Spiral Knights - Should the Plate Armor line be more like the Ancient Set?

Should the Plate Armor line be more like the Ancient Set?

5 replies [Last post]

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 20:54

Toeni-Sevan

What is it about the Plate Armor that sets it against the rest? It's pure normal defense and stun resistance until it branches at 5 stars and it decreases attack speed. For armor meant to specialize in taking blows, it's not very good compared to any specialized armor in a given area outside T1. Compare this to the Ancient Set given as a reward from the final mission boss of the game: Lord Vanaduke.

I have read the forum article on sources of normal damage. I appreciate this work and have taken it into account. The damage given by those in the listings however include some as split and monsters that are not as common. The distribution of normal damage however is not what I believe makes or breaks the plate set, I think that it does not suit it's description as a whole.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/33594 (It's freaking good read it.)

The Ancient Plate Set
The exact same thing as Plate Armor bar two things:
-Decreased movement speed
-More health comparative to other pieces of armor.

This is what plate should be, the increased health given by this set makes a knight as close as they will ever be to a damage sponge.
Spiral Knights is a game driven by the arcade experience. Skirting and Dodging is a major part of the game. But with all the different styles of attack, could we perhaps have a different style of defense?
-Blocking friends from shots and missiles with your hulk of a body.
-Focusing more on charged attacks rather than quick strikes.
-Giving your teammates more health due to a larger health pool.

I would like to alter the Plate sets to one more similar to the Ancient Plate Set. Increased health bonuses and an added decrease in movement speed. I would also like to give the normal Plate Line Pierce defense, the 5* pieces have it, why not the previous parts of the line? I'm not sure what to think of the Ancient Plate set if this change were to be made.
-Perhaps it could become a Shadow set and complete the damage type circle?

-I would also like there to be an increase in damage reduction across the sets further justify the ability penalties. The main idea is that the set would make a knight more oriented to take hits.

I understand that at the very core, Spiral Knights is not made for the Plate Set, but the Plate Set is made for Spiral Knights. Please entertain this for at least a moment and consider it as something that could be viable in online play.

-Please write all forms of criticism, kindness is no substitute for truthful opinion.

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 23:57

Hexzyle

-1

The Ancient Plate Set
The exact same thing as Plate Armor bar two things:
-Decreased movement speed
-More health comparative to other pieces of armor.

No. Refuting your ideas for changing the Plate Set while adding my own:

ASD Low is unnecessary and unjustified on Spiral, Boosted, and Heavy Plate Mail: The penalty those armors pay for increasing the normal defense is the loss of a secondary defense.

The Ancient Plate Mail's boosted health justifies either its MSD or ASI, but not both. One of them should be removed. Either that, or remove ASD, turn the MSD: Low into MSD: Medium per piece, then give it a universal CTR: Low.
The Volcanic/Ironmight with their additional defense require a drawback for their increased normal defense so these should be left as is. If anything, they could have a CTR: Low added.

Increasing the total health of a player further increases their vulnerability to one hit kills. The player becomes like a large window pane in armor like Ancient Plate Mail just waiting to shatter. It's not fun when you're in APM with only a few bars left and you know the next hit will kill you no matter what.

I would also like to give the normal Plate Line Pierce defense, it's shield has it, why not the armor?

I have no idea what you are talking about here, the shield doesn't have Pierce Defense. The only section of Plate Shield that has Pierce defense is Ironmight: it's 5 star, and at the same rating, the Armor has that too.
Unlike it's corresponding armor, the Volcanic Plate Shield does not have Elemental defense, but that is because it has resistance to fire as a tradeoff, making it very viable for Vanaduke. If it had Elemental added, it would become overpowered (due to the ridiculously long normal damage defense) and out of line with the Ironmight Plate Shield.

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 10:52

Toeni-Sevan

What about an increase in defence?

I guess I must have worded things really badly in the last post and will edit them to better reflect my suggestion.
I feel that the Ability decreases would be justified IF the defense the set gave would allow a knight to tank hits.

I was completely freaking wrong on what I said here:
"I would also like to give the normal Plate Line Pierce defense, it's shield has it, why not the armor?"
I meant to say "If the 5* Shield and Armor has it, why not the rest of the line.

(I am also unsure if you, Hex, meant to say a Charge Time Increase rather than a Charge Time Reduction.)

I understand the coding of the game's 1 HP left threshold is based on the percentage of health you have left proportional to your max health, but if these sets were to take hits well, I feel that would not be an issue.

So to try and continue what my previous post did not deliver: I wanted the set not only to have more health, but defenses worth the decrease in attacking and moving capabilities and fulfill a role that the plate armor should project.

To refute politely as you have done for me
-The penalties mentioned for the Plate armor would now be justified if they included pierce defense and an overall buff to damage reduction.
-The Movement Decrease Medium per piece on the Ancient Set sounds wicked slow, I have no idea just how slow that would be and cannot say anything for or against, but also cannot leave it without commenting on how drastic it seems in concept.

I would like to know more on what you feel regarding the Third and Fourth excerpt of my previous post.

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 12:18

Hexzyle

(I am also unsure if you,

(I am also unsure if you, Hex, meant to say a Charge Time Increase rather than a Charge Time Reduction.)

I do mean Charge Time Reduction, it would fit the Plate Mail well (Boosted Armor) as well as giving it a well needed buff.

I'm talking about if you have a large amount of max health, you'll end up dying to more attacks without getting your Last Stand. Example: Wearing 2 Star armor and a typical FSC Vitapod, you can get a Last Stand for all attacks except Flame Puppy streams and Mask Shadow Bullets in a FSC run: Without a Vitapod you get your Last Stand for both. In Ancient Plate Mail with a Vitapod, you don't get a Last Stand even against the lowly Spike Trap.

-The penalties mentioned for the Plate armor would now be justified if they included pierce defense and an overall buff to damage reduction.

So instead of removing the ASD, you want to add Pierce Defense to Spiral, Boosted, and Heavy Plate Mail to make Ironmight the "default" line? Sounds alright.

-The Movement Decrease Medium per piece on the Ancient Set sounds wicked slow, I have no idea just how slow that would be and cannot say anything for or against, but also cannot leave it without commenting on how drastic it seems in concept.

The MSD: Medium total for the Ancient Plate is really not that noticable at first. However, the ASD: Medium is. Due to the way Movement Speed alterations work, moving with a charged weapon with MSD: Medium is barely noticable, while moving with a charged weapon with MSI: Medium is.
I can assure you it isn't as drastic as you'd think.

I would like to know more on what you feel regarding the Third and Fourth excerpt of my previous post.
-I would also like there to be an increase in damage reduction across the sets further justify the ability penalties. The main idea is that the set would make a knight more oriented to take hits.

The amount of damage Plate Mail can tank is already impressive. Possibly another bar, I guess, would help make a Non-UV'd piece more noticable, however I have to check over how badly unbalanced one is with Max defense UVs (UVs become exponentially more effective the higher the default defense value of an armor is)

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 12:33

Zeddy

Early plate armours do not need specialised defence because the early game does not require specialised defence. It's only at T3 that normal defence becomes less useful on its own., and as such that's where the armours gets its special additions.

That list is a bit long, by the way. Melee attacks do half normal, half special in general. Trojans do pure normal, and so do lichens and blast cubes. Gremin knockers do pure elemental for some reason.

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 14:33

Toeni-Sevan

About the CTR

-Would it be universal or something such as Swords?

-I understand your point about the presence of normal defense Zeddy, how do you feel about the other proposed changes?

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Should the Plate Armor line be more like the Ancient Set?