Holy moly!
All of these changes sound great..shame I won't be here to experience them though. :3
Looks great.

Particularly the Skelly Set, nice addition

Nice. Bombastic still needs something else going and I don't really see the point of shadowsun being shadow instead of piercing, but nice changes.

Finally, some gunner love! If only the poor bombers can get a piercing or a shadow set as well, that'd be swell.

I'm looking forward to these, and hopefully the weapon changes aren't going to be make the community rage.

So..... shadowsun w/ pierce is currently useful in PVP vs toothpick.
On the other hand, the increased damage will let us free up a slot to to have a heart trinket to get max gun damage. Or you can settle w/ VH damage and have 2x pentas, which would work well too.

For the chaos set, i'm curious to see what the CTR applies to. Low or MED?

I recently bought a Chaos Cloak by mistake off of the Supply Depot (a series of misclicks followed by my mouse deciding where it wanted to be vs. where I wanted it to be decided that) and was pretty disappointed, since I was saving that CE up for something.

Now I'm not so upset. In fact I'm kind of happy, since now I have legitimate options for a pseudo-Gunslinger set.

EDIT: Also, no no no no and one thousand times no, Gunslinger sets in general don't need anymore buffs than they already have now that Shadowsun has a damage bonus that puts it on par with 5* Wolver lines. The defenses are pretty well rounded for what their purposes are, and anyone asking for more simply shouldn't have a gunslinger set to begin with.

@Cameraboy
Not sure if you've seen the myriad of posts calling for more viable options for armor outside of the wolver line...

Gunner armor has been needing a buff for a while, and the other ones, like cloaks etc, have had such niche uses that they could be overlooked for the most part. This will actually allow ppl to use these armors without concern for "well when I'm in situation X, this armor will suck." The removal of the weaknesses just make these armors more vaiable for general use.

Imagine if the wolver lines had weaknesses; for instance, all wolvers were weak to fire, except for vog, which was weak to freeze. If a patch came around and removed those weaknesses, it would be in everyone's interest since it would make it more usable (to current levels.) (Or maybe they should throw that in, PVP would be very funny with everyone lighting up skolvers, me included.)

Also, to address your last point, the shadowsun line is getting a stronger gun damage bonus... not sure if you saw that.

Sorta wonder what took you guys so long to change Chaos in particular, since the original had a CTR bonus anyway. But nice, I might actually see myself using it if I'm feeling a bit crazy. About time the gunslinger sets got some love, too.

I am entirely sure just removing the weakness is far too little for the "defense" sets, though. Bombastic and Drake as well, won't be much more interesting.

I hope you guys consider giving those and the other remaining armors further buffs. I still don't see defense sets or monster-race specific ones being any more useful than the basic weapon-specific ones.

Looking forward to weapon changes, however.

All looks fantastic! Cant wait.

do omega shell and stone tortoise also get poison resist?

Skelly: Nice.

Magic Cloak: Not a fan of their Lines, but still great.

Drake Scale: Meh. Fire/Freeze would be better, in my Opinion, but still.

Chaos Set: Again, not a fan.

Justifer: Eh. At least Gunners won't have to worry about getting Mobbed by Lumbers.

Shadowsun: At first, I thought it already had Shadow Defence.

Deadshot: At least it isn't Overshadowed by its other Lines, now.

Nameless: Makes it on Par with Justifer, being Elemental/Freeze, instead of Piercing/Stun.

Bombastic: ...You're kidding, right? I actually had an Idea for another Demo Line to be the Freeze Version of Volcanic, but might as well give it to Bombastic, which is still useless to us Bombers without any CTR Bonus. Even a Low would make it Viable. Get rid of the Freeze Resist, Add CTR: Low, & make a Cryo Demo Suit. No, better yet, make a Fusion Demo Suit: Skelly Demo Suit for Shadow/Poison Defence. For Piercing, I think Mercurial Mail Takes care of that...a little.

Overall, it makes Gunners happy.

EDIT: I Agree on giving the Wolver Lines a Status Weakness. Might give those Clones a run for their Money.

Pretty sweet! I like the idea of having Freeze on Bombastic.

I'm sure you already know all this Nick, it has been mentioned before in the forums, but just from a statistical point of view why Bombastic has such issues...

Heavy Demo Set has a total bonus of CTR Medium. That's a 15% improvement for DPS, since CTR Medium reduces charge time by 15%.

Whereas Bombastic Set has a total bonus of Damage Medium... that's a 10-15% improvement in damage, depending on whether you are doing effective damage or not, effective actually gets the lesser bonus due to the damage equations. So moving from 4 to 5* can decrease your DPS in the case of Bombastic. Not to mention, faster charging means more bombs, less tip-toeing, and faster shields.

Compare that to Volcanic Demo Set which (now) gets a total of CTR Very High, or approximately a 30% bonus in DPS.

As Ironskullkid mentioned, Bombastic really would be better served getting CTR Low/Damage Low on each piece. Or even Damage Medium on each piece would help even out the differences.

----

Edit: I still hold that all bomb sets should thematically remain Normal/Elemental. After all, blast cubes do Normal/Elemental. And, more recently, Gremlin Bombers. (I assume, I haven't been hit by one in a while...) Which begs the question... Normal/Elemental bomb for knights, yes? Maybe Irontech Destroyer? Or a 5* Heavy Decon? /yes

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Edit again: This thread has a lot of tidbits about armor balancing. A good read if anyone missed it.

I'm not gonna comment on to many of these armors since I don't use them, although the removal of some negative buffs does help my interest (I.E. Skelly line). However, since I'm a bomber, lets talk about Bombastic, shall we.

This may come as a surprise to many, but I actually USE the Bombastic suit, primarily for my own personal reasons; and for the record, I've done both the math and research, and completely understand why most avoid using this suit. Also bear in mind that I'm not a PURE bomber, rather I prefer to call myself a Combat Bomber, since I will ALWAYS have a sword on me, along with a single bomb (usually Nitro or DBB). Now respectfully, I can see why you, the developer, original made it this way, because along with the Nitro's large blast radius, a single, properly placed bomb can do quite a bit of OVERALL damage (As in all the damage tallied from each monster hit in the blast; I.E. meant for larger crowds). In a way, it seems bobmastic was designed for using the Blast bomb and spike bomb series, or any damage bomb at that; seems good on paper to me, but in practice, the damage output is still sorta meh (Thankfully, adding an Elite Boom module helps adjust this a bit).

Adding the freeze resist is actually something I feel is actually proper; anyone wearing the suit does need to be able to kite while charging. With that said, it still could use a buff in the damage district; at the very least make High in total (Medium for the helm) instead of medium. At the most, grant a low CTR to make it more flexible and attract more players, but otherwise have the bombastic focus on bigger DMG (Not DPS). My reasoning behind this is the way I see the current bombs suit: Currently disregarding Mercurial, Volcanic should be safer and status based, Mad the fragile, wide spread DPS machine, and Bombastic general damage support (Or at least well rounded with a focus on damage).

And considering that Volcanic got a buff that officially makes CTR max with all lvl 10 bombs, I think Bombastic should at least be granted some higher virtues along with the Status resist.

Those have been my thoughts on the suit for quite some time. At the very least I'm happy to see its getting a buff.

HAZZZAH I APPLAUD FOR ONCE!!

Will gunner armor also be able to accept front accessories?

And coming soon, a bunch of weapon balance changes as well!

*crosses fingers for troika sword buff*

Angelic series: Remove poison resist, add stun resist. That way the angelic series and skelly series would be totally separate sets. One protects against frost and poison, the other protects against stun and curse, gives you added bonus vs fiends, but is vulnerable to fire.

Otherwise, I like the changes.

Can we remove the fire weakness for Almirian Crusader, if not add a bit of fire resist onto it? The hardest armor to get in the game shouldn't be so worthless... Other than that, these changes are excellent.

"Deadshot set:
- Added Handgun Attack speed

nice if the Undead Damage remains :)
would have liked Fire resistance as well on this piece but gun ASI is also nice"

Read my mind. Personally I'd like fire resist over ASI, but it wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense to have it...

Epic +1 to thread. =]

And Nick, about those Troikas...

~Sev

I... My... My Chaos set is getting a buff? I... I'm so happy!

I can't wait for this update, and nor can my Chaos!

"Skelly series:
- Removed fire weakness"

Finally! Yes! It should not have been THAT hard to make a shadow armor that doesn't make you super vulnerable to one of the most common and damaging statuses before piling up a couple of week's worth of CE for a 5 star set. Seriously every 4 star or lower shadow armor is a liability in a fire fiend or fire undead level which are certainly things that exist at earlier depths than the Firestorm Citadel. There's Silvermail sure, but that doesn't have an accompanying helm and trading normal for pierce can actually be pretty annoying since most levels with shadow damage have no miscellaneous jellies or beasts lying around but do have sources of elemental damage. Every time I've been stuck buying recipes for a Skelly set (aside from the shield) I did so while muttering to myself about how I'm going to have to abandon it once I get to Firestorm Citadel or a point where building 5 star armors became viable.

This has been driving me absolutely nuts. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

OOO! WHY U NO ADD CTR HIGH AND DMG HIGH FOR BOMBASTIC!?

Seriously, it still sucks.

@Nick,
I'm strongly convinced you should swap resistances in case of Justifier and Nameless.

Stun is mostly dealt by Lumbers and Gremlin Thwackers so stun resistance works better with elemental defence of Nameless set. Nameless with Stun resistance will improve its performance in all Gremlin/Construct levels, Aurora Isles, Deconstruction Zones and so on.

I know that theoretically Stun is somewhat associated with piercing damage (Callahan, Rigadoon, Ironmight Shield and so on), but if more gunners share my opinion I'd appreciate if you consider my suggestion.

EDIT:
This post has been inspired by Iron saying: Justifer: Eh. At least Gunners won't have to worry about getting Mobbed by Lumbers.
I have both sets (Nameless and Justifier) and I would never, ever wear Justifier when I'm expecting Lumbers.

Thank you! I feel like everyone's been ranting about gunslinger armor for the longest time and you never pay attention to what the community was asking for but you really do listen!

The changes make sense the way it is, Shadowsun always seemed like a shadow resist armor just from looking at it (especially from the description). Don't keep it piercing just for the simple reason that it's not as good in lockdown anymore, that should be the least important reason to change something.

I really hope these changes allow for some more variety in the game, I'm tired of seeing Skolver and Vog populate the clockworks. And hopefully the weapon changes also adress the things the community is screaming about, you're really showing that you actually care Three Rings!

Bombastic really needs either Med Dmg per piece or CTR Low + Low Dmg per piece. As it is it's nowhere near as useful as either Volcanic Demo or Mad Bomber, and it's entirely inferior to Mercurial Demo.

Loving the changes otherwise, only thing that's missing really is a buff to the Ancient Plate set, which is worse than the other plate armours despite being harder to attain and without any real redeeming factors.