Abilities

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Normal abilities are shown in blue and unique variant abilities are shown in yellow with a star.

Various pieces of equipment have added abilities, beyond their raw or baseline statistics. An item's abilities are displayed in small boxes under the item's statistics bars. Abilities can be classified into three broad categories:

  • Offensive abilities on weapons: status infliction, attack speed increase, charge time reduction, and damage bonus.
  • Health bonus and movement speed increase/decrease on armor.
  • Extra protection from damage and status on armor. These extra protections are displayed differently from other abilities, and are perhaps best viewed as something other than abilities proper.

Offensive Abilities

There are four kinds of offensive abilities that can enhance weapons. Sometimes these abilities are inherent to the weapon type; for example, all Wild Hunting Blades carry a beast damage bonus. Sometimes these abilities are granted by armor or trinkets; for example, Shadowsun Slicker grants a damage bonus to all handguns. Sometimes these abilities arise through unique variants (UVs) on the weapon. When a weapon is equipped, an icon for the weapon appears at the bottom of the character window, and mousing over this icon shows a summary of the weapon's abilities.

Offensive abilities are rated on a six-point scale, shown below. Each verbal descriptor has a numeric equivalent. Bonuses are additive: two Lows (1s) will add to give a Medium (2), while one Medium (2) and one High (3) add to yield an Ultra (5). Offensive abilities cap at Maximum!; for example, one Very High (4) and one High (3) add to give Maximum!, rather than something above Maximum! Low, Medium, High, and Very High weapon UVs are obtainable; Ultra and Maximum! are not obtainable as UVs on weapons.

Verbal Numeric
Low 1
Medium 2
High 3
Very High 4
Ultra 5
Maximum! 6

Here are the four kinds of offensive abilities.

Some weapons carry a chance of inflicting a status effect (curse, fire, freeze, poison, shock, sleep, stun). This ability is always inherent to the weapon; it cannot be granted through UVs, armor, or trinkets. In most cases, the status is inflicted on monsters (or enemy players, in PvP), but in some cases the status can also afflict the user. Some weapons inflict status only on charge attacks, not on regular attacks. Status abilities are rated for their chance of causing the status, and the intensity of the status once inflicted; for example, Plague Needle offers "Slight chance of causing Strong Poison".

Swords and handguns, but not bombs, may carry an attack speed increase (ASI) or decrease. ASI affects the speed of regular (non-charge attacks). Each level of ASI appears to add around 4% to attack speed.[1]

Swords, handguns, and bombs may carry charge time reduction (CTR). CTR reduces the amount of time required to charge the weapon. All weapons receive CTR: Medium automatically when they reach heat level 10. Each level of bonus seems to remove around 7.5% of the weapon's baseline charge time.[2]

Swords, handguns, and bombs may carry a damage bonus. Some damage bonuses apply against specific monster families (construct, gremlin, fiend, beast, undead, slime). Other damage bonuses apply against all enemies: all six monster types, special monsters such as Lord Vanaduke, and enemy players in PvP. Against a monster of a particular family, general damage bonus behaves exactly like family damage bonus. For example, when attacking a slime with a sword, "Sword Damage Bonus: Medium" does the same damage as "Damage Bonus vs Slimes: Medium" are equivalent. Each level of bonus adds an average of 7% extra damage against the said enemy family.[3]

Health and Movement Speed

Armor grants additional health to the user. For example, 5-star armor grants four health points at heat level 1, and five health points at heat level 5. Ancient Plate Mail grants an extra three health points, compared to other 5-star armors. Scarlet Shield grants two health points. Heart trinkets can also grant up to six health points. Health bonus is not achievable through UVs.

Ancient Plate Mail reduces the user's movement speed; Mercurial Demo Suit and Mercurial Mail increase the user's movement speed. The associated helmets have the same effects. Movement speed increase is not achievable through UVs. Movement speed abilities add, much like offensive abilities; two Lows add to yield a Medium, which is the highest level currently achievable. Each level of bonus appears to affect movement speed by about 4%.[4]

Damage and Status Resistance

Helmets, armor suits, and shields can carry UVs that grant them additional resistance to certain damage types or status effects. Low, Medium, High, and Maximum! damage and status UVs are obtainable; Very High and Ultra are not obtainable as UVs. These UVs behave quite differently from weapon UVs, and are arguably not abilities in the proper sense. Each UV simply increases that armor piece's resistance to that damage or status. In the defensive summary at the bottom of the character window, the increase is displayed as a lengthened statistic bar, rather than as a separate box. The lengthening suggests a four-point scale:

Verbal Numeric
Low 1
Medium 2
High 3
Maximum! 4

It does not appear that the combined contributions from various armor pieces are capped at Maximum!, as offensive abilities are. For example, it appears that two Maximum! piercing protections offer more total protection than two High piercing protections.

Each level of damage resistance bonus seems to add about 10% of the defense of a "standard" piece of armor (for example, Skolver Coat for piercing), up to 40% for a Maximum! UV. (Test data can be found here, here [5], and here [6].) The data are consistent with the visual lengthening of the damage statistics bars. The damage resistance offered by trinkets is not well studied.

Tests of status resistance suggest that a 5-star trinket is equivalent to a Medium on the four-point scale, and that a highly resistant armor (such as Volcanic Demo Helm) is equivalent to a Maximum![7] The highest status resistance that can be displayed in the character's defensive summary is eight points. However, tests suggest that resistance above eight points is meaningful; it is simply not displayed.

The damage taken from a status seems to decay exponentially with the amount of resistance: four points negate roughly 40% of the status damage, eight points negate around 65%, etc. The effects of resistance on status duration are not well studied. Curse resistance seems to reduce the duration and the number of items affected. Data from resistance tests are aggregated in a Spiral Knights forum thread.[8]

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