I recently dusted off my Ascended Calibur that I haven't used since like December and ha a blast with it in Unknown Passage, so I looked into the Levi. I looked at the Wiki and Levi has the same number of damage against targets neutral to FF. don't you think the Levi should do more damage to something that a specialized sword is neutral to to make up for the Levi's lack of being super effective against anything? Not by too much, but enough to make the Levi meritable enough to have (since arsenal stations killed its utility)
Why doesn't Levi do more against neutral targets than specialized swords?
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 11:43
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 11:53
#2
I mean like I said, not by
I mean like I said, not by too much do that specialized swords become obsolete, but at least not the exact same as a neutral target specialized sword. Maybe 10 points or something.
I mean if that happened I would probably still use 2 specialized swords at a time, but just for balancing/idea's sake.
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 12:12
#3
already an asymmetry in the rules
I guess that there's no fundamental reason why Caramel-Bear's suggestion could not be implemented. It might confuse players, by making "neutral" mean "slightly worse than neutral".
As Fradow said, specialized weapons already incur big penalties against resistant monsters (like 84%). What he didn't mention is that the bonuses that specialized weapons incur against vulnerable enemies are much smaller (like 75 points of damage, period). So, in a sense, specialized weapons are already disadvantaged by a fundamental asymmetry in the rules of the game. I don't think we really want to introduce another asymmetry, to further penalize them.
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 12:16
#4
oh, and maybe this is the wrong time to bring this up
And maybe this is the wrong time to bring this up, but if you factor in the speed of a piercing sword, you discover that Leviathan Blade does less damage per second than FF/BTB against gremlins and undead (376 vs. 398).
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 13:48
#5
Not quite a disadvantage
The thing about specialized swords is that they're... well, specialized. You get them specifically to deal extra damage against certain monster groups, not to attack monsters that are resistant to it. To that end, even the heavy penalty against resistant monsters doesn't play much of a role in the weapon's balance. In many levels, even having just a single specialized sword equipped is more advantageous than having a normal sword equipped. For instance, Gremlins and Constructs are often grouped together - bring a Shadow damage sword, and you get neutral damage vs. one family, and extra damage to the other. A normal sword? Neutral to everything. Likewise, in a fiend or undead stratum, an elemental or piercing sword will deal more damage overall, because, save for very rare exceptions, you're not going to find Gremlins or Constructs lurking around in those depths. And in a Beast or Slime stratum? Once again, a shadow damage sword will guarantee at least neutral damage to anything you'll encounter - no fiends, no undead (there is the occasional Construct in the form of Lumbers, and Gun Puppies in Gloaming Wildwoods). There are very, very few situations (the Unknown Passage being one) where you'll actually encounter a variety of monster groups which all resist different types of damage, and as such, very, very few situations where you'll find any reason to use a normal weapon over a particular specialized weapon. And if you bring two appropriate specialized weapons, then there's a pretty good chance that you'll deal extra damage against most enemies you'll find in a stratum - I've personally found no real need for a Shadow sword myself, having been able to deal with everything outside of OCH and Shadow Lairs with just my BTB and Combuster/DA. As icing on the cake, the Combuster even stacks on extra damage with fire, putting it above most normal swords against neutral enemies.
The only real disadvantage to specialized swords is that you'll have to get more of them, but with such a suggestion, there's still a distinct advantage to having two or three specialized weapons compared to one normal weapon, in that you're still doing more damage against the enemies that a specialized sword is specialized for, and only a little less against a neutral target. And as I've mentioned with my own BTB/Combuster combination, the only times I've been unable to deal bonus damage to most enemies in a stratum have been in Gremlin and Slime strata. Beast? BTB. Undead? Combuster. Fiends? BTB again. Constructs? Right, Combuster.
Sun, 04/22/2012 - 14:37
#6
quite true
I agree with Kupoo's comments, and in particular with the idea that Combuster+(FF/BTB) makes shadow swords almost obsolete. These swords are excellent against everything except slimes and gremlins, and even against those monsters they're pretty good. FF/BTB does almost as much DPS against gremlins as Gran Faust, and it has better speed than Gran Faust and better reach than Acheron. Combuster does only neutral damage to slimes, but if you're charging it a lot then the fire status really improves your damage. It can probably out-DPS Acheron against slimes in certain circumstances (big CTR, tight crowd of monsters?).
It's clear to me that in the original design Spiral Knights, normal and elemental damage were given far more attention than piercing and shadow. Piercing has caught up a little bit since SK launched (piercing swords, slimes doing piercing, etc.). Shadow weapons have caught up a bit too (one more shadow sword, two more shadow guns, two shadow bombs), but they seem not quite as important as the other weapon types.
No.
Else there would be little advantage to bring 3 specialized swords (or even 2) instead of one normal one. Specialized sowrds are already heavily penalized against resistant targets.