+1 to Glacies. -1 to Petition.

I don't need a weapon to be unbalanced to like and use it.

Pufft, who needs shard bombs when there is DBB, DR and Nitronome?

I say, keep the current shard bombs and reimplement the old ones but make sure to rebalance those (make SSB not so worthless; make RSS not so OP).
Can't support the suggestion about a random rotation because it means the bomb becomes unpredictable. This is bad both for the user, who will not be able to hit enemies properly at all times, and opponents who will not be able to dodge properly. Everything aside from Alchemer ricochets are completely predictable in this game so I don't see why shards should be an exception.

Good luck.

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/58425

No really, I'm rooting for you. You aren't going to make it but maybe you will, and as Zeddy said- "There is no reason these items cannot coexist."

For those of you disagreeing with the OP-

There are exactly three huge reasons I see for them to be added back:
+: RSS was a huge get for bombers in PvE, and was considered one of the most balanced items in the game. It was incredibly tricky to use well and rewarding when used correctly. When used incorrectly? Well, that's gonna be quite a few revives.
+: In PvP, it was probably the best damage bomb to aim towards, on par with the haze bombs. For bombers to lose that was devastating. In this regard, it was also a premium example of good balance.
+: It was a fan favorite for many players, and putting it back into the game would mean a lot to them. Who cares if it was "over powered" or "under powered"-- it was called both. Like tortodrones and even charizard/mewtwo in the latest pokemon games, what really matters most is that the players really like it.

In would only revert the Sun shard line as the projectiles would make fulfilling it's purpose as a fiend slayer easier. The rest can be used fairly well as a horde destroyer bomb.

Perhaps instead a new line should be released that uses the same mechanics as the old shards but perhaps with a nerfed range.

Edit: At Krakob I use BAB in LD often (that damage and blast scares strikers to death)

Shocking Salt Bomb produces shadow damage plus shock effect, it is not the same, like at all. You cannot use it on FSC for example which would be like the testing arena. So the best places to use it are Slime Compounds, Jelly Palace, Deconstruction Zones and Gremlin based arenas. In which clearly it is better to use mist or plain damage(with nitro perhaps).

I see you're focusing your point on the Lockdown sceneario, first of all lockdown is just not for bombers, there's simply no time, the bombing class itself, Recon, is focused on stealth, your class is supposed to be doing support task, that is misting shock points, capping points, marking people. you're not supposed to deal a lot of damage. So if you want RSS as it was back then to be able to be an stealth bomber throwing balls of light everywhere you're looking this at the wrong angle. Because that's not what the Recon is supposed to be. Anyway, do you really believe the old RSS would be that much of a change? I do not to be honest. Skilled Strikers would still polaris/charge you to death before you can really do any serious damage.

On PvE, i don't see the issue, new shards work great.

P.S. So you had Shocking Salt Bomb, loved it, then understood it was not meant for lockdown, then tested on PvE. Tested? you already did 2 months of testing and you loved the bomb, what more testing you required?

You could always make all the current shard bombs have a unique ability being an offensive output and a defensive output:

The Offensive Output would be the old Radiant Sun Shards-style but with slightly decreased damage for the result of range and attack speed.
The Defensive Output would remain as the current Cluster-Bomb and would have nothing changed aside from removing invincitinks.

@Zerjack and the salt bombs

Compare to dark retribution AND the haze bombs. Are there any major situations where one of those wouldn't be a great bit more preferable, given that you can plan your armor accordingly and bring appropriate gear to back up the two?

Ugh... Glad... my points do not contradict themselves I still think that Lockdown is not targeted to bombers, and also that the Recon class is the best suited for them, Recon class was created to fill the support part of the PvP. Designers, (Nick and company perhaps) probably though
-Ok PvP, ideas?
-We need classes clearly.
-Ok common classes are Assault, Medic, Recon, and Engie
-Ok we got no engies here. So we're going with the other three.
-Assaults will use swords of course.
-Yeah, I don't think a medic applies here, too much of a tech change, how about a protector? using a big shield?
-Sounds good, and what do we do with the bombers and gunners? They would still like to play.
-Well of course, they're already support on PvE, so let's make them go support by using the Recon class.
-Cool we got our PvP! Now they will stop complaining about BlastNetwork not being real pvp and a new era of knights killing each other will begin!

Of course that probably took moths of planning and designing, but you guys get the messsage. Bombers are not the target of PvP. Swordsmans are.

And yep I'm here since RSS was the top of the alchemy line, when RSS and DBB were similar bombs. RSS was my third bomb. I do know about the bomb. When Roamulus Twins didn't exist, and when fellow knigths didn't get all cocky on others playing the "I know my facts" card when their argument was threatened. What Fehzor says about the trick to use them on lockdown is actually what i would say the best way to use them. But I though, and still think that you can use your time doing better tricks with other bombs, and that you could have better results.

You guys had better results with old RSS? Well good for you. I'm not trying to make everyone change their mind or anything

And Fehzor why can't they continue to be? Well because design! They we're changed for a reason, design always have reasons, a lot the times those reasons got money involved. You know that originally, bombs could have no charge time? that had to be changed, games like this change.

You guys ever heard of the Uroboric Cycle? You can search for by typing "When Players Make the Rules Gamasutra" People can play a game as whatever they want. There's a concept called In-game culture, which is the product of three things, internal rules, external rules, and memes, or let's call it behaviors that spread. There's a big difference between what a designer wanted the game to be, and what the players have made of the game. It's always been a challenge for designers to make the game in a certain way, and to have players play in the way they expected. Thus the game is more enjoyable for everyone, and it's easier to escalate. The fact, that people spread behaviors, making them memes, conveys external rules that start to apply to the internal rules that the designers and developers placed.

So how can we relate this to Spiral Knights. Well, the fact that people started gathering behind the spawn point of trojans, anticipating their position to kill them instatly with a Blitz neddle, is a good example of this. Designers and devs made the rules of the game, making the trojans spawn at certain points, the meme of getting behind the trojans with a Blitz has spread, and now a set of external rules affect the outcome of the trojans fights on fsc. Making the fights easier.

So it's the same with bombers and their role on the game. the internal rules of the game dictate that a bomber is supposed to work mostly as support, or as a crazy lone wolf. But that's it, the fact that you guys shape the game at your will is expected in any game growing cycle. The game evolves, and so their players. And then these behaviors spread in the form of memes. When these memes start to reach the threshold of the accepted internal rules, those need to be changed, and that's what happened with RSS. You see the process from a player standpoint, while the range of viewpoints is much wider.

So in conclusion you can make of the game whatever you want it to be, but the internal rules of the game are what the designers and developers though of the game, and they always try to keep the players on the track of what they expected. If people stray off the path, new internal rules must be placed,m some of them might not be of the liking of the players due to the strategies already developed to overcome certain internal rules.

I think that by reading the article, or at least reading my reply you guys can get my point, so I'm gonna log off now from this thread.

Happy Gaming!

P.S. Hope you really read the article it's something that if every player on multiplayer games understood, multiplayer experiences would be even better.

Maybe then more people will use dem

I totally agree

+1