Spiral Knights - Suggested Modifier Changes for some Armors

Suggested Modifier Changes for some Armors

7 replies [Last post]

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 02:53

Qwez

I feel that a couple changes to the modifiers of certain armor sets is necessary. These armors include: Skelly, Jelly, Plate, Quicksilver, Chroma, Angelic, and Drake Scale(, and Cobalt .-.). No comment on "class" armors and Magic sets. Vitasuit needs something more special in my opinion, but I think I've covered that in some "Vitasuit Health Revive" thread of mine.

I use two new, but not necessarily original, modifiers in my suggested changes for these armors. They are Damage Received modifiers and Dash Time modifiers (specifically for one armor set). The Damage Received modifiers modify damage received by factors of 8%; maxes out at a 48% reduction in received damage. The Dash Time modifier reduces dash cooldown by 8% per level of DTR; maxes out at a 48% reduction in dash cooldown.

Jelly
2*: Slime Damage Received Reduction(DRR) low (per piece)
3*: Slime DRR low
4*: Slime DRR med
5*: Slime DRR high
edit{ 5* Ice Queen: Slime DRR med + universal DRR low }
48% reduction of Slime damage with 5* set

Skelly
2*: Undead DRR low
3*: Undead DRR low
4*: Undead DRR med
5*: Undead DRR high
48% reduction of Undead damage with 5* set

Plate (added onto all three sets)
2*: DRR low
3*: DRR low
4*: DRR med
5*: DRR high
48% universal reduction of received damage with 5* set

Quicksilver
3*: Dash Time Reduction(DTR) low
4*: DTR med
5*: DTR high
4 second dash cooldown reduction with 5* set

Chroma
3*: Slime DB low
4*: Slime DB med
5*: Slime DB high
5* Arcane: Slime & Beast DB med

Angelic
3*: Fiend DB low
4*: Fiend DB low + Fiend DRR low
5* Valkyrie: Fiend DB high
5* Fallen: Fiend DRR high
5* Heavenly: Fiend DB med + Fiend DRR med

Drake Scale
3*: Beast DB low
4*: Beast DB med
5*: Beast DB high
Silvermail
4*: Undead DB med
5*: Undead DB high

edit{ (I'm not sure what should be changed for cobalt)
Cobalt
2*:
3*:
4*: DRR low
5*: DRR low + CTR low
}
Thanks for reading. Plz comment belows. Gotta crank them bellows, fellahs. I'm tired .-.

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 03:17

Masterreeve

I make you black, bluue and red all over

Jelly:
All good. Makes the jelly set more defensive, and actually a viable option over Skolver.

Skelly:
Same as jelly; it actually gives players a reason to use it over Snarbi or Angelic.

Plate:
At first it sounded a bit overpowered since it gave universal, but as long as it keeps the speed reductions penalties it's ok.

Quicksilver:
Not to sure about this one. A full 4 second reduction might OP, but I'm not sure. Would have to do some tests on that, since I'm also making a suggestion relating to dash cool down reduction. But for now it's ok. I have to ask though, will this also apply to Mercurial Demo set, or not? (I assume not, since you said you were not bothering with the class sets).

Chroma:
Same as Jelly and Skelly, but in an offensive manor. And this actually makes the SL armor Arcane not completely useless.

Angelic:
The 4* looks funny, but I can't find any real reason not to do it that way. Valk is fine, but Heavenly looks too OP since it already has sword and fiend damage bonus, making it already the strongest out of the 3 5* versions. I'd suggest leaving it as is.
Question: Do you plan on keeping the universal ASI and fiend damage penalty on Fallen?

Drake Scale:
Same as Chroma, it looks all good. Silvermail as well.

I know I said they looked fine, but the damage bonus sets (Chroma, Angelic, Drake Scale) seem like they need a little testing. With high on both pieces, that makes damage max against that monster family, and I've never found myself lacking in damage whenever I wore any of those sets. Might not really need to be more powerful than the class lines, just possibly more defense against that monster line (as I said, not sure. Would need to do some testing to compare the sets.)

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 03:31

Fangel

Interesting proposition

I love making the plate sets more viable, and might even make them more popular in lockdown. How about the ancient set, could it be crazy and have a higher-than-max damage received reduction?

Class damage reductions could also be potential unique variants if done correctly. Having them work like other bonuses and stacking to +-6 would be great, but I believe that is what you were getting at, just adding the actual numerical value as well.

Also! Do you think the cobalt line should gain any sort of damage reduction? Or how about almirian crusader stuff? Because we would have a dodge time decrease, should we also have dodge time increases for certain armors as a balance?

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 12:31

Qwez

@Masterreeve
I believe the Mercurial Demo was given MSI low such that the player could charge a bomb early and still walk as fast as the rest of the team. It would counteract that purpose of the Mercurial Demo. Anyways, I'm not covering any suggested changes for the class armors.

Plate is the only armor that I decided should specifically add on the modifier. Heavenly Iron set would only have the Fiend attack and defensive bonuses. I have no clue why there was a split sword damage and fiend damage bonus... I made Arcane S. and Heavenly Iron have +1 modifier over their cousin armors, but couldn't find an appropriate combination of modifiers for Ice Queen that wouldn't be too much.

What if Ice Queen had: Slime DRR med + universal DRR low?
I think that this would be the most appropriate way to add modifiers with the current setup I have with regards to defensive armors.

@Fangel
Well Ancient already has the increased health... I don't believe it'd be fair if Ancient had >50% damage received reduction and its health bonus. If the health bonus was removed, the damage received reduction can go up.

Class damage reductions? I assume you're talking about the enemy families, not sword/bomb/gun classes. I believe there should be special modifiers that are inherent to specific weapons that make them stand out compared to unique variants. These defensive buffs should be unique and not variants that you can punch into your armor. What, you want people to just punch 48% damage reduction onto their armor sets? albeit for one specific family, but yeah...

Uhhh yeah I forgot about cobalt... derp :|
For cobalt, it has to be a generic modifier, of which I am not sure what would be best to put on, but I believe that defence stats of it should change to be more multi-purpose as was suggested in "Zeddy's and Fehzor's armor rebalance" thread some time ago. I'll go think about Cobalt for a bit and update the OP in a little bit.

Perhaps there can be greater Damage Received Reduction for Plate armors with a Dash Time Increase to limit movement... Or maybe if the Damage Received Reduction high per piece is considered too high, a DTI can be added.

Tue, 12/31/2013 - 00:48

Hexzyle

@Qwez

Yes, remove the health bonus from Ancient Plate: that leaves room for a 5 star Vitasuit.

I think leaving Cobalt how it is though, it's a cheap armor so it should remain with cheap stats: it's the only armor that actually has a valid reason for being underpowered.

Tue, 12/31/2013 - 01:40

Fehzor

You'd better not be getting rid of my MSI.

Tue, 12/31/2013 - 11:18

Qwez

Eh... I believe some armor should give a Dash Time Reduction... If not Mercurial, perhaps another armor set. I like MSI too, but I'm not so sure I need permanent MSI boosts when there's these 30s speed boosts.

Thu, 01/02/2014 - 06:23

Modicu

To me, the Cobalt Set seems stagnant and not preferred for reasons that it is easily outmatched by the other armor sets before it.

Yes, it is useful that it does provide a smaller bonus of normal defense than the more common armor sets seen in combat, but the armor itself is still outclassed by gear such as the Wolver Sets, Drake Scale Sets (I am well aware that the Cobalt Sets do not provide elemental defense, and shadow defense for the Silvermail line.), Chroma Sets, and even the Gunslinger Sets in some areas. I think the best way to improve the armor is to allow the gear to provide an additional health bonus. For example... The 2* Cobalt Armor will provide a +2 health bonus below level 5, and then a +3 health bonus at level 5. This carries through, and then the Azure Guardian Set will provide +6 health bars, allowing survivability to actually be possibly despite the underpowered condition of the armor. I do like the ideas of giving it a universal CTR, though. Anything that'll boost the overlooked gear's abilities is welcome.

Here comes a breakdown of what I mean, after being up for over 23 hours...

- The Wolver Sets offer freeze resistance, as well as impressive normal and piercing defenses, along with a damage bonus with blades. This is one of the many sets in the game that I've seen in use and crafted solely to even replace the gear that the players got for free via mission rewards. The Cobalt Armor itself is definitely a reliable set to strive for when taking on the Royal Jelly King, but after that... it begins to lose its effectiveness, especially in the later missions.

- The Drake Scale Sets provide well-rounded elemental and piercing defenses, as well as a damage bonus against beasts, and adequate resistances to poison and fire damage. This set is highly overlooked in game, but the output it is available to generate in combat is incredible, and it wipes the floor with what the Cobalt Gear can do. Referring to above, I know the Cobalt Sets do not provide elemental defense, but the point stands that this armor is definitely an interestingly-situational set of gear.

- The Chroma Sets offer the player two choices, and the 3* Chroma Set itself is where I'm going at. Prior to branching off to the other lines, the Chroma Set offers great normal and piercing defenses, as well as a slight resistance to fire and poison attacks, and a damage bonus against slimes. Upon branching out, save for the Salamander Line... the power of the newly-made Virulisk Set allows for a damage bonus against slimes, effective piercing and normal defense, as well as poison resistance.

- The Gunslinger Sets, albeit the 3* and 4*, and the 5* Justifier Set, are another set to consider in all this. An attack speed bonus to handguns only (until you hit the 5* milestone) may seem like it's not that special and "overpowered", but it's there. To me, this is the closest set that is nearly on-par with the Cobalt Gear; both of the sets (excluding the 5* Gunslinger Sets) have their perks, and a extremely limited set of them, as well. The Cobalt Gear provides more normal defense than the Gunslinger Gear, but the Gunslinger Set offers an attack speed bonus for handguns in exchange for a slightly lessened output in normal defense.

Let's not forgot the health bonuses across all these, as well!

A lot of the armor sets in the game do need to be reworked, as some of them may have been designed to be situational... but in the long run, when those situations arise... The gear often fails to suffice.

I'm still glancing through some of this and comparing/contrasting my own thoughts with what you wrote out. That was a good read, and I'm definitely favoring the family-based damage bonuses on some of those sets.

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Suggested Modifier Changes for some Armors