As a long time bomber, I fell in love with the RSS rather slowly. It was a sort of acquired taste, if you want to put it that way. But once I was hooked, I couldn't be without this weapon.
I took it everywhere. I took it on my weekly Gauntlet runs. I took it to FSC. I took it to any Clockworks-based level. I even combined it with my lolzy Electron Vortex to annoy the crap out of the Skolvers in Lockdown. I slowly began to learn how to kite Trojans over the blast of the bomb. I took down lumbers, turrets, even wheel machines. I took down anything that dared stand in my way (except maybe Gremlins, but that's what I had my DBB for!) I befriended many other bombers, and I learned many tips and tricks to advance through levels.
I even saw some bombers take down Vanaduke with this beloved treasure.
When I heard about the upcoming changes that might possibly nerf this bomb, I quickly made an attempt to replicate what I saw, but only solo. And with only bombs. I eventually ditched my Shivermist Buster on most of the FSC runs I went on, as my party members relied less on my support and more on my action.
After many, many boss battles, this was the closest recorded run that I got to beating Vanaduke.
But I never got a deathless run.
And after the bomb patch, I wasn’t sure if I ever would.
Right after the update, I took my ISB that I made several weeks ago and decided to try its new mechanics in a solo run through the RJP. It worked okay. The damage output wasn’t the best, and the unpredictable knockback almost got me killed on several occasions. However, it was fun and effective to bounce mobs around using the knockback. I struggled a bit getting to the boss, as the shock was becoming problematic on the huge crowd of slimes and limited my mobility to move through the crowd. The run ended with both the Jelly King and I dead. So I headed up.
After recovering from my initial doubt, I decided I would give RSS a shot, again. In FSC. I crafted the 4* Crystal variant of the shard bombs and decided to take it to FSC to get it heated.
...Never had I felt so useless in a party. With the unpredictable knockback and low damage output, I felt like more of a hindrance than a real party member. Even the elemental variant couldn’t get over 200 damage per hit. I had never felt this way in the past when RSS could actually eliminate the slags effectively. And I suddenly remembered why ISB was so effective: I was using a 4* bomb in T2.
I headed up after the first floor, feeling a bit shaken. Shaken that THIS was where my once-beloved RSS was heading. The whole career of bombing was pretty much headed downhill.
I decided to give the shard bombs one last chance. At Vanaduke himself.
So I got an invite from a friend who was at d27, went solo on d28 (grrr, didn’t get pills), and decided to test how well the new RSS could kick Vana’s royal butt. I mean, the bomb is pure piercing now, so it should do more damage.
Right?
...Well, it didn’t.
This video shows a few things: how horribly stun works in PvE, and how... buggy the RSS and other shard bombs are. Not to mention the crappy damage output. All of these NEED to be fixed.
As you could see at 2:18, I get hit by an invisible mace that came about 5 seconds before Vana was supposed to attack me. There were other various bugs with the stun throughout the video, but I wasn't caught in the brunt of those. Might as well replace the stun on the RSS with fire while stun gets worked on. :s
Vana's fat body absorbs half of the shards that come out, making the risk/reward factor for the 1st, 3rd, and 5th stages significantly decrease in the reward department. Why these shards just got eaten up without doing anything, I'm not sure. But as I read before in another forum topic regarding RSS, Doctorspacebar mentioned something along the lines of "making the shards keep their velocity when hitting a wall/enemy and not just disappear". This is a great idea that I would support 100%.
Another huge issue was the uber-nerfed damage.
Oh yes, speaking of the damage. The original RSS did 237 per shard on Vanaduke with just VH damage (274 with Max). The initial blast from the new RSS does 95 damage on initial blast and 118 on shards. The catch? THAT was with MAX damage. And it STILL can't outdamage ONE shard from the previous RSS. Seerusly, OOO?
So let's say that with the situation on the old RSS, with max damage, you get 3 shards to hit Vana each time. That's 274 x 3 = 822 damage per explosion. Now with the new RSS, you have to somehow hit Vana with 7 of the shards or the initial blast + 6 shards to get even close to the original damage of RSS. However, this hypothetical situation is made impossible by the fact that half the shards are eaten up and the other half don't even hit him!
What, are bombers not allowed to be on the front lines when fighting Vanaduke? Are we only supposed to use a Shivermist and let everyone else do the work? I don't know about everyone else, but I don't look forward to being condemned to a life of just being the weak-link support.
Sure, the RSS is only 4*, but I’m not really having much hope for the 5* SSS or the 5* Splinter Bomb.
The old RSS was NOT overpowered.
Because an overpowered gun being able to solo Vanaduke in 1:27 mins is totally alright.
Or a great sworder being able to solo Vanaduke in 2:43 doesn't make us bombers look gimped.
Bottom line, RSS sucks. Sad to say, I'm never bringing it to FSC again until the issues with the disappearing shards, low damage, and buggy stun get fixed.
I went for some Lockdown a while later. And I was quite disappointed. I usually averaged about 12k with my arsenal of bombs, the most important damage dealer being RSS. (Well, if more people were guardians in Lockdown, I guess Nitro or DBB would be much more effective. But of course there are Skolver strikers and gunners everywhere.)
Anyway, I did a couple of rounds of Lockdown with my new ISB and RSS. The match lasted about 6 mins, and BAM. 4k damage. Thinking maybe it was a fluke, I went for another round. 5k. But this time I didn't cap anything. As I went for a couple more rounds, my damage lessened as people easily outsmarted the RSS and ISB. It was almost depressing to slowly watch bombers become only something to defend bases and take apart groups of guardians. No longer were we viable offensive damage dealers.
Please OOO, consider what you're doing to bombers by taking away the original RSS.
Else I'm going to upload more videos on how the shard bombs are easily outclassed by everything else. :)
I'll be waiting
~ Lizzi
That first video was beautiful. A powerful reminder of what we lost yesterday.