Spiral Knights - A question about starter gear

A question about starter gear

4 replies [Last post]

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 12:19

Ornithopt

So here's the deal, I'm fairly new to the game. The damage types was somewhat confusing to me when I first started, especially the split damage of normal + X that certain mobs did. I've gotten to Jelly King at this point, but not much farther. From one of the Mission tutorials that I did, it said that Normal damage wasn't done at deeper depths.

So when I'm looking at Shields, Helms, and Armor, I've been looking to get stuff that has elemental, piercing, and shadow protection. The wierd thing is that many of the 5 star items have lots of normal damage prevention.

Does it make sense to get these? Cause it seems pretty silly to go for something that has normal damage prevention when I could get something that is pure shadow, etc. I guess between the tutorial saying that normal damage goes away at deeper levels, it makes me not want to get any normal damage prevention.

Along these lines, I've seen Bopp and a few other guides for starter gear for Helm and Armor. What would be the best 3 piece set up to cover all of your bases for damage types and resistances? It seems like Divine Veil + Skolvar Armor + Dragon Scale Sheild would cover almost every base damage type to some extent, even if not fully covered.

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 12:40

Batabii

use the New Users forum.

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 12:42

Fradow

I suggest you also read the

I suggest you also read the wiki on how the shield works. It's not counted as your defense, but rather the shield has its own defense, so you shouldn't count on it for your resistances. The wiki probably explains that better than me.

Despite what is said, a lot of enemies still do some normal damage in T3 (most swings if not all still do normal + special damage) so it's still very useful do have normal defense. Ideally, you want normal + the most frequent special damage you are facing on the current level. For example, if you are in a fiend level, it's going to be shadow heavy, so you want to have an armor which protect against normal + shadow.

Armors without normal defense are considered sub-par because there is always going to be on of the 2 resistance which isn't going to be useful, whereas normal would have been useful. Except if you are going for an all-around set, which should have a bit of every 4 damage resistance, and some protection against most deadly status.

Divine Veil + Skolver Armor is one of the most popular all-around set, and for a reason. I would say it's the best all-around (meaning specialized will do better for their purpose, but that's more expensive because you need 3 full set to cover the 3 damage types).

As for shield, Grey Owlite is advised as the first all-around shield, because elemental is the most frequent damage type and the fire and shock are the most deadly status. You could also go for a normal shield (which will break faster to elemental but a little slower to everything else than Owlite), for example Volcanic Plate shield.

If you want to have a shield for every situation, you are going to need one for piercing and shadow as well (especially shadow because T3 fiends level without shadow shield are hard).

Edit : contrary to what Batabii said, I think this post has this place in this forum. Especially if we are going to discuss about gear.

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 12:53

Demonicsothe

There is no shield that

There is no shield that defends purely from a single type. And in T2, there is still much of normal. In every attack, I believe.

Damage does get specialized in T3, but normal exists in almost every floor one way or another.

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 14:09

Ornithopt

Well thanks guys. I have read

Well thanks guys.

I have read every guide on the wiki. Unfortunately, there isn't one great beginner guide that really helps you get things sorted out for gear, how to plan gearing, how to plan on alchemy crafting, energy usage during leveling, how damage types work (especially normal damage). You can hunt for this information, and sometime you'll get good answers, and sometimes you wont. I really think that the beginner guide on the wiki could be much better designed to set newbies up for success than it is right now.

The wiki issue aside, thanks for the info both on shields and set selection. Much appreciated both of you.

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A question about starter gear