http://threepanelsoul.com/2011/04/11/on-ironclaw-menders/
Blame Ian.

Still, they are a lot more manageable than before, they come only in pair.
During beta you sometimes had 3, or 4, or even 5 of them. And they ressed more often.

Next time you come across those pesky menders, make use of poison or curse vials if you don't carry weapons that poison or curse. Stun viles also come in handy for separating the inseparable. You could also kite the grunts away from the menders when the grunts are full health. Menders tend to want to hide if they have nothing to heal.

I remember near the start of launch I created a thread talking about the large damage difference between guns and swords. The damage difference being so large that I can't comprehend how they would be able to balance the HP of mobs to make both guns and swords viable to run through dungeons with.

This is pretty much the situation I was talking about and it's using a 5* shadow damage version of supposedly the highest DPS gun in the game against a mob whose weakness is shadow and a medium bonus to gremlins to boot, and the damage still doesn't cut it.

what if you could use 2 guns the same time, but no shield while you do? you would become a glass cannon dps dealer.

Double post, me sorry.

I was under the impression that the point of SK is to play with other players. WHILE I AGREE WITH YOU, you really can't complain about something if your soloing. MMO's are designed to be played with others. That's why you're not playing a 1p game. Sucks ><.

Stardrinker: [Sentenza] supposedly the highest DPS gun in the game ...
Back it up with fact.

I'll back it up when I claim it to be true. I say supposedly because that is what the general consensus leans towards (the 5* Antigua line).

The highest DPS gun in the game is Volcanic Pepperbox. It's nowhere near a competitive gun, but it has the highest DPS in the game by a noticable margin.

AP is just used because it's very effective against the primary concerns in the game, which are Slags and Vanaduke, and has a better shot rotation than Blaster series guns.

Why in the world are you using a gun against Gremlins? I'm sorry, but in T3, trying to use a projectile weapon against dodgers is futile. This applies to Maverick Knights, Wolvers, Gremlins, and Devilites. Get a sword, or a bomb to accompany your gun. You have a second slot for a reason.

Against the Bubble Armor, just smash em. They act like our own shields, take enough beating and it'll break.
Reviving? Kill the mages first. If you really want to use your gun, fire warning shots. They'll scatter the group so you can single them out and kill them out of range of one another.

I use a Final Flourish, and with one charge attack I can wipe out a group of Gremlins in the right position (Usually 3-4). I even do grey damage against the Menders and still take them out.

I mainly bomb and while the nitronome is great for gremlins (knockback) it is somewhat difficult to single out menders with only bombs so if I see a lot of deconstruction levels I'll equip a faust which 2-shots gremlins in the first couple of T3 depths. Sure I've run those levels bomb only before but it takes forever and isn't worth the effort. I don't mind equipping different stuff specifically for a gate but I wouldn't mind it if the mender heal was nerfed a bit as well.

I was in a T3 arena with 2 menders and a construct and I was hitting him with 200dmg with each venom veiler and keeping him poisoned and the menders were able to keep him alive for 5 mins.. lol

Arguments like use swords, don't use guns against dodgers, and the like don't impress me - it's a unilateral argument that, given the sheer damage disparity between the two weapons classes at this point, is one that is usually true for the typical player who doesn't want to do anything involved. But when I say gunner I imply that I made my choice to be one, not that it was just my current weapon. The only time I ever pick up a sword is for JK, ever, where guns, because of their firing style, are apparently unable to pierce the gelatinous horde surrounding the king.

So you're gimping yourself. Way to be.

T3 dodgers are more demanding of a dedicated sword weapon than anything else in the game. And the fun part is that a Final Flourish handles all of the dodgers very well. 3 gun + 1 sword = less need for these kinds of posts.

I use a shadow driver, and I rarely have any issues with gremlins. The charge shot from it can sometimes hit the thwackers multiple times which, when soloing, is an instant kill. It can be a problem in smaller spaces, but those are relatively infrequent. In those situations I usually just switch to my flourish with a med UV against gremlins and flail about.

My apologies arbitrary is the wrong word, yes it happens at predictable points, I concede this point.

What I meant however, was the sheer neutering scaling does at each jump, damage doubles from floor 18-19, and doubles again from 23-24, why does it need to be so drastic? A more linear progression would have weapons at their max potential by floor 19ish and just increase the HP of monsters in a similar fashion to compensate, difficulty would not increase, but the point of achieving better equipment beyond floor 23 would.

The point of this is a Combuster SHOULD hit harder than a Brandish even at depth one, not by much, maybe a point or 2 of damage and scale from there, this way you wouldn't be one-shotting mobs and could still play with your buddies and your offensive equipment mean something.

I understand your point. People on SK are basically divided into two camps I guess, those that like the weapon damage scaling and those that don't... And then there's people that don't like camping with other people. :P Your point is you understand weapon scaling but you'd like it to be adjusted somewhat?

I think your 4/5* weapons are still better than 0-1* items in T1, albeit marginally. Okay you might not notice this on depth 1 because whatever % you put on "8 damage" is still gonna be between 8 and 9.9 damage I guess. Or perhaps all weapons of the same base type do the same damage on depth 1 and scale their damage on deeper floors according to their * value. Either way, the biggest difference in T1 is made by your armor, which does not seem to be scaled down. At least I find myself fighting much more carelessly up there. I guess I just don't see the rest of the problem (which is not abnormal with me)... T1 is much easier with 4* gear, yet not boringly so (and it can even pay for the mist you spend, at least at the moment).

As for damage scaling up in T3... yeah I find it a bit awkward. Monster HP goes up, damage output (on 4-5* weapons at least) goes up. Maybe this is to make it really hard for people with 3* gear? Either way, despite the awkwardness I can live with it. I don't need damage progressing to stop at any given floor. To be honest the incredibly large numbers do look kinda cool and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy that my Silversix starts showing gold stars on zombies in T3 where it doesn't even show blue in T2. I know I'm kinda silly and the stars are probably a lie. I don't mind being subjective on this one.

Yay us for going way off topic here.

Well I was wrong about armour not scaling actually. The health bonus does scale per floor / (sub)tier. But damage reduction doesn't seem to.

nobody uses the Needle Shot line? It's my favorite weapon for fiends and gremlins, since they both just dodge into the line of fire.

Anyway, all I do with menders is make them both shield, then leave them there while I go mess up their friends.
Then I vile striker them to death.

As an only proto gear user I support this. It should be my choice what gear I use and up to the developers to make it so that the game is equally difficult for all weapon styles and equipment choices.