I just wanted to let you guys know that the Super Splodin Shard Squad is the reason I converted 2 of my knights to bombers, and my first 2 bombs I purchased with the intent of using them? Splinter Bomb & Crystal Bomb :)
I'm enjoying bombing a lot, but what you you suggest for my first 5* set? I was planning on Mad, but the weakness sound like a big deal, so I was thinking volcanic?
Hello, Toah. I think that's pretty awesome.
A compromise could be mad+volcanic and two boom modules for max damage and CTR. Biggest problem would be negative shock resistance.
I already planned on 2 UVs for each armor piece to make up for the weaknesses, my Skolver set currently has priority for GvG but after that I'm taking my 3* demo set up to 5*
I am having a lot of fun so far, about to go get some more practice with GW/RJP
So far I've found that the splinter bomb is great for wolvers, but the dark matter is not so great for slimes, I've been having a hard time, might have to use a shiver or ash to get them. (or maybe a graviton+shiver/ash?)
Glad we inspired you :)
Anyhoo:
They don't call it "mad bomber" for no reason: it really depends how mad of a bomber you are, and how badly you want maxed stats. Mad Bomber was my first ever 5* set, and by far my most used bombing set. The status negs aren't that big of a concern to me, when I get +8 bomb bonuses in return. More than worth it, imo.
However, some people just blatantly disagree, and would rather get stats elsewhere. So it's really up to you. But mad is the easiest way to get max:max on your bombs, and can even leave you with a trinky slot free, and requires no UVs at all.
We'd reccomend upgrading the splinter bomb and dark matter to sun shards and salt bomb. The reduced damage is nothing in comparison to having bombs that deal moderate stats.
We did a Catalyzer-only run and it made other runs look bad.
Zeddy
Biohazard (CTR Med UV), Perfect Mask of Seerus, Shadowsun Slicker, Swiftstrike Buckler (CTR MAX, ASI Very High, Dmg Medium)
Krakob
Neutralizer (Level 6), Perfect Mask of Seerus, Gunslinger Sash, Honor Guard Shield (CTR High, ASI Medium)
Fehzor
Biohazard, Neutralizer, Perfect Mask of Seerus, Chaos Cloak, Ironmight Plate Shield (CTR Very High, ASI Low, Dmg Low)
Etharaes
Neutralizer, Perfect Mask of Seerus, Dread Skelly Suit, Swiftstrike Buckler (CTR Very High, ASI Very High)
What can I say? This went fast! We entered a room, unloaded about a dozen charges collectively, then detonated. If everything wasn't dead we'd do it again and then it usually would be. If we felt like being a bit safer, we'd detonate more often to keep things interrupted, but if we felt like killing stuff quicker and we had room to maneuver we'd stack probably too many charges before killing everything.
There is very little to note here due to how smoothly and quickly it all went. We should've recorded it. It took about 16 minutes, give or take.
We conclude that catalyzer isn't just a gun that you can make work with teamwork; they're weapons of mass-destruction if you jerks with your pulsars would just stop breaking our cata-stacks.
Aw, Zeddy, you put me last, even though the run was my idea.
Anyways, I've always wanted to be in a party of full catas, and I thought it would be quite a bit better than just one person using them, but I did not expect everything in sight to be annihilated. It makes other runs look slow and inefficient, even with uber-poweful swords.
Hopefully this doesn't result in a nerf of one of my favourite guns.
Just a suggestion for another run... C42 with just Shocking Salt Bombs/ Deadly Dark Matter Bombs. If you manage to pull it off, I'll have extreme respect for you guys.
Echoez had to use a different shard bomb since she didn't have a shadow one at the time, though.
That being said I do have an appropriate Salt Bomb now though, so we could always do another run, and actually record it this time around.
Oh well. You should record your runs more often. ;_;
I request the ability to join you guys for a run sometime, however I seek out the fortune of a mad bomber helm and at least a 4* shard bomb before running with you.
Do note that of late my latency has not been favorable... by any means.
I want to aid testing with EV + Shards in FSC and other areas capable of producing high amounts of test subjects.
Vortex+shards is stupidly fast to clear FSC. If you can have them both planted as the creatures spawn, they're generally dead before they clear their summoning sickness; essentially it can kill them as fast as vortex+blitz. The trick behind it is to time the drops with each other; have one person drop a vortex, and the other drop the first shard dead in the middle of teh vortex before it dets. It'll suck everythin' in, that first shard will hit *eveerything* then set the ring perfectly around all of them, then the two of you just spam circles around them and they don't stand a chance. This works with small or massive groups all the same, since there's just so many constant explosions that they cannae escape from.
If you have a third, have them drop a couple of hazes around as well and you'll be as bored by the end of it as you would by using metagear, by how easy it gets.
Today I am currently solonig Ironclaw Munitions Factory.
Zeddy
Deadly Crystal Bomb, Heavy Dark Matter Bomb (unheated), Scintillating Sun Shards
Mercurial Demo Helm, Mad Bomber Suit, 2x Elite Bomb Focus Module, Gray Owlite Shield
The run mostly went well! Robots were dying pretty fast, and I never saw quicksilvers die as fast as from dark matter bomb. The shard interruption would keep them from doing their quicksilver thing.
Through careful placement, I could minimize gate-switching shenanigans, and through further careful placement I could take advantage of the shards' long fuse time to solve the switch-puzzles in new and fun ways! I would highly recommend puresharding IMF if not for one little caveat:
Shard bombs do no damage to the twins. Not the shards, not the core blast. The fight is literally impossible. I'm currently holed up between some blocks and gate where I sent bug reports and a support request. The reply told me to return to Haven, which I haven't quite yet. Gonna try farming vials and killing them anyway, but I imagine it won't go so well.
Edit: Yeah it didn't. Don't try this at home, kids.
...that last comment made me laugh.
Great work guys (: Again, one of the most interesting, useful, and inventive forums I've read in a long time. Some actual strategy and creativity instead of mindless grinding! Not to mention this thread is beautifully coherent...I don't have to re-read every other sentence to guess at what the person probably meant.
Keep it up, this is great.
A bomb-only run of IQP will be going up on the Youtube channel tommorow, there's one wipe near the beginning because someone decided playing on the US server was a good idea, but otherwise it's pretty efficent and really just validates that IQP is pretty simply to pure-bomb (And still with minimal strategy and co-ordination).
e: It's up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR7v1v_MQb0
I've been reading this thread a long time now but I sold all my bombs XD.
But I've been thinking about this thread and I may buy a cata instead of a pulsar.
Do u support this?
We support getting a Cata instead of a Pulsar. It's a lot more fun!
Pulsar is the safer weapon, however.
Today we took revenge on Vanaduke.
Zeddy
Full Volcanic Demo, 2x Boom Module, Volcanic Plate Shield (CTR MAX, Dmg VH, 2xMax Fire Resistance)
Shivermist Buster, Dark Briar Barrage, Deadly Shard Bomb
Oatmonster
Mad+Volcanic, no trinkets, Volcanic Plate Shield (CTR MAX, Dmg Med, Med Fire Resistance)
Deadly Splinter Bomb, Deadly Crystal Bomb
Byanymeans
Full Mad Bomber, 2x Triheart Pendant, Crest of Almire (CTR MAX, Dmg VH, -2xHigh Fire Resistance, +8 hearts)
Nitronome, Dark Briar Barrage, Stagger Storm, Shivermist Buster
Edyth
Mad Bomber Helm (fire max), Mercurial Demo Suit (fire low), Volcanic Plate Shield, Boom Module, Bomb Focus Module (CTR Ultra, Dmg Ultra, Low Fire Resistance)
Venom Veiler, Shivermist Buster, Scintillating Sun Shards, Dark Briar Barrage
The loadout and party was a bit different in the FSC leading up to Vana, but that's irrelevant because FSC is babies right up until Vana himself. This is the party as it looked upon entering the boss fight, which is all I'll be reporting on.
It went great! We kicked his butt! Our general strategy went like so:
-Edyth switched between Venom Veiler and Sun Shards to keep Vana stunned and poisoned.
-Byanymeans was on damage with DBB
-Oatmonster handled watering (bless him) and damage via Splinter Bomb
-First phase I did damage along with the others using DBB, but for phases 3 and 5 we played it safe and I shivered to minimize clusterlove.
-Oatmonster herded the slag guards in phase 5 into my shivermist so I could keep them all locked.
For the mask:
-Edyth was lagging so she mostly poisoned the mask.
-The mask is why I brought normal damage shard bombs. As expected, hitting the mask with the core and two shards (for a total of more damage than a BAB per bomb) was simplicity itself thanks to...
-Oatmonster watered the mask. Bless him, he's good at it. During the entire fight, we only had one hickup.
-Byanymeans used Nitro.
Phase 1 went by in a flash thanks to all four of us damagebombing. Vanaduke maced at the beginning of the fight, so the slags didn't even spawn. The mask phases went by extremely fast. I had no idea it was even possible to do the masks so fast with just bombs. Venom Veiler must've helped a lot during the whole fight.
Phases 3 and 5 were a bit slower. I had to stop damagebombing to shiver but it was probably worth it in how little trouble we had.
There was a snafu in phase 5. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but Vana somehow ended up in the top left corner and the slag guards got loose from the shiverlock. I think it was a result of Vana macing around and spawning firetiles. (We were, by the way, mostly free of fire tiles. Would I recommend Oatmonster for your Vana run? Yes I would.)
We had a wipe in phase 5. It happened shortly after I got impatient and dropped my shivermisting in favour of DBB. These events may or may not be related. After a quick resurrect, Edyth picked up on the shivering and Vana was promptly killed.
We conclude that bombs-only Vana is totally viable, if a bit on the slow side. Shivermist is handy whether you have a blitz or not. I also personally conclude that Normal Shard Bombs are totally boss for the mask phase, but will admit that's a very narrow range of use to spent the crafting cost on. Furthermore, if you have two boom modules I'd say even going half mad bomber isn't worth it. I'd much rather survive a whole lot longer than have the extra +2 bomb damage bonus.
That's it. Go bomb some goddamn bosses!
Next time I need to bring a DBB instead do the Splinter. Also, I had an APS, rather than a VPS.
My friend is goin down the sword and the bomb path and I'm thinking of suggesting him bombtastic+volcanic and btw Im plannig on getting a heavy decon for the sake of being hipster. XD
"Shard bombs do no damage to the twins. Not the shards, not the core blast. The fight is literally impossible. I'm currently holed up between some blocks and gate where I sent bug reports and a support request. The reply told me to return to Haven"
I found this unnaturally hilarious.
They told you to give up.
It could just be my straightjacket being a little too tight after one of the big guys in a white coat fastened it after my latest outburst, but I want to know who said to give up and interrogate them about it. The old shard bombs would have worked there but the new ones were absolutely useless. Part of this game is being able to play through anywhere with any weapon no matter how slow it progresses or how little damage happens. You could have taken a Barrage and finished eventually, but the new shard bombs did absolutely nothing. At the very least the initial detonation should have hit.
Try to show of some rarely used swords now. Like the spur and troika lines. Make a vid innfact XD. Just a suggestion.
I think it was Aphrodite. I don't really get it, because I've seen videos of GMs killing Vanaduke before. .-.
@Hawxindanite
I can tell you that going Bombtastic/Volcanic would give lower DPS than full Volcanic, but I can also tell you that it sounds interesting and I'd be interested in seeing how it works out. When I got my Mercurial Demo I noticed things took one less bomb to kill (sometimes from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1), so it could actually turn out to be faster!
Heavy Decon was my first blast bomb and I think it's a fine bomb. My favourite feature about it is how cheap it is: It only goes up to 4* so you're saving 700CE and it doesn't require any blast cores. I actually made it first because I was out of blast cores at the time.
At the time, there were no pure elemental damage bombs, and constructs were the only turrets so I figured it'd be a good way to deal with those. All the way up until stratum 6, it remains a stronger bomb than Nitronome against constructs. The lower blast radius and knockback makes it a more party-friendly bomb, too.
We have been discussing doing a Troika/Cutter run. I'll try to get ahold of some recording software so we can start making more videos out of our runs.
I'm going to do a new thing. In this post, I equated each bomber armour with a specific blast bomb.
In a nutshell:
-Nitro = Volcanic Demo because they're both fast-charging and provide safety.
-Irontech = Mad Bomber because they both give the highest damage output but at considerable risk that's debateably worth it.
-Big Angry = Bombtastic because they both do the most damage but the lowest damage over time.
-Heavy Deconstructor = Needs an upgrade but I'm going to equate it with Mercurial Demo because I'm on a roll here.
Four demo armours, four blast bombs. Simple, right? Another thing there is four of is Danger Missions, and it just so happens they match up too. I'll let you figure the maths on which is which and only tell you which one I did today:
Ghosts in the Machine using only Mercurial Demo and Heavy Deconstructor
Zeddy
Heavy Deconstructor (CTR low), Master Blaster
Full Mercurial Demo, Grey Owlite Shield, no trinkets
Bomb has a total of CTR High, Damage Medium and Damage Ultra vs Constructs
Sorry about cheating a little on the CTR, but it's not like I want to roll that UV away or craft a second Heavy Decon just for this experiment. .-.
This is becoming less "Shard Squad" and more "Zeddy's Zoloing". Sorry about that. It's not really from a lack of people wanting to do shard squad stuff, but more me being a jerk.
You'd be surprised how well this worked out!
-Against constructs, I was doing around 250 damage, and against undead I was doing 215-ish. I think that means the medium bonus from merc armour brought the damage of deconstructor up to the level of Nitronome of it had not had any bonuses while the deconstructor's innate bonus brought it beyond that again. According to the wiki, Nitro does 217-230 in depths 25-28, and these were depths (I think) 24 and 25.
-The lack of charge time reduction wasn't so bad at all. Thanks to the open space in GitM and running speed provided by Mercurial, I had no problems taking my time setting up my bombs. I barely even noticed the missing CTR after a while. Fighting Mecha Knights was easy breezy as long as I had space to manoeuver and in those fights I never found myself wanting for more blast radius.
-Turrets were always interrupted by Heavy Decon. Moreover, the lack of CTR meant that if I placed my bombs as fast as I could, it would time just right with their next shots so that I could keep them perpetually interrupted. If I had Max CTR, I would have to hold my bombs a little to time this right, wasting the CTR.
-The lacking radius was an advantage in GitM. I was always able to place my bombs so that the radius was never inside of the revive totems. Admittedly, Heavy Decon isn't the best thing to fight zombies with. It was safe enough, but I found myself wishing for something that didn't blast all the zombies into the revive totems where I'd have to herd them back out again. Bonus points if they get stuck in some terrain or other.
-Deadnaughts were easy, if a bit time-consuming. Simply bait an attack and place a bomb a stonethrow in front of them. It'll explode just as their backs are exposed to it. I usually only get one bomb in per bait, so if this wasn't solo it'd be taking me all day.
-All my pills went up in that eastern room before the boss. You know the one I'm talking about. It got a bit hectic.
-While I did die at the boss from lack of pills and a few mistimings, I think it's viable and intend to repeat this run later. I've acquired Fraps now and intend to record future Shard Squad runs from here on out. I died at the boss once soloing GitM, that could really happen no matter what my loadout was, so I don't consider this a failed run at all.
-At the boss, I noticed that the heavy decon was interrupting the tentacles. I think with a little more charge time, someone using heavy decon (would it work with any blast bomb?) could perpetually keep the tentacles from attacking anyone at all. Interrupting the tentacle didn't make it retreat, but rather build up for another attack. My current CTR was not adequate to re-interrupt it before it hit.
I conclude that Mercurial Demo is a perfectly viable piece of bomber armour all on its own, even without ridiculously expensive UVs or upkeep-eating trinkets. Partly due to being a Shadow Lair armour, Mercurial has been viewed as an "Elite" armour that's only taken up by people willing to make huge investments, but I propose that Mercurial Demo is a survivalist armour. The extra running speed and especially the shock protection is there to keep you alive where other armours would not.
I'm also very pleased with the performance of Heavy Deconstructor. Against constructs, no more range seemed to be needed. The knockback was just right for fighting mecha knights, and the interruption and damage plenty to fight everything else in the family. If you were going to get a blast bomb just because your DBB isn't cutting it against constructs, consider making it a Heavy Deconstructor. That's the decision I made with my first blast bomb (CTR low), and I've never regretted it for a second. It's cheaper and you won't need a single one of those darn unstable cores you need all the time.
Oh and in case you're wondering about the master blaster, I had to use it during the first minute at that room with the puppies standing in front of that switch. I consider a gun mandatory in GitM just because of that one switch. The blaster was used nowhere else.
Aphrodite is just a big meanie, when I filed a support ticket, Hyperion swiftly came to my rescue!
I want this thread to survive tis almost at the 2nd page XD.
Again I must revive!
Anyways I know this guy, not sure if he's T3 probably is but anyways I met him at T2 LD, he was using the breaker series and he was pretty hard to kill. Later in I chatted with him asking about how he does so well with the breaker series'. Later on he was kind enough to send me a free 3* cobalt helm with a uv sayin elemental defense increase high. After that he told me that he wanted to stop seeing so many people in wolver sets and ao on and so forth, so I told him about this thread but I didn't mention the name XD.
Anyways his name is Bagel-Joose, hope I got the name right XD. He does have the views of this thread. Hope this helped. ;)
No, we have yet to do a GvG, but I'm currently trying out non-bomb weapons and wanted to see if I couldn't use Triglav efficiently in Lockdown.
Zeddy
Triglav, Callahan, Venom Veiler
Guardian Shield
Ironmight Plate Helm (shadow medium), Ancient Plate Mail, 2x Elite Bomb Focus Module
Whoa whoa whoa what's this? PLATE set? In LOCKDOWN? Venom Veiler? What about Voltaic Tempest? I'm so sorry, Zeddy. You must've failed a lot using such a terribly underpowered loadout.
Let me emphasize how well this set worked with one statement: After using this loadout for two matches, another guy switched to full Ancient Plate and Venom Veiler as well. We would not lose a single battle as long as we ended up on the same side. If we didn't, it was kinda 50/50.
The reasoning behind this loadout goes like so:
-My goal was to truly be a guardian. I wanted to stay alive while supporting the team.
-Why Venom Veiler? The problem is I wanted to try out using Triglav against enemies, but I'm well aware that I both have a underpowered sword and also have little experience with using swords. In a fair fight, I'm done for. If I used Voltaic Tempest, people would either avoid fighting me entirely (undesirable, I wanted to actually use Triglav), or they would be shock-immune and my bomb would help nothing.
-Venom Veiler has three main advantages. The first is that it won't prevent people from engaging in sword combat with me. The second is that when they do, they'll be at a disadvantage: I had little trouble dispatching of strikers with flourishes, gran fausts and divine avengers. (While poisoned, those would only do about 3-4 damage. This is viable to heal up with the shield between encounters.) Sometimes I would kill them two at a time! The third advantage is that not a single soul gives a single crap about poison immunity. The only ones immune to Venom Veiler are gunners, and those aren't going to engage in swordfights within the mist range anyway.
-Tired of being a guardian that nobody wants to stay around? Try bringing Venom Veiler and planting it at the control point at the frontline. Your teammates will love being able to survive longer while under your protection. Remember that while poisoned, enemies will also do less damage to your shield! I was frequently complimented on my choice of bomb by my teammates. Since I, too, was able to survive longer, I would often be able to to hold a control point for longer enough to actually get backup.
The loadout is not invincible. It is, however, balanced. As a guardian, I can use this loadout to mostly win against strikers. (Not kill, they'd usually strike back to health pads and lick their wounds. This is considered a victory.) I will, however, be at a disadvantage against gunners. That gunner may be a striker, but none of the bonuses from his shield would apply to him as a gunner. The striker boost itself is also perfectly wasted circle-strafing outside the range of Venom Veiler/Triglav.
I recall the biggest problems I had was when the guy who also tried the plate/venom veiler combo went Recon with Callahan and FoV, and some jerk sniping me with firotech alchemer. Other notable moments is surviving the full 40 seconds of being cursed by switching to my uncursed Venom Veiler and letting my teammates protect me. As mentioned earlier, they were very eager to hang around me due to the advantage my bomb gave them.
And no, my damage was nothing special. About 6k each match. What do you expect from a normal damage weapon with no damage bonuses?
*looks at above loadout*
Hmm...
*looks at arsenal, sees Jalovec, Mega Magnus, and Venom Veiler*
Ah...
*notices Jalovec is unheated, knows he doesn't have Ancient Plate*
TO FSC!
XD
Actually I'm gonna try Zeddy's guardian tac in T2 LD sooooooo
FARM JK ALL THE WAY!
Lol, remind me to finish my Suda sometime soon so I can join you guys on a run.
Day 2 of using my super tank loadout in Lockdown. I now have full ironmight and it is working much better. The lack of piercing defence against toothpicks and movement speed reduction was bringing me down, and free of Ancient's movement-hindering shackles, I am a God amongst knights.
Did about 5 GvG matches with Aeonic Doom. We won all of them. One of the matches I did not die a single time. The other ones I died at most 2. I am a tank! I really am a tank!
With full Ironmight, I take more like 4-5 damage from gran fausts and avengers instead of the 3-4 I took using one piece of ancient. Toothpicks, however, do about 3. I am also able to avoid gunshots with much higher efficiency.
I am considering getting a Gran Faust and see if that helps me any. Sometime in the future, I'll make sure to test if Ironmight or Venom Veiler is having the greatest efficiency on my tanking. This will be done by using Mercurial. I'm also thinking about getting a faust. Even without a damage bonus, it means I could disable an enemy through a lucky curse.
My damage never exceeded 4k. However, you would find no dispute that I was an asset to the team as I would consistently hold the frontline capture point.
Edit:
Still useless against gunslingers.
Zeddy, I want you to do the impossible so I jotted through some ideas and found the best one ever.
Grittle's Challenge: Achieve 1k worth of damage in a LD match.... using only a Pepperbox
I will like to see you achieve it, video/screen it, and slam it in my face like a banana cream pie... With cherries
Challenge accepted. I'll give it a fair shot tomorrow.
Am I allowed to support myself with some manner of haze bomb?
@Zeddy
Sure, but if you are a REAL man, do it Pepperbox only.
MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA-OOOH! Butterscotch pudding!
First try. I used Seerus and Shadowsun. Notably, this was on US servers. I didn't feel like the delay did much either way.
Incidentally, I am very, very sorry to the team I joined that missed out on the two extra krogmos for winning.
It was the winter stage. I went recon, made sure I was south of people, charge the pepperbox and surprised them in the butt. Sometimes they'd even be too busy to retaliate so I could do it again. I think I might have cheated a bit, however, as I attacked the slush puppy in the center and that probably accounted for half of that damage. Also, Pepperbox is pretty nice on deathmarked targets.
Not content with being a cheater, I rejoined after spending 150 crowns on more better gun damage.
I figured I should give it a non-cheater try using a loadout a little more focused on damage. The results, I believe, speak for themselves. I even actually managed to kill someone with it!
Gardens could possibly be the most ideal map for pepperboxers. My strategy went as thus:
-Go recon (duh).
-Cap the enemy's closest point (lower left in this case)
-Hide in a corner. You are now south of the enemy's vision.
-When some idiot stands on the point, shield-charge (so they don't see your intial shot) and unleash hell from behind the wall south of the point.
-They will now hunt you like a dog. Do the recon thing until they think you've left and they resume capturing the point.
-Now pretend like you're going to do the exact same thing as last time except you don't unleash your attack. The victim, wise to your ways, will dash down and try to outsmart you. This is not very smart of him as he just entered a long, narrow corridor trying to attack someone with a charged up machinegun that has a wide spread and good knockback. If your victim somehow doesn't die, cloak the Vanaduck up and outsmart him again.
-You are screwed if there are two people, unless both attack from the same side. I've had that happen and it's hilarious.
-When things go south, just spam the regular attack because you're dead either way and you might as well put your murderer on fire so you can get more damage.
Noone else was attempting to capture the point in question. Even though we lost, I made a legit contribution to my team this time around.
Even with the invincibility frames after each hit, you still surpassed 1k damage with a pepperbox
:O
Try doing this combo for your pepperbox gunning, tis more risky but, oh well....
1. Go guardian
2. CHARGE AT THEM AT THE BEGINNING!
3. Surprise them with a charge
4. Shield to block at least 2 of their attacks
5. Shoot half a volley
6. Repeat. Also use full your first loadout in try no. 1, dat charge time reduction and speed increase is quite valuable for this tac.
Note that this works best at furnace
1. Go striker
2. Zoom to their nearest base
3. Charge the gun
4. Walk around in big scribbly circles (this should help you dodge them better)
5. Zoom away quickly when you see their zoom break or recon sheild break
6. Let yer gun rip them apart, if they start coming closer zoom away and cancel the rest of the clip
7. Repeat.
First of all, our cast.
Leonardo, as played by Xxdragneel
Dark Briar Barrage, Electron Vortex, Shivermist, Polaris (mostly unused)
Full Mad Bomber, Crest of Almire, 2x Tryhard Pendants
Michelangelo, as played by Zeddy
Deadly Crystal Bomb, Deadly Splinter Bomb, Deadly Shard Bomb
Full Mad Bomber (piercing low, freeze low), Blazebreak Shield (fire low, freeze low), 1x Elite Boom Module
Donatello, as played by Nateblacksmith
Dark Briar Barrage, Voltaic Tempest, Shivermist Buster, Deadly Crystal Bomb
Full Volcanic Demo, Crest of Almire
Raphael, as played by Dutch-Oven
Toxic Atomizer, Scintillating Sun Shards, Dark Briar Barrage, Electron Vortex
Mad Bomber Mask, Volcanic Demo Suit, Crest of Almire, 2x Elite Boom Module
We won! We kicked Vanaduke's butt and we did not wipe a single time! Points of note:
-Shivermist Buster + appropriate damage shard bomb with max damage is enormously powerful. The intial blast will spread the enemies into a perfect circle exactly overlapping the shards, while shivermist KEEPS them there. With max damage, only a couple of bombs should be necessary to kill everything, depending on damage bonuses and party size. Use a vortex first for maximum effect.
-The above tactic basically roflstomped the entire citadel.
-I have found a way to shardbomb slag guards. Run away from them in a line and plant bombs behind you while strafing ever so slightly. It should be possible to make the guard run along a long line of shards now, getting hit by most of them. When they stop running, you should already have some clusters of shards out to take advantage of them being stationary. Takes a bit of practice, but two or three jousts can take them out.
-Normal damage shard bombs are the most damaging bombs on Vanaduke's mask by far. You pretty much need someone else to handle watering the mask though. Thanks Xxdragneel!
-Voltaic Tempest on Vanaduke works really well to slow down his turning rate. You can use this to constantly drop bombs at his back, never giving him a chance to attack.
-Turtle power!
What's the best area in T2 for practising using a shard bomb? I'm trying to collect every single bomb in existence and I want to be able to use shard bombs effectively. Also, any tips?
Good luck on your bomb-collecting quest! I had the same goal and finished with it just a couple of months ago.
The best area for practicing using shard bombs is anywhere you have trouble using them. Some items that you could put on your checklist to try getting the hang of:
-Solving switch-puzzles that are meant for guns or pots by exploiting the delayed fuse of shards. This if a lot of fun in IMF, just remember to bring a different weapon too as the boss is impossible to defeat using only shard bombs.
-Consistently hitting Trojans with two shards at a time. (You will need to be mindful of both where you place the bomb and how you guide the Trojan's back.)
-Jousting with gremlin thwackers.
-Jousting with mecha knights. (You should be able to consistently hit them with the core blast, knocking them into the ring of your previous shard bomb. Succesful execution will let you knock them on their butts.)
-Hitting turrets with core + 2 shards consistently.
-Devilites. Just devilites.
I also have tips:
-Shardbombers work best when grouped up with more bombers. Mist bombers will incapacitate enemies for safer sharding and mitigate knockback so you can rack up more damage easier. The spine cone line lacks knockback and has enough radius that neither of you will interfere with the other. Vortex gathers up enemies and will let you consistently double-shard whole groups, while multiple shardbombers can turn a battlefield into a minefield of constant explosions.
-My two primary techniques with shard bombs are similar to the techniques with other bombs. You can use them like a Fiery Vaporizer, kiting enemies while you drop damage behind you, or you could use them like Blast Bombs, placing one, running out and then running back in again to plant a new one at the same spot. The former is safer but the latter lets you do more damage.
-If you do really well with chaining the bombs together for maximum effect, you sometimes hit invincitinks. The enemy will give off a tink as if it was shielded and your bombchains will cease to damage it. You can fix this by holding your next bomb for a little bit so that your bombs stop chaining together. We have heard nothing from OOO about their intention to fix this. :\
@Softhead
I don't actually know who you are. @_@
sorry, mistakenly posted on wrong thread, was reading two at once.
Keep up the powder popping.