Unique Variant
From SpiralKnights
When crafting an item, there is a low probability that you may get a randomized unique variant, a special version of that item with an added bonus. You cannot choose the unique variant you obtain; however, variants can be transferred when that item is upgraded. "Unique variant" is commonly abbreviated as UV.
These bonuses appear apart from, and are not affected by, other bonuses that come with the original item. They do stack with other bonuses following the rules in abilities. Only one UV is possible per item.
Contents
Crafting
There is a low chance of creating a unique variant each time that you craft a new item. This is the only way to obtain unique variants at the moment: pre-made items purchased from vendors will never come with a unique bonus.
When crafting or upgrading, unless an existing unique variant bonus is explicitly transferred to a new item (as described below), each step in the item creation process provides a new chance at a new unique variant. For example, a unique variant may appear when initially crafting a cutter, as well as when the cutter is upgraded into a striker. For items with long crafting chains, this may provide as many as five chances at obtaining a unique variant bonus per item.
When upgrading, it is possible to transfer an existing unique variant bonus on the base item to your upgraded item. In the upgrade menu, the option to transfer the unique variant bonus to your upgraded item is pre-selected. If you de-select this option when upgrading, the resultant item will not retain the existing unique variant bonus. It will, however, have a chance at becoming a new unique variant, with a new unique variant bonus or nothing.
 |
 |
Crafting Strategy with Alchemy Paths
Due to the ability to transfer a variant through multiple steps, a relatively economical way to obtain unique variants is to mass produce the first item in a crafting chain. For example, a unique Ash of Agni (crafting cost: 800 energy) can be produced by crafting a large number of haze bombs (10 energy each) and upgrading only the haze bomb that has a unique variant.
Types of Unique Variants
Weapons
In general, weapon bonuses will make your weapon more effective. Bonuses, however, are not equally useful for every weapon. For example, charge time reduction on a status effect inflicting bomb, is generally deemed a lot more useful than damage bonuses, as such bombs are hardly ever used for the damage they deal in their initial explosion.
Weapons can gain any one of the three basic bonuses listed below. These bonuses seem to be percentage based depending on the base stats of the weapons, check the Abilities for such info.
- Attack speed increase (ASI) (can't be obtained on bombs)
- Charge time reduction (CTR)
- Damage bonus vs (construct, gremlin, fiend, beast, undead, slime)
For example, a Striker can have "attack speed increased: high" or "bonus damage vs beasts: moderate," but not both.
The possible UV values a weapon can have are: Low, Medium, High, Very High It is impossible to obtain a UV with Ultra or Maximum.
Armor
Armor unique variants focus on adding protection against damage or status effects. Unique variants can add defense against attacks that the armor would not normally protect against.
The size of these bonuses does not depend on the stats of the item, and instead are set to fixed numerical protection bonuses. Possible types of unique variants are:
- Bonus damage protection from (normal, piercing, elemental, shadow): pick one damage type
- Bonus status resistance against (stun, freeze, sleep, poison, fire, shock, curse)- pick one status effect
For example, a Wolver Cap can have "bonus protection vs shadow: moderate" or "bonus freeze resistance: low," but not both.
Bonus damage protection, much like base damage protection, increases with the star-rating. For example, a low elemental UV on a 4* shield could appear longer than a medium elemental UV on a 2* shield. This assumption is made based on watching the tooltip, and remains untested.
The possible UV values an armor can have are: Low, Medium, High, Maximum It is impossible to obtain a UV with Very High or Ultra.
Probability
Chance of an UV on bombs seems to be around 10% [1][2]
Probabilities on bombs seem to be approximately as follows: [3] Low: 65.74% ± 8.95% Medium: 21.30% ± 7.72% High: 7.41% ± 4.94% Very High: 5.56% ± 4.32%
Chances for armors and other kinds of weapons remain to be tested.
Ability Ratings
Unique variant bonus amounts and addition are described by ability ratings, whether or not the stat is displayed by a bar.
