Gunning Update Testing Feedback: Armor/Helms

Question!
What if:
Pathfinder armor was changed to Piercing + Elemental defense.
Sentinel armor was changed to Elemental + Piercing defense.
Shade armor was changed to Shadow + Elemental defense.
Ghost, Hex, Wraith, Guerrilla, Hazard and Keeper armor remain the way they are, with Normal + the family damage type.

That way if you want all-round damage, you're sacrificing Normal defense. Not like that's a problem anyway, it suits gunner armor because you're not supposed to be getting hit by melee attacks anyway.

Or should it be the inverse, with the family armors dropping normal defense, like:

Hex and Guerrilla with Shadow + Piercing
Ghost and Keeper with Shadow + Elemental
Hazard and Wraith with Elemental + Piercing

The choice to adapt the visual style from each 3 lines from the original 1* style is something new that I don't think many people picked up on. Indeed the effort on modeling these new sets is impressive, no more 'use a hexagon for a round shape' here - looks like theres been a notable effort in upgrading things visually recently (look ma, new hands!).

When viewed from the top down it's overwhelming, but when viewed from the bottom up (what players will be doing as they craft) it makes total sense.. once you can decode the language that is. It seems the general trend for players to adopt class based gear ("wolver clones") rather than old-timey monster buffs has not gone unnoticed; knowing this they decided to brute force combinations of every damage/status combo which is of course what players will face in game but can not currently adapt to without compromising their output.
The 12 primary 5* sets all offer decent gun buffs, if you combine them with fully heated guns, 2 trinkets and not-swiftstrike then you get triple VH. Triple VH is a fair and reasonable statistic for the would be Vanguard gunslinger to aim for, I think. Triple MAX is also easily achieved through the standard procedures for anyone who wants to push it further (swiftstrike, ctr med UV, battle sprite).
The other 24 secondary sets at least put the effort in to increase conditional damage output in exchange for reduced general output, which I think is a fair reward knowing that the community tends to devalue vs. bonuses.

I think some people have confused the 36 sets as some sort of gotta catch em all deal, but rather its a reaction to the popularity of class based builds. It's all basically the same set but integrated with the years old damage/status matrix. While its unlikely most people will make more than half a dozen sets (primarily fire and shock) I don't think collecting is the intent anyway, rather it seems to fill all gaps that exist and ever will in one effort. The downside to this is it might block the existence of any newer gun sets in the future (Kat Eye/Seerus armor? Gap filled).
Assuming this grand unified gunslinger set takes off, no doubt Swordsman and Demo versions will follow in the future?

Will I be making any of it? Well, I will make the shock/pierce hat to complement my existing (UV) shock/pierce jacket, but for the most part will just use what I always have. But if I didn't have the stuff I already do, then it is a fine competitor for existing gunslinger gear so hypothetically the answer is probably yes.

tl;dr
Reference set built around what people do (shoot guns) and what they defend against (damage type and status).
Triple VH ought to be enough for anybody.

Thumbs up.

Just figure out how to reduce icon overload in recipe lists/supply depot!

Now you just need to add a Med MSI shield and we can have quadruple VH!

1 word

Useless.

Zeddy you nailed it
Introducing two dozen new armours nobody is going to use isn't going to fix the already existing two dozen armours nobody use.

There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to go for any set other than chaos and wolver line. The few exception being BKC and Mad Bomber (which is exactly the same as Chaos but no curse resistance, that you find on every floor obviously...)

I run everything in Chaos, I wear the Mad Bomber when I go full bomber because I always loved the mask. But sadly the new armor will become costumes. Some mask are cool, Sacred helm are too big for the armor, they don't fit... but I wasn't expecting anything better...

+.5 for the masks
-1 for the armors

Also WTF why so many? Holy molly

Three dozen new sets.

Three dozen.

That's not a good thing. You're flooding players with a massive barrage of min-max options, which only serves to confuse newbies and (ironically) provides very few exciting options. Most of those sets are merely slight variations on each other, offering mediocre, overspecialized bonuses. Why? Most players don't even have the time or resources to craft and heat even half that nonsense, and we already have more versatile options. Indulging in min-maxing just isn't realistic when heating 5* gear is a luxury and more potent powerspikes like Chaos exist.

A small handful of sets with diverse and potent effects would be preferable to a huge slew of min-max nonsense. Many of the new set lines could probably be merged, which would cut down the number of superfluous options while making the resulting fewer sets more attractive. Hopefully something like that happens, because right now most of this new armor is simply going to rot in the corner.

large variety of armor options directly conflicts with very rare, very expensive radiant fire crystals. if it was easier to fully heat 5* gear, you can justify the existence of making a variety of gear to pick and use. but when resources are slim, you're better off making all-purpose gear than grinding away for days just to make armors that have slight differences to each other.

I enjoy all the armors and how unique they are but as mentioned over and over in this thread, the amount is excessive and highly specialized. My only qualm with design is the 5* Pathfinder Helms. What I like the most is that this is the most diverse alchemy line to date and the only one in the game that starts at 1* and ends at 5*.

For people with a heavy DPS based mindset like this: "There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to go for any set other than chaos and wolver line." and "I run everything in Chaos."
The armor will be left in the dust because of this, only to be forgotten and disregarded followed by a flood of complaints for "better" armor.

The idea here is: Why get a Pathfinder set when I can craft Chaos and destroy everything?

Another reason is how this might be bad for novice players. It's very difficult to build up a large wardrobe for battle unless you're endgame and love to grind FSC or a crafty promo buying merchant who knows how to manipulate the market. Most players can only stick to one set of armor throughout missions and if they're diligent enough, a handful of weapons, especially taking into account the payout values of Tier 1 and 2. My proof? Getting stuck in a rank because HoH requirements. They can't invest in each line unless you have some magical plan to make crafting easier than it is now. Even Veterans will be upset with this because lets face it, most of us aren't going to dish out the energy and orbs and especially Fire Crystals to get the exact same set we may already have just with a resistance swap and different colored bands across the body.

If a new player happens to settle with one of these set paths, they're met with problems in the long run because their armor is set for only one specific combat scenario. One depth/mission with a certain status theme, without another, and carries a specific monster type with the respective defense type to combat said monster type. The same argument can be said about the Specialist sets already in the game, this is part of the reason they're not popular. More importantly the set that is perfect for FSC will be the most or only one crafted. The rest is history. Player's aren't going to drop their Dusker set to trade it in for something that's perfect for RJP. They're knee deep in the alchemy line and it would be too difficult to get a start fresh and they might as well get Vog Cub for FSC. The same applies for the opposite.

Taking up one these sets might be good for a endgame player who lacks a certain set of resists and defense and has the means to craft one but even then all of these sets are too diverse. There is one small difference with each set and not even worth investing because there are so many just like the last one, which is just about most of them. Most won't see the point in crafting something so specific when they can have something more generalized or more damaged based and disregard defense.

TL:DR Most of these are focused on resistance and defense. I believe there is little regard for defense and these are too specific, therefore they are likely to be met with poor reception.

I kind of liked the "collect them all" aspect of Spiral Knights. It was really something to strive for and do-- implementing this kills that entirely.