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Revision as of 22:45, 9 November 2011

This page is an alternative to the Swordmaster Guide, focused on how to choose a sword (planning your shopping and crafting) rather than how to use a sword (controls, fighting tips).

Damage Type

Damage type is the single most important consideration in choosing a sword (or handgun). There are four types of damage: normal, piercing, elemental, and shadow. Each monster family is vulnerable to, neutral to, and resistant to these damage types as follows.

Monster Family	Vulnerable To	Neutral To	Resistant To
Slimes	Shadow	Elemental, Normal	Piercing
Gremlins	Shadow	Piercing, Normal	Elemental
Beasts	Piercing	Shadow, Normal	Elemental
Fiends	Piercing	Elemental, Normal	Shadow
Undead	Elemental	Piercing, Normal	Shadow
Constructs	Elemental	Shadow, Normal	Piercing

Hitting a monster with its vulnerable damage type gives you about 20% extra damage; hitting a monster with is resistant damage type penalizes you about 80% of your damage. Notice that all monsters are neutral to normal damage. This means that normal damage is general-purpose; it is never the best damage to use on a monster, but it's never bad either.

If you are able to carry a piercing sword, an elemental sword, and a shadow sword, then you can switch among them to exploit monsters' vulnerabilities and deal huge damage. You have no need for a normal sword at all. But what if you have only two weapon slots to spend on swords? Then carrying two non-normal damage types still lets you deal huge damage to 4/6 of monsters and moderate damage to the other 2/6 of monsters. For example, if you have a piercing sword and a shadow sword, then use piercing on fiends, beasts, and undead, and shadow on slimes, gremlins, and constructs.

In short, if you are into swords, then you want to own a piercing sword, an elemental sword, and a shadow sword. If you can't carry all three of them, then carry whichever two seem most promising for the stratum you're doing, based on the gate map. There is no particular reason to own a normal sword at all.

This same damaged-based advice applies to guns, and to mixtures of swords and guns. When choosing (for example) whether to make your piercing weapon a gun and your shadow weapon a sword, or vice-versa, there is one nugget of conventional wisdom to consider: Attacking turrets is easiest with a gun, most turrets (gun puppies and howlitzers) are vulnerable to elemental, and the rest of the turrets (polyps) are neutral to elemental. So it's a good idea to make your elemental weapon a gun, if you're going to have a gun at all.

This damage-based advice doesn't quite apply to bombs, which are more idiosyncratic. But let's return to swords.

Sword Basics

Although damage type is the primary consideration in choosing a sword (or handgun), there are other considerations:

• Different swords can actually feel different to the player — a charming feature of Spiral Knights. Some swords are much faster than others. The piercing swords have stabbing motions that take some practice, to aim correctly. Every player who is into swords should try a variety of feels. There is no particular reason to restrict yourself to one feel. I regularly carry swords of different feels, and have no trouble switching among them in battle.
• Typically, slow swords have wide swings and long reach, so that they can hit multiple tightly packed monsters, while fast swords have small attacks that require close contact with monsters and rarely hit multiple monsters. Piercing swords, which tend to be fast and long, are a notable exception.
• Knockback is useful for defense, especially in crowded rooms. However, in a party you must take care not to knock monsters into your teammates. This is especially true for Leviathan Blade's charge attack, Divine Avenger's charge attack, and other extreme-knockback attacks.
• There are seven kinds of status effect: fire, freeze, shock, curse, poison, stun, and sleep. New players often confuse damage and status effects, because they frequently arrive together. For example, suppose that a gun puppy fires an ice ball that hits you. The ice ball does two distinct things: It deals elemental damage to you (which lowers your health) and it induces the freeze status (which makes you unable to move your feet). All of the status effects are great to inflict on monsters (with a couple of tactical exceptions, such as fire on oilers and shock on quicksilvers).

Here is a summary of all of the 5-star swords: damage type, status effect, strokes per combo, and miscellaneous notes.

The guild Lancer Knightz is collecting data on the speed of various swords' combos, and hence how much damage per second they can do. Although raw damage per second is not the only consideration in choosing a sword, you might want to check out their data.

Sword vs. Sword

Remember that you want to own a piercing sword, an elemental sword, and a shadow sword. The direct comparisons in this section should help you make up your mind. In each case, I try to present the objective facts, followed by semi-objective analysis of the implications, followed by my subjective opinion.

Piercing Swords

Facts: Barbarous Thorn Blade's charge attack spews a shower of thorns, that damage several monsters moderately. Final Flourish's charge attack is basically a more powerful version of its regular combo; it lunges into one monster, damaging it heavily. The other two piercing swords (Furious Flamberge and Fearless Rigadoon) are similar to Final Flourish, but sacrifice some damage for the ability to inflict status effects.

Implications: These swords kill piercing-vulnerable monsters so quickly that there is usually not much point in also inducing a status. When used against a crowd, the BTB charge is a bit safer, because it disrupts the attacks of several monsters, while the Final Flourish charge attack can leave the user exposed.

Opinion: Final Flourish and BTB are equally good. Furious Flamberge and Fearless Rigadoon are less good.

Elemental Swords

Facts: The three elemental Brandishes (Combuster, Glacius, Voltedge) use a fast, three-stroke combo, while Divine Avenger uses a slow, two-stroke combo. The Brandishes do more damage per combo, and can execute more combos per minute, for a higher raw DPS. DA enjoys longer reach, a wider swing, and more knockback. The Brandishes can inflict status (freeze, fire, shock) on charge attacks. DA's charge attack does more damage and more knockback. While DA is charging or charged, the user moves at reduced speed; the Brandishes' charges let the user move at full speed. (I will not discuss Fang of Vog here.)

Implications: A Brandish combo offers more opportunities to dodge and shield than does a DA combo. Hitting fast enemies is usually easier with a Brandish than with DA. Against a single enemy, a Brandish does higher DPS than DA does. Against tightly clustered enemies, DA's longer reach and wider swing mean that it can hit multiple enemies at once, potentially doing high total damage. However, completing a combo against multiple enemies without getting hit requires care, so this is not really a route to high DPS. DA's higher knockback aids defense in tight, crowded fights. Among the Brandishes, Glacius' freeze is useful for crowd control, Combuster's fire is useful for extra damage, and Voltedge's shock amounts to a compromise between the two.

Opinion: All are good. There is no clear winner here.

Shadow Swords

Facts: Acheron uses a fast, three-stroke combo, while Gran Faust uses a slow, two-stroke combo. Acheron does more damage per combo, and can execute more combos per minute, for a higher raw DPS. GF enjoys longer reach, a wider swing, and more knockback. GF's charge attack does more damage and more knockback. GF's charge can inflict curse on monsters, but it can also curse the user. While GF is charging or charged, the user moves at reduced speed; Acheron's charge lets the user move at full speed.

Implications: An Acheron combo offers more opportunities to dodge and shield than does a GF combo. Hitting fast enemies is usually easier with Acheron than with GF. Against a single enemy, Acheron does higher DPS than GF does. Against tightly clustered enemies, GF's longer reach and wider swing mean that it can hit multiple enemies at once, potentially doing high total damage. However, completing a combo against multiple enemies without getting hit requires care, so this is not really a route to high DPS. GF's higher knockback aids defense in tight, crowded fights. GF's monster curse is useful against large enemies (Royal Jelly, lichen colonies), but small enemies do not usually live long enough for it to be useful. GF's user curse is dangerous; anti-curse armor and trinkets are desirable.

Opinion: Acheron is better against gremlins. GF is perhaps slightly better against slimes. Gremlins are more worrisome than slimes, so Acheron is slightly better overall.

Leviathan Blade vs. Cold Iron Vanquisher

Facts: Cold Iron Vanquisher does more damage against undead; Leviathan Blade does more damage against all other monsters. Levi's charge attack knocks back more than CIV's does.

Implications: Levi does higher damage per second in most regular attacks. The high knockback of Levi's charge attack is good for defense, but it can disrupt teammates when used badly. Against light enemies, CIV's charge is more likely to hit three times, because the enemies don't get knocked away from it as much.

Opinion: Levi is better in most situations.

Dread Venom Striker vs. Wild Hunting Blade

Facts: Dread Venom Striker can inflict poison; Wild Hunting Blade does more damage against beasts.

Implications: Although WHB does more damage against beasts, any piercing sword does far more damage against beasts than WHB does. DVS's poison is useful against most monsters — especially ones that heal, such as the Royal Jelly.

Opinion: DVS is better in most situations.

Divine Avenger vs. Gran Faust

Facts: Divine Avenger does elemental damage, while Gran Faust does shadow damage. Therefore DA does more damage against undead and constructs (and fiends), while GF does more damage against slimes and gremlins (and beasts). DA's charge attack does more total damage. GF's charge attack can inflict curse on monsters, but it can also curse the user. Contrary to the statistics bars displayed on these items, GF is not significantly faster than DA.

Implications: Damage type is a major consideration in choosing a sword, so these swords are not really comparable. People ask about these two swords only because they are similar and they are both obtainable from Jelly Gems.

Opinion: If you have already decided that you are going to craft either DA or GF, then choose the one that complements your other weapons' damage types; in the case of a tie, choose DA, because DA is as good as any elemental sword, whereas GF is not quite as good as Acheron.