Spiral Knights - Omega Armor Balancing. My dream patch :,)

Omega Armor Balancing. My dream patch :,)

31 replies [Last post]

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 13:30

The-Rawrcake

I am just going to do a giant listing of stuff I want to change. It is greatly appreciated if you post below, with two categories: agree and disagree. List the numbers of the balances that you agree on under "agree", then list the numbers of the balances that you disagree on under "disagree". Little comments after each number as to why you disagree would be great.

Goal: give players more options than just the regular bomb / sword / gunner specific gear.

Any feedback is appreciated :)

___________________________________________

1. Vog Cub, Nameless, and Volcanic Demo armor receive negative Shock resistance. ----- |These three will all

2. Justifier, Skolver, and Mercurial Demo receive negative Fire resistance. -------------------| have half of the bar (or a max UV)

EDIT: 3. Bombastic Demo now gives Piercing defense instead of Elemental.-------------------|

4. Shadowsun, Snarbolax, and Bombastic receive negative Stun resistance.------------------| in negative resistance.

EDIT: 5. Mad Bomber now gives Shadow defense instead of Elemental.

EDIT: 6. All Cobalt line gear will now give +6 health bonus per piece fully heated, instead of +4 per piece.

EDIT: 7. Ancient Plate armor + shield will now give shadow defense as well. In order to make each piece of plate armor truly defensive against its appropriate defense type, all plate armors will now receive as much specialized defense as it has normal defense. The +7 health bonus on Ancient will remain in order to make up for MSI low reduction (MSI reduction will remain in order to keep this game not dumbed down + keep armor unique). Ironmight and Volcanic will jump up to a +6 health bonus each piece. This is because Plate not only has 0 offensive bonuses, but it has actual negative offensive bonuses.

8. Fallen gear will now give medium ASI per piece instead of low ASI per piece.

EDIT: 9. Chaos gear will now give ASI low in addition to its current bonuses.

EDIT: 10. Divine Mantle now receives medium damage bonus vs. fiend. Divine Veil's medium damage bonus vs. fiend is retained

11. Dread Skelly will now give damage bonus vs. undead medium per piece.

12. Grey Feather will now give damage bonus vs. construct medium per piece.

13. Royal Jelly will now give damage bonus vs. beast low per piece, as well as CTR low per piece (This is to help give more bomber options).

14. Heavenly Iron gear will now let its sword damage bonus low per piece instead apply to all types of weapons.

15. Ice Queen Mail now receives a damage bonus vs. beast low, and a damage bonus vs. slime low.

16. Arcane Salamander will swap its damage bonuses against beast and slime for damage bonuses against construct and gremlins.

17. Radiant Silvermail will swap its curse resistance for fire resistance, or possibly just add fire resistance without touching the curse resistance.

18. Valkyrie will remain that fire weak armor to keep it unique, but gain shock resistance to help differenciate it from Snarbolax a bit more.

19. Volcanic Salamander will swap its slime damage bonus for a gremlin damage bonus.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 13:43

Zolota

>Skolver

"[...] Skolver [...] receive negative Fire resistance."

Go away and take your ideas with you. As long as there is oxygen in my lungs, Skolver shall not receive any such egregious debuffs.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 13:58

The-Rawrcake

As long as there is oxygen in

As long as there is oxygen in your lungs, you are more flammable ;)
______________________________________

I'll explain the reasoning behind these changes to the main three lines of armor.

The negative resistance makes up for it being the ultra super armor of any armor you should chose. That isn't called balance. Skolver / Vog / Nameless / Volcanic Demo / you name it of the three lines of armor are supposed to be offensive / offense oriented. You can't have the offensive oriented armor be a super defensive armor as well: it HAS TO have a weakness.

And that is what "balancing" is. Skelly for example. Compare it to Snarbolax. Lol oops. Looks like one is just basically the other but with a bonus. This change keeps the offensive armors the offensive armors, and makes other armors more all-around or more defensive.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 14:22

Zolota

Dude, no!

Skolver is everything but defensive. Well, piercing defense. It's already not easy to run FSC in Skolver. But with ADDITIONAL fire penalties?! IMPOSSIBLE!

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 14:46

Luguiru

Hurr

Reduce defense on the weapon based equipment, not glue status weakness on its face.

If any of the Demo lines switch from element to pierce defense it would be Bombastic. The same for shadow goes for Mad Bomber.

That would make Cobalt absurdly powerful.

Ancient Plate has more health than anything else.

Giving Fallen armor more attack speed could make it an alternate to Vog Cub or Nameless/Justifier, but at the same time still lacks in general defense.

Chaos already has universal charge bonus.

Divine is more of a defensive armor, splitting its only offensive bonus would mean more crafting to have more specialized defense at once rather than going for the hybrid Divine/Skolver for general defense.

Skelly, Magic, and Jelly are meant to be best used against specialized damage. They could have +1 family bonus per piece added on to what they are currently at, but giving a charge bonus to Jelly would immediately be overpowered.

Why would changing a universal damage bonus to only apply for a single weapon help something generally referred to as underpowered?

One or the other for Ice Queen. Not both at once.

Unless you are buffing them leave Chromalisk family bonuses alone.

Curse resistance is substantially powerful. It already has +2 family bonus with no weaknesses, unless you count having no normal defense.

Valkyrie already has curse resistance.

Most of these are pretty bad.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 14:51

Addisond

It is easy to run FSC in anything. That doesn't offer penalties. This debuffs skolver, most notably, in LD since it makes skolvers highly vulnerable to fire based weapons, and since fire is probably the worst status in lockdown (damage is only good if you can't take advantage of any of the more important statuses), this will make it far more viable, and also give skolvers an actual weakness. You could just not get burned and use remedies on the rare occasions you do. Complaining that you crafted a valkyrie set and only a valkyrie set does not warrant that you should be entitled to a get out of jail free card when you get to FSC. Sure, you're getting a bit ripped off if you crafted skolver beforehand, but this is a minor bump in the road. And if you get used to just not getting hit in FSC (not hard) you'll be able to remedy on the rare occasions where you actually get burned.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 14:58

Zolota

@Addisond

a BIT ripped off?! Do you have any idea how much a Max Fire UV Skolver set costs here?! And such a set would be required to have a Skolver just as it is now, with your suggestions!

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 15:43

The-Rawrcake

1. FSC isn't the only content

1. FSC isn't the only content that exists. Skolver isn't the only armor that exists.

Obviously, if you haven't caught on, Skolver is not the set for FSC, it is a set for other things (specifically piercing strats)

Someone help me control these clones.

@Luguiru

"That would make Cobalt absurdly powerful."

Cobalt vs. Skolver, since both are piercing def

Medium CTR and 2 extra health vs. very high damage and not useful against fire

Which is more powerful? I made these so it would be more difficult to decide. Cobalt is not at all as "absurd" as you make it sound.

"Ancient Plate has more health than anything else."

It also gets torn up by things that deal special (elemental / shadow / piercing) damage, in addition to its current slows. 3 extra health isn't that useful. With things losing their pure normalness with that one patch, it is even less useful.

"Giving Fallen armor more attack speed could make it an alternate to Vog Cub or Nameless/Justifier, but at the same time still lacks in general defense."

Don't compare fallen to nameless or justifier for one. This game is made so that you get diverse sets of armor, not one set and call it good. Compare it to Snarbolax / shadowsun, perhaps. Comparing it to Vog is just fine, as both are FSC ish armors. I see it being a choice between elemental or shadow defense and a fiend weakness.

Shadowsun / Snarbolax vs. Fallen. Fallen doesn't have that negative stun defensive-wise.

"Chaos already has universal charge bonus."

I am fully aware what is on armor. Think of what I said, but with that added. Trust me, when you are weak to that many statuses, you are supposed to be pretty offensive.

"Divine is more of a defensive armor, splitting its only offensive bonus would mean more crafting to have more specialized defense at once rather than going for the hybrid Divine/Skolver for general defense."

This is to make the divine set even for one. Second, I didn't design this idea around your divine veil + skolver people. You can still go DV / Skolv coat, but lose out on some offensive since it is already a good defensive combo. I designed it around balance. Divine already have great status resistances defensive-wise. A nerf to the helm and a buff to the armor should be fine in making both pieces identical.

"Skelly, Magic, and Jelly are meant to be best used against specialized damage. They could have +1 family bonus per piece added on to what they are currently at, but giving a charge bonus to Jelly would immediately be overpowered."

First, you lose out on normal defense. Second, that extra specialized defense is very small. Third, because I fear you are unaware of this, many things in tier 3 deal split normal damage.

So let's compare again. Skolver vs. Jelly.

med CTR, med damage against beasts + stun vs. very high damage and a fire weakness + freeze

Tell me how Royal jelly is sooooooo overpowered now, please. I don't understand your exaggerations. Obviously med CTR + med against beasts isn't as good of an offensive buff as very high damage. Obviously, fire weakness is not as good of a defensive buff as no fire weakness.
__________________________________

I am going to stop there.

Did you just spew up statements without really thinking about it?

BALANCE. Think of a SCALE. you have to COMPARE. You can't just sit there and make odd observations.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 15:45

Addisond

Fire max... skolver?

I can imagine someone using fire max for snarbolax or maybe vog. But why in the world would you craft into skolver? Still, if you have, that'd really, really suck.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 15:48

The-Rawrcake

Balancing isn't designed

Balancing isn't designed around clones and the decisions that you clones made.

Where the heck is the anti-clone squad backup?

OH, I know, they are in the "unbuff wolver armor" thread.

Brb, I will get that one goin JUST FOR YA

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 16:12

#10

Zolota

*sigh*

I'm not a clone but I'm a really big fan of damage. Get me a line of armor that starts its alchemy path at 2*, gives out a low gun damage bonus until 5* at which it becomes medium and get me a shield that nets the same gun damage bonus. Voilà.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 17:01

#11

Draycos

My two crowns

1. Don't touch Volc or Nameless, and Vog gets negative Freeze resist.

2. Leave Justifier and Merc. Demo.

3. No. Bombastic should be Pierce.

4. No to Shadowsun and Bombastic.

5. Bombastic should be Pierce, and Mad Bomber should be Shadow instead.

6. Higher overall health and instead of CTR, give it split defenses between all damage and status types. (Low resist to all statuses, and halve the current Normal and Pierce and copy that to Elemental and Shadow).

7. The armor and shield should get an extra +3 health, leave the rest alone.

8. Sure I guess.

9. It's decent enough already. If anything give it low ASI.

10. Give them High, not Low. They're SPECIFIC to one family type, so they should deal higher damage than a general weaponry set like Skolver's Sword+.

11. Make it High and heavily increase its Shadow resist.

12. Make it High and heavily increase its Elemental resist.

13. Damage vs. Jelly High and increase Pierce resist heavily.

14. Instead of that, make it +Medium.

15. Damage vs. Jelly High and give CTR instead of additional Pierce.

16. No. Volcanic gets High Gremlin and Construct, Virulisk gets High Beast and Jelly, and Arcane is swapped to Shadow Defense with High Undead and Fiend. The defenses stay the same.

17. Sure.

18. Fiend High and higher Shadow defense is all it really needs, but that could also be a welcome boost.

19. See 16.

Additionally, give all Plate armors an additional +5 health (and the aforementioned +3 to Ancient).

If you want any clarification for any of these, let me know.

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 18:38

#12

Tsubasa-No-Me

Sorry I'm late.

Silly Clones, Why should you have the only good gear?

I paid exactly the same as you did for your crap, and my crap is worse. Thats not balance now is it?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16: Yes.

8, All plate lines need something more then just diverse Defense. You don't see Anyone running around in Ironmight Or Volc Plate do you? I say, In addition to Ancient getting Shadow, All plate sets get an extra defense equal to half of their first specialty defense, and +4 hp tacked on to what they already have.

11, Undead beating up undead is silly, they work together. Undead Penalty: Med per piece. Undead taking forever to kill because they have crazy health, can take a limb or two off No prob, or are made of ectoplasm, yes. Total Health bonus at level 10: +6

12, Grey feather is made from owlites... who hate and were killed by kats... Undead bonus! :3

14, ADD a universal Low to that set and call it good. (Compare to Snarby) What? Stun doesn't come around that often, and even in LD, where stunbombs can be a pain, shock is STILL worse. Shock is literally ALL of the statuses. And can be found in far more places then Stun.

15, Amusingly fitting.

17, Slvermail needs a helm, Fire Resist, Freeze resist, and Stun Weakness. Trojan smash= dead. lololol

18, I'd say half and half Freeze and Shock resist.

19, Eeeeh... I think it needs a bit more... But w/e

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 18:50

#13

Draycos

@Tsu

8. I'd like to see them just having massive health bonuses so they work fine in every situation... only problem is with higher health but lower defense, you need more capsules and hearts to fill your health back up, but you can take a massive beating from everything.

11. If it's going to lose viability for one of the things it's strong against, it should have MASSIVE shadow defense...

12. No, because it yields Elemental defense; it'd suffer from the same thing the Salamander lines do- disjointed bonuses.

14. Sure.

15. See my post plz? ;_;

17. Da, this will work.

18. I'd think heavier bonuses would work better, honestly...

19. See my post...? D:

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 19:51

#14

The-Rawrcake

I'm not sure if a vog cub

I'm not sure if a vog cub should have freeze negative resistance .-.

I feel like watching them get ZAPPEDIFIED by the trojan fart xD

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 19:57

#15

Draycos

Well, actually, it'd be more logical for Vog to give Freeze and Skolver to give Fire. Because, well, being in a suit of fire logically isn't going to make you more resistant to fire...

Shock it is I guess? :/

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 19:59

#16

Hexzyle

@Tsubasa-No-Me

"You don't see Anyone running around in Ironmight Or Volc Plate do you?"

(Raises hand shyly)
I do...

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 20:09

#17

Lunaice

2 cents for discussion = pennorth, maybe I'm wrong

Where? :O

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 22:26

#18

Tsubasa-No-Me

Hexzyle

WOOT! :D

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 07:10

#19

Fehzor

All in all, no thank you.

1/2. Unnecessary, and makes those armors more situational.

3. No thank you. We don't need two mercurial mail armors.

6. Making chaos cloak useless. Cobalt needs to suck.

9. Making mad bomber useless. Chaos is already incredibly strong with the CTR on it. If anything, it should get ASI low as well.

10. Both pieces should receive med vs fiend. Damage vs X is already a weak bonus.

11/12/13. I would rather see these made into more defensive armors, not into more damage vs X.

13/15. This one in particular... have you seen how quickly beasts die to dark briar brigade? Now imagine that, but worse. Oh, and you won't take much damage against them any more. Unnecessary in the extreme.

+1 for the rest.

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 06:36

#20

The-Rawrcake

@Fehzor, a lot of your

@Fehzor, a lot of your arguments in addition to Draycos' are great and realistic for balancing and I may change a few things around. But I still will defend a few points of mine :3

How is 1/2 unecessary? Those armors don't have weaknesses, unlike almost every other armor in the game. The goal of balancing (note: title of thread was armor balancing) is to make a Royal Jelly suit as good of an option as a Skolver suit. These armors need a change most of all. The next best proposed change it to reduce the amount of bars for the type of defense the armors give. Honestly, this game is less dumbed down with situational armor in my opinion. Having a set that works everywhere is just a bad idea, and that is why I am proposing negative statuses.

3. I see where you are going. I highly agree that Bombastic should go piercing and Mad Bomber should go shadow instead of what I proposed.

6. Cobalt does not need to suck. this is armor "balancing", like a scale, keep the title in mind. And how does what I proposed make Chaos useless? Are you saying a piercing defense armor with less offensive capabilities is going to shadow a less defensive armor that even gives an entirely different elemental defense with far greater offensive capabilities? Also, read on, I am buffing Chaos.

9. Mad Bomber is basically Chaos, except it has an additional low CTR per piece, as well as no curse negative. Mad bomber is the choice for bombers over Chaos because of this, and the armors need to be close (imagine a scale. balance. Mad Bomber does not have to trump every piece of gear outstandingly because it is bomber gear and currently powerful).

10. Divine armor is great to be paired with an armor such as Skolver, because it offers a great amount of elemental and shadow resistance, with extremely useful status resistances: both fire and shock. This is one of the more debatable changes, as split pure specialty defense might not be nearly as defensive as it should be. I might change it to Med fiend per piece. Yeah, I agree, I probably should.

11/12/13. They are more defensive armors with the proposed changes. Damage vs. X, as you said earlier, is already weak for an offensive buff. It isn't as good of an offensive bonus than a wolver / gunner / bomber piece of gear, however it also does not suffer from a certain status as wolver gear does, making it more defensive. It is keeping the armor a tiny bit situational having a damage bonus vs. specific family, which is good, because situational = not a dumbed down game.

13 / 15. I can agree that Royal Jelly isn't where it should be, since I need to bring Bombastic into the picture as the piercing set instead of Merc Demo.

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 06:32

#21

The-Rawrcake

double post for neatness. I

double post for neatness. I am such a rebel, I know, please don't report me.

Anyways this is a whole different point. I changed around three things in the original post, and I would like people to give me what would be bad about that happening.
__________________________________

@Tsubasa

"All plate lines need something more then just diverse Defense. You don't see Anyone running around in Ironmight Or Volc Plate do you? I say, In addition to Ancient getting Shadow, All plate sets get an extra defense equal to half of their first specialty defense, and +4 hp tacked on to what they already have."

"Grey feather is made from owlites... who hate and were killed by kats... Undead bonus! :3"

I'm not sure if we should totally make Plate super defensive against everything, more so super defensive against a single type of monster (Ancient specifically for shadow, Ironmight specifically for piercing, Volcanic specifically for elemental) so it is more specialized than dumbed down. I highly agree though, the plate lines greatly hinder your offensive capabilities by not only not having a bonus, but by having a negative bonus. They are in for a defensive buff.

How does making each plate armor line give the same amount of its specialized defense as it does its normal defence sound?

Also I kind of agree Grey Feather was like the owlite scholar's armor they made before dying, an undead bonus would make sence, just fit the elemental defense pretty bad :/ except maybe for FSC? eh

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 07:40

#22

Fehzor

No, cobalt does need to suck. The recipes are given out for free as is the 2* for it. If you're going to go with it, you're going to save a good deal of crowns.. other, harder to obtain armors, should give better bonuses. Decent bonuses.

Mad bomber is like chaos, except twice as much and for bombers. It is in perfect balance with chaos... look at it in terms of trinkets-

Mad bomber has 4 stages:
Bomb CTR med, Bomb damage med
If you have 4 bombs: 16 stages
If you have 3 bombs and a non-bomb:12 stages

Chaos has 6 stages:
Bomb CTR low, Bomb damage low, sword damage low, sword CTR low, gun CTR low, gun damage low.
If you have 4 weapons: 8 stages

Chaos with your buffs has 8 stages
Bomb CTR low, Bomb damage med, sword damage med, sword CTR low, gun CTR low, gun damage med.
If you have 4 weapons: 12 stages

Your suggestion with the buffs means that in order for mad bomber to benefit you more than chaos, you'd have to bring 4 bombs with you at all times. I'd rather see mad bomber be a bit friendlier than that.

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 07:41

#23

Draycos

1/2. You shouldn't bother with the ones I mentioned because as far as weaponry goes bombs and guns are considerably weaker than swords, excluding a few items like Blitz Needles and mist.

3. /derp

6. I decided to say it should ditch the CTR to have a slightly higher health bonus and universal defense so it's unique and true to the HoH knight's saying, good for anything but not excelling in anything.

9. I'd think low ASI instead of higher overall damage would be the smartest choice; it should be focused around universal boosts but should not be a direct alternative, or a superior, to Mad Bomber.

10. It needs to be a High because it's specific to a monster family instead of a weapon type; you have much more options while using a weapon type bonus.

11/12/13. To make them comparable in use to the mainstream gear, they need to have higher overall defense, but also have a use beyond that. Pure defense is for Plate armor!

15. /herp

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 07:45

#24

Draycos

@Fehzor

HURP DOUBLE POST. Oh well, might as well roll with it now.

I don't think it should be worse because its recipes are given out for free; they're supposed to be the first real armors you're exposed to so the idea is to make them good for anyone (but not GREAT for everyone). Hence, all defense types, low resist to everything, and higher overall health.

Sun, 06/17/2012 - 08:46

#25

The-Rawrcake

"1/2. You shouldn't bother

@ Fehzor, ah I see. ASI low instead of extra damage will help keep Mad Bomber in its cozy bombing place.

@Draycos

"1/2. You shouldn't bother with the ones I mentioned because as far as weaponry goes bombs and guns are considerably weaker than swords, excluding a few items like Blitz Needles and mist."

errrr, that sounds more like a weapon problem and balancing issue.

"9. I'd think low ASI instead of higher overall damage would be the smartest choice; it should be focused around universal boosts but should not be a direct alternative, or a superior, to Mad Bomber."

Brilliant idea.

"10. It needs to be a High because it's specific to a monster family instead of a weapon type; you have much more options while using a weapon type bonus."

My opinion is that is shouldn't excell too far offensively with such juicy status resistances for defense. Errrrrr.... even if it is split specialized defense without any normal defense? Not sure, those armors are awkward and usually put with a piercing + normal piece.

"11/12/13. To make them comparable in use to the mainstream gear, they need to have higher overall defense, but also have a use beyond that. Pure defense is for Plate armor!"

Ya that's why I have them what they are now. They are better in defense, because they aren't weak to that specific status that the "mainstream" gear is weak to. However, they DO have an offensive bonus, but it lacks in comparison to the mainstream gear. Which is more balanced.

Plate has a big offensive reduction, and definately deserves the health / defense bars. Which I will edit into the OP.

Tue, 03/05/2013 - 06:41

#26

Karonix

hmph

i agree with Zolota.
@Rawrcake why would you even give WANT negative status resistance!? Do you like dying in the game?! However, i do agree that ancient plate armor/helm/shield should give shadow defense.

P.S. I currently own an ancient plate helm and i need shadow defense. >;D

Tue, 03/05/2013 - 07:03

#27

Dragneel-Wiki

Damn you necromancer...

9 months you bloody nercophile ?!!

Ugh...

Tue, 03/05/2013 - 08:52

#28

Zeddy

I see Fehzor pointing out that the Chaos buff would make Mad obsolete.

Rawrcake, is the Chaos buff your fault? I am blaming you.

Tue, 03/05/2013 - 09:27

#29

Galax-Zero

Tue, 03/05/2013 - 23:13

#30

Hexzyle

@Dragneel-Wiki

9 months you bloody nercophile ?!!
Ugh...

He was waiting until the point where he could perform both Pedophilia and Necrophelia in one fell swoop :P

Wed, 03/06/2013 - 01:07

#31

Severage

@Hex:

Wow.

Just...wow.

~Sev

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Omega Armor Balancing. My dream patch :,)