Spiral Knights - Defense versus resists?

Defense versus resists?

6 replies [Last post]

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:21

viper901

Legacy Username

Can somebody explain to me the differences in how the game handles these two concepts? What type of attack does defense defend against? Specifically elemental. And what about status resist? If a unit does elemental damage does status resist help with that? If a gun puppy does shock damage does elemental defense help with that?

How do UVs for +status interact with status resist already on gear? For example a skolver coat with medium frost resist. How many bars do you need to have max frost resist and how many "bars" does a UV level of frost resist provide?

Thanks for anybody who can help me out with this!

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:29

Gigafreak

Legacy Username

There are four damage

There are four damage categories.
Normal, Piercing, Elemental, Shadow.

There is no "fire" damage, no "ice" damage, no "electric" damage. These are all considered to be Elemental-category attacks.
That is, a fire-based attack will deal Elemental-category damage and possibly inflict the Fire status effect; ice is an Elemental attack with a Freeze effect.
Every "element" deals the same type of damage. Except Shadow, that's its own damage category.

Elemental defense reduces damage from all Elemental-category attacks.

Status resistances reduce the effects and duration of the associated status effect. For example, resistance to Fire will make the Fire status hurt less and expire earlier; resistance to Stun means you won't be slowed down as much, and so forth.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:31

Gigafreak

Legacy Username

Oh, and UV effects stack

Oh, and UV effects stack together with innate armor bonuses. In the case of status resistances, though, you can't get more than one full meter of resistance combined from all your armor. Anything above that is wasted-- you're already maxed out on that resistance. (Defense can overflow just fine, though.)

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:38

Psychephage

In Spiral Knights, damage

In Spiral Knights, damage type and statuses are completely separate. There are currently 4 types of damage (Normal, Elemental, Piercing, Shadow), and several status effects (Fire, Freeze, Shock, Poison, Sleep, Curse, Stun).

Some of the Greaver enemies do shadow damage and inflict shock. The gun puppy line of creatures do elemental damage, but can inflict poison, fire, shock, or freeze depending on the type of gun puppy it is.

The resists that you can get on your armor only affect the specific thing they mention.

In tier 1, all monsters deal "normal" damage. In tier two, creatures that deal a special damage type actually deal half normal, half special (e.g. shadow). In tier 3, monsters attacking with a special damage type deal full special, no normal damage.

You can tell what type of damage a creature will be doing by the color of the attack indicator. Normal=red, piercing=yellow, elemental=green, shadow=purple.

@gigafreak status effects aren't always paired with elemental damage. The Greaver enemies are a good example of that. (shadow +status)

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:21

Gigafreak

Legacy Username

Well, yeah. Spookats are the

Well, yeah. Spookats are the same way: Shadow damage, but with a stratum-themed status effect.

The point was to drive out the idea that "fire" damage is not the same as "ice" damage. All "element" damage just falls under the Elemental category. A Firebreak Shield's Elemental defenses will protect against "cold" and "electric" attacks with the same effectiveness as against "heat" ones-- it just offers resistance to Fire status and not Freeze or Shock status. (Status effects get more and more brutal in the really deep areas of the Clockworks, so it's still important to go with the proper resistances in Tier 3.)

As far as the game cares, all "elements" are identical except Shadow. They only differ in the status effect they can inflict.

It goes both ways, too. Enemy Undead are weak against Elemental attacks-- they take the same bonus damage from cold or electric attacks bullets as from fire bullets. All that matters is that it's Elemental-category damage.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:31

Mohandar

Is the damage being dealt by

Is the damage being dealt by the status effect (fire, shock, freeze) elemental and resistable by elemental resists, or is that damage linked to status resists? It sounds like it is the latter- you take less fire damage if you have lots of fire status resist, not elemental resist.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:43

Gigafreak

Legacy Username

Fire damage is reduced by

Fire damage is reduced by Fire resistance only. It shows as Normal damage, but it skips your armor and defenses.
Shock damage is reduced by both Shock resistance and Elemental defense (you can also block it with your shield... don't ask me how it works.)
Frost damage happens when an enemy hits you hard enough that the the ice shatters with you inside it. Presumably this can be reduced with Frost resistance.

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Defense versus resists?