Spiral Knights - Bomber update suggestion

Bomber update suggestion

33 replies [Last post]

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:12

Neueragon

We all know the gunner update is coming some time in the next decade or so, but I dont quite see guns as needing an update more than bombs do. I dont want to doubt out OOOverlords, praise them and their infinite wisdom, but in my eyes bombs are far more underused.
So, to fix that, I came up with a few, or rather a lot of ideas on what to add to make bombing better.

To start off, lets look at armors. Currently bombers have 4 armors sets, all with elemental defense. And the kat hat. So bombers have plenty of elemental defense, but little shadow defense and no piercing defense. This simply wont do.
Lets look at a controversial idea first, which probably a lot of people will protest against for various reasons.
Yes, its the mad bomber set. Right now it is inferior to chaos in almost every situation. And that little upside is due to the missing curse weakness, which barely makes a difference. So, I propose mad bomber to be completely redone into a new armor. Dont worry, everyone who has mad bomber will get something for their troubles. A chaos piece for each mad bomber piece with the same UVs and heat lvl AND a new mad bomber piece with all accessories from the old.

Now that thats out of the way, lets get to the stats.
2* and 3* armors stay unchanged. 4* gets an added dmg bonus low to each piece.
Oh and the bomber line splits at 3* into three 4* sets. You get heavy (elemental), laminated (piercing) and vile (shadow). They all have the same stats as the modified heavy demo, but different damage resistances.
Thats all boring stuff, so lets look at the 5* armors.
Elemental armors get no change, except that they lose mad bomber.
Shadow armors get:
Mad bomber set, which now gives shadow defense (to keep the evil government away), poison resistance (to protect against the drugs the government puts in the drinking water) and medium damage bonus (to get your explosive message across).
Snarby/shadow themed armor set. Shadow resistance, curse resistance, medium charge reduction.
Piercing armors get:
Divine themed armor set. Piercing defense, protects against stun and gives medium damage bonus.
Cool themed armor set. Piercing defense, protects against sleep and gives medium charge time reduction.

Those armors are made so that the dmg increase armors have the better statuses for PvP, while the CTR armors get the reject statuses. Also, they use up the leftover themes, so bombers can become real rainbows.

Now then, weapons.
To start off, blast bombs. Lets treat them like valiance. To be more precise, you get them in all damage types now.

After that, shard bomb.
We have them in 4 damage types. Two of them even split further into ones with statuses.
They have piercing and stun against fiends and shadow and shock against slime.
That leaves one non-normal damage type (elemental), one movement impairing status (freeze) and two enemy types weak to that damage (undead and construct).
As we already have sun shards against an enemy that deals shadow damage, we wont need a bomb against undead.
So the new shard bomb will deal elemental damage, have freeze chance and damage bonus against constructs. Lets make it moonstone flavor.

I always wanted more weapons to deal curse. I also always wanted a weapon that makes an implosion.
Voila, new weapon. Similar to BAB, its quite slow, but packs a punch. It has a 1/6 chance to curse enemies on hit and a 1/3 chance to curse you on planting the bomb. The explosion has a BAB radius. It also is an implosion, meaning that it pushes enemies towards the epicenter. Its less of a sustained sucking like that of a vortex and more of an inverted knockback. Its line starts from a 3* shadow blast bomb.

People liked the old sun shards, right?
So lets try something with that. We could use an elemental bomb that does something whacky.
Lets go more into what made the old shard bombs special: the bomb spits out 16 "splinters" that act exactly like bullets.
This weapon would be great for hitting large enemies hard (so bombers can finally deal with trojans and dreadnaughts well), while still allowing them to use the bomb against crowds. Its line starts from a 3* elemental blast bomb.

More starting weapons incoming.
to get people into bombing easier, I came up with a few more starting bombs. They dont have to be given out by missions, but that would be a good idea.
Little howler: 1* spine cone. Deals same damage as other 1* blast bombs. also deals no knockback. it has a radius between a 1* and a 2* bomb.
Toxic breath: 1* venom veiler. Deals absolutely no damage (yes, even no inital blast damage), but has the same radius as the little howler to make up for it.
Rotor bomb: 1* dark retribution. Deals small amounts of damage with one rotating orb that has the same speed as the 2* DR ones. The orb circles at 1* blast distance.
Mini shard bomb: 1* shard bomb. Deals half of 1* bomb damage with each of its 4 shards that get launched about 1* blast distance.
Suction bomb: 1* vortex bomb. the vortex is 1* bomb sized and sucks for about a second after initial detonation. Final detonation does about half 1* bomb damage and does not deal knockback.

I think these items would flesh out bombing quite well.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:27

Holy-Nightmare

I touched on this in an old

I touched on this in an old thread

You must realize the majority of new players are only offered blast style bombs to play with and thus ignore bombs until they see a haze, DBB, or Dark retribution bomber wipe out a horde of monsters in a few attacks.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:39

Mrgrey

Will Read...

As of now:
Buff bomber sets to be on par with others. +1

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:47

Neueragon

@Holy-Nightmare

you had some good ideas in your old thread, but there is one big problem.
people dont like it when their gear changes. heck, some are still complaining about the shard bomb change.
so I went with as little change as possible and a lot of additional stuff instead. nobody in their right mind still makes mad bomber (huh, kinda makes sense now.), so I made it into something more reasonable.
and yes, blast bombs are somewhat of a buzzkill when they push enemies around annoyingly and barely hit anything at 1*. you could add something like a 1* snarby bomb that has increased radius and deals no knockback. that way people would get the hang of bombing easier.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:50

Soulstaker

I'm fine with everything else

I'm fine with everything else besides the curse BAB. Sounds too OP with the 1/3 chance of cursing in an AoE. Can you please capitalize and organize this a bit better? It's kinda hard to read atm and some people won't even look at posts that lacks correct grammar.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 14:53

Neueragon

@ soulstaker

I see your point with the curse BAB, you could bring it down to 1/6 curse chance.
and I am sorry for my grammar, but I am not a native english speaker. point out my errors and I will fix them.
and how should I organise it better? I started with a foreword, then went into armor sets, then went into weapons.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 15:09

Soulstaker

@Neueragon

Sorry, I kinda skimmed over the thread and my brain refuses to read things with incorrect grammar. That's no excuse though so I made sure to read it again. You just need to capitalize and there aren't too many other errors.Might need to combine or break apart some sentences. Your organization is good, but I think you should make the armour paragraph into smaller paragraphs. The smaller paragraphs should be a bit more in-depth. How much resistance against the status they give? What do they look like?I don't want reskinned Mad Bomber sets since that would be boring (Big bonus points.)Also, there won't be another elemental set offering DMG Med per piece?

The organization part was mostly my opinions so you don't really need to change. I understand that some people are not artistic but you can always make an effort to give people a basic idea of how they look.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 15:35

Neueragon

@Soulstaker

Capitalisation is done. Also, minor changes here and there.
And the armors should all have the same amounts of resistances that all bomber/gunner/swordie armor sets have.
The mad bomber wont be reskinned, it just gets some stat changes.
Oh and why would you need another set offering dmg bonus? Is bombastic not good enough?
Btw, I tried doing some more paragraphing by pressing enter twice, but the forum doesnt like me doing that and splitting apart every little bit without showing a clear separation between the large parts is bad in my eyes.

Anyways, the artistic stuffs for the armor sets isnt quite on topic, as my main concern is more on function than aesthetics, but I can give it a go. I wont put it in the original post though, due to it just being an afterthought and not the main intent.
The snarby/shadow themed set gets the simple black/red colour like the swordie armor of the same design. You could give it the 6 eyes on the goggles of the helm as well. the armor could get the dread skelly smoke effect, though diminished in size.
The divine themed set could get a halo on the helmet. Though personally, I prefer if people could choose to put their own stuff in the accessory slot. You could also give the armor some glow, but that could make it too similar to skolver.
The cool themed set could get the Zs flying out of it similar to the sleep animation you do. It could also decrease time till sleeping animation kicks in when the whole set is worn.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 15:49

Mrgrey

Coding

HTML tags are a gift of the gods on these forums.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 17:08

Holy-Nightmare

Considering that few players

Considering that few players have or use the Mad bomber/ bombastic demo sets I don't think that many would complain about the changes. Back in the day everyone used shard bombs and they were even a terror in LD, a change to a commonly seen weapon or armor would certainly draw criticism, while buffing the unused would bring them back some attention while enhancing the game.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 21:12

#10

Chaolin-Drake

Drake is ready to haunt you FOREVER! O_O

I like all of the ideas besides the curse BAB and that cool theme piercing demo set even though the CTR med is alright.

Cool themed demo set: sleep status is going to be completely useless like the jelly to royal jelly sets sleep resist mainly because there no enemies that can deal sleep anymore maybe they come back in the future but not now.

I understand you gave it sleep resist because the other status themes are already being used on the new and old demo sets but i'm just saying this as a heads up that sleep resist at the moment is useless.

And for the curse BAB. Like soulstaker point out, is going to be OP as a Cute Pig Tail Knight Swarm going after truck full of candy and will not be stopped.
Noting more to say about it other then it going to OP if it happens.

And another thing, the Divine and Shadow demo set reminds me of a old OLD thread of my back in 2013, my idea was Divine will have CTR med: and the (optional) damage bonus low: like yours it will have Stun resist.
And the Shadow one dubbed Sinister Demo Set will have Damage bonus Med: with the (optional) CTR low: and Poison resist or the like yours Curse resist.

Here's my old thread for those that forgot it did not exist. http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/76223

(WARNING) (THAT THE THREAD YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE IS MOST LIKELY HAVE BAD GRAMMER AND LUCARMINS, WHAT'S A LUCARMIN YOU MAY ASKED WELL THERE'S A LINK IN THE END OF THAT THREAD FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO SEE HOW IT LOOK LIKE IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH A GAME THAT I PLAYED A LONG TIME AGO THAT I STILL LOVED TODAY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.)

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 22:13

#11

Fehzor

Really they should just redo the curse status. Weapon slots make it sloppy on the knight, and the way monsters attack/take damage from it make it sloppy there too.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 01:56

#12

Neueragon

@ Holy-Nightmare
I see bombastic as being a good set for someone who has a good amount of CTR as UVs or trinkets. so I didnt change that.
I dont think bombastic is bad. in fact it is great for soloing bombers in a cold environment.

@Chaolin-The-Chao
if you dont like the cool one, feel free to suggest a change to it. I just pieced together one more armor from the stuff that was left over.
and I dont see how the curse BAB is OP. it has 1/3 chance to curse you and only 1/6 chance to curse something that gets hit.
so it might take out you key weapons when you put it down. it might not curse any enemy.
and curse is not that strong of a status outside of LD. and in LD, you will still have to basically plant a BAB while a bunch of skolver clones whizz about. and then they have to hold still in the explosion radius. and then you have to hope they get cursed and hope their toothpick gets cursed.

@fehzor
I agree, curse isnt a good status. it has a nice idea behind it, but its not well done. I long for the day that curse gets remade so I can properly use my curse max deadshot armor and my curse max divine veil and my curse max vog cub coat.
I honestly dont know why I made all those.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 04:57

#13

Neueragon

more stuffs

anyways, I gave it some more thought and added a few more starting bombs to the list. they should get new people started in bombing easier.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 05:05

#14

Dragon-Mute

set bonus

Since there would be 2 sets for each damage type maybe have one get ctr med on each piece and the other damage med?

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 05:14

#15

Neueragon

@Dragon-Mute

erm... thats what i did.
divine themed gives damage, cool themed gives CTR.
Mad bomber gives damage, shadow themed gives CTR.
bombastic gives damage, volcanic gives CTR.
I dont get what you want to change.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 06:10

#16

Gunnerific

wait a minute...

Change the mad bomber from med damage and med ctr to single med (damage) with poison? No. i rather burn, spazm, choke and freeze to death than give up my double max...

Other then that on the armour suggestion no more reskined/revariented clones
i mean.. what else could you do with bomber armour. you only could switch around med ctr for damage or MSI. that or just give it negative res and more ctr/damage madbomber per se.

Which follows up to my next topic: ASI for fuse time reduction on bombs. Just do it SK even if each stage only reducts for 2%, a swift strike could reduce up to 6% fuse time!

other then that just +20% damage on the current shard bombs, cause... why not!

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 06:26

#17

Neueragon

@Gunnerific

why wouldnt you want to change mad bomber? chaos does the same thing except better. also you get chaos from the update.
and why no more reskins? its not like OOO dislikes reskins, so why break the tradition.
and I just did similar stuff to what the gunner update will probably bring, which is more revarianted stuff.
if you want certain stuff to be different, make a suggestion, as I already said before.
and ASI/ FTR are different topics. if you want to talk about that, do that on a separate thread.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 06:47

#18

Gunnerific

@neue

how do i get choas (double max) from the update (im guessing the bomber update since we are on said thread), unless i missread... Nope OP said the new mad only gets damage med, poison max and shadow def.

and why can't i talk about ASI on bombs on a suggestion thread about improving bombs? what? R.I.P. logic.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 06:56

#19

Neueragon

@Gunnerific

read lines 8 to 12 again. it explains what happens to mad bomber. and you get your double max from chaos as chaos gives double max on ALL weapons including bombs. chaos does the exact same thing mad bomber does now, except it also does it for guns and swords as well.
and the thread isnt about improving bombs, its mainly about adding more stuff.
your thing is a whole mechanics change that does more than just change a few little things here and there.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 07:17

#20

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

Woah woah woah!

Do it the Warframe way, of course! DON'T change gear for those that have it already. For those who do have Mad Bomber, give them a recipe which allows them to craft their old Mad into the new Mad for a very low cost. (I.e. 500 crowns, no mats, no orbs, and would carry over heat.) This way, those who liked the old Mad can keep it. In addition, make all old Mad Masks and Suits be soulbound. (Cannot be sold, traded, or unbound.) This way, you don't create a market of these limited edition Mad items. (New Mad stuff could still be unbound.)

Personally, I like everything in this suggestion, except one thing:

BAB itself should be the curse bomb. I mean, look at that thing! It's so angry that it curses all the time! :P (Not to mention the BAB already being the worst 5* bomb in many opinions.)

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 07:22

#21

Mushy-Bucket

---

I think the Curse on the BAB-like weapon should be weaker (Like 15 or 20 seconds and 1 weapon versus 40 seconds and 2 weapons) than the Curse that Vials and GFs deal, because it's an AoE attack. I'm saying this because Curse is a very powerful status and BAB is a very spammable weapon. GF can curse on its 2nd swing but I'm quite sure it is less often than 1/6.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 07:27

#22

Gunnerific

@neue

i know choas works like mad, and mad works like choas, but i wanna use my mad.
+1 autofire

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 07:28

#23

Neueragon

@Autofire
yeah, your way of treating mad bomber is a good idea, but I personally doubt OOO would do something like that.
and with changing the original BAB, thats like changing mad bomber, where you can do something alternative.

@Mushy-Bucket
the curse chance on the second hit of GF is 1/3. but yes, you could give the bomb only medium curse.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 07:54

#24

Mushy-Bucket

---

@Autofire
Great idea - too bad they didn't implement that idea when they trashed Shard Bombs.

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 20:01

#25

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

@Mushy-Bucket

Well, there is a problem with that...then all of the old players would have an advantage over all the other players, since the old shard bombs are very powerful bombs. It wasn't a bad thing in itself, but then you're locking it away from new players and giving the old ones an unobtainable advantage.

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 20:23

#26

Melonfish

I'll just set this aside.

Mad Bomber doesn't need any change, it's the Chaos set that needs proper retouching.

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 20:38

#27

Sandwich-Potato

If Chaos is changed, BKC has to be changed, and if BKC is changed, it's not really worth getting, is it?

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 20:50

#28

Melonfish

If this is a ruse, you are to stop immediatly.

What could possibly lead you to come to this conclusion about the BKC? Why would BKC be changed at all? Chaos is in dire need of rebalancing, what is the relation with the two?

Fri, 06/06/2014 - 03:53

#29

Sandwich-Potato

It's not a ruse, and I'd rather you not jumping to such conclusions immediately.

Chaos was buffed in order to keep up with the Black Kat Cowl, since the latter has universal damage bonus high, max Freeze resistance, Shadow defense (arguably better then Elemental in many cases, since most people struggle with Fiends) and even MSI Low. Currently, Chaos and the BKC are still decently balanced; if Chaos were changed, BKC would become the trump card, and people would complain about the BKC now being overpowered. If you change one, you should also change the other.

Fri, 06/06/2014 - 07:09

#30

Melonfish

Bombchus.

"Chaos was buffed in order to keep up with the Black Kat Cowl"

Was that actually the reason for buffing it? Or is that only an assertion? I've never heard of this from the developpers. I still state it's a ridiculous stretch, since clearly one of them is far more affordable and disposeable than the other, so that other one's bonuses are justifiable in any given scenario.

The issue I'm pointing at right now is that Chaos outclasses the Mad Bomber set by a large margin, worrying about the Chaos set having to compete with Black Kat Cowl is the least of the problems brought up in this thread. Well, next to having a Curse-inducing bomb anyway.

On another note, wasn't there a remote/homing bomb in development at one time? The data is still lurking in the game files. I believe it would be worth giving it consideration.

Fri, 06/06/2014 - 10:21

#31

Fehzor

@Melonfish

No, OOO didn't ever come on to say that they were buffing it because of the black kat cowl. However, during the first Katastrophe chaos was the only piece of gear changed. The reason for changing it was that the glass cannon required more cannon, so to speak. That said, chaos and black kat are balanced with one another, and are the only pieces of gear with that general balancing scheme. This is the evidence that it was buffed to match the black kat cowl.

I personally think that chaos and black kat cowl should be changed to have no normal defense and more negatives, with black kat cowl's freeze resistance negated. They just aren't punishing enough.

-----------

@The OP

As for the actual suggestion (last time I didn't feel like responding; too long), I feel like the bomber update is going to need more than this. Your ideas are most certainly not bad, and I could definitely see them going into the update and making it wonderful. But what this update should and needs to do is address all of the flaws that bombs have currently, and then introduce a few new varieties. These flaws as I see them are specifically as follows. They are the things that we should really be considering.

---Charge time reduction---

Without charge time reduction, bombs are awful and unfun to use. This means that CTR is god when it comes to buffing your bombs, as there are no other stats that I care about as highly-- CTR is often better for damage than damage is for damage. CTR has better utility benefits. CTR UVs come in one flavor, whereas damage UVs come in 6. Most of my bombs don't even do damage as their biggest function. Even big angry bomb, who deals the most damage, is used (rarely) for utility first and foremost. Another aspect of this is the forge- 5* swords and guns don't rely on CTR most of the time, making bombs suffer much more from a lack of fire crystals.

If I do not have CTR for my bombs, I probably do not want to bomb. I would be better off using a gun or a sword, even if neither were boosted. This is a thing that needs fixing.

---Mixing with other weapon types---

When I combine bombs with swords and guns, it's typically done on a switch sort of. I have modes of playing- I am either bombing or gunning, but I am NOT doing both. This is not the case for swords and guns.

If I have a divine avenger and an argent peacemaker, I can swipe them away and shoot directly afterwards.

If I have a graviton bomb, I can charge it and suck all of the enemies up into a clump and smash them, but it doesn't feel the same.

The problem here is that I'm either charging my graviton (bombing) or charging my diving avenger/using that (using a sword), but I am never doing both at once. If my friends are alert, then I'll spend much of my time dropping bombs while they slash and shoot away. No matter which way you look at it, you cannot use a bomb and a gun/sword in the same fashion that you can use a sword with a gun. For bombs to be a truly effective weapon type, we would need for them to be mixable just as guns and swords are.

---Radius and leveling---

Bombs are also much worse when given a tiny radius. A 3* bomb will do very little damage and have very little radius, making it far worse than a 3* sword or gun-- many of which function almost identically to their 5* counterparts. Think of the 3 stock weapons, valiance, nitronome and leviathan blade. At 3*, valiance and levi are basically done aside from damage numbers. Nitronome on the other hand remains small and underwhelming until raised to 5*, where it is on par with valiance and leviathan.

This is a hard thing to fix, but one that still requires work.

---Team functionality---

Bombs are often seen as support weapons, but many are still unwanted by team mates. To have nitronome, an item given the name "the blue screen of death" by team mates, given out to every single player isn't the greatest of ideas. Something needs to happen- especially with the lower stage bombs- to make bombs on the whole a more party friendly weapon.

---Lack of anything but crowd control---

Combuster is a good example of this. It has glorious single target damage, AND a large amount of crowd control-- this is what makes it a good weapon. Leviathan blade can be used to hit a large number of enemies, and a single enemy or two. Even obsidian carbine, a weapon used for single target damage, can be used for crowd control, via it's charge attack. All swords and guns offer a good bit of single target damage, and all of the reputable ones offer crowd control.

Bombs on the other hand have failed this completely. The only bomb that offers decent single target damage is dark retribution, an item locked away behind DLC. Shard bombs once fulfilled this aspect, but no longer do so and have been "fixed" to give only crowd control. Yes, bombs have the best crowd control. In a game full of small encounters best handled by single target damage, this crowd control can become frustrating. This is something that I want to see fixed.

As for armor and additional options

I think that bombs currently have the strongest class armor of the three. They have options for shock and fire, one of which even has MSI bundled in. Volcanic demo helmet gives CTR med- a buff greater than sword/gun ASI/damage med, due to the fact that it gives 1/2 of the most important stat to bombs, rather than 1/3 of one of the important stats to swords or guns. The lack of piercing and shadow resistances could be patched about, but I find myself fairly content without such options.

The only additional options bombers really really need are ones for damage. Improving the shard bombs would help to alleviate this problem quite a bit, even if it only meant making players more willing to use these options (I somehow doubt that Skepticraven will convince the entire playerbase of their value). Utility bombs are already the standard and while more of these would be a lovely idea (curse haze, anyone? Oh no, OP! OP!), they shouldn't be the biggest concern. A party friendly version of nitronome and her friends ITD and BAB would be a welcome change for players looking towards a more 'vanilla' options, as I have mentioned above.

Lastly, a bomb that allows players to deal with large mobs that are hard to grasp would be welcome. Think of deadnaughts and trojans. Blitz needle and warmaster rocket hammer, as well as the cutters and even the brandishes are all great at taking these things out. There is currently no bomb that can really function to disperse of these high priority targets, and producing one-- though I am unsure of how to make such a thing possible AND balanced-- would be a very good idea.

Fri, 06/06/2014 - 19:35

#32

Soulstaker

I personally also want to see

I personally also want to see an alchemy split for the normal damage and elemental damage shards. Normal damage shards should have a fire status line and elemental shards should have a poison status line (But we already have enough poison weapons since Apocrean event). I don't know if freeze status would be useful since most people spam the shard bombs and the freeze would be constantly broken. Though it might introduce a new type of playstyle for shard bombers, shivermist buster would still rule in freeze bombing.

Mon, 06/09/2014 - 07:20

#33

Fehzor

The balance on the bomb shards is already kind of iffy at best-- there is very little reason to use the pure damage variants over their status equivalents. That's another thing I'd really like to see addressed in the hypothetical bomber update.

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