Spiral Knights - Shadow Lair GWW after action report

Shadow Lair GWW after action report

15 replies [Last post]

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 23:11

Bluescreenofdeath

So I made my first venture into the shadow lairs last weekend. I was broke at the time, but was brought along anyway as extra firepower. The run went really well and even though the others had SL experience I managed to stay on my feet (mostly) and contribute to keeping the rest of the group up. I ended up going with the following loadout:

Dread Skelly Helm 5* L10 (UV Normal L)
Skolver Coat 5* L10
Dread Skelly Shield 5* L8 (L10 during run)

Elite Sword Focus Module 5*
Elite Quick Strike Module 5*

Barbarous Thorn Blade 5* L10
Voltedge 5* L10 (UV CTR M)
Polaris 5* L10
Shivermist Buster 5* L10 (UV CTR VH)

I had some debate in a different thread with Fradow and Bopp as to whether it was worth it keep the Focus Module for CTR Max on my Volt or to trade it for more ASI or DMG+. Their argument was that it would be too frantic for charging & that I would be better off with more power/speed to my combo attacks. They did have a very valid point. It does get very hectic in very tight spaces. I very well may trade out my Focus for a Slash next time, but not so much because I feel like I didn't have time to charge as I felt like I was using my BTB much more then my Volt & many of the targets would use my Volt for were Polaris fodder. I feel like the defensive choices I made served me really well, though next time I am considering a full Skolver + BTS just because the actual boss fight felt like the most protracted part of the venture & Max DMG might be handy.

For the Unknown Passage I went:

Vog Cub Cap 5* L10 (UV Freeze Med)
Skolver Coat 5* L10
Barbarous Thorn Shield 5* L10

Elite Sword Focus Module 5*
Elite Quick Strike Module 5*

Barbarous Thorn Blade 5* L10
Voltedge 5* L10 (UV CTR M)
Valiance 5* L10
Acheron 5* L10 (UV Construct Med)

Would have gone Divine/Skolver here, but have not crafted my Divine yet. This worked, OK, I was gearing more for offense then defense. I found with sooo many different enemy classes in one room, sword changing became exhausting. I ended up getting the best results by putting my back into a corner and spamming Volt charges regardless of target family. I'm thinking next time I will bring my Levi, not deal with constant weapon charges, and just be mindful of my charges. After taking another look at the Void infected monsters damage types, it looks like Normal is by far the most important defense to have unless the wiki is mistaken. So, I may not use Divine here after all as it would sacrifice a ton of normal defense.

Next stop UICMF...

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:26

Fradow

My comments on previous

My comments on previous thread were based on my very old experience of Shadow Lair before the nerf, when the boss was actually the easy part of the run. The boss didn't change, but all the rest before became much easier (much, much, MUCH easier). I did 2 runs in the meantime, both went very easy. In the second, we didn't even use a single energy revive.

So yeah, I agree for your choice to go Skolver + BTS. Although a person having a Dread Skelly Shield to tank howlitzers skulls can be handy.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:34

Darkbrady

Derail!: Can someone tell me

Derail!:

Can someone tell me what exactly the "U" stands for? I get that it's the SL Gloaming but..why "UGW" and not "SLGW"?
Also..Unkown Passage? Is that like a floor before the Lair itself, or...?

BackOnTopic:

@Fradow:
I was wondering about that myself actually, since the nerf. I've never done a SL myself, and currently can't do Vana (bomber, and all..forgive me if I cbf tryin' to kill him w/ RSS), but I keep stoppin' and thinkin' about Shadow Snarby and wonderin' if that would actually be possible, considering the content. I can't imagine it as being *harder* than Vana, especially since it's the first SL boss, and a relatively easy boss pattern (FSC I can run easily, it is literally just Vana I have trouble with), and with zombies being nerfed and all it seems do-able...

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:38

Demonicsothe

Unknown passage is a level

Unknown passage is a level you pass through after a boss fight to reach the sanctuary in order to recieve your bragging rights and use the special alchemy machine.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:53

Darkbrady

Oh, I thought you went

Oh, I thought you went straight from the boss to the Sanctuary. Unknown Passage is...especially difficult then, or is that dependant on the SL you went into? I take it that's just generic baddies/shadows, as opposed to, say, undead and beasts and poison?

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:55

Bluescreenofdeath

Ultimate Gloaming WildWoods

I tried looking in the wiki to see if there was standard abbreviation, but did not have any luck. Yeah, UGW or SLGW would both get the same point across. The Unknown passage is the depth after the SL boss and before the Sanctuary. It is full of Void versions of slimes, gremlin thwackers, lumbars, and wolvers. Along with weird void turrets and obstacles. There are no heat or crown drops & the enemies just keep coming. It is just about surviving until the gates open & getting the heck through it. The other interesting thing is equipment can be changed anywhere here. To me the most annoying thing about the U.P. was that the whole bloody thing was basically the same two colors, pink & black, with blocks and patterns everywhere. It made void projectiles really hard to see.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 00:59

Bluescreenofdeath

The Unknown passage might be

The Unknown passage might be pretty easy if I ever get used to the 2 color color scheme. Each monster family is represented all at the same time. There is not status theme, though slimes can (according to the wiki) inflict poison status. Not sure if the U.P. is any harder for higher access SLs or not.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 01:04

Darkbrady

That's interesting at least.

That's interesting at least. If every random family is there then Normal type is probably the way to go. I'd just roll in with Nitro and haze/vortexes I imagine.

That's good to know, I was never aware of this Unknown Passage before! Lookin' forward to it myself, now! :D

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 01:11

Bluescreenofdeath

@ FradowYeah I almost forgot

@ Fradow

Yeah I almost forgot about the massive nerf we just had. Maybe I will take my Dread Skelly Shield next time too, just because I seem to be the only person to own one...

Any thoughts on SL Roar? I'm pretty much planning on the same loadout I would take on a regular Twins run:

Vog Cub Cap 5* L10 (UV Freeze M)
Vog Cub Coat 5* L10
Grey Owlite Shield 5* L10

Elite Sword Focus Module 5*
Elite Quick Strike Module 5* (I really love running ASI Max, but I may switch this to Slash)

Acheron 5* L10 (UV Construct M)
Voltedge 5* L10 (UV CTR M)
Polaris 5* L10
Shivermist Buster 5* L10 (UV CTR VH)

If there was some other useful weapon for this run I could just use the Voltedge & drop the Acheron. I can spam charges faster with the Volt which makes up for hitting neutral on Gremlins.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 01:14

Bluescreenofdeath

@ Darkbrady Yeah, I had that

@ Darkbrady

Yeah, I had that same thought. I was thinking U.P. might be a great place to rock a Mad Bomber set due to the lack of status threat.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 01:50

#10

Guyinshinyarmour

The Unknown Passage is identical across all lairs. It is a "survive" mission; the point is not to kill the monsters, but to fend them off long enough to move on. In each party button room, you're trapped for a set amount of time. I like to spam shivermist and have some other guy use nitro to knock back everything else, since the zombies there are immune to freeze. We also camp at the gates so we can move out as soon as they lower.

A nice trick to keep in mind for the swarm seed (that is, the slowing field) is that you can use BTB or FF attacks to dash through it. It'll likely save your life forging from the first button to the second.

Also, in the second room, after a few gates lower you can stand in the hallway made and avoid the turrets completely. Their bullets will plink off the side walls. You'll just need to keep the monsters out of the space, which should be trivial if you're using shiver/nitro.

The UIMF is full of fire and shock, I hear. That should be a nightmare. Have fun. :p

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 02:47

#11

Fradow

@Darkbrady In term of

@Darkbrady
In term of difficulty, I would say that levels before the boss are still harder in UGWW than in FSC, because kats and howlitzes are simpley harder than trojans and zombies. Wolvers are a joke now (they used to be hard, but still doable with spamming piercing sword).
In term of the boss ... not really sure, i would probably rank Vanaduke as harder than Shadow Snarby.

To be clear tho, the run with no energy revive, although 2 persons didn't know the run, those people were way more skilled than the average (the first one was average, we still had less than 40 energy rev each) and had all proper gear (by that I mean full almost optimized 5* gear). And I gave very precise instructions on every single hard part too. If you go there with an unprepared team, you are going to be tear to bits. Actually, a guild run did that (key was used by mistake) and survived about 10 minutes, not even finishing the first level.

I would rank the Unknown Passage as harder, because the shadow slowing thing is really a pain and there are a lot of monster ALL the time, you just can't clear them.

@Bluescreen what do you mean by "2 color color scheme" ? I don't have a clue.

I didn't try Roarmulus yet, because there was no armor I was interested in and the shadow key price is just too high, but I would have the same feedback concerning the CTR trinket. Otherwise it seems fine.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 03:21

#12

Darkbrady

@Fradow: Aye, my main thing

@Fradow:
Aye, my main thing was "Is Shadow Snarbles harder than Vana?". I couldn't imagine he would be, and thinkin' that even if the lair was harder than FSC, and Snarby was easier than Vana, it'd still be do-able.
Will need to make a post in the coming while to see what gear me/my gf should get to prepare for it, me especially. I think we're -generally- good enough to handle it, but just need to consider some gear changes to balance off. I'd *like* to think that we can just go in together and succeed alone, but considering how possible/likely that is would determine whether we'd need to bring more people to the table or not.
How many undead are in SLGW? Heaps and heaps and heaps, or only just a few more than regular GW?

As for Unknown Passage, I'd be interested to try that, although I'd totally just sit and be cheaty and spam hazes and Nitro and hug the nearest corner, being the coward that I am! :D

What do you mean by SLRT has no armour you want? Do you just mean by collecting the unique mat there, or do you have to actually be at certain SLs to craft certain gear? I thought that the Sanctuarys were all the same, and could craft all the gear, assuming you (already had, or purchased) had the unique mat along with you.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 04:28

#13

Fradow

There are a lot of undeads in

There are a lot of undeads in SLGW. More than wolvers, and they are harder than wolvers too (mainly because of kats and howlitzers, bullets everywhre in certain rooms).

As for no armor I want, I meant the armor you can craft with the unique mat are not armors I want to have. You can craft every armor from SL in the alchemy machine after Unknown Passage, but the mat you have is specific to the lair you completed : for exemple, if you have a Nightmare Mane and you go in SLRT, you can craft both a Snarby part (with the Mane) and an armor from SLRT (with the mat you just acquired).

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 08:06

#14

Bopp

some of this is answered on wiki now

Some of these questions are answered on the wiki now (see "Shadow Lair"), but more work needs to be done. There are succinct descriptions of the equipment desired for SGWW and SRJP; I'll add SFSC later today. I haven't done SIMF. Some other small points:

I think that these Shadow Lairs were called "Ultimate" when they were on the testing server. So a lot of people refer to them that way still.

The two-color color scheme mentioned above is black and magenta. The Unknown Passage is a little hard to see, because everything is in these colors or at least modulated by them.

According to the wiki, the main kind of damage inflicted by monsters in the Unknown Passage is normal. My first time, I went in with Divine Veil and Skolver Coat, and had a tough time; I wouldn't be surprised if more normal protection would have made it easier. My second and third times, I went in with Snarbolax and maybe some Skolver; this seemed better, but I'm still not sure that it's optimal.

Bluescreenofdeath, thanks for the report. It's always good to have more information. Thanks especially for reporting on sword charging. The recent zombie slow-down may have contributed to your ability to charge; I haven't tried SGWW since that update.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 09:16

#15

Bluescreenofdeath

Yeah, Bopp described my

Yeah, Bopp described my Unknown Passage issue better. The rooms are dark, the black & magenta swarm seed spreads out over the ground, there are random floating black blocks, the enemies are all back and magenta, and the swarm turrets are black and magenta firing magenta and black projectiles. It just all adds up to I had a real hard time seeing what was going on it there and felt like I was fighting blind.

I'm not really interested in the SICMF armor either, but the group I ran SGWW was planing on going there next & I was too poor to use my Nightmare Main from the first trip. So I was just going to go for fun and to craft a Snarbolax Cap (coat too if I can afford it). Besides I enjoyed regular ICMF & would like to check out the SL.

Hmmm I probably will stick with my Dread shield for SGWW now that I think back to how many bloody kats there were to deal with... At least it wasn't freeze themed I really hate dealing with kats when my Shiver is useless. Also, while I am thinking of it. I have not timed the two to see which is faster, but during the party button rooms of SGWW I had a harder time charging my Shiver without getting hit then I did charging my Volt (both CTR Max). I think the Shiver may just have a longer charge time (I know it is longer then the Nitronome for example).

Search

Shadow Lair GWW after action report