Why do they still exist? They are basically useless.
Who would prefer a Leviathan over a Combuster while fighting constructs, for example? In the long run, a knight eventually gets weapons of every damage type to use against the right family, leaving normal weapons plain useless. Of course, some knights are hipsters and prefer normal damage weapons, but whoever aims for the best possible gear never touches them.
I believe every normal damage weapon should be assigned another damage type, and it would also be nice to have every weapon kind in every damage. It would give people many more options. I'm not suggesting this, it would be useless to suggest because I know it won't be done, I just want some opinions.
It saddens me to see how imbalanced equipment is... :<
Normal damage weapons
Full Bomber here. Carrying 3 Status/Vortex bombs to help my party and 1 offensive weapon. If I can only carry 1 offensive weapon, then it better do a good job at whatever monster comes my way.
Also, Nitronome is best for soloing. That +1 gun for puppies/polys and I'm set most of the time.
I've my theory, of course- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/61167
The Role of Normal Weapons (and other "helper" weapons):
Many people identify normal weapons as being useless, or sub-optimal mistakes by the devs, but I feel that I have seen the light on such an issue. They are, if you will, side weapons in many cases. If you're bombing, and want a side weapon that will take care of anything, you've got it. Think to yourself- do you REALLY need ASI MAX on your Brandishes in order to kill anything? Most of the time, no. Most of the time, you can beat anything without huge amounts of boosts, and that goes for specialized damage.
Lets say I told you to gear up to fight ANYTHING. That I would dump you into a random arena, and that you would fight it out. That arena might be anything- from islands of turrets you can't reach forming bullet hell to beasts from monster boxes on respawners. If you're a gunner, you might bring callahan, umbra driver and perhaps storm driver- but if you bring a fourth gun, you might not be able to deal with the possibility of the arena consisting of a small walk space surrounded by fire vents. So instead, you might want something like a sudaruska. You could then hit things away from your small walkway, and then gun them. Now, you might say "But DA is better for that!" What if you're fighting beasts on your walkway?? "Gran Faust!" You don't have room to hold onto both, and using one would sacrifice your guns.
But lets say that you aren't a gunner, and that you use whatever class fits the level. You don't know what this arena will require, but you do know that it is a normal arena with no statuses. Bombs could be the best if it had a large open space with mobs that chased you, guns could be the best if it had turrets, and swords could be the best if it had enemies that came up to you quickly. But you don't know what damage type will be the best- in this case, it would be best to bring things with the intent on just having something that will work. You don't need the overkill that is most specialized damage, but at the same time you do need something that works. So you might go for a loadout of ash of agni, valiance and leviathan blade, so that you can deal with whatever you come across. This situation occurs often in the form of danger rooms, in which you cannot possibly predict what kind of monsters you will fight.
Okay, so you have a Blitz Needle and one other slot in FSC. There are some slimes, constructs, a decent number of fiends and lots of undead. Or you're a bomber in other levels, and you really need another weapon to take out certain enemies quickly, but you don't know exactly what kind of monsters you'll be fighting with it. Or you open up a danger room, where the enemies might be something the level itself isn't themed towards. So you go to a normal damage weapon.
I agree that normal damage weapons could do with something of a boost at the moment, given the way split normal-specialised damage weapons perform on enemies (Brandish and Sealed, I'm looking at you here). But they're not quite as bad as you make them out to be.
I love my CiV for my chaos/hybrid loadout, esp in FSC :<
Suda too~
@Fehzor:
The point you're making is valid, but people feel they're useless because situations like that simply don't occur in game. You always get plenty of warning of what's to come, levels rarely have more than two [special] "types" of enemy, and with the advent of arsenal stations of every floor it further uselessified normal weapons. Why bother bringing a normal for multiple floors on a CW level if you can change to your specialised loadout every floor?
I personally still like them for hybrid/all-rounder loadouts because I'm too lazy to change my gear every single floor and am a hipster so like using normal types.
Possible solution: Balance out the low damage by having them grant movement speed bonuses and/or lower the charge time on normal damage weapons.
This way, normal weapons still have the same versatility and damage, but have their own set of perks to attract players.
That idea is probably terrible though. Don't listen to me.
Screw all ya's, just gimme my Frost Gun, Kamarin and Heavy Deconstructer.
The obvious solution would be to just have normal weapons outdamage special weapons on "neutral" enemies, since the main attraction to them currently is that they deal 2/3x the damage on weak targets while often outdamging "normal" weapons on neutral targets, making them a far better choice for the average player. Allowing "specialised" weapons to be useful against 2/3 of enemies was a pretty daft move, as things go, especially when followed by buffing special weapons and including arsenal stations on every floor. Then you get examples like Suda/DA, where the Suda swings slower and has the same range as well, making DA a "better" option against 2/3 of targets, leaving Suda in the cold. And from a LD perspective, everyone has heaps of normal defence whereas specialised weapons can take advantage of their spec-def absences, and all normal type weapons are gimped by invinci frames, whereas specialised weapons have more LD friendly charges. This may be coincidental, but the fact is it shifts attention away from using normal weapons there.
Every move they make further decreases the worthwhile-ness of normal weapons.
As things go, they're not unusable, but they're simply not competitive. As much as my CiV fits nicely into my FSC Hybrid Loudout with it's handy undead:hi bonus, the fact is that I'd probably chew through the zombies 3x the speed with any elemental sword, even though it'd only be dmg:med instead of dmg:ultra, because the damage increase is just that much higher from spec.bonuses.
making DA a "better" option against 2/3 of targets, leaving Suda in the cold
So THAT'S where Triglavs come from :O
-@Forum-Lady
Nopls.
-So THAT'S where Triglavs come from :O
Lol, clever; I actually didnae catch on at first~
Nopls.
You only just now found out that every time I respond to you, I alter your name? :P
Lol, clever; I actually didnae catch on at first~
I love dry humor, although a lot of my jokes are pretty bad, sometimes I make a good one.
Oh, I've noticed it, but I didnae like that one; all of the others have been unisex D:
Made me sound so..."that creepy old lady who sits in the corner of the forum staring at people while stroking her pet snakes" or somethin' :<
I'm sorry :(
in the corner of the forum staring at people while stroking her pet snakes
Lol'd at the innuendo though.
I wouldn't mind other kinds of boosts and the like to normal swords, but I sure hope they don't do what the OP suggests and assign special damage attributes like shadow to them. D= Otherwise I'm going to end up with a duplicate damage type I don't want or need. ;_; I like the "ready for anything" typing of the normal weapons.
@Niichi:
I never actually read the OP, I just sauntered in here and threw down my manly opinion with my manly pet snake, from the corner of the forum.
Agreed, though; adding types to normal weapons would solve nothing and serve only to annoy normal-fans and hipsters, as well as tearing down any and all current all-rounder/normal loadouts.
Did after you mentioned that though and I caught this:
and it would also be nice to have every weapon kind in every damage
This is an awful, awful idea. So far only one weapon in the game has access to all three damage types and as such, can be utilised absolutely anywhere; you needn't ever actually bring anything else, ever. If that weapon was even remotely blitzy or brandishy, it would simply just be "the weapon" for that class to use. No need for any others.
Keeping types separate forces players to mix and match weapons and styles into builds; it is a good thing. We don't need piercing brandishes or elemental flourishes or shadow FoVs.
What happen if theres no normal dmg wep?
Vana's mask. People wearing dragon scale and Divine veil in LD.
Also, If you have skolver and play alone, a Leviathan is more than enough to kill anything.
Valiance is very good in LD because it pushes enemies away, but in the Clockworks, it is only useful as a side gun. Triglav has a very small damage compared to a DA or GF used against the right family.
Nitronome is good too but because there aren't other bombs which function like it.
Fehzor yes you have a point. If you can only carry one side weapon and you don't know what you will fight, normal weapons are good but that doesn't usually happen. :x
I would pick up my Combuster and Gran Faust because even if I will hit a fiend arena, I'll have the Combuster which is like normal damage to them.
Juances, those two situations are sooo little found that it's not worth bringing a normal weapon just for that. Plus, Blitz charges deal more damage than hitting the mask with a Levi. :x That gun has to be nerfed rofl.
When Spiral Knights launched, you couldn't change your equipment on every level. You could only change your equipment at terminals and towns. So much more attention was paid to general-purpose loadouts, that had to work on a few different levels. Normal weapons, and general-purpose armor sets such as Divine Veil + Skolver Coat, were useful.
Sometime last year (?), arsenal stations were added to the game, letting us hyper-customize our equipment. (In order to encourage us to spend lots of time and money, to get tons of specialized equipment.) To some extent, normal weapons have not yet caught up with this disruptive rule change.
Who says normal weapons are bad?
I don't really think the Valiance is very good in LD. While I'm running around in my Ironmight desperately trying not to get hit, someone will eventually get the courage to whip out their Valiance and start shooting me with it. I take that as their way of saying "Please, please oh please, just kill me", as the bullets only take out half of a health-cell (or whatever you want to call them).
Valiance is more of an interruption mechanism to harass players (especially with the KB) than it is to deal damage.
Valiance is good in LD, I wish i had one with ASI high
My 2nd highest damage as a gunner came with a Valiance/Umbra driver combo. A little over 19k. That gun is pretty awesome. Even in clockworks it works well in my opinion. Dominating clockworks with Valiance/Ash bomb atm (Fire levels switch to Nitro). So fun so solo things with burn!
Three words: Swiss Army Knife.
Wasnae saying that Vali can't be used for damage; it most certainly can in the hands of a skilled gunner, but in general the gun is most commonly used to cause distress from it's KB and high rate of fire. It's the main reason why strikers carry it as a sidearm, for example.
They'll do decent damage on those with no normal defense in LD.
They'll do decent damage on those with no normal defense in LD.
Y'know, all those Dragonscale Strikers you see, or Divine Recons. Aye, loads of them kickin' around.
Normal damage weapons are amazing. They are good for EVERYTHING and are not weak to anything (talkin PvE here). Valiance is great for knockback, and are a handy gun. Supernova is crazy spammy just like polaris and is good for anything. The troika's are my slice of pie. Suda is great for smashing and stunning, and triglav is amazing for freezing enemies while you line up a charge to pummel em' with. CIV/Levi are great for their all aroundness, and the charge is handy for knockback as well. Volcanic pepperbox has a rockin charge, deadly shard bomb is great for spamming, especially when you overlap the rings, neutralizer's charge is great for blowing things up, iron slug has a use, somewhere I'm sure (Perhaps it may be a bad example...) WHB/ DVS each have their own uses and bonuses, nitronome is among the best of the bombs, big angry bomb has crazy knockback and power, irontech destroyer stuns and is great for a medium between BAB and nitronome, heavy deconstructer wrecks constructs, and I think thats all the (5 star) normal damage weapons.
Of course, when it comes down to it, normal damage weapons will always be overshadowed by specialized damage weapons, but they are great all rounders and shouldn't be ignored. I myself love them, but they should not be changed to having another damage type. That would completely change things, and not in a good way, I believe.
~Magnicth
Then don't use them. Personally I love normal weapons, and not everyone does end up with a weapon type for every family. Normal weapons are great for utility purposes, e.g. having a sword to deal pretty good damage up close and use a gun to still deal decent damage if things go wrong. Bombers also would suffer from not having normal weapons for the same reason of utility.
Oh and 'off-topic', are you someone who runs around in the wolver line of armor exclusivley? This would explain alot to me.
I don't think I'd ever, ever use Deadly Shard Bomb, to be perfectly honest. We're running a thread in Arsenal about the effort we've been putting in to make the special shard bombs a success and it's been taking quite some doing; trying to deal with the normalnerf on top of that would utterly destroy our efforts, I believe. Carrying two special shards with us keeps us at at least neutral damage all the time anyways, as well as status effects.
Maybe if the Deadly had a status effect on top of it I'd be more willing to try it out, but as things are, shards are pushing the boundaries too much already without another drawback, unless the Deadly has some other effect I'm not aware of.
Although, I am aware you never said the damage was good, but I'd put it in the Iron Slug category, tbh: useless until proven otherwise.
Why are we even discussing this? Normal damage weapon has its place in the game because we need a Swiss Army Knife and the strength of these weapons is that they won't get resisted by anything.
It's like a Jack of all Trades. He doesn't specialize into anything but he can finish off everything and wrap up the loose ends.
They were useful back when we didn't have Arsenal Stations on every floor and you could only change weapons at the Clockwork Terminals.
Nowadays they're only really useful when you're either not 5-star (and therefor can't afford to buy too many weapons) or exploring a newly-added mission or such for the first time.
Did someone say normal weapons suck?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=110027617
Get yo mind blown by dis Valiance weapon.
@Zaderules: Now if only we could stab people with it...
You seem to make the all-too-common mistake of thinking that 5* people can just magically afford everything...
You seem to make the all-too-common mistake of thinking that 5* people can just magically afford everything...
You've confused me there...isn't that the typical debate used for using Normal weapons of specialised?
I would agree that Normal weapons are far from useless and that the Normal type should stay how it is, but Verodius seemed to think that 5*s can afford to throw money at the Alchemy Machines to just make whatever they want causing Normal weapons to be useless to them. I was simply pointing out that that's not the case and that there are plenty of 5* players who are poor just because they spent everything getting to that point. In not so many words of course, but now it's probably more clear what I meant.
Oh, am with you now; I thought you were saying that as a rebuttal to what he said (which sounded contradictory) rather than supporting Normals.
Aye, s'the best use for Normals (in our current state of affairs) as it lends players a weapon they can use without needing to make several sets.
Coolio~
DVS and Valiance is fun two weapon load-out, ive seen people do pretty much every mission like that or swap out val for Polaris.
I meant that in the sense that players who aren't 5-star would probably favor smaller, more versatile loadouts where they know how each piece handles because they're still working towards getting everything to 5* and can't do as much experimenting, whereas when they've got full 5* gear they can afford to try different things.
I can see what you mean by that, but I see several 5* players here attesting to the benefits of Normal weaps. Shouldn't that count for something?
The Valiance can:
*hit dodgers
*knock back enemies consistently
*fire quickly
It really is a good all-rounder. I would even go so far as to say that it would be terrible with specialized damage. As a utility gun, it's pretty awesome.
I'm a 5* player, and I approve this message. xD
I think the argument that normal weapons are omni-tools is sufficient enough to say they aren't useless. However, I would like to add that you stated "in the long run" normal weapons are useless because you get weapons of every damage type "leaving" normal weapons useless. This may be true to some extent but what about the short run? I would never recommend someone newly reaching 5* equipment to get specialized damage weapons, unless they really knew what that entailed. I would rather do 80% damage to everything than 120% damage to two monster types and 60% damage to everything else. If I recall correctly it took me a long time as a F2P player to get my second and third 5* weapons. Throughout that entire time my Levi worked for me just fine.
Edit: In other words, ditto to Ubernerd.
unless the Deadly has some other effect I'm not aware of.
They don't. I tried them out on the test servers a few months ago just to see if they had more interruption or anything, but they really just suck in every way imaginable.
I think the reason for normal weapons is clear, as stated above many times.
With regards to the WHB, it's still quite terrible. The video linked above shows it versus gremlins...how about versus enemies that don't cease attacking, like robots? Also, if he wasn't playing solo, the gremlin's health would take more than 1 charge to kill (easily outhealed by t3 menders I might add). Such an unfortunate weapon. The only reason I have one is swag, ie. just to have one. The DVS is strong versus JK, but there are better weapons (and safer ones) that are much more powerful, available, and more widely useful for things not JK boss. The cutter is still a fine weapon nonetheless, I do agree it's charge should be improved to make it useful (if not modified entirely), as taking some free hits from surrounding enemies is hardly worth the chip damage done, which a DA/GF can do in 2 swings or less :/
I've never tried the Valiance in LD...I should check it out :)
Wow Zanderules, good job with the 22k! matches my top.
Team lost the game though, so did it really matter?
They lost by 2 points o.o'
I'd agree with you more if they got demolished and Zade just happened to be on fire with damage that match, but it was a photo-finish, so~
Although since his team completely out-capped and out-damaged the other, kinda implies they were more worried about runnin' around and capping/killing than actually holding/defending CPs, but that's neither here nor there...
For the most part, they exist for casuals and vanaduke
That said, I think Sudaruska is one of the few Normal damage weapons actually worth using.
I don't see any knight that wants to be efficient taking a leviathan blade or DVS over one of the elemental brandishes to lockdown OR clockworks. I just don't see it. Brandishes offer better utility, dps, and range of use than either of the normal blades.
Valiance is another story, though.
Valiance and Triglav in clockworks ftw. +vh damage to each. You can see what the level layout will be, but the danger rooms spawns are different sometimes. Gota be prepared.
In LD Valiance dominates, and anything hurts with a deathmark on ya!
Maybe some of us just want to be normal!