How would it not help fight gremlins? Those jerks are fast, and every boost you can get for your faust/troika is welcome. It's also for consistency.

You'll notice that most armours lean towards having more normal defence than specialised. I think this is entirely in line for wolver armours, as sword bonuses go hand in hand with melee defence. Gunslinger armour would benefit from having more specialised defence than normal as gunslingers should have a significantly easier time dodging melee attacks than bullets. Bomber armour is fine with a 50/50 split.

I like Scarlet Shield. It's amusing.

Not quite what I meant about the specialised defence, but it's interesting nonetheless. What's normal defense doing on gunslinger suits in the first place, I always figured.

Another thing. How come Azure guardian has less defence than Chaos? It's not very glass cannon if it doesn't even have the least defence you can get.

I also think that Chaos may not be very "cannon" as much as it's "versatile" the way you have it there. Especially with all the bomber armours buffed up to the eyeballs perhaps Chaos would be fine as it is currently in the game?

"Vita piece (Vitacap [white spiral round helm], Vitasuit)
Purpose: health suit. Poison resistance facilitates this role.
Stats: 10 bars normal, max poison resist, +8 health"

It has too much defense. The only armor that naturally has more normal defense than ~7.2 bars are the three Plate lines which are supposed to be the best at melee tanking and Azure Guardian which has ~7.5 bars. If this is supposed to be a 5* version of the 4* Vitasuit we currently have all you need to add is the poison resistance and higher health and be done. Medics are not supposed to be tanking damage on the front line in this game, they give the people who do that health to get back in the fray from their own massive pool of health but are more vulnerable to taking damage due to lower defense.

"Azure Guardian piece
Purpose: jack of all trades. Resisting all damage types helps, but damage is more important.
Stats: 5 bars normal, pierce, elemental, shadow; +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus low"

The defense comes out as accumulatively 20 bars of defense over its current ~13.8 bars which is acceptable with its defenses so widely spread out, but at the same time only five bars of defense in T3 is not particularly helpful. I would say either make its normal defense ~6 bars and the three specialized types ~3.7 bars but that would be a very small difference from what you have here. If you take out the universal damage bonus the defense could be 6 bars normal and a clean 4 bars for each specialized but with the bonus it gets treated as a standard weapon bonus armor and loses a few bars.

"Aegis
Purpose: general purpose shield
Stats: 4 bars normal, pierce, elemental, shadow; 10 bars health; low fire, shock, freeze, poison, stun, curse, sleep resist"

Same deal with the armor which has the same stats as its matching shield. Having resistances everywhere would be unnecessary as the shield itself is completely usable over the Snarbolax shield for non-sword users. The only shield that has that much health is Omega which is unique by that effect.

"Vog Cub piece
Purpose: anti-gremlin suit. They only deal normal, elemental, fire (scorchers & Mortafires), and stun (Thwacker spins).
Stats: 10 bars normal, elemental; max fire resist, +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus vs gremlin: medium, sword attack speed increase: low"

Stop giving things absurdly high defense. If this has anything to do with high damage knights deal in Lockdown I am going to eat your internal organs and urinate in your eyeballs because that sickens me enough to do so. Vog Cub is part of a weapon specialist line and should stay that way along with the Spiral Demo and Gunslinger lines. Gremlins are not the only enemies in this game that inflict elemental damage or the fire and stun statusesusesuses and by your reasoning this armor should also have stun resistance because Thwackers and Demos can inflict stun. Lumbers can also inflict stun, should this give a construct bonus now?

"Skolver piece
Purpose: sword ASI booster, LD flourish booster

Never base content balance for this game starting with Lockdown. Ever.

Stats: 10 bars normal, pierce; max freeze resist; +5 health
Abilities: sword attack speed increase: medium"

Again with the absurdly high defenses. Cut that out. Vog Cub already gives the offense bonus which makes this change pointless.

"Snarbolax piece
Purpose: sword damage bonus booster, rabid Snarby armor
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max poison resist; +5 health
Abilities: sword damage bonus: medium"

Herp derp defense. In the original thread suggesting the Snarbolax armor it was agreed on to give it +1 sword damage and attack speed or +1 sword charge time reduction but Three Rings decided to give it the same bonuses as Skolver instead. Having both freeze and poison resistance on Snarbolax does make it overpowered against its sibling lines but is not necessarily a huge overpowering benefit to this Shadow Lair armor.

"Barbarous Thorn Shield
Purpose: sword damage bonus booster, rabid Snarby shield
Stats: 7 bars normal, shadow; 9 bars health, full poison resist"

Pierce inflicting enemies are usually easy for sword users. Shadow inflicting enemies are often in the higher difficulty areas. Snarbolax is part of the beast family which deals and is vulnerable to pierce. This shield does not need more health or any status resistances as it gives a modest offense bonus and already has high defenses. If anything its normal defense should be taken down a bar and everything else stays the same.

"Almirian Crusader piece
Purpose: match the shield, shadow/fire/shock coverage, fiend killer
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max fire, shock resist; +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus vs fiend: medium"

I have a new drinking game. I call it "take a shot every time you give something too much defense". Everyone will be dead by the end of this post. This is the fifth shot already.

This armor would be a gudd opportunity to use that +1 universal damage per part. Bump up its curse resistance and fire weakness a little so they max out with the full set. It becomes the offense version of Azure Guardian, taking the focus on defending against everything to attacking with everything but not being particularly great at anything or the glass cannon Chaos is.

Crest of Almire
Purpose: shadow/fire/shock shield
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; 9 bars health; max fire, shock"

Six.

All you did was add more defense to an already great shield.

"Ice Queen piece
Purpose: killing tough slimes & polyps. Also can double as rabid Snarby suit.
Stats: 10 bars normal, pierce; max poison, freeze; +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus vs slime: medium"

Seven.

It already has stun and freeze resistance. If you want to add that family bonus that poison resistance better be switched around as negative or full fire weakness comes in late.

"Divine piece
Purpose: SFSC suit, self-inflicting weapons moderator
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max fire, curse; +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus vs undead: medium"

Eight.

Divine is one of the pure specialized defense oriented armors along with Drake-Dragon line and...Silvermail. Not that many people remember it. It gets away with having more defense against the damage types but has absolutely no normal defense which makes it immensely vulnerable to melee attacks or at least the melee attacks which should be at least half normal damage since the Plate armors are designed to tank melee attacks with their massive normal defenses while projectiles are not inflicting normal damage. Divine also gets away with not only having three status resistances but one of them being curse because the full set has less than a total of +4 offense effects, though for whatever incompetent reasoning the offense bonus it gives is only on the helmet. Herp derp. Whoever thought that was right deserves to be smacked on the head with a cheese grater. If the helmet would share its fiend bonus with the torso Divine set would be more widely used but as it is right now people only use the helmet. But people are still using it unlike the other defense based equipment.

"Grey Feather piece
Purpose: anti-construct suit. Most useful vs Red Roarmulus.
Stats: 10 bars normal, elemental; max fire, shock; +5 health
Abilities: damage bonus vs construct: medium"

You know, the three specialized defense armors deserve to have family bonuses, but not exclusively to one family. Grey Feather gets bonuses against the families that deal element, Dread Skelly gets bonuses against families that deal shadow, and Royal Jelly gets bonuses against the families that deal pierce. The bonuses could even be split so the helmet and torso have separate bonuses like the Grey Feather helmet giving +2 construct while the torso gives +2 gremlin or evenly shared so the helmet and torso both give +1 construct and +1 gremlin each. The former would allow more creative equipment setups by mixing and matching equipment around in your arsenal for all kinds of funky situations. You never know when you might suddenly find yourself in a disco party.

"Ironmight Plate piece
Purpose: melee tanker, troika booster
Stats: 20 bars normal, max stun resist, +7 health
Abilities: sword charge time reduction: medium"

Ironmight. Big. Manly. Mighty. You could even call its might hard as iron. I hesitate to take a shot to this because its normal defense goes off the charts which caps at ten and could have >15 bars of normal. We know Ancient is up there. Ironmight is part of the Plate armor tree which is based on defense and not gaining weapon or family damage bonuses. It needs a creative defense oriented benefit and not something stupidly simple like sword whatever. Sword stroking speed increase.

"Chaos piece
Purpose: glass cannon
Stats: 6 bars normal, pierce; max resist penalty fire, shock, freeze, poison; +4 health
Abilities: universal damage bonus medium, universal charge time reduction medium"

Pierce is the last defense type Chaos should have. It has element defense. Chaos is often associated with "evil" which implies shadow but since most of the upper difficulty enemies deal shadow making the "glass cannon" armor defend best against them would be stupid. Maxing out its status weaknesses is gudd but you forgot curse.

"Volcanic Demo piece
Purpose: damage bomber (replaces mad bomber & prior volcanic demo)
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max fire resist, +5 health
Abilities: bomb damage bonus: medium, bomb charge time reduction: medium"

Volcanic gives charge time reduction for bombs. Mad Bomber gives both charge and damage but has lower defenses against damage and status weaknesses which makes it the bomber version of a glass cannon armor while Chaos is like Azure Guardian for attack characteristics instead of defense. By the way, nine. Nine shots now.

Volcanic is fine with element defense. Mad Bomber can have shadow to match its original recipe which included shadow relevant materials which it still requires. That reminds me, Bombastic used to take pierce relevant materials which would imply pierce defense. The offense effects are the same as Mad Bomber currently has which makes the fusion redundant.

"Mercurial Demo piece
Purpose: speed bomber (also, shock deals elemental, and halts charges which slows you down)
Stats: 10 bars normal, elemental; max shock resist, +5 health
Abilities: bomb charge time reduction: medium, movement speed increase: high"

Ten.

Mercurial Demo seems like it would be the "scout" among our variety of armor, sort of like Chaos but instead of losing status resistances while gaining weapon bonuses you lose defense against damage types and/or lower health in exchange for greater movement speed. Your armor is charged with electricity to give your knight a boost of speed. Take about three bars of normal from its current stats, change its bomb damage to charge reduction, take one bar of health per part, add another +1 movement speed per part and see how that goes. The original Mercurial still has better defenses and no penalties.

"Bombastic Demo piece
Purpose: LD recon bomber (CTR med from leveling, universal CTR med from recon, bomb CTR med from recon; no CTR needed here)

Stop that.

Stats: 10 bars normal, pierce; max freeze resist, +5 health
Abilities: bomb damage bonus: high, movement speed increase: low"

Bombastic and Volcanic are opposites while Mad Bomber is in the middle and Mercurial Demo is somewhere in the next room headbutting the wall and making an obnoxious ruckus. Volcanic wants to hurry with placing a bomb and making the magic happen while Bombastic wants to hit slow and hard. It may not be better over time compared to Volcanic since the damage to reduced charge time rates are not equal, but if they were the two sets would be a great contrast. Want to place faster? Volcanic. Want to deal more damage per hit but still have the same damage over time rates? Bombastic. Ideally that would be how it works but two years later we are still at the starting space. They are the best at board games.

"Scarlet Shield
Purpose: bomber shield, Vitasuit shield
Stats: 4 bars normal, 5 bars health, max curse resist
Abilities: bomb attack speed increase: maximum, +6 health"

Scarlet is not necessarily the shield for bombers as Swiftstrike is for guns and the Snarbolax shield is for swords, though sword users can also grab Swiftstrike if they want, but there was already a decent thread on Scarlet.

"Justifier piece
Purpose: gunslinger damage suit; mostly for LD. Freeze prevents rotation & aiming. General purpose gunslinger.

I give you to the count of the next three "rebalances". If Lockdown is mentioned one more time you are going under my "less respected than gerbil feces" list and I am not going to put this post up and instead ignore this thread completely. If asked where my response is I will either ignore it or say it was too awful to review.

Stats: 10 bars normal, pierce; max freeze resist, +5 health
Abilities: gun damage bonus: medium"

Eleven.

Shadowsun already gives damage. Justifier could have +1 damage and speed for guns per part to make it different than Nameless in bonuses yet similar to both Shadowsun and Nameless as their middle ground, all three having different specialized defense types and status resistances. Justifier is the line that continues pierce defense from the 4* and 3* parts of the Gunslinger tree.

"Nameless piece
Purpose: charge/alchemer/catalyzer gunslinger; catalyzers used vs gremlins & slimes (elemental & pierce), while alchemers used vs constructs & undead (elemental & shadow). Common denominator is elemental. Alchemers and Catalyzers get charged often. Shock stops charging.
Stats: 10 bars normal, elemental; max shock resist, +5 health
Abilities: gun charge time reduction: medium"

Twelve.

No one said any gun is specifically useful for any of the Gunslinger lines. Attack speed is often regarded as superior to damage for guns because you can fire faster, but if you get the weapon UVs and a Swiftstrike you might prefer Shadowsun for its damage. Natural charge time reduction should remain unique for common equipment to bombers since both the Chaos set and the Seerus masks already exist.

"Shadowsun piece
Purpose: speed/fiend/undead gunslinger; Magnus lines need ASI, while Blitz is used in FSC/KoA, which is mostly shadow & fire.
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max fire resist, +5 health
Abilities: gun attack speed increase: medium"

Is there a reason Shadowsun and Justifier switched bonuses? Justifier gets speed and stun resistance, Shadowsun gets damage and poison resistance. Stun lowers attack and movement speed, not that Justifier gives or should give movement speed. Poison cripples damage and Shadowsun gives damage. Unlike most other armor setups these two actually make sense as they are.

"Deadshot piece
Purpose: undead slayer. Themeless undead deal normal, shadow, curse (phantoms), and stun (zombie breath).
Stats: 10 bars normal, shadow; max curse, stun resist; +5 health
Abilities: undead damage bonus: medium, gun attack speed increase: low"

What did you change? Besides its defense. Which reminds me, thirteen. A fitting number. It looks like all you did here was give it the same health and defense increase as everything el- You added stun resistance. Justifier already does that and Deadshot is balanced as it is against the other Gunslinger lines.

I regret wasting time on this. Normally I try to make things fun along the way but there was nothing fun here. I will likely go downstairs and have thirty too many drinks and wake up a week from now in a hospital.

MSI Max on Mercurial Demo?... no.
Reason? Approximately 1.42x speed
Comparison? TF2 scout normally moves at 1.33x speed, very fast.

Paraphrasing devs: The flow of the game relies on the fact that the players move at the same speed. (or something)

Yer not gunna get nothing above Medium per piece(~1.28x speed), which is still very fast.

MSI max is a no go. Do you remember the difference between the two boxes during save winterfest?

Also, mortafires and knockers.

I take it you've never run C42? The Mortafires in OCH are actually the fire themed Mortafires.

Take a look at this video showing a Save Winterfest run. During the Save Winterfest mission, you had two different types of gift boxes that you could deliver. One would let you run at full speed, and the other had an effective MSD max (it was actually a -7 stat but the effect stops at -6, or max). You watch that video and you tell me you think that difference in MS could be balanced in any way.