The following may not be 100% accurate. On the 70% chance it isn't, I would appreciate if you correct me.

We all know Spiral knights has terribly balanced gear, right? In Lockdown, the masses don't have a choice. It's use the clone setups or be dead. But I'm not here to talk about Lockdown. These 'clone' items quite literally 90% of players use give medium bonuses. *out of Low, Medium, High, Very high, Ultra, Maximum* (Skolver, Vog, Snarbolax, Shadowsun, Nameless, Justifier, Chaos, Mad bomber, Volcanic, etc.) So with the limited knowledge in my tiny brain I remember someone telling me each Low damage bonus = 4% of an enemies defense is removed. Or something. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. So what if we buff every enemy's defense by 4% and add a new damage bonus in the mix? For instance Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very high, Ultra, Maximum. It doesn't matter what it's called or how high of a bonus it is, just that it exists. With this, we could change the 'clone' sets into, dare I say, balanced sets. For example, giving Wolver a Very Low bonus, and giving Skolver a Low bonus. Chaos would be similar. The Salamander and other sets would retain their current bonuses, making them somewhat usable. Plate sets would give a Very Low deduction to speed, and Mercurial would give a Very Low bonus to speed. Bombastic would be given a damage bonus of Medium. Make this change to every armor and helmet, making the game even a slight bit more balanced. That's the end of my suggestion. I am now going to take a long break to cool off my tiny, overheated brain. Feel free to mock my horrible suggestion while I recuperate.

Edit: ASI would simply be given a 4% higher attack speed in the Maximum! category. Again, probably a horrible suggestion by me, but my brain still hasn't recovered.