User:Jdavis

I'm far from the best player in the game, but I've been playing for a while. So I thought I might share some of my hard-won knowledge with less-experienced players, and try to clear up some misconceptions that seem to be common. Have any comments or questions? Feel free to contact me on my talk page.

Advice

For beginners:

• Do not buy 0-star or 1-star equipment. See my Buying Guide.
• Understand that Spiral Knights is designed as a cooperative, not a competitive, game. In particular, there is no need to compete with your fellow party members over crowns, heat, minerals, hearts, tokens, or materials. Read the Party article for details on what is shared and what is not.
• Start learning the Etiquette of the game. In particular, learn the difference between reviving with health and with energy. Try to revive with health as much as possible, and to let others revive you with health. This saves everyone energy in the long run.
• Learn how to speak out loud (press Enter/Return and type), how to whisper/tell to another player (type "/tell NAME MESSAGE"), and how to reply when someone whispers to you (by pressing R and typing). See the Chat article.

For intermediate players:

• Learn how Damage and Status Effects work! These control your shopping and your fighting (unless you are focused exclusively on bombs).
• Skill matters very little in Strata 1 and 2, but it matters much more later on. So start building your skill. Master the technique of "popping" your shield (by briefly activating your shield, when a monster is next to you); this gets monsters off you. You can also cut the charge attack animation short by turning on your shield; you still do the damage, but you're not vulnerable for as much time. Practice such shielding techniques, along with dodging; don't rely on just one or the other. Some of this can be found on YouTube.
• Learn all of the Etiquette of the game.
• Do not use the charge attack on a Cutter-line sword. It takes too long and leaves you too exposed to damage.

I'm not going to pretend to give advice to expert players. Instead, let me just list some attributes that I have recognized, as I've watched some of the best players in the game.

• Knowledge: An expert player knows the damage susceptibilities and resistances of the monsters, and uses weapons to which the monsters are vulnerable. When she begins a new stratum, she quickly figures out how many hits she needs to take down a gun puppy there. She knows exactly how long her fire bomb takes to charge and how long a monster takes to wind up for attack; this is how she can manage split-second timing of attacks, shielding, maneuvering, healing, reviving, etc. She has the boss levels and arenas memorized; this is how she can unleash an attack on a monster as it appears.
• Patience: An expert player is accustomed to Strata 5 and 6, where monsters do huge damage even to heavily armored knights. He knows how to play carefully. When he enters a room with gun puppies and lichens, he retreats, to fight the lichens away from the gun puppies (unless he's feeling very confident). In contrast, novice players often get surrounded by monsters and die. An expert player is willing to slowly but safely wear down monsters using, for example, freeze bombs that do little damage. Often, the expert player simply does not get hit at all.
• Equipment: Okay, equipment is important, but often not as important as novice players think it is. An expert player with poor equipment outperforms a novice player with superior equipment. There is no "best" suit of armor or "best" gun. An expert player has more than one set of equipment, and tailors his armor and weapons to the stratum he's facing.
• Etiquette: Etiquette doesn't exactly help your fighting, but it is remarkable to me, how uniformly polite expert players are. They share their pills, they revive each other with health, and they drop pickups and vitapods before returning to Haven. They often greet each other. They sometimes share their heat.

Damage and Status Effects

Damage is the single most important aspect of the rules of Spiral Knights to understand. There are four types of damage: normal, piercing, elemental, and shadow. The damage type that you inflict is determined by the weapon you're using. The damage type that a monster inflicts is determined by what family it's in and how deep in the Clockworks it is.

Completely separate from the four kinds of damage are the seven kinds of status effect: fire, freeze, shock, curse, poison, stun, and sleep. New players often confuse damage and status effects, because many game events involve both. 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).

There is one weird relationship between damage and status. When you are on fire, you periodically take damage from it, until it subsides. The damage is of its own special kind. Neither normal, nor elemental, nor piercing, nor shadow armor will lessen damage from fire; only fire-resistant armor lessens it. I am pretty sure that the same is true of damage from shock.

Try to acquire weapons that inflict status effects; all of the status effects are useful to inflict on monsters. Try to acquire armor that protects against fire, freeze, and shock, because these are serious and common. Curse is very serious but less common. Poison is less serious and less common. Stun mainly happens when a lumber or trojan hits you, but you shouldn't be letting them hit you anyway. I have never seen a monster inflict sleep.

As far as damage goes, you're going to need to memorize the following table.

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

First, consider the damage that the monsters inflict. On Stratum 1, monsters don't actually inflict their preferred damage type; they inflict normal damage. As you go deeper into the Clockworks, monsters increasingly inflict their preferred damage. If you enter a fiend-themed Stratum 5 without shadow protection, then you're going to have a tough time. For your first big set of armor, you'll want to cover all four damage types. After that, get armor pieces that let you build specialized armor configurations, for example for the Firestorm Citadel. Before you enter any deep stratum of the Clockworks, examine the gate map and try to guess which armor configuration is most suitable.

Now consider the vulnerabilities and resistances of the monsters. Notice that all monsters are neutral to normal damage. This means that normal weapons are general-purpose, not specialized.

If you own only one 5-star sword, then it should probably be normal (and in particular Leviathan Blade). But if you're into swords, then you do not want a normal sword; you want two own a piercing sword, an elemental sword, and a shadow sword. If you have three weapon slots, then consider carrying all three; switch among them, based on the monster that you're fighting at the moment, to inflict maximum damage. If you have only two weapon slots, or if you'd like to carry some weapons other than swords, then carry two swords of differing non-normal damage type. For example, let's say that you're carrying a piercing sword and an elemental sword. Use the piercing sword on gremlins, beasts, and fiends. Use the elemental sword on constructs, undead, and slimes. In this way, you can deal huge damage to beasts, fiends, undead, and constructs, and moderate damage to slimes and gremlins; you're never dealing low damage. Before you enter a stratum, check the gate map to see which two of your swords seem most useful.

Similarly, if you own only one gun, then perhaps it should be normal, but if you're into guns, then you'll want to own a piercing gun, an elemental gun, and a shadow gun, and switch among them to deal as much damage as possible. If you carry a sword and a gun, then you could make them both normal, but consider making them distinct non-normal damage types instead. And what if you're into bombs? Then this damage-focused advice doesn't quite apply. Bombs are idiosyncratic, and bomb blasts often hit monsters of multiple families. For example, Graviton Vortex is the only shadow bomb, and it does very little damage, but it's valuable because it sucks monsters into a vortex, so that they can all be damaged by a subsequent attack.

Buying Guide

Do not buy 0-star or 1-star equipment. Just save up for 2-star equipment. Why? Well, 0-star equipment is no better than the equipment with which you begin the game. As for 1-star equipment, most of it is not upgradeable. That means that you'll have to buy 2-star equipment eventually, whether or not you buy 1-star equipment along the way. The 1-star stuff has no long-term value. Its short-term value is also not great: It's not much more effective than 0-star equipment, and it doesn't let you access any more of the Clockworks than does 0-star equipment.

When you're ready to buy 2-star equipment, start with the suit, helmet, and primary weapon. Then do your shield. I recommend this, because a shield protects you only while you are using it, and many beginning players are not great at using their shield yet. Then do your secondary weapon. And what should you buy? My first piece of advice is to plan based on 5-star items, not on 2-star items. 2-star items are temporary stepping stones on the path to 5-star items. One 2-star item may seem preferable to another 2-star item, but lead to a 5-star item that is not as good as the other's. Read up on every 5-star item on the Spiral Knights wiki.

Do you intend to be a pure swordsman, gunner, or bomber? If so, then consider armor specialized to those types (see below). If you have no idea what your weapon type is, or if you expect to use a mix (most players do), then consider armor with strong defense. For your first set of armor, you might want to strike a balance of different damage and status effect protections. For your next set of armor, you might want to get something ideal for the Firestorm Citadel or some other special situation. As far as weapons go, you want to be able to deal at least two types of special damage: piercing, elemental, or shadow. Then, by switching among your weapons, you will usually (4/6 of the time) be able to exploit your enemy's weakness, and you will never have to use a weapon on a monster, that it resists. Ideally, you would also have weapons that deal certain helpful status effects, such as poison, shock, or freeze.

As you work toward a 5-star item, consider buying the 3-star item from another player (through the Auction House or not) and then upgrading twice yourself. Depending on energy prices, this may be more economical than crafting the 2- and 3-star versions yourself. You have fewer chances to acquire unique variants, but unique variants can be purchased from the gremlins later anyway.

Swords

Swords come in three vague speed/weight categories. Roughly speaking, fast swords use 5-stroke combos, do little damage per hit, and offer little knockback. Slow swords use 2-stroke combos, do a lot of damage per hit, and knock back a lot. Medium-speed swords use 3-stroke combos and do middling damage/knockback. As far as damage goes, there are no pure Elemental or Shadow swords.

If you're into swords, then seriously consider this equipment:

• Sword (Piercing): Final Flourish or Barbarous Thorn Blade (the other two seem less good)
• Sword (Elemental): Combuster, Glacius, Voltedge, Divine Avenger, or Fang of Vog (they all seem good)
• Sword (Shadow): Acheron or Gran Faust (the only two available)
• Handgun: Valiance (for general purposes) or Argent Peacemaker or an elemental or piercing gun (for Firestorm Citadel)
• Bomb: Shivermist Buster or maybe Graviton Vortex (for crowd control)
• Helmet: Skolver Cap, Vog Cub Cap, or Divine Veil
• Armor: Skolver Coat or Vog Cub Coat
• Shield: Grey Owlite Shield or Barbarous Thorn Shield

Handguns

Handguns come in two broad speed categories: Some guns let you walk while firing, while others do not. The latter require great care, but generally do more damage per hit. In comparison to swords, there are many more guns of pure piercing, elemental, or shadow damage, and very few guns of mixed damage. Another major consideration is bullet speed; someday I'll add that to this table.

I've never worn gun-oriented armor, but the obvious choice is the Gunslinger Sash/Hat line, which has four 5-star versions with various strengths. You can mix and match these with shields to get either well-balanced armor or highly specialized armor. That's great. See also the Gunslinger article and the forum thread Ask a Master Gunslinger Anything.

Bombs

I honestly don't know much about bombs, but here's some bomb information, just for completeness. Roughly, some bombs are used for damage, others for status effects, and others for controlling crowds of monsters. Damage type seems not to be the major consideration.

The obvious armor for bombers is the Spiral Demo Suit/Helm line, which has three 5-star versions. All offer Normal/Elemental protection, so you'll want to get Piercing/Shadow protection from your unique variants, shields, and trinkets, for certain strata. See also the Bomber article.

Etiquette

Spiral Knights is designed to be a social game. By observing some rules of etiquette, you will keep your fellow players happy. On the other hand, if you're rude, even unintentionally, then advanced players will not want to be your friends.

Reviving

Every time a knight is revived with energy, his cost of reviving with energy doubles. Thus, reviving with energy gets very expensive as the expedition progresses. It is best to revive with health as much as possible, and save energy-reviving for when it is truly necessary. So when is it necessary?

First, when all of the knights in a party are dead, each knight should say his reviving cost out loud. Then the knight with the cheapest cost (usually) revives himself with energy, and goes around reviving the other knights using his health. He doesn't revive another knight with energy unless that knight has agreed to it, and he certainly doesn't "revive all". Reviving another knight with energy is not necessarily doing that knight a favor, because it makes his future revivals more costly.

Second, in the Jelly King fight you always revive yourself with energy. Why? There are so many monsters clogging up the area, that other players can't get to you. Also, the Jelly King heals, so the entire party must be alive to deal damage to him as fast as possible. In this situation, it's probably okay to "revive all". And what if you find yourself in a Jelly King fight, without the energy to revive? Then you have already breached etiquette.

Teamwork

Learn how to drop pickups and vitapods (by dragging them to the floor with your mouse). When you come to the lift at the end of a level, and you decide to return to Haven rather than descend further, always drop your vitapod and all of your pickups, so that other players can grab them. Also, say "going up" so that your intentions are clear. If you die, and the other players are close to death, then drop your pills, so that someone can heal and revive you. In general, consider sharing pills with your teammates, so that everyone has at least one pill at all times.

I never kick people out of my party just because they're not very good, or because I need room for a friend who wants to join. That's being rude to my teammate. On the other hand, I do occasionally kick people who are acting selfishly. I particularly dislike people who stay away from the fight, waiting for everyone else to finish off the monsters, maybe raiding the treasure rooms while they do. That's terrible behavior.

Miscellany

Do not beg. Do not ask strangers for crowns, crystal energy, or anything else. If you want crowns, then sell something. If you ask a friend for a loan, and they refuse, then accept it and move on. If someone in your party finds a material that you want, don't ask her for it; it's hers, not yours, by the luck of the draw.

Do not invite friends into disasters (everybody's dead on the ground in a danger room, with high reviving cost) unless you warn them ahead of time with a /tell. If you invite someone to join your party, and they decline, then don't harass them about it. That's a form of begging. Just accept it and move on.

Less experienced players should recognize that advanced players have different interests in fights and treasure. They should not regard advanced players as "tour guides" to help them through tough levels. More experienced players should anticipate the needs of less experienced ones. For example, an advanced player may want to leave the Royal Jelly Palace at the end of depth 16. If so, then he should inform the party, by the start of depth 15 at the latest, to avoid conflict with players who expected him to complete the stratum.

Some people never speak in the Clockworks, but I find that a little talking helps the party mood. Say "hi" when you join a party and "bye" or "thanks" when you leave. Don't get upset if you don't get a reply.

If you are playing Spiral Knights in your underwear, then keep some clothes nearby, in case you need to answer the door.