Not the sun shards

NO!

Personally, I would love the changes to the Antigua line.

I never used the Argent Peacemaker after crafting it a long time ago, and finding out the problem with AP's split damage was what made me not want to make the Sentenza. If updated, I think I'll finally make the 5* Shadow gun after all this time.

As others have said, Radiant Sun Shards as a piercing bomb is redundant; the Ionized Salt Bomb already covers that damage type with the same bomb mechanics. It makes more sense, then, to make it pure elemental with no damage bonus (it won't need one as the only elemental damage bomb) and give the Ionized Salt Bomb the fiend bonus instead (because a slime bonus on a piercing weapon is useless).

For Argent Peacemaker/Silversix, elemental is ok, but I feel like gunners would be better served with another piercing option. The Argent Peacemaker is not going to be better than the Polaris (which could use a 20% damage nerf) and there is already a host of elemental alchemers that are also viable in the end-game. Meanwhile, the only piercing guns don't allow any movement while shooting (Callahan and Needle), but the AP does, so it would seem to add more variety for gunners as a piercing weapon.

I agree that these split damage weapons are oddballs.

-Sentenza/Argent Peacemaker
I like the idea of a pure elemental AP and a pure shadow Sentenza, but their charge attack is kinda weak compared to the risk by using it.
What would be cool is if it shot all 6 shots at once in a shotgun pattern, followed by the eagle/owl, instead of 6 shots in rapid sucession.
I wouldent mind seeing a pure piercing antigua either.

-Sun Shards/Radiant Sun Shards
This bomb is mainly used as means against turrets and constructs paired with a Dark Briar Barrage, i suggest you make this bomb deal pure elemental instead of pure piercing. Since we lack a direct elemental damage bomb anyway. And making it deal pure piercing would ruin it. See below.
Come to think of it, it still needs a 5* upgrade? Scorching Sun shards, pure elemtnal damage with a chance to cause fire?

-Rock Salt Bomb/Ionized Salt Bomb
I think this little thing needs some love as well, its almost never used because of its long charge time and bonuses. i mean, normal/piercing with a bonus to slime?? I suggest this thing becomes the pure piercing shard bomb instead of the Sun Shards, and that it has its charge time lowered, it should have the same charge time as the Sun Shards/Radiant Sun Shards in my opinion.

So in short,

Pure elemental Argent Peacemaker (Shotgun charge attack?)
Pure shadow Sentenza (Shotgun charge attack?)
Pure piercing Antigua line. (shotgun charge attack?)
Pure elemental Sun Shards/Radiant Sun shards (maybe a 5* version with a chance to cause weak fire? pwease? :3)
Pure piercing Rock Salt Bomb (please lower the charge time!)
Pure piercing Ionized Salt Bomb with a chance to cause shock. (please lower the charge time! Wouldent say no to a 5* version either.)

-Leaf

I wanted to do a breakdown that would better explain my position on the RSS changes. Personally, I'd like to see the crystal lines excel in particular roles, especially roles that do not yet have a decent bomb.

Current RSS which is Elemental/Piercing with a Fiend Bonus:
Perfect vs Undead Something RSS is good at! Lots of damage + exploding zombies = fun.
Poor vs Fiend A shard bomb benefits most from multiple shards hitting. Devilites are tiny so only one shard is likely to connect, if any. Also they dodge and that will annoy party members. DBB is a much better choice for Devilites. Against Greavers, Nitro or Shivermist are more efficient manners of dealing with them. Does well against Trojan but I think it takes a long time to kill them this way.
Ok vs Constructs Sub optimal damage due to the Piercing component. It can interrupt Gun Puppies though and Mecha Knights easily kite over the bomb in arenas.
Poor vs Beast Sub optimal damage due to the Elemental component. Should be using DBB.
Poor vs Gremlin Terrible damage, but it is easy to connect multiple shards. If you want to deal damage to Gremlins the DBB is a better choice.
Poor vs Slime Terrible damage, but it is easy to connect multiple shards. Single target damage is ok if many shards connect.

If RSS were switched to Piercing with a Fiend Bonus:
Good vs Undead Like before, but less damage.
Ok vs Fiend Slightly more damage, but still very outclassed. DBB would still be better for Devilites, Nitro would still be better for Greavers and against Trojans it would be relatively unchanged.
Poor vs Constructs Almost no damage.
Ok vs Beast Great damage! But still very outclassed by DBB. Small wolver body means not many shards will connect. Even worse, it isn't party-friendly due to all the dodging.
Good vs Gremlin Neutral damage, easy to connect multiple shards. Should be good for single target damage.
Poor vs Slime Nothing has changed.

If RSS were switched to Elemental:
Perfect vs Undead Like before, now with more damage.
Poor vs Fiend Less damage than before, still outclassed by other bombs.
Perfect vs Constructs Turrets beware! Finally a pure damage bomb for mass bot destruction.
Poor vs Beast Bad damage
Poor vs Gremlin Bad damage
Good vs Slime Neutral damage, easy to connect multiple shards. Should be good for single target damage. Fun bomb in RJP.

Let's say the score card is Poor=0, Ok=1, Good=2, Perfect=3. Right now RSS would be a 4. Piercing change would put it at 6. Pure Elemental would put it at an 8.

In summary, the current RSS is perfect vs Undead and mediocre vs Construts. Changing to piercing would make it decent for two monster families and mediocre for two others, but perfect for none. Changing to elemental would make it top bomb for two monster families and decent for another.

Unless the shards were fiend-seeking missiles, I don't think a crystal bomb would ever become a fiend killer. The fiend's movement patterns just aren't compatible with the crystal line.

I don't really use either gun so I have no comment.

But since I'm now rolling a pure bombing set-up I have one request: PLEASE DON'T KILL MY FAVORITE PARTY BOMB! RSS is pretty much the only pure damage bomb that I can spam without anyone complaining about lack of visibility. Not to mention how useful it is against turrets.. or soloing FSC. I have DBB against fiends. I don't need another piercing bomb. Leave it be or like the others have said, change it to pure elemental.

I'm not sure a pure pierce Antigua line would be useful. If you are solo, sure, yeah, I can possibly see that. In a party though all those dodging Wolvers and Devilites would be quite bothersome. I don't see many people currently using Sentenza on Wolvers or Argent on Devilites nowadays just for that reason. Not to mention, a gunslinger should have a Callahan for those monsters.

For PvP, these updates would make the Argent and Sentenza stronger by removing the overly popular piecing component.

Why? That's completely useless, no other guns have normal damage (edit) AND the main damage.
Example: Polaris does pure normal damage. Not normal AND elemental damage.
And the point of the *possible* change it to change their dual-ness.

earth to rangerwill, the valiance does normal damage.

double post. Darn it. I think I know what I did wrong this time though..

Sounds good Nick

I like the dual special damage weapons. If I could change them, however, I would make the damage bonuses combine. For example, on an AP, if it does bonus damage to beasts with piercing and reduced damage with elemental, have it average out to average damage. That should make them more useful (bonus to 2 groups, average to 2 groups, weak to 2 groups).

Basically, changing the silversix/AP to pure elemental is going to make them... redundant. It is essentially an end game weapon, and everyone who is in the end game already has a Polaris. I already have 2 full elemental guns, and don't want a third.

And what if I already have one? That is the problem with changing existing weapons, because those that spend the energy (AKA money) to make them could have it changed to the point where they would not have made it in the first place. This does not introduce more variety, it removes it, since the weapon will be essentially identical to other weapons I have. I use AP over Polaris because the split piercing does extra damage to Vanaduke compared to the pure elemental of Polaris. If this switch happens, there is no reason for me not to switch back to Polaris, because the knockback is more useful than a possible increased damage output.

Since I doubt the developers are going to give me my money back if I don't want this new product I already bought, my only recourse is to comment in this thread.

Why a gremlin bonus on a gun, don't they jump away most of the time?

I suppose that makes since, but say the AP does 78 damage to Vana right now. (I think that's it)
Once it turns Elemental, I suppose it will take a small damage decrease.
But not massive, and you'll get so much for benefit for killing the other skeletons!
It might go to say 64 damage, it isn't that large, you'll end up maybe putting another clip or two for vana, but you'll end up killing skeletons so much faster it should make up for it anyway. I don't think it'll take a huge damage decrease to Vana.
Your reasons do make sense though.

I like the idea of having the antigua line charges just fire 1 pure elemental bullet instead of 5 followed by an elemental. It would actually make the charge attack useful in more situations and actually worth carrying. Sun shards should be pure elemental in my opinion. Instead of firing physical shards, why not change it to beams of light that deal pure elemental? It makes more sense for them to be beams of light, and bombers desperatly need an elemental bomb and a bomb that is useful against towers. Having to face about 10 turrets is no fun when you have just bombs. And finally, to counter the "over-powering" of the antigua line with pure elemental, why not significantly reduce the damage but have them pierce through 1 target or hit large targets twice? Just my thoughts. I don't want them being overpowered, but I want them to be a viable weapon instead of a collectors item.

Yay for the argent/ sentenza change, only question is, would a pure shadow sentenza overpower the umbra driver?? Or make the UD completely obsolete? (and likewise for argent vs nova driver) Also, lots of people like the RSS the way it is. If you guys were to change it, pure elemental would be much better than pure piercing, considering we already have the dark briar.

Time to do some research =0

I think what you are trying to do is to match the "lore" and the items right? Sun shards being light based should be good against "evil" = fiend and undead. Gameplay wise they are used against undead and construct primarily, and fiend whenever necessary (trojans usually). If you make it elemental and give it a bonus against fiends you'd achieve to keep both lore and gameplay happy. Gameplay wise the bonus isn't required because elemental still does ok damage to fiends, but only to match light vs dark.

Now you touch RSS, touch ISB however!, its made of salt so it hurts slimes the most I can get that part. Gameplay wise shadow hurts slimes, but shadow does not equal ionized salt in my mind. To match both it could be pure normal, and have a very strong bonus against slimes, enough to match a shadow damage bonus. To fix it further it should be better, doesn't have to be as good as RSS, but definitely closer. The electrical process could make a small shock blast radius around the bomb to encourage you to aim it, and then each shard have a chance to shock on hit as leverage from lower damage and not making it as good as RSS perhaps.

About the antigua lines can't comment because I haven't used them. But you'd be competing with the alchemers (prisma and shadow are the only ones I see nowadays since pulsar removed voltech from play :P), and/or magnus.

英語で結構です。

でも、日本語が好きです。

Hmm
Antigua line is good. I use my black hawk in ICMF already, and now REALLY want to upgrade it, though it has beast high...

Radiant sun shards is already good. No need to fix what isn't broken, though ionized salt bomb could REALLY use some attention. Why not make ISB pure shadow and keep RSS pierce/elemental?

Oh, and make sure to put this on the test server, so that all of the slaves to the F2Pers will be motivated to buy ce.

I think all of these changes are horrible. If anything, these weapons will become even less used after the changes. All the existing "add monster-type bonus damage" are unused for a reason. They are completely underpowered in comparison to every other weapon out there. What incentive would I have to use an AP over every other elemental gun out there? The whole attraction to having any of these was the idea of dealing two different damage types. If anything you should keep the uniqueness of the dual types and just improve their base damage by a small percent. And like someone else suggested, give the guns a new charge effect.

I think making the antigua line pure damage will unbalance the alchemers too much, keep them split but make the second damage type normal, with the bonus this focuses them onto a monster type with outclassing it's alchemer counterpart (nova & umbra).

eg AP will have a high fire rate, be good vs undead, ok vs constuct...whereas you could take nova instead, lose the high rate of fire but be good vs both because of pure damage..

Also charge attacks should just be the bird, no stream of shots beforehand.

Silversix - Split elemental & normal damage, add an undead damage bonus
Argent Peacemaker - Split elemental & normal damage, add an undead damage bonus

Blackhawk - Split shadow & normal damage, add a gremlin damage bonus
Sentenza - Split shadow & normal damage, add a gremlin damage bonus

The bombs I don't know, would make sense to make sun shard line piercing & normal and ionised salt line elemental & normal IMO...

Wouldn't this diminish the AP's effectiveness against the Duke (who is piercing weak)? Right now this is the only place the AP is useful. I guess the AP would replace the Polaris and Elemental Alchemers as the preferred elemental gun. This would be great for the Senteza though as currently it doesn't really have much of a roll anywhere.

There was another thread that pointed out that the AP and Senteza do not in practice have the expected strong/weak/neutral response to monster types and hit weak in areas where they should hit neutral. If this mechanic was fixed it would make these guns more useable.

Pure damage is way better than spilt though. I would like to see pure damage Elemental and Shadow swords.