Spiral Knights - The Demo Guardian

The Demo Guardian

21 replies [Last post]

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 07:24

Zephyrgon

I've seen numerous people who've complained about how strikers are the most OP people in LD. They argue that there is absolutely NO WAY to counter them. Well, here I present you the one, if not the only, counter to the Striker: the Demo Guardian.

The guardian class naturally gives CTR low to bombs, so it can be used to your favor. Let's analyze: Demos deploy bombs over an area which then explode and deal damage, or do some other effect. Strikers must be incredibly close to their victims in order to do damage. What does this mean? Demos can successfully peel off Strikers from their behinds with just the deployment of a bomb. Simple as that. The demo guardian can function offensively and defensively in this manner.

Strategies for the Demo Guardian:
1) It's all about that CTR. If you're lucky enough, you'll get a nice UV bomb with a CTR already on it. But if not, or if you want to opt for more speed, get the demo armor.
2) Them bombs matter. Picking the right bombs will be the difference in life and death in LD. I suggest getting at least a vaporizer bomb, since the mist it produces lingers over quite some time. The dark reprisal series also works in such a way too. The blast bomb line is also a good choice, since it has insane crowd control capabilities. Vaporizer bombs are all about the status condition, so picking the best status condition to use against strikers, primarily poison, shock, and burn, will wreck them.
3) It's about how you play too! If you can't play a demo properly, then you will have virtually NO LUCK in playing this class. Offensively, position yourself in a capture point and start spamming bombs if there are any strikers after your behind. Use a vaporizer to cover the point with that awesome mist, so strikers foolish enough to tread upon your domain will get roasted. Blast bombs can also effectively knock them back. Defensively, do the same exact thing, but be sure to hold up your shield a lot more often. (In this venue, you, the commenters, may suggest other ways to better this class.)
4) Play with your team!!! YOU ARE NOT A ONE MAN ARMY. Collaborate with your team. If you find yourself surrounded by multiple opponents, then you're doing something wrong. It's either you protect your teammates or you let them die. Simple as that.

Thanks for reading this thread and feel free to comment below!

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 07:35

Bella-Donna

boop

i think this might go in arsenal not general discussion.

Also, recon gives ctr vh to bombs so all you need to do is get a bomb to level 10 and you have a ctr max without demo armor.

Another thing is if you and someone else use a buddy system and one person uses callahan or iron slug you can cancel a striker's attacks and (with callahan) stun them while keeping them from attacking your partner who picks them off.

A third thing, any class is good if you get used to it and can play it well.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 07:51

Zephyrgon

YEP

I agree with this. Buddy systems work in LD. As I have said before, YOU ARE NOT A ONE MAN ARMY. It's better to buddy up with people than to go and die alone. Also, we're talking about guardians, not recons. Recons are something else. We're more focused on defensive capabilities here.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 08:06

Narfle

just my two cents

I agree with all that has been said, but in my (albeit limited) experience, playing together as a team is more of a problem for strikers than it is for guardians. I generally support bomb as either guardian or recon, and while in gvg I can depend on my teammates to not leave me open to enemy strikers so I can cap/area denial, in random it's a whole different story. I think this thread should be retitled to something like "hey strikers: guardians will keep you alive if you stop rushing to your death over and over." Just my two cents.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 08:52

Doctorspacebar

Pick carefully!

Each Haze is very different. Here's a lowdown.

FIRE, on Ash of Agni, is great for the Clockworks, don't get me wrong. But that's because there's more enemies, and kiting them through the Ash of Agni isn't as risky. Ash of Agni does only about four damage total, which isn't much when compared with what you could be using.

FREEZE is great for shutting down that rare enemy team that doesn't have a great many Skolvers, but the prevalence of the Freeze-resisting Skolver Armor makes it less useful. Many people get the Shivermist Buster due to its general utility, so they might bring it along if there aren't many Skolvers.

SHOCK is the PvP status. Temporary interruption during the Shock tick, complete with a little Elemental damage and lack of those detestable invincibility frames during the interruption, makes your average Skolver very vulnerable, to say nothing of the poor guy that's wearing Mad Bomber. However, people prepare for this; in addition to stupid stupid Shock UVs (which, by the way, are stupid), some opt to use Mercurial Armor (or Mercurial Demo, for the explosively inclined) to avoid being shocked by the Voltaic Tempest. Be careful.

POISON weakens your foes a little. Snarbolax armor protects against it, but Poison is still useful for weakening the much more prominent Skolver and Vog armors. However, it doesn't slow them down any, so be careful!

STUN, in addition to being usable after Nick's partial fix (thanks for that, by the way), is another good status, slowing the hapless foe to a vulnerable speed. It's also tough to see and less people prepare for it. Stagger Storm is tough to get, requiring 300 total Krogmo Coins for the recipes, but it's worth it.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 08:54

Darkbrady

People complain about

People complain about strikers being OP because they are. Recons' cloak can be broken completely and have them left powerless, and the guardians shields can be broken down in a couple of hits, while boosters last 3 seconds and can't be broken by enemies. They can also zerg with off-screen advantage and kill people before they even see them and use their ability as a defensive mechanism (to dodge) as well, making them versatile. And hiding in hazes is only so good, as most strikers have polaris at hand which is the bomber counter weapon.

I've tried bombing as a guardian but found it to be of little use. The only real difference is that they need to hit me three times instead of two, which costs them all of one second longer. The shields get broken in two seconds as well, and you can't charge up bombs while you're shielding.

Personally, I just striker bomb (with max CTR still) and use the booster to run circles around enemies, denying them hits and then hiding inside my hazes were I can start charging up again. I find the booster more beneficial because when you shield, you're stuck to defending while they attack and break your shield; you can't do anything but stand there and get hit until you die. As a striker, you have the option to run, and with some tactical fleeing you can easily get yourself in a position to start charging again and dropping hazes or creating safe zones for yourself. S'also much easier to dodge polaris pellets with speed.

But hey, not telling you to not use guardian, just saying that it's not exactly a striker counter in the same sense that gunner strikers tend to do better than recon strikers as well for the same reasons. Striker is plainly an OP class, but the upside to that is that the counter to strikers is...well, be another striker.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 13:07

Zephyrgon

Well

It's true that strikers are OP. WHY? Because sword damage is higher than gun and bomb damage, which makes no freaking sense. Sword damage gets WAY boosted, whereas gun and bomb damage barely get any. So if you ask me, the reason LD isn't too balanced is because of this.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 13:13

Darkbrady

Sword damage only gets

Sword damage only gets medium, and bombs could get damage:max and would still be useless; that's more a problem with the bombs themselves than bomb-based classes. Guns can get a good fair amount of damage with max actually; that's more about suviving long eonugh to get the rest of the shots in. I use guardian when I gun and can get decent damage rates with that, without max damage.

What makes strikers OP, imo, is the lack of weaknesses. The booster can't be broken by other players (like the other two classes' powers) and the sheer amount of speed they have makes offscreen advantages absolutely tilt the scales in favour of strikers. Sure gunners can take advantage of off-screen advantage, but the sad fact is that most strikers can move as fast as/faster than the majority of bullets and, as you say, hit harder when they do (as well as having the ability to hit multiple targets). This lack of weakness basically means that the best version of any weapon type is a striker using it.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 13:34

Zephyrgon

Well

I dunno how the devs of SK managed to make strikers incredibly powerful, but the point should be that strikers are hard to hit, but once hit, they die. They should have the LEAST tankiness in LD, and due to the recent addition of heart trinkets, they are incredibly hard to kill. I wish that they would do something about it. Oh and btw this is a thread for the demo guardian class, not a strikers are too damn op thread.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 14:10

Darkbrady

The heart trinkets aren't

The heart trinkets aren't *that* much of a difference maker, it also comes down heavily to triple-max gear with all defences/resistances, reducing your damage to worthless amounts; hearts just multiply that problem.

And I know what the thread is about, but what I'm saying is directly relevant to the OP. You're saying that guardian bombers are a counter to strikers being OP, but what I'm saying is that because strikers are OP, that means that striker bombers are also a potential counter and, imo, actually better than guardian bombers. By far.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 15:18

#10

Darkbrady

You can still get max CTR on

You can still get max CTR on bombs even with striker, though, s'not too hard even w/o UVs. Playing it in LD itself is remarkeably easy, as the booster makes precise placement and CP chasing incredibly easy. It's also far, far easier to avoid getting killed by just boosting around than it is by trying to cloak or shield.

And I agree, I'd like guardians to be able to be a counter, as that's clearly the intention, but right now, sa things are, demo guardians are no better than demo recons, and striker demos just (imo) stand out far more, especially as a sword striker counter~

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 16:10

#11

Zephyrgon

I guess

Well I actually just wanted to put this somewhat viable build out there. I agree that there are other builds out there too, but right now this is one that I can only think of. Until this game gets balanced, we'll just hope for the best.

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 16:13

#12

Sky-Hawk

I've been tampering with guardian demo loadouts lately. :o

SO glad I found this thread, and there's a lot that you can do. Once I get my loadout ready, i'll be able to march through the 2 bomber nightmares: Freeze and shock. But I've been finding that lately, all you need is that MAX ctr, and i've found one good thing to do that is this:

Shock med+ Mad helm + a shock high + Merc demo is +2, normal med already is +2, and if you can get low CTR UVs on your bombs, it pairs up w/ the guardian bonus for max. :D

As for bombs, I've found that the DBB outweighs the nitro heavily in LD. Not only does it not shake the screen, but not ALL wolver lines defend against it, only one (skolver). It makes minced meat out of all of the other lines, and most other hybrids. I've also been noticing that the Venom Veiler is a great offense/defense. It makes people weak armor-wise, as well as nerfs their sword-intensive bonuses to where you can take a few faust hits no problem. In a game that's becoming centralized around anti-shock, the VV could be the next best thing. And I think you still need poison low+ to have resistance against the VV in snarby. I'm also starting to look towards a electron vortex. It pulls enemies in and holds them in place. This could be great for teammates around you, or even for the bomber if they have a status bomb right on top of the vortex. Either way, for a couple of seconds, that person is stuck. :D

I'll post my discoveries as I find them, I'm reworking my bombing style since RSS spam can't be done anymore. But who knows, maybe this was a change for the best. :D

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 16:19

#13

Darkbrady

@Zeph: Personally, I think

@Zeph: Personally, I think bomb guardians are the worst type of bombers, as recons can at least cloak and have a chance of escaping, whereas as soon as a striker decides to attack a guardian, they usually have no chance of surviving short of someone else showing up.

@Sky-Hawk: DBB is good for non-Skolvers, but the problem is that 50% of LD players are Skolver; that and that the KB from Nitro is one of teh things that actually makes it good in LD, as it disrupts their attacks and throws their positioning. It's great for CP defending as it literally just pushes everyone out. Vortexes are good to use, but tricky as well; gotta use them properly, since they're small and easy to avoid.
As for VV, I completely agree. I use five hazes (I cycle AoA for Shiver when there's few Skolvers) and VV is a permanent fixture. Few people are poison immune and the effects are universally disruptive. That, and people have a habit of ignoring it, thinking it's not a problem, and simply walk into it poisoning themselves.

That and I love trolling people by dropping VVs all over heartpads when people come to heal c.c

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 01:25

#14

Skold-The-Drac

@Darkbrady

"That and I love trolling people"
Statement fixed :P

But in all seriousness, that is why I carry a venom loadout to some places.. sometimes your run-of-the-mill striker is just too... ignorant to recognize that poison + health pad = DEAD.

Also, in T2 (since T3 isn't the only place everyone goes) fire is a viable status. I've actually made a lot of my latent kills with fire. They kill me and two seconds later "AMG WHYYYYYYY!!!!!?!".

Shock is indeed THE PvP status, but if these stunfixes continue in a decent direction I think stun could become the new PvP status due to the sheer lack of stun defense on your typical skolver/vog/snarb/dusker.

Concerning the Guardian Demo area there... I suggest two very abnormal things for those of you looking into t2 (unsure about t3 effectiveness)

1. Carry an alchemer as a gunning sidearm. (Preferably one with a status, does not matter which as even wolvers can't avoid being frozen)

Reasons being, just as you should walk around with a buddy, those strikers sometimes enjoy getting buddy buddy too. The alchemer (just like the flourish) was designed for CLOSE combat (and it's charge can reach for a pulsar spammer with 3 potentials for damage outside their range), if a striker has a friend near them and you know how to aim the gun properly (add a little luck on the ricochet) you could possibly doom them both to extinction with a single shot. An additional reason is that the clip is easy to run through (read extremely good damage in a short amount of time).

2. Decide on a pushing loadout (where everything is designed to KB or kill) or a trapping loadout (hazebombing/vortex and a coup de grace weapon) the reason why you shouldn't spend your time intermingling these two is because if you want fast results with knocking the opponent back/pulling them in, you can't waste your time fidgeting over your weapons, you need something effective as immediately as is possible.

Some less strange things (I do and would recommend as just general tips):
1. The sidearm in my 3-weapon loadout is always weapon slot 2. While granted, when you're fighting any member of your arsenal is just two switches away, I still feel the center of my loadout better with the sidearm in the middle. My playstyle can completely change (when I'm not enjoying my hammer too much) simply from knowing that a blaster line gun is in the sidearm slot than an alchemer/autogun. Designating a particular slot for your sidearm is as useful as having a UV'd toothpick, because if you know your sidearm (as it is a sidearm for a purpose) won't push the enemy away/take the kill properly, then your strategy will change... if you just haphazardly change your loadout without recognizing what the sidearm is, you could be taken down simply due to lack of proper strategy based on what you have.

2. I designate a particular class function (similar to how the OP mentioned Demo Guardian, I have striker gunner, recon gunner, recon sworder, etc.) to each of my loadouts with a few letters and numbers. For example, one of my loadouts is designated "T2-RDK" The first letter of my coding designates the preffered class of the loadout for me, this case, Recon. Second one designates the weapon slot focus, this case, Demo. The last alphanumeral (I'll use numbers sometimes too) gives a sidenote to how the class will more effectively make it's mark, this case, knockback. So in that brief moment, I can tell that I'm going for a Blast Bomb, Blaster and a heavy sword. I plan my fights accordingly.

3. The Guardian class has a similar gripe to strikers that is rarely used. Guardians shields cause them to slow down. If someone's trying to jam bullets down your throat and is forwarding their shots, tap your shield enough that your walkspeed is staggered and then continue normally. This causes their forwarding to be off target simply because you slowed down for a second instead of sped up/kept walking. Everyone's so used to someone ZIPPING around that when the speed is actually SLOWED you can cause some confusion.

P.S., I'm prepping a t3 Stun loadout just for you lovely strikers out there. You wanna go fast? Too bad :P

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 03:38

#15

Zephyrgon

True that

I'm not really sure if you should go full demo on this build or somewhat hybrid. I mean, 2 demo guardians can be quite devastating, unless of course you're dealing with some gunners. You guys can build this in whatever way you like. BTW, T3 LD is somewhat the most balanced LD tier there is. Don't ask why.

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 04:04

#16

Pinkie-Girl

I am a striker and bombs are

I am a striker and bombs are my problems, i once in T2 had to strike-boost through his field of Shock-bombs and this guardian killed me - i had -3 health, i kinda see it favouritable to the strikers but they have disadvantages as well
Oh and when my strike boost runs out im liek dead meat

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 07:06

#17

Xxpapaya

The papaya shrugs

I have too much lag to play Lockdown anyways, when I do play I'm more of a Kamikaze Recon, go in, slice and dice with my Gran Faust. Die before I hit air XD

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 09:59

#18

Darkbrady

@Skold: I always have Stagger

@Skold:

I always have Stagger Storm in my loadout as well and use it frequently because, as you say, very few people out there have stun immunity, making it a blanket bomb that can affect everyone. The problem is, its effectiveness is limited, especially against strikers who can boost through the stun. It works for people with triple/shock-max resistances to throw a wrench in their plans, and is especially good for when you're in the middle of a group fight, but as a 1v1 thing I find it only helps moderately; especially if they have a pulsar on hand. Ultimately, shock/freeze will always do a lot more to save you than stun, so I'd never choose it first (and thusly never think it'll become a number one threat in LD (unless they change it)) but it's useful enough that I always do want to have it.

Also great for trolling by dropping it in cross-junctions where you know people will be forced to walk through. People can get pretty wound up when they're boostin' around and suddenly are stunned halfway across the map from where they want to be c.c

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 11:38

#19

Bacon-Strip

You want to be able to beat

You want to be able to beat strikers without being one?

Watch Huntr bomb.

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 20:50

#20

Zephyrgon

Well

Stun actually affects the booster too. It's probably one of the best statuses to counter strikers, since they need to attack a lot and quickly. Speed is one of the perks of a striker.

Sun, 10/21/2012 - 21:00

#21

Darkbrady

What I meant was that

What I meant was that although they're stunned, they still have the ability to speed themselves up and essentially have a counter to stun. They cannae attack any faster but it means that dodging their movements isn't any easier, unless their booster is broken.

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