FYI, vannaduke alternates from being beast/slime in his normal/mask phases. So arcane is basicaly a volcanic gear with a low elemental bonus and a low vannaduke bonus as opposed to a medium weapon bonus.
So it's the ultiment vannaduke gear, but to get it you have to beat ultiment vannaduke...? Should switch it's place with Havenly Iron armor, that way people would have to play both T2 shadow bosses for it to face UFSC prepared.
Beast.. and slime? Never knew that one. I guess it kind of.... looks slimy... and beastly...
There's been no evidence to suggest that he switches between beast and jelly. Where'd you hear that?
I dunno if the developers were high when they developed these sets. The mere fact that both provide NO piercing defense but elemental instead seems really foolish to me. Gonna stick to my Deadly Virulisk.
" ...not gelatinous or anything, and it's not like he's rabid or anything.
I guess he sorta has wolver fur on him... ehh...
"There's been no evidence to suggest that he switches between beast and jelly. "
I checked, though it wasn't quite a scientific process. The ressistances and weaknesses match those two monsters, BUT I'm not sure if it acctualy counts him as either of those monster types. I'd assume so though, since they made the gear like that.
Beast; Weakness; peircing, Ressist; elemental
Slime; Weakness; shadow, Ressist; peircing
Regular vannaduke; Weakness; peircing, Ressist; elemental
Mask vannaduke; Weakness; shadow, Ressist; peircing
I havent tried things like cautery or beast basher to prove it tough, so it's not technicaly 100% garunted. Though, from a developers prespective, it would make sense. That's why they have blast cubes and random wolvers on the level. Plus, chroma takes on volcanic attributes at 4*, but all the other gears have it only at 5*. Chroma's also effective for the jelly queen, the second boss that was released along with the game. Including only the alpha, royal jelly and vannaduke came out at the same time. Vanna was in the beta, but still.
They do allot of stuff like this if you look closely. Take for example angelic and drake armor. Mixed, you get all 4 defenses, and feind and beast bonuses. Those are both weak to peircing, and flourish is the only pure damage sword. I think that was why they added the tortise shell, the most well rounded sheild, onto the drake sheild line.
Though I could be completely wrong, that's why I don't put this on the wiki in any form.
Did you really check with a shadow weapon to see if he resist/is weak to it?
-iknow sometimes the damage display is bugged, but my avneger seems to deal normal numbers against vana and gray ones to mask, wich doesn't match wolver/jelly.
The damage display is pretty bugged O_O
My brother has a DA, and he says that the number color seems to change according to the number of players in the party and in between the first and second hit.
I checked with a peircing a elemental. The peircing did more to the regular phase then the elemental, and the elemental did more to the mask. I aknowlage that that does leave plenty of holes, but it suggests something worth looking at. Still, I COULD BE WRONG. I got dragon scale mail, and since it's actualy useably on FSC I'm going to go test it next chance I get and compare it to my damage without it. If I deal more damage to his normal phase then the bonus probabaly works.
If anyone's got some random blasters with medium beast/slime UV's, those would be helpful. I'd buy them in the name of science. Testing with just damage types dosen't count, becuase vannaduke could technicaly be his "own" monster type that just mimics the weaknesses of slime and beast. You would probabaly need dragon armor or volcanic salamander to best test it.
The damage colours are really bugged. For example, doing a charge attack with my Voltedge will often end up with blue numbers on the 500-ish damage first hit, but yellow numbers on the 100-ish explosion hits, on *the exact same monster*.
As far as I've seen, Vana has his own particular class of weaknesses and resists in his body and mask phases. He does not belong to any particular monster class, and I've never seen reports of any "damage bonus vs whatever" buffs having any effect on him.
The numbers are "supposed" to represent "effective" damage. Example; I have a uber shadow bomb that deals 2000 damage to zombies and a blizzbrand that deals around 300 something. The elemental weapon would create stars, and the shadow would make the puny numbers, regardless of the fact that the bomb could instakill zombies in spite of that.
So I guess that that means that the explosions do mabey more elemental and the sword does more normal? OOO should hand us some clarification. I can understand hiding information to make the players explore a little, but we need something. Prehaps nick can give us a tease in the right direction like he did with #10 on 10 things you don't know about spiral knights...
"I've never seen reports of any "damage bonus vs whatever" buffs having any effect on him."
That's my point. I'm agnostic toward this at this point, since I can't seem to sleight the argument either way, and that's why I'm testing it out.
Either way, I'm still getting a chroma mask with max curse later >:3
There aren't even REGULAR chroma mask auctions on the list though T-T
Did anyone think to consult the wiki?
"Vanaduke is weak to piercing attacks in his body form (Phase 1, 3, and 5), slightly resists everything but Normal in his mask form (Phase 2 and 4), and gains a complete immunity to Shadow damage in Phase 5."
Orangeo, assuming (as seems likely) that your piercing and elemental tests were with a pure piercing weapon (such as a flourish or blitz needle) and a normal/elemental weapon (such as any elemental sword in the game), that's completely consistent with your actual tests while completely exploding your beast/slime theory.
Also, from the talk page:
"Undead damage bonus has no effect on him. Neither does Fiend, Beast, or anything else. ~Katmint 23:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)"
Even if you were correct, and slime/beast bonuses worked on Vanaduke for some incomprehensible reason, I still have a hard time seeing anyone crafting arcane salamander specifically for darkfire vanaduke. That would still only be a "low" damage bonus, and useless against nearly everying leading up to the boss fight; you can get more substantial and widely-applicable bonuses from the similar (and much easier to craft) vog cub or volcanic demo sets that most shadow lair-capable players will already have. And if you were going to pick out a new armor set specifically for UFSC, wouldn't you try to get some curse resistance? Maybe a little shadow defense? (From what I hear, the boss fight itself isn't that much harder, mostly it's the levels leading up to him that pose a challenge.)
If I ever make it to that point, my tentative plan for UFSC involves a divine veil and a vog cub coat, for high elemental/fire protection and medium normal/shadow/curse protection. (I'd trade some of that elemental defense for normal or shadow, but that doesn't seem to be possible with any existing armors without compromising the fire and/or curse resistance.)
Does Vanaduke really do that? Isn't he just weak to piercing throughout all of the fight?
Furthermore, it's not like he becomes gelatinous or anything, and it's not like he's rabid or anything.
Lastly, it might just be me, but most of the Shadow Lair armor basically strikes me as things I should be using for costumes.
I'm no experienced player or anything, but aside from snarbolax armor, none of them increase weapon
damage or speed by any significant amount, so yeah, they really don't strike me as armors I should be
wearing as anything but a costume._.