Hello. Since almost every armor in the game grants defense against normal damage, does this mean you can expect to deal less damage against other knights if you deal normal damage?
Monsters don't appear to have any form of normal defense. Is this correct?
Thank you!
So if defense sucks, did I mess up with my kit? I'm planning my future 5 star kit now, and a few days ago I was really excited to finally get my 3 star scary skelly suit and drake scale helm. Between the two of them, I have resistance to all damage types and freeze+fire resist.
Then about two hours ago, I discovered the Divine veil + Skolver coat combo. Basically does the same thing but adds in shock and curse resist and medium sword damage bonus.
It's starting to seem more and more like damage is the way to build, and if your armor isn't giving you something to help your role (sword, gun, or bomb), it's not worth buying. What are skelly and dragon scale lines even for, or any armor that doesn't grant offensive bonuses? Did I make a mistake?
The main thing about the "all purpose" armor combinations are that they are *starting points*.
For damage defense, you get the average value of between your helmet and armor (status defenses are added)... which means, you won't have a lot of defense using "all purpose" armor combinations.
In T3 you still get some normal damage thrown your way (except for ranged attacks, which are pure specialized). And if you fight T3 fiends without full shadow defense gears, you'd be in for a ton of hurt.
For armor, look for damage defense first, then status defense (shock and fire particularly).
For shield, look for damage defense. Status defense is nearly useless (it only works when shield is up and let you block more attacks of that nature).
Are you just talking about the way the bars are displayed?
Disagree that shield status resist is "nearly useless". You say "it only works when shield is up and let you block more attacks of that nature". Well, yes--that's what shields do. A built-in status resist (UV-derived ones are far weaker) does a lot more against status-inflicting attacks than even a max damage UV would do. Compare CoA and Dread Skelly against fire attacks in FSC. Big difference.
I read this entire wiki page: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Antistone#Effects_of_Defense
and this entire thread: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/38367
It appears that worrying about defense isn't really worth the effort. You lose a flat amount of health for each damage you take. This means you are reducing proportionately more damage the more specialized your defense, and a relatively small amount if you don't specialize. Basically "covering all bases" doesn't give good trade offs. Only a specialized defense will show appreciative results. For a F2P player without the CE to support more than one loadout, you are best not even worrying about your defensive stats.
I now believe the best strategy is to go straight offense, kill quickly, and rely on skill to block/avoid attacks. This probably means you will end up with a surplus of one type of defensive stats (ie. Normal+Piercing for full Skolver), but it's not going to make a huge difference if you attempt to balance your defenses by using, say, Skolver Coat and Snarbolax Cap to allow some shadow mitigation because the damage trade-off is just not significant at all. In fact, since you sacrifice specialized piercing defense, you could make the argument that you are weakening your general defensive viability by splitting your armor sets. In Lockdown, where the incoming damage is so huge, a flat reduction model makes armor especially irrelevant.
It seems like the strategical diversity of equipment in this game is really only existent on an offensive level, where you can play around with different weapon types, and pretty simplified for defense. I am somehow suddenly quite disappointed :(. It also means I should have gone sheep mode and built Wolver or Vog for FSC like everyone else that had a one-dimensional plan for their character development, or I should have based my equipment on status resists solely.
To be honest, the game doesn't get the offensive focus until tier 3. In tier 2, armor still plays a big role and can allow you to take far more hits than usual. However, in tier 3, you will pretty much die in 3 hits without any specialized armor, and maybe 5 hits if you do specialize your armor. Proportionally a big difference, but practically not that much.
Also, despite being F2P, I suggest at least getting a shield, if not a full armor set to deal with each damage type. Maybe not 3 armor sets, but at least 2 will give you a good amount of flexibility. At the same time, offensive bonuses are more heavily rewarded that defensive bonuses, which is why the Wolver Set (capable of covering any of the three damage types at 5*) is used so much. Popular equipment is popular for a reason (i.e. because it's good).
Btw, I find Vog to not be that good in FSC. Yeah, you got fire resist... but the majority of the fire comes from stationary vents. There are more zombies (Shadow damage) per tile than fire, IMO. That being said, don't go in with the highly flammable Seraphic/Valkyrie set, because fire still hurts.
Going back to the original topic, in general armor doesn't make a huge difference in PvP, beyond status resists and offensive bonuses. People go Skolver for the sword damage primarily. Secondary reasons include Snarby being FAR harder to get, ASI UVs will always be an eventual option (thus you don't need the ASI from Vog), and the most common weapon is the Flourish which does piercing damage. I have a friend who runs around in full Heavenly Iron, yet massacres entire teams at a time with a BTB with +dam vs fiend low. Armor makes a difference... but not a HUGE difference.
All that stuff aside, a 5* brandish regular combo already does more base damage than a Leviathan on a neutral target.
Valiance has very little advantage per shot compared to an alchemer. Alchemers also have the bonus of ricochets and status.
So normal weapons arent powerfull to start with. Armors just makes it (slightly) more obvious.
You've done a pretty thorough job in the thread, and I appreciate you taking the time to help. I'll keep all that in mind. I also thought DA/brandish line were more popular than Flourish? I am not tier 3 yet, though.
Also heavenly iron is normal+shadow?
Thanks guys
Flourishes are way more common than Brandish lines. Gran Faust is also common; DA not so much.
Heavenly Iron is a rare and difficultly acquired variant of the Angelic Armor. You have to complete two different Shadow Lairs and craft each piece at the Sanctuary. Look up Shadow Lairs for more info. In short, yeah its Shadow + Normal Damage. Heavenly Iron has the same stats as Valkyrie Armor, except instead of the Valk's status resists, it has a weakness to Shock, resistance to curse, and +dam low with swords (per piece) and +dam vs fiend low (compared to the Valk's +dam vs Fiend Med and no sword damage bonus). This is especially dangerous because shock is one of the most dangerous statuses in Lockdown, leaving you dangerously vulnerable at unpredictable times. In tier 3, getting shocked without resistance will last about 6 seconds. With full Heavenly Iron, the duration extends to about 12 seconds.
Anyways, in Lockdown, the Flourish is the main bread and butter of most competitive lockdown players. Even dedicated bombers and gunners will occasionally have a Flourish as a last resort/curve ball. It's fast, has a wide arc on its first swing and easily shield cancelled so it works well with boost-slash-boost combos. Also, Flourishes are cheap and easily ragecrafted, and somewhat profitable to go UV hunting with (As a sidenote, the cheapest way to get a good UV is to acquire a huge amount of Flourishes for really cheap, use Punch to roll a UV on each one, keep the ones you like, and sell the rest).
Outside of Lockdown, you ideally want one sword and one gun of each damage type. Bombs are a bit weird, because they don't work well with other weapons IMO because of how unique their mechanics are. It takes a fraction of a second to swing a sword, shield cancel, swap to a gun, and fire off a shot. It takes several seconds to swing a sword, swap to a bomb, and then charge the bomb before dropping it, followed by another few moments for the bomb to detonate. That being said, most people use Sealed Swords, Brandishes and Flourishes. Brandishes and Sealed Swords are the main elemental and shadow dealing swords, so it's preference as to which to get. As for piercing, its either the Flourish or the Snarble Barb, and the differences are negligible (Flourishes can be ragecrafted but the charge is more dangerous for the user and works best on large, stationary/slow targets. The Snarble Barb has a shotgun-spray type charge that can either be used as a point-blank nuke or crowd-control AOE damage).
And you're welcome :D. I should be thanking you actually for giving me something to do while my gaming computer is in the shop for repairs(I'm horribly bored right now Q.Q).
Everything has normal defense.But if i had to say whether or not normal is good in PvP,i would say,use piercing defense and shadow weapons.Almost everyone uses piercing weapons and armor,so mainly use normal or shadow.If you want to get a good normal weapon,i recomend the volcanic pepperbox.
A good normal gun for LD is Valience. Autoguns are terrible due to invincibility frames countering about 90% of its damage.
I think the only pure normal weapon I can dignify is Valiance. Nitronome would a stretch.
"It's starting to seem more and more like damage is the way to build, and if your armor isn't giving you something to help your role (sword, gun, or bomb), it's not worth buying."
Pretty much. I don't like how the game works that way.
And duke, nitro is a useful bomb.
Sorry, I meant in PvP. The title says PvP, but it seems everyone's only talking about PvE.
We're kinda jumping between PvP and PvE at random...
If we're going Normal Damage dealing weapons in PvE, I might as well throw in the Dread Venom Striker.
I originally wanted to build the dread venom striker. One of the things I noticed as soon as I got a striker (I skipped the cutter) is that despite its speed being advertised as faster, it takes about 25% longer than a calibur/brandish to complete its combo. Since the interrupt comes on the final hit, it means that you have a greater chance with a cutter weapon to have your combo interrupted than with a brandish/calibur. In effect, the 3 or even 2 swing swords are going to be more reliable in dealing damage because they get off their combos more often.
So not only is the damage from a DVS normal and therefore less desirable, its combos are at a disadvantage, too. These are the reasons I am trying to move over to a flourish style weapon, which, according to the wiki, has the fastest combo in the game. I'll get off more combos with it than any other weapon, and I still deal specialized damage.
Is my reasoning for why the DVS is at a disadvantage sensible, or I am overlooking something? Is the poison really that useful, given everything else it sacrifices? I am not sure how often a slight chance even procs.
The DVS is one of the most effective weapons for Vanaduke's Mask Phase. In addition, it's damage is on par, if not slightly better than the Final Flourish on Vanaduke's body. I'm not sure if it's still up, but Coup De Grace's sword-only Vanaduke run (on youtube) used to be the fastest Vana kill on record (Before guns got a damage buff, making a team of 4 Blitzes with +dam Max faster). There, one guy has a DVS and demonstrates the sword at its peak. Beyond that, they aren't that useful, as you've said.
Although I will point out that Cutters have the fastest charge time of any other sword, only beaten by the Catalyzer and on par with the Sun Shards. The charge in itself is just a bit risky.
for the piercing part i'd use flouish instead of snarb cause the single target charge of the flourish
Don't even bother with charge attacks in Lockdown, except bombs and arguably Brandish Charge Spam. If anything, the spray of the Snarble Barb would be more effective due to players being able to dodge easily the Flourish Charge easily, point blank it still damages enemies heavily, and it is faster and safer than the Flourish Charge.
The only/main benefit the Flourish has over the Snarble Barb is the ability to ragecraft them for a good UV.
In Lockdown defense isn't big help so you can kill everyone with evrey sword.
In T1 monsters have normal defense, in T2 is split and in T3 they haven't got it at all. I have Leviathan Blade with UV vs. constructs med.
In Mission "Built to Destroy" it can deal up to 200 damage per hit with it's charge to Gunpuppies and in T3 it can deal 250-300 damage per hit. i hope it helped
Oh, sure, you mention valiance and DVS, but not the Suda and Triglav?Thats not fair, we Suda and Triglav users want to be mentioned too..... We may not be the best in lockdown, be we go mighty well with a vortex bomb and can smash our way through crowds with ease!
~Magnicth the Dragon Mage
It's because Sudaraska and Triglav are outdone by the Gran Faust and Divine Avenger...
@Traevllianth: can gran faust and divine avenger smash everything to oblivion?Nope.This is a normal damage discussion,why would you mention DA and GF and not mention suda and triglav?After all,suda/triglav are PURE normal damage while GF and DA are SPLIT with shadow and elemental respectively.Just saying,suda and triglav shouldnt be forgotten about just because they are apperently "not as good" as the sealed sword lines.
~Magnicth the Dragon Mage
@Magnicth: I cant tell if you're in denial or haven't tried a GF/DA.
I believe Tsu tested it herself. GF swung faster and did more damage per swing than the Suda on all enemies except Fiends and Undead. The only advantage the Suda and Triglav have over the DA and GF is the status and the fact that they can deal the same damage against 6/6 enemy types.
@Traevellianth: im not in denial,and i have a GF,though my DA is still a sealed sword.....But This is a normal damage discussion,and suda/triglav are normal damage,so why leave them out?GF/DA mt be a bit faster and do a little bit more damage than suda/triglav,but people dont get suda/triglav for the damage.They get them because they want something that smashes everything to oblivion.GF/DA arent pure normal,so why do you keep bringing them up in this thread?Just saying that suda/triglav shouldnt be left out of this discussion.
~Magnicth the Dragon Mage
Khorovod charges + enemy mob = Fun.
@Magnicth: By that logic, we should also be encouraging the Iron Slug, Winmillion, BAB, etc...
In Lockdown, knights already do a crazy amount of damage. You can see people wearing full Skolver armor with UVs that grant Maximum Piercing Resistance per piece... and yet they will still die in a few seconds to a skilled swordsman with a Final Flourish.
Also, most of the normal damage dealing weapons are inferior to other weapons, and usually are taken for reasons beyond damage (like Caliburs are taken because of their charge and Valiences for their knockback).
Yes, normal damage will always do full damage on every enemy type. There is only one exception, and that is the boss Vanaduke, in Firestorm Citadel (and by extension, his Shadow Lair version as well, Darkfire Vanaduke).