Spiral Knights - Shield-specific abilities

Shield-specific abilities

14 replies [Last post]

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 15:28

Uuni

In the current version of the game, shields are used to block damage and the occasional shield-bash attack to push enemies away. Some shields outclass others because of their outright better stats at blocking things so why not mix things up a bit and give every shield(line) their own specific abilities? These abilities would let shields like royal jelly sield or dragon scale be more than just a niche item compared to the currently dominant endgame shields. Abilities would be activated by using your regular attack while you are blocking

Example abilities
Ironmight Plate Shield
- Guardian-type area of effect shield for your teammates as long as your shield holds and teammates are bunched up inside your small bubble
- -75% shield depletion rate on damage blocked from allies

Dragon Scale Shield
- Flame burst AoE that lights enemies on fire and knocks them back (similar visual to Fang of Vog charge attack)
- Depletes 50% of your maximum shields

Swiftstrike Buckler
- Grants maximum attack speed increase for a brief duration
- Depletes your shield completely in the process

Omega Shell
- Renders your invulnerable and immobile for a duration while you cover yourself behind the shell
- Expends 10% of your shields per second

Barbarous Thorn Shield
- Slams the ground creating a wave of spikes in front of you (think of snarbolax underground attack) dealing piercing damage
- Depletes 25% of your shields

Royal Jelly Shield
- Wraps you inside protective jelly that cures status effects and renders you immune to new status effects for a few seconds
- Depletes 75% of your shields

Aegis
- Energy blast effect similar to energy revive that stuns enemies and knocks them away from you
- Depletes 50% of your shields

I disliked the idea of having cooldowns on shield abilities so I bound them to shield recharge. Unlike shield-bash these would not require a full shield to activate but after your shields are depleted you would have to wait for a full recharge before you can activate them again letting you energy blast twice for example with aegis if you had full shields. Another way of controlling spamming would be to bind these to how LOW your shields are allowing you only to use when your shields have taken a hit to counterattack. This would work especially well with the aegis and dragon scale shields skill examples I gave allowing you to break out of a tough spot when your shields are below 30% for example. Fine tuning is done by the devs to the direction where they want to take these but some kinda shield-specific abilities would add at least some variety to the shields you see late game

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 15:58

Waffleconecake

almost +1

I would be cool with these being changes to the shield bash to "shield power" but not a second attack.

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 17:31

Isekuube

Derp. :3

I'm going to leave this here:

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 17:51

Juances

Swifstrike is so weak you could spam the ability at every chance you have without much drawbacks.

Maybe we could rework the shield, give it more defense and remove it's permanent high asi, only to leave it as an activable ability as you want.

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 18:17

Possiblespy

It really does seem like some shields are just left in the dust, and this would be a neat way to make them useful too.

I agree with the idea of replacing the shield bash with these abilities, so that we can still charge weapons without using them first. I don't think anyone will really mind the loss of shield bashing for certain shields.

Every ability you use here is one less option for battle sprites, though.

Looking at the specific abilities, the knockback like the energy revive seems kinda dangerous. Also, Barbarous Thorn Shield is already pretty powerful, with its sword bonus. Everything else seems pretty cool, though.

Fri, 08/23/2013 - 19:10

Hexzyle

-1

http://hexzyle.tumblr.com/post/57793729879/hexs-lab-shields-you-may-not-...

There are ways to make shields, this isn't the way to do it.
I wouldn't mind seeing those abilities being added as sprite abilities however.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 12:44

Uuni

responses to feedback

@Hexzyle
"I wouldn't mind seeing those abilities being added as sprite abilities however."

We saw how well the ones we have already worked... and they didn't really work
Seraphynx beam stops dealing damage after a few ticks, the violent heart attack does nothing, the shield randomly lets attacks through, wraith cloak results in all sorts of bugs if you die with the cloak on, the hex deals negligible damage rendering one of the evolution lines useless etc. etc.

"There are ways to make shields, this isn't the way to do it."

I think you meant to say 'there are ways to make shields useful'. Well I agree but the point was to make them fun on top of varying things up a bit to fit everyone's own playstyle and not require triple max UV's on an omega shell to make it not suck

@Possiblespy
Every ability you use here is one less option for battle sprites, though

I kinda agree and I kinda disagree. The seraphynx ultimate is a mobile guardian shield like the ironmight plate shield active would be as well. They aren't the same though and would play differently to oneanother just because shields require you to slow down and seraphynx is cooldown-based. There's no reason why sprites couldn't have very similar abilities or why they couldn't come up with new abilities for sprites that wouldn't work with the shields

Also, Barbarous Thorn Shield is already pretty powerful, with its sword bonus

It's an offensive shield by it's nature so something thematically fitting and not extremely work-heavy on the developer side of things like the snarbo spike attack would work pretty well IMO. It wouldn't need to be crazy powerful to be still useful. The ones I came up with the jelly shield seems to be most powerful as it would be the only way to cleanse curse safely and save you from vana stun+burns like no other along with the omega shell which would probably become the best endgame shield... maybe it should have a small activation cost to prevent constant on-off switching of the invulnerability... hm...

@Juances
Swifstrike is so weak you could spam the ability at every chance you have without much drawbacks

Breaking your shield would mean you couldn't bump enemies back either so it would be a pretty gigantic drawback. Getting the max attackspeed boost would be more of a last resort thing and not something you spam in the heat of the battle as it would make you a sitting duck to any enemy that likes to get up close and personal. Maybe dropping the natural attackspeed boost a bit but as I said, these were just examples that I came up to somewhat flesh out the idea

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 15:21

Thunder-The-Bright

Seraphynx beam stops dealing damage after a few ticks, the violent heart attack does nothing, the shield randomly lets attacks through, wraith cloak results in all sorts of bugs if you die with the cloak on, the hex deals negligible damage rendering one of the evolution lines useless etc. etc.

seraph's invicitrinks have short cooldown, and seraph already kills a zombie quickly enough.
violent heart attack knocks back. yes, does no damage, but that's not what you said.
shield letting through hits? that's new.
that's a recon bug too.
hex is meant to weaken, not to kill.

each spirte has it's downsides. seeing only those makes them worthless.

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 17:28

Uuni

@Thunder-The-Brighteach

@Thunder-The-Bright
each spirte has it's downsides. seeing only those makes them worthless.

My point was that they haven't gotten the sprites working too well so it'd be kinda hesitant to give them new skills. About violent heart attack, somehow I expected more from the description: "Targets destroyed while enchanted create an explosion" and the name "violent". And if hex isn't meant to kill, why is one of the evolution lines for it entirely reliant on it being able to kill something?

But I digress. The game has room for battle sprite skills as well as shield skills and adding one doesn't take away from the other, rather they complement oneanother. A seraphynx player with an ironmight plate shield would be able to take hits for their team like no other and a maskewraith quills + thorn shield thorn-attack would be a nifty combo in the hands of a good player

Sat, 08/24/2013 - 17:51

The-True-Cake

Can't say either way

While shields, as they are right now, are pretty useful. I do see them needing SOMETHING. This may be it, it may not. It sounds good in theory, but in practice is what I'm wondering. Most of these skills I could see myself using, but only in tier 3 where I actually have to try and live. If I have to bring my shield up to use a skill I can easily see some stray elemental ball knocking it down to where I can't use the skill.

What I think may be good is that certain shields can "block statuses" so to speak. What I mean by that is lets say you are on fire. If you raise your shield it would actually block the damage from the status completely. Or cause shield like the drake line to have a chance to "reflect" damage.

While your idea sounds good, I do agree it would probably fit in as new sprite skills better.

Sat, 10/05/2013 - 17:04

#10

Sirius-Voltbreaker

Bump

This is a good thread

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 18:18

#11

Dekuinanutshell

Other suggestions:

Grey Owl shield: Shoots a halo out and traps enemies in a bubble immobilizing them (depleats 80% of your shield and gives armor debuff until shield regenerates.)

Skelly shield: Creates a bone wall that stays structured in the ground and takes as much damage as the regular shield. (drains 100% of your shield)

Crest of Alimire: Does the same as the ageis granting a small defense buff for 3 seconds. (drains 65% of your shield)

Blizz breaker shield: Gives a aura of plates that break on hit, all will break if touched with fire and gives status increase to ice. (Drains 100% of shield)

Blazebreaker shield: Same as blizz breaker only gives fire resistance increase to fire. (drains 100% of shield)

Surgebreaker shield: Same as blizz breaker only gives static resistance increase to static (Drains 100% of shield)

Scarlet shield: When deployed for 5 seconds, will give the player a guaranteed large heart on successful kill. If player does not kill within the time the player looses 20% of health. (Drains 50% of shield with a triple increase in shield regeneration time, plus the regeneration is twice as slow.)

Dark fang shield: Gives damage bonus maximum and movement speed increase medium when deployed (Drains 80% of shield and gives -10% debuff in armor)

Mighty honor guard line: Gives a gaurenteed buff in damage for 3 seconds while causing the revive animation and knockback but no stun. (drains 75% drain in shield bar, -30% in defense)

The bitter end: Lays a mine trap on the ground that does elemental damage and has an instant detonation success if walked over or manually detonated. (Drains 30% of shield on successful hit, 70% of shield reduction if a miss or anti crit. Player cannot use shield until the mine is detonated.)

Volcanic plate shield: Same to iron might but it gives fire resistance inside the shield.

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 19:52

#12

Sirius-Voltbreaker

@deku

The maker of this thread is long gone but i bumped by accident... Anyways il just pput stuff from my thread here:
Swifstrike buckler
Asi med boost but takes all health from your shield.
Volcanic Plate shield
Fire resist and your shield goes down twice as fast but people who hit your shield take damage.
Snarby shield(don't know the name)
You slam your shield down and spikes travel down a straight path.
This takes out your shield. Previous lines have the same thing too.
Owlite shields
Your shield weakens but when it breakes it makes an explosion that does the status that it was destryoed with. If there is no status then it does normal damage.
Heater shield
Your shield explodes and deals strong fire to enemies nearby. However this can hurt you too.
Ironmight plate shield(and all shields below it besides 2 star)
Your shield deflects all projectiles and damage for 1 hit( for 3-4*) and 2 hits(for 5*) and you can move around.
HOWEVER your shield breaks and you are slowed down.
Skelly shield
Same exact thing for owlite but looks purple
Jelly shield
Your shield takes half damage but you are able to shield bump further, shield bumping does damage and you can shield through spikes without taking damage or flinching. This lasts 2-5 sec (depending on heat level)

Sun, 10/06/2013 - 21:00

#13

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Autofire claps.

Thank you sir. I like this idea. Mind if I apply it to my fan game?

Just so this isn't completely derailing...I think I would prefer it replacing "Shield Bash" on shields which have abilities. Some shields might do better without bonuses.

Mon, 10/07/2013 - 10:45

#14

Dekuinanutshell

@sirius

It wasn't just your doing for this. As for the content, it deserves another shine on the front of the forum. This idea needs to be reconsidered by OOO.

------------------------------------
In other news, little after I had posted #11 I just remembered the heater shield and I think it should have the fallowing: Grants a aura around the player and gives granted ability to move through ice hazards without getting damaged and gives the player 4 hearts every second until the aura breaks. Walking through fire hazards will heal the player 2 hearts every second for as long as the aura stays alive. Getting damaged will do double damage and status effects will be doubled at the time. (Drains 50% of shield. Player can not shield until the aura is gone. Aura disapears when the shield regenerates to 100%)

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Shield-specific abilities