Spiral Knights - Tier 3 question- Shield vs Armour

Tier 3 question- Shield vs Armour

10 replies [Last post]

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 12:49

Bzzts

Hello all, I know that a shield is not passive protection and know what arnour does.

I was wondering, I wish to have decent damage bonus from shield / armour and would like to know

Whether getting full skolver with the correct shield for the stratum

Or getting One piece skolver and the barbouros thorn shield but not switching shield

Would be safer to use in all places?

I have a shadow, a piercing( ash tail) and an elemental armour as well as

A piercing and elemental shield.

This is for t3 so I would mainly be doing FSC.
I am a sword user with no trinket slots.

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 12:58

Darkbrady

People prefer Vog Cub for

People prefer Vog Cub for FSC, since the ASI bonus counts for a lot for attacking (especially when you need to get in, attack, block and dodge quickly amidst the crowds) and because it has an inherent massive fire bonus that SKolver lacks.
The ASI bonus can potentially make up for the damage loss in other ways than dps too, like letting you block/dodge/shield-cancel quciker.

Stickin' a Barb shield on top of this will further boost your damage.

If you're set on Skolver though, then you can either go for the Barb shield to max your damage and hit hard and fast, with the intention of not wholly relying on your shield; this will work the earlier floors, but come Vana time you'll feel the effects of a non-defensive shield.
The appropriate shields will help a *lot* at Vana and certainly will help you during the earlier floors, but you'll obviously have sslightly less damage and be more vulnerable to fire hits w/o the res.

Personally, if I was a swordy and going SKolver, I'd stick with the Owlite/Almire shield.
Vog isn't *essential* for FSC (maybe skolver/vog, would work for you, btw) as I have no fire res and survive in there, however I rarely get hit either, being a bomber; swordies are more prone to letting one slip in and catching flames becasue of it, so...

Question from me would be "how good do you think you are?"

Ofc, feel free to ignore me and listen to an experienced swordy's opinion. :)

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 13:09

Bzzts

Thanks for the reply

Any help is better than none, and you said valid points.

I am( IMHO) a decent player so Imma mix up skolver and vog and use the DTS.

Any other ideas woul d help

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 13:17

Juances

^ just a reminder

DTS has low bonus until you upgrade it to BTS

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 13:36

Antistone

I am an experienced sword user and I run FSC regularly.

Some people will tell you that sword attack speed is better than damage bonuses, and I'm not at all convinced of that; I tend to prefer damage. However, fire resistance seems to make a worthwhile difference; I started FSC with a Skolver/Vog mixed set, and it seemed noticeably easier when I replaced the Skolver with a fire-resistant helmet (even one with NO relevant weapon bonuses, in my current case--historical reasons).

There are other ways to get fire resistance, but if you're a sword-user on a budget mostly looking to run FSC, I'd say Vog Cub is almost certainly the way to go.

So far, I do not have any tier 3 shield besides the BTS, so I can't say how big a difference that makes. (Though, obviously, I managed to survive a few times with only the BTS.)

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 13:55

Fradow

Antistone, it depends which

Antistone, it depends which sword you use. If you use DA/GF, you are going to want at least an ASI : medium to be able to do the full combo before the attacking mob it you (and thus, interrupting it and not taking any damage).

More ASI means you can be more lax with the timing (by that I mean start attacking just a little after them) and will also recover faster from hits (critical when you know that the 2nd hit will not hit in time / not hit all the mobs and you need to shield cancel fast).

With the recent zombie nerf, if you are always charing a DA in FSC, you are doing it wrong. The normal hits do so much more damage, when you do not fear to take some scratch ...

However, if you are using a brandish line sword and are constantly charging, that's a different story.

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 14:00

Bzzts

Oh sorry

I meant to say Damage bonus in the Original post.

I use a blizzbrand, Silent nightblade, darkthorn blad/ strike needle.

And by sets I mean 4 star of each type.

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 16:58

Antistone

On Speed

Well, I don't have a DA. If ASI medium happens to be a magical threshold that CONSISTENTLY makes the difference between comboing or not when using the Divine Avenger against zombies, then I could see that being quite attractive when using the Divine Avenger against zombies.

But I do have a GF, I'm pretty confident that is NOT a magical threshold for GF against any jellies, gremlins, or constructs in the game. I also seem to recall comboing zombies with my Sealed Sword way back when I first got it, with default attack speed.

I suspect the rule that most people actually follow is: you want at least as much attack speed as you happen to be used to. If you are used to playing with a certain amount, and you suddenly get more, you will see yourself winning all the races that used to be close calls and avoiding damage, while if you suddenly get less, you will see yourself losing races that you would have won and getting hit. But once you recalibrate your instincts, I'm not convinced it makes nearly as much difference as people think it does. The timing requirements are obviously less stringent the more speed you have, but it's ultimately about knowing when you can safely attack and when you can't, not attacking blindly and hoping you have the stats to pull it off.

When I recently de-equipped my one piece of Vog Cub to heat up a new armor in FSC (dropping my attack speed to default), I was still able to execute full three-hit combos on zombies with my Glacius most of the time. If they were pinned against a wall so they stayed within range after the first combo, I could even launch immediately into a second combo after the first one interrupted them, attacking continuously until they died. I don't think the Glacius' third hit lands sooner than the DA's second, but I guess I haven't specifically timed it...

Sun, 01/15/2012 - 17:10

Darkbrady

I think people are too spoilt

I think people are too spoilt for ASi, far, far too used to using Vog.

I've never had any kind of ASi bonus other than :low on my Glacius and I never had any problems getting full combos off. The fact that regular vog cub users are regularly surprised at the fact that they can pull off full combos without it just goes to show that for one, it's not as absolutely neccessary as some folk seem to believe, but mainly that people need to just trust the default swings more, and have faith that they can do it without stacking VH bonuses onto eveyrthing.

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 00:30

Fradow

Perhaps it depends of your

Perhaps it depends of your latency (mine is a little higher than usual), I clearly remember being able to do the full combo all the time against jellies after reaching ASI Med. Before having it, if I was only a fraction of second too late, I would be hit before doing the 2nd swing. That totally changed when I got it. I had the same feedback from several persons.

As for specifically DA vs zombies, it was the case too before the nerf. Now I suppose you could just go with no ASI and still be able to do both hits and turn around them before they hit. That's also the case with Glacius, as full combo is sligtly faster than DA combo.

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 00:41

#10

Demonicsothe

If one is skilled with a

If one is skilled with a heavy sword, they can always start the attack at close to max sword range, hold it, and chase a square after the enemy to combo it. This negates the whole get into their range to attack with full combos mindset.

However, asi does speed up recoveries from swings. This means pulling up a shield in a clutch moment instead of have the animation come up too late.

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Tier 3 question- Shield vs Armour