Equipment special effect/set effect + shadow effect question

[Seredith]

So I've looked through the set effects of the gear and I gotta admit... They're useless. All across the board give +5 to two stats, with the exception of Solar one. Some kind of a joke, anybody disagress?

SPECIAL EFFECTS on the other hand... Now that's where things get interesting.
Question is whether:
1) Do I have to put all 3 pieces on for it to work? (AKA it works as a bonus set effect)
2) It doesn't matter how many I put as long as I have 1 on - the effect is on, always the same.
3) IT STACKS. More pieces - more potent the effect.
Would gladly have that answered, it may be a game changer.

Of course, it bugs me due to the very nice Shadow InstaKill effect. In the previous game I played the Zero set exclusively thanks to the INSANE dmg it had (I worked around the low durability playing mostly Mikasa - her Swordsmanship skill was straight up OP). Now I instantly went for the very same set, but the Shadow one looks very tempting too. At least untill you realise it's a 400+ difference in dmg...

So first: another 2 questions:
Does the InstaKill activate only when going for the nape, or can it kill the titan on a random limb attack too? If a titan has 2 rare materials on his limbs and I InstaKill him through the Special Effect, do i get 1 (for the limb I was attacking), 2 (all of them not to waste them) or none (♥♥♥♥ me, he died before I got it)? It makes quite a difference too


I can live with the 50 range (Zero has 200) - that's about skill. I can live with low durability - there are skills to equip to work around that too. But the dmg is ridiculously bad. For someone like me that goes for limbs with rare materials 99% of the time it just seems like a complete waste...

What are your thoughts on this?

[UpRisen]

Set bonuses and special effects are different things. The Solar blades special effect deals fire damage regardless of your other equipment, but for the Set Bonus you have to have all 3 pieces of that level set equiped.

Insta kill only counts on Nape attacks, and will not give you materials from limbs as you do not destroy the limbs.