User:Tqs Remx

Leviathan Blade and reskins vs Cold Iron Vanquisher

The Leviathan Blade and the Cold Iron Vanquisher both successfully achieve sufficient DPS as well as a reliable charge utility attack. Differences between the two swords are that the Leviathan Blade has a strong knockback on its charge attack, while the Cold Iron Vanquisher retains a vanilla bonus damage vs undead: high advantage over Leviathan Blade. However, the vanilla bonus damage against undead is compensated by weaker damage against anything other than undead and a weaker knockback upon its charge attack. Yes, it is true that the Cold Iron Vanquisher is more easier to hit monsters 3 times with its charge attack, and thereby doing immense damage if the target is from the undead monster family, but its damage output is easily overshadowed by the 5* elemental brandish swords.

Verdict:

Leviathan Blade just barely wins this fight.

Sudaruska vs Triglav

Both of these swords come from the same alchemy path, which means that they both deal normal damage, both have the same normal attack and charge attack pattern. The only difference is that one embraces stun, while the other embraces freeze. However, this sole difference is what persuades me to favour one sword over the other. As both are heavy swords, their utility in normal attacks and charged attacks is to knockback monsters and create crowd control. As Triglav has a chance to freeze monsters on its second normal attack as well as its charged attack, this significantly dampens the utility of Triglav as a heavy sword and reduces its crowd control ability. Additionally, there are more weapons that can inflict freeze on monsters than there are weapons inflicting stun, so Triglav as a choice weapon to freeze can be easily substituted.

Verdict:

Sudaruska is favoured as the better heavy sword of the two.

Dread Venom Striker vs Wild Hunting Blade

Once again, another weapon comparison in which both weapons come from the same alchemy path. Both swords have the same damage type, attack and charge attack pattern, but slightly differ themselves with poison proccing and bonus high damage against beast. Wild Hunting Blade has slightly better DPS against beast while Dread Venom Striker compensates the damage difference with a low poison proc chance.

Barbarous Thorn Blade vs Final Flourish

The battle of the rapiers, both cross swords to determine which blade is the better one. Looking at the stats of both swords, we can see that both have the same DPS as well as the same normal attack pattern. The only difference is the utility of the charged attack. Barbarous Thorn Blade's charge attack is a cone-shaped AoE while Final Flourish's charge attack is a single-target, point-blank assault. The charge attacks for both swords are effective in any situation that require piercing damage.

5* Brandishes vs 5* Caliburs

At its 2* equivalent, both brandish and calibur have the same damage output, the only difference being its charged attack. Once crafted into its 3* version and beyond, brandish's potential DPS start to climb exponentially upwards, leaving behind calibur DPS at its wake. Furthermore, brandish is able to diversify itself into elemental and shadow, while caliburs are stuck with normal. At the end, when both brandishes and caliburs are 5*, no amount of buffs on those 5* caliburs can even come close to the high DPS of 5* brandishes.

Verdict:

5* Brandishes are just too good to pass up.

Combuster vs Divine Avenger

Both weapons have the charge attack utility to achieve significant knockback on monsters. However, Combuster has a few major advantages over Divine Avenger, in which Combuster does not suffer from the glitchy mechanics of the Divine Avenger charge attack (eg. charge attack despawning when the wielder's back is touching an unbreakable object). In addition, Combuster is classed as a normal/non-heavy sword, so it receives automatic benefits such as faster attack speed and unaffected movement speed while charging.

Verdict:

Combuster; better DPS, better attack speed, better reliable knockback, better movement speed while charging. #roflstomp

Divine Avenger vs Gran Faust

Another comparison between 2 swords from the same alchemy path. Since both are heavy swords, they share the same damage output, normal attack and charge attack patterns. The only difference is that Gran Faust has a chance to curse on its second normal attack and can inflict curse to monsters and its wielder through its charge attack. Divine Avenger's charge attack, on the other hand, is purely knockback. Also, because Gran Faust is the only 5* weapon that can inflict curse, it instantly becomes unique, inimitable and cannot be substituted.

Verdict:

Gran Faust, the only 5* weapon that can inflict curse. That alone will always be chosen over its elemental brother.

SoT I: Embrace Change as I Have

Change is always hated by default, for it is a natural, human response to avoid the unfamiliar. It is a fact of life.

I'm sure that you have heard of the statement: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" or something along the lines implying 'do not change'. Let me just say that the statement(s) is for the idiot and the ignorant. If something isn't broken or is currently working and therefore does not need to change, sooner or later, it would become outdated, repetitive and boring. And I'm sure that nobody wants to play the same old boring stuff day in and day out. I assure you that I will be the first one out if that happens. Thankfully, OOO pumps out new content and changes on game mechanics (EDIT: the recent changes are the heat mechanic and the introduction of the forge), for the game would be so bland without it. Of course, you will always find players complaining about how glitchy or how broken or stupid the change is, even going so far as to create a petition on the forum to revert the change.

The message that I am conveying here is that change is the only path to improvement. Yes, it can be glitchy or broken, but that can be easily fixed. Stupid on the other hand... Never. Never stupid. OOO invested real-life time, money and company resources to implement a legitimate strategy to bring game changes in order to improve the quality of the game, and you guys go off to the forums, in response, and often in retaliation, and mindlessly rant on how you hate the changes.

It's time for you guys to stop hating, and just enjoy the new stuff.

SoT II: Why not be normal?

No, I'm not referring to my insanity, I'm referring to why I don't bring normal damage dealing weapons to my battles. Essentially, normal damage dealing weapons suck and to prove my point, let's compare the weapon stats of Sudaruska and Gran Faust (highest damage value, with no damage bonus) as both are heavy swords and therefore have the same normal attack patten. With Gran Faust, the damage dealt to Beast and Constructs (for normal damage) are 234 on the first hit and 363 on the second, totaling up to 597, while Sudaruska deals 288 on the first hit and 321 on the second, a total of 609. The damage difference is 12 in favour of Sudaruska.

12. Really. I'm going to sacrifice a shadow sword that can inflict curse just so I can deal an extra 12 damage.

Furthermore, Sudaruska does less damage against slimes and gremlins in comparison to Gran Faust and only does an extra 38% damage if the target is from the fiend or undead family. I can easily swap out Gran Faust for something effective against fiend/undead and avoid the damage penalty.

SoT III: Upcoming Fashion Trend

I’ve noticed quite recently that there is a rise in popularity in the chaos armor set. The stats of chaos armor set are quite OP, with CTR: very high and damage bonus: very high for all weapons, the only downside being those double high negative status resistances. But who cares about negative status resistance when you charge weapons stupidly fast and deal way more overall damage than a full skolver player.

SoT IV: And the award goes to…

Dark Briar Barrage – best offensive utility bomb

DBB is the most offensive and efficient bomb to have in a bomber’s arsenal. Being able to destroy beast and fiends that wander too close to holo-snarby’s roar, it can also consistently knockdown gremlins within its radius. Add CTR very high to the mix (easily achievable with bomber armor) and you’ve effectively shutdown those pesky gremlins without any effort. (EDIT: DBB (piercing) now outdps Deadly Crystal Bomb (elemental) against undead. Shows how strong Dark Briar Barrage is and how mediocre the damage output of those post-RSS patch shard bombs.)

Nitronome – best defensive utility bomb

OP knockback coupled with an above-average charge time, pretty much sit in a corner and watch your foes struggle to hug you. Just be sure to wear a pair of sunglasses in game (and in real life) before deploying this seizure inducing bomb.

Electron Vortex – best support utility bomb

The only two 5* weapons in Spiral Knights which can bring monsters together for a family reunion (followed by swift annihilation) are the Electron Vortex and the Graviton Vortex. Electron Vortex is considered the better of the two with its chance to inflict shock which can prevent monsters (that survived the initial annihilation) from being flung away by the bomb’s explosion.

SoT V: Staying useful, no matter the situation – Clockwork Recall

Running through clockwork with a random player, we stumbled across an area riddled with turrets. I didn’t have a gun equipped at that time (heating swords), but my teammate had a Magma Driver. His shield however was a Swift Strike Buckler which would break in two hits if he had to defend and so I took it up upon myself to defend him from turret fire with my Grey Owlite Shield.

Result: Great Teamwork and Dead Puppies (turret)

You see, even though I could not contribute damage-wise at that time, defending him from turret fire meant that he could confidently gun down turrets uninterrupted. That kind of synergy is more effective than me charging head on, getting myself killed and him dodging and weaving through bullet hell.

SoT VI: Pepperbox bro

Even though Volcanic Pepperbox (5*) deals significantly less damage than blitz or plague (against gremlins and undead for normal damage) it excels at 1 charge shotting any turret and the majority of the monsters belonging to the slime, fiend, and beast family due to their lower total health compared to undead and construct with their high health (excluding puppy turrets and howitzers) and gremlins (which can probably AoE heal faster than the damage output of pepperbox). It actually is not a bad gun to use, it’s just players don’t know how to use it effectively.

SoT VII: Can’t you see I’m Blitzing?

I invest a significant amount of time charging the weapon up, targeting a mob, positioning myself so I don't get attacked while I’m stuck while shooting. And what do I see you do? I see you hitting the mob away from my blitz, dealing a measly amount of damage, while I could of insta-killed it. So yeah, many thanks for being blind, it helps me SOOO much.

SoT VIII: Biohazard is a disappointing gun

Tried and tested, it’s really disappointing as an offensive gun. Thinking that it would be useful against gremlins in a gremlin/construct arena, I was struggling to kill anything while two darkfang menders were spamming their AoE heal spell over the mecha knights en-masse. Biohazard shots are slow, allowing those pesky menders to dodge without effort and what’s worse is that the poison proc chance for normal shots are quite low, despite the tooltip saying: “good chance of causing moderate poison”. I’m assuming that the tooltip is true when the Biohazard’s charged shots are detonated.

The damage output as I’ve stated above, is disappointing. Furthermore, the gun mechanic found only to catalyser guns is beyond disappointing and is just plain depressing.

How depressing? Well here’s a list:

• Undetonated charged shots alert turrets of your position, even if you decide not to detonate the orbiting charged shot

• Orbiting charged shots on monsters will disappear when it is killed by other means

• Orbiting charged shots on lichens will disappear when it merges with other lichens

• Charged shots blocked by mecha knights and darkfang gremlin thwackers will result in nothing

Same problems persist in Neutraliser, just without the poison proc and shadow damage.

SoT IX: Why I don't have Chao Armor Set

I’m well aware that chaos armor set is pretty OP, exactly like the mad bomber armor set except that the damage and CTR bonus are universal. However, even with the very high damage bonus and very high CTR bonus that can be acquired through the chaos armor set, I feel that I don't need it.

Why? Because of my uvs that I worked hard to get. Most of my frequently used weapons have CTR high uvs and by equipping the chaos armor set on top of the CTR high uvs, it practically devalues the worth of the CTR uv aka wasting it. Damage bonus on the other hand is useful, but in my opinion not necessary and not as useful as asi.

SoT X: Priorities – FSC run recall

Let me set up the scenario; bottom right room of floor 25 of FSC, the room with a lane of fire traps and a small area which spawns 3 slags, a Trojan and 2 weavers.

So me and some other random skolver player engage with those mobs. He uses his shiver which prompts me to release the Trojan for a quick kill. The Trojan gets released and dashes towards me and somehow magically through the freeze mist. So now I’m holding a blitz charge, dancing with the Trojan, waiting for him to show his back. And what is the skolver player doing? Spamming shiver on slags (freeze mist nowhere near the Trojan) and then preceding to slowly killing the slags with a Polaris at close range.

By some RNG luck, the Trojan decides to attack, fails to hit me, but somehow succeeding to kill the skolver. He calls ‘wtf’ and then rage quits. That skolver is a failure.

Also his sense of priority is messed up. Messed up because the Trojan is more threatening than the 3 slags + he had a shiver, which he could of freeze lock the Trojan, allowing me to kill it, ultimately preventing his death from occurring.

Moral of the story: Spiral Knights is still a team-based game, prioritise and target the most threatening monster, team up and kill it together.

SoT XI: /sigh, why do I even bother…

Today in C42, my asi ultra GF was outsped by a vanilla GF.

Sometimes I question myself as to why I invest so much cr in asi uvs when they just become useless because of my high latency.

SoT XII: Pre-RSS Bombing

I can see why so many pre-patch RSS bombers call for a buff or revert to the current RSS/shard bombs. The original RSS was just too good. Even though it was originally designed to kill fiends, its split elemental/piercing damage meant that it became the only viable elemental damaging bomb.

I was blessed with super RNG luck to craft a crystal bomb with undead med and construct med uv, and with the help of the mad bomber set, I was able to boost my RSS’s CTR and damage bonus to maximum.

So with maximum CTR and Damage Bonus, it became a turret sniper, but most importantly, slags in FSC just disintegrated under the dps of the RSS. Each bomb explosion created 8 shards and each shard dealt 380 dmg with maximum bonus damage. That is a total of 3040 on 1 slag within a time span of 1.2 seconds of charge time and explosion. It was literally the Blitz Needle charge in a bomb.

Of course, OOO saw this as OP and they changed the RSS mechanics to hide the immense damage nerf. And now, all the shard bombs suck (especially the elemental shard bomb because DBB – a pure piercing bomb, can outdps against undead) and thus, bombers faithful to pre-patch RSS want their bomb back.

Which is never going to happen.

SoT XIII: Poison is pathetic (PvE)

Against mobs, poison is the most useless status to inflict, only reducing the defence and attack power of mobs ever so slightly. The only negative buff unique only to poison is the ability to prevent healing and to also damage mobs being healed. Other than that it’s pretty useless.

Against players however, it's one of the most annoying status ever, it prevents healing and it reduces your defence and reduces your damage output by 50% (with no poison resistance), meaning that attacks that would be able to interrupt monster attack will not under poison. Luckily it does not deal damage if a player attempts to heal.

SoT XIV: Poison and fire – C42

Everybody knows that C42 is extremely annoying, with all that poison and fire. Players may run with the dragon scale armor set to gain high resistance and possibly immunity with additional poison and fire resistance uvs.

But what if I told you that the dragon scale armor set is redundant and that all you need is a hybrid armor set of skolver and vog? You wouldn't believe me, probably because you haven’t tried it yet and probably because you’ve been playing C42 incorrectly all along.

Like I said beforehand, dragon scale armor does provide high resistance/immunity to poison and fire, but it fails as an armor to provide the most basic of normal defence. Normal damage is what kills dragon scale players, not fire nor poison in C42 and this what makes the dragon scale armor so redundant in C42. With the skolver/vog hybrid armor, you get normal defence, piercing defence (defence against slime) and elemental defence (defence against gremlin and fire). The only thing you really need is the Wyvern Scale Shield. That's right, you heard me correctly, a 4* shield is sufficient enough to block fire indefinitely.

“Well then, what about the poison?” – you say, sneeringly.

And I respond: “Just tank the poison you big cry-baby.”

SoT XV: Divine Avenger energy bullets are a joke

They are truly a joke for a boss weapon, they glitch and disappear if the wielder releases the charge while their back is touching an unbreakable object, they don’t provide reliable knockback and therefore hit targets inconsistently, sometimes two times, sometimes four, depending on RNG and the position of the target. This is why Combuster is roflstomping Divine Avenger as choice reliable elemental sword.

SoT XVI: The Spy and the Mask

I use to play TF2 and I main in Spy during that time. Thus I know for a fact that having the ability to cloak, become invisible and have unlimited mobility whenever you decide is just too OP, but the reason why Spy is a support class and not an offensive class is because almost everything counters the Spy. But in Spiral Knights, nothing counters the ability to cloak, which means that cloaking is OP.

Chose Maskeraith purely for the cloaking ability, no regrets.

SoT XVII: Fiends are EZ

I don't see the reason behind their whining. They say fiends are too strong and yet when I fight them, they crumble like a sand castle under a monsoon. The only reason why players complain about fiends is because they don't know how to play according to the situation. They’re so use to rushing towards mobs, widely swinging their sword until they die. But when it come to fiends and they use the same ‘tactic’ as they would for other monsters, they themselves die and thus you see a outcry of complaints saying:

“fiend OP, nerf them NAOW” – How Pathetic.

So how do you deal with fiends? Well first thing is to unlearn your default ‘tactic’ of offensive charging into the battle because that is how send yourself to death. Once you’ve unlearned and now become patience enough to observe the fiends in their natural environment, play defensively. If you provoke some of the fiend’s aggro, don't go rushing up to them, instead slowly retreat while holding your shield up and bait them to attack you. Block their attack and then proceed to counterattack. 100% guarantee that fiends crumble like a sand castle under a monsoon.

The reason why counterattacking is effective in killing fiends than straight up rushing is because all fiends (except silkwings) have low offensive sustain. In order words, their offensive power is huge but they suffer the longest cooldown after an attack.

I’m sure you’ve noticed it before, for example the Trojan, once they attack they do practically nothing (maybe a bit of walking and spinning) for a long time until their attacks come off cooldown in which then they will attempt to strike a player. Same thing applies to all fiends (once again with exception to silkwings).

Attack patterns of fiends:

• Devilites will throw their items at a player and then proceed to dodge and be a hard hitting target, wasting your time before their attack comes of cooldown.

• Greavers will fly fast before attacking. Blocking or counterattacking during this time will result in greavers flapping their wings around the player, doing absolutely nothing.

• Gorgos will track players during an attack. Once you’ve blocked or avoided the attack, gorgos just laze around and do nothing for quite some time.

• Trojans, like I said above, will nothing for a long time after their attack.

Play defensively against fiends and you won’t die.

SoT XVIII: Maskeraith’s cloak is broken (in a good way)

Broken and OP can be added on the list of why cloaking is so good. It is the only ability in the game which can remove all mob aggro without dying. Period. Also, upgrading the cloaking to the ultimate form (Deadly Shadow Cloak) provides you with +50% damage and asi bonus unrestricted by the damage and asi cap. What more do you want?

SoT XIX: Black Kat Crow obviously made for PvP

It’s practically made to attempt to replace the skolver cap and to reduce the number of skolver clones within PvP. Thus, OP bonuses (universal damage bonus high and MSI low) where placed on the crow to entice skolver clones to change their helmet over. Another indication of the BKC been made for PvP is that it provides the exact same freeze resistance as the skolver cap even though it has negative status resistance of the other statuses. Replace skolver cap for BKC and end up with max sword damage bonus (no damage trinkets, striker class only) and still be immune to shivermist’s freeze.

At the end skolver cap substitution didn't work as BKC provided shadow defence, useless against the over abundance of toothpicks. In addition, BKC now provides much need damage bonus and mobility for non-skolver clone loadouts. Which is good, I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that it fail at the only thing that it was originally designed to do.

SoT XX: Maskeraith above the rest

Maskeraith, I feel is the best utility sprite out the three. Drakon is considered as a damage dealer sprite, but is redundant as players are supposed to deal the majority of damage, not sprites. Seraphynx is a good support sprite, but not the best sprite. It suffers from programming bugs to non-ultimate Angelic Aura and Iron-Heart Attack ability. Players might argue that Seraphynx’s aura is better than the cloak as it provides them with ‘invincibility’, but I just rebut them with: “does it last for 15 seconds, removes mob aggro and provides bonus attack and asi?”

They respond with no and a sad face.

SoT XXI: Lifeless revives

Thank you OOO for adding Sparks of Life into the game; I was getting tired of reviving cry-babies, with my own precious health, only for them to die again in less than 1 minute and start crying for help. Now I don't have to revive them with health because I can't :D

And I plan not to waste Sparks of Life on those cry-babies.

SoT XXII: Combuster and Voltedge/Glacius are mutually unintelligible

Mutually unintelligible is a language metaphor, where a language, using the same words to write but with a completely different process to speak (i.e. Mandarin and Cantonese, both are considered as the same Chinese language) can be learnt in the same manner and yet be impossible to communicate with each other if they were to communicate verbally. The same concept applies with Combuster and Voltedge/Glacius as both swords have the same normal attack and charge attack pattern and yet be completely different functionally. Combuster provides mass knockback, while Voltedge/Glacius provide consistent crowd control.

Both these swords don't work well with each other. If Voltedge’s charge attack hits mobs first, followed by a Combuster charge attack, there is a high chance that the Combuster’s charge attack will not knockback mobs due to shock infliction. But if Combuster’s charge attack hits mobs first, Voltedge’s charge attack will not reach any mobs as it would have been pushed away by the Combuster’s charge attack. Glacius gets the worst end of the deal; freeze inflicted by Glacius’ charge attack will instantly break as soon as the Combuster’s charge attacks hit mobs. Also Glacius will no longer be able to freeze mobs due to fire infliction by the Combuster.

SoT XXIII: Dashing through the (shadow) snow, whoops I mean - fire

Obvious I know, but it’s fun to brush pass shadow fire via dashing, not take any elemental damage and yet be set on fire.

SoT XXIV: Denied!

When a player is dead, they cannot receive loot dropped by mobs and boxes, including boss tokens. I’ve deliberately denied players (usually leaders of the party, because they cannot be kicked) many times from boss tokens because they were taking a ‘nap’, waiting for a Spark of Life revive from someone else while me and my teammates were doing all the hard work. It brings a smile to my face when they realise that they didn’t get any boss tokens and rage about how their time was wasted.

SoT XXV: Polaris – A Love Hate for All

Why is it loved? Because of its knockback

Why is it hated? Also because of its knockback

Also when I say Polaris, I also include Supernova

Polaris, one of the best utility gun, is frequently used as it provides the easiest means of knockback. Additionally, since Polaris is a 3 ‘bullet clip’ gun, it is possible to shoot indefinitely without reloading (see 2 Shot, No Reload in the advanced core mechanics section) resulting in constant knockback on mobs until they die. Unfortunately, this knockback producing gun is so easy to use, it’s often spammed and often in situations when mass knockback is not needed.

But fear not, for I, Tqs-Remx – PvE king, shall provide you with a comprehensive but simple guideline on how to use Polaris/Supernova in PvE without annoying your teammates.

Do not use Polaris/Supernova:

1. To push mobs (with exceptions to: Giant Lichen Colonies, Lumbers, Devilites, Gorgos and Greavers) to an open area with the knockback

Doing so annoys teammates, especially teammates that are setting up weapon charge

2. To damage wolvers and gremlins

Wolvers will dodge/tp away from slow moving bullets. Also 1 perfectly placed AoE heal from a darkfang mender outheals the dps of Polaris/Supernova

3. To shoot mobs at close range

Unexpanded shots deals less damage and provides no knockback

It is acceptable to use Polaris/Supernova:

1. To push Giant Lichen Colonies, Lumbers, Devilites, Gorgos and Greavers away from teammates.

These monsters mentioned above deal heavy damage at close range and therefore need to be pushed away to avoid damage.

2. To shock (if applicable) and perma-interrupt turrets

Turrets are harmless under Polaris/Supernova influence

3. To push mobs into a wall/corner and keep them there until they are destroyed

Walls and corners are affiliated business partners of Polaris and Supernova

Decrease damage output of Polaris and Supernova, decrease the chance and strength of the shock

Polaris and Supernova are just too spammable for a gun, and for Polaris, the proc chance for shock is the same as a Storm Driver, a less spammable and more difficult gun to use. The difficulty vs. reward scale for Polaris/Supernova is unfavourably tipped on low difficulty and high reward and therefore needs a change.

Overly powerful armor needs higher negative status resistance and lower overall defence

Chao armor set and BKC are the main culprits of this Meta Change. High offensive power should be balanced with low defence and high susceptibility to negative status infliction. Mad bomber armor set gets away this time because it’s CTR and damage bonus only affects bombs while chaos armor set and BKC armor bonus are universal.

5* Brandish's charge wave: lowering the chance to proc its strong status infliction

Combuster has overall more dps than the other elemental brandishes because its fire infliction does not prevent mobs from riding the charge wave, while Voltedge and Glacius charge wave does. By reducing the chance to proc shock/freeze which prevents knockback, it essentially buffs the damage output of Voltedge and Glacius closer to the damage output of Combuster.

Increase Divine Avenger’s damage output or revert to its original design

Divine Avenger is eating dust from the 5* elemental brandish, because its overall damage is lower than all 3 elemental brandishes and the knockback is unreliable compared to Combuster. Increasing the damage output is a good change and so is reverting it back to its original design, where its charge attack releases 3 energy bullets in a wide spread, instead of in a cone.

Recon shield should not (break in 1 hit) be made out of paper

Recon shield is easily broken as if it were made out of paper, even a tick of shock will break the recon shield and recon is all about patience and timed attack. Having a paper shield doesn't really promote patience and timed attack if a mediocre poke in your general direction would reveal your position.

EDIT: OOO have added this change into the game. That's nice.

Remove damage bonus med from the striker class

This change alone would completely change how striker is played, if a striker wants to have maximum damage bonus, they would have to invest in a damage trinket and thereby reducing their maximum health. If the striker wants as much health as they can get, then they will not have maximum damage bonus.