Spiral Knights - Riot Shield Technique

Riot Shield Technique

10 replies [Last post]

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 15:51

Xenonguard

Important Note:I have not tested this technique out myself, I'm just putting it out there as a theory.

RIOT SHIELD

Shields are great. They block all damage going towards you, and even have other uses such as shield cancelling and shield bumping. The only downside to shielding all the time is that you're never going to hit anything because you can't attack while you're using a shield.

OR CAN YOU?

Behold, the Riot Shield technique!

It consists of two party members, one being the riot shield and one as the gunner. The riot shield would be a sort of "tank" archetype, with high defense armour and shields. For this role, disregard any attack debuffs as you're not going to be attacking.

The second party member is the gunner. They just need to have guns, or other long range weapons (say, a winmillion). Defensive weaknesses are unimportant, because if you do this correctly, you won't get hit.

Here's the key part. The gunner stands behind the riot shield, while the riot shield simply shields and stays between the gunner and the enemies. Whether this would work if the gunner just stood directly on top of the riot shield I do not know, as I'm just the theorist not the tester.

In a combat situation, the gunner hides behind the riot shield and shoots at the monsters while at the same time being completely safe from attack. If an enemy does get uncomfortably close, the riot shield shield bumps them away. The riot shield just stays there, shielding.

Well there you have it! If you try this out I would love to hear your results and if this actually does work or not.

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 16:17

Leekcoco

It's an interesting idea, and I've thought about it myself as well. In the practical sense though, I don't think it's nearly as fast or as easy than going without a riot shield. I'm sure most experienced gunners would be able to weave and dodge through most mobs without taking any damage. The shield itself would most likely break within seconds if it were to take so many hits, and not to mention monsters would just switch their aggro to the player who is dealing damage. As for whether it would work if the gunner stands in the same place as the shield, I think both would take damage from an attack. Monster attacks deal damage to all knights in line of fire, so you can throw yourself in between a homming Howlizter and your team mate to tank the hit for them with your shield.

Something to try along those lines would be having the two players play in a tag-team style where they switch in and out so that both shields are used instead of just one taking all the damage.

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 17:07

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Has someone finally found a use for the Ancient Plate set?

Oh, and Omega Shell Shield should work, too.

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 17:52

Eltia

Cooperstown, ND

For riot tanker, just use Ancient Plate Set with a Triple UV Omega Shell Shield and double Penta-heart pendants.

Why what you described isn't done more commonly is because it's not efficient enough as compare to have two Blitzers or Brandishers, and your riot tank may have a problem having the enemies to stick on him because your gunner will outdamage the shield and therefore attract more enmities. What could work is, your riot tank uses an AoE (e.g. bomb) to attract enemies. Note: this is exactly one scenario oRSS would work well because it's fast and you can draw enmity quickly.

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 19:10

Hexzyle

I HAVE tested this out myself

TANK CLASS
The Tank brings an Ancient, Volcanic, or Ironmight Plate shield, or an Omega Shield, depending on the strata type, predominance of melee/ranged mob attacks, and number of Trojans/Lumbers, as well as a Ash of Agni, Venom Veiler, Voltaic Tempest, or Stagger Storm depending on the strata type, mob weakness, healer predominance and mob speed/unpredictability. (I didn't suggest Shivermist because often it just clogs up the moving space like Voltaic Tempest while often not even causing any damage, and Turrets that spawn into freeze fire instantly: For a Tank, the haze bomb is something you are going to be spamming)

The Tank then attempts to land every mob in a haze, especially Lumbers and Trojans, and attempts to keep all aggro while their teammates take out the monsters at no risk to themselves.
In the case of Trojans, the tank can make a lot of threat very quickly by dropping a haze bomb near the Trojan, even if the Trojan's shield blocks the haze bomb's effect. Once the Trojan is aggroed to the Tank, the Tank can then "feed" their shield (Ancient Plate Shield is the best for this) to the Trojan so that the Trojan repeatedly performs their overhead slam, leaving them completely vulnerable to rear attacks, and keeping teammates out of harms way (unpredictable dashes and attack ups are horrible and wipe unsuspecting parties quickly)

Combine with Ancient Plate Mail/Helm if you like to form as a backup to your shield (provided that melee attacks are in predominance, if you're using Omega shield you might as well just wear your regular armor)

Sat, 03/30/2013 - 20:31

No-Thanks

nah

sk attacks hit AoE wise, both knights and monsters, so shielding near a party member, wouldn't protect him from melee attackers, which are always present, thus shield bumping and bullet blocking is all it requires

and if the monster cannot pass, u dont even have to shield at all, since ur mate would be holding aggro and u would just be standing in the way to suspend the monster

i think its much better as a casual "technique" - better call it doing shenanigans.. - with ur preferred gear, but playing like this all the time is going to require u enjoying it alot and as always a bunch of ppl, who go along with it

in any case i think an experienced gunner is more likely to get hit with this kind of gameplay. if the gunner were to be ambushed from behind, hes much better off having his teammate hold the other monster's aggro instead of delaying the monsters attack, so it can hit in the most unfitting moment for the gunner: during escape from another monster. by letting the gunner keep the aggro, the gunner is always confronted with at least 1 monster, that has no predictable attack or movement pattern unless the tank is superman and never lags(in SK!!!) and never does any mistakes and is super reliable

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 04:25

Peyotl

nothing new we regularly use

nothing new we regularly use this against devilites with somone blitzing the "universal call" is for the shielder to get in posistion and spam /attack then shield ;) it gets the point across

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 04:57

Mystrian

Short version

So are you saying you can't dodge good or that you want to take enemies out "in style"?

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 05:04

Little-Juances

The shield guy spams the shield while not moving. The gunner guy spams his guns while not moving.
That's not my definition of "fun".

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 06:50

Infernoburner

Derpuraptor strikes back

I like how Hex made up the style, I gotta try it myself.

For the OP, it's actually better to go shieldless with 5* plate armors (And heart pendants) of any kind and just Callahaning/Iron Slugging the monsters in front of the weaker gunner.

Move this to the Arsenal?

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 08:38

#10

Zeddy

This is basically why Plague Needle was made. Poisoned enemies do less damage to shields.

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Riot Shield Technique