Even I forgot that I had a bombing guide. It was never finished, and it hasn't been updated since the shard bomb overhaul. It should not be read by anyone.
But I once asked Eeks (a well-respected bomber) whether there was any bright spot for shard bombs, and he replied to my wiki talk page here. You might find it interesting. His comments about stun being buggy no longer apply I think.
Thank you Sir-Pandabear, that is a suitable explanation of what i've been looking for.
Apologies, correction. (http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Deadly_Crystal_Bomb)
I realised I linked the wrong bomb, I actually chose the elemental variant.
Thank you Bopp, I will follow up with Eeks, when possible :)
Regards, Kxdx
Edit: Ha, Eek5's comments were an entertaining read and informative. Thank you for suggesting the article.
Shard Bomb placement is highly situational, every second you have to calculating the possible knockback/flinch of enemies and what your future path will be. Every option you choose should leave numerous open ends so that if things happen to make one option undesirable you still have an alternate route. Regular bombs are easy to calculate in comparison since their knockback is based off of one blast.
For the best and easiest to use Shard bomb I would suggest the Shocking Salt Bomb. The damage type it's status and blast do provide nice coverage and offer the power to slow crowds down.
I've mentioned a couple times before, but I view shard bombs as a defensive bomb.
There are very predictable spots in which monsters will be pushed out.
If you weave in and out of these spots strategically, you can safely navigate most areas (they don't help against projectiles).
It isn't particularly advantageous, because the AI in game is pretty predictable anyways.
Some would also argue that using shard bombs remove this AI predictability - but it shifts it towards knowing where to stand rather than where not to stand.
Just keep in mind what Zeddy (Sir-Pandabear) said about avoiding "good play"-
"You also need to be careful about ending up too effective, because the hit limit will kick in, removing your damage and knockback."
If you get to the point where you can reliably chain damage together (which would be good play) you're going to be doing less overall and will need to drop bombs more sparsely into crowds to avoid this. Mixing bombs like ash of agni or voltaic tempest into your shard bombing can also help.
I have a channel, but I'm not sure I'd call any of the bombing there consistent and effective.
Shard bombs are really finicky in a lot of ways, and you'll need different movements for nearly each seperate enemy. A few examples:
Nitronome has like 4-5x the coverage area of shards, and as such it's both a lot easier to use and a lot more powerful. You also need to be careful about ending up too effective, because the hit limit will kick in, removing your damage and knockback.
In addition, shard bomb spread, detonation time and therefore knockback is subtly randomized by just enough that you can pretty much throw any notion of being consistent out the window.
If you're serious about this, I would recommend getting the pure damage type shards so you can switch between them and pick the most damaging one for the situation.
Good luck.