap. I'm cool with jelly's, becuase my shadow weapon that i'll bring expecting gremlins will still work, but that's about it.

Search

The new arena monster combinations are sometimes too powerful