Spiral Knights - Is this new RJ / JK truly a "tier 2" boss?

Is this new RJ / JK truly a "tier 2" boss?

11 replies [Last post]

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 09:57

Caakeeftw

Ok, the new RJ/JK has had very confusing complaints about being "almost impossible" and "much easier"

It is extremely hard to find out which it is for me. Why? It's not because im like most of you and just walk through it with tier 4 / 5 gear (which i have with my wolver / calibur tier 4 set)

It's because i go back there with tier 2 gear and find it almost impossible regardless of the huge number comments saying that "Jelly King is more of a true tier 2 boss now" .... Remember: I am NOT using tier 3 gear so no fang of vogs / fausts / skolvers / whatevers when i did him.

So with the new mechanics:

1. There are polyps. these polyps spawn a lot of minis, and these minis heal the jelly king.
2. Jelly king does not spawn minis.
3. Jelly king bounces and damage anything that touches him.
4. The jelly king's normal attack now does a forward slide like normal cubes.
5. The jelly king is now weak to shadow and resistant to piercing with yesterday's update.

As far as tactics go: its kill polyps - kill jk - kill polyps - kill jk accoridng to the "tier 2 new jk is easier" comments. The issue is that doing these tests without 4* or 5* gear shows that the polyps starting in his crown-less phase where he will berserk will respawn quicker than they can even be put down. Remember, I am also soloing. Before I could solo the jelly king with ease and now i cannot.

What I have found is that the polyps have more health compared to normal polyps. It's difficult to kill them since the minis they spawn will be right in your face as well. When i was in full 3* dusker / nightblade (with a plate shield i had a 4* plate shield through all of this but i dont think this would make a huge difference with the true problem) the reach of the nightblade was so small for the jelly king himself that it was hard to avoic being bounced back. Obviously, you could not execute more than one attack since I would not understand how you wouldn't end up being knocked back due to No. 3 stated above. Because of this, i dont think any sword but calibur charge attack would be worth it on the jelly king (remember: this is not a tier 3 gear test, fang of vog is 5*) since you CAN get the 3-hit charge attack to work even with his new bouncing if you touch him.

So, that's that for swords. I also went down there with a shadowtech alchemer mk II and gunslinger gear to see how that would play out, since i read comments stating that it was gunnable and possibly even easier to gun him now. The issue is that i could not kill polyps fast enough like the nightblade, they would respawn too quick. when i poisoned him, he would very soon go berserk and that poison would ware off. if he was even close to any minis before i got that next vial off he would heal a ton, usually repeating his berserks.

So, to sum up that, am I maybe doing something wrong? With 3* gear from what i see the jelly king is not killable due to being unable to put down polyps fast enough and ridiculous healing when you ran out of poison vials you are basically done.

Is this new jelly king truly tier 2 or has everyone been killing him with tier 4/5 easily and then just believing that its doable in 3*? is there some magic that occurs when you aren't soloing (3 or 4 people) with this new jelly king? If you notice i am doing something wrong and you can (from the perspective of someone in 3* NOT 4* or 5*) tell me what it is, that would be awesome thanks!

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 10:25

Nicoya-Kitty

I don't think you should kill

I don't think you should kill the polyps if you're soloing. If you've got a full group of 4 then it's probably worth having one person go around killing them, but for any smaller groups I'd say just concentrate on RJ.

Your best option is probably to kite the minis around (there's much fewer than there used to be) and dive in on the big guy with charge attacks. The nightblade line charge attack is very useful here because of its long reach with the explosions, and obvious bonus for shadow damage with the latest update.

It helps if you've done a lot of brandish kite'n'charge soloing on the final wave of arenas with the piles of mechaknights so you know just how far away you should be to release the charge attack. It's obviously very important to get the range right to avoid the new head-butt.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 10:31

Scrum-Lord

Pulsar is also effective at

Pulsar is also effective at pushing the mini away from JK as well as shocking him. I like the new form. I was like 4 for 10 before and now I am 5 for 5 now for the new form (in groups, I have yet to try and solo).

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 11:35

Caakeeftw

ok so is it really possible

ok so is it really possible to kite the big guy? minis directly go for him to heal him... just kiting him in the circle would throw him in the polyp's faces whiuch would spawn minis right there. i dont see this happening but...

you suggested kiting the minis not the king. When i watched how it worked, if the minis got within a certain vicinity of RJ / JK, then they went to heal him. Anyway, JK is going to be moving toward you and if the minis are also moving toward you not the jello king...

How the heck do some of you prefer this version? ridiculous number of adds was less ridiculous i do not understand this one bit. 3 poison vials is not nearly enough to keep JK from healing.

I mean come on... the point isnt focusing on the polyps, you cant block in the minis since he will berserk and break the blocks, there is WAY too many healing minis in the first place... too many polyps at that...

Maybe the devs should make the polyps respawn less or something? i just dont see a single tactic working that would let a 3* geared person to solo RJ / JK i used to solo him 7/10 times before now its barely 1/10 this is ridiculous does someone know the magical answer?

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 12:04

Nievem

Well the king is not perfect

Well the king is not perfect for solo. The regeneration is overwhelming if you let it happen yes, you have to keep him poisoned, bring a 3* toxic catalyzer, and use its charge to keep it poisoned, or a toxic vaporizer, or a toxic needle charge (although this one is not as good, but still does the job) Youll want to break the crown asap, so fight without opening room for the polyps, and keep throwing fire and curse vials, while using your charges.

Once it is broken you want to poison the king as soon as it stops spinning so it doenst heal (thats why bringing a poison weapon works, you attack and poison as soon at the same time as it stops spinning), youll have to do all the final damage while you still have poison vials, if you fail then it might be a losing battle unless you luck out.

Havent tried mechas, but having three could work to keep the minis occupied, problem would be if they go for the king, theyll get destroyed.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 12:54

Caakeeftw

this is officially much, much

this is officially much, much more difficult than what the king used to be solo in 2/3* (tier 2 gear).

Now, the healing is even more ridiculous, swords suck since he bounces you, my calibur charge attacks will fail actually sometimes with bounce, and now to solo him in 3* you have to have a catalyzer (considering the other poison weps have bad chance to poison)

This wasn't an issue before and before it was actually a tier 2 boss since i could solo in 3* gear before.

For a comparison, roarmulus twins are very soloable in tier 2/3 gear

Now that that is cleared up......

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 12:58

Thatknightisaspy

i just went solo the other

i just went solo the other day right before his shadow weakness was added in, so i KNOW that this works for solo. first, same as before, poison. don't be afraid to use them up, poison is more important in the begining anyways. (i was using silent nightblade, but damage isn't much different from * to *) hack and slash. if you have a mecha night or poison vial, use 1, whichever it is. mecha-knights specifically will knock him straight to phase 2. unleash a charge at the end of every rampage, quickly followed by either poison(you SHOULD have at least 1 left) or curse/mecha-knight/stun(i'm fairly certain stun actually slows down healing too...) hack and slash. if you use a status, unleash the charge, and keep up the pressure between rages, you should be fine.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 13:06

Caakeeftw

"hack and slash" really? when

"hack and slash"

really? when he will bounce you if you touch him? i don't believe this if you used a hack and slash tactic one bit unless i am missing something big.

From my experience swords are terrible on him now with the bounce but again i might be missing something if you can achieve perfect reach and perfect timing and the jelly king is motionless? i dont know... guns sound better now but they still did so bad in comparison

remember: 3* gear, silent nightblade is NOT tier 2 gear. so. that doesn't count anyway, because the thing i have been hearing is that jelly king is more of a "tier 2" boss now.

Which he so far is not he is harder.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 13:21

Eclecticmessiah

I recall being t2, and

I recall being t2, and thinking that JK was too hard, so while this new JK is extremely easy for t3 players, I somehow think it's fair for t2 players.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 15:15

Batabii

Stop calling it jelly king.

Stop calling it jelly king. It doesn't say jelly king anywhere in the entire game. That's like saying "Lord Van Dyke".

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 15:28

#10

Biznasty

@Batabii

Technically it does. Not directly, but still, the description indicates that the Royal Jelly at the T2 Royal Jelly Palace dungeon was a king. I feel it's fair to call him Jelly King.

The main reason he is called Jelly King is because that was the name he was given by players back in the beta, when he was first released and had no official name. It ended up catching on and I personally feel it's easier to call him JK, so we wouldn't confuse RJ with RJP.

And why does it even matter anyway? It's just a little nickname of sorts.

On topic: I haven't actually done the new JK on the official servers yet, but I ran it on the test server way back then and it was really, really easy on a full organized party. Recently ran Ice Queen, and it was pretty much a joke to be honest. Really easy, even with the Swarm Seed and additional Polyps. I don't think we even used that many vials.

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 15:38

#11

Batabii

That's not in-game, and that

That's not in-game, and that still says Royal Jelly. I don't see how you can confuse RJ with RJP any more than you confuse ATH with AH. And JK is easier to confuse with just kidding. Type /jk in the game chat and see what happens.

Royal Jelly Palace
Royal Jelly Band
Royal Jelly Mail
Royal Jelly Crown
Royal Jelly Shield

It doesn't make sense to call it jelly king when it says Royal Jelly everywhere.

Anyway I wish RJ was this easy sooner. Before I got the RSS (and long before this update) I considered it almost as hard as Vanaduke.

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Is this new RJ / JK truly a "tier 2" boss?