Spiral Knights - Changes to the Chroma line

Changes to the Chroma line

24 replies [Last post]

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 04:06

Anzeis

The designs of the Chroma armors is one of the best but they don't offer anything really worth crafting them,
more than that, there's no synergy between their abilities and their defenses, except for the deadly Virulisk suit,
they all have a bonus damage against slimes but they don't protect against piercing damage.

I haven't seen more than 10 people wearing a 5* Chroma armor in all the time I have been playing SK,
those who wear them, have them equipped in their costume slots.

In SK, the salamanders are known to become invisible, but the problem is that there's a pet with a skill that does that already,
salamanders are incredibly fast in real life, so a movement speed bonus would fit them nicely.

What do you think?

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 09:27

Orangeo

That'd be nice

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 11:35

Holy-Nightmare

All the specialist gear needs

All the specialist gear needs some extra buff

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 12:35

Orangeo

All the specialist gear

All the specialist gear definitely needs a buff, though I thought OP was suggesting we replace the slime bonus (at least on volcanic) with MSI rather than plain buffing, making the chroma line no-longer "specialist" since MSI works with any weapons in any environment. Unless of course you considered that change the "buff" it needs. Again though, I'd absolutely love to see Dragon and Angelic get buffed (they make a nice combo) and as it stands chroma needs a buff unless it gets changed.

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 14:02

Fangel

Chroma does need a buff

Chroma line is the only specialist line that is bad at being a specialist in 2 of the 3 paths it can take. In all angelic lines the damage bonus matches the defense (until the fallen break-off point, however that can be viewed as an anti-undead or "FSC" gear as fiends are not a common enemy there), and drake lines always have a match (it curves off to an undead bonus and swaps out elemental resistance for shadow resistance on silvermail - as it should).

Chroma needs to remain a specialist line, and MSI isn't a specialist thing. Let's take a look at the line real quick:

It deals bonus damage against slimes.
It has poison and fire resist variants
It also has elemental and piercing resist variants

The odd one out here is the damage resist variants, so what could happen instead?
The easiest method is to just stick piercing on salamanders and call it a day, but we could do more. How about on arcane we replace the damage against beast bonus with either a low weapon bonus? Sword damage low is already on heavenly, so scrap that. Gun damage could work, or bomb CTR even. This makes the set about as viable as other Shadow Lair gears.
But what about normal salamander?
Well it specializes in killing fire slimes. AKA, oilers. If anything it should have an ability to extinguish oilers who on are fire, but if we don't want abilities then just switching elemental to piercing damage is good enough.

Sat, 01/03/2015 - 22:07

Orangeo

Call me cynical, but I'm

Call me cynical, but I'm fairly certain the Valkyrie/Fallen/Dragon pieces were meant to be a set.

If you use Valkyrie and Dragon with omega shell (from the drake line, like dragon), you get:

-Arguably the most well rounded shield in the game
-All four defenses
-Status weaknesses that cancel out
-Damage bonus vs both monsters weak to piercing (rounding out a user with one shadow and one elemental weapon)

Of course, Divine Viel + Sklover with Grey Owl or VPS is arguably more powerful even though it's not as perfectly balanced. Back to the specialist armor though; if you also make a Fallen piece to cover/switch out with Valkyrie in PvP, you get:

-Two penalties that don't hurt you in PvP (No fiends/faust didn't exist when this was made I believe)
-General weapon bonus
-Color-coordinated costume outside PvP and color-coordinated in PvP

They aren't made to be used on their own, as having an anti-fiend part with curse resistance (an undead/faust exclusive status; you'd never find it or use a faust on a fiend level) makes no sense, etc. In other words, they aren't just "specialist gear" but rather "mix and match gear."

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I don't see why you would want Salamander armor to remain specialist though, it makes absolutely zero sense for chromas to be effective against jellies. Beasts deal damage resisted by jellies, and are weak to the damage jellies use. They're literally the worst possible monster in the game to attack a jelly with. Nearly none would miss a slime bonus; while it's useful since you probably won't carry shadow weapons into FSC against mainly undead and feind enemies, only two of the citadel levels actually have oilers. Lots of people would enjoy some easily obtainable MSI armor with FSC capabilities.

The only problem is that trying to give them low MSI at 4* then high at 5* might make some of the harder to obtain MSI gear look inferior (although chaos would still be better). If you don't want to simply give both the 4 and 5* low, you could simply make it a 5* only item made out of virlisk (and subsequently making arcane's recipe use virlisk).

However that's still an issue; given OOO's capabilities during the shard bomb update, they'd probably just delete 4* salamanders and toss in some variant ticket as compensation. Personally, if they deleted my ironic curse-max salamander back before I'd made it into Arcane with prismatic dragon wings, I'd have been extraordinarily angry. It might be better to just make both 4 and 5* salamanders have low MSI unless OOO can somehow turn all 4* salamanders into 4* virlisks without removing UV's.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 15:44

Blandaxt

hmmm

@Orangeo: I feel only the Volcanic Salamander Suit needs to be changed and the other Deadly Virulisk Suit should stay the same. You are totally right that beast attacking slime according to monster damage types is just preposterous and crazy tactics. But sense they have already been put together that way, i do not see much of a harm for virulisk to have that specialist type besides not having any positives in pvp. I feel Volcanic is the one with the broken stats that have you matching an elemental defense gear towards a piercing damage monster. That is preposterous and changing that to low msi would be a good change in my book. well that is all i have to say. :)

Sun, 01/04/2015 - 18:52

Orangeo

I was only suggesting

I was only suggesting changing the salamander line. I mentioned making it 5* only, meaning the 4* virlisk gear would become the piece used in making all three 5* chroma armors, but I don't intend to alter virlisk at all.

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 11:24

Almond-Riddle

The Deadly Virulisk is fine

The Deadly Virulisk is fine in my opinion. But you're right in that the salamander sets could use some tweaking.

Salamanders aren't especially fast, they move pretty slow actually, so MSI would be pointless. And sets that give out MSI are supposed to be one of a kind and/or super rare so I don't think the salamanders should give and MSI boost.

I'd rather agree with Orangeo, that Salamanders should give some kinda weapon bonus like Heavenly Iron. And what would go perfect with Salamanders? Handgun bonuses. Because that's what Salamanders do, they shoot at knights with their burning spit. So I feel that something like Beast low and Handgun damage low would work for the Salmander line. It also works as a specialty because Salamanders don't dodge handgun bullets!

As for Arcane Salamander. I think it should go with a similar route as the Fallen set. Scrap both the damage bonuses and slap on a universal damage bonus. It's outclassed by Chaos and BK for the damage, but it diferentiates from them in that it has some actual defensive capability. I also think it's fine to have a universal bonus without a penalty- it IS a shadow lair armor afterall, it has the RIGHT to be special.

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 13:46

Vohtarak-Forum

im vohtarak, call me by that name

If you think MSI doesn't make sense, look at the torto shields, they're SHIELDS with debuffs, AND tortodrones are anything but slow

Wed, 01/07/2015 - 10:38

#10

Loyalforces

Das Speed.

I think that the... wait is my text coming out red?... No, its just the forum.

I that the Chroma line shud get a speed boost because, like, thers no armor that get speed boost except fur da Black Kat armors and the Mercurial demo suit, which is nice, but to get the Black Kat stuffz ya need to be playing during the Kataklysmic Confrontation, and ive never been able to play during that so I cant get that line and the roarmulus twins take FOREVER to complete a single time plus they inflict shock which is pretty nasty and I want to slap a robot each time I get it, forcing me to restart forever... hehehe, that's all one sentence. :3

Wed, 01/07/2015 - 12:17

#11

Holy-Nightmare

.....

"thers no armor that get speed boost except fur da Black Kat armors and the Mercurial demo suit"

*cough*

Wed, 01/07/2015 - 12:34

#12

Vohtarak-Forum

im vohtarak, call me by that name

The fact that its your avatar makes it even funnier that loyal forgot
There's a post right near the top with it

Wed, 01/07/2015 - 17:01

#13

Loyalforces

Don't judje mee, I evah latnem sessenlli.

Wed, 01/07/2015 - 17:34

#14

Fangel

Correction:

Mercurial Demo is a shadow lair reward. Mercurial itself is a pierce and shock resistant set that comes from boss rewards, but also has its 4* on the supply depot for some reason. Black kat set is just a grindy eventy overpowered set.

Thu, 01/08/2015 - 04:49

#15

Almond-Riddle

@Vohtarak: the Tortoshields

@Vohtarak: the Tortoshields give MSD because they're heavy. I'm not sure about you, but I don't think the knights are as strong as the Tortodrone.

Thu, 01/08/2015 - 05:21

#16

Vohtarak-Forum

im vohtarak, call me by that name

Then explain the plate shields, those are the same size

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:56

#17

Orangeo

I think the MSI decrease is

I think the MSI decrease is built in to influence players to use their weapons to move, given how the torto shield changes your bash and the gun makes you lunge or leap back. The travel speed on the torto's isn't great aside from their leaps.

Though yeah, I would like MSI on the salamander line.

"I'd rather agree with Orangeo, that Salamanders should give some kinda weapon bonus like Heavenly Iron. "

...I said MSI? I pointed out that it might mess with the 4*, but yeah, MSI would be nice. A gunner bonus would be OK, but a beast bonus would be silly on a non-piercing piece that buffs the weapon half of the beast family dodges constantly. I'm pretty sure Firefly sentinel would get chosen over a beast/gunner salamander any day. Or if you really just don't like beasts, there's a gunner set for that too, with piercing defense to boot.

Thu, 01/08/2015 - 13:58

#18

Fangel

Looks like they accidentally a name

I mentioned the damage similarity to heavenly iron, maybe they just read your post last.

But as I see it, Salamander is still a specialist line. Making it special against a certain enemy type but hold their own elsewhere (such as a damage boost for a certain weapon type, or maybe a universal bonus like CTR?) would make the line equal to heavenly iron - basically armor that is extremely specialized but does well where it needs to (for example, it would work great as a fiend-bonus damage in FSC while maintaining a sword bonus). Also helpful if you're trying to min-max with a certain resistance. As of right now there's no piercing resistant armor that specializes in CTR(There's gun CTR but gunner gear), so it might fill that role.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 11:03

#19

Loyalforces

.....................................................the ARMORZ.

>Orangeo> 'A GUNNER BONUS would be OK, but a beast bonus would be silly on a non-piercing piece that buffs the weapon half of the beast family dodges constantly.'

...

'A GUNNER BONUS would be OK...'

...................

'GUNNER BONUS...'

....................................................

.................................................................................

Somebody obviously didn't see the gunner update.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 18:18

#20

Orangeo

I said "OK" not "good." I'm

I said "OK" not "good." I'm sure a few people would go for a gunner salamander since it dosen't require a 1* or 2* item and because noone likes the shock weakness fire gunner armor has. But yeah, I CLEARLY forgot about the gunner update. It's not like that HALF of that paragraph I wrote MENTIONED THE GUNNER UPDATE OR ANYTHING:

"I'm pretty sure Firefly sentinel would get chosen over a beast/gunner salamander any day. Or if you really just don't like beasts, there's a gunner set for that too, with piercing defense to boot."

But no, clearly I AM THE ONE who doesn't notice the obvious.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:15

#21

Keepscaite

@Vohtarak: The plate shields

@Vohtarak: The plate shields are relatively flat, albeit a little thick. The Tortodrone shields are BIG. They are FULL on the INSIDE with all sorts of metals and MECHANICAL PARTS. Which is WAAAAY heavier than a metal slab.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:55

#22

Orangeo

That also implies they're

That also implies they're partially hollow.

Clearly a solid piece of metal is less heavy than a partially hollow one

but hey, LETS TALK IN CAPS WHEN WE'VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT WE'RE DOING :^)

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 12:12

#23

Keepscaite

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

No, I really don't. I'm just making guesses and conjecture. I really don't know what else to say, the Tortoshields are thicker than the Plate shields, and the constant mechanics of the Tortos seems to me like it would make it more cumbersome to carry around.

Anyway, we're getting derailed. Back on topic.

So Salamander Set, are we really gonna add MSI to it? I really don't think armor that is so easily obtained from the Hall of Heroes should have a boost as rare as MSI. And as someone said, the gun bonus would just make it a poor man's Firefly Sentinel.

In that case, we might as well just scrap the beast damage boost entirely and change it to something else. Something like.. I dunno, Constructs? Melting the metallic constructs? That seems plausible.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 19:48

#24

Orangeo

I'd be a poor mans firefly

It'd be a poor man's firefly sentinel minus the treacherous shock resist, but at the same time I suppose that's still not reason enough to add yet another gunner set. As for MSI, I don't really think it should be so rare a bonus, but I suppose that MSI isn't necessarily the best thing to add.

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Changes to the Chroma line