Improving Shard Bombs
Tue, 07/28/2020 - 12:07
Shard bombs are currently in a fairly poor place, and see very little use for a number of reasons.
1. It takes too long to start dealing damage. Fuse time is 2 seconds for inner shard explosion, and 2 seconds for outer shards explosions.
2. You must hit more than 1 shard to deal decent damage.
3. Knockback feels random, as these bombs are essentially 8 mini bombs exploding at the same time, causing knockback in different directions
4. They feel frustrating and inconsistent to use due to this "randomness" in addition to the fact that you need to hit more than 1 shard.
5. Small enemies are difficult to hit, especially since most of them are also fast. You have to predict where they will be 4 seconds in advance, and even then you probably wont hit more than 1 shard. Meaning mediocre damage.
6. Singular enemies are difficult to hit. Everyone knows bombs are best when vs groups, but shards are very good at killing all but one or two of a group of enemies. Meaning that every situation ends in a frustrating chase between your shard bombs that explode 4 seconds later and an enemy. Ever chase a gremlin mender that will never stop dodging with a Dark Retribution, or a Mortafire that will never stop turning without some sort of crowd control? That's what almost every situation turns to with shard bombs.
Simple Buffs
I don't think that all these buffs need to be applied to make a "fixed" shard bomb, I'm simply listing a number of buffs I believe would help
̶-̶O̶u̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶b̶o̶m̶b̶:̶ ̶A̶l̶l̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶R̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶r̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶f̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶i̶m̶u̶m̶.̶ [Too similar to the final point in this section]
-Increase blast radius of outer shards: Better consistency for 1. hitting shards on fast, small enemies, 2. hitting more shards on slower enemies.
-Increase damage of shards: Won't have to consistently hit 2 shards if you are dealing nitro damage per shard or something.
-Give the inner shard a larger radius: Makes chasing easier, and hitting 2+ shards easier (although the inner shard deals slightly less damage)
-Make inner shard explode immediately upon bomb placement: Makes time for outer shards to explode similar to the rest of the bombs in the game. Also makes shard bombs fill a niche with the inner shard (breaking blocks/hitting close switches) that other bombs are bad at because of their fuse time.
-Give outer shards a massively reduced fuse time. Gives the inner shard an actual purpose so we can knock enemies into the outer shards without enemies being able to just walk out of their radius.
Reworks
-Instead of exploding into 8 outer shards in all directions, explode into 3 shards grouped in the direction faced. Makes hitting a lot of shards easy. Makes it great at dealing with large, slow moving enemies (3 shards ~600 damage), and gives the pulsar game plan to shards for groups of enemies(push enemies into corner/wall for massive damage)
-Shard bombs in a line. Upon placing a shard bomb, 4 shards are placed in the direction faced. Each shard explosion knocks an enemy back into the next in line, and they explode in quick succession.
-Shard bombs as blast network bombs. Upon placing shard bomb, 13 shards are placed, creating a plus sign (1 shard in center, 3 in each cardinal direction). Each shard explosion knocks an enemy back into the next in line, and they explode in quick succession. I don't like this as much as the previous as it seems more difficult to use consistently, but if for some reason there is a problem with bomb placement being dependent on direction faced, this is an alternative.
-Shard bomb pinball. Change the outer shards similar to Tortogun shards, bouncing enemies around inside, dealing damage. Makes shards really strong if in the middle of a lot of enemies, like maybe a vortex, as they would be pushing each other into shards quickly. Can still explode at the end, or not if that makes it easier to balance.
-Outer shards explode once in range of mobs, essentially a proximity bomb. Now you don't have to wait do deal damage, and encourages teamplay as party can push mobs into more damage.
-The obvious reversion to old shard bombs that people have been asking for since 2013. I honestly like the other rework ideas better because I think they're cool, but I, like many, would still be ecstatic for this change.
Just throwing out some ideas that may make shard bombs not be seen as one of the least useful/most harmful weapons in the game.
If necessary I can edit the post to qualify my reasoning for any point made, but it felt pretty self explanatory to me.
Tue, 07/28/2020 - 21:38
#2
I have used all types of
I have used all types of bombs extensively, and I am not sure I understand the way you are using "consistency." Take DBB and Nitronome, bombs that hit everything in its radius exactly once, and (in the case of Nitronome) will knock enemies back in a very specific direction depending on their position relative to the bomb's center. This is how I have used the word consistency: a bomb will always hit exactly a certain number of times (in this case, once) and deal the same damage to any number of enemies, and deal knockback that is easy to predict and account for.
Shard bombs will hit anywhere from 1-3 times, likely dealing anywhere from ~200 to sometimes even ~600 damage on large, slow moving enemies. In addition, it will not send enemies in a direction depending on their position relative to the bomb -- it will send enemies in a direction depending on 8 individual bombs at the same time. Enemies can be sent away from the bomb at any angle, or even towards the bomb. This is what I meant when I said knockback is "seemingly random." It's obviously not random, it's just difficult (or downright impossible) to predict where every enemy hit by the bomb will end up.
Using my definition of consistency, shards are very inconsistent as it can deal different damage to any number of enemies, and its knockback is difficult to predict. Also using this definition, Dark Retribution is less consistent than Nitro/DBB (because and more consistent than shards (because it has negligible knockback). The reason people don't complain about it is because it deals so much damage so quickly that its inconsistency is not a big problem.
They are definitely not fast, either. Like I mentioned in the OP, you must wait 4 seconds for the outer shards to explode. At least at max CTR, shard bombs' charge time is identical to Nitronome's and DBB's. Like mentioned in issue 6, using shard bombs against groups frequently leads to some but not all enemies dying (in my experience), leaving you chasing the last few with a bomb that takes 4 seconds to deal its damage. As a result, clear times with shard bombs are longer than with the rest of the damage-dealing bombs. The only elemental DPS bomb in the game is Deadly Crystal Bomb, and clear times with that bomb vs constructs and undead (especially Kats) are longer than clear times with a Nitronome.
The only bombs that decrease walk speed are Irontech Bomb/Destroyer, BaB, and vortexes.
I don't agree with your point about utility bombs being harder to use in parties. Vortex bombs are far easier and more useful in parties. Mist bombs allow you to focus on dealing status in parties while making the job easier for your teamates to deal with the weakened enemies. Dark Retribution is largely unaffected by parties, and DBB has a worse clear time, but is incredibly useful for flinch locking fiends for your friends. The only bombs really negatively affected by party use are blast bombs and shard bombs. They are a hazard to your teamates due to knockback, and deal less damage due to enemy health scaling. Even then, Blast bombs do have a niche for moving enemies if used solely for its utility. Shard bombs don't even have that.
Wed, 07/29/2020 - 01:45
#3
With invincitinks fixed, I think all that's needed is a damage buff..
If a single shard dealt the same/more neutral damage than nitronome, at least for the pure damage shards, that would make it worth it. Currently the reward for 2-sharding enemies is simply too small, but with a damage buff you're trading reliability and crowd coverage for higher potential against 2-3 enemies.
Old shards were the bomber's single-target potential, primarily, and these bad boys should be too. To an extent they are, but it's just too high of a barrier for how small the reward is. All we need to do is look at Deadly Shard Bomb vs Nitronome. Let's take depth 28:
Nitro: 230
Shards: 75 + 99
Status: 75 + 86
This is with no bonus, like if you're using Volcanic Demo, which is pretty much expected from a newbie bomber. Even if you two-shard a monster you're still doing less damage than just the Nitro. You actually have to hit with the core and the two shards, the bomb's full potential, with every bomb you plant, in order to compete with Nitro and even then you're only going ahead about 18%. This is strictly against a single target. Consider how impossible it is to keep that up against more than 1 enemy and you can see how DSB is just a waste of radiants.
Damage bonus or not, two-sharding should always perform better than Nitro, even if one-sharding it may be a bit much. I also think core + shard should win out. I propose we take the damage from Valiance and Iron Slug:
Nitro: 230
Shards: 108 + 154
Status: 108 + 108
You might notice I kept core + shards the same for status shards. That's because I think they're already fine where they area.
Now if you shard + core you do 262 damage, which is slightly more, and a double shard is 308 a clear victory and a substantial improvement to bombs needed for kill. A full house (core + 2x shards) is 416, nearly two Nitros, which is a good reward for a feat that's so hard to pull off in comparison to just fitting enemies into Nitro's extremely generous area.
Just for comparison, let's see how this would look like with pure damage. DBB and Deadly Splinter Bomb vs wolvers:
DBB: 312
Shards: 199 + 241 (440 / 482 / 681)
Status: 199 + 199 (398 / 597)
A full bomb is a bit over twice of DBB, which feels like a proportionate reward for a much harder to wield weapon, and is still nowhere near really overshadowing actual single target weapons like brandishes.
The risk is there, let's give an appopriate reward.
Wed, 07/29/2020 - 12:06
#4
I agree. The purpose of this post was to point out that there were a lot of options that in my opinion would make shard bombs 'usable', and also promote discussion on the balancing of any of my ideas/bring out others' ideas.
Looking at the OP I certainly wasn't clear, I didn't mean for everything in the Simple Buffs section be applied to a fixed shard bombs. I was simply listing buffs that I thought would improve shard bombs appreciably. I understand any confusion, especially since some of the buffs would help significantly less than others (namely, the first buff listed only really helps with chaining). I'll edit OP to make this clear.
I hadn't thought of the idea of buffing shards' damage replacing old shard bomb's niche as a bombers single target damage, but it makes a lot of sense. Another reason why I really like this (incredibly simple) fix is because it could give bombers a use for vortex bombs when soloing. As it stands, vortexes aren't very useful for solo bombers because the radius of damage bombs is so large that sucking enemies into one place doesn't matter much. Even if you pair a vortex with shard bombs and hit enemies with 2 shards, the damage dealt would be too similar to Nitro/DBB to be worth the trouble. If shard damage was buffed and it dealt closer to 500-600 damage with 2 shards, then vortexes would make it simple to put out damage comparable to an Iron Slug or Brandish charge.
Noteworthy that with the current time it takes for outer shards to explode, this isn't really possible without Electron Vortex (or any other source of shock) to keep enemies in place after the initial explosion. Even if you place the shard bomb before the vortex. We'd also need a change to the fuse time for this to be as easy as Slug/Brandish charging.
Thu, 07/30/2020 - 10:36
#5
I don't think it's incredibly important for shards to synergize with vortex on a solo bomber. After all, hitting core + shards consistently almost happens by itself if you hit with the core, so it's only important that the damage from there competes with Nitro.
The current fuse times on shards gives it a property that's not talked about or praised much: It makes the bomb act as a sort of damage-over-time. It's only two ticks, but spreading the damage out gives the bomber a source of hitstuns to protect the bomber while they're charging. Adding damage will help with this, as more damage means higher ability to stagger enemies.
Sat, 08/01/2020 - 05:25
#6
I did not read everything in detail but I agree a damage buff would be ok. That said, if you are going to compare any damage numbers you have to go from a perspective of max damage bonus, especially when you are comparing normal damage weapons that rely on multihits. If shards have to deal better damage than nitro at no damage bonus, then they will deal way more damage at max damage bonus.
Tue, 10/13/2020 - 00:03
#7
fact check
Unlike some swords and most guns, every single bomb has a movement speed penalty of some degree with Irontech, BAB and Vortexes being the harshest.
If anything, shard bombs have the most consistent damage out of all the bombs, behind Dark Retribution. They have one of the fastest charge times, they don't slow you down while charging, the fact that they provide 2 separate explosions gives it more "consistent" damage.
The knockback is clearly based on where the enemy is to an individual shard, and being hit by two will bop them a bit more from the shard explosions.
If you'd want to think of it this way, it requires mild "skill" to watch where things are being knocked back and where they will be knocked back after, and the direction they're walking to bait, then to plant the next bomb appropriately to consistently chain hits. The fast charge speed and movement speed shard bombs have makes this easier.
The status shard bombs are pretty decent at inflicting their status effects, making them pretty viable and making it easier to get hits or multiple hits on an enemy.
As per usual, many "utility" or "bomb" weapons are harder to use in squads due to aggression being across all players in a squad instead of the individual weapon user. It's harder to bait and trail enemies while in a squad.
At the cost of damage and range, shard bombs give in consistency and speed. They're just overshadowed by DBB and Dark Retribution. As far as I see, players just follow others or "veteran" players that claim the bombs are bad, or are too stuck up with nostalgia with how busted and clunky the "old" shard bombs were.
They don't provide much knockback, so outside of the status-based shard bombs, they don't grant much utility. Anything that isn't mist, dbb, or bab usually fall off in worth while in a squad.
I have never used DBB or the default Blast Bomb line, so I'm unsure on how fast these bombs charge and how much of a movement penalty, if any, they give while charging. Criticism to my post would be appreciated relating to my lack of knowledge of these two bombs.