Since there is no guide for beginners starting there way in Spiral Knights here in Kong or at least none that I know of yet, post it here if you do :), I might as well make a guide that would have made my life easier when I first started playing whilst keeping it friendly for f2p Knights.
First and foremost, useful links (wiki and a guide that helped me out):
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Main_Page
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/2909
STARTING OUT
When you first start your game, you will be in a tutorial level. It basically teaches you…well the basics. You’ll get through quite quickly but remember to destroy everything (RULE 1) and pick up every crown (money). Crowns are precious.
After this level, you’ll find yourself at the Rescue Camp. Explore this place to your heart’s content because after you leave this place, you won’t be coming back. Talk to people, admire the scenery, browse goods but DO NOT BUY ANYTHING. Nothing here is worth getting, NOTHING, and you desperately need to save what little crowns you have.
After you’re done, head your way to “The Final Test”. Hack and Slash your way through, it’s a simple enough level. After finishing, welcome to Haven!
ENERGY
Before I go on and talk about what you should do at Haven, I see it prudent that I explain how the energy system here works. See that blue bar at the bottom right corner of the screen? Yeah, the one just below all those purple 0’s. That is you MIST ENERGY. It regenerates at a rate of one point approximately every 13 minutes (talk about Tyrant’s energy scheme being bad) and holds a maximum of 100 energy. Crowns are precious, energy is even more so. There is another type of energy, CRYSTAL ENERGY. If you have any, you’ll see it where those purple 0’s would have been, above your mist energy bar. Crystal energy can be acquired by buying it with real money (oh noes! D=) or with crowns from other players (oh yays! =D) and you can store an unlimited amount instead of just 100 from your mist tank.
Energy is used to do many things in the game. It takes energy to start a floor (i.e. play the game), craft weapons, revive yourself, pretty much do anything.
Mist energy (mist) and Crystal energy (ce) is the same. What I mean is if you need to use energy, you can use either but because mist is free, it will always get used up first, e.g. If I have 50 mist and 100 ce and I craft a weapon using up 100 energy, I will have 50 ce left, hooray!
You can buy/sell energy from other people by clicking on the dash sign just beside your ce indicator and choosing the market tab.
Note: You can’t sell mist.
As of writing this, ce costs approximately 6,400 crowns/100 energy so for guide’s sake, we’ll assume energy costs 64 crowns each.
That pretty much sums up energy. Now to Haven!
HAVEN
This place consists to four areas. The town square, Bazaar (NPC shop area), Arcade, and Advanced Training Hall (found in the town square). Explore the area, talk to various NPC’s, visit the training hall, browse goods, mess around with the Auction House (the AH) BUT DO NOT BUY ANYTHING yet and make your way to the arcade.
ARCADE (FINALLY GETTING TO “PLAY” THE GAME)
By this point, I’m assuming you know all the controls.
Talk to the NPC’s here. They’ll tell you what you need to do.
Now pick a gate, any gate and join party. Start your own if and only if you are a skilled 1337 Knight who is confident taking on a full T1 run with just a Proto Sword. Oh, and if you do manage to do that, make a vid and post a link here. It would really help out new players learning the strategies and tactics ;)
When going through these floors, don’t worry and take your time. Your party members will understand why (your green shield is a big giveaway). If you die, wait until someone revives you and do not give in to the temptation of reviving yourself for two energy. Do not spend energy unnecessarily. You should only use up the 10 energy you need to access the next floors.
Midway finishing the Tier, you’ll come across a Clockwork Terminal. Here you can change your equipment (if you have any other T.T) and buy Recipes, used in crafting, from Basil. You shouldn’t worry yourself too much here, heal yourself and continue on.
After finishing the run, you would have used up 60 energy (6 floors), gotten approximately 3.5k crowns and stuck trying to get past the “anti-noob barrier” at Moorcraft Manor. After talking to the Knight, you’ll find you need all 2* equipment to get through. Make your way back to Haven.
ADVANCING
Go to the auction house because now, yes it is time, we will finally BUY SOMETHING! Yeah!
I’m assuming you know how to navigate the auction interface.
You’ll need a 2* sword. This is what we’ve been saving our money for. Caliburs (good all-purpose sword) go for around 1.8k-2.5k at buy now price. I highly unrecommend you craft one. 1k for the recipe plus 3.2k (50 × 64crowns/energy) plus give 500 crowns for ingredients you don’t have and you could be spending over 4k to get a 2* sword. Oh and you can forget about buying a sword from the Bazaar (7.5k crowns 2*).
Once you get your Calibur (or some other sword that you bought because you seriously know what you’re doing) see if you have enough for another piece of equipment. I’d recommend a Plate Shield, a Wolver cap and coat (for it’s damage bonus) and a Blaster (all-purpose handgun). I’d also suggest you ask around to see what would be good get. If you can’t afford anything else, it doesn’t matter. The Calibur was the important one because now, you’re doing a TON more damage =D T1’s got nothing on you now.
However, of course, you should only have around 30 energy right now, or less D=
You should wait until you have at least 60 energy to do a full T1 run because most crowns are received the deeper you go. So you should wait….’til the very next day…
WADDLE WADDLE
Now you got all your 2* equipment and did T1 floors enough times to pass the anti-noob barrier and you now have access to T2 and even got a free Mist Tank for it and by this point, you’ve learned pretty much everything you know about the game (maybe even learning how to solo Snarbolax….by yourself).
But a heed of warning, T2 is VERY DIFFICULT if you’ve never done it before and would require you to master some techniques such as “shield bashing”, “shield cancelling” and “charge ‘n’ run”. So before you even consider doing T2, make sure you can safely do T1 arenas by yourself safely, maybe get better higher grade weapons and equipment and gather yourself a smart party.
How hard is T2, you may ask? It is not so much hard as just simply not knowing a lot about it and acting on it properly. T2 introduces new moves, more powerful monsters (where in T1 you may hardly get a scratch, in T2 a hit could cost you four health bars. Oh and they’re harder to kill), and debuffs (shock, freeze, fire, etc).
When doing T2, you’ll find that it’s a lot more important to dodge and evade attacks. It requires far more skill that T1. However, if you and your party play it smart, it can actually be quite easy.
Equipment wise, you should focus on getting a 4* sword first (I got an Ascended Calibur and I wuv him so) and prioritising armor last (remember it’s about NOT getting hit) but T2 is designed to be done with 2-3* gear.
Once you’re doing T2 regularly, I’d say you’re well past the beginner stage besides the fact that you should be getting more crowns/energy than it costs to buy it (a.k.a you can now play without having to worry about energy! =D
TIPS, TRICKS, EXTRAS
• Try to do arenas as often as possible. They are a MAJOR source of crowns and heat. Amber Titan was a gate, at the time I wrote this guide, where you can go through three arenas in T1. You can get 6-7k spending 60 energy (3,840 crowns). i.e. you can farm it all day.
• Get as many friends as possible and join a good guild. You can join a friend and guild members would be more than happy to invite you over while doing a floor which effectively means you can choose what floor you would do. Think back to arenas
• Charge ‘n’ run. Charge your sword, smash, run away, repeat. Very good tactic especially in arenas.
• Shield cancel. Swing once or twice and shield immediately to cancel that sword animation. Effectively you swing faster.
• Shield bash. Get close to an enemy/enemies, then shield. They will be pushed away from you.
• Run ‘n’ gun. While running, shoot just enough times before you need to reload (Blasters take 3 shots before reloading so shoot twice, etc) then stop shooting and wait until you pull your gun back then shoot again. This is so you avoid the reloading animation which can leave you highly vulnerable.
• Attack the healers first!
• Never revive with energy unless you really need to! Always wait until teammates can get to you.
• Stick with your teammates. Especially on harder floors where you can’t Rambo everything and they may need some help.
• Wiki before buying!
• Try to get behind gun puppies and attack.
• Before pressing group buttons, charge your sword.
• “The 300” (Exploiting choke points). After attracting some aggro, you may want to retreat into a narrow corridor and you and your teammates can take turns using charged attacks to (usually) knock enemies back. This is a very, very smart tactic.
• Swords with a 360 degree charged attack (only tested with Caliburs) can hit the same enemy multiple times at point blank (twice for most targets, three times for stationary ones such as gun puppies). Get up close and personal!
• Jelly King runs (a.k.a. JK runs; for more advanced players). Once you’re comfortable doing T2 runs, you may consider doing a T2 run that takes you to and leading up to the Jelly King. It’s a very popular run (JK gates tend to have the most people playing) mainly because of the crowns (especially the floors leading up to the Jelly King himself). Fighting the Jelly King is optional, it’s the floors just before that count.
• If you die, spectate your teammates. You’ll learn a lot about what they do right and why you died. There’s a reason they’re still alive.
• Avoid the Cautery Sword….AT ALL COSTS.
