User:Jdavis/Armor

This armor guide is a work in progress. Many features need to be added, refined, removed, etc.

Basic Concepts

Perhaps the single most important rule of Spiral Knights is damage. Damage is what lowers your health and eventually kills you. There are four damage types: normal, piercing, elemental, and shadow. In shallow strata of the Clockworks, monsters deal primarily normal damage. As you descend deeper into the Clockworks, monsters increasingly deal their preferred non-normal damage type. However, even in Stratum 6, there is a great deal of normal damage being dealt. On any given Clockworks level, the ideal armor set offers normal protection and one (or sometimes two) other damage protections, depending on the main monster family present.

There are seven kinds of status effect: fire, freeze, shock, poison, stun, curse, and sleep (which is not currently in the game). New players often confuse status with damage. For example, when a gun puppy shoots an ice ball at you, that ice ball inflicts elemental damage (which lowers your health) and freeze status (which locks your feet). But freeze is not inherently elemental in any sense. In the Shadow Royal Jelly Palace, the polyps inflict piercing and freeze. So keep the concepts of damage and status distinct in your mind. On any given Clockworks level, the ideal armor set offers protection against the status theme(s), if any.

Here is a condensed list of the main damage and status threats that knights face in the Clockworks. Each family is listed with all of the possible damage types and status effects that it might inflict. That is, not every member of a family inflicts every damage type and status effect listed for that family. The list omits any hazard that appears only in a particular scenario (e.g. Ironclaw Munitions Factory).

In addition to defense, many armor pieces offer abilities such as health bonus, movement speed increase (MSI), attack speed increase (ASI), charge time reduction (CTR), or damage bonus. Some damage bonuses are weapon-specific (e.g. swords only), others are monster-specific (e.g. slimes only), and a couple are blanket (all weapons and all monsters). Although armor pieces with offensive bonuses offer slightly less protection than armor pieces without them, most advanced players favor these offensive armors. The reason is that monsters deep in the Clockworks deal a lot of damage. Even highly protective armor can keep the knight alive for only a few hits. So players must simply avoid getting hit, by dodging, shielding, interrupting monsters, and killing quickly. At that point, one is usually happy to trade a little defense for more offense.

Keep in mind that there are also trinkets to enhance your damage protection (except normal), your status protection (except stun), your offense, and your health. It seems that most advanced players favor offensive trinkets in the Clockworks.

Summary of Armor

Here is a list of all five-star suits and helmets. Suits and helmets come in matched sets that enjoy identical statistics, with a few exceptions. Radiant Silvermail has no matching helmet, and Perfect Mask of Seerus has no matching suit. Divine Veil has a fiend bonus, while Divine Mantle does not. When planning your armor, keep in mind that some sets are boss/mission rewards (e.g. Ancient Plate Mail/Helm) and others can be crafted only in the Shadow Lairs (e.g. Snarbolax Coat/Cap).

General-Purpose Armor Sets

Advanced knights often own many suits and helmets, that they can assemble into an ideal armor set for any given situation. Frugal knights and less-experienced knights may prefer to build a single armor set for use throughout the Clockworks. Such a general-purpose set would ideally protect against all four damage types and a few of the most important statuses (shock, fire, and maybe freeze). There are exactly three options:

• Divine Veil with a normal+piercing suit. For sworders, Skolver Coat is ideal; the set protects against shock, fire, freeze, and curse, while conferring two offensive bonuses. Gunners should consider Justifier Jacket, although well-rounded armor is arguably less important for them than for sworders and bombers. There is no piercing armor for bombers. Notice that Divine Mantle is not as good as Divine Veil, due to its lack of fiend bonus.
• Radiant Silvermail with a normal+elemental helmet. Vog Cub Cap, Nameless Hat, Perfect Mask of Seerus, and all bomber helmets are worth considering. For more offense, consider Chaos Cowl.
• Dragon Scale Mail/Helm with a normal+shadow suit or helmet. Snarbolax Coat/Cap and Shadowsun Slicker/Stetson seem especially good.

An alternative strategy is to settle for three damage types instead of all four. For example, a sworder might wear Skolver Coat/Cap with Vog Cub Coat/Cap to achieve high offensive bonuses at the expense of shadow protection. My opinion is that slimes and beasts are the easiest monster families, so piercing protection is slightly less important than the other damage protections.

Bosses

Gloaming Wildwoods

Royal Jelly Palace

Ironclaw Munitions Factory

Firestorm Citadel

Shadow Lairs

Shadow Gloaming Wildwoods

Shadow Royal Jelly Palace

Shadow Ironclaw Munitions Factory

Shadow Firestorm Citadel

Missions

Operation Crimson Hammer

Legion of Almire

Compound 42

Heart of Ice