Spiral Knights - LD Bombers need some love, OOO!

LD Bombers need some love, OOO!

60 replies [Last post]

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 04:39

Forum-Brady

To get this clear, I'm not talking about haze spammers. That's fun, effective and can shift the tide of games, so I don't think there's much worry for them really, especially with recons' CTR bonus allowing them to pick and choose their armour, or mix hazespamming seamlessly into other fully-fleshed builds. They can survive and still do their job, well enough I guess.
Nor am I discussing class imbalances and which class bombers could/should be, etc; I mean bombers regardless.

No, I'm talking about dps bombs. It's terrible. Unplayable, un-enjoyable and flatly unfun. Even scraping 5k damage is considered a victory, and even then the most use you were in the match was to deny area and scare people away; a task that could have been performed better as a hazer, especially with allowing yourself some better armour to boot!
Let's see what nerfs, issues and problems we have, as dps bombers. (I'll ignore the fact that many players tend to abandon bombers and leave them alone because that's not the bombs fault specifically):

There are a number of guns that are bomb/sword-like, and a number of guns that are sword/bomb like, yet there are no gun/sword like bombs. (Funny, that rings a bell when I say it out loud...)
We had the nerf that made bomb rads illuminate red, to give warning to the entire world that a bomb was about to go off, giving players ample time to escape.
Red or not, we have a huge big warning sign to alert players that a bomb is about to det. Why? This is for CW so the bomber/team know where the rad will be and how long the det will take; but there is zero reason to have it in LD. I don't get a big red line warning when someone is about to offscreen me with a brandish charge, nor a big wide warning when someone is going to swing a slow sword. Why should they get ample warning that a bomb is about to go off? It utterly kills bombers that a whole crowd just steps back and completely avoids it, standing at the very edge so they can immediately come back in.
We had our only viable DPS bomb removed and turned into a teamplay bomb, and LD (despite being team vs team) is simply not a team game. Strategising is not that feasible.
A number of bombs slow you when charges. This is made for a challenge in CW, but is crippling in LD, especially when your team is not backing you up. More so when all it takes is strikers/guardians to dodge/tank the blast and come back at you
Damage from all bombs, inc blast bombs is mediocre at best.
Bombs that are based around KB have little to no real use in LD
Blast bombs have slow det counts and are generally easy to avoid.
Shard bombs are ridiculousy easy to avoid and even when they land have wholly useless damage
Guardians are immune to vortexes and strikers can escape them with boost. Gee, thanks.
Dark Ret triggers invinci frames, killing the essence of its usefulness (akin to Blitz, but gunners have other options)
Comboing dps with haze is awkward thanks to the fact that people can get immunity to them. Thanks for allowing locking UVs and giving people the possibility of being immune to four haze bombs, as well as regular sets being immune to them for free (Shiver, Quicksilver..)
Bombing is mostly an aoe/crowd factor, but it's hard to get a group of enemies together, and often when you're against a team, you die before you can do anything productive
We had regular attacks removed, so are forced to charge, which leaves us vulnerable and slow to attack; it also leaves a large and predictable gap between attacks, whereas gunners and swordies have many options
Charging leaves us with no invinci frames, which makes us stupidly easy to kill by anyone; even blitzes can drop a dps bomber
Bomber armour only lends itself to one defence type. Gunners and Swordies have access to all three with the same bonuses; bombers have armour with varied bonuses (and only one real option for damage) and only one defence type. This make specialising impossible, and makes surviving against swordies ridiculously difficult.
Polaris is the simple, easy and bonus-free method for any and all players to use to completely and utterly shut down bombers
Bombs are the only weapon class that can't take advantage of off-screen advantage. Even the gun/bomb like Brandishes can do this

I may indeed have missed some/many...

Do we have options? Yes, I'd say so. Are they fair? Yes, I'd say so. Easy to implement? Most of them. Some obv won't be, but most of them have already been shown to be do-able.

Stop nerfing bombs.
Stop buffing guns/swords.
Give us more armour defence types, even if the armour has the exact same bonuses as current versions
Give us an mspd bonus that's useful, and/or make current mspd bonuses useful
Give us normal attacks back
Remove rads from enemy players' screens. Making them white again changes nothing; that was just to differentiate between bombers rads. I mean remove it completely. They get zero warning.
Disallow 100% immunity to statuses. Even 1sec would count for something, but being utterly immune is very destructive to bombers, especially since swords/guns have no weapons with which enemies can be immune to, whereas bombers have hazes and vortexes
Increase the resistance requirements for status immunities. max+max is currently too easy to achieve, especially with sets that provide it automatically. Even needing an extra "low" or higher would serve to force players to actively choose resistances over other gear, rather than giving it out quite so easily and freely
Allow haze bombs' status strengths to "stack" when multiple hazes of the same kind are on top of each other; two shivers, for example, would create a moderate freeze effect. As an alternative, since single bombers can maintain three hazes at once, make the minimum number three, to ensure that the bomber needs to be spamming it to maintain the stacked/stronger effect without allowing him time to hide/escape between it lest he sacrifice the stacked effect
Give us a "LD Bomb". No need for it to be OP or anything *ahem*, but just something designed to work in LD conditions. Short fuse, small/no rad, wide spread, decent damage. The old RSS (or something similar) springs to mind.
Reintroduce RSS (without removing shards) as it was viable in LD
Allow invinci frames while charging, even just for bombs, since bombers spend most of their time in LD charging, whereas other classes have the option to regular attack or charge when it fits them
Remove polaris. (I'm srs, the gun is a better bomb than bombs are; it's a shock bomb with KB (where's my shock Nitro?) that moves and can be fired ceaselessly; it's for trolling more than actual gunning, and there's no way to make it fair on bombers that doesn't just nerf it to uselessness, anyways)
Allow a parting gift effect; let fully charged bombs drop if the bomber dies before releasing them

I may have missed some...

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 05:38

Hariender

"There are a number of guns

"There are a number of guns that are bomb/sword-like, and a number of guns that are sword/bomb like, yet there are no gun/sword like bombs. (Funny, that rings a bell when I say it out loud...)"
i'm confuse on that,
"number of guns that are bomb/sword-like" hmmm i seen guns bomb-like like valiance charge atk and pulsar line but never heard guns sword-like i mean valiance have that bayonet below the muzzle but it never use as wep like just a fancy look :(

"Yet there are no gun/sword like bombs" a bomb that close to gun-like is Dark R that orb since its like moving bullet but in circle....and didn't disappear when hit once.....anyway..sword-like bomb sound like new suggestion a bomb that explode to many blades flying randomly low dmg per blade but hit many target.(random direction)

Note i'm still confuse about that bomb-like/sword-like/gun-like word. :(

Yes about the bomb when be placed on ground that red warning should not in the LD in PvE its ok.

example max freeze cause Immunity?I taught it cause you to have very low chance freeze and lower status time. :(

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 05:59

Aureate

Processing Thoughts of You Always

@Hari: A good example of a gun that is sword-like (dealing high amounts of damage at melee range) would be all the Autogun lines. The Catalyser guns are also extremely bomb-like. This is all partly in response to the initial reason of the Radiant Sun Shards argument that the bombs were not bomb-like enough.

With double max resistance, you are now immune to the appropriate haze bomb (which inflict Weak status) in Lockdown. Since Skolver automatically gets one max Freeze resistance per piece, someone wearing full Skolver is automatically immune to the effects of a Shivermist Buster, just as someone wearing full Vog is automatically immune to the effects of an Ash of Agni. This is especially problematic with the advent of UV locking, since it makes it much easier to roll for max Shock and Stun UVs on armour and helms, thereby giving rich players automatic immunity to the three basic crowd control status bombs (Stagger Storm, Shivermist Buster and Voltaic Tempest, all of which interfere with movement in one way or another).

An option to fixing this problem would be to potentially increase the strength of the status inflicted by haze bombs up to Moderate, on par with the alchemers...

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 10:08

Aureate

Processing Thoughts of Herp Derp

Double post, nothing to see here.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 06:13

Hariender

Aurete

double post XD

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 08:31

Shovelheadmcgee

Stuffs

I like the idea of not having the "warning sign" for the bombs, and also I found it annoying how theres only ONE defense for bombers. A nice shadow defense would help against GFs or FSc, and piercing for FFs.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 07:37

Alice-In-Pyroland

Honestly I just wish UVs

Honestly I just wish UVs didn't take effect in Lockdown, and I say this with double High/Max UVs on most of my gear. All they serve to do is tip the balance toward richer players and make the game less skillful for everyone involved, not to mention they also remove part of the importance of gear choice by letting specific armours act as all-around defensive tools as opposed to giving players specific resistances. If someone wants to forgo the bonuses of Wolver-line gear so they can run Ice Queen and get resistance to two of my status bombs I fully commend them for doing so, but it should be a decision players have to make regarding their gear and not something easily overcome by UVs. This would also make the distinction between sets like Vog and Skolver more important since no ASI & CTR UVs would make gear choice also a matter of picking what abilities you want, not purely a matter of which protects against more.

Although that being said the removal of bombing radius indicators would be nice too, bombs in Lockdown are inherently dependent on your opponent's awareness. Fact of the matter is unlike swords and guns, you can be the best bomber the game has seen and still not hit anyone with a bomb in Lockdown since the effective of your weapons entirely depends on someone being foolish enough to enter the raidus of your weapon. Bombers can't really chase people down and the delay on bombs needing both to charge and then detonate ensures you can never actually take someone by surprise, short of someone sprinting into your raidus unaware which only ever occurs by luck more than anything else. I've gotten some pretty crazy scores bombing (Upwards of 6k dmg in t3) but I make no attempt to claim it was "skill" of any sort; doing well as a bomber in Lockdown is as dependent on how situationally aware your opponents are as it ever is about your personal ability. Although removing the indicators wouldn't change that, it would at least serve to remove the immediate "HEY LOOK A BOMB" and force people to actually pay more attention to their surroundings.

Ultimately though I don't see bombers ever being too effective in Lockdown, the nature of the weapons inherently prevents that. The only way I see us ever becoming truly capable of anything other than areal denial and visual disruption is if some sort of fuse time bonus is added (Something I still insist should be avaliable via the Mercurial Demo set) so that some bombs can more or less explode instantly.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 09:44

Immortous

"Inside of the Wombat, Are frothy milkshakes..."

....This is just depressing to read yall....
So much for balance, huh?

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:48

Severage

...

there are no gun/sword like bombs.

What about Radiant Su---

Oh, riiight...

~Sev

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:57

Bacon-Strip

Obviously you've never met

Obviously you've never met Huntr, our bomber?

He puts all of the game's strikers to shame.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:33

#10

Uniquevariant

100%

Agree with Forum-Brady's take on it.

Eliminating the visual indicator for bombs would be huge (at least so that your opponent can't see it). Great Idea Brady.

A few suggestions, as well as some add ons.
#1. Eliminate the Fuse/Radius indicator from opponents screen (stolen from brady)
#2. Allow Bombs to be full charged WHILE CLOAKED! Or to be charged while sprinting as a striker
#3. Eliminate UVs for Lockdown. To counteract this, put arsenal station in locker room, and allow load-out switches during game.
#4. Increase status affects of bombs, and damage output.
#5. Reverse RSS changes (i know it will never happen).
#6. More variety in Armors for bombers.
---1 or more of the following
***Movement speed increase bonuses on all bomber armors
***More Status defense and/or More Primary damage types
***Increased Status affects on bombs (an armor with status + low/med on helm and suit)

For balancing purposes, and perhaps the easiest way to implement this, balancing bombers in lockdown, without having unintended consequences ripple through the game would be to make a fourth lockdown class designed for bombers. In this way, OOO can address the issues that bombers lack without changing the "class" entirely throughout the game.

Striker
Recon
Guardian
Demolition.

Give the demolition
+status affect
+Movement speed
Hide fuse/detonation
Smaller Fuse time
Increased bomb radius
Shield bump in lockdown
+/- whatever else they determine necessary to allow bombers a fair role in lockdown
(these are all merely suggestions. Obviously OOO would need to test them and determine which ones to use and which ones not to use, and how to balance a new class).

Note: A fourth class designed for bombers would also have the desired affect of making the bomber more legitimate without making bombs themselves stronger. Thus there would be a benefit in being a bomber over being a skolver clone who brings in toothpick+GF+polaris+ [insert new effective bomb]. It would give the bombing specialist an advantage that the standard clone can't also take advantage of.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:21

#11

Grittle

@Breakfast-Strip Yea, ONE,

@Breakfast-Strip

Yea, ONE, what about all the other bombers out their

I have a CTR: High UV on my nitrome, yet a toothpick would 1 hit me, AND I WEAR ROCK JELLY ARMOR, and it takes 5 nitrome blasts to kill someone

Its a good thing I have a Polaris

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:57

#12

Bacon-Strip

Still, if one guy can do it,

Still, if one guy can do it, why can't everyone else?

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:23

#13

Grittle

Well, because mostly everyone

Well, because mostly everyone else doesn't have teh skill of that Demigod your talking about

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:37

#14

Uniquevariant

also

Huntr is part of a lockdown orientated guild, plays with the same players and the same teams regularly, and if i'm not mistaken, jempire usually uses a voice chat system while playing. (He probably also has good UVs on his armor). I'm willing to bet Huntr would fair less favorably in random matches than a really good striker would fair in those random matches. Bombers, in general, are far inferior to swordies and gunners.

You can't point to an extreme outlier and pretend like that makes the argument invalid. Thats like saying "barrack obama became president, so no minority has a right to complain about discrimination." Just because you can find exceptions doesn't make a truthful statement less true.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:53

#15

Alice-In-Pyroland

I've never heard of Huntr

I've never heard of Huntr (I'll assume US servers) but if the above post is correct, then your use of zir as an example is flawed. In guild lockdown with actual verbal communication bombers become significantly more potent due to to knowledge of where enemy players are in advance of them being on screen as well as being able to let their team know where they're planting bombs in real-time, which enables co-ordination to force the enemy team into bombing choke points and get devastated. And this is fine if only something you're liable to see at the higher-tiers of guild lockdown, but it's still dependent more on the skill of the players around the bomber, than the bomber zirself.

More importantly though this topic is talking about bombing in Lockdown generally; namely in the random free-for-all environments in which Skolver clones reign surpeme, where voice chat is impossible and text communication is impractical and a very rare occurance. Now if this is minsinformation on UV's part and Huntr is consistently doing this in random Lockdown games against genuinely skilled players, I'd love to see Huntr actually post in the thread and elaborate on zis strategies.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:03

#16

Zeddy

On the haze immunity, I wouldn't go as far as making it completely impossible. I think requiring max+max+low would go a long way. Skolvers now wouldn't have automatic immunity to freeze, and would be forced to sacrifice a UV or trinket slot on freeze lest shivermist should reign supreme in the match. Immuity to shock would also require a trinket in addition to two max UVs, forcing a skolver striker to sacrifice a heart pendant.

See how this option inspires diversity? People would go for shock-resistant armours to resist VT, whereas if 100% immunity was inachievable, nobody would give a crap and we'd still just have penta-heart skolvers, and probably even more Polaris.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:11

#17

Uniquevariant

then perhaps

If you are completely immune to a status you still take an initial damage burst from it? It just seems to me that its impossible to gain immunity in any form to swords and guns, so 100% immunity to bombs shouldn't necessarily be possible either. Just a thought.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:52

#18

Zeddy

That would be silly. Poison, stun and freeze do normally no damage at all, so resistance to it would lead to you taking more damage than you potentially could've without it.

Shivermist Buster would become a radioactive field of d-

...

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:31

#19

Forum-Brady

I'm not going to comment on

I'm not going to comment on UVs, classes etc as I don't want this to accidentally derail into a discussion about class imbalances etc. Although I may agree about the UVs, it's just not pertinent here. I feel there are ways to give bombs and edge without changing classes at all; primarily by removing bomb rads from enemy screens.

Huntr is great, but I've seen him in Teams and have never, ever seen him bomb there. He just doesn't do it (that I'm aware of) in teams because successful bombing pretty much requires a team element and coordination, which doesn't happen in teams. I can bomb in GvG as well and run it fairly successfully, but Teams denies that opportunity utterly unless you happen to get landed with a guild/friend who knows your play and is interested in helping out.
Besides, even if he (or anyone, for that matter) can successfully bomb (regularly) in Teams, it doesn't change the fact that it takes an incredibly amount of skill and money to make it work, whereas strikers and gunners really don't need much training or expensive gear to be able to at least run a semi-successful play. I run my gunner with a pure CW build (ctr UVs, no max damage etc) and can regularly get decent scores. My bombing gear is better, yet I can't achieve a thing. If the learning/ability curve on bombs is so high that only a few in the game can achieve successful play of what is essentially 1/3 of the game, then it does nothing to change the fact that bombs are imbalanced in LD.

@Zeddy: I've added your suggestion to the list; it's a nice, subtle change that I didn't consider.
@Uniquevariant: Most of your list either coincides with mine or applies more to the classes than bombs themselves so I've left it, but I do agree/like the ideas in theory.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:31

#20

Uniquevariant

yes

I did not intend to derail the thread. I'm solutions orientated and don't like to point out a problem without proposing a solution.

But again, agree with you, as i echoed this in my post #14. And again, i'd like to reiterate what a fantastic point this is:

"Red or not, we have a huge big warning sign to alert players that a bomb is about to det. Why? This is for CW so the bomber/team know where the rad will be and how long the det will take; but there is zero reason to have it in LD. I don't get a big red line warning when someone is about to offscreen me with a brandish charge, nor a big wide warning when someone is going to swing a slow sword. Why should they get ample warning that a bomb is about to go off? It utterly kills bombers that a whole crowd just steps back and completely avoids it, standing at the very edge so they can immediately come back in."

As some1 who doesn't frequent lockdown, i never gave it much thought. But if you consider it objectively, its full of LOL. Insane really. For all the reasons you stated. I can't figure out how they implemented lockdown with no one on the development team having this epiphany themselves..... And changing it.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 21:28

#21

Forum-Brady

I did not intend to derail

I did not intend to derail the thread.

Oh, not saying you were, I just don't want to continue along that train of thought and then realise twenty posts later that the discussion warped into classes instead of bombs. I do find the idea of a "bomber" class interesting though. Recons as good for bombers and all, but overall do little for them other than allowing them to pick and choose defensive armour over CTR armour/trinkets. Recons are really more for general, all-purpose usage while allowing a free haze, rather than for bombers.

But if you consider it objectively, its full of LOL.

Ikr? It's one of those things that you just don't really...think about, even when you do LD regularly. But when it hits you, it blows the mind.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 11:33

#22

Murex

. . .

How about two bombers using the same haze bomb though? Might get confusing to teamates with all the haze dropped when the big red warning is removed.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 11:47

#23

Uniquevariant

@ murex

True, but i'd counter with three points:

#1, they wouldn't have to pay that much attention to see that they have two members charging up a bomb and laying it down.
#2, even if they didn't pay attention and it led to some confusion, it'd not actually harm them in any significant way.
#3, they could, and arguably should, leave the indicators up for YOUR TEAM--this to help you bait enemies into the bombs.

and number 3 leads to another benefit. For all of bombs weaknesses, with no indicator we could use bombs with something of their intended purposes. If you look throughout history, wars--roadside bombs, unibomber, OKC memorial bomber, claymores in vietnam (i hate to use these examples to make my point, since they are all very negative, but thats the nature of the beast) bombs are more often than not used as TRAPS. And if there was no indicator, a good, well-organized LD team could indeed use there bomber's bombs as traps. Lure the opponent into chasing them through a surprise bomb.

Also, not to turn this into a suggestion thread again, but when you mentioned two haze bombs, it made me think, if two of the same haze bomb effects overlap, it should increase the status damage two-fold. That would be an interesting mechanic.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 12:40

#24

Forum-Brady

@Murex: I never suggested

@Murex:
I never suggested removing the rads from your teammates screens, although it'd make very little difference if they did or didn't. Even with the red rads, have you ever seen two shock immune bombers spamming VT over a CP, on different teams? Even with the red/white rads, you've no idea which corners are safe. Maintaining the white rads won't help you in that situation and won't serve any purpose in any others.
Although I see no problem in leaving them in. It's the red rads on enemy screens that need to go.

@UV:
Also, not to turn this into a suggestion thread again, but when you mentioned two haze bombs, it made me think, if two of the same haze bomb effects overlap, it should increase the status damage two-fold. That would be an interesting mechanic.

Would be interesting to see multiple hazes "stack" the status from minor into moderate into strong (and in itself be a possible solution to immunities) but I wonder how possible that even is, in terms of coding? Even from a basic perspective, sounds complicated getting bombs to recognise whether or not they're on top of another at all, much less the same kind, and how many of them.
Interesting idea, mineju~

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 18:03

#25

Osmodean

I agree

DPS bombing in lockdown is very hard. The only two bombs that work at all are nitronome and dark briar barrage.

I've managed some success with nitronome, but the good players will just time it and nail me in between blasts.... Although I'm learning a few tricks around this. (you have to vary what you do and work with teammates)

No red line on the bomb would be OP though. I played a few glitched games where they couldn't see my line, and I totally owned them. It was a server side bug that lasted for a few games. Wish I had recorded it...

If you put a nitronome down, and they come in before it blasts you better put your shield up (that forces them out again). The issue after this them coming in on you again, so then you have to RUN and charge another nitro or you have to put a mist bomb down, and then block again. If you're on the defensive and can't put a bomb up you've probably already lost. You have to make them not want to charge in on you, and that's hard.

I've chased away good players with nitronome but it takes skill and a lot of focus. Dark Briar Barrage doesn't have knock back, so I don't think it's nearly as good. If you connect with nitronome you get them into a loop because you can put another one down right after you blow them backward. It's never going to have the same dps as a swordsman though. My best combination so far is stagger/voltaic/nitro and I alternate between them depending on the situation.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 20:14

#26

Martyrdoom

Tips

I have been playing low tier pvp lately and even there bombers are highly disadvantaged. In all pvp the best class for bombers is definately Recon. Here are my thoughts on how to counter different classes and playstyles.

Strikers: Basically they are your worst enemy. They can swoop in and hit you while your charging your bombs, laughing at your reduced speed and vulnerability. I find that trying to keep them at bay is a horrible idea as it is basically impossible. hazing them doesn't work as most are skolver coats immune to shock and/or freeze your two main haze bombs making them useless and trying to knock them back with nitro doesn't work as their rush ability is better than your knockback. Not only that most are carrying swords meaning they can 1-3 hit KO you while bombs require better placement, almost no lag, and lots of bombs. My idea/theory of countering them, its called "Stinging". what I do is I get in on them, lay a nitro, invis and retreat and pray to get them. A good idea is to stay towards your base so you can heal while invis'ed and get back to bombing them.

Guardians: These big slow guys will be the least of their problems. If they have their shield up, great. Invis into their shield and spam nitros, not next to them but at a distance so you they actually have to move towards you, with their slow speed movement you can stay out of their weapon movement as long as you are smart with distance and your invisible. If they have a gun, even better run around them and spam all types of bombs you will most likely win that battle if you use invis correctly.

Recons: When going up against other recons it is best to use haze bombs, why? because if you get them while invis'ed they will also be frozen, shocked, etc. I say spam haze bombs and try to freeze them to death. If other teamates are breaking the shocks then spam nitro's and other DPS bombs.

Mostly though you will be holding control points and shying away from battle, we in this current LD aren't supposed to be damage but more support.
These are my tips that keep my alive the most and help my team when killing if we dont need to worry about capture points.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 21:26

#27

Forum-Brady

-No red line on the bomb

@Osmo:
-No red line on the bomb would be OP though.
Can you explain why a bomb that has moderate KB, about 300 damage, no status and could be visually seen sitting in the ground for 2sec before it goes off would be OP without a warning signal, yet a 700+ explosion that comes with 4 baby explosions, similar knockback, deadly status infliction and can be "fired" from offscreen and/or instantly unleashed is not OP without a warning signal?

On paper, I can tell you right now which one I think needs a huge warning signal, and even then it would only appear on screen for the half-sec before they unleashed it, as opposed to being locked on-screen for the det count.
But aye, do explain that to me; I simply cannot see it.

@Martyr:
-Mostly though you will be holding control points and shying away from battle, we in this current LD aren't supposed to be damage but more support.
Yet we have dps bombs. It's not that bombers are supposed to be support, it's that support is our only option left since dpsing is nigh impossible to achieve. The entire point of this thread is not to give tips on how to better manage bombing, it's to point out that we've got so many restrictions, disadvantages, nerfs and limitations put on us that threads like this need to exist, while guns and bombs continue to receive buffs an beneficial changes that make them more and more freely usable, such as the above example.

I don't want us to have to strategise on how to better dps bomb, I want a change that allows us to dps bomb competitively.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 21:40

#28

Martyrdoom

@ brady

I understand, bombs need to be buffed, I am on your side. What angers me is that swords can blast through everything like paper, YET explosives, explosives that kill people in ONE BLAST take about 4-6 bombs. It gets very frustrating when you are like me and love pvp type modes yet your "build" doesnt work

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 22:13

#29

Spold

I'm a Lockdown bomber, that's

I'm a Lockdown bomber, that's because no one pays attention to them. >:)

P.S. This is Inci, brady. I was just dreadfully bored of my old account.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 22:32

#30

Osmodean

@forumbrady It's much harder

@forumbrady

It's much harder without a red line because they can't predict the blast radius, so nailing them with nitro is really easy, or dbb or whatever.

IMHO it would break the game, and when someone charges a sword you can see it coming (they glow).

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 01:21

#31

Uniquevariant

when someone

when someone charges bomb you can see it glow above their head. and see them holding it above their head. and see them take it from above their head and place it on the ground. and then you can see it sitting on the ground before it goes off.

So yeah. I'm not seeing that your point holds any water. There is no reason an opponent should get a warning beyond all those listed in my opening salvo that your bomb is going to go off. They should not get a red radius showing exactly where and when its going to go off.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 02:18

#32

Forum-Brady

It's much harder without a

/wave Inci/Splod

@Osmo:
It's much harder without a red line because they can't predict the blast radius, so nailing them with nitro is really easy, or dbb or whatever.

The point is...why should they get to see the blast radius? Why shouldn't it be hard to predict? Why should people get a marker telling them exactly where to stand to be perfectly safe?

I can't predict the range of a Brandish charge. Not to mention that if they use it from offscreen (slightly south of me) then I can't see them at all and can get OHKO'd with no warning at all, much less "chance to dodge the blast radius". Yes, Brandishes have a blast radius; they are, after all, five explosions.

Each of which outdamages any bomb in the game. EACH of those five explosions, not even including the initial charge which hits for 700+, which is more than double any bombs damage in the game. Why don't I get a big warning light for that?

Bombers get no regular attack, glow brightly when are charging and literally hold their bomb above their head for the whole world to see, then it sits on the ground for 1~2 sec for anyone to see. Even without a rad, it's much easier to see a bomb being deployed than it is to catch someone who decided to start charging their brandish while boosting around. Not to mention the fact that even if they miss all of that and get hit...oh, 300 normal damage, low KB and no status? Cry me a river. Even if you do get hit by it, you have a lot of time to react before they get off another bomb. If I somehow magically survive a Brandish charge being unleashed in my face, all it takes is for them to regular attack and kill me off before I even bring the bomb above my head, much less hurt them back.

I'd like to see how swordies would react if all weapon charges gave warning lights. My money says that the vast majority of them cease using charge attacks completely, and Brandishes become all but forgotten in LD.

If you honestly think that removing bombers biggest and most crippling disadvantage would "break the game" then you're seriously over-estimating the power of bombs...or seriously underestimating the personal awareness of players and/or yourself.
The very fact that you seem to think you wouldn't be able to handle a bomber without a neon warning light saddens me, to be frank.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 16:06

#33

Osmodean

@Brady I'm a bomber ;-) You

@Brady

I'm a bomber ;-)

You can't win an argument (especially on the internet), but with no indicators of where a bomb is going to explode other players wouldn't have much fun (IMHO). I imagine they would stand far away and wait every time for the bomb to explode, or they would guess wrong a lot, or "kind of" get the idea and hug the line.

Now buffing bomb explosions... that interests me way more.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 16:25

#34

Forum-Brady

What's so wrong with that?I

What's so wrong with that?

I don't have fun with people offscreening me with 1k+ damage status inflicting Brandish charges that are impossible to predict, but you're worried about someone not having fun becasue of a 200 damage bomb that they get plenty of warning about?

Aye, your argument still holds no weight, to be perfectly blunt.

Although I do agree that increasing the damage would help as well, but it'd be entirely pointless with rads on the screen, becasue they could hit for 1m damage and it'd be useless since everyone can so easily avoid it.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 16:26

#35

Martyrdoom

UGH

Bombs need buffs, im curious how many bars of health do we take away with fully upgraded nitro? I wouldnt know because no one bombs in LD -.-

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 16:50

#36

Forum-Brady

About 3/4 tops. To give a

About 3/4 tops. To give a comparison, it's less than being hit with a single regular attack from a 5* Brandish.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 19:04

#37

Uniquevariant

@ forum-brady

I give up, and so should you. This is one of the few SK arguments that isn't opinion based. There is a definite wrong and right answer. Unequivocally, beyond the shadow of a doubt, bombs should not now and should not ever be telegraphed on your opponents screen before explosion.

This idea that "we should show the opponents exactly where our attack is, when its going to happen, and at what range you are safe, because if not it might be annoying to sword users and gun users who already have better defensive options, are all out stronger offensively, have better mobility, can attack quicker, and are more effective in every other aspect of the game than bomb users," is insanity. I suspect osmodean is really a sword or gun user pretending to be a bomber, lol. :D

The only reason you can see an opponent's bombs blast marker is because OOO was too lazy to re-pogram it when it going from PvE to PvP. That, and they really don't care; the bombing community is too small a minority for them to worry about fixing its problems--in fact, they gladly ruined our best bomb. Now, sword users, they make up such a majority of lockdowns users (and thus paying customers) that they'll be pandered to every time.

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 23:16

#38

Kamen-Rider-Faiz

what we need

what we need is more bombs more EXPLOSIONS, basically need more Area damage types like old sun shard or something with fast blast times that can be used to hit or slow down strikers. i know shivermist/ stagger storm works but some type of better damage type bomb would be nice. and something that shoots out in multiple directions not just staying in the radius of the bomb like nitro or angry.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 04:00

#39

Osmodean

You know, I was just playing

You know, I was just playing LD and I got a whole bunch of nitronome kills... I was doing quite well against good players.

*shrug* I'm confused by all this. VT/SS switch to nitro BOOM cya... I always get comments like, "bomb spammer!" "You're cheap!" etc etc etc...

I'm having a blast guys. I'm sorry that you don't think it's fun, but I never feel like I'm getting owned. I win at least 50% of my games, and hold points down quite well.

Here's some of my trophy shots:

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 06:13

#40

Glittertind

"Allow a parting gift effect; let fully charged bombs drop if the bomber dies before releasing them" - Forum-Brady

This might just become an annoyance for scouts/guardians. Strikers can probably just dash out of the area... Which would give strikers another advantage they really don't need, in my opinion.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 09:11

#41

Forum-Brady

@Osmo: -I win at least 50% of

@Osmo:
-I win at least 50% of my games, and hold points down quite well.I win at least 50% of my games, and hold points down quite well.
The majority of players win around of 50% of their games, and all bombers (naturally) can hold CPs well. In fact, I did mention this in my OP, that bombers can be used, but all they really achieved was to hold points, which is a haze bombers job; so the dps bomb/armour didn't really do them any favours.
The very fact that you feel an average of 2~4k damage is a "trophy" shot only furthers my point. As a dps bomber you should be getting far more than that. Haze bombers get around 1~3k damage on average anyways, if even just from the shock alone, so a dps bomber beating them by only a few thousand damage at most is nothing to be proud of; those 7ks should be your average/minimum.

And don't get me wrong, I have fun as a bomber, but I feel like a prisoner trying to have fun playing chess without all the pieces; I'm restricted, trapped, nerfed and have no better options anyways so just trying to make the most of it.

But if I want to go for dps proper, I whip out my gunner.

@Weed:
-This might just become an annoyance for scouts/guardians. Strikers can probably just dash out of the area... Which would give strikers another advantage they really don't need, in my opinion.

Even so, that's still a lot more useful than it currently is. Also, not all strikers will be able to get out in time, especially if they used up their dash to get the kill on you. Keep in mind though, that it's not a suggestion made for killing, it's more to allow the bomber to finish off the job he was doing, even if that was just dropping a haze in the middle of a CP; they may be able to dash out, but it still allowed you to defend that CP an extra few vital seconds.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 10:47

#42

Vaynesky

Thoughts of T2 recon

Okay, so I play recon, but I don't use bombs. Ever. I suck with bombs. Then again that's just me. I've senn some people who can pull off bombing pretty well in T2, but since I don't zip in like a striker all I do is waltz in, whip out my voltech and poke them until I give them a nice shock status and THEN kill them. I've seen bombers try to use blast bombs and shard oms and haze bombs, and all they do at the end of the day is usually just make me take a step back and pull out my gun.

I'm obviously no bomber, but I fully agree with the arguments listed to strengthen bombs. Being a swordie in LD with a polaris sidearm is by far the most common and annoying loadout, and I would love to see that change. Maybe a bit more dps for the gunners too...

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:40

#43

Redblades

response

-Yes they should stop nerfing bombs. they're useless enough in LD already
-Yes they should stop buffing guns and swords, they're getting ridiculous.. like brandish chargewith always 5 explosions? really?
-Giving more armour defence types won't exactly help you. if a striker starts hitting you, you're not gonna get a charge out, you're not gonna run away in time. armor defense doesn't even do much. a no trinket skolver will die to a GF combo, so will a no trinket snarby..
-normal attacks as in dropping the bombs without charging? seems OP to me. watch out for nitro spam!
-what's a rad? the timer thingy? EDIT: no rad marker would be op, because unlike swords, you don't have to be in the victim's screen to let off a bomb. you can let off a bomb and run away. some random kid will walk in to the unmarked bomb area, and BOOM random nitro, taking half their HP (assuming they don't have trinkets). As I mentioned before, taking out just the timer would give bombers and edge, because strikers will be taking a chance to go in, not knowing when the bomb will set off.
-disallow 100% immunity to statuses? fair enough I guess, but I spent 20k ce on my shock max set. either give me back 20k ce (OOO will never do that) or don't do it. I bought the set KNOWING that I will be immune to shock bombs. I did not ask for a immunity of 3 months, then only 1 second.
-Increase the resistance requirements for status imminities? no. just no. my point above ^^^^
-Allow haze bombs' status strengths to stack ... YES YES YES YES YES I've always wanted this <3
- creating a LD bomb. yes, but this ld bomb HAS TO HAVE THE TIMER. it's designed to work under ld conditions, without timers, it would be overpowered as *&^*&^
-reintroduce RSS... YES.. change my RSS back to the old one. NOW. I loved that thing. was making a mercurial set JUST for it, and OOO cruelly seperates old RSS and my mercurial set. mercurial set is depressed now.
-allow invinci frames while charging - this is a whole other thing. should invinciframes be removed, hitstun should also be drastically reduced.
-remove polaris - I rather they just completely nerf it down. shooting shock KB bombs at a high rate? no thanks. my game runs slow enough.
-allow a parting gift effect.. YESSS YES YES YES YESSSSSS

EDIT: one more thing, I usually go bombing for fun, but I put a shiver and VT together. if I had a stun bomb, I would put VT and SS together. when they're together, unless you have ridiculous uv's, nobody will attack you. if they're bold enough to charge in, just whip out a nitro or GF and murder them.

ALSO, being immune to a FF is not the same thing to being immune to a haze.
nobody is immune to the haze bomb detonation, although that det. isn't exactly a good weapon.
being immune to stun inflicted by a fearless rigadoon is a better comparison for what you're trying to say, but I understand that it's very frustrating having a skolver with good uv's walk straight through your bombs. but as mentioned above, stacking the haze bomb strengths will completely fix that.

the normal attacks wouldn't be too fair, because what's ctr now? completely useless? CTR and timing is vital for bombers and it's what makes them good (besides dodging). instant dropping and a cooldown time would completely kill timing. people could constantly click until the cooldown time is off, thus making bombs a little too user friendly.

would it pain you that much to carry a gran faust with you while you're bombing? somebody rushing in can be quickly killed with a GF combo. when I bomb, that's the only thing I do, and it works like a charm...

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 14:58

#44

Alice-In-Pyroland

As other have said, we have

As other have said, we have no warning indicators for sudden Brandish charges or Polaris shots. There's no need at all for the bomb indicator, if you pay attention you can see the bomb itself, and if you get hit the damage you take is pitiful regardless.

As for UVs I don't care for P2W ideals and more importantly dozens of items have been changed before (Shards, Pepperbox, Omega Shell, ect) and resulted in players whom invested in UVs for those items being screwed over. More importantly it's imbalanced, you invest in UVs and gain flat out immunity to some bombs. Bomber invests in UVs and...? At best take maybe one extra Final Flourish hit?

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 15:07

#45

Uniquevariant

pfft

i bought my vh ctr RSS knowing it was the RSS--no refund for me. They changed it regardless, and i didn't see you campaigning for me, red. Not only did they completely change the way it worked, they also changed its purpose (used for elem weak opponents, they change it to pure peirce, then make a different bomb that hits elem weak enemies........double screwed). People only care when it affects them.

And rad means radius. We don't want them to show our opponents the radius of the attack as well as exactly when its set to blow up.

Why is it okay to change the RSS both in PvE and PvP, but its not fine to change the way YOUR GEAR works in only one aspect of the game? AND your extra status defense will still do quite a bit of good in lockdown.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 15:08

#46

Forum-Brady

--Giving more armour defence

--Giving more armour defence types won't exactly help you. i
It won't help very much, but every bit counts. This is also somethin' that'll affect CW, too. For example, using a FF on a Skolver is considerably less effective than on a bomber.

--normal attacks as in dropping the bombs without charging? seems OP to me. watch out for nitro spam!
Bombs did used to have normal attacks, but instead of balancing them out they just removed them (which seems to be a recurring theme for the Devs' attitude to bombers...). The normal attacks had considerably less effect than charges, but were spammable. Obviously it would need to be balanced, but it's still a suggestion for the list.

--what's a rad? the timer thingy? taking that out will be a tad bit OP
Forgive me; rad as in "radius marker" that appears on the screen. I still don't see how anyone can see the removal of this as OP, for the reasons I've posted above. Until they remove rads on bombs, or they introduce equally crippling markers on every charge weapon (especially off-screen brandishes) I will see the rads as a crippling disadvantage to bombers. Removing it won't be OP, it will just give us a chance in hell of actually landing some damage on people. I don't see why it should be up to players to notice that someone is charging a brandish, but expecting players to pay attention to a bomb that sits on the ground for two seconds is asking too much.

--disallow 100% immunity to statuses?
I completely understand on this one. I don't like changes being made that vastly affects players like that, and have listed a few alternatives. Honestly, I think a 1sec affect time would be fair enough, even though is still essentially devalues sets. Saying that, the principle of buying a set strictly to become immune to a weapon is pretty horrid, imo; I imagine strikers would rage if I bought a set that made FFs 100% useless on me. Odds are no striker would use teethpicks anymore if that become as common as shock immune sets.
Mind you, you said you understood that, so I'm not trying to lecture you. I feel there are options that balance it out without being unfair on people with status resistance sets, but also give bombers back their weapons.

--Increase the resistance requirements for status imminities? no. just no. my point above ^^^^
Actually, I thought this one was pretty fair. Even adding a "low" requirement on it would mean that current shockwalker sets can still be useful; you'd just have to trade off one of your trinkets for a Wyrmwood. Not too bad. Means that shockwalkers have to actually sacrifice something to negate my bombs, rather than just getting their max:max:heart set and immunity, which is pretty overkill.

-but this ld bomb HAS TO HAVE THE TIMER.
As above; timers do nothing other than to make bombers useless in LD. I wouldn't oppose keeping the rads there for hazes, but they must be removed for dps, unquestionably.

--allow invinci frames while charging - this is a whole other thing. should invinciframes be removed, hitstun should also be drastically reduced.
Aye, this one's a bit trickier, but there needs to be something there to give bombers an edge, because trying to get a charge off with a gunner around is suicide. Reintroducing normal attacks is an alternative to this completely.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 15:22

#47

Uniquevariant

@red

i do see some mention of RSS now. So at least you had a problem with that too.

But, your price paid for shock double max would still be a competitive advantage even if you took some shock damage. The benefit it provides you over no shock UV would still exist, you'd still have a huge leg up on anyone without double maxes, and still have the option for max immunity as Brady describes. But you shouldn't be able to completely negate one of only four weapons (assuming slots) or one of two weapons (assuming no slots) that a bomber is allowed to bring.

It is absolutely the EXACT EQUIVALENT of a bomber being able to bring in two shadow max or two pierce max armors to be 100% immune to FF/BTB or GF attacks. And an extra bonus, you can't know until you go to attack them and find out! Of course, OOO would never do this, because 90% of lockdown players--the biggest spenders of real money on the game--wear skolver and use that set up, along with a stupid gun (polaris) that shoots 6 consecutive long range bombs that are half-volt-tempest-half-nitro but cause more damage and a stronger shock. If they let you become immune to these players toothpicks and GFs, they'd cry bloody murder. And while its okay 2 ignore a small minority primarily made up of non spenders (bomb LD users don't need vh ctr/vh asi weapons. so they don't need to spend a ton of money. And sword armors dont' give them any damage bonus), they dare not offend the big spenders.

Instant bombs could be a solution, but the spammable part is a problem. They would need to have some form of cool down in order to be balanced. Another thought (suggestion) would be to have lockdown bombs that went off instantly and had a cool down and give them various explosion patterns. Circular radius, + design, X design, brandish like explosion pattern, 180 degree arc etc... Mind you, i'm just offering the instant bomb idea's as an idea to toy with, not saying that they should do it.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:44

#48

Redblades

@uniquevariant

I feel for you, as I said before, I was making my mercurial set for RSS.
why I'm against the sudden change for "no immunity"? because I don't want another RSS scenario.
already lost RSS and mercurial set because of OOO not caring, don't want to lose my shock max set too.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:32

#49

Forum-Brady

already lost RSS and

already lost RSS and mercurial set because of OOO not caring, don't want to lose my shock max set too.

I think the point is more that losing RSS sucked because it was a weapon that people used to play the game and it got taken away from us. Shockwalker sets are used exclusively to become completely immune to someone elses weapon. Like I said; if I got a set that amde me immune to FFs, people would be pretty furious, I expect, wouldn't people be demanding outright that it be nerfed, despite how much I may have paid?

Yet we're expected to just deal with the fact that a weapon is completely useless.

I do sympathise that people paid for it, but the whole intention behind it is still no better than what you say about OOO "not caring".

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:28

#50

Redblades

check my edit on my first post

thanks

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LD Bombers need some love, OOO!