First off, I stopped playing years ago. I have no idea how to do anything. I am not familiar with the new HUD; and I'm on vacation until tomorrow.
So lets give you some background on me. My in game name is Redcoder. Mainly 4* items, played Vanaduke a few times, liked the Jelly King. I usually bring out my Avenger and one of my guns. Check out my inventory here>> http://steamcommunity.com/id/redtail3/inventory#99900 << So I'm curious what I should do with my Spiral Knights 'career'. Look at my weapons, and tell me what armor I should get and stuff. Years ago, I decided to get a Wyvern Scale Shield, and know I need a Swiftstrike now. (I think I was stupid back then, but oh well.) So I have the 4* Sunset Armor, Cap, and all that good stuff.
Basically, give me advice. And stuff. Whatever you want to tell me. Or inform me.
Wolver-line for Swords,
Gunslinger-line for Guns
and Spiral Demo-line for Bombs.
Pretty basic.
You've also got your Chaos set (5* Magic set) which provide a Charge time reduction and Damage Bonus to all 3 weapon types at the expense of negative resistances to pretty much everything, except stun.
Nowadays Brandishes are pretty popular because of their ease of use and crowd control capabilities, so I'd invest in one of those. You have Shock (PvP reward only) Fire, Ice and Shadow. Shadow does no statuses.
If you intend on doing Vanaduke make sure you have a Strike or a Blitz Needle and get some practise in using it properly.
We have missions now, so you'll have to rise through the ranks to unlock access to the "King of Ashes" mission which features all of Firestorm Citadel, and is literally one of the final missions in the game at Rank 9-4. People who completed the missions just play that over and over without using the Arcade for easy cash.
And finally the Shieldbearer Guide for some advanced techniques on using a shield to aid in combat.
You could do what I did and build a specific Loadout to combat each monster type (One for dealing with Fiends, another for dealing with Beasts, another for Undead etc) so you'll need one of each Elemental, Piercing and Shadow armours, as well as Elemental Piercing and Shadow weapons.