Spiral Knights - Shields that perhaps need reworks

Shields that perhaps need reworks

16 replies [Last post]

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 07:14

Th-Urret

So there are are quite a few shields in spiral knights, but some will probably never get used because they are simply worse than others.

Piercing Shields:

Aegis vs Barbarous thorn shield vs Ironmight vs Royal Jelly.

All are probably outshined (for swordsmen) by the BTS providing good defence and a very enticing damage bonus.

Ironmight has large very good normal defence and ok pierce, with stun resist so good overall. Royal jelly perhaps being overshadowed by this with more piercing but a lot less normal defence, with the addition of sleep defence, might become more useful if sloombargos ever return but currently not so good. Out of them all aegis has no status resist and is considered inferior in some way to all of these.

There are the shadow shields:

Dread skelly vs Crest of Almire

Here, both are good shields providing either stronger shadow defence or a balance of both normal and shadow with useful resistances, arguably CoA providing the more useful but both good shields none the less.

We have the general purpose shields:

Volcanic Plate vs Omega shell vs Ancient Plate

As discussed before (in other threads I mean) some do better in certain areas than others and so comes out reasonably balanced, all being able to do the same thing being OK everywhere, and doing especially well in t1/t2. Volcanic plate's fire resistance is especially useful for use in FSC.

Perk Shields:

Barbarous thorn shield vs Swiftstrike vs Scarlet

Here, scarlet is simply outdone, offering little bonus compared to the other two and so useless in tier 3. Arguably swiftstrike provides too much bonus for the defence it provides but it does require skill to use in areas of danger.

Elemental Shields:

Grey Owlite vs Heater shield

Grey owlite provides good elemental defence, ok normal defence but most importantly protects from 2 of the most prominent statuses that elemental monsters deal that are arguably most dangerous. Heater shield has ok elemental defence and good normal defence, but provides a single status defence to freeze which makes it very situational. Simply outclassed by the owlite.

Dragon Scale Shield: Comes into it's own league in C42 mission and has fire resist as well as elemental, making it viable in FSC. Plus it looks amazing. Without any normal defence, however, it is rather useless most places.

So shields that probably need to be reworked to either make them more viable or less ideal for everything: swiftstrike buckler, Barbarous thorn shield, scarlet shield, aegis, heater shield, and royal jelly shield.

Anyone else have views on this?

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 10:11

Bopp

agree

I haven't read your comments in detail, but I agree with the general idea that the shields could use some balancing.

You point out that Dragon Scale is good in C42 (no argument there), but you fail to point out that it's terrible elsewhere.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 10:24

Zeddy

Aegis is garbage. Give it a little status resist against all statuses to really make it all-around.

Give Royal Jelly poison resist in addition to stun.

Crest of Almire is slightly OP. Give it less shadow defence so it's balanced with other shields.

Swiftstrike's ASI bonus should be lowered to 2, the shield should be made 1* so it's the shield equivalent of Cyclops cap and Fencing Jacket. The last thing we need is more sources of +6 health, so nerfing Swiftie is the only option.

Remove BTS' normal defence.

Give Heater shield fire resist in addition to freeze. Makes sense with the name, even if there's an overlap with Owlite.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 11:45

Th-Urret

Thanks for pointing that out bopp and those suggestions seem valid and well thought out zeddy. Thanks for the replies.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 12:28

Arkate

"especially useful for use"

Lol.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 14:40

Fehzor

It'd be nice if royal jelly were to have ice+shock resistance. That would be the best possible thing, as then we'd have dragon/royal jelly for specific use piercing shields...

Basically, if a shield resists a status+specialized damage, that shield is a good thing to craft. If it resists no status, it doesn't work well anywhere unless it has health to make up for it (omega shell)... But these are rather subtle things. Most shields are about the same in terms of resistances.

@Zeddy

CoA isn't so OP compared to things like BTS... I'd keep it the way it is simply because its a defensive item that's actually worth having...

I'd give royal jelly ice+shock resist (but no stun/sleep) like I said above... or make a new one resembling the ice cream set to give ice resistance to. Poison is good, but we've already got a piercing+poison shield.

Swiftstrike is fine because it lacks health and status resistance, making it eternally fragile everywhere, regardless of what UV you give it. Making it weaker wouldn't do much; removing a level of ASI would lessen the worth of the item. I'd also like to see BTS have no piercing defense whatsoever. That'd put it on par with swiftstrike.

I'd agree with you entirely on Aegis though. And get rid of the piercing from that set. Makes no sense.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 14:44

Krakob

If Aegis would have its piercing removed and get all statuses, I'm wondering how it would compare to Omega Shell, though. One would rarely be better than the other and I'm guessing Aegis would gain the upper hand due to the statuses but if not, Omega Shell would be plain better.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 17:27

Zeddy

@Fehzor

I must insist on Swiftstrike. It's able to block a hit in T3 and it shouldn't be. Too often you find yourself in a situation where you need to block a single hit or you're taking so many hits your shield's going to break either way. And for something you don't even need to bother about heating to 5*, the bonus is simply too powerful no matter which way you slice it.

I'm going to pose this question. If Swiftstrike was a 1* shield that gave +2 ASI, would you still use it?

A lot of people would answer yes. Probably even you. They'd complain about the downgrade, but swordsmen would maybe switch to BTS and gunslingers would still be using it.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 18:09

Fehzor

Probably not for anything serious, no. I'd use it to goof around in, but I certainly wouldn't be bringing it to FSC to fight vanaduke (with a party that legitimately needs help) anytime soon. Though it'd be hardly any weaker with that nerf, it still represents a playstyle of its own and comes at the heavy cost of your shield... you can get ASI from anything, but you only have the potential to carry one shield.

ASI just isn't of that much benefit unless you can get a lot of it quickly.

A better option would be to make it a 1* item that gave CTR med (bombs only)+asi high (all). Then, it'd be even more frail, and would support bombers too. (CTR med/ASI high are halfway towards the max, as natural CTR is a thing)

But really I think its fine the way it is. Its usable, but a defensive shield is almost always preferable until content is nearly mastered to some degree.

Sat, 11/09/2013 - 18:32

Midnight-Dj

;_;

"Aegis is garbage."-Zeddy

Man, that hurt my feeling. Aegis was my first end game shield (call me noob all you want, but I made it pre-ele patch. So you have to put the high Cost of CEs into consideration. And I just wanted a jack of all trade shield.) The initial reason why I made it is due to the fact I wanna save the recipe money for weapons and what not. Aegis, as a general purpose shield, has one particular niche that not many shield can fulfil, and that is spike floor survival. Aegis can survive longer on an activated Spike floor than any other non piercing shield out there. BTS is really never my thing since I am not a swordie.

If anyone wanna rework Aegis, it better be a buff, coz I luv the shield and noone is gonna convince me otherwise.

Sun, 11/10/2013 - 00:29

#10

Thinslayer

@Midnight-Dj

I'm sorry to say that the Aegis really is garbage. Its only saving grace is its low cost, which makes it cheap garbage. Ironmight has way more normal defense than Aegis has piercing, and it has stun resistance, making it much more useful against most sources of normal damage. The Royal Jelly shield has worse normal defense, but since it also has stun resistance, it's automatically better than Aegis, which has no such resistance. The Barbarous Thorn Shield has worse defenses in both respects, but its sword damage bonus is so much more useful and the defense reduction so unnoticeable that the BTS is far and away the better shield.

And while Omega Shell has the same normal defense but no piercing, it has more health (~20%, I hear), making it better than Aegis for general-purpose usage.

So yeah, Aegis will still serve you pretty well, but that doesn't make it any less garbage. If I were you, I'd shell out the extra 25kcr to get the Heater Shield recipe, because even the Heater Shield is way better than Aegis.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 14:07

#11

Oozsne

@Thinslayer

BUT it looks cool. Can't deny that.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 18:12

#12

Orbwanter

Give Heater shield fire resist in addition to freeze. Makes sense with the name, even if there's an overlap with Owlite.

Counterpoint: give it stun resist and I'll trip over my fool self rushing to get one.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 21:10

#13

Glacies

Status Resist should really just be named "Status Immunity" on the shield's tooltip.

These are basically the raw-stats of the Shields:

Aegis
+15 Normal Defense
+14 Piercing Defense

Ancient Plate Shield
+28 Normal Defense
Stun Immunity

Barbarous Thorn Shield
+14 Normal Defense
+12 Piercing Defense
Damage Bonus Swords: Medium

Crest of Almire
+14 Normal Defense
+14 Shadow Defense
Fire Immunity
Shock Immunity

Dragon Scale Shield
+14 Piercing Defense
+14 Elemental Defense
Fire Immunity
Poison Immunity

Dread Skelly Shield
+12 Normal Defense
+15 Shadow Defense
Poison Immunity
Freeze Immunity

Grey Owlite Shield
+12 Normal Defense
+15 Elemental Defense
Fire Immunity
Shock Immunity

Heater Shield
+14 Normal Defense
+12 Elemental Defense
Freeze Immunity

Ironmight Plate Shield
+22 Normal Defense
+12 Piercing Defense
Stun Immunity

Omega Shell
+14 Normal Defense
+20% Health

Royal Jelly Shield
+12 Normal Defense
+15 Piercing Defense
Stun Immunity
Sleep Immunity

Swiftstrike Buckler
+4 Normal Defense
+Attack Speed Increase: High

Volcanic Plate Shield
+28 Normal Defense
Stun Immunity
Fire Immunity

And to add, Dragon Scale Shield isn't actually that worthless, most enemies on Elite inflict specialized damage only. Meaning that a Dragon Scale Shield will do just as well as an Ironmight Plate Shield or even Aegis against a Wolver/Alpha Wolver on Elite.

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 07:24

#14

Bopp

to clarify

To clarify, the numbers (such as +12 normal on Royal Jelly) come from measuring the displayed statistic bar?

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 12:21

#15

Glacies

Yes.

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 13:01

#16

Momofuku

Shield changes I would like

Shield changes I would like to see overall: broader variety of buffs with a reduction in buffs of the current ones (BTS/swiftstrike). There's oddly nothing "inbetween" -- you either get 0 buff or +2 dmg/+3 asi.

- BTS nerfed to Sword damage +1
- Swiftstrike nerfed to ASI +2 - I approve of

- Royal Jelly Shield > Gun DMG +1
- Dread Skelly Shield > Bomb DMG +1

- Crest of Almire > Sword ASI +2
- Heater Shield > Gun ASI +2

- Scarlet shield > Bomb CTR +2 (would be nice to have access to bomb ctr buffs earlier on in t2, since armor sets only give +2)
- Dragon Scale Shield > Sword CTR +2 (wouldn't it be nice to have more sources of sword CTR other than chaos and trinket?)
- Grey Owlite Shield > Gun CTR +2
- Aegis status resist medium all - I approve of as well

Tankier shields I would like to see more resists with ASI/MSI penalties:

- Volcanic Plate Shield add +12 Elem defense, 20% more HP (Omega Shield HP), Curse immunity, MSI reduction med, ASI reduction med
- Ironmight Plate Shield add 20% more HP, Freeze immunity, Poison immunity, MSI reduction med, ASI reduction med
- Ancient Plate Shield add +12 Shadow defense, 20% more HP, Shock immunity, Freeze immunity, MSI reduction med, ASI reduction med

- Omega Shield - I like to think of this as the best shield of shields, slap on MSI reduction med and ASI reduction med, but takes 0 damage from the very first hit the shield takes at full HP with the same cooldown duration as shield bumping

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Shields that perhaps need reworks