Spiral Knights - How reliable is normal defense?

How reliable is normal defense?

10 replies [Last post]

Sun, 12/08/2013 - 14:14

Bamzalot

In any tier, against any monster. How good would normal defense be?

I ask this because I was looking through the forums and found some information about each separate monster and how they attack. I couldn't help but notice that even in tier 3, practically everything did at least split normal damage. Like, the Titan Plate set. Would that be able to defend you effectively against mostly everything? Or if anyone knows where a good source of information for this would be can you point me in the right direction?

If you could answer me directly, here is something I'd rather not hear. Please do not tell me to avoid defense and get something offensive like Skolver. I'm asking a defense question, not an offense question. Also it should be said I play very, VERY little Lockdown. So you may want to leave that out of the answer.

Sun, 12/08/2013 - 14:20

Sirius-Voltbreaker

Your Voltedge isn't safe.

The only thing I can think of are things like Trojans that deal heavy damage. Elemental and Shadow are your best bet. As for lockdown if you EVER decide to play,(I wouldn't if I were you) it is only good against Valiance. Valiance is a pretty OP gun, but it isn't worth it.

Sun, 12/08/2013 - 15:06

Midnight-Dj

Well here is how defense work in PvE, only a rough estimate but I think you get the image.

T1: 90% normal, 10% special damage
T2: 50% normal, 50% special damage
T3: 20% normal, 80% special damage

The reason why plate mail line exists is due to the presense of the following enemies in T3, who are actually specialized in dealing pure normal damage. These guys deals about 90% normal and 10% special damage.

-Vanaduck
-Vanaduck's goons in his third phase
-All of the deadnoughts, you will encounter these guys in LoA, GitM, one of the BK mission and UFSC
-Trolljans, by wearing full plate will reduce the stun duration from 5seconds to about 3 seconds
-mecha knights and almirian crusaders also do a significant amount of normal damage even at T3

So if you think you have problems dealing with any of the above, choose sets with high normal defense like the plate mail.

Sun, 12/08/2013 - 15:24

Bopp

four damage types

At the risk of telling you stuff you already know...

As Midnight-Dj said, monsters in shallow parts of the Clockworks deal primarily normal damage, and monsters in deeper parts deal primarily their preferred damage types. Monsters do less normal, and more special, damage when you play on Elite. However, there are some exceptions, particularly Vanaduke, as Midnight-Dj noted.

There are four kinds of damage. When a monster attacks you with normal damage, your normal armor subtracts off some of that normal damage. Your normal armor does not protect at all against piercing, elemental, or shadow damage. Normal armor is not "general purpose", and would not let you defend "effectively against mostly everything".

However, it is important to note that the practical difference between very strong damage defense and very weak damage defense is small. You can take more hits before dying, but not many more hits. (That's why people recommend offensive armors, but we're not talking about that here. :)

For purely defensive purposes, I find that appropriate status protections to be more important than appropriate damage protections. Shock is really crucial. Fire is important. Freeze protection is great, if you can get a whole lot of it, for immunity to weak sources of freeze.

Sun, 12/08/2013 - 18:15

Avihr

^ says it all

Normal damage is the most neglectable damage resistance ever, dont bother too much with it, as long as you have some special dmg resistance you're good enough, you should not care for normal defense unless you plan to stay at tier 1 forever.

what Bopp says is true, when i first started the game i chose to go Divine veil and Dragon scale + ironmight plate and volcanic plate (to compensate for the helmets lack of normal defense) so i could switch between defenses and they also had good cover for annoying statuses, but later on i found wolver furs and i rarely ever use anything else unless i feel nostalgic or something, no real reason to choose anything else over them ,unless you're a pure gunner or pure bomber.

i also saw some ppl going proto armor on LD and it took 2 swings of my GF to kill them, with their armor on they take about 3 hits to die (sometimes 4 but thats just when i don't go full DMG bonus and they have strong shadow defense)

oh and bopp u forgot to mention health bonuses (penta-heart pendants yay!) if you want to take extra hits before going down they're always a good choice.

Mon, 12/09/2013 - 04:28

Xtweeterx

/shout ZEDDYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Sun, 12/15/2013 - 00:31

Rex-Ias

Ironmight rocks

Sorry, but I have no idea what titan plate set is :(. I've only heard of ironmight,volcanic and ancient plate sets. Anyway, I've chosen ironmight (I hope you did too) because it has piercing defence along with max normal defence. Volcanic is good for vana while ancient just gives you high health (the most of any armour, actually).

Sun, 12/15/2013 - 09:03

Bamzalot

Ancient=Titan. My bad

@Rex-Ias: Sorry, I always called the Ancient Plate the Titan Plate. The description, what it's like to be used, and just the looks alone always made me think it was more Titan than Ancient. But they are both the same things. And yes, I have also chosen Ironmight Plate. It's one of my favorite sets! I want to get the Volcanic Plate Shield but I don't know if I'll get the full set for it.

Well, so far these posts have been answering my question nicely. So normal defense is reliable everywhere except for the majority of tier 3? And in there normal defense should only be used to the minimum amount. Status defense would be considered more important overall though. Health boosters can make up for any lost defenses.

Thank you everyone! If anyone else has more information on this subject I'd still gladly accept it.

Sun, 12/15/2013 - 10:55

Reednemer

Whats wrong with volcanic

Whats wrong with volcanic plate D:

Sun, 12/15/2013 - 12:46

Bamzalot

@Reednemer

There's nothing wrong with it. I just don't see any reason to get it. I rarely ever go into FSC and when I do I already use a specialized set made specifically for anything I encounter there. And when playing in a normal level, I already have loads of armor pieces with fire resistance so I don't need another.

Thu, 12/19/2013 - 20:04

#10

Parasthesia

In Lockdown, normal defense

In Lockdown, normal defense isn't intended for valiance, it's supposed to be a buffer against DA/GF/Brandish. Though I've found valiance to be super deadly so I wish I had normal maxs.

If you do a little experimenting, you'll find that the ancient plate pieces have almost twice the normal defense of volcanic/ironmight.

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How reliable is normal defense?