Spiral Knights - Gun or Sword for JK Runs

Gun or Sword for JK Runs

24 replies [Last post]

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 07:12

Furaiz

I have a Dusker Cap and Coat, Nightblade, (That jelly shield you buy with tokens?) and a normal brandish.

I'm planning on getting a Shockburst Brandish for the status effect, but could I be better off using a Status Gun, maybe shock,fire,poison or freeze guns?

I have noticed that having only 2 weapon slots filled with swords,(of the same line), limits what I can do.

Suggestions on whether to get the Shockburst or a gun, and what guns I could pick from.

This has to be for Jelly King runs only, it doesn't require the ability to go to 5*, although most gear at this tier can.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 07:23

Otaia

You'll be using the

You'll be using the Nightblade for >90% of the run. It's not a huge deal what you use in addition to it, but I'd get a Firotech Alchemer for the gun puppies. Jellies move slowly and in large clumps and their attacks aren't too threatening, so you don't need the other statuses as much.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 08:21

Bopp

agree

The key weapon for an RJP run is a shadow sword. Everything else is luxury. Here are the weapons to consider:
* elemental sword or gun for constructs
* Ash of Agni or Voltaic Tempest to clear slime crowds
* Graviton Vortex or Electron Vortex to clear crowds, in conjunction with swords
* Leviathan Blade or Fang of Vog for constructs and RJ himself

In RJP, it doesn't matter much, whether you have an elemental sword or an elemental gun. An elemental sword will kill the constructs in RJP faster than a gun will. And an elemental sword is a very useful item to own in general. On the other hand, if you like playing with a mixed sword+gun setup, then an elemental gun is an especially good choice of gun, as guns are useful against turrets, which are all vulnerable or neutral to elemental damage.

There are five elemental swords and five elemental guns. Of course, you don't need the 5-star versions for RJP.
* swords: Combuster, Voltedge, Glacius, Divine Avenger, Fang of Vog
* guns: Nova Driver, Storm Driver, Magma Driver, Hail Driver, Polaris
Also, the game developers are considering changing Argent Peacemaker to pure elemental.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 10:40

Bopp

also, that shield

Also, you're working on a Royal Jelly Shield, which is good for RJP due to its piercing protection. But the Barbarous Thorn Shield is a superior piercing shield, in RJP and elsewhere, due to its sword damage bonus (except for people who never use swords). So I recommend that you switch shields.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 16:10

Batabii

You might also consider

You might also consider bringing the radiant sun shards for the royal jelly itself.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 16:59

Darkbrady

Using RSS on JK with a full

Using RSS on JK with a full swords/gun lineup isn't likely to do him much good, he'll spend most of his time just charging up, and do minimal damage; he'd be faster just firing away acheron charges.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 17:08

Jiasen

Pretty good loadout

But if you really want to have a 100% success rate I suggest getting an electron or graviton vortex. I keep the Jelly King glued in place while my party does continuous charge attacks against him. The average completion of the Jelly King is about 6 seconds.

My current loadout for the Jelly King is Nightblade and Electron charge

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 17:33

Darkbrady

6 seconds, including phase 2

6 seconds, including phase 2 where he's invincible and shielded, and spends more time than that just circle spinning everythin' to death?

Would love to see a vid of that.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 17:55

Jiasen

It's true he was on fire and he died while spinning

Everyone on my team was like WTF?

It took 4 seconds to get him to phase 2 because one of our party had FoV and AoA so he was really low on health. While he was spinning everyone was charging up their weapons and he stopped, we went to finish him off but he just melted down and died

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 18:47

Demonicsothe

Vid :) because the fastest

Vid :) because the fastest with proof is around 18 seconds.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 19:05

#10

Darkbrady

I use FoV on him with Max!

I use FoV on him with Max! damage and it takes 2 charges to get him to phase 2 solo/2man, so if you had 3/4 people there and one of them only dropped AoA (which causes fire weaker than FoV, so was basically useless) then there's no way you got him to phase 2 in essentially a single charge attacks worth of damage with 3~4 people in a team.
Then you're sayin' that he went into phase 2 (which has an animation effect delay) then he spun for what must have been a quarter of a second, despite the fact he usually spins for about 3/4 seconds, then your Fov guy managed to tank phase 2 in a single charge. Again, even solo with max! damage it generally takes at least two charges to kill him in phase two.

And yes, these are examples that include poison effect and persistent "strong" fire damage.

TL;DR?

Vid or it never happened.

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 20:46

#11

Jiasen

dude...

im just saying. im not going to go in rjp with a stop watch and count every second all im saying that it was dam fast with a full party and the right gear. you dont need to compete with what i said. this thread is asking what the best gear is to take on a jk run and i responded with my answer and stated ROUGHLY how fast it takes to finish him with the proper gear. calm down. why does this community have such competitive people?

Sat, 01/21/2012 - 21:07

#12

Demonicsothe

Or it could be legit, asking

Or it could be legit, asking how does one kill him right in the middle of the first spin. Many groups, and well equipped solos, do get him shortly after the first spin. But afaik, none so far has gotten him to die during or directly after without dealing damage.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 00:30

#13

Jacxis

Sorry to half-hijack this...

I'm a pure gunner intending to try out my first JK run with a swordie friend of mine. Thus far I have a catalyzer and a shadowtech alchemer, and I was intending to upgrade the catalyzer to a toxic catalyzer first. Is that a bad decision?

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 00:37

#14

Darkbrady

@Jiansen:You said:The

@Jiansen:
You said:
The average completion of the Jelly King is about 6 seconds.
It took 4 seconds to get him to phase 2 because

Since when is 6 seconds a "rough estimate" for what was probably closer to 30~40 seconds? Especially when you're persisting on what you say. As you say, this is a thread on someone asking for advice, don't throw out random numbers and portray them as accurate when you're being hyperbolic.

I might as well just say "oh yeah, Suda hits really hard, my hardest charge hit yet was OVER NINE THOUSAND!!"

What if someone took me seriously?
What if I was being serious and no one took me serious, and everyone lost out on the secret to superpower?

No one's askin' you to be exact, but be clear. If you're being hyperbolic, make it obvious, and don't argue disbelief with more false facts.

@Jacxis:
Not at all. You'll find that doing JK with a 2* weapon will feel slow. 3* will not only have higher base damage, but being shadow will up it a chunk already, and you'll really notice the difference. The poison on top will help severlely in JK himself, and even in RJP too since there's a lot of silkwings floatin' around

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 00:55

#15

Batabii

How come nobody ever spells

How come nobody ever spells RJP wrong but there's always noobs calling the boss JK instead of RJ?

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 01:29

#16

Fehzor

LOL, Darkbrady...

I'd get a SUDARUSKA. I've dealt around 3000 damage per swing in RJP (~6000 on the charge), and I can typically clear the levels in around 15 seconds each with it.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 01:39

#17

Fradow

@Jacxis as Darkbrady said,

@Jacxis as Darkbrady said, upgrading the catalyzer is a good idea. But you should really only use only one of the 2 guns you listed : shadowtech and toxic catalyzer are both shadow, and thus overlap. You should choose the one you prefer to deal with targets weak to shadow (jellies and gremlins) and stick to it.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 02:10

#18

Darkbrady

@Batabii: How come you're

@Batabii:
How come you're still goin' on about that? We explained why no one knows.

@Fehzor:
Should see my level clears w/ my new Highlander loadout; Vana just died in 1.5 secs if I counted right! :D

@Fradow/Jacxis:
Having very little experience with guns, feel free to correct/ignore me on this, but I'd veer towards the toxic cat, since it has the poison as well, and I'm a fan of statusin' stuff up, myself. That, and the alchemers are a bleh to use. Nice damage, but the way they shoot never really appealed to me much. I like the autogun series more....
But I digress!
Fradow's right though; replace whichever you don't like with probably an elemental type gun, to cover those puppies.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 04:21

#19

Fradow

Actually, on the alchemer vs

Actually, on the alchemer vs catalyzer, I would go for alchemer for general use, because of gremlins and party members pushing mobs all over the place. The main weakness of the catalyzer is its slow bullets : gremlins will dodge it if you don't line up perfectly, and if a mate push the mob you target, you'll consistently miss your shots.

The main advantage of catalyzer is it's fun. It does big explosions. It's perfectly viable if you plan to use it only for jellies, but otherwise I would probably go for an alchemer if I had to re-choose one (I have a Biohazard and a 5* elemental alchemer, so I know both).

Anyway, both can be used, it's mainly a different playstyle.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 12:30

#20

Jacxis

How can I forget the slow bullets...

Just realized that it's possible to outwalk the catalyzer's bullets... perhaps one day I'll get my friend and do a quick run with him to see how well a troika combos with a catalyzer, and whether I can actually hit stuff with the slow bullets. Else... it's the alchemer that will get the upgrade first.

I have a cryotech alchemer mk2 and the bullet flies way faster than my un-upgraded shadowtech. May I assume that the toxic catalyzer's bullets will fly faster as well?

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 12:42

#21

Batabii

From what I've seen, toxic

From what I've seen, toxic catalyzer still goes about the same speed. But that doesn't mean it's a bad gun. You just have to treat it like a bomb. Stack up charges then det them. It works great on both large, slow enemies and clusters of smaller ones like scuttlebots or lichens. Not so good on gremlins, sadly. But the poison makes it useful on construct or even undead.

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 14:24

#22

The-Rawrcake

@ Jacxis, all alchemers have

@ Jacxis,

all alchemers have slow bullets until 3*, which appear to be even faster when upgraded to 4*.

Catalyzers will always have slow bullets up until 5* when compared to an Umbra Driver (the 5* version of shadowtech).

For JK/ RJ / whatever ya want me to call him, I would suggest a shadowtech alchemer. Once you can get bullets that split off to the left, you can position your shadowtech alchemer bullets to deal damage twice + in a single shot.

Catalyzer charge attack chaining makes you move very slow, and launching the charge attack takes up some immobile time as well.

Don't worry about the poison being shiny on the shadow catalyzer line, Poison Vials should suffice for poisoning RJ/JK

Sun, 01/22/2012 - 20:28

#23

Batabii

a note, bullet speed always

a note, bullet speed always seems slower on the client. When I see other people fire callahan, it looks a lot faster than mine, and not because of ASI.

As for charge attacks, the catalyzer line has barely noticeable charge times. It's not an issue except for the time taken to stack 10+shots

Also, it's only really useful (to me) against targets that are big and dangerous to approach, where speed is less important than defense, or clusters of weaker enemies that can maximize the slash damage.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 07:36

#24

Jacxis

Thanks guys~!

Thanks guys~! I'll upgrade the shadowtech then =)

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Gun or Sword for JK Runs