Spiral Knights - Weapon Loadout Advice

Weapon Loadout Advice

6 replies [Last post]

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 06:38

Metagenic

Since I'm progressing into T2 and T3, I decided I might need some help on my dream weapon loadouts. Here goes - I have none of these items yet but do plan on getting them.

T2/T3 General Purpose Loadout

Glacius
Acheron
Final Flourish
Graviton Vortex

T2 Royal Jelly Palace

Graviton Vortex
Acheron
Leviathan Blade
Polaris

T2 Ironclaw Munitions Factory

Glacius
Acheron
Polaris
Ash of Agni

T3 Firestorm Citadel

Glacius
Leviathan Blade
Voltaic Tempest
Blitz Needle

- Do I need any Krogmo trinkets for these loadouts? If not I'll just stick to upgrading my Heart Pendants.
- What shields would go well with these loadouts?
- If you have any suggestions or corrections to make, please explain them.

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 06:56

Fradow

Ok so, you seem to prefer

Ok so, you seem to prefer brandish over sealed sword, fine :

- first loadout is fine. A sword of every type, plus a support bomb that pair well with brandish charge => go with it

- why would you get a Leviathan ? You can either get the Glacius for bonus damage on lumbers/puppies or get fire/shock bomb, which are awesome in RJP (shock can even outdamage fire due to the amount of mini-jellies, which multiply damage, when it's very crowded). You don't really need the Polaris either, seeing that you are mainly a swordsman and the Polaris is bad for teamplay (on the other hand, you'll be loved if you bring status bombs)

- Ash of Agni is not worth it for IMF. There are just not enough mobs to justify a bomb in my opinion, if you are not a bomber. I would get a fast gun just for switches (I usually carry an AP for that purpose, but an Antigua is enough, because it's not meant to do damage).

- for FSC, people generally carry a Shivermist over a Voltaic Tempest. For the levels before, both are fine, but for Vanaduke, Shivermist really makes a difference (whereas I can't really see an advantage to use VT).

- another general advice : Electron vortex is generally considered superior to Graviton because of shock (which prevents from flinging enemies all over the place), but it costs Krogmo coins. It's your call here. Although Graviton does shadow damage, which is useful for RJP, it's not meant to do damage.

For all this, except if you choose to go for Electron vortex, you don't need any Krogmo coins. The trinkets are your call too, you could get ASI, damage or CTR trinkets for your swords, depending on your armor and how you want to play.

The shields don't have to go with specific loadouts. The only specific shield you want to look at is Barbarous Thorn Shield, because of the sword damange bonus. Else, take a shield which protects you against the strata you are up to.

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 07:17

Metagenic

Thanks for the post!

Very informative and helpful, I'll keep this in mind when planning my gear.

[RJP] I'm getting Leviathan Blade as a lifeline/kamikaze sword for RJP (the massive knockback is extremely helpful when you're being swarmed by jellies and the occasional Lumber. The Polaris is there to counter the gun puppies and Giant Lichen Colony on the stratum since I have no other way of dealing with them besides running up to them with a sword and risk taking damage. Note: I'm more of a soloist than a team player, so nobody's going to mind if I use the more antisocial weapons to my advantage.

Again, thanks for the advice!

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 07:21

Ehsan

About the vortexes...

I think it's more beneficial to replace every bomb with 'shiver'. Graviton vortex isn't the best bomb, and shiver, paired with leviathan blade, can one-hit ANY non-boss monster when soloing. consider that.

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 08:14

Fradow

See this thread about

See this thread about Brandish + Vortex : http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/21959

Also Ehsan, I don't agree. Shiver sux everywhere outside of FSC, in my opinion : it doesn't damage in a team (people are going to break the freeze before it hands), solo it has poor dps, and the crowd control can be harmful (no knockback = enemy retaliation in your face, depending on your weapon).

Sure, the Shiver + Levi combo can be cool, but it doesn't pair that well on crowds of enemies : it will freeze them before they can make a nice pack, thus lowering the amount of damage you can do with Levi charge.

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 08:56

Bopp

agree, but less stridently

I agree somewhat with Fradow about Shivermist Buster, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that it "sucks everywhere outside FSC". When I started using freeze, I really loved it, and spammed it everywhere all the time. I got Shivermist Buster, Hail Driver, and Glacius. But now I recognize freeze's tactical limitations: hinders heavy sword users by preventing knockback, ruins kiting, gets broken by teammates at crazy times, etc. Even in FSC, where Shivermist Buster really is awesome, it is overused.

So I now use Shivermist Buster sparingly. I use it against Vanaduke. In FSC or Dark City, I use it before stepping on a party button, to control part of the room for those crucial first few seconds of the fight. But I don't spam it all over the place, throughout the entire fight, the way I used to.

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 13:45

Velcro

I prefer to plant Vortexes

I prefer to plant Vortexes where mobs will spawn before pressing Party Buttons then just charging attacking their faces. Personally, =)

Anyway, for my advice to OP.

Your first weapon load-out is pretty spot-on by my judgement. Maybe get a BTB instead of FF but that's more of a preference thing for the charge into Vortexes. Beyond that, the only other thing that could be improved to me would be getting Electron instead of Graviton. Electron is pretty much strictly better, but not by a wide margin.

For RJP I mainly just mirror Fradow's comments, Levi doesn't seem that useful to me but if you like it then all the more power to you. Perfectly fine set-up besides that comment.

For IMF, pretty much mirror Fradow again.

For FSC. I highly recommend bringing in your Vortex to FSC. I would say ditch the Levi or Voltaic (I'd probably ditch Levi and maybe switch to Shivermist for Vana) and bring along your Vortex. Zombies are the most brilliant examples of A.I (Artificial Incompetence). If you stand still out of their swipe range they will usually try to jump or breathe on you. This gives you ample time to charge your Vortex and get as close to the group of zombies as possible while dodging their jumps and/or breath. This lets you place the Vortex fairly deep in their ranks. With a nice CTR on your Glacius (either from trinkets or UVs) you can even shield when you drop it, back away, and still have time to release the charge.

This is especially true if you use Electron because if you get a large enough group, usually 5 or more, one will almost always get shocked, which prevents fling, giving you more time to charge and release into their clump.

If you have teammates with Voltaic or other large AoE damaging weapons then it's even more beautiful since if you don't touch the zombies they won't aggro you as long as they're aggro'd 'enough' on another player. This lets you walk within their ranks without them batting an eyelash. I've planted Vortexes about 2 zombies deep into clusters before they started to care I was there.

One final tip for Vortex-ing in general. You should aim to release your charge opposite your teammates. This way you negate their knock back and keep the zombies clumped. I've killed incredibly large amounts of zombies like this with one combo. The hallway room at the start of d27, for example, I usually release all the zombies from north to south and pull them back south. I've killed every zombie there with one Vortex and the charge attacks from my teammates and myself.

As for shields. Definitely BTS. If you want to really specialize on abusing that ol' Vortex then the hierarchy of sword bonuses goes DMG > CTR >> ASI. DMG and CTR are about comparable, but only until you have a decent enough CTR to be comfortable doing the combo.

Also, just a question, but have you tried FF charge into Vortex much yet? I've wondered how effective that would be seeing as the charge is rather lengthy.

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Weapon Loadout Advice