@Thunderbog: I think the idea with normal-damage weapons is that they're useful in all situations. Fire isn't useful in all situations. However, I can think of a couple of normal damage-weapon breaking this rule so I don't really know. (Pepperbox and Venom Striker)

Anti-Undead Sword (but it was a lie)

We've briefly peeked by Hunting Blade and Deconstructor. Making them piercing and elemental would give them an edge over their counterparts against the enemies they're supposed to excel against.

For the Cold Iron Carver:
-Normal/Elemental
-Undead bonus bumped up to Very High
-Maybe even slap on that Divine Fire I talked about earlier, but it'll work fine without.
-No need to up the base damage after these changes.

We don't need even more anti-undead swords so it's an awkward segway into Nitronome, Irontech and Big Angry

Currently, two of these bombs see little use in the field. After the range and stun updates, they're somewhat more useful (or less, depending on how you see it), but overall Nitro is just safer, faster and stronger. The speed, power, walking speed and previously range was and still is traded in for knockback. Is that really worth it? No. No it's not.

One thing that could be done is balance the damage so that Irontech has higher DPS than Nitro and BAB higher than Irontech. This would work out because Nitro would be easier to use and safer than its cousins. It could at the very least be flattened out! But I have something else in mind.

-Keep Nitro as is.
-Make Irontech piercing. (Change flavour text to mention the spikes on the plates.)
-Make BAB shadow.

Now we have specialized blast bombs! BAB's DPS would be higher, but only on gremlins and slimes, both of whom are frequently found in open areas where the increased knockback is of use. Irontech is piercing, and I know you're asking yourself why on earth you would pick it over DBB, but I'm saying there are reasons people would. DBB doesn't interrupt, for example, Alpha Wolvers, and sometimes that knockback can be pretty useful to keep you safe against such targets.

Alternate configuration:

-Nitro elemental. (All demo suits give elemental defence supposedly to protect against bomb blasts, yet most damage bombs aren't elemental at all. This would fix that inconsistency. In addition, normal-damage shard bomb would somewhat be given a reason for existing.)
-Irontech normal. (Courtesy of iron plates.)
-BAB still shadow.

BAB and Irontech could even be given their old radii and you wouldn't see me complaining about it.

No wacky ideas today, folks. Sorry!

Next up will be the anti-gremlin gun. It's the real thing!

@Marazo
That's not design, that's development!

@Luguiru
Aye, I've seen that one before. In principle, increasing the undead damage bonus from 4% to 7% would work, but since "Undead damage bonus" means the exact same as "Sword damage bonus" at the moment, a complete reworking of how family bonuses work is in order.

@Havenihaveaproblem
With the first setup, the elemental bomb would the 5* deconstructor. I just can't see Irontech being anything but the "physical" damage types.

Anti-Gremlin Gun
So here we are again, back at gremlins. The requirements look a bit like this:

-Gremlins are dodgy and shieldy, so time between trigger and impact must be short.
-Damage over time is of little consequence if the gun has stopping power to knock them over.

I can see your prediction already! "It's a shadow-damage Poacher, isn't it?", I hear you say. Well... kind of.

It's a science shotgun!
* Microwaver
*** Yottowaver
***** Atomic Ripper

Shadow, base damage is ~35, charge does ~45 per tick.

So just what the heck is this? It's kind of like if Autogun and Poacher had a baby, and the baby was raised by Nicola Tesla. In appearance, it'll kind of look like you tore down a power transformer and mounted it on a Polaris, with coils and stuff poking out of a giant, square-shaped box on the front.

When fired, four sparks of red/purple lightning spark out at a range of not quite two and a half tiles spread out in a slight cone, each dealing the base damage. The lightning is not stopped by hitting regular enemies, and can as such affect every enemy in its path. While low on damage, soft bodied targets such as gremlins will be knocked over, which is where the gun's utility lie.

The gun can only fire once before reloading. No shield-canceling or gun-swapping for you! In addition, one cannot move while firing the Ripper. However, should one get a gremlin with the Ripper, they can most often be juggled to death provided the wielder is not ambushed.

The charge attack is similar to that of Autogun's; you're rooted in place firing a volley of 12 sparks. The difference is mostly that the range and damage is reduced substantially in exchange for knocking down soft-bodied targets within its area.

Wacky suggestion of the day

What? I just proposed a shotgun on the SK forums! What more do you want from me?

Next up is an anti-beast bomb. It'll have questionable utility!

@Marazo
I'm afraid that's impossible, as I've already written out the rest of the posts.

Anti-Beast Bomb

So let's look at- Huh? Yes, you with your hand raised? Yeah, sure, I guess I'll adress it.

Dark Briar Barrage is perfect, just what are you up to here?

Mostly, I just kind of forced myself to come up with something new for each weapon type for each family. That kinda leads to variable quality, but it also leads to some interesting results! You can't beat DBB when it comes to area coverage and damage without being overpowered, so what's left? DBB is immensly useful, but it has subtle drawbacks. The interruption, for example, only applies to regular wolvers in the beast family. Chromas aren't interrupted from my awareness. Alpha Wolvers certainly aren't. Regular wolvers aren't even interrupted in Shadow Lairs! So what should our alternative beast bomb do?

-Doing a bunch of damage to a bunch of enemies is taken. Let's focus on utility.
-We've copied the melee weapon and gun from real-life hunting weapons used by people; a spear and a rifle. What sort of bomb is used for hunting?

It's a trap!

** Splinter Bomb
*** Claw Bomb
**** Clenched Claw Bomb
***** Jaws of Defeat

Piercing, base damage is 75 for the initial bomb and 99 for the shards on depth 25. (Unchanged.)

This is a retooling and reskinning of the splinter bomb line, which at the moment has no reason to exist. What can be done about this? Salt Bomb manages to be useful despite being a shard bomb due to an added effect it has. Can we do something similar for splinter bomb?

The bomb will look like a box or something. It acts very similar to the current splinter bombs: You lay it down, the fuse goes out and then it explodes, spreading a cluster of 3-5 (depending on star rank) bear traps. Wait what?

Wacky suggestion of the day

Bear traps! An enemy steps on it, they get clamped in place for a bit. Yes, it behaves pretty much like being frozen. We have reskins of stun in the form of snowballs and swarm tiles, so I don't see why not.
-While bear trapped, an enemy may not move or turn, but they may attack.
-Damage is dealt upon trapping, what with it being a bear trap and all. This isn't technically a part of the trapping, it's just the bomb's damage.
-Ice-themed enemies are not immune to bear trapping.
-Large enemies are. No trapping bosses, Lumbers, Trojans, medium-sized and large Lichen Colonies. Alpha Wolvers are subject to bear trapping.
-Only one enemy can be clamped per trap, but any amount of enemies within the radius takes damage.
-Here's a point I'm not entirely sure on. In general, bear trapping lasts substantially less than freezing, but a single hit will not free them. Instead, it will take two or even three hits, depending on the damage inflicted.

Firstly, bear traps could be contact mines. In this case, they're easy to use but the payoff is smaller. Enemies are trapped for no more than two seconds. Maybe just one and a half.

Secondly, bear traps could act just like existing shard bombs. They only clamp shut in their own time, but the payoff is larger. Enemies are stuck for about three to four seconds.

-Trapped enemies can not be re-trapped before they're released. Any traps detonating on an already trapped enemy will do damage, but not affect their trapping other than the damage itself. This means stacking traps could potentially release the enemy right away.

Next entry will be categorized under Anti-Slime Bomb.

This is the final entry, folks! I might have saved the wackiest entry for the last.

Anti-Fiend Sword

Once again, let's face the inevitable question of this particular topic: "Whoa there, hey hey hey. Flourish is already perfect here!"

Yes, it kind of is. I'd sort of given up on this, and was going to just post a general-purpose piercing sword (thorn-covered brandish that shoots brambles), but then inspiration struck me! So, let's for the sake of formality check out some conditions:

-For greavers, literally any sword will do. Range and speed is nice.
-For devilites, range and speed is nice to counter their quick projectile hails. Are there alternate means we could accomplish this with?
-For trojans, range and speed is of little importance, only damage.

It's dual-wielding s- hey, whoa there, wait, let me finish!

** Spike Buckler
*** Swiftspike Buckler
**** Swiftspike Gauntlet
***** Supersonic Knuckles

Piercing/Normal, about 170 for the first hit and 190 for the second one. Charge attack does 150 per hit.

Dual-wielding shields! One's the shield you're always carrying around, but the other is actually a weapon! The 2* variant is just a rounded lump of iron with spikes protruding from it, but as it progresses, the form gets more aerodynamic, reminiscent of a modern bicycle racer's helmet, and the spikes on it will curve in a similar manner. Compared the other swords, base damage will not increase as much per upgrade. Instead, attack speed will.

Being not a sword, range is pretty pitiful. Wielders of this weapon will need to be close enough to headbutt their opponent. In exchange, they get the fastest sword there is. How fast? About 15% faster than toothpicks. That is a lot! The shield has a unique 2-hit combo that goes like so:
-A punch that's focused forward. Range is half of a calibur slash. Width matches an antigua bullet.
-Followed up by a backhand slap. Width matches thorn blade slash, range nearly nonexistant.

The finalest, wackiest suggestion

So here we are at the charge attack. It's shield, and this is where the shield-bit comes into play. Upon unleashing the charge, the player puts the shield in front of his face and rushes. The effect will be very similar to the second strike from the Rocket Hammer, with a few minor differences:
-Speed is slightly lower, seeing as the player is not rocket-propelled. It could possibly be lowered all the way down to regular running speed!
-You are shielded from projectiles coming from the front. Only projectiles, only from the front. The coverage is very sparse on this, with a total area of no more than 30 degrees.

How does this weapon fare against our dreaded checklist?
-For greavers, literally any sword will do. Checks out to me!
-For devilites, the shield is certainly fast enough, but range is lacking. The intention is to charge up to their face while they fruitlessly throw office supplies at you, then punch them. Punch their faces!
-Probably not the best thing for trojans, but it should certainly work.

That concludes the saga of anti-family weapons. Thanks for reading!

With two elemental bombs and two shadow bombs, enemies would take two bombs worth of elemental damage and two bombs worth of shadow, simple as that. Maybe it'd actually happen as four separate damage ticks? Would kind of gimp it, Lockdown-wise.

For the radius increase... well it depends. If the stack limit was capped at something like 4, linearly would do just fine.

If not, it could always be done mathematically. Area would increase linearly, rather than the radius. Assuming it starts with a 3-tile radius, that makes an area of 3^2*pi ~ 28 1/4. Two bombs would cover an area of 56 1/2 making for a radius of uh... 4.25, making it bigger than nitro already.

Let's just enter "sqrt((x*28.26)/PI) x goes from 1 to 8" in Wolphram Alpha why don't we?

3, 4.25, 5.2, 6.7, 7.34, 7.93, 8.48

8.48 sounds like a pretty big bomb. Let's start with a radius of 2.

"sqrt((x*12.56)/PI) x goes from 1 to 8"

2, 2.2, 3.46, 4, 4.471, 4.9, 5.3, 5.65

This isn't a very cool bomb at all. You need four bombs just to reach the radius of a nitro, but you can see that the formula is perfectly suitable to make a restrained radius if we just start somewhere between 2 and 3. Let's do 2.5?

2.5, 3.5, 4.33, 5, 5.6, 6.1, 6.6, 7

There we go! Look at that payoff! 7 tile-radius may sound like a lot until you realize it took 8 bombs to get that far.

Edit: Similar results could be achieved by starting at 3 and linearly increasing by half a tile per bomb in the stack.

There is a giant, spiky hole in the bomber's arsenal. It is so great that am overwrought with wonderment at how every suggestion thread in this forum is not about suggesting filling this gap.

Yes! I am, in fact, talking about a poison 1* bomb.

* Poisonous Popper

Piercing, 17 damage for both the blast and the spikes at depth 13. Good chance of causing Moderate Poison.

Poison popper is like a 2* shard bomb, but with a little notable difference. Instead of cluster bombs spreading out, PP sends six "lines" of damage that stretch out for as long as the reach of shard bombs usually are, inflicting damage and possibly poisoning.

This would ensure that the poison bomb has a little edge over its cousins with more useful statuses as well as continue the tradition of having 1* bombs that are totally more awesome than 5* bombs. If anyone is worried about multihitting, the six lines could all count as a single damage area.

It somehow took me two months to notice this was a double post.

Historically, rapiers were made and used for the purpose of dueling with one other man. "One" being the operative word here. The flourish lines in Spiral Knights do not currently function this way; the wide swipe opening the combo covers a lot of ground, does a good bit of damage and has a respectable amount of knockback. Due to this, the sword excels at dealing with crowds of enemies if one merely shield-cancels the first attack over and over. I have a Barbarous Thorn Blade myself and it is the most boring weapon imaginable, outside of the charge. How about adding some depth to it?

It is not my intention to reduce the power of this weapon in any way

Everyone used vortex bombs? When it initially detonates, the explosion does a pitiful amount of 0* damage. You can tell it's 0* because it peaks at stratum 1, and declines from there on. The detonation is merely there for utility, interrupt breathing zombies and breaking blocks. This makes sense because the initial detonation just kind of breaks the bomb open. The initial detonation of Gravity Vortex does nothing particularly harmful, kind of similar to slapping something with a stick.

At depths 23, these are the current damage values for Final Flourish:
First swipe: 252 piercing
Second thrust: 252 piercing
Third thrust: 299 piercing

This is against weak targets. Looking at the neutral damage, you can see that it matches that of Leviathan Blade. The difference being the flourish is faster and covers more area. Well, that's hardly fair now is it? What irks me is that swipe in the beginning. Historically, in duels, fighters would often open their attacks with a swipe to the side. The idea was to open the opponent for an attack so that they could stab them. The swipe was a prelude to actual harmful attacks and not a harmful attack in itself. People might already know where I'm going with this:

First swipe: 6 normal
Second thrust: 353 piercing
Third thrust: 353 piercing

The thrust damage is equivalent to the third swing of Warmaster Rocket Hammer, or the second swing of Sudaruska if it dealt special damage. The first swipe is not a total buff. Instead, it gains a lot of interruptive power. The initial swipe has exactly the interruptive power of Callahan, meaning the flourish still excels at the areas it currently does and is supposed to excel against, which is smacking around greavers, devilites and other players. For PvP, the first swipe can still be used to cancel your opponent and leave them open for thrusts. Thrusting, however, will leave yourself exposed but is where all the damage is done, just like in real fencing.

The damage nerf for the total combo is not very large. It goes from around 800 to around 700, a mere 1/8th of its former self, absolutely nothing compared to some nerfs this game has seen that may or may not be bomb-related. The loss for neutral damage is even lower, probably not exceeding 1/16th.

What about Flamberge and Rigadoon?

Current values:
First swipe: 210 piercing
Second thrust: 210 piercing
Third thrust: 251 piercing

...transforms into...
First swipe: 6 normal
Second thrust: 299 piercing
Third thrust: 299 piercing

This time I'm using Warmaster Rocket Hammer's first attack instead of the third one. While the combo still does less damage than before, the gap in damage from Flourish is narrower. In addition, status flourishes now have a distinct purpose as their opener is capable of inflicting statuses and thus can serve as a safer way to deal with enemies either by opening them for attacks through stun or by lighting them on fire and safely inflicting damage that way.

Speaking of Warmaster Rocket Hammer...
I'll make this quick. Rip off the bandage, so to speak.

Current values:
First swing: 299 elemental
Second dash (x3): 210 elemental
Third swing: 353 elemental

...transforms into...
First swing: 299 elemental
Second dash (x3): 6 normal
Third swing: 353 elemental

Let's be honest here, that dash was blatantly overpowered. It will still be usable to interrupt things, move about and break blocks extremely quickly. The hammer will still be way more damaging than Troikas because it's possible to be shield-cancel so you do the first attack twice and follow up with the third attack. DR saw a major nerf, why not the hammer?

We all know Calibur. It's that sword with the awesome charge-attack that knocks stuff all over the place and makes your party members hate you. Here's the current tree:

• Calibur: 3-hit combo sword. The charge attack is a spin that can hit a single target up to 3 times, but the main appeal is the knockback of it rather than damage.
• Tempered Calibur: No change.
• Ascended Calibur: No change.
• Leviathan Blade: No change.
• Cold Iron Carver: Reduced power in favour of Undead bonus.
• Cold Iron Vanquisher: No change.

This is kind of a tough one to make interesting all the way through. Calibur will instead be a "late bloomer", and only receive its substantial buff at the very end of the line.

Both Leviathan Blade and Cold Iron Vanquisher receives a shockwave emitted in a circle after the spin attack. With Leviathan, this shockwave looks like a circular tidal wave, harming enemies for one extra charge attack hit and pushing them away with great force. The radius would be a bit larger than the spin, having the radius of Blast Bomb.

The tidal wave idea isn't mine. I remember reading it in a different suggestion thread but I can't recall the exact author of it at the moment. All credit to that guy!

With Cold Iron Vanquisher, the knockback would be greatly reduced so that enemies pushed back have a greater chance to be caught in the following blast. The blast itself would be a puff of frost smoke, dealing no damage. The smoke would essentially be a Freezing Vaporizer, lasting for half a second and having a Fair chance of causing Weak freeze. (2/2) The move itself would be risky because you just locked a bunch of enemies into a circle surrounding you. It should prove effective against most undead.

Result:

• Calibur: 3-hit combo sword. The charge attack is a spin.
• Tempered Calibur: No change.
• Ascended Calibur: No change.
• Leviathan Blade: Tidal Wave following the charge attack.
• Cold Iron Carver: Reduced power in favour of Undead bonus.
• Cold Iron Vanquisher: Freezing smoke following the charge attack.

@Qwez
I think changes proposed would buff the status flourishes compared to Final Flourish. Combo damage for FF goes from 252 * 2 + 299 = 803 to 6 + 353 * 2 = 712 for a reduction of 11.4% while the status flourishes go from 210*3+251 = 671 to 604 for a reduction of 10%. Not a whole lot, perhaps, but in my UV thread people were crying havock over having a 5% penalties on things. Furthermore, relying on the first swipe in a tight situation would be a valid strategy for status flourishes as they'd be able to inflict statuses, while you'd need to combo to get any effect at all for FF.

I do intend to go over Winmillion. You're right on the money about adding ghost blades on Arc Razor.

Damage could be doubled for the ghost wolvers, but it would be a bit boring. I'm sure the sound effects for the wolvers could be reworked if you suspect those would get grating.

Come to think of it, I do recall being able to cover about an entire CP with Cold Snap. I'll change it to Blast Bomb and Freezing Vaporizer

I don't have WHB yet, and only tested Vile Striker and Cutter's charge. This is on the charge attack?

@Klipik
I do not peek in the game files, and had no idea it would contain a laser flourish. Sounds intriguing!

Gentlemen, I've been examining enemy health. I have a spreadsheet of it that I'm slowly but surely filling out. It is by looking at these numbers that I can assure you that the following idea is not only not overpowered, but one can very well argue that this is a nerf. It is, however, a very interesting nerf.

It's a Final Fantasy style gravity spell

Graviton Vortex' explosion would cut enemy HP in half. I can hear you crying it out already. "Holy crap, Zeddy! That's way overpowered!", but hear me out. I'll be using GTH numbers to explain this.

A devilite or a gremlin mender has 507 HP.
Most enemies have 676 HP.
Zombies, Alpha Wolvers, Lichens and Mecha Knights have 1014 HP.
Lumbers, Trojans and Pit Bosses have 1352 HP.
A Giant Lichen Colony has 3380 HP.
In the mission, Toxilargo has 2878 HP.

Current Graviton Vortex damage numbers: 259, 272, 284, 297, 310, 323, 335 against targets weak to shadow.

Here's the thing: Resistance to shadow affect the exact fraction to which this bomb would be effective. Versus Slime and Gremlin, the bomb would remove 1/2 of their current HP. Versus Beast and Construct, the bomb would remove 1/4. Versus Undead and Fiend, the bomb would remove 1/8. This would also work in Lockdown, so someone with no shadow defence who actually somehow get hit by Graviton Vortex would lose half their health. A full Snarby might lose 1/4 while a full Dread Skelly would lose 1/8. Damage boosts would not affect Graviton Vortex except for the one or two added damage to the initial explosion.

Why this is not overpowered

Because I know I'll need a section explaining this. As you all know, Graviton Vortex gathers up a bunch of enemies, swirls them around for three seconds, and then explodes, scattering these enemies everywhere. If this bomb simply exploded like a Nitronome, I might humour you on the bomb being overpowered (even though the damage would never come close to something like the charge of Blitz Needle), but the key lies in the mechanic. You have your enemy swirling around in your Graviton Vortex. What do you do now? Most people tend to unleash a Brandish charge.

Let's say you have a Giant Lichen Colony stuck in a Graviton Vortex. It has 3380HP. Now we unleash an Acheron charge and... 707+220*3. We'll assume 3 explosions are able to hit a Giant Lichen Colony. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. Combined, it deals 1367 damage. Our GLC now has 2013 health left. The bomb explodes, dealing 1011 damage. Not even another Brandish charge. Remember that we could've brought a DR instead of our Vortex. One DR deals up to 12*107 = 1284 damage to a GLC. If we'd simply left the GLC alone and waited with unleashing our Acheron until after the bomb exploded, the bomb would do 1690 damage. This is the most possible damage for the bomb, and you'd only be able to inflict it once, against this one very specific enemy.

Against regular gremlins, assuming you left them alone in the swirl, the bomb would do 338 damage the first time, which is about what it currently does at max damage. Subsequent bombs would be much weaker.

This is neither a nerf or a buff, it's a repurposing. You use the bomb as an opener in battles. Plant a GV, have all your enemies helplessly swirl around while you charge up your other weapons, and then have all the enemies divided across the battlefield with half health, and take care of the rest with whatever charge your other weapon has. I'd go for Ash of Agni, myself.

What about Royal Jelly?

What about Royal Jelly? The boss is a joke. Royal Jelly also consists of three phases, each of which has seperate healthbars.

What about Graviton Charge and Graviton Bomb?

Charge does 1/4 against slimes, 1/8 and 1/16 against more resistant targets. Bomb does 1/3 against slimes, 1/6 and 1/12 against more resistant targets.

What about Vanaduke?

This is a more fair point. Vanaduke has 45k hit points, and even just 1/8 of that is a lot. (5625). You could change Vanaduke mechanically so that he has three seperate healthbars, which would make GV take 1875 on the first bomb. You could also just up his shadow defence so that the bomb takes 1/32 of his health or something (1406), or a combination of those two. You could also make it so the bomb just deals 1% damage (450).

It's worth noting that the bomb would still have nothing on max damage Blitz Needle even if you didn't apply any of those Vana-specific nerfs, and it would only be that obscenely powerful in the first phase, which is easy anyhow.

Seerus doesn't have much health to begin with, Maulos is resistant to shadow and big iron is, uh. Is that the battlepod in GitM? Most of that battle is spent dodging lasers. Even if the bomb had the capability to knock out one phase in an instant (Which it wouldn't. 1/4 health is less than 1 out of 3 phases. In addition, the pod probably has seperate healthbars for each form, so it'd be severely underpowered).

The problem, as she goes:

• Graviton Vortex feels overshadowed as a crowd control weapon by Electron Vortex, as its shock status keeps enemies gathered while GV spreads enemies to all corners after its done exploding.
• As a damage bomb, GV is greatly overshadowed by DR.
• We still don't have a radial shadow-damage bomb, in the vein of Dark Briar Barrage.

What can be done? People have suggested adding a status to Graviton which would help it out in the crowd control apartment, but the truth is you just can't beat shock for the exact utility a vortex provides. I suggest a total rehaul of the weapon functions.

*** Graviton Charge
**** Graviton Bomb
***** Graviton Collider

Effect changed to being a blast bomb, with the same size, damage, fuse time, walk speed, and knockback as Nitronome. The notable difference is the shadow damage-type as well as the knockback, which is not directly outwards from the bomb. Instead, the Graviton Collider has clockwise knockback that's tilted slightly towards the center of the bomb. The intended effect is for a group of enemies to be slightly more gathered following the detonation, but nothing is keeping them in place there.