Spiral Knights - [FSC] Dread Skelly Shield vs Grey Owlite Shield

[FSC] Dread Skelly Shield vs Grey Owlite Shield

6 replies [Last post]

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 05:50

Metagenic

I need to know which shield is better for Firestorm Citadel.

Grey Owlite: elemental, fire, shock resistances. It's great for Vanaduke's throne room (he deals elemental damage) and has a useful fire resistance, but otherwise it has crappy protection against nearly everything else in FSC - zombies and trojans deal shadow damage.

Dread Skelly: shadow, poison, freeze resistances. Naturally, it's great for the stratum and protects well against zombies and trojans, but it probably doesn't do much against the duke and its status resistances are all wrong.

Just curious, which one should I get first if I'm going to be farming FSC for the next few months?

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 06:05

Darkbrady

Gray Owl is pretty popular.

Gray Owl is pretty popular. It doesn't have Shadow, but the health is high, so still tanks the undead pretty well, and the fire resistance helps *everywhere*, especially in Vana; can't imagine tryin' to shield the floor landin' w/o fire res.

Don't have a Dread Skelly myself yet so I cannae compare, but when I do craft it, I will be testing this myself, unless you get a definitive answer soon.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 07:56

Juances

Trojans deal full normal. Zombie slap deal half shadow but they are slow. There's more fire than shadow. There's plenty of elemental between traps and turrets. Trojan charge can deal shock. Zombie's breath does fire not shadow.

You dont need skelly. Owlite is better.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 08:31

Ranzoh

I"ve tried out the Dread

I"ve tried out the Dread Skelly Shield and it hasn't given me that much protection from Slags. I noticed that the Crest of Almire took a few hits from Slags before it weakened to orange, but with the Dread Skelly it actually only took one(or possibly two I forget). Not to mention it doesn't have a great normal defense against the Trojans and Vana. But however it's funny that the normal looks the same as the Grey Owlite Shield, except that I've taken 2 hits before it turned orange from the ones that did mostly normal damage in the FSC.

I"ve heard Shadow defense was the weakest in lockdown specifically, judging by what one says he can do with his Sentenza. But then one person told that Elemental was the weakest of the 4 status defenses if I recall, I guess people will have different experiences. and Shadow defense does seem a little weaker than the others even in PVE against Fiends, etc. The Crest of Almire must have a higher Shadow Defense than what the bar shows, but what do I know without any real numbers. I wish we could dig up through the graveyard posts to find it, but we'd have to be using a lot of our efforts to do so.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 08:59

Bluescreenofdeath

I have both. Though I have

I have both. Though I have not actually taken my Dread Skelly Shield into FSC, I have pretty extensively compared the 2 in arenas and elsewhere. The amount of Normal protection offered by both the Grey Owlite and Dread Skelly shields feels identical. Number of hits is hard to compare because to compare accurately you need the time between hits to be consistent. This just isn't going to happen for measuring monster hits. One way you could compare the 2 would be to stand on spikes in T1 where spikes do Normal damage & count the number of hits till failure. Both of mine are fully heated & I'll give this a shot later tonight in the ATH, but I would bet money that they will be the same. I guess Piercing spikes in stratum 6 would be a decent way to compare also because neither shield has Piercing protection, but this still would not be ideal & it would take 2 runs to do.

Personally I would not bother with a Shadow shield for FSC, because Zombies are the source of Shadow damage and they were easy to deal with even before the last Nerf. The Crest of Almire is the shield most perfectly tuned to handle FSC zombies (again though, by the time you run FSC enough to earn one Zombies probably will not be a problem for you). The Grey Owlite Shield is what I would recommend to new knights just venturing into FSC (I feel it is the best all around FSC shield). The Volcanic Plate Shield is arguably just as good or better a choice for FSC. The VPS is the best tuned shield to take Slag Guard and Vana mace hits.

Skelly is a great shield for clockworks Fiend/Undead work. The way that gate is usually pushed it would help out in getting though stratum 5 before FSC, but I don't see any reason to take it into FSC. Another bonus to Grey over VPS is the Grey is also great for ICMF. Personally I switch between Grey Owlite Shield, BTS, Dread Skelly Shield, and Swiftestrike Buckler depending on what I am doing. I started out running FSC with the Wise Owlite, upgraded to Grey Owlite, now I just use the BTS because I like the damage buff & it provides enough protection for me.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 09:00

Juances

Crest of Almire has the fire

Crest of Almire has the fire resist maybe reducing the power of the fire zombies even more.
Need to try against neutral zombies to see if the difference is big enough.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 11:36

Nicoya-Kitty

I would honestly take my GoS

I would honestly take my GoS over a CoA, never mind a Dread Skelly. Especially since the nerf I almost never need to shield zombie swipes.

Generally my shield sees the most use from:

1: Tanking trolljan hits. A volcanic plate would do better here, but I'm still ragecrafting for a good UV
2: Vana Mask Phases: elemental/normal+fire I think
3: Vana mace, debris: normal+fire/stun, maybe elemental too? Can't remember.
4: Shield-bumping shadow fire to grab capsules or mats that drop inside: elemental+fire
5: Fire traps and slag breath: elemental/fire and pure fire respectively

If I get swiped by a zombie, it's usually because I've just been stunned after a trolljan broke my shield, so the shield type at that point becomes irrelevant.

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[FSC] Dread Skelly Shield vs Grey Owlite Shield